Liberals, What would you do with the situation in Iraq?

Question

You are very willing to attack President Bush but I hear few if any suggestions. I am not trying to pick a fight but I really wan to hear your point of view so put away your Bush Whacking for a moment and give me some answers.

Answer 1

I knew you wouldn't get a good answer to this question! They never have an answer to these types of questions! Give up trying. They don't have a plan. They never have. I'm sorry to be so blunt! The U.N. is not the answer either! They're just a bunch of crooks! They say...."Oh we need to fix the problems at home first"....They just don't see it or remember 9/11. This is a war on terror people not Iraq!

Answer 2

It's difficult to say what I would do now after Britain and the US have made such a mess of it.

What I would have done would have been to remove sanctions and actually work down the diplomatic route while respecting Iraqs sovreignity. Granted, Hussein is a very unpleasant man and I've never sympathised with him, but war and the sanctions have killed millions (literally, I'm not exaggerating) of Iraqis, while Hussein is living in relative comfort and perfect safety in a prison.

I would suggest that military force was justified in 1991 when Iraq invaded Kuwait, but the troops were pulled out too early. It would have been relatively easy to remove Hussein then, without a great loss of civillian life, as the Iraqi army had surrendered outright. Unfortunately, no-one went there to get rid of him that time.

This time, that's all they went for, and because of this the Iraqi people felt that their sovreignity was under threat.

The point is that far more civillians are killed in any war than fighting soldiers, and as a result I don't believe it can ever be justified UNLESS a country is attacked, invaded, or terrorised by another. This is what the UN is for.

The Iraqi people are, for the most part, much worse off now than they were five years ago under sanctions but at peace.

What would I do now? Remove all US, UK and Spanish forces from Iraq (these were the "aggressors", as far as the Iraqis are concerned) and install international Peacekeepers, while allowing the UN to take care of setting up a governmental system that suits the people. A separate Kurdish state would be a bonus, but Turkey would never agree to that as part of the area known as Kurdistan is within Turkish borders. Also, when you do that you end up with an Israel/Palestine situation, and no-one wants anopther situation like that, especially not right next door.

I know this hasn't really answred your question, but I'm no diplomat or policy maker. I just felt I should let you know that I'm not just a Bush-basher or a reactionary. Take it easy, dude.

Answer 3

There have been many suggestion along the way...but for most we have reached a point of no return with them. These include:

Bringing in the UN to help with the nation building...yes this could have been done if Bush wasn't so stubborn. We would have had to coincide a lot of the oil rights and control of the war but the benefit would have been huge. But this option is now off the table.

Send in more troops to secure the boarders...yes there were demarcates (such as Joe Biden) that were proposing this around the time of the last election. The time has past on this as well.

Set a timetable not for withdraw but for concrete objectives...demarcates also proposed this. Objectives such as Iraqi troop levels, and government progress. Bush didn't want this because he feared he might look like a failure. However, this would have held the military and the administration accountable...something Bush wants nothing to do with.

However, since time has passed on this plans, there aren't many choices anymore...I think the best thing to do is to stick it out for a while longer and hope things pick up.

Answer 4

United States has no right to be in Iraq in the first place. The war was sold to a skeptical public through a series of lies--about weapons of mass destruction, al-Qaeda’s links to Iraq and so on--that were meant to justify denying Iraq’s sovereignty. None of those claims was true.

But now we have a new set of lies. Once the big lies about al-Qaeda and WMD were exposed, the Bush administration found a new mantra: We are bringing democracy to Iraq. We are rebuilding Iraq. We are preventing civil war.

We have seen a revival of the white-man’s-burden argument that was used to justify the British, French and earlier colonial empires. This is the idea that we have to “bring democracy” to backward peoples to civilize them.

But the occupation is the opposite of genuine democracy and self-determination for the Iraqi people. This colonial occupation, like earlier ones in history, uses democracy only as a pretext, while actually working to deny Iraqis a genuine role in determining their own future.

If there were genuine democracy--if it were up to Iraqis--the first thing that would happen is that the United States and its international coalition partners would be forced to leave Iraq. The second thing is that Iraqi oil would be renationalized.

Poll after poll has shown that the vast majority of Iraqis want the occupation to end immediately, and that they see U.S. and coalition troops as occupiers not liberators.

Threfore, we should get the troops out now. We should also pay reparations so that Iraqis can establish themselves int he global economy.

none of this will happen, but in a just system, a system with any degree of honor whatsoever, a system actually worth defending, it would.

Answer 5

... it's a tough question... it seems that nobody knows what to do... Republicans and Democrats alike seem to be clueless... other than "stay the course," which is no real strategy at all... since there was no real strategy to begin with...

personally, I think you have to work on security... right now the nation has daily car bombings and weekly assassinations of people in high positions... that's not a very good atmosphere for a democracy to flourish...

generals have been saying we need more troops to do the job that Bush wants to do... I don't like sending more troops over there, but I fear that may be needed if we are ever going to get Iraq in a stable enough position to actually leave... so more troops now and be able to leave latter...

that's just one "liberals" opinion

Answer 6

Begin an immediate drawn-down of US military forces, at a rate of approximately 10,000 per month over the next year, with the goal of being out by this time next year.
Retain enough forces to train Iraqi military and police personnel if it is still necessary, to directly protect US assets and to assist with on-going counter-terrorism efforts.
Note: This is more or less what Senators Kerry and Feingold proposed in the Senate last week.

During that time, either put Iraqi forces in place or put in a mult-national peace-keeping force under the supervision of the UN.
Either way, replace US troops with somebody else.

Prime Minister Maliki says that Iraqis will be ready to govern in 16 of 18 provinces by the end of the year. We should take him at his word, and begin immediate troop reductions.

Answer 7

Democracy worked in America today, our example speaks for the people of the United States, the people of Iraq have a government, a military and a court system now. We the people know what we must do, it's our leadership that represent us and all the people involved that seem to be in a war of words.

Answer 8

Gather all past Secretaries of Defense and State and decide on a strategy of diplomacy to get us out within 12 months.

Draw down troop levels, increase CIA covert missions in-country and make the fighting of terrorism an operation for the Intelligence dept and Delta, our counter-terrorism special forces.

That's all I have for now, but at least I offered you something, so give me some credit. I have a class to run to!

Answer 9

First of all I would get Bush to apologise for starting this illegal war. I would then ask the UN to organise a peace keeping mission to take over from the US. I would send the US a bill for the damage they have inflicted. I would try George Bush for war crimes.

Answer 10

Surely it is too late to be so sanctimonous about the devastation that has been wrought on that region, both by USA and Israel, The best thing is now to wait for the result of the foolish action. I suppose America has a long period of looking over its collective shoulder for years to come. Whereas Isolationism was once a political necessity, it is now to become the only way of life for us.