Should We Stay In Iraq?

[Steven]

And I also agree witih Troy.

it's simply not that simple.

I have no idea what to do.

I just wish we were not in this diificult predicament.

[Troy Spiral (13)]

You are completely mischaracterizing this war. Iraq has nothing to do with "terrorism". We choose Iraq as the place to host our war, a war which has nothing to do with Iraq, because Iraq housed a convenient scapegoat named Saddam Hussein. While we realize that our very presence in Iraq means greater unrest in that place with each day, we meanwhile talk about bringing stability and peace to that region, and while we realize that our war needlessly murders hundreds of innocent Iraqi's each month we meanwhile speak of the evils of civilian killing terrorism. -Ironic that we should talk of "freedom seeds", considering that Iraq is merely a third party host to a war which has nothing to do with it.

That is pretty much my impression as well

Actually now paying closer attention... i didn't make any charactization of the war at all in that quote there. All i said was who put S.H. in power has nothing to do with what the best course of action is right now. That doesnt assume any action or summarize the war.

It could be that we should just load up all the troops and get them the hell out of there asap, or it could mean we need to stay over there and do things differently than we are now... i don't know. I don't pretend to.

Often i really do ask questions with a view of being open minded and trying to get at the best answer, rather than having an already formed opinion and piling up stuff to support my entrenched, unchangeable idea.

Which, to be fair i think is one of the few statements i've made that are pretty much a fact , not really an opinion, it doesn't have any spin to it. Its just a statement about what is relevant to the subject at hand.

Similarly "who put the saudi royal family in power has nothing to do with what our middle eastern policy should be in the future" is pretty much just a true statement. No real "spin" there. Unless you read into it something that was not intended. A history lesson going back a hundred years and pointing historical fingers while interesting, just isnt relevant.

Who put Sadam in power is a non issue in terms of what we should do from this date forward with our iraq policy. Its more of a sideshow that takes away from an important decision making process. Oldschool style example of "begging the question." (that is a logic error that throws in an irrelevant issue to help support an argument)

I dont have a preconceived idea about what is the best course of action. I just think i have at least a fairly decent handle on what >isnt

The whole concept behind our involvement in any forgien affair nowadays , unfortunately i think needs to involve the world, not just the U.S. "What is the best course of action, period." not "what is the best course of action for "us"" Im not better than some guy in Iraq becasue i came out of a vagina in detroit.

Does that mean we should, or should not be over there? No. Im not making any judgement either way at the moment, even after a retarded amount of research i dont feel anyone has made a clearly "correct" plan of action. Its to complex an issue. Its not simple. Simple answers usually , only take a few narrow factors into account and assume a lot of things that may or may not be true.

I think much of this thread is not really a response to whats written. Its just us talking at each other and not with each other.

I try not to do that if i dont have to. And since none of what we say here means shit anyhow, we have plenty of time to try and figure out what the "truth" is rather than make some sort of quick-draw answer based on gut feelings or guesses about what the reality of every aspect of this deal is.

[the eternal]

We did what we set out to

WE went in

We toppled Sadam

We disbanded their army (IMO a mistake)

We retrained them

WE equipped their police

We built schools

WE helped them start a government based on democratic principles.

AND

We gave them all the tools and resources to have a peaceful existence.

And there's still chaos

I say proclaim what we've accomplished,

declare victory,

and redploy to the perimeter. NOT LEAVE ENTIRELY

redploy to the perimieter

There are so many other foreign and domestic issues that demand our time and money.

Unfortunately, the neo-con dream of democracy spreading throughout the middle east may not come to pass, but we did our best and it's time to move on.

My biggest fear is that if we stay in there, the only thing we accomplish is more American casualties and islamic hatred.

It's not getting better. It's getting worse. And the longer we stay in the there, this trend will likely continue.

By redeploying to the perimeter we are preventing them from invading other lands or trying to expand their reach in the middle east.

And by leaving the area, we are sending a message that we want to be viewed as liberators not occupiers.

This may restore some much needed trust and respect in the Muslim world.

And besides,

it's a lot harder to recruit terrorists to fight the "evil occupiers" when theyre's no occupation to speak of.