Opinion
Troops deserve to come home
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Cutting off funding for the occupation of Iraq is the only way to stop its continuation. Bush has stated that the next President can worry about bringing troops home and has shown a blatant disregard for the wishes of the American people concerning the Iraq conflict time and time again.
Your personal attack on Feingold ignores the important issues in bringing the troops home. When the war first began the stated mission was to remove a brutal dictator from power, eliminate the threat from weapons of mass destruction, later we had to stay to allow the Iraqi people to hold elections, then we had to stay to train Iraqi police and military. Saddam vanished prior to the invasion and was later captured and killed for a minor crime compared to some of the things he committed. There haven't been weapons of mass destruction as described by the Bush administration in the lead up to the war in years so an invasion wasn't necessary to accomplish this goal. There have been two elections in Iraq since the invasion. Over 400,000 police and military members have been trained in Iraq since they were disbanded.
Of course firing all of the police and military when Paul Bremer arrived in Baghdad didn't help to promote welcoming opinions towards a military occupier. It seems that our goals have been accomplished thus it is time to let Iraqi people have their right of self-determination. Will the violence stop if we leave? Who knows, but the continued presence of a military occupier is not helping to reduce violence and death.
Even with the recent "surge" deaths have stayed high as death squads have went into hiding and suicide bombers have replaced them. The mission is complete and our troops deserve to be home where they can help out in national emergencies and not be in harms way with no clear mission. In order to get the troops home before thousands more die the Congress must remove funding for a continued presence in Iraq for years to come.
Todd Dennis is a Senior majoring in Mechanical Engineering and a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War who served in the U.S. Navy from 1997-2003.
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Amen! Bring ‘em home.
If there’s no war in Iraq, what will we do with all the bombs and jets we’ve spent half our budget on for the past 50 years?
Bombs are no good unless they go boom.
Todd,
You should have a weekly column in this paper or some other forum. Veterans’ opinions, both agreeing and disagreeing with yours, are generally lacking with the exception the occasional C-SPAN segment on the weekend. Veterans’ opinions have the most credit in this argument and I wish to hear more of them, whether for or against this war.
Wah-wah-wah! It’s time to surrender.
Well, not according to our fighting men in the field; http://www.indcjournal.com/archives/002979.php
Sit down, watch the videos and have a nice cup of STFU!
“Veterans’ opinions have the most credit in this argument”
The same idiots that parrot the “chickenhawk cannard” refuse to hear what veterans say. That way they can ingore anyone that doesn’t agree with them.
Let’s just get a number of crucial facts clear here - Bush, Cheney and their ilk are to blame. They are to blame for lying to gullible Americans, a distinct minority of whom believed their lies to the extent that they supported the unwarranted, illegal and unjustifiable 2003 invasion. The neocons are at fault for continuing this illegal occupation against the clearly stated wishes of the majority of Americans, and they are responsible (along with their supporters) for killing as many as 655,000 Iraqis. Quite understandable that the overwhelming majority of Iraqis want the US military OUT NOW.
The militaristic, maybe even nihilistic policies implemented by the megalomaniacs and greed addicts in the Pentagon, White House and Congress can rightly be blamed, not only for leveling parts of Fallujah in 2004, but for the atrocities of Abu Ghraib, and for the killings of Iraqi motorists who “got too close,” or “looked at them the wrong way,” or whose bookbags “appeared to them to be explosive vests,” etc., etc., ad nauseum. It’s their country, period. the US has no right to be there.
Furthermore, America needs to get the fuck out now before these lunatics in Washington bankrupt the whole treasury. The war has already cost between half a trillion and a trillion dollars. Any halfway educated person who thinks about it clearly can come to realize this is obviously unsustainable!
Perhaps most importantly, the unelected Bush Regime, and by extension the deluded minority of US citizens who first put these maniacs into office are to blame for the internecine strife and murder that has resulted in an average of at least 40 Iraqis a day being blown into red mist. There was never continuous sectarian war in Iraq on the colossal scale that has been witnessed daily since 2004, and the ongoing occupation only perpetuates the slaughter.
Finally of course, the neocons and republicans (plus the many dems who voted to authorize this insane, criminal war) are responsible for the death of over 3200 US soldiers, the maiming of tens of thousands more, and all the disgraceful treatment of the troops taking place at Walter Reed and elsewhere.
The definition of insanity is attempting the same failed strategy time and a again. Cutting the funding for this insane war is a god idea whose time has come.
“Sit down, watch the videos and have a nice cup of STFU!”
And you’re shipping out to Iraq when?
7:57 When’s your next pro-terrorism, Islamo-fascism appeasement street riot, hippie? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2wO3eSmWVo
There is no substitute for victory.