[The Mick]

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/...ain/index.html

I'm not sure how I feel about this. On one hand I'll be glad to see us get the hell out of Iraq and stop the bloodshed. On the other hand, it seems that this strategy was just developed in the last few days, and I worry about hastily leaving a country that may not be ready for us to go. We may have ousted Saddam, but is Iraq really ready to govern themselves, or will they slowly decline back into a totalitarian state?

The fact is, we've made our bed and now we have to sleep in it. It appears to me that things in Iraq may not have been as easy as Bush and Co. thought, and certainly not a public relations victory of late. What bothers me a bit is Bush's insistence on keeping a military presence in Iraq until Saddam is either captured or killed. We have 130,000 troops there now and we can't get that done.

[BRussell]

It's foreign policy based on the Republican convention calendar next summer!

[amsalpemkcus]

I think keaving Iraq as things stand is a baaaaaad idea.

[soiled.panties]

Originally posted by BRussell:
It's foreign policy based on the Republican convention calendar next summer!

ditto.

I doubt we would see this if the auction was held in two years from now.

[Lerkfish]

the part that confuses me is when use peacenik liberals suggested a quick turnover at the very beginning to Iraqi self governance, we were told how stupid that would be, and to expect 10 years before that would happen.
We were told that a quick turnover would be the WORST thing to happen.

Now, the republicans are saying how a quick turnover is what should happen.

Of course, by now, its become an even deeper quagmire than previously, so that makes the pullout, which we suggested back when it would have actually worked, even more foolhardy.

Gotta love that Bush administration...create the largest mess ever and then leave, saying "you fix it".

[einmakom]

No, it's still a lousy idea.

America should stay the course, and not leave until Iraq is governed by a stable constitutional democracy.

Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe writes:

"Everywhere I've traveled recently in Germany I've run into Americans, ranging from generals down to privates, who ask perplexedly, 'What are we Americans supposed to be doing here? Are we going to take over this place and stay here forever?' "


So opened journalist Demaree Bess's article — "How We Botched The German Occupation" — in the Saturday Evening Post of Jan. 26, 1946. It appeared eight months after V-E Day, and Bess was sure that the Allies' military victory over Hitler was being squandered in the postwar.


"We have got into this German job without understanding what we were tackling or why," he wrote. "Not one American political leader fully realized at the outset how formidable our German commitments would prove to be. There was no idea, at the beginning, that Americans would become involved in a project to take Germany completely apart and put it together again in wholly new patterns."


In Life magazine a couple weeks earlier, the novelist John Dos Passos had penned an even bleaker assessment. The postwar administration set up by the Americans was "a tangle of snarling misery" he observed. "Never has American prestige in Europe been lower. . . . All we have brought to Europe so far is confusion backed up by a drumhead regime of military courts. We have swept away Hitlerism, but a great many Europeans feel that the cure has been worse than the disease." The title of his piece: "Americans are Losing the Victory in Europe."


Today, of course, few would argue that the United States "botched" the occupation of West Germany or that the US-secured liberty that replaced Hitler's tyranny was a "cure . . . worse than the disease." Looking back from the early 21st century, it is clear that the transformation of the shattered Nazi Reich into a bulwark of democracy was one of the signal achievements of 20th-century statecraft. But on the ground in 1946, that happy outcome was nowhere in view. What was in view was an occupation beset by troubles — chaotic, dangerous, and frequently vicious.

Just like the one in Iraq today.

There is no denying that the news out of Iraq has been brutal lately. US soldiers die in roadside bombings and in brazen attacks like the helicopter downing that killed 16 on Sunday. Terrorists target civilian venues — Red Cross offices, Muslim shrines, embassies — for the bloodiest possible carnage. Iraqis are grateful to be free of Saddam Hussein, but many nonetheless inveigh against the American occupiers who toppled him. At the moment, Iraq seems a long, long way from anything resembling the stable and tolerant democracy President Bush says he is determined to see it become.


Not surprisingly, public support for the war is eroding. Only 54 percent of Americans — down from 70 percent in late April — still say it was worth fighting, according to the most recent ABC/Washington Post poll. Just 47 percent of the public approves of President Bush's handling of Iraq; a thin majority, 51 percent, actually disapproves. Quagmire fears are deepening: 53 percent are "very" concerned that the United States will get bogged down. A few more horrific attacks, another bloody couple of months in Baghdad and Fallujah, and it isn't hard to imagine even more Americans giving up on Iraq and deciding we should never have gone in to begin with.


Which is exactly what Saddam and his murderer-loyalists and the terror cadres that have joined them are counting on. They expect us to walk away. They are certain that we will do again what we did in Beirut and Mogadishu: lose heart, pull out, and leave the Middle East to them.


Will we?


Make no mistake. We are now in the battle that will decide the course of this war. Either Iraq will be cleansed and democratized, or the war on terror will be lost. There is no middle ground. The Baathist diehards and Islamist car-bombers understand that everything is on the line. They know that if America succeeds in planting freedom and decency in the Arab world, they are finished. That is why they are determined at all costs to drive us out.


To his great credit, Bush has never wavered in his resolve to stay in Iraq until it is governed by a stable constitutional democracy. "The terrorists and the Baathists hope to weaken our will," he said on Nov. 1. "Our will canot be shaken." He and his administration have learned the core lesson of Sept. 11: The terrorist threat to civilization will never be rolled back until the Middle East is torn away from its nightmare of tyranny, cruelty, and religious fanaticism.

[Mister Elf]

Arent you some of the same people that were saying "Pull out, pull out!" a couple weeks back?

[Lerkfish]

Originally posted by Mister Elf:
Arent you some of the same people that were saying "Pull out, pull out!" a couple weeks back?

aren't you some of the same people that were saying "stay the course"?

at any rate, as I tried to explain earlier....I don't think the invasion was necessary, and the post invasion plans were haphazard at best. At each stage I had an opinion on what should or shouldn't happen, dependent on the stage of the operation.

1. I was against invasion in the first place.
2. Once the invasion happened anyways, I hoped for a swift and relatively bloodless conclusion.
3. Once concluded, I supported an IMMEDIATE turnover of Iraq to Iraqis. I was against the interim council, for a variety of reasons.
4. Once the interim council was instated, I supported a quick handover as soon as was possible.
5. After several months, with no handover and no self-governance in sight, we see an increase in local unrest (as I predicted accurately). I again suggested we NOT give contracts to Halliburton and other bush cronies but allow Iraqis to determine how best to rebuild Iraq.
6. After unrest escalates beyond a comfortable limit, and a huge mess ensues that could have been avoided at any step along the way, there is a suggestion to pull out.

I STILL support pulling out, I am just making the point it should have been done IMMEDIATELY after the invasion, which was supposedly a liberation, and much of this could have been avoided. However, many said "stay the course, its too early to judge, yadda yadda yadda" meanwhile the situation keeps percolating and becoming more untenable.

If the Bush administration were true to the idea of liberation, and had withdrawn as soon as they deposed saddam, allowed Iraqis to self-govern, allowed Iraqis to determine how to rebuild, then this could all have been avoided.

Unfortunately, this is like someone who keeps throwing cow dung in the stew, and then finally declares it unfit for consumption and then walks away. Sure, it would have been better at any point for the dung flinger to have walked away, but the longer he was around, the worse it became. I don't think its reasonable to say to someone who has been complaining about the dung all along that when the flinger finally walks away it proves the complainer to be hypocritical.
In this case, its the flingers who are hypocritical. They have been saying all along how they were committed to the situation.
We see that the words of the Bush administration have no integrity.

[Echelon]

Originally posted by Lerkfish:
I STILL support pulling out, I am just making the point it should have been done IMMEDIATELY after the invasion [...snip...]allowed Iraqis to self-govern, allowed Iraqis to determine how to rebuild, then this could all have been avoided.

your naiveté has never been more clear. No person with an education in history or politics would believe that leaving Iraq immediately after deposing Saddam would have preserved any hope of freedom or democracy. Creating a power vacuum by pulling out or relying on some United Nations miracle would have done nothng for Iraqis.

I don't believe anyone can make a coherent, reasoned, and sustainable argument for immediate pullout after the destruction of Saddam's regime. It's pie in the sky.

[Lerkfish]

Originally posted by Echelon:
your naiveté has never been more clear. No person with an education in history or politics would believe that leaving Iraq immediately after deposing Saddam would have preserved any hope of freedom or democracy. Creating a power vacuum by pulling out or relying on some United Nations miracle would have done nothng for Iraqis.

I don't believe anyone can make a coherent, reasoned, and sustainable argument for immediate pullout after the destruction of Saddam's regime. It's pie in the sky.

and doing so now is better because......?

you know, Scott H., you don't always have to insult people to disagree with them.

[einmakom]

Staying the course is still the correct path. Any show of Bush's words lacking integrity would be the US pulling out prematurely after having committed to staying until a constitutional democracy has been established. Unless of course it's a matter of modifying plans based on recent events, adapting to the changing situation at hand- because that would just be sensible.

This pulling out is precisely the result you desire. You want the US to not only leave now, but to have left well before now. So now you've got your way, and you're still not satisfied, you instead prefer to say 'I told you so.'

You've said it was all a big mistake, and that it would all turn out bad, but now that you're going to get your way, I have a feeling we'll all see what a self-fulfilling prophecy looks like.

Just because things look bleak does not mean the correct answer is to give up or turn back. Sometimes, it's a call for strong resolve.

[Face Ache]

Originally posted by Echelon:
I don't believe anyone can make a coherent, reasoned, and sustainable argument for immediate pullout after the destruction of Saddam's regime. It's pie in the sky.

I agree. You break-a de eggs, you make-a de omelette.

But for the same reasons the US should stay now.

Besides, you couldn't trust a new regime with all those unfound(ed?) WMDs.


"They hate us! They really hate us!"

[Lerkfish]

Originally posted by einmakom:
Staying the course is still the correct path. Any show of Bush's words lacking integrity would be the US pulling out prematurely after having committed to staying until a constitutional democracy has been established. Unless of course it's a matter of modifying plans based on recent events, adapting to the changing situation at hand- because that would just be sensible.

This pulling out is precisely the result you desire. You want the US to not only leave now, but to have left well before now. So now you've got your way, and you're still not satisfied, you instead prefer to say 'I told you so.'

You've said it was all a big mistake, and that it would all turn out bad, but now that you're going to get your way, I have a feeling we'll all see what a self-fulfilling prophecy looks like.

Just because things look bleak does not mean the correct answer is to give up or turn back. Sometimes, it's a call for strong resolve.

I.am.not.getting.my.way.

My way was to not have invaded in the first place. I see that you intend to blame people who were against the war if the operation fails.

how about blaming YOURSELF when that happens? If you were so gung ho for it, take responsibility for it.

[Face Ache]

Originally posted by einmakom:
Sure you told us the sky was blue, but now it's proving to be blue all you can do is stand around and say "I told you so". So now we'll see what a self-fulfilling prophecy looks like.

[Echelon]

Originally posted by Lerkfish:
you know, Scott H., you don't always have to insult people to disagree with them.

I am not scott h. I haven't seen him around here for a very long time, and I have been around long enough to remember him.

[einmakom]

FaceAche:

Don't make up sentences and then attribute them to me. That isn't on.

[Twilly Spree]

Originally posted by Echelon:
I am not scott h. I haven't seen him around here for a very long time, and I have been around long enough to remember him.

People have been saying Atef is Scott_H, a disgraced mod that was permanently banned by elzinat ... and you are Atef.

=> you are Scott_H

I agree with your general political POV but you are not helping us by insulting people. Try and be nice here because you can't make anyone listen to you. If you want to be heard and taken seriously by your political adversaries. Your personality shows more than your POV Scott_H.

[thunderous_funker]

So when do they announce that Chalabi is in charge?

[Powerbook]

Originally posted by Echelon:
your naiveté has never been more clear. ....

Whut?! Stop your elitist language here, or we help you move to France!!!

[Lerkfish]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
So when do they announce that Chalabi is in charge?

oh, I imagine whoever is put in charge will be an Iraqi expatriot with close ties to the neocons.

[eklipse]

Originally posted by Echelon:
your naiveté has never been more clear. No person with an education in history or politics would believe that leaving Iraq immediately after deposing Saddam would have preserved any hope of freedom or democracy. Creating a power vacuum by pulling out or relying on some United Nations miracle would have done nothng for Iraqis.

I don't believe anyone can make a coherent, reasoned, and sustainable argument for immediate pullout after the destruction of Saddam's regime. It's pie in the sky.

Okay. What has changed between the time that Saddam was deposed and now? What makes now (or the near future) a better time to hand over power? Why has the hand over of power been accelerated?

[eklipse]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
So when do they announce that Chalabi is in charge?

As soon as Chalabi has safely gotten the hubcaps on Saddam's Benz out of the country.