I dashed off this email to the Times, prompted by the posting here of their editorial counseling a fairly quick withdrawal, and the comments here that followed. Any thoughts?
*****
Perhaps I am bedazzled by the power of inertia, but I yet harbor hopes that a more gradual, benchmark-achieving withdrawal is far preferable to the thoughtful but distressing call you issued yesterday for withdrawal planning to begin now.
You do not -- cannot -- rule out a whole host of negative, even downright evil consequences flowing from a decision to start the withdrawal process now. To the contrary, on at least three fronts held in check, more or less, by a stasis of troop strength -- a more virulent civil war, which could degenerate into genocide; a failed state, which could leave yawning gaps for terrorist entrenchment; and, because of the two just mentioned, a wider, regional belligerency -- we risk acute exacerbation from your proposal.
But, as you say, let the conversation begin in earnest. I am certainly open to the possibility that your reporters' sources may be providing equal or superior "intelligence" compared to the version the military is capable of getting to us through channels. Yet, as I now understand your argument, I don't have to defer to superior information. My present reservations appear to be chiefly if not entirely matters of choice of values, or toleration of risks jeopardizing those values.