[Lorianne]

Ok the car bombing and other attacks were trending down in Iraq. I don’t know that I agree with that, but let’s say it’s true. Then what?

How long were we to stay there? Because, I believe, no matter when we left the thing was going to fall apart. Only Saddaam was able to hold it together, and even he had difficulty (wars with Iran and so forth). Same deal with Assad in Syria.

If you look at the overall history of the region, going way way back up to present day, the only time there was a semblance of peace in that region was when there was a brutal iron-fisted dictator or caliphate in charge. And that broke down often enough. Cities and lands have changed hands through brutal (and I do mean truly brutal) means over and over and over again in that whole region. It’s all in the history books. So, speaking of facts and experts, is the history wrong? Why would the people of the region suddenly, just because a completely foreign power takes over for a few years, leave behind all that and decide to live in peace and harmony?

I just do not see the rationale for that belief. I understand we are dealing with the psychology of previous investment. We put a lot of blood and treasure into Iraq (for whatever reason) and we don’t want to see that lost. That is understandable. But there is also such a thing as putting good money (and blood) after bad.

I’m not seeing the REASON for staying in Iraq for decades, maybe even centuries just to enforce and artificial peace on people who would otherwise be fighting each other as they have for centuries before. What is the end game there? Just so we don’t lose face?

Look, I just don’t want our military to die for stupid stuff. And dying so that one group of Muslims can be top dog over another group of Muslims is what I see we have been doing.

If you can explain to me how this can work and why it is in our interest I’d be willing to listen. How long would we have to stay there? How many other places would we have to go to do the same thing (Iran, Yemen, Libya?). Do we really need to be over there doing all this forced peacefulness and if so to whose benefit?

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"If you can explain to me how this can work and why it is in our interest I’d be willing to listen. How long would we have to stay there? How many other places would we have to go to do the same thing (Iran, Yemen, Libya?)."

It seems that now we can have a reasoned debate. Thank you. I would not disagree with you about brutal dictators being able to hold things together. That is certainly the case. As long as they are not a threat to America or her strategic interests I don't feel we should get involved. Like Ghadaffi in Libya, yes he was a brutal dictator but Bush had basically brought him to heel by scaring him into opening up for inspections and turning over all of his WMD stuff. He was doing us no harm and we should not have lifted a finger to overthrow him. If the European countries wanted to overthrow him, they should have done so without our help.

Iraq is a different matter, Sadaam had definite plans to start up his weapons program. After capture he admitted to his interrogators that he had deceived the world that his program was further along and not allow inspectors in because he didn't want Iran to know that he didn't have any WMDs. He had stuff to start it up, he tried to acquire yellow cake uranium from Nigeria, but was unsuccessful as yet. He attempted to assisinate a former President (GHB), he was running terrorist training camps inside Iraq and was working on loosening the sanctions so he could have started his nuclear weapons program. I believe Iraq is the key to stability in the ME (as many experts believe)

If we would have kept the program in place that Bush had when he left office they would have been far along down the path of becoming a stable nation state. That was to be the goal. As for how long we kept troops there? We've kept troops in Germany (which are no longer needed), and in Japan for 70 years. We've kept troops in South Korea for 60 + years. What does it matter if we kept 15,000 troops in Iraq? As long as they weren't getting killed it doesn't. They would not have been doing active combat patrolling etc... They would have been training Iraqis and posted as a reactionary force just in case. We need to reposition our forces anyways. We need to concentrate our forward deployed troops to the Middle East and Asia. Western Europe needs to defend themselves.