Katie Doyle, Girl About Town

Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2005 - 6:12 p.m.

Ah, my poor little Metame has still not given birth, and things are gettin' ugly. ;) I keep telling her to eat a salad drenched in balsamic vinaigrette, but if the swelling and the irritation over anti-climactic nothingness keeps up, I think I'd better just keep my advice to a minimum. :)

I had a nice chat online with the delightful and pixie-like Sunnflower a few days ago. It was neat. :)

I have also been watching the news and listening to radio again, and I have something to say to alla you people who think we should just yank the troops out of Iraq this very minute and call it quits.

That's just not feasible.

Yes, I know this occupation is bad. People are dying, things are going from bad to worse, the administration lied about going over there and why, etc. Believe me, I am on your side. But you guys need to realize that cutting and running when absolutely nothing has really been accomplished will make a bad situation much, much worse.

So I'm sorry, but it's just not the responsible, reasonable or mature thing to gather up our tinkertoys and go home.

Like it or not, we're there. We now have to come up with a constructive way to solve the mess we've created so that we can come home. That means a working infrastructure of electricity and running water. It means a viable Iraqi military/police force (whatever you want to call the peacekeeping law enforcement that MUST exist for us to go home). It means a fair system of government that is able to meet the needs of the Iraqi people. And it means a viable Iraqi economy. Without any one of those things, Iraq can not stand on its own. The system of government we leave in place will not be able to maintain order, it will fall, and chaos will take over. And we all know firsthand what happens when chaos takes a country over in the Middle East. We know, because Osama bin Laden saw fit to tutor us on it one fall day in 2001. I hope we are not so stupid as to have forgotten the lesson already.

I don't know what to do about the whole thing, frankly, and it's not my job to know. I am not paid to solve problems like this. But I do know that lacklusterly carrying on in the way that we have is not going to cut it. I know that continuing to encourage corporate corruption (see Halliburton, KBR and others) and mismanagement of reconstruction funds (see Bremer, Paul) with an eye toward nothing more than profiteering and greed is not going to help. I know you can not succeed without a viable plan with which you are able to make actual progress. And I know this administration and the jackasses who planned this little foray do not have such a plan. Because it behooves them not to. And so what makes me angry about this whole mess is that what I see happening is the loss of patience on the part of the American people which will dictate the mass withdrawal of American troops, which will in turn cause a cascade of negative effects, ALL of which will come down very hard on us here in America.

So please, people, I understand you're mad as hell and don't want to take it anymore. But yanking our troops out of Iraq will not solve anything. We need to put pressure on those in Washington to come up with a viable plan for progress and peace in Iraq and for returning that land to its people. I'm thinking that means we'd better mend some fences with the UN, and we'd better do it quick. And any viable plan necessitates a frigging timeframe, Mr. Bush. Because without a timeframe - without deadlines, there's no impetus to EVER make progress; there's no sense of urgency. So you are going to have to grow up, be a man, and set a damn timeframe for making actual progress in Iraq and the strategic withdrawal of American troops, Mr. Bush. That's what we're paying you to do. And we the people need to insist on deadlines. We need to insist this administration and the men who follow it do the right thing for America and the people of Iraq, and we need to take them to task when they do not. We bear the burden of responsibility, because like it or not, we elected the men who created this mess. We live in this country, and it behooves us to take responsibility for the actions this country takes and to consider the repercussions of those actions, because like it or not, we will suffer the damage brought about by our actions, just the same as we reap the benefits when we are good. That's life. It's the way things work.

I'd love to bring every soldier in Iraq home right now and leave the Iraqi people in peace and prosperity. I'm sure the soldiers and Iraqis would love it, too. Unfortunately, there are no quick fixes. There's no easy way out. And to take what seems to be the quick and easy way out does a disservice to every man and woman who has done time in or was killed or damaged in Iraq, on both sides. If we pull out now, leaving chaos in our wake, we will have done worse than accomplish nothing. We will have made the world a darker, more dangerous place for all. Can we really live with that? Because one way or another, we'll have to.

Peace out,
Katie

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