Just some thoughts

[Casandra]

Speaking for myself, I'm getting plenty tired of hearing about the problems with the Iraqi troops, the Iraqi police and the Iraqi security forces. It occurs to me we are all overlooking the obvious again. (But of course this will take commitees, hearings, investigations etc)

Iraq is an occupied country...by us! We have destroyed most of that country now and what little is left is rapidly going the same way. It's not safe to walk down any street outside of the Green Zone. They call them 'insurgents', 'terrorists' etc..

The majority of these people are Iraqi's!!! Duh.. fighting the invaders...us!

The training of the new army and police force isn't going well! Whose standards?? OUR standards, I guess!! No one can figure out why this is just not going well; why we can't get more trained, why there are so many sneaking around and helping the so called insurgents, defecting, disappearing etc..etc..

Without a commitee or any investigation, the following thought occurs to me...

Were we Americans under occupation, how would we react when those training us to do it their way, ordered us to pick up arms and fire/kill other Americans. Could we do it? This is what we are asking them to do; take aim at their fellow Iraqis...

Too much common sense for this discussion? Perhaps if some of our 'brain children' think tanks would use some common sense, some ideas might pop up as to what the problem is... WE are the problem, Iraqi patriotism is the problem...GET OUT is the answer..NOW!

[NanceGreggs]

1. My dear Casandra ...

... I hope you have no desire to become a military 'strategerist'. Your obvious common sense and straightfoward insightfulness would be a definite drawback.

VERY well said!

[Kiouni]

2. Is the answer that simple?

First off i must clarify I am for withdrawing our troops but i think if we just pull out every troop civil war will be inevitable. Maybe thats a good thing, maybe its a terrible thing but i can tell you this any loss of life is too much. I agree what we are doing isn't working and your right about iraqis not wanting to shoot iraqis. What the U.S. needs to do is build up infrastructure. Not little children's hospitals to make an american statement but real infrastructure. If we do only good there would be no reason to harm us or themselves. I just support a timetable for the withdrawal of our troops. the chimp may have gotten us into it but only we can get ourselves out.

[NanceGreggs]

3. It's already civil war ...

... and has been for some time.

The money is gone - every penny of it. It disappeared into the "fog of war", otherwise known as the pockets of Halliburton, and the other war-profiteers.

What BushCo has done to these people is beyond mass murder. It cannot be righted at this point, any more than a mirror shattered into a million pieces can ever be made whole again.

All we can do it pull our troops out, thereby saving as many lives as we can.

At this point, no amount of 'doing good' will undo the damage that has been done.

It's too late. And THAT is the real tragedy.

It is just too late.

[Kiouni]

4. I like your analogy

but i would like to think the mirror has just been tarnished by the past ruling parties indiscretions. We have cleaned it off a little and seen hope now we just need to polish it. Iraqis deserve us not giving up on them. Withdraw the troops and send in humanitarian aid. Replace the money, we got rid of rumsfeld theirs a few hundred g's right there.

I just can't give up on that many people. Obviously our military solutions aren't going to pan out but like Katrina, when the government drops the ball the private citizens can pick it up with their charity.

[MADem]

6. Hell, send in the UN. To include troops...from Arab speaking nations

A bunch of blue helmets to teach the Iraqis how to police and defend themselves. Hell, we just are not cutting it, and never will. The cultural divide is just too great.

[MADem]

5. Could the French or British have stopped our civil war?

Civil War comes about when the pressure for it gets too great. It seeks its own level, unless you have a Tito in charge to tamp that down and smooth over the differences, and wasn't one of those types, with a bit more savagery in his technique, just sentenced to death over there recently???

Civil War will happen in Iraq because Iraq is a construct of the Western powers. It's a tribal land of shi'a and marsh arabs, it's a sunni area over towards Syria and towards Jordan a ways, and it's a Kurdish land butted up against Turkey and the Zagros Mountains along the Iranian border. Everyone wants to be top dog. About the only ones without much of a prayer are the sunnis, even if they pair with the Turkomens up near Kirkuk area.

Everyone wants their piece of the pie, and they want a slice of the next guy's, too. It's just gonna happen, I think, no matter how much people try to forestall it.