I will admit I was against Iraq and I think that is very important, to leave that country, stop shoveling billions into that nation, so much so they have a surplus, they cant spend it fast enough. I think we should be gone soon. Nor do I think it would be a defeat. I think Bush mission accomplished was a bit early, but years later I see a few things. We have searched the country well for WMDs, We have removed Saddam from power and he has been put to death along with his sons and many around him, dead or jailed. The surged worked well, violence is down in Iraq...now is the time to scale back drastically, for the government to stand on its own, leave a support force (we will have the largest embassy in the world there to house them)...do what we can, let many come home, start a shift to Afghanistan whether they surge there or not, I leave that to the military, but finish our mission there. What is the definition of winning, when the Arabs stop bombing and killing? When they are all Christians, dead, or non-violent and democratic? I dont know but if you look at it, we have done quite a lot to help build post taliban and post Baath party governments, we should just all bail and stop all aid...scale back and change our mission to oversit, support, aid, etc.. I just think its best to get out, knowing they did good, they gave them a chance, if they blow it now their fault...we are not babysitters and they dont want one. concentrate on Afghanistan, global terrorists, and the viper nests in Pakistan and north Africa. Divert some of that money to other things...its a huge sum. Try to stop deficit spending, get our credit cards and bank accounts in order.
Admit it, the surge worked. And Iraq can take care of themselves now. So we need to return home and take care of our own problems. Defining victory in Iraq is a whole other matter. It is relative. Lots of people were killed, left, or pacified through bribes etc. to keep the peace. At whatever rate, it is time to bring it to a close. Liberal or conservative it is over.
6 months or more ago, I would not have agreed. But, in the wake of the surge working so well, I think we have given them about as much of a chance at success as a country as we can. It will take a long time to get everyone (and everything we can't leave behind) out, but over that time we can still advise and help to a certain extent. But, yeah, I think we have probably done enough at this point. However, we don't leave many places that we enter (Germany, Japan, Italy, Korea come to mind).
well, if you define victory as accomplishing the goals set out when we went in, I would say that most of those objective have been accomplished. Saddam has been remove from power, him and his sons are gone forever, the Baath party is banned, we have had years to look and find WMDs. We have given them many billions to the point they cant spend it fast enough and had a surplus budget (when will WE ever have that again), there is a new government, voted in...we have established security and trained soldiers. They said the surge worked, there is less violence, and lets face it, you cant resolve all of these conflicts as they have little to do with us. So it seems to me we have gone far to setting up a good base to build a good government...its time they stepped up and took responsibility and they want to do it....so lets do it. We declare mission accomplished and move to a purely supportive roll. It is far from defeat if you ask me. Each soldier can look at his own actions there and judge for themselves if they think they did the right thing...if even a handful of Iraqis were helped by a US soldier who passed out food and water or helped keep them safe or helped repair a power plant...then they did right by them (wont talk about the exceptions that didn't do right by them) and they did far more right than most muslims would ever do for me...they should come home proud they answered the call and accomplished so much...maybe one day more level heads will prevail and they might even see the good we did there. Any time someone says 'if we pull out we admit defeat' I will answer 'I dont know what you call defeat, no WMDs, no Saddam, no Baath, elections in Iraq, many dead Al Qaeda, less violence...what do YOU call victory?'
please, I was in Europe when we were pulling out and closing Bases in Germany, the people were calling in to the radio and whining like little infants...and us staying in Germany and Japan was the best thing to happen to those countries....staying in Germany was very important after two devastating world Wars caused by Germany and other European nations playing Risk with human lives. Just another illustration of how the US cant do anything right to some people. Whatever we do they will bitch about because its an agenda...we stay...we are occupiers, leave and we are destroying the economy of these towns. For many there is no right move the US can make. We could put an end to world hunger and people would somehow find fault with it saying 'the US imperialist pigs are only feeding the world so they can fatten us up and eat us'
If you conducted a poll in those countries, you would find that the great majority of the people want the troops out. They see them as occupiers. Yep, sure the people in the little towns right off of base are griping, but after awhile they will be yelping "Yankee go home" too. Sure we kept them free. But free is relative. And frankly I don't think any but maybe the British would come save our carcasses if we were in a war like we would have saved theirs.
Occupying Germany and Japan had nothing to do with keeping THEM free and much more to do with keeping us free from a 4th Reich or another rise of Emperor worshiping fascists in Japan. I also agree with your last statement...
In Iraq, the interpreters I was with on base were pretty genuine in their thanks for us being there. Had quite a few discussions about America with them and the war in general. Mostly just listening to them talk about their country and such. Of course, on the flip side, this was as we were being mortared 3 or so times a day from the surrounding towns. lol In Afghanistan, the Afghans I interacted with - again on base but mostly housekeepers, etc - were nice enough but, the best I can describe it, is that they seemed almost like used car salesmen in sincerity level. lol
The Afghans have a history in their society of changing alliances when they got better terms from the favoured side. I know a few Iraqis here where I live, most of their families left early in the days when Sodom Hussein came to power.
The german farmers use to love the american tank crews LOL whenever there was manouvers the compensation they picked up was incredible and all because your guys were kind enough to plow there fields up free of charge LOL Me I loved the PX
