Quote:
Originally Posted by Bones343
I'm going to have to disagree here. Like I said before, regardless of your feeling on what we should have or have not done involving Iraq in the first place, the point is, we did go into Iraq, and we are still in Iraq. It is years late to suggest we don't have a presense in Iraq. Hind sight is 20/20. Simply leaving now would be a bigger mistake than going to Iraq in the first place as you feel was.
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Do you agree that at some point we have to leave?
I will assume yes.
So when we leave, be it 2008 or 2028, what do you suppose will happen?
Do you think that in 5 years, or 10 years they will get it together and have a functioning government and security force in a unified Iraq where Sunni, Shia and ethnic Kurds get along like they are living on Sesame Street?
At what point do we say we've paid enough money and blood while waiting for something that will never happen?
Do you think that if we left tomorrow Osama is going to try and buy a nice 2BR condo on the Tigris and setup shop? He's not welcome there. A lot of the current violence is with Shia groups. And....get this....he stated in his last tape that the Palestinian issue is the one most near and dear to his heart these days.
Here's what will happen if and when we pull out. Civil war. Genocide. Fracturing of a nation-state that should never have been created in the first place. Turkey invading from the north to punish the Kurds and seizing the oil fields. And guess what...we created it. We made it all possible. And we can't fix it. We do not have the knowledge nor ability. No matter how much money we throw at this problem...it wont solve it. Just because we broke it, doesn't mean we can fix it. The Potterybarn Principle is nice....but it is illogical and impractical.
After 5 years it reminds me of the definition of insanity, which is repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. If we leave and say, 'we've done all we can, they need to help themselves'. I bet that after a period of strife, they would figure it out. Iraqis are quite well educated. They are a bright population. However while they suckle at the teat of the US Taxpayers to provide their security and reconstruction it puts them in a position of the old Confucius parable about teaching a man to fish.
They need to be taught to fish and handed the rod and left to their own devices.