Ruminations on "Now that we've already gone to war..."

On Friday the GOP pulled the usual election year stunt of forcing the Democrats to cast a vote that will be used against them in November. This time the Red Herring/Poison Pill was the resolution against a specific Iraq Pullout timetable. So I'm listening to soundbites from the debate on the floor, and hear one NPR commentator say that "November should not be a referendum on whether or not we should have gone to war, that is history at this point."

"What!!!!?", I thought. First off, one cannot make rational decisions about how to proceed unless one also has a fundamental stance on how one got here in the first place. But that aside, it got me thinking about just how ensnared we are in a logical fallacy. Think, for a moment, just how politically powerful the tactic is:

"Well gee, whatever you might have thought about going to war, we can't just pull out"

I think most people would agree that we should minimize the amount of damage and chaos caused by our departure. At the very least it seems the most humanitarian thing to do, never mind the geopolitical upside to achieving stability as part of the exit strategy.

The problem is that it takes an important debate off the table, and more importantly, encourages future use of this tactic. The message to future warmongers is that all they have to do is rush as fast as possible to war, putting up enough of a smokescreen so that troops are engaged before meaningful debate can raise reasonable doubts on the wisdom of military action. After that, the "now that we're here" argument inoculates the perpetrators against criticism of the original action. Again: very, very powerful stuff.

So I think it's premature to retire the "should we have gone to war in Iraq" debate in the dustbin of history. Let's assume that against all odds, we exit a healthy Iraq. Keeping the go-to-war debate alive could be the difference between the PNAC gang looking like geniuses, or looking like they took us on a fool's errand that happened to not end as disastrously as it otherwise might have.

Likewise I bristle at the "cut and run" slur applied to anyone who protests the war. While I cannot speak for anyone else, the fact that I am categorically against the Iraq war does not mean that I reflexively want to airlift out the troops tomorrow. In fact, I personally don't have enough insight into the various exit strategies to have an educated opinion on exactly what to do next. But that doesn't make the protest moot:

• I know that protesting will not undo the war
  
• I know that withdrawal is a complex subject
  
• Our leaders need to understand that there is a political cost to this action.

Anyway, someone else must have made this argument more eloquently than have I, but I haven't seen it.

I just can't leave! Even after I've convince everyone in the parking lot on my way in that the bank was run by an evil director with monies of mass counterfeiting that could be used to destroy the US economy, and my intention was to find this counterfeited money and remove it... Well, I'm in the bank now and, even though everything I said to the people in the parking lot was a lie, I should go ahead and rob the bank, since that was my intention in the first place. Right?

The sad fact is, we entered Iraq under false pretenses. Bush lied us into war... To use the "We're in it, let's win it" argument caters to the most gullible and willfully ignorant citizens of our society. It's not a question of "winning" (winning what?) but the fact that we committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in the name of imperialism. We need to pull out and hold those people accountable who got us into this.

It's all about who is going to be able to say "I told you so" with the most credibility. Despite the setbacks in Iraq and the obvious mistakes that have been made, there remains the fact that a nationally elected popular government has been elected and Iraqi Security Forces are beginning to step up to the plate with increased credibility/legitimacy. Democrats do not want to be seen as the party that undid these steps forward. Republicans desperately wish to paint democrats in colors that will create unfavorable outcomes in the mid-term elections. I think most Democrats have done a good job of deflecting those Republican attempts and the voting records will support that. As much as it sucks to have to play political football with American lives, that's the game the Republicans have created. I think, politically, going along is smarter at this point than going against. By and large, Americans agree that we were lied to; they agree that the administration was incompetent in the prosecution of this war; and they agree that it was a mistake to invade in the first place; however, I think they also agree that our enemy, Al Queda is there and wanting to fight and as long as that continues, the majority of Americans are willing to accomodate them. What's more, as long as there remains hope of a positive outcome, Americans will continue to support the war effort and will rally against a political party that is seen as undermining that effort. So, we all agree, it sucks big time but, as Al Gore pointed out on Larry King the other night, there are no good options.