Murtha's Momentum

I couldn't be more happy with Pennsylvania Congressman Murtha's recent comments, suggesting that the Iraq war is a 'failure wrapped in illusions', and recommending that we immediately begin to pull our troops out.

Lost in the cacophony of the Bush administration's panicked reaction though, were Murtha's suggestions that what really needs to happen now, is for the Iraqi's to take responsibility for their own revolution.

Think about our own revolution, and imagine if American patriots had been unwilling to act on their own, but had been 'rescued' by a pre-emptive attack by the French.

Imagine that the French had taken every major city in colonial America, had captured every British-appointed governor, and had an equivalent amount of troops stationed for five years after the fall of, perhaps, Boston.

Do you think Americans would have seized the opportunity and established the democracy we now know?

The Iraqis will not take seriously what they need to do, until and unless they are facing that situation.
It is of course questionable, whether the Iraqis have a strong enough desire for democracy to seize the opportunity that we have given them. But that is all the more reason why we need to pull out as soon as possible.

Would it better to stay five years more, lose another 2000 American soldiers, and then watch the Iraqis give back their country to the Bathists?

Is there anyone who really questions that in ten years, we will be looking at three, perhaps even four countries, where there was once the single Iraq?

Is there anyone unaware of the fact that the Iraq we know today, was the colonial creation of the British?

The Iraq War will go down in history as one of the greatest blunders of American foreign policy ever. The only thing worse would be to increase our losses by stubbornly refusing to acknowledge these facts.