I just finished reading a NYT Op-Ed by Obama that I found particularly refreshing. While he didn’t address the fact that his plans for troop draw-downs and redeployments don’t include the thousands upon thousands of privately hired mercs that flesh out the battlefield, he did say a few things that address some of the most fundamental apprehensions that I have had about this “Mess-O-Potamia.”
I would make it absolutely clear that we seek no presence in Iraq similar to our permanent bases in South Korea, and would redeploy our troops out of Iraq and focus on the broader security challenges that we face. — Barak Obama (source)
This simple declaration, if carried out, will undoubtedly save thousands of lives on both sides of this war.
One of the critical components to understanding “why they hate us” is the fact that we have been uninvited guests in the Middle East for decades now, and our presence there is viewed as the utmost of insults. Unlike us, the folks in the Middle East haven’t forgotten that we overthrew the democratically elected government in Iran in 1953. Folks there haven’t forgotten that we supplied both sides of the Iran-Iraq war until we decided to tip the scales and bet on Saddam… and then subsequently made Saddam one of our biggest allies right up to and after the first incursion into Iraq. And perhaps the most poignant sting in the minds of the Middle Eastern people would be our unwavering and active support of the immeasurable number of atrocities committed by Israel over the last forty or fifty years.
To hear a politician talk about rejecting American Imperialist ambitions is a wonderful sound indeed. Of course, now we’ll need to see if he can stick to his words and put them into concrete action… a much harder feat.
