It's simplistic alright, broken down to the simplest terms. It's not naive at all; it's just the FACTS.

And if you know anything about me, you know I am an ultra-conserver, a maximum recycler, and completely for all the things you mentioned. And I am FAR from Naive. And I'm not for the war, but we cannot now leave with the job undone or it was all just a waste.

But those things do not change in one generation. They will take time. We are on the right track now - do it slowly without disrupting society.

But a world in which WHACK! the Middle East oil is unattainable or prohibitively expensive is not a world any of us are ready for right NOW, TODAY, in 2007.

 

i'm sure you're not, but you realize a 3 or 4% increase in CAFE coupled with elimination of subsidies can come close to eliminating the need for middle east oil. from there we push alternative energy.
the war is already a waste i'm very sorry to say. during vietnam we heard the same exact things - so many americans have died so we must push on in their honor... we can't let them die in vain... so we continued the war for another year or two - heard the hawks tell us that we are 'turning a corner' etc. but it only got worse until 58K americans were gone over bullshit. these days you'll hear cheney tell us the insurgents are 'in their last throes' blah blah. riiiigght. today we hear the same as 30 years ago - the more americans that die, the more we hear that we can't let them die in vain. its an unending deadly cycle, and it IS a waste. that's the horrible cold truth. by ending this war - a war that CANNOT be won militarily - we can allow the inevitable sunni-shiite civil war to play it's course without losing more americans at the least. the rise of iraqi nationalism is the only thing that can save the country - and that can only happen after we are gone, and they can show the world they are no longer occupied. that's the sad reality as i see it, and history has shown no occupier has ever succeeded in 'democratizing' the a country by force, or without the support of the people. btw - how's that surge going? you understand that was all about extending the inevitable and saving face. time to face reality people - this one is lost. i'm sorry.

 

Well, everyone can have an opinion, and you are welcome to yours.

Maybe the Iraqi people are too backward to understand that we are not "occupying" them but trying to give them their own freedom back after 30 years of tyranny, murder, robbery, rape, and genocide.

We are needed only long enough for the Iraqi Army and police to be able to take over their own security issues. Once that is done (and that will be done) we can gracefully exit. We don't have to "win it militarily" to accomplish the mission.

 

well, we've directly or indirectly been responsible for as many iraqi deaths in 4 years as saddam hussein (our man back in the 80s) was responsible for in 30 years. think about that for a bit. they don't want american style democracy at these prices. they want us out. sometimes in life mistakes are made. some are larger than others and they have terrible consequences. some are gargantuan. i think this falls into the latter category. i hope you are right and i am wrong. while the years grind on i guess we just continue to count the dead and run up the deficit. what an absolute mess.

 

If the objective of the continuation of the Persian Gulf war was to obtain oil, our troops would not be being killed by insurgent attacks in Iraq, as all of the Iraqi people would have been placed into concentration camps with any resisting civilians being killed. If you honestly believe that the United States resumed a war with Saddam Hussein's regime for Iraq's oil, why are the Iraqi people not in concentration camps and why does an elected government now exist in Iraq?

 

Are you serious? Do you really think that's the way they would play it if they wanted access to the oil?

I'll make my point again: They didn't go there to steal the oil... they toppled a government and "installed" their own so that they can influence Iraqi policy and allow U.S. oil companies to secure contracts.

If they rounded everyone up and stuck them in concentration camps the global outrage would expose them for what they are... a bunch of crooks.

 

yeah, the suggestion of concentration camps is ludicrous for so many reasons - one of which is that, unlike european jews in the late 30's, the iraqi's are armed to the teeth. it cannot be denied that securing oil is ONE of the reasons for our incursions into the middle east, and in all likelyhood the one that weighs the most.

 

Think about this for a second:

"We" are responsible only for the Iraqi Army soldier deaths which occurred during the combat invasion portion of the war in the first weeks.

Any and All deaths after that are on the heads of "The Insurgents" who like complete moronic idiots continue to blow things and people Up for no apparently logical reason.

If the insurgents stopped "Insurging Against Freedom" today, there would be not another round fired.

"We" are not instigating anything, nor are we acting aggressively. The soldiers are doing what they are told to do, which is to train Iraqi Army and Police units and try to establish safe zones away from the mad bombers.

 

i said 'directly or indirectly'. please take your emotions out of it for a second although i agree that's hard to do. however, if the shoe was on the other foot, i wonder if you would still state that 'we are not acting aggressively'. most native people would consider a foreign massbombing, invasion, occupation, and it's ancillary affects of hundreds of thousands of violent deaths, as 'instigation' or 'acting aggressively'.

this is the hard truth - any deaths that have occurred as a result of the invasion and occupation, regardless of who perpetrated them, are an indirect result of that invasion & occupation. if we hadn't invaded would there be 'al qaida in iraq'? a sunni insurgency? shiite death squads & militias? none of these things existed prior to our invasion, so any deaths by these groups are in fact an 'indirect' result. it's very sad & ugly, but that's the reality of what amounts to a collosul failure of planning and excecution.

 

I understand that you used the word "indirectly" and I saw that in the first post.

But one cannot, as a Patriot and a human, take "emotion" out of the picture when it comes to war and the politics thereof.

I'm not saying the war was the best idea ever. But I was raised as a Texan, and one of the things I learned early was "don't start something you're not gonna finish" and if we leave before the job is done, it will be just exactly that.

And there was no "failure of planning and execution" at all. The best war plan ever devised loses steam Day One of the war. It's impossible to foresee everything that happens in a wartime situation.

What you do in war is adjust your plan on the fly, which we have done, and to the best ability of the US Military.

Stay the course, execute the plan, and reap the reward of a safe, secure Iraq, which will be a great future political ally in a tough region.

Don't cut and run. The Bad Guys see that as weakness.