Two Stark Realities

07/16/2007

Paul Munnis


As Mr. Bush and his Administration pleads with Congress for more military time in Iraq two stark realities face America. The first is that people are dying in large numbers all across Iraq and that includes American forces. The second is that it is costing $12 Billion a month to fight a war that seems to be yielding little return except body bags filled with American soldiers.

A delay of two or three months thus doubles or triples those numbers. When one talks of fifty years more of war it becomes a ridiculous discussion.

No mater how you figure it those are the two stark realities that are driving us Americans in our thinking.

We understand that for Mr. Bush to advocate for anything other than total victory is to concede that he wasted American lives and treasure on a vain attempt at Empire building that failed. We know how harshly history will treat him once that becomes his official record. He is desperate to salvage anything that he can salvage.

We also know that his pride is not worth the death of Americans or innocent Iraqi women and children or those of non-combatants.

We understand that the GOP is also caught between a rock and a hard place where this judgment of history will cause them to become extinct as a Party. But they have none to blame except themselves.

Again, not one GOP career in politics is worth the cost as measured in human life.

The same can be said for American military commanders who do not want their records stamped: “Loser.” We understand the career implications yet we think people are worth more alive than military and political careers that go dead.

We have listened to all the rhetoric concerning reconstruction and nation building in Iraq and we can see that the Bush Administration has done an awful job in managing the war. In other wars once the occupation begins then the shooting stops and reconstruction takes off. But in Iraq, as a result of the Bush Administrations bumbling, once the occupation began the shooting intensified. There is no evidence that those who mismanaged the war and brought us to this precipice will be able to reverse the situation that they have created and permitted to develop. Civil war will not end because Bush puts on a sad face or says “mea-culpa.” He and his team blew it.

We have plenty of time after the troops come home to point fingers and write the history lessons. Right now we are facing these two stark realities of death and economic expense.

It is totally understandable that the American public rejects the Bush pleas and insists on bringing home our troops and moving on past Iraq and Afghanistan.

The sooner that we end this war the better for everyone, except the GOP, even if it means leaving a Civil War to Iraqi’s to resolve. We are not able to resolve their Civil War on any account. Iraqi’s must do that. Getting our oil ambition off their agenda is a step in the right direction for helping them to do just that.