Withdraw U.S. forces

[NNN0LHI]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/usatoday/20030820/cm_usatoday/11644726&cid=679&ncid=1501

By Richard E. Rubenstein

Question: When is a conquering army a liberator rather than an occupier?

Answer: When it leaves the conquered country and lets the local people decide their own fate.

During the past five months, Iraq has turned into a tar-paper trap worthy of Br'er Rabbit. The more we try to win the war against anti-American and anti-British guerrillas there, the more we become stuck in a no-win situation.

Violent attacks against the occupying troops, their allies and their Iraqi collaborators have taken place at the rate of approximately 13 assaults per day, and the pace is stepping up. Unfortunately, the measures adopted by U.S. forces to combat the resisters are virtually guaranteed to expand and strengthen the resistance movement.

Mass sweeps and arrests, the establishment of detention camps, harsh questioning (if not torture) of suspects to extract information, nullification of ordinary court procedures, hair-trigger responses to apparent threats and postponement of political reforms. Measures such as these are certain to enrage a people who are already hostile to foreign occupation. <snip>

"Staying the course" has a noble ring, but "Don't tread on me" is more to the point. Of all people, the heirs of 1776 should understand the difference between a foreign occupation and national liberation.

more

[Ein]

1. I don't think we can just pick up and leave.

The conditions that exist now lead me to believe that if our presence just disappeard, just about anyone with an armed minority base could take power in that country.

We are busy installing what I imagine will be in some form a puppet government (I'm very interested to see the conditions of the elections they have).

We are in a lose-lose. The infrastructure of that country was bombed by us, rebuilt to a point and is now being bombed by "them" (whoever they are, and I doubt they are Saddam loyalists). We cannot pull out of that country with it in such bad shape, it will give rise to even worse anti-Americanism, imo.

[NNN0LHI]

2. Will you say that when this war comes to America?

Don't think it won't. By staying in Iraq we are increasing the number of people who will be willing to exchange their lives for a movie theatre, or a nightclub full of Americans. What will you say then?

Don

[Tinoire]

16. No matter how brutal this sounds- I'll say we deserved it.

It will hurt but what else will we be able to say? There are things in life you can understand even if you can't condone them.

And this I'll believe no matter how many innocent people perish- to include my family, my friends or even myself.

We as a people, as tax-paying 'represented' citizens, had the obligation and the moral responsability to stop this war but we didn't. Many of us at DU were part of the WE who tried but it wasn't all of us and it wasn't the majority of the American people.

Karmic retribution...

I just hope, like you that it doesn't come to that but it will come if we don't clean up this mess now! This is one of the main reasons I'm voting for Kucinich. Our country stands on the edge of a catastrophe and this is no time to vote in a candidate for whom this isn't a pressing priority. ALL other issues pale in comparison to this one for me because the last thing I want to see on our streets is that obscenity you see going on in Israel & Palestine where people scrape the bones and gristle of their children off the streets every day and let politicians exploit the all-too-human hatred in their hearts.

World catastrophe coming.

[dpbrown]

4. The UN should take over from the US

The US, who caused the damage to Iraq's infrastructure, should pay.

Iraqis should be able to decide for themselves how to form a new government.

[TAH6988]

7. Should we also pay

for the damage we did to Yugoslavia's infrastructure?

[tameszu]

9. We are (although we could of course give more)

Next year's budget pays out http://tokyo.usembassy.gov/wwwh20030725b1.html">$100 million to Serbia.

[TAH6988]

10. Peanuts

compared to the damage we did.

[dpbrown]

14. The international community is more on the hook in Yugoslavia

The obvious difference is that the use of force in Yugoslavia was more highly supported all around than was the use of force in Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, didn't present a threat, and had no banned weapons that have been found yet. The world community rose up against the unilateral invasion of Iraq but the US, with a very narrow group of Anglo-Saxon gun-toting buddies, went in anyway. The damage they caused is more appropriately on their shoulders alone than is damage done in Yugoslavia.

[TAH6988]

15. The US alone

destroyed parts of Serbia with our bombing campaign. NATO was involved, but the VAST majority of the bombing was carried out by the US. We were just as wrong there as we were in Iraq.

[dpbrown]

17. No, we weren't

While Serbians may believe that the US was wrong in coming into Serbia, it's undeniable that the world community was on the opposite side of where they were regarding the unprovoked and unjustified unilateral invasion of Iraq.

Where were the largest anti-war demonstrations in the history of the world when it came to protecting the Albanians from the Serbian genocide? Right - nonexistent.

On the other hand, the world rightly stood up to the farce that was the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, a nation that posed no world threat, had no verifiable banned weapons, and that hadn't invaded another country in more than a dozen years - and yet that was accused of all of these things by the lying sacks of dung that are the BFEE, to falsely rile up the US public so they didn't notice the lies.

The "paying more for Serbia" is a red herring in more ways than that, too. First of all, we're not occupying and raping Serbia for its oil right now - we are in Iraq. Secondly, we didn't use our control over Serbia to execute unfair contracts in favor of our multinational buddies like Halliburton - we did in Iraq. Third, we worked with the international community to bring a war criminal to the Hague for trial - instead of creating a mythic martyr figure like we did in Iraq.

The differences far outweigh any similarities between what happened in Yugoslavia, and what happened in Iraq. Of course, those with agendas - either a "get Clinton" agenda, or a "pro-invasion" agenda, will continue to look to this dissimilar situation for whatever weak support of their divisive agenda they can find.

[scarface2004]

5. yes we can leave!!!

as we are packing we announce its now the un's and wish them luck.

the moron gw shouldn t have started this to begin with!

[BurtWorm]

11. You're right, Ein

Lose-lose. We can't--and shouldn't--just pull out the troops now. This is a different situation from Vietnam 1975, when after we pulled out, the power "vacuum" filled very rapidly because things had been moving that way for a long time. If we leave, chaos follows.

It would be nice to have an administration that actually cared about the Iraqi people and was working to fix what it broke based on their needs not its own.

[bpilgrim]

12. thats what was said about Vietnam as well...

but if we don't turn CONTROL over to the U.N. asap we will be in something i fear will be much worse.

peace

[Drifter]

18. sometimes the best way to quit ...

is cold turkey. If we do not get out of Iraq right NOW, every passing moment makes it that much harder (more impossible).

If we pull out right now, it is going to SUCK over there big time. Probably not more so than it does right now (and when Saddam was in power).

The most important thing is that our troops are home and Iraq is doing what the Iraqi people want to do. If that means a brutal dictator worse than Saddam comes to power, so be it. We created this fucking mess, and we have to own up to the consequences.

The Anti-War protester platform was the consequences of overthowing a Government, and occupying a country that did not want us to occupy it. We did not believe that the Iraqis would welcome us as liberators. They are doing exactly what most Conservative WarHawks would do if another country (lets say France for fun) were to invade America, and occupy it.

Free Iraq - Bring our Troops Home NOW !!
Free America - Impeach Bush !!

Cheers
Drifter

[TahitiNut]

3. Interesting. (GMTA)

In another thread, I likened an effective 'realpolitik' world strategy to counter Pax Americana to an array of tar-babies (not "tar-paper trap worthy of Br'er Rabbit" -- Rubenstein needs to review his Uncle Remus).

While this USAToday article is typically written to spin the notion that "anti-American and anti-British" are evil and criminal "guerillas" rather than conscientious and dedicated human beings around the world who oppose the offensive Pax Americana hegemony, the most effective defense the rest of the world ('ROW') has against the "might makes right" American Imperialism is very similar to how the ROW overcame the Roman Empire's ("Godless") self-serving domination of enslaved nations and cultures.

It would be sheer folly for other nations to relieve the US of the toll on our hegemonism. As more and more of our military are hunkered down in fortified positions, the less and less it can be deployed elsewhere and the toll on our national resources increases. This is exactly what led to the Fall of the Roman Empire.

Any national policy of (specious) "win-lose" is based on perpetual war, conflict, and predation. It's always "lose-lose." Peace and liberty are inextricably founded on and premised with attitudes of "win-win".

[sweetheart]

6. peace and liberty as win-win

symbiosis clearly is the real way to win... well framed Mr. Nut. :-)

I think a general way to wear down an evil empire is to engage them everywhere. The more resources they waste fighting liberals on american soil, the less they will have to murder others. There is an all around case for all peoples of the world who oppose unelected facistomocracy to throw a spanner in the works.

It is unfortunate these bombings and killings, but they are to be expected as long as the baby-fuckers in the whitehouse keep up their war on non-white non-christian people.

Geesh, afganistan is a warlord state, and we expect strubby and his people fuckers to do something different anywhere else? Hell, america is a warlord state now. Science, truth and knowledge are no longer core to ascendency in america, rather how blind you are to people fucking... blindness counts... then when you are fucked yourself you can vote republican and feel more fucked... nothing like being fucked, but i'd rather have it with a lover in bed than from some crusty paedophile that can't get enough fucking his own children... hell, i need ashcroft to come round and dig a trench for a new wall i'm making, not talk... or fuck. These jokers don't work they're so busy people fucking.. no wonder the economy's in the shits.

And all that boils down to the simple statement you made about win win... why are they too ignorant to recognize truth?

[realFedUp]

8. bring em home

I don't care what the fallout is...

[NoKingGeorge]

13. The UN should extract a pound of flesh

The UN and the majority of the world who saw this invasion as illegal should prosecute. Of course the UN should take over now because thay will have to take it on sooner or later. That was/is part of ummys' plan. BUT the perps aWol,Rummy,Chaney and Condi should be held accountable by the world community who will pay financialley and culturalley for this historic debacle.
Nations (Germany France) should introduce a mandate in the UN that they will support reconstruction if the US administration is subject to a public trial.

[skip fox]

19. The only way out without terrible consequences is immediately!

Soon we will see the quagmire! Then it will just be a matter of time until we do what we've always done:
Create a puppet government and get out before it collapses. And what will take over? The Islamic Jihadists?
If we go this down this course we will long for the day Saddam was in power.

Rational:


Peter Bergen on CNN this morning was AGAIN stating that Iraq has become a magnet for Jihadists throughout
the region, that al-Quaeda and other radical Islamic groups are pouring into Iraq as a "target rich"
environment. (Bergen, who is one of the mose credible sources on these issue has been saying this for
WEEKS and WEEKS! Only now, since the bombims of the Jordanian embassy and the UN, are American
officials noting the possiblity of the resistent consisting or more then disgruntled "Saddam loyalists.")

Bergen contention this a.m. was that the UN bombing's purpose is to dissuade other Western governments to
aid US and Britian in policing and reconstructing Iraq. The interviewer did not ask him, but he was clearly
implying that the United States is view by the opposition as caught in a trap and al-Quaeda is trying to isolate
us in the country so they can kill Americans.

Thus . . . the quagmire is shortly upon us.

Meanwhile we're still arguing about who is doing this, applauding ourselves on our resolve, and even claiming
that the terror groups coming into Iraq is a "good thing" cause now we can take our War on Terror right to
them on their own front.

It sounds as though we're not only acting like the pig getting ready for its slaughter, but polishing the apple
they will stick inour mouth.