The Only Right Thing To Do In Iraq (response to Nng)

[karash]

I've been watching Americans (and the rest of the western world) agonize over Iraq for a few years now, and something is starting to really piss me off. In the same way that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are being set up by the media to be the corporate-approved presidential hopefuls, and genuine alternatives (TM) to the Republican party, I am noticing democrats/liberals/progressives swallowing the idea that the most radical solution for Iraq--and the most morally right one--is to "pull the troops out."

The good answer to Iraq is not "pulling out." Bush (and all the rest of you--don't think I forget he had a 90% approval rating after 9-11) made one of the biggest messes in the world, and as a Vietnamese-descent poster recently pointed out here, pulling our troops out now to save THEIR lives is almost as arrogant a suggestion as continuing the occupation in the normal way, albeit with slightly more troops. (This person was referring to the way that, after the U.S. finished bombing and occupying Vietnam in the 1950s-70s, and finally withdrew, various Vietnamese social groups turned on each other in a horrendous outpouring of violence.)

Well, I'm finally fed up with all the whining about that being the best possible alternative, so here for your reading pleasure is the official "The Only Right Thing To Do In Iraq." Yes, that's right folks: the answer to the quagmire in Iraq is right here, despite the fact that your T.V. has been telling you either (1) There is no good solution, or if you watch Fox, (2) everything is going well and Our Great Leader is spreading democracy, but if it's not working it's the Iraqis' faults.

Be warned: like any genuine correct answer, you're not going to like it.

The Only Right Thing To Do In Iraq:

Iraq may have been filled with more extremely troubled, violent religious types than middle America, but now that we stirred up the hornet's nest, the blood is 90% on our hands until we fix it. That means sacrifice, and it means decades of sacrifice.

First, we must increase the number of American troops in Iraq tenfold (or morefold) while we simultaneously increase our investment in military humanitarian training, MP oversight of troops, and public oversight of (an all new set of) contractors. There need to be so many U.S. troops that you can't go outside without bumping into ten. And they all need to be smiling, well-paid, living in sanitarian barracks, off stimulant drugs, getting 8 hours of sleep a day, and handing out free candy bars, Qur'ans, Bibles, stuffed animals, food and water, and whatever else on demand.

(We can contract K, B & R to build said troop facilities for the price of $1, or just continue criminally indicting top executives until the remaining ones agree to do the work for $0.50. And in case you're wondering, they have to give back the money they overbilled, too. The $0.50 charge is punitive, not restitutionary.)

Then, we need to pay to leave those troops there for at least 20-25 years while we invest billions upon billions of dollars building a medical and educational infrastructure in Iraq, and providing free and excellent public education to an entire generation of children, where they are taught about Iraqi, world, Arab, and Muslim history under a code based on the Nuremburg trials. The vast majority of even the most prejudiced parents will allow their kids to be educated that way if clerics and tribal leaders are brought into the fold, and in order to gain access to the generous parenting subsidies handed out by the U.S.

In order to pay for all these extra troops and goodies, the U.S. is going to have to levy a 75% tax on all forms of income--corporate, personal, overseas, dividend, etc.--above $200K a year, so that military pay and pension for all ranks can double. That should solve the recruitment problem for a little while, and as Iraq gradually improves, it'll only get better.

After 20-25 years, when a generation of Iraqi children of all tribal, religious and ethnic affiliations have had a challenging, modern, diverse university-level education, the U.S. will beg their permission to pull out its forces and let the Iraqis replace them with an Iraqi army. Not because any of them have died in several years, but because it is rather expensive for the U.S. to maintain them. Iraq will consider whether or not it wants to give up the free army and police services, and if it decides to, the U.S. will thank it with a generous trade agreement and an economic development pact to share post-oil R&D facilities and funds, to ensure that Iraq will have a future as its pillaged natural resource runs out.

Expensive, yes. Unrealistic, yes, especially given that even the most radical Americans cannot seem to think of a more dramatic solution than "pull them all out."

On the plus side: after that income tax I mentioned is levied our government will still probably have a better fiscal situation than it does now, in addition to being able to fix Iraq up the right way.

In conclusion, pulling the troops out now has just been fed to you as a prepackaged "progressive" idea by the same corporate machine that brought you the original invasion. The powers that be knew damn well that Bush would self destruct in 8 years. The entire point of getting him in there was to make things so extreme that the more authoritarian elements in the Democratic Party would seem like a real policy change.

If you pull the troops out now, you are rewarding the corpocracy by allowing them to cease paying for the occupation while having already gotten all the benefits of oil ownership and Saddam-toppling. Go ahead: they're laughing hysterically as the "left wing" tries to justify getting them out of their credit card bills! Ooh, they're really scared that you'll make them stop paying even the token costs of occupation, while they still maintain their hardened military bases and oilfields! Stop it, please, they can't take any more! Riiiight. How did you ever fall for it?

After Bush, Obama and Clinton seem like left-wingers, and pulling the troops out of Iraq and leaving it to eat itself alive seems like a radically progressive solution. Good God. How can it be the right choice to set generations-old tribal and religious enemies against each other in a genocidal war, and then shut the door and walk away and tell yourself you're making the "best possible choice"? Don't be disgusting. Really, I mean it. What were you thinking?

http://manitor.livejournal.com/

[Jacobin]

1. I'll just take one part of your post to critique, since I'm sure

others will pile on soon.

That is, the notion that we somehow own and control their oilfields. First off, hydrocarbon production is below pre-war levels and cannot be gotten out of the country in any meaningful quantities. Much if not most of the oil is being taken by insurgents and sold to pay for the insurgency.

If you'd like to see what is happening to 'our' oilfields, take a look here:

http://www.iags.org/iraqpipelinewatch.htm

Here's just the last six months of attacks on the pipelines:

347. July 3 - early morning attack section of Yumurtalik pipeline in the city of Hassan about 40 miles southeast of Kirkuk.
348. July 9 - a sabotage attack along Iraq's vital northern oil export route to Turkey fractured both pipelines and repairs will take at least two weeks.
349. July 11 - insurgents killed an engineer working for the North Oil Company, along with his driver, while he was heading to work in Kirkuk.
350. July 11 - insurgents attacked a convoy carrying security personnel tasked with protecting oil facilities south of Mosul, killing at least 10 troops and injuring scores of others. The troops had been ambushed while on a routine inspection of oil pipes in the region. 351. July 13 - attack on a security patrol of the Northern Oil Company in Kirkuk killed three policemen and wounded six civilians.
352. July 16 - the head of Iraq's North Oil Company, Adel Qazaz, was kidnapped in northern Baghdad.
353. July 28 - attack near Samarra on a pipeline connecting Bayji and the Daura refinery.
354. July 31 - Iraq’s northern pipeline carrying crude from the northern oilfields to Turkey's Ceyhan port was sabotaged and ruptured, delaying the restart of export from a previous attack on 9 July 2006.
355. August 13 - insurgents shot and killed a colonel in the Oil Protection Facilities, a security body charged with guarding Iraq's oil infrastructure. He was shot while waiting at gas station north of Tikrit, 110 miles north of Baghdad.
356. August 13 - approximately 63 Iraqis were killed and another 140 wounded when bombs exploded in the vicinity of a building, rupturing a gas pipeline and causing a gas explosion near the Hawra market in southeast Baghdad.
357. September 1 - an IED attack targeting an oil pipeline on the outskirts of Musayyib south of Baghdad cut supply to a major electricity station. The pipeline feeds Musayyib's electricity station, which provides power to the cities of Karbala, Najaf, Hillah and Diwaniyah.
358. September 3 - attack on an oil pipeline near Kirkuk.
359. Septmebr 10 - a shooting attack near Bayji. Gunmen in two cars ambushed a bus carrying oil employees, killing four people and wounding one.
360. September 13 - an oil installation guard was wounded in a clash with gunmen who tried to blow up an oil pipeline in al-Fatha using an IED,in an area 20 miles south of Kirkuk.
361. September 17 - an oil pipeline was damaged by an IED in the town of Balad, 55 miles north of Baghdad. 362. September 18 - two militants who attempted an attack a gas tanker were arrested in the area of Shuwan, eastern Kirkuk. The attackers were attempting to hijack the tanker.
363. September 20 - a suicide truck bomb detonated at a police checkpoint at the entrance of a Baghdad oil refinery in southern Baghdad, killing three people and wounding 13 others.
364. September 22 - a pipeline carrying crude oil from the fields around Kirkuk to the refinery in Baiji was ruptured during a mortar attack.
365. September 26 - an IED ruptured gas pipeline at Bayji. No one was hurt when insurgents blew up the pipeline, which connects the Bayji refinery and a gas field.
366. September 29 - two fuel tankers were hit with roadside IEDs southwest of Samarra.
367. October 5 - an IED planted under an oil pipeline was detonated near the village of Ishaqi north of Baghdad. The explosion set fire to the pipeline linking the refinery in Bayji and the refinery in al-Daura.
368. October 7 - a roadside IED hit a fuel tanker being escorted by American troops near Samarra, sending plumes of black smoke into the air.
369. October 28 - a roadside IED targeting security forces guarding an oil industry facility wounded two police officers in eastern Baghdad.
370. October 30 - gunmen attacked a police centre assigned to oil, facilities protection in the city of Bayji, killing two policemen and destroying a police car.
371. November 1 - a roadside IED detonated near the convoy of the security advisor of the Governor of Salah ad Din Province in Bayji. He was unharmed but two of his guards were wounded.
372. November 2 - Gunmen killed a guard of the Northern Oil Company in Kirkuk.
373. November 2 - Sarkot Hikmat Shawkat, an officer with the city's Oil Protection Police, was killed in a drive-by shooting.
374. November 2 - insurgents set up a fake security checkpoint and killed the drivers of two fuel trucks and kidnapped three other people near Baquba.
375. November 13 - Five employees of the state-owned North Oil Company, one of them a women, were ambushed and killed in a small arms attack in the northern outskirts of Baghdad as they drove into the capital.
376. November 21 - In east Baghdad, a roadside IED detonated near an Oil Ministry convoy, killing four people.
377. November 25 - In Kirkuk, police found the bullet-riddled body of a pipeline security guard.
378. November 27 - Two mortar bombs hit the North Oil Co. pipeline-filtering facility northwest of Kirkuk. The resultant fire was burning out of control, and the flow of oil from all of Kirkuk's fields had been shut down to the Baiji refinery to the southwest.
379. November 27 - An IED detonated under an oil pipeline and set it on fire today 20 miles south of Baghdad, and Iraqi andUS forces were sent to secure the area. The pipeline carries crude oil from storage tanks in nearby Latifiyah to the Daura refinery in Baghdad.
380. November 27 - The corpses of two Oil Ministry employees were discovered in the town of Khalis.
381. November 29 - Police colonel ahmed izdeen from the ministry of oil was assassinated by unknown gunmen in Baghdad.

Your thesis that somehow we successfully 'stole' Iraq's oil is fallacious. The fact that we TRIED to is clear, but it didn't work.

[karash]

4. .

Who the heck is being attacked at those oilfields if we're not still guarding them?

Blowing up "pipelines" and "fuel trucks" is NOT taking control of oilfields, which was the vast majority of the citations on your list. And some of those incidents you cited were nothing but IEDs hitting other targets that also happened to rupture a gas pipeline in the area. That is just interfering with the distribution network, and with American taxpayers footing the bill, the construction contractors are more than happy to fix that network over, and over, and over. And they can do that after the "troop withdrawal," because they will have Blackwater USA and their own security driving out to the pipelines with them, with better equipment and less scruples than government troops.

Sheesh, look at some of these citations:

October 23 - explosion near natural gas pipeline 30 miles (48 km) south of Mos

Explosion NEAR? And that is supposed to convince me that we still don't control the oilfields themselves, even if all of these incidences weren't just "near," but actually damaged the network?

But wait, here's three more in a row:

11. August 12 — attack NEAR al-Taji near Baghdad
12. August 15 - explosion NEAR Bayji
13. August 16 - explosion NEAR Bayji

And:

18. October 23 - explosion NEAR natural gas pipeline 30 miles (48 km) south of Mos
5. June 24 — explosion NEAR Barwanah pipeline carries crude to al-Dawrah refinery in Baghdad

NEAR--and they don't even say if it so much as brushed the pinkie toes of a pipeline. I could go on and on posting these things, but there's only so much you can cut and paste in a list before it becomes pretty much the entire list.

Don't get me wrong, I believe Iraq is a mess, and I'm sure the insurgents would love to stop oil production. But this entire situation was brought about by very rich, very cunning people for the express purpose of controlling the oil reserves. They knew damned well they didn't need to do more than start off a civil war to weaken the country's government and give them even more of a claim to the oil. Thus the seeming "mistaken ineptness" of that simian dolt in the White House.

[Jacobin]

18. I would respectfully disagree with you that we have control of

the oil production facilities or anything else outside the Green Zone, from talking to a couple of people who have spent time there in the last 12 months.

[rock]

2. Nope, won't work

Interesting analysis though.

[karash]

5. .

"Nope, won't work?"

What qualifies as "work" to you? Personally, I think a generation or six of the U.S. needs that sort of education, and it would probably do pretty well at improving Iraq, at least to the level of making it better than it was before we sent in Saddam as an assassin back in 68' or whenever. Or are you suggesting that teaching a generation of children respect for different social groups would not be a vast improvement?

[PATRICK]

3. The real triangulation

and agony is in two perspectives that can separate completely like Siamese twins so that one dies.

One is the extreme minority that is the myth-tattered fantasy establishment trying to repair the dead engine of robber baron history that has afflicted us with greed and tyranny and concomitant games and disasters for ten thousand years. You can add a despicable gloss of fake American value babble over that any way you want. If the "big" candidates play this game with these discredited minorities, including the fraudulent media situation- this time- the other twin may not be sold on reasonable compromise and "reality".

The other twin is the angry and awakening populace and the truth speakers who rely on reality and hope in fact based terms that today- more than past primaries- destroy the palliative myths and reasonable sounding pablum major centrist candidates feel themselves reduced to.

For example, Kucinich is not a gadfly or demagogue and perhaps cannot be dismissed- or alternately gamed- as such if the arrogance of the unrealists gags the electorate. I am not writing this as a Kucinich booster either. Should the the major candidates avoid the truth and piss away the enlightened or committed or merely PO'd segments of the primary electorate, people could very well go for someone honest and in touch and actually offering real change. Attacking the veneer of dominant political fraud may make our party leaders unintended victims and ironically harm the "safe" chances which public outcry has granted to them temporarily.

The fight for the party's soul is not in so-called progressive or centrist factions but in following through- really- on what they are already committed to on many diverse issues. The corrupting influence of broadly narrow "safe" presidential campaigns can indeed spoil the process and blight the presidency- continuing the cancer metastasized by Bush #2. Being better than Bush in any and every way is not something an aroused and increasingly aware population WANTS to settle for. The public ALWAYS wanted in large numbers many critical things the parties balked at and spun away. The possibility for revolt is growing and the "experts" running various mainstream campaigns spurn even the notion as they spurn hope for the genuine and the universally desired.

Something like this happened when Jesse Jackson became a voice for the real democratic voter in the NY primary. Which made HIM someone to neutralize the next time the party tried to forge unity. And the people continue to learn as they rumble for the obvious.

[karash]

7. .

"Should the the major candidates avoid the truth and piss away the enlightened or committed or merely PO'd segments of the primary electorate, people could very well go for someone honest and in touch and actually offering real change."

They haven't had the opportunity to do that for a very long time, and if you want to even begin to talk about why, try to get a third party (non billionaire?) candidate into the major televised debates.

Suggesting that the people will turn to an honest voice implies that they will even be able to hear one. Without education, most of them probably won't even be able to conceive that there is a problem in the fact that they don't hear such a voice.

"The fight for the party's soul is not in so-called progressive or centrist factions but in following through- really- on what they are already committed to on many diverse issues."

I disagree--unless you define "already committed to" as "having paid infrequent lip-service to". Like, is Hillary Clinton committed to universal health care? Is Bush committed to removing torture from military procedure? Is McCain committed to removing corporate influence from politics?

"Being better than Bush in any and every way is not something an aroused and increasingly aware population WANTS to settle for."

I dunno, those "anyone but bush" bumper stickers sold pretty well. And then Kerry got quite a lot of votes, despite being a rather rabid free-trader and supporting the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Patriot Act.

[PATRICK]

12. You could be absolutely correct

and things usually play out this way in politics- with prices paid or not. It is in assuming that that the major players can push a "safe" envelope too far. The advantages of an uninformed and slow populace can suddenly vanish as they did for the GOP this fall. Looking at it form Rove's view was reasonable in the spring and loony in October. I guess the major factor- not the sudden coalescing of the electorate around something better- is volatility plus hubris. In the right mix it can still either be explosive or a dud.

Simply because the people are exiled as a informed force an unintended result is that it makes underlying dissatisfaction with the swindle less predictable and the pretensions of the complacent and spoiled over caste less rational.

Why it SHOULDN'T be a problem this time is because we actually have several high profile progressive candidate possibilities. Dwarfs they are not. They have the power not to be buried by any dynamic. One could warn even the most progressive not be presume upon running meekly to the electorate's supposed mush middle and MSM scripts. It is a long way off to suggest anything else. It depends a very great deal how the Dems can do their work, roll back Bush and the war(s) and answer the basic will of the people in the interim. This too early jockeying by certain biggies is of course a front runner battle to define the race ahead of time and squelch imponderables and attract donors and support. This could be a bad direction to start with. Time will tell. One thing that is certain is that people want real change and it translates into bills and blood quite concretely.

[Az]

6. It sounds responsible but its still not going to work

In the end it is just war by another means. Instead of just killing them you propose destroying their culture as well. Furthermore you are presuming that the Iraqi's want us there. None of the process works unless They The People want us there. Keep in mind the people blowing our troops up are Iraqi's just as much as anyone else there.

[karash]

8. Cultural precepts besides hate will be actively preserved

Teaching them according to the Nuremburg principles will not destroy their culture. Or rather, it will not destroy their culture any more than teaching children of American white supremacists according to those same principles. By teaching them to value their own diversity and heritage at the same time as they value others, it will preserve the positive parts and discourage them from wanting to murder those who act differently.

At least, that is the theory. But if you hold no hope in being able to educate children toward understanding and peace, we probably have a fundamental disagreement.

Saying that my plan will destroy their culture is akin to saying that we must not teach Palestinians to not want to murder all Israelis, because it will "destroy their culture." There is much more to Iraqi, Arab, and Muslim culture than a desire to kill members of the opposing tribe/ethnicity/religion.

[Az]

11. Justice

Lets consider just one social value. Justice. We here in the west have developed a system of justice that is based on trusting our community and government to administer justice. We take this for granted. Its barely even noticed in our society any longer. But in Arab cultures justice often has a much more personal responsibility. Turning over responsibility to society or the community does not sit as well with them. They feel they have a personal responsibility to see that justice is done.

Now this is a critical problem we have when dealing with middle eastern cultures. We assume we can make things right by dealing with leaders and the government. But anyone we have wronged will carry a burden of justice that they believe they must resolve personally. We are blind to this because we presume justice can be dealt with on a communal level or through government officials. The Nuremburg principles alone would be an insult to them as it proposes to deal justice through a communal system rather than allowing each person to seek their own justice.

This is just one small cultural issue that is at odds here. This is not rebuilding a Europeon nation with a shared cultural history. This is a culture that is at a completely different place developmentally. We do not belong there building their nation. We screwed it up. But we do not have the knowledge or experience to rebuild their world.

If we wish to act on our sense of responsibility we should place ourselves at their disposal. To use as they see fit. Anything we do to rebuild their nation in an image we desire will be seen as cultural warfare by them. We should place our assistance at their beck and call. We must be humble. We have wronged them and we must make amends on their terms not ours.

[Jacobin]

19. White Man's Burden?

Oh, a bunch of us infidels are gonna go change their culture?

Who's delusional now?

[MadHound]

9. You don't get it, do you?

You don't understand that the main ongoing catalyst for the massive amount of violence in Iraq is the ongoing presence of the US. The people who are continuing to blow up IEDs and shoot our soldiers will continue to do so no matter how much money we throw at the situaton, because of the sheer simple fact that we're occupying their sovereign country. Think about it, if you had oh, say China occupying the US, wouldn't you be taking all the potshots at them that you could? I know I would. The Iraqi people think the same way. It doesn't matter what we do, how we rebuild, how friendly our soldiers act, they're still going to be killed, simply due to the fact that they're occupying Iraqi soil.

Likewise any civil or military institutions that we put up, government, army, courts, etc. will be torn down as soon as we're gone, no matter if that's in a month or in a decade. The reason for this is simply due to the fact that the Iraqi people will consider these institutions that we've set up to be illegal and illegit due to the fact that they were set in place by a foreign power that illegally and immorally attacked and occupied their country.

Plus, the more troops that we put in means more casualties on both sides. Our troops can hand out all the goodies you want, they're still going to get shot at, and will fire back, which will provoke more attacks, and around and around we'll swirl, locked in a deadly dance. Adding troops won't alleviate this situation, it will only exacerbate it. We're not dealing with a set piece war here friend, we're dealing with a guerilla war, and the first rule about guerilla wars is do not get involved in one, because you simply can't win, especially if the people are on the side of the guerilla forces. You would think that we would have learned this lesson by now, but :shrug:

The only logical conclusion therefore is for the US to pull out ASAP. Yes, we should pay reparations, yes we should talk with Iran and Syria, along with other ME powers in order to help stabalize Iraq as much as possible, and yes, we shoudl get the UN involved. But the highest priority is to get the main problem, our troops, both public and private, the hell out of Iraq. Otherwise all that you're going to accomplish is to continue the killing.

[Richard Steele]

13. Clearly, he doesn't. His "solution" is very fantasy-based.

Once you strip all the wishful thinking out
of this so-called "solution", he's really got
nothing left but his "Everyone is dumber than me"
attitude.

[karash]

15. .

"You don't understand that the main ongoing catalyst for the massive amount of violence in Iraq is the ongoing presence of the US."

I believe that is incorrect. That is the view being presented in the mainstream media. It serves two purposes. Firstly, it convinces Republican types that Iraqis are stupid and to blame for all the trouble. Secondly, it convinces more progressive types that we should pull the troops out. Both viewpoints are conducive to the corpocracy.

However, as scholars pointed out well before the invasion of Iraq begin, there is a generations-long tension existing in Iraq, between various religious, ethnic and tribal factions. Those people have been wanting to get at each other for a very long time. Much as many segments of Americans would, if law and order vanished, begin turning on one another.

Yes, the Americans are a problem. No, the Iraqis don't want them there. Of course they don't--right now. But I believe that if Americans:

1) Actually provided security
2) Did not murder Iraqis
3) Were humble, apologetic, and sensitive
4) Were distributing food, water, and becoming a meaningful part of the community, instead of holing up in garrisons and coming out only with hummers roaring and guns blazing

...then the Iraqis would be happy to have them there. Forget what the media tells you about Iraq for a moment. Do you like a foreigner who shoots your neighbor and rapes your wife? Probably not. Do you like a foreigner who gives you food and water and protects you from a death squad? Probably yes. This is a basic human concept. If Americans acted decently, the Iraqis would want them. Hell, Cheney's prophecy could have turned out right if Americans hadn't been so brutal in attacking Iraq in the first place. I believe that even if, after the murderous sanctions and bombing of the past decade, which America was primarily responsible for, if U.S. troops had gone in with an overwhelming sense of humanitarian concern for Iraqi innocents, then established security and begun handing out candy bars and bottled water, they would indeed be greeted as liberators by most of the people. Iraq has (had? if they're all leaving) an intelligent, educated populace. They were a modern industrial country, and they had a non-fanatical religious leader in Saddam. Those religious divisions could be kept in check by a proper occupation, and educating the next generation would make the enmities lessen over time.

I realize how unlikely it is to get that kind of decent, giving, expensive treatment out of Americans. But I didn't say this was a likely solution, I just said it was the right one.

"Think about it, if you had oh, say China occupying the US, wouldn't you be taking all the potshots at them that you could? I know I would."

2010. The new Iraqi security forces become powerful and rich because of a new technique of refining oil. Alarmed at a history of U.S. belligerence and proof that the U.S. was developing weapons of mass destruction, they seek (and this time, acquire!) U.N. approval in disarming the rogue superpower. They invade America, striking only at military targets, then set up an occupation, release prisoners from American torture centers, and imprison the criminals of the Bush regime and began setting up trials for them. They open access to all confidential government papers and reveal untold screwovers that Bush Co. had planned for us. Universal health care is implemented, insurance, the whole schebang. On every corner of South Central LA, there is an educated Iraqi soldier who speaks English, and he is handing out candy bars to the formerly-starving black and Hispanic kids, and shutting down all drug dealing and gang operations. Factories in the Midwest are reopened in order to supply new contracts with Iraqi companies, and the unemployed are given employment with job security and higher pay. Our nuclear, chemical and biological arsenals are disarmed; Halliburton and other criminal corporations are liquidated and disbanded, and one year later, the fruits come back to us in a massive tax giveaway. We all get a fat check and go buy a new car. The Iraqi taxpayers rebuild our crumbling public schools, feed the 20% of our kids that go to sleep hungry every night, provide prenatal care to all expectant mothers who need it, offer treatment to the listless homeless wandering our inner cities, and present to us a withdrawal plan as soon as our new Constitutional Convention decides we're ready to return to genuine self government.

Oh, there would be people taking potshots at them just because they were "Iraqis", all right. And probably plenty of people shooting at them for other reasons, too--maybe, say, because they didn't respect our American Christian heritage because they refused to mandate that all the people on our new Constitutional Convention be God-fearing Christians of the right denomination. I just wonder if you would be one of the people doing the shooting.

Your "people will never like us because we are foreigners, and I will never like foreigners being here" argument is a very sad one. It suggests that through kindness and generosity, people are not able to overcome the divides of "nationality," skin color, religion, or what have you. Perhaps you do not consider yourself racist or nationalist personally, but in that case, I am sorry that you are so pessimistic about others. Myself, I hope that if we treated the Iraqis with extreme generosity, it could begin to make up for the terrors of the past, even if it never won over those who would hate anyway.

I'm going to have to use a Bushco. argument here, but consider the occupations of Japan and Germany. Ultimately, they had much more positive results than the occupation of, say, Vietnam. If real security is provided, and the U.S. is giving*, I think most Iraqis could come around to be a little bit pleased with how things turned out, and if we're penitent enough, maybe even start forgiving us.

*I am not arguing that the Marshal Plan's genuine goals were positive. Rather, that the locals' perceptions of American giving helped build goodwill. Such could be accomplished with positive goals to have an even more profound effect.

"especially if the people are on the side of the guerilla forces."

Er, exactly. That would be our problem. No one will want "insurgents" to shoot at the Americans if the Americans are the ones being so nice. Everyone will want insurgents to shoot at the Americans if the Americans continue being boorish.

Pulling out remains a cop-out. Beyond this point, on a national scale, America has lost the right to care if some of its troops get killed. Considering what it did to Iraq, it had damned well better be willing to risk a lot more of its soldiers' lives in order to fix the situation. 1 million children killed under sanctions? At least half a million people killed in the invasion? And America dares complain that it can't top 3K soldiers, so it needs to leave and not help anymore? If you do the math proportionately, it's even worse.

That is nationalist supremacism, and so many "progressives" on this board and in this country are advocating it that it makes me sick. "We hafta leave before more of OURS get killed." Well, look what you did to THEIRS, for god's sake. You're not allowed to think about your own feelings for a while.

[MadHound]

21. Wow, simply stunning, really, congratulations.

Probably the most self contradicting, fantastical, post I've read around here in a long time, if ever. Let's start at the beginning.

First off, your contention that the MSM is somehow presenting the fact that the only way out is to pull out is based on zilch, zero, nada friend. First off, virtually nobody in the MSM is seriously pushing for a pull-out. Yes, they discuss it as an option, but the generally counter act it with two options for staying in Iraq. I don't know what MSM you pay attention to, but I'm a pretty well read, well informed guy, and the MSM that I intake is in no way, shape or form advocating for a pull out of any sort. After all, their ultimate corporate parents are making too much money from this war to allow it to fail:shrug: I think that you are over-reading too much into the information that you are taking in. Please, if you have any examples to back yourself up with, use them.

Your assumption that the Iraqi people would welcome an ongoing American presence as long as it were a benign, generous presence is based on what, precisely. Yours or Bush's wishful thinking? Because if you will go back and examine your history, both recent and ancient you will find that no matter how benign the rule, people dislike having their country occupied. Hell, part of what pissed off bin Laden is the fact that the US parked a bunch of troops in Saudi Arabia. And your picture of the perfect operation, involved in the community, not shooting civilians, etc. is going to last about as long as it takes for the first dozen IEDs to go off, and then the true face of US military might is going to come out, and the blood will flow.

I've talked with Iraqis who are over here. They want the US out of Iraq, come what may. You are correct in your description of pre-war Iraq, secular, non-threatening, etc. However the peace between the three major factions was kept only with a bloody sword wielded by Hussein, and the peace would have erupted into sectarian violence the moment he died. Your proposal of occupying Iraq in order to educate the next generation is a foolish one, for it would be an occupation that would have to last for decades, until the only people left alive in Iraq had no memory of such factions. Do you really want to bankrupt the US? For that sort of multi-decade occupation would do just that, bankrupt us and cast the US in chaos. We're already traveling down that path, notice how deep into debt the war has currently plunged us. Further occupation on the scale you're proposing would increase that debt by a few orders of magnitude, and ruin us financially. Not a bright idea.

And frankly, your description of how Americans would react to foreign soldiers on our soil is absolutely out there friend. From the days of the city states until now, no state, no matter how much chaos and disorder it is in, has willingly welcomed foreign troops onto its soil. Your example of Germany and Japan is specious at best, because you left out part of the story. Namely that those two countries had been beaten down to within an inch of their lives. Completely and totally defeated, prone, with no way of fighting back as the foreign troops entered their countries. And even still, something that you little hear in history, there was resistence to our occupation in both countries. Shots here, explosions there, sure, nothing major, but certainly not the complete, welcome with open arms that has been depicted.

So unless you are willing to further inflict a severe beat down on the Iraqi people, on the order of the total decimation that we inflicted on both Germany and Japan, you are going to have to relinquish your point that the Iraqi people will welcome our presence. And thus, that makes, as we have seen throughout history, a guerilla war unwinnable. All that a continued occupation will do is provoke further chaos, and up the body counts on both sides of the conflict. Are you willing to do that? Is that what you want? More death and destruction as the US tries to impose a regime that lacks the support of the people, and one that will be torn down as soon as we leave. Gee, you express concern for the loss of Iraqi lives, yet are wishing to pursue a policy that will result in even more Iraqi deaths. Contradictions in one's thinking are not good friend, not good at all

And your sly insinuation that I personally am a racist, and that those who want an immediate withdrawl are national supremacists are base lies, slanders that you are using when logic and reason fail you. Sorry, but with those two points, you have negated your entire proposition. For frankly, if you go through the threads, you will find that the overwhelming majority of people on this board express grave concerns about the ongoing damage that we're inflicting on the Iraqi people, which is why they want our troops to withdraw. And frankly pal, you don't even know me, therefore your pathetic attempt to read meanings and insight into my personality is probably more the result of your own projection rather than anything I've said.

All you are doing is dressing "stay the course" in pseudo progressive clothing, and frankly having to alter the entire meaning of "progressive" in order to fit your bill. Sorry pal, but what you are proposing is wrong. Even you admit it is a fantasy, and yet insisting that we try it anyway. Well, fuck that. It is time for the killing to stop, and the surest, shortest way for that to happen is for the US to pull it's forces out NOW. Anything else is simply a continuation of the death and madness, and an ongoing gendocide of the Iraqi people. So frankly, you have three choices right now, either lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way. Given your so called plan, and your insulting treatment of those who speak sense in opposition to your so called plan, I think option three is the best one for you to take. For I certainly don't want you leading us, and I don't trust you at my back. So please, just get the hell out of the way.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

10. It's already broke

I don't think any amount of personnell or toys or even Qur'ans are going to rebuild the trust between the Iraqis and Americans.

And the only way we can have that big a buildup in Iraq is to institute a draft. I think a draft is coming; what I fear is that the rich kids will once again "have other priorities" and poor folks will shoulder the burden of the fight. Maybe if everyone had to go-the only outs being CO status or physical disability-it would be more palitable. It would be nice to see the Bush twins in uniform, but not at the cost of my neice and nephew having to go to war--their dad was a career Army officer with two tours in 'Nam (and a Silver Star)--and he's told them to steer clear of the military.

[karash]

16. .

You don't think, in this economy, that paying $42,000 a year plus bonuses to all signups would improve troop enlistment dramatically?

It would not be an immoral war if the goal was to feed, educate, house, clothe, and give health care to the Iraqi population. Nor would it be a war at all. The "war" has already been fought, as a very brief conflict between nations. Now it is an occupation, and I don't think the occupation would be immoral if the purpose actually became one of generosity and assistance.

[GeorgeGist]

14. Reality check...

it is I-M-P-O-S-S-I-B-L-E to win an immoral war. eom

[dave_p]

17. But...

At the risk of repeating what I said on the earlier thread, the flaw in your proposal is that Bush remains in charge for two years. And even when he's gone, the front-runners don't look any more trustworthy in implementing national reengineering on such a scale.

The options you present - and which I agree are the relevant ones here - are:
1. Pull the troops out now;
2. Keep them there and fundamentally redefine their role and the whole US policy environment.

I'm for option 1, pulling out. And here's why:

In proposing your alternative, you're asking us to keep them there while such a policy transformation is discussed and adopted. So we have to ask ourselves: what damage is being done in the meantime; and what are the prospects for reversal?

I think the US military presence is fundamentally damaging to Iraqi society, not just to the Sunni Arab minority who've suffered most from the shift of power.

Apart from the all-too-visible killing, there's the constant reinforcement of the impression of the Green Zone regime as a US puppet. There's the ongoing policy uncertainty in Washington (Help the Sunni? Back the Shia? Partition it? Pull out? Send more? Expand the war? Attack Iran?).

Can Iraq wait 2, 6 or 10 years (and probably a good deal longer) till a US Administration emerges with the insight and altruism to do what's best for Iraqis? Not with 200,000 dead a year. Not with ever more provinces plunging into anarchy and being abandoned to their fate under present US plans.

The US military presence is itself a corrupting factor, contributing to a sectarian atmosphere in which rival leaders bid for the support of the least skilful player in the whole debacle. It's an obstacle to any resolution, because nobody will strike a deal while US support remains at hand.

The troops aren't helping. They can't. They need to leave this mess and give Iraqis a chance to rebuild their society. It's going to be difficult and possibly bloody, but it'll be harder and bloodier so long as outsiders are manipulating events for their own ends.

[karash]

20. .

"At the risk of repeating what I said on the earlier thread, the flaw in your proposal is that Bush remains in charge for two years."

Oh, well of course he'll have to go. That's a given. In order for the plan to work, America would have to be much more, oh, let's say "enlightened," and I'm sure Bush would be working full time building homes, making clothes, or whatever other useful labor fate would befall the sadly deranged in a better America. I picked the most right thing to do at this point, not the most likely.

"In proposing your alternative, you're asking us to keep them there while such a policy transformation is discussed and adopted."

Immediate liquidation of some of the major profiteers would provide enough military payment funds to double salaries and hike recruits for training and deployment inside a year. Or, we could shut down the Fed and...well, let's keep this within some degree of speculation.

Yes, leaving them there while the policy is implemented is unsavory. However, more immediate changes could occur to make that leaving more satisfactory, such as cultural sensitivity, language, and humanitarian training, not to mention the actual implementation of some standards of decency in the ranks. Let us not forget that much of the meanness of the troops was inspired--ordered, even--from the top.

Of course Iraq can't wait. But pulling out will remove what little safety the troops can offer certain areas and certain people, and give the militias even more breathing room to operate.

"It's going to be difficult and possibly bloody, but it'll be harder and bloodier so long as outsiders are manipulating events for their own ends."

Thus why the manipulation for the "own ends" needs to be stopped. Pulling the troops out, however, will just escalate the butchery, and it will be our fault, because we started the butchery.

It is mind staggering to even approach this issue; it's indicative of how our thought patterns were prepared for this point since long before the invasion even began. Look at the situation again:

1) A place existed where a bad person kept things relatively stable
2) We went to that place and messed up the arrangement and now things are hell
3) We will now walk away and leave them as hell instead of fixing it.

The justifications for leaving are the same justifications I am using for staying. I.e. "We made things so bad that (a) we must leave, or (b) we must fix them."

Telling me, "the fixing process will be imperfect" is not going to cut it. Of course it'll be imperfect. And almost every imperfection in that process will be America's fault. Walking out and leaving every hell to be borne by the Iraqis, however, is the ultimate cop-out. It's like killing a parent, taking their troubled children, and then leaving them on the street to "work it out" once you've sexually abused them, because "your presence is making it worse anyway." Except that in the world of this analogy, there are no other foster parents available--no one is willing to spend the money to fix up Iraq, and besides, it is our sick, twisted fault that we were there in the first place. We deserve the shame, the effort, and the colossal cost of fixing things up. No one else in the world deserves it. Considering that we inflicted Saddam's tyranny and chemical weapons on Iraq, I find it difficult to even blame longstanding tribal enmities for more than 5% of the problem. Go back decades in history, and America has been giving Iraq the screwover. How perfect, now, to waltz away and claim that we can't spend any more of our blood and money to stay because we're "making it worse." Of course we are. That's what we've been doing for years: making things worse and then running home to plan another grand fuckup. If this country just once had to bear the cost of paying the bill for all the hell it created, it would pull the brake on the train. Force the binge spender to pay off his debt before he runs to the mall again, or it'll never stop.