President Bush says failure is
not an option – if we pull out of Iraq there will be civil war, chaos
and the prospect of this spreading to the whole region. Isn’t the chaos that an immediate withdrawal
might cause a problem that those who oppose the war should be concerned about?
Yes it is – We in World Can’t
wait are not just concerned with American lives but with the horror this war
has created for the Iraqi people. But let’s get one thing clear – this is not
and has never been George Bush, Dick Cheney, or Don Rumsfeld’s concern and it
isn’t Gates, Rice’s or any of the viable candidates running for President
either. For these purveyors of mass
destruction and death to raise this is the height of hypocrisy – when it has
been exactly the US invasion and then
the callous disregard of Iraqi sovereignty, ancient history and civilian
infrastructure that has caused this society to collapse and created the very
vacuum that sectarian religious and political violence are filling. A Regime that has committed war crimes,
codified them into law (as they have done with torture) and continues to
justify them in the name of saving American lives has absolutely no right to
claim any such concern for Iraq – and the simple fact is that continued US
occupation and the religious provocations of a President who believes he is on
a mission from a Christian God will only continue to inflame and spread
sectarian violence in the whole region.
The US has historically backed up and
funded religious fanatics and fundamentalists like the Taliban as long as they
were subservient to US interests and cried phoney tears when they were
not. The situation for women in Afghanistan and Iraq
are no better and in many ways even worse than before the US invaded.
Could there be civil war and
ethnic cleansing if the US
leaves? Yes. Is there already civil war and ethnic
cleansing? Yes, and it’s even being
formulated into policy like the Biden plan. For Bush to raise the specter of chaos and
civil war is like Ted Bundy saying if you arrest me other mass murderers will
still be on the loose – but that’s no reason to not make the world safer from
the army and political operatives are
the most responsible for the chaos and dying going on now.
The situation this war has
created is simply horrendous – where the people of Iraq and the world are
having to choose between imperialistic occupation or Islamic fundamentalist
rule are alternatives no one should ever had to choose between – but what we
can do here in the US is take
responsibility for the actions of our own government and show the people of
Iraq and the whole world that the people of this country are opposed and will
no longer tolerate any of this – and by bringing this to a halt we are helping
to create the kind of political situation in the world where these are not the
only alternatives.