Would It Make Sense to Just Leave Iraq? (Raspberry)

[struggle4progress]

By William Raspberry
Washington Post
January 3, 2005

<snip> Is it time for us to walk away? A surprising number of readers of this column think it is. And two have independently come up with a pretext for doing so right away. Walter Gordon in Delaware and Christina Warren in California both argue for sending either all or a substantial portion of our Iraq-based troops and resources to the tsunami-devastated region around the Indian Ocean. It would get us out of Iraq and, given the fact that the stricken area is largely Muslim, might go a long way toward defeating the notion that we are anti-Islam.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/occupation/2005/0103confession.htm

[htuttle]

1. The burner on the stove is red-hot

Would it make sense for us to remove our hand from it?

I dunno, what do you think? Would removing our hand from the burner make us look weak? Is keeping it on the burner making us look stupid, and burning our hand to boot?

What do the polls say?

[bluestateguy]

2. Send 10,000 troops to the tsunami region, another 40,000 to Afghanistan.

And send the rest home. Fast.

[MasonJar]

3. I would not be surprised if Bush were not ready to pack up. Now

that he has won a second term he does not need a war, but he needs a legacy. Now he can start really ruining the US and world environment and economy.

[pa28]

4. On principle I would like us to leave.

Leaving now would, of course, create a vacuum filled by civil war and genocide. A humanitarian disaster of Bush's own making equal to or surpassing the body count we saw in Indonesia.

It's a no-win situation. Anything we do now is going to hurt.

[kcass1954]

5. Declare victory and leave!

I've been saying that for months.