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Monday, August 07, 2006

The truth hurts
Posted by Jill | 6:23 AM
Yesterday the New York Times ran an article on why Hillary Clinton, who continues to oppose withdrawal from Iraq, has so far not experienced the same fate as Joe Lieberman, facing only token opposition in her New York Senate race.

Part of the reason is that Hillary Clinton hasn't been spending her time embracing President Bush (though her husband is far too chummy with the old man) and appearing on Fox News to bash Democrats. But while Hillary may not be at risk of losing her Senate seat, her 2008 ambitions are far more dicey than this article would indicated. The article's author, Anne Kornblut, hasn't been spending much time in Blogtopia (™ Skippy) lately, because much of the blogosphere has no intention of supporting Hillary in 2008 BECAUSE of her stand on the Iraq war.

Today, Bob Herbert points out what should be obvious:

This was a war that never should have happened. There was a legitimate war for the United States to fight in Afghanistan, but that was not enough for the administration. The Bush gang wanted a war with Iraq, and less-than-courageous politicians like Mrs. Clinton and many others lined up as enablers to help make that war happen.

Many of the Democrats in Congress supported the war only because they remembered the price paid by party members who stood against the first gulf war, a stand that became an embarrassment when the war was easily won and was therefore popular.

Despite the rationalizations now suddenly on the lips of so many, the problem with the current war in Iraq is not the way it was conducted, but the fact of the war itself. It was launched amid blinding, billowing clouds of deceit. There was never any legitimate reason for the war. Iraq had not attacked the U.S. and there was no imminent threat of attack.

The U.S. went in with guns blazing (“shock and awe”) like Matt Dillon shooting up the dusty streets of Dodge City. Only this was the real world, and the result has been unending tragedy.

The American occupation of Iraq was guaranteed, sooner or later, to provoke a sustained and bloody resistance, and it was inevitable that terror would be the resistance’s most effective tool. It was also certain that if the Shiites were empowered, there would be widespread retaliation for their many years of suffering under Saddam, and then the inevitable counterreaction of the suddenly disempowered Sunnis, and so on.

None of this was a secret. The warnings came from around the world before the first shot was ever fired.

Mrs. Clinton, other Democrats and whatever sensible Republicans may still be out there should be getting together to work out a plan for an orderly withdrawal of American forces from Iraq. This was not a war we were ever going to win. It’s time we brought our involvement to an end.

Americans no longer support this war, and there are few things more empty of meaning than dying in a war that one’s fellow citizens — safe at home — have already given up on.

We went into Iraq with bombs falling and guns blazing, insisting all the while that we were bringing the Iraqis the gifts of freedom and democracy. Instead, we gave them terror, chaos and civil war — in other words, a whole new generation of misery and mass death.

Shock and awe, indeed.


In early 2002, a half million people marched in New York City in opposition to the invasion of Iraq. WE knew there were no weaons of mass destruction. WE knew that the invasion was unnecessary. WE knew it had nothing to do with 9/11. WE knew that it would result in just the kind of sectarian violence we're seeing now, because unlike the President, WE knew the difference between Sunni and Shi'a. WE knew that it would take away from the legitimate effort in Afghanistan. Do you mean to tell me that a half million ordinary Americans knew and Senate Democrats didn't?

This is why no candidate who supported this war, let alone one who continues to do so, is deserving of our votes. Because the lifeblood of tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians and almost 2600 Americans is on their hands, along with the tens of thousands physically and psychologically maimed for this war based on a lie and still supported by too many Democrats.
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