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TechnoratiBring Our Troops Home from Mideast This Year
President Barack Obama holds my admiration with high hopes for his message of change in Washington, D.C. It is puzzling, however, that he has adopted most of the previous administration's formula for dragging out the withdrawal of our troops from the mistaken war in Iraq for nearly three more years. Very little "change" here.
Three years ago, public opinion polls indicated that a majority of Americans believed our policymakers were wrong in ordering troops into Iraq. It is widely accepted that this sentiment more than any other factor in the 2006 congressional elections resulted in Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate.
Are we now going to ignore for another three years the public mandate of 2006 against this costly, pre-emptive war based on deceit? And how can we justify putting thousands more U.S. troops into Afghanistan? We have exhausted our treasury. We are also close to exhausting our soldiers.
Can there be any doubt that the enormous war cost has contributed to the financial crisis here at home? The expense of waging two Middle East wars, plus the loss of revenue caused by the previous administration's tax cuts, have skyrocketed the national debt to a record high. Do we ever consider what the interest alone is on our $10 trillion national debt -- much of it paid to China?
Frankly, we cannot afford a two-war commitment year after year if we want to balance the federal budget and restore our economy. The huge bonuses that directors of failing corporations have awarded themselves and their chief executives have rightfully angered people, but those figures are peanuts compared with the $12 billion a month we have poured into Iraq and Afghanistan over the last six years.
Has either the great God above or his creatures here below designated us to run the Middle East? What do we say to the Iraqi people, who have indicated overwhelmingly in several polls that they want U.S. troops out of their country now? Why would we not understand this sentiment considering that our military equipment has smashed Iraqi homes, public buildings and infrastructure, including electricity and running water?
Of course, the most painful cost of these wars is the deaths of more than 4,200 brave American troops and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians. This is to say nothing of the decline of our political judgment and moral standing in the world.
The Obama administration recommends we leave 50,000 troops in Iraq to "police" that troubled country through 2011. There may well be flare-ups that will keep them there indefinitely, struggling to police the war-induced chaos.
In June 1950, President Harry S. Truman ordered our troops into Korea, stating it would be only a brief police action that did not require a declaration of war. Three years later and after 38,000 American soldiers had been killed, the new American president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the commander of Allied forces in World War II, promptly ended our involvement in the Korean War, to the relief of our combat soldiers and the American public.
Unfortunately, we left 40,000 American soldiers behind to police the 38th Parallel -- for a brief time. Yet, more than 50 years later, nearly 30,000 American troops are still in South Korea. So much for brief police actions.
Our policymakers contend that we must maintain U.S. troops in the Middle East to curb terrorism. I strongly believe that it is our military presence in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Middle East that is driving terrorism against the United States. No country that longs for national sovereignty wants a foreign army in its midst. We taught that lesson to the British Empire in 1776 when George Washington and his ragtag guerrilla army drove the British military from our shores.
My generation has lived through half a dozen wars, beginning with World War II and then Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and several smaller conflicts. The only one of those wars I really believed in and still do was the U.S. participation in World War II, in which I served as a combat bomber pilot against Hitler's Nazi Germany.
I believe we aging veterans have an obligation to share what we have learned with the American people and with our young president, who seems open to well-meant suggestions.
In that spirit, I urge President Obama to bring our troops home from the Middle East this year. A good target date for completing an orderly withdrawal from two ill-conceived and costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would be Thanksgiving 2009.
For our sake and God's sake, let's get out of there and begin healing our own bankrupted land.
20 Comments so far
Show AllAmen, George McGovern.
Folks, the electorate would have us leaving Iraq and Afghanistan tomorrow were it put to a straight vote, and that despite the large-scale pro-military campaign. We're stumbling and stupid enough to go around, sure; but part of our ignorance is that each of seems to think that he or she's the only one who reads.
Yes, senator, the troops will come home soon. They will be needed here to keep us natives from getting too restless.
This old Indian geezer doesn't have any Troops in the Mideast so leave me out of your "Our" of Things."
A young friend of European Heritage stopped out a couple years ago. He said to me, one of the reasons "We" are in the Middle East is because they mistreat their women.
I informed him I am not in the Middle East. I don't have any reason to be in the Middle East, and how other people live in their own lands, & solve their own problems is up to them.
I didn't discuss with him mom discussing with me how her now x-husband mistreated her during their marriage. She married him even though one of his own family warned her against marrying him?
So I told him leave me out of your "We of Things."
Life is good. What an experience! It's always best to forgive.
Shadow Dancer wait! Hold your breath!...whew, a close one, that particle of oxidized uranium dust almost went up your nose dude - one planet, one atmosphere, and as a couple wise sages of humanity have said: 'one central mountain...and we are all brothers(sisters) after all...'. Please forgive the impertinence, but I wouldn't want YOU to miss the majestically magnificent experience of a good part of life - our unified whole.
Shadow and Puck -------- A close reading of Shadow shows he is only rejecting meddling and refusing to be part of the agressive "WE". Shadow does not reject unity in my reading.
And of course both unity and non meddling is correct( at least until you are wise and compassionate enough to meddle).
I just watched a piece on public news showing that the Taliban is taking over Pakistan. This would not be so were it not for US presence in Afghanistan.
Perpetual war is turning into perpetual wars.
Thanks Senator McGovern, great article ,wish the network news and wire services would pick it up."brief police action" indeed.The 50k peacekeepers left in Iraq will have even more "private contractors" destabilizing the occupied country.I would guess that you oppose private armies.How do you feel about the draft?
A friend just told me that a guy he knows is going to Afghanistan to repair Hummers and will make over 100k a year.I wonder how that makes the poor G.I. that enlisted for a few grand a year and some benefits feel.
Your wish to be out by Thanksgiving would be reason to give thanks indeed.
peace
STOP THE F**KING WAR THIS YEAR!!!
Very well said, Senator McGovern. Yes, these wars are "ill-conceived and costly." And, like Vietnam, they are illegal and immoral.
Remember that Obama won the Democratic nomination (and thus the presidency) by holding himself out as anti-Iraq War. The other high name-recognition presidential contenders had all voted to authorize the war. That was their downfall. Voters would not forgive them for that vote.
Obama stood out as the only one who had not so voted. Even though he was not in Congress when the Iraq War authorization vote was taken -- and had said that if he had been he probably would have voted with the majority to authorize the war -- by early 2008 primary voters had turned so vehemently anti-war that they voted for Obama purely because his name was not on that 2003 war authorization bill.
Those anti-war votes gave him crucial early primary victories and set the bandwagon in motion for victory in the general election.
Obama now thumbs his nose at all those voters, and the volunteers who worked for him . . . not to mention the Iraqi people and parliament who have repeatedly asked for the occupation to be ended, all the soldiers and their families who want the war stopped, and our nation whose treasury has been robbed and economy wrecked by this $3 trillion dollar debacle.
It stinks, Mr. Obama. Yes, we're all glad to be done with the Bush regime. But, damn it, do what you promised you would do!
STOP THE WAR THIS YEAR!!! STOP THE WAR THIS YEAR!!! STOP THE WAR THIS YEAR!!!
Good try, Senator McGovern. Only a war hero such as yourself is truly interested in saving young military lives and wanting the best for our own country.
Sadly, the present administration doesn't see it that way.
We can't assume that we are in the Middle East because of Osama, the Taliban, opium or to help. Is the public that gullible?
Have you seen the Navy ad of the last few months: Sailors comforting the despairing youth of Somalia, lifting babies from the rubble of Iraq, standing brave and proud on the deck of an aircraft carrier touring the world? That's the mythological construct (a process we all function through) that the vast majority of US youth grow up within. It wasn't until my late twenties and the lies of Grandpa Reagan that I started to form my own mythological flow forms. And of course there's always flat out denial: do I want to recognize myself as a bright shiny helper, or an inhuman ruthless murderer?
As long as the US considers OUR oil to be under THEIR soil, our hand will be on their sand...unfortunate indeed...we need to cultivate a respect for diversity and honor other peoples lands and cultures...agreements can be made. How would we feel if the tide were turned and their corporations were hell bent on controlling our natural resources? I could imagine all those 'tea party goers' complacently handing over their weapons...not. Imagine PEACE!!! Love always...
The imperial occupying forces will return only when the USA is dead, stony broke, our torn, empty pockets turned out and wealthier foreign nations telling whatever lying, homicidal clown is president: NO MORE LOANS!
Former Senator McGovern's declaration that the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Middle East by November of 2009 is certainly well taken though I would like to see them out even sooner than that date. I also agree that it is the U.S. military presence in the Middle East that is bringing about more terrorism [as a bumper sticker accurately observes "We Are Creating More Terrorists Faster Than We Can Kill Them"].
But I disagree with McGovern when he describes the U.S. soldiers who have died in Iraq as being brave. I believe a more appropriate word that should be used would be foolish as they are allowing themselves to be used as cannon fodder by their uncaring government [just as I and thousands of others were used in the same way in Vietnam]. As former marine Dan Felushko, who justifiably deserted from his unit in 2003 noted, "I didn't want 'Died deluded in Iraq' over my gravestone." The truly brave and admirable soldiers are those who have had the courage to say NO to the illegal and immoral occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.
"It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners."-Albert Camus
-It is puzzling, however, that he [Obama] has adopted most of the previous administration's formula...
Er puzzling?, just check out Obama's list of heads of arms makers like General Electric/NBC...lobbyists/bankers like Goldman Sachs...former Bush cabinet members like Gates that make up "change we can believe in", all who figured prominently in the last eight years of record deficits, corruption, human rights abuses and illegal wars, and tell me again how you find it puzzling.
Contrast this to what we do in democracies. We replace the government we don't like with an "opposition". It becomes the new government. We don't just queen someone "Miss President" and continue on with the same bunch.
Don't forget the Sec. of Agriculture, as well as other friends of Monsanto, such as the possible head of the new "Food Safety" Agency, Michael Taylor, former ceo of and, I believe, a present legal counsel for Monsanto. That would be part of the "food as weapon" division of the MIC.
I agree with raydelcamino. Its really a shame how clueless is the electorate. And the MIC is entrenched for sure.
War never solves anything. Violence and war just beget more violence and war. Somewhere, some time, somebody has to break the chain of violence. Everything the U.S. is enmeshed in today can be traced directly to World War II. Its like that war never really ended. Major hostilities ceased, but the ear did not end. It simmered on in Korea, Vietnam and the middle east. The U.S. overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran in 1953. It just never ends.
Sorry George, the US electorate was border line brain dead in 1972 when they chose Nixon over McGovern and the US electorate is totally brain dead now.
Besides, America has a long tradition of military spending as economic stimulus and few politicians will vote against economic stimulus in thie "bankrupted land".
Do you honestly believe the electorate had any real control over who becomes president?