IPW

Exit Wound Strategy

This blog starts out positively enough, chatting about the repercussions of last night's election. Then things get a little hysterical. Sometime about the third paragraph I start berating my poor readers about the state we are about to leave Iraq in. I apologize in advance but I think it has to be said. Iraq, as much as I want it to be, is not a Republican problem even though they stupidly got us into it. It is an American problem, as American as voting out the bastards who started this war. So please, take my ranting with a grain of salt, and try to enjoy:

On this historic day I have been thinking about all the ramifications of a Democratic win, and what might happen in the near future. The biggest splash in the pond is of course the election and the winning back of Congress by the Democratic Party. The first big ripple is the ousting of the moron Donald Rumsfeld. Actually he's not a moron, he's an egotistical bully. he might be clever actually, but not clever enough to know that he was on the wrong side of history. The second big ripple is his replacement being named: former CIA chief Robert Gates. We'll see about him, but so far he has a big advantage over Rumsfeld as the head of the most powerful military on earth ever. That is to say, he has actually been part of it. I think the third big ripple is yet to come, although it might have been W claiming that he is the one that has always been fighting to unify the country and will continue to do so with the new Democratically controlled Congress. It's a little like catching someone peeing in your teapot and having them claim they have always been trying to stop people from peeing in your teapot. Nancy Pelosi, the new speaker of the house, and the next in line for the presidency, if GW and Dick Cheney shoot each other in a hunting accident, has agreed to have lunch with W. While we won't hear what they say at that lunch, I'm betting in will be more polite than what they have been saying about each other leading up to the election.

Pelosi on Bush: "Bush is an incompetent leader. In fact, he's not a leader, he's a person who has no judgment, no experience and no knowledge of the subjects that he has to decide upon.''

Well said! Huzzah!

Eventually, a ripple is going to effect Iraq. I'm seeing a theme opening up here in the rhetoric on both sides of the war issue that is disturbing me. I was reading Thomas Friedman, on Iraq and he says this:

"A U.S. withdrawal under such conditions would be messy and shameful. But when people are that intent on killing each other there’s not much we can do. As bad as we’ve performed in Iraq, what Iraqis have done to each other, and the little that other Muslims have done to stop them, is an even bigger travesty..."

and then, in conclusion, referring to the two awful choices we must soon make in Iraq, leave it in a decent barely functioning condition, or in the disaster that it is and will descend into:

"These are our real choices in Iraq now: tolerable and awful. It’s time we choose. No more expending lives and treasure for nothing good. The only way we can pursue good in the world again is by either shrinking our presence in Iraq, if Iraqis will step up, or leaving entirely, if they won’t."

The part I am concerned with is the last part of the last sentence: if Iraqis will step up, or leaving entirely, if they won’t.

You see if the Iraqis won't step up and behave like proper Democratic people, what can we do? Go figure! Oh well, this sucks. Let's go home. Does anyone else see the craziness here? If you are a Hawk you should want us to stay and clean up the mess we made. If you are a Dove you should want the same. These people are killing each other because of what we have done! If we leave now, it will be another Rwanda. But this time, we'll have caused it by playing "Build a Democracy in 30 Days" and losing. And we will bear FURTHER responsibility by leaving and letting them at each other's throats.

....if the Iraqis can't stand up.... If they Iraqi's can't stand up it's because we've blown their legs off with 120mm rounds of Depleted Uranium. Wow, Iraq has a real problem over there, a real dictator, let's help (crunch bash bomb) Oops! Now it's even worse! This game sucks, let's get out of here. It isn't a game. these are real people our actions have effected and they deserve every dime of our money we spend on them to make things right again. Can't happen? Things can't ever be right again? Well then, we're stuck with the problem because we caused it. The legacy of colonialism is terrible and I fault Britain and France for the way they have behaved, they are paying the price now, but we are no better if we leave a half-baked democracy to burn itself out in the middle of the Mesopotamian desert.

Posted by ian at November 8, 2006 10:55 PM