[Peace-discuss] The Occupation

[Morton K. Brussel]

A plethora of responses to questions about our remaining in Iraq: Is  
yours included?

Kucinich: Your Advice to Congress on Why the U.S. Should Withdraw

by Dennis Kucinich, Dennis Kucinch
July 25th, 2005

In his June 10th Report from Washington, Dennis listed some arguments  
that he and his colleagues have been running into while working to  
build bi-partisan support for a Resolution to set a timetable for  
U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. He asked you to share how you would  
respond. This is some of what you've said so far. Read the rest and  
add your responses here.

Argument: Setting a date for withdrawal would encourage insurgents to  
wait until the U.S. leaves to once again escalate action.

Your responses:
The insurgency is a response to U.S. occupation and would diminish or  
end after U.S. withdrawal.
Iraqis should be allowed to settle any remaining differences  
themselves after the U.S. leaves.
Insurgents will only increase the frequency and scale of attacks  
until we leave.
If the U.S. occupation forces were to leave, exactly who would the  
insurgents escalate action against?
Shouldn't the Iraqi people get to decide whether they want help and  
from whom?
If we are no longer trying to colonize them, they will sort things  
out for themselves.
I doubt very much if they kill, maim, torture or otherwise harm more  
Iraqi people than we have ourselves.
This is a problem that cannot be solved by outsiders who know nothing  
of the culture.
You can't make a bowl with a hammer--you can only smash it.
Ethnic harmony is hardly promoted by hiring Kurdish Peshmerga to help  
destroy Sunni Fallujah.
Nobody came here and stopped us from our civil war.
Where there is oppression there will always be "insurgency" - let the  
Iraqis find their own course in nation building.
This war was an oil grab and a land grab for base building. Bushco  
wanted a presence in the middle east and the building of permanent  
bases is now a reality. That is what the insurgents are "escalating  
action" against.
The "insurgents" are really freedom fighters that want their country  
back from the illegal U.S. occupying force.
The Administration has made several predictions related to the  
actions of the insurgents over the course of the war:
The insurgency would die down once Saddam is captured. It didn't.
The insurgency would die down once an interim Iraqi governing board  
is put in place. It didn't.
The Insurgency would die down after the Iraqi elections. It didn't.
It's great that they would reduce the attacks and let us bring the  
troops home without our casualties increasing too much. What happens  
later is up to the Iraqi people as it should have been from the start.
So-called insurgents are living in a country with no public  
infastructure, jobs centered around security, and a population that  
has become split because of the invasion and bombing that has  
destroyed the water, sewer, electrical, food distribution,  
contruction industry, oil industry jobs - the primary economic work  
of Iraq.
You have a military force, a Psy Ops campaign, a lack of proper  
translators for effective communication, people running around with  
weapons to effect their own personal change, the lure of money to  
carry out attacks, and the potential of huge profits from the war and  
corruption. Is it any wonder that it's not even worse?
Hopefully, insurgents would indeed reduce anti-U.S. activity to  
facilitate U.S. withdrawal. We should plan on doing everything  
possible to enhance that prospect! We should present U.S. withdrawal  
as an opportunity for a cease-fire among all the Iraqi factions.
The term "Constructive Disengagement" may be preferable to "withdrawal".
The only reason that the world is not helping in Iraq is because the  
Bush regime will not give up any control.
America getting out does not mean leaving the Iraqi citizens hanging.  
If America is out and the whole world is in to help, not occupy,  
there would be far less resentment and anger.
No one can predict what will happen. We do know that what is  
happening now is not good or helpful to the Iraqi people.
That is irrelevant. We illegally invaded them, the current  
administration hand-picked any candidates for any election, and the  
current administration's only interest is in controlling who profits  
from reconstruction and oil.
Saddam is out of power. How is the international community to learn  
of Iraq's ability to govern itself, control its future and prevent  
further insurgent activity while we remain there in numbers?
I think many of our leaders are afraid to face the likelihood that,  
once we leave, things will go much more smoothly.

Argument: We have lost so many troops already that it would dishonor  
the memory of those who gave their lives if the U.S. were to withdraw.

Your responses:
How does killing someone honor anyone?
Did we dishonor all the lives that had been given when we withdrew  
from Vietnam?
Troops were sent there to oust Saddam Hussein. That has been done.
Nothing can dishonor those who served their country with life and limb.
Sending our best to this certain slaughter based on lies is what  
dishonors our finest youth.
It would be a much greater dishonor to continue to allow more of  
their comrades to die for no reason.
This is the same argument used to keep us in Vietnam until the CIA  
had finished removing the Golden Triangle drug trade from British  
control and into our own hands.
Bring the troops home and spend the money on those who are in the VA  
and having to buy their own meals.
"How do you ask someone to be the last man to die for a mistake?" -- 
John Kerry, 1971
Using people who have volunteered to give their lives in our defense  
for aggression and theft instead is the highest form of dishonor.
We dishonor the troops by refusing to equip them properly and cutting  
their benefits when they return.
As the wife of a soldier I find this to be the most despicable reason  
ever uttered for continuing an unnecessary and unwinnable war.
The soldiers who have been killed and maimed would be the first to  
tell you they do not want their friends and colleagues to suffer the  
same fate on a foundation of lies and deception.
Those in Iraq want nothing more than to come home where they belong.
This war was either a "lie" or a "mistake"; whatever way you want to  
spin it it is still wrong.
We honor the fallen when we build a peaceful future that celebrates  
the sacredness of all human life. Specifically, this means employing  
the nonviolent tactics that Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. made so  
famous.
To allow the Bush regime's crimes to go unpunished is to set new  
standards of what America stands for.
If we want to know how to honor the fallen, we need to ask surviving  
combat veterans. Listen to the soldiers.
Honoring them would be ensuring U.S. citizens who volunteer to  
support the Constitution - i.e., troops - are never sent to die under  
false pretexts again.
Living or dead, all who have struggled on behalf of the U.S., in the  
name of freedom and democracy, share in the dishonor we see today.
We honor the service of our military by making sure that all other  
options have been utilized before we ever place them at risk, and by  
taking them out of harm's way when their presence is no longer the  
only option.

Argument: We are winning the war and now is not the time to talk  
about leaving.

Your responses:
If the definition of winning is ousting Saddam Hussein, we have.  
Let's go home.
What, then, is an appropriate time to set a date for withdrawal?
Like any minute now Iraq is going to sign over all their oil to the  
U.S.?
Life in Iraq will only continue to get worse until all Americans are  
gone.
Military experts have stated this war is unwinnable. "A growing  
number of senior American military officers in Iraq have concluded  
that there is no long-term military solution to [the] insurgency..."  
Read more
On June 7, Former CIA Director John M. Deutch said that the United  
States is not making progress toward key objectives in Iraq and  
called for American troops to pull out "as soon as possible". Read more.
If we were "winning" in anybody's world, I think Bush would be sure  
to tell us loudly and often.
We invaded Iraq for one reason only, to plant a permanent military  
presence there against the wishes of its population, in order to  
control the entire region by force. Jay Garner spilled the beans.
It is more important to name and disavow the goal of the invasion and  
to agree to leave than it is to be exact about the date.
Tell us, what in the end will we have "won" if we continue to send  
our sons and daughters to die in a hostile land?
A puppet government dishonors them, our troops and our country.
On the deck of the Abraham Lincoln GW Bush himself said "Mission  
Accomplished". With the mission accomplished it is time to go home.
This is a no-win situation in which all parties concerned will  
continue to lose - indefinitely - until one of the parties has the  
strength (and wisdom) to stand up, admit that this is not working,  
and disengage.
Anyone who calculates "wins" or "losses" in the miasma of an immoral  
and pointless invasion of another country has lost the moral high  
ground the moment s/he begins to do so.
The recent disclosure that Bush ordered the bombing of Iraq for a  
full year before getting even the appearance of consent by  
manipulating 70-plus resistant Democratic party members of Congress  
(lying to them) into going along with his cronies' profiteering  
invasion invalidates all three of the objections above.
The idea of pre-emptive war to me is vastly troubling. It sets us up  
to be similarily spanked in the future by angry countries, and leaves  
us with no moral grounds to object - after all, we did it to Iraq first.
I don't call hundreds of U.S. dead/wounded and ten thousand Iraqi  
dead/wounded as "winning the war".
The longer the U.S. remains in Iraq, the less likely that Iraqis will  
trust that their government is not a U.S. stooge or puppet.
We will only begin to "win the war" when we withdraw our troops and  
begin to rebuild Iraq's infastructure with help from a Marshall Plan  
style aid program. Specifically, the people of Iraq need clean water,  
food, electricity, schools, hospitals and other stabilizing elements  
of society.
Without dialogue, there cannot be peace. Dialogue is a two-way  
street. Without respect, there cannot be dialogue. Is the U.S.  
government listening to the Iraqis? Is the U.S. government listening  
to anyone?
We've won record deficit spending, we've won loss of respect around  
the world, we've won more enemies, and more potential terrorist acts,  
we've won the deaths of thousands. This isn't a sporting event; the  
goal was to remove Saddam from power and that goal has been  
accomplished.
In the media: Memo: U.S. didn't plan for occupation of Iraq and  
Report: British had doubts on U.S. postwar plan in Iraq.
Please, someone convince me we are winning.
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