Time to leave Iraq?
- Thread starter LordOpie
- Start date
not until hillary or obama can declare victory can we leave.
I voted other. Stay but outsource the work to China.
Come on, give a serious answer.
I think that success might be had, but it's taking too long and the cost of American lives and the excess money spent is taking a toll on the US economy.
While we did fvck the country up, I think for selfish reasons, we need to admit it and do a safe removal of all troops... leave Iraq to it's own or if the UN wants to help them.
But whatever benefit he invasion was supposed to have for our country, it's clear that it has and more importantly, will, continue to have a cost greater than the benefits.
If you demand my armchair General opinion here it is. For the last two years I have said we ****ed it up we need to stay and fix it. At this point I have no confidence in our leaders, republican or democrat to ever be able to fix it. I say we start bringing home large numbers. The folks who stay would largely just become training and advisory to Iraqi security forces.
Leave but provide the Iraqi government funding for security & infrastructure rebuild that we'd have spent if we'd stayed.
Time to get the hell out. Hopefully the Australians will be gone by the new year.
We might be able to fix it better by leaving. It is what the Iraqi people want, the American people want, and what the world wants.
Let Go and Let God.
I'm really torn. I voted stay. If I was in charge, I wouldn't have gone in in the first place. But now that we are there and have f'ed it up royally I think we kind of owe it to the Iraqi people to fix it. I was raised such that the rule of "you break it, you fix it or replace it". I.e. take responsibility for your actions. On the flip side, can America even presume we can fix it? Unfortunately, I think not. I think its irrevocably f'ed. I think we need to just hang our heads in shame and cut our losses and maybe retrench at home for the fall out that is sure to follow (i.e. possible, even probable, collapse of the entire middle east into a militant fundamentalist Islamic state)
exactly.
WE CAN'T FIX IT.
That's like saying England should have come over and fixed the colonial states during our civil war.
Iraq is too divided. They need to fight it out until someone is left standing. We had no business going in and we have even less business staying there.
What are we going to "fix"? The only reason we are there is oil and we aren't getting any of that as it is. So we might as well leave, let the Iraqi people figure itself out and be done with this mess.
That's like saying England should have come over and fixed the colonial states during our civil war.
Iraq is too divided. They need to fight it out until someone is left standing. We had no business going in and we have even less business staying there.
What are we going to "fix"? The only reason we are there is oil and we aren't getting any of that as it is. So we might as well leave, let the Iraqi people figure itself out and be done with this mess.
Good idea, but would required a good bit of oversight to make sure the $ goes to actually helping the people and rebuilding the infrastructure. I think the issue of security is a tough one. The worst thing we could do is accidentally fund and arm a security force that turns into another Taliban or Saddam 10 or 20 years down the road.
And Haliburton should oversee the spending to ensure that none of it is wasted and ONLY used for rebuilding.
Oh I think it's pretty much a given that you create another one of those.
lthumbsdown:
We're screwed.
All we did was pester the bee hive over there.
Just to add to what I said earlier I think the situation is winnable, although that is not a black and white situation. I just don't think we have the leaders or the will to do it. We probably need to either go for a very heavy handed dare I say Saddamesque type approach or an underground guerrilla approach. The country and international community doesn't have the stomach for the heavy handed path and with good reason but it is probably the only way our current military could be used to full potential. Or turn all of our guys into an underground guerrila force, a benevolent mafia of sorts. It will allow us to fight the enemy at their own level or force them into more conventional tactics where we excel.
I think you're grossly overestimating the "benevolence" and "morality" of the average military kid. Sure they all mean well when they get on the plane to Baghdad, but next thing you know, someone's raping a 13 year old Iraqi girl, executing her family, and blaming it on al Queda.
Agreed!
But it seems pretty clear that we're making it worse. Sometimes the best thing to do is back away.
I use that advice with the wife.
If my understanding is correct, that is exactly what we are doing at present. We've kind of given up on unification and a national army and are approaching local sect leaders and giving them the means to keep their own areas under some semblance of control. Unfortunately, I expect in the short term you'll have a lot of sect on sect violence as each group fights to control their little piece of ground. Maybe eventually we can work to bring the different groups together.
Took a mtb trip with a civilian who worked over there off and on for the last few years. We spent 18 hours in a car together. He worked with frontline soldiers. His opinion was that "The Iraqis dont want to fight for the own protection."
Training Iraqis policemen isnt going to happen to any significant degree.
We're screwed and they're screwed.
One of the main issues I have seen first hand (and it seems a lot of people either don't see or fail to understand) is WE DON'T HAVE THE BUBBA's!
As it is we are deploying forces that have no idea what they are getting into or how to do it. Straight out of bootcamp and into the sh!t. We don't have enough boots on the ground to do it right and we don't have enough boots in reserve to sustain the piss poor job we are doing now.
Recruiting is down, it will stay down and it will only get worse. Long after this crap is over, our military will be paper thin. We have wasted personnel and hardware and we have just about run out of both. The sooner we leave, the sooner we can stop our own bleeding.
Iraq is f@cked up, there is no denying that. But we have wasted too much money and too many lives thus far. I see no point in tossing any more logs on that fire.
As it is we are deploying forces that have no idea what they are getting into or how to do it. Straight out of bootcamp and into the sh!t. We don't have enough boots on the ground to do it right and we don't have enough boots in reserve to sustain the piss poor job we are doing now.
Recruiting is down, it will stay down and it will only get worse. Long after this crap is over, our military will be paper thin. We have wasted personnel and hardware and we have just about run out of both. The sooner we leave, the sooner we can stop our own bleeding.
Iraq is f@cked up, there is no denying that. But we have wasted too much money and too many lives thus far. I see no point in tossing any more logs on that fire.
Excellent illustration that it's not just money that the US is losing and kids dying over there.
Families are getting fvcked.
Even if there was a solid plan to fix it in two years, I just think the sacrafice is too much.
You are correct, sir.
I know way too many people who were financially screwed when they got home. There are laws against pursuing judgments against deployed soldiers, but a lot of families don't know the laws and the creditors will still harass you unless you use legal action (JAG office).
By law, you don't have to make a single car/house/credit card payment while on deployed status. You are also not supposed to be charged late fees or interest, but they will bill you unless you take action.
But if you work for Nike or Intel, you get paid full salary while deployed. I know people who have cleared $200k tax free from a single 18 month deployment.
Is this a new law.....?
I dont remember this when i was deployed in 91?....but i didnt have a house, car or anything really......
It falls under the same stuff as the re-employment rights. I can look it up in a bit, but I took a class on it as part of my "retention officer training". I had a lot of guys have companies try to put a lien on a house because the wife couldn't make the payments.
The real issue is it falls on the wife to make the calls to creditors and make sure they know what they can and can't do.
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But Joe Creditor won't do a damn thing to help you and/or your family. You have to take action and that sucks. As if you don't have enough to deal with.
Sorry for the derailment.
You still have to make all the payments when you get back.
You just don't have to send them checks while you are dodging IED's, and you don't have to pay late charges or get your credit rating facked.
You just don't have to send them checks while you are dodging IED's, and you don't have to pay late charges or get your credit rating facked.
All i remember is, "make sure you give someone the power of attorney so they can pay your bills".
Of course in the year 2007, with direct deposit and the intarwebs and automatic payments and all, someone would have to be downright incompetent to lose their house due to not being able to figure out a way to make the payments.
What you get is a barrage of crap from your boss/creditors about leaving in the first place. Good times, I tell ya. I had to deal with a lot of employers and creditors for guys returning because they were having a hard enough time adjusting to real life.
Most of them will report to the credit agencies and screw your credit anyway. The individual then has to call the creditor AND the reporting agency and get the information corrected. It's a sh!t storm.
Unless (like me) you go from pulling $80k as a civilian to making $40k as a grunt. Even tax free, it's still $20k less a year (take home pay).
For some people it's like getting a raise, though. But I also know 2 guys from my unit who both owned businesses that they had to close, then file bankruptcy because they didn't have someone to do the work (one was a mechanic, the other was an electrician) while they were gone and the customers went elsewhere.