War-Time Multiple Choice

When my part in this thread started — which now seems like too long ago — I commented that it was no surprise that Joe Lieberman was saying 'we must stay in Iraq' or something to that effect. The guy supported this thing from the beginning and has never seemed to realize that our being there (as we are, at least) was a bad idea. Make sense? Cool.

Steve quoted me on something I said earlier, which was the following: "How many murderous Hussein-like dictators have been installed worldwide, only to create self-serving kleptocracies while we sat idly by (or even encouraged and aided them)? Do we have a responsibility to help citizens of those nations who suffer from similar results of US causal relationships? I guess so, since Bush's 3rd or 4th reason for invading Iraq was to protect its citizens and take out its murderous leader we supported over the years."

For some reason he thought that quote revealed that I 'adopted the attitude that since (I was) opposed to the (Iraq War) action in the first place, the consequences of that action have no bearing on what (I) perceive to be our ongoing responsibilities.'

Steve: But please, offer an alternative reading of those statements.

Okay. I guess I stopped short of saying 'yes' after the rhetorical question, 'Do we have a responsibility to help citizens of those nations who suffer from similar results of US causal relationships?' Yes, I do think so; I thought you could probably figure out where I was going with that, but my bad. But here's the thing: are we actually going to act on each of those instances of responsibility? Realistically, no. We pick and choose where and how we help others 'who suffer from similar results of US causal relationships.' But as most Americans have now recognized, something was fishy about Bush's 3rd or 4th reason for invading Iraq — to protect Iraqis — considering that the world is full of people suffering under the rule of Hussein-like dictators. Most don’t have the oil wealth that Iraq has, but that’s another issue/conspiracy theory for another time.

And yes, the theory using Matalin's numbers is my own. I just found it odd that nearly 20% less Iraqi troops would feel confident about their futures than regular civilians. They get to see a bit more of how things are going, so I can only assume that those soldiers’ comparative reservations are for some reason or another.

Now, for the multiple-choice section. Cool — I love standardized testing! Cuts out all those unnecessary words and opinions.

Pick one of the following:

A. Stay the course, finish the job, bring the troops home.
B. Pull out and nuke the place until it glows.
C. Colonize Iraq and be done with it.
D. Cut and run.

I choose A with the hope that we won’t dally longer than absolutely necessary. Still, who knows what will happen when we leave. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Yeah, I’m sure that some would love to choose C (and maybe still have that in mind) — talking about winning friends in the Middle East. And just think of all the oil we could have on the cheap!
D is out because it’s ridiculous. Plus, that choice probably should be rephrased — those words have been copyrighted by Fox News in order for its 'journalists' to brow beat those pushing for a pull-out timetable.
And finally, you’d be surprised how many would choose B (well, maybe not).

I’ll add E, as inspired by a reader’s e-mail yesterday: Jump into a time machine to go back avoid this war and Dubya’s presidency. If it were only that simple…