What do your instincts and intellect tell you we should do in Iraq?

One of the (many) problems the US faces in Iraq is that the complexities get in the way of clear solutions.

If you were in charge of Iraq policy, what would be your bottom line solution?

of the middle of the country. Guard the boarders and the oil fields. Don't go on any more patrols.
Then gradually get the hell out of there. But get out of Baghdad now.

everyday our troops are forced to stay fighting for their lives in an unwinable War
is pure insanity.

In essence, we are allowing Bush carte blanche to exterminate Americans with our approval.

by Iraqis.

It's batshit crazy to think that increasing troops by 15% will change things around.

Either we triple- or quadruple the troops - yes, that means a draft for Jenna, Barbara, and Chelsea - or we get out quick. Anything else is an utter waste of blood and treasure.

WTF? Who are you fighting, and for what purpose, may I ask. 500,000 troops will do what? Keep them all in their homes?

Does anyone really think we can continue to occupy their country and they will tolerate it?

We either need to win, or lose as quickly as possible.

The only way to win is to mass a lot of troops and destroy the country - utterly break their will to fight. I don't like it, but that's just the way it works - see the Civil War or WWII for details. Nothing else works, once fighting commences.

If we don't do that, we can never win - we should pull out immediately.

I tend to think that we should pull out immediately - but both of these options, are very, very, very ugly.

And WHY pray tell do you think it would be good to eradicate enough of the population (half?) to 'win'? What exactly would that accomplish?

And the half remaining would be 'defeated' and do our bidding? I think that is extraordinarily unlikely.

So, what kill 3/4 and hope the 1/4 remaining would like us better, or at least stop trying to evict us as occupiers.

is this conflagration of humanity justified by what....their attack on us on 9/11? Their nasty WMDs or the fact that they are 'just' arabs?

That's a lot of things that you say I've said - that I didn't say.

All that I am saying is that their are two options that I would consider. The other options simply defy any semblance of reality. I doubt that I'm in favor of dramatically increasing our troop strength, unless there is a reasonable argument that this move would ultimately save more human lives than the alternatives. Killings on an enormous scale do actually happen, you know - Darfur, Rwanda, Cambodia, China, Soviet Union, Armenia, ... we may be at that point in Iraq.

You may want to do some reading on how wars work - heck, we all should, particularly since few in the Executive and Legislative branches of our government seem to be able to do so.

But I thought it better to respond myself.

Putting words into other folks mouths - especially words of genocide - is not helpful for anyone. This is what the Right does. We're better than that - you are too, otherwise you wouldn't be on this site.

of the UN.

Quick? No. Bloodless? Not at this point.

But a regional, UN sanctioned approach holds a better chance at some sort of stability than unilateral UK/US dominance in the situation, imo.

(And as far as oil goes, we'll always negotiate some kind of supply agreements, no matter who holds the supply. We are the consumers. They are the producers. It takes two to tango in the relationship.)

:shrug:

-1) beg for forgiveness at the UN.

-2) send the entire bush administration to the Hague for war crimes.

that virtually no one wants to mention, much less consider, especially -1.

Yep. Neighboring nations, we were told, were THREATENED by Saddam's Iraq. I propose that those poor, threatened, neighboring nations be notified on a Monday that the US troops will be withdrawn over a 4-day period beginning on Thursday and to get ready. Then get the f*ck out.

:yourock:

sw

will eventually take hold. No worries.

It seems I do. Cut that out.

I'm just glad I'm not chimp...'he broke it, he bought it'. :-(

so we never got in in the first place.

I'm afraid that at this point, there simply is no workable solution, and that anything that we do or don't do is going to have disastrous consequences.

That's where we ought to aim the Time Machine

of this war in 1990. Give Kuwait back to Saddam.

Who else can hold the lid on the place?

Dear MFing idiot who votes to "trust bush";

you're a total MFing idiot.

Plan 1:
- Reanimate corpse of Ronald Raygun.
- Spring Saddam from jail.
- Have Raygun sell Saddam huge amounts of weaponry under the guise of medical research and farm machinery (Trust me, he knows how it's done).
- Sit back quietly while Saddam crushes all those in his way, until he becomes inconvenient again.

Plan 2:
- Give HUGE grants and subsidies to alternative fuel research and producers.
- Become energy self-sufficient.
- Withdraw all troops from the Middle East.
- Let the whole region destroy itself.

Plan 3:
- Pass an amendment to the Constitution declaring that all presidential children must serve in the front lines of any armed conflict with no loopholes allowing them to avoid duty.
- Plan "Welcome Home" party for Dec. 19, 2006.

Then pay Haliburton to rebuild it as U.S. territory called "New-Texas"

I mean shit, wasn't that the plan to begin with??? If it aint broke, why fix it?

and then work with the Kurds and Shiites behind the scenes to negotiate with the Sunni "leaders" independently without US troops being in their capitol city.

many the ultimate sacrifice---their lives!

Send George, Pops, Jeb, Babs, the twins, all the uncles and cousins and the rest of the seemingly large Bush family, along with Cheney, Rummy, Feith, Wolfowitz, the Republican Congress, Fox 'News', WaPo, etc and their families into Iraq to 'surge' Bagdad.

If it's worth doing, it's worth those most committed to it to do it.

... or we can leave later with more of our servicepeople dead and more money wasted.

It will make ZERO difference in the outcome. The time we could "train the Iraqis to provide for their own security" passed over a year ago.

The Bush-led losers have bungled every opportunity to make this work, even though to be fair, once we invaded the opportunities were always slim to none.

To the folks who say "we can't just leave", I ask "exactly what are we accomplishing by staying?".

The answer to that question is clear and irrefutable.

The phrase that has been repeated over and over again is "WE have about three to six months to get this right."

The first one of those was about three years ago.