INDEX - WORLD WAR
www.islandbreath.org ID#0717-02


SUBJECT: TIME TO LEAVE IRAQ

SOURCE: LINDA APSCATORE lindapascatore@me.com

POSTED: 7 JANUARY 2006 - 10:30pm HST

Time to pull the plug on the Iraq debacle

photo by Hubert Van Es of evacuation at CIA headquarters in Vietnam the day before Saigon fell

No More Troops! No More Money!

by Linda Pascatore & Juan Wilson on 7 January 2007
It is time to get out of Iraq, NOW! The Democratically controlled 110th US Congress should use its muscle and put holding funding for the war to a vote. It happened in 1975 when Republican President Gerald Ford asked for continuing funds for the Vietnam War and was denied by a Democratic congress. That act ended the war after more than a decade of death and despair.

We ask that President Bush immediately begin the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. As difficult as it will be for George Bush to admit the war is lost, it must be done. To delay, or worse, to escalate at this time will only make the end worse than it has to be.

The American people sent a clear message in the November elections: they want troops withdrawn from Iraq and an end to the war this year.

The vast majority of Americans now realize that we were mislead into a war for no good reason. There were no weapons of mass destruction, and Sadaam was not involved in 9-11. We began a preemptive, illegal war against a sovereign nation which had taken no action against us. Since the end of the first invasion, the post war action has been irreparably botched. We have immorally imprisoned and tortured hundreds of Iraqis.

Bush’s plan to “Surge” the troops (escalate the war) is an act of someone who is in denial or is delusional! The plan has been dismissed by our own generals as merely political and without a military purpose. Bush will be just wasting more American and Iraqi lives, and throwing more billions of dollars away. As Keith Olberman as stated, the soldiers sent in know can be looked at as "human sacrifice".

This war has already cost 3,000 American lives. In addition, tens of thousands of our troops are returning with lost limbs, horrible injuries, and irreparable psychological damage. This is not to mention the immeasurable loss to the people of Iraq. Hundreds of thousands Iraqi lives have been lost. A magnitude more have been mutilated and there is no counting the torture of Iraqi hearts and minds.

An overwhelming majority of 72% of American troops serving in Iraq think the U.S. should exit the country within the next year, and nearly one in four say the troops should leave immediately, according to a new Le Moyne College/Zogby International survey.

It is time to admit that we have made a disastrous mistake, and correct it by pulling out of this illegal and immoral war now. Let our troops come home on their normal rotation. A plan of withdrawal should be negotiated with all parties in Iraq and coordinated with other players in the region. We can use the funds already in the military pipeline, and in a year we can close the door on this debacle.

Yes, there will be dire consequences. Our influence in the Middle East will be reduced to nothing. Oil will cost us more. We will be losers and chumps, just like we were after Vietnam. But, that will be the inevitable price we will have to pay for doing something as stupid as Bush's invasion of Iraq. It will be a hangover we deserve. Maybe we will learn something from the humiliation.. perhaps humility.

 

see also:
Island Breath: It a Civil War 2/2006
Island Breath: Iraq Conspiracy 2/2006
Island Breath: Bring Troops Home 7/2005
Island Breath: Tell Bush War is Over 8/2005


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