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L. Neil Smith's
THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE
Number 255, January 18, 2004
"Life Goes On ...."
Exclusive to TLE
My Opinion is that U.S. forces should pack up and skedaddle out of Iraq
as soon as humanly possible.
Reasons we are there to begin with—
- WMD's— There are none there. Get over it. this was a lie and will
stay a lie.
- The War on Terrorism— I have news for you. Al Qeda, Islamic Jihad and
Whack-Jobs International didn't know where the fuck Iraq WAS until the
followed the sounds of explosions, gun fire and screams that the U.S
thoughtfully provided.
- Democratization of Iraq— Oh yeah, that's going to work! Democracy is
where the people say what they want, and the elected officials try to
provide it, within the limits of their powers.
If you listen to the Iraqi People, they want several things very loudly,
The U.S. to leave, and then they want to set up their own notions of a
government, the Kurds want Kurdistan, the Shiite Muslims in the south
want an Ayatolla-ocracy and the Sunni Muslims squeezed between them
want to dominate the whole region with another creepy strong man
dictatorship. But they're all unified on one point. They want us the
hell out of there.
- Establishing Civil government and order in the Middle East— Human
beings are difficult to control, and ethically, morally controlling
them isn't something you need to be doing to begin with.
- Defending the U.S. From Imminent attack— Don't make me laugh. Iraq
posed zero threat to the U.S. None. And no one in the area was very
worried. if they'd wanted to Iran could have slapped Iraq around and
made it their bitch. And Turkey could have knocked over Iraq with a
hard look. They never even went on Military alert until we went in
there. What does this tell you?
Iraq was a brutal dictatorship and deserved to be crushed— Okay,
so why are Kim Chon-Il, Robert Mugabe, Islom Karimov, and the Butchers
of Tien An Men Square still sucking air?
- National greatness— If you even stopped to seriously consider this
one, you should be ashamed of yourself. Attacking countries that posed
no threat in order to establish national Greatness is something Hitler,
Mussolini and Stalin did. That this should be a seriously raised
argument for the United States to do something should make you sick.
Why The U.S. really went, in my humble opinion—
- Control of Oil— Iraq has the worlds second largest proven oil
reserves, and all the infrastructure for drilling it and shipping it out.
- Control of the Persian Gulf— With Air bases and Naval bases
available in Iraq and Kuwait, the U.S. Military controls who moves in
and out of the gulf. Try to move a tanker in there when they say no.
Ain't gonna happen. And American Bombers now have bases within striking
range of the entire Middle East.
- Getting out of Saudi Arabia— 15 of the 19 Hijackers on 9/11 were Saudis.
Osama Bin laden is a Saudi. America used to have bases in Saudi and a
guaranteed oil supply from there. By taking over Iraq, it might seem like
the U.S. now can have these from a docile puppet regime, some distance away
from the land of Saud.
- Terrorists are hard to find— It's hard to have a really definitive, and TV
friendly victory over Osama and his cohorts. There are no Osama statues to
pulls down on CNN. Even if he got bombed, we'd have to wait weeks for the
forensics and DNA tests to come back and prove it was him. This is boring
so most people wouldn't give a darn by the time it was done.
Why it won't work—
- The Iraqi people don't want us there— That about says it all. They'll
keep sniping, bombing, ambushing, trapping and killing our soldiers until
the U.S. is gone. Don't believe me? Ask the Vietnamese.
- The American Authorities who cooked up this monstrosity are stupid— I
mean, I saw this coming in Sept 2002. And all I did was to watch "Viet Nam
a television history". How smart do you have to be? When people don't want
you in their country, they'll keep dying until you're gone. Any moron could
see this.
- The American Authorities who cooked up this monstrosity are evil— Cheney
and Wolfowitz, Perle and Rumsfield went down the CIA and bullied the CIA
into telling them what they wanted to hear. You won't catch me going to the
Doctor and hassling her until she tells me my problems are solved, because
that won't be true. The people mentioned above decided that the truth had
to take a back seat to their political views and so they "Massaged" the data
until it supported their conclusion. Basically they denied objective truth
and reality in favor of a politically slanted view. But it's American
Service men and women who pay the price in blood and ruin for this
misapprehension.
I'm not kidding, The American Authorities who cooked up this monstrosity are
evil— They'll keep our people in harms way, dying and being crippled, and
slaughtering human beings in Iraq primarily to avoid having to admit they
were wrong. What would you think of me if I were wrong but murdered you so
I wouldn't have to say so publicly?
- The American Authorities who cooked up this monstrosity are liars— From
"the 16 words" in the state of the union speech, to Collin Powell's entire
U.N. presentation, these people think nothing of lying. Not to you, not to
me, not to the world, and one must wonder if they lie to themselves. But
the core fact here is that you can't trust a single word that falls out of
their mouths. When someone lies to get their way, you certainly can't trust
them, but the worst thing to is to give them their way. They'll just lie
harder next time.
Arguments in favor of staying, not pulling out—
- Iraq is now the battleground instead of New York— What makes you think
Osama won't chuckle and cheap shot us while we're looking at Iraq? It's not
like he's going to forget that New York and Los Angeles are there, DUH!
- If we pull out now, we'll look weak— Sure. But we'll look weak, defeated
and stupid when the Iraqis and Violent-Whack-Job-Jihad forces us out in a
few more years. I recall the pictures of the hueys taking off from the U.S.
Embassy in Saigon. We're heading in the same direction and the longer we
stay, the worse this will be.
- If we pull out now, we'll be inviting the terrorists to attack us— No;
we've already invited them to attack us. George W Bush did so literally.
Every time we blow up innocent civilians and leave grieving survivors in
their wake, we invite someone who's family has just been destroyed to strap
a bomb to himself and take a red-eye to heartland America. Or where ever he
can get his revenge. Being there invites terror attacks. A strong defense
would deter it.
Ask yourself why this administration is so dead set against arming airline
pilots.
- If we just pull out now, Iraq will descend into chaos— yeah, well, it's too
late to avoid this now. The neocons should have taken the warnings of this
happening seriously before they pushed over the house of cards that held
Iraq together. It doesn't matter if we pull out now or in 2012, Iraq's
going to have to find it's own equilibrium and it's own balance. Our people
on the ground patently don't understand the Iraqis, their cultures, or the
forces at work in the country well enough to help them seek a new
equilibrium, and the Iraqi's don't trust our soldiers and administrators
enough to want their help.
Why I don't think we'll be getting out any time soon—
- Follow the money— people who make big campaign contributions are making
money hand over fist over the death and destruction in Iraq
- Follow the lines of control— so long as they hold military bases in Iraq
the powers that be control the flow of oil in and out of the middle east. I
bet they won't let go of this idea easily or any time soon.
- Football mentality— Americans who don't understand that this war means
nothing but misery, destruction, and the waste of human lives (Or worse,
don't care) will resent the idea of their team loosing the big game. The
president who says "Screw it, we're outta here." will suffer badly in the
popularity polls. Since getting re-elected will be his chief aim and goal,
he'll waffle, flip flop and delay making the decision to get out.
What problems I see in the future of this Monstrous adventure—
- Where are the soldiers going to come from?— The U.S. Military is being
stretched to breaking point and beyond by the war in Iraq. where are the new
soldiers going to come from? No one in their right mind would join right
now.
- The draft— This will be a show stopper. I predict that the Powers that be
will declare victory, lie like rugs about how everything is going swell, and
then flee like little girls before they're forced to let this particular
rabbit out of the hat.
Summarizing my opinion— There is no happy ending to the War in Iraq. It
was evil and stupid to begin with and won't get any better. The option is to
pick the option that sucks the least. In my humble opinion this option is
getting the hell out of there NOW. Today. Not one minute longer than
necessary.
What makes America great is liberty, freedom, and the value of human life.
Big armies and conquest are what dictatorships use to make themselves seem
great.
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