Top 10 Bad Reasons for "Staying the Course" in Iraq (and One Good One)

by Jeff Huber
03 October 2005

10. Democracy takes time. America needed 13 years to write its Constitution.
The American Revolution analogy is ludicrous. Britain did not invade the American colonies in order to liberate us, and we did not ask them to stick around for more than a decade to help us form our government.

9. If we leave now, we’ll embolden the terrorists.
They’re not exactly shrinking violets now. The longer we’ve stayed, the bolder they’ve become.

8. Withdrawing will show lack of American resolve.
Getting in a bar fight over a girl shows resolve. Waking up in jail with your nose broken shows how stupid you are.

7. We’re fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them here.
If we don’t have to fight them over here, why do we spend around $40 billion a year for a Department of Homeland Security?

6. The spread of democracy in the Middle East will enhance America’s security.
"Free" elections in the Middle East have helped Afghanistan become the world’s leading exporter of narcotics and transformed terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah into "legitimate" political parties.

5. We need to support our troops.
I applaud and deeply respect our men and women in uniform for their magnificent service and sacrifice. These are my people, remember? However, comma....

In the first place, we are supporting our troops - to the tune of nearly half a trillion dollars a year.

Second, when we continue to commit those men and women in uniform to a struggle for which there is no military solution, we are abusing them, not supporting them.

Third - and most importantly - America does not exist for the purpose of supporting its military. Our military exists to support America. And if it’s not defending us at home or achieving our national aims overseas, it’s not supporting our country.

4. If we pull out now, we’ll look weak.
We’ve committed our national power to an ill-advised war and are losing. How much weaker can we look?

3. In times of crisis, we need to rally around the president and his policies.
America will not maintain or restore its power and prestige by behaving like a nation of lemmings. There is nothing noble, brave, or patriotic about following the leader over the cliff and into the sea.

2. "They tried to kill my dad."
Thanks to Mr. Bush’s policies and strategies, they’ve succeeded in killing a lot of dads, and moms, and aunts, and uncles, and brothers, and sisters ....
If we cut through the bunker mentality and frame the argument for staying in Iraq to reflect the neocons’ real purpose for the Iraq invasion, it might sound something like this:

1. We set out to establish a military base of operations from which we can control the Middle East and its oil, and we should persist until we "get the job done."
Even though it’s true, the argument’s still specious. Our "besttrained, bestequipped, bestfunded" military can’t get Iraq or Afghanistan under control. How can we possibly expect to lock down the entire Middle East?

+1. We owe something to the Iraqi people.
This is the only rationale that still holds water with me. We need to pay for the pottery we broke. But how much do we need to pay for it, and who exactly is this we we’re referring to, kemosabe?

We the people weren’t the honchos of the Project for a New American Century who made ousting Saddam Hussein the crown jewel of the Bush administration’s foreign policy. We did not cook the intelligence on Iraq. We did not ignore the advice of generals who warned against invading Iraq, then warned against invading with too few troops. And we did not fumble the counterinsurgency effort for two years.

Whatever the price of their bad policies, strategies, and decisions turns out to be, we will be the ones who pay for them. Really rich people figure out how to dodge taxes, remember?

How responsible are we for their deceptions and mistakes, and how much do we want to pay for them?

On a related note:
As Katrina hit, Dick Cheney, one of those neocons who constructed our Iraq strategy, was looking at buying a $2.9 million house in Maryland on the Chesapeake Bay, just down the road from that Donald Rumsfeld’s place.

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Past Columns by Jeff Huber: Wars and Empires

http://www.epluribusmedia.org/columns/20051003huber.html