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Post by Sokar468 on Jul 3, 2003 9:34:04 GMT -5
Based on what I have been reading in the news, it appears that the American forces stationed in Iraq have suffered more casualties, injuries, and damage now than they had during the actual invasion.
This leaves me without any comfort of a solution. If are forces stay in Iraq, they will continue to come under attack by Iraqis and other anti-American militia, simply because nobody likes being under martial law. Also, the Iraqis do not have the traditional luxury of free thought to look ahead and see the long-term benefits of our intervention, and the restoration process will indeed take a LONG time.
However, if our troops withdraw, then Iraq becomes open territory for all sorts of government coups. Someone like Saddam or worse could just march right into Iraq, seize control, and then we are back to point A.
Nothing troubles me/pisses me off more than a problem without a solution. I think that America has deeply wedged itself into such a problem.
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Post by Zynx on Jul 3, 2003 15:06:04 GMT -5
This is getting to be like Vietnam, but hopefully the casualties won't be as bad.
The issue is that the populace, despite some early signs of welcoming, appear to be giving safe harbor to those who are attacking our troops. In a situation where even 30% of the population is opposed to you, it makes it very hard to make headway against the rebels. IMO, there is little choice now. If we pull out, it will be a permanent black-eye to our prestige and our national morale. That means we have to stay in and take the abuse and hope things get better and not worse. I say this as someone who OPPOSED the war.
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Post by SNK! on Jul 3, 2003 16:21:39 GMT -5
Well judging by previous actions in Afghanistan, I'm thinking that bush is likely to just pull out troops altogether.
In Afghanistan, we estroyed the Taliban and therefore destroyed the Afghani government. Yet President Bush's 2003 budget includes no money to aid Afghanistan, thus allowing it to sink back into lawlessness. Being as it is without a government (similar to Iraq's situation), another government like the Taliban is likely to take control. It seems to me like our current government simply doesn't place these situations in high regard.
But really folks, how could they regard such matters as "impotance". After all, who cares as long as you got cheap oil.
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Post by Zynx on Jul 3, 2003 21:00:26 GMT -5
Pulling out our troops is not an option while the whole word is watching. Such a move would make us look even more ridiculous than we do already and further damage our credibility following no discovery of WMDs.
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Post by DragonSquadron489 on Jul 4, 2003 0:19:40 GMT -5
well, looking for WMDs wasn't bush's only goal, he also wanted to topple saddam's dictatorship, since Iraq is supposedly harboring and training terrorists, im more concerned about whether or not somalia might be the next target, or other 3rd world contries where conventional fighting is unheard of, we might have another vietnam war WITH the casualties
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Post by Zynx on Jul 4, 2003 10:42:39 GMT -5
One thing I would like to state is that Iraq has never been proven to have ANY links to Al-Qaeda. Anti-Israel groups, yes, but by that standard we would bomb the entire Middle East.
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Post by DragonSquadron489 on Jul 5, 2003 0:39:24 GMT -5
true, but there's pretty strong evidence of it, and also it is possible that attacks on allied troops will intesify as Iraq gets more organized, this may lead to suicide bombing like in Israel
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Post by Sokar468 on Jul 5, 2003 10:05:16 GMT -5
No offence to Judaism, but I think we give too much attention to Israel. We should stop supporting them, but we can't because the Jewish Lobbyists love waving soft money in the faces of our politicians. I believe that all of our current problems with the Middle East stem from two things: the fact that the money we use to buy oil with only goes to 0.0001% of the Arab population, and the fact that we favor Israel over all others.
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Post by Zynx on Jul 5, 2003 13:59:22 GMT -5
Of what? Terrorism? No. WMDs? No. We haven't found anything conclusive on either point.
With regards to Israel, I used to support them, but their blatant human rights abuses over the past three years have disgusted me to the point I say we should yank our $20 billion in aid that we give them if they don't stop doing what they're doing to the Palestinians.
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Post by SNK! on Jul 5, 2003 23:28:10 GMT -5
true, but there's pretty strong evidence of it Oh, yeah "evidence". You mean like the "evidence" of those nuclear tubes that Colin Powell cited? Which coincidently didn't have anything related to anything remotely nuclear.
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Post by Sokar468 on Jul 6, 2003 15:03:16 GMT -5
Oh, yeah "evidence". You mean like the "evidence" of those nuclear tubes that Colin Powell cited? Which coincidently didn't have anything related to anything remotely nuclear. The only evidence of WMD were the mobile trailors that could potentially manufacture chemical agents. Still, no actual weapons were found.
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Post by Zynx on Jul 6, 2003 15:19:06 GMT -5
I personally think it might be worse if we only found one vial of chemical agents rather than not finding any at all. The reason is that you could then say "We went through all of that for this?".
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Post by DragonSquadron489 on Jul 6, 2003 20:16:03 GMT -5
yikes! i say one little line and you guys get on my case about it, i meant about the training and harboring terrorists
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Post by Zynx on Jul 7, 2003 9:14:01 GMT -5
yikes! i say one little line and you guys get on my case about it, i meant about the training and harboring terrorists What in the heck are you talking about? Sure they brought in foreign fighters from Syria and other countries during the war, but those weren't what I would call terrorists in the way Al-Qaeda is. In terms of actually harboring Al-Qaeda, there was ZERO evidence that Iraq was doing any more to harbor Al-Qaeda than Luxembourg.
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Post by Sokar468 on Jul 7, 2003 10:25:56 GMT -5
How much of the war with Iraq do you think is related to Bush's father having sent combat forces in there ~10 years ago?
Because when you think about it, making such a hasty effort to send forces into Iraq just didn't make sense on the grand scheme of things. Sure, Saddam was a ruthless ruler, but those types of rulers are all over, why not just reform the entire freakin' world?
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