General Asks: What’s Wrong With Cutting And Running?
Gen. (ret.) William E. Odom asks some tough questions of our indefinite occupation of Iraq…
antiwar.com
If I were a journalist, I would list all the arguments that you hear against pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq, the horrible things that people say would happen, and then ask: Aren’t they happening already? Would a pullout really make things worse? Maybe it would make things better.
On civil war. Iraqis are already fighting Iraqis. We created the civil war when we invaded; we can’t prevent a civil war by staying.
The evidence to support his claims grow each and every day as the situation gets worse in Iraq. How many more deaths are we willing to accept, both US and Iraqis before we say enough is enough?
“In the deadliest attack in nearly two weeks, a suicide car bomb exploded at about 11 a.m. in a crowded open market in the northwestern town of Tal Afar, killing 30 Iraqis and wounding 45″
The truth is, we have made NO progress. Bush states that ‘when the Iraqis stand up, we’ll stand down’. The Iraqis that are standing up are the insurgents who are demanding that we end the occupation of their country. After 2 and a half years, there are only 750 trained Iraqi police ’standing up’. At this rate we’ll be in Iraq another three hundred years.
From United Press International
U.S. politicians and policymakers’ perceptions towards the Iraq war have reached another tipping point:
There is now a widespread recognition shared among senior uniformed U.S. military officers and Washington foreign policy analysts that plans to rapidly build up the Iraqi army as a new, independent effective fighting force have failed disastrously.
The Senate heard testimony last week from some of America’s top generals that the war in Iraq is going worse than ever and that only 1 out of 119 Iraqi army and security battalions can operate by itself in combat situations without U.S. military backup.
The Iraqi army consists of 119 battalions.
But the generals’ testimony meant that after two and a half years of U.S. efforts, only 750 men out of 200,000 can be relied upon to operate and obey orders independently in combat situations.
Again Gen. William E. Odom points us in the direction in which all good Americans must turn. With a war based on such obvious lies, polls showing a clear majority wanting to begin withdrawing the troops from Iraq, where is our opposition party? Who is speaking for the will of the American people? How can we pretend to give democracy to Iraq, when we do not appear to have one in the US?
We face a strange situation today where few if any voices among Democrats in Congress will mention early withdrawal from Iraq, and even the one or two who do will not make a comprehensive case for withdrawal now.
Look at John Kerry’s utterly absurd position during the presidential campaign. He said, “It’s the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time,” but then went on to explain how he expected to win it anyway. Even the voter with no interest in foreign affairs was able to recognize it as an absurdity. If it was the wrong war at the wrong place and time, then it was never in our interests to fight. If that is true, what has changed to make it in our interests? Nothing, absolutely nothing.
The wisest course for journalists might be to begin sustained investigations of why leading Democrats have failed so miserably to challenge the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
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