JimfromPennsylvania
05/18/07, 02:56 pm
Collectively members of Congress are an utter disgrace when it comes to Iraq for their behavior indicates they neither fully care about determining what is the right path for our country to be taking on Iraq nor about following that path. At this time, it sure looks like the U.S. will travel down the utter disasterous route of passing a supplemental Iraq War funding bill that has benchmarks with negative consequences for failure on the Iraq government. It’s a complete disaster because the reason why there hasn’t been significant progress on the benchmarks, namely the reconciliation legislation, is because many Iraqis believe the U.S. is inappropriately behind the reconciliation legislation and as such this initiative will sacrifice the Iraqi peoples’ interests to advance the U.S.’s interests. The benchmark legislation just makes things massively worse because it gives these suspicious Iraqis a clear reason to distrust the reconciliation effort based on this legislation’s clear intention to pressure Iraq’s leaders on this effort. Furthermore, this benchmark legislation will bring two additional problems: continuation and/or escalation of the violence in Iraq as the militants power is bolstered as Iraqis lose hope in the political process brought about by this U.S. violation of the Iraqi people’s sovereignty with this benchmark legislation; and increased direct attacks against U.S. troops from Iraqi militants as punishment for this U.S. transgression.
If Washington passes this benchmark legislation Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will have no choice but to ask the U.S. to leave Iraq. On the Iraqi street this benchmark legislation will be perceived as violating the Iraqi peoples sovereignty if Maliki doesn’t step-up and order the U.S. to get out of Iraq after the U.S. has disrespected the Iraqi people like this his and his government’s stature and credibility will be irreparably destroyed, anyone in touch with reality has to conclude that after such a U.S. move Maliki’s ability to lead Iraq to success will be over. If Maliki doesn’t have the courage to give this order he should resign or Iraq’s political leaders who hold him in office should withdrawal their support for him and allow the Iraqi people to put in a Prime Minister that will insure Iraq’s government is independent and will lead Iraq to a bright future.
What makes Washington’s handling of Iraq so incredibly tragic is that the vast majority of the members of Congress across party lines are smart enough and moral enough to know the right course for the U.S. in Iraq! One doesn’t rise to their level in our highly developed society without such wherewithal. A proper analysis of the Iraq matter would produce the following.
1) There is not a military solution to the Iraq security problem, the problem necessitates a joint military and political solution. The political solution involves the Iraqi government: passing laws insuring fair distribution of Iraq’s natural resources wealth, passing a more lenient de-Baathification law, stopping governmental corruption, etc..
2) Only Iraqis can determine whether or not Iraq succeeds as a democratic and prosperous country. As really terrible as things could get for the Middle East region and for the world if Iraq fails, the U.S. government has to accept this reality. Have no doubt about it Vietnam-era type social unrest is looming here in the U.S. if the U.S. government continues to fail to accept this reality, because the American people will not accept current-like casualty rates to continue open-endedly and the expenditure of mind-boggling amounts of money ($200 billion/year at current supplemental bill rate) on this war with the Federal government’s current extreme funding failures for the American people.
3) Progress on the political front to solve Iraq’s political and thus security problems has been extremely poor. Collectively Iraq’s political leaders lack the heart and will to do what is needed here. Washington can do little about this. The U.S. government has only one moral option to have an effect on this Iraqi leadership inaction and the consequences of exercising this option are not at all clear it might have no effect and it may begin a chain reaction that results in Iraq collapsing. This option is to withdrawal all U.S. combat troops from Iraq. Such a withdrawal would necessitate Iraq’s political leaders having to make the decision to deal with the formidable militant forces in Iraq, that is, they would have to decide to make the political deals that will bring about these militant groups stopping their aggression, more specifically, they would have to decide to subordinate their sect’s interests to all the Iraqi peoples’ interests; otherwise, these militant groups will eventually cause the country of Iraq to fail. No one really knows if Iraq’s political leaders will make this decision when the time comes. All peoples of good will should conclude fairness calls for the following analysis. Iraq is not the American people’s country it is the Iraqi people’s country, the Iraqi people, vis-s-vis the Iraqi leaders, have to step-up and do their duty toward their country in effect make their country work. The American people have sacrificed above and beyond what any good people can ask of another people in terms of helping build their country and are reaching their limit. When it becomes clear that America’s military, try as hard as they can, can’t adequately solve Iraq’s security problem the limit is reached. Moreover, at that point America’s leaders will not be able to justify the cost of the war in terms of the loss of American lives and American monetary resources to the American people.
***** See PART TWO on following posting/thread.*****
If Washington passes this benchmark legislation Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will have no choice but to ask the U.S. to leave Iraq. On the Iraqi street this benchmark legislation will be perceived as violating the Iraqi peoples sovereignty if Maliki doesn’t step-up and order the U.S. to get out of Iraq after the U.S. has disrespected the Iraqi people like this his and his government’s stature and credibility will be irreparably destroyed, anyone in touch with reality has to conclude that after such a U.S. move Maliki’s ability to lead Iraq to success will be over. If Maliki doesn’t have the courage to give this order he should resign or Iraq’s political leaders who hold him in office should withdrawal their support for him and allow the Iraqi people to put in a Prime Minister that will insure Iraq’s government is independent and will lead Iraq to a bright future.
What makes Washington’s handling of Iraq so incredibly tragic is that the vast majority of the members of Congress across party lines are smart enough and moral enough to know the right course for the U.S. in Iraq! One doesn’t rise to their level in our highly developed society without such wherewithal. A proper analysis of the Iraq matter would produce the following.
1) There is not a military solution to the Iraq security problem, the problem necessitates a joint military and political solution. The political solution involves the Iraqi government: passing laws insuring fair distribution of Iraq’s natural resources wealth, passing a more lenient de-Baathification law, stopping governmental corruption, etc..
2) Only Iraqis can determine whether or not Iraq succeeds as a democratic and prosperous country. As really terrible as things could get for the Middle East region and for the world if Iraq fails, the U.S. government has to accept this reality. Have no doubt about it Vietnam-era type social unrest is looming here in the U.S. if the U.S. government continues to fail to accept this reality, because the American people will not accept current-like casualty rates to continue open-endedly and the expenditure of mind-boggling amounts of money ($200 billion/year at current supplemental bill rate) on this war with the Federal government’s current extreme funding failures for the American people.
3) Progress on the political front to solve Iraq’s political and thus security problems has been extremely poor. Collectively Iraq’s political leaders lack the heart and will to do what is needed here. Washington can do little about this. The U.S. government has only one moral option to have an effect on this Iraqi leadership inaction and the consequences of exercising this option are not at all clear it might have no effect and it may begin a chain reaction that results in Iraq collapsing. This option is to withdrawal all U.S. combat troops from Iraq. Such a withdrawal would necessitate Iraq’s political leaders having to make the decision to deal with the formidable militant forces in Iraq, that is, they would have to decide to make the political deals that will bring about these militant groups stopping their aggression, more specifically, they would have to decide to subordinate their sect’s interests to all the Iraqi peoples’ interests; otherwise, these militant groups will eventually cause the country of Iraq to fail. No one really knows if Iraq’s political leaders will make this decision when the time comes. All peoples of good will should conclude fairness calls for the following analysis. Iraq is not the American people’s country it is the Iraqi people’s country, the Iraqi people, vis-s-vis the Iraqi leaders, have to step-up and do their duty toward their country in effect make their country work. The American people have sacrificed above and beyond what any good people can ask of another people in terms of helping build their country and are reaching their limit. When it becomes clear that America’s military, try as hard as they can, can’t adequately solve Iraq’s security problem the limit is reached. Moreover, at that point America’s leaders will not be able to justify the cost of the war in terms of the loss of American lives and American monetary resources to the American people.
***** See PART TWO on following posting/thread.*****