Bob Novak’s Washington Post op-ed piece on a quick withdrawal from Iraq was interesting.
If the Bush administration is really planning on a quick, post-November screw-the-Iraqis withdrawal, he is truly an evil man.
Let me ’splain.
If Bush’s team - Novak mentions Rice and others - have concluded that Iraq is a sinkhole and that the insurgency cannot be suppressed, getting out now, while disastrous for American prestige and foreign policy, is better than postponing a date of reckoning.
This reminds me of the MacNamara interview when he confessed that he knew Vietnam was unwinnable, but kept sending boys to die because there was not a politically viable exit strategy. If the war is unwinnable, it is better to cut our losses now.
But Bush’s cabinet, according to Novak, isn’t talking about cutting our losses now. The proposed plan is to wait until after the November election because an admission of failure would doom Bush’s reelection chances. Novak, astoundingly, seems to have a tin ear for the moral implications of this plan.
We are asking American soldiers to die for another two months - not for America, not for Iraqis, not for freedom, not for the war against terror - but to give the president job security.
Iraqis are being cajoled to support the administration with the full knowledge - aforethought - that we are going to leave them swinging in the wind to be killed as collaborators.
I hope - no, scratch that, I pray, that Bob Novak is hallucinating and relying on sources more unreliable that Rather’s.
Skippy, our non-partisan political observer, thinks this an impeachable offense. I’m not sure that it is - an impeachable offense is whatever the house decides is an impeachable offense and Republicans are going to maintain control of the lower house. Go over and read skippy’s post - he is more astute and a better writer than I.
I would like the Maximum Leader and Foreign Minister to weigh in on this topic. IF Bob Novak is not Marion Barry’s new crack-smokin’ bud, and IF Bush plans to pull us out post November, is this a) immoral, b) impeachable, c) does it consitute a betrayal of the armed forces, and d) how pissed would you be?
