Rising above I told you so

I've been a vocal opponent of invading Iraq before it began. I'm not a history major or military tactician but I took the time to inform myself and determined that I felt our resources would have been better spent securing our ports and borders, research and developing alternative fuel sources, finishing the job in Afghanistan, and bringing Al-Qaeda to justice. I may have even supported intervening in Sudan where a brutal civil war is taking place.

Alternative energy sources are not a choice for those of us who hope to remain on the planet another 60 years. Bio energy is not science fiction, and while nothing will replace the efficiency of oil, there really is not much of a choice in the matter because of it is running out. Instead of corn, which our government must subsidize to make profitable for farmers to grow, they could instead be growing Switchgrass and Miscanthus which are greenhouse neutral and capable of supplying our much more of our energy needs. We will not be able to safely deal with problems in the Middle East until we are free of relying on their oil to maintain our lifestyles.

Our borders and ports remain insecure, the job Afghanistan far from over, bin Laden remains at large, and I agree with Rep. Jack Murtha that:

[Link] “The only people who want us in Iraq are Iran and al-Qaida,” Murtha said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” political talk show. “And I talked to a top-level commander the other day and he said China wants us there also. Why? Because we’re depleting our resources ... our troop resources and our fiscal resources.

“The war on terrorism is worldwide. In Iraq, it’s a civil war,” said Murtha.

But what now? Whether I like it our not we're in Iraq and now Iran continues to fund Hamas and anti-Israeli terrorist groups. No amounts of "I told you so" is going to change this, we are a country at war and I remain as frightened as anyone of what terrorists are capable of doing here in the United States and abroad. Well I had one idea after reading this:

[Link] A senior security official said Monday night that stopping the money flow was extremely difficult. Iran, the official said, employed Western Union money transfers, human couriers and bank wire transfers sent to Palestinians' personal bank accounts to get the money to the terror groups, mostly to Islamic Jihad. The funds were sometimes sent, the official said, to seemingly innocent Palestinians who then passed them on to terrorists.

But what is the definition of extremely difficult? For example, "Operation Shock and Awe" used nearly 800 cruise missiles to "wipe out power and water supplies in the capital." Each cruise missile can cost from 1.4 to 2 million dollars, not to mention the reconstruction costs of rebuilding the infrastructure we destroyed in Iraq. While it may be difficult to crack down on compensating terrorists using Western Union, it certainly seems easier (and cheaper) than aerial bombings: not to mention it would be more effective by crippling the financial resources needed by terrorists to fund their operations.

[Link] When you [Jack Murtha] suggest that planning for the war in Iraq was flawed, I think you have a point. American leaders, in the Pentagon and elsewhere, crafted an effective strategy for toppling Saddam Hussein. Once that mission was accomplished, however, they had only a vague idea about how to transform Iraq into a free, independent and self-reliant nation within a short period of time. Maybe that's because no one had ever attempted such a feat before.

Clearly, we should not fail again to plan adequately. So I would ask you about your plans for the aftermath of the defeat you say we must now accept.

For example, it's obvious that if the U.S. military can't stand up to al Qaeda in Iraq, the fledgling post-liberation Iraqi military won't have a prayer. That means we must plan for the possibility that al Qaeda will come to power in part or all of Iraq. What, if anything would you propose to do in response to that?

I believe setting, and sticking to a time-table for removing our presence from Iraq is not surrendering or a sign of defeat: it puts us in control of our troops safety. They have a representative government and Saddam is standing trial. The strife that is tearing apart Iraq was present before the United States invaded (and why someone like Saddam could rise to power in the first place). It was bound to boil over, but how is the United States presence helping? Their hatred for our presence there seems to only be making matters worse. Clifford D. May also accuses the left of questioning the President's patriotism (something I've never done) and I don't know if George W. Bush has lied, but there can be no doubt that he did not entertain honest debate on the subject and only sought and supported information that already supported his conclusions that Saddam was developing Weapons of Mass Destruction. But he's shredded our international credibility when it comes to tracking Weapons of Mass Destruction and it's becoming increasingly evident that Karl Rove undermined our security for political purposes.