A Year of Endless Transition

As you know, I have been a bit critical of the Democrats’ election year message on Iraq: 2006 – A Year of Transition. Now I like a good slogan as much as the next guy, but a slogan should never take the place of a real policy. At a time when the majority of Americans disapprove of the way the Bush Administration has handled the debacle that is Iraq, they are looking for an exit strategy. When 72% of the troops believe they should be out of there by year’s end, they deserve more than “We’ll think about it.” Imagine you are one of the brave Americans serving and willing to die for your country. You have done what your country asked in toppling a brutal dictator to prevent him from distributing WMD to his Al Qaida allies. You now find yourself caught up in a civil war in that same country because your civilian “leadership” at home failed to plan for the power vacuum that would result from the invasion. Rather than gratitude and a solid plan to bring you home safely, the news from home looks like this:

Recently, Senator Maria Cantwell submitted an Op-Ed to the Seattle Times in which she gives her explanation of “Year of Transition.” In the piece, she says, “President Bush must act with urgency. He must provide the leadership necessary to make sure that 2006 is the year that the new Iraqi government succeeds and our troops can begin to come home.” However, when he was asked just weeks ago about troop withdrawal from Iraq, President Bush said, “…the decision about when to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq will fall to future presidents and Iraqi leaders…” I don’t hear much of a sense of urgency there.

The senator states, “The president also needs to recognize that the U.S. cannot and should not rebuild Iraq alone. We can and should enlist international cooperation in that effort. Getting the rest of the world more involved in Iraqi reconstruction may cost Halliburton and others some contracts, but it will benefit Iraq while saving American taxpayers billions.” Apparently the good senator believes a leopard can indeed change its spots. For the entirety of his presidency, George W. Bush has shown nothing but contempt for the diplomatic route in any endeavor; most especially when it comes to Iraq. From the time preceding our invasion, Bush has been totally unwilling to work with any country that did not support our pre-emptive strike. By installing John Bolton (a man who probably can’t even spell diplomacy) as UN Ambassador, Bush has sent a signal to the rest of the world about his approach to that effort.

Finally, Senator Cantwell says,“we must ensure that Iraqis assume control of their own security. At present, only approximately 96,000 Iraqi security forces (both military and police) are fully independent and in a lead role, even though 250,000 are now trained and equipped. While that is a significant increase over the past year, the number of fully independent Iraqi troops and police is far from sufficient. Without more support for training Iraqi security forces, the sectarian militias grow stronger every day.” Now any American GI, veteran, or family member of an American GI, knows that we send our troops off to fight and die with as little as 3 months training. We have been in Iraq for over 3 years and we are still unable to turn the security of their own country over to the Iraqis themselves. As if timed to drive home this point with absolute clarity, the following video is just coming from Iraq. After you watch it, decide for yourself what sort of transition our brave troops deserve.

As for me, I believe we need to transition from a party that repeats slogans to a party that stands up for our values and honors the sacrifices of our troops by providing genuine leadership.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/05/04.html#a8166


Peace,

Chad (The Left) Shue