The real reason we're in Iraq...

[tedzbear]

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0913-03.htm

This is a great editorial that really hits the nail on the head.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. From the article.... great points... all true.

>>The rest of the world isn't going to let us win

The Shiites don't want a democracy

There was no "exit plan" because we never intended to exit

Yet, not even the U.S., the alleged "good guy" in this mess, has demonstrated purity

Several years ago, George W. Bush made a decision to quit drinking. As one of my e-mailers suggests, we would have been better off if he had decided, instead, to quit lying.<<

[olddem43]

6. Hell, we would have been better off too, if he had kept on drinking.

By 2000, he might have been too sloshed to even run.

[Czolgosz]

2. This lame editorial is just as lame as when you posted it

under a different heading in another forum.

[0007]

8. Let us hear from you Mr. Passport! Wasn't anything new but it was good.

[Eloriel]

18. What's so lame about it?

I'd really like to know.

[Czolgosz]

20. I was wrong

I was in another thread posted by tedthebear in GD ’04 discouragingly entitled “This is why Kerry may have already lost the election...” That thread also had a link to an editorial in commondreams.org. When I tried to find the commondreams.org editorial which is the subject if THIS thread, I mistakenly went to the same naysayer editorial that was the subject of the OTHER thread. The editorial that is the subject of this thread is good and I was wrong to suggest otherwise. The commondreams.org editorial that was the subject of the other thread is the sort of gloom and doom that I am getting tired of. My mistake.

[DarkPhenyx]

3. Nicely written but...

...I completely disagree that we need to get out of Iraq today. Unfortunately that will simply make a bad situation worse. It sounds good, even plays well in the public arena, but it is horribly short sighted and flawed in reality.

[Goldmund]

4. "a bad situation worse"

Pray tell, how could this situation be made worse, exactly?

[klook]

7. Yes, and how

would the U.S. military staying make it better than it would be otherwise? Short run and long run.

[DarkPhenyx]

11. In reply to both posts.

Well, I've explained it before and sadly, since there in't any rational thought going on as pertains to this subject, nobody ever listens.

If you can't see it now no amount of my talking to you will help you see it. That much is clear from the tenor of your replies to me.

Yes, we shouldn't be there. Yes we need to get out as soon as possible.

NO TOMORROW ISN'T AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!

Only people who honestly haven't thought things through completely and rationally believe that it is. The same thought process that got us into this insanity in the first palce I might point out.

[truthspeaker]

13. We listen, we just don't believe you.

[DarkPhenyx]

15. If you listen...

...then tell me what I have said?

That's the problem. Both sides are so entrenched that neither actually listens to the other. Neither side thinks. Both are so far beyond sanity and reality that it is hysterically funny to watch.

[HamdenRice]

19. Reason tomorrow is a good time

DarkPhenyx, I have never read your posts on why we need to stay, so I find it curious that you won't explain yourself. Maybe you have a particular dialog going with the others in this thread, but if you have an opinion you should state it for everyone to read.

One reason for getting out immediately is just a rational consideration of all the likely outcomes of staying indefinitely, staying until the situation is stabilized and leaving immediately -- in other words, a sober cost benefit analysis.

If we leave immediately, I would expect any of several very horrible things to happen -- undoubtedly civil war, a major disruption of Iraqi oil supplies and the emergence of a dictatorship, three states (Kurd, Sunni and Shiite) or a failed state. Of course, Iraqi oil supplies are already utterly disrupted with no possibility in sight of their coming back on line as long as we are there. Oddly, the first two options are not inconsistent with our interests or regional interests, so long as the dictatorship or tri-state is (1) not a threat to its neighbors and (2) continues to produce oil. Only a failed state that is a haven for Al Quada would be inconsistent with our interests. In fact, there is no reason to believe that any dictator who emerges would necessarily be a maniac like Sadam -- probably more along the lines of the late Haffez al Assad of Syria.

Of course, there is even the remote possibility that after the exhaustion of a civil war, some kind of better government might emerge.

If we stay, however, we simply prolong our involvement in the emerging civil war and forestall the emergence of an equillibrium. A lot of people who are probably as smart as you believe you are, believe that the US presence is actually generating "terrorism" (actually resistance) and the longer we stay, the worse the probable outcome become.

In sum, what we have to do is not think about what the best outcome is -- s stable pro western, democratic oil producing state -- and work toward that, because the chances of that emerging with us there is increasingly vanishingly remote.

[Jacobin]

22. So, I take it, you think our presence is makeing things BETTER?

Please explain how. I'm intrigued

[cheezus]

5. ... http://www.newamericancentury.org/

[0007]

9. Right on!

[Disturbed]

10. Bullshit excuses.

The longer the US Puppet Govt. and the Occupation exists the more blood will flow instead of that oil. The often repeated reason to stay is that if the US leaves there will be Civil War is lame. The Iraqi regime was overthrown illegaly and the Hand Over was illegal but now that it has been perpetrated, most Iraqis will not allow Iraq to become a colonial adjunct to the US.

If J. Kerry gets elected he will inherit a Quagmire and will face what LBJ and Nixon did with Vietnam. Ah..the irony.

[DarkPhenyx]

12. So tell me...

...oh wise one.

What will happen in Iraq during the first year after the US pulls out tomorrow?

[truthspeaker]

14. several possibilities

1) one or more groups try to take power using violence, resulting in civil war

2) an elected government takes power

3) a dictator takes over.


With the US there, there is only one possibility (#1).

[DarkPhenyx]

17. and that is where you are failing in your argument.

there is more than one possibility with the US there. Failure to see that would definately highlight your blind spot nicely.

You've also missed several possibilities that could result from our pulling out.

[truthspeaker]

21. What other possibility is there with US troops in Iraq?

Establishing a free, democratic government? Don't make me laugh. You can't possibly be that naiive.

As long as there are foreign troops in Iraq, Iraqis will shoot at them. That's the bottom line.

[Jacobin]

23. Very true.

It appears that Iraqis refuse to become a colony of the U.S. and are willing to die to prevent that from happening. If that isn't obvious to everyone by now, they are not paying attention.

[DarkPhenyx]

26. It is a possibility.

I agree it's a long shot, but it is a possibility. it's about as likely as a Democratic Gov't spontaneously springing up once we leave.

[leesa]

16. This is the reason

http://www.luver.org/suesupriano/mp3s/MikeRuppert.mp3

We MUST steal the oil and most of the Dems in our Congress agree.

[LSK]

24. Oil

[tedzbear]

25. Oil

:kick:

[gauguin57]

27. PNAC is the reason we are in Iraq.

Period.