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Feedback ForumWould setting troop pull-out timetables help the insurgents in Iraq?Submissions for this question are no longer being accepted. Previously submitted comments appear below. Comments may have been edited for content or space. Poster: Xianbo Zhiang Comment: What is the insurgency at this point? You have Shia on Shia violence, Sunni on Shia violence and vice versa. You have a democratically elected government aligned with Shia militia, supported by Iran and the U.S. You have Sunnis aligned with Saudi, Jordan, and most of the Middle East. Strange bedfellows indeed! Poster: Philip McMullen Comment: What do opinion polls indicate the vast majority of Iraqis would prefer? Poster: Harry Reppert Comment: To the degree the various insurgents are gratified by our annouced withdrawal then, yes, that will help them move on to their next objective. I believe that will be a struggle for local and regional control - but not a grand plan for carrying the battle to our shores once we let go. If we do not yet know how to do more good than harm in the region and reconcile ourselves as a nation with Iraq and its neighbors, then we need to elect a more competent govenment that can. Poster: Barry De Jasu Comment: We have done enough damage in Iraq. It is time for this administration to take its wet dreams out of Iraq. It is time to withdraw. Every thing that the Bush gab=ng has done has helped the insugents. Withdrawing our troops might even help to calm the region, especially if we try to actually help the citizens find medical assistance, something our own troops are finding difficult, water and food. We have truly unhinged Iraq and the region with our horrible decision to invade, as well as the terrifying incompetance with which we have run the aftermath. Poster: 8 Comment: There is no evidence that our continued presence in Iraq prevents any violence. Kidnapping, torture and execution can occur anytime, anyday and in any place, including areas of our greatest troop presence. That is what the news teaches us every day. We have failed the Iraqi people for four years now, and it is time for them to correct their course themselves. Our continued occupation only inflames and endangers the Iraqis further ... and if we are not there for them ?? ... well, then who are we there for? The Arab world wants us out. The Islamic world wants us out. Europe wants us out. Asia wants us out. 80% of the civilized world wants us out - and most importantly, the Iraqis want us out. AND we know from the last election cycle that the American people want us out. So, why are we still there? Poster: Michael Comment: In my opinion no. Simply because our presence will be more low keyed, but still there. I think the violence will reside if the U.S. stops trying to form a government there. Poster: Ronald Eby Comment: The situation over there is so murky, who would be able to tell? Rival factions are operating on feuds over a thousand years old. If they're deadset on fighting each other, they will wait us out. One year, ten years--it doesn't matter. They are patient people. I think involving all the neighboring countries and NATO in an aggressive diplomatic search for solutions is the strategy most likely to succeed. The solutions have to come from the Middle East peoples themselves. That's why turning our backs on the Iraqi army when they offered to join us after Saddam fell is so tragic. Ubiquitous, arrogant incompetence in our civilian leadership has cost us the success of this entire operation. Poster: bob thompson Comment: The 'insurgents' are, for the most part, IRAQIS!! I believe the main intent of the insurgency is to rid Iraq of it's occupying power, and that's US. The argument is made that 'they' will simply bide their time till the deadline, yet once that deadline passes, and we DO TRULY leave, then diplomacy can truly come to the fore, as pursued/fostered by the many nations of the UN. As long as we are there, the occupation is the primary target. Many of the daily killings are against perceived colloborationists.. whose actual connection to the US may be minimal, but still.. actual, and therefore they are killed.. just as the market venders where McCain staged his infamous 'walk in the park' ..a clear dare to the insurgents (to which they arose).. Poster: anthonyperone Comment: WHY ANNOUNCE A TIMETABLE? JUST ONE DAY, EVERYBODY IS GONE-(WITH A FEW POLICE/ADVISOR TYPES REMAINING). WE WILL NEVER WIN IN THESE COUNTRIES FOR RELIGIOUS AND HISTORICAL REASONS. LETS CUT OUR LOSSES ASAP. Poster: Nadine Barner Comment: Insurgents? It seems to me those are middle eastern people fighting to get their country back and kick all the corporate interest out of their shores. Oil is but one goal of the Bush Junta..think globalization & gentrification of the middle east, that's what's in store from the corporate world with the US trying to grab the biggest piece..... Poster: Genevieve Lybrook Comment: It must be our first priority to leave NOW. Things will not get better. We have made so many mistakes, and for the sake of all, we have to leave. One other things, it troubles me a great deal that we can morn for 33 students, but we do not morn for the thousands we have killed or injuried in Iraq. I do not understand how we are so much more important than other humans. Poster: J West Comment: Its only a matter of when we will withdraw. Will Bush order it or will it be his successor? In spite of all the attempts to link this war with 9/11 most of America doesn't buy it, so we have very little taste for this debacle. I fear, though, what happens next. As we liken this war to Vietnam the aftermath of this war will be more like Yugoslavia after Tito. Without a very strong government to maintain security the centuries old strife between the Sunni and Shite will explode into blood-letting far beyond what we have seen so far. Meanwhile the Kurds in the North of Iraq, who want little to do with them, will want to form their own country. This in turn leads to a revolt of the Turkish Kurds who will want to secede and join their brothers in the formation of the country of Kurdistan. Poster: T. O'Brien Comment: Setting a timetable will not help the insurgents. It will demonstrate that the occupation has an end point. It may make recruiting more difficult for the insurgents. Poster: S. Robidoux Comment: I believe that the insurgents win either way. But given a timetable, they may strike as often as possible so the world can clearly see that the U.S. and allies were forced to withdraw. UN forces will be equally under-staffed and will have an mission that is impossible. They will be viewed as puppets of the West - or at least as outsiders. Sectarian fighting will continue and the most ruthless faction, with the most determined backers, will prevail. Then the insurgents can focus on Afghanistan, followed by efforts to fuel uprisings in any number of other regions. The unfortunate part is that this was largely predicted at the outset. And it is not the fault of the media. Lessons of Vietnam and the Russian-Afghan conflict were learned well by the insurgents but not the US government. In a sense, this is worse, because rather than concede that a draft was in order, they have been recycling the same men through the grinder. The death toll is bad enough, but the total number of the wounded and severity of injuries will be staggering. Poster: Barry De Jasu Comment: It seems to me that everything we done so far has helped the insurgients. We have created a nightmare in the name of what?? So many more people are regularly dying than ever did under Saddam. Women are living in a downward spiral of lost humsn rights. Leaving Iraq seems like the least we can do. But of course we must leave in the most supportive way. This horrific war has cost the dignity of evrybody involved. The question alweays has been; who do we support? We have created a dark landscape. There is no good answer, but we must pull ourselves out as we are only making things worse all the time. The Bush administration has instigated war with no plan. It has run a war with people who don't begin to understand the complexities of the people and region. This is a war conceived by nasty children (the Bush gang). Their interests have been greedy and very simplistic and selfish. So many have died in our milirary and so many many more innocents in Iraq. We are doing nothing but poisoning this area. It is so past time to get out. We must do this while we give all we can to Iraq's population. Poster: Susan Rhea Comment: Credit for the debacle in Iraq rests completely on the Bush Administration's shoulders. The question is the wrong question. The question should be, Would setting troop pull-out timetables help the Iraqi government take control of their country? and the answer ti that is a resounding Yes. Poster: Betty Ford Comment: Setting a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq is the right thing to do--insurgency, or no insurgency. It was wrong to invade Iraq; it is wrong to occupy Iraq. Moreover, what is called an insurgency in Iraq began as an unorganized series of uprisings in response to the American invasion and occupation. Predictably, the longer the American forces stay in Iraq, the more organized this movement becomes--and the deadlier. We can only help the Iraqi people, and ourselves, by withdrawing and providing for the reconstruction of this devastated country under the supervision of the UN. Poster: Bob Comment: If they are fighting to get us out, then yes because we will not be there to attack. Mostly no because the Iraqi society will have to organize it's own government (not a US directed) built by it's own standards and desires. Effective governments are not forced upon people only built by their own hands and minds from within. Poster: Don Nofziger Comment: Would it help the enemy? That is the wrong question. When you find yourself in a situation like in Iraq you make a strategic retreat. Why can't someone important think about that?? Poster: curtis vice Comment: No, they are in this conflict for the long-haul. The forces we are facing in Iraq and Afghanistan are taking the same long-range view that worked so successfully in Afghanistan against the Soviets. We seem to think that our actions/cause is morally right and so therefore our situation is different than the Soviet experience--but what we think is not the important perspective. What they think is most important and by all, if not most accounts, we are viewed as an army of occupation. Establishing a timetable will dispute this viewpoint and at the same force those local political leaders to negotiate and compromise with each other. A timetable will not help the insurgents but instead help us to force the political leaders WE put in place to work together and establish a working functional government or suffer the possibility that we will no longer back them. Poster: Judith Nappe Comment: Setting a timetable for pull-out in Iraq WITH face to face round table discussions with the insurgents, government, religious leaders, the people of Iraq and the Americans will go very far in not helping the insurgents. Dedicated, intelligent and compassionate people can and will help Iraq and our troops. Poster: Edith Groner Comment: Setting timetables to remove troops from Iraq is sane and allows planning to end the war and occupation by the US and Britain. Our occupation is fueling the civil war and postponing the resolution of the conflict by the Iraqis themselves. Poster: Randy Hershey Comment: No, setting a time for U.S. troops to leave will make all of the various factions begin to consider what kind of future they might be able to make in the absence of an occupation. The U.S. forces serve as the primary fuel for the most extreme violence and the adherence to extremist philosophies. Only without an occupation will reasonable alternatives toward peace and reconciliation become truly thinkable and possible. Poster: L Correll Comment: No it would not help the insurgents if the US had a timetable for withdrawal. If we were planning to pull out, I believe that the insurgents would be less strident in their effort against us. Part of what fuels the strong reaction against the US, is that we are on Iraqi soil. I believe that once we leave the insurgents will not be able to marshall the kinds of recruits that now come to aid an invaded Muslim country. Poster: A. Puella Comment: It wouldn't rather I believe it would hamper them as the average citizen wants to live in peace and have a decent quality of life. Citizens would rise up against insurgents wanting to rule over them. Bear in mind, this is the cradle of civilization and they're not stupid people though badly injured by our country ever since WW2. |
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