What Do We Do If...?

[Guest]

Our troops in Iraq have now pulled back to bases outside the cities. Violence has begun to escalate. Most experts--even the Iraqis themselves--have doubts whether their army can provide security for the country. Other experts have been saying for years that civil war in Iraq is inevitable as soon as U.S. forces withdraw...whenever that might be.

So what do we do if civil war really does escalate in Iraq? We have 130,000 troops who will be located in hopefully safely secure bases outside the cities. Do we redeploy them to to quell the violence? Remember, that would require that we violate the agreement that we signed with the democratically-elected Iraqi government calling for the terms and timing of our troop withdrawals. Such a redeplyment back into the cities would be wildly unpopular among the Iraqi citizens and would almost certainly result in renewed attacks on our troops.

And, oh, remember one other thing...our 18-19 year old soldiers over there were still in grade school when the Iraqi army began "training" to protect their own country. It takes them awhile longer to produce a soldier than it takes us, I guess.

My feeling is that we declare victory and get the heck out of there. Is there some reason I don't understand why we should keep American kids in harms way, protecting Iraqis from killing one another when their government and populace isn't interested enough in stopping the bloodshed by training an effective army made up of their own citizens to protect themselves? What am I missing?

[Guest]

You are right..USA policy is to pull all the troops out and let the enemy slaughter millions of our new friends. Progressives say we should not care about innocent people being killed. By gosh...we did it in Vietnam and we can do it in Iraq.

[Guest]

You are right..USA policy is to pull all the troops out and let the enemy slaughter millions of our new friends. Progressives say we should not care about innocent people being killed. By gosh...we did it in Vietnam and we can do it in Iraq.

Let's remember who and what got us into this mess in the first place. Wrong war, wrong place, wrong enemy, wrong intelligence, wrong ideologues.

We cut off the wrong snake's head out of ego and greed (oil) and created a hydra that will not be easily placated. The question now arises: Do we continue to occupy a nation that clearly seems ready to have us leave, or do we allow Iraq to return to its true tribal roots, which were arbitrarily ignored when Britain first created the "country"- for oil of course. These tribes have existed for centuries- isn't it arrogant of us to think we can simply resolve their differences because we displaced a violent dictator with a virtually unworkable government?


ANd who is the enemy? And who are our new friends? In Palestine, we screamed about the Palestinians having a free and fair election- and Hamas won handily in Gaza. Does that democratic process make them our friends? I hope not. We have a tendency to think that any fair election will result in a government that will somehow be created in the U.S. image. Doesn't work that way- Democracy is messy.

But cowboys don't want messy- They want the bad guy out of town by sundown or they shoot him dead at high noon, and then they leave the peaceful place they saved riding off into the west. Ain't gonna happen that way in a domestic conflagration- never does. Only if you're stopping an totally unwanted external invasion is there any hope of looking like the hero!

[Guest]

Our troops in Iraq have now pulled back to bases outside the cities. Violence has begun to escalate. Most experts--even the Iraqis themselves--have doubts whether their army can provide security for the country. Other experts have been saying for years that civil war in Iraq is inevitable as soon as U.S. forces withdraw...whenever that might be.

So what do we do if civil war really does escalate in Iraq? We have 130,000 troops who will be located in hopefully safely secure bases outside the cities. Do we redeploy them to to quell the violence? Remember, that would require that we violate the agreement that we signed with the democratically-elected Iraqi government calling for the terms and timing of our troop withdrawals. Such a redeplyment back into the cities would be wildly unpopular among the Iraqi citizens and would almost certainly result in renewed attacks on our troops.

And, oh, remember one other thing...our 18-19 year old soldiers over there were still in grade school when the Iraqi army began "training" to protect their own country. It takes them awhile longer to produce a soldier than it takes us, I guess.

My feeling is that we declare victory and get the heck out of there. Is there some reason I don't understand why we should keep American kids in harms way, protecting Iraqis from killing one another when their government and populace isn't interested enough in stopping the bloodshed by training an effective army made up of their own citizens to protect themselves? What am I missing?

It's been almost 65 years since the end of WWII, and we still have troops in Germany and Japan. Our warships still patrol international waters closer to Asia, Europe and Africa than North America. I've lost track of all the air bases around the world that co-host USAF units.

Personally, I think there will be a US presence in Iraq for many decades. It would allow for a better staging area for dealing with other Al Q'aida activities in that region which affect US lilves and property. In the long run, it may be the seed for an eventual NATO equivalent in the Mideast to deal with Al Q'aida and rogue nations.

Before getting lulled into "cut and run," this is the time to think one-two-three decades downstream on what will keep a repeat of large-scale military activities from recurring. We (and the rest of the allies) made that mistake at the end of WWI and learned a painful lesson from that mistake. The post-WWII actions proved to be very expensive, but very effective.

Let's not let Iraq be a repeat of the Germany of 1919.

[Guest]

Again, thanks Steve for common sense as compared to revisionist crap.