Why shouldn't we just leave iraq today?

[The Straight Story]

Here are my thoughts on it:

The ideas I have seen around the net is that the main reasons we should not leave today is that we messed up their country and we should stay and rebuild it and if we left now the nutjobs there would overrun the country spreading more death and misery.

I am wondering what all this says in some ways. Let me explain. Let's suppose some nutbag had invaded here, messed up some cities, and then decided to hang around and control the whole rebuilding process and keeping security.
In the case of here - what we would want? Would we want to be left alone and then pull together and get shit done? Would some of us fear what other groups (ala freepers) may do and welcome the help? For rebuilding would we want them just to supply money and parts, or labor via troops and their own contractors (and some of our own)?

This brings me to the crux of my dilemma/question: What do you think about the iraqi people as a whole? Do you think they cannot make it without us because they are made up of some serious nutjobs? Do you believe they cannot make it without the US? If they WANT help can they not get it from other countries without military?
We are there now - but who is benefitting from us staying? Not our troops, they are dying and being wounded daily. Is america gaining anything? Are you personally benefitting from the military staying there?

Lastly - they have survived for centuries without us there, they have been infighting and outfighting a long time. It may be ugly, it may be a bad side of human nature, and we may find it tragic - but are we really going to change it at all? It is a culture, their culture - not ours. It is there land, their choices.

Overall, I am unclear on how to think about it in some ways.

[knowbody0]

1. i say

a sincere apology, and restitution in cash

[Just Me]

17. AND holding the neoCONs responsible for concealing their intention to,...

,...impose a permanent military presence. The neoCONs misrepresented that we would basically go in and get out with six (6) months. They concealed their plan to impose a permanent military presence.

Just one of many examples of how the neoCONs have betrayed their own people.

[lala_rawraw]

2. It is not that simple...

We destroyed EVERYTHING, including water supplies, power, etc. The point of the first year was to rebuild those services and much of the violence now is in reaction to what people are seeing as war/profit.

If we leave now, it will explode into something terrible... you cannot destroy everything, then leave. What we should be doing is showing good faith by rebuilding their infastructure, not building US bases. That is the problem and that is why we should now help, but to just leave would create a situation far worse.

[The Straight Story]

5. well that bothers me a tad

And I want to thank you firstly for an honest discussion without flaming :)

Who is going to stay and help - their lives will be on the line as people there seem not to like us to well.

The phrase "if we leave now, it will explode into something terrible" is where I am having issues. They cannot handle things without us? I am just not always comfortable thinking they need us (dependency) or that we better then them at doing things. Or, perhaps more to the point, without us they would go to hell because they are barbaric.

[knowbody0]

9. we are there

it is and has been exploding since we got there. not getting better, just the opposite. dish out cash to the three tribes and get the hell outta dodge

[lala_rawraw]

16. They could have handled thiings without us

1). Creating an Iraq to begin with (out of our own mental map)
2). Giving money to Iran to kill them
3). Giving money to Saddam to kill his own

And after sanctions and over 1 million people have died... we go in, get rid of food, water, eletricity, we torture, rape, and build US bases...

If we don't stop right now and show good faith by actually doing something productive or if we just leave, we will leave a situation that can and will spill over into every other country around it and we will allow for now a "real" and hard core terrorist threat.

[KlatooBNikto]

3. We went there to create chaos,destroy their infrastructure, loot their

oil, instil terror.Our job is not yet finished because we have some time to go before all the oil in Iraq is looted and supplied to our allies the Israelis and the British.After we have laid waste to their land, killed many hundreds of thousands more, we will leave.Not until then.

[oblivious]

4. Your thinking is perfectly clear.

Now that it has been proven beyond any doubt that the war was illegal and based on lies, it is hypocritical, racist, patronising, unethical and immoral to stay. Imperialistic greed can be the only justification for staying now.

If there were any justice in this world, war reparations would be paid. But at the very least, Iraq should not have to continue paying war reparations to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and American companies. Those billions should be used to rebuild Iraq.

But Iraqis must do the rebuilding. They can do it for a fraction of the cost of American companies and they know the system a million times better.

[Bigmack]

6. We all know the US ain't leaving...

... but if we really wanted to set Iraq on the path of self-determination, we could get a consortium of ME and S Asian countries to administer the rebuild.

A lotta Muslim faces in charge of rebuilding - under some kind of Iraqi direction - might, just MIGHT be able to put the country together. The foreign fighters might go away if the Crusaders do.

Shit... what am I talking about. Iraq is fucked, no matter how you slice it.

[LynnTheDem]

7. Shouldn't we do what the IRAQIS WANT us to to do?

Unless you (the royal "you") believe in "white man's burden", then YES, we should do whatever it is the Iraqis want us to do, regardless of our opinion on what they want us to do.

The Iraqis want us the hell out of their country.

Period.

[neuvocat]

8. Unfortunately we're stuck there now.

Bush went in there for the oil and created a terrorist state. With our troops out of the picture, we have a situation that is several times worse than what we already have. That's the sort of thing his dad warned him against.

[LynnTheDem]

10. How do you know?

Our troops being there is what is causing the problems. How do you know things would be worse if we left?

And isn't that up to the Iraqis?

They want us the hell out of their country.

They will continue attacking us until we are forced out.

If the situation got worse because we did want the vast majority of Iraqis want and left, that is for the IRAQIS to deal with, which is what the IRAQIS want.

Your saying things would be "several times worse" if we left clearly implies ONLY WE can prevent things from getting worse in Iraq. "American superiority"? "White man's burden"?

Iraqis have been in Iraq centuries longer than America has existed; they can look after themselves without our help. Right now they're kicking the ass out of the world's superpower.

[rfrrfrrfr]

11. Normally I'd aggree with the we broke it we should fix it idea, BUT

not in the current situation. The problem is Bush and company have screwed things up so royally over there that our mere presence is doing more harm than good. If Bush had properly planned for what to do after we had defeated the army and had put people who could actually do the job of rebuilding rather than appoint people who's sole criteria for getting the job is they were loyal to him then we probably could have rebuilt Iraq and left some form of stable government behind. Remember the Iraqi people did in general give us about a year to make good on rebuilding efforts and we failed miserably at it.


Instead we turned Iraq into the guinea pig for every loony rightwing nutcase econimic policy they could come up with. What we needed was a Marshal type plan and what we got was corporate facism at its worst.

Our troops are fighting and dying in the middle of a full blown civil war over there. I imagine it is almost impossible for them to reliably tell who is their enemy and who is their friend. Its time to either ramp up the draft and poor a couple million troops into the country or withdraw immediatly. The status quo will only result in moor dead Americans, More dead Iraqi's and no stability in sight.

[ReadTomPaine]

12. Just because we don't plan to, doesn't mean we won't need to leave anyway.

Remember Saigon? I don’t think we are going to be the ones deciding when we leave Iraq. People often speak of what would happen if terrorists strike inside the United States somewhere, but as the GOP likes to point out - we are fighting in Iraq so they attack us there, not here.

Consider for a moment what would happen if a well connected terrorist organization actually took them up on that idea. Think what a nightmare they are inviting on us if a small nuclear device were smuggled into Iraq and detonated near a large concentration of US troops? It's quite like the tactics the Iraqis are using on us now, just a step up in scope.

Considering the quixotic quest for weapons of mass destruction, it would be an ironic tragedy that our very presence created the threat we ostensibly went there to find. "You wanted WMD? Well we didn't have any, but we went and got some fresh ones just for you." A bitter self fulfilling prophecy. “Bring it on” indeed.

Now say they try this in the middle of some sort of action against Iran or Korea?

It’s difficult to contemplate the results of such an act, they are so grim, but there’s a good chance it would involve mass evacuations. There would be the fear, possibly justified, that if one device exists, perhaps there are more. Any sort of retaliatory strike is close to impossible for many reasons, not the least of which would be the presence of partisan Iraqis and coalition troops only marginally under our control as well as the possible corruption of globally important oil reserves. Moreover, if a new, formerly unknown organization took responsibility we couldn’t even blame Iraq. Like 9/11, there would be no target for US aggression.

What would we do?

[Zorra]

13. Sounds good to me. We'll give them Bush, Cheney and the neocons as

compensation.

If the Iraqis demand ransom for them, I bet their families might refuse to pay it.

You know how those republicans are about their money.

[Lexingtonian]

14. uh, to -get this- slow down the killing....

First of all, the decision to stay there as long as politically and militarily possible is a Bush Administration policy. The Iraq business is all their own, as far as they are concerned, and they're predicately not going to agree to any Democrats' demands.

My thoughts on Iraqis is that their three major groups have been grossly abusing each other for such a long time- most or all of living memory- that the grudges are very deep after so many murders and dispossessions. The resolution of such things tends to involve warfare, civil war in this case, and the kind that stalemates because retaliation, not conquest, is the point.

Few peoples really have a 'culture' of killing each other. In this case it's that different regimes have constantly employed people of one group to damage people of another, for centuries. This intra-Iraqi conflict is not a permanently violent one.

Why to stay there...well, maybe the presence of a U.S. occupation quells some of the worst people and worst behavior, limits the damage somewhat. (Yeah, I know how sad that thought is in the face of 500-plus car bomb victims in two week.) Maybe more of the infrastructure gets rebuilt that amounts to a bit more compensation for the damage the invasion and occupation has done.

I guess I seeing staying justified for the time being as long as it amounts to limiting or reversing damage done. I have no hope of the 'democracy ' succeeding, and I do know that the puppet government, by licensing the death squads that are at work, is as criminal as Hussein was. After a civil war is fought, then a genuine transition to democracy can happen, but until then it's all warlordism under various facades- 'occupation', 'democracy', 'insurgency', 'religious leaders', 'ethnic leaders'.

[MrPrax]

15. Occupation "quells ...the worst behavior"

"I guess I seeing staying justified for the time being as long as it amounts to limiting or reversing damage done."

Well if you really believe this...then head to a recruitment center and go help them 're-construct' Iraq--why let all the Freepers have the fun.