Can we just bring our troops home?

[phillybri]

I wish this were the case, but if we left now, the place could devolve into anarchy and be a breeding ground for extremism.

John Kerry's been getting a lot of flak in here (much of it deserved) for looking to involve the UN in Iraq now, but how else can this be handled? Kerry wanted the UN involved all along....

We fucked up by invading Iraq, but I don't believe we can just walk away now...

Your ideas?

[ChrisNYC]

1. Completely agree

We are stuck in Iraq now. Just like all of *'s other shit, we can't just walk away. We went in and blew up the country and eliminated the (despicable) government, and now we can't just walk away. This isn't just a moral duty either, American interests demand a stable government in that country. If we just walk away it will likely turn into another Iran, which may happen even if we stay, but that isn't in anyone's best interests.

[mike_c]

2. Kerry, Lieberman, Edwards, and Gephardt are fully complicit...

...with Bush*, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, IMO-- the blood of everyone who has died in this illegal invasion is as much on their hands as on the WH's. Kerry is even calling for an escalation now. That's insane.

What to do? I think the first step is to send Coin Powell to the U.N. ON HIS KNEES to beg for international help with the explicit goal of getting all foreign forces out of Iraq as soon as possible, even if this means letting anarchy take it's toll as the power vacuum implodes. There isn't any way to fix this, folks. The U.S. did a terrible thing in Iraq, and the full dimensions of that crime are only just becoming apparent. NO ONE CAN UNDO IT. Iraq is going to go the way of Afganistan, at least for the short term, unless it's locked down utterly by an occupation, and that will only postpone the agony. That's fine with the politicians, because it puts the hard decisions-- and their consequences-- onto someone else's watch, but it ignores the reality that we have kicked the props out from under a country that was held together with duct tape and brutality. Now it's either going to Balkanize or some other brutal warlord will have to keep the various factions pasted together. Personally, I don't want my country involved in that, so yes, I say walk away with our head hung in shame for having committed a truely horrendous crime in the name of assuaging the Bush* family pride.

on edit: remember, if we don't get out of there now, the long term consequences of the Iraqi invasion are likely to be borne by a democratic president-- I suspect that's one reason Kerry is calling for more troops (and no, I'm not so naive as to not understand that he's also just playing politics as usual in the "support our troops" heartland).

[Dob Bole]

3. It's too late now...

We never should have gone there in the first place. We could have found other ways to deal with Hussein and his human rights violations. But now it's too late, and if we just leave our soldiers sitting there, they are going to die. We need to admit that we need the U.N.'s help.

[dragonquest8]

4. No because it will create more serious problem in the long run

just look at Afghanistan's chaos after Bush1 abandoned that country.
The only way to stabilize volatile situation in Iraq would be an iron-fisted occupation.

[trof]

5. nope

We have firmly grasped the tar-baby and we're stuck fast, like it or not.
Re: previous answers - yes, the only way out is to replace U.S. "peace" keeping troops with an international group. It would be best if they were all Arab, or at least Muslim, but that's not possible. There will still be problems, but at least they'll be shared problems and not all on our plate.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

6. Since Kerry represents the "Adult" wing of the Democratic party

we should listen to (and heed) his advice fully.

We fucked up by invading Iraq WITHOUT the rest of the world. Kerry is simply responding to the SNAFU Bush has perpetrated.

[Dr Fate]

7. Let's not do what Bush Sr. did to Afghanistan...

which was to abandon it and make it a nice home for Bin Laden and his ilk.

Bush got us into this stinking mess- but leaving a power vaccum in Iraq is NOT the answer...

[Quahog]

8. Absolutely not

I cut-and-pasted this from my response to a thread on LBN regarding Kerry's calling for UN troop involvement.

The fact is, WE CREATED the current situation in Iraq. Innocent Iraqis are being forced to endure deplorable living conditions BECAUSE OF THE USA. I don't really give a crap who voted to do it at this point, it is simply immoral to pull out of there and leave them to die of disease and starvation. They may not have been free under Saddam, but at least they had basic needs covered. Now they have zip, thanks to us.

Adding more troops is not "escalation," and the parallel to Vietnam is not particularly apt. We escalated our troop commitment in Vietnam when there was a huge amount of very intense fighting going on, with large numbers of casualties daily. The handful of Iraqis currently sniping at our troops do not represent an organized resistance of any magnitude. Adding UN and/or NATO troops is not likely to swell the ranks of Ba'ath sympathizers. On the contrary, it's likely to decrease their numbers, once it becomes clear that the world is uniting to help them (as opposed to a single country occupying them to plunder their only valuable natural resource).

Our main problem in Iraq right now is that we have BARELY enough personnel to police the anarchic streets of Baghdad, much less to help rebuild the infrastructure that we destroyed with our bombs. We need people there who can help restore a decent level of subsistence to average Iraqi citizens, get them fed and clothed and housed and provide them with electricity and running water and adequate sanitiation, and THEN we can worry about helping them get organized to form the government of their choosing (and if they want to go Islamic fundamentalist, that's their business).

Our unilateral invasion of Iraq was arguably the most immoral military action ever taken by our nation. We only compound our shame if we now leave the people of Iraq to die in the wreckage of our assault. Yeah, it's dangerous to send more troops in, and Americans and UN soldiers will undoubtedly die. But can we afford to further disgrace ourselves in the eyes of the world by turning our back on this disaster of our own making?

Kerry and Dean are both calling for additional troop deployments from UN and/or NATO countries to help with the policing and, more importantly, the humanitarian crisis. And they are both right. We OWE those people for what we have done.

[sandnsea]

9. We can't just leave

When you make a mess, you clean it up, even if you were stupid when you created it. Hell, ESPECIALLY if you were stupid when you created it. Your mothers taught you that, right?

We need an international peacekeeping force to remove the image of American occupation. We need bottom-up, local control. We need to fix infrastructure and then protect each facility. We need Bremer OUT and a non-corporate, out of the loop, person in his place. And we need to demand a legal document giving the Iraqi people financial rights to the oil, either in a trust or a system like Alaska's.