How do we get out of Iraq?

[WilliamPitt]

Some ideas:

* End the Houston-based contracting of work in Iraq and open the doors to Iraqi companies and workers. The believers in privatization here should practice what they preach and allow Iraqis to make money off the work and repairs needing to be done. As funds flow into the Iraqi economy, burgeoning and reconstituted private companies can take it upon themselves to make sure the lights work, the roads are paved, the water is running, and the trash is picked up. Once upon a time, Iraq was the most modern and industrialized nation in that region, filled with highly educated workers who know how to run a country. The Iraqi people must be allowed to run their country once again, and must be paid well for their work by Iraqi employers not beholden to profit margins in the United States.

* Arrange for the creation of a base of operations outside of Iraq where an Iraqi National Guard and police force can be trained to take over the security of their country. The old Christian canon states that whenever two or three people are gathered together to pray, Jesus is with them. In Iraq, whenever two or three people are gathered together to sign up for the army or the police, a suicide bomber is there with them to deal death. Establishing a place away from the violence where Iraqis can be prepared and armed for the work needed to gain control of the country will ultimately allow American forces to back away from policing the country, something that has been the chief aggravating factor among that populace. Doing this away from the violence will allow Iraqis to sign up for this work without fear of being blown sideways out a recruiting station.

* Until the infrastructure is repaired and security forces are assembled, steps must be taken to achieve stability without an American face on the action. Work in good faith with both the United Nations and the Arab League to assemble a large security force comprised of people from the region. Care must be taken to avoid any pitfalls regarding potential ethnic and religious friction between the Iraqi people and these Arab security forces, but this can be managed. Once Iraqi infrastructure is restored and a security and police force is in place, the Arab forces can begin a phased withdrawal. Meanwhile, American forces can be removed en masse.

* Practice what has been preached about bringing democracy to that nation. Democracy is not the installation of some bastardized Vichy government managed by remote control from Washington. The Iraqi people will never accept such a government, and the violence and chaos will never end. Provide security by way of the aforementioned steps and let the people decide how their country will be governed. The recent farce of an election did not achieve this; almost all of the candidates were anonymous because they feared assassination, and large swaths of the populace did not participate because they saw it as the sham it was. Let the government be formed as it will, and prepare for the diplomatic ramifications.

* A vital element to the process will be the establishment of a set timetable for withdrawal. Timetables are dangerous; if they are not met, rage is the inevitable result. Yet the changes required of our status in Iraq need date markers and deadlines to push the process along, and the Iraqi people need to know exactly when their country will be their own again.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/031405Z.shtml

[AtTheEndOfTheDay]

1. Planes trains and automobiles.

[KlatooBNikto]

3. But the road to the Baghdad Airport is dangerous.So we have no choice but

to stay and wait until the coast is clear, so to speak.

[POAS]

24. We'll get out the same way as Saigon

by helicopter from the rooftop of the embassy

[proud patriot]

2. great article

I couldn't believe it when I saw Chalibi
being interviewed today .

The whole mess is super crazy .

[Cleita]

4. So you have an excellent plan that won't happen until

we take back our government with responsible elected officials in Washington. I'd hate to think of the repercussions of a Bush Administration withdrawal from Iraq. If they are planning on invading Iran and Syria, as the rumor mill suggests, then we will have to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan to do this. These two countries will be left to their own devices to sort things out. You and I know that in those circumstances not the best but the strongest rises to the top.

I can smell WWIII coming if things don't turn around and soon.

[MichiganVote]

5. Will, I honestly believe the Bush/Rove game plan is to STAY

And somewhere in the minds of these idealogues/oil men/pseudoreligious born again assholes they actually believe that the Iraqi's can be "trained" to accept and embrace the American "rules" for imperialism vs. the Arabic "rules" for imperialism.

They don't care about taking the money from our treasury to support this because they honestly believe we are supposed to pay for all of the business they presume to generate for the world. These are the ultimate economic and social elitists. Any argument, any rationlization, any-any, is fine with them. And frankly, it appears fine to American citizens as well.

Congress? They have left America behind and with it, you and I. Welcome to the world dependent on oil.

[Cleita]

7. So their idea of business is to steal tax money from the

working class to bolster their corporations? I thought businesses rose or fell depending on their marketing skills and ability to generate their own money, not get a regular handout from Uncle Sam.

It does show the elitist attitude of these out of touch sons of privilege. "Yeah, good ole uncle Ben will set me up in business and then keep bailing me out as I fail over and over again." It's the way these people were raised from infancy.

[MichiganVote]

14. War has always been a chief marketing skill of big business

They do not need to generate their own money, we pay for it and they think they deserve it. Who taught them this business lesson? We did.

From the first bail out to the last, corporations whined, 'Don't live without us' and we taught corporations that we could not live without them by bailing them out. So we give them money, tax breaks, soldiers to defend their business practices and we allow them offer our workers less and less.

What we need to do is drive less, with less of a car, spend less, eat out less, raise some of our own food, turn off the lights more, clean up our own messes, and learn to live within our means.

Tell that to a culture that is addicted to its own style of destruction.

[johnaries]

20. What you were thinking of is a Free Market, what Bush wants is

a Free-Ride Market.

[Cleita]

22. LOL

That's a good one and so true. But wouldn't that make them welfare queens?

[tavalon]

25. They are the only actual welfare queens n/t

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

12. They want the permanent bases...

...for dealing with Saudi Arabia whenever the monarchy is finally overthrown.

[Frederik]

19. They want to stay

But not with the troop level they have today. They're definitely looking for a down-sizing strategy, not an exit-strategy. If only because an increase in the size of the army will be necessary at some point to sustain the number of troops that are there now, and where to find those recruits? I really think they're trying to avoid the draft, because they know it'll be their doom. Then there's Iran and all those other countries that are ripe for some of that BushCo capitalism n' freedom. So few troops, so many countries to invade.

I think their main problem now is that they can't scale down the US presence before it can be made to look like a victory. America's prestige is at stake.

[judy]

6. Item one alone will go a long way

toward securing Iraq.
Hugely high unemployment figures fuel the insurgency, and the desperation of the people in Iraq.
The US needs to give the people their country back and their jobs back.
I think William put it here in a nutshell. The answers are there.
How do we get the PNAC'ers out of office, though?

[KlatooBNikto]

8. Your article and recommendations would be fine if that is what the

Bush minions who run Iraq want. Their aim is totally different.They want Iraqis to lead a life of subsistence forever and loot their resources for the benefit of the gangsters from Houston.Sort of like the Nazis did during their occupation of Europe.We know what happened to Hans Frank who was in charge of looting the resources of Europe for the benefit of the Germans.

Putting an altruistic face on the current crop of gangsters is your big mistake.

[WilliamPitt]

9. You should read the whole article

There's no way those asshats will do any of this. But I wrote it when a lot of that "We're there so we have to stay" talk was floating around. I wanted to provided a basis for discussion in the other direction, to show that a successful exit can be done. All it requires is the will to do it.

[KlatooBNikto]

13. My contention is that the will is lacking precisely because that is the

intent of this gang.How else can we interpret Bremer's directive that all resources of Iraq now are under his so called Coalition Provisional Authority? He has essentially legalized the systematic looting of Iraq.To change it as you and I would like to have it, we would need our Democrats to grow some backbone and produce a change here.Without that I see your well meaning essay ( and a very well reasoned one, I admit) as nothing but an exercise in futility.

[MichiganVote]

15. Defining the "successful exit" is the hub of the issue

The rationale of "We're there so we have to stay" was and is as bad a reason to remain as the WMD. It is an argument that implies that only the Americans can fix Iraq or liberate its people or even fight an ill defined insurgency. Some utilize this line to defend against withdrawl for eventual plunder. Some in America are so in love with their false pride, it matters little what they tell themselves.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

10. Out now. Let the Iraqis decide their own destiny.

The Iraqis will decide the outcome whether we stay or not. Eventually, they will throw us out no matter what we do, short of nuking them. Hopefully, bloodshed will be minimal with the aid of the UN but maybe it won't. The idea that we must establish "stability" rings of "the White Man's Burden" of the colonial age of "civilizing" the world in the image of western Europe which resulted in the deaths of 100s of millions of lives.

But, we'll go, not because we wish to, but because we have to. America, like previous empires is trying to hold on to it's "possesions" through intimidation and brute force to serve our "vital interests" aka predatory corporate capitalism. Fortunately, the people of the world are seeing that we are indeed a paper tiger.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

11. Trebuchet? n/t

[Zorra]

16. Do a nationwide general strike so that Bush is forced to bring the

troops home.

Otherwise, realistically, Bush and the PNAC fascists are just going to continue to do what fascists do.

I am really sorry about what the fascists have done to Iraq, but right now, my country is in the latter stages of a bonafide fascist takeover, and I am far more concerned about reinstituting democracy in the US than I am about instituting a bullshit fascist sponsored "democracy" in Iraq.

[Taxloss]

17. Through Iran!

You big silly.

[Zhade]

18. Kick for more discussion

This is way more important than whining about nonexistent "Catholic bashing" - people are still DYING.

[Frederik]

21. Excellent points

I don't know about the Arab security force though, I fear they might be opposed too, if not quite as vehemently as the Shia-dominated police forces today, and I don't know if Arab nations would be willing or able to muster the number of troops that would be required anyway. The security situation is the most difficult problem of all, but I think any solution starts rather than ends with US forces pulling out. Perhaps the solution is a federal constitution that guarantees that Sunni forces provide security in sunni areas, Shia militias in shia areas and Kurdish peshmergas in Kurdistan. Many areas are mixed though, like Kirkuk and Baghdad.

Looks like it'll be a while, anyway:

"The U.S. Army expects to keep its troop strength in Iraq at the current level of about 120,000 for at least two more years, according to the Army's top operations officer.

While allowing for the possibility that the levels could decrease or increase depending on security conditions and other factors, Lt. Gen. James J. Lovelace Jr. told reporters yesterday that the assumption of little change through 2006 represents "the most probable case." "

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33540-2005Jan24.html

[FlemingsGhost]

23. Thrown out, on our asses ... bruised, bloodied and bitter. (n/t)

Flem.

[tavalon]

26. Yep, that's exactly how it will be

to finish up the perfect redo of Vietnam.

[H2O Man]

27. Good article.

I am curious if you think the administration is willing, under the present set of circumstances, to consider withdrawing from Iraq as an option? Or is it more likely that they see discussing the possibility and making minor adjustments as a tactic to try to neutralize those who argue that we should simply get out? I do not think the present cast of characters, including the democrats in the congress, have the moral capacity to change the course we are on.

[Disturbed]

28. As long as the majority of Dems in Congress...

go along with the Bush Junta and Multi-Corp. agenda via funding the Occupation the situation will continue to be bloody. Now even Howard Dean is on the "the U.S. must stay" bandwagon.

[H2O Man]

31. Exactly.

Now I admire some things about Howard Dean. But not this. We need to have leaders who have the guts to be honest with the American people. I thought that in many ways, during the primary campaign's debates, that Rev. Al Sharpton was the most honest and accurate in his assessment of the war in Iraq.

[Goathead]

29. We are in Iraq?

Wow, news to me. I was just fine with believing that everything is fine in America. It is the dawn of a new day and all that other crap. So are we at war or something?:sarcasm:

[ananda]

30. How?

One step at a time...

one foot in front of the other.

[EVDebs]

33. They asked the same question to Kerry and he said "In ships" eom

[EVDebs]

32. Ask the Iraqi government to request that we leave. Either that or

cut the war funding like we did with Vietnam. Support the troops, bring them home. Now.

[pinto]

34. Nationalize the reconstruction. There is no other way around it.. Iraq for

Iraq. That was the "promise" given to the Iraqis - and the world - by this Administration...they ought to honor it.

[pinto]

35. What echoes here of the UK relationship with Mossadegh and Iran...

You'd think someone could have read the history and spoken up...


Aghhh.

[Name removed]

36. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[confludemocrat]

37. With all precipitate speed to save ourselves

This is a disgusting disaster that can't be made better, ever. So get the Dems and repubs to negotiate how we can get out and save face (since that is a major requirement obviously, we being the U.S.A. with all our infantile need to remain "number 1" and so the killing only slows or stops when, while we are losing as in the present case, we construct a fiction about how any withdrawal was done honorably.

[eridani]

38. A good start. I'd add--

--a public, loud and explicit announcement that the military bases being built will be removed, and that the US embassy project be cut to 1/10 size, both physically and funding.