What in God's name are we actually gonna do about Iraq?

[Jackpine Radical]

So here’s the thought-experiment: Imagine you have the task of settling Iraq, and have a reasonable share of international goodwill behind you, as a new political force that has arisen in repudiation of the old gang that created the mess.

What would you do? What would be your ideal plan?

A logical first step would be to put an international police force into the country to maintain order.

Yeah, good luck. Who’s willing to do that? This is a shooting war. The UN wouldn’t go in.

How ‘bout NATO? Well, that would be kinda nuts too. NATO countries tend to be overwhelmingly white and of Christian heritage. I don’t think the insurgents would stop shooting at people like that just because they’re not flying the US flag.

So maybe we need to move some Muslims in.

OK, who? Saudis? Yah, sure. Jordanians? Pakistanis? Iranians? Indonesians? Problem with Muslims is they tend to come in either Sunni or Shia flavors, and they tend to either be Arabs or not. Almost any Islamic forces you put in would form a bad mix with one or anther indigenous group.

Seems to me like a case of having the tiger by the tail. Anything we do is gonna be wrong. Anything we might do could lead to a bloodbath. Pull out, bloodbath. Put in NATO forces, bloodbath. Put in Arab Sunnis, bloodbath. Leaving what, Australian aborigines, maybe?

The short version is that we created a problem that maybe can’t be fixed. Damned if I can see how. Maybe the best the Dems can hope for is to find some way to avoid having the Republicans hang the inevitable disaster around our necks like Coleridge’s dead albatross.

OK, come on up to the bar, order a round for the house & tell us what YOU’d do.

[slackmaster]

1. I'd hand it off to the French to deal with

We still owe them one for Vietnam.

[Jackpine Radical]

2. But first we'd have to somehow convince those

snail-eating surrender-monkeys to take on the job.

[slackmaster]

8. I don't buy into the position that the French are cowards

Not for a moment. Hundreds of thousands of them fought bravely in World War II. I would never deny them recognition for that.

(Pardon my seriousness, but that's honestly how I feel about them.)

[Jackpine Radical]

14. As do I in reality.

I was just intruding a bit of that insane 2002 pro-war jingoism for what I hoped would serve as levity.

[Virginia Dare]

25. Without the French...

we'd still be taking tea in the afternoon and singing "Hail to the Queen"...:rofl:

[Jackpine Radical]

31. Some days that doesn't seem so bad a prospect.

[MindPilot]

7. Right with you on that one Slack!! n/t

n/t

[ixion]

3. the illegal invasion of Iraq has royally screwed up Iraq...

and the US is almost solely to blame for this mess.

However, we are not going to be able to fix it. Unfortunately, that is going to be the job of the people who live there -- you know, the ones whos lives we've been destroying for almost two decades now.

The problem is this: unless we're willing to participate in a purely humanitarian capacity, we are not going to be welcome.

The best thing we can do is pull out and let the healing begin. Unfortunately, that healing will start in the form of a civil war. :-(

[Coventina]

4. Coventina's simple 5 step plan

1. We announce that invading Iraq was wrong, and we are sorry.
2. We announce that we are leaving as soon as logistically possible.
3. We begin preparations to accomplish #2
4. We go on our hands and knees (literally if need be) to the UN, and beg, yes I said BEG! for their help to stablize the country. We back that plea up with a BLANK CHECK to cover whatever expenses are needed. (Heck, it can't bankrupt us more than the actual war is).
5. We offer up to the international court of justice any policy maker involved in the decision to go to war.

[mtnHov]

35. agreed: 5th step is necessary for repairing our world image (eom)

[MindPilot]

5. I kind of like Randi's plan

First get ALL the US & brit contractors out. Then LEAVE.

But here's where I break with her: She says we should get the lights on, water flowing etc. I say make the corporations who made huge profits pay for reconstruction. The US taxpayer, especially those of us who were very vocally opposed to the invasion in the first place, should not have to shell out one dime to rebuild Iraq.

[newsdude]

38. All of us, no matter who we voted for,

Are responsible for Iraq.
We all have to pay.

Frankly, I don't see a way out.
We're stuck.

Leaving now and leaving a power vacuum that could very well lead to full-out civil war and ethnic cleansing is irresponsible.

We're stuck.

It's going to be up to the Democrats to find a solution to bring peace and stability to the region.

[shain from kane]

6. Maybe the question should be "What in Allah's name are we actually gonna do about Iraq?"

[Jackpine Radical]

11. Please. As long as we're speaking English, "God" is the correct word.

Otherwise the Lutherans would always have to say "Gott" when mentioning God in English, because Luther wrote in German.

The use of "Allah" instead of saying "God" is part of the nasty little Fundie pretense that Muslims don't worship the same deity they do.

[shain from kane]

17. Then why bring "God" into it at all? What has He done lately for us?

If you want to call on God to help you out, then why not use his proper name, Yahweh?

[Jackpine Radical]

21. OK, YHWH.

I could care less about the word. I was just trying to point out the psychological game invlved in saying "Allah" in an English-language context. Personally, I'm not a Mosesite monotheist of any flavor.

[porphyrian]

9. Any non-American troops would be preferable to most Iraqis.

The problems with Sunnis and Shias would be far less once we removed their excuse for remaining violent.

[mike_c]

10. there is no solution....

Once we accept that we can begin to act rationally. The problem is that so few politicians have the will to get their heads around the idea that there simply is NO solution. The only rational course is to admit defeat and withdraw, completely. All troops, all assets, and all hopes for the future of Iraq. We destroyed Iraq in a wanton spasm of expansionist greed. Now that it's destroyed there is little that can be done to put it back together in the short term, and nothing at all that we can do. We turned it into a meat grinder-- now we can either pour soldiers and treasure into the grinder or we can quit. Iraq is destroyed regardless.

[screembloodymurder]

12. This isn't the Democrats problem.

Bush FUIBAR and now he wants to hand the mess to the Dems. Sorry Charlie, but up yours Mr. President.

[slackmaster]

16. I think it isn't the Democrats' fault, but it is now the Democrats' problem

Telling the President what to do with it won't solve the problem.

[Jackpine Radical]

18. Somehow, I think the Puggies and their M$M lackeys

won't see it that way. You can bet that they will do everything in their power to stick us with blame for the failure. Reality be damned, they have all the tools of image management at ther fingertips.

[demnan]

13. Vietnam

Midnight, get the helicopters running. Flee. We can't make a graceful exit from this mess.

[Nikki Stone1]

15. The US either pulls out or enstates a draft and gets numbers way up over there

to occupy the area and accept a certain rate of death.

I have been worried about a potential draft. The climate seems to have been prepared for it.

[DaveJ]

19. Central Air?

Provide air conditioning in every home then nobody would want to go outside and kill one another.

[boolean]

20. Initiate a draft

I would call an immediate draft. Then I'd watch as every single warmonger chickenhawk loudly protested it.

[StraightDope]

22. Split it into three.

Kurdish Iraq is close enough to stablity to control their territory. Give the Sunni-dominated part of Iraq off to the Saudis to quell the violence, give the Shi'a dominated part of Iraq to the Iranians for the same.

[Jackpine Radical]

23. The problem lies in dividing up the resources. The oil

is unevenly distributed among the three religiously-determined territories.

[StraightDope]

27. Too bad.

The majority of the oil is in the Kurdish region, with smaller fields around Basrah, in the south. The Saudis would inherit the west, al-Anbar province, virtually no major oil reserves, but they DO already have more oil than anyone else on the planet as it is.

I don't think that any solution other than partitioning the failed state of Iraq is a viable one.

[sweetheart]

24. structural retrenchment

It is not simple, as the pukes have screwed up the structures needed to win in iraq (win for iraqi regular people).
I would propose a shift towards multilateralism and taking on terrorism through the international courts. Then
i would turn over bush, rumsfeld, rice, cheney, kristol, powell, oreilly, & mr. world bank to the hague for war
crimes trials.

In this spirit of international cooperation, in outing the american terrorist plot to mass exterminate hundreds of
thousands of iraqis as carried out under bush, the moral ground would be recovered to ask openly assistance in
achieving a fair resolution.

I would propose a bill that made all weapons manufacturers and war supporters liable for civilian damages in
civilian courts for the iraqi. Halliburton will have to compensate iraq and go bankrupt if that is what it takes,
to cover for its victemization and war profiteering... but just letting the civilians sue in court will deck
the whole evil nazi tentacle'd monster.

In a simultaneous gesture, the US would put up 100 billion dollars as a war reparations fund for iraq, with grants
to iraqi cities and county areas that can show rule of law improvements. Then the money will be in line with
the right thing, and the situation will sort itself out, leave the iraqi people to their own business.

Bush would likely have to sell off his ranch to pay reparations to his victems, fair enough.

[peanutbrittle]

26. Force funnel Iraqi's who want peace and prosperity out...

of the country (or to a safe portion of Iraq) through a guarded line to a TEMPORARY guarded refugee camp (will take more initial troops to accomplish this). Some may have other places in adjacent countries they can go to. Dump 150,000 + (whatever it takes) more troops in at the border and into the Green zone. Move from the center out and the border in. The UN can guard the border. The militant Iraqi's who are left in the country will be either killed or forced to put down their arms.


Whatever the decision should be geared towards the least loss of life.

[Auggie]

28. Pull out -- completely. Right now. It will sort out, just like Vietnam.

[mtnHov]

29. let Iraqi's decide

let the Iraqi's vote on what they want us to do.
(probably withdraw troops and make Haliburton etc. repair infrastructure by agreed date)

[Jackpine Radical]

30. OK, it seems that the majority opinion

comes down to some variant on the idea that we should just announce plans to make reparations, get out, & let happen what will.

OK. Next problem--How do the Dems sell this plan to the public without destroying themselves as a political force for the next 3 generations? You gotta KNOW this will be billed as a sellout. Only a Republican could get away with a peremptory pullout. Like Nixon in Vietnam.

[mtnHov]

33. sell it as fixing the republicans mess and saving lives,

by exposing and undoing the neo-con's lies

[jpwhite]

32. Iraqi insight

I asked some local nationals about this. They believe that if the US would give the Iraqi government more money and more weapons that the Iraqi police and Army could take care of the problem in as little as two weeks if we were to pull out. One person noted that the IA's and IP's may or may not follow Geneva conventions to do the job, but that it would be done quickly. In other words, he was saying that we are being too nice.

It's not the greatest plan, but it may actually work.

James
[e-mail]

[Jcrowley]

34. The Iraqi people are quite capable

remember during Gulf War when the US left they had electricity up and going nationwide in three months even with the sanctions. These are engineers and builders who don't need any external assistance.

Leave immediately and pay reparations. The internal fighting will occur but the violence will subside significantly the very moment US troops depart.

[newsdude]

40. There is no "Iraqi people"

There are three very different peoples in Iraq.
I hate to say it, but an abrupt departure of authority in a country that has been ruled by tryanny for decades could lead to sharp escalation in bloodshed.
Like Colin Powell said, "You break it, you own it."

We broke it. And we have to own up to it.

[opihimoimoi]

36. We find ways to promote PEACE, Tranquility, etc....

There are many ways to do it....but we lack the will to try PEACE...mostly saying its IMPOSSIBLE...Well, we tried WAR...

[fishnfla]

37. Dig up TE Lawrence. Short of that:

1. Study what he learned. One of his points was that Arabs sometimes have their own ways of dealing with things. Westerners may not like how or understand why, but let them work it
2. Study the history of insurectionists campaigns: its always hearts and minds,not bombs and bullets
3. Try and understand the Arabic mindset: codes of honor and tribal influences,etc
4. Control the borders
5. A unified Central command
6. How is the insurgency armed, paid for and where do they get their soldiers?
7. Negotiate, negotiate, negotiate
8. Money, and lots of it, for infrastructure and jobs. Get the electricity and water running
9. US out, UN in

[shain from kane]

41. Quote from "Lawrence of Arabia" ---

"Prince Feisal: The English have a great hunger for desolate places. I fear they hunger for Arabia."

[lumberjack_jeff]

39. Hire a commander-in-chief to blame things on. Oh, wait...

we already have one of those.

What the hell are we doing worrying about shit that isn't our fault, nor our job?