Fifty Years in Iraq

President Bush said we may be in Iraq for 50 years. President Bush compared the commitment to South Korea with our commitment to Iraq. By these words we have created another recruitment poster for al-Qaeda.

These are magical words to lull the sheep into complacency. It makes the four years the U. S. has spent in Iraq seem short when compared to fifty years. Saying we may be in Iraq for fifty years makes the President sound like a man of commitment. How soon the sheep forget that the purpose of going to Iraq was stated as "regime change" because Saddam Hussein was an evil man.

Why do we still have a commitment to South Korea? South Korea has more people and a much larger GDP than North Korea. They can afford to defend themselves. Do they pay us for our contribution to their defense? Maybe our government thinks we need a presence on the Chinese mainland. It seems our bases in other parts of the Far East should be enough. If China becomes too powerful she will have to contend with India, Russia, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, and our newest ally, Vietnam!

And why do we need a 50 year commitment to Iraq? I don't know.

Charles Tolleson
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Bush sees South Korea model for Iraq
By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent Thu May 31, 1:42 AM ET
President Bush envisions a long-term U.S. troop presence in Iraq
similar to the one in South Korea where American forces have helped
keep an uneasy peace for more than 50 years, the White House said
Wednesday.

Presidential spokesman Tony Snow said Bush has cited the long-term
Korea analogy in looking at the U.S. role in Iraq, where American
forces are in the fifth year of an unpopular war. Bush's goal is for
Iraqi forces to take over the chief security responsibilities,
relieving U.S. forces of frontline combat duty, Snow said.

In South Korea, about 29,500 U.S. troops are stationed as a deterrent
against the communist North, but that number is to decline to 24,500
by 2008 as part of the Pentagon's worldwide realignment of its forces.
The two Koreas remain technically at war since the 1950-53 Korean War
ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty.

Adm. William Fallon, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, seemed
a surprising choice when he got the job earlier this year, yet his
experience as U.S. commander in the Pacific overseeing the Korean
peninsula would serve him well if the U.S. military adopts a Korea
model in Iraq.