10.05.06

Iraq: an unwinnable war

Posted in Politics at 6:03 am by Administrator

As a journalist or anyone who seeks to be objective, one has to look at countering points of view and based on the evidence, draw conclusions. That involves more than reporting in the “he said,” “she said” format. It means attempting to uncover the truth, a much more difficult, but ultimately more beneficial task.

Read here what President Bush told the country when we went to war in Iraq, vowing to defeat the brutal dictator Saddam Hussein and free the Iraqi people.

But the week before U.S. forces invaded Iraq, my congressman, Jay Inslee, made this speech on the House floor questioning the decision to go to war. Unfortunately, many of the fears he expressed have proven to be true. Bush promised democracy. So far we’ve seen mostly anarchy. The unintended consequence of this war as Inslee and others warned is that it would divert our attention and provide traction to al-Qaeda, the biggest threat to our security, as well cost American lives.

Undoubtedly, things will get worse in Iraq before they get better. The question is how long will it take, if it’s even possible, to establish a government and police force that can maintain order.

While our government squanders hundreds of billions of dollars on a war with no end in sight, we have squabbles in our public school districts on how to spend shrinking resources. Meanwhile, in Darfur, genocide continues and North Korea and Iran are closer to going nuclear. While the so-called leadership of the two major parties blame each other in the press, it’s clear that the only hope is to elect a new chief executive who will not “stay the course.” The list of candidates are not promising. An intriguing matchup would be Barack Obama against John McCain but Obama probably isn’t ready and McCain might not win his party’s nomination.

Permalink