"Bring our troops home, now?"

[EnfantTerrible]

This seems to be the pervaiding the message of the campaign to end the Iraq war. For the record, I am vehemently opposed the war in Iraq and have sung the phrase myself. But what does this mean to folks, here at DU. Does it mean an immediate, full scale withdrawing from the country? Does it mean scaling back our troop commitment? Drawing up an exit strategy and forcing compliance? The ramifications of withdrawing from this mess that we have made are grave on all counts. So what is the answer? Once we get beyond the justified emotional and moral outrage, once the dust settles, what are we to do?

I have recently been reading about the economic motivations for this invasion. Nixon's decision to drop the Gold Standard, oil being traded in U.S. fiat dollars, U.S. essentially becoming the world's bank, the Euro's rise, OPEC considering abandoning the dollar in favor of the Euro, the U.S. hegomony threatened, IRAQ FIRST OPEC NATION TO SELL OIL IN EURO, U.S. strong-arming OPEC into retaining the dollar and sending a message to other OPEC members that they can expect the same from us if they change to the Euro, and so on and so forth. (I now have a clearer understanding of Europe's opposition to this war beyond the moral argument)

If we pull out now what do we think will happen? (This is asked not to make an argument for staying, but as a legitimately unbiased question) Our entire economy is already vulnerable due to the way we value the dollar. If we pull out are we careening toward economic collapse? Is there any solution? The White House talks of not showing weakness to terror, but this is really about our economy/currency and it's precarious situation. Now, I've always known that this war was about oil, but in my mind I suppose I thought it was just about PROFIT for oil companies and not about our entire economy and the value of our currency. I suppose I've been naive, but I am really interested to hear what the folks here think. You are the smartest, most well informed group of people I know... any thoughts?

[Mr_Spock]

1. I've known all of these things for a couple of years...

How are we going to change the free market trends (the free market that we love so much) - by repressing and killing people? Then we are no longer America, Land of the Free, Home of the Brave - we simply become another rouge nation whose motivations are easily questioned and who is without honor. No, we no longer exist as a nation the minute we give up our values to protect our precious dollar. We need to say we are pulling out NOW! I don't care if it takes 5 years, we need an exit strategy - just like that ass hole Delay said to Clinton about Bosnia. Same standards apply today - moron in the WH or not...

[EnfantTerrible]

3. I wasn't advocating the war.

Just wanted to clarify that. I suppose I just had an epiphany as to how precarious the situation is for America... I agree with you 100%.

[Mr_Spock]

4. I didn't mean to imply that you were for the continued occupation

But the prevalent notion in this country is that we must not fail at this - which at present seems to imply not offering ANY long term solutions. I think we SHOULD have a long term solution - I think most would agree with that!

[EnfantTerrible]

6. Yes. Absolutely...

A long term solution is needed. It just began to sink in with me what the ramifications of withdrawing from this mess are going to be and the diplomacy that will be essential which we are sorely lacking.

My head is just spinning from thinking about it. I'm filled with... I don't know what. Despair. It's the only word that comes to mind. Getting us out of Iraq has filled me with purpose over the last few years... but what then? How to even begin to fix this problem that we've created not just for the Iraqi people (first and foremost) but for ourselves as well.

[shraby]

2. The way I see it, we need to

bring them all home at the same time. Any draw-down will weaken the remaining troops strength and leave them sitting ducks. They won't be able to leave their bases to do the job they were left there for, so they may as well clear all the troops out.
As far as the economy, it's toast now but is being propped up because if we sink a lot of other countries will sink with us. You know the old saying if the U.S. sneezes the whole world catches cold. Once the house of cards jiggles a bit it's all going to come crashing down.
If * tries to invade another country, our economy may be allowed to sink in order to stop him. Doesn't bode well for Americans.

[EnfantTerrible]

5. I'm not so sure that a lot of countries would sink...

At least not the power players... they've been converting there cash reserves to Euro, they've been pulling there dollars out of U.S. banks. If oil does switch to a Euro valued system we are done. I believe that much (if not all) of the motivation for this war has been to intimidate the middle east into maintaining oil valuation in dollars instead of switching to Euro. Our entire economy relies on this. The U.S. dollar is overvalued by as much as 40% because oil can only be bought or sold in U.S. currency. Other nations trade goods and services with the US for a song in exchange for US currency in order to go buy oil. What happens if/when OPEC converts to a Euro valued oil system? the dollar plummets and we are a third world nation. No more foreign interests subsidizing our astronomical debt. The party is over so to speak.

[wli]

7. I'm probably going to move all my savings into Euros shortly

Not sure how much good it would do, but anyway, you get the idea.

[EnfantTerrible]

8. It is something to think about...

Pretty frightening, though, if Americans lose faith in the currency as well.