Saturday, April 30, 2005

''U.S. Out of Iraq: Forum Features Conyers, Woolsey, Lee, Ellsberg''

"It will be much harder and longer to get out of Iraq," Ellsberg said, because of the oil and because of the US alliance with Israel. "It is hard for me to foresee when we will leave the oil of the Middle East to people who are not our collaborators."

It will take a long time to get out, Ellsberg predicted, whether under Republicans or Democrats. But it is not too soon to start talking about the need to get out, he said. Woolsey's resolution is important, he said, not because it will be passed by a majority anytime soon, but because if we are ever to get out or to avoid additional wars, we have to see clearly that it's better for us and for the Iraqis for us to leave.

This is true, Ellsberg warned, not because the future will be peaceful and free of problems after the US troops leave, but because as long as we stay, "the people we choose to be collaborators will be targets of terrorism." We unify the resistance forces, he said. "And that precludes the possibility of a peaceful Iraq."

People who call for getting out now, Ellsberg cautioned, will be called defeatists, appeasers, weaklings, losers, cowards, and pro-terrorist. The opposite is true, he said. The war strengthens terrorists."-Daniel Ellsberg, speaking at a forum held in a US House of Representatives office building on April 28, 2005, from the post by David Swanson on his website.

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