Iraq, Anyone?

[bemildred]

Why aren’t presidential candidates talking about the postwar era and how they would repair the damage this terrible war has done to the nation? After all, our own reconstruction is at stake.

A year from now, no matter who is elected, this country will inaugurate a postwar president. Depending on the continued success of the troop surge, the growing confidence of Iraqi authority and the safety of the withdrawal, the details might be different. But essentially, the nightmare of Iraq will be over and a new era of U.S. history will begin. So why are none of the candidates putting forward their vision of the post-Iraq era in America?Instead, the primary campaign is focused on issues that have been around for years. Politicians have been haggling about energy, special interests, climate change, terrorism, health care and immigration since the early 1990s. None of these issues defines a new era.

The desperate imperative of the post-Iraq era is to repair the terrible damage that this war has done to the basic fabric of the nation and to its standing in the world. Reconciliation and reconstruction after Iraq is the great undiscussed issue of this campaign. The voters in the primaries should be asking themselves who among the candidates has the right temperament to preside over the healing of the nation.

Historically, the country has been in this situation twice. The aftermaths of the American Civil War and the Vietnam War are the reference points for 2009. In both instances, the amnesty issue was the catalyst. After the Civil War, the citizenship status of Southern rebels had to be addressed if the nation was again to be unified. In that case, the need was for the reconciliation of the two sections of the country. After the Vietnam War, the issue was the more than 50,000 war resisters who had fled to Canada. Their situation had to be addressed, and eventually it was, when Jimmy Carter proclaimed a presidential pardon the day after his inauguration in January 1977. In that case, the need was for reconciliation between the older and the younger generations.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/15/6379/

[niyad]

1. the "continued success of the troop surge"??? what in the H*** are these people smoking?

[Ganja Ninja]

2. They aren't talking about it because the whole thing could turn ...

on a dime and blow up in our faces again. And what's up with the "rebuild and reconcile" talk? Rebuild our military sure but reconcile? I don't want reconciliation. I want to see the criminal bastards that started this war prosecuted and jailed.