Let Iraq solve its own problems (Birmingham News)

[struggle4progress]

Sunday, August 13, 2006

During the week of June 19, Senate Democrats voting for resolutions to begin withdrawing American troops from Iraq by the end of 2006 were criticized by conservatives, the White House and the mainstream media as supporters of a "cut and run" policy. For example, The BirminghamNews editorial of June 24 derided the Senate's withdrawal resolutions as "useless" and "meaningless," and claimed that "telling the terrorists and insurgents when we're leaving Iraq would only encourage them to keep fighting."

Just after the Senate's withdrawal resolutions failed, it was revealed that Gen. George Casey, the top American commander in Iraq, presented a plan during the same week to the president, the vice president and the secretary of defense to withdraw two combat brigades of about 7,000 troops (conveniently before the November 2006 elections) and then withdraw several more combat brigades during 2007 ...

Hmmm. This is hardly the first time the Bush-Cheney White House deceived the U.S. Congress, the media and the American public about its Iraq policy ...

Despite the dedication and sacrifice of American troops - many of whom are on their second and third yearlong tour of duty - and despite the nearly $400 billion American taxpayers have spent on fighting and reconstructing the country, the Iraq war is a disaster. It is a disaster because of the Bush-Cheney administration's analytical mistakes going into the war; the administration's spread of disinformation during the war; the ideological rigidity and hypocrisy of its policies; and the administration's failure to comprehend long-standing ethnic and sectarian hatreds among many Iraqis. And, like the Johnson and Nixon administrations did during the Vietnam War, the Bush-Cheney administration responds to criticism by blaming the media ...

http://www.al.com/opinion/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/opinion/115546057676890.xml&coll=2

On the one hand ... on the other hand ... bring them home ...

[msongs]

1. so the birmingham news has changed its mind? not sure what

the point is here.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

[struggle4progress]

2. IMO it's worth tracking several things. After the war started,

there was an almost total blackout on opposition views, of the sort GOP still pushes. So it's worth noting to what degree this wall of silence is breeched: in this case, the News may not have changed its position but did run a column-length piece pushing withdrawal, apparently written by a local.

Also worth tracking is the clarity of the opposition view. It has been more-or-less obligatory to pay some homage along the lines "Saddam was a bad man" or "we had good intentions" or "real progress has been made in Iraq," in the course of any policy discussion. Whether "we had good intentions" or "real progress has been made in Iraq" were factually true might (I think) be doubted by reasonable people -- but such feel-good assertions still seem to be required, as evidenced by this link.

Creating political momentum for withdrawal is not a matter of providing a single view but of producing a complex of alternative views, from which mainstream citizens can choose, and while these alternatives need not be completely consistent with each other, the dissonance between them should be limited. With the exception of the problem discussed in the previous paragraph, it seems to me that this piece doesn't do too badly in trying to make the case that Iraq's problems belong to Iraq ...

<ed: got to larn to spel>

[Stuckinthebush]

3. As a Birminghamian...I was shocked when I read this...

But then I realized it was a guest opinion piece from Dr. Van Sant, a history professor at the University of Alabama. The Bham News is a piece of junk rag, and the editors will never change their hard line support-Bush-at-all-costs stance. But, it is nice to see that they will allow a dissenting editorial ever now and then. Of course, even in this editorial, the writer discusses how Bush should get credit for finding out the Iraq had no WMD. That's such a laugh!

[colonel odis]

4. they want to bring the troops home so they can go to aruba

and find natalie holloway's killer.