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US combat mission in Iraq to end on schedule Aug 31: Obama

Who the hell put Saddam's party in place originally? That was us. I'm not the one throwing them to the beasts. How many coups ended in failure, how many funding and training of revolutionary armies came back on us? Hell even the Contras were selling drugs on the side. Korea was a mess that got nowhere, same with Vietnam, poor diplomatic relations on our part contributed to the first Gulf War (though beating Iraq isn't that tough). Compassion is great, but our government is not authorized to act on compassion. It is not authorized to act on "humanitarian" causes. We do not go to war to save others. We go to war only when our sovereignty has been attacked. All this "they will get democracy, they will change the region" is just delusion of grandeur. It's not based on anything other than wishful thinking. We've not made a stable government in 7 years. We have created an atmosphere of hostility and proliferated the anti-American attitudes of the region. How many more civilians are dead because of us? When do they have a stable government? How many more American lives does it take for Iraqi "freedom"?

We ****ed up, and we ****ed up good on this one. Staying is only going to be another trillion+ dollars, more dead Americans, more conflict, and little gain. We still have no plans on how to fix the problem, no coherent argument about what it will take, what end game is, and how to get there. I don't endorse any action without a plan. And if we're there another 7 years, spend another couple trillion, spend thousands more of American lives; then what? Still stick it out? When do we call it quits?

Fact of the matter is that it's not our country. We are not the governed, we have no rightful say in their government, its style, or its laws. And the more we interject, the more we **** it up.
 
We did not put Saddam in power.

South Korea is a HUGE success. North Korea isn't due to 1 million chinese soldiers.

Our support for revolutionary armies met with mixed success. None of them were occupations by our military to develop democracies. They were all black ops during the cold war.

We can act for humanitarian causes where the defense of our nation is in jeopardy. Oil is a strategic resource and it's protection of sources is in our national defense. Congress can vote for our action and did.

I do not expect Iraq to resolve all the ethnic and religous problems in 7 years. They are only 2 years removed from civil war. It takes time to reconciliate.

We will not spend thousands of US lives in the years to come. Already we are at an extreme low in casualties:

ICasualties.org

I expect we will be there as long as we have been in Germany, another success story.
 
We did not put Saddam in power.

We helped put that party in power. Germany was the last officially declared war and there were real goals and plans for that. All these other things you say are done on your own assumptions. Well not Congress having voted for the wars. Yet Congress and other branches often do things not in the Constitution. Korea wasn't a huge success, it was a stalemate. In fact we're still dealing with it.
 
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We helped put that party in power. Germany was the last officially declared war and there were real goals and plans for that. All these other things you say are done on your own assumptions. Well not Congress having voted for the wars. Yet Congress and other branches often do things not in the Constitution. Korea wasn't a huge success, it was a stalemate. In fact we're still dealing with it.

Sucks to be the superpower, huh? Still, it beats some silly notion of non-interventionism.
 
Sucks to be the superpower, huh? Still, it beats some silly notion of non-interventionism.

Nice false dichotomy. You can be a super power without ****ing everyone else over though. That's perhaps at least worthy of investigation.
 
Nice false dichotomy. You can be a super power without ****ing everyone else over though. That's perhaps at least worthy of investigation.

You are worried about us ****ing over dictators and ethnic aggressors? That's telling.
 
You are worried about us ****ing over dictators and ethnic aggressors? That's telling.

Nope, I'm worried about keeping the government constrained to the chains of the Constitution. But we have had other dealings outside that which has led to interference; like the type which installs dicatators or helps certain parties which are favorable to us at the time gain power. And those can and have backfired on us.
 
Good to see that The Obama didnt mess up GWB's plan for withdrawing from Iraq.

Thank you, GWB, for not listening to the noodleheads who said that the war was not just unwinnable but already lost, and, instead, created the condtitions that would allow us to accomplish our stated goals and then leave.

After all, -they- were only concerned with domestic elections and partisan political power; you were concerned with the right thing to do.
 
Nope, I'm worried about keeping the government constrained to the chains of the Constitution. But we have had other dealings outside that which has led to interference; like the type which installs dicatators or helps certain parties which are favorable to us at the time gain power. And those can and have backfired on us.

Our efforts in Iraq is constitutional.

I agree with you on the many examples of installing dictatorships through the cold war. It undermines our intent to promote democracy. Those were vastly different situations than Iraq.
 
It will be disturbing and interesting to see how they function (or fail to) without us - my thought is that insurgents will regroup and become stronger and more aggressive . . . incidences of violence will increase, death tolls will continue to rise, and it will quickly come a growing haven for more insurgents and so forth.

Many people talk about "The Taliban" and "Al Qaeda" and so forth as if they are bound to their region.
To me that's like the Crypts VS the Bloods - yes, they dominate one area. But all in all they're still a gang. If you, by any means necessary, are able to drive out or end gang activity in one area - they will, in many ways, just relocate. . . they might form 'new gangs' and let go of some strategies - but they are still a gang and still up to no good, they're just doing it *over there --->*

Look at Cabrini Green - gangs rat-holed in the Cabrini Projects and thoroughly took the entire area over. When they finally decided to tear down the Project - did that *end* the gang activity? No - it just relocated it, dispersed it into other areas of the city.

I think that's the situation we see in the Middle East - our efforts X here X drive them ---> there. And then we focus there and they go X someplace else X and then we hit them there and they might X<--- come back here.
 
Thank you, GWB, for not listening to the noodleheads who said that the war was not just unwinnable but already lost, and, instead, created the condtitions that would allow us to accomplish our stated goals and then leave.

After all, -they- were only concerned with domestic elections and partisan political power; you were concerned with the right thing to do.

Iraq doesn't have a government.
 
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Ah - yeah they do.
To be specific: they're a federal parliamentary representative democratic republic. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010...maliki-refused

Reporting from Baghdad —
With less than a month to go before the U.S. military completes its drawdown to 50,000 troops and political negotiations still deadlocked, it now seems all but certain that the American combat mission here will end without an elected Iraqi government in place.
In Iraq, government faces impasse as U.S. troops draw down - latimes.com
 
Lovely talking points. I like how you start out by confusing the war in Iraq with Osama Bin Laden. You're what... almost exactly 10 years behind the curve? Very nice. If you believe everything you just said, you must ignore a whole lot of facts.

Jesus man, learn to read.
 
Nice false dichotomy. You can be a super power without ****ing everyone else over though. That's perhaps at least worthy of investigation.

The United States is proof of that. We've never ****ed over anyone that didn't have it coming. Were we sometimes unable to make everyone happy? Of course, but we never ****ed over anyone that didn't deserve it.
 
Reporting from Baghdad —
With less than a month to go before the U.S. military completes its drawdown to 50,000 troops and political negotiations still deadlocked, it now seems all but certain that the American combat mission here will end without an elected Iraqi government in place.
In Iraq, government faces impasse as U.S. troops draw down - latimes.com

II won't be satisfied until Obama pulls them ALL. Let Iraq stew in its own juice. What's missing from this is the remaining 50,000 will still have free rain to do anything they want on their own terms, and we all know how simple situations can be exaggerated all out of proportion. I'm not saying they will, but idle hands and all of that stuff can get restless.

ricksfolly
 
Lovely talking points. I like how you start out by confusing the war in Iraq with Osama Bin Laden. You're what... almost exactly 10 years behind the curve? Very nice. If you believe everything you just said, you must ignore a whole lot of facts.

Yeah, especially since OBL is probably long time dead. No ObL no rudderless al qaeda... Forget the reported other Arabs taking his place.

ricksfolly
 
The United States is proof of that. We've never ****ed over anyone that didn't have it coming. Were we sometimes unable to make everyone happy? Of course, but we never ****ed over anyone that didn't deserve it.

It's good convincing propaganda for gullible believers.

ricksfolly
 
Prove yourself right for once.

I've proven myself right plenty of times. However, when someone says that I'm wrong, the ball is in that person's court to prove that what I'm saying is wrong.

Care to take a shot at it? Prolly not, huh?
 
It's impossible to prove you wrong on your terms because your beliefs are based on your own unrealistic and delusional worldview.
 
Hans Blix answers why to your claim in bold is false, and David Kay had more.
How quickly we forget.

BENEFIT:

The world has one less two bit dictator. Yes, he was a bad guy.... but,

COST:

Human costs

* Total deaths: Between 110,663 and 119,380
* Coalition deaths: 4,712
* U.S. deaths: 4,394
* U.S. wounded: 31,768
* U.S. deaths as a percentage of coalition deaths: 93.25 percent
* Iraqi Security Force deaths: At least 9,451
* Total coalition and ISF deaths: At least 14,163
* Iraqi civilian deaths: Between 96,037 and 104,7542
* Non-Iraqi contractor deaths: At least 463
* Internally displaced persons: 2.6 million
* Refugees: 1.9 million

This does not count the families of the soldiers that will pay generational consequences from physical and mental injuries from combat. A large portion of our homeless population are war vets.

Financial costs

* Cost of Operation Iraqi Freedom: $748.2 billion (up to $3T direct & indirect)
* Projected total cost of veterans’ health care and disability: $422 billion to $717 billion

Yep, the kind of sound policy thinking we have come to expect from our wacko right-wing presidents......

Sorry, this war was an obvious sham in 2002, 2003 and remains so today. Turn the page of history and move on. Lord knows we will do something equally stupid in the next generation.
 
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The United States is proof of that. We've never ****ed over anyone that didn't have it coming. Were we sometimes unable to make everyone happy? Of course, but we never ****ed over anyone that didn't deserve it.

The Native Americans say hi.
 
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