My Current Official Position on Iraq
Not trying to defend it, just making it clear for the record:
Stick with the surge. Make it clear to the Iraqi government that this is their last chance--but do not make this information public. If things are not turning around in about six months, get out in the least disastrous way possible, whatever that might be.
Democrats: in public, make a big show (for the benefit of the insurgency) of backing Bush and the surge. In private, make it clear to him that he's got six months before the sh*t hits the f*n.
In any case: do try to win in Afghanistan, which was, one might recall, the real war we were supposed to be fighting anyway.
So: I'm still not officially anti-surge. I suppose I still think that we as a nation owe the people of Iraq one last big effort to mitigate our enormous f*ck-up.
But I'm not optimistic.
Not trying to defend it, just making it clear for the record:
Stick with the surge. Make it clear to the Iraqi government that this is their last chance--but do not make this information public. If things are not turning around in about six months, get out in the least disastrous way possible, whatever that might be.
Democrats: in public, make a big show (for the benefit of the insurgency) of backing Bush and the surge. In private, make it clear to him that he's got six months before the sh*t hits the f*n.
In any case: do try to win in Afghanistan, which was, one might recall, the real war we were supposed to be fighting anyway.
So: I'm still not officially anti-surge. I suppose I still think that we as a nation owe the people of Iraq one last big effort to mitigate our enormous f*ck-up.
But I'm not optimistic.
posted by Winston Smith at
12:55 PM
2 Comments:
The only thing I agree with in this analysis is that we should focus on Afghanistan. I hope it's not too late there, too.
In this national conversation, another six months means 'indefinitely'. We were supposed to know six months into the escalation whether it would work. Remind me, how's that going? Why then would we sign up for another six months?
At the end of the next Friedman unit, is the perpetual admonition to reup going to change for you, WS? Or will you again fail to admit the harsh lessons of our misbegotten occupation?
That's what we've had for the last eight Friedmans. Why shouldn't all the Charlie Browns that Lucy has been snatching the football away from learn their lesson? There's no magic plan, just another 10,000 Iraqi dead, another 500 American dead, and close to $100 billion spent, none of which will accomplish anything. For this, we should sit quietly for another six months of blank check and public support for the most incompetent administration since Hoover?
Atrios has some good analysis of the awful dilemma that Duhbya and all the enabling admonitions to keep quiet have given us. Well, I'm not keeping quiet.
Moral courage is hard when you face two unpalatable choices, as we do here, but that's where the really hard moral choices get made. WS, you're choosing to defer a decision (again), not to make the hard and necessary choice.
(Note: Sorry if I'm becoming your troll from the left now that TVD's giving trolling from the right a rest. I don't relish that role.)
This doesn't seem like trolling to me.
But, just for the record, by 'six months' I really do mean *six months.* It's not code for "indefinitely."
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home