Bigthink - Idea Comments Feed

Comment on: Re: If you were advising the President on Iraq, what advice would you give him?

Bigthink — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 05:25:38 +0100

Ok, we probably shouldn't have invaded Iraq. But calling Bush's decision to take out one of the most dangerous people on the planet at the time the worst foreign policy decision in his lifetime was a little harsh. Most Americans were for the war (not that that makes it right, the majority is often wrong) so blaming it on a single politician is useless, unless your just trying to blow off steam. So now that we're in Iraq, it's a mess, but we cant leave. We are stuck there. I like to say we dug ourselves into a hole and we have to dig all the way out. Believe it or not theres no escape button like so many politicians are seeming to suggest will be pushed if they are elected. It will be a while and I think the best thing to do is not so harshly criticize and contradict our leaders and just let the military figure out our military problems.

Comment on: Re: If you were advising the President on Iraq, what advice would you give him?

Bigthink — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 16:25:59 +0100

bspang85,
So we broke it we bought it? Oh wait, this is a democracy and I didn't vote for the man that decided to go to war. All that blood is on HIS hands not mine. I would love for Iraq to succeed, but Menendez is right, they have to do it themselves. We have permanent bases built in Iraq, it looks like we are going to be there forever. Even if we "Bring the troops home" there's still gonna be 20,000 over there bunkered in the bases. We aren't going to be able to stop Sunnis and Shiites from fighting over power and land. That is unless we want to empower another dictator like Saddam.

Comment on: Re: If you were advising the President on Iraq, what advice would you give him?

Bigthink — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 08:24:24 +0100

Mr. Menendez is look at this from the wrong angle. The question is not anymore was Iraq initially the right decision. That has been answered unequivocally as no. Going into Iraq was a colossal failure, the policy was a wrong, etc%u2026 His talking points are purely political and are largely irrelevant to the question at hand. The real question I want t o see him answer: Do we as Americans have an obligation to fix the mess that we created? And if so, what%u2019s the best way to do that? I truly believe that we have a moral obligation to do what%u2019s best for Iraqi people and I just don%u2019t see how withdrawing could make things any better. In my opinion Iraq is likely to fall into a civil war (Kurds/Sunnis/Shiites/Al-qaeda) without an American troop presence. In this scenario, Iraq is a battlefield for the next decade with hundreds of thousands of lives lost. This seems like a worst case scenario.