Leave Iraq and Brace for a Bigger Bloodbath -Natan Sharansky
People of goodwill can certainly disagree over how to handle Iraq, but human rights should be part of any responsible calculus. Unfortunately, some leaders continue to play down the gross violations in Iraq under Hussein's republic of fear, and ignore the potential for a human rights catastrophe should the United States withdraw.
[D]espite the carnage in Iraq, Iraqis are more optimistic about the future of their country than Americans are. In a face-to-face national poll of 5,019 people conducted by Opinion Research, Iraqis said they preferred life under their new government, to life under the old tyranny. That is why, at a time when many Americans are abandoning the vision of a democratic Iraq, most Iraqis still cling to the hope of a better future. They know that under Hussein, there was no hope.
A precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces could lead to a bloodbath that would make the current carnage pale by comparison. Without U.S. troops to quell some of the violence, Iranian-backed Shiite militias would dramatically increase their attacks on Sunnis; Sunni militias, backed by the Saudis or others, would retaliate in kind, drawing Iraq into full-blown civil war...
A precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces could lead to a bloodbath that would make the current carnage pale by comparison. Without U.S. troops to quell some of the violence, Iranian-backed Shiite militias would dramatically increase their attacks on Sunnis; Sunni militias, backed by the Saudis or others, would retaliate in kind, drawing Iraq into full-blown civil war...
[T]he chaos could trigger similar clashes throughout the region as Sunni-Shiite tensions spill across Iraq's borders.
Perhaps the greatest irony [in] the debate over Iraq is that many of Bush's critics, who accused his administration of going blindly to war without considering what would happen once Hussein's regime was toppled, now blindly support a policy of withdrawing from Iraq without considering what might follow.
[Washington Post]
Perhaps the greatest irony [in] the debate over Iraq is that many of Bush's critics, who accused his administration of going blindly to war without considering what would happen once Hussein's regime was toppled, now blindly support a policy of withdrawing from Iraq without considering what might follow.
[Washington Post]
3 comments:
I just can't find that poll. I have been to the Opinion Research site, and since they say they have partnered with CNN, I checked their site, and all I find from CNN is the opposite to what this says. Let's assume there is a poll out there that supports this, there are about 100 that don't. Ironic? Ignoring the bloodbath that will occur if we pull out? What would you like us to do? Wave out magic wands? We are not Harry potter you know. The bloodbath and the civil war are already there. Iran is more in Iraq under the US then they ever could hope to manage under Hussein. What we achieve now is that it is Americans killing and being killed, instead of leaving it up to the various regional interested parties. And the only reason we don;t leave it to them, is because then the winners would control more oil. Don't believe this is about the fight for terrorism, because it has been shown to make things much worse. Don't believe we are there to protect the Iraqis---George W. has made it clear he lumps all Muslims together as terrorists. This is about control of resources. George W. and his Halliburton pals saw an easy grab for a large oil supply, and were right, defeating Hussein's government was an easy task---but defeating the indigenous populace, and all the regional interested parties is proving far from it. You'll note, for irony, that many of the insurgent populace is Shiite, the suppressed majority under Hussein that were supposedly greeting our soldiers in the streets with roses and kisses and American flags.
Greed is an unlikely primary motivation for the Iraq incursion. If the USA's goal was the free flow of oil from Iraq, appeasment of Hussein would have been the order of the day.
As we know, and knew then, Al-Qaeda was not in Iraq (back then--that is).You seem to think this President considered these things carefully, and if greed was the motivating factor, would not have invaded Iraq. For you to give the President so much credit at this point, I can only congratulate you on your sleeping prowess. You have obviously just woke up after a seven year nap. I have a friend who told me that right after the elections in Iraq, everything was going to straighten right out. He told me that, because he told me everything would be good before that, but it wasn't, so he kept pushing back the date, and the election was the last we discussed. He was misguided to put his faith in what was promised for this invasion, and you are misguided in your continued faith in this President and his motivations. The only thing the President can claim to actually have accomplished during his 2 terms is a huge tax cut that mostly, though not completely, benefited the richest. Had he focused on terrorism, and finished the job in Afghanistan, he might have a better resume, but he did not.
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