Why stay in Iraq? A soldiers insight.

[OrangeEmpire]

Gotcha. I agree absolutely. The terror network that attacked us on 9/11 is still holed up in those mountains. It wouldn't be pretty or easy. But, neither is Iraq. If we had wanted to fight the war on terror for the sake of the war on terror alone, we would not be in Iraq ... and hopefully there would be a lot of dead or arrested terrorists from Afghanistan/Pakistan.

Sorry for being fran, but screw the arrested crap.

Shoot them in the head and be done with it.

:yes:

 

[TennTradition]

Sorry for being fran, but screw the arrested crap.

Shoot them in the head and be done with it.

:yes:

Well, to each his own. But arrested terrorists can be good for intelligence. Some people talk. I think that if you can do it without risking your men, you arrest them. Granted, it will cost you money to jail them and maybe try them. But, if it saves any troops or Americans in the future - it is worth it.

 

[OrangeEmpire]

Well, to each his own. But arrested terrorists can be good for intelligence. Some people talk. I think that if you can do it without risking your men, you arrest them. Granted, it will cost you money to jail them and maybe try them. But, if it saves any troops or Americans in the future - it is worth it.

I am all for gathering intelligence but at the cost of giving the rights of a U.S. Citizen and having them tried in court.............

A bullet is much cheaper once you are done with them.............

:salute:

 

[KentheOrange]

Afghanistan had we stayed there and cleaned house....other than that probably none.

I think the odds are that if Iraq was not a focal point for attention we would hear the same arguments from the same people for getting out of Afghanistan.

 

[TennTradition]

I think the odds are that if Iraq was not a focal point for attention we would hear the same arguments from the same people for getting out of Afghanistan.

I see where you are coming from...and you could be right. I don't totally agree. There was a much more reasonable explanation for the invasion of Afghanistan. The mission was clearer. The problem is that to really achieve that mission, we would have had to fully commit to the mountains of Afghanistan, which we never did. We relied on Afghanis to do the bulk of the fighting there - and it did not work. Iraq obscured these portions of the Afghan operations and gave an excuse for not employing more US manpower in those mountainous operations. Casulties would have been high. If we were met with a long and costly conflict in that region, you could be right.

 

[WA_Vol]

That's the point I was getting at earlier.

I don't see the comparison to WWII. Hitler was occupying most of Europe and was bombing England into submission. Japan had brutally attacked Korea and had destroyed the U.S. naval base in Hawaii.

Very few were against attacking Japan in WWII just as few were against attacking OBL in Afghanistan.

But invading Iraq under the pretense of having weapons of mass destruction, based on unreliable intelligence, was simply a mistake.

All while ignoring neighbor Iran, which actually was developing weapons of mass destruction.

 

[OrangeEmpire]

The point we were trying to make about Iraq and World War II is would the politicians fight World War II out to total victory or would have they caved in after setbacks and losses early on.

 

[CSpindizzy]

The psychology of America was different back then. Plus we were fighting actual nation-states as opposed to loose groups of religious fanatics that shack up all over the globe.

 

[TennTradition]

The psychology of America was different back then. Plus we were fighting actual nation-states as opposed to loose groups of religious fanatics that shack up all over the globe.

There is something to be said for a clearly defined enemy for a nation to rally around. Osama bin Laden in some ways is such a rallying a figure; however, we will not get him in Iraq. There is no face to hate in Iraq anymore. There is no clearly defined enemy anymore either, really. I think that to have popular support, you might need to have those things.

It also doesn't help that our efforts in Iraq only seem to be hurting our ability to kill the face of the war on terror - bin Laden. Granted, if we succeed - we could have a base for future operations out of the middle east, with a the friendly secular nation of Iraq. Perhaps that is an attractive enough goal to keep congress and the president engaged.

 

[CSpindizzy]

When people see info coming out that al Qaeda is back to pre-9/11 levels and see videos of Zawahiri in very modern and high tech studios they begin to wonder if we've lost focus on the original mission. Seeing reports that the Taliban is taking over areas of Afghanistan when that was supposed to be complete they lose confidence in the GWOT mission. Seeing stagnant if not negative results in Iraq pulls more people into this camp.

In WWII there were concrete battles and nice little lines showing a battle front. Seeing those lines move in the right direction showed people we were winning. Now all we see is successfully controlled towns 6 months ago being havens for insurgents again and a cycle of winning a town, losing a town, winning a town, etc. Even if cameras went around Iraq showing successes it does not diminish the fact that there are still basic utility shortages in Iraq, there is 60% unemployment there, car bombs go off constantly, at least 1/3 of Iraq's pre-war population has either died or left the country.

Honestly the only thing that these people seem to understand is brute force. There are too many divergent groups that hate each other. We're not talking divisions like Dems and Republicans. We're talking fight to the death to exterminate the other side types. First thing is to secure the border. Go in and start stripping guns and other weapons away. Take away the ability for the populace to weaken and threaten the new nation. Clean houses. Once the threat is diminished (notice I said diminished but not completely wiped out) work on training your military and police force. You cannot build a democracy up when your forces are too distracted waging urban combat.

We made two key errors early on. We allowed weapons to proliferate among the population. We also rushed a deomcratic government through before the country was secure and ready.

If we do not take a step back and use some overwhelming force to clean house we will be waging urban combat and wear our resolve down until Hillary comes in and brings the troops home.

 

[GAVol]

The psychology of America was different back then. Plus we were fighting actual nation-states as opposed to loose groups of religious fanatics that shack up all over the globe.

I think you just nailed it. It's easier to rally support when the opposition is a country like Japan or Germany rather than a concept like Communism or Terrorism.

 

[BigPapaVol]

I think you just nailed it. It's easier to rally support when the opposition is a country like Japan or Germany rather than a concept like Communism or Terrorism.

I'd throw Communism out of this argument. Reagan did a masterful job of painting the Russian variety of expansionist communism as patently evil. It was clearly tied to the USSR and they were definitely the focus of our forces, but Communism was certainly made a dirty word in our studies.

 

[GAVol]

I'd throw Communism out of this argument. Reagan did a masterful job of painting the Russian variety of expansionist communism as patently evil. It was clearly tied to the USSR and they were definitely the focus of our forces, but Communism was certainly made a dirty word in our studies.

It was made a dirty word, but I still question whether it was a dirty enough word to maintain support for a military action.

 

[SWIL]

There is something to be said for a clearly defined enemy for a nation to rally around. Osama bin Laden in some ways is such a rallying a figure; however, we will not get him in Iraq. There is no face to hate in Iraq anymore. There is no clearly defined enemy anymore either, really. I think that to have popular support, you might need to have those things.

It also doesn't help that our efforts in Iraq only seem to be hurting our ability to kill the face of the war on terror - bin Laden. Granted, if we succeed - we could have a base for future operations out of the middle east, with a the friendly secular nation of Iraq. Perhaps that is an attractive enough goal to keep congress and the president engaged.

Good post. I agree. however, I think are chances of getting Bin Laden are gone. He is likely dead. Honestly, when was the last video he put out? Too much time has passed and he's been far too silent.

 

[TennTradition]

Good post. I agree. however, I think are chances of getting Bin Laden are gone. He is likely dead. Honestly, when was the last video he put out? Too much time has passed and he's been far too silent.

You could be right. He made an apperance in the last year in a video, though - didn't he? I can't recall for sure, but I thought that he did. He was obviously ill years ago.

While he is a face for the war on terror - it is entirely possible that he is no longer the head of the terror body.

 

[CSpindizzy]

I think he was on audio back in 2005.

 

[volfan2024]

I was only reporting the information as a neutral source.I have reservations on both sides of the coin but to have such sentiment from a soldier abroad is an interesting take.

 

[TennTradition]

I was only reporting the information as a neutral source.I have reservations on both sides of the coin but to have such sentiment from a soldier abroad is an interesting take.

indeed

 

[BigPapaVol]

It was made a dirty word, but I still question whether it was a dirty enough word to maintain support for a military action.

good point. I think it would if the Soviets were the problem, but not like today where there is no foreseeable threat to our sovereignty.

 

[CSpindizzy]

good point. I think it would if the Soviets were the problem, but not like today where there is no foreseeable threat to our sovereignty.

Watch out for those evil Mexicans trying to invade and take our sovereignty away from us!

 

[f1ip]

I agree 100%. Doesn't it piss you off that they fed us every BS reason in the book why we should go into Iraq besides for oil? I don't believe anything our gov't says now. Both parties are in the pockets of big oil/business and don't care what we think or what we want. We are in Iraq so the Fat Cats can get fatter.

That whole "taking the fight to the terrorists" is bollox. We had Afghanistan for that reason.

Exactly!!! :clap:

 

[KentheOrange]

I agree 100%. Doesn't it piss you off that they fed us every BS reason in the book why we should go into Iraq besides for oil? I don't believe anything our gov't says now. Both parties are in the pockets of big oil/business and don't care what we think or what we want. We are in Iraq so the Fat Cats can get fatter.

That whole "taking the fight to the terrorists" is bollox. We had Afghanistan for that reason.

Why do you assume a major reason for going into Iraq was for oil? It would follow that if that were the reason, we would be getting more oil now than pre-war. In fact the opposite is true, we are getting about 2/3 as much now.

One possible reason for taking the main front to Iraq was the possibility of an easier fighting arena and the probability of drawing the terrorists to Iraq. Before scoffing at that possibility remember that Russia spent 10 years fighting Afghanistan "Freedom Fighters" in the mountains of Afghanistan before giving up and going home.

 

[SWIL]

Why do you assume a major reason for going into Iraq was for oil? It would follow that if that were the reason, we would be getting more oil now than pre-war. In fact the opposite is true, we are getting about 2/3 as much now.

One possible reason for taking the main front to Iraq was the possibility of an easier fighting arena and the probability of drawing the terrorists to Iraq. Before scoffing at that possibility remember that Russia spent 10 years fighting Afghanistan "Freedom Fighters" in the mountains of Afghanistan before giving up and going home.

Roughly 25% of the world's current old supply is in Iraq. Our government was going to oust Saddam and setup a puppet gov't to secure said oil all under the guise of "liberating" Iraq. Al Quada this, WMD's that! What they have now is a huge cluster @#$% on their hands.

BS.

 

[KentheOrange]

Roughly 25% of the world's current old supply is in Iraq. Our government was going to oust Saddam and setup a puppet gov't to secure said oil all under the guise of "liberating" Iraq. Al Quada this, WMD's that! What they have now is a huge cluster @#$% on their hands.

BS.

Actually, Iraq has 115.0 billions of proven reserves out of the world's total of 1,292.6 billion barrels. That computes to less than 9% of the worlds supply.

I would be interested in reading more about the "puppet gov't". Do you have a cite?