Thursday, August 18, 2005


Daily Kos: How to Be Pro-Withdrawal in Iraq Without Looking Like A Weak Dove --
Something I posted at Daily Kos

Inspired by an earlier post by Armando

Here is a reasonable position.

Support withdrawing American troops from Iraq, but not to send them back home. We need to send at least some of those troops to Afghanistan instead. (I presume that not all of them are needed in Afghanistan and some would, of course, be sent home.)

The purpose is twofold:

1) It provides cover for Democratic politicians queasy over the prospect of being painted as weak on national security.

2) It highlights the miserable failure of the Bush administration in Afghanistan, how they let Osama bin Ladin slip away because they chose to take resources away to try and build a specious case for war in Iraq.

Both Iraq and Afghanistan are missions that have been severely under-manned. My general position has been that I am not against a war in Iraq per se, I am against an ill-planned war waged by incompetents when there are other more pressing issues. I might have been talked into tolerating an Iraq war if it had been advocated by someone I respect who would have avoided the preventable current debacle.

I believe that there was a legitimate reason to go into Afghanistan and I only tolerate the most rampant of pacifists who claim no war under any circumstances because Democrats need their votes (in the same way that an honest conservative, if there is such a thing, knows that he or she must tolerate religious wingnuts).
(4:06 PM)

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