Top Reasons To Get Out of Iraq

I totally agree with every single reason. My favorite is that we are in the middle of THEIR civil war... send the troops home today!

Does that mean that people who don't necessarily agree (about the war or anything) don't give a shit?

Not doin' that again.

they're predicting the war will cost over $1 trillion. i can't even wrap my brain around this.

another thing to note is our apparent lack of taking their traditions, religion and culture into consideration. we assume they want what we have.

My take is this. I believe that these are the very minimum points of agreement. I believe Democrat or Republican there are few people that really disagree with this assessment. I don't even know where to start the conversation with people who don't *basically* agree with this:

1) Although all sides can agree, Sadaam was a horrible dictator, if we could do it all over again. We wouldn't have done what we did. Right?

2) There were never any * imminent * weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. There never were. Is there absolutely any real argument here? From anyone? I've not read one from either side in the last few years? Not even in WSJ or on FOX. So we're clear in admitting that, at least on this point, there was faulty reasoning right? I lived in France at the time and wathced Colin Powell try to convince every other nation in the world of this. Even more, I believed him and tried to argue this point with the French. Don't I feel like a complete ass now?

3) At the very least, assuming everyone involved had pure intentions, coming to the conclusions we did about justifications for invasion and our ability to establish democracy were very foolish and a huge miscalculation. I mean, at the very least, no one is really doubting that anymore right?

4) WE horribly miscalculated on what would happen after the war. Again Republican or Democrat, justified or not, at the very very least there has to be some accountability for horrible management of information right? If this were corporate America, good intentions or not, this would not be tolerated. Why should we settle for less when we are alking about the management of our country.

5) Again at the VERY MINIMUM, the money we've spent on this war, applied to any number of other problems, would have had a much better net positive outcome all the way around. I mean, for real, is anyone doubting this? 500 bilion dollars!!!!! Is anyone even arguing that this is a good expenditure of money????? Does anyone really feel safer?


Keep in mind, I feel this is the bare minimum argument, assuming that every single person involved acted on the most pure intentions. Which is debatable to say the least...

Lives lost; bodies ruined; families and futures destroyed.

OK OK. I'm totally on fire now about this now.


Point #6: Connecting Iraq to 9/11 was completely irresponsible. Not then. Not now. Evidence connecting the two is absolutely horrible. Again, almost any person you ask, even most every Repulican will tell you this. Just an absolutely horrible play on the fears of the American people. Again is there any real disagreement between ANYONE that there are probably 10 more countries more connected to 9/11 than Iraq???? For real, I've not heard anyone make this argument.

So if you mostly agree with the last 6 points, how can you not be severely disappointed at very least, or completely outraged? Is there anyone even making a serious argument against any of these points??

that's a lot of question marks, noah.

Okay SuperStar, please delete the redundat comment above.

Exhibit 2. Dr. Hans Blix was the head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission from January 2000 to June 2003. In a speeches and TV interviews in late 2002, and early 2003, he accused the U.S. and British governments of dramatizing the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, in order to strengthen the case for war against the regime of Saddam Hussein. He was called a pacifist wuss. Newt Gingrich stated that approving Hans Blix as chief U.N. weapons inspector was one of the biggest mistakes ever made.

Exhibit 3. In 1992 a Pentagon White Paper named "Defense Planning Guidance" (DPG) was published. It was written by Paul Wolfowitz who was then Deputy Secretary of Defense under SOD Dick Cheney. This document proposes that the USA is to be a New Rome, a dominating world force, a Pax Americana. He proposed a preemptive war with Iraq. Wolfowitz and his fellow neocons unsuccessfully tried to lobby President Clinton to attack Iraq in 1992. Clinton declined, saying he was more focused on "Al-Qaeda terrorist cells." During the Clinton Presidency, Paul Wolfowitz repeatedly criticized the President's foreign policy decisions around the globe. In 1997, he Wolfowitz helped create a neocon think tank called the PNAC — the Project for a New American Century. This think tank expressed the same views as the DPG White Paper with regard to American foreign policy. Its members include Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, William Kristol, Richard Perle, James Woolsey, William Bennett, Dan Quayle, Jeb Bush, James Bolton, and Zalmay M. Khalilzad. They proposed global military domination by the USA.

You know there is more.

Exhibit 4. In July of 2003, Joe Wilson wrote an Op-Ed piece saying that he had told Cheney in February of 2003 that The Iraq nuclear build-up was lie. We all know what happened to him and his wife.
Exhibit 5. In January of 1961, in Eisenhower’s leaving office speech, he said, “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

Global thermal imaging satellites had determined that there was more oil and gas in the Caspian basin than in all of Saudi Arabia. When this became known, the USSR decided they just had to invade Afghanistan. The Reagan and Bush I administrations funneled billions of dollars to the Taliban, and Saddam in an attempt to keep the USSR and Iran from controlling the vital pipeline routes to the Persian Gulf.

When the USSR went out of business, and we had established Musharef as our stooge in Afghanistan, the military-industrial complex needed a new “boogie man” to justify their $295 billion defense budget. The neocons happily provided Iraq, former friend, and now worst person in the world.

Continued from above.

So, if you didn’t know what these guys were up to, there are only two possible explanations; you weren’t paying attention (didn’t give a shit), or you didn’t want to know. Don’t feel bad, this takes work, and few people have the time. But I learned from Nixon (Joe McCarthy’s protégé by the way) that you’ve got to make time.

So, now we are where we are, and 70% of Americans are saying, “Get out now!” Sorry folks, no can do. The U.S. military has the system and equipment to withdraw a maximum of one combat division per month from Iraq. There are currently 25 combat divisions in Iraq. So if we start today, we’ll be done eight months in to Hillary’s administration. That is 25 months, $250,000,000,000.00, and 1,500 dead kids from now.

I urge you all to feel guilty for a second, and then start writing letters to your congressional representatives demanding that Bush and Cheney be impeached.

If somebody feels the urge to take issue with anything I said, knock yourself out. But first, take a couple of hours, and do some research; if anything I’ve said is untrue, let me know.

The End.

I blame the mainstream press. All of this was fairly common knowledge at the time (if you did a bit a research). But, the mainstream press was totally asleep at the wheel. It made it very clear we can't depend on them to be independent anymore.

Not disagreeing, just asking...What happens to Iraq and the region when we are gone? Do we care? Should we care? What is the best way to take on the threat of Islamic Terrorist? Or are they not really a threat?

Please don't misunderstand this as anything more than asking for ideas from people who are much more well read on this stuff than I am.

Pam:

The Washington Post reports there are three possible outcomes after a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq:

1. The Majority Shiites will drive Sunnis out of ethnically mixed areas west to the Anbar province.
2. Southern Iraq will erupt into civil war between Shiite groups.
3. The Kurdish north would solidify its borders and invite a U.S. troop presence there.

http://unambig.blogspot.com/2007/07/what-will-happen-if-us-leaves-iraq
.html

But, Robin, how do those outcomes affect our safety? Those of us who have been "drinking the koolaid" have been told that it is better to keep the bad guys busy abroad and not let them bring terror to us. When we pull out, are they going to just be happy over there and leave us alone? I would be thrilled for the Islam countries to live according to their "traditions, religion and culture". I'm, personally, not a big fan of stoning and honor killings, but that is their world I guess. I just want to know that my fellow non-Muslims are safe to live and breathe. I'm really trying to open my mind here, I've read all of Ol' Hippie's stuff. I just would like to know what is next... At this point the how we got there is a history lesson to be learned from; we are there, it will 2 years before we will be completely out per Ol' Hippie, what do we do in the mean time? What do we do if the Kurds want our presence? I sure as hell don't want to go through this again.

Sorry, Ol Hippie. I accidentally deleted your exhibit 1 argument twice.

No problen star, I do everything in Word and save it. So here it is again:

John Wayne is alleged to have said, upon the election of JFK in 1960, “I didn’t vote for him, but he’s my president, and I hope he does a good job.” That was my attitude about Nixon, Reagan, and Bush I. I drew the line at George W. Bush; this guy and his buddies scared the shit out of me from day 1.

So here we are six and one half years, and a trillion dollars in debt later. People are finally starting to demand our withdrawal from Iraq, and question Bush’s honesty. That is great, we are glad to have you on the antiwar express. I only have one question for y’all; what the hell took you so long? The time for asking the tough questions was five years ago, before Bush ordered the invasion of a sovereign nation, in direct violation of the U.N. Charter, the Geneva Accords, the U.S. Constitution, and the trust of 95% of the world’s population. I hear our elected representatives, and my friends say, “Well, everybody thought….” Or “Who could have known?”

Exhibit 1: William Scott Ritter, Jr. is a former soldier and Marine, and chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998. On September 8, 2002, in an interview on CNN, he said that Iraq possessed no significant weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). Administration stooges called him a disgruntled former bureaucrat, and accused him of being unpatriotic. I along with 100,000 other people heard him speak at the “No Blood for Oil” rally on the Mall in DC on October 26, 2002.