What is your opinion of the situation in Iraq?

Answer 1

I am careful in forming a judgment on what is going on. I hear things from the nightly news which seem very different from stories told by returning servicemen. It is hard to form an opinion when the stories conflict so greatly. Given the situation I can surmise the following.

The military is being forced to fight with one hand tied behind their backs. We should allow to military to do what they need to do without the specter of a "timetable" or excessive oversight.

The next serious military effort needs to exclude the press. Before anyone mentions "freedom of the press", that right is valid in this country and does not necessarily extend beyond that. The press has continuously magnified the negative and said little of nothing of the positive aspects of what is going on. Our enemies rely on the press to defeat us at home because they are unable to defeat our military in battle. This happened in Vietnam and is happening again in Iraq. Our enemies are generally undeterred by public opinion. We should not be hamstrung by it either.

Unfortunately, I feel we will continue to lose the battle of public opinion until a nuclear device goes off somewhere and once again the press will feed on the bad news.

Answer 2

Unsalvagable. The post-war involvement in Iraq was poorly conducted. The insurgency was allowed to grow to its size today, partially due to the US military's inability to fight them (mainly due to doctrine, politicians' interference, media's interference, lack of manpower). The pre-existing differences between Shia, Sunni, and Kurds have been released with the fall of Saddam, which exuberates the situation. The Iraqi government has little legitimacy amongst the Iraqi people, mainly due to the lack of security in the country. The Iraqi military and police are on a large part ineffective.

But I still believe we must stay, even as it drains our Treasury and weakens our military readiness, because we did not complete our task, which is to leave a legitimate and strong Iraqi government and stabilize the security situation. But I disagree that this is has much effect on the war with Al Qaeda. The chaos in Iraq allows a breeding ground and a sanctuary for Al Qaeda operatives; and while we are excellent at destroying the supply side of Al Qaeda, we are poor at attacking the demand side of Al Qaeda. As long as people are willing to join and support Al Qaeda, we will never be able to stop them from attacking the US again.

The enemy can strike us any time, any where a la 9/11. The US military was deployed all over the world during 9/11 and still they were not able to stop the attack; so being in Iraq and Afghanistan doesn't necessarily mean that the enemy can no longer strike us at our homeland. The enemy's sanctuary is everywhere; not just in Iraq and Afghanistan. They can be found in many countries, and can be from many countries, including the US. From a law enforcement perspective, transnational organizations such as MS-13 is a perfect example of this.

Answer 3

The situation in the Middle-East has been allowed to fester for way too long. Staring back under the Carter administration when Iran first took our embassy personnel hostage. We are now making our brave military face much better trained, funded and indoctrinated organizations when they could have been crushed 30 years ago.

There is no alternative now. We either win in Iraq and then continue to pressure the enemy until we destroy them or we will waste this opportunity, too. Then you are talking a much much worse situation with the battleground in America, Europe, Mexico, Canada etc.

Answer 4

I think that taking the troops out of Iraq would throw all of what were done away. Its good we are over there, and we need to go just BAM and just bombard them and go crazy for like 2 or three days so we don't have to wory about them. Be cause if we take the troops out the will just blow a different building up and we will have to go back over there. Or maybe we need to ask like an aly or 2 to help us woop some but over there... That would put them back in their place! But everyone thinks that war is not the answer and are like a bunch of hippies and if we don't another bad thing will happen and then the whole proses will happen again, we need to just cream them one and for all. (P.S. I got nothing against the people there but there is just to many bad people there!)

Answer 5

It is a power struggle veiled in religious terms, like Ireland, it's not really about religion.

Then there's the US and friends, and Iran and their friends, trying to get a little advantage for themselves. As far as the US is concerned, the whole thing is unconscionable. The oil just makes it worse.

But if the US just leaves, there will be more chaos, and we broke the previous order, so we have to try to get something established so that it doesn't become another Sudan, but with oil.

Answer 6

Islamic forces on both sides in a religious war believe they are right. God is with them and not the other side.
Same thing that is going on in Africa.