a question about the future of iraq...

[silverchair]

how do you guys feel about the future of iraq? where is it headed? will the attacks against US troops continue as long as we are there? the recent bus explosion affected iraqi civilians, but no US troops were killed or injured. will incidents like this cause iraqis to become more hostile towards one another or will it continue to fuel the anger towards the occupying troops?

[papau]

1. Blast was aimed at US military passing by - but was delayed so

that our guys got away - and only Iragi folks hurt and killed.

I don't see how this makes US occupation something the Iraqis will now support.

[mw]

2. The attacks will continue until we leave

They don't want us there. And our presence has become a lightning rod for other mideasterners to come to Iraq and kill us.

It took 58,000 deaths in Vietnam before we finally "got it" and stopped getting our young people killed there.

And the "commie VC bastards" won, and have owned the country--the thing we fought and died for to prevent--for 30+ years. Exactly what has Vietnam become today that was worth us dying over there then for? Are they a threat? Do they destabilize the world? Nope. I think not. The past 30+ years in Vietnam prove it: the 58,000 Americans who died over there died for NOTHING.

Vietnam was unwinnable. Too many right wingers still don't believe it. So now they're staging a replay in Iraq, spilling a new generation of blood to, in the end, re-prove their folly.

58,000 dead wasn't enough I guess.

Bastards.

[dbt]

3. By GOD, mw!

You have said what I have been thinking for SO LONG: 58,000 Americans died in Viet Nam for NOTHING. Every few months, I am drawn to the Arkansas Viet Nam Memorial. I look at all the names and I fall to my KNEES crying because they all died for nothing!

It was so vitally important that we stayed in that quagmire--why?

It is so vitally important that we stay in THIS quagmire--why?

How do you tell a woman that her husband or her son or her brother has died for NOTHING?

Thank you for the post. The one thing we learn from History is that we learn nothing from History.

:grouphug:
dbt

[mw]

4. It pisses me off too. Right wingers think Vietnam failed because....

Because American leftist commie hugging bastards demonstrated against the war, weakening US resolve and strengthening the will of the enemy.

Hogwash.

"Military is an extension of politics by other means". Not the other way around. And the politics of Vietnam stank.

Vietnam was not winnable. Period. It's not a matter of "wherewithal" or resolve. It's a matter of: we were in the wrong place doing the wrong thing, and were destined to fail.

And I fear the same in Iraq.

So many right wingers think that somehow America failed in Vietnam because of dissent to the war in America.

Huh?

Are they saying that dissent is bad? I for one believe that America--dissent and all--is a GOOD system. Dissent is a bedrock of our strength.

People dissented to the war in Vietnam. That dissent was an expression of the will of a segment of the American population. Expression of dissent is not only a right, it's a strength.

Why would someone think that "Vietnam was winnable if only America wasn't America"? America IS America. Thank God. And the beautiful, dissenting masses of Americans who helped stop the war in Vietnam are heroes.

As are those who did their duties in Vietnam by fighting and dying.

And in the final analysis, the fighting, dissenting, arguing, loud, disturbed mass of humanity that was America in the 1960s-1970s came to the only conclusion possible and did not the right thing, but the only thing: we withdrew from Vietnam.

Right wingers would turn America into a (North Vietnam or Iraq-like) country which doesn't allow dissent in order to fight for the Vietnamese or Iraqi ...uh...right to dissent.

[renie408]

5. I think the horrible thing is

Somebody DOES have to stay in there, at least until the region is moderately stabilized. If we pull out now, it is just going to tank into another Afghanistan. Only sitting on a shitload of oil. Can you imagine what the Taliban could have done with all that oil?

Staying sucks, but leaving sucks, too. It is the most horrible kind of dichotomy to be hung up in.

[mw]

6. We can redefine "we"

Sure, we can't just pack up and go in Iraq. But we can turn over responsibility of the country to the UN. And still support--even with a lead role.

The US paid only 8 PERCENT of the Desert Storm bill.

[im4edwards]

7. attacks are likely to continue till Iraq looks like Iran

or till the people cease to tolerate it.

[sphbecker]

8. I don't know if us leaving will stop it

I really don't know if even us leaving will stop the attacks. The people and groups that plan these attacks against us will most likely also feel the same hater towards the government that we helped to setup, even if it is a well run Iraqi democracy. The attacks will continue that it is something that Iraq as a nation will have to address. There is a lifetime of hatred in that contrary and it may take a full generation to weed it all out.

[newyawker99]

9. Hi sphbecker!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[catmandu57]

10. Short term there is nothing good to come out of Iraq

The country is a basket case now, civil war is in it's future, the Kurds will claim the north and the sunnis and shiites will fight it out for control of the south.
Even when we finally get evicted from the country, if the UN is there they will follow shortly, smirk* and company have set in motion a complete upheaval of the world.
We have made an enemy with a long memory as well, even after we get out, we will be vunerable to revenge attacks here for a long long time.