A Little News

Monday, November 26, 2007

So I Had This Relapse...

... I know, I wasn't going to let my political jones take hold of me, but alas, I failed.

So while I'm at it, how many of my liberal brethren:

1.) Believe the surge is working, a la the NY Times & Washington Post reports?

2.) If you do believe it's working, what do you feel we should be doing in the next year?

3.) Think it's all Bush administration propaganda?

Feel free to share your thoughts. I do not edit your posts, and to this point at least, I've never had to delete one for vulgarity. I'm pretty liberal when it comes to language and the use of words - I suppose that's one aspect of liberalism I'll always cherish.

You just need to keep one thing in mind: Just because you have the right, doesn't mean it's right.

2 comments:

HQ said...

Hi Watson,
My response is simple. We shouldn't have been there in the first place. We were lied to and manipulated into believing their really was a threat from the place.
We accomplished the intended regime change and assured ourselves there were no WMDs. Yet we persist in propping up one side in what is by practically any definition a civil war. Should we have been there in the first place? No. Should we be there now? No. Should we come home?
Yes. There is no such thing as a 'win' there in a military definition. Thanks for asking.
By the way you are mentioned, humorously, on the DD blog today.

Watson said...

I purposely didn't respond to this immediately in hopes that others would share their thoughts as well, but it seems this piece didn't generate the feedback I had hoped for. TF, I can't concur with the "we were lied to and manipulated" because all the other major intelligence services had the same info - Saddam was pursuing nuclear weapons. I find it naive to believe that someone who had used chemical weapons against his own citizens would not pursue additional WMD's, and with the amount of time we gave him to get rid of the stuff, finding no WMD's never mattered one whit to me.
We're there - a fait accompli - so arguing whether we should have been there in the first place is fruitless.
I agree that some of the violence in Iraq is internecine, but Bin Laden himself has recognized that Iraq is now the central front in the war on America.
Does that mean we should stay indefinitely? Of course not. The idea is to give them time to fashion a political solution, and the "surge" has given them that opportunity. My personal feeling is that a unifying government can be established, but it sure won't be an easy task. If we come around to June of 2008 and they've still accomplished nothing of note on a political basis, then I say it's time to start pulling the troops out - they'll still be needed in Afghanistan.