A Letter on Iraq, Denial, and Gambling Addiction

I would like to be hopeful that some good result will come from the Iraq Occupation, but events do not create confidence that anything will. Those who propose to stay the course communicate no plans that provide the cost in money and casualties, realistic objectives, or timeframe. I am sure plans exist and they are not attractive given majority opposition to the current state of affairs.

President Bush leads the faith-based group of Iraq deniers. The denial comes from two beliefs: faith will carry the day and it is their god given right to do whatever they please. If The US just keeps sending in more troops, something good will eventually happen.

President Bush is part of my generation. Some of us learned that we cannot have everything we want. He is part of the group that never learned that. I know that sounds like folk psychology, but folk psychology is not entirely a bad thing. After all, it is essential to our daily survival.

Iraq deniers fail to see how so many of us could oppose the war and see President Bush in a bad light. Subtract out all the politics and it remains this simple. Iraq is a project gone badly. Bad projects need either to be set aright or stopped. The denier camp considers themselves above obeying the rule. Trust me they are wrong.

We also see the unsubtle shifting of the burden by those who support the war onto the shoulders of those who have opposed it from the beginning. The fish are not biting. The Iraq problem lies squarely on the shoulders of those who want to be there. They cannot have it both ways. Either take responsibility or get the hell out of the way.

When you do a risk/reward analysis on the situation in Iraq it comes out looking badly. The faith-based crowd does not think it matters and that it is just number crunching. Well you had better do some good number crunching when fighting wars. Once again, the deniers do not possess any special privileges when it comes to what the numbers say. If I were to say that I was taking my life savings to Las Vegas next weekend to get fabulously wealthy you would think me crazier than you already do. Yet we see those who support the Iraq Occupation take exactly that attitude.

Long term, we need to find a way that mistakes like President Bush’s Presidency and the Iraq disaster do not happen. In the meantime, show me the money or get out of my way. I was not born to support your gambling addiction.

What we see with the Iraq Occupation is that some people clearly have a gambling addiction. As long as those who oppose the occupation keep supporting the addiction with lives and money, they will remain addicted. The last election was supposed to help break the vicious cycle in which we find ourselves. As I predicted, the new Congress has not done a damn thing to help. Trusting the Democratic Party is no better than trusting the Republican Party. Until the country moves clearly into the libertarian/leftist quadrant, nothing good will happen. Things are that broken.