Can We Really Afford Twenty More Years of Iraq?

By Mimikatz

Fred Kaplan has a good piece at Slate on the questions that Congress should ask General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker when they report next week.  As Kevin Drum notes, towards the end Kaplan quotes military analyst Stephen Biddle (an adviser to the Administration):

Biddle also said (again, expressing his personal view) that the strategy in Iraq would require the presence of roughly 100,000 American troops for 20 years—and that, even so, it would be a "long-shot gamble."

"The strategy" being the bottom-up attempt to achieve reconciliation among factions like the reconciliation between the US and Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar.  Leaving aside all the questions Kaplan raises about why it may be not only harder but impossible to reconcile the Iraqi factions, is this "long-shot gamble" what the Democrats in Congress really want?  And can we afford it?

Meanwhile, the GAO Report says that nearly all benchmarks are failing to be met in Iraq and that the Administration's statistics claiming to show the opposite are bogus. And the report issued by a 20-member Commission headed by retired General Jones  says that our excessive footprint in Iraq is actually counterproductive to our stated aims and also says that any declines in Baghdad sectarian violence are probably the result of  ethnic cleansing.  General Jones also says we can begin withdrawing early next year.  And everyone agrees that we will have to start bringing home some troops next year  because we don't have the replacements for them.

And yet, our Democratic Congress appears ready to give the Bush/Cheney regime its demanded $200 billion Iraq Supplemental funding even though the Bush/Cheney regime can't get its request together in a timely way.  (via Atrios.)   They appear ready to abandon the plan to impose withdrawal timetables, all in a futile effort to get a few GOPers to join them.  But why?  With the public--virtually the entire known universe on their side, why are the Dems thinking so small?  Why aren't they making the GOP own and defend this unpopular war?

And over at the economy, the jobs report showed a net loss for the first time in 4 years, the Dow Jones average is down 200 points at this moment and the subprime mortgage mess threatens to morph into a recession, at least in several of the most populous parts of the country. As if this were not enough, the cumulative debt has gone over $ 9 trillion.   This is more than the current debt ceiling of $8.965 trillion, (raised 4 times already during the Bush/Cheney regime) but there are some items that are not subject to the limit, so the Treasury may still be able to  borrow money for a short while.

With all this factual firepower and with not only the approriations power but the leverage of the debt ceiling, why oh why can't the Democrats learn to stand strong and do what the public wants instead of capitulating to the Bush/Cheney regime at every turn?

Comments

[Steve Elliott]

I am a Canadian. I lived in the Pacific Grove-Monterey California area during the early 70`s. Then I was nowhere near interested in politics, but I was amazed at the American System which pursued Nixon till he resigned, I still remember how the citizens of the United States were glued to their television sets watching the demise of their President and elected leader. The American System of Administation and Justice is still intact. It must be applied now to eradicate this Cancer within the Whitehouse, for the future of the world.

[Mimikatz]

That was then--this is now. Now we are almost all consumers not citizens. That, plus outrage overload for those who pay attention, is the root of the apathy.

[Ishmael]

Steve Elliott - fellow Canuck here, just want to point out to our American friends that our present Prime Minister and Bush lover Stephen Harper, also elected with only 36% of the vote, should also be removed ASAP. Just this morning, I have read that Canada has joined with Russia and Colombia (!) of all countries, to try and destroy the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, despite unanimous support from govt departments from Foreign Affairs to National Defense, and the support of the previous govt. Oh, and there is also word that he may commit Canada, a leading uranium producer, to join the US and other nuclear western countries in the Global Nuclear Partnership, and agree to repatriate all the nuclear waste from Canadian uranium to Canada for storage, or as the Tories put it, "reprocessing". We have a Prime Minister who spent his political formative years as the head of the right wing lobby group the National Citizens Coalition, which would be comparable to the head of the American Enterprise Institute being elected President. The Aussies seem about to boot John Howard, I can only hope that Little Stephen will not be far behind.

[Comrade Rutherford]

"why oh why can't the Democrats learn to stand strong and do what the public wants"

There is only one answer, and I've known it since they refused to investigate Reagan for the Iran/Contra Consitutional violations:

The Democratic leadership is in league with the GOP against the intrests of the citizenry.

[Alyx]

$$$$ now is the REAL citizen, flesh is just for worker bees....'want fries with that'

(p.s....born a Canuck but grew up in the US of A)