Iraq---What Would You Do?

I wrote this and posted it on my internet site (www.amorenaturalway.com) on November 19, 2005.

Representative John Murtha, decorated Viet Nam veteran, and the leading "hawk" of the Democratic Party, yesterday tearfully called for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq at the “earliest practicable date.”

Murtha believes our troops have done all they can do in Iraq, have become an occupying force, and now incite more violence by their presence than they stop. In response
he was vehemently attacked by Republicans, who instead of governing went into campaign mode. Some accused Murtha of cowardice. Republicans, led by Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, went on the attack and scapegoated Murtha as they supported their President. Hastert proclaimed, “We will not retreat.”

In the days before the Iraq war began I wrote:

"With crisis comes the potential for greater inhumanity, if we cling to old thinking, and the potential for great innovation, if we replace the models that created the problems of today with those that will address them effectively.

Will courage and creativity lead to a modern day relationship renaissance or will fear, resistance, and selfishness result in more fragmentation, malignancy, and regression?"

I wondered if we would lead the world or if we would disappoint ourselves by our conduct in this war?

What is the reality since the war began? Have we grown as a nation and people or have we regressed under great stress?

I had lunch with a minister friend. He pounded the table in anguish as he asked, “How could we have fallen for this war?”

Scott Peck wrote that the test of our goodness is how we behave under stress. How have we done? We will each have our own opinion on this question. The important thing, I believe, is that we reflect on our performance and not use the tactics of our enemies to justify our own bad behavior.

It seems relatively simple in concept, if not in implementation.

If hell exists, it is Iraq.

We need to leave Iraq.

I think a continuation of the "complete victory" path is immoral as our leaders have not provided the military what it needs for a complete victory. Our sacred duty, learned in Viet Nam, it to not put our troops in harm’s way unnecessarily. The Bush administration conducted the war “on the cheap” and politics were a part of it from day one as Bush used terrorism to define his Presidency. To continue on a path without strategy or direction is to perpetuate death, destruction, and to postpone the inevitable outcome.

We do not support our troops when we do not give them the manpower or resources to do their job. We do not support our troops when from stubbornness we support a failed strategy and leaders who have squandered their credibility. We support our troops by seeing reality as it is and acting accordingly. Of course people will disagree on what reality is. Alcoholics live in a world of “sincere delusion” believing they are not alcoholics even as they die of liver failure. We need to compare outcomes against goals, costs against benefits, and strategy against denial and wishful thinking. How is this war working for us as a nation, for Iraq, and for the world community?

If Speaker Hastert wants to support our troops AND wants "complete victory" then he should send enough people to Iraq to disarm the country, restore order and services for the citizens, and commit to staying for decades to rebuild the country.

I think the "leave immediately" option is also immoral as we created this mess and thousands of people who trusted us would die, and we would dishonor those, from all nations, who died fighting for what they believed was a just cause. To "cut and run" would bring shame upon our history. This is not what Representative Murtha suggested as portrayed by the Republicans. He called for “an earliest practical date” withdrawal. We need to give the good people in Iraq a chance to stand on their own--as small as the probability of success might be.

It is a time for tough love. We need to serve formal notice to the Iraq government that after a specified and reasonable time, we must leave. We must do so because they must stand on their own if they are to endure as a free nation.

Between now and then we will do all we can to defend, train, and equip the Iraq government. When that time, not too far in the distant future, arrives, they will be on their own.

Then the silent majority in Iraq will be called to face their own deepest desires for freedom or control, peace or terror, and their own courage and cowardice. They can and should choose their own fate. They can stay and comply, they can stay and fight, or they can leave. They get to choose for themselves.

As much as we want to, we cannot control the outcome of the wrong war, with the wrong enemy, at the wrong time, entered into by gross incompetence at best and lies and deceit at worst and led by leaders who, despite their talk of commitment, lacked the commitment to provide the military with the resources to win a total victory.

I believe it probable that the final outcome, unless we completely subjugate Iraq (then we will have replaced Saddam with ourselves), will be chaos, civil war, and a step back in time for the frightened people of Iraq, the United States and democracy in the Middle East. It seems improbably that a "right" outcome can emerge from so many mistakes in judgment. I hope I am wrong.

The national humiliation will not be the perception of a military defeat. The national humiliation will be that, scared and angry, we squandered our values, national character, and moral authority (and our treasury) in the world fighting the wrong enemy in the wrong way and thus making our true enemy stronger (Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda).

It appears that the final debate has begun. It will be heated. The American people will decide at the ballot box. We have much to think about. I hope we do it thoughtfully.

It is now nine months later…

Iraq appears to be in civil war. We send more American troops to try to secure Baghdad. We train a Marine to fight in 13 weeks and they do so heroically. Iraqis have had several years and still cannot defend themselves. Loyal to their own tribal identities, they appear unable to forge a shared sense of purpose. I think it will be impossible to forge a democracy in Iraq: people do not give up identities by force. The war in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah terrorists complicates things in the region. Yesterday the British foiled a plot to blow up as many as 10 flights to the United States. We are scared again.

National elections loom on the horizon; what will the American people say at the ballot box?

What would you do?