The Senate: chamber of shame
None of these senators has even addressed the question of whether the U.S. is safer if we leave Iraq than if we stay. Isn’t that the key question? The question is not whether the Iraqi government deserves American sacrifice on their behalf. Our sons and daughters are not fighting, being grievously wounded and dying for Iraq — but for American vital interests. If this were just about Iraqi democracy, I might join the screaming for a quick exit.
But if al Qaeda can plausibly claim they drove America out of Iraq (just as they drove the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan) they will gain literally millions of new adherents in their struggle to destroy America and the West. We will then pay in blood, treasure and future wars vastly more than we are paying today to manage and eventually win our struggle in Iraq.
- July 12th
American vital interests? Try to see things from the other way around: we fought England over colonial rule without representation. They’re fighting us over 10 years of bombing runs — we’ve been laying the nation to waste for over 15 years now!
In all likeliness, and according the the intelligence we have yet to pay heed to, if we left them alone they would lose momentum. Your assertion is that all Iraqi people (or al-Queda) would band together to destroy us, that they would become emboldened, is foolish: they are doing that now because we have invaded their homes and are killing their people (innocents and combatants alike).
Please, step away from the “US as a superpower” view and look back to why we fought wars prior to the Korean war. We are giving them justification for fighting the longer we stay.