One More Reason Why We Need To Leave Iraq Now

In Vietnam the majority of the population considered the United States the enemy. The US forces knew that and acted accordingly. When you can't tell who the enemy is civilians get killed. In Iraq we have something we didn't have in Vietnam, opinion polls. Those polls tell us 80% of the Iraqis want us out and 45% think it's OK to kill Americans. The US forces on the ground know this.
US army accidentally killed civilians

BAQUBA, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. troops opened fire on a crowded minivan north of Baghdad on Monday, fearing a car bomb attack, and killed at least three members of the same family, including a child, the U.S. military and survivors said.

The U.S. army's 3rd Infantry Division confirmed the incident, saying its troops had opened fire after first trying to wave the minivan to a stop and then firing warning shots.

"This is a tragedy," said Major Steve Warren, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Baquba, near where the shooting occurred.

"But these tragedies only happen because Zarqawi and his thugs are out there driving around with car bombs," he added, referring to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a militant leader in Iraq.

Warren said three people -- two men and a child -- were killed and three were wounded, but the survivors disputed that, saying five members of the family, including two children, were killed and four were wounded.

Please note how Major Warren was quick to blame it on Zarqawi and his thugs. No Major, it wasn't because of Zarqawi, it was because Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld have Americans in a place they shouldn't be and in a place where 80% of the people don't want them. Make no mistake, Zarqawi is there because we are there!

Today in The New York Times Paul Krugman tells us it's Time To Leave.

Not long ago wise heads offered some advice to those of us who had argued since 2003 that the Iraq war was sold on false pretenses: give it up. The 2004 election, they said, showed that we would never convince the American people. They suggested that we stop talking about how we got into Iraq and focus instead on what to do next.

It turns out that the wise heads were wrong. A solid majority of Americans now believe that we were misled into war. And it is only now, when the public has realized the truth about the past, that serious discussions about where we are and where we're going are able to get a hearing.

Representative John Murtha's speech calling for a quick departure from Iraq was full of passion, but it was also serious and specific in a way rarely seen on the other side of the debate. President Bush and his apologists speak in vague generalities about staying the course and finishing the job. But Mr. Murtha spoke of mounting casualties and lagging recruiting, the rising frequency of insurgent attacks, stagnant oil production and lack of clean water.

Mr. Murtha - a much-decorated veteran who cares deeply about America's fighting men and women - argued that our presence in Iraq is making things worse, not better. Meanwhile, the war is destroying the military he loves. And that's why he wants us out as soon as possible.

I'd add that the war is also destroying America's moral authority. When Mr. Bush speaks of human rights, the world thinks of Abu Ghraib. (In his speech, Mr. Murtha pointed out the obvious: torture at Abu Ghraib helped fuel the insurgency.) When administration officials talk of spreading freedom, the world thinks about the reality that much of Iraq is now ruled by theocrats and their militias.

Some administration officials accused Mr. Murtha of undermining the troops and giving comfort to the enemy. But that sort of thing no longer works, now that the administration has lost the public's trust.

Krugman points out that things will go to hell when we leave, although I suspect the majority of the Iraqis think it already has with us there. It's not a question of when we can leave but realistically how long can we stay.

Instead, defenders of our current policy have had to make a substantive argument: we can't leave Iraq now, because a civil war will break out after we're gone. One is tempted to say that they should have thought about that possibility back when they were cheerleading us into this war. But the real question is this: When, exactly, would be a good time to leave Iraq?

The fact is that we're not going to stay in Iraq until we achieve victory, whatever that means in this context. At most, we'll stay until the American military can take no more.

[......]

So the question isn't whether things will be ugly after American forces leave Iraq. They probably will. The question, instead, is whether it makes sense to keep the war going for another year or two, which is all the time we realistically have.

Pessimists think that Iraq will fall into chaos whenever we leave. If so, we're better off leaving sooner rather than later. As a Marine officer quoted by James Fallows in the current Atlantic Monthly puts it, "We can lose in Iraq and destroy our Army, or we can just lose."

And there's a good case to be made that our departure will actually improve matters. As Mr. Murtha pointed out in his speech, the insurgency derives much of its support from the perception that it's resisting a foreign occupier. Once we're gone, the odds are that Iraqis, who don't have a tradition of religious extremism, will turn on fanatical foreigners like Zarqawi.

Like Vietnam there is no possibility of winning so the only question is, how many more Americans will die?

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