"other options besides 'Remain indefinitely' & 'Withdraw immediately" -PDA

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PDA Seeks Action on Iraq Withdrawal


Last week, DNC Chairman Howard Dean stated that the United States must remain militarily engaged in Iraq. "Now that we're there, we're there and we can't get out," Dean told an audience of nearly 1,000 at the Minneapolis Convention Center on Wednesday, April 20th, as reported in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. "The president has created an enormous security problem for the United States where none existed before. But I hope the president is incredibly successful with his policy now that he's there."


Potential Security Threats
Chairman Dean cited three potential threats to American security that, in his opinion, require a continued American presence in that nation. The threats he enumerated were that an American withdrawal could open the door for a fundamentalist Shiite theocracy which could be worse than that which currently controls Iran; could precipitate the creation of an independent Kurdistan in the north and destabilize the neighboring Kurdish regions of Turkey, Iran, and Syria; and could cause Iraq to become an operational base for terrorist organizations in the fashion of pre-war Afghanistan.


Threats Self-created?
Clearly, these are well-reasoned concerns that cannot and must not be dismissed out of hand. The Bush administration's catastrophic Iraq policy, beginning with their wide-ranging disinformation campaign regarding weapons of mass destruction, to their wildly inaccurate belief that American invasion forces would be welcomed with open arms, to their ham-fisted and massively corrupt handling of the occupation, has created the threats we now face.


Simply put, Iraq was not a hotbed of terrorism and threats to American security until the invasion and occupation. We were told Iraq was a threat to us, which was a lie. The invasion and occupation, which was supposed to destroy those threats, has in fact created those threats where they did not exist before. This reality, and the threats to our security that have been created by Bush's disastrous policies, cannot be ignored.


Other Credible Options
We at Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) do not agree with Chairman Dean's assessment of the situation....There are other options besides 'Remain indefinitely' and 'Withdraw immediately.'

http://www.pdamerica.org/

They have a petition, etc.

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1. ...

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2. Iraq Withdrawal Petition:

Progressive Democrats of America will deliver the following petition to Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean in Washington, D.C. during the second week of May, 2005.


To Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean,


We the undersigned join grassroots Democrats from California to Vermont in calling for an end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq. We ask you to join us in our demand that the troops be brought home. We support efforts to repair the damage the war has inflicted on Iraq, but believe that the occupation is causing further damage, encouraging violence, hardening divisions, and failing to train or prepare Iraqis for self-governance.


We believe the United States can best help Iraq by supporting reparation efforts financially, rather than continuing to spend greater sums of money on an occupation that is aggravating the situation and making all of us less safe.


We have admired your past willingness to speak against the war. For the sake of the people of Iraq and of the world, and for the future viability of the Democratic Party, we now ask you to call on the U.S. Congress and the Bush Administration to:

• Publicly commit to leaving all of Iraq's resources in the possession of the Iraqi people, as required by the Geneva and Hague Conventions;

• Convene a meeting of Iraq's leadership, Iraq's neighbors, the United Nations, and the Arab League to create an international peacekeeping force in Iraq and to replace United States Armed Forces in Iraq with Iraqi police and Iraqi National Guard forces to ensure Iraq's security;

• Withdraw all U.S. Armed Forces from Iraq after the requirements of #2 are met;

• Contribute financially to the international peacekeeping mission and reconstruction.