All games aside?

Question

I will start with my basic info...i am registered republican, a masters degree from the university of pennsylvania and now currently in the US army.

I am tired of democrats vs republicans, left wing, right wing, neocon and hillary and obama and all this nonsense.

I would like to hear your honest thoughts on what should be done with our involvement in iraq and afghanistan. Not general ideas, but actual answers. No troop bashing, no republican bashing, no democrat bashing, or bush bashing. What do you think we should do with these two countries. Again, keep your political views to yourselves, i want to hear what is in the best interest of the US and our people.

Answer 1

Interesting Question, I would have tried to separate linking Afghanistan from Iraq but you are correct to combine them for if the US fails in Iraq we will also fail in Afghanistan.

I do not think that at this point the USA has the political will to win the war. Without the political will then the Armed Forces will be hard to win in either. I think that in Afghanistan we have a better chance to win. I believe that we have lost the initiative in both places and I do not know if they can be regained.

I have though long and hard about this and think that simply to much time has passed and not enough has happened. I do not think that an Iraqi democracy will be a creature of long life, I do not think that they will be able to wield enough power effectively to subdue the insurgency. I think when left to there own the Iraqi government will dissolve or at least be impotent. I hate to say it but I would double the US troop strenght and try and lock down the borders, and sweep the entire country. Anyone caught with a weapon is shot and force law and order upon the situation. At the same time try and get other regional countries involved with boosting the Iraq government. Saudi Aradia, Kuwait, Eygpt, etc. After 2 years I would then beging to remove US forces from the entire region. The Iraqi's would have to then find thereown path.
Afghanistan, again boost the troops and occupy most of the country and try and bring about 2 years of order and maybe the Afghanese would like peace.
If not then remove all forces from the regions, pull all our troops back to the USA and train and wait for the next 9-11.

Answer 2

Good question, well stated.
Iraq? no clear, good options here Two options. Increase the troops by 300,000. Put enough people on the ground to insure stability, get control. Then start reconstruction, so when you build something it doesn't get blown up later that night. Short haul success though. It's not going to be popular. The rest of the world would not be amused. Option 2 is get out, relocate a good part of existing forces to Afghanistan, secure that country before the Taliban reclaim it. Leaving Iraq to burn, which i'm not unconvinced is inevitable. But also not a popular option
The thing we can't do is stay the course. Either win or get out.

Answer 3

Kick out the media! The impact of each soldiers death becomes a rallying cry for them. They see us on TV just like we do. They see each parent crying, some with anti war cries, some with pro war banter. The enemy has never been better informed about our current and future actions in war than they are right now. Give that a few months with an increased troop level. If it fails try something else.

Answer 4

this in an unanswerable question b/c he best interest of iraq and US is based on the best interest of their people, which, is made up of repubs, dems, terrorists, inoccents, etc.....

my view is going to be different from someone else's so that's why we have elected officials. hopefully, they have been elected by the public based on the majority's idea of what needs to happen.

anyway, if i could be president, then i would pull out of iraq and eat a lot of crow and focus any efforts in the US.
have you ever gotten to the point when you were spread too thin?? you realized that you just couldn't be on one more committe or board or volunteer another hour of your time. if you have, then you know how the US is feeling right now.

we have troops in the middle east. of course, we are still trying to keep kim jong il in his box. we are trying to be friends to everyone and say "no" to no one, so then, we are stuck with problems in our own country that no one can focus on b/c we are so spread out around the world.
we need to examine japan's xenophobic campaign that was implemented after ww2 and get back to basics. once we heal our own country then we can focus on bigger pictures.
sure, we need and want to conserve our natural resources, but we can also convert to much more efficient forms of transportation. nuclear energy is highly evolved for cars right now. all it would take would be for the conversion of cars to operate on batteries and when your battery dies you would stop at a spot like a gas station and switch out batteries. simple.
there are solutions out there, but they are not being implemented b/c it would decrease the amount of $ in businesspeoples' pockets and politicians' pockets.

it even affects the not so affluent. my husband is in the marine corps. we were discussing the presidency and he stated that if hilary won then our life would change dramatically. i understand this and i'm sure you do too as a military person, so i won't waste time going into details. so, even my own husband is willing to vote someone into office to better himself instead of the world and the country.
i have gone back to basics in my life before and i rather enjoyed a simpler life. i knew what i had and lived with it....i didn't resent that i lived in a tiny apartment. it was less space to clean!

anyway....nothing will change if we all continue to think of ourselves instead of the big picture.
that's just this gal's opinion.

take care.

Answer 5

Put all the cards on table face up, explain what each card has to do with the way game is played and why it is too late to reshuffle the deck.

The truth is there is no easy exit from Iraq and the US today cannot exit from there without a complete destablization upon all aspects of American living standards.

The actions of past have put us in a situation where we have only one outlet left if nation is to survive as an entity with any semblence of past notions and that is continue with occupation no matter the cost in lives to ourselves or Iraquis.

Lay the true economic status of US out on table and show just how devestating failure to secure Iraq would be in realtion to it.

Let the American people decide on what type of entity they will be in future.

No dogmas. jingos or patriotic slogans, just the actual facts on why the United States has as its foreign policy the present system.

Domesticly we need to know the true cost of those policys in relation to amounts of resources left that we can place towards a form of social structure whereby what is given will guarantee some sence of security and Unity as a Nation.

The old politic of US is long gone as has its economic power once dependent upon its industrial base now been completley over taken in the new world economy of interconnectivity of resources and asset control to balance out trade inequalitys of past.

In other words , Honesty without passion needs to be brought into picture. Some may find it a brutal honesty but so be it.

The Nation State sovereignty boundary has folded under the pressure of global economics and now the defining stature of humanity as primarily , a resource and a consumer, not given any rights other than what they earn by personal endeavor.

You cannot have it both ways, nation state overriding rest of worlds needs without a constant need for warfare to acquire those material needs to keep your lifestyles intact while admiting the world has changesd and beignan american is no differnt in long run than being an african. asian or latino or any of the many resources available to that economic world entity.
I have no doubt Americans will bury heads and not want an honest evaluation of direction we are heading and the chaos that will result will continue to not be understood and we will continue to find ourselves constantly engaged in warfare for rest of our lives and childrens future lives.

Answer 6

Amen!!!! I like you, and the way you think. It's about time we get some answers in this world.

I think that Iraq has made itself pretty clear in the fact that it does not have what it takes nor does it want to have what it takes to handle the terorrists on our own. And, no matter how much America wants it to, we cannot make Iraq stand on her own. We cannot keep sacrificing our soldiers and our resources to help a nation that doesn't want it.

Therefore, I think what we really need to do is evacuate our troops, pull out the people that we know to be innocent (somehow) and bomb the hell out of the whole middle east. Then give the survivors some money to rebuild their own nations.

Knowing that the plan I just proposed is not really going to ever happen, nor is it really possible, I would have to say that we should just pull out our troops. Slowly. We need to get as many Iraqis as we can into their military and police forces, train them as best we can, and try to help them stand on their own two feet. We need to establish a concrete timeline with that nation, and not waver from it. We need to sit down with those officials and say, "Look. We're pulling out x thousand amount of troops on this date, x thousand amount of troops on this date, and so on until we're out of here. Then you have to do it on your own."

And stand by it. Pull out our troops when we say we're going to. Make them handle it on their own.

After all, would YOU, as a small war-torn nation, want to handle the chaos all on your own? Or would you want big brother America to stay there as long as possible, killing off their own soldiers and handling the problem for you? It's easier for them to sit back and not take control.

We need to make it hard for them. We need to stop playing this game of political correctness and compassion. This is a war. Get real. Like you said, all games aside.

Answer 7

I am no military strategist but...I think we need to stay and finish the job. The troop surge sounds good to me. Getting the media on our side would be the biggest step to "winning." You can't win a war when the media is against it.