iraq — to go, or not to go?

there has been a lot of talk about time-lines, benchmarks, a lost war, a new strategy … there seem to be three groups in the discussion about the iraq war:

1. let’s pack and go
2. let’s set a timeline with benchmarks which defines how the US will get out of iraq
3. let’s stay until the job is done

ok so number 1 is not worth talking about i think since just leaving is first of all logistically nearly impossible but would certainly leave iraq in complete chaos and probably spread across the region.

the problem with number 3 is “for how long?” — this pretty much leads to the general question:

can the US leave iraq even if initial goals were not achieved and the country is in chaos?

in the past i would have answered this with a clear no — the US can’t just leave, we made the mess so now we have to clean it up. one can’t just invade a country, fuck up and then leave. this is not only immoral but also leaves the US in a weakened security stance.

but i think we have to start thinking about the ability to win this war. and i think that if the chances to win this war are diminishing then it is just as immoral to stay and increase the death-toll of US troop related fighting. and i think we have reached the point where winning this war is impossible. the problem is that after the invasion no law-and-order was established, allowing thugs and terrorists to fill a power vacuum left by the US and even furthered by the US un-manteling existing power structures.

so, in the end should the US make a decision based on the risk to its own troops or to the situation of iraqis? i think in this case this should be the US troops. why? because this is the US government and it needs to make decisions that first of all impact its own citizens. and to have the troops die for a war which is un-winable is not fair to the troops and their families, while it doesn’t really change the situation on the ground.

the biggest challenge for the government is to realize that this war is lost. there is a saying you have to cut your losses … it is often used for investments and a MBA president should understand it. hitler made the fatal mistake not to cut his losses and ended up loosing all, and with it thousands of soldiers lost their lives. in vietnam the US finally realized that they lost but also way to late … the same goes for the russians in afghanistan. it is obviously not an easy decision to make — there is always the thought that the next strategy change will lead to success if we just wait another month, or another year. the problem is that during this time people die.

there have been some voices that the soldiers on the ground want to stay and fight and win. yes, sure they do. nobody wants to be a loser. but this is what we have generals and politicians for. they should take out their emotions and make decisions based on facts and on the ground realities rather than wishful thinking. and this right now means let’s cut our losses, and put in place an exit strategy — which can only include US forces to leave iraq, quickly.

guns kill, end of discussion

in the aftermath of the tragic virginia tech shooting the discussion of gun control has been pretty much absent of the public debate. it was bush actually in his first statement who said that the right to own guns would not be questioned.

a questioning of the absurd gun laws in the US has mostly been brought up outside of the US. for example in the economist. while usually liberal and against regulation the magazine takes a clear stance against this broad and open gun ownership, blaming politicians for still running away from a debate about guns. in the story the magazine suggests that the US should

The assault-weapons ban should be renewed, with its egregious loopholes removed. No civilian needs an AK-47 for a legitimate purpose, but you can buy one online for $379.99. Guns could be made much safer, with the mandatory fitting of child-proof locks. A system of registration for guns and gun-owners, as exists in all other rich countries, threatens no one but the criminal. Cooling-off periods, a much more open flow of intelligence, tighter rules on the trading of guns and a wider blacklist of those ineligible to buy them would all help.

it seems that the only people that have spoken out on gun control in the US are those looneys that for even less restrictions. on several radio programs (including PBS) commentators have pointed out that if gun laws were less strict and students would have been allowed to wear guns on campus this tragedy would not have happened or to a lesser degree.

on cnn, during a special on the guns that cho seung-hui used a weapons expert pointed out that a gun like the glock “in the hands of the wrong person kills, but in the hand of the policy will safe lives.”

the problem with all of this talk is that it misses the point. guns kill. they are made to kill. and handguns and automatic weapons are made to kill people. i bet only few hunters will go hunting with an ak47 or a glock. to say that the more people have guns the safer a society is, is just absurd and stupid. a society with more guns will have more deaths (killings and accidental deaths). one just has to look at statistics and compare the US to any other first world country and look at gun related deaths and killings. countries with more stringent gun laws have less gun related deaths … this is not something that can be debated this is a fact, no matter what the idiots at the nra want us to believe.

so if healing the wounds of those that lost sons and daughters, brothers or sisters, or friends at the virginia tech shooting is really important to this country maybe we should all start and think about how we can avoid yet another shooting. and there is only one answer to this: get guns out of the hand of people so that they can not kill others.