I woke up this morning with my email abuzz with the most recent gossip politics. The assistant attorney general for the state of Michigan has turned into a Mean Girl - only he's not crafty and manipulative. The biggest tool in his arsenal is stealing pictures from Facebook and using Microsoft Paint to modify them. (I feel sorry for him; he's in a bind. As a government employee, he doesn't make enough money to afford Photoshop, but he's professionally bound not to bootleg it. Thus he's reduced to creating digital creations reminiscent of five year old art projects.)

But I'm not going to spend too much time pointing out how stupid or ridiculous he is. Even his boss says “his immaturity and lack of judgment... are clear.” And it's exactly this reason why I want to call out to all Allies that this the time to speak up.

I remember two particularly dreaded days of the week as a child. One was Thursday, reserved for piano and violin lessons, and the other was Saturday, earmarked for Chinese School.  This was particularly painful as they not only happened to flank the celebrated Friday, but also left only one day of the weekend to truly enjoy. However, being a pessimistic person, even Sunday was tainted as I was never quite able to forget the imminent arrival of Monday.

It wasn't that I didn't like playing the piano or violin (in fact, on the numerous occasions where policing my practicing got to be too tiresome, my mother would just tell me to quit, something that I never wanted to do) or that I didn't want to learn Chinese. In actuality, though I might not have had the inner drive to practice everyday like I should have or study the current week's lesson, I also did not want to show up unprepared. Somehow, at the age of 11, it made more sense to just skip than be caught a slacker.

One time, I locked myself in my room, refusing to go to Chinese school. As my parents banged on the door alternating between sweet talking and threats, I just pictured my blank workbook sitting in a bag next to my desk. As time dragged on, even I began to recognize how ridiculous the situation was getting, but I couldn't back down. If I gave up, then I'd have to show up to class without having done my homework AND I would be late. It would be better for my dad to be pissed at me; at least that was all kept in house. I would not have labeled this behavior as “saving face” at the time, that was something that out-dated Chinese people worried about, but looking back it was definitely all pride.

It was at Chinese school that I remember being told the story behind Zhong Qui Jie (The Mooncake Festival). Previous to this I had regarded it more as a vague time period rather than a holiday (August 15 on the Lunar Calendar). From my experience it was closer to a several week experience where several times a week my parents would call my sister and me down to the kitchen and we would eat yue bin, mooncakes, as a family. On one particular night, my parents would tell us that tonight was the actual night and my sister and I would nod and return our focus to the more important task of trying to figure out which slice miraculously had no piece of salty egg yolk.

As of August 31, 2010, the American combat mission in Iraq is OFFICIALLY over. 

Ultimately, I'm not sure how useful or meaningful it is for me to debate the actual decisions that have been made ever since this whole mess started. Obviously it's not over and we can continue to argue about everything – Is it too soon and irresponsible to leave before cleaning up a mess that we started? Have we been meddling in other people's business for far too long and we should have left years ago? Is there some sort of aid that we can provide without being overbearing decision makers? I don't know anything about troops or insurgents or security forces. I don't have an opinion and I don't think we'll ever know if the other path would have been better.

The widely cited nationwide poll from earlier this month, conducted by Asharq Research Center, of 1,150 Iraqis reveals that 59.8% do not think that this is the right time for the US to withdraw (vs 39.5% that said it was) and that 53.1% disagree with Obama's August 31st date (vs 46.2%). [Quick calculation: given the population of Iraq, 30,700,000 in 2008, a sample of 1,150 gives you a 95% confidence interval with a margin of error of 3%.] Of note, these are far more favorable opinions of the US presence compared to the nationwide Gallop poll of 3,444 Iraqis in 2005 where 71% viewed the US as “occupiers” (vs “liberators”), 53% said they would feel less secure without the coalition in Iraq, and 57% said foreign troops should leave anyway [margin or error of 2%].

The percentages indicate that Iraqis are pretty close to split down the middle, always a stressful place in a “democracy.” Though if it's put in the perspective of most controversial political decisions, a 50/50 split isn't unusual. Prop 8 was passed 52/48 and in a recent poll of 1,977 Californians, 51% were in favor of gay marriage (versus 42% against, 7% no opinion).

When reported in the news, these polls are used to inform the American public if the decisions that we're making are in line with the citizens of Iraq.  What I think is most significant finding about the polls is that opinions about the US presence, US politicians, security, and whether or not the US should stay are not consistent. Certainly, this reflects the complexity of the situation. More importantly, it reflects the ambivalence that all of us have, individually and collectively, when faced with a complicated situation and unknown outcomes. I think that some folks have interpreted this split as a free license to do whatever the US seems fit; since either way about 50% of the Iraqi public will disagree, what difference does it make? But this is the same mistake that we made the first time around. It's not that the majority of Iraqis were against removing Hussain from power (there are polls for that too), it's that we decided for them.