In response to Sophie's blog asking the question of when will our troops come, I noticed that this was quite the hot topic and I am going to have to agree that it is a fine time to go ahead and start retracting our forces. Do I mean up and evaporate from the premises? No, definitely not. There is still a need for an American presence as we slowly pull out our young men.
I write this commentary coming from a predominantly military family. Come to think of it, I am the only male who didn't ultimately join one of the branches of the US military. As I'm sure Sophie does too, I take extremely great pride in our troops and have the utmost respect for them and what they do. They are merely young boys who put everything aside to risk life and limb for causes that are unclear and often unknown to them and that is extremely admirable. But we get to a point now where we have to stop and think, "God, what the hell are we still doing over there?"
It comes down to pride. Honest to God,stiff-necked pride. The US basically made a big boo boo in occupying Iraq for this long and is too proud to admit their wrongdoing and simply withdraw. This is not to say that we haven't accomplished anything while being over there. And while we all know that we've wasted plenty of good mens' lives (either to enemy or friendly fire for that matter), wasted innocent civilian lives, and billions of US tax-payers' dollars, we cannot ignore the many insurgents and terrorist cell leaders who have been successfully caught. Need I mention the capture of Saddam?
So overall I'd have to agree with Sophie. Her overall logic is on point and backed up fairly well, although I will probably disagree that all this war has gotten us is dead soldiers. But yes, ultimately, this war on "terror" has been an overall waste of resources. Perhaps no one knew it would end up this way, but we sure have seen it for awhile now. So why aren't we sucking it up and grinning and bearing it as we bring our troops home? I'll tell you why. Pride. Its the American way.
I also concur with Sophie's view on foreign policy compared to domestic issues. Anyone can see that currently, the US needs to lighten up on trying to fix everyone else's problems in the world and spend a little more time and effort on the issues here at hand. Sophie mentioned outsourcing, our dwindling economy, and increased reliance on imported goods to name a few, all of which need tending to. The real dilemma here though Sophie, is whether or not any of the Presidential hopefuls are actually going to do anything to bring them home. We already know McCain won't so it's up to whoever takes the Democratic lead to do something about it. What are the odds? Survey says... Not so great.
Link to Sophie's blog:
http://modernuspolitic.blogspot.com/2008/03/when-will-our-troops-come-home.html
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