Frightful Times
In dangerous and trying times, good and intelligent people say and do stupid things that make little or no sense. Case in point, the Free Congress Foundation's Bill Lind.
Lind in his on-war column on the Free Congress Web site suggests that the US set a date for the pull out from Iraq say Dec. 25, 2003. The danger of course is that if Americans would listen to Lind and his counterparts on the left. Which thankfully the won't and did pull out of Iraq on Dec. 25, 2003. This wonderful scene would play itself out on say Jan. 31, 2004. A large limo would pull up to a public square in Bagdad. A square full of fanatics waving automatic weapons and screaming and yelling. The limo's doors would open up. Osama Bin Ldaen would get out and walk up to a podium. Then congratulate his breatheren on their "victory" and scream "on to Jerulesalem and Washington." Meanwhile somewhere outside Bagdad, other fanatics would be filling planes with napalm for the big attack on Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Sharon seeing this wonderful scene played out would have no choice. He'd order his air force commander to drop a nuclear bomb on Bagdad. Millions would die and the blood would be on our hands. Within minutes of this attack, hundreds of thousands of Arab fanatics would mass and attack Israel. We'd see a blood bath on the scale of World War II.
Worse terrorist fanatics emboldened by their success would redouble their attacks on us and instead of 3,000 Americans dead. We'd have 30,000 or even 300,000. Mr. Lind is wrong, this isn't Vietnam, we can't go home. We have to stay and finish what we started. Because unlike the Communists in Vietnam, the fanatics in Iraq will follow us home and continue the attack here. IF we show weakness they'll attack. That's their way.
Yes, the Iraqi state has been destroyed. So we have to rebuild it. That'll be a long and expensive process in which Americans will die but the cost of rebuilding Iraq will be far cheaper than pulling out and going home.
One more thought we've heard Mr. Lind's argument before. Haven't we. Back in 1920, people like Mr. Lind assured Americans that if we pull out of Europe and stay away. Our boys will never have to fight and die over there again. Of course the sons of the American troops pulled out of europe in the 1920s, had to fight their way back into Europe in the 1940s and many of them died there. Hundreds of thousands of Americans died in the early 1940s, doing hwat a battalion of US regular infantry could have done in 1933. Shut down Hitler and his Nazis. Hopefully the American people and their leaders will listen to the Neocons Lind derides and ignore Lind and the rest of the easy answer squad. Because in Iraq there are no easy answers. Only difficult tasks.