Escape From Pianosa

I wonder at the motives of people who say that setting a timetable for withdrawal in Iraq will embolden our enemies. I admit that they have a point; leaving now would seem to validate the strategy of the terrorists in Iraq. Certainly the terrorists would perceive it and market it that way.

But what are the alternatives? We could sneak out in the middle of the night, leaving millions of vehicles and weapons. They’d never know what hit them! When questioned, we could play dumb.

“What’s that? Oh yeah, I mean, we just didn’t feel like being there anymore. The hot desert sun and all. No no! Don’t think…oh no, we don’t want you to think we left because of you! Oh gosh no. You terrorists are taking this all wrong! No, we left cus we felt like it. I mean, the soldiers dying every day in Iraq–that was annoying to be sure. But don’t get all full of yourself thinking it was just cus of that. There were lots of other totally non-terrorist reasons.”

Alas, they’d probably see through that–and then they’d have all of our tanks and stuff. So we could just stay “until we win.” And we win when nobody wants to kill Americans. But every day we’re there, more people want to kill Americans. Are you trying to tell me that you never want to leave?