Montgomery Advertiser Editorial
TO: Senator Ted Kennedy
ALABAMA VOICES: Let troops leave Iraq with heads held high
November 11, 2006
By William Z. Messer and Robert J. Varley
Iraq is a wildfire burning out of control. The question is whether the presence of American troops in that embattled nation is dousing that fire with water or feeding it with gasoline. Right or wrong, for better or for worse, our government has placed our country in this situation, and our troops in harms way. Whether a righteous cause or an unholy alliance, we have wedded ourselves to a weak and fragmented Iraqi government while alienating a sizable portion of the population.
History does not travel backwards, so we cannot undo what has been done. Instead, we must figure out where we are now and how best to proceed from here. Our choice is not of victory or defeat, or any other stark and illusory dichotomy. Instead, the question is which path will lead us through the quagmire and out of the dark forest of death and destruction.
We can later blame the administration, the media and ourselves for the mistakes and mendacity that have led us to this place. We can later honor and mourn the courageous men and women who have left behind their families, their careers, and even their lives on our behalf. Our duty now is to protect them, and to ameliorate the dangerous and desperate conditions in Iraq.
It is far easier to destroy despotism than to develop democracy. By its very nature as being a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, democracy cannot be imposed from without, regardless of the benevolent intentions of any foreign power. Only the Iraqis can choose whether and how to govern themselves. As long as we remain in Iraq, we will be an occupation force, at best stifling internal progress, at worst perverting it. As long as we stay in Iraq, we will be viewed as oppressors, an inviting target for insurgents, revolutionaries, and terrorists.
Even if we were not by our presence in Iraq giving birth to a whole new generation of anti-American zealots, staying the course means exposing American troops to death, destruction, and dehumanization on a daily basis for an ill-conceived and ultimately doomed strategy of imposing our will upon a sovereign foreign nation. We cannot put out the fire by sending young men and women to burn in the flames.
Perhaps in toppling Saddam Hussein, we lit the match that ignited the conflagration. Possibly through incompetence and abstinence we fanned the flames. It is done, and cannot be undone. Our troops have served well and valiantly; it is time for us to allow them to return to their families. The Iraqi people have suffered egregiously; it is time for us to allow them to determine their own destiny.
We must leave Iraq. Not in victory or in defeat, but in the realization that Iraqis must decide their own future. We should not cut and run; instead, our troops should march out proudly, with their heads held high, confident that whatever errors of omission or commission were perpetrated in this country, our personnel in Iraq did all they could with what they were given. We should not abandon our soldiers far from home to sweat, bleed, kill, and die for who knows how long.
Instead of occupying Iraq, let us provide food, medicine, and other humanitarian and economic assistance to the Iraqi people. There will continue to be deadly religious and political struggles in Iraq, whether we are there or not, as the nascent democracy struggles to survive. The civil war in Iraq will continue with or without us. What the ultimate result will be, only the Iraqis can decide.
We cannot, and we must not, decree Iraq’s present or design Iraq’s future, only the Iraqi people themselves can do so. We must allow them the freedom, the agonizing freedom, to become a nation of their own.