The war in Iraq: Do you think the USA do not have any options??

Question

Bush says Democrats do not have a strategy for Iraq.
Bush said recently that strategy change is to be considered in Iraq. ( In October ). Said some similarities existed between Nam ( Tet offensive ) and Iraq.
In the same breath he says he is going to stay the course. So knowing the current strategy (?) is not effective , he still want to continue. Democrats don't have any strategy either. So what happens??

TO WHIP : HI , YOU SAID WILL STAY TILL THE JOB IS DONE. BUT WHAT EXACTLY IS THIS JOB AND WHEN YOU WILL CONSIDER IT DONE??

to janice: but don't you think the iraqis were doing well before the invasion?? iraqi women did not have to fear the militias , which in some cases are just like taliban. in the time of saddam , iraq was a moderate country. compare it to iran /syria etc??
people were not getting blown up by the scores EVERY day. if all was done to remove saddam , well , the job is done , right?? If the allies couldn't do a better job than saddam , then what was the whole point? WMDs??? well , DPRK have them. they said they won't mind attacking USA either. so what happens?? Iran said they will not stop enrichment. they actually doubled their work recently. So?? in the case of iraq USA attacked defying the UN. Why they are waiting for the UN to do some thing in the case of iran & DPRK??

dear aztec: did you try to understand Kerry's statement?? ( Please understand that I am not american . I am no Dem supporter. and I don't think anything is going to change much whoever wins ) And , whether the terrorists are trying to sway the election or not , the FACT remains that
a lot of people ( civilians & military ) are getting killed every day in Iraq. Right??

Answer 1

Really we only have two very general choices.
1) Stay until either the country is secure, or their own domestic army can protect the country;
2)Pull out prior to 1)

The problem with 1) is how will we know when the country is secure? Insurgents claim they will fight till the US leaves, and the US says it will stay till the insurgents are defeated. Seems a bit of a quandry eh? And by who's view of "secure" is the litmus test? By Iraq's standard? By the US's? Make no mistake that those are very different conditions. The US faced the same choice in Viet Nam.

The problem with 2) is when do you pull out? Right away? Gradually? From where? Chances are as the troops pull out, fighting will get more intense and country wide panic will set in. For comparison read up on the pull out of Viet Nam. It is the spectre of those images, of people crushing against the gates of the US Embassy; of those people running up the stairs of the embassy roof; and of those helicopters being pushed into the sea as more helicopters with evacuees arrived that haunt the US conscious, and exactly why the administration won't think of pulling out. If we pull out one also has to wonder what it was all for? Why did all those soldiers and civilians die if we weren't going to stick around to finish it? If we were just going to pull out then why didn't we do it earlier? It also opens up the administration to charges of incompetency. It will never happen.

And as a side note, its getting a little tiring to see all the Republican kids come on here and spout mis-informed opinions (probably because they heard their parents say it). Democrats are "anti-military." Tell that to the Democrats that fought and won World War 2. That was a pretty big anti-military operation there...Dem's also won World War 1. Dem's fought (under UN action) the Korean War. Dem's started Viet Nam escalation (not exactly a crowning achievement but certainly not "anti-military"). It was a Republican that pulled out of Viet Nam. It was Republicans that attacked Panama, Grenada, and Iraq.

So before you characterize all Democrats by one loud mouth (it would be like me characterizing all Republicans as big-eared coke-heads that can't talk in complete sentences based on Bush) that can't get a joke right, let us review the parties and the countries they have fought:

Democrats:
1) Germany x2 (at the height of their military power)
2) Japan
3) N. Korea (and China later) (won then fought to stalemate)
4) Viet Nam

Republicans:
1)The US (Civil War)
2) Viet Nam (lost/pulled out)
3) Panama
4) Grenada
5) Iraq

Who do you think is better with the military?

To Whip: What does military service have to do with anything? You think that gives you more rights or something?

Answer 2

Yo are Naive to think there is a strategy involved and there may be options for the US of A
Understand that this war was not started for a regime change or to eliminate WMDs
That was the pretex,
This was for the control of the entire Middle East,
The Iraqi oil was the lure, all else the means to an end,
The End is control, with personal stakes involved of Donald Rumsfield's Companies with Ben Laden group of Saudi Arabia,
Bush interest in the oil companies, and other companies with Bush as an interested party for Contracts after the war. Of plant and machinery for the whole of Iraq, Of weapons for the entire Asia Pacific and Middle east.
So the question of Deaths of marines, or Iraqis, or saddam doing a better job, Or Us having options or strategies does not arise,
It was planned well, and planned spectacularly,
9/11 was the prelude, the reason, to mould public opinion, creat fears, generate a hatred, give a solid reason and creat an atmosphere of such mistrust that even senators who opposed bush could be branded unpatriotic.

Get your mind in the right direction and look at the broder perspective, The War In Iraq is just one peice of the jigsaw.

Answer 3

The USA did not have any plan.
The USA did not have any prudent leadership
The USA did not have any international support
The USA did not have any justification
But the USA did have options.

Sun Tzu said in the Art of War witten in 500 BC that engaging in a protracted military occupation and campaign would lead to failure. Bush's poor handling of Iraq was foreseeable.

It does not take a lot of strategy to fix the problem. For example, one solution would be to set a time certain, then at that time redeploy US forces to control insurgency at the Syrian and Iranian border areas. Also occupy the oil fields. Then, being placing oil profits into a trust account. Then let the Iraqi's decide what kind of a government they want. Isnt that what "democracy" means?
If the emergent government requests US support, make it conditional that a referendum of the people must request it. Then caviat all support by saying if one American is shot at the support ends and we leave.
Finally, make total withdrawl conditional on repayment of the US cost of the war through a combination of reduced oil prices and repayments from the oil trust fund. At the saem time announce that if the emerging Iraq government ever threatens US interests again, we will come back again and destroy it like we did Hussein.

Wow...was that difficult? No? Why cant the Republicans figure it out?

Answer 4

What is happening is a form of guerilla warfare carried on by a general anti-US movement. A military principle states that a conventional army cannot win a war against a guerilla form of opposition. So the US is experienceing exactly that. There is no way to decisively win against this kind of thing. Bush wants to do the same thing yet hopes for different results, not a likely outcome.

The problem is Bush kept harping on "stay the course", "stay the course", "stay the course" for so long and for so often that now to abandon that idea would be to admit failure and he cannot do that.

I think that at the heart of this fiasco is a very simple explanation: Bush once read a self-help 'how to succeed' book that said, like they all do, once you make a decision stick with it and never change it, and then if you keep on keeping on long enough eventually you will succeed at whatever it is you are trying to do. Having said "stay the course" he must now stay the course forever or lose face and fail. So precisely because he wants to succeed he will now fail because he thinks to change his decision to stay the course means giving up and giving up is to fail. This is why his convoluted thinking now keeps him trapped in a strategy that obviouly is not working, but for him to admit that it is not working is to concede failure and he is not about to do that.

What will happen now is that Bush will keep doing the same thing, and the war, which according to him ended three and a half years ago, will continue without letup virtually forever. Twenty years from now, if US policy remains the same, we will still be seeing the same thing and asking the same questions. The sheer stupidity of it all is to keep doing the same thing yet expecting different results. Ain't gonna happen, ever.

Answer 5

We must stay in Iraq until the Iraqi military is up to the task of protecting Iraq. President Bush has also said we may begin withdrawing our troops in 12 to 18 months. This is a good thing. Do not trust Democrats to have a plan for anything having to do with national security. They are all anti-military. If you don't believe me just listen to what John Kerry has said not only recently but over the last 3 decades. Hopefully, what will happen is Iraqis will guard Iraq and the majority of our servicemen and women will come home.

Answer 6

Hello? "Stay the course" means finish the job...finishing establishing a secure and democratic Iraq.

"Stay the course" does not mean "do everything predictably, in the exact same manner, and let the enemy slaughter us."

People should really try to understand what other people are saying, instead of intrepreting others' comments according to your own point of view, which obvisouly others are not speaking from.

And the REAL reason the attacks on American troops are up so drastically in October and November is that the terrorists want Democrats to win the election.

-Aztec276

Answer 7

The US will not withdraw from Iraq or anywhere else in the middle east. I convinced that Iran is the next target because they need to secure those oil fields as they did in Iraq. However, the world has drawn a circle around Iran and if ever the US tries to take military action against Iran it could possibly start WWIII.

Answer 8

There is a solution to the Iraqi problem. & that is to pull U.S military out of there & start up a conventional bomb campaign. Using nukes is out. Just keep on bombing them for 3-4 months until nothing remains but rubble there. Then send the military back in to take control of the oil fields. Coz thats what the U.S wants, the oilfields....Switching to this plan would shorten time to achieve this.

Answer 9

We're in a hopelessly lose-lose situation. If we "stay the course", we'll only continue to lose more of our soldiers. If we leave, we'll be leaving a hotbed of terrorists to run Iraq who will most definitely spend every waking moment plotting ways to retaliate.

We've lost the respect of just about every other nation and we've pretty much alienated those who were once our allies. Whatever happens to us next, we'll be on our own to face.

The next president, be he/she Democrat or Republican, will not be able to fix this mess that George Jr. has created ... this mess is going to haunt us for decades.

Those illusive Weapons of Mass Destruction? Look no further, we have them : they're sitting in the White House and running this country.

Answer 10

We're all screwed! Bush has made such a mess in the name of oil, we'll all---democrats and republicans---be years trying to fix the repercussions. The debt, the destruction, loss of life and loss of trust by most of the rest of the free world. Some of what he's done there will never be fixed. All in the name of oil. Hope Bush thinks it's worth it. By the way, where exactly is Bin Laden these days?