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THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, ELEVENTH THREAD

 
 
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Thu 4 Oct, 2007 12:24 pm
ican: The lives of the Iraqi people must first be secured from those who murder them or would murder them. Failure to accept that necessity is a serious failure to accept reality.


You are dense! The Iraqis are killing off each other in a civil war.
0 Replies
 
Cycloptichorn
 
  1  
Reply Thu 4 Oct, 2007 12:25 pm
ican711nm wrote:
revel wrote:

...
We have not announced that we are not seeking permanent bases. Nor have we been willing to work with regional allies like Iran, Syria, Jordan, Turkey to help with reconstuction efforts and security along with just special forces of the US (not a whole military). We have not been willing to let it get out of our hands.

I think he is right (along with Murtha who says about the same thing) that we need to retreat to the side lines in surrounding areas and involve other nations without the US being in control. It is in the best interest of the surrounding nations to help Iraq and maybe if we were not in control of it all they would.

First things first!

The lives of the Iraqi people must first be secured from those who murder them or would murder them. Failure to accept that necessity is a serious failure to accept reality.

When the Iraq government decides it can accomplish that necessity without the help of the USA, they will ask the USA to leave, and the USA will leave--all the propaganda to the contrary not withstanding.


Bull crap. The security situation in the country won't be decided by any body politic, but by the actual situation on the ground.

If there's still an incomplete security situation, then according to your metrics, we can't possibly leave, even if they asked; it would be tantamount to failure.

Cycloptichorn
0 Replies
 
ican711nm
 
  1  
Reply Thu 4 Oct, 2007 12:37 pm
cicerone imposter wrote:
revel, After six years trying to secure the country and failing, anything else is a better choice. Stay the course is not a viable option; it's already failed, and everybody continues to lose.

WE HAVE NOT BEEN TRYING TO SECURE IRAQ FOR 6 YEARS.

March 20, 2003 (we invaded Iraq)
March 20, 2004 = end of Year #1.
March 20, 2005 = end of Year #2.
March 20, 2006 = end of Year #3.
March 20, 2007 = end of Year #4.
April 20, 2007 = end of Year #4 + 1 month.
May 20, 2007 = end of Year #4 + 2 months.
June 20, 2007 = end of Year #4 + 3 months..
July 20, 2007 = end of Year #4 + 4 months..
August 20, 2007 = end of Year #4 + 5 months..
September 20, 2007 = end of Year #4 + 6 months.
October 20, 2007 = end of Year #4 + 7 months.
(today = October 4, 2007)
0 Replies
 
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Thu 4 Oct, 2007 12:48 pm
ican711nm wrote:
cicerone imposter wrote:
revel, After six years trying to secure the country and failing, anything else is a better choice. Stay the course is not a viable option; it's already failed, and everybody continues to lose.

WE HAVE NOT BEEN TRYING TO SECURE IRAQ FOR 6 YEARS.

March 20, 2003 (we invaded Iraq)
March 20, 2004 = end of Year #1.
March 20, 2005 = end of Year #2.
March 20, 2006 = end of Year #3.
March 20, 2007 = end of Year #4.
April 20, 2007 = end of Year #4 + 1 month.
May 20, 2007 = end of Year #4 + 2 months.
June 20, 2007 = end of Year #4 + 3 months..
July 20, 2007 = end of Year #4 + 4 months..
August 20, 2007 = end of Year #4 + 5 months..
September 20, 2007 = end of Year #4 + 6 months.
October 20, 2007 = end of Year #4 + 7 months.
(today = October 4, 2007)


You're right, ican. I confused the Bush regime years to the Iraq war; my bad
0 Replies
 
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Thu 4 Oct, 2007 12:48 pm
I shudda said "longer than WWII."
0 Replies
 
ican711nm
 
  1  
Reply Thu 4 Oct, 2007 01:08 pm
Cycloptichorn wrote:
ican711nm wrote:
revel wrote:

...
We have not announced that we are not seeking permanent bases. Nor have we been willing to work with regional allies like Iran, Syria, Jordan, Turkey to help with reconstuction efforts and security along with just special forces of the US (not a whole military). We have not been willing to let it get out of our hands.

I think he is right (along with Murtha who says about the same thing) that we need to retreat to the side lines in surrounding areas and involve other nations without the US being in control. It is in the best interest of the surrounding nations to help Iraq and maybe if we were not in control of it all they would.

First things first!

The lives of the Iraqi people must first be secured from those who murder them or would murder them. Failure to accept that necessity is a serious failure to accept reality.

When the Iraq government decides it can accomplish that necessity without the help of the USA, they will ask the USA to leave, and the USA will leave--all the propaganda to the contrary not withstanding.


Bull crap. The security situation in the country won't be decided by any body politic, but by the actual situation on the ground.

If there's still an incomplete security situation, then according to your metrics, we can't possibly leave, even if they asked; it would be tantamount to failure.

Cycloptichorn

When the Iraq government asks the USA to leave, the USA will leave regardless of the ability of the Iraq government to secure its people.

And yes, if the Iraq government should ask us to leave before they are able to secure their people without our help, we will have failed.

Win some lose some!

If the USA is ultimately going to fail, I'd rather the USA fail because of a premature request by the Iraq government for us to leave, than fail because the USA failured to persist in our efforts to win.
0 Replies
 
ican711nm
 
  1  
Reply Thu 4 Oct, 2007 01:17 pm
cicerone imposter wrote:
I shudda said "longer than WWII."

That also would have been false. WWII required 4 years to conquer the enemy.

The Iraq war required less than 45 days to conquer the enemy.

The occupation of Japan ended in 7 years.

The occupation of Germany ended in 9 years.

The occupation of Iraq has lasted about 4 years + 6 months.
0 Replies
 
Cycloptichorn
 
  1  
Reply Thu 4 Oct, 2007 01:22 pm
ican711nm wrote:
Cycloptichorn wrote:
ican711nm wrote:
revel wrote:

...
We have not announced that we are not seeking permanent bases. Nor have we been willing to work with regional allies like Iran, Syria, Jordan, Turkey to help with reconstuction efforts and security along with just special forces of the US (not a whole military). We have not been willing to let it get out of our hands.

I think he is right (along with Murtha who says about the same thing) that we need to retreat to the side lines in surrounding areas and involve other nations without the US being in control. It is in the best interest of the surrounding nations to help Iraq and maybe if we were not in control of it all they would.

First things first!

The lives of the Iraqi people must first be secured from those who murder them or would murder them. Failure to accept that necessity is a serious failure to accept reality.

When the Iraq government decides it can accomplish that necessity without the help of the USA, they will ask the USA to leave, and the USA will leave--all the propaganda to the contrary not withstanding.


Bull crap. The security situation in the country won't be decided by any body politic, but by the actual situation on the ground.

If there's still an incomplete security situation, then according to your metrics, we can't possibly leave, even if they asked; it would be tantamount to failure.

Cycloptichorn

When the Iraq government asks the USA to leave, the USA will leave regardless of the ability of the Iraq government to secure its people.

And yes, if the Iraq government should ask us to leave before they are able to secure their people without our help, we will have failed.

Win some lose some!

If the USA is ultimately going to fail, I'd rather the USA fail because of a premature request by the Iraq government for us to leave, than fail because the USA failured to persist in our efforts to win.


Your willingness to leave Iraq before it is secure belies your 'America must win in Iraq' mantra, completely. If we leave Iraq and there is still a significant terrorist presence, by your continually stated logic, we would be forced to re-invade immediately.

Our decision to stay or go cannot be held hostage to the politics of their country, if the situation is truly as dire as you have long maintained it is re: terrorism and the impact it will have on the US.

You are contradicting yourself.

Cycloptichorn
0 Replies
 
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Thu 4 Oct, 2007 02:13 pm
ican711nm wrote:
cicerone imposter wrote:
I shudda said "longer than WWII."

That also would have been false. WWII required 4 years to conquer the enemy.

The Iraq war required less than 45 days to conquer the enemy.

The occupation of Japan ended in 7 years.

The occupation of Germany ended in 9 years.

The occupation of Iraq has lasted about 4 years + 6 months.


You are dense! We're talking the length of the active war. There is no "conquer" in Iraq.
0 Replies
 
ican711nm
 
  1  
Reply Thu 4 Oct, 2007 02:33 pm
Cycloptichorn wrote:

...
ican711nm wrote:

When the Iraq government asks the USA to leave, the USA will leave regardless of the ability of the Iraq government to secure its people.

And yes, if the Iraq government should ask us to leave before they are able to secure their people without our help, we will have failed.

Win some lose some!

If the USA is ultimately going to fail, I'd rather the USA fail because of a premature request by the Iraq government for us to leave, than fail because the USA failured to persist in our efforts to win.


Your willingness to leave Iraq before it is secure belies your 'America must win in Iraq' mantra, completely. If we leave Iraq and there is still a significant terrorist presence, by your continually stated logic, we would be forced to re-invade immediately.

Our decision to stay or go cannot be held hostage to the politics of their country, if the situation is truly as dire as you have long maintained it is re: terrorism and the impact it will have on the US.

You are contradicting yourself.

Cycloptichorn

I think we cannot win in Iraq if we are asked to leave before we have won, whether we stay after we are asked to leave or not.

We have two choices:
(1) leave before we are asked to leave;
(2) leave when we are asked to leave.

Choice (1) guarantees failure and no chance to secure the Iraqi people.

Choice (2) risks failure while providing a chance to succeed.

You appear to favor choice (1), while I definitely favor choice (2).

You also appear to favor the idea that if we do stay, we ought not leave until we succeed in securing the Iraqi people, regardless of whether we are asked to leave before then.

I want us to do what I think is the right thing to do. What I cannot figure out is why you, who favor our leaving before we are asked, appear opposed to our leaving when we are asked if we have not yet won
0 Replies
 
Cycloptichorn
 
  1  
Reply Thu 4 Oct, 2007 02:35 pm
I'm not opposed to the US leaving Iraq at any time; merely pointing out that your willingness to leave when asked shows that the original justifications you are presenting for our invasion of Iraq are false.

IF we can afford to leave Iraq without securing the country from AQ, b/c they ask us to leave,

THEN we could have afforded to not invade in the first place.

No other way to look at it.

Cycloptichorn
0 Replies
 
ican711nm
 
  1  
Reply Thu 4 Oct, 2007 02:40 pm
cicerone imposter wrote:
ican711nm wrote:
cicerone imposter wrote:
I shudda said "longer than WWII."

That also would have been false. WWII required 4 years to conquer the enemy.

The Iraq war required less than 45 days to conquer the enemy.

The occupation of Japan ended in 7 years.

The occupation of Germany ended in 9 years.

The occupation of Iraq has lasted about 4 years + 6 months.


... We're talking the length of the active war. There is no "conquer" in Iraq.

You talk about what you want to talk about. I talk about what I want to talk about.

The war in Iraq was concluded and Iraq was conquered when the Saddam government was removed. Our occupation of Iraq began at that point and is not yet concluded.
0 Replies
 
ican711nm
 
  1  
Reply Thu 4 Oct, 2007 02:44 pm
Cycloptichorn wrote:
I'm not opposed to the US leaving Iraq at any time; merely pointing out that your willingness to leave when asked shows that the original justifications you are presenting for our invasion of Iraq are false.

IF we can afford to leave Iraq without securing the country from AQ, b/c they ask us to leave,

THEN we could have afforded to not invade in the first place.

No other way to look at it.

Cycloptichorn

If we had not invaded in the first place we would have had zero chance to win. If we leave before we are asked to leave we will have zero chance to win. If we stay after we are asked to leave, but before we have won, we will have zero chance to win.

Our only chance to win is to stay until asked to leave, thereby taking the chance we will not be asked to leave before we have won.
0 Replies
 
Cycloptichorn
 
  1  
Reply Thu 4 Oct, 2007 02:53 pm
ican711nm wrote:
Cycloptichorn wrote:
I'm not opposed to the US leaving Iraq at any time; merely pointing out that your willingness to leave when asked shows that the original justifications you are presenting for our invasion of Iraq are false.

IF we can afford to leave Iraq without securing the country from AQ, b/c they ask us to leave,

THEN we could have afforded to not invade in the first place.

No other way to look at it.

Cycloptichorn

If we had not invaded in the first place we would have had zero chance to win. If we leave before we are asked to leave we will have zero chance to win. If we stay after we are asked to leave, but before we have won, we will have zero chance to win.

Our only chance to win is to stay until asked to leave, thereby taking the chance we will not be asked to leave before we have won.


It is irrational that you would claim that we were justified in invading Iraq to prevent terrorism, but would be forced to leave if the gov't there asked us to, even if there was still terrorism present. Your current advocation of the US holding our security hostage to the whims of the Maliki gov't in Iraq is incompatible with your earlier position.

Cycloptichorn
0 Replies
 
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Thu 4 Oct, 2007 04:13 pm
ican is inconsistent. He wants it both ways: stay until we succeed or until the Ireaqi government asks us to leave - even at any level of terrorism. That's a laugher in anybody's book.
0 Replies
 
ican711nm
 
  1  
Reply Thu 4 Oct, 2007 07:52 pm
Cycloptichorn wrote:
ican711nm wrote:
Cycloptichorn wrote:
I'm not opposed to the US leaving Iraq at any time; merely pointing out that your willingness to leave when asked shows that the original justifications you are presenting for our invasion of Iraq are false.

IF we can afford to leave Iraq without securing the country from AQ, b/c they ask us to leave,

THEN we could have afforded to not invade in the first place.

No other way to look at it.

Cycloptichorn

If we had not invaded in the first place we would have had zero chance to win. If we leave before we are asked to leave we will have zero chance to win. If we stay after we are asked to leave, but before we have won, we will have zero chance to win.

Our only chance to win is to stay until asked to leave, thereby taking the chance we will not be asked to leave before we have won.


It is irrational that you would claim that we were justified in invading Iraq to prevent terrorism, but would be forced to leave if the gov't there asked us to, even if there was still terrorism present. Your current advocation of the US holding our security hostage to the whims of the Maliki gov't in Iraq is incompatible with your earlier position.

Cycloptichorn

Your interpretation of what I wrote is irrational.

If we had not invaded in the first place we would have had zero chance to win.

If we leave before we are asked to leave we will have zero chance to win.

If we stay after we are asked to leave, but before we have won, we will have zero chance to win.

Our only chance to win is to stay until asked to leave, thereby taking the chance we will not be asked to leave before we have won.


We want to win: that is, we want to help the elected Iraq Government become capable of defending its people against al-Qaeda and other such malignancies without our help.

Therefore we should do that which provides us the greatest chance to win.

That which provides us the greatest chance to win is staying until we are asked to leave.
0 Replies
 
ican711nm
 
  1  
Reply Thu 4 Oct, 2007 08:04 pm
cicerone imposter wrote:
ican is inconsistent. He wants it both ways: stay until we succeed or until the Ireaqi government asks us to leave - even at any level of terrorism. That's a laugher in anybody's book.

You appear to think that it is certain that our success and our being asked to leave are mutually exclusive. It is clearly not certain that they are mutually exclusive. To believe it certain that they are mutually exclusive is truly weird.
0 Replies
 
ican711nm
 
  1  
Reply Thu 4 Oct, 2007 08:19 pm
THE IRAQI PEOPLE ALSO WANT THE USA TO WIN!

Quote:
The Realignment of Iraq
We're winning because the Iraqis want us to--Moqtada al-Sadr included.
BY BARTLE BULL WSJ
Wednesday, October 3, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

The war in Iraq was always going to be won by the Iraqis, and so it has proven. But the Iraqis who have won it are on our side.

It was in the spring of 2004--a month or so before I first arrived in Baghdad in a taxi to stay in a small hotel--that the Sunnis launched their disastrous insurgency. Its defeat is becoming ever more clear this autumn as new reports reach us of the patriotic stand of the Anbar tribes, the pacification and nascent prosperity of Fallujah and Ramadi, the isolation of al Qaeda, and the peace overtures of defeated Baathists.

That first season of serious fighting also included the time of the original uprising by the poor Shiites of Iraq, led by Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army. Six times during that fighting I drove with Iraqis through the so-called Death Triangle of Sunni towns south of Baghdad to cover the events in Najaf. Surrounded on the highway by pickup trucks carrying chanting Mahdi Army fighters and caskets bearing the dead from the Sadr City fighting, one would see the green and black flags of the Shiite saints atop houses and feel safe.

Why did it feel so good to see those Shiite flags? Why was the Death Triangle so lethal? What on earth were the Mahdi fighters doing trying to fight the U.S. Marines and Cavalry head-on in pitched battles?

The last three years in Iraq have evolved as the answers to those questions suggested they would. The leaning, rag-like Shiite flags were good news because it was Sunnis, not Shiites, who beheaded people. Islamic violence in Iraq was then as now a phenomenon of the Wahhabis--Sunni fundamentalists. The Sunnis also did the kidnapping, and were the ones behind the car bombs that targeted random civilians.

The Death Triangle was so bad because the Baathists who lived there, angry to have lost their apartheid privileges, desperate for the chaos that might derail the new project, would sell you to the Wahhabis, who would cut your head off to make good TV to erode the will to fight the chaos. The Mahdi fighters were dying not because their leaders thought they could beat the Americans in battle, for their leaders were too clever to think that, but to earn Mr. Sadr his nationalist credentials as the only important Iraqi--Shiite or otherwise--to stand up and fight the Americans.

Mr. Sadr's eyes, we learned at Najaf, were on domestic politics. It was clear then that his skinny men with their pickup trucks and light arms, men who on that road down from Baghdad were as scared as I was of the Sunni minorities, lacked the muscle to take over the country. Domestic politics for Mr. Sadr could never mean the whole cake, but only as much of it as he could grab. If he was as rational as his success in pushing the Americans to the very brink of his destruction--but never beyond it--in both of his two rebellions indicated he was, the ballot box, promised for 2005, would be where he fought his next battles.

These outlines of Iraqi politics duly asserted themselves over the last three years, providing the basis for the victory that is happening today. The Baathist Sunnis continued to kill to get back what they used to have, until accepting this past summer that they had suffered an historic defeat in a Battle of Baghdad of their own calamitous making. Shiite Iraq has arrived to stay, and today the drawing rooms of Baghdad's dealmakers are full of Baathists, cap in hand, terrified of the Shiite death squads they inspired and hungry for their slice of the coming oil pie. Meanwhile the Wahhabis, mostly foreigners, answering to a higher power and blind to selfish thoughts of wealth and survival, continue to kill but find themselves increasingly unwanted.

A third element of the Sunni violence was tribal. This was particularly prevalent in Anbar province in western Iraq, where Sunni tribes have traditionally prospered from banditry on the Damascus road. Fighting outsiders is an old habit in Iraq's Sunni bandit country. So is making money, and Anbar today, as Iraqis prepare to gorge themselves at the oil trough, is one of the safer places in Iraq.

It was always clear that Iraq's Sunni tribes would eventually take up arms against the Saudis, Jordanians and Syrians in their midst who were banning smoking, killing whisky vendors, blowing up their utilities and oil infrastructure, executing sheikhs of ancient tribes, and forcibly marrying local girls to "emirs" of the absurd Islamic State of Iraq. Anbar's tribal leaders and Baathists were going to be bought off eventually, either directly or by the indirect promise of owning a chunk of what will be a very rich country.

At least 14,000 Anbari young men have joined the state security services since the surge began in February and Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, started reaching out to the chiefs. Now the insurgency has decamped to other provinces, where it does not want to be. Beating them there will be even easier, as is proving to be the case in Diyala.

As for Mr. Sadr, I reported the first hints of his democratic conversion in 2004 when a member of his top political committee told me Mr. Sadr was going to start a political party and contest the elections when they came. He still has not formed such a party, but as I saw up close when I later spent five weeks of the December 2005 election period embedded in Sadr City with his Mahdi Army, he embraced electoral politics with subtlety and enthusiasm.
Of course he did: He is the leader of the country's biggest popular movement. Today, controlling five major ministries and about 30 members of Parliament (one of the two largest blocs in the government) he underwrites the pluralist project in Iraq as he has done since late 2004.

So--with the Sunni insurgency defeated, the Shiite nationalists inside the government, breakup and true civil war avoided, Iran a pest at worst, regional sectarian disruption a fantasy and a White House that will not be forced into declarations of defeat by three IEDs a day--the main questions of Iraqi politics have been resolved. Despite the huge prices paid for these victories, the resolutions have mostly been for the best.

Violence continues in Iraq, but it is mostly local: revenge cycles, factionalism, crime, brutal neighborhood power plays. And it is declining. Iraqi civilian deaths in September, like U.S. military deaths, had halved since their highs earlier this year. By December they will be much lower.

Meanwhile reconciliation, which will never be complete, is happening. We saw, with the huge success of the two 2005 elections and the week-long nationwide celebrations attending the soccer victory this July, that deep unities have survived the 35-year Baath nightmare. The Kurds and Shiites can be forgiven for not wanting to reward the Sunnis immediately for the destructive insurgency that followed those 35 years of apartheid and genocide.
But from the local level to the national, the huge majority of Iraqis are showing enormous tolerance. Federal money is being pumped into Anbar, and in Baghdad this year over 30 Sunni mosques have been reopened by the government, mostly in the mainly Shiite east of the city. Today the Mahdi Army and the Sunni tribes in the Death Triangle are negotiating a modus vivendi. Sheikh Fawaz al Gerba, a Sunni sheikh and former general, is doing the same around Mosul. And Shiekh Harith al Dari, as head of the Association of Islamic Scholars, the leading Sunni group, which many Iraqis used to call the Association of Islamic Kidnappers, is doing it with Shiites in various parts of the country.

The biggest unifier of all currently might be the most predictable one. Help from foreigners is welcome in Iraq. The country's elected prime minister, possessing after Iraq's heroic elections more popular legitimacy than almost any leader in the world, often points out that the Coalition is there as invited guests. When the U.S. Senate passed its disingenuous "plan" for extreme federalism in Iraq last week, the uproar in the country crossed the sectarian divide. Iraq already has a constitution. It was written by freely elected Iraqis and ratified overwhelmingly by the public in a brave vote two years ago.

Thousands of Americans and their allies have died helping to give Iraqis this opportunity. We have shown enormous skill and bravery in helping them fight their enemies, and immeasurable goodwill in sending our young men to protect Iraqi schools, mosques and polling booths. The reason we and Iraqis are winning this war together is that its purpose is to give Iraqis what they want.

Mr. Bull is the foreign editor of Prospect magazine and editor of Middle East Monitor. His next book, "Babylon," is due out next year from Grove/Atlantic.
0 Replies
 
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Thu 4 Oct, 2007 08:34 pm
ican, In your case, success and asking us to leave before terrorism is beat are mutually exclusive. You just can't have it both ways.

You are unable to describe what "success" means, because the Bush regime has never articulated it from the very beginning until now; it was WMDs, next was get rid of Saddam, then finally bring democracy to the Middle East. What the Bush regime has said was we'll leave when they ask us to leave. They didn't say anything about accomplishing any goals if the Iraqi government asks us to leave.

You're about as confused as this administration.
0 Replies
 
Cycloptichorn
 
  1  
Reply Fri 5 Oct, 2007 09:57 am
ican711nm wrote:
Cycloptichorn wrote:
ican711nm wrote:
Cycloptichorn wrote:
I'm not opposed to the US leaving Iraq at any time; merely pointing out that your willingness to leave when asked shows that the original justifications you are presenting for our invasion of Iraq are false.

IF we can afford to leave Iraq without securing the country from AQ, b/c they ask us to leave,

THEN we could have afforded to not invade in the first place.

No other way to look at it.

Cycloptichorn

If we had not invaded in the first place we would have had zero chance to win. If we leave before we are asked to leave we will have zero chance to win. If we stay after we are asked to leave, but before we have won, we will have zero chance to win.

Our only chance to win is to stay until asked to leave, thereby taking the chance we will not be asked to leave before we have won.


It is irrational that you would claim that we were justified in invading Iraq to prevent terrorism, but would be forced to leave if the gov't there asked us to, even if there was still terrorism present. Your current advocation of the US holding our security hostage to the whims of the Maliki gov't in Iraq is incompatible with your earlier position.

Cycloptichorn

Your interpretation of what I wrote is irrational.

If we had not invaded in the first place we would have had zero chance to win.

If we leave before we are asked to leave we will have zero chance to win.

If we stay after we are asked to leave, but before we have won, we will have zero chance to win.

Our only chance to win is to stay until asked to leave, thereby taking the chance we will not be asked to leave before we have won.


We want to win: that is, we want to help the elected Iraq Government become capable of defending its people against al-Qaeda and other such malignancies without our help.

Therefore we should do that which provides us the greatest chance to win.

That which provides us the greatest chance to win is staying until we are asked to leave.


But, we didn't invade Iraq b/c we had a 'chance of winning.' We invaded, according to you, to combat a very specific threat: terrorism in the form of Al Qaeda.

According to your position, all the trouble that we've had is worth it b/c the risk of letting AQ grow unchecked was too great.

Now, if we leave, AQ will be allowed to grow unchecked in Iraq. This wasn't previously a tolerable situation to you; why is it a tolerable situation now?

Cycloptichorn
0 Replies
 
 

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