Monday, June 13, 2005
Bringing them home
Had he won, I had intended to give Kerry six months to show progress in Iraq before changing my tune to "bring 'em home now." That six months would have been up next month and there's certainly no sign of progress. Oil pipelines are being blown up as quickly as they can be repaired, more cities are becoming restive, even in relatively calm Basra the chief of police says he only trusts 25% of his force. As Iraqi security forces are phased in, it's not cutting our casualty rate, only adding to the total casualties. In other words, the war is escalating.
Yet at this mark I was willing to give Kerry, I keep thinking it's better to launch a war that ought not have been launched and stay as long as innocents are militarily threatened than invading and saying, "Goodbye, we sorta screwed up, sorry."
Some would argue that our presence there is inciting much of the violence, a point on which I certainly agree. However, if we left, Turkey would likely enter from the north and Iran from the east. Which I believe would be more of a negative than we have now; In fact, it would be a formula for a regional war we'd jump right back into.
A Pew survey has 46% of Americans wanting to bring troops home sooner than later. I believe a great deal of Americans really thought of the invasion as a video game or movie when you can reset the game or was guaranteed happy ending for America. Three quarters find American casualties in the invasion and war unacceptable. Seems Rambo didn't show up. He probably won't show up by putting another quarter in the machine.
// posted by Erik @ 6/13/2005 10:35:00 PM
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