Formerly active military member here…I was opposed before the war, and reluctantly supported the effort once we were there. I don’t know what to do now, of course.
Yes. Get the heck out now. It was wrong to start it in the first place. It was wrong all along. It was never OK at any point, it isn’t OK now. We have no business staying there, never did.
In the film Lion of the Desert, ‘Umar al-Mukhtar takes an Italian soldier prisoner after winning a battle. He hands the captured Italian flag to the kid, and says “Here, take this back to your commander. Tell him it does not belong here.”
Ironically, the director of that film, Mustafa al-‘Aqqad, was killed in the infamous ‘Amman hotel bombing last year. He was a guest at the wedding.
Still support. I never really cared about finding WMD’s (although I am embarrassed that we did not), as I thought that we should not have left Saddam in power after the first war and that his years long lack of cooperation alone gave more than enough reason to remove him.
No then and No now.
Oppopsed then, but, bad as things are, they have not reached anything like what I would describe as a worst case scenario, but there’s plenty of time yet.
At the moment we have a certain amount of thnic cleansing, we don’t yet have civil war because it isn’t well organised enough to be called that, there are not yet any well defined objectives between the protagonists, even though certain groups seem to have some common aims.
Once the US pulls out there will certainly be a power vacuum, and there will be a period of competition which is highly likely to steadily draw in resources and support from around the region.
Eventually some sort of uneasy balance will arise, but only after a huge amount of bloodshed, and there will be an unsteady peace held in place by oppression, which will then lead to further eruptions.
You can take it for granted that the country will completely fall apart, statelets will appear which will probably mean calls for Greater Kurd, Greater Shia and Greater Sunni states to take in those peoples living in other countries.
The result is that peacekeepers will probably have to be called in again, to supervise a more orderly divorce between the factions.
The worst has not yet happened, but I’d expect that it could quite easily do so, I think much worse is to come, wether US stays or leaves.
I didn’t answer the original poll, but I supported invasion back in 2003. I believed Bush when he said there was proof of ongoing Iraqi WMD programs and felt that made war necessary if unfortunate.
Now, we see that it wasn’t necessary and it was lot more unfortunate than anticipated. Whatever good that was done by the war, such as the overthrow of Saddam, has already been accomplished. Iraq is screwed up and it doesn’t seem that an American military presense is going to fix it.
I can’t imagine what can be done in Iraq at this point to turn things around. And unless there is such a solution (and three more years of doing the same things we’ve been doing is not a solution) then we should just admit we blew it and bring our soldiers home. No American soldier should die for a hopeless cause.
Gulf War Vet.
Did not vote in the first poll.
Was for it then and still support our efforts there. Getting rid of Sadaam was the right thing to do and in the long run we will be better off for that. We should not just up and leave now.
Having said that, there is a lot to complain about how we handled the occupation. We needed about 3 times as many troops over there. And need a lot more now.
Or, pretty much what **weirddave ** and **Muad’Dib ** said.
…and given that maybe a lot more troops are needed in Iraq, and those troops will almost certainly not be forthcoming, and their numbers are highly likely to be reduced, do you still think it was a good idea to do this with an inadequate force and and continue to maintai and inadequate force.
If you had known that there was to be such a situation before the war started, would you still have supported it ?
I didn’t support it then, and I still don’t support it. In fact, right around the time I made my post in the above-referenced thread, I remember spending an afternoon in the student lounge cursing at the TV. It didn’t help that one of *Shadez’s and my (co-ed) frat brothers was reserve Marines, and was going to be sent out there.
As for now. . .I think we need a timetable for getting out of there. However, I think that before getting out of there, we need to do the absolute best that we can in terms of rebuilding the physical infrastructure of the country. And I think we need to stay the hell out of government building. If we set up a government-by-fiat, it isn’t going to last.
Pulling troops out instantaneously would be massively irresponsible; it’d be like going on a picnic in a natural park, and leaving the plates, napkins, remnants of food, and picnic basket lying on the ground. We need to at least try to fix some of the material woes that the people live with, and try to improve their standard of living in inarguable ways (electricity is better than no electricity, unless you’re Amish). However, if this could be accomplished after turning over full rule to the Iraqi people (for real; no puppet governments!), that would be even better.
Actually, a better question that avoids the hypothetical might be this: Given the evident choice between continuing to engage in this half-assed and ultimately destructive effort, or facing failure and bailing out, which is preferable?
Yeah, still solidly in the No category.
-foxy
I think the this administration has royally f***ed up the war. If I could go back in time, I wouldn’t support it this time around. It might have been beneficial if it had been conducted properly.
I do not support pulling out the troops anytime soon. We made a mess out of things, we must stay and clean it up as best we can. Fortunately, unlike Afghanistan, Iraq has oil so I’m pretty sure the troops will stick around for years to come.
Qadgop, on Feb 1, 2003, I posted the poll Should the US invade Iraq? Yes or no and got more than a hundred replies. You are welcome ti add these votes to the others if you care to.
Thanks for that link. If my life gets quieter, or if I just decide to hole up in my basement as way of decompensation, I will tally the results up.
Through 2010, at least.
Then yes, now no. We were lied to and I, for one, believed it.
(Remarkable how many people are no longer active around here.)
It’s not the number, but the qualities of the inactive that merit remark.
On 3/16/2003 my answer would have been “I don’t know.”
Today, “Definitely support continuing as long as it remains essential to Iraq for the United States military to be there.”
In March 2003 I had a lot of mixed feelings about the war. One thing I was very sure of, all the way back then, was that this was not going to be an in and out operation. I didn’t see all the problems with the insurgency, not by a long shot. I imagined there would be some problems, but not to the degree there has been. However, I recognized nation building is long and tedious work, and my prediction was we would have some level of troop involvement in Iraq for at least 10 years after the date of invasion (so, 2013) which is looking closer and closer to the truth.
I strongly supported the idea of removing Saddam Hussein from power. I was very skeptical of the “proof” for WMD that I saw from the administration, in fact I thought the administration’s evidence was fairly poor. To me, that wasn’t so much of a big deal, though, because whether or not we had proof, Hussein remained in material breach of UN Resolutions drawn up after the cease-fire, so to me it didn’t matter if we had proof or not. Saddam wasn’t complying with us, which to me said he was either hiding something or operating in that way for a different reason, but either way, he was violation resolutions that were drawn up after the cease-fire in 1991.
I felt that removing the Ba’ath party was actually fairly important. I think the Gulf War really set Iraq back, incredibly. If not for the Gulf War I think Iraq would be just as troublesome to us right now as Iran is. And I feared that in the future, with no end in sight to rule of the Ba’ath party Iraq would eventually get out from under the sanctions regime and be allowed to significantly rebuild its military power and probably start a nuclear weapons program somewhere down the road. I think it’d probably be 15 years down the road, but to a degree I think that’s exactly how early you have to deal with problems like this.
I still wasn’t sure it was in the best interests of the United States to invade and occupy Iraq, despite my general desire to see Saddam removed from power. I probably would have, if I had been in charge, attempted some sort of black bag type stuff. Insert some people covertly into Iraq and start trying to build a coup against Hussein and eventually try for his removal and the removal of his sons. Then after that, sponsor one of the prominent leaders of the military as the new Iraqi leader, but give him U.S. support and put him on a U.S. leash. It wouldn’t be a perfect solution by any means, but possibly could have made Iraq somewhat like Pakistan.
In the here and now, regardless of my feelings about the initial investigation, I feel the United States has an absolute responsibility to the new Iraqi government and the Iraqi people. We destroyed their infrastructure in 1991, we’ve put them under repressive sanctions for over a decade (I say that even though I generally supported said sanctions) we’ve toppled their government, destroyed their infrastructure again. We have a strong moral responsibility to try and set things right. If there comes a time where the very presence of U.S. forces inflames Iraqis so much, that it is actually a net negative for them for us to be there, then I’d support a withdrawal. But as long as we provide an essential stabilizing effect on Iraq I feel we must remain, until the ISF and the government can stand on its own two legs.
In Boyo Jim’s thread I said no in 2003.
I still say no.
The end, whatever it may turn out to be, will not be pretty. Those in our government who got us into this lobster trap war should be held accountable, and I do not mean being voted out of office at the next election or allowed to just retire and fade away because they cannot run for re-election. Their incompetence stains all of America and what America used to represent for ourselves and the rest of the planet.
Well I don’t remember the first vote… but my name is on the against list. And I still feel the same way.