War and Politics

It makes me very sad now that the only thing politicians talk about these days (especially nearly all of them running for office) is bringing the troops home. None of them talk about actually solving the problem. See they act like when all our soldiers are back in the United States the problem will be solved. And ironically from a pollsters perspective it will because the the 26.7 million Iraqis don't vote in US elections (and therefore aren't people, sorry folks unless you're an American politicians here don't consider your opinion worth much unless you are agreeing with what they are doing).

So what's this mean at as far as I see it? Well, eventually the Democrats will succeed in getting the troops home. It's inevitable since as I mentioned above pollsters rule Washington and the war is obviously unpopular. Have to blame Bush on that one, he certainly bungled the war effort going in. He probably should have emphasized the fact that we'd be in Iraq for decades. (Also it might have been nice if they had planned a little better for the postwar period.) We still have military forces in Germany 60+ years after that war ended. But Americans are lousy at history anyways aren't we? Iraq may of course actually pull things together without direct military support, to say it's impossible downplays the abilities of their people but I see it as unlikely. More likely is a brutal civil war and a country (or countries?) feeling betrayed by the Americans who came in kicked everything over and then left.

Politicians may see themselves elected to office on bringing the troops home but in 20 years politicians may be having to tell those troops to go back into Iraq to deal with a country (or countries) that hate America and are as active against us as Saddam or the Taleban ever was. Didn't this kind of short-sightedness lead to the problem in Afghanistan in the first place back in the 80s?

Maybe it's true that we just will never learn.