Iraq question

Some good points jeaguer, if you were in control, what course would you follow?

 

Well, Vietnamisation worked so well for Vietnam, so let's repeat the experiance with Iraq... :roll:

 

What course would you follow?

 

Trouble is, the whole issue of Iraq is very clouded and muddied by contrasting Media reports. Either all is going well bar a few fanatical foreign insurgents, or everything is going to hell in a handbasket. I doubt that any of us has any true idea of the actual situation.

Let's see... pulling out of a country before it is stable enough to protect itself from the threat it is facing just because of media-induced public opinion is, at best, stupid.

Committing to help a country resolve internal issues, pledging to stay the course until they are genuinely capable of looking after themselves, and then pulling out before that point anyway is frankly irresponsible.

I don't kbnow what would be a suitable course of action, because I do not have enough facts about the actual situation.

IF the Iraqi government is truely capable of restoring & maintaining peace, order & democracy, then yes, a phased withdrawl is the perfect solution.

If not, a phased withdrawl will result in an escalation of attacks on a weakened Iraq leading eventually to whatever extremist government the insurgents decide to install.

 

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god be praised ,I don't have the live of many in my hands ..

but hypothetical .
let's assume there is no overwhelming reason to stay such as peak oil or the saudis running out of production capacity

then the stay the course and hand over the mess to the next administration would be the best if I was a slimy no good mongrel of a two bit politician

If I had a shred of decency and responsability I would do some grand conference in the middle east , including Syria , Iran and everyone and their dog , it would be run by a reliable robot with a grand smile and not too much principles
The israelis would get screwed hard as part of the deal ,
Iran would be cuddled with string music in the background to the tune of " how could we misunderstood each other " while the saudis would be holding the candle
while the tears of joy would still be wet , I would get out of the hot places , then out of the whole damned land ,waving the flag and making melifluous speeches .
the irakis would in the fullness of time sort things out , everybody might even end up good friends and I ( george W. )for sure get a peace nobel prize

then again I've been educated in politics by the post colonial brits


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...and look how well that turned out! :roll:

 

It did not work, of course, but we only know that because of perfect hindsight.
It worked in Korea with only a token force of US troops permanently stationed there. South Korea remained free and prospered. A similar result could have occurred in Vietnam but alas it was not to be.
IMO the US went above and beyond what could be expected. Expending considerable amounts of American blood and treasure, as it happened, in vain. If however one only dared to attempt that which is certain to result in success, not much would be attempted.

 

Well, hindsight is a wonderful thing . One thing it does do is provide you with examples to learn from.

Korea was rather a different thing to Vietnam. Not least because, as you state, there was a force of American troops stationed there afterwards, and because the UN (back in the 1950s) seemed perfectly willing to get involved again should the north decide to start anything.

Vietnam was more a case of 'we're going now, you're on your own'.

I would suggest that Korea is an example of how Iraq should be handled, but it is unlikely that you will get any guarentee from anybody that they will help Iraq out if things get worse.

 

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Let's get serious
the war cost 600 billions so far and the latest appropriation is 171 billions ( Gigabuks?)

have you observed the exchange rate of the greenback recently ,
the humble aussiebuck ( nicknamed the pacific peso ) has gone from 0.6 to 0.85 US$ same for every other currency but the zimbabwean $
as a matter of fact the price of oil has not increased , it's the dollar who has sunk

it should become obvious that there is a problem

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I have to agree with Ricky. I would love to see all American troops leave Iraq and come home, but only if it can be done without Iraq collapsing into a complete state of anarchy, civil war, and bloodshed on a scale that makes the current situation there seem like a kindergarten spat. Those who keep screaming for the USA to just get out now are not answering the question of "what happens after that", and they really need to think about that VERY carefully. There have been accusations that at least some of the leading Democrats in Congress would like nothing better than an American defeat there, provided they could avoid being held responsible for it. I personally believe that, too, but that's just my opinion, based on what I've seen and heard some of them (Harry Reid of Nevada chief among them) say and do.

 

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Since Irak exist in some form since 5000 years , don't worry too much about them ,
their latest troubles was when G.W.Bush decided to do them some good ,
should he take his troops and go home , the majority of irakis probably wouldn't mind


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Currency exchange rates are not an indication of the health or stabilty of an economy. The weak dollar also makes US exports more competitive.

 

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That Grieg is VERY true ,
the strong greenback did more damage to the U.S. republic that all the fundamental muslims put together .

Still , there is the old problem of transition , it's hard to know , most traders are in fact in holidays , the picture should get clearer in september
I guess the idea of jacking up interest rates would come down as a lead balloon , so inflation it is then .

By the way what is your beef against peak oil , it's a good American idea, pretty much accepted as a fact by the oil industry ?

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Actualy Jeguar is right i must say,US provoke this whole mess,under the false excuse of WDM (owkors there was no WDM,r the US inteligence made from dumb imbecil staff,r it was just excuse for planed invasion) and ocupy Iraq.Nobody like to be ocupyed and US army is not the flower there allso.Latest case when US soldiers raped and killed 16y old girl ,and killed the whole family say itself.That is just the exposed case,but who know how much is there....

Now some1 will say that he was conviced on 101y of prison,but in chance to get out in 10y,and hell be out in 3y when ewerybody forget on him ,like allways.Under US laws,i belive that that man deserve death penalty.

 

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The U.S.Army is obeying orders , rules and regulation ,
I've said it before but the behavior of the troops is the result of their moral , morales and some statistical probabilities .
a soldier misbehaving is pretty much a normal state of affair for large numbers involved, humans being what they are ,
how the brass handle it is the critical factor,
the war does suck mightily but so far the U.S. army has held up O.K. ,
it should not be assumed this is a permanent certainty ,
the touch stone would be a dropping in quality of recruits , the rising occurrence of wild shooting , AWOL and fragging incidents
only then would the deep interest of the armed forces have to be reconsidered ,

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IIRC not every state in the US has the Death Penalty so you cannot say that under US law he deserves the death penalty since there is no US wide Death Penalty.

Do you have any actual reason to believe that the sentence served will be as lenient as you've predicted, or is this just sinissa indulging in a bit more US bashing "like allways".

 

Moderator Post -

I can see this going sour quite fast, so please everybody behave well. Us Moderators will be keeping an eye on things.

 

10s of thousands of young mostly blue collar men ..recently trained to use deadly force ..turned loose in a hostile ,strange enviornment and some of these guys lose contlol ..or are in fact criminally inclined from before..all armies ,everywhere and in every time have had some bad actors ..sometimes the whole army acts bad with the tacit approval of their superiours ie. ija in china ,heer in russia ,red army in germany ..the us and british army have been for the most part very correct and well behaved in the last century ..war crimes , when discovered are punnished and bad leaders are weeded out ..imagine what chaos would result if 60000 armed civillian working class men were unleashed in an occupied country ..ie . 60000 english soccer hooligans or urban gehtto gangbangers or beer swilling redneck boys from america ..looting ,rapine and casual murder would be the norm and not the exception ...and woe to ANY hapless civillians who fall into he hands of any balkan forces wether serb ,croat or bosnian in ww1 ,2 or modern times...

 

Like allways was actualy like Mui Lai guy (i forgot name) but not go back on that. It is true that war is not controlled situation and that is the fact. Crimes r present in any war,but law is not the same for soldiers of diferent countrys.

Iraq invasion was....whell i will say stupid thing. I dont see that there is any betther then b4 invasion. It was there any plan to controll situation after invasion,r plan was to keep it ocupyed for xxx years more?

 

That's a good post, Woody.

What the US should do in Iraq is a matter of their approach to foreign policy. If they really believe that they are doing the Middle East a favour by spending their own resources to create a breeding ground for democracy and American values, then they cannot pull their troops out unless the situation they aimed for has indeed come about. Why not? Because otherwise they will have simply spent resources to absolutely no end, be it moral, political or economic. If they withdraw their troops now, after all, the situation that is likely to emerge is one of civil war and extremists coming to power to undo all the reforms that have been put into legislation since the fall of Hussein. Iraq has not readily accepted the American system that Bush apparently believed was universal.

If, on the other hand, they see their expedition to Iraq as a strategical investment on their own behalf, then the decision of whether or not to pull out and when is entirely theirs to make. There is no moral argument to be made against a pragmatic policy that serves a country's self-interest only; it is not a matter of responsibility or of fulfilling promises, merely of the presence or absence of profit. Since it seems as though profit from this expedition is totally absent, it would serve the American cause most to pull their troops out now and let the country sort itself out. This may take several decades and it may even result in the installation of a replacement dictator in due course, but this would merely be the development of the country when left to the people who inhabit it. Ultimately it's hard to argue that there is anything wrong with that.

Personally, I believe that since the American government decided to go to war mostly for moral reasons, they should feel at least some responsibility for the development of their preferred system in a state whose atrocious but stable regime they have overthrown. They were the agressors in a war aimed at creating stability, but if they leave Iraq now, all they will have brought it is chaos. It is an immense investment, as all wars and foreign occupations always are, but they have to stay if they ever want to claim a succesful expedition.

Of course, most Americans would deny that theirs is a colonial empire, but the problems that are now raised by the situation in Iraq are overwhelmingly reminiscent of the problems European powers faced in the decolonization period.