Who you voting for in the 2008 President election?

A vast majority of the attacks insurgent attacks are on Iraqis, not on US personnel. They kill just enough US and Coalition personnel to decrease the popularity for the war for the US citizens. Why would they kill their own people if their goal was to get the US out of Iraq. The US has clearly stated many times that once the violence stops the US would leave. The US clearly stated that they planned on leaving right after we ousted Saddam. But then the riots started and the US was compelled to stay due in part to the fact that if they leave a country without rebuilding it, people get very angry with them.

So, if the Iraqis just wanted the US out of their country the simplest thing to do would be to end the violence. You cannot justify troops being somewhere where there is no violence and no threat of violence. Then, after the US had left Iraq would be the big happy place that you seem to think it will be. Or, more likely, similar to Afghanistan post-Soviet withdrawal.

To say "We don't want you here so we will attack our own people" makes absolutely no sense.

I'm guessing you are unaware of the concept of proxies. A proxy in this case is a group in one country that is sponsored by another group in another country. Here is evidence that Iran is supporting the Mahdi army and Ansar al-Islam in Iraq.
Abdul Hussei al-Obeidi, AP, "Holy City Najaf Fighting Worst Since Saddam Fell," Jacksonville Daily News (NC), 7 August 2004, pp. 1A, 4A
Michael Rubin, "Ansar al-Sunna: Iraq's New Terrorist Threat," Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, vol. 6, no. 5, May 2004
"Hizbullah Suspected of Joining Sunni Insurgents," Iraqi News, 17 February 2005.
There is a lot more evidence that just these.

Also, 30 countries accompanied the US into Iraq. 30 is a lot. So the US "went it alone" with the support of 30 other countries while you make it sound like the US just went in all by itself.

So, now I have two questions for you:
1) Are you American?
2) If so, what is it that makes you hate your own country so much?

 

I just wanted to say that I love debates and I am glad you two Had so many points to try to get ahead. I have learned a lot about the situation since the debate started. Thanks

 

Correct, the entire country would be comminist right now. That sooo much better than 2 separate countries. Communist control everything in life. Look at North Korea now, people worship their leader because of fear of being killed and because of the lies that he is a 'god' and can heal anything and kill those who oppose him. I'm sure all free people want to feel that. Better yet, just get rid of democracy and see how long you like it. You would feel sorry soon.

 

Alright Paragon your correct in your assertation for the most part a lot of the attacks have been targeted at Iraqi civillians and not the US Army. There could be a variety of reasons for this. As I've learned, there are dozens of various insurgency groups in Iraq that have many different philosophies. Some of them do want chaos, but these are a select few that do. Most of the terrorists are simply fighing for self determination and for their country's freedom. More info on the various factions in Iraq can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_insurgency#Composition

Right now, we simply do not know how many insurgents want to cause chaos or create a new terrorist haven. We dont know how strong their presence is or how many, and its unlikely that they are a huge group of them.
It is pure speculation to guess that this unknown group of radicals is gonna be able to rise to power and take "control" of Iraq. They are competiting with dozens of other groups, some of whom are more powerful, and those insurgent groups are the ones who want to liberate Iraq from the US presence. They dont want anything more than to be left alone and for the US occupation to be gone. We also gotta keep in mind, that for the most part, these insurgent groups are unorganized and decentralized. They have little if any coordination and limited resources. A lot of these insurgent groups dont have a lot of support of the Iraqi people making it all the more unlikely that these groups will rise to power if we leave.
http://www.amconmag.com/2007/2007_02_26/cover.html

And you speak of the looting and riots after we intially invaded if that was somehow a good reason to stay. The reasons those things happened was because we took over the Iraqi police and military. We didnt even use the police they had at the time because we thought they were incompotent or not trained enough. We took over the responsibility of policemen and we ended up doing a lousy job. What we needed to do was put the responsibility of taking care of Iraq into the hands of Iraqis themselves.

Your constantly talking about how Iraq will become the new Afghanistan, but it was our actions that created Afganistan in the first place. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, they did so in order to preserve and maintain communism there. It was the cold war of couse, and we wanted to stop communism. What our response was to give mujahideen and his men weapons, money and equipment in order to fight off the Soviets. We did this despite the fact that mujahideen hates the west and he loathed the United States as much as he did the Soviets!! Imagine for one second, that if Iran decided to Invade Iraq, it would be like us giving weapons to the insurgents that hate us to fight off the invasion of Iran!
During Afghan/Soviet war, we really didnt care and all we wanted to do was stop communism. Of course, once the soviets were driven out, mujahideen used all the resouces and weapons he had that were given to him by us to take over Afghanistan and turn it into a terrorist haven that was used against us!! I know you might say, the soviets should of stayed there and stop it, but it was our involvement in the first place that kept this mess going.
There's a whole lot more to it, read this article that details very well what happened in Afghanistan and why it turned into a terrorist haven: http://www.gse.harvard.edu/~t656_we..._2004/Boggs_Jonathan_Afghanistan_blowback.htm

After we had trained, armed and funded the islamic warlords in Afghanistan we pretty much left and forgot about it. What we didnt realize was that our actions had consequences. Thats why Afghanistan became a terrorist haven, not because the Soviets left.
At times, there were estimates that Afghanistan were training 20,000-30,000 terroists recruits for their terrorists activities each year. Of course, that was because of all that funds, training and weapons we gave them. In Iraq today, It is estimated that 1000 terrorists are being recruited each year. It is a far cry from the terrorist haven they had in Afghanistan. It is simply not logical to think that we should stay in Iraq for a threat that the Iraqis could probably handle themselves. Keep in mind, that the resistance fighters far outnumber the crazed radicals. The resistance fighters are the Iraqi citizens, its their country we turned into a mess. There is no good reason to be there. Just take a look at this resistance website: http://fightbacknews.org/2007/03/voices.htm

In the gulf war, our troops made up about 72-76% of the forces. In the current Iraq war, our troops make up 89% of the force. [img width=150 height=117]http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/7127/aboutiraqtroopsjune05qd9.th.png[/img]

There are a lot of other countries involved, most of whom, contributed about less than a thousand troops. Some of troops have already withdrawn. Just because a lot of countries do it, dont make it right.

A thing about the articles and some insurgency attacks, its speculation. Its true that a few isolated terrorists have blown themselves up in crowded marketplaces where no US troops are. Its possible they did it so they could cause more chaos and give more reasons for us to leave. But we dont really know. They may have been paid by someone to set off explosives. They may not like going up against heavily armored tanks for all we know. The point is we dont know. It could also be a part of their civil war. It might just be Sunni vs Shi'a violence. It could be rival insurgency groups trying to destroy the other one.
If we left, the motivation for these crazed terrorist radicals to blow up marketplaces will no longer exist. The iraqi people dont like being killed, and they definitely wont like insurgent groups that are violent and crazy. So if we left, there might just be less violence because were providing all the motiviation for the attacks.

Sure there could be violence, but as long as we stay there, it will only continue to motivate all the insurgents to attack us and Iraq itself, why dont we stop giving them that reason. And if you believe in slim chances, dont you also believe that there is a chance that if we pull out, some militia leaders or iraqi government officals might just decide to work together for the better good? Its unlikely, but its never gonna happen as long as were there.
We were driven out Vietnam and were gonna be driven out of Baghdad!!!!

Yes im american, that seems to be your pitiful attempt to label me as "unpatriotic".

I have never said I hated America. What I do hate is the policy that we know what's best for the world and we should get involved in other country's business. In fact, if you ask people around the world what they think about america, they wont say they hate Americans, they will say they hate our government and our policies. Nobody likes us because we've been bullying other countries around and telling them what to do. We, the American people, need to take back control of our country and restore the principles of peace, freedom and the Constitution!

 

Unorganized and decentralized are two different concepts. The organization of different groups is based on decentralization so that if one cell is captured they will not be able to reveal much else about the organization. They also do coordinated strikes on targets. For example, they will attack every outpost in an area in order to deter each outpost from coming to the aid of the others. One or two of the outposts will be their main targets and will receive the majority of the attack.
Some are backed by outside sources such as Iran (evidence provided in my previous post). Other funds are received through corrupt charities and high clerics (such as al Sistani) who are given a portion of each of their follower's income and some of that is given to the insurgent militias.

Additionally, through various historic events it has generally been seen that keeping the police or military of a police state in power after that state has fallen is a bad idea.
For example, the SS of Germany were disbanded after World War II and in addition to that they were confined by the Allies. The Wehrmacht (German Armed Forces) were abolished when the war ended and were not re-militarized until 1955. Due to the fact that Germany is peaceful now, this seems to be a good plan.
After World War II the British actually rearmed Japanese prisoners of war in Vietnam in order to exert control over the southern half of Vietnam after the Japanese surrender (they had conquered Vietnam during the war). This was a bad idea in many respects and many people died. The British soon disarmed the Japanese again and left leaving the French to deal with it.

The Mujahideen were not anti-West. Many of the Mujahideen groups were nationalist groups rather than Islamic groups. While the ISI (who distributed the US weapons which were 50 FIM-43C Redeye Portable SAMs, 800 FIM-92 Stinger Portable SAMs, and 80 BGM-71 TOW Anti-tank missiles) favored Islamic groups and groups that had the best success rates. The Mujahideen were various warlords that existed in Afghanistan before the Soviets had arrived. They were not terrorists because they only targeted enemy combatants. They did not target innocent civilians. They had no ill will against the United States.

After the Soviets left, their puppet government held on for about four years, then the Northern Alliance and others put in a nationalist government but it was not very effective in stopping bandits and warlords from raiding towns. Also, one of the Mujahideen groups, Hekmatyar, was fighting the Northern Alliance to gain control of the government because ISI wanted an Islamic government not a nationalist one. Hekmatyar failed to do this so they eventually joined the government after losing key battles. So, ISI brought in the Taliban who were not one of the big Mujahideen groups and the Taliban promised to stop the violence and the bandits so the Afghans initially welcomed them when they came to power in 1996. Soon the Afghans no longer welcomed the Taliban especially when they let al Qaeda in (this is where the Taliban/al Qaeda hatred for America comes in) because the Taliban had strict laws that the Afghans had not had before. So, the problem was that America just forgot about them after the Soviets left.

Had we supported the nationalist government in Afghanistan instead of saying "well, the communists are gone so we're done" then we would not have the problem we have now (granted al Qaeda could have just used the North West Frontier Provinces of Pakistan instead).

You are giving them far less credit than they deserve. Look to the First Chechen War. They are Muslims with the same tactical/strategic background and culture as the Arabs in the middle east. When the Russians entered the capital of Chechnya, Grozny, with their tanks and troops and other vehicles, they lost over 3/4 of their forces in the first 72 hours. The Chechens had no tanks and no other armored vehicles. In fact, they had no vehicles at all. All they had were RPGs and AK-47s. They learned that firing at a tank from multiple angles at street level at the same time will do two things. 1) The enemy cannot return accurate fire because they are being attacked from every side and 2) multiple RPG hits will destroy the tracks of a tank. They also learned that if they hit the reactive armor multiple times in the same place with RPGs they will get through within 3 or 4 hits.

And saying that it is a Sunni/Shiite civil war is incorrect. Many Sunni Iraqis are Salafis who are not intolerant and do not condone intolerance of Shiites. While some militias may be fighting others it is more organized than it appears. Besides, just because there is conflict does not mean that it is split between Sunni and Shiites. Darfur is an example of Arab African Sunni against Black African Sunni.

I see no reason from any evidence to believe that "these crazed terrorist radicals" will no longer be violent towards one another if we left. Many are trained to believe that dying for their cause is a good thing. And those that do organize them are not the ones blowing themselves up.

I've never understood how this idea of just giving up gained popularity.
I only asked why you hate America because you seem to see our country as being more evil than other countries such as Iran or Lebanon.
Now when you say that America stands for freedom do you mean freedom for everyone or freedom for Americans. Because I am SURE that Iraqis will not feel free when they are part of a fundamentalist Islamic state governed by a religion leader who they do not get to choose. Especially Kurds in Iraq who love the West and are working very hard towards globalization and democracy as I type.
And we still have all the principles of the Constitution in place, thank you very much.

 

I give, there is no way I'm wasting my time reading these super long posts. Have fun argueing!

 

@Paragon:
Terror Cells are mostly used in other countries to ensure the leaders aren't discovered. They probably wouldnt organize themselves into cells in Iraq while it is being occupied and invaded. And by their very nature, your not suppose to know terror cells exist, so how do you know?

Actually it is not a true that when a country invades another country that it should dismiss the local authories and police. Some of the examples you used are laughable.

Unlike Iraq, Germany and Japan had both formally surrendered and had populations which by tradition were respectful, if not submissive, to authority. But beyond these two important differences, the basic issue remained the same: how does an army, which does not wish to resort to unrestricted slaughter, manage the everyday running of a conquered country? The answer is that it does not.

When the Germans defeated France in 1940 and occupied Paris, they left untouched the whole management structure of the French capital. Waterworks, electricity, sewage, road maintenance, postal service, public transportation and the like continued to operate as they did before the occupation. Likewise the Paris police force, by and large, continued to function under the Germans as it had under a French government. Indeed, when in July 1942 the Germans decided on the mass roundup of the Jews in Paris, it was the French police who made the arrests and the Parisian public buses which transported them to the holding center from which they were sent to the death camps. And while the French police ultimately did revolt they did so only in the last days of the occupation when the Germans had withdrawn most of their forces from Paris and the Allied divisions were one day away from the French capital.

This same pattern was repeated in all the Western countries occupied by the Germans. The local administrations were left in place with the Nazis restricting themselves to exercising military control through their army and political control through their secret police, the Gestapo.

The Allies had made the "de-Nazification" of Germany a priority after the war. This provided that before being integrated in a new governing structure, Germans had to prove that they had not been active Nazis. De-Nazification required the completing of a highly complex questionnaire, which would then be submitted to a de-Nazification board. Confronted by some 13 million questionnaires on one hand, which would have taken years to process, and the pressing requirement of normalizing everyday life, the system soon collapsed under its own weight and was quietly shelved.

By the time the German Federal Republic was born in 1949, not only was having been a Nazi no source of shame, but it was former Nazis who were rebuilding Germany. By the mid-1950s about 60 West German ambassadors were former high-ranking Nazis. Practically all the former Nazi teachers, lawyers, judges and civil servants had been reinstated and the drafter of the 1934 Nazi racial laws that paved the way for the Holocaust had been appointed chancellor Konrad Adenauer's state secretary. Ultimately it could hardly have been otherwise. Given the legacy of history, the choice was either to rebuild Germany using former - and unrepentant - Nazis or not rebuilding it at all. De-Nazification had to await the passing away of a generation.

Though the post-World War II era is hardly one of peace, it is a rare occurrence in which one nation invaded another with the publicly stated purpose of imposing its authority on it, changing its regime and transforming it into a client state.
Even at the height of the Cold War, outright invasion of a foreign state without the pretext of supporting a real or hypothetical local force was not the norm.

1) You state: British actually rearmed Japanese prisoners of war in Vietnam in order to exert control over the southern half of Vietnam after the Japanese surrender

-----I cannot find any evidence supporting your claim that the British armed Japanse prisoners. This seems unlikely considering the British had been fighting the Japanese at Burma for a while before they were in Vietnam. What they did do was release French prisoners who were captured by the Japanese and armed the French. Any anyhow, how does this even relate to Iraq? Neither the French or Japanese were even native to native to Vietnam. The British was there trying to gain back Colonial control of Vietnam and give it to the French! Incidently, there were US forces nearby that refused to help due to the Americans not believeing in imperialism!! Source: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1132/is_n2_v43/ai_10913627/pg_4

2) You state: The Mujahideen were not anti-West
-----This is rediculous considering that the very opposite is true. The Carter administration was well aware that in backing the mujahideen it was supporting forces with reactionary social goals, but this was outweighed by its own geopolitical interests. Three weeks after Soviet tanks rolled into Kabul, Carter's secretary of defense, Harold Brown, was in Beijing arranging for a weapons transfer from the Chinese to the ClA-backed Afghani troops mustered in Pakistan. The objective of the intervention, as spelled out by Brezinski, was to trap the Soviets in a long and costly war designed to drain their resources, just as Vietnam had bled the United States.
The mujahideen consisted of at least seven factions, who often fought amongst themselves in their battle for territory and control of the opium trade. To hurt the Russians, the U.S. deliberately chose to give the most support to the most extreme groups. A disproportionate share of U.S. arms went to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, "a particularly fanatical fundamentalist and woman-hater."' According to journalist Tim Weiner." As well as training and recruiting Afghan nationals to fight the Soviets, the CIA permitted its ISI allies to recruit Muslim extremists from around the world. Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid reports:
Between 1982 and 1992, some 35,000 Muslim radicals from 43 Islamic countries in the Middle East, North and East Africa, Central Asia and the Far East would pass their baptism under fire with the Afghan mujahideen. Tens of thousands more foreign Muslim radicals came to study in the hundreds of new madrassas [religious schools] that Zia's military government began to fund in Pakistan and along the Afghan border. Eventually more than 100,000 Muslim radicals were to have direct contact with Pakistan and Afghanistan and be influenced by the jihad. So you see, one reason so much chaos and destruction happened and why the Soivet were driven was because we helped create a terrorist haven.

3) You state: So, the problem was that America just forgot about them after the Soviets left.
Had we supported the nationalist government in Afghanistan instead of saying "well, the communists are gone so we're done" then we would not have the problem we have now.

----We did forget, but we also forgot what our actions had caused. As the Russians withdrew from Afghanistan in early 1989, American policymakers celebrated with champagne, while the country itself collapsed into virtual anarchy. Almost a quarter of the population was living in refugee camps and most of the country was in ruins. In 1994 the Taliban (Pashtun for "students"), emerged on the scene. Its members came from madrassas set up by the Pakistani government along the border and funded by the U.S., Britain, and the Saudis, where they had received theological indoctrination and military training. We funded the Taliban! Im a little confused about what point your trying to make here? Do you believe the U.S. should gone and stayed in Afghanistan or do you believe the Soviet Union should of stayed there for more than 10 years? During the Soviet's occupation they destroyed 75% of a city, but the terrorist attacks persisted and they were still driven out! You know what would of been a whole lot easier than choosing sides and causingall these murders? NOT GETTING INVOLVED IN THE FIRST PLACE!!! We stayed in Vietnam for 10 years and killed 1,000,000 North Vietcong, but we were forced out. The Soviets had a 100,000 troops in Afghanistan for 10 years, and they were driven out. The British and the French were driven out of Vietnam. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1132/is_n2_v43/ai_10913627/pg_5

In the First Chechenya war, the chechens were better trained. What is your point here that guerllia tactics are effective? How does this even relate to Iraq? Maybe, the insurgents are a little more oragnized than I think but thats all the more reason we should leave. History has taught us they can take good care of themselves. We destroyed their police and infrastructe and all were doing is rebuilding it! Let them rebuild it!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4268904.stm

Must Read for everyone: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1230-36.htm

-unknown error

 

JimRaynor45 - They've already shown it to be a cell based organizational structure used by insurgent groups. They know it is cell based because when they capture a few people in one group, they have no idea what other operations in that group are, just what their cell was responsible for. I think you are thinking of sleeper cells that stay dormant for a while until activated.

Japan had a tradition of not surrendering and fighting till the end to avoid shaming one's self. The Japanese military did not want to surrender after the second atomic bomb was dropped but the government did. So, they were disarmed following the conclusion of the war.

As for the French, they have a history of surrendering and bowing down to whoever is in charge. This is why they were turned into a puppet government by the Nazis. South West Asia (and South East Asia) as a whole is completely different from France is this respect. They have a history of violent insurgencies. Often by those who were once in power (see Afghanistan in the Soviet-Afghan War, either Chechen War, or the French part of the Vietnam War to name a few).

And why are you even expanding on the German example to prove your point when your point is that they should not have dissolved the military and police when that was the first thing they did in Germany. Guess what else they have been doing in Iraq, allowing those who used to be in power to get jobs, be part of the political system, and even be part of the national guard and police. Just like what happened in Germany.

So all the states the Soviets took over don't count... guess we'll have to rewrite those history books. Also, why even bring up client state? That is not what the US is trying to do.

[quote = "John Newsinger"]" The official history of the 2nd King Edward VII's Gurkha Rifles provides an interesting firsthand account of this guerrilla warfare:
Day and night there was usually trouble somewhere. Up to the end our bridge posts were sniped regularly. Patrols were continuously searching the countryside for rebels and houses for arms . . . . The country was ideal for the guerrilla tactics which were used against us. Everywhere the ground was heavy and swampy, criss-crossed with drainage and irrigation canals. in such country the Annamites always had first shot. It was annoying that they never stayed to bear the brunt of the attack but always faded into the countryside where it was almost impossible to follow them without sustaining casualties . . . . It was curious to find ourselves operating with the Japs. At the beginning, owing to shortage of man-power we had to use them a lot . . . . On many occasions we acted as the guns while the Japs played the role of bearers."[/quote]
It mentions the rearming of the Japanese in your article. Additionally, my history professor for my Vietnam War class (which covered the entirety of it from even before World War II) talked about this is class. He is also a historian for the US Intelligence Community.
Source: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1132/is_n2_v43/ai_10913627/pg_5

By anti-West I mean what you implied in that they want to destroy the west since you said they were terrorists. Afghanistan was not being influenced by the West and cared little about it. They were anti-people invading their country. These people happened to be the Soviets (who ARE anti-West). The ISI was responsible for who got how much, not the US. Additionally, the more extremist ones such as Hekmatyar were the ones that were far more effective which is a big reason for why they in particular were given more. So, I am correct in saying that the Mujahideen were not anti-West. Those who came after them (namely the Taliban) who were not the Mujahideen were anti-West. And please, none of that "oh well we gave them weapons so it's our fault" bull shit. Go back even farther and it's someone else's fault. Even farther and it's yet another groups fault. Even farther and theres one more person to blame. Hell, it's the Soviet's fault for wanting to take Afghanistan which caused the US to help them defend their home. How is helping someone defend themselves against an aggressor who wants only to dominate you and create a strict police state a bad thing?

The US should have supported the nationalist government that arose after the Soviets were driven out. The problem this government faced was that it was not strong enough to enforce the law in the countryside. With US aid (money and information on how to build a good infrastructure, not troops) that government could have stopped the Taliban (who were NOT US funded) from getting power in Afghanistan.

The Chechens and the insurgents in Iraq use the same tactics and in some cases are trained by the same people. That is what those two wars have to do with each other. Also, I love how that BBC article separates the insurgents from the Shiite militias. They are both insurgents.

I'm getting the impression that you are a pacifist and that war should never be an option. Well, guess what. The world isn't all rainbows and butterflies. In the past 100 years guess how many years had no war going on. None. I'm not saying that it should be the first choice or even the second choice. But it is necessary in some cases. Besides, if you are so concerned with all the deaths that war causes, how about dedicating your life to stopping something that kills A LOT more people, cardiovascular disease.

Cardiovascular disease - 29.34%
War - 0.3%

War is as deadly as Meningitis. More than twice as many people die from poisoning and even more from drowning. You just hear about war a lot more often. In fact, if sometime in the future people are only killed by war, accidents, and violence, we would be in great shape because thats less than 10% of the deaths that happen every year.
Information provided by the World Health Organization.

 

Hurray Ron Paul also plans on " Vetoing ANY legislation banning semi-automatic firearms" he will also "Overturn the unconstitutional ban on carrying guns for self-defense in our National Parks" thats gonna help >.>

I still support Kevin Rudd ^^

 

@Paragon

1) We invaded Iraq on false evidence and marched into Iraq illegally without a declaration of war, toppled Saddam, dismantled the Police, the army and then we decided to stay because we realized we needed those things and started rebuilding them from scratch.
-----Your argument is….Actually im not sure what your argument is. Do you believe we should of dismantled the police and Iraqi army when we first invaded Iraq or should we have kept it? Unlike Germany and Japan, Iraq’s army is not as professional or well-trained. They could of easily have been used to repair roads, secure borders, and provide for unforseen postwar tasks or have been trained to.
Seven months after Baghdad fell, only a single Iraqi army battalion existed to reinforce overstretched U.S.-led occupation troops. As casualties climbed and large foreign armies remain on the sidelines, U.S. authorities raced to recruit a credible Iraqi force to bolster the authority of a future Baghdad government.
Before the war, President Bush approved a plan that would have put several hundred thousand Iraqi soldiers on the U.S. payroll. But that project was stopped abruptly in late May by Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, who ordered the demobilization of Iraq's entire army, including largely apolitical conscripts.
Bremer reversed himself a month later, but by then the occupation had lost not merely time and momentum but also credibility among former soldiers and their families, an important segment of Iraq's population. It is important to point out that we lost a lot of respect from the Iraq soldiers after we dismissed them and some of them went on to become insurgents. A american military officer said before the Iraq forces were dismissed that they could control them like he could his own units. This was a mistake, to dissolve the army and the police," said Ayad Alawi, head of the security committee of the Iraqi Governing Council. "We absolutely not only lost time. The vacuum allowed our enemies to regroup and to infiltrate the country."
So, as in past conflicts, keeping the local police and army is a good idea, if not a necessary one. The Irony is we might have been able to succeed in Iraq, but we aren’t because the some of the very people that could of helped bring us security, instead became resistance forces. And we’ve been trying to put back in place the Iraqi forces for four years. How long does it take to train them? Shouldn’t they be able to provide security? The answer is that we already allowed a vacuum to be created and our various tactics such as nightly bombings on innocent children has spurred a resistance force against us. We should simply leave because not only does our occupation hurt our interests, it hurts Iraq. Im not saying everything is gonna be okay and happy-time in Iraq after we leave, but its only gonna get worse if we stay. If you think its gonna get better, you only need look to history. The British, the French and the Americans(three of the most powerful countries in the world) were in and out of Vietnam for 27 years. Yet none of them were able to bring stabilitiy or security to Vietnam. Its true, it was harder in Vietnam because the Soviets were giving them weapons, but none the less, we still failed. Not to mention all the other failures in which countries failed to stop insurgencies and shoot and run tactics. I don’t think they are many examples of countries defeating insurgencies, therefore why we are trying to do that in Iraq? Why don’t we just leave and stop getting involved in their civil war!
Yes, the Germans have taken over the French army, but they kept the police force! The French army was more trained and professional, and not able to provide street security or willing to follow the orders of the Germans as the French Police were. What does the history of France surrendering have to do with anything? They lost more troops than we did!
If the Japanse have such a culture of not surrending, than why didn’t they attack our troops when we entered Japan after they surrendered? Why did the Japan population go along with their country’s surrender if they are so willing not to surrender? As shown, they are capeable of surrendering.

2) There is little if any similarity between Afghanistan and Iraq. You proudly claim that Iraq will become another Afghanistan if we leave. First and foremost, the main and only reason Afghanistan became a terrorist haven is because the Soviet Union invaded and than the US got involved. The Soviets were there for 10 years fighting against US-backed Islamists.
-----Hekmatyar was not funded because he was the most effective!, it was because he was the most radical and the US believed he would inflict the most damage against the Soviets! CIA officals and Washington insiders even admitted it!! If he did end up being the most effective is was only because he was given the most weapons! There was no way in telling how effective these mujahideen were. Numerous countries gave weapons and funds to them, but US was a top contributor. We managed to drive the Soviets out,(they should of left earlier or never gotten involved). When the soviet-puppet government fell, the Taliban took over. And you desperatly cling to your false premise that we didn’t fund Taliban. We did: http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2001/tst110501.htm
Supporting the nationalists as you claim would of only have led to more civil war and violence, its by giving weapons in the first place that lead to this mess and giving more is not gonna help. I supported the invasion of Afghanistan but that’s because it represented a real threat to us. We have to realize though, it was a lot of our actions that lead to it in the first. We had to go into Afghanistan because we screwed up so badly.
On top of the funding we gave in the 1980s, we even gave the Taliban money in May of 2001.
The United States had a arrangement with aassortment of dubious regimes around the world in order to wage the war on drugs. Perhaps the most shocking example was Washington's decision in May 2001 to financially reward Afghanistan's infamous Taliban government for its edict ordering a halt to the cultivation of opium poppies. We gave money to the Taliban in order to stop making Opium: http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3556
You may say the ISI funded them, but we funded the ISI.

Imagine for one second if a burglar came into your house and destroyed your furniture, television and other things. Would you want that burglar to stay and fix the things he broke? Most people wouldn’t. This is what is happening in Iraq. Put your self in the shoes of a Iraqi. If a foreign country had come into your nation and messed everything around, would you want them to stay and fix it? No, you would want them to leave as soon as possible. Even if the Nation had good intentions, you still don’t want them there. Just like you wouldn’t want some home-invader staying to fix all the things he broke. Even if he can help. And even if they do decide that the Burglar should stay and fix it, the burglar usually doesn’t do a good job, because he’s no good at fixing things or he doesn’t know how.
Burglar: Opps, sorry I broke your house, how about I stay here and fix it?
Homeowner: That’s okay, you better leave, Ill fix it.
Burglar: I insist, let me stay, I can fix it.
Homeowner: Maybe you didn’t hear me, I said I’ll fix it, now get outta here! You caused enough trouble!
Burglar: If I don’t leave, than other burglars will come get you! I’ll protect you!
Homeowner: I can protect myself, thank you. That’s big talk considering you’re the biggest burglar of them all!
Burglar: If I leave, than your house will become a haven for burglars!!
Homeowner: I wont let that happen, plus thats my problem and not yours. If you didn’t come here in the first place, I’d be fine, your only making things worse, just leave already!
Burglar: NO! I’m not leaving! Im smarter and bigger than you! I know whats best!
Homeowner: Get out or I’ll shoot you!
Burglar: NO!
The Burglar and the Homeowner went on to fight for 4 more years until the burglar realized he wasn’t helping the homeowner or he was forced out like previous burglars before him in other houses…
So, why is the Burglar staying there again?

During some of occupations of the Baltic States, I cannot verify if the USSR used local police forces. But those places werent exactly peaceful. 10% of the Baltic population were sent to gulags by the Soviets, so not exactly peaceful. Local police could have kept order if used by the soviets.

I do believe that sometimes war is necessary. If something is a threat to us, we should go to congress and declare the war. If were gonna go war, we should declare the war, win it and get back home!
I believe in only just wars. The just-war theory.

We need to listen to the advice the founders and stay out of entangling alliances, stay out of foreign conflicts and civil war. We should talk and trade with other nations and not alienate them. That’s what our country was built on, and right now, that’s the path were not on.

 

I would also like to add that Stephen Colbert may run.

 

If I lived in SC I'd vote for Colbert. I will die laughing if he gets a delegate.

 

Stephen would be better than the last 2 presidents we had. Bill and George were ok, but Stephen knows what is going on in the world much better than those 2 do. It would be awesome if he got a delegate, and hilarious.

 

XD
Me and my buddies are gonna try and be youth delegates and cast our vote for him. Election's a year away, but I already know who my state's electoral is going to.

Damn electoral college.

 

Electoral college should be scraped, it was good in the past when populations were smaller, but isn't as effective anymore. Popular vote counts for nothing if the electoral vote favores a certain candidate. I say get rid of the electoral collage and give the people back the power to choose, not a few delegate who represent people.

 

Damn right. I always know who my state will vote for cause of our culture.

 

Which one? Republican or Democrate. How does you culture play into it? Moral reasons or just way of life.

 

Utah=Ultra-conservative Christians.

The electoral will go to whatever Conservative will be running, or they'll frikkin' write Mitt Romney in.

 

Lol, I'm christian. But I life for now, not how things were in the distant past.

 

Yeah, the 'ultra-conservative' bit was the key there.