Death by a 1,000 cutsHere are some of the lines you'll find in this article:
The Iraq stalemate
Despite Bush's bromidic calls for bipartisanship, Americans are more bitterly divided than ever, politically and morally stalemated over our responsibility for creating and for resolving what can now only be called a quagmire...
They distracted the public from the underlying problem, which is that the United States has no power to compel an Iraqi cease-fire, let alone the necessary political reconciliation...
Petraeus and Crocker avoided offering promises, or even benchmarks for progress, which have so often disappointed in the past. They were wise enough to recognize the emptiness of each event that the war's supporters have heralded as a turning point -- the capture of Saddam Hussein nearly four years ago, the two national elections, the drafting of a constitution, the killing of Al Qaeda leader Abu Musab Zarqawi last year, the formation of a government and parliament, and most recently, the "surge." By contrast, Bush's new rhetoric about a "return on success" and defending an"ally" that has requested U.S. help was twisted and misleading in the extreme.
And so on and so forth. The article is worth the read.
1 comment:
Nobody is happy. But I think it's not the military's fault. Nor the weak strategy. Our foe is more than irate and hungry revolutionaries (call them that) fighting a big menace in their eyes (the U.S.), our enemy is connected to our limited viewpoint. We are seeing only the stupidity of this war not the positives. We see only the deaths. Heck, ten times more people kill themselves by suicide in one year in America than have been killed as American soldiers in Iraq since we went over there. Yet the death is all we are reminded of. Not the new life the hope the generosity the interaction and the relationships we are making over there for good. IF, and I admit its close to an impossible if, but IF we had the stomach to absorb the killing, weighing on the scale of the hundreds of positives happening in Iraq, our perspective would become a friend. We'd persevere with guts. That's what Americans do. But American's warp our policy is to the opposite. No one likes this war, but I would bet even with Clinton or Obama in office its not to be undone so easily.
So, for this author to say it can "only be called a quaqmire" its because his head is stuck in the mud of bad news.
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