Iraq Withdrawal

This coming Tuesday US troops will begin withdrawing from major Iraq cities, turning over protection duties to the Iraq security forces. Evidently there are mixed feeling on both sides.

The positive group is saying the Iraq troops are more than capable of assuming the responsibility of protecting their country. They want the Allied forces out of their country as soon as possible, so they can show the world they can control their own destiny.

Then there are those who fear, based on the recent increase of car bombing and other violence, that the withdrawal of the Allied forces will only bring Iraq that much closer to a civil war.

I was never in favor of this war, right from the beginning. Part of the reason is that I am a member of the Viet Nam generation and I still see the images of people on top of the US embassy waiting for the helicopters to come and take them to safety, while the Vietnamese who had been our allies, stood barred at the embassy gate, hoping for salvation but knowing their fate was in the hands of the victors from Hanoi.

I do not think we will see American on the roof of the USA embassy in Baghdad. However, we will probably see a stream of Iraqis coming to the embassy looking for visas to get them out of Iraq.

For all of the rhetoric, I still see a civil war looming in Iraq's near future. I truly believe that the Kurds will take advantage of the confusion to try once again to form an independent country.
The Sunnis and Shiites have always just tolerated each other, and with interested parties wanting to preach their own agenda, both sides will receive outside support from those wanting to turn Iraq into the next Islamic theocracy.

The important thing, as all this unfolds, is to make sure no more American lives are lost in a war that never should have happened. It is time to concentrate on the only war we should have been involved in, Afghanistan. Maybe now, with all of our efforts devoted there, something positive, effective and final can be accomplished.

Its Common Sense!