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June 22, 2006 I have never been a fan of Senator John Kerry. I regarded his nomination in 2004 as the great Massachusetts Mistake, and was not surprised when he managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory against a president who was woefully unpopular at the time. All throughout 2004, Kerry allowed his self-aggrandizement to control the campaign, touting his service in Vietnam in a crass and shameless way, making it the centerpiece of a campaign that carried a different message every month. It should come as no surprise, then, that Senator Kerry is risking the Democrats’ possible gains in 2006 to stroke his presidential ambitions and personal desire for acclaim. The Senate will soon hear Senator Kerry’s bill to withdraw troops from Iraq by the end of the year, against the will of the majority of Democrats in caucus, and against the will of the majority of Americans. What Kerry is doing is utterly inexcusable and an unjustifiable act of arrogant ego. Setting a date to pull out of Iraq is a dangerous idea. Not because it might signal to some phantom enemy that we are “cutting and running” – that is just an election year buzzword – but because we must stay until we are confident Iraq can function without our immediate, day-to-day care. If troops were to leave en-masse at the end of the year, regardless of whether infrastructure or internal support systems were functioning, the nation of Iraq would stand a very good chance of either imploding, devolving into sectarian civil war, or both. This implosion not only creates a situation even more hostile than it currently is, but results in a massive waste of funds. Kerry seeks to shoot the Democratic Party in the foot just in time for elections solely for the power to hear his own voice and bask in media headlines. That those headlines will not be positive does not bother Senator Kerry – few political realities ever seem to. If an immediate pull-out of American forces creates a sectarian civil war that results in a hard-line Islamic state, will John Kerry be willing to accept responsibility for it? Will Kerry be so anxious to have his name remembered when it is synonymous with the complete economic and social destruction of a nation? Iraq is a quagmire: the cost of war has been driven home both in dollars and lives. That many mistakes have been made is not debatable – but pulling out troops by the end of the year is not the answer. That will only deepen the problems Iraq and the United States face. What Congress needs to do is join together on a comprehensive plan to streamline costs, provide a comprehensive long-term plan, and commit to either increasing the amount of troops in Iraq or truly seeking international aid from nations once unwilling to join. Condemning Iraq to civil war and sectarian strife is a solution as bad as the problem. Before all that, though, Congress must remain firm in not allowing ambitious politicians from either party to step up and make the safety of our troops and the success of our mission in Iraq a springboard for their political ambitions. To allow politicians to use the hard work of the soldiers as a stepping stone to their own political future denigrates the sacrifices of our troops and the importance of our mission in the eyes of every American. ------------ About the author: Max Burns is a 19-year-old moderate Democrat from Indianapolis. He has been moved from the Hoosier Heartland to the moral void that is Washington D.C. to study Government & International Politics at George Mason University. He is also the author of the fantasy novel Alcardia. Email: mburns6@gmu.edu Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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