I’m sitting here listening to general Petraeus give his report to congress and while the senate does better than the public discourse they still seem to have fallen into this simplistic ‘are we winning or losing’ narrative. Obviously it’s the senate’s job to discern the prospects for success in Iraq and pull the plug if they determine that American troops are doing more harm than good in Iraq but that’s not the same thing as saying we are likely to lose. If we pull out of Iraq precipitously the country could explode into a full fledged genocidal civil war.¹ How likely does success have to be for us to try to prevent another holocaust? If there was a 10% chance of saving the citizens of Boston from death at the hands of a rapacious bloodthirsty militia would we refuse to send in the army because it might cause a few thousand casualties?

At least the people who believe that we did the Iraqis a favor by invading have a bit of an excuse². They can say, “we did you a favor now it’s up to you,” but the rest of us can take no such comfort. We invaded Iraq and fucked up their country and it’s now our responsibility to do the best by the Iraqi people. It’s downright disgusting to hear senators telling Petraeus that Iraq is distracting from the war on terror, that it’s creating terrorists, or that it’s negatively impacting our military readiness. Is that going to be what we tell the millions of Iraqi mothers, and brothers and children when their family members are killed in a civil war. “Sorry, we needed to go fight terror. You should have managed your country better after we fucked it up.” Sure it’s frustrating to see so little progress and disheartening to think that we might have to stay there for ten years but neither of these justify risking millions of lives in a potential genocide. Saying that “the American people won’t tolerate continued lack of progress,” isn’t an excuse to let millions die.

Sure one or two Senators made the claim that our troops create more violence than they deter. That’s an important theory that ought to be seriously examined but you’ll excuse me if I don’t believe it is a justified belief when I only hear it from hardcore anti-war Senators in the middle of rants about how our military belongs at home not fighting wars for incompetent administrations. Quite obviously these politicians and their supporters have first decided to oppose the war and demand our troops come home and then looked for a justification for that view. The war might have been a horrible mistake but it’s a mistake we made and now we need to figure out the best way to mitigate the harm we caused.

As disappointed as I am in many of our Senators it’s groups like moveon.org that truly disgust me. I used to like them as an energetic democratic fund raising group and even considered donating money to them during Kerry’s candidacy but running across this advertisement today made me sick. Not only does this ad trivialize the lives of millions of Iraqis when it criticizes Petraeus for not saying, “what Americans are desperate to hear: a timetable for withdrawing all our troops.” but it also blatantly misrepresents the source documents it uses to indict Petraeus. The GAO report merely says exactly what Petraeus himself has said, that many of the political objectives the Al-Maliki government set for itself were not met. The National Intelligence Estimate also backs up Petraeus when it says that there has been “some security progress but political reconciliation elusive.” Finally the report by the Jones Commission argues that while the Iraqi police have proven ineffective the army is making progress but isn’t yet ready to take over independent operations. All statements compatible with the view that we need to stay in Iraq longer but none of them about the really important issue of what will happen when we leave. Jesus christ you are supposed to be a liberal organization where is your concern for the Iraqis? Don’t you think they deserve more than a ‘yah yah they’ll be better off without us’? Like say seriously considering whether keeping the soldiers in Iraq would save lives?

Ironically despite the constant hand wringing by many liberals about “the American Empire” it is their assault on a general called back from a war to answer primarily domestic concerns that reminds me of the worst aspects of the Roman empire. Any old country can invade and occupy another country but only an empire can so blithely play domestic politics with millions of foreign lives. This behavior makes me ashamed to be an American and a liberal. When the Bush administration placed the lives of the Iraqis second to their ideological agenda it was bad enough but for the liberals to follow them down the rabbit hole and not even seriously consider the welfare of the Iraqis is downright evil. These are real people just as worthy of moral consideration as the ones who live in Indiana no matter what milestones their government has failed to meet. Let’s step back and put aside our ideological preferences and figure out what is most likely to fix Iraq. I genuinely want to know what policy will most likely bring success in Iraq but no one else seems interested³

Each and every one of you out there has a real moral obligation to the Iraqi people not to demand a pullout (or a continued occupation) without good reason to believe it is in the Iraqi people’s best interest. If we pull out because people like you demanded it without seriously considering the consequences the blood will be on your hands.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PEOPLE IF WE MAKE THE WRONG CHOICE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE JUST LIKE YOU MIGHT DIE, TENS OF THOUSANDS MAY BE RAPED AND TORTURED, AND MANY MORE FORCED TO FLEE AND IT’S ALL OUR FAULT. Isn’t that more important than political ideology and domestic considerations? Would it really be that hard to admit that you aren’t sure what the best policy in this complicated situation is? If you were in congress you wouldn’t bet their lives on a gut feeling without looking at the evidence so don’t demand that your congressmen bet their lives on your uninformed feeling.