Iraq, why we can't cut and run

[beauregardez]

this is just my opinion, so flame on .. i'm someone who served in the military (101st Airborne - peacetime) and i know that we have a mess on our hands .. here's my problem with just leaving. We have created huge animosity, what we need to do, is pull back, get rid of the Chalabi's .. have our troops lay low for a while and concentrate on the reconstruction of power, water, sewage .. and as hostility calms (and it will) we expand these efforts to schools, hospitals, the kind of construction that requires more exposure ..

i'm not sure on the political solution, but i do know that this is the way to undo some of the potentially growing ill will we have accrued.

i'm a guy who thought Clinton was too much of a right winger, but i also know, that left or right we must rise above ideology to and put a balm on the wounds we have caused, leaving only makes us a target for long smoldering hatred ..patience and persistence will pay off and i'm speculating in the end will leave a lot of troops feeling a lot better about their missions in time.

[DrWeird]

1. Mmhmmm.

Just pull back and everything will calm down. Yeah, I really see that coming.

Tell you what, if you want Americans fighting in Iraq, I hear Blackwater's got a couple of positions open.

[beauregardez]

7. i didn't say

the we want to fight .. as to pull back, you're missing the point, this has to be accompanied by communication with indigent leaders, and if you don't think that's not happening already .. well, i got a bridge in Brooklyn you may be interested in

now, i'm no 12 stepper, but my understanding is that you can't leave things unresolved .. perhaps that's a lesson we need here.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

16. I agree with your first post completely

and I know it's exactly what Kerry will do. It's absolutely the right thing to do.

[NMDemDist2]

2. i agree-- we can't leave a failed state behind us-like we did with

Afghanistan and Sudan --- Look where that got us.

but we need to get more cops on the ground FAST hopefully ones that speak arabic. We need to fire the whole CPA and get the village "elders" to send reps

Then our guys can do the contruction and such.

What a disaster-- no easy way out here at all.

[lastknowngood]

3. Ok how do we sooth the wounds by staying around and

killing more of them in the name of the christen god to "pacify" them and prevent civil war. Look we let Afghanistan return to the control of the warlords and let them produce their opium to keep them rich and powerful why not use the same solution in Iraq? I know it stinks but were talking about American kids dieing so the shrub and his minions can profit from it. Once a stable situation arises then we can negotiate with the people in the country with the real power.

[beauregardez]

8. don't twist what i said

don't attch the jingoistic phrtases you hate to my words .. trying to wait will leave us too late, we have to approach from a position of humble help .. not giving anyone the opportunity to impugn us or endanger our troops ..risky, yes, but any less risky than shutting down newspapers or closing highway, bombing mosques, i don't think so

[alcuno]

4. It's a pickle.

And I certainly don't know the right answer. However, if the US "pulls back," who provides security for the Iraqi people? The Iraqis already resent the Americans for being protected while they are vulnerable. The Americans live behind barricades and have body armor when they go out. They already think that we are cowards.

Also, everything that we reconstruct is vulnerable to being trashed as soon as we are done. I was watching video of the opening of a new school. As they were inside eating cake and giving speeches, a car bomb went off outside.

[revcarol]

5. We cut and ran in Afghanistan.

(Neglected the people to death, literally.) So why not now. Americans are like red flags in front of bulls in Iraq.

We either have to get out by cutting and running or get the UN in there in charge of EVERYTHING and get our bases out and face the fact that all those young men and women died for Bush's arrogance.

But every time someone says we can't cut and run I think of Vietnam. I was a volunteer for the Red Cross who used to go out to meet the planes of wounded.

Yeah, it takes me back: "WE CAN'T CUT AND RUN." They were so young and so chopped up in body and in spirit.

[beauregardez]

10. perhaps cut and run is the wrong phrase

what we mean to do is what Americans used to do .. do our best to make things right (at least that's what the world believes and we could do worse than live up to our myth)

[Jacobin]

27. Cutting and running in Vietnam worked out good for them

I think as soon as we are gone, they will work things out for themselves.

After all, we sometimes forget, it IS their country.

The military reminds me of that dreaded phrase: "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you" (run run run for your lives!!)

Anyway, we'll stay for a few years, get tens of thousands of our guys killed, and then we'll be run out by the Iraqis. No conquering force has EVER stayed in the middle east for long. NONE. Not one in 5,000 years. (well, the Israelis are trying it.....but somehow I don't think it is "succeeding)

[meow mix]

6. what if they dont want our help

seems all they want is us out of thier country.
i dont buy the "saving face" argument, if that is the case.

[beauregardez]

11. that's not the case

it'snot about face saving but about morality, humanity and in the end hopefully about accomplishing the mission that this administration threw us into so misguidedly.

[meow mix]

20. meanwhile - burnt mutilated bodies hang from bridges

clearly they want our "help"
sorry i must support cutting and running, very fast.

i bet if you were there you would want to leave - as the country explodes around you.

[revcarol]

12. And they CAN rebuild with a lot of support and U. S. Money.

Our money HAS to go to Iraq for reconstruction and healing those things that can be healed and payment for killing and wounding innocent Iraqis.

But they can run their own oil industry, their own universitites, they've got doctors and scientists and small business people and teachers and taxi drivers and are more literate than we are in the U. S. and they've been coping all along under very difficult conditions and THEY WORK HARD.

[scope]

9. my two cents

I *mostly* concur. We can't just pull our troops of out Iraq, now. The best we can hope for is effective leadership to turn things around. A withdrawal at this point will only create more rouge states, and terrorist cells.


If we loose focus, and withdraw our troops we show American weakness and re-enforce the world opinion that Americans have a short attention span. All they have to do is weather the storm of our A.D.H.D, and go about their business the second we distract ourselves with something/someone else.

Damn the bastards who put us in this mess to begin with.

[lastknowngood]

13. OK let's not call it cut and run let's call it the Iraquization of the

new American empire. Call it what you want. Name a few places where we have gone in taken over a country and left it better than when we found it in the last 35 years. And was that ever our purpose?

[AlCzervik]

14. Stay or go?

IMHO is that we cant let Iraq be a failed state but by the same token if we stay we piss them off even more. Pre-war planning was not there. This is the slippery slope right now. We are installing Chalbi and other exiles and that makes even worse, the Iraq's arent stupid and they dont trust us, when we install puppets some of their tin-foil hat theories are proved out. Bush may end up turning Iraq into a full blown islamic theocracy with all their anger pointed west. I wish i knew the solution but i dont, we are really screwed here either way.

[NoPasaran]

15. To where would we pull back?

If we concentrate our forces in a few "Green Zones" we concede control of the rest of the country to the various insurgent forces and we'll likely be targets for attacks on our fortified enclaves.

I'm in favor of getting the hell out of Iraq not because it's a good solution---it's a disaster. But every other scenario I can imagine is even more disastrous,

[KoKo]

17. Troops Out and Let Iraqi's run their own Country. We Liberated them

from Saddam and that's what we went in there for. They can't find the WMD's so no one can use any or get control of them. Let the Iraqi's rebuild their country. They would rather do that themselves anyway. And let the other Arab countries loan them money.

It's not our place to tell them how to set up their politics or anything else. If they want a conservative or radical Cleric running their country then so be it. We went to get rid of Saddam, we don't need to do any more harm than we already have.

[brokensymmetry]

18. There is no problem so great it cannot be run away from.

And we can cut and run in the case of Iraq. How many more of America's fine young people do we want to sacrifice? How much more treasure do we expend when we have lots of folks that need help right here?

Sorry, but the first thing to do when one finds oneself in a hole is to quit digging.

[Poiuyt]

19. How about NATO for security and the US for rebuilding and humanitarian aid

That way we'll be remembered for doing good things. If the Iraqi people only see us building hospitals and handing out clean water it will leave them with a better impression of America.

[Wonk]

21. The Iraq war could well last DECADES.

That's DECADES with boots on the ground and daily fighting.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=116x5216

Of course the alternative, pulling out completely, would simply leave a power vacuum and likely result in full blown civil war over there, with large scale genocide a conceivable possibility.

I don't have any easy answers...

[ShaneGR]

22. We are legally responsible for a stable Iraq

Period. If we are to "cut and run", then a stable system must be left when we leave. Most of us screamed about international law when we invaded Iraq, we can agree that Bush broke the law.

Well, pulling out now will be illegal too. That's right, it's called responsibility... even if we on the left didn't want it.

CATCH

22

[maggrwaggr]

23. you can't rape a woman and then give her flowers and say

"well you wanted to lose your virginity, didn't you?"

and expect her to be appreciative.

You can't turn a crime into an act of goodness.

All you can do is get the fuck out of there and pay reparations.

[bpilgrim]

24. there are other options...

like putting the UN in charge POLITICALLY step 1.

start employing iraqis for the rebuilding. EVERYWHERE.

begin swaping our troops for an international peacekeeping force made of mostly of regional forces.

esentially make this MISSION a shared responcibility with regional players with the most at stake being included in the rebuilding and security process.

u.s. pays and has a seat on the un council overseeing iraqs political process.

that's certainly not 'cut and running', no?

:hi:

peace

[KoKo]

25. I would get all troops out. Why do we not trust the Iraqi's to rule their

own country? It seems a judgement that only "others" should tell Arabs what to do. Granted their are factions in the country that folks think could lead to civil war. But it would be their civil war amongst their own people.

If they want UN peacekeepers in then they could request them "AFTER we pull all the troops out. But, no. We are too busy building bases to make Iraq the "Command Center" for US Middle East Operations.

That's the Lie. The BIG LIE this war is covering up.

[bpilgrim]

26. They want UN peacekeepers...

According to Al-Sadr’s spokesman Sheikh Kays al-Khazali, any troops pointing weapons at Iraqi people are invaders, including Bulgarians. However, they would be welcome under UN peacekeeping flags, he said in exclusive interview for state TV. Photo by BNT.

more...
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=33575

peace

[mmonk]

28. The thing about starting a war

is you can't control results. What will happen will happen.

[GreenPartyVoter]

29. U.N. and Arab League troops replacing our own would be a good start

But I doubt they'll want to get into this mess we created. :(

(And welcome to the DU!)