Article: Consequence of staying the Course

I am perplexed by the people who think that we should give the President's plan "a chance to succeed."

President Bush seems to be fatally caught up in the sort of thinking that goes, "if something doesn't work, do it harder and make it work." It is time to stop enabling this lame mode of thinking.

President Bush and his supporters continually ignore the consequences of the chaos they have brought to Iraq.

It must be clear by now that the Iraqis are in or on the verge of a civil war. How can they settle the differences they have among themselves with Uncle Sam butting in?

The US troop presence in Iraq has clearly been ineffective in protecting the Iraqis from violence and has thwarted whatever ability they have to devise a peaceful future for themselves.

We brought the Iraqis into a world of trouble when we invaded and destroyed their government and civil authority. It is beyond our power to restore those institutions.

The Occupation is worse for the Iraqis than the Saddam regime was. Under the old regime, brutal as it was, there was some predicability.

The Occupation has brought completely unpredictable and deadly violence into the most populous areas.

The least we can do is to leave and let the Iraqis get on with the healing process.

There are other consequences for our staying in Iraq.

The Administration course in Iraq has diverted resources from the Global War on Terror without compensating gains.

Al Qaada and other terrorist groups are still operating and striking against our friends.

The efforts to prevent such attacks have been harmed by the continuation of the war in Iraq.

Instead of working together and presenting a world wide front against Islamic terror, governments are forced to submit to American policy or left to their resources.

Lebanon and other countries face serious new challenges thanks to Bush's policies of democratic tranformation.

Public opinion throughout the Arab world and in Moslem communities everywhere has been decisively turned against us by our brutalization of the Iraqis.

We will be unable to gain the needed information and support from the Arabs and many will assist the terrorists who would otherwise have been neutral or pro-Western.

The conditions of poliical instability, sectarian and criminal violence and economic chaos that the occupation has imposed on the Iraqis is the exactly environment that is required to breed terrorism.

The Invasion created those circumstances, the Occupation maintains them.

Osama bin Laden has learned that he can tie down American forces and keep the heat off his operations merely by calling Iraq the central front in the war on terror.

President Bush is sure to jump through Osama's hoop like a trained dog.

President Bush is on the wrong track in Iraq and has weakened the War on Terror.

The US withdrawal from Afghanistan, needed to free up forces to invade Iraq, was devastating in that country, but a phased withdrawal will not have the same result in Iraq.

Iraq is not yet a failed state like Afghanistan.

Iraq has strengths as a nation: most of the country is at peace, they can feed themselves, they have immense income from their oil.

The US should implement policies that allow the Iraqis to utilize their strengths.

The Occupation cannot substitute for the will and efforts of the Iraqi people to establish security in their own country.

The Iraqis need time and independence to work out their future.

President Bush has one reason for pushing the Surge: to assert his political strength.

This shows that President Bush is incapable of thinking in strategic terms.

President Bush should live up to his rhetoric and take responsibility for his manifest failure in Iraq. He should do this by limiting himself to his constitutional duty of chief executive and carry out effective policies devised by others.

We have mid-term elections to place a check in ineffective Presidents.

If the Congress is unable to change our policy in Iraq, we will face the constitutional crisis of the generation: that Presidential power has grown so cancerously that even manifest failure can be continued in the face of popular and congressional disapproval.

The Iraq fiasco must be brought to end.

The Coalition of the willing is merely a shell for a US/UK attempt to appropriate Iraq's oil.

We must capture bin Laden.

The terrorists are still active.

President Bush has repeatedly shown unwillingness to implement effective policies to combat terrorism.

Instead, President Bush has used the terrorist threat as an excuse to brutalize the Arabs and take their oil.

With the price of oil over $60 a barrel what benefit has the Bush Adminstration's Iraq policy gained for us?

We must combat terrorism by developing cooperative and effective multi-lateral policies and organizations that stop international terrorists.

We cannot afford the Bush Administration's policy of hegemony masquerading as national defense.

Robert Chapman
Lansing, NY