The Individualist 10.01.07: Bill Richardson - The Only Serious Anti-War Candidate

Posted by Joe Rivett on 10.01.2007

With Hillary, Edwards and Obama not committing to pull troops out by 2013, Richardson has an opening if the anti-war crowd will notice the supposedly conservative Democratic candidate.

I never thought I would say this, but Bill Richardson is the only serious anti-war candidate. That's right Dennis Kucinich I don't take you seriously. The same goes for you Mike Gravel. No offense dude, but you can't come out of a political cave and run for president. Then you have the audacity to be proud that you stuck it to the credit card companies due to overindulging on spending money that isn't yours. So I don't want any emails telling me that I forgot Kucinich or Gravel. I purposely forgot them.

At the beginning of the campaign, I thought Bill Richardson would be the most conservative Democrat running. I was wrong. Ideologically, Bill Richardson is all over the place, which makes him the most interesting candidate. However, on the topic of Iraq he has developed a position that is to the Left or Hillary, Edwards and Obama. Because of his experience as a UN Ambassador and dealing with rogue nations, we can't laugh off his plan like we do for Dennis Kucinich.

What is Richardson's plan? Withdraw ALL troops from Iraq. How long will that take from a logistical standpoint? According to Richardson, the commanders on the ground will decide. But he does not want to leave a contingency force to train the Iraqis, protect the embassy, etc.

Why does Richardson want to do this? First, the Iraqis want us out. According to a BBC poll done in September, 93% of Sunnis believe that attacks on coalition forces are acceptable and 70% believe things have gotten worse where the surge was.

Another reason why Richardson wants all troops out is that there is no military solution in Iraq. Our goal is for the government to reconcile differences and come to agreement that protects minority interests. How do our troops foster this goal? It doesn't make sense. Our troops are trained to kill, not to run the Iraqi government.

Another reason why Richardson wants all troops out is that the surge has failed. The Iraqi government has not progressed at a fast enough pace. According to the Government Accountability Office, of 18 legislative, security and economic benchmarks, the Iraqi government has met only 3, partially met 4, and did not meet 11.

Another reason why Richardson wants ALL troops out is that leaving behind a contingency force will lead to the death of more troops. According to Richardson, the British have lost more troops this year than in the last three years and they have lowered their forces.

Joe Biden doesn't think Richardson's plan is realistic. This is one reason why Richardson has stopped using a timetable for how long it will take. However, Richardson points out that there are reports stating that many troops redeployed quickly after the first Gulf War. The US can also leave behind the non-essential things behind to speed up withdrawal:

The Center for American Progress agrees that our forces have the capability to elect to abandon certain equipment for the sake of expediting U.S. departure from Iraq:
The time that it takes to withdraw from Iraq will depend in large part on the amount of equipment the military decides to take with it. The military, however, does not need to remove every nut and every bolt out of every forward operating base in country. Sensitive equipment aside, at some point a cost-benefit analysis must be done. Such an analysis must consider what equipment will be taken with us. Since it currently costs more than $10 billion per month to sustain our presence in Iraq, extending our stay in order to extract all non-sensitive equipment -- such as freezers, sinks, fuel, excess equipment, and x-ray machines -- would not be cost-effective or worth risking the lives of our troops.

Americans have to ask themselves if they want to keep digging a hole deeper and deeper in Iraq. Richardson uses the analogy of if you are digging a hole, there comes a certain point where you have to stop digging. Bush is continuing to dig, but Hillary, Edwards and Obama still want to dig. I think Richardson would rather have us leave the hole for the Iraqis to deal with. I'll use a gambling analogy. Iraq is like Roulette, you bet on black and red appears. So you bet on black again. You lose. You bet on black again. You lose. You triple the bet on black figuring it has to eventually fall on black, but it doesn't. Pretty soon you are out of money which means you have to borrow money or walk away. Right now we are borrowing money and refusing to walk away.

The President says that people like Richardson don't want victory. What he doesn't see is that victory already occurred when we disarmed Saddam. That was the intent of the war. We kicked Iraq's ass. People like John McCain worry about genocide but genocide is when one group tries to exterminate another. It appears that both sides are killing each other. This is not like Hitler targeting a bunch of defenseless civilian Jews. Maybe the Iraqis need to fight or have the threat of our withdrawal so that they can get down to business.

This column is not an endorsement of Richardson or his plan. I wrote this so that the anti-war readers who are Democratic might think about supporting Richardson instead of supporting Edwards who stated that we wouldn't be out by 2013. If you want the troops out of Iraq, there is only one serious candidate, (Sorry Ron Paul) to vote for.

To the "Moveon people," stop with the wet dream of a Kucinich presidency and get serious about ending this war.

Headlines

Obama's Disappointingly Conventional Campaign – Michael Crowley, TNR

I can't believe how boring Barack Obama is. I'm sorry, but the way things are going now, Jesse Jackson is STILL going to be the only serious black candidate that the Democratic Party has ever had.

The Poll Watcher

Newsweek Iowa Poll

Obama 28%
Clinton 24%
Edwards 22%
Richardson 10%

For a disappointingly conventional campaign, Obama is doing well and very organized in Iowa. Maybe he is taking the boring John Kerry approach while Hillary and Edwards eat each other alive the way Dean and Gephardt did four years ago.