Humanitarians must have a very hard time over matters of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The primary mission, assuring that Saddam Hussein would not ever use WMDs is assuredly done. The secondary mission, to deny terrorists and jihadis a friendly state, has been mostly done. The tertiary mission, to jumpstart a friendly democratic regime in Iraq has been a partial success. The fourth mission, to pacify Iraq itself, didn't ever seem to be a priority and it is an abject failure. The rise of the Iraqi insurgency is the unintended but perhaps foreseeable consequence of our military intervention.
In fact, the way I see it, the rise of the insurgency and the descent of Iraq into un-democratically governable chaos is the whole of our failure, and it is upon this failure that Democrats were elected this fall on an 'anti-war' mandate. But there is nothing unforeseeable about George Packer's vision:
Withdrawal means that the United States will have to watch Iraqis die in ever greater numbers without doing much of anything to prevent it, because the welfare of Iraqis will no longer be among our central concerns. Those Iraqis who have had anything to do with the occupation and its promises of democracy will be among the first to be killed: the translators, the government officials, the embassy employees, the journalists, the organizers of women’s and human rights groups. As it is, they are being killed one by one. (I personally know at least half a dozen of them who have been murdered.) Without the protection of the Green Zone,U.S. bases, or the inhibiting effect on the Sunni and Shia militias of 150,000 U.S. troops, they will be killed in much greater numbers. To me, the relevant historical analogy is not the helicopters taking off from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, leaving thousands of Vietnamese to the reeducation camps. It is the systematic slaughter by the Khmer Rouge of every Cambodian who appeared to have had anything to do with the West. If the United States leaves Iraq, our last shred of honor and decency will require us to save as many of these Iraqis as possible.
From a black partisan perspective, Pelosi's desire to withdraw ASAP smacks very deeply of white liberal sentiment. It is not the effect on the people she worries about so much as it is the virtue of her liberal character. Pelosi cares more that the US not be seen as bullies and baddies, and if the Iraqis must suffer their own fate as we disengage with flowers and niceness, well - too bad. In fact, by taking this position, she cosigns the intent of the death squads that will arise in Iraq if we depart too soon.
It's our moral standing in the world vs their lives. George W. Bush cares about the latter. Nancy Pelosi cares most about the former.
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