Is Staying the Course the Right Approach?

As the costs of the war in Iraq escalate--with no end in sight--while the government can't pay for disasters like Katrina at home, it's worth considering the impact the war is having on the so called war on terror.

Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda was created by the protracted occupation of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union in the 1980s. If the Russians had cut and run foreign fighters like bin Laden may have gone home before he became an entrenched guerilla. After the war, bin Laden had a large following who looked to him for leadership. These people went on to form al Qaeda, and we know where that led. So how does this relate to Iraq? The same exact thing is happening there.

The number of insurgents in Iraq has steadily increased from 3000 in May 2003 to 20,000 in May of 2006. Similarly, the number of foreign fighters has increased over the same period from 100 to 1500. In other words, the longer the US stays in Iraq the greater the number of insurgents and foreign fighters. There is no reason to believe that a continued military presence will reverse this trend. This may be over simplistic, but the parallels to the Russian adventure in Afghanistan are clear. New life is being breathed into al Qaeda by our presence in Iraq. The longer we stay the more militant these people will become. We are not fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over there, as the Dunce in Chief has famously said. We are fighting them over there so we can guarantee having to fight them over here for many years to come.

Advocating for a swift withdrawal from Iraq is not an unpatriotic vote against the troops, it is a vote for our security here at home.