Some people are talking about pulling out of Iraq. As much as I’d like us to be out of that war, I can’t make myself believe that withdrawing from Iraq is the right thing to do.
Yes, I’m certainly willing to believe that we’d be better off if we had never invaded Iraq, and I might even be willing to believe that the Iraqis would be better off if we had left Saddam Hussein in charge. But we can’t undo the things we’ve done. We can’t put Iraq back together the way it used to be.
We can only try to control what happens next.
Here’s the problem with withdrawing our troops from Iraq, in a single paragraph from an article about something else:
AQI is both feared and hated,” Capt Broekhuizen said, referring to Al Qaeda in Iraq. “They’ve been running a brutal terror campaign. No city leaders are left here who will take a leadership role.” Marines from Golf Company said they recently fished two bodies out of the local river: a man had been decapitated, and his 4-year old tied to his leg before both were thrown into the river and the little boy drowned. The killings were a product of Al Qaeda terror.
If we leave Iraq now, we will be leaving it in the hands of the people who did that. We will be giving the beheaders control over the lives of 26 million people.
What happens next…is genocide.
[Update: See also this companion piece.]
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