I've been against this war since before the beginning. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Gonzalez... they all should be brought up on war crimes charges, and sentenced to hang if found guilty. which of course will never happen in a million years. So the fact remains: we're deep in Iraq, and its a fucking mess. How do we get ourselves out it? It's like Colin Powell said back in 2002 about war with Iraq, "You break it, you own it" Iraq sure is fucking broke, and we're the ones who broke it.

anyhow... i found this article and it pretty much sums up the way I think about the whole tragic mess.

Quote :

"Articles of Faith: Getting out of Iraq -- the ethical considerations by Anthony Robinson http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/324495_faith21.html I RECENTLY WROTE in this column on the ethical tradition of "just war." Now, with some members of the president's own political party abandoning him on the Iraq war, and 65 percent of the American public opposing continuation of the war, it's time to ask a different question: What constitutes a just exit from the war in Iraq? Getting out, it seems, is not so simple. The fact that it is in many ways much easier to get into such a war than to get out of one may be one of this war's chief lessons. What are the ethical considerations involved in withdrawal? Though I have opposed this war, I recognize, as do many on both sides, that withdrawal carries its own hazards. Is the presence of American troops fueling the fire in Iraq or is it the finger in the dike against an even more horrific disaster? I am not sure it is possible to know the answer to that question. Opponents of a withdrawal date argue that setting a date only emboldens insurgents. But such a date also might embolden Iraqi leaders to bridge their differences and support a government of national reconciliation. This hope justifies setting a date for withdrawal and following through. In addition to the ethics of this basic question, four other matters must be addressed if America decides to exit Iraq. First, what is owed by the U.S. to those Iraqis who have cast their lot with the U.S.? What of those who have worked for America and Americans or fought alongside us? Is the U.S. prepared to ensure that they are not left high and dry? A related part of this equation is the nearly 2 million refugees who have fled Iraq because of the war. What happens to them? The United States has incurred a moral obligation to its Iraqi supporters and refugees. Second, what are our responsibilities to our own troops? Already there has been concern about their medical care. Because of the nature of this conflict, many returning troops come home with devastating injuries that will be with them for a very long time. What kinds of continuing care, as well as support for soldiers suffering post-traumatic stress disorder, will there be? Will support last as long as soldiers' wounds? And what of the psychological issues for soldiers dealing with an ambiguous war, a war that ends inconclusively, possibly much worse? Third, there's our obligation to the people of Iraq. Some may say, "Well, we got rid of Saddam, now let them figure it out." They will have to figure it out. But are we willing, when and if there is a stable government, to assist in reconstruction? I think we're obligated to do so. The lesson we try to teach our children is that there are consequences for the choices we make. Fourth, perhaps toughest of all, we have to try and figure out the lessons of this war. Doing that requires that we're a lot more honest with ourselves in our postwar assessment than we proved to be in the prewar run-up when we were still smarting from 9/11. We are due an apology from the president for a war conceived falsely, planned poorly and managed badly. Since that isn't likely to happen, how about if, from among the legions of politicians, pundits and citizens who supported the war but now think they made a mistake, a representative but reputable group is chosen to review it and come up with "the moral and political lessons of the Iraq war." Ask Tom Friedman and Christopher Hitchens to be co-chairmen. If there's to be any healing, any hope, Americans will need to soberly face what has happened and why. The worst thing would be if we washed our hands and said, "OK, that's done, we gave those Iraqis a chance and they blew it, we're out of there." Maybe they did blow it, but they had help. We blew it, too. Surely one of the lessons of the Iraq war is what happens when an administration politicizes everything it does. When gaining and holding onto political power trumps truth and a sober estimate of national interest, we are in danger -- and not from terrorists abroad."

7/22/2007 12:41:45 AM

Its good to see people actually considering the ramifications of exit. I mean, eventually most Americans are going to leave Iraq, what do we do? That being said:

Quote :

"Opponents of a withdrawal date argue that setting a date only emboldens insurgents. But such a date also might embolden Iraqi leaders to bridge their differences and support a government of national reconciliation. This hope justifies setting a date for withdrawal and following through."

People who put forward this argument severely underestimate the depth at which the rivalries propelling these factions run.

What good is a date anyway? If we're going to leave, why not just as soon as possible? Accepting that it will take on the order of 20 months to extract all our forces from Iraq, how do you justify a politically set goal of 24 months?

I dunno, the date just always seemed stupid to me.

7/22/2007 12:58:02 AM

well, at some point we're going to have to announce our departure, or at least a significant reduction in force.

but yeah, i'm not a big supporter of putting a date on it right now. i'm somewhat inclined to agree with the folks who want to give the "surge" more time.

not because i'm confident in GWB's ability to think his way out of a paper bag, but only because of all the people who have been killed or permanently injured so far fighting for.... for what? hell, i dont even know, really .

but all the effort the military has gone through to take back territory, and all the iraqis who have sealed their fate by working with the US troops... to give up now, just seems perverse.

i dont fucking know anymore.

all i know is this is the biggest mistake since at least Vietnam, and the evil motherfuckers who sold this war to us need to be held accountable and pay for their crimes.

7/22/2007 1:17:40 AM

Quote :

"i dont fucking know anymore."

thats about right.

I just don't see a publicly announced date offering any strategic or tactical advantage. This doesn't mean that our presence should be construed as indefinite.

7/22/2007 1:26:19 AM

"You break it, you own it" is a catch phrase, not a foundation for any policy we should undertake. We've been in tougher situations, we've made tougher withdrawals from bigger conflicts, and we were better for it.

Dire, chicken-little predictions never came true because the catchphrase-level reasoning on which they were based failed to capture the complex forces that shape history. Acting on this kind of nonsense is never a good idea.

The best we can do is forget sunk costs and make decisions that are best for ourselves based on solid evidence about the foreseeable future. Our track record at trying to orchestrate some utopian outcome in countries that we don't give a shit about is so horrible, it's laughable than anyone thinks we can still do it.

7/22/2007 2:00:17 AM

fuck you.

"You break it, you own it" is not just a catchphrase.

it's a moral imperative.

we have totally broke a country, a functioning sovereign nation, and directly and indirectly caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, uncounted permanent injuries, devastated an entire national infrastructure, displaced millions of people to living as refugees, and turned the entire country into the worst place to live second only to The fucking Sudan.

weve destabilized a functioning and stable country into a warzone bordering on genocide and sectarian civil war. that is, in my book, fucking "Broken".

*WE* did it, and so it's on *US* to see that it gets returned to some semblance of normalcy.

and unfortunately i dont have any confidence in this administration to get us out of the mess that they have gotten us into.





[Edited on July 22, 2007 at 2:10 AM. Reason : ]

7/22/2007 2:08:29 AM

Fuck me? I'm not the one supporting the position that will continue to destroy the country.

This is a classic situation where the self-righteous do-gooder can't see that they are doing more harm than good. Ultimately, the self-righteous person doesn't really care about doing good, he only cares about making himself feel better. He wants a pat on the back. In the end, the person being "helped" ends up worse off.

As has been shown by the overwhelming history of the world, significant political, social, and economic change and improvement has to come from indigenous sources. The sooner we stop shielding the Iraqis from the pressure and threats stimulate people to act in their own best interests, the better off they will be. As long as we are "helping" them, Iraqis will not take ownership of their own problems and do what it takes to achieve fundamental, indigenous advancement.

This kind of policy is supremely devious, and its the kind of policy that has earned us a lot of ill will over the last 50 years.

[Edited on July 22, 2007 at 2:33 AM. Reason : And its classic bleeding heart/neocon emotional claptrap.]

7/22/2007 2:25:44 AM

Quote :

""You break it, you own it" is a catch phrase, not a foundation for any policy we should undertake. "

Quote :

"This is a classic situation where the self-righteous do-gooder can't see that they are doing more harm than good."

Quote :

"As long as we are "helping" them, Iraqis will not take ownership of their own problems and do what it takes to achieve fundamental, indigenous advancement."

Quote :

"its the kind of policy that has earned us a lot of ill will over the last 50 years."

7/22/2007 3:00:11 AM

seriously i think george bush since he fucked us this bad should just launch an icbm right before he's removed from office and make a nice glass bowl of oil there.

i'm sick of iraq he's fucked us soooo hard with this bull shit its not even funny... finish it and take your genocide jail time like a man you pussy.

7/22/2007 3:02:57 AM

maybe i'll go through this thread and post more later

for now, i'll just say that i'm right with JCASHFAN, and surprisingly enough, in agreement on a majority of things with joe_schmoe.

7/22/2007 4:33:52 AM

U.S. General Says Troops Need Time to Succeed
By JOHN F. BURNS of The New York Times
Published: July 15, 2007

Quote :

"BAGHDAD, July 15 — An American general directing a major part of the offensive aimed at securing Baghdad said Sunday that it would take until next spring for the operation to succeed, and that an early American withdrawal would clear the way for 'the enemy to come back' to areas now being cleared of insurgents. Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commanding 15,000 American and about 7,000 Iraqi troops on Baghdad’s southern approaches, spoke more forcefully than any American commander to date in urging that the so-called troop surge ordered by President Bush continue into the spring of 2008. That would match the deadline of March 31 set by the Pentagon, which has said that limits on American troops available for deployment will force an end to the increase by then. 'It’s going to take us through the summer and fall to deny the enemy his sanctuaries' south of Baghdad, General Lynch said at a news briefing in the Iraqi capital. 'And then it’s going to take us through the first of the year and into the spring' to consolidate the gains now being made by the American offensive and to move enough Iraqi forces into the cleared areas to ensure that they remain so, he said. The general spoke as momentum is gathering in Congress for an early withdrawal date for the 160,000 American troops, as well as an accelerated end to the troop buildup, which have increased American combat casualties in the past three months to the highest levels of the war. In renewed debate over the past week, Congressional opponents of the war have demanded a withdrawal deadline, with some proposing that Congress use its war-appropriations powers to end the troop increase much sooner, possibly this fall. General Lynch, a blunt-spoken, cigar-smoking Ohio native who commands the Third Infantry Division, said that all the American troops who began an offensive south of Baghdad in mid-June are part of the five-month-old troop buildup, and that they were making 'significant' gains in areas that were previously enemy sanctuaries. Pulling back before the job was completed, he said, would create 'an environment where the enemy could come back and fill the void.' He implied that an early withdrawal would amount to an abandonment of Iraqi civilians who he said have rallied in support of the American and Iraqi troops, and would leave the civilians exposed to renewed brutalities by extremist groups. 'When we go out there, the first question they ask is, "Are you staying?" ' , he said. 'And the second question is, "How can we help?" '. He added, 'What we hear is, "We’ve had enough of people attacking our villages, attacking our homes, and attacking our children."' General Lynch said his troops had promised local people that they would stay in the areas they had taken from the extremists until enough Iraqi forces were available to take over, and said this had helped sustain 'a groundswell' of feeling against the extremists. He said locals had pinpointed hideouts of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, an extremist group that claims to ties to Osama bin Laden, that have been used to send suicide bombers into Baghdad, helped troops locate 170 large arms caches. The general also said the locals had founded new neighborhood patrol units called 'Iraqi provincial volunteers' that supplied their own weapons and ammunition. The general declined to be drawn into what he called 'the big debate in Washington' over the war, saying American troops would continue to battle the enemy until ordered to do otherwise. But he made it clear that his sympathies lay with the Iraqis in his battle area, covering an area about the size of West Virginia, mostly between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, that extends about 80 miles south of Baghdad and includes four of Iraq’s 18 provinces. The offensive he commands is part of a wider push by American and Iraqi forces in all the areas surrounding Baghdad, and in the capital itself, that began in February. 'What they’re worried about is our leaving,' he said. 'And our answer is, "We’re staying", because my order from the corps commander is that we don’t leave the battle space until we can hand over to the Iraqi security forces.' To hold recent gains, he said, would require at least a third more Iraqi troops than he now has, and they would have to come from other battle areas, or from new units yet to complete their training. 'Everybody wants things to happen overnight, and that’s not going to happen,' he said. General Lynch’s outspoken approach contrasted with the more cautious remarks made recently by other senior American officers, including the top American commander here, Gen. David H. Petraeus. General Petraeus has said in recent interviews that the troop buildup had made substantial gains. But he has declined to say whether he will urge a continuation of it when he returns to Washington by mid-September to make a report on the war to President Bush and Congress that was made mandatory by war-appropriations legislation this spring. General Lynch said he was 'amazed' at the cooperation his troops were encountering in previously hostile areas. He cited the village of Al Taqa, near the Euphrates about 20 miles southwest of Baghdad, where four American soldiers were killed in an ambush on May 12 and three others were taken hostage. One of the hostages was later found dead, leaving two soldiers missing. Brig. Gen. Jim Huggins, a deputy to General Lynch, said an Iraqi commander in the area had told him on Saturday that women and children in the village had begun using plastic pipes to tap on streetlamps and other metal objects to warn when extremists were in the area planting roadside bombs and planning other attacks. 'The tapping,' General Huggins said, was a signal that 'these people have had enough.' General Lynch also challenged another argument often made by American lawmakers who want to end the military involvement in Iraq here soon: that Iraqi troops have ducked much of the hard fighting, and often proved unreliable because of the strong sectarian influence exercised by the competition for power between Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish political factions. 'I don’t know,' he said, how American war critics had concluded that the new American-trained Iraqi Army was not up to the fight. 'I find that professionally offensive,' he said, after noting that there were 'many Iraqi heroes' of the fighting south of Baghdad. 'They’re competent. There’s just not enough of them,' he said. General Lynch said that he and other American commanders were worried that extremist groups under attack by the additional American forces might retaliate with a spectacular, focused attack on American troops aimed at tipping the argument in Washington in favor of withdrawal. He cited what happened in South Vietnam in January 1968, when coordinated attacks by enemy troops, including one on the American embassy in Saigon, helped push President Lyndon B. Johnson into abandoning attempts to win the war. 'We’re concerned about some kind of Tet offensive that’s going to affect the debate in Washington,' the general said [emphasis added]."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/world/middleeast/16cnd-commander.html?hp

We cannot simply abandon these people--for their sake, the sake of the region, and our sake. BTW, John Burns is widely considered to be the best print journalist on the ground in Iraq.

[Edited on July 22, 2007 at 7:47 AM. Reason : .]

7/22/2007 7:44:51 AM

We should pull out and pay them reparations.

7/22/2007 8:34:04 AM

"i'm somewhat inclined to agree with the folks who want to give the "surge" more time...only because of all the people who have been killed or permanently injured so far fighting for.... for what? hell, i dont even know, really"

This made me think of the last section of this clip with Mike Gravel.

Quote :

"You here this statement "well my god these soldiers will have died in vain." The entire deaths of Vietnam died in vain, and they are dying in vain right this very second. And you know what’s worse than a soldier dying in vain? It's more soldiers dying in vain."

He comes across as a little loony and is one of the farthest left guys out there, but he’s been around since Vietnam War which he opposed.

The article this thread starts off about addresses learning lessons from Iraq, but a lot of the war related legislation that this guy help put in place after & b/c of Vietnam was thrown out to allow for the Iraq War. As crazy as this guy can come across, I still think that gives him a little credit & room to speak on this issue.




It's not like having an exit strategy means pulling out all at once, or completely, or without some measures in place to still pursue our goals in the region. I wont post the video or all the discussion again since I already did so in the "How do we fix Iraq" thread, but here's some of the Edwards plan from when he was addressing the Council on Foreign Relations.

Quote :

"“We need to get out of Iraq on our time table, not when we are forced to by our enemies or by events.” ”As a recent council report put it, the US has already achieved what it’s likely to achieve in Iraq. And staying in Iraq can only drive up the price of those gains” ”In Congress and the Whitehouse the focus has been on when to get out, how to get out, and how quickly to get out. Too little consideration has been given to what happens after we get out.” ”I believe that once we’re out of Iraq the US must retain sufficient forces in the region to prevent a genocide, to detour a regional spillover of the civil war, and to prevent an Al Qaeda safe haven.” ”We will most likely need to retain quick reaction troops in Kuwait and in the Persian Gulf. We’ll also need some presence in Baghdad, inside the green zone, to protect the American Embassy and other personal.” ”Finally we’ll need a diplomatic offensive to engage the rest of the world in Iraq’s future: including Middle Eastern nations & our allies in Europe.” On this point he’s said that may mean not being inflexibly closed to engaging with regional neighbors like Iran & Syria pointing out that they both have interests in a stable Iraq. He’s also talked about combining a mission focused on training Iraqi’s with showing we’re actually going to leave by starting to withdrawal some troops."

7/22/2007 9:43:16 AM

Quote :

""You break it, you own it" is a catch phrase, not a foundation for any policy we should undertake."

"You break, it you own it" was spoken by one of the more experienced and intelligent members of Bush's cabinet who left / was pushed out, essentially because the rest of them are a bunch of boobs.

Moral ramifications aside, Vietnam and Korea hold little to no geographic significance either by virtue of their position on the surface of the earth or on what is beneath it. To leave Iraq with a power vaccum next to a very large, very armed Shiite Persian neighbor to the east and a large, western supplied Sunni Arab neighbor to the south is far more critical to our, and the worlds, interests. Sure, when the Stonecutters quit holding back the electric car and petroleum products are a thing of a past we can leave them to it, but for the time being . . .

7/22/2007 10:29:03 AM

Quote :

"When gaining and holding onto political power trumps truth and a sober estimate of national interest, we are in danger -- and not from terrorists abroad."

couldn't have been said better

7/22/2007 4:20:17 PM