DUMB AND DUMBER (ON IRAQ)

"Stay the course" has been soundly rejected
by the American public, because too many
people have already died for no achievable
purpose. That doesn't stop the war's
advocates and apologists from demanding
"more of the same," ad infinitum. Nor does
it stop serious publications like the New
York Times and The Oregonian from
defending their early support for the war
by printing more of the S. O. S. The latest
such nonsense seeks to increase our fear
and guilt by invoking Cambodia. "The
Killing Fields of Defeat," by Peter W.
Rodman (until recently working for
Rumsfeld) and William Shawcross (who
wrote: Allies: Why the West Had to
Remove Saddam) starts with a long and
totally irrelvant discussion of Viet Nam
and the dire consequences of "quitting"
there. I guess they think we should
still be fighting there as well! Certainly
the Vietnamese would have kept on
fighting us there for as long as it took,
just as the Iraqis will now. And just as
certainly, there were never any reachable
goals for us in either country.

Rodman and Shawcross (R & S) in
warning about the terrible costs to us
of a defeat in Iraq, ignore the terrible
costs of staying and continuing to level
more and more of the cities there. They
also ignore the fact that the dire
consequences of our failure there are
present now: the Iraqis that helped us
are dead or fled. The removal of Saddam
ignited a sectarian civil war that will rage
on whether we go or stay. The majority
of Iraqis want us gone, and 61% of them
think it's O. K. to be killing our folks.

We are now arming the Sunnis so they
can fight al Qaeda. That shows that we
are failing to lick al Qaeda, but also
shows we are insane! The main
insurgents are Sunnis, of which only
10% at most are Qaeda.

Actually, we can't be defeated militarily,
as long as we are willing to bear the
terrible cost in blood of fighting on. If
our purpose there was really to install
democracy (which I have always doubted),
that has been defeated. (There is no word
in Arabic for "democracy.") The Shia
majority want an Islamic state, governed
by Islamic law (Sharia). And they already
have that in the southern half of the
country. The new Iraqi Constitution
makes Islamic law supreme over all man-
made laws.

"Our conduct in Iraq is a crucial test of our
credibility," write R. & S. Wrong: we have
no credibility left to lose. We lost it in Abu
Ghraib and Guantanimo, and the looting
of museums and schools and libraries,
and the bombing of civilians. Besides, the
insurgents have stymied and stalled the
most powerful military on the planet, so
they are already winners in the Muslim
world, for whatever that may be worth.
So we have no prestige to lose either. All
we have to lose is more lives. But those
seem to be cheap to this administration,
who has failed throughout the war to
provide the latest and best protection in
equipment and transportation. 80% of
our casualties come in our vehicles
being blown up by I. E. Ds. We have
Humvees that are much safer against
those devices, but we have failed to
order them and provide them for our
troops. Someone should be court-
martialed for that!

We can cut our losses by withdrawing
to secure bases, but we have become
largely irrelevant to the political future
of Iraq. Just as Viet Nam and Korea
are equally irrelevant to what we do now.
We need to face the music if we want to
lead the band.

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net