This was written in response to this post, but I felt it would be a good idea to share it on my blog as well. (It’s also nice in case the blog author over there doesn’t put my comment up; it happens.)
Just face it the anti-war effort FAILED and the country will be better off.
The country will be better off fighting a war of attrition in a country that has little value to us? Right…
If there is going to be an end to this war, when will it be? Five years? 10? We’ve been at it for almost five already. And what is there to show for it? A weak and useless native government that’s only now allowing Ba’ath Party members back in? An infrastructure plagued by insurgents who weren’t there before we invaded? 4000 dead American soldiers?
When something you do isn’t going properly, you change your approach. No rational person can say that our mission in Iraq is going the way it should. Why did we even go in? Ostensibly, it was to find WMDs. Failed at than, so we decided to free Iraq from Saddam. That was a mix of success and failure. Indeed, we deposed him and ended his regime. On the other hand, we threw the entire country into anarchy by completely dismantling the government. Now there is an elected government run by Iraqis. What more is there to do? They need to learn to run and protect their own country, and they can’t do that if American soldiers have to do the dirty work.
The anti-war movement failed because the American people are idiots. They want victory in a war that has no clear objective. They want to defeat an enemy that is as formless as an idea. Hell, sometimes I wonder if they even know what they want. And Congress…well, it hasn’t been useful since the midterm elections. Face it: there is no easy way to end this war. Either we stay in forever, or we are forced to pull out. It’s Vietnam all over again.
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