Let Me Get This Straight

Right wingers always insist that Americans need to be more personally responsible and stop looking to the Government to solve their problems. Individuals and the private sector, they claim, will provide the best solutions to any number of societal problems. Furthermore, they assert, Democrats consistently, and wrongly, support the concept that the Government can and should take an active role in helping citizens in need.

For the sake of discussion, I won’t debate these general points (although even casual scrutiny reveals a number of obvious fallacies in such assertions), rather, I’ll stipulate that they are true.

Please explain to me then, the Right’s attitude with respect to our ongoing occupation of Iraq. The supporters of our ongoing occupation of Iraq now seem to be claiming that the end game, our goal, is to get to the point where a stabile, pro-US government is in place in Iraq. Once that happens (cynics, such as myself, might say if and when it ever happens, but I digress...), we will have finished the job and our troops can come home. Mission accomplished. Really, this time. They say we can’t withdraw now, because the Iraqi Government can’t yet stand on its own. Furthermore, they can’t even estimate when they may be able to do so. All they can say is that this is their current plan and that their intent is for us to stay in Iraq to support the Iraqi Government indefinitely, at the cost of many American lives and billions of your dollars, until they can stand on their own.

So, let me get this straight. Right wingers insist that people who are US citizens and, in most cases, tax payers, should stand on their own two feet and stop looking to our Government for help, yet they’re more than willing to have our Government expend billions of dollars and thousands of lives indefinitely into the future to support and rebuild Iraq?!?

This is not only a completely hypocritical position, but it is also insulting and flat out wrong to treat non-citizens, who don’t pay taxes nor contribute to the growth/benefit of this country in any way, better than tax paying US citizens!

No, we can’t rebuild your local schools or roads, we’re building them in Iraq!

Now I’m sorry that the misguided policies of the Bush Administration have led to death, destruction, and chaos in Iraq, and I don’t deny that we do really owe it to them not to just fuck everything up and then leave them holding the bag. That all being stated, however, at some point (and that point needs to come sooner, rather than later!) we need to withdraw and the Iraqi’s will need to stand on their own two feet and make it (or not) on their own - just like the Righties, supposedly, want and insist their fellow Americans do. That is right thing to do, not only as a strategy to move forward in Iraq, but also to be consistent and fair to the American public!