Drum on Withdrawal
For all my posting of the Vietnam/Iraq deathtoll charts, I haven’t talked much about the similarities of the two wars lately. I guess I feel like there’s not much more to say that I haven’t said already, like in Vietnam and Iraq: A comparison, which I wrote three years ago, and which, sadly, seems to have held up all too well.
Except for loons who manage to twist reality more violently than most in defense of their ideological viewpoint (you know who you are — or, well, you actually don’t, but the rest of us do), the situation in Iraq has become more and more clear with the passage of time. And what with the personal time crunch I keep whining about, it’s hard to justify beating a dead horse. But sometimes it’s good to touch base with reality, and I think this post from Kevin Drum today does a good job of that: Withdrawal pains.
Anyone who advocates withdrawal needs to understand just what the consequences would be. But, as Kaplan admits, responsibility nonetheless lies squarely with the war’s architects. In Iraq, if anything, we are having even less success than we did in Vietnam, and there’s hardly even a colorable argument left that we have any hope of turning this around. Withdrawing may be an appalling and grisly option, but would it be better to kill a few hundred thousand more people and then leave? Those like Kaplan who oppose withdrawal have a question of their own to face up to.
September 21st, 2006 at 1:49 pm
indeed, you think the iraq war is going worse than vietnam despite the fact that they have a democratically elected government for the first time and are well on the road to trying, convicting and carrying out a just sentence against the most vicious murderer in the last 20 years? there’s no reasonable comparison to vietnam except that we’re fighting a war on foreign soil, which given present day threats to the world from terrorists is necessary. it’s a drag to see posts that seem to be completely unaware that freedom and democracy do not come without a fight. it is not human nature to produce a fair and equitable system, it is human nature that propels people like hussein seeking power and profit by violence and fear. we can admire and appreciate people that love others and seek fairness but the fact is the hussein’s of our world almost always have a determination and lack of morals that gets them to the position they want, unless someone stands in the way of their violence. the islamic extremists are no different and because the middle east has been a friendly place to them to grow they’ve managed to export their violence to indonesia, europe and the americas. if we want to continue to partake in freedom we have to fight them. your post ignores the facts, but mainly you do not attempt to provide any alternatives. instead taking your ‘opinions’ from other sources and willingly accepting lies like ‘hundreds of thousands’ will die from continuing to help iraqi’s leave their awful history behind. the main comparison to be made with vietnam is the american press acting in support of and in comfort to the enemy every single day, but with the electronic age the reach of the treasonous press is even greater than it was then, and the press has given critical information repeatedly to the enemy. i don’t spend alot of time reading postings from the left or the right, but if we had not had Bush as president the last 5.5 yrs, gone to iraq to depose a dangerous and unstable killer, defeated the taliban and systematically taken out the terrorist leadership the islamic extremists would be in a position to force their religion and practices on large parts of the world.
October 17th, 2006 at 5:22 pm
According to Mr. G.W. Bush, U.S.A invaded Iraq because of the second resone which was that Saddam had relationship with Al-Qaida. I am just asking, did not Mr.G.W Bush created this relationship now in westren Iraq?