Pro vs. Con: America should not support Bush’s new plan for Iraq

By Joe Baker
Collegian Staff
January 24, 2007

President George W. Bush’s new deployment of 21,500 U.S. troops to combat zones in Iraq comes in defiance of the clear will of the voting public. In November, voters granted the Democratic Party a sweeping electoral victory, emphatically stating in exit polling that opposition to the war was a deciding factor in their votes. Bush showed that he had not misinterpreted the country’s message about Iraq and promised a new direction in accordance with the election results. Sadly, he has decreed a strategy which is, staggeringly, even worse than staying the course.

The public, the troops in Iraq, Congress, the military leadership and even the Bush-friendly Iraq Study Group are all opposed to escalation in Iraq. There is no meaningful support for further sacrifice of American life for our lost cause there, but Bush has deemed it necessary to make such a sacrifice as though being commander-in-chief gives him carte blanche to throw away more lives.

America has nothing to gain from sending more troops to Iraq. Bush has once again promised to set meaningful goals for withdrawal and finally conceded that our military’s commitment cannot be “open-ended,” but he has not outlined a plan for the reduction of our troops. In short, he has allowed our commitment to remain open-ended as we await some ill-defined victory.

Bush’s war has only served to pour tax dollars into the pockets of a select cabal of rich men. Bush’s additional deployment will be insufficient to establish order in the capital, let alone stabilize an entire country of 24 million people wracked by a civil war.

The Democratic Party has an unmistakable mandate to end the bloodshed in Iraq and the corruption and incompetence in Washington. Voters gave them power, not because of their own merits, but in defiance of Bush and his failed model of government. The new majority party is focused on its domestic agenda, but they neglect to resume their vital function of overseeing the executive branch. Bush must be stopped from sacrificing more troops, needs to be investigated, even impeached and removed from office.

Until the White House recently announced this escalation in Iraq, I believed that impeachment was not the best option for the country, for many reasons. The last impeachment was a transparent political hit attempt, and another impeachment would likely take the same course. Even if Bush was removed, Vice President Dick Cheney is no consolation nor is any other Republican down the line.

Leftist ideologues like me have long been convinced that Bush is a war criminal, but the more moderate public might not support an impeachment on the evidence currently available. But Bush, I believe, has proven definitively that he does not care about the will of his constituents, the lessons of his past failures or the lives of the soldiers under his command. His decision to commit further to the bloodbath in Iraq demonstrates incontrovertibly that he is callous, reckless and ignorant of history.

The American people must protest his reign conducted without regard for their wishes and best interests. The Democrats in Congress must block this escalation, investigate the crimes committed by the Administration in the past six years and impeach Bush when evidence is sufficient to justify his removal from office. International legal bodies must seek the extradition of Bush and his associates and try them for their war crimes.

gaugerj1@lasalle.edu