Do we have a moral obligation since we broke Iraq?

[Perky]

Clearly Iraq is a mess. but to the extent that we in our arrogance decided on a path of regime change, are we obligated fix things before we leave?

[Xenotime]

1. I say...

impeach * and then send him over to Iraq. See what he thinks.

[sui generis]

4. oh yeah - turn the whole damn administration over to war crimes

tribunal in the International Court. I mean, Pinochet had his diplomatic immunity waived for the deaths of a mere 161 people. These human lice are responsible for the deaths of thousands. Turn them over and let the countries we have destroyed give them the justice they so richly deserve.

[A Simple Game]

15. A kind of work release program?

I like that, think it would work out just fine.

And no disguises.

[sui generis]

2. moral obligation to do what?

supply arms? supply cash? let them meter their own oil?

Our "moral obligation" at this point is to get the heck out of there. Iraq is well on its way to civil war, almost inevitably so, with and without our presence.

Unless you want your drafted grandkids to be deployed to Iraq for this idiotic "war" on terrorists that we just pulled out of our ass after we couldn't find any Weapons of Mass Destruction based on non-existant evidence that we pulled out of our ass, "staying the course" can only have one reliable outcome: more dead U.S. soldiers.

[Perky]

7. Tell us something we don't know

Looks its a fools mission to think we can create an isalmic democacy,. In fact we ought to be more scared of the prospect then supporting it IMO. the QUestion is not about whether we wer right to go in.... Its about whether or not we have an obligation to create a viable government with a subsrevient Army before we pull the troups out.

[sui generis]

9. the only obligations you can support at the end of the day

are what you can afford to pay for.

Can we afford to pay to create a "viable" government, and, who gets to define "viable", by the way. What if it takes 50 years to get to "viable"? Just when DO we put the line in the sand?

It's an exercise in horseshit, and we're slipping around in it. We need to pull out. We needed to be done training, by ultimatum, leave them a cache of weapons, a hiring program for their own rebuilding done by their own people and just get the hell out of dodge. We've fucked it up as badly as can be done, except by staying there even longer.

Every day that we remain there is a SURE American or civilian death. Anyone can win that lottery there and come home in a glorious aluminum box and get put in a glorious hole in the glorious ground, and someone does, every day.

[Selatius]

3. Change "Iraq" to say "Vietnam" instead

Then see what the response will be like. The point is democracy only comes when the people choose to fight for it. It cannot be forced, especially if the people are not yet to that point. Otherwise, you're just going to face resistance. Most people would only fight if they found they lost loved ones to an occupying power.

I saw the movie Serenity recently, and the little girl said it best over the issue of imposing one's lifestyle on others: "People don't like to be meddled with. We tell them what to do, what to think, don't run, don't walk. We're in their homes and in their heads and we haven't the right. We're meddlesome."

[Ready4Change]

5. We are obligated. And we are unable.

Had we conducted the lead up to the war in a different manner, perhaps we would have legitimacy on the eyes of the people of the world in general, and in the eyes of the people of Iraq in particular.

However, we conducted the lead up to the war in such an arrogant, bombastic manner that any hope we ever had of bringing this conflict to a happy conclusion was utterly destroyed.

[porphyrian]

6. The troops in Iraq don't have to be ours.

This is a concept no one seems willing to understand or accept. There are plenty of other countries with armed forces capable of maintaining the peace in Iraq without aggrevating the issue as our presence does. Our options are NOT limited to staying indefinitely or immediate withdrawal. That is how it is being successfully framed by propagandists. We are most certainly responsible for the mess we've caused, and we absolutely have to see that it is repaired to the best of our ability, but we have to remove our military presence to do so, and there are plenty of capable militaries in non-Western countries or the UN who can do the job quite well.

[Perky]

8. but our present allies are leaving

and there is not much political will in europe to send other troops in. WHo would you suggest. I am not saying you are wrong...I just don't think its viable.

[porphyrian]

22. What about the Islamic countries?

Couldn't Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Iran, Egypt, etc. do the same job?

[NNN0LHI]

10. Yes. Unfortunately we have a moral obligation to...

...steal every last drop of the Iraqi peoples oil before we can leave. Anything less would be sinful. We must stay until the oil is gone so the Iraqis will no longer be cursed by that terrible stuff.

Anyone who tries to say different is a big phony liar like Bush.

Don

[A-Schwarzenegger]

11. Does a little evil insane ten-year old bad seed kid

have a moral obligation to fix the computer he took apart
and has no idea how to put back together? Of course he does.

[Hypatia82]

12. We had a moral obligation...

before we even did anything. Same as we did with Cambodia, Ethiopia, the Sudan, Rwanda etc. Allowing someone to die by inaction is no different than putting a gun to their head and pulling the trigger. Sadly some people think it's peachy keen to just let people die.

[tedzbear]

13. Ha! Moral obligation to switch from troops to carpet bombing!

You might want to read Seymour Hersh's article in last week's The New Yorker. While we withdraw our troops and let the Iraqi troops take over the Pentagon will assist them by executing bombing runs over suspected insurgent locations.

Nixon did this in Viet-nam when the popular support for that war evaporated. He was trying to assist the South Vietnamese army while they replaced our troops. Carpet bombing didn't work then and it won't work now.

If you call this type of withdrawal plan the execution of our moral obligation than I pity you.

[BuyingThyme]

14. I think it's a flawed question.

I don't think things can be fixed until after we leave.

This is the kind of question they use to herd the sheep.

[Bridget Burke]

16. Not in the "you broke it, you bought it" sense....

We need to pay to have it "fixed." But we need to get our troops out ASAP & ensure that the money goes to Iraqis, not Halliburton.

[KG]

17. let them fix it. it's their country.

[Perky]

18. I don't think they can

And I am not sure of the consequesnces if they can't.


Three effectifively unarmed oountries living as one killing each other off with IEDs. Kurds claim independence and the Turke invdae. No strong central government and the SUnni Triangle becamoes a hotbed for islamist. ALl the oil is in the south with the Shities and any three way divide in which they get the oil revenue is not tenable.

[Karenina]

19. Surely you jest.

This racist and predatory "white man's burden" bullshit only plays to those. The world has seen your committment to your "moral obligations" in technicolor and panavision, as further evidenced by the response to the destruction of one of YOUR OWN CITIES. Your gub'mint has treated the citizens of New Orleans with the same callous, criminal disregard as it has the people of Iraq.

"Moral" obligation, indeed. The invasion was amoral, your soldiers and mercenaries running wild in the streets, shooting anything that moves is amoral, the use of white phosphorus is amoral, the theft of resources, poisoning of the land, food and water is amoral, TORTURE is amoral, destroying the cultural heritage of the "cradle of civilization" is amoral, sending in your death squad czar to keep the kettle boiling was amoral, your black ops and false flag operations are amoral, the way your veterans are treated when they manage to return alive is amoral...

Do us all a big favor and take your "moral obligations" back to your own shores. Clean up the pile of putrifying bodies in your own back yard. Perhaps then you might earn a scintilla of credibiliy.

[NYC Liberal]

20. To say so is nothing more than a modern "White Man's Burden"

Iraqis are perfectly capable of organizing themselves and figuring things out - even if that means fighting it out. They don't NEED Westerners teaching them how to do it.

[Perky]

21. I suppose

[JVS]

23. Are we able to fix it without leaving first?