Saturday, October 11, 2003

Lately I've been waffling on this issue.

On one hand, I'm like, we are seriously overburdening our military and our economy with this little misadventure. On top of that, pretty much no one wants us there. If we do pull out, it would make a lot of people happy.

On the other hand, of course, is the fact that we just cannot abandon people we pledged to help, especially since we're responsible for the current state of things. It's just morally wrong, plus it is yet another strike against our already non-existent credibility. Credibility which is non-existent thanks to things like our abandonment of Afghanistan (take your pick of the 80s or now).

Still, is it really our business to force things on Iraqis, even if it's the "right" thing to do? That's kinda-sorta-but-not-really what got us into this mess. Sure, getting rid of Saddam was a good thing for the Iraqi people - even us freedom and America hating liberals agree with that. But still, what business do we have interfering like that? Not like it matters, though, since the Administration removed Saddam for plenty of reasons, none of which were to help the plight of ordinary Iraqis.

The only decent solution I can see is to step back the American presence there, don't do stupid shit like let Turkey deploy troops, and let the UN and other nations contribute more. This scheme, of course, brings new meaning to the phrase "pipe dream."

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