The real reason for the Iraq war???

So do you see ANY PROGRESS AT ALL towards this? I see a steady decline in all phases of the effort. Blind idealism must surrender to reality at some point. Wake up and smell the double latte, martin.

 

We haven't been trying hard all along? What the hell has Bush been doing?

Too little and too late to be my wish. 500,000 troops in 2003 and this situation would be very different. 21,000 troops in 2007 is doomed to failure. The Iraq Study Group says so, the generals say so, and the citizens believe so.

What are these successes that you refer to? Re-opening a few elementary schools?

What change is Bush actually making? It looks like staying the same course to me. We've tried surges before, we've conducted search and destroy operations before, and we've relied on the Iraqi Army before. Bush is actually abdicating to Malaki on this new plan. He's allowing our success or failure to lie in the hands of this Iraqi. How can success be possible?

I tell you one thing, if this "surge" doesn't produce significant results along with its casualties, then the fat lady will sing. Congress, republican and democrat alike, will exercise some serious checks and balances. Bush will be finished domestically and internationally. He's putting his entire legacy and the reputation of this nation on the line here.

I can't for the life of me understand anyone who still believes in this failed policy or this misbegotten president.

 

I would listen to the generals, the Iraq Study Group, our vital allies, the retired presidents, and the citizens that he works for.

Systematic redeployment of combat troops over a period of time. I'd immediately move most of the combat troops to the Iranian and Syrian borders to finally put an end to the infiltration of foreign fighters and munitions into the country. I'd move others, accompanied by engineering, support, and medical units, to Kurdistan, where the people cooperate with us and are not trying to kill our troops. The Kurds have earned our support.

I'd move the rest to Kuwait, where we have safe modern bases. From there they could still protect our allies from any Iranian or Iraqi incursions further south. From there they could still move quickly into Iraq if need be to put pressure on the Iraqis to get their chit together.

I'd immediately stop the endless, dangerous, and fruitless patrolling of the Sunni/Shiite neighborhoods. Let the Sunnis and the Shiites work out their own political differences with no Americans to blame or to attack. Let them establish their own security like every other country in the world does. They can protect their own oil fields and if they want western help in rebuilding,they can protect civiian relief workers. Only Iraqis can stop the ongoing Civil War and we need to quickly get out of it. They either need to band together in our absence and become a unified country or they need to just fight it out and let a winner take control or split into three countries. It's local politics that have been going on for 1,000 years and not in our interests to be involved.

The US can deal with the winner the way we deal with any country--with the carrot and the stick.

Four years of advisory work already has failed to produce a capable police force or a capable army. I think they have to want it themselves and they have to do it their way which may just be to fight it out. If the Sunnis and Shiites sincerely wish to stop the civil war and stop the resistence to the US troops, then I see no problem with remaining in an advisory and training role. But I see no evidence that they are ready, willing, or able to do so. In the absence of such cooperation, better for us to withdraw completely and inform the Iraqis to work it out internal problems themselves and to behave themselves regading foreign relations or the bombers will return. Make them earn the support of the US.

Of course, but it must be balanced against the huge downside of the status quo, which is abyssmal. When you are stuck in a hole, you don't keep digging it deeper. You dig your way out and you fill it in.

Explain this unlimited boost. Be specific. Anti-American organizations hated us before, during, and will hate us after Iraq. Experts agree that the Iraq invasion is perceived as an American attack against Islam and has produced far more enemies than it has elimnated. I fail to see any way at all in which extricating ourselves from this failed policy helps our terrorist enemies. On the contrary, we need to be out of there in order to regain our military strength to deal with the far greater danger posed by traditional enemies with real military forces and nuclear weapons.

This administration is so focused on the scary but tiny threat of terror and the imaginary threat of Iraq that it ignores dangerous and real military threats elsewhere.

Who said anything about home? I advocate redepoying them to other parts of the middle east where they can fight the kind of fight that we are very good at. I also advocate redeployment to deal with Iranian and Korean threats which requires a much bigger military than we now possess. Troops babysitting an Iraqi Civil War is a squandering of our otherwise overhelming power.

All our security issues will not go away if we are mired in Iraq or not. But we could deal with Afghanistan a lot better if the troops were available. You know, fight the terrorists that actuallly attacked us.

There is no democracy anywhere in the Arab world, including our own allies! It is quite probably incompatible with Islam. The current chaos demonstrates why strongman dictators rule there. It is the only thing that can keep the hotheads in order. There is no evidence that a democracy can ever succeed in Iraq. We will eventually end up with a strongman in Iraq and probably a radical islamist dictator instead of the secular tyranny of Saddam.

This is a fool's strategy, my friend. Like Cheney and Bush, you seem to think that all problems can be fixed simply by applying steadfast resolve. Politics and warfare are vastly more complex than that and our leaders are not quick enough, smart enough, or sensible enough to realize it. We must be smarter than the enemy, more nimble, able to exploit an opportunity and to evade a trap. "Onward through the fog" is a poor plan and we have stepped right into every trap.

Yes, he'll follow his course even if it is wrong, even if it is foolish, even if it is doomed, and even if nobody supports him but his wife, his dog and an ardent admirer in Breaux Bridge.

These are good questions SabanFan, and I've made an effort to answer each one. Are you equally willing to answer the questions that I have?

 

Sure, but it could have been done more cheaply and with fewer casualties and without the huge loss of prestige that came with the Iraq debacle.

Salvador Allende was covertly assasinated. Moamar Qadaffi was bombed in his own house and he got religion. Most effective, the US sponsored coups to topple dictators in many countries including Iran, Haiti, Chile, Fiji, etc. There were a number of smarter ways to accomplish this goal.