An Immoral Abandonment
Even some members of the major media are beginning to question what the rush to exit Iraq will mean. Jake Tapper of ABC News tried to get Harry Reid to answer what should be a simple question: what about the Iraqis?
I tried to get an answer to what I blogged earlier today.
I did not succeed.
TAPPER: Senator Reid, what do you say to critics who say, "Look, the Senate voted, including two of you up on the stage, to authorize the president to use force in Iraq. Is there not a moral obligation of the United States to make sure that the Iraqi people are safe before the U.S. withdraws"? It's very clear that withdrawing U.S. troops might make U.S. troops safer, but it won't necessarily make the Iraqi people safer.
SENATE MAJORITY LEADER HARRY REID, D-NEV: As reported in the news this morning, 69 percent of Iraqis feel they are less safe because of the presence of Americans; 21 percent of the Iraqi people feel they're safer. That's pretty clear that American troops who are over there protecting the Shias, the Sunnis and the Kurds — they're not welcome. That's the reason that they're doing a good job of protecting the Shias, Kurds and Sunnis, but they are all trying to kill our soldiers. That is a recipe to bring our troops home. And that's why the Levin-Reed amendment is so critically important. …It transitions the mission within 120 days, and by the first day of May of next year, our troops will be out of there, our combat troops will be out of there. They will be left to do counterterrorism, training the Iraqis — continuing to train the Iraqis and protecting our resources. That's what the Iraqi people want and that's what American people want.
TAPPER: I'm sorry, if I could just follow up very quickly…Do you think the Iraqi people will be safer with U.S. troops out?
Tapper never got an answer. Reid is playing a very, very short-sighted political game here. He can score points with his friends on the left and relegate Iraqis to a genocide. What the current posturing by Reid is ignoring is the human cost. It is also ignoring a flat fact: Whoever wins the White House in 2008 will have to deal with the wreckage Reid and Pelosi will leave behind with their bitter partisanship. If it is Hillary Clinton, she will be left to deal with the ruin of the Middle East and the huge destruction to America's national interest.
The very loud left can preen about how all the blame will be on the backs of George Bush and anyone who supports the war. But they will find out - the hard way - that the world does not agree. Because this will not be a Republican defeat - it will be an American defeat. And the world will blame America - not the parties, no matter how well-meaning. And whoever sits in the Oval Office will get to deal with that. The posturing of the Democrats on this will come back to haunt them, regardless of who is President.
But thank you, very sincerely, Jake Tapper. At least you tried to get Reid to face the facts of the blood that will be all over his hands - and the hands of every, single screeching member of the left. Every, single death in the genocide that will follow a withdrawal will be on the hands of those who forced that action. And America, not just the Republicans, will pay dearly this time.
By Tim, Friday, 13 July , 2007 @ 7:43 am
Having lived through the same Democratic white-flag waving in Viet Nam, the same thing happened there. Our combat troops were withdrawn in 1972, and the North Vietnamese communists took over in 1975 with a resultant purging of South Viet Nam, resulting in many deaths.