<p><a href=“http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article319160.ece[/url]”>http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article319160.ece</a></p>
<p>“The Americans must leave Iraq and they will leave Iraq, but they can’t leave Iraq and that is the equation that turns sand to blood.”</p>
<p>The Progressive has an excellent article that takes on the leftist view that militants are a creature of the West. What they really are are local imperialists with their own agenda for regional control and domination. The West is a convenience as a rallying point.
The recently published militant letter supports that analysis.</p>
<p>“The West is a convenience as a rallying point.”</p>
<p>I’m glad they found our $200+ billion, the million Iraqi dead (including the half a million children) under Clinton, and the 2,000 dead U.S. soldiers under Bush as “convenient”. I mean, we could have just given them a four-slice toaster…</p>
<p>Aw, come on. Can’t you give us a warning that you’re linking to an article written by Robert Fisk? He’s just one of many in the long line of Bush bashers and haters of all things American. He lost it in on an Irish Talk show last year when someone actually had the audacity to challenge his nuttiness. </p>
<p>The Sunday editor of the London Times has been quoted as saying Fisk’s coverage “masquerades as reporting but is, in fact, polemic.” His “reporting” on Israel has been described by Bill Newman of The Sun as “distasteful”. The man is on the fringe. Nice try, though.</p>
<p>browninfall: thanks for alerting us to what Fisk is all about. It’s so sad that we have so many Americans willing to follow the same line and toss Iraq and its people back to the wolves. It’s so ironic that the Left here is so supportive of women’s rights, but is willing to let their sisters in the Arab world live as virtual slaves. What would these people be willing to fight for?</p>
<p>I know what fringe means. Think “Judith Miller”.</p>
<p>But he’s right, and everyone knows it. The U.S. WILL leave Iraq, and they CAN’T leave it. Isn’t that exactly what GW has been saying?</p>
<p>Cheif6
The new constitution of Iraq does NOT support woman’s rights at all and Bush approved of it. It puts woman’s rights back years in Iraq. Our being there did nothing to help woman and our approval of a flawed constitution which okayed religion in their government is exactly why we shouldn’t be there. Since we arrived everyone’s life and their society is in shambles and now we think it’s okay to sign away their rights for year’s to come. I know it feels good to suggest our being there was a good idea…since all of you here (except Mini) probably supported the invasion and now are loathe to say you were mistaken and lied to and dead wrong. It was obvious to those who know history that the situation in Iraq was very similar to Yugoslavia, which was only held together by a very strong dictator. This was a doomed effort and we “helped”. Wake up ostriches.</p>
<p>Haha I have nothing to say on this topic - except for the fact that I am so highly amused that you insulted people by calling them ostriches.</p>
<p>Link to Progressive article. W might have been right for the wrong reasons. </p>
<p><a href=“The Progressive — A voice for peace, social justice, and the common good - Progressive.org”>The Progressive — A voice for peace, social justice, and the common good - Progressive.org;
<p>barrons: thanks for the link. It’s a good article given the source. I don’t think it highlights that W was right for the wrong reasons. It does emphasize that Bin Laden and his crew will slit my throat, and your throat and Mini’s throat regardless of whether we’re to the left or right. Our theoretical disagreements mean nothing to Bin Laden - he just wants to enslave the world.</p>
<p>Best paragraphs for those who don’t have time to read the article:</p>
<p>"The stakes are too high for progressives to underestimate the threats posed by groups such as Al Qaeda. For bin Ladens vision leaves no room for secular self-governance, for a society based around the give-and-take of free speech; it has no tolerance for the uncertainties of a pluralistic political system; it has no respect for the rights of women; it has no self-limiting mechanisms that encourage adherents to step back and listen to the views of dissenters. It is, simply, a quintessentially totalitarian vision, one in which individualswhether as suicide bombers who sacrifice themselves to this dystopian dream or the innocent bystanders whose lives are snuffed out by this terrorismare useful only as pawns.</p>
<p>In power, a left that fails to grapple with the challenges facing the Open Society risks sapping the will of liberal countries to stand up to totalitarian-think. Such a scenario would, in a very profound sense, embody a betrayal of the central Enlightenment tenets nurtured, in fits and starts, for more than two centuries in one or another citadel of pluralism."</p>
<p>Since GW has spent $200 bil chasing Bin Laden in a country in which he hasn’t set foot in an awfully long time (if ever), I think folks would be wise to send him a copy of the article.</p>
<p>However Iraq is a major anchor in the Middle East and important to keep in the relatively free and open society column.</p>
<p>As it has always been.</p>