A rhetorical surge

Not sure if anyone has noticed, but the president has managed a rhetorical sleight-of-hand with his new excalation proposal. Forget for a minute that surge is about as accurate a description of the president’s plan as the president’s declaration before the war that Saddam had WMDs. The issue here is that the Democrats are fighting the plan on the wrong front, focusing on the Iraqi government and not on the question of whether we are acting as an igniter in the region.

This has become a debate over whether the Iraqis want Democracy and the consequences of America not winning this war and not about whether our military presence in Iraq is inflaming a civil war and becoming a cause-celebre in the Arab world, creating new terrorists and further fraying already frayed international relationships.

The reality is that we have no idea what will happen if we leave, but the predictions of calamity being pushed by the president and hawks like John McCain are already happening and will continue to happen and worsen whether we are there or not. This war was lost a long time ago — probably around the time that it became clear that our stated reasons for invading were fabrications.

Our only recourse is to bring in an international coalition to help sort out the mess that the country has become.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie. View all posts by hankkalet