Iraq: Get out now!

By Dr. James “Jim” Kadlecek

“Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.” – John F. Kennedy

“The military don’t start wars. Politicians start wars.” – William Westmoreland

“There was never a good war or a bad peace.” – Benjamin Franklin

United States’ involvement in Iraq: Stupid. Tragic. Horrible. A monumental foreign policy mistake. A tremendous waste of human life and resources.

Bill Richardson is right. Get out now. The sooner the better.

We walked right into it. We were suckers. Osama bin Laden and his pals cooked up this scheme and, strategically, I suppose, you could say it was brilliant. Attack the World Trade Center. America would react with outrage and fury. Odds were good that President Bush would blame Saddam Hussein and use the tragedy to go after the guy that attempted to kill his dad, and also to gain a foothold in the Middle East to control the oil.

Those who hate the United States would resist, using weapons that were originally provided to Saddam (when he was our buddy) to feed the insurgency. Stir up some religious fervor: Christians versus Muslims, Sunnis versus Shiites, a sure-fire, ages-old technique to raise hate levels. Portray the infidel Americans as occupiers (which we are).

Then, the planners of this scheme got a bonus. Even they couldn’t have imagined how negatively the other countries of the world would react to this essentially unilateral invasion of Iraq by the world’s military superpower. Most observers of world politics now believe invading Iraq was a horribly dangerous and wrong-headed decision. It has severely lowered U.S. credibility and damaged us in ways we still cannot totally comprehend.

The second bonus the planners of this scheme got was their underestimation of the president’s stupidity and stubbornness. Despite overwhelming public opinion to get out and end the war, he persists, at the expense of human lives and resources. The views of world leaders, military experts and members of his own political party do not apparently faze him. One wonders if his own dad (who was at least reasonably intelligent) is not also advising him to get out.

Those who hate us benefit incrementally each day this tragic war goes on. The Bush policy of staying the course simply prolongs and exacerbates the situation. Ending this disaster is the only plausible option.

The Democrats, having taken control of Congress in the 2006 elections, have failed miserably to stymie the president, even though they acknowledge that they were given a majority largely because of promises to end the war. The timidity of the Democratic leaders is appalling. They have it within their power to stop the flow of funds to the Defense Department that pay for Bush’s war, yet they have not done so.

Presumably, they have been afraid to stop the funding because they believe they will be perceived as not being in support of the troops. Just the opposite is true. Every dollar that we spend there simply serves to continue to risk the lives of more American soldiers. The Democrats don’t want to appear unpatriotic, but the patriotic position would be to admit this grievous error in foreign policy and bring our troops home.

In 1969, during the Vietnam disaster, an anti-war rally was held at the Washington Monument with a crowd of over 350,000. A speaker, anonymous, said the following: “We are here as American patriots, young and old, to build a country, to build a world that seeks the ways of peace – that teaches war no more. We meet today to reaffirm those ageless values that gave us birth – ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ We meet to declare peace – to put an end to war, not in some vanishing future, but to end it now.”

Those words apply to the current situation in Iraq. War doesn’t work. Get out now!

Kadlecek has lived in Doña Ana County since 1996, served in the Colorado Legislature and holds a doctorate in public administration. He’s the author of the book “Capitol Rape.” His column runs on the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month and other times that he gets fired up about something.