Quick Withdrawal From Iraq
Yesterday my ISP, Netzero, ran an AP story about remarks that GW Bush gave to reporters that day or the one before. I was drawn to the story because of the title that Netzero used, something to the effect that a quick withdrawal from Iraq would weaken the U.S.
I read the story closely, looking for the reasoning behind that statement, but I couldn't find the slightest mention of such. Instead there was a lot of info about Cindy Sheehan and other things.
Why was such an explanation not given? Was it because the reporters were too uninterested or too incompetent or too cowed to ask? Or was it because, if someone did ask, Bush just avoided any amplification?
I see no way that such a withdrawal could weaken the U.S. I'm not even sure that, in this country, it would be widely noticed. I think that one reason why the American public has gone along with the atrocity of the Bush invasion and occupation this long is that they regard events in Iraq as just another overseas sideshow that doesn't affect the great majority of them directly. As casualty figures go, the nearly 2,000 American military who have died, plus the 15,000 injured, are not staggering, compared to many past, real wars. And the gigantic Iraqi casualty figures are not known and even if known wouldn't matter, because, seeing the Iraqis as the enemy and dark-skinned to boot, that public doesn't consider them to be people.
Do you hear much talk about Iraq among your family, your friends, or out in public?
In their desperation to head off even talk of a withdrawal, some right-wingers speak of an enormous rift among Americans, and they speak of a war ensuing here, should such a removal take place.
That's the sort of claptrap that such forces spout, in the hope that others are too trifling to examine and so to see through it, and in that respect they are probably right.
It's of a piece with that thing that Bush used to like to say, to the effect that the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon threatened our freedom. In the several years since, I have never seen any explanation from him or anyone else on how 9/11 threatened the freedom of this huge, endlessly distracted, enormously varied, and unruly nation.
Maybe even Bush's people recognized the absurdity of that statement, despite its utility in his public statements, and they furnished justification through crocks like the Patriot Act -- apparently not noticing how that took off of Osama Bin Laden the onus of being the direct depriver of our freedoms .
I read the story closely, looking for the reasoning behind that statement, but I couldn't find the slightest mention of such. Instead there was a lot of info about Cindy Sheehan and other things.
Why was such an explanation not given? Was it because the reporters were too uninterested or too incompetent or too cowed to ask? Or was it because, if someone did ask, Bush just avoided any amplification?
I see no way that such a withdrawal could weaken the U.S. I'm not even sure that, in this country, it would be widely noticed. I think that one reason why the American public has gone along with the atrocity of the Bush invasion and occupation this long is that they regard events in Iraq as just another overseas sideshow that doesn't affect the great majority of them directly. As casualty figures go, the nearly 2,000 American military who have died, plus the 15,000 injured, are not staggering, compared to many past, real wars. And the gigantic Iraqi casualty figures are not known and even if known wouldn't matter, because, seeing the Iraqis as the enemy and dark-skinned to boot, that public doesn't consider them to be people.
Do you hear much talk about Iraq among your family, your friends, or out in public?
In their desperation to head off even talk of a withdrawal, some right-wingers speak of an enormous rift among Americans, and they speak of a war ensuing here, should such a removal take place.
That's the sort of claptrap that such forces spout, in the hope that others are too trifling to examine and so to see through it, and in that respect they are probably right.
It's of a piece with that thing that Bush used to like to say, to the effect that the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon threatened our freedom. In the several years since, I have never seen any explanation from him or anyone else on how 9/11 threatened the freedom of this huge, endlessly distracted, enormously varied, and unruly nation.
Maybe even Bush's people recognized the absurdity of that statement, despite its utility in his public statements, and they furnished justification through crocks like the Patriot Act -- apparently not noticing how that took off of Osama Bin Laden the onus of being the direct depriver of our freedoms .
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 7:23 AM
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