From:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Karen Watters Cole
Sent: Sunday, August 21, 2005 7:37
PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Futurework] The Anti
Iraq War Right movement grows
The Bush Troika is facing an insurgency of its own at
home. KwC
Prof. Andrew Bacevich: No Win Situation: Call it a day. “We’ve done all
we can do in Iraq”
Wisdom requires that the Bush administration call an end to
its misbegotten crusade. While avoiding the appearance of an ignominious dash
for the exits, but with all due speed, the United States needs to liquidate its
presence in Iraq, placing the onus on Iraqis to decide their fate and creating
the space for other regional powers to assist in brokering a political
settlement. We've done all that we can do.
Getting out now makes sense not just to
avoid further running up our bill, but because doing so holds out the prospect
of a more favorable result. Granted, constructing a positive case for
withdrawal requires a redefinition of purpose. >From the outset, the Bush
administration has focused on the wrong political objective. Rather than
attempting to democratize Iraq
as a first step toward "transforming" the Middle
East, our proper aim should be to stabilize the country so that we
can concentrate our energies on containing and eventually reducing the threat
posed by violent Islamic radicals.
…What
will pulling out of Iraq
mean for the United States?
It will certainly not mean losing access to Iraqi oil, which will inevitably
find its way to the market. To be sure, bringing the troops home will preclude
the Pentagon from establishing permanent U.S.
military bases in Iraq
-- but the Bush administration has said all along that we don't covet such
bases anyway. In addition, withdrawal will put an end to extravagant
expectations of using Iraq
as a springboard for democratizing the Islamic world -- but that notion never
qualified as more than a pipe dream anyway.
For Bush personally, the consequences of leaving
Iraq
might be the most painful. The prospect of looking antiwar protester Cindy
Sheehan in the eye to explain exactly what her son died for will become even
more daunting. But as it is, the president can't dodge that question
indefinitely. Postponing the issue simply swells the ranks of those with
similar questions to ask.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/20/AR2005082000114.html?nav=hcmodule
Steven
Bainbridge: “It's time for us conservatives to face facts. George W.
Bush has pissed away the conservative moment by pursuing a war of choice via
policies that border on the criminally incompetent. We control the White House,
the Senate, the House of Representatives, and (more-or-less) the judiciary for
one of the few times in my nearly 5 decades, but what have we really
accomplished? Is government smaller? Have we hacked away at the nanny state?
Are the unborn any more protected? Have we really set the stage for a durable
conservative majority? Meanwhile, Bush continues to insult our intelligence
with tripe like this.
The trouble with Bush's justification for the war is that it
uses American troops as fly paper. Send US troops over to Iraq, where
they'll attract all the terrorists, who otherwise would have come here, and
whom we'll then kill. This theory has proven fallacious. The first problem is
that the American people are unwilling to let their soldiers be used as fly
paper. If Iraq
has proven anything, it has confirmed for me the validity of the Powell Doctrine.
http://www.professorbainbridge.com/2005/08/what_might_have.html
Sen. Chuck
Hagel: “Staying the course” is not a
policy, our presence has destabilized the Middle East, current troop levels cannot be maintained
for 4 More Years http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/21/AR2005082100375.html
Andy
McCarthy (National Review’s The Corner blog
082105): “This is where I get off the
bus” http://corner.nationalreview.com/05_08_21_corner-archive.asp#073754
Lt. Gen.
Odom (ret) and former NSA Director 1985-88: Ask this: What’s wrong with cutting and
running? "If I were a journalist, I would list all the
arguments that you hear against pulling U.S.
troops out of Iraq,
the horrible things that people say would happen, and then ask: Aren't
they happening already? Would a pullout really make things worse?
Maybe it would make things better." http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=ask_this.view&askthisid=00129
Gideon
Rose (managing editor, Foreign Affairs): Get Real. “Seven months into George W. Bush's second
term, it is clear that whatever his expansive second Inaugural Address may have
promised, American foreign policy has taken a decidedly pragmatic turn. In
practice, the Bush administration has recently begun to pursue interests rather
than ideals and conciliation rather than confrontation.
First-term foreign policy hardliners like John Bolton, Paul
Wolfowitz, and Douglas Feith have moved to jobs outside of Washington or left the administration
entirely. The State
Department has regained the ear of the White House and won support for
repairing relations with Europe and negotiating with Iran
and North Korea.
And the Pentagon, overextended and trapped in a grueling counterinsurgency, has
taken to rehashing Kerry campaign rhetoric about the limited utility of
military force, lowered its expectations in Iraq and sent up trial balloons
about withdrawal. The only people not to have gotten the memorandum, it seems,
are the president and vice president, who feebly insist that the "war on
terror" remains a useful concept and that everything in Iraq is going
just fine. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/18/opinion/18rose.html
