someone explain this to me like Im 5 years old ok?

[LSK]

Wouldnt pulling out our forces of Iraq take the wind out of the sails of the insurgency??? Isnt most of the insurgency fueled by anti-American sentiment??? If we leave, why the hell would they keep attacking and more importantly, who the hell would they be attacking???

Maybe Im just too stupid when Im thinking that most of the insurgents just want us to leave????

What am I missing here?

[mattclearing]

1. Sounds about right to me.

*gets in line to be explained to like a five-year-old*

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. There is the possibility of leaving Iraq in worse shape than it was under

Saddam in that they could gain warlords and Taliban-type leadership a la Afghanistan. But truly, I agree with your assessment. We need to leave. We aren't making things better by being there.

[gratuitous]

9. Iraq will surely be in worse shape

By every conceivable measure except one: Saddam Hussein will probably not be in charge anymore. Notice I'm not saying anything about whether whoever is left in charge will be better or worse than Saddam.

[Stephanie]

3. If we leave there will be civil war

[bryant69]

14. That's the argument

And I can respect people who think that us leaving would be worse than staying for the Iraqis - it would certainly be easier on us - but if we force them to eventually create a unified government that works for all Iraqis it would be marginally better than leaving now and letting them tear each other to pieces.

Of course there are those who believe that they'd solve their problems a lot quicker if we left, and others who believe that any government we create woudl fall apart immediately after we left anyway.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[LSK]

19. if theres going to be Civil War, there will be a Civil War

Nothing we can do to stop it. Lets just leave and let them get it over with. I dont see anything that would prevent the same thing from happening if we leave a year from now or 5 years from now.

[fob]

22. Correction: WHEN "we" leave, the Civil War will still be raging

I used "we" because WE are not truly represented in this fiasco, only bush* cronies have interest in this

[RaleighNCDUer]

28. Not necessarily.

These factions have been living with each other for hundreds, and some for thousands, of years.

I suspect that those who made their play for power, based on US military backing, will have a hard time of it for a while, but in relatively short order they will sit down and talk to each other and come to a satisfactory settlement.

IOW, they will proceed pretty much as they are right now, but without the Americans stirring things up with a crusade in their midst.

The dreaded civil war, an inevitability with Saddam's passing out of power, is already happening, only right now they can blame us for it while we are a mutually agreeable target for all factions.

[KG]

4. you are spot on.

good on ya for not drinking the kool-aid.

[annabanana]

5. I think Iraq is sunk no matter what..

If we leave now, the Shi'ites & Sunnis's will continue to have at it the same as they have been since we got there. Maybe worse, maybe not..

Those poor people are so screwed because of the huge BFEE/neo-con fuck-up..

[mikita]

6. to a 5 year old....

Sweetie,

You are not missing a thing. It's just that we have a big, fat, liar saying those things....

And there is no santa claus.

:hug:

[ScamUSA.Com]

7. it would stop being a front for the US military at least

would they stop bombing the civilians? who knows
would they keep creating chaos to obtain power? probably

[OctOct1]

8. I agree but,

leaving would open the area for any one to take over.

I agree, however, we are the fuel for the fire and take the fuel away, the fire would go out.

But can we be sure that worse forces would end up taken over???

[JDPriestly]

10. Bush is between a rock and a hard place.

He put himself there, and Americans are getting sick of the lies and stupidity that put him there.

[tx_dem41]

11. Most of the insurgency is fueled by.....

hundreds of years of Shiite vs. Sunni vs. Kurdish hatred.

[Mairead]

Sounds about right to me.

We've totally buggered up their rather nice cities and their ancient land, killed tens or hundreds of thousands of their innocent countryfolk, and we did it all while lying about the reason why (as usual!).

Yeah, I'd think that leaving would do a good job of calming things down. The only sad part would be if the religious nutjobs took over, but that doesn't seem to be something we're trying to prevent anyway.

[seabeyond]

12. that is what a lot of iraqi's are saying, and since they are dying....

but, we now have a fight between sunni and shiite. they are killing each other, and the kurds say they arent playing either. so/.......now where we are left, or the iraqi people anyway, is civil war and death adn destruction regardless.

[Swamp Rat]

13. You are very smart for a 5 year old.

:D

[wryter2000]

15. The only thing I'd really worry about

Okay, maybe things...

They'd go after the people we put in charge. Of course, they're already doing this, but without us to defend them, they'd be butchered. I don't care about the higher-ups, especially the Chalabis et al. However, thousands of people have signed up to be police just to feed their families. I have a feeing they'd suffer horrible deaths.

As someone else said, they'd probably set up a radical fundamentalist religious government, and women would lose all rights.

Still, those aren't good enough reasons to stay. Just things to take into consideration.

[Lex]

16. Won't Iraq be ripe for the Taliban to come in, just like Afghanistan?

That's the problem I can see. Destabilization--it's WORSE now by far than when Saddam was in charge.

Bush has really f*cked this thing up beyond belief.

[lunchtime]

17. There are different factions in Iraq that despise each other.

When a multitude of civilians are blown up in an attack, it's the result of one ethnic group targeting another. Sunnis and Shias, mostly.

Saddam was able to keep Iraq's rag-tag collection together for so long only by oppressive force. Trying to do it without that is some serious challenge.

Iraq may well dissolve in to civil war without US troops there - or even with us there.

[The_Casual_Observer]

18. It isn't about any of that. It's about securing the oil and ME military

bases. This will only become clearer as the years drag on.

[Beaver Tail]

20. Four Words

Saudi Arabia and Israel

Until the US completely removes its forces from the Middle East and stops its one sided support when it comes to Israel the problem does not go away. Unfortunately when an Imperial power leaves and there is a power vacuum left behind extremists have a very good chance at a coup and sieze power (That’s what happened when the USSR left Afghanistan). This is a catch 22 situation. No matter which way you look at it you lose.

[OctOct1]

26. So we took the stability out, by taking out Sadam.

Now we have opened can of worms that may never be shut without
many more deaths.

[fob]

27. So to sum up then, our PREVIOUS position of containment of a toothless

tiger dictator not only had us in a better POWER position but also gave us the option of addressing other ME concerns has been pissed away in favor of constant war and thoroughly trashed any diplomatic avenues we had and the *only* cost of this fuck up is 1800 plus dead American soldiers, tens of thousands of dead Iraqi's, hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars of tax dollars that could have gone to any myriad of better uses and the result we have to show for it is...

saddam in his skivvies in the newpaper.


Fan-freeping-tastic.

[Justitia]

21. You can look to history. Remember April 29 '75 in Vietnam?

This is going to end badly no matter what.
It is what you call FUBAR (Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition).
The only question is how many more of our soldiers will die in the process.

Foreign soldier: "Why are you still fighting?"
Native resistance: "Because you are still here."

THEY live there, THEY will never give up.

I'm not saying we abdicate our responsibility to Iraq, but we need to get our hat and ask for the check.

Thanks, GWB

[On the Road]

23. Possible Reasons for Continued Attacks

(1) If the remaining Iraqi government were considered illegitimate, either because of continued manipulation by the US or on more general grounds. (The South Vietnamese government was certainly not left alone after the US pulled the troops out.) This depends largely on how the government behaves.

(2) Revenge killings among the different groups or more general interethnic strife. The former Yugoslavia shows what can happen when groups with a history of bad blood start going at it. Some of the attacks today, like bombing of Shiite mosques or anti-Sunni violence in Tikrit, are arguably ethnically motivated rather than anti-American.

(3) Desire for an independent state, either by the Kurds or Shiites. An autonomous region is not satisfactory to everyone.

(4) Desire to prevent the breakup of Iraq, probably by the Sunnis. The chance of this is greatly increased if the breakaway regions try to take the oil fields with them. (This is pretty much what happened in the Biafran war of the early 70s.)

I'm not saying US troops shouldn't be pulled out. I think Bush made a huge mess, and it's a difficult decision. But there's certainly a risk of continuing of increased violence if the US does pull out.

[tk2kewl]

24. It will make things worse, don't ask why. It just will because I said so!

do you fell like a 5 year old now? :shrug:

[LSK]

25. yeah, thats exactly how our President is speaking to us

I see several well thought out points and reasons of why we should say, but instead we have our leaders saying trust us, freedom on the march and other BULLSHIT, like we are all 5 year olds.

[IdaBriggs]

29. The Civil War currently taking place. Right now both sides shoot at us.

Once we leave, they are going to be shooting at each other, and its going to get worse before it gets better (as in, the next Saddam arises). The country is completely F*CK*D. :(

[jobycom]

30. No, the insurgents want control of Iraq

Pulling out would take away one of their targets, but don't forget, they are killing Iraqis more than Americans. Mostly these Iraqis are American supporters, so it's a fine distinction, but the Iraqis also represent a government they don't like.

When we pull out (and I have no doubt we will before one damn useful thing is accomplished) violence will escalate until someone takes control, and then violence will continue until someone as brutal and ruthless as Hussein takes over to supress all dissension. There are a lot of factions, and control of Iraq by any faction (kurds, Sunni, Shi'i, etc) will lead the other factions to fight them for dominance.

So there will be plenty of insurgents. They aren't emerging because we are there. They are emerging because all power to stop them has been destroyed by us.

I'm not saying we shouldn't pull out. As long as we are there, we delay the process by which IRaq really can choose its own leadership. We are the big dog that all factions want to tame and put a leash on. That way we can scare their enemies. We are just a naive pawn in the games of a dozen or more would-be leaders. We prevent any peace from being reached. Whether we leave now or ten years from now, a power struggle will ensue, and it will be bloody.

If we had any trust left, or if we have a sudden change of leadership, we might be able to broker negotiations between the factions, as was done in Yugoslavia's remnants. But we are too far compromised. Maybe if turn out troops over to the UN--really pissing off the right wing--we could be of some use. Otherwise, we are just hurting everything by being there.

[PurityOfEssence]

31. You're thinking as if "Iraqis" were a homogeneous bunch

There would be instant Civil War and possible intervention from Turkey, Iran and maybe everybody's friend, Saudi Arabia.

Simple solutions tend to not work. That's the same kind of broad-strokes approach that got us into this VERY complex neck of the desert anyway. The first thing that'd happen would be the mobilization of the still-dormant Shiites to go hammer-and-tongs against the Sunnis. Kurdistan would either sit tight or try to take the opportunity to break free, something Turkey won't abide.

We fucked up. We're stuck like Brer Fox, and if we leave, we will just reinforce the world's impression of us as selfish imperial dicks. We owe it to the people of the region to try to hold things together and get the country up and running. Short of Shia Theocracy, I don't know whether that's possible anytime soon, though.

This is legendary bungling, and leaving now would show the world our extreme disregard for others and complete idiocy. It doesn't matter, anyway: the PNAC will keep us there to support Israel and suck oil for years.

Come next summer, they'll announce troop withdrawals and try to make it look like a saner future awaits, but this will only be well-timed showmanship so they can crow about it for the U.S. election.

[kenny blankenship]

32. You're missing the divisions within "Iraq"

Shia could dominate an Iraq that worked along strict majority rule parliamentary democracy. (They could also dominate an Iraq that worked the way old Iraq worked relying on bullets not ballots) The Sunnis under Saddam Hussein suppressed the Shia majority and there's plenty of bad blood there. Already the Sunnis are attacking the Shia as an attempt to destablize their power to govern. The Kurds in the north would very much like to separate and form the nucleus of a Kurdish state which would grow in the future at the expense of Turkey. Among the Shia majority themselves there are tensions among those who on the one hand are more or less secular, westward-looking bourgeois who hope for a democratic republic based on bourgeois values and on the other hand, those who are eastward-looking, anti-bourgeois religious fundamentalists like the Sadrists who hope to establish an Islamic Republic in league with the most radical elements of neighboring Iran.

Would these people have it out if we left? Who knows. Certainly there will be bloody power struggles--the only question is how out of control and how generalized the killing becomes. Would the present government consolidate control and manage to defend itself, or would the police and the army which we are arming and training split along sectarian lines and commence an all-out civil war many times the size of the current violence? Lots of people would say they are just waiting for us to leave. The two largest parties in Iraq are Shia and aligned with Iran--one of them (SCIRI) even bills itself as the party of Islamic Revolution. A rise in Sunni-Shia strife after we leave could be bad enough, but it could also trigger revolt in the Kurdish North against Baghdad if the Kurdish militia (the PK-something or other) thought the Shia government and the Sunnis were sufficiently distracted and weakened. Turkey isn't likely to sit still for the creation of a Kurdish state on their frontier and they may get involved.

[Ready4Change]

33. We leave, war between factions, roll of the dice who gains control

If we pull out, the various armed factions will turn on each other to gain power. No way really of knowing when that will resolve itself, but a period of massive bloodshed is sure (sure if we stay, as well.)

Then, who is it who gains power and calms the situation? Who knows. However, with the anti-US sentiment now prevelent on that nation, you can be pretty sure they won't like us. Further, the borders are wide open, and radical groups can run back and forth at will. Iraq WILL be the terrorist training ground the Bush administration falsely claimed it was before starting the war.

All that said, I don't see us staying there, as we currently are, as offering any better hope. It just delays what is sure to follow.

[RaleighNCDUer]

34. Does anybody here recall, early in the invasion,

Iraqis saying, there is no inherent ethnic tension between Shi'a and Sunni.

Between Arabs and Kurds, yes, because the Kurds have been trying to get a Kurdistan homeland for a couple hundred years which would sit on the edges of Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. But between Shi'a and Sunni?

That's not an ethnic division, that's religious, and there hasn't been religious strife on those lines for hundreds of years. That's like saying saying we can expect open warfare between Catholics and Protestants in the US -- there's been some tension, and occasional violence, but no war. Remember Riverbend's blog saying, over and over, the families and clans of Iraq have both Shi'a and Sunni in them, and a Shi'a/Sunni war is an unfathomable concept to the vast majority.

It is the administration that is pushing the Shi'a/Sunni division, trying to exploit it just as the British tried to when they were in power there at the beginning of the last century. While there are fundamentalists who are prone to violence, they may be both Shi'a and Sunni. The majority of Iraqis will not support a religious war, and without the public support, it will wither.