The one arguement about "Staying the Course" that really slays me

[BushOut06]

I'm sure you've all heard this one: If we pull out now, Iraq's democracy will fall apart, and it will become a haven for terrorists who hate us.

So basically, Iraq would become like every other country in the Middle East? I can't imagine there are very many US Fan Clubs in Yemen, Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, etc. Yet we're not invading those countries and forcing democracy down their throats. I'd even say that before the war, many of these other countries (particularly Saudi Arabia, Bush's butt-buddies) produced far more dangerous terrorists.

It's time to pull our troops home NOW, and focus on securing our own country. If we're attacked by another country, that's one thing. But we're basically provoking an entire region with our arrogance. Bush I and II have completely turned this from just a Arab-Israeli thing, and have gotten us directly involved in this shit. You'll note that prior to Bush I going into Iraq, we had never had a foreign terrorist attack on US soil. After Iraq/Kuwait, we've had two major attacks. Even the boogeyman himself, Bin Laden, has stated he was motivated by the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia. But then hey - we've always been good at turning our former allies against us, haven't we?

[EST]

1. With this crowd, incisive logic, as well as Occam's razor,

become bumfunbled into dull hunks of lead. They place no premium on anyone else's ability to think. If history teaches anything, it is that they will fail. How badly that failure will affect the rest of us is not so clearly defined, however.

[BushOut06]

2. Western policies have worked so well in the Middle East...

From the carving up of Iraq and Palestine by the British in the early 1900s, to the sudden imposition of Israel in '48, to Gulf War I and II, it seems the West has shown an amazing propensity to totally screw things up over there.

And we wonder why they hate us. Yeah, it's just because of Israel. They hate our freedom. It's much easier to drink that kool-aid.

[EST]

8. The "Ugly American" strikes again!

[MikeNY]

3. The policy has never made sense

It is a bad idea for us to attempt to control the Middle East by doing what we are doing. We have a dictator in Pakistan that does everything we say. Before we invaded Saddam, he worked for us. Before that, it was some wackjob in Iran. We had the Taliban working for us against the Soviets. We have been playing a fools game trying to control the situation there. What we need, and what we have always needed, is to have a responsible and meaningful diplomatic presence in that region that encourages democratic reforms.

It seems we have done the exact opposite of that by promoting war and harsh treatment towards the civilians...

[gratuitous]

5. And even less than no sense

Certainly we have seen and learned from our experiences all through recorded history that attempting to subvert the natural order and organic growth of anything requires a deep and lasting commitment, whether it's putting a dam on a river, cutting down a forest, maintaining a garden, or changing a country's historic trajectory.

Saddam Hussein was and is a tyrannical despot. But no man is a despot all on his own, and history has shown that even the cruelest, most ruthless tyrants have had a support system of bureaucratic structures and people to run them. Perhaps the more ruthless a dictator is, the more folks are needed to support them. And these people, by supporting the dictator, become "winners" in the dictatorship. As such, they have an interest in seeing the dictatorship continue -- not just on a personal level for their continued well-being, but on a practical level to avoid the just claims of the oppressed.

By decapitating the Saddam regime, the United States must follow through with a deep and lasting commitment. We're already seeing the natural and inevitable result of taking Saddam out: The supporting bureaucratic structures and people who staffed those structures are reluctant to give up their privileged positions, and they rightfully fear the retribution that the formerly oppressed might decide to visit upon them.

Unfortunately, the half-assed measures enacted by the Bush administration have served mostly to exacerbate the situation. As massive as the expenditure of American tax dollars has been, it has been mostly dedicated to pouring more water into a leaky bucket rather than patching the holes in bucket. Unless the root causes of the current chaos in Iraq are more directly addressed, all the military action in the world won't improve matters, and our soldiers kill people they aren't at war with and die at the hands of people who until three years ago had no reason for killing our soldiers.

But . . . as always, there are winners and losers in the game as it's now playing out. The winners are folks who get the fat government contracts to keep pouring water into the leaky bucket. As long as the bucket leaks, the money keeps flowing to them. We now have a situation where powerful friends of the administration are more heavily invested in chaos than in order, which means that chaos will continue for the foreseeable future.

The current situation sucks, however, if you're not one of the winners. And the solution may involve an effort similar to the one used to expel the last tyrant in Iraq.

[BushOut06]

6. Who's to say that what we've created isn't worse?

In all likelihood, Iraq will become a religious "democracy" like Iran - ruled by the Shiites, and vehemently anti-US. There's an old saying about dealing with the devil you know versus the devil you don't know. Saddam was a bad guy to be sure, but we knew what we were dealing with in him. As long as we left him alone, he would have left us alone. Now we've created a government where a bunch of fanatical Muslims can take over.

Another possible outcome is the Balkanization of Iraq, splitting along ethnic lines. And we all know how well that worked out in the Balkans.

[sui generis]

4. yeah, trust us to fix it, since we did such a great job

fucking it up.

I like that you noted a "foreign terrorist" attack, as opposed to the Army of God anthrax letters and Timothy McVeigh's little foray into domestic terrorism.

[cliss]

7. I'm frankly surprised we've gotten away

with as backlash as we've had. It could have been a lot worse.

Yes, you're right: we've done everything possible wrong in the Middle East. It seems there is no limit to the screw-ups we've done. And we're still doing it today. Look at the US writing fictitious articles in Arab newspapers, and the stupid Arab youth magazine called "Hi". How about "Bye". That would sell more copies.

I'm beginning to believe that this administration is in fact a destructive force. It's imploding on itself, and it's taking us down with it. Everything they do is destructive: they've destroyed a country. They've kiled a lot of people in the process. They lie to us, take our tax money and use it for destructive purposes. They're sick, demented people who hang on to power and we will have to blast them out of the White House when their time is up.

Bush = Shiva the Destroyer

[CJCRANE]

9. Even Timothy McVeigh was a product of Iraq War 1 nt