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What should we do about Iraq?

What should we do about Iraq?

  • Total voters
    59
The Mark said:
As I understand it, they disagreed on something back when the founder of Islam died, and here we are today with the same disagreement.
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Yes, I believe it was about who would inherit the leadership, so one group followed the son, I think, and the rest followed someone else..and they have been split ever since.
 
Juanita said:
Yes, I believe it was about who would inherit the leadership, so one group followed the son, I think, and the rest followed someone else..and they have been split ever since.
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Basically one side wanted hereditary religious leadership, and the other wanted democratic religious leadership.
 
Kobie said:
That's not necessarily how it works, because oil production is not a zero-sum game. Other countries (like us, or Canada) can increase the production to make a difference. Production capacity really isn't the problem, it's refining capacity.
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OK I understand, but prices will rise anyway, but maybe not as much as first predicted..
 
I say stay out. Not because I don't think Iraq is seriously important geographically speaking. Not because I don't think we can't straiten things up there. But because I know the American people and the political leaders don't have what it takes to endure a prolonged conflict with casualties. That was already proven in the mess that is referred to as the Liberation of Iraq. We did a piss poor job of understanding what would happen if we toppled the Iraqi government during the Gulf war. And when we did finally figure out that we had inadvertently opened the gates for civil war in Iraq, we acted to late which cost many more lives then necessary. The reason being, the quagmire our own country is in. Most Americans can't even point Iraq out on a map, let alone understand what is going on in the ME. Americans are lazy and blindly parrot spun facts by media outlets.

What do I think we should do? What do I think we should have done back during the first Gulf War. We should have sent in 700K+ troops, plus a large contingent of aircraft and occupied Iraq. We should have set up permanent bases and set up a preliminary government. Then we should have kept large forces there until the democratic process got off the ground. The only way to change Iraq is to treat it like we treated Japan after WW2. As you can see, we still have forces in Japan several dacades after the war ended. We also controlled the government for decades after the war ended. That would be the only way to be effective in Iraq. If we are not willing to do this, we should simply not be involved at all. When it comes to war, you either go big, or go home. Going in any other way only gets people killed for no reason at all.
 
The Mark said:
Part of the reason is the nature of the enemy - in WWII we fought a more..."formal" war, with formed units and uniformed enemies to oppose.

In Iraq the enemies often blend into the civilians.

Additionally, in WWII I suspect we were far more comfortable with "collateral damage".
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Just look for the guys using " our" equipment and shooting at us...You are probably right about the collateral damage...
 
Capster78 said:
I say stay out. Not because I don't think Iraq is seriously important geographically speaking. Not because I don't think we can't straiten things up there. But because I know the American people and the political leaders don't have what it takes to endure a prolonged conflict with casualties. That was already proven in the mess that is referred to as the Liberation of Iraq. We did a piss poor job of understanding what would happen if we toppled the Iraqi government during the Gulf war. And when we did finally figure out that we had inadvertently opened the gates for civil war in Iraq, we acted to late which cost many more lives then necessary. The reason being, the quagmire our own country is in. Most Americans can't even point Iraq out on a map, let alone understand what is going on in the ME. Americans are lazy and blindly parrot spun facts by media outlets.

What do I think we should do? What do I think we should have done back during the first Gulf War. We should have sent in 700K+ troops, plus a large contingent of aircraft and occupied Iraq. We should have set up permanent bases and set up a preliminary government. Then we should have kept large forces there until the democratic process got off the ground. The only way to change Iraq is to treat it like we treated Japan after WW2. As you can see, we still have forces in Japan several dacades after the war ended. We also controlled the government for decades after the war ended. That would be the only way to be effective in Iraq. If we are not willing to do this, we should simply not be involved at all. When it comes to war, you either go big, or go home. Going in any other way only gets people killed for no reason at all.
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Yet we have neither the will to go big, nor the will to stay home.

Or so it seems.
 
We shouldn't forget what happened in Beirut, Lebanon in 1983 when Reagan was president.

299 American and French servicemen were killed by 2 terrorist truck bombs in the Beirut Barracks bombing on October 23, 1983.

Who wants to bet that we won't see some similar incidents in Iraq?
 
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The Mark said:
Yet we have neither the will to go big, nor the will to stay home.

Or so it seems.
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That's what happens when you send so few troops to deal with millions of Islamic fighters. They easily outnumbered us 10/1 as well as not being bound by any ROE.. It was a disaster. The only way to overcome that is to send in huge numbers of forces. Enough to seal off the boarders to keep an influx of outside militant support, as well as enough to secure the entire country. During WW2, we were the defacto police force in Japan.
 
joG said:
I hope it holds till Obama is gone, otherwise there will be red lines all over the place to confuse everyone and their dogs.
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Obama's red line produced tangible results in Syria...
 
stay out of it entirely... and I mean entirely.

no money , no advisers, no equipment, no diplomats, no peace negotiations, no humanitarian aid, no observers, no officials... not a ****ing thing.


but then again, i would also pack up our embassies and consulates in every one of those goat****er countries and tell em all to eat ****.... so ya might not want to listen to me on the matter...
in fact, I know we won't listen to me.. we'll keep intervening in everybody's business until it becomes too painful for us to continue.
 
Thrilla said:
yes, i know what you were alluding to.. I just think it's funny that you unilaterally attribute that to Obama as if his "red line" scared Syria into giving them up or something.


when you got Russia and the US in agreement on something, ya better listen and take heed.... which Syria was smart enough to do.
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Yes, all of which is directly attributable to Obama's red line.
 
Redress said:
You need new glasses if you don't see many there.

How many American deaths are you ok with for a dollar off a gallon of gas?
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As usual Redress you don't know what your talking about............I posted what I think we should do in Iraq and it was not "Boots on the Ground." You really need to read the posts before you run your mouth.
 
Thrilla said:
i'm sure you believe that.
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It would be hard not to believe it. I don't think Obama should have set a red line, but in this case it produced results. Credit where credit is due.
 
Navy Pride said:
As usual Redress you don't know what your talking about............I posted what I think we should do in Iraq and it was not "Boots on the Ground." You really need to read the posts before you run your mouth.
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So you did not suggest military action to save you a couple bucks at the pump?
 
Juanita said:
Just look for the guys using " our" equipment and shooting at us...You are probably right about the collateral damage...
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In all wars up to Vietnam no one worried about collateral damage. In WWII cities were targeted, Dresden, Tokyo firebombed, the London Blitz by Germany, but the reasons were not so much to kill the civilians in the cities which were blanketed with bombs, it was to destroy their military production capabilities.
 
Redress said:
So you did not suggest military action to save you a couple bucks at the pump?
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A couple of bucks:lamo Its already $4. here and rising every day and the oil fields in Iraq have not even been involved yet. Your president screwed up big time face it.
 
Amadeus said:
It would be hard not to believe it. I don't think Obama should have set a red line, but in this case it produced results. Credit where credit is due.
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according to Obama.. he didn't set a red line...the world did.

I give credit where credit is due... but I don't give unilateral credit when there was a massive international effort in place, though.

everyone played their parts.. Obama, Congress, Putin, the UN, etc
if Obama went at it alone, he'd be laughed at by Assad.
 
Navy Pride said:
A couple of bucks:lamo Its already $4. here and rising every day and the oil fields in Iraq have not even been involved yet. Your president screwed up big time face it.
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He's your president too, admit it or not.
 
Thrilla said:
according to Obama.. he didn't set a red line...the world did.

I give credit where credit is due... but I don't give unilateral credit when there was a massive international effort in place, though.

everyone played their parts.. Obama, Congress, Putin, the UN, etc
if Obama went at it alone, he'd be laughed at by Assad.
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Yeah, but the red line was the catalyst. It would be hard to argue against that.
 
Thrilla said:
according to Obama.. he didn't set a red line...the world did.

I give credit where credit is due... but I don't give unilateral credit when there was a massive international effort in place, though.

everyone played their parts.. Obama, Congress, Putin, the UN, etc
if Obama went at it alone, he'd be laughed at by Assad.
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Don't you know that Obama accepts responsibility for anything that goes wrong. He did not hear about it or Bush is responsible for it.Now if something goes right that ia another matter.
 
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