Mission Accomplished! Again!

Having just finished watching President Obama's prime time address on the end of the Iraq War, I thought I'd put my thoughts to digital paper. A simple list of "pros and cons" if you will, seems a good place to start.

Cons:
As the title suggests, this felt, to me, very much like President Bush's "Aircraft Carrier, Mission Accomplished" speech. The fact is that, whether the mission title has changed or not, whether the troops left are classified as "combat troops" or not, we still have 50,000 American warriors stationed in this country.

I saw very little discussion of what we've actually accomplished. This was very much more a "we're done" speech than a "we've won" speech. Trying to point to tangible things that have spelled a US victory in Iraq is hard. And Americans, more than any other country in the world, don't like losing wars. Or even ending wars on an ambiguous note. We tend to accept as the American public, nothing short of full blown victory. And that's hard when you can't define victory.

This speech was INCREDIBLY kind to the Bush Administration. So kind I don't even know how to talk about it. If we track back, the first reason we invaded was because Iraq was in bed with al Qaeda. That didn't hold up. And so, the justification for war became Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. We launched our invasion under those premises. When it became clear that there were no WMDs in Iraq the reasoning morphed again. And ever since, we've been in Iraq in order to bring "freedom and democracy" to "that region of the world". Which is really just a nice metaphor for we're already there and would look foolish if we left now. I understand that President Obama doesn't want to dwell on the Bush Administration. He doesn't want to dwell so much that his administration refuses to haul anyone of any importance up on charges. Fine. We'll just let our own government break the law. It doesn't matter.

Pros:
Well, there aren't many. It's true that this is a step (a baby step) toward ending this unjust and prolonged war. It's also true that this is sticking to the time table that President Obama set up for leaving Iraq after entering office. Maybe that means we can believe him when he says the 50,000 men and women who are still there will come home next year. And finally, it means that the President is fulfilling a campaign promise.

Those lists are a bit lopsided. I'm reporting. You decide.