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| What To Do About Iraq? Jan. 5, 2007 As the admitted death toll of U.S. military in Iraq nears *3,000, more and more Americans are demanding that the President and Congress do something to get us out of that quagmire - the question is “how?”. The simplistic approach is to turn the mess we created over to the new Iraqi government and leave. That is not so easy to do! Senator John McCain has pointed out that, unlike Vietnam where we pulled out, came home and tried to salve our wounds, leaving Iraq will mean the war will “follow us” to our shores. Terrorists have used our invasion of that sovereign nation to mobilize other factions within the country and will claim a victory if we just pull out. According to Sen. McCain, and we agree, “The terrorists will follow us home!” The problem is extensive and regardless of how anyone feels about the legitimacy of invading that county, our President and Congress are responsible - and we, the people, are responsible for the actions of our government (whether you voted for them or not)! While a new Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, now has the opportunity to come up with some solutions, there is every possibility that he may have some personal or business issues that he will consider when making decisions or recommendations to President Bush. VP Dick Cheney, despite the fact that he resigned from Halliburton Oil, is still working for the oil interests of his U.S. buddies. As long as the U.S. “controls” the Iraqi oil, Cheney can influence the OPEC nations to raise and lower oil production and prices as he considers politically or financially expedient for him and his associates. Profits and politics continue to play a major role in any decisions to withdraw or increase troops in Iraq. The vast majority of Iraqi citizens are just “people” like us. They want the killing and bombings to stop. They just want to live their lives, raise their families, work at their jobs or businesses - and be at peace. It is a minority of religious fanatics who are dedicated to being all powerful in the Iraqi government. Too often the “experts” don’t seek answers from the general public - they think the people are too dumb to resolve complicated issues. Since President Bush and the Congress used “bringing democracy to Iraq” as one of the justifications to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime, maybe we should look to the citizens of Iraq to resolve the problem. Let them apply those “democracy principles” and vote on U.S. involvement! They could be given the options to: (1) Have the U.S. continue occupying their country and bring in all the troops necessary to quell the violence. (2) Have the U.S. and its allies initiate an orderly withdrawal over the next 12 months. (3) Have a limited withdrawal and only troops used for training the Iraqi police and army remain in the country. It is their county and if we truly believe in democratic rule, then the citizens of Iraq must be given the opportunity to decide! Whatever their decision, it won’t necessarily solve our problems with terrorists, but it will save some American lives and maybe we can find a true justification for further actions to stave off the religious fanatics of the world. *Note: Death numbers do not include those who were wounded in Iraq and transported to military hospitals outside the country - and then died from their wounds. Numbers do not include deaths of our military allies. Numbers don’t even touch on deaths of innocent Iraqi women and children who have been killed. |