Is it time to pull out of Iraq regardless?

Great Debates
1

Thisdisturbing story in this morning’s Los Angeles Times causes the question in the title.

The implication of the story to me is that US forces are in a situation that grows increasingly intolerable and they are understandably quick on the trigger. As a result, as the troops travel around or wait at checkpoints they are inclined to shoot on sight of anything that is in their minds suspicious. And, increasingly, it looks like more and more things look suspicious.

This from the story:

“BAGHDAD — Three men in an unmarked sedan pulled up near the headquarters of the national police major crimes unit. The two passengers, wearing traditional Arab dishdasha gowns, stepped from the car.”

“At the same moment, a U.S. military convoy emerged from an underpass. Apparently believing the men were staging an ambush, the Americans fired, killing one passenger and wounding the other. The sedan’s driver was hit in the head by two bullet fragments.”

“The soldiers drove on without stopping.”

“This kind of shooting is far from rare in Baghdad, but the driver of the car was no ordinary casualty. He was Iraqi police Brig. Gen. Majeed Farraji, chief of the major crimes unit. His passengers were unarmed hitchhikers whom he was dropping off on his way to work.”

And this:

“Angered by the growing number of unarmed civilians killed by American troops in recent weeks, the Iraqi government criticized the shootings and called on U.S. troops to exercise greater care.”

“U.S. officials have repeatedly declined requests to disclose the number of civilians killed in such incidents. Police in Baghdad say they have received reports that U.S. forces killed 33 unarmed civilians and injured 45 in the capital between May 1 and July 12 — an average of nearly one fatality every two days. This does not include incidents that occurred elsewhere in the country or were not reported to the police.”

“The continued shooting of civilians is fueling a growing dislike of the United States and undermining efforts to convince the public that American soldiers are here to help. The victims have included doctors, journalists, a professor — the kind of people the U.S. is counting on to help build an open and democratic society.”
By a precipitous pull-out we would certainly reap condemnation, but it looks like staying is going to turn against us even those Iraqi’s we rely on to get that nation back on its feet.

So which horn of the dilemma is least painful? There might not be any reasonable way to tell at this point. At any rate I sure can’t tell. However I don’t see how the continued presence of troops who are under ever increasing strain by repeated deployments will be useful either.

We are in and need to get out. Should we stay until virtually all Iraqis are out to get us, as appears to be the future, or should we just leave and take the blows that result from that?

Although I only have the one data point I’m more and more leaning toward the second option.

2

Here’s another.

We’re going to try to help a civilian government emerge. That will take several years, and frantic worrying in the meantime is useless. We’ll know what the right choice was when we look back on it in 2010. Or later.

3

Sure, Candide, there will be pie in the sky and Herbert Hoover kept insisting that prosperity was just around the corner.

I don’t think we can do the establishing and it’s going to take longer than you think if we keep shooting the people who can establish that government.

4

Just for some clear consensus, can we all agree that if all-out civil war did break out we could declare the invasion of Iraq an unmitigated disaster?

5

(Not that I want such bloodshed, you understand, I’m just curious what would be required for those who advocated invasion to say “we got it wrong”. I would admit my opposition was wrong if the number of deaths in Iraq was dramatically decreased compared to the death rate under Saddam’s regime. Clearly, the rate has dramatically increased and so no such admission on my part is necessary as yet.)

6

You mean after we pull out?

I think the trouble with that kind of Pol Pot test is that the consequences of being wrong are so high.

Gotta agree with furt. Check back in thirty years, and maybe you can tell then. Or possibly never - those who oppose the war can always say that something-or-other would never have happened absent the invasion, or would have happened anyway. And those who support it can always say the same.

Regards,
Shodan

7

Either before or after, actually. Nobody wants the worst case of all out civil war, but if it were to break out, I would just like to hear those who supported the invasion say that yes, that civil war was ultimately our fault. If they can admit so, then they would have to either take the position that such widespread death and devastation was still not as bad as life in Saddam’s oppressive but stable Iraq, or the position that the invasion was a mistake.

8

As I said in the last thread on this subject (and the myriad other thread on it before that) I don’t think the US should pull out until at least after the ratification of the Iraqi constitution and the election of the full government. And probably not until at least 6 months after that, unless the Iraqi military comes up to scratch before then (which isn’t likely). Otherwise we are abandoning the Iraqi people to a certain civil war which could cost a hell of a lot more lives than are currently being taken in this fucking mess.

I agree with the others saying that we won’t know the real ramifications of this mess until decades after the fact. It might be that in the long run Iraq will be a better place…sort of like a burned out Germany and radioactive Japan are better places today then they were in '45. It might be that Iraq is a worse place, sort of like what happened in Afghanistan after the Soviet pullout when everyone just kind of ignored Afghanistan and let it sink below the radar. Only time will tell.

While I can certainly understand how this would make the Iraqi’s angry, one has to look at those numbers in context. A single terrorist suicide bombing kills more innocent civilians than the US did from May 1 to July 12…and these bombings seem to be happening nearly every day. I have to wonder at this anger towards the US and question why similar anger isn’t being directed at the folks who are REALLY out there indiscriminately killing civilians. After all, the US isn’t intentionally targetting civilians with the intent to kill as many as they can. In the case cited in the OP the US soldiers made a mistake…but its a mistake that I think any reasonable person can understand, even if one feels the US soldiers need to be punished for it. The insurgents/terrorists who are directly and intentionally targetting civilians though aren’t making mistakes…they WANT to kill civilian men, women and children and aren’t doing it because they are mistaken or paniced but because thats their tactics.

-XT

9

Admittedly I did support the invasion initially so I’ll answer this one from my perspective. I’d say it will depend on WHY we pull out. If we cut and run early, without giving the Iraqi’s every chance to stabalize things, then I’d say no…I wouldn’t agree that the civil war to follow was our fault (well, ok…it would partially be our fault just because we did invade). The fault will lie in not giving the Iraqi’s who DON’T want to see their country go into the fire the chance to see that this doesn’t happen. Now, if after the Iraqi constitution is ratified, and general elections for the full government are held, if after the Iraqi military comes up to scratch, if after all that the nation decends into a full blown civil war and the US is forced to tuck tail and run then I’ll be the first to say that the civil war was our fault, that we fucked up royally and were unable to fix our fuck up by compounding the problem until it spun out of control. I HOPE that I never have to make that statement because that will mean that a hell of a lot of Iraqi’s are going to die, and those that don’t are probably going to be some miserably fucking people about a decade from now as, after all the blood shed they are living in a Taliban/Iran post-revolutionary nightmare.

-XT

10

As we say around here, “How’s that working out for ya?” Really, can you point to any sign of progress at all? Anything that’s better for either the Iraqis or us after *two and a half years? *

That’s long enough to know. We should know by now we can’t do any more good there, we’re the biggest part of the problem, and the most helpful as well as the most honorable thing to do is to get out.

Hasn’t that already happened?

11

Great cite there, furt – never mind inhabiting in the same reality as the rest of the world, some of you appear to reside in a different Galaxy altogether.

From your link:

This shit’s been debunked too many times to count. Playing Whack-A-Bushbot might have been entertaining once, but now it’s downright boring due to the inherent futility built into the ‘game.’

Meanwhile, back in the real world:

Defying U.S. Efforts, Guerrillas in Iraq Refocus and Strengthen

It should come to no one’s surprise that the resistance is much better at playing the Whack-An-Insurgent than are the Bush Apologists at their own version of the game. An I say “no surprise” since the former are playing a reality-based version of same whereas the latter keep dreaming up Bushit fantasies as they go along.

Sadly, both ‘games’ are just as deadly.

12

<hijack>

Jebus!

Are the hamsters on strike or did someone forget to feed them?

It’s taking forever and a day to load/respond to threads!

</hijack>

13

Think the server had some issues a few minutes ago…either that or their ISP had some problems. For a while there I couldn’t even load the Straight Dope home page, let alone get into the forums. Even when I could they were damn slow. I was having flashbacks to a few years ago…

-XT

14

What I would like is for some holdout people to admit that the great increase in suicide bombers in Iraq (and, lately, elsewhere…) is the fault of the occupation.

Now this is an interesting thought. My thoughts are exactly the opposite. If my country were occupied, and the occupier accidentally shot my sister, I would blame the occupiers. If a suicide bomber in my occupied country were to kill my whole family and all my neighbours, I would also blame the occupiers. (See also my remark above.)

For me, this is no mystery at all, even before I try to start rationalizing. Seems like we have two significantly different types of response here. No doubt both types of response happen in Iraq. The difference seems to be which party you (generic you) primarily tend to identify with.

I have lived in two different countries that were once occupied. Generations later, I can still see remains of those events permeating daily lives everywhere in people’s subconsciousness, culture, figures of speech, etc. That’s what occupation does to people.

The Iraq occupation has actually gone far better than I would have predicted. The Iraq population must really have had a huge reservoir of sympathy to the Americans for them to have the degree of acceptance that they have in fact demonstrated. Of course, the continued occupation just keeps draining the reservoir, only accelerated by misconduct like the stuff explained in the OP.

15

May I ask why it is assumed that a pull up will be total? The reality remains that us being there on the ground is one of the factors why the violence continues.

The fears for a civil war can be taken care of by maintaining complete no fly zones that will be controlled by the air force (including drones) and the threat to use them if there is even a whiff of ethnic cleansing. That, and the return to the industry to Iraq or other nations that then will include UN troops on the ground will have to happen. The point is this: by remaining longer on the ground, we are getting eventually in the position that we will not even offer air cover to the future Iraq government, as we would then have wasted all our political and moral will to remain there as in the case of Vietnam.

16

I have to agree with Frankenstein Monster on this one. Not only are they shooting innocent civilians without provocation, but their triggerhappiness isn’t doing anything to prevent suicide bombings. So what good are they?

How could you expect Iraqi observers to respond otherwise?

17

I sincerely doubt it. The upcoming Iraqi civil war will be Lebanon-style. Militias engaged in street fighting, bombings, etc. No fly zones would be irrelevant.

18

Well, I acknowledged that our behavior and mistakes like those listed in the OP certainly WILL make the Iraqi’s unhappy and down right pissed off at us. I was merely saying that insurgent attacks aimed at the population aren’t exactly endearing those groups doing it to the population at large either. Sort of a ‘pox on both your houses’ type attitude.

My understanding (which could be flawed) is that its mostly the foreign arabs coming in to ‘help’ the Iraqi’s who are doing the bulk of the suicide/car bombing attacks on civilians…and that by and large the Iraqi population IS pretty pissed off at them directly, not just stoicly taking it and grumbling about us American’s. Oh, I have no doubt that there is a lot of spill over and resentment directed towards the US for each direct attack on civilians too…but there is also building fury at those folks who are doing these attacks.

None of this makes me think that the time is ripe though for us to tuck tail and run home. We stuck our crank into this mess, and unfortunately its up to us to at least do the best we can to stay there long enough to give the Iraqi’s some kind of chance to head off a full scale civil war. And to my mind the only chance for that is for them to ratify a constitution and hold general elections…and to rebuild their shattered military into something that at least has a chance to fight back.

Unfortunately though, even doing our best, we are going to continue fuckups like those in the OP…they are bound to happen when we put combat troops in the situation this has devolved too. The troops are on edge, constantly harrassed and attacked, and they are going to make mistakes in that situation…which will further play right into the insurgents hands. 'Course, I think the insurgents are fucking up too by directly attacking the civilian population and not staying focused on attempting to directly attack the US military, but thats another story.

Its going worse than I thought it would, but then I didn’t forsee that Ba’athist would continue to fight years after Saddams government folded, nor did I see such a huge influx of foreign fighters and the obvious large amounts of money being poured in by someone to keep this thing going. In retrospect I can see that my own predictions were simplistic and naive…and totally wrong.

-XT

19

Sounds like what is happening right now. The thing is that we don’t know for certain who will be the ones to lead the groups into a civil war, once we are not there that will become clearer. And the trip wire I propose is that if they do not want to find peace, they will have to mind the sword that will be ready to fall over them.

This is only if we decide to leave sooner rather than later, then it will be possible to get back in, with full Powell doctrine, now for valid reasons and with the support of the entire world for a change.

IMO, the longer we stay, the more tired and sick Americans will become and then, when a real reason to intervene appears, we will not be willing or ready.

20

I hope so, but from what I’ve read, the (mostly Sunni Muslim) insurgents are actually trying to encourage direct sectarian conflict by attacking (mostly Shi’a) civilians to provoke them to retaliate against innocent Sunnis. A strictly military street war of guerrillas against soldiers is what they don’t want. They want to entangle as many people as possible in violence and revenge.

The best-case scenario is that all or most of the Iraqis, Sunni, Shi’a and Kurd alike, just get so sick of the carnage that they close ranks to repel the insurgents and pull together a reasonably stable government as fast as they can to get the occupation troops out of there. The worst-case scenario is that everything just gets worse until stability isn’t even an option anymore, at least not in the near term.

Well, bless you for an honest man, and I hope your optimism will be better justified this time around. I wish we could get a similarly forthright admission of error from the folks who actually plunged us into this mess.