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Edited on Tue Aug-30-05 08:53 PM by Inland
Bush's favorite political gambit is the false choice. One alternative is what he wants to do. The other is unacceptable. No other alternatives are allowed, creating a false choice.
Remember this one: either use US military force to remove Saddam OR DO NOTHING. Other moderate alternatives, like UN inspections or containment or continued sanctions, were simply rejected or ignored to create the false choice: give Bush power to invade or let Saddam do whatever he wanted. America picked giving Bush power.
Now Bush's false choice is, give me yet another blank check for occupation in the way and as long as I want, that I may torture who I want, contract with Halliburton as I please, stop loss who I want---or just cut and run. Other moderate alternatives, like timetables or target dates, are simply rejected, as are little things like transparency or some stated metric by which we can say the mission is "accomplished". It's either retreat and leave Iraq a mess or let him do whatever he wants.
Well, sadder but wiser from the earlier false choice experiences, I say withdraw.
That's right. Bush has presented me with but two alternatives, thinking I would find one unacceptable. I do. I find the idea of giving the same bunch of lunatics and incompetents another blank check impossible to contemplate. I choose leaving, leaving Iraq a mess. It sure beats another round of Bush having absolute control and fucking it up royal until he offers us the same false choice two years from now.
It's not up to me to figure out a third way, a way out of Bush's false choice. He has no intention of allowing it anyway. His intent is to maintain the false choice rather than give up one iota of control to us or to a timetable or a target. So why bother? There will never be another alternative as long as Bush is president.
I choose withdrawal.
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