No military solution to Iraq, U.S. general says
 

Tell us something we all don't already know? AMzaing how an article like this can be front page news. THe military is simply the enforcer. The public are the people that must shape their country.

-S

You are right, the people in Iraq need to want this to end. Not to start a negative thread but Iraq has become dependent on military forces and not much else. Just my opinion!

Kinda like Morgan Freeman in Shawshank Redemption....being in prision for most of his life he states he can't even squeeze a drop of pee until some one tells him it is ok to do so....I would think much of the same here...after being Ruled and Dictated to for so long what to buy etc etc...sounds like communisim...Iraqis I'm sure will need lots of help for a long time to come if they are to succeed as a Democratic Nation..."WE" as "Free" nations....um hum...will face the judgement before God if we abandon them now in the hour of need....and woe to any others who do so out of selfishness and sloth.

Proverbs 3
[27] Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it.
[28] Say not unto thy neighbour, Go, and come again, and to morrow I will give; when thou hast it by thee.

Peace

@Ice

I do not believe in abandoning. God helps those that help themselves. The Iraqi need to help themselves.....with our assistance.

Well said. You can lead sheep to water, but you cannot make them drink.

-S

Here,here. :yep:

I dont think you quite understand the situation over there..... the iraq people are trying as hard as possible to help themselves and get back on their feet but its not as easy a task as you make it sound.... Imagin how hard it must be for civis over there at the moment... Death squads patroling the streets, gunships flying by every few minutes and that thought that a bomb could be waiting outside your front door... Its even worse for the government officials.

the middle east truly is a area gutted by religion :nope:

Agreed....it is a tough row to hoe!!! It will not happen over night and people need to realize that. Do you realize how rich Iraq can be with all the oil reserves? I understand electricity is free at this point! I believe some Iraqi are just plain scared to do anything and to be honest, I would be scared also. We can not at any point abandon what has been started. Unfortunate that most of the US (I live in the US) do not support this. It is all political here in the states. With exception of Revolutionary War and 911 attacks, the US is been free of military engagements. It is hard for US citizens to understand what the Iraqi are going through because a large majority in the US have not been there or done that.

Civil War 1861-1865. I realize that was long ago, but since I consider it a defining time for the US I had to remind everyone.

Good one! My line of thought at the time was foreign invasion. War of 1812 is another....but these are a long time ago and not in the social consious.

Agreed. But many lessons can be learned from these past engagements. Unfortunate that some cannot see beyond their own petty political landscape.

Learn from these engagements? Are you kidding? Anything kids learn today they learned at the mall or the latest Disney flick?:rotfl::rotfl: Actually my eight year old was going over her history quiz for this week and it was about the the war of 1812.:up:

Sounds like she's off to a good start AVGWarhawk!:up:

It simply amazes me how well most people are manipulated by the government they supposedly control. The reason for going to Iraq was WMD. It had nothing to do with regime change or "freedom" (thank you GWB for making that word sound entirely hollow now). Yet suddenly when the WMD position turns out to be the lie that it was (it wasn't "faulty intelligence", you were lied to plain and simple) and untenable, the reasoning changes. Even before the WMD claim was proven false we were being prepared for the, "we got rid of that crazy dictator" reasoning. Remember when the statue came down and all those jubulent Iraqis dancing and hitting it. Oh yes, that truly demonstrated that we were right all along. Except when you see it from this angle.
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/i...mStatueMed.jpg

And the manipulation and perception management didn't stop there. We've been through them all now yet people keep swallowing them one after another with a what appears to be a goldfish like, two month memory span.

How to start towards fixing Iraq?

Firstly admit that the invasion was a war crime of the highest order. We all chat about these great concepts of freedom and democracy yet we seem singularly unable to comprehend the enormity of this crime. By the most conservative estimates over 50,000 innocent people have died. Imagine what the feeling on the American street would be like if 50,000 innocent American civilians had been killed by a foreign power. Someone would be getting nuked. Once the crime is acknowledged justice must be served by putting those who are responsible for orchestrating and starting this war on trial. We need to show the Iraqi people that we are sincerely sorry for what happened and then work with the entire world to build up their infrastructure while working with whatever political system emerges from their civil war.

That just isn't going to happen though is it?

Why do we continue to believe our governments have our best interests at heart when history proves how they have lied to us again and again and again? In the 60s and 70s three million Vietnamese paid with their lives for the myth that communism was going to take over the world. They won, America and its small group of allies pulled out and the dominoes didn't fall. Now we're supposed to believe the same rubbish but this time communist has been replaced with terrorist. How stupid do they think we are? Why the hell do we never call these power hungry sociopaths in charge to account?

Because there wouldn't be McDonald's without McDonald Douglas.

Unfortunately, Iraq is just the symptom of a wider geopolitical struggle for the Earth's resources to be dominated and controlled by the few. Ever since there has been state based political systems this has been the case. This might sound like I'm just blaming America but I'm not. I'm not naive. I have no doubt that if Germany or China or England or Sealand were in the United States' current position then we'd be observing them doing the same kind of things. Who pulls the strings will continue to change but unless we fundamentally alter our outlook on the world, the wars will not. We have to have a long hard look at where we're going as a species or be prepared for many more and many worse Iraqs to come.