by Elizabeth M Young

Created on: July 05, 2010

Iraq represents a quagmire and a potential threat at the same time, creating a conflict between the US desire to have a permanent presence in that region of the middle East, and the US desire to get out of there, eliminating an almost fatal drain on the nations treasury.

The fact of the matter is that, no matter how strong or permanent the US presence would be, there will always be an intractable and impossible set of goals with powerful and built in self defeating elements. The US cannot be both a weak and subservient presence and an occupying force at the same time. There is no way to put up with a democratic election process and to expect the Iraqis to willingly tolerate a permanent occupying force at the same time.

There should never have been a goal of establishing a perment US presence in Iraq with out the full public support for the US as a hegenemonistic and totalitarian invader, occupier and undemocratic ruler. This is the only way that such a scheme would have worked and there will never be any other way.

Iraq represents a threat as an unstable country that is vulnerable to another overtaking by Iranian, Syrian or other problematic agents, which will recreate the exact conditions and activities that caused the US to intervene in the form of two Gulf wars, one of them a quagmire of extended and useless occupation.

The elephant that is sitting in the room keeps trying to tell all American voters that they allowed a toxic administration to go buck wild with one small cabal's insane plans for Middle Eastern intrusion, interference and dominance. This set of plans was known to be decades old, with one man, Donald Rumsfeld, behind them. Mr. Rumsfeld went to ground and has not been a significant public figure, nor has he been able to take responsibility for the horrendous failure of his ideas since the end of his active role.

It is time for America to put any more plans for international belligerence into remission for good. There is never going to be room in our lifetimes either for the continuation of the current debacle or for entering into any more ill conceived and stupidly executed "mistakes". And Iraq, thanks to the fearful and gullible support of the public in combination with one of the most malignant and predatory administrations in history became one of the biggest and most catastrophic mistakes in US history.

It is time to end the war and to bring the troops, money and materiel home. Then it is time to take emergency measures to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels.

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