Troops can't just leave

I am a Republican. I voted for George Bush when he was elected President. I supported military action in Afghanistan. I supported military action in Iraq. I listen to Rush Limbaugh in the afternoons, and watch Fox news. I was disappointed when Rush resigned from ESPN and even more so to his admitted pain killer addiction.

I supported the California recall, not on strict party grounds, but because it was the right thing to do. I tell you this now so that you, as the reader, will know exactly where I am coming from, and what my personal bias is.

While I was sitting here trying to decide what to write this article on, several things came to mind: the difference between Clinton and Bush’s misinformation, the difference between Limbaugh and Clinton’s discrepancies, and even the California recall. Through all of this, I kept coming back to one issue, Iraq.

Surrounding this issue are many questions, primarily: Did President Bush lie to the American public in those few words that have now become controversial?

I tell you this now; he lied no more than any other President has done when confronted with the information given him. These United States and the United Kingdom have a history of sharing information for mutual benefit.

Also, no President can afford to not trust his intelligence, because no matter what we think about the presidency, it is determined by what information he has, which is edited by those that receive it and classify it before he can ever look at it.

The next question is: Was going into Iraq justified? I would say yes. Saddam Hussein has killed his own people for his weapons research, and that by itself (killing his people, not necessarily the weapons) is more than enough reason for military action.

Remember, it was just a few short years ago that we sent our troops into Kosovo for genocide, Kennedy sent troops to Vietnam to keep it from changing governments, and we still have troops stationed around the world in places that the U.S. has gone into for less than what Saddam ever did. Now, none of this justifies any military action, but it does establish historical precedence.

The big question: Are (were) there weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? None that we have found…yet. However, there is concrete evidence that there were programs in place to make both chemical and biological weapons that were unknown to the U.N. These include over two dozen labs hidden in Iraq that had banned equipment. Others include Iraqi scientists taking their work home with them. This includes keeping botulinum toxin (to learn more, Google search it), anthrax, and others, along with equipment, technology, diagrams and documents in their own homes. That is just the start. There is much more going on there than what most people realize.

The most pressing question is should we spend $87 billion on Iraq? Yes, it is our responsibility to make sure that we have not destroyed this country and then fled while it was in ruins because of what we did to it.

This means that we need to rebuild Iraq, make sure that a government is set up, and make sure it can stand on its own before we pull our troops out. Democratic Presidential hopeful Rep. Dennis Kucinich (OH) wants to pull our troops out now. This is unacceptable. We cannot cut and run. To do so would hurt our image even more, and the U.S. cannot afford to lose any more face than it already has. Another hopeful, Carol Moseley Braun wants to leave Iraq with honor, which sounds a little like the peace with honor that Nixon wanted before he pulled our troops out of Vietnam.

I must say now that using Rep. Kucinich (from my home state) and Fmr. Sen. Braun as examples is not intended to imply that Fmr. Sen. Braun is in any way like the late Richard Nixon, nor that Rep. Kucinich would not make a good president. They were merely examples.

In closing, I urge the student body to keep this issue in mind, whether you are for or against this President, administration, or this $87 billion military expenditure. Because if we do not, we run the risk of having troops there indefinitely, and basically forgotten, like those in Afghanistan and elsewhere.