|
Weekly Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country
of West Texas
Opinion
Friday, September 2, 2005
Sage Views
By Smokey Briggs
Iraq - the path we
should have taken
First let me lay a bit of foundation.
I do not know if Iraq posed a threat to our national security.
I do not know if Iraq was a serious supporter of terrorism and either directly or indirectly contributed to the terrorist attack of 9/11.
Few Americans are privy to the information that would provide clear answers to these questions, if there even were clear answers.
The past two weeks I used this space to explain why I think we will lose the war we are fighting in Iraq.
I think the lessons of history point to our failure, and I think common sense does as well.
But, disagreeing with how a war is fought is not the same thing as saying a war should not be fought, or that war is never the right option.
I have been a big proponent of, “I thought he was going to hit me, so I hit him back first,” diplomacy since my earliest days on a playground.
So, let’s just say that Iraq was for sure a threat to our national security and/or participated in the attack of September 11.
We elected our leaders, and they are the ones with the information to make that call - and did - leading to the invasion of Iraq.
What I do have, is the intelligence necessary to wage war - as do most people with a few drops of common sense.
Here is how this war should have been waged:
In a matter of weeks we rolled through Iraq like a hot knife through warm butter. We destroyed all conventional means of resistance and occupied strategic areas.
We held those areas as we hunted up Saddam and company, who we felt had to be eliminated.
Not too long thereafter, we had Saddam, his sons were dead, and 98% of his top dogs were dead or in the klink.
That is the day the Navy should have pulled the boats up to the docks and our boys should have loaded up to come home.
The last man out should have tacked a big note on the door:
Dear Iraq,
We suggest a Constitutional Republic, but it’s your country, so do whatever feels good. If you need a go-by, our Constitution is on the web. Feel free to copy it. Let us know how it all works out for you.
Best of Luck, America
p.s. If you shut off the oil, we will come back and plow this God-forsaken land and all the people in it into dust, if Israel doesn’t nuke you first.
That should have been the end of it.
No loss of life can be accepted casually, but our losses at that point of our venture were minimal and our mission accomplished.
Of course the hand-wringing pundits on both the left and right do not agree.
“Chaos would have reigned supreme if we had simply left. It would have been terrible. Massacres would have taken place. The Iraqis would have installed a Muslim theocracy and kept making their women wear veils and not let them vote,” the pundits say.
So?
It’s their country, their government and their women.
I do not care one hoot how they govern themselves, or fail to do so. I do not care if they install Mohammed himself as king for life nor do I care if they forbid their women to come out in the light of day.
I certainly do not think that any of what we have done since capturing Saddam was worth one American life.
But what if they install a terrible dictator who continues to support terrorism and becomes a threat to our national security again?
Again, I would answer, “So?”
First Armored will still be in business. Hopefully, Congress will not disband my Marine Corps.
So we go back and churn Iraq into dust - again.
If we repeated the process a dozen times, it would not be so costly as the fiasco we are currently participating in.
Smokey Briggs is editor and publisher of the Pecos Enterprise. He can be emailed at: smokey@pecos.net.
Return to top
Pecos Enterprise
York M. "Smokey" Briggs, Publisher
324 S. Cedar St., Pecos, TX 79772
Phone 432-445-5475, FAX 432-445-4321
e-mail news@pecos.net
Associated Press text, photo, graphic, audio and/or video material shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium.
Copyright 2003-04 by Pecos Enterprise
|
