The Sound of Madness

Word on the street is that Bush is considering sending around 20,000 more troops to Iraq in an attempt to stabilize the region. It's getting to the point where I'm just slapping myself on the head when I hear this stuff. Our government thinks this is matter of troop levels? Do we really still fail to see that this is an economic and political crisis that we have put ourselves in the middle of? We've sent our military to the other side of the world, a place few of us can begin to understand. We have no perspective. We removed their brutal ruler and assumed everything would take care of itself. When it didn't work out that way, when the flowers and candy never came, we were left in a political vacuum.

At this point, like most people, I have few ideas how best to end the Iraq situation. I am beginning to feel more and more like a near total withdrawal might be best. I agree that it sounds risky and weak, but we've been wrong about everything else; the premise that Iraq and the US are better off if the US doesn't withdraw could be wrong as well. And it will be much harder for the insurgents to kill our soldiers if they aren't walking down their streets anymore. It looks as if Iraqis are going to be fighting each other for a long while no matter what we do. You have a group of enemies who live among each other in a part of the world where kidnappings and carbombings are frequent. We are standing in the crossfire, adding fuel to the fire, while attempting to set up a government that will be ineffective and written off as a puppet. Besides, I'm not sure if anyone even knows what the mission actually is anymore.

In future articles I will discuss whether America might be better off with a vastly reduced worldwide military approach. Could our military be more successfully utilized within our own territories? I will try to answer this question...

peace out