Remember the Alamo, but Forget Iraq


As reported on CNN.com, President Bush will announce his intentions to withdraw roughly 30,000 troops from Iraq as soon as the end of September of this year. He is doing so following recommendations from top commander Gen. David Petraeus, citing the surge had met its goals of reducing sectarian killings by 50% nationwide, and by 80% in Baghdad.
Word?
At a time when the presidents approval rating sits steadily below one in three, and war support is at an all time low, the last thing people need is another editorial bashing Bush, or another anti-war report, but the time to recognize mistakes made has come. Even the most avid war supporter cannot deny the illogic of recent events. Its simple: You cannot say one direction is correct, and then turn around and say the opposite direction is also correct. After all, it was only nine months ago when Bush admitted he had made mistakes, and announced his plan to send 20,000 more troops to Iraq to remedy those mistakes. Now he claims the same thing: mistakes have been made in Iraq, and a withdrawal of 30,000 troops is the remedy.
I have questions that need to be asked aloud- not to the powers that be, but to the true power in a democracy, the People. Is it possible that the stated reasons for invasion were never the administrations true goals? After the U.N and the U.S searched and found no WMDs, we were told there were other reasons why we were there, like fighting general evil in the world, and protecting precious oil fields from "the terrorist"(because apparently Iraq couldn't protect their number one natural resource without us). How is our presence in Iraq good for this country, especially since we have already toppled and rebuilt the government to our liking? Is it possible that we could find a better way to spend $200million a day(perhaps on health care, social security, national debt, American poverty, or even [gulp] reparations for slavery)? Is it possible we have become the very terrorist we vowed to destroy?
I pose these not to my local representative, nor as an open cry that will never reach the ears of higher ups, but to the common man and woman, who strangely can go days, if not weeks, without even a thought that their country is at war. Remember the war? The current war, that is draining this country dry, from the root to the fruit? The only time people even see it in the news is when its something gruesome or involving a child, and even then pictures of gore suffice the curiosity. I ask these questions to the average Joe then add: why have you stopped asking questions, when we have never received any answers?

No comments:

Post a Comment