What’s your solution for Iraq? And if you have no solution, who do you trust to have one?
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Al Gore.
So, do you want some sort of realistic, pragmatic type solution or what I would do if queen?
Let’s make you a queen.
Bring the troops home now in as orderly manner as possible and as quickly as possible. Sorry. . .I don’t have much trust in any politicians, no matter what they say, their actions seldom match their words.
Only one close to being trusted is Dennis Kucinich. Don’t know enough about him to be certain either.
Big Oil will not let this happen until or unless they get their 70% oil agreement signed. They will by god get their 70% for the next 30 years regardless of what they have to do or how many they have to kill or cause to be killed. Sad fact of the life and times we live in.
“Bring the troops home now in as orderly manner as possible and as quickly as possible. “
I agree, but that offers a wide array of options.
I’m all for a “wide array of options.” It is far better than the no option plan we have presently.
I am no military strategist, I am certain we have some excellent people that are and would know how to plan and execute the bringing home, once that is given them as their mission.
It would probably take about a year to get them all out, but that is far better than the 10 to 50 years that is currently being spoken of.
I also think if GWB got that oil agreement signed he would suddenly declare a victory and find ways and means to bring most of the troop home right away.
Yeah, I’m cynical.
George McGovern…his detailed plan is about 142 pages long and the fairly long outline I read of it seemed to cover every contingency for leaving and helping rebuild Iraq. I don’t know why this plan wasn’t talked about more in the press or even on the Internet.
I never did read McGovern’s whole plan. I should have.
A very simple one. Tell them that if they can keep the peace for a few months not only will we pull out completly BUT then, after a full year of peace, they can have bush, cheney, rumsfeld, wolfowitz and all of the other pnac chickens to do with as they like.
It’s a small price to pay for peace. C’mon neocons… Wouldn’t you sacrifice yourselves for peace?
Brilliant, and it just might work.
Thanks… 🙂
Withdraw immediately without leaving any kind of remnant force.
I keep hearing that it will be the end of the world if Iraq devolves into a full-blown civil war, but frankly, I think that’s bullshit. We’ve done without Iraqi oil in any appreciable quantities since the Gulf War, so the continued unavailability of Iraqi oil counts for nothing. Eventually, regional strongmen will quiet things down enough for the oil to flow again; the financial incentives are enough by themselves. If the Saudis pump cash into Sunni militias and the Iranians pump cash into Shia militias, big fucking deal. Oil will continue to flow out of Saudi Arabia and all the rest of the Gulf states — it’s not like we’re going to be facing the Mahdi Navy.
And from a practical point of view — forget the humanitarian disaster that we started and are now powerless to reverse — all that matters is the oil. The oil is not under threat. Ergo, we should withdraw and let other stuff sort itself out.
There’s the matter of Iran, of course, but all we’re doing right now is playing straight into Tehran’s hands. We might make more progress towards our goals by kissing ass in Tehran than by making empty threats of military action against a nuclear program that only becomes more certain to produce a bomb the longer we threaten Iran with annihilation. Are we really going to forgo relations with Iran — and thereby hand control of the region to China — because we’re still pissed about some silly embassy incident that took place before most of the soldiers now fighting in Iraq were born? ‘Cause if so, we can start by shooting the Reagan administration conspirators who prolonged the hostage crisis in order to win the 1980 election and then worry about spanking the mullahs.
And I don’t want to hear any bullshit about democracy or civil rights in the middle east until we restore what we used to have here before the vast chickenshit Republican pussy masses wet their pants and sold the republic out so Dubya could enact their twisted daddy fantasies.
In my darker moments, I entertain similar thoughts. However, I’m not willing to roll the dice to quite that degree.
I don’t have a solution.
When I get tired of thinking about all the “stragtjums..G.W.”…I start thinking about if there could be a pony somewhere under all this shit.
Something really ridiculous like turning the whole thing on it’s head and giving it basically to Iran and Saudi..”just saying here it’s yours”…Iraq is your new United Arab Nations country, the UN center of the Arab world so clean it up and enjoy..they get all their oil and they get everything we have built here including the bases and embassy, they get paid for damages..they get a peace treaty with the US, plus US peace treaties with all other Arab nations, ..as long as every country in Arabia also signs a peace treaty with every other country in Arabia.
Sign on the dotted line and we are out of here.
Declare Iraq to be the 51st state. Then the Feds can completely ignore it as they do the needs of the other 50.
I completely agree exactly with what eodell is saying, & furthermore, who in hell came up with the, “if we leave it will be chaos & death” meme anyway.
And to Mr. BooMan, throw those bones out there, I`ll press my hard 8.
This is why the Crawford Cretin will continue to feed bodies into the meat grinder until 1/09. He wants to leave it for his successor.
I don’t think there is a “solution” for Iraq, if by solution you mean an outcome that does not involve continued and escalating violence with a serious potential to destabilize the entire region. If there is such a “solution”, I have no clue what it might be. I think the very best we can hope for now is to find the least worst of several very bad alternatives. On that subject I would listen very carefully to anything Wes Clark has to say. And I would listen very, very carefully to what the Turks and the Iranians and the Jordanians and the Syrians and the Saudis have to say.
A solution..for IRAQ??
Ha. We’ve got no damned business even trying to come up with a solution for IRAQ.
We can’t even find a solution for SAVING our OWN COUNTRY.
really potentially threaten them! If you have religious based warfare, you can be sure that it is driven by a few powerful leaders directing minions of lemmings. Clearly identify these leaders and show that you can get access to them for retaliation purposes. Then determine any declare any of a number of fair solutions after withdrawing most troops and make it clear that these leaders will be disposed of if the solution fails. Then step back and let good things happen!
Gore as prez, Bill Clinton as Sec. of State, Gen Wes Clark as Sec. of Defense, Cabinet posts for Edwards, Obama and other leading Dem. candidates. Hilary as V.P. How does that sound??
I’ve heard that if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the precipitate.
That’s one of the designs at Think Geek, and Son in Ohio just got a shirt from there for his birthday. (If you’re interested, you can see his shirt by clicking the ad at the bottom of the Independent Bloggers’ Alliance–he got the “T-Qualizer Shirt”).
As far as a solution for Iraq, I don’t have one. But this is an open thread, right. 😉
Another not entirely random comment (more like a plug)–hubby just uploaded his animation demo to YouTube).
http://www.youtube.com/user/demetrius3d
Tell the Iraqi government, (such as it is), that we will turn over a certain amount of money, (a percentage of the yearly expenditures by the US divided by the number of military and mercenary personnel deployed there) to them for each soldier we are able to withdraw as a result of an increase in Iraqi capability to enforce and maintain security within that country.
So, for instance, with yearly expenditure of about $120 billion, with my plan each soldier withdrawn would yield $750,000 in payment directly to the Iraqi government.
I’d be willing to bet this would motivate those with influence inside the Iraqi power structure to make some sighnificant security advances.