The unstoppable war

[babylonsister]

http://www.sdcitybeat.com/article.php?id=6195

EDITORIAL
The unstoppable war

Monday evening's broadcast of The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer included a maddening interview with four members of Congress--two Democrats and two Republicans--who'd just listened to Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker recommend staying the course in Iraq until next summer. It was infuriating on several levels: The two Dems--Lynn Woolsey and Donald Payne--were as mush-mouthed and inarticulate as they come; the two GOPers--Joe Wilson and Mike Pence--fell back on terrorism fear-mongering to rationalize the continued occupation of Iraq; and Lehrer failed to drill down into the crux of the issue--what is victory and where are we going to find the troops to achieve it?

snip//

Crocker himself could point to no real reasons for optimism, but he said the U.S. mustn't just pick up and leave the Iraqi people in a morass of inconceivable brutality. Problem is, everyone agrees that securing Iraq is a long-term proposition, and, as of next spring, the U.S. military will be fresh out of fresh Marine and Army soldiers. Why do you suppose Petraeus recommends dropping to pre-surge troop levels by next summer? It's certainly not because fewer troops is a better prescription for military success than more troops. The only options are a draft, a massive call-up of inactive reservists and extending tours of duty upwards of 15 months--and those are all political nonstarters.

So, what the hell are we doing?

We'll tell you what we're doing--we're allowing a president to get away with the unnecessary deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, more Americans, just so he doesn't have to admit he made a catastrophic foreign-policy mistake before leaving office.

So, here we are, at the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, which was dishonestly, brazenly used as a selling point for the invasion. Republicans are using a threat of terrorism--that the U.S. invasion created where none had existed before--to rationalize staying the course in an unnecessary war that has already claimed the lives of 3,774 U.S. servicemen and women (as of Tuesday morning) and so far has cost taxpayers nearly half a trillion dollars. And now Petraeus has given the Republicans the political cover they need.

The Democrats are left with no recourse but to wait until we run out of deployable troops because they've been unable to convince enough Republicans to abandon their lame-ass, lame-duck president despite overwhelming public disfavor for Bush and his handling of the war. Meanwhile, many more Americans will die honorably--but needlessly.

[Demeter]

1. The War Is Not Unstoppable--and Neither Is the Regime

But I'll be damned if I can figure out the way to START the Democratic "Leaders" of this nation to act like an opposing force!