President Bush has justified our involvement in Iraq by making statements like the following:
I hope they don't want us to foot the bill.[I wonder who they're addressing...] Despite the Bush administration's "best intentions" of fighting the global terror proxy war in Iraq with US and Iraqi troops, the death toll from internal violence (civil war) has exceeded that of terrorism. Our current involvement equates to a disabling of US military force and a depletion of our so called budget (aka, skyrocketing deficits over the past and next couple of years).
At a time attacks are on the rise (doubled from 2004) and our soldiers dying almost as fast as they were two years ago, 100 civilians being killed each day, maybe we should start to consider Congressman Murtha's 10-month-old plan for redeploying our troops from Iraq as the best strategic choice.
[UPDATED 21:45 EST | I recently found out about presidential candidate Mark Warner, who is a seasoned politician and successful businessman. He supports net neutrality and seems to have a good chance without a lot of baggage like Hillary Clinton. According to the linked article at Slate, Warner feels he can compensate for not having much foreign policy experience by leveraging his skills as an executive. Warner doesn't support withdrawal, feeling that it will lead to a collapse of the Iraqi government. I think that we need to start fresh with the right objective, necessary allies, and make sure we're not digging ourselves too deep.]
Source: Strength By Redeployment (statistics), whitehouse.gov, nytimes.com
"We will defeat the enemy there so we don't have to face them here. And at the same time, we will work to see that Iraq is free."When I first heard this, I wondered how Iraqis would feel if they heard this. Would they appreciate being the prime battleground for the global War on Terror? It turns out that they figured it out on their own what was really going on. From the New York Times:
Two high-ranking Iraqi government officials said today that their country was fighting international terrorists on its own soil on behalf of other countries and, as a result, should be compensated with economic and military assistance.
At a time attacks are on the rise (doubled from 2004) and our soldiers dying almost as fast as they were two years ago, 100 civilians being killed each day, maybe we should start to consider Congressman Murtha's 10-month-old plan for redeploying our troops from Iraq as the best strategic choice.
[UPDATED 21:45 EST | I recently found out about presidential candidate Mark Warner, who is a seasoned politician and successful businessman. He supports net neutrality and seems to have a good chance without a lot of baggage like Hillary Clinton. According to the linked article at Slate, Warner feels he can compensate for not having much foreign policy experience by leveraging his skills as an executive. Warner doesn't support withdrawal, feeling that it will lead to a collapse of the Iraqi government. I think that we need to start fresh with the right objective, necessary allies, and make sure we're not digging ourselves too deep.]
Source: Strength By Redeployment (statistics), whitehouse.gov, nytimes.com
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