Many reasons have been given for keeping our forces in Iraq: “destroy Al Qaeda, support their fledging democracy, fight them there so we won’t have to fight them here,” and so on.NOT ONE OF THESE REASONS HOLDS WATER! Therefore, RADICAL ACTION is essential NOW to get us out of Iraq!
First, we must DISENGAGE!. Not “cut and run”, not pull out, no “phased withdrawal,” but a complete disengagement. Which means getting our troops out of the cross-hairs of the Iraqi population which is thoroughly infiltrated with people who want nothing more than to get rid of Americans, by whatever means.
We must face it. Our troops are sitting ducks! The very worst action any military commander could take is one that makes his troops sitting ducks. No commander who would do this deserves to remain in his post.
To disengage means to move troops out of the population centers of Baghdad, Mosul, Kirkuk, Basra, and anywhere else where they will be exposed to snipers, roadside bombs,or ambushes. Our military contingent should be posted along the borders of Iraq to prevent further infiltration and smuggling of arms and supplies to insurgents, especially from Syria and Iran. We should deploy our troops in positions that can be easily supplied by air or without the need to travel along roads which are exposed to insurgent activity.
It is hard to imagine that the situation in Iraq could get any worse than it is now. But even if it does, we must face the reality that it is not a problem we can solve. We should simply allow the Iraqis, themselves, to continue to kill each other, if that's what they want to do, until either they get tired of it, or some party prevails and establishes control of the government. If this party is friendly and cooperative to the United States we should give them every bit of help we can in the rebuilding of their country, but not the policing of their populace. If the governing party is not friendly to the United States we should tell them to go to hell, say “goodbye,” and pull our troops out entirely. This would probably require a generation or more to regain any respect for America in the Middle East (and much of the rest of the world), but it is going to take that, anyway, now that our G O P-dominated government has put us into this situation.
Second, we must save Afghanistan.
We chased the Taliban into Pakistan the with the help of the Northern Alliance. Then we simply abandoned that country to the warlords who rule everything outside Kabul itself. Now, the Taliban is back in force, taking over the country, burning down schools and terrorizing the populace.
This time, let's do it right. Let’s seal the borders like we should have done originally but didn't. This will keep the Taliban bottled up inside Afghanistan until we can wipe them out, and keep their reinforcements from moving in from Pakistan. Then let us go all-out to get roads built so farmers can get their produce to market, destroy the opium crops and subsidize other forms of agriculture, maintaining a strong and aggressive military force against any anti-government elements and secure protection of the populace against the resurgence of Taliban or warlords.
In other words, let us finish the job we started, then abandoned, in order to bash Iraq. Afghanistan has the potential to be a really successful mission, whereas Iraq has no hope of any kind of successful outcome with us there, no “victory” no “win.” Yet our government chooses to keep digging us into this deeper hole.
Of course, there is little to gain from looking back now except to learn how to avoid another situation like we have had for the last six years, where one political party such as the GOP, replete with arrogant, incompetent, ambitious, and corrupt politicians with a “we can do no wrong” attitude controlled all three branches of government. Voices of reason were demonized, shunned, or shunted aside entirely. We can’t know what would have happened if those voices of reason had prevailed. But it is easy to speculate:
After 911: Here are some “WHAT-IFS”
WHAT IF we had stayed in Afghanistan until al Qaeda was eliminated, Bin Laden captured, and the Taliban destroyed (not merely chased into Pakistan) then made heavy investments in roads and infrastructure: schools, hospitals, power stations, telephone systems and so forth? What would Afghanistan be like now?
OR, instead of invading and destroying Iraq with “shock and awe,” what if we had given arms and air cover to the Shiites and Kurds and let them take down Saddam without any American soldier even setting foot in Iraq? How many more of our fine military would be alive today? Who could say that the situation in Iraq would be any worse than it is today? Would America be such a pariah in the rest the world? Would America be capable of leading and/or influencing other countries to solve many of the problems bedeviling Africa, for example?
OR, after invading Iraq, we sealed the borders to prevent infiltration of jihadists from Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, secured the ammunition dumps to keep those munitions out of the insurgents hands, and lowered the boom on looters, AND appointed anyone in the world except L. Paul Bremer to head the Coalition Provisional Authority?
OR, what if we had kept Saddam's army intact with better pay under U.S. command to avoid them becoming insurgents?
OR,what if we had used Iraqi contractors for reconstruction work instead of giving all the jobs to American companies, thus keeping so many thousands of Iraqi men unemployed and resentful?
OR, what if we kept American military out of sight, avoiding the typical military “patrols” which only make our troops sitting ducks against snipers, ambushes, and roadside bomb?
OR, what if we avoided dropping 2,000 lb. bombs on houses were “suspected bad guys might be hiding” and used commando-type raids instead, thus to avoid killing so many civilians and thereby converting so many more otherwise-helpful Iraqis to the insurgency?
NO, this is not hindsight. All these options were available at the time and should have been more than obvious to anyone who gave it a moment's thought. But we did not. So, now we have a situation that, again, is so terrible it defies description.
