A Few Articles at Salon

There are a couple of good articles at Salon (well an editorial and a post).

In the end it is our common humanity that calls us, war supporter or war opponent, hawk or dove, to remember those who died. We honor the dead, whether they fell on our side or that of our adversary, because of our shared humanity.

So this Memorial Day is for you, Sergeant Smith. You died in a pointless war, but we here highly resolve that you shall not have died in vain. In your name, we vow that our nation shall have a new birth of freedom. We pledge that we, the people, will reclaim our country. And we swear that we will never again send our brothers off to fight unjustifiable wars.

- Gary Kamiya, "Memorial Day"

But even if one accepts that withdrawal would unleash more bloodshed in Iraq, focusing exclusively on that risk is woefully incomplete. Whatever cost one assigns to that risk must be weighed against the costs and risks of staying. And those risks cannot be assessed by assuming that the administration will pursue the Pure, Ideal and Noble vision of ongoing occupation, let alone conduct a competent occupation. That is the central mistake which Reluctant War Proponents (now re-incarnated as Reluctant Withdrawal Opponents) made prior to the invasion, and it is a mistake they are making yet again.

Whatever the "benefits" supposedly are from staying, are they worth incurring the substantial risk that we are enabling our country's warmongers to achieve their real goal of spreading our war beyond Iraq to their long list of Middle East Enemies, beginning with Iran?

Glenn Greenwald "The risks of staying"