Left Brain/Right Brain: When can U.S. troops come home?

By Lisa Coffey and James Gillen

Lisa: I honor the Iraqi people who voted Jan. 30. The magnitude of their courage and humanity is touching and inspiring. It's almost enough to make you forget the phoney rationales for the pre-emptive invasion. It's almost enough to make you forget there were no weapons of mass destruction. It's almost enough to make you forget Saddam Hussein had no connection to Al Qaeda or 9/11. It's almost enough to make you forget about Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and Halliburton and that natural gas pipeline business and $280 billion and 1,400 dead American troops and God knows how many dead Iraqis and how our own freedom of the press no longer encompasses images of body bags. Democracy is good. Saddam Hussein is bad. So what I want to know is, are we almost done?

James: Short answer: No. The fact is this wasn't going to work until we knew that the Iraqi people themselves wanted to make it work. I blame the administration for piddling around with people's lives and screwing up the execution, but the fact remains that ridding Iraq of Saddam Hussein was an objective good. And we're not done because the country still needs to have the people just elected to the Assembly draft and ratify a constitution for Iraq. And I don't know if we've turned the corner on the terrorist threat in the country. One thing's for sure, the people there don't agree with Ted Kennedy that Iraq is "Bush's Vietnam."

Lisa: Yeah, I was just kidding--I know the short answer is no. I too blame the administration for piddling around with people's lives. I wonder what it's like to piddle around with people's lives, especially when you're an incompetent piddler. I wonder what it's like to be an 18-year-old kid whose prospects in life make enlisting in the Army look like the best option. My father says there's no use wondering what it's like to get shot at and see the guys next to you get blown to bits; he says you'll never know unless you experience it. He does know, and that's why his idea of patriotism and support of our troops (besides not sending them to Iraq in the first place) is getting them the hell out of there ASAP.

James: Good point, but I stand by what I said. Getting out ASAP would mean giving up at exactly the point that Iraqi public support for the new government has been confirmed. Again, we still need to worry about the terrorist groups there. But the election switched the rhetoric from "freedom fighters against the Evil Empire" to "terrorists murdering civilians and fighting a legitimate government." I think that will make it a lot easier for Iraqis themselves to recruit security forces who will fight for their country. But that's a process that's just starting, not ending.

Lisa: And that's interesting in itself because, oh, a while back, if memory serves me right, Donald Rumsfeld said that process was well under way and there were 210,000 or so Iraqi security forces. Now he's making the television talk show rounds with an update on that information. It turns out the actual numbers range between 4,000 and 136,000, and any estimates within that range are absolutely correct, as usual. I get the impression it annoys Mr. Rumsfeld when he has to waste his time 'splainin' stuff like that, but he's gracious enough to do it anyway as long as we don't ask too many questions. He's also softening us up just in case the "Iraqi version" of democracy turns out to be a fundamentalist Islamic theocracy, which might be all right except for the fact that the Iraqis have the wrong god.

James: For one thing, Islam has the same god as Christianity, just a different religion. Sorta like the Republicans vs. Democrats. And from what I've heard in the news, the Shiite mullahs looked at Iran and realized that they didn't want Iraq to be run by a religious caste. They'd rather make "suggestions" behind the scenes so they don't take the blame if things go wrong. Again, sorta like the Republicans vs. Democrats.

Lisa: Your analogy is a little off, since our own recent presidential election plainly proved that God is a Republican. But whatever the Iraqis decide, as long as they make Iraq safe for Halliburton, I suppose all will be well and the troops can come home.

James: I'm not sure when it'll be safe for Halliburton. In fact, if they need more troops to pacify Iraq, I was thinking they could get them out of western Germany, a "quagmire" we've been stuck in since 1945. Who are we supposed to protect Germans from? The Soviets? Nazi "insurgents"? Or those dastardly Poles?