Iraq: Appalling - But Not Hopeless?

A friend brought this article to my attention. He said it puts into words his thoughts on Iraq. The general sentiment of the article (which I recommend you read in its entirety and make up your own mind) is summed up by this sentence:

And yet, for all my misgivings about the way the administration has handled this policy, I've never been able to join the antiwar crowd. Nor am I convinced that Iraq is a hopeless cause that should be abandoned.

In response, I wrote the following:

---

The article is a good one but seems to be based on hope alone. I hope it all works out in the end too. If it does, that won’t change these facts:

• Bush came into office with his sites set on Iraq
• 9/11 provided him the cover he needed even though there was never a connection between 9/11 and Iraq
• His “go it alone” strategy has destroyed our standing on the world stage
• There was absolutely no plan for the post war and our guys still aren’t properly equipped
• Iraq is but one of several examples of this man’s incompetence (New Orleans, Harriet Myers, Plamegate, Foreign Port Ownership, the Environment, Stem Cell Research, Endorsing Torture, Terri Schiavo, Warrantless Domestic Spying, The Deficit, Energy Policy, Medicare, etc.)

In short, intelligence matters.

Also, many on the anti-war side are simply saying we need to pull our guys out of harms way, not necessarily completely out of Iraq (The Murtha Plan). That said, I have no faith in this administration and it might well be that the only way to stop them from digging a deeper hole is to get our guys out of there completely. Regardless, at a minimum, the anti-war crowd is pushing the dialogue forward.

3 years into it and all we’re left with is hoping and praying for the best. We were told this was going to be easy; this was going to be paid for with oil money… etc. We were told we’d get Bin Laden dead or alive. Then in May 2005 (almost a year ago) Cheney said the insurgency was in the “last throes”. Today we’re being told there isn’t a civil war going on.

Painting rosy pictures and using our guys for political gain isn’t leadership. I trusted Bush in the beginning (mostly because of Powell) and that trust is long gone. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 3,576 times, shame on me. I’ve had enough.