22 November 2005
Staying with Iraq Can’t Be Done on the Cheap
In his Op-Ed piece in the New York Times of November 20, 2005, David Brooks claims that the U.S. is “the one source of authority that prevents [Iraq] from imploding.” Iraq is already imploding because our Administration stubbornly insists on “staying the course” at the woefully inadequate troop level that was selected as part of the “botched American occupation.”
Congressman Jack Murtha is right that it is unfair to our brave soldiers to keep them in Iraq in a losing and dangerous effort. They deserve a better chance to defend themselves. After all, that is what they are fighting for. If the Administration really put them there to remake Iraqi society, their numbers and equipment strength would be much higher. Of course, the cost would be higher, too. Along with that, the political stakes would be more serious, and potentially riskier.
What the Administration has chosen to ignore is that Iraqi society is not something that our forces can “rebind.” Iraq has been held together only by means of oppression in the past – Sunnis over Shiites and Kurds. The Bush regime has always sought easy solutions to problems. It sets high-blown objectives in order to convince the American public to keep it in power. But it avoids making the investment necessary to carry out those objectives.
In his Op-Ed piece in the New York Times of November 20, 2005, David Brooks claims that the U.S. is “the one source of authority that prevents [Iraq] from imploding.” Iraq is already imploding because our Administration stubbornly insists on “staying the course” at the woefully inadequate troop level that was selected as part of the “botched American occupation.”
Congressman Jack Murtha is right that it is unfair to our brave soldiers to keep them in Iraq in a losing and dangerous effort. They deserve a better chance to defend themselves. After all, that is what they are fighting for. If the Administration really put them there to remake Iraqi society, their numbers and equipment strength would be much higher. Of course, the cost would be higher, too. Along with that, the political stakes would be more serious, and potentially riskier.
What the Administration has chosen to ignore is that Iraqi society is not something that our forces can “rebind.” Iraq has been held together only by means of oppression in the past – Sunnis over Shiites and Kurds. The Bush regime has always sought easy solutions to problems. It sets high-blown objectives in order to convince the American public to keep it in power. But it avoids making the investment necessary to carry out those objectives.
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