Marble Composition

Withdrawal?

I stopped by Kevin Drum's place tonight, and he came across an article from the British newspaper the Observer stating that the British, at least, will begin a major withdrawal of troops from Iraq starting in May. That's good news, as I'm all for a staged withrawal of all foreign forces from Iraqi soil. Go check out what Kevin has to say. It's well worth a quick read.

On a related note, I happened by Dam Froomkin's White House Briefing over at the Washington Post, and one of his readers sent in a succinct critique of a happy horseshit talk the president gave the other day. This guy flayed Bush, and all he needed was one sentence:

White House Briefing reader J. Harley McIlrath of Grinnell, Iowa, e-mailed me yesterday some insightful questions about just one sentence of Bush's speech.

In fact, his questions about that one sentence alone were more penetrating and important than any of the coverage I read of Bush's whole speech this morning.

The sentence from Bush: "The only way the terrorists can win is if we lose our nerve and abandon the mission."

McIlrath wrote:

"1. Who are 'the terrorists?' He's talking about Iraq. Are 'the insurgents' also 'the terrorists?' Has Bush ever defined just who 'the terrorists' are?

"2. What would constitute a 'win' for the terrorists? What do they want? Do we know? Has Bush ever asked himself what 'the terrorists' want and whether or not it's reasonable? Tactics aside, what do they want? Don't tell me 'they hate freedom.'

"3. What constitutes 'losing our nerve?' Is it losing one's nerve to pull resources back from an ineffectual approach and apply them to an approach that is more promising? How many times in WWII did we pull resources off one front to reinforce another?

"4. What is 'the mission.' Can we abandon a 'mission' that has never been defined? To quote George Harrison: If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there.

"Imagine if the press corps took this one short sentence and forced Bush to define his terms."

Dan has the red meat that Bush threw around the other day at the link above, and my guess is he'll eat those words sometime next year.

We've already lost the war in Iraq. And that's no small feat. All it took was an absolute lack of planning for the invasion's aftermath, staffing the Coalition Provisional Authority with complete hacks, disbanding the Iraqi army, and completely ignoring the fact that Iraq was already fractured along religious and tribal lines.

There are many things the United States owes the Iraqi people, and a sensible, timed withdrawal will not be easy, but it's the only option left that makes any sense. "Staying the course" is nothing more than utter madness.

posted by FuzzFinger @ 9/24/2005 09:27:00 PM