Please read through the whole post before you trollrate me.
It is true that a majority of Americans want our troops out. Here on DailyKos, those representatives who say anything other than "Bring our troops home!" are ridiculed for their stance on the quagmire that exists today in Iraq.
Having been strongly in the "Bring our troops home NOW!" camp for quite some time, I'm afraid I'm losing my way.
While it is incontravertible that the Bush administration has been entirely incompetent in stabalizing Iraq, and that the reasons for taking us to Iraq in the first place were entirely suspect, our presence there now is justified in helping prevent massive casualties to the Iraqi people.
I am not against strategic redeployment, but I ask you: what will happen to them when we pull out?
I have seen diary after diary decry the needless loss of American life in Iraq. However, on NPR today, one commentator said that instead of seeing 3700 Iraqi civilians die in one month in Iraq, we'll see that in a day. Along with the possibility of the conflict expanding outside of Iraq's borders, we're looking at the potential for genocidal proportions in the loss of life. Where are the diaries about what will happen to the Iraqis?
We have called out Rumsfeld for his lack of foresight in the planning stage of the war, but where is our foresight? It doesn't take an expert to know what will happen when we pull out, especially given the increasing conflict in Iraq, yet (and I could be wrong) many liberal bloggers mention these facts not (in the context of their argument) to express their fears for an Iraqi future, but to argue that we do not belong in such a conflict. I agree that our troops weren't meant to oversee a civil war, but is leaving them to kill each other the answer?
Now this opinion doesn't preclude me from calling McCain, Lieberman, and the rest of the hawks as complete bullshitters, but I see them wrong in a probably different sense than most of you. By defining the situation in Iraq in antiquated military terms of "victory", "defeat", they are ignoring the real problem. There is no military victory to be had here. The insurgents will not stop.
But what do we do then? Abandon the Iraqis to die? That's the logical next step that I never hear any anti-war argument express. It's always "Well it's not going to get better" or "It's up to them now". Just like it's up to the Sudanese or (previously) the Rwandans? Or, we have a moral imperative to intervene in Rwanda and Darfur, but not Iraq?
I don't know, and I wish I could express my opinion a bit more eloquently on the matter, but I'm just hitting save. I'm still leaning towards bringing them home, but I have to say, the dread I feel when I watch news of more American soldiers dying will be nothing compared to watching the death toll of an Iraq in a full-scale civil war.
On a final note, I have an honest question that may help me with my problem. Let's say Gore/Obama/(insert your pick for president here) was president right now instead of a moron. Are there specific recommendations from the ISG report or any other things that you could mention besides strategic redeployment that would help bring stability, or are we advocating simply leaving them to die in an all-out bloodbath?