I am by no means supportive of the decision to go to war or of Bush's mediocre handling of it, nor am I by any means a fan of the administration. But I do find myself, even though I don't like the war, supporting the surge because it is the best option we have out of a range of bad options. Whether or not we should have gone into Iraq doesn't matter, we are committed to ensuring the best result for the Iraqi people. And that means leaving them with a government that isn't going to collapse and leave them to fight a bloody war with the neighbors becoming involved. We think it's bad now, but it could get a whole lot worse. We failed Iraq once when we decided to go on this misadventure. However, we have to finish what we started or we will have only failed Iraq twice. If we leave and the government collapses, it will not have ended. The Iraqi people will still have to deal with the consequences, and the great instability that would likely result will create problems for us in the future that we will have to clean up later.

Now had does that lead to support for the surge? While I would like to think we could leave and put the Iraqis in charge, the Iraqis are not ready for such a charge. Due to the gross incompetence of the administration in not preparing for the aftermath, parts of Iraq have never been secure enough for the Iraqi government to take control of and for reconstruction to take place. We really needed the surge 4 years ago. Due to the incompetence of Rumsfield and his gang of idiots, we never created a situation where the Iraqi government has a chance to really succeed.

The surge is not just putting new troops in, but getting our troops off the bases and not just raiding to clear areas, but living in Baghdad to provide real security. Up until now we have been playing a game of whack-a-mole with insurgents, we clear and area, leave, and they come back. The surge strategy is designed to stop that cycle and actually hold areas we clear. That way the Iraqis will rebuild, see us as protecting them rather than just sweeping through kicking down doors every once in a while, allow for economic recovery, and get the Iraqis to start trusting the government and not put their faith into militias. It is doing what we should have been doing for years. Once we provide security, the people will stop supporting insurgents and miltias and support the government, the government can build its own military, and we can leave with the Iraqis in a position to succeed and have stable government. Is it to late to work? We don't know. It may be. But I pray that it isn't, for the sake of the Iraqi people. In any case we have to try, because, no thanks to Bush, we have no other good options.

By the way I am a liberal Democrat. This is only the second controversial issue I've ever supported Bush on (the first was the Dubai ports issue). Why do I choose to post on this issue then as my first in a long time? Because I don't believe in just posting to have everyone agree with me. We need to have an honest exchange on this issue, and we do that by engaging in dialog with people we disagree with. That is why I haven't posted here before, because on every other issue I am with the Democrats so I post on conservative forums in order to debate them on those issues. Thanks for your time.