In These Times
by Mark Levine

12/19/05

In the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, President Bush told the world, 'We will remain in Iraq as long as necessary, and not a day more.' But as is always the case in politics, the devil is in the details. When will it no longer be necessary for the United States to maintain troops in Iraq? And what does 'withdrawing troops' actually mean -- all troops or just most troops? According to Bush's newly released 'National Strategy for Victory in Iraq,' the most important goal of our presence in Iraq is to 'help people defeat the terrorists and build a democratic inclusive state.' But if by terrorism we mean the systematic threatening, torturing and/or killing of civilians to force them to accept a political or military situation they wouldn't otherwise sanction, then the United States has committed far more acts of terrorism and crimes against humanity than the insurgents in Iraq (with perhaps more than 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians and hundreds of billions of dollars in destruction and counting)...

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2441/


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp