When Bush says leaving Iraq will give the terrorists a "victory", is he joking?

Question

We have ousted Saddam, installed a democracy, if we leave, the terrorists in Iraq will have lost their only recruiting tool (to drive us out) and the Iraq government will be able to take over.

The democrats want Bush to hold the Iraqis to their promise "to stand up as we stand down". No time like the present, right? Right?

The situation on the ground will only get more anti-american the longer we stay.

Besides the situation on the ground getting worse, the longer we stay in Iraq the worse our global power base weakens. Europe is just about sick of our BS and China and Russia are backing Iran!! Its the same thing that happened in Vietnam, our inability to keep our promise to "bring freedom" to the Iraqi's just shows the world we were really only interested in one thing, control of the oil.

Answer 1

no, he's just that stupid!!

Answer 2

The point is, nobody knows what will happen in Iraq when the US leaves. Because the situation on the ground is so confused, any predictions are based on a lot of W.A.G.'s (wild assed guesses.)
First off, Iraq is made of three different groups. The Shiite majority has control of the government right now. The Sunnis used to be in control under Saddam, but are now suffering. There are many ex-Baathists (Saddam's old political party, and are a subset of the Sunnis) who are creating a lot of the trouble against the Shiites. In response, the Shiites have started doing horrible things to the Sunnis. The Kurds basically want out of the whole nation, and are trying very hard to stay as far away from Iraqi politics as possible. However, there are problems with the Kurds, because Kurds who live in Turkey have been waging an insurgency there for decades. It is likely that Iraqi Kurds are helping the Turkish Kurds, and Turkey is losing their patience.

Confused yet? I'm just getting started.

The "insurgents" or whatever you want to call them in Iraq are not all on one side. There are Sunni militants, Shiite militants, Al Qaida, ex-Baathists, and a number of other, smaller groups. Some of the groups are against the government. Some are FOR the government. Some owe their loyalty to a specific person. Others want to blow up Americans. Some are in it to protect themselves from the other groups who are gunning for them. And, believe it or not, some of them are in it to find girls.

And, best of all, the majority of Iraqis don't want ANY of the insurgents there. They just want to live in peace.

The REAL fun comes with US troops in the region. No US soldier can tell what side an individual is on (if any). Because the insurgents do not wear uniforms, every civilian must be treated as a possible suicide bomber. Pointed guns, high stress, and frayed tempers mixed with a language and cultural barrier make for Incidents (shot innocent people). There is no way to stop that short of pulling the US troops out.

There are several schools of thought concerning a US pull-out. One thinks that, without the US as targets, the whole region will settle down. One school thinks that, without the US to lean on, the Iraqi government forces will shape up very quickly, get the support of the regular Iraqi people, and figure out how to deal with the insurgents. Another school thinks the various factions in Iraq are too strong to willingly give up their power, and will continue to fight each other no matter where the Americans are. Another school feels the entire region will be drawn into a giant proxy war (Sunnis backed by Syria and Saudi Arabia fighting Shiites backed by Iran) that will destabilize the region.

At this point, I think the last option is the most likely. But I ALSO think there is nothing the US can reasonably do to PREVENT the regional war from happening. The costs to the US to fix the current situation are so extreme that no politician in his right mind will even mention it. I'm talking about a draft, doubling the size and expense of the current military, and spending the next five to seven years with a half million US troops in the region. Would you vote for that ticket? Didn't think so. Short of that, anything we do is relatively trivial.

So, since we're not willing to spend the money, lives and time to fix the problem, we have two choices. Keep doing what we're doing (which isn't doing much of anything), or leave.

Answer 3

No he is not joking, he is hanging on as long as he can in the hope that his little puppet government will be able to restore some kind of stability in Iraq to look after his interests in the Middle East. If he pulls out now there is a good chance that his choice of leader for Iraq will be overthrown as soon as the American troops are off the scene. If he can keep the American military in Iraq until he has wiped out the opposition to his chosen Iraqi government then he will have a foothold in the Middle East and a foreign army to do his dirty work.

If Bush's sole aim was to liberate Iraq then what the hell is he still doing there 4 years later? He is obviously trying to eliminate all opposition to the Iraqi government that he put in place so that he will be able to exert political influence and have a political ally in the region.

The people in Iraq are well aware of this and that is why the feeling against the American military is becoming so intense. They know which groups Bush is supplying guns to in the Iraq conflict and they have realised that if Bush is successful and his puppet government survive then Iraq will be used as a platform for America to attack other countries in the Middle East. Top of the list or course is Iran.

People get all upset and indignant when you accuse the Bush administration of interfering in the Middle East for their own gain but if anybody with an ounce of intelligence just stopped for a minute and took a look at a map of the region they would realise the strategical importance of Iran as well as the economic importance. Iran is the last piece in the jigsaw. If Bush can gain control of Iran, either physically or politically, the world will indeed be a dangerous place to live.

Answer 4

When you quit a war, you lose. Remember Vietnam? Of course you don't you're too young, but when we pulled out the real killing began.

WOuld that be okay with you? That we lose, run away, and let the real slaughter begin?

You seem to pose a lot of questions against this war, and pretty much any war.

"One of the most horrible features of war is that all the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting....The people who wrote pamphlets against us and vilified us in the newspapers all remained safe at home.....all these were done, as usual, by people who were not fighting and who in many cases would have run a hundred miles sooner than fight." - George Orwell

Rather than sit there all warm and comfy postulating your socialist beliefs, why not ask the grunts that are there now and those that have returned how we are doing. You sit there self-righteously spewing lies about how things are much worse now, and you have no idea, just continuing the Big Lie.

Every service person I have spoken to say there are bad days and then there are a lot of good ones, just like wars are. They say we are winning, they say the people in Iraq like us and just want the fighting to end, they say the journalists lie, they ask why people like you and your little buddies are as hateful as you are to our men and women in harms way......they want to know why their opinions, their first hand opinions are never seen on the news.

They get on Yahoo there bud, they read what you say, and they know the truth.

Answer 5

when you say Saddam was ousted and you also said democracy was installed that makes me laugh so hard i could crap. in order to say democracy was installed is when people can walk down the street singing and having a smoke with a Buddy and go an have a beer with your girlfriend, not in Iraq my friend the terrorist are running the town Saddam may be gone but the dorks are still running the town, if you don't believe that go to the nearest town hall and look at the flag it has been at half mast since Bush went in not one inch has been taken the terrorist are still the boss and will be after Bush leaves, but now we have a bigger problem you have really pissed them off and now we have to pay. just get ready for the retaliation caused by the stupid attack By Bush and his Republican idiots unfortunately the democrats haven any more sense or we would be out by now they are a dumb as Bush.

Answer 6

Terrorists won when we invaded on false pretenses and fired all the border police leaving the borders open for anyone to come across. Oh Bush saying bring them on probably didn't help us any!

When we invaded on false WMD, false link ot Al Qaeda, that gave "terrorists" or freedomfighters a cause. Opening the border was our invitation to all with a grudge against us to come on over. Now we've got a mess and no plan. The Iraqis have to figure it out on their own and do democracy their own way. Imposing our will on governments just doesn't work. We tend not to like Arab governments unless we can install someone we like. The Palestinians are reforming and had a democratic election, but because we didn't hand pick and support the guy who won(won't be our puppet), we don't accept it.

Answer 7

This was in the paper today. Mr. bush is not in a hurry to end this war. He started it, he's perpetuating it and now he's blaming the democrats!
"Bush chided Democrats for taking a spring break without finishing work on the bills, and said they'll be to blame if troops have to go without necessities as a result of the standoff.
"The longer Congress delays the worse the impact on the men and women of the armed forces will be," Bush said. "I recognize that Republicans and Democrats in Washington have differences over the best course in Iraq, and we should vigorously debate those differences. But our troops should not be trapped in the middle."

Our troops ARE in the middle and there is one administration that put them there. They need to be brought home NOW so the Iraqis can do their job.

Answer 8

this is an admission by him that we AREN'T getting rid of the terrorists in iraq, if they will still be there a year from now we're doing something WRONG

If we can't get rid of the terrorists in 5 years of being there, will we ever be able to???

Answer 9

If we leave Iraq the way it is it will give terrorist and extremist a sense of victory and it will spread like hotcake across the middle east. And I predict that if we leave Iraq the attacks in Israel will increase and that could lead to a nuclear holocaust..

Answer 10

....understand where you are coming from, however, history "if you study it" shows that we have not ever completely "pulled out" of any war.

...why do you think we have American Forts all over the world?

.....and I have personal friends that have served and are currently serving and what "THEY say" is that the news is completely misrepresenting things...

GOD I had the NEws coverage of War!

Just think what Jesus would do with the WW coverage all over the world.

..he would probably and most assuredly get "BAD" publicity!

Answer 11

you say 'blind optimism'.why give loads of work at reflection? THEN 60% Americans who disagree with him NOW.What percentage agreed on the war?We need such info for better reflection exercise-please help !