• the_infernal_optimist said on Jan 15, 2008....

  I tend to agree with you, and for similar reasons, although it's hard not to throw "because we shouldn't have been there..." into the mix. That doesn't matter very much now - we are there, and we need to do the best we can to withdraw without leaving the general Iraqi population worse off for our withdrawal.
  
  ~Infernal
  

• exhibit_c said on Jan 15, 2008....

  It's hard to evaluate the real meaning of the reduced violence since
  the summer. It's not so much as whether it's due to the surge, as
  whether it actually means that some parties have truly decided to go
  with political action rather than violence.
  
  But as I've noted before, if things ever were to start getting better,
  it would look pretty much like the last six months, so I think we are
  in a waiting mode to see what happends when US troop levels drop a
  little, and the al Qaeda in Mesopotamia folks have been suppressed.
  

• TinSoldier said on Jan 15, 2008....

  I don't really have a good answer.
  
  Unlike infernal, I don't have a problem with the initial invasion so much as I have a problem with the timing of it and with the handling of the occupation since then.
  
  Pulling out immediately is a bad option because it just turns Iraq into either a lawless country like Somalia or Afghanistan were in the 1990s. Or else Iraq becomes a puppet of Iran.
  
  Staying there permanently is also a bad idea, even though it's a nice place to be strategically. Even the people who are with us in the region would eventually turn against us.
  
  So the only real option is to continue pushing and prodding the Iraqi government and security forces towards handling their own affars.
  
  I think another key is to try and help rebuild their infrastructure and economy with Iraqi businesses and labor instead of with American contractors, with safeguards in place to help reduce or eliminate fraud and corruption in the process. That's a tall order, but I think that it can be done.
  

• exhibit_c said on Jan 15, 2008....

  TinSoldier: a very good point. It's crucial at this stage that the US get control of the lawless contractors and get US companies with sweetheart deals out of the country as soon as possible.

• bloc said on Jan 15, 2008....

  I don't have a good answer, but regarding #2 I have these thoughts. First, we've already done it. Second, if you set milestones and they aren't met (they haven't been) then pulling out still results in a power vacuum so #2 doesn't address that problem unless the milestones are met. That's a big 'if'.

• silverwhisper said on Jan 15, 2008....

  infernal: exactly--we're there, so let's deal w/ it and make sure it isn't going pear-shaped.
  
  exhibit c: yeah, i'm not sure exactly what i think, myself.
  
  TS: hey, some safeguards to eliminate corruption/fraud with existing, US contractors would be pretty fucking nice too. :D
  
  bloc: i was under the impression that the bush administration is fighting tooth & nail against having milestones. ? defining the milestones however would seem not so difficult to me, to be honest.
  
  ed

• bloc said on Jan 15, 2008....

  they actually defined a bunch a while back and gave all these speeches about the gravity of these milestones. Then the milestones weren't met and they've come out giving speeches about how the milestones aren't that important. When I have more time I'll try to find you some sources.
  

• silverwhisper said on Jan 15, 2008....

  bloc: ah...well see, when the president says milestones don't matter, who are we to disagree? :D
  
  been following the slashdot comments to this stories. my favorite comment there thus far:
  
  

  when the white house produces their missing emails, we'll produce ours.

  
  ed

• beyondtheveil said on Jan 15, 2008....

  Ed- We, or should I say george and company, created this mess and part of me wants to say see it out and make things right. But I fear right is not winnable and I think george and company finally realize this but will not say so.
  
  I say pull the troops out using a timetable the military lays out for the safety of troops including removal of equipment we don't want left there. Whatever happens won't be the end of the world.
  
  It seems the only things we are actually supporting there are gouging American companies and blackwater.
  

• CreativeWoman said on Jan 15, 2008....

  I think it needs to be seen through.  I do think that the Iraqi leaders need to be more hands on in the process of taking their country back.  I know it's a very daunting task, but they have to want it as much as we do.  They need to convince the citizens of the need to make things more stable as well so they stand behind them to help stop the opposition.  They've gotten used to living in violence.  They need to know how to reverse that.  How?  If I had the best answer for that, I could run for president.
  
  That's my two cents.
  
  CW
  

• silverwhisper said on Jan 15, 2008....

  beyond: as you might imagine, i'm in agreement w/ you, although i disagree that a timetable ought to be adopted with milestones, per bloc's observation.
  
  CW: people can only learn lessons like that if they want, i think. to me there's a whole lotta "leading a horse to water" going on there, you know? to you however, what does "seen through" mean? withdrawing when the iraq government demonstrates the ability to stand on their own? something else?
  
  ed

• CreativeWoman said on Jan 15, 2008....

  ed,
  For me, "seen through" means a strong Iraqi government with the ability to lead in place and functioning.  I agree that they have to want it.  I think it is a matter of how those leaders inspire the common people. Then again, if they don't and we leave, I'm afraid that we'll just be right back over there in a few years.
  
  CW
  

• vacantmind said on Jan 15, 2008....

  I have to agree with you. I believe if we hand it over and pull out we are creating a situation that was far worse than when we went in to Iraq. Of course, I don't think that we can achieve what we need to in the next couple of years. I think we are going to be there long term.

• TinSoldier said on Jan 15, 2008....

  I didn't read the article, but I saw a headline in the newspaper where an Iraqi government official believed that the US needed to have a presence there until at least 2018.
  
  The article probably specified what kind of presence, but again I haven't read it yet.
  

• silverwhisper said on Jan 15, 2008....

  CW: OK, that i can understand. :>
  
  vm: can you define "long-term"?
  
  TS: 20fucking18?! o hell, no!
  
  ed

• TinSoldier said on Jan 15, 2008....

  My local newspaper's stupid website has a crappy search; news.google.com came up with The New York Times.

• silverwhisper said on Jan 15, 2008....

  TS: you know, one of my brother's friends helped design the NYT site. :>
  
  i'll confess, i'm kinda curious for how long the bush administration has been working with either that or a later estimated decade.
  
  ed

• auctiontip said on Jan 15, 2008....

    Nuclear weapon is the right choice for the middle east.   We hit  Japan with 2  atomic weapons to end  WW2 with Japan and look at them today. They saw  the light.  After the surrender we were only there for 3 years as an occupying force.
    I know it sounds far out but compare the to problems, religious fanatics who see death as an ultimate accomplishment.  Japanese kamikaze fighters to who surrender was not an option. Japanese official policy to there soldiers was to kill as many American devils as you can before you die in combat .. .....     They have been killing each other in the middle east since before written record  ... maybe its time to start from scratch...
      And to the peace at any price fools out there we have to stop the terrorist before they get a nuclear weapon..   I assure you they will have no qualms about setting it off in a major American city..
      

• silverwhisper said on Jan 15, 2008....

  japan <> extremist fundamentalist muslims any more than your average church sunday ice cream social = abortion clinic bombers. we both know that's just lunacy, right?
  
  so as far as you're concerned, we should return the same desired to kill in kind, then? interesting.
  
  ed

• auctiontip said on Jan 15, 2008....

  Its a kill or be killed fight to the end.. I like to live

• silverwhisper said on Jan 15, 2008....

  and you know that about all people living in the middle east for fact? i'm curious, what process did you undergo to develop omniscience? b/c that's the only way i can conceive of whereby you could know that with any certainty whatsoever.
  
  b/c let's be honest, you're advocating genocide here, auctiontip. you do understand that, right? it isn't just "i had no choice" that you're considering. it's the deliberate mass murder of millions. do you actually understand that?
  
  ed

• TinSoldier said on Jan 15, 2008....

  auctiontip: If pacifying the Middle East meant a million or so casualties like invading Japan would have, then maybe your idea would have some merit.
  
  It's doubtful, though. You can't win a guerrilla war with nuclear weapons.
  
  ed: No, I didn't know that -- that's cool! But the NYT link popped up under news.google.com :P !
  

• auctiontip said on Jan 15, 2008....

  Yes, I understand that millions people will die. But, theres always a but, if we want American troops out of Iraq before my 2 yr old passes from old age that is the only viable option. we trained vietnamese troops from 1969 to 1974(?). it took the north less than a year to over run our trainees.. milestones not an option any terrorist realises that all they have to do is lay low till we leave then they can take over at will.. last option was just to pack up and leave.we do that and it might take them a few years to hit us with a plane,a nuke on a cargo ship,anthrax smallpox,ebola,icbm.. leaves us little choice.. i am not real big on nukes either to much clean up,but its either a nuke or we will be there for ever.   tin soldier there is no way the American people would let us fight a guerrilla. the way you win a guerrilla war is to do to the Iraqi civilian populace and country side what General Sherman did on his march to the sea.
  

• silverwhisper said on Jan 15, 2008....

  auctiontip: i'm sorry, but the decision to murder millions of people as the product of deliberate thought is to me utterly reprehensible and quite honestly monstrous.
  
  i'm usually more diplomatic about it when i disagree w/ someone but i'm curiously unable to do so.
  
  seriously: you honestly don't see any other way out?
  
  ed

• vacantmind said on Jan 15, 2008....

  Ed...Long term 8-10 years

• bloc said on Jan 15, 2008....

  "last option was just to pack up and leave.we do that and it might take them a few years to hit us with a plane,a nuke on a cargo ship,anthrax smallpox,ebola,icbm"
  
  Most of the people that are fighting in Iraq aren't terrorists and don't really give a shit about attacking america. They are tribes fighting for power in Iraq and if we leave they will surely fight more, but I doubt they will then turn their sites on us.

• auctiontip said on Jan 15, 2008....

  Come up with a plan that will work to extract US forces from the middle, and I will gladly back away from the thought of the use of a total destruction weapon (nuke). The only plan that I could come up with would be for the world to phase out its use of oil quickly. It takes enormous amounts of money to finance international terrorist. Dry up there funds and they cant achieve there aims, no nukes needed. As everyone knows that will not happen anytime soon. If we as a world leader were to actually spend significant amounts of money to find viable sources of non-fossil fuel types of fuel to run our country problem solved our troops would be home in 7 years or less... we can do it. It took only 6 years from the first atom smashed in a lab (1939) to a super weapon (1945) I hope for humanities sake that it will happen and nuclear weapons will not be needed. Dont forget about Iran and Pakistan,North Korea all hot beds of terror

• lfbno7 said on Jan 15, 2008....

  I think if we want to be realistic about this, we need to establish and admit why our troops are there in the first place. They are there to secure the oil. It's not about the Iraqi people. However, while the people of the U.S. are paying to secure the oil, the people of the U.S. are not reaping the benefits. Our oil prices are as high as ever. Our national treasury is busted. We get absolutely no return on our tax dollars, no help with college tuition, we get raked over the coals while our government simply takes tens of thousands of dollars from each of us and uses it to secure the oil in Iraq so certain people can make tons of money from it. It's a filthy ripoff.
  
  With that in mind, I'd recommend an immediate and complete pullout of troops from Iraq. Let the oil companies themselves defend their stolen gain. Taxpayers shouldn't be funding this entrepreneurial maneuver. As for civil war in Iraq, well, fuck it. That's their fucking problem. If they want a fucking civil war they will have a fucking civil war. We had one. Now it's their turn. Fuck it and fuck them. It's not our fault that by taking Saddam Hussein out of the picture, the nation erupts in civil war. Oh one more point. Fuck them. In case I hadn't made that point before. For us to insure that they won't have the civil war they are aching for, we'll have to keep troops there for the next 4,000 years. Fuck em. Let em kill each other. We did.
  
  So, basically, get the fuck out now. We shoulda gotten the fuck out a lot sooner. There ain't no plan. There ain't no exit strategy. There's only get the fuck out and leave them to do what they're gonna do to each other. And I don't care if they take back the oil either. Fuck that too. That country will NEVER be in a position to stand on its own two feet, so let it fall. In other words, fuck them. We got rid of their bloody tyrant, and if they can't play nice in his absence the whole country can and will go to hell, and fuck them anyway, I'm not doing it, they are. Why the hell they don't just partition is beyond me. Let them split into a Sunni country, a Shittite country, and a Kurd country. Three little happy families. Or let them kill each other, it's their problem, the crazy bastards.
  
  Split Iraq into Shittania, Sunnsylvania, and Bean Kurdina. There ya go, you're all set.

• ALIENated said on Jan 15, 2008....

  Considering the cost of the war: nearly $2 billion a week (can that be true?),
  why not bring most of the soldiers home, and leave a few pilots to fly over
  Iraq dumping out about a million a day (that would only be $7 million
  a week in case you went to public school). If fighting breaks out in an area,
  just stop sprinkling the money until they stop. Or drop DVD players and
  porn DVDs. They would all be enslaved to porn, like most Americans in no 
  time and lose their wills to do anything.
  

• crybabylu said on Jan 15, 2008....

  TS--I would bet no matter who gets in, we could still be there by 2018.

  We probably will never hear all the reasons, but we are committed.  I would bet anything.  We have a long-term committment there.

  Ummm......this is 2008..........ummm.....that is 2018........10 yrs.  YUP!  I can see that we could still be there.

   

  dee

   

   

• silverwhisper said on Jan 16, 2008....

  vm: OK, thank you. given some of the other numbers i've seen, long-term coulda meant decades--as in korea's DMZ.
  
  bloc: well said.
  
  auctiontip: the problem w/ nuking the middle east is that you're declaring genocide against muslims. the US would stand alone, friendless--even britain would deny us, now that tony blair's no longer in office--and we would give rise a never-ending sea of muslim zealots who want to strike back--all of whom used to be moderates and didn't believe the extremists who said the US is the satan of the world. and we would deserve it. to me therefore, nukes will never be an acceptable response to an act of terrorism.
  
  lbf: as i understand it, the US plan re: iraqi oil is that it's held in common among the iraqis. IOW, big oil isn't catching even a whiff of it. ?
  
  alienated: i'm curious where you heard that $2 billion/week figure. ? i find that highly plausible, to be honest.
  
  dee: OK, but you didn't exactly answer the question. ?
  
  ed

• RollingC said on Jan 16, 2008....

  Flying over and raining money down on the region so they can sustain themselves without fighting each other?  A novel idea Alien.....We could use that in this country too !
  But I'd be reluctant to drop DVD players from planes as the equipment would certainly get damaged and then it'd be a wasted effort.
  
  Seriously though...if we were in 'Nam for a decade and things weren't as serious economically back then as they are now, I don't think that we'll pull out anytime soon as the stakes are way too high for early withdrawal.
  I think the political ramifications are quite severe either way.  The festering grounds of the terrorist mentality have to be....changed?....healed?...in a way that the people are satisfied enough to get on with their lives without resorting to violence.  And that's not only in the Middle East but everywhere.  This war on terrorism is not only righteous but necessary if anyone wants to live a normal life, and take vacations for instance, without having to worry about sudden man-made disasters.  Where is it going to go after the Middle East for there are terrorist pockets everywhere!
  
  Next generation will probably see the change from Oil as a major energy source to another non-polluting source.  There's plenty of Oil all over the world...it's just a matter of where it's easier to extract it that's all.  A few decades ago there was a trend that thought the Oil was going to run out but that's not going to happen anytime soon for the next several generations.  It's a matter of not using it in the polluting way that we are using it or everyone will suffer the consequences of a changing environment.
  Rc
  
  

• crybabylu said on Jan 16, 2008....

  #2

• silverwhisper said on Jan 16, 2008....

  rollingc: there are indeed terrorist pockets everywhere...up until recently that would have included ireland, and still includes the KKK.
  
  dee: i wasn't sure, thanks for clarifying. :>
  
  ed

• bloc said on Jan 16, 2008....

  @alien
  haha, i think you may be on to something.
  

• silverwhisper said on Jan 16, 2008....

  the idea of porn as a weapon in the war against terrorism is one i find enormously entertaining, i have to say. :D
  
  ed

• auctiontip said on Jan 16, 2008....

   the us military never released detailed body counts till 2006, since then the us claims to have killed 36,729 insurgents.
     Iraqi civilian body counts range anywhere from 82,765 to 88,304.
     Of these 80 plus thousand deaths we just created roughly a quarter  of a million  terrorist if you figure  that they have  at least 3 revenge minded relatives.  Revenge is a big thing in the middle east..
     At this time we are spending about  16,656 dollars per death insurgent  +civilian , at 2 billion a week
  

• silverwhisper said on Jan 17, 2008....

  OK, you can see that killing terrorists = creating more terrorists, so don't you think that just maybe, killing terrorists may itself not, long-term, be the most successful direction?
  
  ed

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