Thousands in Deaths and Billions in Money — Iraq Policy at Public Tipping Point?
The numbers are staggering. 3400 Americans killed. 95 billion okayed by the Democrats for just the next three months in iraq. The President seems to be in a fog. The Democrats look weak and disorganized. The troops are at risk. Body armor is lacking. The President warns of higher casualities. We had 9 soldiers killed in one day this week.
Democrats justifiably should not have the nation announce withdrawal dates and telegraphing our intentions to the killers. That would be horrible, and leave us vulnerable. But the President must insist on a takeover by Iraqi forces sometime in the next year. We are no longer fighting a war. We are police men and women in a neighborhood battle.
The CBS News poll now shows 76 percent of Americans presuming that the war is going badly, including 52 percent of Republicans. The President’s approval rating is at 30 percent. The Congress’s approval rating is at 36.
Who is kidding who? What is more patriotic – sending Americans into fatal situations for a country that doesn’t care about us, or the plan that wlll work. Keep our forces in the region, on the borders or in Kuwait.
We should stay in the region, in force, and ready. But we should get our troops out of the internal conflict in Iraq. Almost every sane military leader has argued that point.
A combat ready force in the region will make a lot of extremists think twice about spreading conflicts. But right now, the iraqi civil war is a killing field with no solution except a political one.
As far as the Democrats in Congress. People want action. It might be the Congressional Democrats who are vulnerable in 2008, unless they show the poltical leadership to manuever our forces out, and at the same time protect the troops and the region by forcing this President to look at all options.
