# Is The Withdrawal of Surge Troops A Mistake **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 23, 2011, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-withdrawal-of-surge-troops-a-mistake/586569 "2011-06-23T16:08:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-withdrawal-of-surge-troops-a-mistake/586569/21 "2011-06-23T18:35:22Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > We need to get out and let the Afghans decide their own fate. The survivors and the males, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-withdrawal-of-surge-troops-a-mistake/586569/22 "2011-06-23T18:37:16Z")
> [@shiftless](#): > > If we had a real mission I would say stay and do it, no matter how long it takes. We don’t. Until we can articulate a mission there shouldn’t be even one soldier there. “Get the Taliban” was a poor mission statement 10 years ago and it is even worse now. > > We are mortgaging our country to chase a few raggedy mountain men around the gullies and hollows of some of the worst terrain on earth. When the Soviet Union was doing the exact same thing we were laughing our asses off about how the huge expense was going to break their economy. And the Soviets didn’t have to do it from the far side of the world. This. Whoever calls for keeping troops in Afghanistan (I’m looking at you Mr. OP) needs to make a really strong affirmative case that they can accomplish something important to our strategic values and that they WILL accomplish it. I don’t think the facts are going to support any such argument. I just fear that when we leave the quality of life for women in northern Afghanistan is going to sink like a stone … but I don’t know if we are under any moral compulsion to beggar ourselves to prevent it. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-withdrawal-of-surge-troops-a-mistake/586569/23 "2011-06-23T18:45:39Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > The survivors and the males, anyway. Do you think anything different is really going on now, or will if we stay another 10 years? ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-withdrawal-of-surge-troops-a-mistake/586569/24 "2011-06-23T19:38:28Z")
Can’t be vulnerable on this come the election campaign, got to begin now. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-withdrawal-of-surge-troops-a-mistake/586569/25 "2011-06-23T19:44:41Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Didn’t all the military advisors tell Bush that Iraq would be a clusterfuck? They were right about that. No, actually. Some did, but a great many - most - of Bush’s military men went happily along with the plan. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-withdrawal-of-surge-troops-a-mistake/586569/26 "2011-06-23T20:04:41Z")
On the other hand, Iraq seems relatively stable, its GDP has doubled since 2006, it didn’t turn into a militant theocracy or an Iranian puppet-state, its oil output is now higher than it was before the war, and American troops are safer there than they are in Afghanistan. Don’t forget that one of the arguments for going into Iraq in the first place was that there was no way to ‘win’ in Afghanistan, so the Bush administration decided that the best policy was to change the environment in the middle east in general so that Afghanistan didn’t matter. The Bush administration also claimed that a functioning democracy in Iraq would serve as an example to the people of the middle east, eventually causing a domino effect that would lead to democratic change throughout the region. On the other hand, the opponents of the war in Iraq felt that the real war was in Afghanistan, and that the U.S. should put all its efforts into ‘winning’ there. Has that thinking now changed? Does anyone plausibly believe that if the U.S. had just committed all those Iraq resources and troops to Afghanistan that it would be markedly better there now, and wouldn’t regress once U.S. forces left? And that the middle east today would be a better place if Saddam were still in power and the U.S. was bogged down in Afghanistan and maintaining no-fly zones over Iraq and sanctions against Iraq from large bases in Saudi Arabia? ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-withdrawal-of-surge-troops-a-mistake/586569/27 "2011-06-23T20:10:12Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Don’t forget that one of the arguments for going into Iraq in the first place was that there was no way to ‘win’ in Afghanistan, so the Bush administration decided that the best policy was to change the environment in the middle east in general so that Afghanistan didn’t matter. That right there is \*epic \*spin. If we could wind you up in copper wire we wouldn’t need foreign oil. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-withdrawal-of-surge-troops-a-mistake/586569/28 "2011-06-23T20:21:49Z")
Really? Go back and read some of the debates we had, or that were published in the media. Yes, I know that the Bush administration used the WMD argument and the violation of sanctions as its justification for the war, but the larger _strategic_ argument was to do an end-around Afghanistan and change the bigger picture in the Middle East. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-withdrawal-of-surge-troops-a-mistake/586569/29 "2011-06-23T20:23:44Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Really? Go back and read some of the debates we had, or that were published in the media. Yes, I know that the Bush administration used the WMD argument and the violation of sanctions as its justification for the war, but the larger _strategic_ argument was to do an end-around Afghanistan and change the bigger picture in the Middle East. Keep fucking that chicken, Sam. KFTC. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-withdrawal-of-surge-troops-a-mistake/586569/30 "2011-06-23T20:41:29Z")
**Kobal2** may I buy you a [del]beer[/del] glass of grain alcohol and rainwater? CMC fnord! ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-withdrawal-of-surge-troops-a-mistake/586569/31 "2011-06-23T21:13:30Z")
> [@](#): > > Is the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan going too fast? No. Wish it would go faster actually. > [@](#): > > General Petreaus had advised against it and the main supporters of the President’s new plan are politicians not military men and is largely for political reasons. In the US it’s civilians (and thus politics) that controls the military. Politically, there isn’t a lot of support for keeping troops in Afghanistan after so many years. We’ve done what we can and the Afghani’s need to step up at this point and take on their own security. Or not. > [@](#): > > The last thing we need is going back in a couple of years to do the job again. I don’t see us going back in there once we get out. Bombing the crap out of places in Afghanistan? Yeah, maybe. Sending in a special OPs team? Less likely but still possible. But sending in masses of troops again? I’m not seeing it. > [@](#): > > Better we do it a few more years and finish it once and for all. It’s like a money pit. You can spend and spend, but there will always be a few more years or a few more dollars needed. It never ends. We can’t make Afghanistan viable…they have to do that for themselves. -XT ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-withdrawal-of-surge-troops-a-mistake/586569/32 "2011-06-23T21:44:26Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Really? Go back and read some of the debates we had, or that were published in the media. Yes, I know that the Bush administration used the WMD argument and the violation of sanctions as its justification for the war, but the larger _strategic_ argument was to do an end-around Afghanistan and change the bigger picture in the Middle East. Iraq is still among the top 10 failed states. [http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/06/17/2011\_failed\_states\_index\_interactive\_map\_and\_rankings](http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/06/17/2011_failed_states_index_interactive_map_and_rankings) And I don’t think Iraqis have found an appreciation for what we did, getting rid of Saddam and then screwing up the rest of what was needed, is not a good way to make others appreciate larger strategic arguments. [http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/56776.html#ixzz1P63yJDfb](http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/56776.html#ixzz1P63yJDfb) > [@](#): > > Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican from California, suggested during a trip to Baghdad with fellow lawmakers Friday that once Iraq becomes a rich and prosperous country, it could repay the United States. > > That comment triggered outrage among an Iraqi public and political establishment that had little or no say in the U.S.-led invasion of 2003. Iraqis are largely glad to be rid of Saddam Hussein but blame the U.S. for the chaos and sectarian violence that followed the invasion. > > “We as a government reject such statements, and we have informed the American embassy that these congressmen are not welcome in Iraq,” said government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh on Sunday. > [@](#): > > The head of the Iraqi parliament’s foreign affairs committee, Humam Hmoudi, called his comments “stupid” and said it is the Iraqi people who should be demanding compensation. > > “This provokes us and the Iraqi people, as well to demand compensations for losses Iraq suffered during the invasion,” he said. > > Another lawmaker from one of the main political blocs, Etab al-Douri, called the repayment idea a “humiliation.” > > “We are the ones who should ask for compensation and not them, and we demand the occupiers to withdraw now,” she said. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-withdrawal-of-surge-troops-a-mistake/586569/33 "2011-06-23T21:49:59Z")
[QUOTE=GIGObuster] Iraq is still among the top 10 failed states. [/QUOTE] Well, that chart lists the US as simply ‘stable’ and China as ‘in danger’ (while Mexico is considered ‘borderline’…a step up from ‘in danger’) so I’m not really sure how accurate their assessment is. Ireland is considered ‘most stable’ while Germany is only considered ‘stable’ (and Greece is the same as the US, stability wise)??? :dubious: -XT ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-withdrawal-of-surge-troops-a-mistake/586569/34 "2011-06-23T21:54:02Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > And I don’t think Iraqis have found an appreciation for what we did, getting rid of Saddam and then screwing up the rest of what was needed, is not a good way to make others appreciate larger strategic arguments. Yeah, and why don’t they appreciate us killing 100,000 Iraqis either. Ingrates. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-withdrawal-of-surge-troops-a-mistake/586569/35 "2011-06-23T22:07:41Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Yeah, and why don’t they appreciate us killing 100,000 Iraqis either. Ingrates. Try one million, as a result of the war and conflicts after the invasion. [http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/01/30/us-iraq-deaths-survey-idUSL3048857920080130](http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/01/30/us-iraq-deaths-survey-idUSL3048857920080130) And no, that is not the Lancet survey that right wingers attempted to discredit to death, The lancet got about 650,000 by being a little bit conservative, The calculation of one million was the result obtained by another organization in 2008. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-withdrawal-of-surge-troops-a-mistake/586569/36 "2011-06-23T22:14:41Z")
Well, you can believe that if you wish, but interviewing 2,414 adults (20% of which claimed to have had at least one death in the family) then using a 1997 census to extrapolate a total seems a bit, um, ridiculous to me. As your own article acknowledges: > [@](#): > > Estimates of deaths in Iraq have been highly controversial in the past. I don’t know what the total is, and if it’ 89,000 or ‘946,258 to 1.12 million’ really isn’t going to change how the Iraqi’s feel about the invasion one way or the other. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-withdrawal-of-surge-troops-a-mistake/586569/37 "2011-06-23T22:16:19Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Permanetnly weaken the Taliban enough so they can’t take over Afghanistan again and establish a new terrorist safe haven. But we didn’t go in for that. GW Bush said to the Taliban, hand over Bin Landen and that is that. If they had complied there would be no war in Afghanistan. Bin Laden is dead, there’s no reason to be there now. We should already be leaving. Besides, Bin Laden showed us you can hide in a country like Pakistan and there’s not much America can do about it. They may not have actively been aiding terror groups but they are looking the other way. Pakistan has nukes, so we can’t do anything to them ---
**Author:** ![gravitycrash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@gravitycrash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gravitycrash)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-withdrawal-of-surge-troops-a-mistake/586569/38 "2011-06-23T22:39:22Z")
We’ve already given the terrorists and the Taliban way more attention and resources than they have deserved. Overrated comes to mind. The faster we get out of there the better for this country. If the people of Afghanistan don’t want the Taliban back, then they need to fight for it between themselves. Spending 2 trillion in 10 years over this fiasco in Iraq and whateverstan has hurt this country way more than a few terrorists attacks. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-withdrawal-of-surge-troops-a-mistake/586569/39 "2011-06-23T23:02:40Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Iraq is still among the top 10 failed states. > > [http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/06/17/2011\_failed\_states\_index\_interactive\_map\_and\_rankings](http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/06/17/2011_failed_states_index_interactive_map_and_rankings) Not really relevant, since it was one of the worst states while Saddam was in power, too. The question is whether it is getting better or not. I’m well aware that there is a lot of corruption and a lot of other impediments in Iraq, and that it’s not a paradise on Earth. However, I’ll bet if you polled Iraqis the majority of them would say that they are happy that Saddam was gone, don’t you think? And my other point was that Iraq, unlike Afghanistan was ‘winnable’ in the sense that there was a path to a ‘victory’ that would allow the U.S. to go home without leaving chaos and disorder behind it. The primary reason for this was that Iraq has a functioning middle class, a nationwide infrastructure of sorts, and a reasonably well educated populace. Thus it could be expected to be able to govern itself well at some point. Afghanistan, on the other hand, has none of these things. There’s no conceivable way to build up a middle class and an infrastructure that can provide for a middle class and a nationwide military capable of defending its borders and controlling the rival factions within the country. Not unless you’re prepared to engage in a multi-generation project to build up the country along the scale of the British occupation of India. > [@](#): > > And I don’t think Iraqis have found an appreciation for what we did, getting rid of Saddam and then screwing up the rest of what was needed, is not a good way to make others appreciate larger strategic arguments. They were happy about the elimination of Saddam. They grew disillusioned by the ham-fisted and ineffective occupation by the U.S. afterwards, which initially attempted to thrust a western style government on them, and then failed to control the violence that erupted due to other oversights. As a result, there’s a lot of mixed, and mostly negative feelings about America in many regions of Iraq. However, there are also pockets of support. The Kurds are doing pretty well, and I think they are reasonably happy with American involvement and welcoming of Americans. > [@](#): > > [http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/56776.html#ixzz1P63yJDfb](http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/56776.html#ixzz1P63yJDfb) Dana Rohrabacher is an idiot, and it was an incredibly stupid and insensitive thing to say. None of this however changes the point I made earlier, which was that Afghanistan was always an un-winnable war, and that’s one of the reasons that the Bush administration looked for a different strategy. If you’ll recall, it was called “Drain the Swamp”. Get rid of Saddam, and you destabilize Syria and take away the justification for other countries to maintain their dictatorships. Saddam was paying suicide bombers against Israel, he had launched missiles into Israel, he was giving justification for Iran to maintain its stranglehold on the people and maintain a large military, which in turn gave other ME nations justification for maintaining large military forces and iron control over their populations… There was a form of dictator deadlock there, and the thinking was that if you could break the logjam, the whole rotten house of cards might collapse. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-withdrawal-of-surge-troops-a-mistake/586569/40 "2011-06-23T23:08:47Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > the Afghani’s need to step up at this point and take on their own security. Or not. Conservatives have an odd inability to generalize the “welfare breeds dependency and does more harm than good” concept. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-withdrawal-of-surge-troops-a-mistake/586569.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-withdrawal-of-surge-troops-a-mistake/586569.md?page=3)