Home > Helen Thomas: Cut our losses in Iraq and get out

Helen Thomas: Cut our losses in Iraq and get out

by Open-Publishing - Sunday 3 July 2005
15 comments

Wars and conflicts International USA

WASHINGTON — President Bush should cut our losses and pull out of Iraq before more Americans — and Iraqis — are forced to make the ultimate sacrifice.

If he does, he would be a hero and save lives.

Instead, his reaction to the present fiasco in Iraq seems to be "full speed ahead."

The president could gracefully withdraw from Iraq by asking the United Nations to take on a peacekeeping role in Iraq.

If we were to pull out, as we should, the United States would be required to open its doors to scores of Iraqis who would no longer be safe in their homeland because they had collaborated with the U.S. occupation. We took in the Vietnamese who allied with us in that war, after the North Vietnamese took over South Vietnam.

U.S. troops departed Vietnam when the American people no longer supported our continued presence in a no-win war. The comparison with our involvement in Iraq is irresistible.

Americans have not hit the streets to protest but a prolonged unpopular war is bound to evoke widespread protests.

In an AP-Ipsos poll released a week ago, some 53 percent of people surveyed say the United States made a mistake going to war in Iraq in March 2003. That is the highest number who have said the war was a mistake since the invasion.

Even the benign Congress might stir itself and say enough is enough.

In a prime-time speech Tuesday night at Fort Bragg, N.C., home of the 82nd Airborne Division, Bush said the U.S. sacrifice of remaining in Iraq "is worth it, and it is vital to the future security of our country."

He is asking other Americans to do what no one in his inner circle was willing to do during the Vietnam War. For example, Vice President Dick Cheney won five Selective Service deferments to stay out of the Vietnam War. As he famously put it, "I had other priorities."

The president said, "The violence in Iraq is being carried out by ruthless killers who are converging on Iraq to fight the advance of peace and freedom."

Well, he’s got that right. The Associated Press had a story out of Baghdad earlier this week that quoted U.S. military leaders as saying that the vast majority of suicide attackers in Iraq are foreigners — mostly Saudis and other Gulf Arabs, with North Africans also streaming in to carry out deadly missions.

Bush said, "There is only one course of action against" the insurgents: "To defeat them abroad before they attack us at home."

Bush’s remark led Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., to wryly observe that Bush is suggesting that he "really staged an elaborate trap to lure in thousands of terrorists into Iraq so they could be destroyed there and not here in the streets of the United States." Reed said he worried that this "elaborate trap" might really have been an "ambush that we walked into, unprepared."

You have to have a very short memory not to recall that the president’s main pitch to invade Iraq was because it had an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. After two task forces scoured Iraq, we now know that was a bogus reason but it gave him the leeway to attack the oil-rich Gulf nation.

After months of trying to avoid mentions of Iraq, the president and his team apparently realized recently that the American people weren’t buying the silent treatment, as witnessed by his slump in the polls.

That led to his Fort Bragg speech, which amounted to a pep talk to the nation.

"There are difficult days ahead," Bush said. "We have more work to do, and there will be tough moments that test America’s resolve."

"As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down," Bush said.

It was a "stay the course" Vietnam-style speech like those voiced so often by Presidents Johnson and Nixon. At least Bush didn’t claim that there was a "light at the end of the tunnel."

His speech offered no new strategies and no hope for an end to the bloodshed.

There are precedents for the United States to retreat from danger zones. In 1983, President Reagan withdrew from Lebanon after 241 servicemen were killed when their barracks was bombed near the Beirut airport.

President Clinton also pulled out of Somalia in 1993 after 18 U.S. soldiers were killed.

Neither president suffered any lasting public repercussions. In fact, the country heaved sighs of relief.

Bush should follow suit and leave Iraq to the Iraqis under a protective U.N. umbrella.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/230949_thomas03.html

Forum posts

  • Again: there is not such a thing like insurrgents or foreign terrorists in Iraq, except the terror forces of USA.
    Don’t you ever get it? What would happen if a foreign force would attack the USA for WMD - which USA has and also used widely like in Japan (Hiroshima, Nagasaki), Vietnam and Iraq.

    And the Iraqi didn’t ask for occupation! Your soldiers are war criminals nothing less then those of Nazi Germany.

    • downingstreetflagwhand021vy.gif

      Be a true Patriot!! Spread the truth this July 4th.

    • Terrorists? How many people have the French Liberated? The Iraqi elections last year prove that idiot comments like this are well served by people that don’t know jack about the situation, and yet refuse to become inolved the global war on terror because of the pansies you. It’s sad the French don’t have the balls to stand up to the terrorists.

      Let’s take a look at the record:
      •The foreign and defense policies of Ronald Reagan resulted in the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the freeing of approximately 122 million people in Eastern Europe.

      • The state of Israel would cease to exist if not for American protection, and about 5.5 million Jews would be in grave danger.

      • Nearly 23 million Taiwanese would be denied freedom if not for American protection. More than 48 million South Koreans would be living under a dictatorship if not for American protection. USA action led to the removal of the Serbian dictator Milosevic, who was responsible for the murders of hundreds of thousands of people in the Balkans.

      • The USA and Britain removed the Iraqi dictator Hussein, who was responsible for the murders of hundreds of thousands of people in the Middle East. And we have also removed the terrorist Taliban government in Afghanistan.

      • America is sending $15 billion to Africa to help victims of AIDS. We were unable to find out how much France contributes, if anything.

      • American action in Central America, Grenada, and Haiti has kept millions of people out of totalitarian regimes. Of course, all of this has cost every American taxpayer big. And thousands of American servicepeople have lost their lives protecting people overseas.

      So tell me. What the hell has your country done? What good do your cowardly blatenly communist remarks make? Stop being part of the damn problem, and be part of the damn solution.

      It’s clear you speak on behalf of the worlds morons that just don’t get it. It’s sad. Really sad... Comparing the US military to a bunch of thugs is irresponsible and studip.

      BTW, if it were up to you, Saddam would still be supplying your country with illegal oil and he would still be ignoring the sanctions placed on him by the UN. Oh, and killing his own people. Get a clue.

  • I wouldn’t exactly refer to Bush Junior as a "Hero" if he were to pull all U.S. troops from Iraq. "As yet unindicted co-conspirator" would be more apt.

  • "Co-conspiriter" yes, I agree. Hero? Oh HELL no.
    Signed,
    A Soldier and Real Hero’s Mother

  • No, George should stay the course. Pulling out now will mean that America does not have enough testostrone [and that can’t be true can it.] I believe that we have enough hate to kill that last of the Iraqis and then some.

    Pulling out will not save face; of which we are always accusing other peoples of doing. And yet it is we the Americans who are constantly out to save our collective face.

    • You are committing murderer in Iraq and elsewhere. Believe me the world will act to get rid of your empire!

    • Wow... You’re delusional. Murder? Liberating the country of Iraq is murder? All I can say to the comment about our empire is, "bring it on". It makes me laugh really. You people are so stupid and just don’t get it. You just don’t get it and that’s sad. The world will act... HAHAHA.

    • You will never liberate Iraqis by destroying their lives, their infrastructure, their families, their cities, their way of life, and then occupying their country, planning to build military bases in their country, manipulating their elections, installing US puppets.

      The only thing Americans are liberating in Iraq is the oil from the rightful owners, and innocent people of their lives and a future.

      Killer bastards with hate and sick minds join the army and marines to go kill people, hunt them down like helpless animals and destroy their lives. Everyone knows this and even if you do not want to admit it, deep down in your conscience (if you have one) you know what the US is doing is just plain wrong.

      Just like the Vietnamese in Vietnam where the US killed 3 million of their people, Iraqis will never give in, and will never forget what the USA is doing there, and who is guilty. Even when 100 years pass, they will still hate the Americans for the evil bastards they really are while they pretend people think they are doing something for others.

      This killing is for Iraqi oil plain and simple, always was (as planned for long before the attack) always will be. The truth will come out loud and clear in the history of shame that is reserved for the largest terrorist nation in history the USA.

  • As Americans everywhere are asking themselves "What the hell are we doing in Iraq?" We should demand of our one party military dictatorship to get the hell out of Iraq NOW or we will all go on strike and refuse to go to our jobs or pay our taxes.

  • Amen Helen!

  • God Bless Helen Thomas: It seems she has the "ovarian fortitude" to tell the world what a phoney president we have in the White House. Why is he so afraid of one woman’s questions? It’s because he is afraid of the TRUTH, he and Dick Chaney" run from the truth like the cockroaches running from sunlight.
    Carl Rove is the president’s propaganda C.E.O., a person with duel citizenship, both American and German. He is a expert on Mien Kempt and used Hitler’s methods of influencing the masses. Tell a big lie! Tell it over and over again and the Christian right believes it, hook line and sinker. What a bunch of cowardly men we elected to run our once great nation. The president promised to get rid of anyone involved in the exposing of C.I.A. Agents. What is he waiting for?
    keep up the good work Helen Thomas!!!!!!!!!
    John J. Gluhak

  • Is this person for real?

    These terrorists will not negotiate with anyone.

    They are the nearest yet to robots.

    They have been totally brainwashed, and actually believe the rubbish immams and the like force-feed them.

    Start from the premise that "God is love", and if the religious leaders believe this, then we can build.
    Of course they won’t accept this real truth, and continue to blame, George Bush, Tony Blair... hell.. Mickey Mouse or Popeye are in there somewhere too.
    They would have blamed helping the Zionists if Iraq hadn’t been invaded.

    These cruel puppetmasters just love people to suffer and be "terrified".

    Nothing... nothing... NOTHING can justify cutting off the head of an innocent.

    The "religious" zealots are simply cruel barbarians who are unfit to exist in the Human Race.

    • Helen is right we ran from lebnon,we ran from Somalia, we did nothing after the Kobal Towers we did nothing after the USS Cole and we did nothing after the embassy bombings in africa. We did nothing after the first world trade bombing. Sure running works, works really well or the chaser.

    • Nothing can justify an unprovoked attack that murdered 100,000 innocent people for their resorces. Nothing can justify the looting of their cultural centers by the thiefs in the military, nothing can justify the occupation of a country that never did anything to us and was no threat to us. All of your propaganda empty arguments are garbage and so are you.