Tuesday Peace Blogging

The Tuesday Topic on Blogs for Peace is right in-line with my last Tuesday Topic post two weeks ago.

"The United States Congress passed a bill last week limiting war funding and calling for substantial withdrawal by next March. President Bush is expected to veto. It is also expected that there are insufficient votes to override this veto, and this will lead to negotiations on a compromise bill.

Do you trust those who are against the war in the US Congress to stick to their policies and stand up for peace?

If not, do you find any wholly political solutions likely or viable for the short-term in ending the Iraq War?"

Our current executive misleader insisted on "Staying the Course" on the Iraq occupation, and has steered the situation into certain disaster. There is now way to win, we are not fighting a war, we are trying to bring security to a region of the world that has a violent past. No point on blaming the guilty, no crimes seem to stick to the leaders that misled us into this situation. We need a solution. The House and Senate has offered continued funding for the war with a clear exit strategy, the executive branch wants to reject this idea and punish the troops for his mismanagement. What do we do? It is a very complicated issue.

I do not see any peaceful solution for this situation. If we leave, there is sure to be an humanitarian crisis, but doing the same failed strategy means thousands of more deaths and much more violence. It is a bad situation. We need to let the fire burn out, which isn't likely to happen no matter what we do, or we need to bring in enough resources to extinguish the fire. As long as we keep letting our current executive misleaders use the Iraq occupation as a political toy, we will not have any success. They are not wise enough to see that their strategy is not working.

The Iraq situation has decreased security for Americans worldwide, and left the U.S. vulnerable because vital components of our defense system our being misused in a misguided, mismanaged occupation which is now a huge resource hog without any positive results. They are just waiting to blame their failures on the next administration.

The only workable solution is setting a timetable for withdrawal and letting the Arab states handle the situation, but that is basically the same problems that have created the civil and religious wars (sectarian violence).

Did you know? Iraqi Kurdistan is as an autonomous entity inside Iraq, with its own local government and parliament since 1992. Yes, even while Saddam was still dictator, he never had much control in Kurdistan since this time. Kurdistan is peaceful.

Enough!

Have you seen this?

azgoddess shouted out about this book last week. I think it needs more attention. We need more outrage about what we are letting our executive misleaders accomplish with our money and our country.

Reviews:

Publisher's Weekly: The former president of Ford and Chrysler, is back to sound a howl of anger against the sad state of leadership in the U.S. today. Iacocca gives a rundown of sins committed by George W. Bush and his administration.

Booklist: Iacocca is outraged. Now 82, he has seen the U.S. overcome some of its worst crises, including the Great Depression and World War II, through great leadership. As the CEO of Chrysler Corporation, he brought the company back from the brink of bankruptcy and worked with the government to overcome the fallout from the 1970s oil crisis. Now, he says, our government has fallen under the grip of arrogant ideologues and spineless detractors.

Excerpts:
"Had Enough?

Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course."

Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!"

"I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have. "

Tuesday Peace Blogging on Wednesday

I was going to post this yesterday, for a off-topic Tuesday Topic with Blogs For Peace. Because of the tragic event this week, I postponed this post until today.

Peace for Iraq? - That, it would seem, is up to the Iraqi people. Am I wrong? Tell me!

End the War in Iraq? - We are not at war, we are occupiers of a foreign land. There is a civil/religious war being waged in Iraq. The average American citizen has nothing to gain or lose from our current actions in Iraq, other than selfish pride.

We went into Iraq and removed an evil dictator, when our own military, intelligence, and allies advised against it. The evil dictator was already contained, and containment was a better option than the violent history of the region. Our leaders didn't listen, and now there is more violence, bloodshed, and murder than when that evil dictator was in power. He was powerless beyond his own borders. Our leaders had ulterior motives. The war and current occupation has been a monumental failure.

Our leaders are now the war criminals in Iraq. Saddam wasn't even in tried in a World Court, we let his political opposition have him, try him, and execute him. It was a sham. As phony as our current president executive misleader.

Now, let's take a look at the current situation and analyze it.

The majority of Americans want peace in Iraq and they want to bring the troops home, even those in the military, and right-wingers that once supported this conflict.

Well, since I'm always playing the devil's advocate, I have to say "Whoa, not so fast!".

We have to be aware, bringing the troops home will NOT bring peace to Iraq. If we leave right away, there is going to be a huge humanitarian crisis in Iraq. I foresee escalation of the civil and religious conflicts, and genocide, if we leave now. The massacres in the streets would continue, but at a much more rapid pace. We are responsible for the current state of affairs in Iraq.

What are are options?

There doesn't seem to be any. The "Stay the Course" plan has steered the "Ship of Freedom" right into a huge iceberg, and all we can do is bale water, but we need a lot more manpower to bale fast enough, so it is sinking fast. There is not enough manpower. Even with the surge, which has been little more than a tiny bandage on a huge festering wound.

I left the following comment, as an analogy of the situation, on one of Morning Martini's blog posts:
"A big building is on fire, and we are trying to use squirt guns to put out the fire. The fire is getting worse, so we use more squirt guns and manage to put out the fire in a little corner of the building, but the rest of the building is still burning out of control, and the corner where we put out the fire will soon reignite from the fire that still burning. We need a new strategy, or we need to just let the fire burn itself out, but the little bit we are doing is not ever going be successful."

Our phony leadership in this country has created a no-win situation in Iraq? What are the options now? Do you want to get beat up with a baseball bat or a lead pipe? (Lead Pipe? HHMM, a little too much influence from this blog.)

The House and Senate has offered a slow withdrawal option with continued funding for this occupation, but our phony presidential failure rejects those options, saying he will punish the troops if we don't give him the support that only he wants, a bottomless hole which to throw billions of dollars, and no withdrawal timeline. He will not negotiate. There is no common sense in his option. Should we stay where we are not wanted, with limited resources, wasting our time and money? We need smarter solutions.

Stayed tuned - In a future post, I will try to come up with alternatives to make receiving our ass-whooping a little less painful.

to be continued.......very soon.....really