The administration, the mainstream media, the Republicans, and the neocon lock-step radio talk show hosts continue to focus on what "good" we're doing in Iraq, using words like "victory" and "win(ning)" to describe our goals there, but they don't want to talk about why we went there in the first place. When they do, they claim, among other things, that "we are fighting `them' there so that we won't have to fight `them' here." They've been claiming that the Congress had "the same intelligence that the President had" when Congress decided to approve going to war. Now we learn (12/16/05) that that was not the case. On December 14, 2005, President Bush finally admitted that the intelligence for going to war was "faulty." Bush, however, claims that the decision to go to war was the "right decision."
Let's cut through the rhetoric and get to the facts.
- Congress is the legal body in our country that decides whether or not we go to war.
- Congress (as did most of us) thought this was part of the war on terror. If not for the purposes pertinent to our legitimate war on Al-Quaida because of the attacks on 9/11/01 (our "war on terror") included in the list of reasons Congress had for going to war in Iraq, they never would have approved going to war at that time.
- The most well known and, probably, the most important of these are the issues of Iraq's WMDs, nuclear weapons and missile delivery system development; and the supposed governmental assistance to Al-Quaida, all of which have since, undisputedly, been proven false.
Our actions have furthered Al-Qaida's cause, our standing in the world is diminished' we've wasted significant resources and time on Iraq; and we should have kept our focus on Usama Bin Laden and the eradication of Al-Quaida as a terror threat. Our presence there is, therefore, illegitimate.
The Iraqi elections have a good chance of resulting in an oppressive Islamic Theocracy, aligned with Iran, which will pit the Shiites against the Sunnis, resulting in an all-out civil war. What is our objective there? Who is the enemy besides who we are creating by our actions and attracting with our presence? Aren't we only left with damage control?
We do not have a legitimate war to "win" or an enemy to declare "victory" over. Our only moral purpose there now is "restitution" not "victory," "reconstruction" not "winning." We shouldn't let ourselves be lead into characterizing this war with the wrong words and the wrong reasons for being there. Let's call it what it is.
We don't "hurt the troops" by telling the truth, it's the very least that we owe them. We are the one's who can't handle the truth.
This is my first diary entry.