Originally Posted by Darth Tang
I believe this was explained earlier in the thread. I will do it again for you.
OK, at least you did acknowledge that not all democrats are screaming loudly for this. I do believe that the overwhelming majority of democrats believe that we now have a responsibility in Iraq, regardless of whether they agree with the initial policy or not. Obviously some have called for immediate withdraw and unfortunately this gets latched on to when the debate turns into simple partisan bashing. I don't personally see how anyone could argue that we don't have a responsibility to finish or fix what we started and created. Immediate withdraw is not even an option in my opinion. However there is a substantial difference in opinion about whether the current "plan" is working or not. By stating that it's not working and that, in fact, things may even be getting worse, aren't criticizing the capability of our troops. It's a critisism of the overall ineffective planning of the operation. Most of which isn't even being allowed to be conducted by the military. The timetable idea, also isn't to be just a "hey guys, we're gonna stay here until exactly this date, then we're gonna let you be, just thought we would let you know before hand." Everything is simplified in a silly partisan debate to make the other side look silly. The fear on the democratic side, is of a very very long occupation of Iraq without accomplishing any solid, clear cut goals. The argument is that thus far the planning has been very shoddy. That we need to have a clear and competent plan for what we are to accompolish to be able to withdraw. Something to actually work toward. The current "plan" of staying until it's all better is just a bit too vague to defend and continue to sacrifice more lives for. We need hard concrete goals, and methods of accomplishing those goals. We need to actively "push",and hard, the Iraqi leadership to prepare for our withdraw. Repeatedly saying "we're gonna stay the course" "we won't back down" "we'll stay until the job is finished" gets a bit tiresome, and has frankly become cliche.
On a side note, our country does have plenty of resources to properly equip our soldiers without cutting any corners or causing delay, there is no excuse for not doing so. This is obviously not a critique of the soldiers.
I do understand your concern about demoralizing the troops with critique of the policy. However, our troops are professionals, they have obviously been trained to perform under extreme and varying pressures, but to continue to do their duty and perform. I believe they do an incredible job of this. On the other side of this same coin, is the necessary component in our society to voice our opinions, make them heard, and to challenge the government on difficult situations. We say we want to encourage freedom in other parts of the world, then we whine when our own public criticizes the leaderships decisions. An attempt is made, and this was very strong at the beginning of this war, to classify those who oppose the presidents stance as somehow unpatriotic, anti-american, or as I've seen on this thread several times, as wanting to help the terrorists, or loving Sadam. This is just unbelievably absurd. We don't have a dictator in this society and it is perfectly right and proper, in fact necessary to allow the environment, to question and criticize governmental policy on every front. One has to wonder if the emphasis on supposedly demoralizing the soldiers isn't a basic attempt to use guilt as a tool to quell criticism.
You mentioned the situation in vietnam. During vietnam, there was a huge portion of society who were erroneously criticizing the troops very harshly and ignorantly. I also have many family members, my father, several uncles and an aunt who are vietnam veterans. Also relatives who were in world war II and Korea, some of whom were prisoners of war. I don't think we have that environment today, and I don't think that many people, on the left or right, would stand for such behavior.
