Coitus Interuptus - Pulling Out

[Werewolf]

OK...
Now that I've got your attention.

What exactly would be wrong with pulling out of Iraq right now? So what if there's a civil war? So what if Iran steps in and takes over? SO WHAT?

We accomplished what we meant to accomplish didn't we - no WMD's and Sadaam's boys aint in control anymore.

It's not like we're getting all that much oil from Iraq either (are we?).

So I ask again - So what if we pull out now? If they're spending all their time and effort killing each other that leaves them a whole lot less time to figure out how to kill US!

[Sindawe]

We went in and removed a relatively stable (though aggressive and oppressive) government, in the process wrecking a good deal of the infrastructure and institutions of the nation.  We have an obligation as such to replace it with some form of working government that can be handed over to the Iraqis for them to run, and repair the critical social systems we broke like potable water systems, power generation and distribution and basic social services.

Bailing before that was done would be the equivalent of Richard Nixons head sneaking into peoples homes at night and wreaking up the place.

[Perd Hapley]

We accomplished what we meant to accomplish didn't we - no WMD's and Sadaam's boys aint in control anymore.

Do you really think that's all it was about?

[Werewolf]

We accomplished what we meant to accomplish didn't we - no WMD's and Sadaam's boys aint in control anymore.

Do you really think that's all it was about?

Which is exactly why I asked.

Please - pray tell - enlighten us. What was it all about?

[Parker Dean]

Leaving Iraq now would utterly destroy any remaining credibility that having the US as an ally is an asset. Abandoning Vietnam put a major dent in US credibility and Mogadishu would have any serious politico, from allies to opponents, questioning American resolve. I can't think of any more destabilizing a development than for the world to stop believing that when the US says it'll help, it means it.

I mean really, the things that happen in Iraq are less than flyspecks in the affairs of nations and to suggest that we run from such rabble is folly. Further, it would confirm in their eyes that we truly are the feckless degenerates they believe us to be and would encourage their effort to destroy us here.

That's just one reason.

[The Rabbi]

Anyone who has to ask this question will never accept the answer.

[Sindawe]

Anyone who has to ask this question will never accept the answer.

Oh come on Rabbi.  Do you not think it is possible that somebody will genuinely want to hear opinions other than their own?  Or that they may be unsure of a particular viewpoint and wish input from others who may be more knowledgeable then themselves?

[The Rabbi]

The war has been going on for what, 2 years already?  If someone were interested he would surely have formed an opinion by now.  There are 100s, if not 10s of 1000s of opinions all over the web.  Most of the argument for and against have been rehearsed and rehashed dozens and dozens of times, on this forum and elsewhere.  So what is anyone going to add to this debate?  What point can someone bring up that hasnt been mentioned a gazillion times already?  The answer is none.  So what is the purpose of the question, especially the way it is phrased?
If I started a post with "what, just what exactly, would be wrong with executing drug dealers?" what kind of response will I get?  What arguments will be put forth that havent been already?
(And btw, the answer to my question is "nothing at all").

[Werewolf]

Anyone who has to ask this question will never accept the answer.

Anyone incapable of accepting an answer to any given question would never bother asking the question.

Contrary to what it seems some believe not everyone is a news junky or bothers to keep up with every aspect of a particular situation. I have opinions concerning Iraq but none re the question I asked which is why I asked it.

I genuinely want to know why we shouldn't just up and leave Iraq right now. One good reason has been given so far that we've said we'd help rebuild and stabilize it. If we don't fullfill that promise then there is a possibility - some would argue a likelihood - that the credibility of the USA concerning being a US ally would suffer. I hadn't considered that - I am thinking on it now.

But if that's the only reason then I still lean towards getting the hell out. Nations do what's in their best interest. The USA is the most powerful nation on the planet, both economicly and militarily and that isn't going to change any time soon. That in itself is enough to insure that even if people don't like us they'll trade with us and won't do anything OVERT to really piss us off. The world needs us - let 'em thump their chests all they want, let 'em talk bad about us but when the *expletive deleted*it hits the fan it ain't the French or the Russians or even the Chinese they'll be calling on for help.

[The Rabbi]

Editorial: Staying the Course in Iraq
As U.S. casualties mount and stories of military funerals compete for front-page attention with positive Pentagon assessments, the future of U.S. military action in Iraq threatens to become an issue in the presidential politics of the 2004 election year. Democratic candidates have already suggested that this is the wrong war at the wrong time. The Bush administration has begun to talk of accelerating the withdrawal of U.S. forces, even though Senator John McCain argues that the current U.S. military presence in Iraq is too small for the task it confronts.

In the weeks and months leading up to Washingtons ultimatum to Saddam Hussein last March and the consequent invasion, President Bush offered several justifications for a pre-emptive military strike against the Iraqi regime. In retrospect it is clear that, however brutal that regime may have been toward its own people, it posed no great and gathering danger to the people of the United States. In fact, Saddams military forces had remained crippled after their defeat in the first Persian Gulf war, and no evidence of weapons of mass destruction was found either by U.N. inspectors before the invasion or by U.S. forces in the months following their swift victory.

As the White House now explicitly admits, there is no evidence that Saddam Hussein was in any way involved in a conspiracy with the Al Qaeda terrorists who launched the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, even though public opinion polls continue to report that many Americans still believe in such a conspiracy. After the U.S. invasion, however, Muslim terrorists from different countries have apparently infiltrated Iraq, drawn by what they see as a holy war against the U.S. occupation force. An alliance between Al Qaeda terrorists and Saddam loyalists, which did not exist before the invasion, has come to pass as a result of the invasion.

Long before the attacks of Sept. 11, Paul D. Wolfowitz, now deputy defense secretary, and others who believed that the 1991 gulf war should not have ended with Saddam Hussein still in power, had urged the Clinton administration to support regime change in Iraq. Their case for overthrowing Saddam gained emotional currency after the terrorist attacks, when President Bush was persuaded that the danger posed by Saddam Hussein could no longer be contained by the international community and that military intervention was necessary. The invasion of Iraq was presented as the next step in the war on terrorism, when, in fact, a strong case could be made that such an invasion was a costly distraction from the campaign against international terrorism, and the Al Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden in particular.

However flawed the case for invading Iraq may have been, the premature withdrawal of U.S. military forces would not only be a humiliating defeat for the United States but a betrayal of the hopes of the Iraqi people, who suffered too long under a ruthless tyrant and now have an opportunity to rebuild their society. Terrorist groups in the Middle East and elsewhere would be encouraged in their nihilistic tactics. Islamic leaders who seek to rescue their peoples from the dangers of fundamentalism and introduce them to the benefits, material and cultural, of the modern world would find their credibility undercut, perhaps fatally. For all of these reasons, the United States must stay the course in Iraq.

In managing the future, however, we can learn from the mistakes of the past. Introducing liberal democracy in the societies of the Middle East is a worthy and even necessary objective. But unilateral military action is a clumsy and dangerous instrument to achieve such an end. Such action obscures and distorts the appeal of American ideals of equality and opportunity based on human dignity, the soft values of American society that exercise such a powerful appeal to peoples in other, less fortunate parts of the world.

While remaining vigilant against the terrorists now waging a guerrilla war in Iraq, the United States should encourage Iraqi citizens, including former officers and men of the Iraqi armed forces, to assume more and more responsibility for the restoration of their society. At the same time, the United States should seek to strengthen the role of the United Nations, as the legitimate voice of the international community. Chastened, perhaps, by the unforeseen dangers of overreaching and the daunting costs of peacekeeping and nation-building, Washington policy makers should seek to restore more productive working relationships with our allies in the European community and elsewhere.

Promoting authentic freedom in the Middle East is a noble aspiration but a complex undertaking. It is surely not a task that can or should be directed by one nation alone, no matter how powerful its economic resources and military strength

http://www.americamagazine.org/editorial.cfm?articletypeid=3&textID=3294&issueID=461

[Firethorn]

My thoughts on this are actually simple.  

First, regardless of why we entered Iraq, it is now the centerpoint of the war on terror.  The way the average arab muslim terrorist thinks, our presense in Iraq is a loss of territory for them.  It's ultimately a contest between Them and Us, and they can't stand the loss of territory.  They have to secure their borders.  They're attempting to model their campaign after Vietnam and Mogadishu, with the idea that if they can manage to hit some magic number of american(and allied) casualties we'll show our yellow stripe and run away again.  This is drawing huge amounts of their support into attacking us there, where they have to face our prepared soldiers on 'their' soil.  This limits the amount of forces they have available to attack our own civilians on our soil.

Second is that Iraq doesn't yet have a stable government.  Like Afghanistan, if we cut an run now, we'd simply end up having to return in 10-30 years to clean up the resulting mess.  We have to follow the post WWII Marshall plan model.  This however takes time, especially complicated by the first point.

Third is our national image.  Having the largest and most powerful military in the world is worthless if people are convinced that you won't use it.  That you're a 'paper tiger' that'll run at the slightest loss.  While Iran's making moves in a belief that we can't stretch any more, fact is that Afghanistan is requiring fewer and fewer forces, and the same will soon be true of Iraq.

[Standing Wolf]

Land wars in Asia have a nasty habit of lasting considerably longer than anticipated.

The war against Islamic terrorist savagry should have been a one-mission Air Force assignment.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Land wars in Asia have a nasty habit of lasting considerably longer than anticipated.

The war against Islamic terrorist savagry should have been a one-mission Air Force assignment.

I don't recall anyone in authority claiming this war would be quick or easy.  "Long and hard" is the way the Bush folks described, and continue to describe, the struggle.

Anyway...  We're involved in world war III (or IV, depending on how you look at things).  It's a war between cultures:  western free democracy vs Islamic fundamentalism.  Whatever the reasons, it's clear that we can't coexist.  Justified or not, they'll continue to try to kill us whenever they can.  We, of course, will defend ourselves by fighting back.  Such is the way of things.

By all outward appearances, Saddam and his presumed WMD capability presented a threat that couldn't be ignored.  That's why we went in primarily,, but it's not why we stay.

Firethorn is right.  We stay in Iraq because that's where the fight is.  This fight is going to happen, one way or another.  Better that they direct their aggression against our soldiers (the best in the world) than against our defenseless civillains.  Better that the battles take place in Baghdad and Kabul than in New York and LA.

If we leave Iraq now this fight will continue unresolved, and with us at a considerable disadvantage.  It will eventually come to our shores again, as it did on Sept 11, '01.  God-only-knows how many innocent Americans will die next time.  If we ignore this fight, we do so at our peril.

[roo_ster]

Anyone who has to ask this question will never accept the answer.

Anyone incapable of accepting an answer to any given question would never bother asking the question.

Baloney.  Watch a few political debate shows.  Read some of the sewage written by Cindy Sheehan.

[Perd Hapley]

Werewolf, you seem to think of the Iraq war as existing in a political/diplomatic vacuum.  I'm sure you know better, but it's not showing in your reasoning.  If we leave, and Iraq becomes a place where Islamic terrorists have free reign, it would be a worse place than before, when it was merely ruled by a regime that was terrorist-friendly.  

That is one reason why we entered Iraq, not because of "Saddam's boys" specifically, but because a state willing to aid and abbet terrorists is no longer to be winked at, and Saddam had shown he would not be persuaded by negotiation.  Other nations we may deal with differently, but Iraq received one last chance for peace, and then the hammer was dropped.  Iran has a resistance movement that we were trying not to alienate, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan were deemed better as arm's-length allies than as occupied nations.  And so on.  There may be other nations deserving of the Iraq treatment, but Iraq was deemed the next swamp to drain.  Perhaps we should have gone somewhere else, first, but there are still reasons to invade Iraq.  

Iraq is valuable as a show of force to intimidate the rest of the region.  Unfortunately, the ubiquitous "quagmire" perception has dulled that prong of the strategy, while the unfortunate release of the Abu Graib photos and other things best kept quiet has harmed the effort to defeat terrorism.  (Yes, the investigation could have gone forward, and the world could have been informed of abuses at a military prison in Iraq, but that without releasing photos that do nothing but make the US look bad.)

Look at the resistance the "world community" has shown to the "illegal war in Iraq," and ask yourself if invading any other nation would have been any more popular.  If we can't knock over an obvious monster like Hussein, how can we invade any nation on earth?  And we've got to do some invading right now - war is like that.

[The Rabbi]

Iraq is valuable as a show of force to intimidate the rest of the region.  Unfortunately, the ubiquitous "quagmire" perception has dulled that prong of the strategy, while the unfortunate release of the Abu Graib photos and other things best kept quiet has harmed the effort to defeat terrorism.  (

+1 on the post.

The media have been declaring this a "quagmire" ever since the US failed to win the war in the first 24 hours.
Again, I cannot recommend enough a recent book on America's small wars (The Savage Wars of Peace I think).  Reading that gives a great perspective not only on this conflict but on the different possibilities for how it will turn out.  This action is not only not without precedent, it is quite common in US history.  And the way it is turning out is the usual way these things turn out.  When the US remains committed, it prevails in these conflicts.  We had troops in China for over 50 years.

[Perd Hapley]

Rabbi has a proper perspective on this.  This is another small war and, like Viet Nam, we only lose by quitting.  If there had not been so much spastic, childish uproar over toppling one tinhorn dictator, the terrorists would have given up on Iraq much more easily.

[Werewolf]

...This is another small war and, like Viet Nam, we only lose by quitting...

Agreed. The problem I see though is figuring out when the RIGHT time to quit is. I'm pretty sure we didn't pick the right time in Vietnam - the American people or our leaders (not sure which) just lost the will to continue there.

I see that happening now in Iraq. The media is driving the anti-war frenzy (is it a frenzy yet) just like they did with Vietnam (I remember that so very well - it pissed me off then and it pisses me off now - the anti-USA bleeding heart liberal media that is). The only difference between then and now is that the soldiers fighting in Iraq are not villified like the soldiers who fought in Vietnam were - but - that too may change.

So far there have been some reasonable positions stated about why we should stay. In the long run I pretty much agree that staying the course is the right thing to do - as difficult as that will be. Still there's a part of me that wants to just say to hell with it - pull out and let the sorry so and so's wallow in their own feces because I really don't want to see our country go thru the turmoil it went thru in the 60's - for those too young to remember it was a very painful time in our history. I see the possibility of the same schism rendering our country again. I'm not sure bringing peace, prosperity and Democracy to the mideast for a bunch of folks who don't even want it is worth the pain that staying the course could cause in the USA.

[The Rabbi]

The problem with Vietnam, as the book I mentioned said, was that the military tried to fight it like they fought WW2 and Korea--a big war.  If they had tried to fight it like a small war it would have gone much better.
The right time to quit is when we have won.  Winning means leaving a stable government with the means to enforce law and order.

[roo_ster]

I will second Rabbi's rec of Savage Wars of Peace (by Max Boot, I beleive).

There are several lessons to learn as well as filling in large chunks of American History that gets glossed over.

One thing to remember about the Iraq war(s) and, really, all human endeavors:  It is all doomed to fly into the toilet...in the long run.  We must be satisfied with making small, temporary, incremental  improvements where we can.  If we can get decent, stable governance in Iraq for a decade or two, we will be ahead of the game.

We can not change corrupt human nature, but we can whack some humans upside the head to get them to play nice...for a while.

If we manage stack up enough small, incremental efforts close enough in time, in 2000 years we get Western Civilization, human rights, and flush toilets.  Fail to do so, and you get Rawanda, North Korea, Haiti, and Belorus.

[Firethorn]

The problem with Vietnam, as the book I mentioned said, was that the military tried to fight it like they fought WW2 and Korea--a big war.  If they had tried to fight it like a small war it would have gone much better.
The right time to quit is when we have won.  Winning means leaving a stable government with the means to enforce law and order.

Huh, I thought it was because the politicians wouldn't let us bomb North Vietnam's cities and industrials sectors back into the stone age.  That we frequently weren't allowed to take out supply lines/columns.  That every time our bombing runs started to bear fruit, the politicians stopped the campaign.  Of course, this is from my USAF history lessons, so it concentrates on air power and the frustration of our people at not being allowed to strike their industry and cities, allowing NV to continue the fight.

At the very least we could have forced the same ending as Korea.

[Guest]

Continuing the off topic,

To bring up korea (another war lost by politics), we should've unleashed MacArthur.  He might not have been the best guy ever, but he saw the problem.  could've nipped the chicoms in the bud right then and there, but we settled for the 38th paralell instead.

[The Rabbi]

That damnfool seriously miscalculated and nearly got us into WW3.  Truman was right.

[stevelyn]

The problem with Vietnam, as the book I mentioned said, was that the military tried to fight it like they fought WW2 and Korea--a big war.  If they had tried to fight it like a small war it would have gone much better.
The right time to quit is when we have won.  Winning means leaving a stable government with the means to enforce law and order.

Huh, I thought it was because the politicians wouldn't let us bomb North Vietnam's cities and industrials sectors back into the stone age.  That we frequently weren't allowed to take out supply lines/columns.  That every time our bombing runs started to bear fruit, the politicians stopped the campaign.  Of course, this is from my USAF history lessons, so it concentrates on air power and the frustration of our people at not being allowed to strike their industry and cities, allowing NV to continue the fight.

At the very least we could have forced the same ending as Korea.

Don't forget  the other part of the equation in Vietnam was that the South Vietnamese government was about as corrupt as could be and couldn't be counted on unless politicians had something to gain personally.

At least in Iraq there doesn't seem to be much govt corruption, and that is a key to stabilizing the country and exiting at the proper time.

[Perd Hapley]

Speaking of reasons for invading Iraq - in the old news department, it has been in the papers lately that Zarqawi was making chemical weapons in norther Iraq before our invasion.  

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4431601

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_060906/content/truth_detector.guest.html This bit draws on a number of sources which are linked at the bottom.