hostage crisis

I know I'm blogging out of control today. Maybe I'll skip tomorrow, but right now I've got to bring you Paul Krugman, because I know you can't find him without me!
Is there any point, now that November's election is behind us, in revisiting the history of the Iraq war? Yes: any path out of the quagmire will be blocked by people who call their opponents weak on national security, and portray themselves as tough guys who will keep America safe. So it's important to understand how the tough guys made America weak.
Krugman links to the Downing Street Memo and says:
In other words, the people who got us into Iraq have done exactly what they falsely accused Bill Clinton of doing: they have stripped America of its capacity to respond to real threats."

So what's the plan?

The people who sold us this war continue to insist that success is just around the corner, and that things would be fine if the media would just stop reporting bad news. But the administration has declared victory in Iraq at least four times. January's election, it seems, was yet another turning point that wasn't.

Yet it's very hard to discuss getting out. Even most of those who vehemently opposed the war say that we have to stay on in Iraq now that we're there.

In effect, America has been taken hostage. Nobody wants to take responsibility for the terrible scenes that will surely unfold if we leave (even though terrible scenes are unfolding while we're there). Nobody wants to tell the grieving parents of American soldiers that their children died in vain. And nobody wants to be accused, by an administration always ready to impugn other people's patriotism, of stabbing the troops in the back. . . .

So we need to get beyond the clichés - please, no more "pottery barn principles" or "staying the course." I'm not advocating an immediate pullout, but we have to tell the Iraqi government that our stay is time-limited, and that it has to find a way to take care of itself. The point is that something has to give. We either need a much bigger army - which means a draft - or we need to find a way out of Iraq.
Twice a week, I am grateful for Paul Krugman, my favorite voice in the wilderness.

Comments

  1. Rognar16 May 2005 at 11:22

    There is a third way, although I doubt this administration has the willingness or ability to pull it off. That way is get the dreaded UN involved. The US would have to kiss a heck of a lot of ass to get France, Russia and China to agree, but a UNSC resolution would take the legs out from under a lot of fence-sitters. India alone had, at one time, committed 17,000 troops to a UN-led force to oust Saddam Hussein. Now, perhaps they did so knowing the UN would never go for it and maybe they can't be counted on to fulfil that committment now given the current state of Iraq, but a UN mission may be the only alternative to 20 years of US presence in the country.

    ReplyDelete
  2. laura k16 May 2005 at 11:47

    I think you're right about the UN as the alternative to long-term American prescence. But we know this --

    "The US would have to kiss a heck of a lot of ass to get France, Russia and China to agree"

    -- won't happen. Not under this White House, anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Crabbi16 May 2005 at 23:22

    I think it would be difficult to exit without the help of the UN, or at least a coaliton larger than what we have. How many countries are with us now? The number of the "willing" keeps dropping.

    Bush and the PNAC neocons won't leave until they believe the situation is impossible, and you can bet they'll find a way to make it their idea. It will be marketed like everything else about this war, and they'll have to come up with new magnetic ribbons for our SUVs. Something red, white, blue and yellow, with hearts and cherubs and Jesus and smiley faces and "God bless our troops" and the Halliburton stock symbol.

    This is wishful thinking, but every day I hope for a war crimes trial. It could happen. Guess it's that plucky, can-do, gung-ho American attitude of mine :->

    ReplyDelete
  4. laura k17 May 2005 at 04:30

    "Bush and the PNAC neocons won't leave until they believe the situation is impossible, and you can bet they'll find a way to make it their idea. It will be marketed like everything else about this war..."

    Yes. Impossible - and unprofitable. Their cronies are still making a fortune off this war, and as long as that's true - and opposition stays sporadic and muted - there's little incentive for them to leave.

    Let's chant for that war-crimes trial.

    ReplyDelete

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