Why is it always harder to get OUT of a war than it seems to be to get into one and stay in one?

Shouldn't it be the other way around? It is becoming increasingly apparent to me watching the hand-wringing among members of Congress (which WE control now) that there is little or no likelihood that troops will be coming home anytime soon from Iraq and Bush may be, in fact, sending even more troops as we speak as part of his "surge" strategy". It seems that many Democrats have succumbed to the RW spin that they will be harming the troops by pulling funding for war, which, at the moment seems like the ONLY way that we can force Bush to start removing our troops while he is President. A clear majority of the American people don't want us to continue to stay in Iraq indefinitely but a majority of them also don't want funding pulled for the war, so as long as GOP continues to support the Bush (mis-)administration's failed Iraq "policies" and Democrats continue to cower in fear over appearing "weak", there is NO way that any of our troops are coming home in the near future absent some major catastrophe. It only took one downed Blackhawk helicopter to work up enough Congressional and public outrage to pressure Clinton to end our involvement in Somalia in 1993 and to force his defense secretary to resign but We have lost thousands of soldiers and had several more soldiers injured during nearly 4 years of Iraq and there appears to be little REAL resolve by anybody, even among the public which largely opposes the war, to bring our troops home. Frankly, I'm stupefied. To me, stranding thousands of American troops in Iraq for repeated tours of duty without any clear objective is harming our troops and our country far more than pulling out. It is scary how easy it was to get into Iraq but how incredibly hard it seems for us to get out. I blame this mostly on the Bush (mis-)administration, however the public, many of whom have family members serving in Iraq, doesn't seem to be outraged enough to demand an end to this occupation even after witnessing all of the death, carnage, and scandal that our misbegotten adventure in Iraq has caused. What in the world would need to happen to generate the necessary outrage to end this occupation? :rant:

They can't just get enough of it

That's all it takes destroy a campaign, and if you're the party that pulls out of a war that we lose eventually, then your party is called "weak on defense". The whole failure of the war will be blamed on those that wanted to pull out.

So, thousands of people have to die just so that a few politicians can look strong.

They want to cling to notions like "Peace with Honor" rather than simply admit that the "war" is lost and it's time to come home.

When we were disrupting classes and calling on the profs to talk about Vietnam, one said, "The war will end when enough bodies come home and the average citizen has to reach for his wallet to pay for it."

Which is exactly what happened then, and will probably happen now.

in March 2003:


"Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events."
Sir Winston Churchill
British politician (1874 - 1965)

Now of course the only problem with this quote is the part that refers to "The Statesman...." No one in their right mind would ever presume that Bush and Company are "Statesman" by any stretch of the imagination.

...a pregnancy than before a pregnancy occurs? War is only different based on scale. Both are fuck-ups.

Much easier to put on than take off. And believe me, after losing 28 lbs., I can testify to that fact.

There is a ton of money to be made in warmongering and where there is money there is a swarm of lobbyists around politicians. Stopping the money war train will be nearly impossible.