Here is Obama's plan for Iraq.

Quote :

"Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months. Obama will make it clear that we will not build any permanent bases in Iraq. He will keep some troops in Iraq to protect our embassy and diplomats; if al Qaeda attempts to build a base within Iraq, he will keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region to carry out targeted strikes on al Qaeda. "

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/iraq/

In other words, the United States thew an entire country into political chaos and we don't have any responsibility to stay and help get things working again. Why? Because Barack didn't want the war and that's all that matters.

THIS is suppose to be the guy that inspires my generation?

2/7/2008 12:07:53 PM

I guess your opinion holds a lot more weight than his and the dozens of educated policy makers and military people behind him.


Or you could go with the people that got us in this whole mess in the first place.

2/7/2008 12:10:58 PM

one things for sure, if they started to pull out, the Iraqis would see they have to get their shit together real quick.

not sure if an immediate withdrawl is best at this point tho......but atleast a timetable for sure.

2/7/2008 12:14:34 PM

Iraq is not the only thing Obama is wrong about.

2/7/2008 12:15:53 PM

that's basically hillary's plan too.....i don't think there is a clear answer right now on either part, they're just doing the best they can with what they can say now.

2/7/2008 12:15:54 PM

Quote :

"I guess your opinion holds a lot more weight than his and the dozens of educated policy makers and military people behind him. Or you could go with the people that got us in this whole mess in the first place."

el oh el.

translation: he's a politician so it must mean he knows better then you.

2/7/2008 12:17:44 PM

no, it has nothing to do with him being a politician, it's the fact that he has educated people working with him to define these policies.

i can have an opinion on them, but to call them idiotic based on MY largely uninformed opinion (unless I happen to be a strategist in the military) is pretentious.

2/7/2008 12:22:17 PM

Quote :

"In other words, the United States thew an entire country into political chaos and we don't have any responsibility to stay and help get things working again. Why? Because Barack didn't want the war and that's all that matters."

seriously then, what's your suggestion?
you fall back to the old stalwart position of "we'll leave when the job's done", when that job was never clearly defined, or if that job appears impossible? or "we'll stay as long as 'it' takes", or "we won't cut and run" or whatever the catch phrase of the day is?
I mean really - when can we leave Iraq then? Do you seriously want us to just set up shop there and stay indefinitely and keep thousands of troops there for decades to come?

2/7/2008 12:22:35 PM

Quote :

"no, it has nothing to do with him being a politician, it's the fact that he has educated people working with him to define these policies."

LOL...do you really think 'educated' has anything to do with making good policies?

2/7/2008 12:24:41 PM

I agree with Golovko.

2/7/2008 12:52:30 PM

^

2/7/2008 1:19:25 PM

ok [user]Socks[/user], We get it. You have a major hard on for Mrs. Clinton. Now please contain the bullshit in one thread.

[Edited on February 7, 2008 at 1:35 PM. Reason : d]

2/7/2008 1:34:04 PM

Quote :

"n other words, the United States thew an entire country into political chaos and we don't have any responsibility to stay and help get things working again. Why? Because Barack didn't want the war and that's all that matters."

Like Vietnam?

People always said if that we left, Southeast Asia would fall to the Red mongrel hordes and then they would follow us home, thus we could never leave Vietnam. Then, we did. And nothing happened. 58,000+ US deaths and hundreds of billions of dollars later for a perceived threat that never materialized.

2/7/2008 1:37:19 PM

Yea Golovko actually won this thread.

GG.

2/7/2008 1:38:41 PM

Quote :

"I mean really - when can we leave Iraq then? Do you seriously want us to just set up shop there and stay indefinitely and keep thousands of troops there for decades to come? "

That sounds ideal to me. Maybe not tens of thousands of troops, but I would like to maintain a sphere of influence there and have our military to continue to work closely with Iraqis long term.

2/7/2008 2:12:34 PM

Vote McCain then. He wants a 100 years.

2/7/2008 2:13:36 PM

Quote :

"He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months."

Logisitcally not possible. Period.

And WTF is this obsession with "combat brigades", does that mean he's going to leave non-combat arms units there with no protection? Is his goal an unprotected "humanitarian force"?

Seriously, long on oratory skills, short on logic.

Quote :

"People always said if that we left, Southeast Asia would fall to the Red mongrel hordes and then they would follow us home, thus we could never leave Vietnam. Then, we did. And nothing happened."

What? The slaughter of thousands of South Vietnamese? The rise of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia accompanied by the mass slaughter there? You could argue that our security situation was not directly effected but you can't say "nothing" happened, and given our economic reliance on that part of the world I don't think the parallels follow.

2/7/2008 3:00:15 PM

^ JCASHFAN has it right.

Obamaniacs are arguing about this like it was 2002. I didn't support the war either, but that has nothing to do with our current situation. We have brought unchecked violence and political instability to a country that before only labored under harsh totalitarianism. Don't we have some moral responcibility to make sure we leave them in the best shape possible?

Agentlion is right that my argument doesn't make for a neat withdraw, but it's a messy situation without (good) neat answers. If we care at all about the welfare of the Iraqi people, immediate withdrawl is not the answer.

But, I get the feeling that Obama really doesn't care about the Iraqi people the army he votes to fund is killing. And I am supposed to cheer.

2/7/2008 3:45:46 PM

Lordy lou, how I love these interminable Iraq debates. Fundamentally flawed premise - you assume that by staying there, we can improve things. The only way things are going to get better is when Iraqis actually decide they're tired of killing each other.

And if they can't figure that one out on their own, then why in the hell is it every Americans' collective responsibility to flush more blood and treasure into that smoking crater? What exactly ever happened to the welfare of Americans taking priority? I mean, gee - I seem to recall al Qaida and OBL running around loose, still - maybe we could, you know, focus on the people who actually mean to do us harm? (As opposed to say, the ones who would just as rather we get the hell out?)

I mean, really. When exactly do you expect us to leave? Never?

2/7/2008 3:52:26 PM

this is where you sit down with generals when you get into office to see what a reasonable withdrawal would look like.

[Edited on February 7, 2008 at 3:52 PM. Reason : .]

2/7/2008 3:52:50 PM

Quote :

"In other words, the United States thew an entire country into political chaos and we don't have any responsibility to stay and help get things working again."

In other words, you're about as adept at Wolf Blitzer at "rephrasing" what someone has said.

2/7/2008 3:59:19 PM

Quote :

"What exactly ever happened to the welfare of Americans taking priority? "

Depending who you ask, making sure Iraq doesn't devolve in to a pit from which all evil flows IS what's best for Americans.

2/7/2008 4:03:18 PM

Quote :

"THIS is suppose to be the guy that inspires my generation?"

Please count me out of this generation

2/7/2008 4:48:24 PM

Quote :

"Depending who you ask, making sure Iraq doesn't devolve in to a pit from which all evil flows IS what's best for Americans."

Not the same thing as making an appeal to the moral duty to the "welfare of Iraqis" and you know it.

If you want to argue that stabilizing Iraq is both possible and in the American interest then fine, please do so. But enough with the bait and switch already - the "welfare of the Iraqi people" is a sham argument.

2/7/2008 5:45:50 PM

I wish to hell we could and would get the hell out of any country in which we don't need to be. South Korea, Germany, Iraq, Japan, etc. Why do we maintain bases in countries capable of defending themselves and their neighbors. We should only maintain a military presence in countries in which we are both welcome and are in an area of strategic importance. Europe doesn't need an American military presence, the cold war is long over. East and Southeast Asia don't need an American presence, China and Japan are both perfectly capable of maintaining peace in that region. N. Korea isn't going to do anything to piss off those two countries, or Russia, or India.

We don't need to be in Africa, there is nothing of strategic import there. The middle east... as long as we are dependent on mid-east oil we should maintain a military presence. Which we already do, we have bases in Saudi Arabia and a large fleet in Bahrain. We don't have any business in Iraq, Lebanon, Iran, Jordan, Syria, etc. As long as we are getting the oil we need then fuck it. We are not making America and Americans any safer by continuing to kill Iraqis by the thousand.

2/7/2008 7:05:05 PM

Quote :

" [quote]Here is Obama's plan for Iraq. Quote : "Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months. Obama will make it clear that we will not build any permanent bases in Iraq. He will keep some troops in Iraq to protect our embassy and diplomats; if al Qaeda attempts to build a base within Iraq, he will keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region to carry out targeted strikes on al Qaeda. " http://www.barackobama.com/issues/iraq/ "

In other words, the United States threw an entire country into political chaos and we don't have any responsibility to stay and help get things working again. Why? Because Barack didn't want the war and that's all that matters.

THIS is suppose to be the guy that inspires my generation?[/quote]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is literally the single reason I might vote republican. I really want to vote for Obama mainly because he is such a newcomer that he can help move good legislation through congress. I refuse to leave Iraq until the Iraqi police and Iraqi army tell us that its all good. If you want to hear what they think recently go here and read the dispatches for the past couple weeks

http://michaelyon-online.com/

http://www.michaeltotten.com/

If we leave Iraq and let it fall into chaos again, we will have come in, destroyed the order, let foreign fighters infiltrate, fought are asses off getting it back to some stability, and then left.

If it does revert to chaos we will feel the burn of it for 50-100 years.


[Edited on February 7, 2008 at 7:29 PM. Reason : sfd]

[Edited on February 7, 2008 at 7:29 PM. Reason : dfs]

[Edited on February 7, 2008 at 7:30 PM. Reason : fsd]

2/7/2008 7:24:45 PM

Quote :

"But enough with the bait and switch already - the "welfare of the Iraqi people" is a sham argument."

I disagree.

First, the Iraqi people weren't killing each other before we got there. They didn't even start out killing each other, they started out killing us, then we took advantage of pre-existing cultural divisions in a shortsighted attempt to create stability, got them to start killing each other. And some people are saying (it may be true, I don't know) that it's al-qaeda doing a lot of the killing now anyway.

But, it seems borderline racist or xenophobic to blame the Iraqis in order to justify a pull out. If the reasoning for a pull out is that it's not our problem and damn the Iraqis, then we definitely should not pull out. If the reasoning is that our presence is prompting the violence, and us leaving would reduce it, or allow them to take control and reduce it themselves, then absolutely, we should pull out,.

But, there is a solution that allows us to withdraw most of our troops (realistically, just like in Germany, some level of military is going to be there for decades), while also putting Iraq firmly back on the course to stability.

I also think that when Barrack and Hillary both claim they're going to pull out, I think they are being disingenuous or are just ignorant. As JCASHFAN notes, this is far more complex of an issue than just "pull out."

2/7/2008 7:25:56 PM

I think they might be pandering to there radical base. The base that hates Bush so much that they will do anything to get out of Iraq.

I hope, that during the first 2 months of the presidency that they will learn the real situation and not be so rash.

Assuming they get elected.

2/7/2008 7:46:23 PM

I think Hillary has been very cautious in what she's said about removing troops from Iraq. She has said first and foremost a team must be created to organize and plan accordingly to remove troops on some type of time table. She refuses, however, to set a time limit on what exactly would happen (unlike Obama). I think she's being as realistic as possible. She's made it clear she wants there to be discussions and plans for the removal of not only civilians in Iraq, but US business and Iraqis who helped with the insurgence. I don't think staying there, in any large manner, is really going to fly with most Americans.

2/7/2008 7:53:06 PM

Just in case anybody in this thread gives a shit, the Iraqi people have an opinion on this topic...

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/pollindex.htm

2/7/2008 8:30:53 PM

Quote :

"translation: he's a politician so it must mean he knows better then you."

Quote :

"LOL...do you really think 'educated' has anything to do with making good policies?"

It sounds like you're suggesting that we should put people in power who have absolutely know knowledge of whatever subject they'd be in charge of. This would be analogous too, say, putting Paris Hilton in charge of our economy. She has no education on the subject, but according to you, that makes no difference in how good she does it. According to you, she would be perfect in policy-making for the U.S. economy.

Also, according to you, someone does not have to have any experience in politics, the way that our government functions, or how a bill becomes a law. We might as well close our eyes and pull a lever that selects a random person out of a hat.

I call this the Peter Griffin form of government. You all remember when he established his own city after the nuclear explosion? He had each person's duty assigned by pulling out a name from a hat. This caused the doctor to be assigned the duty as the town drunk. An old woman was assigned the duty of a firefighter.

According to you, this is a great way of doing things.

Is this what you're saying? Because if it is, you're completely wrong. It also invalidates any opinion you give on the matter unless, according to you, you're making a judgment on something you have know education regarding. In that case you must be right.

Quote :

"I agree with Golovko."

Quote :

"Yea Golovko actually won this thread."

Quote :

" ^ "

I'd recant if I were you.




To those who say that pulling out is a bad idea:

Iraq is going to depend on us until we pull out. There is absolutely no point in being there, and the only reason that the attacks keep on coming is because we are there. All the IEDs, all the roadside bombs, all the suicide bombs are responses to the country being occupied by a foreign invader. The sooner we pull out, the sooner Iraq can function on its own.

The U.S. troops are the training wheels on the bike. If you keep the training wheels on forever, you'll never learn to ride on your own. Sure, you may fall down a few times, but you'll get the hang of it.

2/7/2008 8:32:55 PM

Quote :

"Also, according to you, someone does not have to have any experience in politics, the way that our government functions, or how a bill becomes a law. "

Experience != education

I was interpreting Golovko's post to mean that the idea that our politicians are actually consulting or listening to experts to form their opinions is laughable. And to believe that their opinions are based on expert advice and therefore we have no place to question it is also laughable. How many times do you have to hear stories about politicians not actually reading bills they are voting on, not knowing what's in bills they are voting on, or not even know what their own positions are before you realize they are pulling things out of their ass?

I would bet very large amounts of money than neither Obama, Clinton, and especially not Huckabee has consulted with a military strategist, historian, intelligence expert, or anyone truly qualified to devise a detailed plan on what to do on Iraq before forming their platforms posted on their websites. Their websites and entire campaign is made for the specific purpose on getting votes, and nothing else.

I don't remember what CLinton campaigned on, but Bush I campaigned on no new taxes, and Bush 2 campaigned on smaller gov and no nation building. Look how well that turned out. They both were just trying to get votes.

Obama's doing the same thing with the whole pull out of Iraq. I'm sure that's what he thinks he wants to do, but I doubt he's actually looked in to it, and I bet he's only sticking by that line because it's what he feels will get him votes.

2/7/2008 8:48:37 PM

Quote :

"I would bet very large amounts of money than neither Obama, Clinton, and especially not Huckabee has consulted with a military strategist, historian, intelligence expert, or anyone truly qualified to devise a detailed plan on what to do on Iraq before forming their platforms posted on their websites. Their websites and entire campaign is made for the specific purpose on getting votes, and nothing else."

To say that they are completely ignorant is doing them a disservice. Clinton is on the Armed Services committee which has jurisdiction over the DoD, army, navy, etc.

I think Obama is on the Foreign Relations committee as well, which has the Dept of State if I'm correct.

Huckabee, well, he was a govenor.

2/7/2008 8:53:49 PM

I'm not saying they are completely ignorant, only partially ignorant or liars .

I'm saying I don't believe that they actually believe their publicly stated opinions, and that their publicly stated opinions may not be based on actual hard facts or evidence.

2/7/2008 8:56:45 PM

Quote :

"Obama's doing the same thing with the whole pull out of Iraq. I'm sure that's what he thinks he wants to do, but I doubt he's actually looked in to it, and I bet he's only sticking by that line because it's what he feels will get him votes."

I don't believe that he's saying that just to get votes. He voted against the war when the resolution was originally proposed, so he has been opposed to the war for a long time, far before he was considering running for President. He also voted against the troop surge.

I think that you need to make a decision here. Which would you want as President: Someone who wants to get all of our troops out of Iraq as soon as humanly possible, or someone who has claimed publicly that they would keep troops in Iraq for a century if it was needed?

2/7/2008 8:58:17 PM

I dont know. I think Clinton is alot more wise about Iraq than we think. She's butted heads OFTEN in the senate with the pentagon. What goes on in the Senate adnd committees is just not very televised unless you are looking for it. She's been there many, many times, and she sits on the committee that presides over our armed forces.

what else could she do to be more up to date and informed?

Quote :

"I think that you need to make a decision here. Which would you want as President: Someone who wants to get all of our troops out of Iraq as soon as humanly possible, or someone who has claimed publicly that they would keep troops in Iraq for a century if it was needed?"

Good point. I don't think either Dem can have a clear cut answer until they have access to all the intelligence, etc. It will be a touch and go kind of process.

[Edited on February 7, 2008 at 9:00 PM. Reason : a]

2/7/2008 8:59:28 PM

Quote :

"I don't believe that he's saying that just to get votes. He voted against the war when the resolution was originally proposed, so he has been opposed to the war for a long time, far before he was considering running for President. He also voted against the troop surge."

Forgive me, but Obama wasn't even in Washington in 2002 or 2003, so I fail to see how he "voted against the war when the resolution was originally proposed."

2/7/2008 9:03:41 PM

^^^ http://www.thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=513642&page=1#11242700

I noted in that post how I feel about Iraq.

^^ To be perfectly honest i haven't looked at the details of how Hillary feels about Iraq. I would never vote for her on the principle that i'm strongly against dynasties in presidential candidates.

[Edited on February 7, 2008 at 9:04 PM. Reason : ]

2/7/2008 9:04:02 PM

^^I've never understood that either. A lot of his argument seems to come from....."I never voted for giving Bush the ability to send troops, so in the general election....the republicans can't use that against me."

But the reality is......he didn't know what the US Senate knew at the time more than likely. A lot of Dem's voted to send troops.

2/7/2008 9:09:27 PM

Quote :

"moron: First, the Iraqi people weren't killing each other before we got there. They didn't even start out killing each other, they started out killing us, then we took advantage of pre-existing cultural divisions in a shortsighted attempt to create stability, got them to start killing each other. And some people are saying (it may be true, I don't know) that it's al-qaeda doing a lot of the killing now anyway."

To say "they weren't killing each other before we got there" is a bit of a misnomer. They weren't killing each other because they were being brutally kept in check by a dictator, who by proxy, was in fact doing a fair amount of sectarian killing and other assorted nastiness.

The fact is, the sectarian fault lines we're seeing have existed long before we got there, and there's very little evidence that the U.S. has the capability to fix them, lacking the will of the Iraqi people themselves.

Quote :

"moron:But, it seems borderline racist or xenophobic to blame the Iraqis in order to justify a pull out. If the reasoning for a pull out is that it's not our problem and damn the Iraqis, then we definitely should not pull out. If the reasoning is that our presence is prompting the violence, and us leaving would reduce it, or allow them to take control and reduce it themselves, then absolutely, we should pull out,."

How is it racist or xenophobic to observe that there are long-standing ethnic divisions and animosities far older than us that we neither have the capability to fix or the business being involved in? If anything, it's an almost neo-colonialist mindset to think that we can walk in there and impose a Western pluralist society upon them and expect it to just magically work if we use enough bullets.

Certainly one can make the case that the kind of ethnic and religious tolerance we have over here is preferable for any number of reasons, be it from common sense to basic human dignity - but to expect that we can successfully impose such values by force onto a set of foreign cultures with centuries of conflict behind them and a very large axe to grind with the minority over the last three decades of rule is frankly insane. Again, without the initiative or desire on their behalf to make something like this work, we are in the role of an uninvited and unwelcome interloper - one which has very limited chances of success and instantly breeds all kinds of animosity. I hardly see how this is a compelling reason for us to stick around.

It would be different if we were being asked to stay based upon the consent of the people to maintain order. But even they don't want us there.

So, we have the following - questionable efficacy on our part, the fact that we aren't welcome there to begin with, and the fact that our main reason for being there isn't even being embraced by the people we're there to protect. With that in mind, falling back to the question of our humanitarian obligation to the Iraqis when asked about what compelling American interest remains which can be reasonably achieved is completely a bait-and-switch.

Quote :

"moron: But, there is a solution that allows us to withdraw most of our troops (realistically, just like in Germany, some level of military is going to be there for decades), while also putting Iraq firmly back on the course to stability."

Here's the problem - we're not hearing too much about this "solution." And said solution is predicated upon the idea that we are actually capable of imposing stability on Iraq. Which, again, remains to be seen.

Quote :

"moron: I also think that when Barrack and Hillary both claim they're going to pull out, I think they are being disingenuous or are just ignorant. As JCASHFAN notes, this is far more complex of an issue than just "pull out.""

Of course it is. Pretending that we can just pull up stakes tomorrow is an incredibly cynical move designed to appease individuals who never wanted to be there in the first place. But that argument is no rebuttal to the issue that we can't even get a commitment to leave at all from a majority of the field. Asking how much more blood and treasure we expect to piss away into this adventure is a reasonable question. You may not like it, but it's a fair one to ask - staying there indefinitely is hardly a more sustainable solution than proposing we pull up stakes tomorrow.

2/7/2008 9:18:54 PM

I think everyone should just listen to "We Didn't Start the Fire" when you read threads like this.

Or everything in the SB.

Seriously.

Anyways Socks just please give it up, god bless it. If you hate his plan, come up with a better one OR why his plan is so bad based on some better empiricial evidence like "Iraq is changing, we need 2 years to have x populace in place". Oh wait we've been doing that.

We have to leave Iraq, it is not Europe. Its timeline is a good question for debate however. Even I don't agree with Obama's immediate pull out, but at least HE WANTS OUT.

2/7/2008 9:27:23 PM

Quote :

" To say "they weren't killing each other before we got there" is a bit of a misnomer. They weren't killing each other because they were being brutally kept in check by a dictator, who by proxy, was in fact doing a fair amount of sectarian killing and other assorted nastiness."

Saddam was a brutal dictator, but i'd wager he wasn't killing anywhere near as many Iraqis as are dying now. And if you look at things "by proxy" the US forces are doing some sectarian killing of our own, in the eyes of the Sunnis( http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/ziada1.html ). We're only just starting to figure out how to deal with the cultural politics, which should help with efforts in Iraq.

Quote :

"The fact is, the sectarian fault lines we're seeing have existed long before we got there, and there's very little evidence that the U.S. has the capability to fix them, lacking the will of the Iraqi people themselves."

And the Iraqi PEOPLE DO want things fixed. The people doing the fighting and the bombing largely don't represent popular opinion in Iraq.

Quote :

" How is it racist or xenophobic to observe that there are long-standing ethnic divisions and animosities far older than us that we neither have the capability to fix or the business being involved in?"

You're absolutely right we don't have the business being involved in it, BUT WE ARE, we've made ourselves involve, and leaving won't magically make us uninvolved.

And it's racist (or maybe more aptly prejudiced) to just say it's because of their religion/race/whatever, because the issue is far more complicated than that. Wars are rarely ACTUALLY about religion or culture, and almost always about money and power. Religion is just what's used to gain popular support. The people controlling the fighting aren't doing to for religious reasons. The lemmings doing the fighting think they're doing so for religious reasons.

Therefore saying that it's a religious fight and we can't really do anything about it is passing the buck or just being lazy.

Quote :

"If anything, it's an almost neo-colonialist mindset to think that we can walk in there and impose a Western pluralist society upon them and expect it to just magically work if we use enough bullets. "

You're right, but that's not the issue. People were saying this 6 years ago, but Bush and the media weren't listening. Now though, you can't fall back to this line, because it won't solve the problems, if you just believe that the Iraqis are going to keep fighting regardless.

Quote :

"So, we have the following - questionable efficacy on our part, the fact that we aren't welcome there to begin with, and the fact that our main reason for being there isn't even being embraced by the people we're there to protect. With that in mind, falling back to the question of our humanitarian obligation to the Iraqis when asked about what compelling American interest remains which can be reasonably achieved is completely a bait-and-switch."

I haven't looked recently (the past 6 months), but 6 months ago, the polls of Iraqis were conflicting on whether they want us there or not. Some polls showed they do, some showed they don't. If the iraqis want us gone, we should leave. If the iraqis want us to stay, we should stay, but that is an appeal to a humanitarian obligation.

If it were just a American troops lives issues, then we should pull out regardless of what they want, which I don't think most people actually support.

Quote :

"[quote]moron: But, there is a solution that allows us to withdraw most of our troops (realistically, just like in Germany, some level of military is going to be there for decades), while also putting Iraq firmly back on the course to stability."

Here's the problem - we're not hearing too much about this "solution." And said solution is predicated upon the idea that we are actually capable of imposing stability on Iraq. Which, again, remains to be seen.[/quote]

Well, to be honest, Bush and Co. claim that they have a solution that involves staying. The problem is that Bush doesn't have a shred of credibility, so no one's actually listening. The next president may very well end up concurring with Bush that we should stay.

Quote :

"Of course it is. Pretending that we can just pull up stakes tomorrow is an incredibly cynical move designed to appease individuals who never wanted to be there in the first place. But that argument is no rebuttal to the issue that we can't even get a commitment to leave at all from a majority of the field. Asking how much more blood and treasure we expect to piss away into this adventure is a reasonable question. You may not like it, but it's a fair one to ask - staying there indefinitely is hardly a more sustainable solution than proposing we pull up stakes tomorrow."

Of course it's a reasonable question to ask, but if your belief is that if we leave, Iraq will fall in to chaos, then it makes you a very evil person. If your belief is that Iraq may end up better off, then it's a very reasonable question to ask.

2/7/2008 9:40:08 PM

Quote :

"Don't we have some moral responcibility to make sure we leave them in the best shape possible?"

Sure. We have more of a responsibility to stop killing them.

2/7/2008 10:04:26 PM

Quote :

"Forgive me, but Obama wasn't even in Washington in 2002 or 2003, so I fail to see how he "voted against the war when the resolution was originally proposed.""

Forgive me for misspeaking. This is what I was referring to:

Quote :

"During a fall 2002 anti-war rally at Chicago's Federal Plaza, while still an Illinois State Senator, and in a speech alongside Jesse Jackson, Obama stated: "I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars. [...] You want a fight, President Bush? Let's finish the fight with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings.""

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Barack_Obama#Iraq

2/7/2008 10:13:22 PM

You are not referring to the Iraqis who are in Alq in Iraq are you?

2/7/2008 10:13:58 PM

Quote :

"Saddam was a brutal dictator, but i'd wager he wasn't killing anywhere near as many Iraqis as are dying now. And if you look at things "by proxy" the US forces are doing some sectarian killing of our own, in the eyes of the Sunnis( http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/ziada1.html ). We're only just starting to figure out how to deal with the cultural politics, which should help with efforts in Iraq."

My point was more that things were hardly sunshine and kisses before we showed up. It's not like this mess is entirely our own doing - we walked into a sticky trap, here.

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"And the Iraqi PEOPLE DO want things fixed. The people doing the fighting and the bombing largely don't represent popular opinion in Iraq."

People in Hell want ice water, too. The question is, what they actually do about it. Perhaps the Iraqi government is a poor reflection of the people (imagine, if you will, if Americans were judged by the incompetence of their own government), but what it largely shows is an ineffectual squabble over the same kind of tribal lines. Political affinity by ethnic and cultural lines rather than any kind of broader ideological agenda. Which has largely resulted in a whole lot of nothing getting done to fix things - oil revenue sharing, getting a sound police infrastructure in place, and so forth. Just sectarian squabbling.

We can claim that sectarian violence is the result of a small minority, but I can't help but feel that it gains support from far deeper roots than we'd collectively like to admit. These people genuinely don't seem to want to work together. They've pretty much been segregating themselves by cultural and ethnic fault lines - in a quite literal sense.

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"You're absolutely right we don't have the business being involved in it, BUT WE ARE, we've made ourselves involve, and leaving won't magically make us uninvolved."

For one, I think it's widely agreed by all here that we're not going to snap our fingers and be gone tomorrow. But I don't think it's unreasonable to lay out explicitly where our involvement explicitly ends and how we intend to go from here to there. You know, like a timetable.

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"And it's racist (or maybe more aptly prejudiced) to just say it's because of their religion/race/whatever, because the issue is far more complicated than that. Wars are rarely ACTUALLY about religion or culture, and almost always about money and power. Religion is just what's used to gain popular support. The people controlling the fighting aren't doing to for religious reasons. The lemmings doing the fighting think they're doing so for religious reasons."

It's not prejudiced to point out a stark reality of the situation - particularly because of the fact that these stark differences are the result of 30 years by a minority ethnic group using the power of the government to lord over the majority group. These kinds of ethnic conflicts happen all the time - what do you think the conflict in the former Yugoslav states was about - oil revenues?

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"Therefore saying that it's a religious fight and we can't really do anything about it is passing the buck or just being lazy."

Until we can manage to convince people to stop killing each other, I fail to see what exactly our options are. And I honestly fail to see how the U.S. is going to have the credibility with Iraqis to accomplish that end, save from a credible threat of withdrawal.

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"You're right, but that's not the issue. People were saying this 6 years ago, but Bush and the media weren't listening. Now though, you can't fall back to this line, because it won't solve the problems, if you just believe that the Iraqis are going to keep fighting regardless."

Here's a question - what exactly is our job there? We are clearly unwelcome as an occupation force - we have been pretty much from Day 1. Now, if you want to argue our job should be as a humanitarian peacekeeping force, this changes the mission profile somewhat.

This is the problem. We set benchmarks for success with absolutely no consequences for them not being met. So, again - aside from "staying forever," what exactly is our contingency plan if pulling out is taken off the table?

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"If it were just a American troops lives issues, then we should pull out regardless of what they want, which I don't think most people actually support."

But it's a fair question to ask - how many American lives is this worth? How many Americans have to die and how much of our money do we have to pour into the region before it's "enough?" Because we don't have infinite amounts of either, and it's not as if we don't have pressing needs for both of those resources - so, cold-hearted as it may be, there is a fundamental question of priorities. How does this "moral obligation" square with our obligations to our own people?

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"Well, to be honest, Bush and Co. claim that they have a solution that involves staying. The problem is that Bush doesn't have a shred of credibility, so no one's actually listening. The next president may very well end up concurring with Bush that we should stay."

Again - I fail to see what exactly this promises to solve. I don't see how us just sticking around as unwelcome occupiers advances the cause of stability any.

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"Of course it's a reasonable question to ask, but if your belief is that if we leave, Iraq will fall in to chaos, then it makes you a very evil person. If your belief is that Iraq may end up better off, then it's a very reasonable question to ask."

You're forgetting a third option - that there's not much we can really do. If we are unable to bring order to Iraq, or unwilling to commit the resources to do so, then staying there is a pointless waste of lives. It may look good for show, but it needlessly wastes money and lives.

If we're going to stay, it should be for a compelling reason. Not just because we'll feel bad about ourselves if we pull out.

2/7/2008 10:29:49 PM