It's too early to talk about…
One of my hobbies used to be programming science fiction conventions. Not Trekker cons, I've met the folks who run those and they are quite nice, but they deal with a different crowd. I dealt with the people who read and write speculative fiction on a wild variety of topics. I arranged time, space, interesting people when possible, and interesting (at least to them) topics. Personally, I think it is too early to talk intelligently about man's ascendance into a higher plane, but I don't begrudge others for their interest in doing so.
Recently
KINK FM-102, a local radio station with an amazingly diverse range of musical offerings for a commercial station, held a poll. They do this in order to keep in touch with their audience and in general, this is a good idea. Here were the three possible options:
1. Pull out immediately & let the Iraqi people take over
2. Start the process of pulling out
3. It’s too early to talk about leaving the country
I am in favor of the war, but also believe that we should not be garrisoning that country forever. I do believe that the US should leave defensive bases in Germany but keep some essential transportation and medical facilities there. After all, we've been on the ground there for almost sixty years and have invested a substantial fraction of our nation's GDP defending them. I don't think it was too soon to talk about leaving Germany in 1943, but I don't think that anybody could have come up with an intelligent exit strategy then. There was too much data missing to make the necessary choices and no clear understanding of how the post-war world was going to sort itself out.
It is not too early to talk about pulling out of Iraq. In the absence of a reasonable choice advocating national will in the face of grave danger to our survival, I chose the unpalatable third. I like KINK FM-102, but I wish they would stop asking me when I stopped kicking my dog and otherwise insulting my intelligence. Would it have been so hard to have asked five questions, one of which might have allowed reasonable people the option of supporting a long term strategy of projecting force in a region where attacks against our nation? What about this:
Support freedom forever, in Iraq and the rest of the world.
UPDATE:
In the brief time it took me to make my lunch, Leann Warren Inessa got back to me. Leann did call me Patricia, but I stopped getting silly about that some time ago.
