Thread: Iraq War -Should We Stay or Should We Go?

Just my thinking now.

What are we winning? What could we possibly win?

We have no national interest there.

I am not belittling the sacrifice - they were sent to fight and did what good soldiers do - they went and are doing their best. I have nothing but love and respect for them.

While I do think we are a lightning rod for attacks and it would be better if we were not there - I am also pretty sure, it is never going to be a true democracy - or a truly peaceful country.

Ultimately, we will have to either stay forever, or leave and let them sort it out.

So do we stay another 2 years, 5 years, 10 years - and leave with the same result? Should we ask troops to sacrifice more when the ultimate solution lies with the Iraqis?

If and when we leave, I think there will be turmoil - it doesn't matter when.

Just me, I think everyday is a sacrifice we don't need to make and America will gain nothing from it - we had nothing to gain in the first place.

BrightNail wrote:

MW, stop making assertions. BRINGING OUR TROOPS home and consolidating our power base IS NOT dismantling. You keep saying that, nobody else. Right now, we have our hands full with two 3rd rate countries.
And now we have "China" chomping at the bit, naw... Those days of Roman expansion is over unless you want to collapse like them.

It's not an an assertion, it's fact. If we close our overseas bases down we WILL be effectively dismantling a large portion of our military. You cannot be so naive as to not see that. I thought I explained how it works clearly. YOU CLOSE THE BASES DOWN AND YOU LOSE THOSE MILITARY BILLETS AND THE ASSOCIATED SUPPORT JOBS! In effect you will be reducing our military strength. Can I possibly be any more clearer than that?

Bringing our troops home will only strengthen us by coalescing our forces here, and SAVING A BOATLOAD OF MONEY!

NO, NO, NO, a force reduction will not strengthen our military or its capabilities! It's beyond me how anyone could possibly suggest such a thing. Furthermore, the savings you're talking about would be a lot less than you probably think. You are aware that our host nations pay a percentage of the cost aren't you?

Decommissioned? Nope. Why would you say that? You are making all that up. There is no proof of that. Bringing our troops home to our soil will not do the things you say. Those items are assets, we have plenty of bases and room here for it all. What would END up happening, if anything, is a streamlining and updating of our outdated equipment.. can anyone say "protective vests"... Maybe other countries should start anteing up and mainting their own armed forces, instead of having US taxpayers maintining theirs for them.

No, I'm not making anything up. From your writings I can tell your knowledge base on this topic is extremely weak. The reduction of our military at the level you suggest (closing all our overseas bases) would decimate our military. We cannot support all of the assest your talking about stateside. For lack of a better terminology, they would have to go away because we could not afford to maintain them. Talking about the ships alone, up to 50% of them are deployed or homeported overseas at any given time. We don't have the facilities to support all of them here at home. Plus, all the manpower necessary to get them underway would no longer exist if the bases were closed. Remember, the jobs went away when the purpose for there existence went away. Do you have any idea of how much military hardware we abandoned or dumped into the sea after WWWI, WWII, and Vietnam? Navy fighter jets were literally dumped off aircraft carriers into the ocean, bombers sent to graveyards (not maintained), tanks left on foreign beaches, ships sunk as artificial reefs, etc. Closing all our military bases (overseas) would cause the same effect, we would be forced to abandon many billions of dollars worth of military hardware, destroy it, and/or dump it. The ships we couldn't support in the United States would be decommissioned because we wouldn't have the manpower to maintain them nor the facilities to store them. Heck, some of the decommissioned warships would be used for target practice and others disposed of by donation for use as artificial reefing. In essence, we would be crippled militarily beyond anything the average Joe could envision. By the way, who are you to question my knowledge on this? You don't know me from Adam. Just curious.

American Solidiers jobs will NOT be lost, you are talking about civilians in other countries. Why is it important to you that we "offer" jobs to them, yet we outsource MOST of our american jobs. Infact, by bringing those troops home, we would generate MORE economic viability. Those persons would be consumers in America. They would bring revenue here AND we would create jobs for Americans.

You're so off base (no pun intended) on this it's not even funny. Yes, American soldiers and sailors will lose their jobs. Like I said before, when their billet is eliminated - so is their job (billet = job). This fact should be simple to understand. Additonally, we have thousands of American citizens serving in support positions at the bases located throughout the world. Actually, many of them are the spouses of military members homeported or stationed at the bases. Bringing all those folks home would not generate "MORE" economic viability. Honestly, the lost jobs have very little to do with protecting our interest abroad or national security, however, for your benefit I thought I'd entertain your comments .

Originally Posted by nntrixie

I never thought we would win. How could we win, when we had no national interest there.

I think we have already won. Saddam Hussein is dead. There is a stable functioning government in Iraq that is resisting most terrorist influences. It does not function exactly like our government but it does work for them. Leave a few military advisers and spooks there but bring the rest of the troops home and have a victory parade for them! We won!

Originally Posted by MW

No response?

Sorry, had to clean house for a showing, selling is so much fun in this market!

Response= What's it like to wake up every day to know you are going to be so wrong about this war? Just wondereing what that feels like, I wouldn't know! :-0

I think we have already won. Saddam Hussein is dead. There is a stable functioning government in Iraq that is resisting most terrorist influences. It does not function exactly like our government but it does work for them. Leave a few military advisers and spooks there but bring the rest of the troops home and have a victory parade for them! We won!

No WE, as in Americans, have not/cannot win. WE, as in Americans, had nothing to win. We had no national interest.

If and I say If, because I don't believe it, Iraq does truly get a stable functioning government, then maybe Iraq will be better off. What America has done is sacrifice thousands of soldier's lives, maimed thousands more, put ourselves in debt to China, neglected our own country. What exactly have we won?

What if that 'stable functioning government' turns into another dictatorial regime? Are we going to go back? I can't say it is stable and functioning, since I don't think we at home have a clue what is going on over there.

No matter how this turns out - it will be a loss for America and Americans - except of course the corporations that rushed in and grabbed their piece of Iraq or the big military contractors that charge $100 to do a bag of laundry, the soldier said he could do for $3.

I heard a friend make a good point the other day. The reason why we didn't have an exit plan, is because we were never intending to leave! Check this out:
Â*

If the U.S. is ultimately leaving Iraq, why is the military building 'permanent' bases?

Source: GlobalSecurity.org
As of mid-2005, the U.S. military had 106 forward operating bases in Iraq, including what the Pentagon calls 14 “enduringâ€

The Illuminate/Bilderberg Group/CFR have been involved in starting wars, siding on both sides and profiting from both sides of wars for many years. This Iraq war was staged for sure and the Iran invasion is in the works now.

They are just using us as pawns and they hope we will fight amongst each other/kill each other off, or, they will help us die by getting us involved in some other rotten war they have planned for the future.

Bush once said: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED - What happened?

The ONE WORLD GOVERMENT plans to have his central in Iraq .
WHY do you think they need such a big embassy as the one they are building there ,with OUR money?
They can dominate the muslims, the central bank of Iraq and oil.
And the AMERICAN soldiers will defend them from any threat.

Maybe when bush put up that sign: Mission Accomplished - that was his signal to his bosses that their plan was in motion; he wasn't talking to us because we are still there years later.

WE are actually fighting the elite who apparently don't need us anymore.

Since we are the only sane people around I hope we win.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... h&plindex=

I've bought this DVD just to help and motivate those who have the courage to produce these movies. It's a very good documentary.
It depends what you mean by WE.
The elites are winning.
WE THE PEOPLE are losing
I posted an article today that the editor is saying that the attachs on our troops are orchestrated. As they are low in money the attachs are down but the MSM are telling us "it's because the surge is working"
I don't believe in a word from these traitors .

the linkhttp://www.worldreports.org./news/1 ... _issues_a_