Stay the course!!!
We have heard this for two years, despite the fact that thing seem to be deteriorating in Iraq we must stay the course. With all the recent talk of setting a timetable for withdrawal, much of it coming from unexpected places it is no surprise that we see the push back from the stay the course contingent. David Brooks' lame attempt today is already being touted by Sully, and no doubt others will follow. So join me below the fold, if you wish, while we analyze his latest contribution to hackdom.
Brooks begins:
There's a reason George Washington didn't take a poll at Valley Forge
What an unbelievable asshole! I mean what kind of pathetic fucking analogy is that!?! It is just the ususal Republican attempt to invoke the founding fathers for whatever they are doing. I can only think that Washington would be rolling over in his grave at the attempt to use him and Valley Forge to justify W's military adventurism. If you still have the stomach, let's move on:
Yet I can't believe majorities of Americans really want to pull out and accept defeat. I can't believe they want to abandon to the Zarqawis and the Baathists those 8.5 million Iraqis who held up purple fingers on Election Day. I can't believe they are yet ready to accept a terrorist-run state in the heart of the Middle East, a civil war in Iraq, the crushing of democratic hopes in places like Egypt and Iran, and the ruinous consequences for American power and prestige.
Wow, Brooks must have one pretty goddamn amazing crystal ball to be able to so accurately predict the result of the withdrawal of U.S. forces. "Terrorist-run state"? How does he know, isn't it just as likely that we end up with a Shia dominated government of some sort (which will probably happen anyway)? "A civil war in Iraq?" Seems like we already have that. "The crushing of Democratic hopes in Egypt an Iran?" Does he even read the news? And the best "the ruinous consequences for American power and prestige?" Ummm. . . the consequences of the current policy have been pretty fucking ruinous as far as I can tell.
On the one hand, there are signs of progress. U.S. forces have completed a series of successful operations, among them Operation Spear in western Iraq, where at least 60 insurgents were killed and 100 captured, and Operation Lightning in Baghdad, with over 500 arrests.
Yeah, that oh-so-successful Operation Lighting, demonstrated by the
seven car bombs in two days that have rocked Baghdad.
If governments surrendered to insurgencies after just a couple of years, then insurgents would win every time. But they don't because insurgencies have weaknesses, exposed over time, especially when they oppose the will of the majority.
Maybe, but those "governments" are usually not supported by foreign armies. Perhaps Mr. Brooks could give us an example of a foreign occupation successfully quelling a native insurgency. This is getting long so I will finish up. Apparently not satisfied by crapping on Washington's legacy, he now has to smear FDR:
Biden's speech brought to mind something Franklin Roosevelt told the country on Feb. 23, 1942: "Your government has unmistakable confidence in your ability to hear the worst, without flinching or losing heart. You must, in turn, have complete confidence that your government is keeping nothing from you except information that will help the enemy in his attempt to destroy us."
The unmitigated gall is truly a spectacle. Can any rational American really have "complete confidence that your government is keeping nothing from you?" If boggles the mind.
Okay, I know a lot of people here think that it is our moral obligation to finish the job, and that abandoning the Iraqi would be a failure to meet that obligation. But if there is no military solution to the insurgency, and I don't think there is, then our continued presence there is making things worse, not better. And I don't think too many people are advocating for an immediate complete pull out. But it seems to me that, contrary to the Bushies and others, setting a timetable, based on political events such as the ratification of a constitution and further elections, could go a long way to helping the situation on the ground and reassuring the public that we do indeed have an exit strategy. Otherwise it allows everyone, Iraqis and Americans, to question the motives of the administration.