Soldiers say Iraq pullout would be devastating

[Zkribbler]

have we tried a scientific poll of the Iraqis determining whether they want us to stay or not?

Or how about a vote of the Iraqi people??

[Elok]

Depends. How sure would we be that dead people, nonexistent people, and pets would not be voting in said election?

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Elok
Idunno. Is our presence there doing something constructive, or is it holding things down long enough for progress to be made by the people in charge? If not, we're basically just delaying the inevitable...but then, I don't know. I can only judge based on news reports, which seem to indicate a massive inter-ethnic bloodbath starting up right under our nose. Can we point to positive changes taking place? And the opinion that matters most: have we tried a scientific poll of the Iraqis determining whether they want us to stay or not?

It seems to me that the US forces in Iraq are just lacking funds and personnel to be more effective.
If they had more specialists and better equipment they could do much more to keep the peace in Iraq.

AFAIK some weeks ago there was even a thread by Oerdin where a member of a US unit in Iraq said these things.

[SlowwHand]

We're trying to be a cop shop. That's not what their traing entails.

[Arrian]

MtG

I surely respect the opinion of soldiers vis-a-vis tactics, and futhermore I see the point vis-a-vis strategy (I've never advocated an immediately pullout w/o regard to the consequences), but at the same time, Sloww, how many soldier can possibly take the "big picture" view? Sometimes it is easier to see that big picture when you're on the outside looking in.

Plus, while I've recently argued with him over... basically semantics, really ... Oerdin is a poster I generally trust and I watched him go from pretty gung-ho to totally against the war and the admin that started it.

Finally, I think the best way we can support our troops is to only fight when we absolutely must fight, and furthermore when we decide we must fight, take the time to plan it out - including the aftermath. The current situation in Iraq is partly an outcome of a policy that was stupid to begin with, but it's been complicated by terrible execution. And it appears, based on what I've seen, that said bad execution is in large part due to a lack of planning for occupation/reconstruction. That, and corruption of course.

So remind me again, am I supposed to support the troops, or support Bush? Because from where I'm sitting, the two are mutually exclusive.

-Arrian

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
Given that we don't honor our word we havethelikes of Afghanistan and Sadaam massacres of Shiite and Kurds to thank.

We had no interest in Afghanistan, and were perfectly willing to play ball with the Taleban, no matter what they did to their own people, until 9/11. We're still there mucking about, so maybe you could explain that point?

Our word to the Shiites and Kurds in Iraq? Show me the treaty. Oh, you mean the wishful thinking and selective hearing of the Shiites and Kurds, who ignored the obvious reality that we were not going to piss off the Turks, Saudis, et al and allow creation of a power vacuum for the use of Syrian and Iran? Oh, except your buddy Bush seems to be doing a fairly good job of that, and now the death squads are primarily Shiite.

Add that to the millions dead in SE asia due the fall of Vietnam

Which mess started with our having our heads up our asses and deciding to **** the Vietnamese people in support of the delusion of restoring the French empire after WW2, to get them to play ball with us in Europe. "Keeping our words" to who? An incompetent RVN government which never had popular legitimacy with the majority, and never was going to have the ability to defend itself? A government of a "nation" which was itself a fictional creation of a failed attempt to keep some semblance of the old colonial framework? Maybe we never should have supported the goddamned frogs in the first place.

and our inability to react according to peace treaty and hell yeah good for us. Our boyz didn't get killed instead a bunch of rice eaters and brown skinned did but wtf? It served our purposes just fine.

We had already poured 60,000 dead, more than 300,000 other casualties, tens of billions of dollars and a decade down that hole. How much more? How many more would have died from prolonging the cold war (or heating it up), by pouring more gasoline into that sideshow?

Save for the fact that no country in the world thinks us worthy of dealing with because at teh 11th hour we might decide it might not be in our best interests to honor those agreements.

Hasn't seemed to slow anybody down. Are you trying to say getting another 3,000 KIA in Iraq and pissing more billions down that hole is going to make leaders and foreign ministers of other countries say "Well, we weren't going to deal with the US, but they pursue their policy goals unilaterally, and keep their word with their chosen puppets, even if it means banging their heads against the wall of the same failed policies, so let's make a deal with the US because they at least keep their word?"

But I suppose as long as we got cash people will talk to us but never ever trust us. But hey thats just fine aint it?

The US hasn't been trustworthy in foreign policy at least since the Monroe doctrine. What word were we keeping with who when we established a legacy of supporting murderous, corrupt dictators as long as they were friendly to our policy interests?

The rest of the world will deal with us because we have the power. Nobody gives a **** if Burkina Faso keeps its word either. The only thing that is important is if the "little people" keep their word to us, which explains a major part of the US hardon for Iraq.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
And that was my point no?

Your point seems to be having "given our word" in an unsound, failed endeavor, we should continue with that unsound, failed endeavor to prove the point that we "keep our word."

So you are sasying Vietnam was our living room ehh? Since when was it our property to begin with?

Since we took it upon ourselves to be a global superpower and decided to intervene when and where we felt like it. Vietnam started by our support of restoring it as a colony of France to get the frogs to lick our boots with respect to European policy issues and the USSR. We rearmed Japanese POWs (or more precisely, concurred with the Brits doing so) to enforce the return of French colonial rule, which the Vietnamese people had been fighting since the 1920s.

Had we not intervened, there never would have been an RVN, puppet clowns like Bao Dai, and the issue would have been settled a long time ago.

And surprisingly enough as soon as they were allowed to fall apart the North Vietnamese regular army invaded with nary a fly over air support mission or even medical aid offered. Kudos to you Teddy Kennedy for denying even medical aid.

They were fallen apart, not falling, the whole mother****ing war? Nothing other than the RVN Marines, ARVN Ranger battalions, and LDNN could remotely hold their own. That's why we were doing all the fighting, in their country. There wasn't a division strength ARVN unit worth a **** ever in the whole time there was an RVN. Corrupt, incompetent officers, peasant conscripts forced to fight for a corrupt autocratic government that existed only because of massive propping by the US, and existed only for the benefit of the elites of South Vietnames society.

But I suppose the communist threat wasn't real at all?

It (a) didn't affect us; (b) was a marginal tossup for the average peasant as to what was worse; (c) created and sustained by our policies and the types of leaders we supported; and (d) was surviveable for the majority of the Vietnamese, for the rest of the world, and for us.

[Barnabas]

The vietnam government isnt really bad, they deposed the cambodian kmer who had killed 1/4 of their population, now, that is what I call a humanitary military intervention.
Vietnam also has close to total freedom of religion, much better than china for example, probably the best communist country.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Now. They were a little less lovey-dovey in the '60s and '70s.

[Asher]

Soldiers say Iraq pullout would be devastating

You gave this a thumbs up? Sadistic.

[Spiffor]

WTF are you on about wrt France, Michael?

France followed the logical pattern of the colonial power falling into irrelevance, while the new powers (USSR and USA) filled the vacuum.

Ever since we got our ass handed down to us at Dien Bien Phu, we knew we'd never have Vietnam again. If the US wanted to restore Vietnam as a French colony, it was really a self-made delusion. And you might have wanted to actually support us during the decolonization war, not after.

No, the French withdrawal created a void, that both the US and the USSR wanted to fill. That Vietnam war was your splendid little war. Ours was over.

[realpolitic]

I wouldn't worry about this starting a civil war. According to the Lancet, there are 50,000 more Iraqis dead than in the US Civil War, despite Iraq having a smaller population than 1860 America, and the war hasn't gone on as long. Only George Bush could make Iraq worse than it was under Saddam. Hang him next!

[Flip McWho]

You can't use the Civil war as an analogy.

The US civil war didn't have a coalition of the willing to add to the death count.

[chequita guevara]

70% of Iraq troops polled said the U.S. should pull out before the end of the year. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Sloww.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Spiffor
WTF are you on about wrt France, Michael?

France followed the logical pattern of the colonial power falling into irrelevance, while the new powers (USSR and USA) filled the vacuum.

Ever since we got our ass handed down to us at Dien Bien Phu, we knew we'd never have Vietnam again. If the US wanted to restore Vietnam as a French colony, it was really a self-made delusion. And you might have wanted to actually support us during the decolonization war, not after.

No, the French withdrawal created a void, that both the US and the USSR wanted to fill. That Vietnam war was your splendid little war. Ours was over.

I'm talking about 1945-46, when the war in Europe was over, and France didn't have the slightest capability of reestablishing or maintaining control of its distant colonies without British and US help (and in the case of French Indochina, Japanse ex-POW help to provide the military police footprint under the direction of British officers).

The US had developed a decent working relationship with Ho and the Viet Minh over things like insurgency against Japanese occupiers and recovery and shelter of downed American fliers. We should have told you "sorry, if you want to impose your imperial aims on the Vietnamese, figure out how to do it yourself."

France had too many other issues to worry about, but the French government got pissy about cooperation in Europe, so we played ball. That's what got you to Bao Dai, Dien Bien Phu, partition, and all that crap.