The Right Side

I don’t know. Do you ever get the feeling that you have no control or influence over anything? You can loudly say that we should pull out of Iraq, and the other side, those who are in power, will oppose us, loudly saying that we won’t set a timetable; we’re there until the job is done, and we’ll stand down as they stand up, etc. Then one day (today) the Iraqis say they want us to leave, so our government says, OK, if that’s how you feel, is next summer soon enough?

So where does that leave us? See, the other side still gets to say it’s their idea, and that they’re not doing it because of us or because of opinion polls, or because of political considerations, although you can’t convince me that the latter is not true; and you can’t convince me that the Iraqi request for us to leave isn’t part of the Bush exit strategy. Call me cynical, but I somehow see Karl Rove’s devious influence somewhere behind all this.

Well, the news that we will be pulling out of Iraq before the end of this century should be greeted by our side as great news. Of course we can’t get back our 1700+ dead soldiers. We can’t get back the countless dead innocent Iraqi citizens. We can’t get back the billions of dollars that Iraqi oil revenue was supposed to help pay for. But we are finally getting what we asked for. Our men and women will no longer be in harm’s way, and we can stop pouring money into this ill-conceived enterprise. Besides we don’t really want any credit for being on the right side anyway.