|
Today Hillary Clinton made a proposal for Iraq which falls far short of what many Americans and Democrats want and expect from their new Congress. She would continue to same level of U.S troops with the same funding in Iraq. The only change would be that she would make funding of the Iraqi military and Iraqi reconstruction contingent on certain benchmarks, including de-de-Bathification, parity of oil revenue division and--here is the tough one--elimination of the militias. I call this tough, because the U.S. encouraged the formation of shiite militias and our ally Saudi Arabia is funding Sunni militias (see p. 29 "The Iraq Study Group Report.")
The reason for her proposal, with its corollary "Let's increase troops in Afghanistan" is clear. She is hugging the middle of the road in preparation for a show down with McCain in the fall of 2008, and she wants to give the appearance of being tough on terra and strong on the military.
The problem is that while she puts on her show for the electorate, American troops continue to die in Iraq for a senseless war and Iraqi people continue to die at an alarming rate---34,000 last year---with many others made homeless as refugees. Her proposal will not bring the troops home. It will exacerbate the poverty, squalor and misery of the Iraqi people if loss of U.S. funds means that the most vulnerable citizens of Iraq find themselves deprived of even the meager health care, food resources, water, utilities and other supplies which they already enjoy. In a situation like this, the presence of well supplied U.S. troops among starving, dying Iraqis will only increase the resentment toward the U.S.
After listening to her proposal, it is clear to me that no on in the United States is capable of assisting the Iraqi people. The meddling of our politicians, all of whom have their own political agendas, in only making the plight of those people worse. Even those like Obama who was against the war before the others or Edwards who says we should just pull out are using the war for political gain. And many of them are not thinking this thing through. While the quick exit position will please many Americans in the short run, it will open the door to new problems for the Iraqis. Iran and Saudi Arabia would quickly move in, increasing their funding of the shiite and Sunni militias so that they can (continue) to use Iraq as a battlefield on which to settle their differences. Turkey would take advantage of the confusion to invade Kurdish Iraq--with Iran's blessing.
Everyone knows why Bush and the Republicans do not want to solve Iraq's Civil War--a war they carefully cultivated. As long as there is sectarian violence and oppressed peoples for the United States to protect, there will be an excuse for us to keep a military presence in that country--which will allow us to control a puppet government which will give us control of Iraq's oil field. The civil was is the perfect excuse for that long, long conflict Cheney predicted.
The bottom line is with every politician in America having something that he or she wants to gain from the suffering of the people of Iraq, I believe that it is time that we demand that our political leaders give up this war which they are not capable of waging, which they have no business being involved in, which could be better managed by another world body---
the United Nations. A peacekeeping force created from neutral nations could be formed to secure the country's borders and deal with refugees. Aid to Iraq could be funneled through the U.N. If the U.S. feels extra-guilty for our role, then we can contribute more. But put this conflict in the hands of men and women who will not use it as a way to make money for their oil buddies or use it as a stepping stone to public office.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
