20/20 Foresight
If you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that a vote for the surge in Iraq and its strategy changes would dramatically reduce the amount of violence and deaths, giving the Iraqi government breathing room to get 15 of 18 benchmarks completed, would you vote for it? If it was a certainty?
Obama wouldn’t have. The man of Hope and Change(tm) would have kept the status quo.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is playing politics with the war and the lives of our soldiers. Bailing out at all costs — big costs, to Iraq if not to us — is irresponsibility at its highest. That’s not the kind of man I want as President.
[tags]Barack Obama,Iraq surge[/tags]
Filed under: Democrats • Doug • Politics • War
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IF you were a citizen of Germany in the 1930s or of Guatemala in the 1980s or the US in the Civil War and IF you knew for certain that supporting a particular military action would reduce the deaths of “your” people, would you support that action?
If a given military action is morally wrong in your mind, why would you support more of the same?
The ends do not justify the means.
It’s high time we pulled our troops out of Iraq. We’ve done what we could. The rest should be left to the Iraqis. Our men and women in uniform should not have to spend a hundred years there. Ask those who have lost family members. Let’s focus on Afghanistan and leave Iraq alone. Enough is enough
Dan: Not just our people, but I’m quite certain that Iraqi deaths are much lower, especially since Baghdad and Basra are far quieter than before the surge. This is most certainly not looking out for #1, “my” people. Is it morally wrong to work for fewer deaths and less violence?
Yes, yes, I know you believe the Iraq war immoral from the start. But even with — especially with — that view, at the time the surge was proposed, if you knew that it would save lives would you vote for it? Obama says he wouldn’t have, which leads me to believe that his opposition to the surge was far more political than moral.
Vickie: If we’d left when the Left wanted us to, plenty of analysts said the region would erupt in the political vacuum. I don’t see how that would be a better outcome, politically and especially morally. The surge has allowed the political process to progress to the point that I think we can start pulling troops out soon, and indeed we’re going to pre-surge levels by the end of the year (if I remember the proposals correctly).
And if you’ve bought into the meme that McCain wants us there for 100 years, you must be drinking the Kool-Aid. Just a reminder; we’re still in Korea and Western Europe. When I hear the Left first call for the removal of troops from those places, where’s we’re far, far closer to having been there 100 years, then I’ll start to believe their call for US out of Iraq. Enough is enough, right?
I vote for getting the US out of Korea and W Europe. Our military adventurism and global cop role is beyond what is good for our nat’l security or for global nat’l security.
The question you ask: If you KNEW that sending more soldiers in would result in fewer deaths, would you support it presumes a foreknowledge that we don’t have.
If we believe the war was immoral – that sending troops to a nation unprovoked was the wrong thing to do to begin with – then no, we don’t support stopping the immorality by sending MORE troops. That does not even make any sense.
Should citizens of the South in the Civil War who were opposed to the South’s actions have supported sending MORE Confederate troops to fight a war they thought immoral? It’s a ridiculous premise IF you think the war/military action/invasion is wrong in the first place.
Dan, you’re missing the point. The question to Obama was “If you knew then what you know now…”. It’s a very common hypothetical. If he knew then that the surge would work as advertised — that sending in more troops would quell the violence, which it did, contrary to what you think should make sense — he still would have voted the way he did, ensuring greater violence and death to Americans (possibly) and Iraqis (certainly) whether we stayed in or pulled out that very day.
More troops did work. More force against the enemy showed the Iraqis we meant business, and that was, additionally, part of winning the hearts and minds of the Sunnis. Anbar province is not even a news story anymore because of “MORE” troops. Doesn’t matter what you think of the war, more troops can turn the tide and reduce the violence. Dan, that’s what happened, so it’s not a ridiculous premise.
But Obama says he’d still choose more violence, death and chaos over what we have today; significantly less violence and death, and far more order than before. That’s political gamesmanship, and irresponsible.
Well, if fairies gave magic wishes and toadstools sprouted money beans would you want some of each?
Stupid hypothetical questions don’t deserve serious answers.
I believe you’re still missing the point: IF you were a citizen in the south opposed to the goals of the Confederacy AND YOU KNEW MAGICALLY that by a troop surge in Georgia, you could save more Confederate lives, would you still oppose a troop surge of the confederacy? YES, you would because the war the Confederacy was waging was wrong, supporting further actions by that Confederacy would also be wrong, even if we believe in magic fairies.
I suspect you may be projecting your beliefs and intentions onto Obama. Listen to the video again. He’s talking about wanting to “change the political debate”, not some moral outrage.
And what’s more, the surge did change the political debate. Less violence meant the Iraqi government was able to meet most of the very benchmarks Democrats kept pummeling the President with as being unmet. That was a fair point by the Dems, except that they wouldn’t vote then, and with hindsight still wouldn’t vote for now, for a strategy that would do precisely what they wanted. Well, said they wanted, at least. They still wouldn’t support means to that end, just harp on that end.
Which is what you’re sounding like here. I understand that we’ll sometimes incorrectly paint you as a “pacifist at all costs” kind of guy, but it’s comments like this that, frankly, reinforce that misnomer. And it’s not just a matter of fewer deaths, but with the Iraqi government and the Iraqi police force making great strides in preparedness, this strategy makes the war end sooner, something you say you want.
If a lesser force on our part would’ve kept the status quo, there is no doubt we wouldn’t be this far along today; with Bush talking about troops pullouts by the end of the year. Three years of fighting, with no end in sight, followed by a 3-month surge that has us seriously talking about a draw-down of troop levels. That means the war ends sooner. Sooner, Dan, something you say you want. And yet you continue to argue against a strategy that, in hindsight, worked to that very end, and with much less death and violence than the drastic pullout Democrats, and apparently you, wanted. And then you defend the idea that if your presidential candidate had had 20/20 foresight he still would have opposed it.
Less death. Less violence. Shorter war. You say you want it. But you continue to defend a means that would most assuredly not bring that about, and attack a means that would. Your strategy may bring about less American deaths, but likely the number of Iraqi deaths would have gone up and up as we left. The war would not be shorter, it just would continue without us. No qualms about that, Dan?
Again, I’m trying not to paint you as a “pacifist at all costs” type of guy, but you are really making it difficult.
Yes, we could certainly shorten the war (perhaps, maybe) with more intense violence. Kill everyone anywhere near or around a suspected bad guy and there will be more likelihood that we get the “bad guys.” Drop a nuclear bomb and wipe out all of Iraq and we can be sure to get ALL the bad guys in Iraq.
Wipe out all the bad guys in Iraq as I suggest above and we reinforce the America Rogue Bully image that we already have in much of the world. The more we reinforce that image, the more we help recruit terrorists.
I just don’t believe that deadly violence is an effective tool for fighting violence.
And I think this is exactly what Obama is getting at in his position on the “war on terrorism.” Bush’s way is a failed approach.
This is why a Conservative approach to defense is a much closer to home defense. All of this military adventurism, in addition to being unwise from a liberal standpoint is just anti-Conservative, in the classic sense of the term.