Iraq: the solution

[judy]

I keep hearing, on talk shows how there is no solution for Iraq, how if the troops leave there will be chaos, etc.
However, I hear very little about what really could be done.

What could be done, is withdraw all the profiteering companies, contractors, Bechtel, Halliburton and Co, etc. who are supposedly rebuilding the infrastructure, but in reality are not doing anything but stealing a huge and scandalous amount of money from US taxpayers and the Iraqi people. These people have to leave first.

Once that is done, establish a reparations budget and pay local Iraqi companies to rebuild their own country as they did very competently and cheaply after the first Gulf war. As an added bonus, they could also take back their oil reserves.
That will reduce the huge unemployment rate, there will be less time for insurgents to do their work, and it will put responsibilities back in the hands of those who suffer the consequences of present inaction. It will also rebuild the country's unity in a common cause.

The troops are there to protect the profiteers, so once these are gone, they will have nothing to protect and they will be able to leave without creating more chaos than there already is.

This is the key, I tell ya. Of course, this kind of strategy implies a true desire for success and peace, which is of course the last thing that the Smirky bunch wants.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

1. Oh, stop making sense. It's un"patriotic" not to kill people.

[Avalux]

2. The country has never been united.

The problems are much deeper than can be fixed by anything we try to do and it's been that way since Iraq was first made into a country. Saddam Hussein managed to keep it together under his rule through fear and violence. Shiite, Sunni, Kurd - until they can figure out a way to leave peacefully amongst themselves on their own, forget it.

I agree with you that our government doesn't want them to be united - then we'd have to leave.

[LSK]

3. i agree, an employed Iraq is a much less violent Iraq

I dont see why we have to pay Americans to drive trucks for $100/hr when there are thousands of unemployed Iraqis. Its sickening. If Iraqis had jobs and money was coming to them, there would be a lot less violence.

[flamin lib]

4. Just leave. Get out and let them sort things out for themselves.

The Middle East is the cradle of civilization. They've been at self governing for ten thousand years. What makes us think that 200+ years experience gives us the right to tell them how to do things.

Will it become a civil war? Probably. With luck the one country will break into three, Kurdistan in the North, Shea Persia in the South and Sunni Iraq in the middle. That's how it was before Britain consolidated them into one nation for the convenience of dividing up the oil.

No one can give freedom, it has to be earned through personal pain and dedication. Almost every signer of the Declaration of Independence died in poverty because of their actions against the Crown.

But they died free.