WE NEED US A BRITISH SYSTEM WHERE WE CAN BEAT UP THE DECIDER A LITTLE BY KT
(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
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In hearing the commentary on the President's speech, it almost seemed like typical Republican denial
(
State of Union text;
State of Union Commentary).
The Democrats are surely not blameless by any stretch of the imagination, but we have to operate from where we are NOW and change has to be the order of the day. I have no arguments to counter many, like say John McCain and let's "stay in Iraq forever" crowd.
To be perfectly honest, it goes a little beyond agreeing to disagree. I surely hope that we are never in a position on Iraq in particular where it is an "I told you so" scenario. There is no satisfaction, even if we are going into our fifth year.
Things are less violent, although this week, there's been at least 300 plus civilians killed or wounded and five GIs killed. For the parents and loved ones, "Violence is down" probably is of very little comfort. ( U.S. casualties rise in Iraq after falling for 4 months)
After watching the State of the Union speech the other night, I was almost nauseous. The pandering and accepting of what is by the Democrats as well was like every other hypocrite. I wish we had a British system and someone like the President had to face a Congress that would raise hell and ask raucous questions. But, no, we have a system where the President is glad-handing and signing autographs, acting like things are great.
All of us are to blame. Suddenly, we think that Iraq is the number three priority behind the economy and health care. Even though number one and two are important, any military type with a platform will say we have eight to ten more years. Instead of denial, how about confession. We went into this war with wrong assumptions and screwed it up royally. Now, we are stuck and cannot get out. Our country is in a mess and we let the President just skate through.
Vietnam should have been our thermometer to the next war, if we had seen one coming. The conventional wisdom of Vietnam is that had not we simply left, then we could have altered the course of what happened, i.e., the Domino Theory.
At this stage, I think we have to look at the big picture and what has happened in Vietnam. Vietnam is essentially a capitalist country; ask anyone who has been there in the last ten years. The vast majority of Vietnamese weren't even born during the Vietnam war and there are almost no signs we were ever around. We don't know what or how things would have been had we not "cut and run."
Could we have prevented the"killing fields" etc.? Who knows? What we do know is that more young Americans would have died had we stayed. I still think it is unconscionable that Nixon promised to get us out of Vietnam; but, when elected, changed his mind and we lost twenty thousand more Americans. We couldn't beat Ho over the long haul. So, what can we say today about "cutting and running?"
From a soldier's standpoint, the military has to be exhausted and getting more so. The very real difference in the Iraq war and with Vietnam, we had more "bodies" that were deployable to war due to the draft during Vietnam. Many of us went to Nam only once; but, in the present Army, soldiers are redeploying over and over and this has to take a gigantic toll. God bless them.
The big difference is that for Muslims of all shades, the presence of our military in Iraq will constantly be a source for justification of terrorism. We are in this fight forever anyway and will never be able to declare victory and move on.
We must reduce the conventional troops, in my opinion, as others have said before me. Station Special Ops in country and hope and pray that the Iraqis can assume the vacuum left by conventional forces. LET US PRAY.
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Commentary