Iraq again

Somewhere in Iraq three American soldiers, based just down the road from where I am writing this, are being held captive by Al Queda. It is possible that I have met one or more of them in the past, not likely but possible. Allow me to be frank. I don’t expect we will ever see these soldiers alive again. I expect that Al Queda will torture them and kill them and video tape it to put on the internet so we can all see them die. These are the people that if the Democrats in Congress have their way will be left to try and influence and shape events in Iraq. They will try their level best to make it like Afghanistan was. A violence torn society run by fundamentalist extremists that they can use as a base of operations to extend their plans to other areas of the South West Asia and then the world in general. There is a chance of course that someone else will exterminate them if we decide to pull back and hide in our shell like a turtle. Other Sunni insurgent groups have begun attacking them because they are so vicious and unrestrained in their killing. So maybe we will get lucky. I doubt it though.
I am not going to argue the issue of whether we should have invaded Iraq in the first place. Frankly at this point it is irrelevant. We are there, we have created a situation where groups like Al Queda can operate and grow. We have an obligation to ourselves, our posterity, and the people of Iraq to FINISH WHAT WE STARTED. If we don’t, someone else will. Maybe it will be the Iraqis themselves, but I expect that the AQ plan to keep sectarian violence stirred up there will prevent the kind of organized response needed to quell them. Maybe Iran will move in and crush them (AQ is Sunni after all) and expand the Shiite influence. (not sure if that is a great option myself) god knows, maybe the Europeans will sit up and realize just how close this will get to them and do something about it. (not holding my breath there). I expect though, that it will be us, or more accurately, our posterity, that will have to deal with this. And why will our children have to face this mess? Because we are too gutless to finish what we started. Ooh, it’s not politically popular to finish this war so we’ll just declare some artificial end point and leave. I honestly cannot see how those folks that want us to run home and hide can’t see the disaster they will be creating in the future.
It just boggles my mind sometimes how absolutely short sighted we are as a nation, as a people, and as a species.