One more annoying question about Irak: Is it better to pursue it to the end or should we just walk away?

Question

I'm a centrist who initially opposed the war. However, I've come to think that the reputation of our nation rests on the outcome of the war in Irak. If we simply withdraw from Irak then the rest of the world will think that we are not the same world power that we used to be and bigger challenges will come from rogue nations as well as those that oppose the interests of the U.S.
Therefore, I'm 100% behind the men and women in Irak and I'm willing to see this thing to the end. That's just my opinion. What is yours?

Thank you all, particularly for not bashing me after having misspelled Iraq as Irak.

All of your answers are excellent and should be picked as the best. I'm glad to know that we are are all united in this.
Thank you!

Answer 1

I think we need to get out of there but not before ensuring security. The last thing the world needs is a destabilized Iraq.
The best way we could do this is to divide the country up into three different "countries" or districts, each governed by a different ethnic faction. One would be for Sunni's, one for Shiite's and one for the Kurds. Everybody is so scared of losing power to the other faction. That's why there's so much sectarian violence. This way, they will all have a country and they will all have a stake in peace. I do feel that the US military presence is causing more violence than it is preventing so that's why we need to get out of there. We also have to accept the fact that the leadership of those governments may not like us. We can't expect the people to accept a government that the US put into power.

Answer 2

I am behind the decision to stay in Iraq until the end because of the fact that if we were to pull out now, we would be seen as cowards and the Iraqi government would see it as they won the war. I don't know about a lot of other people but I don't want to be called a coward or a loser, I even hope that after basic and AIT I can be sent over there to do what I signed up for the military to do, protect this country, not only the people but the countries integrity as well.

Answer 3

We cannot walk away. Iraq would certainly decay into hive of civil unrest if we did so. We have developed a reputation for walking away when things get to difficult, or we lose too many people in battle. If you examine the rise of global terrorism beginning in 1979 against the United States and it's interests you find one recurring theme. Terrorists and the spoinsors of terror keep saying that what has emboldened them against the United States is a perceived lack of resolve on our part to stay the course. In 1979 Khomeni stated that he kept waiting for us to attack when the hostages were taken, and was quite surpised when we didn't. The hostage crisis could have gone very different had Mr. Carter taken military action when it began. Bin Laden has stated that he was emboldened when we withdrew during the first gulf war, and again after Somalia. I can give you many good reasons to stay the course, but the best is that we must make a stand against terrorism for our own future safety. Now is the time, and unfortunately it appears that Iraq is the place.

Answer 4

Even if you hate Bush and hate the war, just close your eyes and immagine if you were those people. Seperate yourself from any political thinking and just think as a human. They need help, they are in the midst of a horrible war amongst themselves. Chilren are dying when the militants come in and shoot to kill. They can't even go to school without fear of a little baby getting blown up. Some don't have electricity, running water or sewer systems,(which the allied forces are little by little fixing) IF we left we would be abondoning them. It doesn't matter who caused it, why it was done. The fact is that it is done and we can't leave these people, these children (45%of Iraq is under the age of 14) to fend for themselves. That is just my opinion, seperating my feelings for the war. Looking at it as different Intaties(did I spell that right?) Good question

Answer 5

Your thoughts seem well reasoned, so it caught me off guard that you repeatedly spelled the nation Iraq as Irak, but I would agree with you in principle.

The problem here, as it was in Viet Nam, is determining what 'the end' of the conflict is. The people of Iraq want the US troops out, but pulling them out too early will only ensure continued instability in the region. Additionally, the situation has already done harm to our international stature, as many of our allies from the first Gulf War now are unsure of our motivations and can no longer predict our responses to international crises.

I pray for our nation, our troops, and our leadership, and my faith in the first two remains unshaken. I never had a lot of faith in the last one, however.

Answer 6

Walking away from Iraq would, at this point, at least, embolden the terrorists and leave the Iraqis hanging. Plus, the fact that terrorists are right now pushing hard could mean that they're on the ropes. Whatever I may have thought earlier, right now I say: go for it! Do not throw in the towel. This will probably get a lot of responses from Bush haters who just aren't using their brains, but hate Bush so intensively that they will favor any screwy plan.

Answer 7

If anybody has been more opposed to this war than I have, let him speak now. However, thanks to the rush to war with no clear objective that Dubya took on, we are there for years to come. I was in Desert Storm, we had reason to be there then. This time we had absolutely no business going in. Now, we are on the long road to recovery. We, in our lifetime, may never see the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. It is our duty to fix the mess we have created there.

Chainsaw.....Your talking points come straight of FOX. "Embolden" Man I don't know where I would get my laughs without the republiQaedans. Uh....Iraq....yeah, uh....there weren't any terrorists there before we went in! See, blindfolds, 16 US Intelligence Agencies report it and still they don't hear past the FOX propaganda. Oh, but yeah, all of those intelligence agencies are filled with the damn lying libs, man and you guys talk about our conspiracy theorists. At least ours come up with their own valid talking points, not that I agree with them.

Barbara C....Not to discredit your point, but we have hundreds of thousands of children who go to bed hungry every night right here in the US, we should worry about our own first before we try to fix another countries problems.

Answer 8

Walking away in my opinion will save lives, however it will mean that everything in the long run will have been a waste.

If we leave, there will be a massive civil war followed by peace. Islam needs war to be peaceful. The terrorists will kill eachother and there wil be some innocent lives lost of course, but can it really be any worse

We never should have gone, but I think it would not be right to walk away

Answer 9

Look, we did it in Vietnam and now we do it again. Go into a war we don't win. Why? We said after VietNam that we would never go to war without the full might of the US against the aggressor. So Bush finds a country in a quagmire to wage guerrila war against us in cities. Get out. Try to safeguard the people but get out.

Answer 10

If we walk away it will be a tremendous victory for the Muslim extremists and they will use it against us... they will convenience the locals that they defeated us.

Along with that... all they will do is follow us back into the USA for additional attacks. Their mission is to remove ALL non-Muslims from the face of the earth. They have stated that out-right. According to them, our only chance of salvation is to convert to Islam.

They are a sick group of people and need to be stopped... and this will not be an easy task as you can see. Prior to going into Afghanistan, GWB stated very plainly that it will be a difficult and long war.