Iraq 1 year later- How do we get out? | FerrariChat

Iraq 1 year later- How do we get out?

Discussion in 'Other Off Topic Forum' started by cbstd, Mar 19, 2004.

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  1. cbstd

    cbstd Formula Junior

    Dec 24, 2003
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    Los Angeles
    We came, we saw, we kicked ass. But now what?

    Iraq is basically three countries formally held together by a despotic dictator. In the north, Kurds. In the middle, Sunni's. And in the south, Shiites. And no, these people do not hold hands and sing "Kumbya" around the campfire together. The ethnic rivalries in Iraq make Northern Ireland and the Balkans look like a mild disagreement and a polite debating society.

    Iraq is not like Germany or Japan after WWII. Those countries are generally ethnically monolithic (that means everybody in Japan and Germany were pretty much the same ethnicity, speak the same language, etc.) and at the end of WWII they were scared ****-less by the Communist threat from the USSR. Japan and Germany may not have been happy to lose to the Americans (and our allies) but they sure did not want the Commies to take them over even worse. Germany and Japan were happier to cooperate with the US as long as the USSR existed as a worst-case scenario.

    Iraq is a very different situation. There are three major and very different points of view on EVERY topic in Iraq right now. The Kurds are OK with us, the Shiites got burned by us back in '91 and the Sunnis are pissed because their boy Saddam is out of office.

    Lets examine the options available to get the US out of Iraq-

    1) Just Bug Out and let the Iraqi figure it out for them selves. Naw, that won't work.

    2) Figure a way for the UN to take over so we can Bug Out. The UN does not want to let Dubya off the hook that easy. Maybe if Kerry promises to apologize and offers up Dubya for trial as a War Criminal.

    3) Create a Police State with an Absolute Dictator to keep these poor, unfortunate people from engaging in the blood feuds that they traditionally practiced upon each other. This option sort of blows the stated purpose of bringing "democracy" to a people who have no tradition of representative government.

    I am out of ideas, what do you guys think?

    Scott

    BTW- Mad props top all the men and women who sacrificed in service to our country. Whether the Boss was right or wrong, you guys answered the call and made us all proud.
     
  2. whart

    whart F1 Veteran
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    Dec 5, 2001
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    I got it! Since everybody thinks Clinton, Kerry, et al. are such geniuses, let's send 'em over there to run that country.Along with Gore. Martha could revive her show there, Streisand could sing, they could all watch Sean Penn movies and before you know it, they'll all be driving big-assed SUV's, talking about their stock options on the cell phone, and watching reality TV. **** me.
    Honestly:
    1.I do think they will have to sort out much of it on their own. Getting rid of Saddam was the goal, not rebuilding the country. (Yes, i know, our President gets confused sometimes). Then, if genocide occurs, and the UN doesn't do anything, we could come in as humanitarians, not as occupiers.

    2.Who provides the muscle for these UN forays? Clearly, not going to do anything to favor the US.

    3.Install and support a puppet dictator. Not a great option, some would argue that Saddam was, in fact, that for us for some time; we seem to have a history of doing that, and it never works.
     
  3. rcallahan

    rcallahan F1 Rookie
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    Jul 15, 2002
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    Because Iraqs borders were set by the British with no thought to the centurys of conflict between the Kurds, the Sunnis, and the ****es the only way there could be order was with a fist (Saddam).

    This is what I would do- give the Kurds, Sunnis, and ****es there own countries. Make the Kurds and ****es agree to form a company like Aramco to share the oil income with the Sunnis. All three countries get an equal share in the income stream.

    Of course Bush will never go along with it and eventually ther will be a civil war. The South will aline themselves with Iran. The North will declare themselves independant. And the Sunnis will face a bloodbath from the north and south. :(

    Bob
     
  4. rcallahan

    rcallahan F1 Rookie
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    When typing ****es I get censored!! OK, Shia!
     
  5. Aureus

    Aureus Formula 3

    Split the country in three damnit and get it over with.

    Now we can't exactly bug out untill the situation is in good order, otherwise it will simply be worse than not going in, in the first place.
     
  6. ART360

    ART360 Guest

    It isn't so easy. We can't allow the country to split. Neither the Turks, Iranians, Syrians or some of the Iraqis will tolerate it. The Turks will not allow the Kurds to have their own state. Want to see mass murder, split them up, and let our troops out, watch the Turks kill the Kurds, which by the way, they were better at than Saddam, they killed twice as many in the last 10 years. As to the Shiites, they would merge with the other axis of evil, Iran. Wouldn't that be a great idea, make Iran even bigger, stronger, and more capable to causing trouble.

    When stupid people do stupid things, they sometimes end up with insolvable problems. Idiot conservatives didn't think their way through the problem, and guess what, we've got the tiger by the tail, and no readily ascertainable way to let loose. Dumb and dumber are competing. One, two dead boys a day isn't a big deal, is it. Not unless there one of your relatives, I guess. Nor a 500B deficit, I guess, unless it affect your investments.

    Next smart idea from these rocket scientists? Whart is right, Kerry will solve the problem, he'll get the UN in to take over the mess made by Bush. Hopefully. God help us, if they don't. We were lied to on the way in, their still lying to us now.

    Art
     
  7. Uberpower

    Uberpower Formula 3
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    Feb 6, 2004
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    Since Bush seems to be quite good at taking orders, we could install him as the new puppet dictator of Iraq and make Kerry the puppet "President" of the US.

    Whee. Isn't geopolitics fun when run by spoiled, bratty man-children. I can't wait until I get a country to run all by myself daddy! Which one can I have?

    Pick one with military might enough to steal black gold son.
     
  8. Aureus

    Aureus Formula 3

    We'll have to see how it plays out, but what is with this constant appeal to the UN? The UN is essentially a US institution to the Arab world. Any action the UN takes will be attributed to the US by the Arab world. So fostering off Iraq to the UN will be no better than cutting out and not doing anything? You are probably right, upon inspection, that splitting up Iraq would be a bad course of action. But what then do you suggest a realistic alternative? I hope a decent working democracy can be established in Iraq, but I don’t know.

    No, the best thing we could possibly do is stick it out and try to work out some of the problems there. If the eventual solution is a new dictator, hopefully not, hopefully we can get one in there that doesn't act in the same way as Saddam.

    As for being lied too? About what? We had three reasons for going into Iraq (terrorism, Saddam was/is a bad, bad man and Weapons of Mass Destruction (not that biological weapons are all that destructive…)). Two of those are true and one is apparently wrong even though the entire world thought it was true for a decade. I never even cared about the WMDs and was happy with the first two, or even just the second.

    Btw: one or two people a day is so pitifully small it is ridiculous that they can play it up as something horrible. Back in the days of arrows, swords and heavy infantry with shields and spears Hannibal slaughtered ~100,000 roman soldiers in a day. We lost thousands of troops a day during WWII. We lost how many a day in the Korean War? Vietnam? Losing one or two soldiers a day should be heralded and trumpeted as a SUCCESS!
     
  9. DGS

    DGS Six Time F1 World Champ
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    The Curse of American Television:

    Growing up, I watched a lot of Jay Ward cartoons. Now I watch a lot of CNN coverage of Iraq.

    The combination has led to the following mental image:
    GWB as Moose: "Iraqi! Watch me pull a rabbi out of my hat."
    UN as Squirrel: "Again?!"

    (Okay, too many late nights watching live Malaysian GP coverage.)

    Anyone remember what kind of things came out of that hat?

    Didn't Junior run on the promise that he would build a bi-partisan coalition between the Democrats and Republicans?

    Getting the diverse factions in Iraq to build a democracy together should work about as well. Ya think?

    (Saddam's palace: A Gay Shah house?)

    (Must sleep now.)
     
  10. JH

    JH F1 Veteran

    Nov 14, 2002
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    The US made a commitment when they attacked the US. They didn't ask for it, so the US can't pull out before everything is OK. It was before the US came, and it has to be so again before the US leaves. That's what gets for starting a war that could be avoided. :)
     
  11. Evolved

    Evolved F1 Veteran

    Nov 5, 2003
    8,700
    As soon as the war in Iraq started to morph into a political issue and not a national security issue, we lost.

    The troops will come home in 2009, after Hillary Clinton is elected on that platform.

    Will the world be safer by then? Maybe. Probalby about the same as now.
     
  12. WILLIAM H

    WILLIAM H Three Time F1 World Champ

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    The US is not getting out of Iraq as far as I can see unitl we stop depending on oil. I predict that after the Russian oil pipeline through AFghanistan is built we will have US forts guarding the pipeline for a Long time.

    If we just pull out of Iraq it will turn into another pirate state like Afghanistan or Somalia so we cant do that either. Iraq has too much oil for us to just turn our backs & pull out. I think some form of US friendly govt will be installed & the US could possibly move its bases out of Saudi & into Iraq.

    The Saudi bases really PO the Camel Humpers bcus "Infiidels are not supposed to be in the land of Mecca"
     
  13. ART360

    ART360 Guest

    EOS:

    You said:

    As for being lied too? About what? We had three reasons for going into Iraq (terrorism, Saddam was/is a bad, bad man and Weapons of Mass Destruction (not that biological weapons are all that destructive…)). Two of those are true and one is apparently wrong even though the entire world thought it was true for a decade. I never even cared about the WMDs and was happy with the first two, or even just the second.

    We didn't hear 3 reasons. We heard ONE reason: Weapons of Mass Destruction. Period. The rest of the current excuses isn't true. Go back and read the speaches, see what they said. Example: When Powell went to the UN, he never said ONE WORD about terrorism when denouncing Saddam, it was all about the good intelligence with the weapons. In fact, he shows us the weapons, told us what they were, where they were and what they could do. Go back and see the speech, its on the internet. Bush, when we went to war, said almost identically the same thing. Stop the spin (lies, tell the truth. Only when the liars got caught, did they start to make up the new story, now its to "liberate" the Iraqi. BS, its about stealing their oil, it always was.

    Art
     
  14. JH

    JH F1 Veteran

    Nov 14, 2002
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    I agree to the fullest :D
     
  15. ross

    ross Three Time F1 World Champ
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    to accurately answer the question, it is usually best to lay aside all of your lame partisan bickering. whether you all like it or not, the porblems of iraq, afghanistan, and alqaida were here before bush, during, and will be after, even if that in 2008. kerry will face the same issues and probably not react any differently - even though you may find it more pallateable if he tells you than gwb.

    so my 2 cts:

    the US military will continue to have a presence in iraq for a very long time. conveniently there are no muslim holy places within the present borders. so you will see all of the bases that are currently haphazardly placed all over the middle east, consolidated to iraq (you could even argue that we remove many of our troops from western europe since they are currently so ill received there and we shouldn't really be helping their host countries so much anymore - but thats a different thread). it is also convenient that this location is smack in the middle of everything (syria to the north, israel and lebanon to the west, saudi and q8 to the south, and importantly iran to the east, and last but not least chechnya and russia close by - and this will take on greater importance as time goes by). our presence and continued support of the iraqi military and police, will ensure modicum of safety.
    in addition, our continued presence on the economic front is essential to the well being of the country. we will not, but more importantly cannot, allow non-allies to step in on commercial ventures. not only because of the fact that we earned them, but much more saliently because we are the only ones that will guarantee the sovereign risk in iraq. believe me, nobody is going in there (not even halliburton), without a very tight sovereign risk gtee backed by the cpa (coalition authority). my father's co is in there and i know he's demanding it. no other country would make this kind of gtee, hence without us, iraq would have a very hard time attracting real capital investment (ie billions as opposed to millions).

    in the meantime the iraqi people muddle there way along with democracy, their new constitution and the rule of law. they argue, fight and in general act like they hate it, but all the while their economy expands like no other in the middle east. the shiites will not start an uprising because iran is too smart to lend them a hand if the 800 pound gorilla (thats us btw) is sitting in the back yard. the kurds will do nothing because they will now have it better than ever in their history. the sunnis will get on with life and be happy that the law protects them even tho they are in the minority.

    this scenario goes on for the next 10-20 years, regardless of who is in the white house.
     
  16. JH

    JH F1 Veteran

    Nov 14, 2002
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    I agree, it will not change. But what you don't understand is, that extremists of the kurds will attack whether the US is there or not. They don't give a rats ass. One thing more, yes, it will not change regardless who's in the white house, but it would never have happened if it was another president in the white house 3 years ago. A lot of trouble could have been easily avoided. It's to late now, and the next president will have to clean up after GWB's mess, cuz' it is a mess he's leaving behind, and that's a fact you cannot get around.
     
  17. ART360

    ART360 Guest

    Ross:

    You're right that the most likely end result. However, the lives lost, the prestige lost, the angst, all of that didn't need to happen. That's what I'm complaining about. We've spent about 250B so far, and probably will spend another 750B before its over. That, my friend, will impact on all of us for a very long time. Means that inflation will increase, employment will be lower, and generally this fiasco will affect whose employed, who lives better, and may even effect our position in the world.

    Regardless of whose in power the future will be fairly similar. However, that doesn't mean we should not do something to those that got us into this mess, without thinking their way through it. Bush got suckered by the neo-conservatives, but where does the buck stop?

    Art
     
  18. WILLIAM H

    WILLIAM H Three Time F1 World Champ

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    Dont quite agree with that. The US is now effectively in control of Iraqs oil fields. GWB was PO'd that Saddam tried to kill his father so he deposed Saddam & took his oil fields. Its not pretty & its probably not legal but Empires throughout history have always taken what they needed usually by force. In this scenario the USA is just doing the same thing the Romans or Egyptians would have done to maintain the safety & ecopnomy of their Empires.

    No US President can allow the Middle East to cut off oil supply to the US. Oil is the US economies lifeblood. Saddam made a grave error by pissssing off the greatest military force on Earth & he paid dearly for it
     
  19. JH

    JH F1 Veteran

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    Crazy way of thinking. The US does not have any right to decide which country should sell them oil. If a country dont want to sell oil to the US, they should just be bombed an invaded? Find and alternative way of fuel. Fusion whatever. That just ain't right. If a country decides they don't want to sell oil, then you must negotiate or find another country. You can't bomb another country for an addiction that is your own problem.

    If the US decides to stop exporting cars to europe, as we need just as bad, we are all allowed to bomb the **** out of the US? That is what you are saying.
     
  20. WILLIAM H

    WILLIAM H Three Time F1 World Champ

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    I do agree with you that we should find alternatives. I am merely stating facts regarding how Superpowers have operated throughout history. In International Politics in world history Might often makes right

    I dont agree with this but GWB wasnt knocking on my door for advice on how to proceed with Iraq

    & Yes, it is a crazy way of thinking but its an ugly political reality
     
  21. tifosi

    tifosi F1 Veteran
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    yeah lets get the UN in there, they are doing so well in kosovo, I am amazed how everyone think these things take a day to work out.
     
  22. WILLIAM H

    WILLIAM H Three Time F1 World Champ

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    History is full of examples of powerful countries behaving badly as I am sure you are well aware.

    Hitler took Austria, Poland & Southern Russia for resources. such as wheat, oil, & slaves, & real estate

    Japan invaded China & attacked the USA at Pearl Harbor over resources, Oil & Iron mines for Steel

    In the 19th C the USA committed mass genocide against American Indians in order to secure the vast West of what is now the 50 states

    All the European Empires from the 15th C - the 20th C invaded & colonized India, Africa, Vietnam, China, North & South America. For what? resources, money, gold, & slaves

    If you think the Earth's nations are done with using force to obtain & secure their natural resources I am afraid you are mistaken

    Again, I am not saying its right. I am just saying that its the way International Politics has always & probably always will work
     
  23. ross

    ross Three Time F1 World Champ
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    art, given your years and some of your wisdom, i am surprised by your comments.
    20 years ago, i saw exactly the same type of discussions going on in the usa and europe...but the subject was reagan and what a war mongering and doddering old fool he was. he was bringing the world to the edge of the abyss. he was seriously angering the europeans because they thought he was taunting the soviets to the point that they would end up dead - their saying at the time in germany was 'better red than dead' for example. their youth protested in the streets as the icbm's were installed etc.

    and today nobody will dispute that these actions were well thought out, and calculated to topple the soviet union and bring about the end of the cold war. which ultimately has made the europeans, and the world, safer. any prestige loss for the USA that you may have perceived then, was won back many times over (but frankly i don't really give a damn about prestige - in this game its the end result that counts, not how many friends you make attaining it).

    the same will happen to gwb regarding iraq. you don't agree that we should have gone because it costs lives and money. and from a purely humanitiarian perspective i can appreciate that. but from a 'real politik' perspective these were necessary expenditures to ensure a greater good down the line. (this whole thing was very well thought through, but you can never account for everything and hindsight is after all 20-20).
    in 20 years, when iraq has been a democracy for a long while, and is approaching a western lifestyle (never mind the potential to change the course of syria, iran, etc), then historians, politicians and maybe even yourself, will at least have to admit that the result was good. you may not agree with the price of that result, but the result never the less will be good.

    and everybody in the state department, senate, and white house (now and future, understands that (hell ! even hilary understands that !). which is why i am convinced that things will go according to my previous statement, regardless of whether the europeans or the un go along with it.

    and don't get too hung up on the cost of this venture to date, nor the current unemployment (which is about avg for our history btw and half of what western europe have and therefore a spurious statistic for you to use). our country will benefit much more by this in the long run than is immediately apparent to you today.
     
  24. Aureus

    Aureus Formula 3

    Incorrect. When Powell went to the UN he had to talk about WMDs, why? Because it was the topic! The only way to try and get the UN in there with us was to use the various resolutions, all of which were based on WMDs. So when he goes to the UN, what exactly do you think he is going to talk about?

    During the speeches and press releases, terrorism and liberation were right there along with WMDs, hell it was called Operation: Iraqi Freedom, not operation remove WMDs, not operation Oil, Operation Iraqi Freedom. Seems like that was always one of the important bits of the plan eh?

    I will grant you that the Media concentrated solely on WMDs, but since when should we trust a biased media to report on the intentions of a non-liberal.

    BTW: If we wanted oil. You know the easiest way (and cheapest way) to get it would of been to simply BUY IT from him. This "war for oil" is one of the dumbest things I have ever heard come from anyone, and I've heard so very stupid things come from politicians.
     
  25. tifosi69

    tifosi69 Formula 3

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    I'll take a so-called "idiot conservative" over a yellow bellied, *****-boy, vote-buying liberal any day. Yeah Art, your Neville Chamberlain approach will work real well
    HA HA HA HA HA... Oh I'm sorry, I couldn't type I was laughing so ******* hard! John F. (fence-rider) Kerry will save the day...oh yeah. The UN, I don't know where to begin, but I think it is a well-established fact the UN is a corrupt (oil-for food money going to Art's friends in France and Russia that we NEEDED in our coalition) and a grossly impotent organization that can't wipe their own noses, much less clean up any supposed mess. Art, please name ONE mess the UN has "cleaned up?"
     

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