MORE: The text:
It can be tempting to look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude our best option is to pack up and go home. That may be satisfying in the short run, but I believe the consequences for American security would be devastating....That does clearly imply that if you don't support the war, you don't support the troops.
Four years after this war began, the fight is difficult, but it can be won. It will be won if we have the courage and resolve to see it through....
The United States military is the most capable and courageous fighting force in the world. And whatever our differences in Washington, our troops and their families deserve the appreciation and the support of our entire nation.
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238 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 238 of 238Disrupting the thread is the point.
I'd also like to note that while we have a handful of Lefty trolls who routinely call us brownshirt fascist nazi's and derail the thread, we also have some genuine liberals/leftists/democrats. When was the last time any of them called out their fellow leftists? Have they ever? I know if I got out of line, Simon or Pogo would ask me to dial it down...
This is why the anti-war types on the Left get tagged as traitors and anti-american. ANSWER marches with signs like "we support our troops when they shoot their officers", CODE PINK harasses wounded troops arriving at Walter Reed with signs like "maimed for a lie". And no one else on the Left has the decency to call them out. If you're still wondering how you can support the troops while opposing the mission, start there.
Its no different than wondering why all the "moderate" Muslims haven't challenged the radicals.
I know if I got out of line, Simon or Pogo would ask me to dial it down...
Yeah, well I don't recall you Simon or Pogo ever calling Cedarford on his anti-semitic, homophobic and racist rantings.
And no one else on the Left has the decency to call them out.
Peace Kooks
Simon and Pogo would ask you to dial it down? Simon and Pogo are some of the biggest offenders, and they sure have never called on anyone to dial anything down.
Note to Kirk, if you require time/contributions/etc., almost no one in America (statistically speaking) is a member of any party.
Actually by judging where his time and contributions went and not his voting affiliation, he was a member or friendly to the Aryan Republican Army. http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=23014
A group that even World Net Daily is forced to call White Racists.
Both sides have their cuckoos at protests - I saw what looked to be the entire contingent of Hell's Angels at last weekend's rally in D.C. Would you want to march with these guys? Not me.
Yeah, well I don't recall you Simon or Pogo ever calling Cedarford on his anti-semitic, homophobic and racist rantings
So your princples are defined by what Simon and Pogo do? They don't stand on their own? You would give ANSWER and CODEPINK a pass because you think the Right is giving Coulter a pass?
Don't complain about being labeled anti-american parasitic treacherous weasels when you have to be coerced into standing against the same.
"Many Democrats believe an American defeat in Iraq is etched in granite. They would not be the first to lose heart and will in war. Yet it is one thing to give up on a cause; it is quite another to advocate legislation (17 different proposals in all, according to Senator Mitch McConnell) that would guarantee failure even before a new strategy is given time to work. This is especially the case when the preliminary trajectory of events is encouraging.
As a general rule of military strategy, you don't want to take steps that are the equivalent of sending a gift-wrapped package to your adversaries. That is precisely what a date certain for withdrawal would be. Once upon a time, leading Democrats believed this and therefore argued against it. Now they are arguing for it. I'll leave it to others to ascertain why that might be the case"
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/03/iraq_democrats_and_the_return.html
Don't complain about being labeled anti-american parasitic treacherous weasels when you have to be coerced into standing against the same.
So you're saying to prove my patriotism I have to disavow every statement or action by a fringe group. You and your compatriots, of course, can go ahead and call me anti-American, a traitor, say I hate the troops, know nothing about the military, am a terrorist sympathizer, all with impunity. Because you are true patriots who are willing to do anything to win this war, including destroying the very Constitution that we are supposedly trying to defend.
Of course you don't have to disavow the statements of prominent leaders of the conservative movement, including the former Majority Whip, who on national television on Sunday implied that anyone who opposed the President's plan in Iraq, and a retired admiral with 31 years service who was on the panel with him, was a traitor.
Now's your chance Fen, Simon, Pogo. Why don't you ask Cedarford to dial it down?
How about you Ann. You call me a troll a lot. If Cedarford's last comment wasn't trolling by your standards, I don't know what is.
So you're saying to prove my patriotism I have to disavow every statement or action by a fringe group.
Nope, didn't say that. Just noticing that you never have. Alot of talk, but not much action from the sane left since 9-11.
I mean c'mon. Why is Joe Lieberman the only Dem willing to say this:
There is something profoundly wrong when opposition to the war in Iraq seems to inspire greater passion than opposition to Islamist extremism.
There is something profoundly wrong when there is so much distrust of our intelligence community that some Americans doubt the plain and ominous facts about the threat to us posed by Iran.
And there is something profoundly wrong when, in the face of attacks by radical Islam, we think we can find safety and stability by pulling back, by talking to and accommodating our enemies, and abandoning our friends and allies.
Some of this wrong-headed thinking about the world is happening because we're in a political climate where, for many people, when George Bush says "yes," their reflex reaction is to say "no." That is unacceptable.
Why is Joe Lieberman the only Dem willing to say this
Joe Lieberman has been profoundly wrong about this war from the beginning. We don't trust the intelligence because it has been proven over and over to have been wrong.
For now, I will freely criticise Israel if it goes overboard, point out the mass murders the Jewish half of the Bolsheviks did make them co-equally responsible for a democide greater than what the Nazis did.
I will say gay agenda items should be resisted by any peson that considers them immoral. And if you don't like it Freder and try to "speak out", don't bother. Put the cock back in your mouth for all I care.
Wow, an anti-semitic, anti-gay, ad-hominem, Jews worse than Hitler, godwinning of this thread.
Ann, this thread can take its place in your hall of shame.
I think though that you should banninate reality check because he is hurting the discourse on this blog.
wow...when the right is found out for what it (just read the headlines) they really go loco don't then.
ann, it may be time to restore a little order here.
boys: jew baiting went out of fashion a long time ago.
I certainly agree with Fred about trusting intelligence--One of the big lessons in the whole run-up was just how absolutely wrong the intelligence was (over-reliance on technical and insufficient humint) and just what a dysfunctional bureaucracy the CIA was (followed closely by State. Awarding George Tenant a medal of freedom was a huge mistake. He should have been summarily fired.
Yeah, well I don't recall you Simon or Pogo ever calling Cedarford on his anti-semitic, homophobic and racist rantings.
I don't know if Simon or Pogo have, but I have, and you people usually lump me in with the right-wingers around here.
We don't trust the intelligence because it has been proven over and over to have been wrong.
Where?
Saddam had a WMD program. Thats what former Clinton officials told Edwards when he questioned Bush's evidence. I think Saddam dispersed them into Syria while we dallied at the UN for 6 months. Regardless, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".
And we know from British intel that Saddam sought yellowcake from Africa. You guys keep harping on the forgery and run away whenever we bring that up.
Examples like that underscore why we do no believe the anti-war crowd opposes the Iraq mission in good faith. You lie about how Bush lied, you distort about Saddam seeking yellowcake, you have to scroll down to the 9th definition of "fixed" to argue the Downing Street memo proves deception, etc etc. In short, your opposition to this war is based on your own lies. To paraphrase Liberman, you oppose the war because Bush ordered it. If it had been Clinton-Gore, you'd back it the same way you backed Kosovo.
Your kind having been chanting the disingenuous meme Bush Lied! Troops Died! since the war started. So I don't think its unreasonable to label your kind treacherous anti-American parasitic weasels.
If so, why haven't the American people been asked to sacrifice, even a little bit
Again, you mean to say "why haven't the American people been forced to sacrifice". Many of us have been sacrificing.
Calls from the Left for "national sacrifice" are disingenuous [If you're not sacrificing already, check out BlackFive - he has a list you can start with]. Like Charlie Rangle's Draft Bill, they don't really want "sacrifice" for the good of the war effort, they want an enforced "sacrifice" so that more people will resent the war.
I just hope Fen keeps talking for conservatives - it resonated so well last Nov with Joe Voter. We need him fat and happy again in about 20 months. Keep defending the indefensible like calling ordinary Americans parasites and traitors, cockroach infested veterans hospitals, outing spies, and ass-covering at the DOJ for whatever Karl Rove's dirty dick beaters have been into. At this rate you'll become a party of two states in the south soon with fringe loyalists like Freepers and Little Green Freaks setting the agenda. Good luck with that.
/ah I see I wounded a troll. Pity.
monkeyboy: The same people who are demanding we sacrifce continue to drive in limos and load up the war financing with pork.
Exactly. And speaking of treacherous parasitic weasels:
"House Democratic leaders are offering billions in federal funds for lawmakers' pet projects large and small to secure enough votes this week to pass an Iraq funding bill that would end the war next year"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/19/AR2007031901615_2.html
[via Instapundit]
Didn't wound me, it's badge of honor Jack.
Hey Shan, you want to support the troops while opposing the war? Here's an idea: FREE tuition and board at any State University for any vet or his surviving kin. The GI Bill covers squat these days and college costs are rising.
You could form your own PAC and lobby the congress-criters for it. Maybe get MoveOn and CodePink to jump onto it? Spend your quality time protecting the future of those that protect yours? Hell, you get the ball rolling and I'll even lobby for you on the Hill.
Heh. I like that:
Protect the Future of Those Who Protect Yours
Much better than my book title The Left Doesn't Really Believe in the Things They Lecture Us About
lot of blather, not much substance in here.
besides liberals are bad, no thread here would be complete without that.
Saddam had a WMD program. Thats what former Clinton officials told Edwards when he questioned Bush's evidence. I think Saddam dispersed them into Syria while we dallied at the UN for 6 months. Regardless, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".
And we know from British intel that Saddam sought yellowcake from Africa. You guys keep harping on the forgery and run away whenever we bring that up.
Sheesh, the first paragraph is all lies or simply lacks any substantive evidence. Even the administration finally admitted that Saddam had indeed destroyed his stockpiles of WMD and had no production capability at the time of the war. Why don't you just give it up?
The second paragraph we have discussed ad nauseum. There is evidence that Iraqi officials dropped hints that they wanted to buy yellowcake from Niger (there is not even any credible evidence they actually used the words uranium or yellowcake just vague phrases about "expanding trade"). That is as far as it got. Compare that to what Bush, and especially Cheney, were saying about Saddam's nuclear program in the runup to the war (there is "no doubt" that Saddam had reconstituted his nuclear program).
Again, you mean to say "why haven't the American people been forced to sacrifice". Many of us have been sacrificing.
And how exactly have you sacrificed voluntarily Fen? More importantly, When and how has the president asked the American people for even voluntary sacrifice. Heck, even military recruiting avoids mentioning the war.
This doesn't answer the fundamental question: we have been told by the Administration and other war cheerleaders that the War in Iraq is a battle for our very survival as a civilization. If so, why haven't the American people been asked to sacrifice, even a little bit;
We've been asked to pay many hundreds of billions of dollars to fund the war, and have done so. So the notion that we haven't had to sacrifice "even a little bit" is an obvious lie.
As to why we haven't had rationing and all the other sacrifices of World War Two, the question has been answered. That you lack the intelligence to read and understand the answer is not my problem.
And how exactly have you sacrificed voluntarily Fen?
I can't speak for Fen, but I've donated money and materials to support both veterans and troops currently in the field, as well as (via Spirit of America) the Iraqi civilian population itself.
I doubt *your* "support for the troops" has consisted of anything more than telling them they're killing innocent Iraqis over a lie.
That is 100% pure unadulterated bullshit. What about the entire transportation system in this country? The internet? Water and and waste water treatment systems.
First, the obvious. The government invented the Internet, yes. And if you were around then, you would remember that it was a couple dozen sites talking TCP/IP over IMPs. And then it was ported to run over Ethernet, ATM, etc. in the late 1980s, and all of a sudden it exploded. But who funded that explosion? There have been hundreds of billions of dollars of private capital invested in developing the Internet that we know now. ARPA did what it does best, seeding the revolution, and then stepped to the side, and let private enterprise run with it. So, at present, the monies invested in the Internet are most likely at least 1,000 to one private over public.
As to the other examples, the poster suggested that the government is almost always much less efficient at creating assets, not that it couldn't. And some things just lend themselves to public construction, despite how much more they cost that way, given the free rider problem.
The other thing that has to be kept in mind is that taxation isn't a zero sum game, as seems to be implied by many posters here. We have seen time after time when cutting taxes actually increases tax revenues. Not always, of course. But often. It happened after the Reagan tax cuts, and it appears to have happened this time.
Sure, you could apply the old tax rates to the present taxable GNP and claim that we would have higher tax revenues if we hadn't had those tax cuts. But that presupposes that the larger GNP did not at least partially, if not primarily, result from the lower tax rates.
I should add that the trick of multiplying different tax rates by the taxable GNP and then bemoaning the amount lost tax revenues from a lower tax rate is "static analysis" that was supposed to have been discarded during the Reagan Administration (because it is so inaccurate). What is scary is that portions of Congress are still using it to try to justify higher tax rates.
After reading most of the 250 or so posts above me, I am disheartened to find that very little of the discussion was about what we should be doing in Iraq, and the likely results of those options. Rather, it was a long repetition of fault finding that serves little purpose at this point.
I see basically two alternatives: "cut and run" or "stay the course". To those who are suggesting some form of the former, I am still waiting for a cogent analysis of why you don't think that a bloody ethnic cleansing wouldn't ensue, with major regional players, notably Saudi Arabia, and then Iran, being drawn in.
As some may remember, my theory is that the likely result of us pulling out too quickly would be ethnic cleansing of the Sunni Arabs, already under significant pressure for their support of Saddam Hussein and for the terrorists killing all those Shi'a innocents. And as the Iraqi Sunni Arabs are forced out at gun point, I expect the pressure on Saudi Arabia in particular to invervene to protect them will become significant. And if the Saudis or other Sunni Arabs intervene, the Iranians won't be far behind. The biggest variable I see in that is the question of how much leverage we will be able to put on the Saudis to stay out.
This is, of course, only a theory, and I am open to opposing theories. If you want us to leave before either the country is stablilized, or things really start spiraling downhill, I would like to hear why you don't think there would be a lot of bloodshed as a result.
Bruce, some links for you:
General William Odom, May 2004 -- Bush Should Admit Iraq Is a 'Mess' And Make Plans for a U.S. Troop Pullout by Next Year
Odom, who opposed the war before it began, argues that Iraq will never become a liberal democracy. He also warns that “we’ve also nearly broken the U.S. Army by over-extension and over-commitment.”
General William Odom, September 2004 -- Far Graver than Vietnam
General William Odom, March 2006 -- Iraq through the prism of Vietnam
General William Odom, March 2006 -- Iraq through the prism of Vietnam
General William Odom, January 2007 -- What Can Be Done in Iraq?
General William Odom, February 2007 -- Victory is not an option
The new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq starkly delineates the gulf that separates President Bush's illusions from the realities of the war. Victory, as the president sees it, requires a stable liberal democracy in Iraq that is pro-American. The NIE describes a war that has no chance of producing that result. In this critical respect, the NIE, the consensus judgment of all the U.S. intelligence agencies, is a declaration of defeat.
...
First, the assumption that the United States could create a liberal, constitutional democracy in Iraq defies just about everything known by professional students of the topic. Of the more than 40 democracies created since World War II, fewer than 10 can be considered truly "constitutional" -- meaning that their domestic order is protected by a broadly accepted rule of law, and has survived for at least a generation. None is a country with Arabic and Muslim political cultures. None has deep sectarian and ethnic fissures like those in Iraq.
Strangely, American political scientists whose business it is to know these things have been irresponsibly quiet. In the lead-up to the March 2003 invasion, neoconservative agitators shouted insults at anyone who dared to mention the many findings of academic research on how democracies evolve. They also ignored our own struggles over two centuries to create the democracy Americans enjoy today. Somehow Iraqis are now expected to create a constitutional order in a country with no conditions favoring it.
This is not to say that Arabs cannot become liberal democrats. When they immigrate to the United States, many do so quickly. But it is to say that Arab countries, as well as a large majority of all countries, find creating a stable constitutional democracy beyond their capacities.
Second, to expect any Iraqi leader who can hold his country together to be pro-American, or to share American goals, is to abandon common sense. It took the United States more than a century to get over its hostility toward British occupation. (In 1914, a majority of the public favored supporting Germany against Britain.) Every month of the U.S. occupation, polls have recorded Iraqis' rising animosity toward the United States. Even supporters of an American military presence say that it is acceptable temporarily and only to prevent either of the warring sides in Iraq from winning. Today the Iraqi government survives only because its senior members and their families live within the heavily guarded Green Zone, which houses the U.S. Embassy and military command.
As Congress awakens to these realities -- and a few members have bravely pointed them out -- will it act on them? Not necessarily. Too many lawmakers have fallen for the myths that are invoked to try to sell the president's new war aims. Let us consider the most pernicious of them.
1) We must continue the war to prevent the terrible aftermath that will occur if our forces are withdrawn soon. Reflect on the double-think of this formulation. We are now fighting to prevent what our invasion made inevitable! Undoubtedly we will leave a mess -- the mess we created, which has become worse each year we have remained. Lawmakers gravely proclaim their opposition to the war, but in the next breath express fear that quitting it will leave a blood bath, a civil war, a terrorist haven, a "failed state," or some other horror. But this "aftermath" is already upon us; a prolonged U.S. occupation cannot prevent what already exists.
2) We must continue the war to prevent Iran's influence from growing in Iraq. This is another absurd notion. One of the president's initial war aims, the creation of a democracy in Iraq, ensured increased Iranian influence, both in Iraq and the region. Electoral democracy, predictably, would put Shiite groups in power -- groups supported by Iran since Saddam Hussein repressed them in 1991. Why are so many members of Congress swallowing the claim that prolonging the war is now supposed to prevent precisely what starting the war inexorably and predictably caused? Fear that Congress will confront this contradiction helps explain the administration and neocon drumbeat we now hear for expanding the war to Iran.
Here we see shades of the Nixon-Kissinger strategy in Vietnam: widen the war into Cambodia and Laos. Only this time, the adverse consequences would be far greater. Iran's ability to hurt U.S. forces in Iraq are not trivial. And the anti-American backlash in the region would be larger, and have more lasting consequences.
3) We must prevent the emergence of a new haven for al-Qaeda in Iraq. But it was the U.S. invasion that opened Iraq's doors to al-Qaeda. The longer U.S. forces have remained there, the stronger al-Qaeda has become. Yet its strength within the Kurdish and Shiite areas is trivial. After a U.S. withdrawal, it will probably play a continuing role in helping the Sunni groups against the Shiites and the Kurds. Whether such foreign elements could remain or thrive in Iraq after the resolution of civil war is open to question. Meanwhile, continuing the war will not push al-Qaeda outside Iraq. On the contrary, the American presence is the glue that holds al-Qaeda there now.
4) We must continue to fight in order to "support the troops." This argument effectively paralyzes almost all members of Congress. Lawmakers proclaim in grave tones a litany of problems in Iraq sufficient to justify a rapid pullout. Then they reject that logical conclusion, insisting we cannot do so because we must support the troops. Has anybody asked the troops?
During their first tours, most may well have favored "staying the course" -- whatever that meant to them -- but now in their second, third and fourth tours, many are changing their minds. We see evidence of that in the many news stories about unhappy troops being sent back to Iraq. Veterans groups are beginning to make public the case for bringing them home. Soldiers and officers in Iraq are speaking out critically to reporters on the ground.
But the strangest aspect of this rationale for continuing the war is the implication that the troops are somehow responsible for deciding to continue the president's course. That political and moral responsibility belongs to the president, not the troops. Did not President Harry S. Truman make it clear that "the buck stops" in the Oval Office? If the president keeps dodging it, where does it stop? With Congress?
Embracing the four myths gives Congress excuses not to exercise its power of the purse to end the war and open the way for a strategy that might actually bear fruit.
The first and most critical step is to recognize that fighting on now simply prolongs our losses and blocks the way to a new strategy. Getting out of Iraq is the pre-condition for creating new strategic options. Withdrawal will take away the conditions that allow our enemies in the region to enjoy our pain. It will awaken those European states reluctant to collaborate with us in Iraq and the region.
Second, we must recognize that the United States alone cannot stabilize the Middle East.
Third, we must acknowledge that most of our policies are actually destabilizing the region. Spreading democracy, using sticks to try to prevent nuclear proliferation, threatening "regime change," using the hysterical rhetoric of the "global war on terrorism" -- all undermine the stability we so desperately need in the Middle East.
Fourth, we must redefine our purpose. It must be a stable region, not primarily a democratic Iraq. We must redirect our military operations so they enhance rather than undermine stability. We can write off the war as a "tactical draw" and make "regional stability" our measure of "victory." That single step would dramatically realign the opposing forces in the region, where most states want stability. Even many in the angry mobs of young Arabs shouting profanities against the United States want predictable order, albeit on better social and economic terms than they now have.
Realigning our diplomacy and military capabilities to achieve order will hugely reduce the numbers of our enemies and gain us new and important allies. This cannot happen, however, until our forces are moving out of Iraq. Why should Iran negotiate to relieve our pain as long as we are increasing its influence in Iraq and beyond? Withdrawal will awaken most leaders in the region to their own need for U.S.-led diplomacy to stabilize their neighborhood.
If Bush truly wanted to rescue something of his historical legacy, he would seize the initiative to implement this kind of strategy. He would eventually be held up as a leader capable of reversing direction by turning an imminent, tragic defeat into strategic recovery.
If he stays on his present course, he will leave Congress the opportunity to earn the credit for such a turnaround. It is already too late to wait for some presidential candidate for 2008 to retrieve the situation. If Congress cannot act, it, too, will live in infamy.
"Insurgents in Iraq detonated an explosives-rigged vehicle with two children in the back seat after US soldiers let it through a Baghdad checkpoint over the weekend, a senior US military official said Tuesday.
The vehicle was stopped at the checkpoint but was allowed through when soldiers saw the children in the back, said Major General Michael Barbero of the Pentagon's Joint Staff.
"Children in the back seat lowered suspicion. We let it move through. They parked the vehicle, and the adults ran out and detonated it with the children in the back," Barbero said."
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070320203409.spj83omw&show_article=1
Shame on us for eternity, if we allow these monsters to prevail. Never.
We've been asked to pay many hundreds of billions of dollars to fund the war, and have done so.
Umm no, we have actually borrowed the money for this war. The president has refused to account for this war on-budget. And even now he pretends that the war will be over by the time he leaves office. His budget projections for next year cut war funding in half and they are zero for FY 2009.
I see basically two alternatives: "cut and run" or "stay the course". To those who are suggesting some form of the former, I am still waiting for a cogent analysis of why you don't think that a bloody ethnic cleansing wouldn't ensue, with major regional players, notably Saudi Arabia, and then Iran, being drawn in.
The otherwise responsible Democratic politicians -- Hillary, Obama, etc. -- who have been manuevered by political considerations into the "cut and run" camp, are also waiting. Desperately. They want the anti-war movement to love them by showing them results. But they can't quite get there. Hence, the recent acknowledgements by both of them that, well, y'see, we gotta leave some troops over there...out of harm's way, y'understand...ah...er...regional stability...er...
My overarching theory of all of this is everything that is happening right now was unavoidable -- an historical inevitability. Whether we pushed Hussien or he collapsed of his own weight, his regime was doomed one way or the other. There would have been a brutal ethnic conflict in Iraq in the aftermath, and we would have been compelled, in some formulation, to intervene, and to do so without a clear strategy for victory/exit. President Whoever, on the right or the left, would have had no choice. Call it a UN mission, call it a NATO mission, call it a Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band mission, the US would have been running it and mostly manning (women, too!) it. There is no other military force worth mentioning on the planet right now.
The only variables were time and who happened to be in charge at the time it occured. We were unlucky it happened to be Bush, and even more unlucky it happened to be Rumsfeld with the faux-Machiavellian Cheney backing him. Results with those clowns are worse than they might have been. But I can't say for sure that anyone else of either party would have done this appreciably better. It's a different kind of war in a different world, and we're on a learning curve.
what if something resembling "victory" required doubling our troop commitment and thereby doubling our expenditures? is stopping an possible ethnic cleansing worth such a move and the casualties and hardship it would entail?
i expect the answer of 90% of americans and those on this board would be "no."
if that's the case, then what, o Great Patriotic Wingnuts?
I wonder if President Kerry would have said stopping ethnic cleansing in Iraq meets the "global test?" I suspect he might have, and perhaps because of his quasi-European demeanor, he could have gotten more foreign troops committed to the fight in addition to a surge from our side.
It's curious that Bush hasn't asked our allies for help at this juncture. I wonder if that's even occured to him.
Ah, the what-ifs of history.
Umm no, we have actually borrowed the money for this war.
We've borrowed money for the government in general, not for the war specifically. But since going into debt to pay for something is an even bigger sacrifice than paying for it out of cash on hand your banal little observation makes has no relevance either way.
As for your mandatory Bush-bashing -- yes, yes, you hate Bush, I understand. That's not relevant to my previous post either.
what if something resembling "victory" required doubling our troop commitment and thereby doubling our expenditures?
Doubling our troops would only double our expenditures if all of the money we're currently spending was being spent on troops. It isn't, so it wouldn't.
is stopping an possible ethnic cleansing worth such a move and the casualties and hardship it would entail?
How much money a human life is worth is a touchy question. The empirical evidence is that the dollar value of foreign lives is always pretty low, no matter what country you're living in.
i expect the answer of 90% of americans and those on this board would be "no."
When I start basing my opinions of what's right on what's popular and easy I'll be sure to let you know. But in any case my reasons for wanting to finish the war have little to do with ethnic cleansing and a lot to do with what will happen as a result of that ethnic cleansing -- e.g., Turkey and Iran invading and annexing big chunks of Iraq.
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