What should we do about Iraq?

[Skip]

Iraq is a mess. Very little has gone well for the U.S. in that country following the fall of Saddam. But we can't focus on the past, we need to focus on the present and future. What can we do in Iraq now to find a best case scenario?

 

[Navy Pride]

I would give the presidents policy a chance to succeed........

 

[bigsmitty]

I would give the presidents policy a chance to succeed........

At what point do we determine whether the president's policy is working or not? The liberals will eternally deny the new direction is working, and the conservatives will forever be telling the liberals to give it a chance to work.

I guess the question is how we are to measure success.

 

[Skip]

I would give the presidents policy a chance to succeed........

Why did you vote "Other"? The President's policy would be easily described with the third option.

 

[Sergeant Stinger1]

Bush and the Repubs have screwed up big time with anything that has to do with Iraq!
So, the only sensible conclusion is to let the real Americans, the smart Democrats, give it a try and do what ever they say which so far is to set a time table to get our troops home.
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And there you once again have the truth from>>>>>:2usflag:seargent
STINGER1

 

[Billo_Really]

No one has voted for Stay the Coarse.

Is that because no one knows what that means?

 

[RightOfCenter]

Bush and the Repubs have screwed up big time with anything that has to do with Iraq!
So, the only sensible conclusion is to let the real Americans, the smart Democrats, give it a try and do what ever they say which so far is to set a time table to get our troops home.
_______
And there you once again have the truth from>>>>>:2usflag:seargent
STINGER1

Wow, I hope that post was a joke.

On topic though, I have absolutely no idea. If it were my choice I would take whatever advice troop commanders on the ground as well as Maliki's government had to offer. They see what's going on and know what is necessary.

 

[Inuyasha]

Wow, I hope that post was a joke.

On topic though, I have absolutely no idea. If it were my choice I would take whatever advice troop commanders on the ground as well as Maliki's government had to offer. They see what's going on and know what is necessary.

I sort of agree with this option. Bring all the top active duty military minds from the Pentagon and let them speak freely to the civilian administration without fear of reprisals or censure and do what the consensuses of military minds come up with.

I am against civilian administration managing the war like the Johnson administration did in SE Asia or the Bush administration in Iraq. Civilian administrations that disregard the military opinion are doomed to fail at war. Look at what happened to the Germans and the Italians in WWII. Governments that totally ignored their military leaders and what did it get them? Total disaster. On the other hand the military needs to be tempered by civilian input. If not you wind up like the Japanese in WWII.

 

[dragonslayer]

I would give the presidents policy a chance to succeed........

Navy, Give the President's policies a chance to do what? In March over 80 americans were killed and their death accomplished nothing.

succeed????????? what does that mean? some day we will have to get the heck out of Iraq. when we do everyone who supported or worked in the government we created will DIE. The Security Forces will be the ones who will kill them. We are wasting millions in Iraq on that huge fortress like embassy. It will never be used and Exxon will not be allowed to control Iraqi Oil.

 

[tecoyah]

In my opinion, we need to fall back, regroup, and evaluate the failings. This would have the added benefit of allowing the ongoing Civil War in Iraq to play out without placing our people in harms way. Added to this would be the stabilization, and focus on the place we fall back to....Afghanistan. I believe that we should have completed the first mission, before taking on a second, and we have yet to do so. By making Afghanistan safe, and establishing a U.S presence there....we become a stronger influence on the biggest issue underlying all of this.

Helping people unfamiliar with a democratic lifestyle, and the many perks it can create...see it all firsthand.

 

[Inuyasha]

In my opinion, we need to fall back, regroup, and evaluate the failings. This would have the added benefit of allowing the ongoing Civil War in Iraq to play out without placing our people in harms way. Added to this would be the stabilization, and focus on the place we fall back to....Afghanistan. I believe that we should have completed the first mission, before taking on a second, and we have yet to do so. By making Afghanistan safe, and establishing a U.S presence there....we become a stronger influence on the biggest issue underlying all of this.

Helping people unfamiliar with a democratic lifestyle, and the many perks it can create...see it all firsthand.

I keep getting the sinking feeling that these people do not want to become familiar with a democratic lifestyle.

 

[RightinNYC]

I personally think that as the Iraqi police and army continues to grow, we should be slowly rotating troops out. The idea of setting a specific deadline for that, or of preventing an increase when need be is just foolish.

The number of troops should be adjusted upwards or downwards as the military commanders and executive leadership sees fit. Congress can either decide to fund it or not.

 

[Tashah]

A sensible short-term metric for 'progress' would be Baghdad. Nothing lasting can be accomplished in Iraq unless Baghdad is secure. The next few months should resolve this metric one way or the other.

 

[Cephus]

I would give the presidents policy a chance to succeed........

He's had a chance to succeed, so far he's done nothing but fail miserably and get out troops needlessly killed. Obviously, he's got no clue what he's doing and no idea how to realistically get there. We need to do something else.

 

[Cephus]

I keep getting the sinking feeling that these people do not want to become familiar with a democratic lifestyle.

That's true. They never wanted a western-style democracy, they can't handle a western-style democracy and trying to force one on them is stupid. There simply is no way they can handle the freedoms that a western-style democracy requires and still keep their cultural and social structure. The basis of their entire mode of civilization is *NOT* being democratic, it's based specifically around one or more 'dictators' who run everything.

All we're doing is wasting our time.

 

[jamesrage]

Iraq is a mess. Very little has gone well for the U.S. in that country following the fall of Saddam. But we can't focus on the past, we need to focus on the present and future. What can we do in Iraq now to find a best case scenario?

Full-scale warfare similar to a world war.That means letting the generals run the war and not letting the traitors in the media tie our troop's hands,reveal classified information and not caving into ***** cowardly rhetoric(political correctness).

 

[Cephus]

Full-scale warfare similar to a world war.That means letting the generals run the war and not letting the traitors in the media tie our troop's hands,reveal classified information and not caving into ***** cowardly rhetoric(political correctness).

Thereby ******* everyone off even more and opening up the US to even more large-scale terrorist attacks.

Sure, sounds like a good idea to me.

 

[jamesrage]

Thereby ******* everyone off even more and opening up the US to even more large-scale terrorist attacks.

Sure, sounds like a good idea to me.

If the United States was ran like it was during WWII,the terrorist scum would dare not have the balls to attack us.Therefore you are wrong with your terrorist sympathizer rhetoric that if we act like a nation with balls that terrorist would come out of the woodwork.

 

[Billo_Really]

Originally Posted by jamesrage
Full-scale warfare similar to a world war.That means letting the generals run the war and not letting the traitors in the media tie our troop's hands,reveal classified information and not caving into ***** cowardly rhetoric(political correctness).

So you must be outraged everytime Bush fires a general that disagrees with his political agenda?

 

[jamesrage]

So you must be outraged everytime Bush fires a general that disagrees with his political agenda?

I am outraged they are not letting generals run the war and letting ******s in the media dictate how out troops fight the war.

 

[tecoyah]

I am outraged they are not letting generals run the war and letting ******s in the media dictate how out troops fight the war.

You do of course realize....this "THEY" you speak of are the members of the Bush Administration....Correct? The Media does not run the war, fire military leaders, or decide upon tactics, they simply tell us all about it. If you seriously think the Media has anything to do with the military complex in this country....you are an even larger fool than anyone could have imagined.
Fortunately, we all know you dont actually believe this, and so I did not just call you a fool.

 

[jamesrage]

You do of course realize....this "THEY" you speak of are the members of the Bush Administration....Correct?

Of Course.

The Media does not run the war, fire military leaders, or decide upon tactics, they simply tell us all about it.If you seriously think the Media has anything to do with the military complex in this country....

The media tries to manipulate public opinion by overplaying the stories,death toll,how terrorist are being treated and so on. so that the manipulated public will write,email or call their elected officials to do something.******s in the media whine how captured terrorist are being treated,terrorist sympathizers write to their elected officials and therefore make it harder to gather intelligence. ******s in the media make the death toll in Iraq seem like the death toll in WWII and that nothing what so ever is being accomplished in Iraq and ******s back home write,call and or bitch to their elected officials,so the traitor-cats in office make up a surrender date bill attached to a troops funding bill.

you are an even larger fool than anyone could have imagined.
Fortunately, we all know you dont actually believe this, and so I did not just call you a fool.

If you fail to see the blatant manipulation through the media by anti-war/bush Bashing scum you are not just a simple idiot but major idiot.You should read how the KKK was revived in the early 20th century after they were suppressed for four and half decades,it might wake you up to whats going on today.

 

[Inuyasha]

In WWII we had more of our greatest generals in one war than we have ever had before or after. We also had a real coalition with a true and immediate purpose in mind. That is not the case in Iraq. It will not happen like WWII. That kind of glory and purpose is beyond us in this war. Also if you know sh?t about tactics you will realize that this is not WWII, can never be WWII so it is impossible until generals get smart enough to figure out how to beat an insugency and they have not be able to do that in 4000 years of history. Sheeesh.

 

[Sergeant Stinger1]

Full-scale warfare similar to a world war.That means letting the generals run the war and not letting the traitors in the media tie our troop's hands,reveal classified information and not caving into ***** cowardly rhetoric(political correctness).

_______
Speaking of Traitors to our Troops and American workers, hows Bush doing?
He screwed up big time and now you Cons want to blame everyone but Bush!

 

[Sergeant Stinger1]

I would give the presidents policy a chance to succeed........

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I agree! We should put ALL of our money in oil stocks and give Bush 20 more years to straighten Iraq out.