Will We Sacrifice Iraq?

Look at these American soldiers with Iraqi children (video), or this picture alone, keeping in mind that this may be the first encounter some of these children have ever had with adults who treat them with unfailing kindness regardless of their nationality, religion, gender, or circumstances of life.   

As a nation, we are about to answer a question:

Will America sacrifice Iraq to its enemies?

You don't have to look hard for reasons to leave Iraq.  War is expensive -- in soldiers' lives, in billions of dollars, and in endless opposition.

Yet there are also reasons to stay.  These children are one of them.  Their parents are another.  Saddam Hussein's brutal legacy is yet another.  The terrorist "insurgents" who consider it a good day's work to behead innocent civilians and explode car bombs in crowds are another reason to stay.  Our work is not finished yet.

But whether you think the Iraq war is worth winning or not, you should not miss Dennis Byrne's ISG Prescribes Vietnam All Over Again. 

Byrne reminds us of exactly how America's departure from Vietnam came about.  America's withdrawal was accompanied by broken promises.  Do you remember this promise from Richard Nixon to South Vietnam?:

"...[Y]ou have my assurance of continued assistance in the post-settlement period and that we will respond with full force should the settlement be violated by North Vietnam."

That was a pledge by President Richard M. Nixon to Republic of South Vietnam President Nguyen Van Thieu that the United States would not abandon his nation, if he would only cooperate in negotiations with North Vietnam to end the war.

That promise made by America through its Commander in Chief was not kept.  The result was "shameful images of our friends pleading for their lives at the gates of the U.S. embassy as the last helicopter flew from its roof."

Byrne has this to say about the report of the Iraq Study Group:

At least the Iraq Study Group hasn't asked Iraqis to believe the same kind of outright lie that Nixon told the Vietnamese. No, the ISG's lie is much subtler. First, the group asks us to believe that Iran, America's most implacable foe, would negotiate in good faith, be true to its word and do us a gigantic favor of facilitating our graceful and face-saving exit from Iraq. Only fools would believe such things could happen and the ISG members are no fools.

Second, the ISG never gets around to saying what the U.S. should do if the negotiations fail. It puts Iraq's constitutionally elected government in a Thieu-like spot: accept whatever Iran and the region's parties work out for them. Think about it. The ISG wants to give a role in determining Iraq's future to a country it fought a bloody war against involving the use of chemical weapons, which has a hand in causing today's turmoil and which has no commitment to freedom, self-determination and democracy. Without resolute American backing, the Iraqi people are being thrown to wolves fighting over a juicy carcass. In these unfavorable circumstances, the ISG expects Iraq to take control of its own fate.

Read it all.

If America with all its military might isn't powerful enough to fight off the "insurgency" ("insurgency" is too kind for these murderous thugs who target civilians), then what makes us think Iraq is strong enough by itself?

The entire premise of the Iraq Study Group's recommendations is that talk will solve everything.  We talk to Iran and Syria; the Iraqis talk to one another and make "political progress," and -- voila! -- peace comes to Iraq.

I believe in the power of words -- I make my living by the power of words -- but against determined murderers bearing weapons, words are nothing.

We can talk all we like.  We can articulate words to make ourselves feel better about leaving Iraq to a brutal fate.

But the horrible reality will be lived by people like these Iraqi children.

Comments

[AubreyJ]

Well put and so true...
AubreyJ.........

[DemocracyRules]

“WINNING” IS NOT THE GOAL IN IRAQ, ANYWAY! I am stunned that the blogosphere has been so easily duped by the MSM into framing Iraq within the context of “winning” and “losing”. Let’s think for a minute. The objectives of the Iraq war were to topple Saddam for good, and replace it with a democracy that most Iraqis wanted. You’re done! Not surprisingly, the Iraqis, after having lived for almost all of their more than 5000 year history under tyranny, are stumbling a bit, but not much, as democracies go. It took the US about 200 years to truly free blacks (or perhaps, you’re not even done yet – where are the black-white love scenes in the popular media?). Canada was not even remotely a democracy until the 1920's (Universal Suffrage – except for Indians, no Bill of Rights until 1950's-60's). France returned to an Emperor in the 1880's, and democracy there still looks shaky to me. Every democracy developed very slowly, but Iraq is rocket fast. At this point, few Iraqi fighters are directly attacking the Allies – they have mainly accepted their presence, and are now attacking each other (a bit). The way to know you have WON in Iraq is when the withdrawal is ragged, loose, and ad hoc. Good parents withdraw from control of their growing children’s lives in a way that is quite ragged, loose, and ad hoc. The parent encourages self-sufficiency and independence, but freely permits back-sliding if it seems appropriate. Parents always worry about their kids, and they are always there to help until the end. The US still has troops in Germany, Japan, and South Korea (why, by the way?). The US could probably achieve their goal of not being attacked at home by Iraq-based terrorists, if they withdrew tomorrow. Iraq is not, and probably will not become a failed state. If it did, re-intervention is completely possible, and history is full of such events. Britain has re-stabilized Iraq before, and in Basra, in some cases they re-occupied buildings that they left from last time. Strangely to me, the MSM has convinced even the blogosphere that the Iraq war has to be punctuated at the end by some type of “Clear Win”. Why? What, exactly would that be, anyway?