You think we should pull out of Iraq?

Just want ot see the majority opinions

 

[JasonRox]

Just want ot see the majority opinions

But you have 0 posts?

 

[russ_watters]

Posts in GD and P&WA are not counted in your post count.

 

[JasonRox]

Posts in GD and P&WA are not counted in your post count.

I know, but I find it odd that someone signed up and went right to the politics section to ask such a question.

Sounds like a lurker or something just going around the internet looking for quick statistics. But in reality, you need to know more about the members here to understand where the statistics are coming from.

 

[Ki Man]

Yeah, I agree that we cant stay there forever and we desperately need to leave but if we just got up and left right now they would tear themselves apart. for now we've just gotta stay put until they are ready

 

[Ki Man]

Just want ot see the majority opinions

are you taking a poll of the scientific community or something?

 

[Integral]

The Iraq war will be notable in history as the biggest military blunder by the US, may even eclipse the USSRs invasion of Afghanistan for the biggest military blunder in recorded history.

Unfortunately pulling out will not fix the mess that we have made, OTOH, staying will not fix the mess either. When in the future will be a good time to get out? Perhaps never. Therefore the conclusion must be we have to cut our losses and get out ASAP. There will NEVER be a GOOD time to leave. We are pouring money down a rat hole, while the US military is being trashed. This is a lose lose situation for the US.

What do I base my opinions on? Certainly not the evening news.. I don't watch it.

My opinions are based on my years of reading military history. I have read extensively of Napoleon's campaigns and battlefield tactics, I have read Oman, Clausewitz and many other solid military history's.

From all aspects the current situation was predicable, anyone with a bit of knowledge of our history in the middle east could see the current situation as the only possible result.

Even GWB in jail, as he so richly deserves, will not fix the mess he has got us into.
There may be no repair, a significantly possible outcome may be the end of the US era of supremacy and possibly even the end of civilization as we know it.

 

I believe our Iraq involvement after Sadam was a noble idea but, as my father once said, they aren't fighting for their freedom like we did. They won't appreciate something they didn't fight for. Democracy is not something that needs to be pushed, it's something that is available if the price is willing to be paid for it. So, yeah, we should leave and be available to aid them if that is something the people really show that they want.

 

[Ki Man]

^^another person who has no posts?^^

this war is only getting worse but we dont have enough options right now

 

[Math Is Hard]

I know, but I find it odd that someone signed up and went right to the politics section to ask such a question.

Sounds like a lurker or something just going around the internet looking for quick statistics. But in reality, you need to know more about the members here to understand where the statistics are coming from.

seems suspicious to me, too.

 

[Ki Man]

seems suspicious to me, too.

seems like someone who wants to be able to say 'well, a poll on scientists says that the most educated people in our community think that this war is a (good/bad) idea' so he can look like he knows what hes talking about. just out to get a good arguement to make him seem good in front of his friends. you've also gotta notice the inaccuracies in the way this poll is taken. for a scientific community, this was a poorly conducted survey if you want accurate and reliable results. its in a thread of a sub-section of a section of a forum. the only people who will take this pole are the only people who want to talk about iraq, leaving out the members who just look over this topic and dismiss it without answering the poll.

 

Seems a reasonable way to test the waters of political opinion in a forum to me.

 

^^another person who has no posts?^^

this war is only getting worse but we dont have enough options right now

Hey, I've been on this board before more than a year ago. My login was deckart. I'm no lurk. I've since changed my legal name. That's the extent I will explain why I'm back with "no posts". Anyways, back to the topic. :)

 

[russ_watters]

The Iraq war will be notable in history as the biggest military blunder by the US, may even eclipse the USSRs invasion of Afghanistan for the biggest military blunder in recorded history.

That's a pretty strong statement considering the magnitude of the Soviet losses: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_in_Afghanistan
Perhaps if the Iraq war continues for another 40 years....

As with Vietnam, there is a pretty simple reason why that war was so bad - we heavily supported the insurrection. With the possible exception of Iran, Iraq today isn't getting much outside support and as a result, our losses are a good order of magnitude smaller than theirs.

Besides - worst in history? Napoleon may get the prize for that. Or how 'bout Saddam Hussein? He miscalculated pretty badly in 1990. Starting an agressive war that results in your own death would have to rank pretty high too. Hitler was crazy, but WWII was still a pretty big failure for him.

 

[EL]

That's a pretty strong statement considering the magnitude of the Soviet losses: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_in_Afghanistan
Perhaps if the Iraq war continues for another 40 years....

It depends on what you count as a "blunder". If you define it by the number of dead soldiers there are worse candidates. But in my eyes a "blunder" is a mistake, and what can beat going to war for the completely false reason (or really without reason), and then end up trapped in a loose-loose situation?

 

[minase]

First of all I don't agree with the reason put for going to Iraq..If there were no nucs. I still have no idea why are we there. Both Sunis and ****tes want us out of there. majority says get out why are we still there. I don't think the politicians care.

 

[Mallignamius]

Why don't we just bring Iraq here? That way we're not pulling out, and our troops get to come home.

 

[russ_watters]

It depends on what you count as a "blunder". If you define it by the number of dead soldiers there are worse candidates. But in my eyes a "blunder" is a mistake, and what can beat going to war for the completely false reason (or really without reason), and then end up trapped in a loose-loose situation?

Hey, I'm not saying it is a great situation, but certainly starting a war that gets you killed has to be worse.

 

[JasonRox]

I thought the War of 1812 was pretty bad. Actually, it was quite sad for the Americans.

I know you guys help Canadians a lot, but it was bad.

 

[Ki Man]

First of all I don't agree with the reason put for going to Iraq..If there were no nucs. I still have no idea why are we there. Both Sunis and ****tes want us out of there. majority says get out why are we still there. I don't think the politicians care.

If you read the book Demon in the Freezer you'll see that they had reason to beleive that iraq was making weapons of mass destruction, and biological weapons of mass desruction can be made easily and are far too deadly for that matter. When people hear of WMDs they think of nukes, but it goes beyond that, to chemical and biological weapons. there was evidence at the time supporting that he had an antrhax (or even perhaps smallpox) cultivation project.

 

[denverdoc]

Well, I'll be a broken record on this one. We all know that the data was cooked, and that fear/revenge tactics sent the media and american public into this debacle. Much like most other wars. To have been a fly on the wall when this was being planned, priceless. Or during any of the recent administration's whose collective foreign policy seems more like keeping Iraq and Iran at war, than any other discernible objective. The most sane objective is still, oil, but the Neocons have been so adamant about protecting Israeli interests, I would see it as a kill two birds with one stone, brainchild. THE oil is now ours and BP's in a sweetheart deal that goes where none has before. Question, are things stable enuf to leave Iraq thinking that subsequent events won't unravel any such deals, making enforcement of said contracts thru military force, transparent as the emperor's new clothes.

Given that we are no closer to any stability than 4 years ago, get the hell out now. Britian has lost the zeal as has every other country. Its not a coalition anymore and the longer we stay the more angry the Islamic states get. But my one concern is that leaving will give the green light to more stupid misadventures such as in Iran. One of the major arguments about getting too reckless in the area is we are stretched too thin. My guess is the thinking re the escalation, is impose martial law, and get the hell out of dodge.
Lots of countries have operated this way in the past 50 years to the good of US corporations. The problem is as I understand it, knowing the difference from friend and foe, where you have few friends, but many willing to pretend to be. Like inviting everyone you know to your last supper.

 

Would anyone be on board with me on this:

We went into Iraq on the premise of WMDs but we really went in to kick Sadam down for breaking rules he was told to follow. Now, from the git-go I knew the WMD deal was a farce, but, I did believe we needed to go in and take care of Sadam. Now, we did that. We should of pulled out. Undoubtedly, a civil war and consequently another dictator would have sprouted up. So what. There are many dictators in the world. We were simply enforcing world-wide agreed upon policies that Sadam contiunually rsisted.

End of US involvement. Get out, sit back, and be available where needed.

 

[Thrice]

There may be no repair, a significantly possible outcome may be the end of the US era of supremacy and possibly even the end of civilization as we know it.

I don't really care about the war either way, but I'm curious how you'd support that statement.

 

[EL]

Hey, I'm not saying it is a great situation, but certainly starting a war that gets you killed has to be worse.

Is dying the worst thing? We'll all go that way sooner or later...For Saddam it was actually more than a decade later.
Point is, Saddam at least had a clear picture of what he was aiming for during the gulf war. Obviously he totaly failed, but at least he would have had something to win if he had succeeded...

 

[Moridin]

Let us not make the same mistake with Iraq and Afghanistan as was made with Africa during the Imperialism, Vietnam or Korea.

It is udder madness to invade a country, tearing the old, dictatorial nation apart without aiding to form a new one. If the coalition forces just 'pull out' completely, there is no doubt that Iraq will become the next destroyed nation.

As the nation stabilizes its democratic ruling and start enforcing the law harder by themselves, insurgency will most likely drop. If the US deprives the Iraqi government of this aid, there is no question about it - Iraq will be destroyed and another dictator will take Saddam's place.

Just look at Afghanistan; the US have been there longer and it is calmer there than it is in Iraq.

 

[cristo]

End of US involvement. Get out, sit back, and be available where needed.

That's really not very clever. You can't just invade a country, destroy its leadership and then walk out! (not in this day and age anyway!)

No, the US forces have to stay until the situation has calmed down. British forces, on the other hand, are a different story..

 

[Astronuc]

Would anyone be on board with me on this:

We went into Iraq on the premise of WMDs but we really went in to kick Sadam down for breaking rules he was told to follow. Now, from the git-go I knew the WMD deal was a farce, but, I did believe we needed to go in and take care of Sadam. Now, we did that. We should of pulled out. Undoubtedly, a civil war and consequently another dictator would have sprouted up. So what. There are many dictators in the world. We were simply enforcing world-wide agreed upon policies that Sadam contiunually rsisted.

End of US involvement. Get out, sit back, and be available where needed.

That is a rather simplistic assessment.

Clearly Saddam and his sons had to go.

The failure of the Bush Administration was and still is the lack of planning and follow up after the invasion and removal of Hussein. The CPA was a disaster. Bremer's unilateral and dictatorial policies including the de-Baathification and dismissal of the Iraqi army were failures. The US has to bring in Syria and Iran at this point, because they aren't going away. However, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, and other nations need to be brought in as well.

Somehow the animosity between Sunni and Shii must end! Until then, there will be no peace and no democracy, assuming that democracy is possible at all.

Meanwhile -

For U.S. Troops at War, Liquor Is Spur to Crime
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/world/middleeast/13alcohol.html

In May 2004, Specialist Justin J. Lillis got drunk on what he called “hajji juice,” a clear Iraqi moonshine smuggled onto an Army base in Balad, Iraq, by civilian contractors, and began taking potshots with his M-16 service rifle.

“He shot up some contractor’s rental car,” said Phil Cave, a lawyer for Specialist Lillis, 24. “He hopped in a Humvee, drove around and shot up some more things. He shot into a housing area” and at soldiers guarding the base entrance.

Six months later, at an Army base near Baghdad, after a night of drinking an illegal stash of whiskey and gin, Specialist Chris Rolan of the Third Brigade, Third Infantry Division, pulled his 9mm service pistol on another soldier and shot him dead.

And in March 2006, in perhaps the most gruesome crime committed by American troops in Iraq, a group of 101st Airborne Division soldiers stationed in Mahmudiya raped a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and killed her and her family after drinking several cans of locally made whiskey supplied by Iraqi Army soldiers, military prosecutors said.

Alcohol, strictly forbidden by the American military in Iraq and Afghanistan, is involved in a growing number of crimes committed by troops deployed to those countries. Alcohol- and drug-related charges were involved in more than a third of all Army criminal prosecutions of soldiers in the two war zones — 240 of the 665 cases resulting in convictions, according to records obtained by The New York Times through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Seventy-three of those 240 cases involve some of the most serious crimes committed, including murder, rape, armed robbery and assault. Sex crimes accounted for 12 of the convictions.

The 240 cases involved a roughly equal number of drug and alcohol offenses, although alcohol-related crimes have increased each year since 2004.

Despite the military’s ban on all alcoholic beverages — and strict Islamic prohibitions against drinking and drug use — liquor is cheap and ever easier to find for soldiers looking to self-medicate the effects of combat stress, depression or the frustrations of extended deployments, said military defense lawyers, commanders and doctors who treat soldiers’ emotional problems.

“It’s clear that we’ve got a lot of significant alcohol problems that are pervasive across the military,” said Dr. Thomas R. Kosten, a psychiatrist at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Houston. He traces their drinking and drug use to the stress of working in a war zone. “The treatment that they take for it is the same treatment that they took after Vietnam,” Dr. Kosten said. “They turn to alcohol and drugs.”

. . . . <continued>

 

[Mallignamius]

Would anyone be on board with me on this:

We went into Iraq on the premise of WMDs but we really went in to kick Sadam down for breaking rules he was told to follow. Now, from the git-go I knew the WMD deal was a farce, but, I did believe we needed to go in and take care of Sadam. Now, we did that. We should of pulled out. Undoubtedly, a civil war and consequently another dictator would have sprouted up. So what. There are many dictators in the world. We were simply enforcing world-wide agreed upon policies that Sadam contiunually rsisted.

End of US involvement. Get out, sit back, and be available where needed.

When you say "So what" to another dictator, giving room for another dictator would make things worse in the end. We've (I'm in the U.S.) already got enough people over there pissed at us. Whatever we do, it has to result in peace, not more of the same. The last thing we want is for a would-be dictator to actually have justification for his tyranny. By allowing another dictator that room, that justification is suddenly valid.

 

[BobG]

Would anyone be on board with me on this:

We went into Iraq on the premise of WMDs but we really went in to kick Sadam down for breaking rules he was told to follow. Now, from the git-go I knew the WMD deal was a farce, but, I did believe we needed to go in and take care of Sadam. Now, we did that. We should of pulled out. Undoubtedly, a civil war and consequently another dictator would have sprouted up. So what. There are many dictators in the world. We were simply enforcing world-wide agreed upon policies that Sadam contiunually rsisted.

End of US involvement. Get out, sit back, and be available where needed.

No. Personally, I wouldn't have a problem doing that in Afghanistan, but Iraq's a different story.

The impact of just pulling out could range from a civil war in Iraq, complete with genocide (bad, but not a threat to the world); a war in Iraq involving Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia fighting each other in some fashion or another (you're opening an old milk carton knowing it's going to smell bad - you just don't know how bad, yet - it could wind up very bad); a war across the entire Middle East between Shi'ites and Sunnis (world economy trashed by high fuel prices). There's just too many unknowns of varying badness to feel confident of just leaving.

I still put undecided. I agree with Integral about the invasion being the worst blunder in US history (I doubt it will wind up being the worst in world history - we'll have to wait to see if the war stays in Iraq or spreads across the entire Middle East). The decisions of Bush and his administration on Iraq haven't improved since then, either. I'm torn between thinking if we last two more years, we might have someone capable of making better decisions in the Whitehouse and thinking that if things aren't already hopeless, they sure will be by time someone else gets to start making decisions. In fact, by time we swear a new President in, we could have a war in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran, as well. It just keeps getting worse.

 

As the nation stabilizes its democratic ruling and start enforcing the law harder by themselves, insurgency will most likely drop. If the US deprives the Iraqi government of this aid, there is no question about it - Iraq will be destroyed and another dictator will take Saddam's place.

Just look at Afghanistan; the US have been there longer and it is calmer there than it is in Iraq.

from what i have been reading and hearing, iraq has become more lawless and less stabilized as time has gone on. it isn't a question of protecting this developing democracy as it becomes powerful enough to protect its self, it is about waiting for a sign of life from this democracy (i don't consider a country with a military that uses power drills as a tool of interrogations to be a vary democratic place). where are the signs iraq is becoming more stable?

afghanistan did not have an organized insurgency to deal with, so it was a much calmer place to start with

 

[denverdoc]

IMO both were a mistake. Iraq did not have an organized insurgency except insofar as the B'aath party could recollect. I may be wrong but that has not been the significant operating force. Also I disagree with Astronuc, Saddam didn't have to go. Certainly not at the expense of war; I recall Rush L. spouting out that Saddam was killing off his people at 30K/yr. Based on the Lancet report, death rate has only increased.

We tolerate crazies of every stripe, and my pet theory is that he first agreed to a pipeline deal, then reneged, something eerily similar occurred in Afghanistan. I believe its a tale of two pipelines.

This has nothing to do with democracy or repulsion, we helped overthrow in Haiti a democratically elected gpresident for a rabble of known paramilitary nuts, who have taken the country to chaos.


Never ever confuse foreign policy with the good of anybody or anything except US interests. Then it becomes much less quixotic. its not a fight for the repressed, or good, or any hard to quantify variable except our own survival. Any FP neds to have a healthy dose of such, but to pretend benevolence only adds to the victim mindset expressed up above and more frequently in congress--if only they the Iraqi's would do their part... Problem is we have np real understanding of the situation just as Great Britian did in 1920. So we consider them inscrutable, and evil. Old story. Blame the vctim.

 

It just seems that we are damned if we do something and damned if we don't. No matter how we go about it a large percentage of people are going to say we did it the wrong way. I'm even wondering if we shouldn't move towards becoming an isolationist country. Mind our own borders. Let the rest of the world fight out their own problems. Simplistic, I know, but often the simple answer is the best one.

 

[Mallignamius]

It just seems that we are damned if we do something and damned if we don't. No matter how we go about it a large percentage of people are going to say we did it the wrong way. I'm even wondering if we shouldn't move towards becoming an isolationist country. Mind our own borders. Let the rest of the world fight out their own problems. Simplistic, I know, but often the simple answer is the best one.

I remember seeing old news footage of people being asked about the wars in Europe just before WWII broke out. They were saying pretty much the same thing. "Let them fight their own wars."

Our isolation policy didn't last.

 

[denverdoc]

iraq had none either. we have created out of a thin air a whole lot of insurgecy! If you even buythe assumption that we went in to set up democratic system, argument still fkawed,

 

It just seems that we are damned if we do something and damned if we don't. No matter how we go about it a large percentage of people are going to say we did it the wrong way. I'm even wondering if we shouldn't move towards becoming an isolationist country. Mind our own borders. Let the rest of the world fight out their own problems. Simplistic, I know, but often the simple answer is the best one.

there are many people in the middle east and south america would would consider this a godsend.

but american foreign policy is not about doing the 'right' thing or what is best for the world as a whole, it is about doing the most profitable thing for america. the chances of the usa taking up an isolationist policy and giving up the opportunity to extend national interests abroad in the next 50 years is extremely low.