While it was a hot topic in the Democratic primary, the Iraq War seemed to fall off the table in the final months of the Presidential campaign. In retrospect, this huge blunder by the outgoing Bush Administration has been a bottomless pit for American taxpayer dollars. It has been a huge strain on our National Guard and military, and has taken longer than it took the Allies to defeat the Axis powers after America entered WWII. To add insult to injury, it has not done one thing to bring the murderer of thousands of Americans, Osama bin Laden to justice.
As Democrats now that we will control the White House and Congress even though George W. Bush started this irresponsible fiasco, it will essentially become our war. Soon enough, the decisions on that conflict will be upon the shoulders of our leadership.
As we have all seen although violence has dropped, American taxpayers have bought themselves a never ending mess in Iraq. Worse yet, I think they expect us to hang around a while:
Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Thursday finally got the broad consensus he sought on the Status of Forces Agreement with the U.S. - 149 of the 198 lawmakers present in the 275-member National Assembly gave their support to a deal that allows American forces to remain in Iraq until the end of 2011.
http://news.yahoo.com/...
They also gave this disappointing assessment of what the blood and labor of our soldiers, and our hundreds of billions of dollars have bought:
But Iraq's legislators also put the prime minister on notice: "We want to tell Maliki that we are building a new democracy, and that we're not ready anymore to let the power be in one man's hands, no matter who he is," said Abdel-Bari al-Zebari, a Kurdish lawmaker.
The wide parliamentary approval for the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) opens the final chapter of U.S military involvement in Iraq, setting a firm deadline for withdrawal. The vote, and the divisive deliberations leading up to it, may also mark the beginning of a new season of political conflict in Baghdad, as politicians seek to redistribute power away from the increasingly autocratic prime minister and towards the president and the parliament.
http://news.yahoo.com/...
Imagine that!! It seems President Bush and "Shotgun" Cheney have been wasting our money, and the blood of our military on setting up a petty dictator, who is standing in the way of democracy, hence our exit from that country.
Is this the "success" that we have been hearing about the surge??
Ah, but a ray of hope in the dark:
Maliki's Shi'ite and Kurdish allies backed the pact, which requires that U.S troops redeploy out of Iraqi towns and cities to bases in the countryside by June of next year, and completely withdraw by the end of 2011. The Sunni Tawafuk bloc also gave it the nod, after securing concessions on its demands for an amnesty for detainees in U.S custody, and for the holding of a referendum on the security pact next July. A 'no' vote in that referendum could torpedo the deal, and give Washington one year's notice to leave, effectively bringing forward the U.S withdrawal date to the middle of 2010.
http://news.yahoo.com/...
That gives me an idea. Why don't we bundle up all the lobbyists in Washington for the bailout money, then tell them if they go to Iraq and convince Iraqi politicians to vote no and torpedo that deal, they can have some bailout money? I would much prefer having our troops home in a year, and it would give the Iraqis one last chance to see failed Bush Democracy in action.
We have been hearing for a long time now how successful the surge has been. With our failing economy, we simply can't afford to keep funding George W. Bush's mistakes. We definately don't need to be wasting young American lives and spending untold hundreds of billions for the next three years.
It is time that Maliki stands down and allows the election of a real chief executive in that country that doesn't aspire to be an autocrat. It is time that the Iraqi country exercises its own Democracy with its own legislative and truly exectutive branches. We have done all we could to spearhead Democracy in Iraq, but it is not up to us whether it will succeed or not. That fate lies within the Iraqi people themselves.
We have our own country to worry about now. Our economy has crashed, and Wall St. is lining up for bailout money like buzzards swarming a fresh carcass. Now more than ever, we are going to have to use our resources to shore up our own economy and infrastructure. We need to use our National Guard for disasters here, and bring our troops home until they are needed to fight real conflicts.
I am hopeful that when we sign our names to this mess, we will clean it up and not leave it to rot in the sun like our predecessors. I am hopeful that soon we will be rid of Bush's folly and the centerpiece of his failed legacy that has cost America so much.
The time is way past due.