Stop everyone from trying to call our troops home before mission is done

Okay, thanks for the heads up. Could you tell me how many have to die before we leave?

I can tell from your post 2000 is not enough. I'd just like to be prepared.

Well, according to my government funded education, these countries lost WWII and had their governments installed by the Allies.

and they rated the customer service 5 gold stars

That's what I hear.

Nope. They just knocked about 300,000 users off the program

Okay, I ask everyone that wants troops in Iraq to figure out three things.

1. What was the mission when we went into Iraq? Was the mission to make Iraq like Iran?

2. Did England make Iraq a democracy long before we tried to?

3. Is the current government forming from the democracy showing signs of being better than the former goverment that formed out of a democracy?

Yours is one of the more sensible opinions I've heard and I suspect close to what a lot of people think. I'm pissed off that we went, but having removed Hussein I think we have an obligation to stabilize Iraq as much as we can while the Iraquis pick their own leaders. To leave a power vacuum would be an additional offense.

There are no simple answers other than to not have gotten involved in the first place.

The Iraqies(sp?) can not pick their own leaders. That is the point. The point is that the country has been created in a broken way in the first place. The point is that we are making the same mistake England did. You are right that we should set things right, but the way things are going are not much different than if we just pulled out now. If we must stay, lets at least have a different outcome than if we just let Iran take over.

A crazy man with a sledgehammer bursts into your home and starts wrecking all your stuff.
When he's done wrecking all your stuff, he says he's going to stay and help you clean up the mess and he won't take no for an answer.

What do you do?

Thats a bad analogy and it doesn't fit the situation in Iraq

I suppose the best option would be for the US & GBR to leave Iraq and have UN troops from other countries step in while the US pays for their equipment and costs of operations, as well as the costs of reconstruction. I know that would never happen.

What would you do?

There are a couple things that make me angry about this statement, so it is hard for me to post on it. I have seen so many of my friends injured for the rest of their lives in Afghanistan from explosives. They aren't dead, but they will never be the same again. To make it worse, many of these people were treated horribly after they were injured. Leadership acts like the people are trying to pull a fast one on everyone. Alot of them not only got blown up, but had a large amount of legal issues as leadership busted them down in rank and tried to get them court martialed after they were sent back home. Granted most of them end up breaking rules when they get sent home, but part of the reason rules get broken is that they do not include enough consideration for the changes medical problems can cause in a persons performance in the Army. Some consideration is made, but in my opinion not enough. The kiss of death in the military today is to need medical attention. Death is not the only problem facing our soldiers.

Second, many people say they support our troops, but they have no idea what is going on. If you support your troops, then you should study the situation in Iraq and learn why it is the way it is. You should learn what Sunni Islam is. You should learn what Shi'a Islam is. You should learn who the Kurds are. You should learn why Kuwait was formed. You should learn why Iraq and Iran fought. You should learn what Iran is doing now that Iraq is forming a democracy. You should learn about the democracy that formely existed in Iraq. You should learn why Saddam was considered a lesser of two evils. You should at least learn the minimal history it takes to understand the situation. Why is it important that you know these things, because your goverment has occupied and taken control of this country by force. Your government is using morality as a justification for its actions. If you don't know anything about the situation, no matter what the government tells you, you will think the action is right. If you are going to back or oppose the government. At least learn what is going on.

I get very angry talking about this. It is why I delete most of my posts about it. My only wish is that people would at least take the time to learn something about what is going on, so we don't have people taking the stance that our troops are in Iraq to rid it of the evil of Saddam. I want people to get some idea about the messy situation, and I wish the general public had more knowledge to allow them to challenge the way our current government is approaching the situation.

Who provided the intelligence data that led to the war? The Bush administration did. Who lied to the UN about weapons of mass destruction? Colin Powell. Who provided the Senate with cherry-picked intelligence that somehow failed to mention the utter unreliability of the sources? The Bush administration. And even if you continue to believe that the President and his staff actually believed in weapons of mass destruction, they were WRONG. They were WRONG. Bush led us into a war based either on faulty intelligence or on outright lies. So it was either a colossal blunder or disastrous deception. These are the only two choices, they knew the intelligence was bad, and they lied, or they didn't know and they're incompetent. Either way thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis have died.

"If this was a push for oil, we could just as easily taken over Iran for this..." WTF? Just as easily? It has been easy? You're wrong on two counts. 1-- It has been very difficult, not easy so far, and the chances of success for the US in Iraq are not good. 2-- Iran, unlike Iraq, had not been subjected to a decade of sanctions that crippled the Hussein regime. If you think that we could have invaded Iran and toppled the government as quickly as we did Hussein's cronies you obviously have no idea what you're talking about. You should probably apply for a position in the White House, they're looking for people just like you.

And to end this, I'm sure that the families of our men and women over there are comforted by an increase in the life insurance payoffs. Less than half a million, I get more from my job and I'm not putting my life on the line for my country. Chicken hawk administration likes to talk tough, but not follow it up with really providing for our troops and their families. What are the benefits for the Haliburton employees over there? I'll bet they have at least million dollar life insurance policies. George Bush and cronies will spend billions on outside contractors who are employed by companies they're connected with, but money for armor and medical care for the troops can't be found.

It's not cowardice to admit the US has made a grave mistake. Cowardice is not facing reality. Cowardice is not firing and or trying the incompetents who created this disaster in the first place.

The Japanese had no history of democracy before the US occupied Japan. The Germans had a limited history of democratic rule, the Weimar Republic between the two world wars, and Italy had various forms of democratic rule in some regions since the middle ages.

The bigger question is, does the situation at the end of WWII apply to the Middle East today? No. Not at all. Firstly, the war in Iraq isn't over. Secondly, the US has not devoted the resources necessary to be successful militarily as we did in WWII. Thirdly, Iraq, unlike Germany, Japan and Italy, is a historical fiction. It is not a real country. It was the creation of the Allies after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in WWI. The US has to, not only, create a democracy in a place that has no history of it, but also to create a nation out of three former Ottoman provinces that have been held together by force since the Ottoman Empire was dismembered. It was the poor planning of the British after WWI that created the modern Middle East. The artificial dividing lines drawn by the Allies created unstable states that could only be held together by force. Look at Lebanon, Syria, and the Israeli-Palestinian mess. Not to mention the inherent instability of Jordan or Egypt. Al-Qaeda's solution is the recreation of the Caliphate, a single Arab-Muslim state across the whole region. The US plan is to implement democracy in each of these unstable political units. Neither has a good chance of success. A radical redrawing of the borders in the Middle East, democratic governments in each of the new states and a loose federal union stretching from the Iran border to Egypt might work. But you'd have to convince the people of the Middle East first.

Yes, Michael. This is the truth of the matter, except that you are too kind to the British. My understanding is that it was not incompetence. It was deliberate. Such an unstable state is easier to control, finds it more difficult to unite against its occupier, etc. The Kurds had to be artificially cut in three for the same reason, and the equally artificial creation of the State of Kuwait, with a totally Brit-invented monarchy, was deliberately to weaken Iraq by reducing its access to the sea.

The Brits did it. They did it on purpose, to enhance their mastery. The borders should be redrawn, as you say, but there are difficulties. A middle Sunni statelet would collapse in penury, with no geographic share of the oil (hence the disagreements over the constitution). Turkey fears rebellion from its third of the Kurds, and has threatened violence against any new Iraqi-Kurd statelet, whose oil they also doubtless covet. And as for the other third of the Kurds, in Iran, who knows ?

The Brits, and others, did the same in Africa. Create national boundaries deliberately violating tribal and religious geography, to ensure decades of future difficulty and conflict.

Why is that a bad analogy?

Your serious?

No. I posted my question because I'm kidding.
Of course I'm serious.

Alright then... heh heh

You first must state the the crazy man gave you this house and gave you the power to control those that dwell or frequent it.

Next you have to say that the owner has not only beaten and killed those that live and frequent said house, but has done the same to his neighbors, as well as threatening other homes around him. And you must also say that the owner has made public statements against and further threatened the man with the seldge hammer.

Next you have to recognize that the owner at one time owned WMD's that the man with the sledgehammer gave him. Further you must admit that the neighbors have all reported publically to the neighborhood that they believe that said owner is currently working on a WMD program and has stockpiles of such.

Then you have to have sledgehammer man get attacked in his own home....

Man, if you don't get the differences, I am not willing to take the time to explain it. It seems painfully obvious to me...

But, I still am not saying that I say that the seldgehammer man did not have other alternatives to striking said home...

It's hard to come up with a best solution at this point because it's a cocked up mess. More international involvement in getting the infrastructure up and running, transitioning government and policing to Iraqis would be a good start. An intelligent plan to phase out U.S. involvement.

Are you serious, Kurgan ? I think the analogy of the crazy hammer man who insists on helping you clear up does encapsulate significant aspects of the situation. Though really he insists you let his friends clear up, and insists on you going into debt to pay them ludicrous wages.

Just try to EMPATHISE for a second, Kurgan. Reverse the roles in your mind. Your America has been invaded after several million of your children were "sanctioned" to death (though it was "worth it". The invaders have removed a crazed dictator who they had previously installed and funded as your president. At first you were warily hopeful, because his inhouse behaviour was truly appalling, but you learn that the accusations they made against him internationally (the reason they gave for coming) were lies. Their soldiers patrol your streets, day and night, flying foreign flags, talking a foreign language, purveying an alien religion, killing anyone they suspect of anything and occasionally mass-bombing in apparent disregard of civilian casualties. You never dreamed at the beginning so many more of you would die and be maimed. Then you notice that the reconstruction work is being mainly farmed out to their own people, at obscene rates of pay, and that your country is incurring debts so huge that your oil revenue is mopped up for years to come.

How do you feel, Kurgan? I mean, really, how do you feel . Please, make the effort. Tanks in the street of your home town. YOUR OWN HOME TOWN. Muslim tanks, Muslim flags. In America. On your soil. hugely rich compared with you. Driving about as if they own it. Do you smile gratefully, and bury a few more of your family ?

If only more people would make this imaginative leap to the reverse situation, then many of these terrible situations could be prevented. All evil needs is a failure of empathy, though a bit of self-righteousness helps too.

When you recall that we installed the Iraqi dictator, armed and funded him, gave him poison gas. When you recall the violence and destruction we have wreaked in removing this same dictator. Then the words "crazed" and "sledgehammer" don't seem so inappropriate after all.

But not exactly by the man with the house (the *other* house). Sledghammer man decides to attack house man anyway because house man is an easy target, and to instill fear of the sledgehammer to house man's neighbors.

Some of house man's children want sledgehammer man to help, others do not. Those who do not try to sabotage everything sledgehammer man does. Sledgehammer man is very frustrated. If sledgehammer man leaves, he's afraid the house man's children will fight each other and leave the house in ruins. If sledgehammer man stays, the children will fight him and the house may never be rebuilt.

What should sledgehammer man do?

Umm, you missed the part where the neighbors said that they were opposed to the invasion. Oh, and the part where the neighbors were wrong about the WMD stockpiles and programs. Oh, and the part where the neighbors got their intelligence from the US in the first place. Oh, and the part where Iran, Syria, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are reliable sources for, oh, say anything? The only democracy bordering Iraq is Turkey. And Turkey was opposed to the war. Turkey, a member of NATO and a close US ally was opposed to invading its neighbor Iraq.

I agree strongly here. This is the main "leap of imagination" Americans fail to make. The problem is that most Americans don't know anything about Iraq. The president used "evil" and "Weapons of Mass Destruction" as a reason for invasion. This is horrible. You have the leader of a country speaking to a mass of people that know almost nothing about Iraqi history giving the short answer of evil as the reason for invasion. Who can be against the destruction of evil? You must be a bad person if you don't want evil to be destroyed. In the end I think the American public doesn't care though. They like to look all good with their yellow ribbon magnets on their car. They like to wave their little American flag and pretend that America automatically stands for everything good and just in the world. They don't care about how many Iraqi people die, they only care about how many American soldiers died, because they are the only good guys anyway. They like to ignore the fact that America is the country that historically used weapons of mass destruction to kill civilians. *cough* Japan *cough* *cough* It is hard to get through to some people though. They are blinded by their American flag colored glasses. People need to find out what is actually going on, so that when elections for government officials come around for all levels of government, we can be informed on the impact our government officials are going to have by their decisions. For the most part, it is already too late. I wish it wasn't.

No he didn't. He's just one of many men that have come into my home with sledgehammers over the years --and frankly I'm getting tired of it.




Closer would be to say that I'm an abused wife. He kidnapped my abusive husband who was paying the rent --and killed my children, and started raping and torturing my cats. Then he started breaking all my stuff and saying he'd fix it when he's done breaking stuff --but it's been well over a year now.



But I lived here with my children and WE knew he didn't have them.



Yes --the guy down the street (who I don't even like) attacked the man with the sledgehammer. Why does the guy down the street get off scott free and the man with the sledgehammer is in MY house.




That's because you haven't really looked at the situation.



Sure he did. The man with the sledgehammer had already made my abusive boyfriend lose his job and his self-respect. I was getting around to throwing him out once I was sure the kids were safe -- ya know he could have really helped more by giving me and my kids jobs and stuff --and then WTF!!! He runs into my house with a Sledgehammer screaming Shock and Awe Shock and Awe!! Now I can't get rid of the fucker.

All this is true. But this goes WAY beyond my original point. A statment was made (not by you) saying, essentially, that a successful democracy has never been implemented by force. There were no "qualifiers" to this statement.

I disagreed with that statement, and pointed out several examples of cases where force was clearly involved in setting up what came to be successful democracies. That's all.