Hooray!! Discourse!

All of the silliness that has occurred on Capitol Hill this week has me thinking, which is more than most of those idiots who got their 15 minutes on C-span tend to do. What I so desperately want is some REAL debate on this war. Finally, someone has decided to start one:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/09/AR2007020901917_pf.html

and

http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/

Read. I'll wait.

Now. All of you chickenhawks who are so gung-ho for this war but 1) weasled out of 'Nam, and/or 2) aren't willing to volunteer for the military, RIGHT NOW, sit down. Ditto for kneejerk peaceniks.

For the remainder, let's discuss.

I will be completely up front and say I have been against this war from its inception because it was clear to me in the run-up that those who were proposing this action were looking at it through a decidedly Western lens, and very little consideration had been given to scenarios that did not involve purple fingers and being greeted as liberators. Had I been given information that would have led to a conclusion that 1) killing Saddam was really connected to our national security, and 2) this administration was doing something that really improved our national security, I would have been willing to at least give it a chance.

Let's pitch the red herring of "Saddam was an evil dictator, blah blah." If that were our criteria for war, we'd be in scores of wars right now. Leaving playground namecalling ("white flag Republicans") aside, I am old enough to remember Vietnam, and I want to never repeat that complete defeat. I think it was and still is incredibly demoralizing to our nation. We should learn lessons so that disaster is not repeated (this might have been easier with an adminstration of people who bothered to serve, and took advice from someone besides Kissinger). That said, I am profoundly uncomfortable with an immediate pullout. I question whether our withdrawal, now, will contribute to stabilization.

It breaks my heart to see those names, faces, and ages of the military personnel roll across my TV screen every week on The News Hour and This Week. I worry every day for those who are in harm's way (I have a cousin there right now). We've seen how this adminstration treats people who try to hold it accountable. A "surge" won't change anything, and a "non-binding resolution" is just laughable.

But what is the answer?

Debate is good. Let's keep it up.