Reply #23: You're being completely disingenuous here

[IrateCitizen]

Leaving is the coward's way. Very convenient to just kill, destroy, rape, burn and torture and just leave like nothing happened. So typical and so American.

Withdrawing militarily is not the same as abandonment. It's the height of disingenuity for you to portray it as such, when countless others (myself included) have set the record straight on this issue.

US troops are an occupying power. After the way that the past year has been handled, and the torture scandal at Abu Ghraib, what leads you in your right mind to believe that the Iraqis will EVER think that US troops are there for their benefit? What is important here is not how Americans view the troops presence, but how Iraqis view it. All I can say is that the US's reputation has been damaged beyond repair in Iraq.

However, taking troops out of the country is not the same as abandoning it. Contrary to popular belief, Iraq was perhaps the most modernized country in the Middle East (outside of Israel) prior to the Gulf War, and our subsequent bombing of it for 12 years until it was placed firmly back in the stone age. But it's not like all those engineers, technicians, scientists and skilled laborers were swept out of the country. They're still there. And it's by providing funds and allowing them to do the work that the country will be rebuilt.

US troops are not preventing chaos in Iraq -- they have become the primary CAUSE of the chaos. It will not subside until they are gone.

on edit: if anyone needs proof tha al-Qaida is not in Iraq now because of the American invasion, they also need proof that men walked on the moon.

Do you commonly invoke extreme hyperbole to support your arguments? If so, I'd advise you to adopt a new strategy, because this one isn't very persuasive.

Al Qaeda is immaterial in this equation. Its very existence is the result of two phenomena: first, the natural modernization process of the Islamic world, something that is happening outside of any kind of significant Western influence; and second, the direct invervention in the Islamic world by the West (mostly the United States) for the purpose of maintaining control over petroleum reserves. If the second part of that equation were removed, then the majority of al Qaeda's activity would be directed at the sources of Arab modernization as it (al Qaeda, not modernization) gradually fizzled out.