Okay, one more political thought. I’m getting a little tired of the “We have to bring the troops home” thing. Though I appreciate Cindy Sheehan (though I’m getting more and more irritated by her Diane Rehm/angry grandmother speeches) and her enthusiasm, we cannot pull out of Iraq now. I was against this war from the start, and I stay against it, but it is way too late to just pull out. We could save the lives of our troops who would come home, and no more mothers will lose their sons in Iraq, but what would happen to Iraq if we just leave, after having entirely destroyed the political structure of their country (albeit a corrupt one)? It would be a bigger insult for us to leave before they can defend themselves then it was for us to have invaded in the first place.
It would be wonderful if we could bring the troops home, and for the record, I never wanted them there in the first place, but it is just too late. So liberals, let’s work together and hope that this can end soon (but don’t ever take the heat off of Bush, because he deserves all of the criticism for this), but it’s not going to end by us just getting out of there and hoping that the Iraqi people can hold out against the insurgents, or that the insurgency will stop and the country will just instantly be better.
And conservatives, if you’re one of those who is now suddenly saying that we need to pull the troops out, I don’t mean to offend you, but you’re gutless. You supported this in the first place, and you’ve been telling me to just “shut up and support our troops already” for three years now, and now you want to pull out? Screw you. We have to see this through to the end (though I don’t know what that is), and I can say all I want about how I vehemontly disagreed with this war in the first place, but we have to see this through. I just pray that it’s close to the end.
It’s amazing how much I agree with this post.
As someone who would call herself conservative (although I hate political labels because most people seem to use them as an excuse to turn off their brains and not listen to opposing arguments, and because after all I’m a Christian first, and this could go on for a lot longer, but I’ll stop), I appreciate your overall tone in this post. It has something I miss in many office discussions of politics…intelligence. Oh, and saying “shut up and support the troops” is almost on the level as saying “Bush is a fool” and then acting as though you’ve just made an insightful political comment. Nothing like name-calling and muzzling to stimulate productive discussion of the issues.