Just not getting it

Yesterday, President Bush basically accused those of us that think Iraq is irredeemable of being terrorist enablers. Again. Chimpy in his own words:

President Bush said critics of his Iraq policies are advocating a "cut and run" strategy that would draw terrorists to American soil

"Leaving before we complete our mission would create a terrorist state in the heart of the Middle East, a country with huge oil reserves that the terrorist network would be willing to use to extract economic pain from those of us who believe in freedom," Bush said Wednesday.

"If we leave before the mission is complete, if we withdraw, the enemy will follow us home," he said.

OK – let’s review. We get attacked. Bush starts a war with Iraq, a nation that was tangentially involved, if at all, with global terrorism and had NOTHING TO DO with said attack. This war saps resourced needed to fight in Afghanistan, a nation that harbored those that actually attacked us. The new war goes really badly and devolves into a civil war. The old war is sort of forgotten and Osama Bin Laden runs free. The Iraqis, whom we are ostensibly helping, badly want us to leave. Seeing our vulnerability, Iran decides to stir shit up in Israel and starts a war via its client, Hezbollah. We do nothing to put the brakes on it, because Bush thinks that Israel can wipe out Hezbollah. Then Israel decides to fight from the air, fearing the potential losses from putting boots on the ground. This strategy fails because you can’t fight guerillas from the air; you need to go house to house. That requires soldiers and that means casualties. So instead of destroying Hezbollah, a noble goal to be sure, Israel destroys southern Lebanon. Hezbollah is emboldened, Iran is strengthened, and the US and Israel look defeated and weak. And we have 130,000 troops standing in the middle of this clusterfuck.

How is that a good thing? Why is opposing this policy failure an invitation for more terrorism here? There are a few terrorist states in the Middle East already. Iraq was not one of them until this fucked up war made it one. That is Bush’s fault. Bush has yet to extract proper revenge on Bin Laden; one would think that problem might be more dangerous to our security. So screw that “if we withdraw, the enemy will follow us home” bullshit. They have already been here. The hornet’s nest has been stirred. Leaving the troops in Iraq in no way helps prevent an attack here. It just means more dead kids. And I believe in a pretty firm anti-dead kid foreign policy.

Iraq has destroyed our international credibility, undermined our military, and diverted our attention from the things that do work. We need to be focusing our resources on things that prevent a terrorist attack. Britain just foiled an airline bombing via old fashioned police work, not by trying to stave off a civil war. Our current strategy has not just failed; it is making matters worse.

As Molly Ivins put so eloquently (and I am paraphrasing here),

“Its one thing to step on your dick; It’s another thing to stand there and stomp on it”.