This is not correct. At the time that Congress gave Bush the authority to use military action against Iraq, a majority of Americans were opposed to going to war, unless we got our traditional allies on board first. If Congress had listened to the people, they would not have authorized the war as they had. They were stuck in the sense that it seemed to be the only way to get the Weapons Inspectors back in, but they could have put more checks in place before a military could actually be taken (like maybe a UNSC vote or something like that).
Let’s say we(the U.S.) did leave Iraq, and fast. What then? Will the Sunnis and Shiites some how manage to settle their differences and live happily ever after? Will the extremist groups there just pack up and leave too? In the long run, would it be good for us, and perhaps more importantly, in the short run, would it be good for the Iraqi people?
I think it was a big mistake going there in the first place, and that we’d probably all be better off if Saddam was still in power. But that’s not the case. We screwed up their country, and I feel that this has more to do right now with what’s good for the Iraqis than what’s necessarily good for us. Making a major withdrawal couldn’t be good for the Iraqis right now. If you think it’s chaotic now, then just wait until the U.S. is no longer there to police things.
I believe we need to stay there because we owe it to the Iraqis, we owe them the most stable a country we can give them, because it’s our fault that their country is so unstable now. This whole invasion shouldn’t have happened, but it did, and the damage is done. Now it’s our responsibility to do whatever we can to clean up the mess we made.
We have. It isn’t working. This civil war will go on with us there or not. Its true, its our fault this awful thing happened. And if I believed there was a reasonable hope we could fix this thing, I might think differently. But I don’t.
Out now.
It’s not as if anyone in the administration has said we made a huge mistake and we’d like to correct it with your children’s lives.
Let’s not forget that Bush didn’t go to war alone. He had to have the support of the Congress, Senate, and American people to some degree before he went to war.
And let’s be thankful that’s there’s no draft in place, that every man and woman serving in the military right now is there because they chose to be there, with the knowledge that they may be called upon to go to war at any time.
Of course, I’m sure there are plenty of American soldiers in Iraq who’d rather be any place else right now, but I’m sure there are also plenty of American soldiers there who believe in what they’re fighting, and in some cases dying, for.
And what would that be, again?
Haliburton’s profit margin ? Bush’s attempt to save face ? Keeping Iraqi oil off the market ?
I can’t say for sure what they’re fighting for. But I believe they’re fighting in the short run to keep that country from falling further into chaos, and in the long run for a secure, stable and self-sustenant Iraq; one that would not make a comfy home for Al Qaeda or other anti-American extremist groups. Such groups may come into power down the road by democratic means, of course, but the biggest concern right now is keeping such groups from coming to power by military means.
Maybe it was unrealistic to ever believe that Iraq could function well under a Jeffersonian democracy, but regardless of whether or not it could, I believe it is our obligation to leave Iraq no worse off than it was when we first got there in 2003.
I don’t think we need to go over the circumstances that led to the Iraq invasion yet again. The war was over in a matter of days. We’re occupying a sovereign nation that doesn’t want us there.
The thin, faint hope of a permanent Republican majority. Having seen that pony, they don’t want to let it get away, and the only way to prevent it from getting away is for some miracle to happen in Iraq which makes them all look like geniuses in the eyes of the electorate.
Tom DeLay put it like this:
Any Iraq not under a heavy American occupation - one heavier than what we have now - is going to be a good home for Al Qaeda or similar organizations. And I expect an Iraqi government free of our control will be just as hateful to us; for a long time, I expect a major qualification for political power ( and survival ) in an independent Iraq will be to make it clear you hate America.
Given that we are a major source of Iraq’s problems, that’s one job we can’t do. If we want Iraq to EVER get better, the first step is for us to leav them and stop screwing them up.
Can they order us to leave, or toss out all the pro-American business rules we stuck in their laws ? Can they even exert control over their own country ? No; so they are not sovereign, in any meaningful sense.
On the contrary, I believe their best hope at popularity would be to pull out of Iraq immediately. The '06 elections showed that, didn’t they? It is not a popular war.
What, admit their error? Admit they’ve squandered billions of dollars and thousands of lives? Admit that they had taken the war on terror on a senseless detour? That’s not going to gain them any friends in the short term, and if they want their permanent majority to start now, that’s what they care about.
Maybe the point is that they actually don’t believe it’s an error. Maybe they believe that good can and still needs to be done in Iraq. Do you really think they couldn’t easily get the spinsters to put a good light on them deciding to pull out of Iraq? If they actually believed this occupation was and continues to be an error, then they’d be committing political suicide by continuing to support it. If they really wanted a permanent majority as much as you suggest, then they’d readily be putting the polls before their own pride.
Then we have indeed lost this war, for we cannot give them back what we have took from them-their government, their limited stability, their jobs, their security, or their lives. These things are gone. The best we can do at this point is to get the fuck out of that area and hope that, in time, this bad memory fades.
You’re still not getting it, are you. This isn’t about Iraq. This is about Mr. Bush being a permanent wartime president, with all the powers such a position entitles him to. Even if he was forced to pull out of Iraq, some other manufactured war would pop up somewhere else, most likely Iran, and our troops would be sent there instead. This is about Bush trying to create “Black Hats” so that he can be some kind of comic book hero. Just listen to his speeches, how he describes the goals of those who oppose him-it’s dialogue straight out of a cheap dime store novel or a comic book. He thinks that those who oppose him are doing it only because they hate Truth, Justice and The American Way, not because of economics, religion or any other real world motivation.
This presumes that they’re rational. There’s plenty of indications that they’re not:
They’re just all over the map, begging and condemning and ranting and raving. There doesn’t appear to be any goodwill, or even a lick of sense involved anymore.
Leave and just hope the bad memory fades? When the true chaos begins for the Iraqis after we leave, if that is to be soon, it will be far worse for them than a bad memory. We may not be able to give them back all they have lost, but I believe we must try our damnedest to keep them from suffering further great losses.
That country is very unstable, and while it may be inconvenient for us to continue fighting there, “inconvenient” will be a vast understatement to describe what that country will go through with Syria, Iran, and Al Qaeda doing all they can to get it for themselves with little or no American presence to stand in their way.
Like I’ve said, I believe it is our utmost responsibility to give that country back some semblance of stability before we decide to we’re just going to count our losses and throw in the towel.
So, you think that Syria and Iran are going to invade Iraq?
-Joe
That would, arguably, be our responsibility if it were within our power, but it isn’t. Maybe the Iranians can do it, but we can’t.