Someone please explain to me... why cant the US just get out of Iraq NOW?

[bobweaver]

The stated purpose for the war, to topple Saddam Hussein from power, has been accomplished. Why can't the US just turn over the peacekeeping duties to the U.N. and get the hell out of there, before it gets any worse? I'm sorry if I'm slow or stupid, but why is the U.S. still there at this point? I don't see any valid reason for U.S. forces to remain in Iraq. I must be missing something completely.

[priller]

1. Today I was listening to Rush

and his substitute host (Roger something) had a caller ask this very question. You know what his answer was?

"What, and let another Saddam come to power? What kind of person are you?"

I thought, "Nice strawman argument, you asshole!" I couldn't believe it.

[bobweaver]

8. That was Roger Hedgecock, who I had the unpleasant experience of meeting

face to face briefly when he was mayor of San Diego. He was forced out of office when he was convicted of 13 felony counts of campaign law violations. These were later overturned, but he didn't get to become mayor again. Instead he went on to become a right-wing radio talk show host here and often sits in for Limbaugh on the days when Limbaugh pops too many pills.

[MsConduct]

17. Totally off subject, what does your avatar symbol mean? n/t

[priller]

28. "ken" -- which is my English name, but the Kanji means "sword"

[MsConduct]

37. Very cool, thanks for the info. n/t

[Sirveri]

2. because the megacorps aren't finished making money yet!

ERR DUH! We need to get that oil tap online and get a proper puppet set up before we can go!

[babylonsister]

3. It was the oil, now it could be this admin's legacy, or

lack thereof. I still can't comprehend how they all sleep...

[not systems]

4. Because it is not fully "year zero" yet...

when it is no Iraqi will think of
messing with the oil flow or sending
checks to families of dead bombers.

Then when no real or powerfully state can ever rise there
again and it is a fully divided tribal state we can leave.

Burn the books destroy the apparatus of state power
undermine and beggar the educated political elites
strengthen and feed the retrograde and superstitious
then declare...

Mission Accomplished.

Destroy all who might resist.

You must not have got the memo.

[oblivious]

5. Because there's still a lot of people to be killed.

It's hard work. Hard, hard work. But it's God's work.

"God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then He instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East."
-- George W. Bush to Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, July 2003


Turn peacekeeping duties over to the UN? The UN would likely get the same treatment the US is getting. So the UN, NATO, whatever, will never, ever go in. As long as Iraq has oil, the US will have bases there.

[Lone Pawn]

6. Because the United Nations would send insufficiant forces, if they sent

anything at all. We pretty much have to go it alone. Now, we have two choices.

1: Leave Iraq to its own devices.
2. Try and mold Iraq as best we might.

1 is a very poor choice long-term, as it will undoubtedly lead to a theocratic government similar to Iran's, only with more antiamerican sentiment. Basically, another anti-American ideological base—something far more dangerous than the anti-American operating base Afghanistan was. However, short-term, it's much better for us.

2 is a very bad choice short term for obvious reasons. Things are getting worse by the week. The only remaining question is whether it is possible to mold Iraq into a safe, peaceful, democratic, free-market nation. If it is--and the experts at the CIA, State and Defense departments believe it is--it is worth it to stay in. If it is not--and the members of DU, which have a pretty good track record on this war believe so--it is not worth it to stay in.

[MadHound]

27. And yet friend, it doesn't matter when we leave,

We're still faced with the real possibility that Iraq will choose option 1. Quite frankly it doesn't matter when we leave, how much we've helped the Iraqi people, how legit the government that we leave behind is, when we leave there will be an uprising of some sort to overthrow the government and establish a new one. Anything touched by the US, including the government, will be considered illegal and illegitamite by the Iraqi people, and they will overthrow it in order to establish one of their own, even if what they establish is a theocratic fascist state. It won't be tainted by the US.

This has been the pattern in every former colonial or imperial conquest that the US has made. It is also the historical reality of any imperial power. Once that imperial power leaves, the subject government is overturned one way or the other, and a new government takes over.

So, since the goal of a safe, stable government is unattainable, since your option on is going to happen no matter what, then what is the point of our staying there? All we're doing is killing more people, committing more atrocities, and suffering more casualties ourselves.

The time to leave is NOW!

[Yupster]

7. We would have to at least take the time

to helicopter all the people out who supported us or our puppet government.

Obviously if they stayed, they'd have their heads chopped off in a second killing fields. We would owe those hundreds of thousands of people and their families a toicket out before we left.

I hope none of us would want to leave those people behind to face the cleaver.

[Skittles]

9. we have to finish what we started, bob!!!

that's what the conservative idiots I work with tell me. Of course, not one of them has spent one g.d. day in the military. I tell them I heard that about Viet Nam for 20 f***ing years.

[Swamp Rat]

10. OIL OIL OIL!

OIL

[nascarblue]

12. Exactly right...this is a long term plan...

...Central Command or Cent-com. They need a central base.

Going back to Wolfowitz and co.'s plan under the 1st Bush, they wanted Iraq as their central base back in 89 so they can eventually take over all the surrounding countries. Iran, Syria, Egypt,Pakistan, etc. When the Gulf War happened, that was the plan except they won too easily. The military has had a hard time since the original PNAC plan. Their minds were always thinking in Cold War terms. So this time they purposefully wanted a smaller army for these reasons. They WANT US soldiers to be attacked and killed. For example, the whole Al Zarqawi myth. They need a face to be the enemy. Even if he's dead.
It's all about the "Trans-Afghan Pipeline". Google that and you'll get your answers.

[cornermouse]

11. Mass stupidity.

As far as I'm concerned the best thing we can do at this point is to leave. They have set up their guerilla movement and our actions keep it growing.

[Disturbed]

13. Oil.

Oil prices are at what the Oil Corps. like right now. Not much oil out of Iraq is good for them. Troops being killed is not that big a deal to the Fascists in power and Iraqis deaths mean nothing to them.

Saddam was going to go with Euros after the sanctions were lifted when the UN team declared that there were no WMDs in Iraq. That is why there was a need to overthrow Saddam when the U.S. did so. As long as the majority of the Amerikan people support the U.S. staying in Iraq the Occupation will stay on course. If the majority of Amerikan people go against it the Dems will push for ending engagment there,even the Rethugs in Congress will push for withdawl. They want to keep their nice jobs.

[imenja]

14. Bush

[BrotherBuzz]

15. Humvees don't have a reverse?

:shrug:

[MsConduct]

16. $$$ OIL $$$ OIL $$$....you get the picture. n/t

[donheld]

18. Why should the UN take over the mess we made

Remember Colin Powell said "we broke it we bought it." We pissed on the UN in our way into Iraq, pissed off most of it's membership, can we really expect them to pick up the pieces?

[SariesNightly]

20. No no no

#1: Who will guard the oily grail?

#2: This is our first base, there's still Syria, Iran, Pakistan..

#3: Other blah blah faux reasons

..The next Saddam may be like Saddams, coz this entire country is full of Saddams.

..Gotta finish the job. Kill all the would be Saddams.

..We're Super. We can't go back. We're Super!

..The UN is corrupt. Kofi is Saddam.

..We may find WMD outside the green zone.

[nascarblue]

22. Thats probably why the republicans sent out their attack dogs...

I wouldn't be surprised if that was one of the reasons they started making a fuss after the election about the UN and Kofi Annan. They might have figured they could pressure him into helping in Iraq. After all, for them to wage such a media war and garner all that attention takes planning. It's funny how they played it out for us on TV, they'd show certain republicans viciously attacking Kofi Annan, and then Dubya would play possum and act like he had nothing to do with it.

PS. look how wasted the Chimp is on this stamp.

[evolvenow]

19. They want ENDLESS WAR!! Occupied, Stolen,Client State...

They do not care how many die, they want control of the world's resources.
Ch*eney said something like .."it does not matter how much it costs, it is about owning the resources".

[Mike Nelson]

21. HERE'S WHY .....

Don't you remember Ann Coulter's foreign policy advice?

1) Invade their countries
2) Kill their leaders
3) Covert the people to Christianity

WE ARE WORKING ON #3!
Bush thinks he is doing the Lord's work!

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

23. Because we are bound and determined to repeat history. The history of

Britain in Iraq, and our own in Vietnam.

[GoBlue]

24. I think the world in general...

has made it pretty clear that they don't want to get involved in cleaning up our mess; as long as Bush is president, anyway.

[Dangerman]

25. This is not really about overthrowing Saddam...

It is a plan made by the PNAC to occupy Iraq for its oil and world domination.

Something that Hitler and Stalin dreamed of, only, as long as Bush is in power, it will become a reality.

[roguevalley]

26. because BUsh and his ilk are sadists. Look at the lifelong trail

of death all of them have behind them. If bush isn't doing life or death or okaying torture rules, he isn't happy. We're stuck there ten years minimum.

[Orangepeel]

29. well, in part because we destroyed the country

we destroyed the infrastructure, toppled the existing government, and let in actual Al Qaida and Al Qaida allies who are determined to take over the country turn it into a fundamentalist dictatorship that really does support and fund terrorism.

I was firmly against an invasion of Iraq. I never believed it was an imminent threat to the US, I knew that Bin Laden thought that Saddam was an infidel and that Iraq didn't have anything to do with 9/11, and I believed that war with Iraq would make us less safe because there were real terrorists we should be dealing with instead.

But I don't think that we can abandon Iraq now. It is our responsibility to try to help fix what we broke by rebuilding the infrastructure, safeguarding an elections process, and helping to provide security to the Iraqi people as they try to put their lives back together.

Now, I do think that we are doing a piss poor job of all of that. We need to give up control to someone else, even as we are bearing the brunt of the expense, and we need to stop bombing these poor people NOW (which of course, is already way to late).

[indepat]

30. Could it be you are missing the PNAC vision?

[Q]

31. Because both Republicans and Democrats support it

It's really not much more complicated than that. Because there is no opposition to the war from either party...Bush* can pretty much do anything he wants as long as the money keeps flowing in the 'right' direction.

[Name removed]

32. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Jesus H. Christ]

33. Same reason we stayed in Vietnam so long.

Americans can't accept loss.

[Zeebo]

34. PEAK OIL!

Check out the Peak Oil Group right here in DU.

We are in Iraq, in one form or the other, for a very long time.

I'm still researching the whole Peak Oil issue, and there is a lot to review. From what I've read, this issue is answering a lot of previous policy moves by the Neo-cons and creating a unsettling look into our potential future.

[Peak_Oil]

35. Yeah.

It's funny. Soon after learning about the peak I realized it ties together all the weird conspiracy theories I've ever heard about. PNAC, Hitler's drive into Russia, the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor... they're all based on securing oil. I don't understand people who really think the Bush family are wereLizards... come on, guys. But, there's so much evidence that we support brutal dictatorships to secure material resources. Just by using a cell phone we support brutal dictators in Congo and all this violence and pollution in that area.

The unifying theme to the peak is simple scarcity of resources. A thousand years ago it was arable land farmed without the modern technology we have today. Or, it was gold, or trade routes, or spices, or something else.

We don't have enough oil here to continue our lifestyles. It's as simple as that. Frankly, there isn't enough oil on the whole planet to continue our lifestyles for very long anyway. The smart thing to do would be to bite the bullet and just develop solar into a usable technology that would power the US to some extent and just learn to live with that level of power. That's the smart thing to do. What other choice do we have in the long term anyway?

Extend the Hubbert curve for fifty years. We're going to be WAY down on the curve at that point with a much higher population, and the available energy for everybody will be much lower. We're going to have to learn to live with less in any case, so why not just get started on it now before we pollute our living space more?

The war for oil is immoral, but on top of that, it's stupid! It's not going to work! We're not going to be able to live our current lifestyle anyway!

[porkrind]

36. The whole strategy

of this in the neo-cons mind is to turn Iraq into a "client-state" in the Chomsky sense of the word, and establish a PERMANENT military presence to dominate the region. The neo-cons believe in "manifest-destiny", which is the 19th-century belief that we are destined for greatness with God's approval, so it is our right to grab it all.

This senseless war and killing in Iraq serves the purpose of justifying everything to the American people and the world. If we pick a fight with them and prolong the battle long enough, maybe nobody will question who started the fight. Meanwhile, we establish a permanent bullying presence to control the region and ensure future American dominance in the world.

Their plan will probably work just fine, and accomplish all of their goals. Too bad they aren't concerned with the human cost. :(

[Ivan Sputnik]

38. Because W can't admit he made a mistake

I predict we'll still be there in 2008, propping up our house of cards.

"We" learned nothing from Vietnam. Sad, innit?