The mess we've made

There's an interesting article in the Times today. It looks at the small, but remarkable, improvements that have happened in Baghdad since the US forces have increased troop levels a few months ago (in the "Surge".)

Despite it's optimism, this is an article that would probably not be shared by the conservative news media because it shows just how terrible things in Iraq had been. Entire neighborhoods of people had fled to live in refugee camps or hide in other, more tolerant neighborhoods. Children, scarred by the dead bodies they would find in the streets were not being allowed to leave home anymore. (Sometimes up to 50 bodies a day could be found randomly in the streets, bodies of people who had been kidnapped and killed because they did not have the right Sunni or Shiite credentials.) Car bombs, dozens of them, would go off everyday, targeting shopping centers and public gathering places, making normal life impossible.

Today, there are signs that some of this is improving. Some people have attempted to return to their home and work, to laugh in public, and to brave the streets after dark. They are ~30,000 people of the 4 million that have since fled (one might be surprised ot hear this number, as it's rarely mentioned in our media).

And the hanging question remains - the question that bothers all liberals at their core. We were against the war against the massive violence and chaos that our war machine brought to these people's lives, against the poor execution of an unrealistic and arrogant war plan, against the diversion of our country's financial surpluses to the pockets of Blackwater and Halliburton, and - especially- against the tens of thousands of civilian casualties that did not volunteer to die for their country's "liberation".

But now what? Are we not, despite our strong protests, responsible for the mess our leaders made there? Can we ever leave until it's undone? Some would argue that we can never make things better, but others counter that leaving would abandon Iraq to chaos. When you hear about hopeful families braving the streets to go to a restaurant or a friend's house for the first time in months, it really makes you question what options we have, other than to stay.