What is surrender in Iraq?

McCain says that a withdrawal of troops from Iraq would be to surrender. The question is a surrender to whom?

Surrender to the terrorists? No. As a matter of proximity they travel to the nearest location they can in order to perform their duty to Islam of repelling occupying forces. They did it (on the US dollar) to the Soviets in Afghanistan, they are doing it to us now in Afghanistan, they did it to us in Lebanon, they did it to us in Saudi Arabia, they did it to us in Yemen and they are now still doing it to us in Iraq.

Leaving Iraq yields no terrain or power to terrorists. It removes the opportunity for them to strike at an American target. Fighting them over there does nothing to prevent them from fighting us over here. The terrorists we face in Iraq are the poor bastards that could only afford to walk to Jihad. It does nothing to preempt a strike from the cells of international terrorists with plans and abilities to do damage on American soil.

Iraq has proven to be a great training ground for the foot soldier terrorists. Look at the migration of tactics from Iraq to Afghanistan, Sudan, Lebanon and the Philippines. They are learning our ways and weaknesses in Iraq and exploiting those lessons elsewhere in the world. Fighting in Iraq has weakened our military advantage globally.

Surrender to the Iraqi people? Yes. Well isn't that the ultimate goal of Operation IRAQI Freedom? To turn the country over to the hands of the Iraqis and allow them self determination? To give them the freedom from Saddam to succeed or fail as a sovereign nation? Yes, pulling out of Iraq would in fact be a surrender of American power to the Iraqi people returning power, control and possession of their country and fate to their hands.

Missing from all US coverage and commentary on the war in Iraq is the Iraqi perspective. A majority of them have wanted the US to leave from the beginning. As Cheney points out, opinion does not matter. We stayed and changed our definition of success to go so far in stabilizing the country that by our own definition of success we can never leave.

Surrender to the defense industry? No. Leaving Iraq would be freeing the US from the grip of the defense industry. It is in their interests to keep us at war as long as possible. IEDs are killing soldiers? Rather than change tactics (walk instead of drive) and deploy more troops (the Army was already spread too thin) the solution is more money to the defense industry to develop a vehicle (MRAP) that allows us to continue to occupy too much area with too few troops.

The $12b monthly bill for the war has gone to equipment improvements that are great all of themselves but do nothing to change the dynamic of the war to a strategic end. MRAPs, e-SAPI plates, improved helmets in the ACH, a new uniform and a burst of nice gadgets for the piece-of-crap M-4 all help the soldier but do nothing to decisively change the reality on the ground.

Rather than fight the war to win it we have accepted fighting the war to grow the defense industry and prolong the length of the occupation. No worries for the senior officers that have developed this reality. In the revolving doors of the defense industry those officers that sell out the soldiers for the sake of a follow-on-career are surely rewarded. Rank now and another job later.

The only scenario that US the indeed surrenders something in Iraq is in our refusing to leave the country and prolonging the occupation. We surrender our moral authority as we continue to place the value of Iraqi life below all others. We surrender our ability to respond and pursue true terror threats worldwide as our forces are bogged down in a quagmire. We surrender our economic future as a country to the black hole of debt this war has created. We surrender our national will to an executive office that stands in the face of our constitution. We surrender to corporate interests that lose nothing in the deaths of American service members but gain everything in lengthy multi-million and billion dollar contracts. By remaining in Iraq we surrender our future as a nation to the short term interests of unscrupulous politicians and corporations.