Can we talk about President Bush's new Iraq strategy? - Page 2

I'll put it this way- i'm a Republican- and i am NOT happy with Bush's new stratedgy. This is just my personal opinion. I think that we do need some more troops over there- but the number he is proposing is astronomical and i just don't think it's effeciant. I do not think all of our troops need to be pulled out at once- that would cause devestating consequences. I think that it needs to be done over time as the Iraqis become more self-sufficient and are able to govern/defend themselves. If we all pull out at once - it's just going to cause a civil war there and with a new gov't who can bairly keep control- they will easily be taken over by militias and other horrid groups. I say this not only because of the sheer number of troops we've lost already- but also because they are not comming up with any sort of stratdegy (sp?) or game plan....it's like they want to just keep sending over more and more troops without a really set mission/goal. I understand that Iraq needs to build up their military- before we can really move all of our troops out- but i also don't think our troops need to "babysit" a civil war right now. My opinions on Bush have really started to change lately. I am still a Republican...i support my president- but i do not agree with his new stratedgy. I think we're gonna wind up with a draft and more deaths if this keeps up- we are already spread way too thin. If our country were to be attacked right now- i honestly don't think we have enough of our military men and women to defend our boarders. (i am a republican-although i'm not a strict one- i vote for the canidate rather than the party) Personally- I believe the Bible...and i honestly believe that there's never really going to be peace in the middle east for now....so i'm sure we'll be dealing with problems in the middle east for years to come unfortunately. It's frusterating. I want to be clear- i support our troops- i send out care packages several times a year. Colin was a naval lt. for 8 years- we love our military. I support my president- but i do not agree with the decisions he is making. That's my two cents i also wanted to add- our soldiers who are in our military- they are very brave- they volunteered and signed up to defend and protect their country- they knew when signing on that war was a possibility....colin and i both understand this. even though he's no longer in active service- he is an innactive reserve and could be called up at any time if they needed him. I am a little freaked out by this- but i support him. I support him being willing to risk his life to protect me and everyone else. I am proud of him and our other soldiers. I just hope no more have to die as a result of the proposal that Bush is making- i think the number is much too high and without a goal in sight, we will just loose more men and women.

Others would argue that the number is too low to make a difference, even in Baghdad alone: http://comment.independent.co.uk/com...cle2132496.ece

I think I have to go back to kitty land. NO one will change my mind and we're obviously not changing anyone else's. And its way too frustrating. (Although sounds like some have changed their own mind just from seeing what has happened.)

(By the way Sarah, Bush usually has to be coerced with lawsuits into doing anything about helping the environment, so I'm quite surprised (pleasantly) about the Hawaii thing considering he's been trying for 6 years to destroy the National Arctic Wildlife Refuge.)

OK that's it. Back to the kitty lounge for me.

I agree. Bush did have an agenda to go into Iraq at somepoint, but he could not have declared war without the support of Congress. So there are bunch of people up on Capitol Hill that supported this war at one time.

Like I stated before...we're too much in the middle now. If we pull out that almost guarantees that Iran will ally with Iraq in its disarray and civil war and then its just going to be one big mess.

I don't agree with the war and our original purpose for starting it, but I don't think we can pull out now without consequences.

My husband found an interview with Bush where he made the statement "but they tried to kill my dad". I wish I could find the reference to it now. I agree, it's a lot about what happened when his father was there.

Yes, I know. What my actual words to Max were when I saw that was, `I don't care whatever else he does and whatever else he's done before, and I don't care if this has nothing to do with him and he's been forced into it or if he's just doing it to regain some of his popularity, the fact is that all the animals and that whole region will benefit hugely from this, so whatever his motivation, I'll always have a miniscule shred of respect for him because of it'.

Sometimes it doesn't matter what made you do something, the fact that you've done it anyway all that counts. That's not true of the majority of things he's done, but in this case I believe it was, and I see you do, too.

And Momofmany - I have long maintained that Bush's motivation for this war had nothing to do with WMDs (that was just the `official' reason that was conveniently provided for him to present to the people) and his only reason for wanting that country invaded was to bring down Saddam for trying to kill his father, and because of big oil. It would have ended before it started once he found out there were no WMDs (which STILL haven't been found to this day) if he didn't have other reasons for wanting to get in there.

I thought Sadaam should have been forced to suffer some consequences when he tried to have Bush Sr assisnated but, evidently, Clinton didn't, as he was President then. I'm sorry but I, for one, don't think it is acceptable for a leader of a country to try to have an ex-President killed.


If I remember correctly, the number was 17. 17 United Nations resolutions were passes against Sadaam for thumbing his nose at UN inspectors. Just how many resolutions need to be passed before, at least, one of them get enforced. That is what makes the UN a joke to me.

The "Oil for Food" scandal, the head of the UN, Kofi Anan's own son was in on that, does anyone REALLY thing Kofi himself didn't know about it? Come on.

How soon we forget.

I've not forgotten any of those things. There have been stuff-ups on a lot of different levels from a lot of different places during this whole debacle. And I too agree that some kind of consquence for an attempted assissination would have been justified. Yes, justice, I mean, not revenge.

Just not the consequence of the destruction of an entire nation and the loss of 58,000 of its civilian lives (and counting). No, not that.

And yes, we all thought there might have been WMDs - but there weren't any found when people went in to look. If you're talking about forgetting, how come everyone keeps forgetting to acknowledge that particular fact? Please, someone just answer me straight, when it was found that there were NO WMDS, why did the war still begin?

And yes, the oil for food scandal was dreadful. And yes, Kofi Anan's son was involved. His SON. Do you know every single thing your son does? If you were running an organisation like the UN, would you know the every last involvement of your son? It's plausible that Mr Anan may have known, and it's equally plausible that he may not have.

The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. Ezekial 18:20

If old Kofi didn't know what his OWN son was doing in the UN that he was in charge of, he should have IMO.

You know........I have my own thoughts on bush and no one has even mentioned a few things I have found out about him...

I don't want to spout off without my notes. I have a file I have made on the bush history since 1940's...

I have it on a disk and will upload it tomorrow and if anyone wants to read it they can.

I have to get to bed now because I work nights. But as far as the war, it's more complicated than we all think. The things we all think are probably exactly what the gov wants us to think. I feel it goes much much deeper and I am even hesitant to post something...

But I will post a link tomorrow but it might open a whole new can of worms. Basically I feel everyone is absolutely right but also I feel everyone is wrong. There is always more than what exactly meets the eye.

Bush is a snake in the grass..... and I am a republician....

Hate to say it, but with the news media working as hard as it does to discredit anything the President says or does, I doubt your special disc is going to contain any real bombshells. Doesn't have any UFOs in there, does it? Or drowned secretaries? Or murdered movie stars?

Just kidding ya, jcribbs.

If it has anything to do with whether a withdrawal now from Iraq would be beneficial or damaging to this country, the more information we have, the better.

Isn't that the $64,000 question? That's the crux of the matter - at this point, nobody can really predict what courses of action will, or will not, be effective. If any. Too many mistakes were made early on, quite apart from the invasion itself, like not sending in enough troops, not anticipating a civil war, disbanding Iraq's army, or not restoring the infrastructure ASAP.
The whole mismanagement of the war in Iraq is probably going to lead me to vote for somebody with military and/or foreign policy experience in the next elections, because I don't think that anybody without that experience will get us out of this quagmire.

Me and a buddy talk about it quite a bit. We're just average folk, but here's a little of what we banter around.

1. We know what the cost of staying is, but what is the cost of leaving? Are the Iraqi people, not the extremists, but regular people like you and me, going to be better off, or worse?

2. If a stable democratic government can eventually established in Iraq, will the region be better off, or worse?

3. Are we likely to be more or less secure within our own borders if the war stops tomorrow?

4. Do you believe that acts of terrorism have been averted here because of the war?

5. If thousands of people in this country were again killed tomorrow by an act of terrorism that was linked to this region, would it make a difference in your opinion of this war?

I watched an interview with a Time's reporter in Bagdad yesterday. I'll see if I can track down the text. Interesting stuff.

And the questions you posed were some of the most intelligent and pertinent seen in this debate so far. I wish I had the answers. I don't think anybody does

I don't agree with it at all. I feel that a different strategy completely needs to be implemented rather than just throwing more money and human lives at the problem.

Iraq needs to be able to police themselves adequately enough, and I feel that they need a boot in the patoot to get it going. I know the Iraqi's do not like what is going on in there country, but I get the impression that they are comfortable with us being there. Therefore they are not doing as much as they could to work towards running the show themselves because they figure we'll be there forever. It's like a 30 year old who still lives at home with his (or her..to be fair) parents, they are used to mom and dad taking care of everything, so why should they bust their butt to get a job and move on?

We need to say ok, look, you have until such and such a date to get your act together or else we'll be gone and you'll be screwed.

I don't agree with "We should have gone in, got Saddam, and got out" because then the country would be left with NO ONE, and it would be even more of a disaster for them. But we shouldnt've gone if we didn't have a plan of what we were going to do after we found Saddam. Saddam may have been a threat to the U.S. but I don't feel that it was anything that was going to happen over night. We could have taken more time.

I posted a response then saw this so sorry for the double post immediately. Here is how I feel about it:

Cinder said...

1. We know what the cost of staying is, but what is the cost of leaving? Are the Iraqi people, not the extremists, but regular people like you and me, going to be better off, or worse? If they Iraqi people can't govern and police themselves, which at the moment they aren't doing so well, that is why we're still there, then they will be worse off.

2. If a stable democratic government can eventually established in Iraq, will the region be better off, or worse? I don't think it would be an immediate end to the violence. Yes, the people will be better off as a country, but there will no doubt still be violence from people who want to overthrow the new democrocy.

3. Are we likely to be more or less secure within our own borders if the war stops tomorrow? I think so because then more attention will be put on our safety at home and more of our troops will be used to secure our borders.

4. Do you believe that acts of terrorism have been averted here because of the war? Not BECAUSE of the war. I think more have been averted, but the war hasn't made us any safer. If anything it may have negatively effected us because now we're occupying THEIR part of the world, which gives the terrorist movements more of a reason to go after us.

5. If thousands of people in this country were again killed tomorrow by an act of terrorism that was linked to this region, would it make a difference in your opinion of this war? No. I would still be against it and probably be even more angry because more of our attention could have been focused elsewhere instead of Iraq.

I'm not the most politically minded/intelligent person, but those are how I'd answer those questions.

I'm sorry guys but I decided against posting my information disk. I just feel I shouldn't... It might start something..

It's possible maybe another time but it definately needs more thought on my part than 24 hrs. I might be paranoid ........ but maybe not.

And definately no ufo or murdered movie stars... I think it might change the mood of things and I like coming here. The cat site is my favorite place to be when I am online. That might ban me...

So, I'm really sorry.

Aha - are you afraid we might have accused you of being Michael Moore in disguise? There may have been copyright issues involved, anyway.

I, too, think it's important to access several "news providers", some of them preferably outside the U.S., although many of them are biased, too. Luckily, the Internet allows you to do so.

I subscribe to a very good, but very conservative, German Sunday paper, "Die Welt am Sonntag" (The World on Sunday). There was an article about Bush's planned "surge", and while I wasn't surprised to see that the author had concluded, as I had a few posts back, that withdrawing our troops from Iraq might result in Iraq being carved up by Iran, Syria, and Turkey, his statement that it would be "the start of World War III" did.
I, for one, suspect that World War III is already well underway, and Iraq is only a part of it. For the past two and a half decades, at least, we've been witnesses to an awful lot of "ethnic cleansing" on several continents. Even 9/11, which targeted "non-believers", seems to fit into that category.

What's the underlying cause? Overpopulation of the planet, with its unequal distribution of resources, globalization, the end of the Cold War?

Reeses, I think I know your twin sister!

I don't know what your info is jcribbs, but I do know that I'm not the person I was 30 years ago. I also think what we do next in Iraq should not necessarily depend on why we went there or whether the intellengence was valid or not. I believe that the consequences of a pullout vs a buildup at this point are the question. Whether you like or agree with George Bush shouldn't be the only determining factor.

And I am a Republican, but I would never flat say I'm voting for a Republican next election without knowing who that person is and what their platform is.

You're talking about the cat, not me right?

I read Iran // iraq // and syrian new papers on a regular basis... I like the bbc as well. And then there's good ole cnn...

AS far as Michael Moore, he only "barely" touched the tip of an iceberg...... Just barely.