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Iraq Pullout
electricitylikesme
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Brown pulls troops out of Basra centre
The British are scaling back their involvement in Basra, citing that their presence was basically a magnet for attacks. I'm wondering if this same reduction doctrine won't be adopted in other areas by the US to reduce troop numbers in the lead up to a full withdrawal, especially with congress pushing somewhat for a token reduction in troop numbers.
Equally though, I do wonder how much reductions of in-country forces in a phased way might screw those remaining for man-power.
Thoughts? Reactions?
The British are scaling back their involvement in Basra, citing that their presence was basically a magnet for attacks. I'm wondering if this same reduction doctrine won't be adopted in other areas by the US to reduce troop numbers in the lead up to a full withdrawal, especially with congress pushing somewhat for a token reduction in troop numbers.
Equally though, I do wonder how much reductions of in-country forces in a phased way might screw those remaining for man-power.
Thoughts? Reactions?
electricitylikesme on
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Despite the obvious risk of not having enough manpower to handle what is going on, I'm thinking sending some troops home would be wise. There is a possibility it could diffuse a bit of the hornet's nest situation, and I think any kind of surge would instigate things further until we're in the same situation but to a greater degree.
Secondly, hehe, you said pullout.
What happens when the 19 year old extremist muslim, who was afraid to fight against these 2 largest forces, sees that these 2 largest forces just got repelled out of a country because of a bunch of insurgents?
Pulling out of Iraq isnt because we are losing the firefights, or losing the battles, we are losing the war. Thats the problem when fighting guerillas, and insurgents. You cant just capture territory, and take down a standing army. The guy you passed on the street yesterday, picked up an AK and is your enemy today. We arent losing due to superior warfighting, we are losing due to attrition.
I would imagine that when the largest military in the world leaves town, that the kid who was on the fence about fighting wont be on the fence anymore. He will see it the way the extremists see it. "Oh look through the grace of Allah, we have destroyed the Americans and sent them running scared."
Which would then embolden them, and create more potential enemies, right?
Or I could just be stupid.
Also, Cango, the problem with your theory is that the extremist muslim wants to die for Allah so he can go get his 72 virgins, so the prospect of death doesn't really dissuade him.
This.
Because, you know, sticking around and killing people's friends and relatives is definitely not a way to push people who are on the fence into violent extremism, right? No. Certainly not. Certainly if we appear steadfast, as we have for four years now, people will stop wanting to fight us in all our Western might, right?
Oh. Wait.
There's more terrorist activity and extremism in Iraq now than there was before. Right. I forgot.
Seriously, do you think? Ever?
He's got a sort-of point, though, and I'm of the opinion that it's likely that we're kind of fucked on that front either way (which of course means we should pull out, if only to stop getting our people killed for no good Goddamn reason).
More on topic: Basra is well and truly fucked anyway if the guys I talked to weren't exaggerating. I honestly doubt that there's much that can be done anymore.
Due to a lack of investigative journalism, one sometimes has to leap to his own conclusions.
I watched "The War Tapes" a while back, and since then I haven't been able to get the idea out of my head that even the soldiers who are there think the war is just about "Oil and Money", their words.
On the tapes there are many scenes showing KBR Group convoys being hit with IEDs. (As a side note, it's seems to me that the KBR Group is actually getting quite a bit of free security detail from the US military) Let's set aside for a moment the idea of "Radicalism", and for the sake of argument, let's for a second assume that there are some people, labeled as "insurgents" , that are capable of rational thought. Assuming that is the case, what would be the Rational thought process involved in trying to blow up a convoy of Food/Sundries/Building Supplies that are destined to your city? A modern day Boston Tea party comes to mind...
It has been said that we are there to give them Freedom? At the end of the day, it seems like that is exactly what we are taking away from them. We are taking Freedom of Choice, and the freedoms that we hold so dear of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness . In stead we are giving them a brand of institutionalized consumerism.
So yeah, pullout, fucking pullout now.
I am curious because I don't know enough about the issue. It seems like a reasonable thing to ask, though.
I'm guessing the Bush Admin, still wants to cement their own govt. in Iraq before the '08 elections. They still have the time. You have to figure it will still be another year or 2 after that before we are officially out. (Even if that means still having a permanent base there) That should be enough time to get Key officials to be in place to maintain a revenue flow into Haliburton well after our occupation.
Why does the President hate Freedom? Why does the President hate America?
Bush is talking about pulling out? Oh wow, I didn't read the headlines today...
Well looks like they have one city suckling the teet, onto the next one!
Or, how come you're doing this so close to the election?
A year away?
We just really, really like the Iraqis, so we needed a big one.
In fairness, all I've heard is a "reduction in forces." Which could, of course, just mean back to pre-surge levels (like 100K-130K).
Oh, and CangoFett's entire argument is pretty silly. Because by that logic we need to stay until there are no longer extremists in Iraq who hate us. Which quite simply will never happen. So he's arguing for an indefinite occupation. I'm not wild about the idea of my great-grandchildren pulling tours in Iraq. What we need to do is face the fact that we got ourselves into a conflict where A) there's little chance of any "actual" victory, and
I'm not saying there is one. I'm just saying an "official pullout" could still include a military presence. As in are we still occupying Germany? No. Are we still there? Yeah.
I would assume we will have a presence in Iraq and Afghanistan for a long time.
And yes Thin, we love them...
EDIT: I'm going to lunch. You've got about an hour and a half to side track this...
This is the quote people are talking about. Which is vague as hell and does not actually say when this will be, could be in a month could be in a year. Could be when the next president comes in.
Im' not seeing any arguing at all McDermott. He makes a fair point, but the fact of the matter is that no matter what we do we will be emboldening and creating new enemies. Those factors are beyond our consideration and control at this point, because both of these things happen whether we stay or leave. Its not grounds to call someone an idiot when they make a fair observation.
Pulling out will embolden terrorism, just as staying will embolden terrorism. It is past the time to pretend that our withdrawal presents a perfect solution, but it may be our best option.
There is no cure all, not even withdrawal
To borrow a Jon Stewart gag, these Iraqi terrorists must be the boldest motherfuckers on the face of the planet.
We can laugh at the portrayal of power in society--and pretend that grandiose hubris and gesture mean nothing--but is not something that everyone (especially young middle-eastern men) ignore in totality.
However, like I said, we're fucked either way
Seems to me that you're pretty guilty of trying to place western values on a people who are very much not western. A modern day Boston Tea Party this is not. There is no higher goal of liberty or freedom there, beyond freedom from the American occupation. Hell, the goal of many groups in Iraq now is total hegemony, whether racial, religious or what have you. This is, in fact, completely opposite to anything that the Boston Tea Party came to symbolise. You're just idealising attempts to get rid of an occupying power for no real reason here. And you don't make much sense, either. The only right the American occupation took away was the right not to get shot or blown up. And even then, that's not exactly a right the Iraqi people often had anyway. And which insurgents are you empathising with anyway? There's so damn many, with such different goals, that you're going to need to specify before anyone figures out which groups exactly you're empathising with.
My view is that since the war is a shoddy, criminal mess anyway, leading to not much other than loss of life, there is no need to romanticise the actions of the insurgency, with claims of liberty, freedom and a Boston Tea Party of their own. It rings frivolous and hollow. The truth, that different groups in the country, all of whom hate each other with burning passion, are acting together, and not even that, to get rid of an occupying force which they see as an imperialistic power, is much less soppy than you make it out to be.
And once they do get rid of the Yanks, they will gladly, and with some satisfaction, proceed to rip each other's throats out. And with that, I guess, some groups will have your pursuit of happiness, as they install Islamic hegemony or kill off all the wrong kinds of muslim. So please, cut the idealised, romaticised, Westernised crap.
Also, as someone mentioned above, the kind of information we get from government and the media really isn't adequate or accurate in many cases. There seems to be little (reliable) explanation of the composition of the forces doing the attacks. We can split them into the insurgents fighting the occupying troops, the sectarian terrorists, and the extremists, at the very least. Obviously within each of those classifications are different groups with different motivations and goals, and some cooperate and some fall into more than one category... making the whole thing very confused. In the event of a withdrawal, the insurgents will stop being insurgents, but the sectarian types will still be looking for a fight, and extremists will still be looking for control and recruits and the like.
So, if the troops stay in, they're the target for attacks and some of the stuff they do helps create recruits for the insurgents/terrorists/whoever. The thing is, every problem they're likely to cause has already been caused, it sounds like they've actually gotten better at not doing stupid thing to make civilians turn against them. I think a lot of the trouble we see today was caused early on in the occupation, and that trouble is exacerbating the problem. Also, it sounds kind of bad, but bullets shot at soldiers are bullets not shot at civilians. The problem I can see with continuing the occupation is the US government - the Democrats can't provide a proper counter to Bush, and Bush and co. spend all their time lying, covering up past mistakes and blaming everyone else. Really, from the start the incompetence, lying, arrogance, etc. has really surprised me. Bush and Cheney are too concerned with yes men, appearances of competence and passing blame, plus they're downright evil. Maybe literally. Their general argument I agree with - soldiers need to stay in and solve the problem. Everything else they say and do is flat-out wrong, like I've been saying since '02.
I'm staggered anyone suggests that the problems will fizzle out with no foreign troops in Iraq because that's just not the way things are - the sectarian attacks and the inability of Iraqi forces to deal with the problems show us that. To me, that sounds like thinly veiled nationalism with people thinking their nation's soldiers are more important than other nations' civilians. Iran interfering in Iraq is the same as the US invading - short-sighted troublemaking that'll end badly. Thing is, Iran's more likely to have a positive effect than the invasion, and Bush and co. are hypocrites for complaining.
I agree. Cango's only mistake was in not looking at the issue from the flipside, which is, "what is there to be gained by staying?" I think it's reasonable to say that military withdrawal will provide wind in the extremists' sails, but obviously sticking it out mulishly is not doing the opposite. So we're fucked either way, and we might as well leave earlier to stop wasting lives. I don't know what could help Iraq become a stable functioning nation, but military force is obviously not effective.
This is true. I think the main reason I saw it as an "argument" is, as you said, because he failed to mention the flipside. Which gave me the impression that he was suggesting the necessity of continuing the occupation into some hazy date in the future.
"...it's a shit sandwich and we all have to take a big bite." - Full metal Jacket
I want to take a look back at where the trouble started. Please correct any errors (ruthlessly). Now to my knowledge the "start" of the insurgency involved the bombing of a major Shia Mosque by the Sunnis. My assumption was that after so many years of having the more populous Shias under their heel with Saddam at their head, the Sunnis realized the ass-kicking that could possibly take place after the Shias won the majority in the elections.
To head off this terrible notion of ethnic cleansing of Sunnis, some of their number attacked pre-emptively by bombing the mosque as a sign of resistance. And it all went to shit from there with us getting in the middle of a fight that's been waging for 1400 years, or not even considering what could possibly go wrong. But that's all Bush and his incompetents' faults.
The situation now, however has degenerated past any point of some kind of Hollywood squeaky clean ending many Americans seem to think will occur. What we're left is Shit Choice A. or Shit Choice B.
Unfortunately telling it like it is is apparently one of the greatest sins the media can commit, and the administration has already poisoned the minds of so many with their "cut and run don't support the troops" horse shit.
Moreover when given a choice as to what to do, the American public will immediately think of the troops without giving any credence to the Iraqi plight or what may well happen when we leave. I've heard good honest people refer to the Iraqis a "ungrateful" without ever really considering what has truly transpired so many timezones away. It's all just so so sad, we had a chance to bridge a massive gap between the west and the middle-east after 9/11 (remember after that the Iranians were our friends!) but now we have poisoned that well once more.
Oh, and speaking of the ethnic cleaning in Baghdad... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20546328/site/newsweek/
May our children forgive us...
Slaite'
-Kevin
Haliburton got their kick-backs though, and that's what the war was really about. Did anyone else read the Rolling Stone article about the drivers going through a warzone delivering "sail-boat fuel" so that Haliburton could put it on the books and bill the government?
What it boils down to it seems is that both the American people and the Iraqi people lost, and Haliburton and cronies won.
America! Fuck yea! Here we come to save the motherfuckin' day yea! Terrorists your game is through because now you have to answer to....
Honestly. Once again American ego has collided with reality, and once again, the People on both sides of the conflict are the losers while the fuck ups responsible sit in the lap of luxury. If aliens came to our planet I don't think I could blame them for exterminating us so we couldn't spread like some foul disease through the comos. But then again these last 6 years have merely made me an intolerably bitter cynic. I'm sure SOME good has come out of Iraq, but its a drop in the bucket compared to everything else that has gone so disastrously wrong.
I would ressurrect Saddam and his two bastard sons in a heartbeat if it meant we could bring back EVERYONE who was lost and go back to the time when we were fighting the REAL fight in Afghanistan. Something tells me the Iraqi's would consider it too...
Slainte'
-Kevin
I don't talk about this with random people very much, so maybe I don't have a realistic sample of public opinion, but it seems like the mainstream liberal stance is "This is a pointless battle, let's get out of there," so I always got the idea that at least 50% of Americans don't actually buy the whole "Support the troops, continue the war" spiel. Maybe I just watch too much Daily Show/Colber Report. I wouldn't consider my friends a representative sample, since we're all young, college-educated liberals. And I wouldn't consider this forum a representative sample, since, well, obviously. But, judging from how the Republicans lost the Midterms, and the low-ass approval ratings for the Bush administration, I think it would be safe to deduce that the American public as a whole is sick of this crap.
Precisely.
So... um... why do we need to be responsible for securing anything? Purely economic self-interest?
The problem then is one we have encountered before. If you secure one area, and the resistance pulls up stakes and moves some where else. The strategy is take and hold. Taking hasn't been a problem- Holding it has with such a pitiful number of troops. If we had 500k more troops we might be able to do something but that would also include all of the diplomatic and economic efforts Bushco has been ignoring thus far in. Even if they were willing to do so properly, we've simply made too many mistakes to up and start doing things properly now.
I don't want to consider what is going to occur when we do leave, we're all going to have to be honest that a LOT of people are going to die there, the thing is if we stay a LOT of people will die including our own. What a fucking mess.
That's what this has been about all along hasn't it? The only difference would be the bluntness of it. Look at the hydrocarbon law, what a fucking joke. From my understanding the Iraqis would gain access to 20% of THEIR oil while the rest went to Exxon and Haliburton. I don't think it's feasible at this point to even FATHOM that this whole escapade has been about anything other than the procuring of 12 trillion dollars worth of oil.
Well yeah. Opening markets, securing oil, contracts to rebuild, contracts to secure, strategic foothold in the Middle East, rinse and repeat. That's the whole reason we invaded in the first place. Well, that and Saddam tried to kill Bush's father.
Dude, you are all over the place. Yes Sunnis and Shia have been fighting for 1400 years, and yes within each there are factions. A theological debate about that would really need it's own thread.
All Bush said today was, IF things go our way more often, we MIGHT be able to start reducing our forces SOMEDAY.
The question at hand in this thread is "Should American forces pull out? If so when?"
To answer that you have to ask yourself why we are there in the first place?
I argue that it is for Money and Oil, so do some (how many I do not know) of the American Soldiers in Iraq today.
If one can agree that we are only there for Money and Oil, and if also one can agree that Human Life is worth more than Money and Oil, knowing the longer we stay that more people will die for our "cause" , then the conclusion can be made that we should pull out immediately.
Now, if one wants to argue that we are there to implement Freedom and all that it entails, then the conclusion can also be made that we should pull out immediately. Allow me to explain this one to you...
What you so eloquently described as "Westernized Crap", our version of Freedom, while I can't speak for everyone, I can tell you what it means to me.
It mean that I have the freedom of choice. If I want to Eat Fast food everyday, I can. If I want to go to the grocery store once a week and make my meals at home I can. If I want to grow produce at home and hunt for meat, I can. If I want to go to a corporate entity like Great Clips for a hair cut, I can. If I want to go to a Small time Barber shop, I can.
If I want to work for a major corporation and work my way up the corporate ladder, I can. If I want to work two jobs and save every spare penny just so that one day I can open up my own small business, I can.
Despite being bombarded by advertising on a minute by minute basis in my life, In the end I still have those choices.
These are things that the Iraqi people of today are not Free to do. Is it because of Saddam Insane? No. You now have parts of Iraq where FBR Group (Haliburton) is the Sole Vendor of EVERYTHING for entire cities. If I was a small business owner and I wasn't able to take competing bids by vendors for anything, I would be livid.
So every time a Supply Caravan gets hit by IEDs, is it because of Islamic Radicalism? (I don't know, I'm not there, but I have a hard time imagining that Muslims hate Lumber and Processed Cheese.) Or are the Caravans being bombed because the people of Iraq have no other way to say, We don't want your goods America! We want to do things our way. Again, I am not there, I am not them, but which is easier to believe?
I personally love shopping at a Farmer's Market. The idea of getting food straight from the hand of the grower just appeals to me. I think about how often I hear about "Markets being bombed". This would be a place where a community comes together buy, sell and trade goods and services. Am I to believe that the destruction of such a community was a caused by a Militant Muslim Radical? Or is it possible that pressure could be put on specific sects in an area to eliminate any revenue flows that do not lead into Haliburton's coffers? I don't know that answer, but I know what sounds more feasible.
That being said, If we are there for Freedom, then US troops/interests need to leave the area, so that the people there can decide how they want to run their country, by staying we are eliminating their Freedoms.
Yeah, if US troops Pullout, sectarian violence may continue, but then it's been going on for 1400 years right, what makes us think that we can stop it now?