Thread: Immediate Withdrawal Is the Only Honorable Course in Iraq

Immediate Withdrawal Is the Only Honorable Course in Iraq

Supporters of the U.S. occupation of Iraq sometimes point out that U.S. soldiers are doing good deeds there, such as establishing electricity, water, and other essential services. They also say that the U.S. government liberated the Iraqi people from a brutal dictator. In fact, many of the soldiers themselves honestly feel that they are helping the Iraqi people and look upon Iraqi insurgents who are trying to oust them from Iraq as “terrorists” or “bad guys.”

Suppose I broke into your home and killed your son and your wife. When you try to evict me from your home, I respond, “Wait a minute! I am remodeling and upgrading your home. I’m doing good things for you. The killing of your wife and son are in the past. We now need to look to the future and get your house rebuilt. I’m the best one to do it. And since I sort of made a mess of things, I have an obligation to stay and help you rebuild your home and your life.”

What would be your response? My hunch is that you would not be favorably inclined to my staying in your home, no matter how much I was improving and upgrading it. My hunch is that your anger and rage at me for having broken into your home in the first place and, more important, for having killed your son and wife would not dissipate for a long time.

Or suppose the Chinese military successfully invaded the United States, killing hundreds of thousands of Americans in the process, under the guise of putting a stop to kidnapping and rendition, indefinite detentions, torture and sex abuse, kangaroo tribunals, and wars of aggression against Third World nations. Suppose that during the Chinese occupation, Chinese officials were spending billions of dollars upgrading American schools and the infrastructure. During the occupation, Chinese researchers, tourists, and journalists would be traveling to the United States and expressing friendliness to the American people.

While there undoubtedly would be Americans who would be calling for cooperation with the occupiers, pointing out how they were improving life in America, other Americans (including myself) would be taking the following position: “I don’t care how much you’re improving life in the United States, either in terms of infrastructure, services, or anything else. You had no right to invade our country and you have no right to be occupying our country. Get the heck out of here now or we insurgents will continue to kill you until you do.”

The fact is that U.S. troops, on orders, have killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in a war of aggression against a country that never attacked the United States. The position of U.S. officials, including some of the soldiers, is: “Those deaths are worth it because now the Iraqi people are free of the tyranny of Saddam Hussein. And now we have an obligation to rebuild Iraq after destroying it during the invasion, and no Iraqi has any right to stop us. ”

How cavalier! There are at least two big problems with that reasoning, however.

1. Who gave the U.S. government the right to determine that any Iraqi would have chosen death and maiming over living under tyranny? Wasn’t that a choice that the Iraqi people had a right to make rather than having it imposed on them? Isn’t a violent revolution, where countless people are going to lose their lives, a choice best left to the people of each nation? Isn’t that what was done with Eastern Europeans who had to live for almost half a century under Soviet communist tyranny? How about Vietnam today? What about North Korea, a country with whom President Bush just struck a deal? Zimbabwe? Cuba?

Why shouldn’t regime change be left to the citizens of each country rather than have it forcibly and violently imposed on them by the imperial politicians and bureaucrats of Washington, D.C.?

2. For many survivors of the U.S. intervention, living under the brutal occupation in Iraq, combined with an extremist pro-Iranian Islamic regime in Iraq and a violent insurgency, is as bad, if not worse, as living under the tyranny of Saddam Hussein. The fact that millions of Iraqis have fled the country is strong circumstantial evidence of that fact.

Since the U.S. had no moral right to invade and occupy Iraq, there is only one moral and honorable course of action for the U.S. government to take. It is the same course of action that the hypothetical burglar or Chinese occupier should take. That course of action is: immediate withdrawal from Iraq. No more rebuilding. No more improvements. No more control. No more killing and maiming. Just immediate withdrawal. The Iraqi people, for better or for worse, have the right to finally be left alone by the U.S. government. The issuance of an apology would be good too.

Well-put.

If the people of Iraq want us to leave, why haven't they forced their legislature to pass a law demanding we leave?

Because everyone that's not a dumbfuck inside the United States KNOWS what's on the agenda if US troops leave.

Death.
Dismemberment.
Homelessness.
Disaster.

I say if they want us to leave, let them tell us plainly. Then don't bitch if we don't let the door hit us on our way out.

One thing, though.

We should never never go back, and we should never never send them, or anyone else another dime or another soldier for anything at all.

Originally Posted by Freedom for All

We should never never go back, and we should never never send them, or anyone else another dime or another soldier for anything at all.

Sounds good, let's get the hell out of there forever.

Talk about trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory...

inane idea .....

Originally Posted by kmiller1610

Talk about trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory...

inane idea .....

WTF are you talking about? Did you even read the OP, or do you just have no sense of morality?

There is no such thing as "victory" in Iraq.

Originally Posted by Defensor

There is no such thing as "victory" in Iraq.

yes there is , its called removal of a dictatorship and liberation of a people. Not to mention a stronghold for the war on terror in its own backyard.

Originally Posted by spitz9000

yes there is , its called removal of a dictatorship and liberation of a people.

Like that would ever happen. :laughing:

Not to mention a stronghold for the war on terror in its own backyard.

Oh you mean an imperial launchpad from which to strike Iran?

Originally Posted by Defensor

That course of action is: immediate withdrawal from Iraq. No more rebuilding. No more improvements. No more control. No more killing and maiming. Just immediate withdrawal. The Iraqi people, for better or for worse, have the right to finally be left alone by the U.S. government. The issuance of an apology would be good too.

we've done this over and again, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iran, Somalia, Iraq and each and every time we left a country and people in shambles and said you clean up the mess. This time the US, and this presidency is taking responsibility for our necessary actions, we are staying put...a most noble cause to end the cycle we have grown so accustomed to.

Originally Posted by Defensor

Oh you mean an imperial launchpad from which to strike Iran?

No, i mean a strategic stronghold where we can win the war on terrorism, locally.

The Iraq war is never going to be worth its costs in terrorism, money, American lives and the cost to America's image. However, we should still stay there at most 2 more years to at least try and obtain some kind of positive outcome from this.

The Iraqi government is the problem, and if we give them a time table to our withdrawal, then they will know that they have to organize the country in the time that we give them. A few more billions of dollars and some more American lives is worth giving that to Iraq.