Just bring them all home. All with, say aye.
I say aye, but not until they fix what they broke and clean up the godawful mess they made.
Nay. The terrorists want America to go running scared - just like Spain did after the train bombings. It’s important to finish the job that we started over there and show the terrorists they can’t intimidate us.
because, let’s remember, pride matters more than people lives. (Except of course, when it’s an iraqi’s pride, because that doesn’t mean anything)
Cheers.
Engine.
If people’s lives are what matter to you than you need to understand that removing all of the troops before any kind of government structure is in place will result in more lives lost. I’d love to get all the troops home, but I don’t want to see Iraq fall into civil war topped off with even more crime, disease, and starvation.
Are they supposed to go home to Australia?
Nay. In fact, send me back.
Nay. Finishing the battle is often the hardest part. Finish the job. Sounds odd, but don’t sweat the brutality. Countries have a way of getting over it. The U.S has done everything from firebombing millions of civilians to nuking them.
It’s hard to fathom, but history tells us a safer world comes from saying ‘Nay’ to your suggestion.
Anti war poster.
Nay. Get the US and allies under a UN mandate. Get some more big hitters and minnows involved through the UN and hope that Iraq hasn’t gone so far as to be uncontrollable.
I reckon the country is fucked for the next decade at least. The killing isn’t half over.
Nay, reluctantly, for much the same reasons as yojimbo.
We shouldn’t have started this, really, but not finishing it now will make an even bigger mess.
I fear that we’ll never extricate ourselves from the War on Terrorism. How can we when we are facing a population of people who for generations have lived in a culture of fatalism, and exactly who are the terrorists anyway? Afghans, Syrians, iraqi’s, nKoreans, Palestinians, irish, Bolivians, Aryans, Americans???How can we define the terrorists when the terrorist acts across international borders. How can we chase down every single one them? We are not headed for peace or stability, we are headed for more widespread acts of terrorism. I detest the kernel of hate that is growing in my gut, I am feeling anger and want to lash out and release this pain I am feeling.How can i do tht in a peaceful way when i want to stab and gouge and rent and wail? Maybe I should sign up for the war, get sent to iraq and help kill them to free them?
I need to hear real good news soon
Ah. A song to our leader, whom I blame for mishandling and exacerbating the situation:
Somethings on my mind
It’s been for quite some time
This time I’m on to you
So where’s the other face
The face I heard before
Your head trip’s boring me
Let’s nuke the bridge we torched
2000 times before
This time we’ll blast it all
To hell
I’ve had this burning in my guts
Now for so long
My belly’s aching now to say
Stuck down in a road
Of dislogic and smoot
A side of you well hid
When it’s all said and done
It’s real and it’s been fun
But was it all REAL fun?
Let’s nuke the bridge we torched
2000 times before
This time we’ll blast it all
To hell
I’ve had this burning in my guts
Now for so long
My belly’s aching now to say
You’re just a fuck
I cant explain it cuz I think you suck
I’m taking pride on telling you to fuck off and die
I’ve had this burning in my guts
Now for so long
My belly’s achin now to say
I’m taking pleasure in the doubts I’ve passed to you
So listen up as you bite this
“Good night”
–Green Day
OP? Yay. Absofuckinloutely. If there was a chance in hell we could finish what we started, then I’d say stay. But GWB is the only person on the planet that seems to want us there. I say pull the hell out and leave the rebuilding to Iraq and her Arab neighbors. If they want some stability they can fucking do it themselves. And if Iraq erupts into chaos and anarchy, fine. There are other countries that they hate less that can assiste them…and God help 'em if they “get any on us.”
Meanwhile we can start a campaign of covert ops against terror cells & training camps as we find 'em. Find a camp, Deltas in, deltas, materiel & terrorists/bodies out. Nothing left but some tents and couscous.
Ay
Staying to “finish the job” is a silly notion, because this is obviously a job with no end. We’re straying further and further off course, so I’m for getting out sooner then later.
Anyone want to tell me what finishing the job encompasses?
Having a stable, effective, and recognized government in place. Democratic, Autocratic, Theocratic, or a freaking Kingdom. That is my definition, anyway.
Nay.
The people raising hell over there are flocking to Iraq from other countries or they are part of the Sunni minority who doesn’t want to lose power or be held accountable for what they did under Saddam.
When is the last time you heard about something bad from the north where the Kurds are? The main Shiite cleric supports us.
They want to make us run. If we do, we will send the same message that began in Beirut in 1983 and that eventually led up to Sept. 11th. “If you bloody them, they will run. They are a paper tiger.”
Pacifism is an intellectual luxury.
Sure, now how is that going to come about over in Iraq?
They are going to have a bloody civil war as soon as we pull out. Next week, next year, or 2017, it doesn’t matter. The possibilities you mentioned above will not take place until this struggle for power happens, and the struggle for power won’t happen until we leave.
According to OBL Sept 11th happened because we had troops in Saudi Arabia.
As far as the paper tiger thing, it’s lose lose. If we stay in Iraq… well, we all know how it’s going, and if we leave, then I guess we look like wimps or something. :rolleyes:
I think most of the thinking on Iraq is clouded by the presumtion of a set of unchangeable rules. Make even minor changes to the “rules” and simple solutions abound.
I don’t envy Kerry having to clean up after this mess, and I wouldn’t wanna be President with this to deal with.
We had no legitimate business there but we have no excuse to abandon the area to random fate and the reign of whoever has the biggest guns and sharpest knives either. Like yojimbo says.
On the other hand, I doubt we can do anything effectively ourselves. Too many factions want us the fuck out of there, and/or want us dead or disrupted and don’t care if it disrupts Iraq in the process.
We need to turn this over to some party that has legitimacy in the eyes of most of the principle players there, and in our eyes as well; and we need to foot the bill without retaining admin control (i.e., it really needs to be turned over to someone else in more than superficial name). Which is a hard sell because we aren’t much in the habit of funding things we can’t control.
Sure, we need to establish some rules, yet have the flexibility to tweak them as the situation requires. My big concern, is the goals we’ve set out to accomplish, are simply impossible to obtain. All we’ve been offered up so far are ideas completely devoid of details, and tired cliches like “stay the course” and “enemies of freedom”
I’ve yet to hear a detailed (flaws and all) map out of Iraq. I fear I never will.