Zabrina on the Future of Iraq and US policy

I posted this comment there, which I will copy over here for my own reasons.

Who do you think is right? Do you think an American withdrawal will be a victory for Islam, or do you think an American withdrawal will not only conserve our reserves, preserve or halt the degradation in the quality of our armed forces just in time, and help to divide and demoralize the camp of Islam and Jihad?

It is too late to withdraw, you have to get it stuck in, cause they have already stuck it in us. You will never get any allies by behaving dishonorably and throwing all the Iraqis who supported the US, down the drain with the rest of their countryfolk. We will not deserve it.

I admit there is something persuasive (perhaps the comfort of wishful thinking) about this realpolitik argument, even though I doubt any such Demonstration Project will ever get through the thick skulls of many infidels, who have managed to ignore many previous global demonstration projects.

Demonstrate what? The Islamic Jihad will demonstrate that they ENJOY killing millions if not billions of their people. You think DEATH causes them any worry? ha.

I fear the ramifications for the future if we reneg yet again on our pledges to help the Iraqi people attain self-determination

I do not advocate the path of Honor because I fear the consequences, I advocate the path of Honor because it is honorable.

But if indeed we are in a war, how many American lives do we owe Iraq in general and our friends there specifically before the equation turns unfruitful for our own country? This is the crux of the problem, and perhaps unknowable.

As I see it, war isn't an equation. War is a quantum effect. You know of what I speak? Schrodinger's Cat. The observed reality, is what you made it to be by observing it, by committing an action that collapsed the wavefronts of possibility. Even if current mathematics do describe quantum wave front properties, few on blogs will know enough of it to discuss it in detail. I sure don't.

Is this a valid or a mistaken belief?

Valid more or less.

But is our war in Iraq to help make possible a free society going to succeed, and is it really draining a swamp or not?

It can be anything you want it to be. All of the above or none of the above.

(too bad we couldn't have had it earlier)

You get to go to war with the Democrat Party that you have, not the Democrat Party that you would wish for ; )

Are we doing it right? Are we doing it as intelligently as possible, as wholeheartedly as possible? Are we doing it for reasons that are true?

Some may say yes, some may say no. They are just opinions, chaff to the wind. What really matters is what will actually happen.

And Ralph Peters at U.S.A. Today writes a very defeatist editorial saying we have already lost in Iraq and says, as Fitzgerald advocates, that we should pull out.

CDR Salamander really pulled Peters' plug when he blogged about that one.

I, too, would like to see an Iraqi referendum on whether they want American troops in their country to stay or go. I think most Amercans would like to know the results of that election.

I support it as well.