Former World War II bomber pilot, Senator George McGovern (a true, genuine War Hero), and the man who was right all along about Vietnam (and offered the type of fundamental change that our Country needed), asks the right questions now in the OpEd This Year.
Good to see George McGovern hasn't lost any of his immense integrity and wisdom.
"President Barack Obama holds my admiration with high hopes for his message of change in Washington, D.C.
It is puzzling, however, that he has adopted most of the previous administration's formula for dragging out the withdrawal of our troops from the mistaken war in Iraq for nearly three more years.
Very little "change" here.
Three years ago, public opinion polls indicated that a majority of Americans believed our policymakers were wrong in ordering troops into Iraq. It is widely accepted that this sentiment more than any other factor in the 2006 congressional elections resulted in Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate."
Both the Iraqi people, and the Iraqi government want the United States to leave, and have for some time. Why must we then continue to accept the false talking-point that there will be "chaos" if we leave? The same people that invented that false meme, and who are pushing it, are the same ones who would told us it would "be a cakewalk" when we went in, and that the enormous cost would be paid for by "Oil revenue" (after we pirated it away from Iraq). In fact, if we left right now the whole motivation for the insurgency would disappear, as would the motivations behind Al Qaeda for their movements into Iraq.
"Are we now going to ignore for another three years the public mandate of 2006 against this costly, pre-emptive war based on deceit? And how can we justify putting thousands more U.S. troops into Afghanistan? We have exhausted our treasury. We are also close to exhausting our soldiers.
Can there be any doubt that the enormous war cost has contributed to the financial crisis here at home? The expense of waging two Middle East wars, plus the loss of revenue caused by the previous administration's tax cuts, have skyrocketed the national debt to a record high.
Do we ever consider what the interest alone is on our $10 trillion national debt -- much of it paid to China?
Frankly, we cannot afford a two-war commitment year after year if we want to balance the federal budget and restore our economy. The huge bonuses that directors of failing corporations have awarded themselves and their chief executives have rightfully angered people, but those figures are peanuts compared with the $12 billion a month we have poured into Iraq and Afghanistan over the last six years.
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- As a practical matter, how can we possibly afford any of this anymore?
- As an ethical matter, how many more innocent people have to die for this grand deceit?
- As a "looking forward" matter, how can the Obama administration continue to just waste their valuable time and resources, which could be better spent on our most urgent problems (Health Care, Energy Indpendence, Cutting the Deficit, Reviving the Economy), on prosecuting this failed Occupation anymore?
It has been three years now since the 2006 Elections when the people said Enough (way back then). The Democratic Party has held the real measure of control over this fraudulent War ever since then (through the power of the War Funding Bills that they can refuse to even send up). And they now control the Executive branch directly, and do not have to keep recycling and reviving these old, discredited talking-points used to perpetuate this War anymore.
Furthermore, as George McGovern correctly warns us of the real danger that awaits us:
"The Obama administration recommends we leave 50,000 troops in Iraq to 'police' that troubled country through 2011. There may well be flare-ups that will keep them there indefinitely, struggling to police the war-induced chaos."
And do we never learn from our failed history?
"In June 1950, President Harry S. Truman ordered our troops into Korea, stating it would be only a brief police action that did not require a declaration of war.
Three years later and after 38,000 American soldiers had been killed, the new American president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, promptly ended our involvement in the Korean War. Unfortunately, we left 40,000 American soldiers behind to police the 38th Parallel -- for a brief time. Yet, more than 50 years later, nearly 30,000 American troops are still in South Korea.
So much for brief police actions."
There are no excuses that apply anymore.
There is also now nobody else to blame.
As McGovern says:
"I believe we aging veterans have an obligation to share what we have learned with the American people. In that spirit, I urge President Obama to bring our troops home from the Middle East this year.
A good target date for completing an orderly withdrawal from two ill-conceived and costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would be Thanksgiving 2009.
For our sake and God's sake, let's get out of there and begin healing our own bankrupted land."
There are no excuses that apply anymore.
There is nobody else to blame.