Al-Qaeda Reaches the Height of Barbarity...So Will the Politicians Finally Be Honest?

In case more evidence was needed that Islamist terrorists are depraved, psychotic, inhuman barbarians, on Febuary 1 Al-Qaeda in Iraq strapped suicide bombs on two mentally retarded women with Down's Syndrome and exploded them remotely, killing 99 people in two crowded pet markets.

As the article notes, this is not the first time that the mentally disabled have been used, unwittingly, in suicide attacks. There have been precedents in Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel, showing that the Nazis are not the only group capable of scraping the bottom of the barrel of human depravity.

We are stuck between a rock and a hard place in an unwinnable war (assuming "win" means leaving a democratic, peaceful ally behind). I'd like to see some honesty by both sides of the American political aisle regarding this predicament:

- The Right refuses to admit that the reasons given for this war proved flawed at best, that no notable quantities of WMD were found, nor was any reasonable connection between Saddam's regime and Al-Qaeda proven. No link between Iraq and 9/11 was ever established. And no matter how many times it is repeated, it is NOT true that the reason for going into Iraq was to free the Iraqis from Saddam's totalitarian regime and bring democracy to the country. There is also no acknowledgement that we've effectively turned Iraq into an incubator for terrorists, which is precisely what we were supposed to eliminate in Afghanistan (an effort that has been highly complicated by drain of resources into the Iraqi campaign). Finally, I have to credit John McCain with being honest in the speech below, in stating that if we stay in Iraq, we may need to be there for 100 years:

The irony is that after 100 years, the situation could easily be no different than it is now, and we may consider ourselves lucky to find another brutal, murderous, nationalistic tyrant (like Saddam) to suppress the armies of jihad. Staying in Iraq for decades is certainly not what the public believed it was signing up for, nor is it something that all but the most hardcore foreign policy conservatives would savor. The Republicans continue to repeat the mantra that "the surge is working" and that "we're winning," without admitting that even if we win militarily, it is meaningless if the price of "winning" is to remain in Iraq indefinitely as a police force holding back an inevitable civil war.

- The Left scores no better, however. The Democratic presidential candidates (especially when there were more than two) fought to outdo each other in how quickly they would leave Iraq if elected, and how they either didn't support the war from the beginning, or were "lied to" when they followed the herd. The focus is continually on the past, why we shouldn't have gone into Iraq in the first place. This ignores the fact that WE ARE THERE NOW, and as such, are responsible for the outcome of our presence. If we set and announce a timetable for withdrawal of troops, the terrorists of all stripes will escalate their civil war, murder more Iraqis and Americans, and chase the last of our troops out the door. Many of those Iraqis who want us there will follow the almost 2 million current refugees out of Iraq, primarily into Syria and Jordan. Others will try to escape with the Americans, as happened when we left Vietnam:

And most importantly, there will be a bloodbath as the civil war is escalated far, far beyond what is possible with American troops playing referee. If our experience in Indo-China is a comparable example, after our evacuation, 100,000 Vietnamese and 2.5 million Cambodians were murdered. And of course, this will set off a tidal wave of enthusiasm for jihad and Islamic terrorism, as the perception will be that the soldiers of Allah defeated the United States just as they did the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. These terrorists thrive on any sign of weakness, and our departure will embolden them to rebuild in Iraq what we destroyed in Afghanistan. In the end, we will meet them in battle again...time and place to be determined.

There is no easy solution. Neither the Right or the Left, neither conservatives or liberals, neither Republicans or Democrats, offer a full, balanced picture of Iraq that progress us toward any result other than getting their candidates elected. Only with honesty by the leaders and decision-makers on both sides of this debate can we as a country decide which of the horrible options available will best serve the interest of America now and in the future.