Iraq War: Go Big, Go Long, or Go Home?

[Horn]

Originally posted by Thrawn
Notice how the guy in the video you linked to is a total liar.

My youtube = strongar!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkRHki5P6fc

Liar? Really? I saw the edited video. See if you can.

[Overlag]

should have been "go big"  from the begining, but its too late to "go big" now, so the only option is "go long"...


our allies

[Overlag]

Originally posted by Ripsnort
For those of you that say go home....

What if the same scenario held true in Japan, insurgency and uprisings when our troops were rebuilding the place...

In Germany, same....

Would going home been the answer there as well?

you have to go back agian a few decades later and do it again.......wooowoooo WWII all over again (ie WWI wasnt cleaned up properly hence WWII)

[ByeBye]

I like go big, and if not that, then go home.  I think a fourth idea could be a combination of sorts. "Get Tough"

Get tough with the current leaders In Iraq. They either help crack down, or we leave them to the wolves and jackals. They have to be held to account and not catered too. They are trying to play the game both ways......trying to tip-toe around with insugents and factions while still trying to keep the US committed, in order to remain on power.

I say we make it clear that they committ 100% and start getting deadly serious about stopping the insurgents, or we will up and leave them. They have had enough time. It's now time to step up.

[Meatwad]

if Iraq has a civil war, wont it kill off the ones we have problems with over there right now

[crowMAW]

I agree with Charion as well...and I believe it will be the final result regardless (I seem to recall predicting back in '03 on this board that if we invaded the end result would be a divided Iraq).  Call it the Go Short plan...three short passes to gain yardage rather than a brute force rush or hail mary long shot.

The Kurds were pretty much autonomous and self sufficient once the no-fly zones were set.  No reason they can't be again.  And yes, that might cause unrest with Turkey's own Kurdish population.

Giving Sunnis autonomy will let them concentrate on fighting amongst themselves to see who rules, but at least it keeps them away from the Shi'ites.

Bad thing is that the Shi'ite Iraq will be heavily influenced by, or even run by, Iran...which would include Basra and the port to move oil out to the world.  And given Bush's myopic comment lumping Iran into the Axis of Evil...we have some major headwind to overcome to keep Shi'ite Iraq friendly to the US in the long term.

Then leave Bagdad as a sort of "District of Columbia"...no one owns it...no one controls it...but all use it as a free commerce zone.

[Thrawn]

Originally posted by Horn
Liar? Really? I saw the edited video. See if you can.

What in gods name are you talking about?  Did you even watch the video I linked?

[moot]

I'd vote Big.

Next in line against the axis of evil should be its American branch: the next 300B$ should go into fixing internal resource leaks, e.g. jumpstarting alternative energies, fixing immigration and education.

[Kurt]

Go big was always the only decisive answer, but GW wasn't looking down stream when he came up with this boneheaded war... Thats why Colin Powell left.

The Powell doctrine is that you commit absolutely.  If you let the political machine run the war then you get Vietnam.  And thats whats happening now.

GW was short-sighted and figured when Baghdad fell, Thomas Jefferson or someone was going to show up and run Iraq, it was naive and foolish.

Had there been a true plan for a post-Saddam Iraq when we started, we would have had to commit twice the troops we did.  And we would have been done 2 years ago...  But instead we have a piece-meal force moving from one hot-spot to the next and losing everything we gained each time we move.  Its retarded, like the administration that dreamed it up.

Today, Iraq has lasted longer than the U.S. involvement in WWII!  And its all because of a short-sighted battle plan that assumed everything would turn to gold when Saddam fell.

[Debonair]

Originally posted by moot
I'd vote Big.

Next in line against the axis of evil should be its American branch: the next 300B$ should go into fixing internal resource leaks, e.g. jumpstarting alternative energies, fixing immigration and education.

assuming those are broken, how do i know you're not a poorly educated foreigner?!?!!?

[Kurt]

Originally posted by Ripsnort

In Germany, same....

Would going home been the answer there as well?

We're still in Germany... 60 years later.  Is that what you want in Iraq?

Shall we have a world where everytime we fire a shot we have to run the damn place?

The U.S. goes running into these fights always thinking we'll get it done quick... It never works... 15 years in 'Nam, 60 years later still in Germany, 50 years later still staring across the border at North Korea.

No one ever thinks about after the war.

WWII was the only conflict in the last 70 years we really NEEDED to get involved in.  Everything else was local garbage that we shouldn't have messed with.

[moot]

Assuming I am, why does it matter?

[Debonair]

i dont know,
maybe ask someone who went to private school?

[moot]

Good heavens, this is another one of your gags isn't it??
???

[Hap]

Go long.

hap