A few minutes ago, President Bush addressed the Nation from the oval office. From my point of view, the most important point raised in the speech was the acknowledgment that many disagree with his original decision to invade Iraq; for the first time, he did not attempt to label the dissenters as unpatriotic.
Instead, he reached out to me and the others like me who have never supported the initial decisions to go into Iraq. He asked that we set aside our disapproval of his initial policy and support the continued presence of troops instead of a "cut and run" policy.
I have consistently stated on this forum and elsewhere that I do support the troops, and I do not support the calls to "cut and run". My reason for this reluctant support is because at this point, I believe we will lose more by pulling out than we will by staying longer.
BUT! My God, what a terrible moral dilemma this man has foisted upon all of us.
Our fight is NOT to make a better life for Iraqi citizens, nor is it to create a Democracy. However laudable those goals may be, our fight is against terrorism and to defend our Nation. Nothing about the Iraqi action furthers those goals, Instead, as predicted by some before we invaded, our presence in Iraq has created MORE opportunity for terrorists to recruit and train more and more people against us. Our presence in Iraq has made the fight against terrorism more difficult, not easier.
Because the terrorists are getting stronger rather than weaker as long as we stay in Iraq, some people argue we should leave Iraq and go back to concentrating on the war against terrorists. At some point, I may agree with them, but not yet.
The President has put us in a position where the war on terrorism has been largely abandoned and American soldiers are being killed. for reasons that have nothing to do with our homeland security. But, more importantly, he has put us in a position where, if we DO pull out, the rest of the world will be able to make us look like the fools we have been. Our power and influence, which should be used to make the world a safer place, would be seriously eroded if we "cut and run".
I HATE this man for putting us in that position. I will NEVER forgive him, or give him ANY credit, even if something halfway decent comes out of this terrible situation. I resent that he has placed me in a position where I have to support his policy because it's the lesser of two evils.
And, I have to say, that position is changing daily, and there may come a point when I, also, think the better choice would be to leave Iraq.
In the meantime, I suspect he'll get what he wants. But, I just have to repeat myself, to me this is one of the darkest periods in our Nation's history, and the man should go down in infamy for ever putting us in this position in the first place.
Instead, he reached out to me and the others like me who have never supported the initial decisions to go into Iraq. He asked that we set aside our disapproval of his initial policy and support the continued presence of troops instead of a "cut and run" policy.
I have consistently stated on this forum and elsewhere that I do support the troops, and I do not support the calls to "cut and run". My reason for this reluctant support is because at this point, I believe we will lose more by pulling out than we will by staying longer.
BUT! My God, what a terrible moral dilemma this man has foisted upon all of us.
Our fight is NOT to make a better life for Iraqi citizens, nor is it to create a Democracy. However laudable those goals may be, our fight is against terrorism and to defend our Nation. Nothing about the Iraqi action furthers those goals, Instead, as predicted by some before we invaded, our presence in Iraq has created MORE opportunity for terrorists to recruit and train more and more people against us. Our presence in Iraq has made the fight against terrorism more difficult, not easier.
Because the terrorists are getting stronger rather than weaker as long as we stay in Iraq, some people argue we should leave Iraq and go back to concentrating on the war against terrorists. At some point, I may agree with them, but not yet.
The President has put us in a position where the war on terrorism has been largely abandoned and American soldiers are being killed. for reasons that have nothing to do with our homeland security. But, more importantly, he has put us in a position where, if we DO pull out, the rest of the world will be able to make us look like the fools we have been. Our power and influence, which should be used to make the world a safer place, would be seriously eroded if we "cut and run".
I HATE this man for putting us in that position. I will NEVER forgive him, or give him ANY credit, even if something halfway decent comes out of this terrible situation. I resent that he has placed me in a position where I have to support his policy because it's the lesser of two evils.
And, I have to say, that position is changing daily, and there may come a point when I, also, think the better choice would be to leave Iraq.
In the meantime, I suspect he'll get what he wants. But, I just have to repeat myself, to me this is one of the darkest periods in our Nation's history, and the man should go down in infamy for ever putting us in this position in the first place.
My sentiments exactly.
.... all the stuff I've done the last two days in an attempt to correct a misconfiguration on my part that didn't really exist.......
