2008 Woodie Awards
Bring soldiers home alive; let Iraqis govern selves
J.J. Thermos
Issue date: 5/12/04 Section: Opinion
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ay Day marked the one-year anniversary of President Bush standing on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln in a flight suit and proclaiming an end to combat in Iraq.
Anyone who keeps up with the news via television or the newspapers - Bush has said he does not - knows that coalition forces experienced major combat in Iraq in April and, so far, in May. So what has been accomplished there in the past year?
One thing only: Saddam Hussein, the cruel dictator, was chased from power and later captured. That, and attempting to jump-start democracy in the Middle East, has claimed the lives of 770 U.S. soldiers and counting, while costing a billion or so tax dollars every week.
Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction, no nuclear program, no ties to al-Qaida, the principal terrorist organization in the Middle East, and posed no threat to America. It has come out that the White House was aware of his lack of firepower well before the war began.
Invading Iraq did little or nothing to make the United States a safer place to live; it just stirred up a hornets' nest of terrorist activity in an area of the world where the politics are too crazy to be meddling with.
Democracy will never be embraced in the Middle East: the concept clashes with religious and cultural beliefs of the region. Iraq is comprised of three separate entities - Kurds in the north, Shiites in the south, Sunnis in the middle - none of which will accept being ruled by the others.
The American government's self-imposed deadline for transferring sovereignty to the Iraqis is June 30. Bush has maintained it is an achievable goal, and the escalation of hostilities since early April suggest it is about time to cease this costly pursuit of trying to win hearts and minds to our way of life.
America is in the midst of a Vietnam-style conflict in Iraq -- violent and lengthy -- unless Dubya reins in his ego and pulls the troops sooner rather than later.
Anyone who keeps up with the news via television or the newspapers - Bush has said he does not - knows that coalition forces experienced major combat in Iraq in April and, so far, in May. So what has been accomplished there in the past year?
One thing only: Saddam Hussein, the cruel dictator, was chased from power and later captured. That, and attempting to jump-start democracy in the Middle East, has claimed the lives of 770 U.S. soldiers and counting, while costing a billion or so tax dollars every week.
Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction, no nuclear program, no ties to al-Qaida, the principal terrorist organization in the Middle East, and posed no threat to America. It has come out that the White House was aware of his lack of firepower well before the war began.
Invading Iraq did little or nothing to make the United States a safer place to live; it just stirred up a hornets' nest of terrorist activity in an area of the world where the politics are too crazy to be meddling with.
Democracy will never be embraced in the Middle East: the concept clashes with religious and cultural beliefs of the region. Iraq is comprised of three separate entities - Kurds in the north, Shiites in the south, Sunnis in the middle - none of which will accept being ruled by the others.
The American government's self-imposed deadline for transferring sovereignty to the Iraqis is June 30. Bush has maintained it is an achievable goal, and the escalation of hostilities since early April suggest it is about time to cease this costly pursuit of trying to win hearts and minds to our way of life.
America is in the midst of a Vietnam-style conflict in Iraq -- violent and lengthy -- unless Dubya reins in his ego and pulls the troops sooner rather than later.