Help please

[bholdr]

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Well, I think if you ask a vet (and I have) whether they'd rather see the job done or if they'd rather leave, they'd beat you.

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well i know several vets, from WWII, veitnam, gulf 1, kosovo, and gulf 2. they all know my opoinions and one even thinks we should pull out NOW. and the question isn't 'pull out or get the job done?' it's 'if we stay, can we get the job done, or are we just throwing more lives away?'

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Couldn't resist: Qatar and Al Qaeda also. Damn Arabic!

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nh.

[Voltorb]

I agree, Iraq would have been better off if Saddam had not been president. However, I also believe that our invasion has only served to increase the level of suffering felt by the people of Iraq. Particularly in Fallujah, and perhaps a lesser extent in Baghdad.

I'm curious as to which came first. Did the Kurds foment revolution because of their hatred of Saddam's secular society, and then Saddam responded by quashing the uprising. Or did Saddam just go in and start blasting Kurds away for no reason, and then the Kurds decided to rebel. I'll bet if I got a few towns together with guns and grenades and starting shouting about how I was going to overthrow the Bush regime, my rebellion might experience a little ethnic cleansing as well.

You don't have to be satisfied with your government to want to destroy the bastards that just ravaged several important industrial sectors of your city, and maybe dropped a few bombs on civilians by accident as well. I'm not satisfied with the bush regime either, or even the current state of our two party faux of a democracy. But I guarantee if any outside force was occupying my city, I'd be up in arms as well.

I imagine that Iraq was like any other dictatorship. If you minded your own business and respected the authority of the supreme sovereign, life would seem relatively free. The word freedom is so overused these days, I think we have forgotten what it truly means. I remember watching faux news one night, and they showed a group of Iraqis teenagers doing donuts in the middle of a city road, something the commentator said they "were not allowed to under Saddam." Well, I challenge anyone to go do donuts in the middle of a city road in this country, and see how long our government lets you get away with it. I guess the Iraqis have more freedom than us now, but at what cost? You can only truly be free if your society is in a state of total anarchy, which describes Iraq pretty well. I guess my question is, would the average Iraqi give up this new freedom he gained by losing Saddam, for the relative peace and stability he had while Saddam was in power? How about the average Fallujan? I wonder what the average day in the life of an Iraqi before and after OIF was like? What has changed... what has stayed the same?

Are you free BCPVP? What do you consider being free to mean? What freedoms would you willingly sacrifice for safety? Would you give up the right to a percentage of your income? Would you give up the right to truly own land, free from a propery tax that turns land owners into tenants? Would you give up the right to be safe from unreasonable searches and seizures? Would you give up the right to trial by jury?

"They that can give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."--Benjamin Franklin

[Chris Alger]

I think if you look up the various opinion polls, including those done by the CPA (hard to find, but aljazeera had the full report), you'll find an overwhemling consensus among Iraqis in favor of (1) near-term U.S. withdrawal and (2) UN administration and peacekeeping until a government is formed. So of course the U.S. should withdraw.

But this doesn't mean that withdrawal will necessarily make Iraq better off, or as better off as they would be if the U.S. had Iraqi interests at heart (as it should). Under any politically realisitc scenario, U.S. withdrawal will only be done reluctantly and under political pressure. In that case, the U.S. will probably engineer the sort of irresponsible withdrawal that it did in Saigon in 1975, leaving its collaborators exposed, refusing to pay reparations, and undermining multilateral efforts toward a peaceful transition without U.S. control. This will show what happens when the U.S. is forced to back down and as a post-hoc argument to prove the superiority of U.S. occupation. Afterwards, you can expect another partial sanctions regime (this time, U.S. only) to show U.S. "disappointment" at the absence of freedom, efforts to support the war on terror, support U.S. allies and strategic goals, etc.

[BCPVP]

It seems like just about everyone agrees that the U.S. should withdraw from Iraq. I guess the question is how do we know when it's time. I'd say that when the Iraqis can defend themselves, our military services are no longer needed and we should pull out. Let them take over defending themselves as well as rebuilding their own infrastructure. That's what I mean by "finishing the job". Is this a reasonable goal?

[Arnfinn Madsen]

I guess the question is not so relevant as the war in reality is lost, as anti-american groups now get control again of the Iraqi government.

The disadvantage of leaving now is losing face, I guess the Administration looks for opportunities to get out.

[MMMMMM]

[ QUOTE ]
It seems like just about everyone agrees that the U.S. should withdraw from Iraq. I guess the question is how do we know when it's time. I'd say that when the Iraqis can defend themselves, our military services are no longer needed and we should pull out. Let them take over defending themselves as well as rebuilding their own infrastructure. That's what I mean by "finishing the job". Is this a reasonable goal?

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Sounds reasonable enough: when they are more or less ready to take care of those things, and are well on their way to prosperous and reasonably stable democracy, they should be taking over such matters as their own defense and security.

The sticky thing is, though, by that time it may be time to begin the same process in Syria or Iran--especially if their regimes continue aiding and abetting terrorists, and generally throwing up obstacles to democratic reform and human rights in the region. And of course Iran can in no way be permitted to gain nuclear weapons.

I think the U.S. military could easily be in the Middle East for another 5-10 years--maybe longer. We'll just have to wait and see. One bright note is that many Iraqis are jumping at the chance for democracy--and even the Israelis/Palestinians are trying anew to work things out (now with Terrorfat gone). So there seems to be at present an unusual note of optimism in the Middle East which may not have been heard before.

[Arnfinn Madsen]

There is no way you will be able to stop terrorism by invading these countries, you just produce new ones.

The key to the whole problem, as you write, is to solve the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and secondly regain the trust in the world community that Bush has spoiled.

You wasted your chance to solve this in 2004, but you will get a new chance in 2008.