Why its time to cut and run in Iraq

A lot of politicians and commentators seem to accept as gospel that we shouldn't "cut and run" in Iraq.

One reason often given for not pulling out of Iraq now is that it would hurt our international reputation, particularly our credibility with our allies. But you have to ask yourself, exactly what reputation and credibility are we preserving by hanging on in Iraq?

The whole world can see that we didn't really think through the invasion of Iraq before we launched it, and they can also see that in the years since then we have consistently failed to apply enough resources and manpower to stabilize the country. We took on something that was bigger than we expected, and then stubbornly pretended that we had things under control when we didn't.

The reputation we have established so far in Iraq is one of biting off more than we can chew, and then failing to commit the resources the situation demands, and all the while denying we have a problem. Why would we want to preserve this reputation? Does anyone think our performance in Iraq so far reassures our allies in any way? Are our allies saying to each other "After seeing the US stay the course in Iraq we know that if we ever get in trouble we can count on the US to send us less help than is needed, and then deny that we need anything more."

Lets face it. Our performance in Iraq so far, and our continued presence in Iraq, does not in any way reassure our allies about our ability to help and protect them. At the very least, continuing to stay in Iraq reduces our ability to protect our allies by tieing up our military.

I think that if we promptly pull out of Iraq our allies will actually breath a sigh of relief. Not only will our military be freed up so it is available to help them, it also means that we will stop asking them for money and troops to help out in Iraq.

Thoughts on the 2006 Midterm Elections

I still find it hard to believe the Republicans managed to lose the House of Representatives despite the fact that they had gerrymandered all the states to give themselves safe districts, polls show that more American's consider themselves conservative than liberal, they had financial deep pockets, and the Democrats, with all due respect, are pretty disorganized and vague about what they stand for.

It was the Republican's game to lose, and they managed to lose it.

It seems to me that if you had to pick one factor that doomed the Republican's to defeat it was the war in Iraq. Its the only thing that is going really poorly for the US these days.

And I don't think it was just the fact that things were going poorly in Iraq that turned voters off so much as the White House and Republican leadership constantly trying to pretend like things were going great. Insisting that you are actually doing great when you and everyone else knows you are doing terrible doesn't make you look resolute and strong, it just makes you look weak and dumb to boot. Not only are you not strong enough to admit to your failures, you are not smart enough to realize that everyone sees through your pathetic denials.

The name of this blog is ...

I named this blog in honor of David Byrne's song Finite = Alright:

Three-hundred-fifty cities in the world
Just thirty teeth inside of our heads
These are the limits to our experience
It’s scary but it’s alright
And everything is finite

To me this song is about the fact that nothing lasts forever, nothing is permanent, everything changes. I think its important to keep this fact in one's mind at all times to avoid making decisions based on the delusion that it is possible or even desireable to preserve anything forever.

Here are some other restatements of this principle:

But life is just a party
And parties weren't meant 2 last
-Prince, 1999

On a large enough time line, the survival rate for everyone will drop to zero.
-Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, Chapter 2