Withdrawal of the military?

[Ceicei]

Lately, I've been seeing and hearing people debating the pros and cons of US withdrawing from Iraq. Some argue that we do more harm being there by intensifying danger for all. Others argue that Iraq will be better off handling their own problems and do not need us to meddle. Some say the pros of US being there are more than the cons and our presence is helping them slowly try to evolve into a different type of society, hopefully for the better. Others say that "freedom" is the ultimate goal, essentially modeled to be a territory of democracy.

I read this in today's CNN and a certain paragraph caught my attention:

The attacks on the women of Basra have intensified since British forces withdrew to their base at the airport back in September, police say. Iraqi security forces took over after British troops pulled back, but are heavily infiltrated by militias.

This article focuses primarily upon how females are treated for breaking the social rules in their society.

Full article:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/02/08/iraq.women/index.html

If our (not just the US--this also include other countries) presence in the Middle East is not the solution, and Iraq's own police cannot handle their own either, what could be done?

- Ceicei

 

[Touch Of Death]

We will have a refugee crisis on our hands; no doubt about it. We will need them once we build the wall on the Mexican Border.
Sean

 

[Ceicei]

We will have a refugee crisis on our hands; no doubt about it. We will need them once we build the wall on the Mexican Border.
Sean

When you say "them", who are they? The military or the refugees? How will the building of the Mexican Border help or hinder our international (Middle East) issues?

 

[michaeledward]

There already exists a refugee crisis in Iraq. Some two million Iraqis have fled the country (most to Syria), and another two million Iraqis are internally displaced. And this has all taken place while the United States Military was the authority, and force protection, and the governmental support in Iraq.

If the United States military leaves Iraq, there will be little substantive change in Iraq. We have been watching the slow motion segregation in Iraq. The Shi'ite and Sunni's have segregated themselves.

Now, we must watch as the natural balance between and among these groups find their own level .... or .... we can reinstall Saddam Hussein. We can put 'our SOB' in power, and allow him authoritarian rule.

If the Shi'ite in Basra exert their belief system through the local law enforcement, certainly to the detriment of woman by our standards, what business is it of ours? It is our business because those damn Iraqis have our oil caught beneath their sands.

If we are concerned for human rights ~ as a matter of diplomacy, that will be something completely new ~ then we should expand our cultural exchanges; with an appropriate measure of respect shown to their beliefs. Instead, we ostracize Iran (as we have Cuba for a half a century). Such actions are counter productive.

The sad experience of the women of Basra is not our fault; but we certainly are involved. And thus, we share some blame.

 

[Touch Of Death]

When you say "them", who are they? The military or the refugees? How will the building of the Mexican Border help or hinder our international (Middle East) issues?

It won't help, but we are going to have lots of Iraquis living in America very soon. Although the border issue is seperate, once the illeagal imigration is controled, we will have penty of workers to take their place.
Sean

 

[SageGhost83]

Hi Ceicei! Well, we are caught in a lose-lose situation to tell you the truth. My cousin was a member of the striker brigades and he has spent the last two years cleaning out buildings and hunting for insurgents over in Iraq. According to him and his experience, it is no longer our war to fight. Most of the violence is Iraqi vs. Iraqi, and we just caught in the middle of it all. We are basically sitting ducks over there. However, if we were to pull out, the whole thing would go straight to hades and we would probably end up with a terrorist head of state - a terrorist head of state with an american trained army, navy, and air force. So, we are screwed if we stay, and we are screwed if we go. Personally, I would prefer to get out of there because it is no longer our war. We are wasting valuable resources and we are suffering extra casualties over there that we may very well need down the road in this long-term war on terror. Only the Iraqis can fix Iraq now. Everything that we do is viewed as being imperialist, so let's allow the Iraqis and the U.N. to fix Iraq.

 

[Big Don]

When will the military be withdrawn from Bosnia? How about Germany and Japan? There will be a US military presence in Iraq and other places in the Middle East for decades to come. Whining and lying about why will not change that. Nor, will lying about how we came to be there and why.

 

[Big Don]

the U.N. to fix Iraq.

The UN has Never, EVER, fixed anything.

 

[SageGhost83]

The UN has Never, EVER, fixed anything.

True, but they were the only ones smart enough not to go in there in the first place. That area has always been a civil war on stilts and Saddam's tyranny is the only thing that kept it "peaceful". But I guess that we needed to go in there because after all, we are the ones who propped the sorry tyrant up in the position to begin with. We removed him and now we inherited his mess. When will our military presence be withdrawn? When those countries get fed up enough with us that they don't want us on their soil anymore. They will force us out, even if they have to kill us. The Vietnamese certainly didn't have any problems doing it.

 

[SageGhost83]

We need to pick our friends more carefully in other parts of the world, my friend :lol2:. I know that despite how bad things get, that we will prevail in the end. America has seen darker days than these, and America will make it through these troubled times. I just wish that our leaders would make wiser decisions, and that my cousin, who is younger than me, makes it back stateside in one piece.

 

[tellner]

• We never should have been there in the first place.
• We are doing no good whatsoever.
• We are destroying the US military according to the Pentagon's own reports.
• We are bleeding our grandchildren white.
• We have sacrificed the rule of Law, separation of powers, the independence of the Judiciary and every other legal and democratic tradition for this mess.
• We have become an international pariah.
• We have turned war profiteering from a crime to stated government policy.
• We have replaced soldiers, Marines, airmen and Intelligence officers with black-backed thugs who are accountable to no system of justice or legal authority except their paycheck.
• We have done Al Qaeda's recruiting for the next hundred years.
• We have done more to strengthen I-wanna-jihad's position in Iran than his supporters ever could.
• We are paying a terrible price in homelessness, PTSD, lost limbs and wrecked brains.
• We have turned into a nation which tortures and abuses civilians for no reason whatsoever.
• We're hemorrhaging senior noncoms and career officers and replacing them with dregs who wouldn't have been allowed in the Army ten years ago.
• We've far exceeded the UN fig leaf that Minimus crafted for us.

We should get out of their the day before yesterday.

 

[Ping898]

I don't know how to fix the mess of Iraq (and I disagree with Tellner that we are doing no good) but the reality of it is Iraq is a mess of our own making, we took a country that obviously was not ready to overthrow its leader and did just that. should we have gone into Iraq in the first place, no, but now that we have, we have no one to blame for Iraq except ourselves and I think since we made the mess, we need to clean it up, or at least work to put an infrastructure in place so that the whole region doesn't disinegrate into chaos the second we withdraw...

 

[Xue Sheng]

• We never should have been there in the first place.
• We are doing no good whatsoever.
• We are destroying the US military according to the Pentagon's own reports.
• We are bleeding our grandchildren white.
• We have sacrificed the rule of Law, separation of powers, the independence of the Judiciary and every other legal and democratic tradition for this mess.
• We have become an international pariah.
• We have turned war profiteering from a crime to stated government policy.
• We have replaced soldiers, Marines, airmen and Intelligence officers with black-backed thugs who are accountable to no system of justice or legal authority except their paycheck.
• We have done Al Qaeda's recruiting for the next hundred years.
• We have done more to strengthen I-wanna-jihad's position in Iran than his supporters ever could.
• We are paying a terrible price in homelessness, PTSD, lost limbs and wrecked brains.
• We have turned into a nation which tortures and abuses civilians for no reason whatsoever.
• We're hemorrhaging senior noncoms and career officers and replacing them with dregs who wouldn't have been allowed in the Army ten years ago.
• We've far exceeded the UN fig leaf that Minimus crafted for us.

We should get out of their the day before yesterday.

But how do you really feel :uhyeah:

I think since we made the mess, we need to clean it up, or at least work to put an infrastructure in place so that the whole region doesn't disinegrate into chaos the second we withdraw...

Are you willing to take the next 100 more years of US lives to do it?

The region has been ruled by the meanest, strongest, badest for centuries and that type of thing you do not stop in a few years.

My fear is that we are currently training the next military we will have to fight and we are making them better then they were before.

 

[tellner]

But how do you really feel :uhyeah:

Everyone from President Cheney and the Hand Puppet in Chief down through the Cabinet, the political hacks in the Pentagon, much of Congress and the Senate (especially Harry Reid) and the neocon cabal of people like Podhoretz, Wolfowitz and the rest need to be turned over to the ICC at the Hague. They deserve fair, speedy impartial trials for war crimes, crimes against humanity and abrogation of several important treaties. They should be put away in some horrible prison for the rest of their natural lives with all their property confiscated to help pay for their victims' damages. A few need to be hanged. Cheney and Rumsfeld in particular have "provided aid and comfort to enemies of the United States" in front of "at least two witnesses" and should ride the appropriate pipe.

 

[michaeledward]

Everyone from President Cheney and the Hand Puppet in Chief down through the Cabinet, the political hacks in the Pentagon, much of Congress and the Senate (especially Harry Reid) and the neocon cabal of people like Podhoretz, Wolfowitz and the rest need to be turned over to the ICC at the Hague. They deserve fair, speedy impartial trials for war crimes, crimes against humanity and abrogation of several important treaties. They should be put away in some horrible prison for the rest of their natural lives with all their property confiscated to help pay for their victims' damages. A few need to be hanged. Cheney and Rumsfeld in particular have "provided aid and comfort to enemies of the United States" in front of "at least two witnesses" and should ride the appropriate pipe.

I agree with almost all of this.

I've got a problem with the whole 'hanging' thing. Although some richly deserve such treatment, we can take pride in the recognition that the ICC does not inflict this irrevocable punishment upon any who have committed unforgivable acts.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Everyone from President Cheney and the Hand Puppet in Chief down through the Cabinet, the political hacks in the Pentagon, much of Congress and the Senate (especially Harry Reid) and the neocon cabal of people like Podhoretz, Wolfowitz and the rest need to be turned over to the ICC at the Hague. They deserve fair, speedy impartial trials for war crimes, crimes against humanity and abrogation of several important treaties. They should be put away in some horrible prison for the rest of their natural lives with all their property confiscated to help pay for their victims' damages. A few need to be hanged. Cheney and Rumsfeld in particular have "provided aid and comfort to enemies of the United States" in front of "at least two witnesses" and should ride the appropriate pipe.

Well if you don't want to tell us I guess and you want to make us guess that's ok too

 

[Bigshadow]

I agree with Tellner.

My opinion is that we de-stabilized the region by doing what we did. In essence we have done nothing but protect an ally from a very real threat (Saddam) and secure some oil and destabilized the region in the long run. It is more volatile there now than before we went in.

The American people were told lies by their government (whom they as a whole trusted) to garner their support for their reckless actions.

Well that is how I feel about it!

 

[mjd]

We should have drop a nuke on bagdad from the start, all the whinning by the UN would be over by now, the Russians and Chinese would not be screwing with us, they rest of the terrorist would be shaking in their boots forever. Look at Japan, its a good friend to us now.

 

[Xue Sheng]

We should have drop a nuke on bagdad from the start, all the whinning by the UN would be over by now, the Russians and Chinese would not be screwing with us, they rest of the terrorist would be shaking in their boots forever. Look at Japan, its a good friend to us now.

except we are not the only ones with nukes like we were in WW II. One will only lead to another but it is likely that no one would be whinning now if we had.

 

[Ping898]

Are you willing to take the next 100 more years of US lives to do it?

The region has been ruled by the meanest, strongest, badest for centuries and that type of thing you do not stop in a few years.

Why are American lives so much more important than the lives of the Iraqi's we screwed over? I don't like the thought of more death and more peoples dieing for nothing, but I also don't like the prospect of a cut and run. I don't think we are on the right path, and don't think we have the right people in charge, but I will also be the first to admit I don't know what the right answer is. But I was taught if you make a mess clean the damn thing up and to me, this is no different