the right and the war
Seems some conservatives no longer think the war was good idea. Der Commissar:
Presuming that overthrowing Saddam was “a good thing” even absent WMDs, we did not commit enough troops to secure and rebuild the country, although plenty of Rumsfeld’s generals said they would be needed. As one of the above authors noted, we didn’t occupy Iraq, we staged a coup. Then having overthrown Saddam, we presided over chaos, disbanded the Iraqi Army, and outlawed the Baathists. To a very large extent, the insurgency is of our own making.
Rick Moran says QUIT OR COMMIT:
Simply put, the reason I have come to this conclusion now is that the enemies of Iraqi democracy have established a clear upper hand in the country and it is uncertain at best whether the situation can be retrieved at this point.
I’ve personally been disappointed with the handling of this whole thing, though I did support it and still do. I am, however, unwilling to throw everything under the bus now for a variety of reasons.
August 21st, 2006 at 9:38 am
Being a conservative, I opposed the war in Iraq back in 2002 UNLESS we followed the Constitution and declared war on the government of Iraq to decapitate it AND first secured our own borders!! After all, IF we are in a “war on terrorism”and Iraq was in on it, how do they attack us unless we ALLOW THEM TO ENTER AND STAY–which is what our government was doing then and NOW! Is that not giving “aid and comfort” to the enemy which is the definiton of treason in the Constitution. If not, what is??
Also, our founders absoultely abhorred “democracy”, yet we’re expending American treasure and blood to establish what is antithetical to our Constitution.
STOP LETTING THE ENEMY IN!!!! Preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and NOT the New World Order!!
August 21st, 2006 at 9:41 am
Counter-insurgencies take 8-12 years. See Malaya in the 1950s and El Salvador in the 1980s.
We’re 3 years into a roughly decade long process.
No comment on whether what’s happening is doing it right or wrong-just that it’s still early. Very early.
August 21st, 2006 at 11:50 am
Good point, HL. I can’t believe the amount of bedwetting going on in Washington, especially when one compares Iraq to previous wars.
I think alot of people are trying to get on the “right side” of the issue so if Iraq goes in the tank they can say “I told you so”. It’s easier than actually, you know, paying attention to facts and sticking to an unpopular but correct position.
August 21st, 2006 at 1:11 pm
It’s either Islam or civilization, so I’m happy to go into the hornets nest and stir them up. That said, I’ve been sceptical that we could promote liberty abroad while abolishing it at home. The last two presidents have struck hard against liberty and freedom in the US.
Makes it a tougher sell overseas.
August 21st, 2006 at 1:26 pm
Robert,
I agree that the last two presidents have attacked our liberty while allowing and even importing the very group from which the enemy comes and among whom they find “aid and comfort”? At the same time we’re aiding and abetting the build-up of the Communist Chinese with massive “free trade” surpluses for them; deficits for us, who have threatened us with WMD’s which they can deliver in contrast to the Islamic “holy warriors” who depend on our government allowing their foot-soliders to enter and stay in our nation. It’s the CFR-globalist way of treason.
I prefer a pro-American administration which defends our own nation first; one which preserves, protects and defends the Constitution against ALL enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC!
August 21st, 2006 at 10:39 pm
The problem in Iraq was that the objectives we set out to achieve (assuming you buy the idea that “establish democracy” was an important original objective) were going to be extremely difficult if not impossible even under the best of circumstances, but we had far worse circumstances because Rummy (among others) wanted to do it “on the cheap.” If we were going to do it at all, we should have listened to the myriad of generals and pentagon officials who repeatedly told us that we were going to need something like triple the number of troops on the ground from the get-go.
Our only viable options now are to massively increase troop deployments to Iraq to try and stabilize things (and I’m afraid it’s too late even for that), or to withdraw. I suppose we could also go and beg the UN to deploy a large international force to help us (and the UK) clean up the mess we created, but I suspect it’s too late even for that.
It would have been far better simply to avoid the whole mess in the first place.