send more troops......or.....pull out now.......which one?

[mopaul]

it's one of those burning questions of the day

[laruemtt]

1. out now!

not one more life - not one. more deaths are not going to solve one damned thing. just add this karma onto the pile the u.s. already has with the genocide of the indians and slavery. and let the u.s. start praying for forgiveness from the universe.

[girl gone mad]

2. We don't have...

more troops.

Some of these peoplpe calling in to CSPAN must be clinically insane.

[DarkPhenyx]

3. More troops.

But that is only part of the solution. If the only thing we do is send mroe troops we might as well pull out.

[wickerwoman]

4. More troops, but not U.S. ones.

Bush needs to drag his ass to the U.N. get down on his knees and beg for support from the other nations. He needs to apologize for dragging us all into this mess and then he needs to promise to remove one U.S. soldier for every two the U.N. sends in.

And then he needs to turn himself over to the International Criminal Court.

OK, it's not going to happen, but it's the happiest way I see out of this mess. If we pull out now Iraq will descend into the most dangerous theocracy imaginable. If we send more troops we'll just be sucked in further. Bush (or his successor) needs to pull off a major mea culpa and give up our grip on Iraqi oil entirely.

[mmonk]

5. Hard to say

There's pull the troops out and abandon the neocon dream, but leave a vacuum of power. Or there's sending more troops, more death, and a draft to ensure the dream of a stable Iraq and permanent military bases of which to carry forth the neocon dream. Hmmmmmm........

[jason_au]

6. Out now

The only reason there is violence in Iraq is because the troops are there: a portion of the Iraqi people want the occupiers and their "gift" of "liberation" out of Iraq, so they can build their own country (though in what form remains to be seen, but is - at any rate - not for us to decide). This is completely understandable.

Imagine what you would be doing if a foreign power invaded the US (or in my case, Australia). I know *I'd* be doing all I could to ensure that the invaders were killed at an as great a rate as possible. Kinda like what the French resistance did against Hitler and his "liberation" of France. The Iraqi's will continue to fight for their country, regardless of any imposed quisling government or not.

So what if there is a vacuum of power: I cannot conceive of any outcome which is worse than the current neo-con created hell - civil war (which is a beat up, anyway), a theocracy (unlikely in a country which has been secular for the last 20 years) or even a split-up of the country in to 2 or 3 separate states (hasn't hurt the post-Soviet republics). All of these would have to be better for the Iraqi people.

Cheers from down under,

Jason

[Amerpie]

7. Bring Them Home Now!

You can't rebuild a country from behind teh barrel of a machine gun. There is no way to do the wrong thing.

[Ganja Ninja]

8. We have to pull out now or we have to start up the draft now.

Our troops are strung out and they need relief now not a year from now. Since I'm against the draft I say we pull out as fast as possible.

Asking the UN to send troops to help us is fantasy. Bush isn't going to ask and if he did the UN would tell him to pound sand.

[brokensymmetry]

9. Cut 'n run.

We've lost more than 600 of our soldiers. There have been more than 18,000 medical evacuations. I've no idea how many U.S. civilian contractors, foreign civilians, and Iraqi civilians have been hurt or killed.

We've squandered 87,000,000,000 dollars - and that's increasing. I've no idea how much the final tab will be. I do know we can't begin to afford it.

What will staying accomplish? Stability in Iraq? What magic will we perform to achieve this? Our presence seems to provoke violence more effectively than anything else in the area.

Iraq is a mess. It is time for us to quit playing doctor with Iraq and get out before we destroy more thousands of lives and sink our nation's economy utterly.

For those who suggest we should stay - what, exactly, will we do to change the present outcomes?

For those who want the UN to take over - with what are they to do this? Recall that the US spends more than, as I recall, the next 20 countries COMBINED do on their military. If we can't take care of the problem, what group of countries do we suppose can get 500,000 or so pairs of boots on the ground?

[hiphopnation]

10. I may have changed my mind on this.

Where as at first I was of the opinion that hightailing it out of there would do more harm to the Iraqi people and foster an even more severe hatred towards Amererica further tarnishing our image in the ME, now I'm not so sure.

There's no way to say what would come of Iraq were we to turn on our heals and leave...I'm just tired of seeing our soldiers die.

I think it may be a moot point as I don't see President Kerry pulling us out in one fell swoop. What he may do is help to garner more international support and get our troops out in waves with the help of UN peacekeeping.

President Kerry. Aaaahhhhhhh....sounds good, doesn't it??

Say it with me...President Kerry....

[truthspeaker]

11. two words: Get. the fuck. out.