Nearly all US troopes to leave Iraq by year's end

Yep, it was long overdue for U.S. troops to leave Iraq. Maybe they'll be able to rebuild their country by themselves after that... if, of course, Maliki doesn't fall in a few months after a coup by either fundamentalists or foreign agents. Which is pretty much impossible, so much democratic, powerful and popular the puppet government is now.

Yeah... Vietnam-bis, but now... IN THE DESERT! But it's fun to see that the GOP is still arguing that it was a good thing to go there guns blazing. Ah, well, everyone can enjoy a Card-Carrying Villain... except those 100,000+ deads. But it's no use crying over every mistake. We'll make war for those who are still alive, heh?

edited 22nd Oct '11 9:18:22 AM by RufusShinra

That would have happened already to make the US look even worse. Successful or not. It never happened, it probably won't given how Iraq works. The fundies are too little in number, foreign agents are always suspected so that plan is likely to backfire and neither the Shia nor Kurds (hell in many ways not even the Sunni) will tolerate a return to a Saddam-esque government.

The US already did all that was reasonable for them to do in Iraq.

I mean... at some point they have to begin to deal with their own problem themselves. They dont want us there?? Fine, good ridence, good luck with all your problems at least we tried to help. At least your not a threat to us now so good bye,.

The US military.

We do what we must

because

we can.

for the good of all of US

except the ones who are dead.

edited 22nd Oct '11 1:40:11 PM by Baff

As the US expanded its sovereign debt multifold to pay for it and now saddles the new generation with unprecedented wealth disparity and social strife, wasted its position on the world stage as the "moral leader," tears itself apart over the politics of a war it was never meant to fight, and leaves the country in a state that is broadly superior to when we found it, but also on the edge of falling even further into the opposite problem it had before: the majority trumping the minority to the point of mass abuse and, inevitably, genocide.

Also:

Please show some respect towards the topic.

So did we dig ourselves into a hole by this war? Did we create a new problem of instability?

Total fiscal expenditures for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were less than the 2010 budget deficits. Our debt increased by a fraction compared to our other spending.

It could be argued that without the wars, our economy would not have been hurt so bad, thus possibly negating the need for the stimulus.

Plus, given the chance, i'd gladly be in debt because we built roads and schools, than in debt because we wanted to bomb people.

The budget being more than 1.2 trillion? Plausible. That does not mean that it was 1.2 trillion that needed to be spent for years of occupation.

Cost of war in Iraq: ~$820,000,000,000 (Afghanistan is ~$468,000,000,000)

Source.

US Budget of 2010: ~$3.55 trillion (Wikipedia).

The two wars combined cost half as much as running the entire United States government—one of the largest nations on the planet—for an entire year. This, for a war we had no business and no right to fight, and $820 billion we could have used on any number of different things—infrastructure, schools, healthcare, welfare, job creation, anything. Instead, we sank it into a needless war that caused no mobilization and no general prosperity, and instead served only to line the pockets of the military-industrial complex.

All-in-all, you've done nothing to prove it was anything less than a useless and self-destructive war, and that's just monetary cost.

Approximate human cost for the Iraq War, in terms of Iraqi population: ~40,000-70,000 (Wikipedia).

That's not casualties, as far as I can tell. That's just straight deaths.

Approximate human cost for the Iraq War, in terms of Coalition deaths: ~24,000

Approximate human cost for the Iraq War, in terms of Coalition casualties: ~73,000

Approximate human cost for the Iraq War, in terms of Iraqi civilians (first number cited was just combatants): ~100,000-110,000, and approaching ~600,000-1,100,000 if you include extraneous casualties from side-effects of war, such as lack of food and water, violent crime due to lack of police, etc.

(All casualty statistics as per Wikipedia)

We didn't even succeed in Iraq. All we managed was to create a government hostile to a substantial minority and too weak to be anything but a puppet of other nations in the region, which could collapse back into a farce at any moment. That was not worth the deaths, the time, the effort, or the money we expended to do it, and we should never have laid a foot on the soil of Iraq without UN and NATO backing, if at all.

edited 22nd Oct '11 9:39:36 PM by USAF713

And it took ten years to even run that high. So think about that. Last year's budget deficits were 1.4 trillion dollars. 600 billion more than 10 years worth of the two wars combined. Hell ARRA cost more than ten years of the wars and it failed miserably in its objective of stimulating the US economy.

So what is your definition of success then? Iraq goes from Saddam dictatorship to First World stability and economy literally overnight? They have a legitimate democratic government and have had one for quite a few years now. Their military is the one in charge of the country's security, not the US. Their economy is looking more like Israel's (more diversified, not dependent on the petroeconomy) than Saudi Arabia's. And best of all, terrorism and insurgent attacks are less frequent than the situation in Turkey.

How is that failure?

edited 22nd Oct '11 9:48:04 PM by MajorTom

And the wars have failed miserably in their objective of destroying the terrorists and establishing functioning and stable democracies. Point?

We'd have to stay in both Iraq and Afghanistan for another ten years to even begin to get to the goal we set when we went in.

Read my edits boy.

This article sums up why you're being far too optimistic.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/an-end-to-the-iraq-war-only-for-the-us/2011/10/21/gIQAT0EZ7L_story.html

o_o

• 1) We could poke Iraq with a stick and the sectarian rage boiling under the surface would blow us right out of the region.
• 2) Their military and police are so ridiculously corrupt and cartoonishly oppressive behind the scenes that it's not even funny.
• 3) It's not based on petroeconomics because it hasn't actually been drilling that much oil. It has some 2,000 oil wells. Texas has over a million. They'd be filthy rich if they actually drilled any of it. And they are, now... by awarding contracts to foreign companies.

That's real great for them, of course.

• 4) Well sure, but now all the insurgents have formed organized crime rings, and we all know that's going to be great once we leave and they buy the police...

Tom, the Iraq war wasn't a success you know unless you count a success being people wishing they were still being ruled by Saddam. We made the country more sectertion(sp) and less stable. We also made it harder to intervene into other countries until the Libyan civil war.

Citation Needed. Legitimate polling or other news source please that Saddam's rule was preferable for a majority of all Iraqis.

Does everyone still run like it's 2007 around here? Read some news, talk to somebody. Sectarian violence has been basically non-existent since early 2008. Stability wise, they are more stable than Saddam was in the 1990s. They've had several elections all of which legitimate and certified by everyone including activist groups like Human Rights Watch. Their government isn't on the verge of collapsing from one major crime spree or single insurgent/terrorist attack. Hell, their ranking keeps rising with every year on the stability indices.

You're setting an impossible standard by saying that's not stable or secure or successful. You're setting the standard that we should have gone in in 2003 and by January 2004 established a full democratic society with a First World economy and a First World level of stability in their government. That's not possible when instituting new systems of government over old tyrants.

Maybe if you bothered to read the link I posted, you'd have your citations.

You are literally the only person who thinks Iraq is good to go. Even Fox News people see the problems Iraq has.

^ Do I think it's perfect? Fuck no. Do I think it's The Vietnam War In The Desert! like a lot of you are doing? Fuck no.

I'm looking at the facts of the matter and the facts of the matter do not suggest either what you say or a repeat of Vietnam.

I'll ask you what everyone has failed to answer so far. What is the definition of success there? Is it not a democratic Iraq? Or is the standard exactly what I've been saying that you wanted First World economy and stability in an impossible timeframe?

Iraq was never Vietnam. That's Afghanistan.

Never did I say it was Vietnam. Don't put words in my mouth.

You haven't answered the specific points brought up in the article either. Everytime you're asked anything specific, you ignore the question or disappear from the thread.

As to the definition of success, establishing a democracy in an artificial state that has no sense of nationalism (even under Saddam, Iraq considered itself but a piece of greater Arabia that it strived to "unite") is a recipe for state failure when combined with democracy. If mere establishment of a democratic government was the only goal, then yeah we succeeded....at the cost of the state, the people, and the region. As such, that ISN'T a good definition for success if it creates more problems.

No realistic definition of success can be had without something akin to 20 years of occupation. Yes, 20 years. A generation was needed to build the necessary institutions AND THE TRUST IN said institutions. We had to teach them both nationalism and democracy at the same time. Instead? We taught procedural democracy in truncated time and have only increased subnationalist tensions. You can't have your cake and eat it too, it requires work and time. And that is why Iraq failed, because we did just enough to fuck it up, not enough to make it last or work beyond a few years.

Now I want you to answer the points in the article, Tom. I answered your question.

Well, I did compare it to Viet-Nam, and I was just saying that it's the same thing as in "a war you can't win, will cost you a lot of lives and money for no strategic interest whatsoever and that nobody likes". Viet-Nam, Afghanistan, Irak, whatever country we're talking about is still just a big trap for an army designed to fight another army in a large frontal assault. Of course, the utter lack of moral superiority doesn't help in a country where war is seen by a substantial minority (not everyone, don't make me say that, but still a sizeable voting bloc, if some U.S. media are to be listened abroad) as a glorious adventure to lead the world into the "End of History" were everyone will be living in a liberal democracy with the good ol' American Way of Life.

edited 23rd Oct '11 11:05:40 AM by RufusShinra

Meh, I still believe in the mission in Afghanistan.

I don't think we should have gone to Iraq, but Saddam being dead is sort of a silver lining.

But in seeing how things are with him gone, I kind of think we should have left him there. Instead of being a breeding ground for crime and terrorism, it was a successful (and for the middle east, very progressive) society. Saddam brought law and order to Iraq, and they were better off under him.

That being said, as I come closer and closer to becoming a true beneficiary of the military industrial complex(I.E., becoming a contractor) the more I kind of hope we stay at war, since my job security will depend on it even further.

I hope I don't need to point out how horrifically callous that sounds, Barkey.

Afghans and Somalis are your friend then.

edited 23rd Oct '11 5:17:46 PM by FFShinra