Good evening. Tonight in Iraq, the Armed Forces of the United States are engaged in a struggle that will determine the direction of the global war on terror — and our safety here at home. The new strategy I outline tonight will change America's course in Iraq, and help us succeed in the fight against terror.
When I addressed you just over a year ago, nearly 12 million Iraqis had cast their ballots for a unified and democratic nation. The elections of 2005 were a stunning achievement. We thought that these elections would bring the Iraqis together — and that as we trained Iraqi security forces, we could accomplish our mission with fewer American troops.
Democratic Response
9 comments:
I was very disappointed (not surprised, just disappointed) in Bush's speech the other night.
Last time he increased the number of soldier in Iraq, it had no effect whatsoever on the war. Basically our soldiers over there are between a crossfire of two sides that are basically at Civil War.
Bush says that leaving Iraq would result in a collapse of their government and mass killings. But it's not America's job to maintain their government, or to make sure that THEY maintain it properly. It's not our job to make sure they don't kill each other. Our sticking our noses in other country's problems is what might make the rest of the world resentful towards us.
Furthermore, while we're in Iraq, we're giving other countries the perfect chance to take a run at us, since we're obviously focused on issues in Iraq.
I wish that the speech had gone another way. It seems to me that Bush is continuing this war because he needs to save face.
That's just my opinion, though, and I mean no offense.
As said in your blog, Nearly 12 million iraqis had cast their ballots for a unified and democratic nation. I believe that iraq is very strong on culture, and because of their culture they will never truly be democracy in the middle east. a good example is osama bin laden. The people hide him and stick by him because they believe so strongly in this culture. The war is pointless, and whether we have 20 troops or a thousand troops bush will fail his mission. Iraq is culturally comfortable with its traditions.
The truth is that the Iraqis who voted didn't actually vote for any kind of unity. They voted strictly along religious/ethnic lines and voted for division, not unity.
War is always changing. The arguement that "it didnt work last time, it wont work this time" is wrong. Circumstances have been changing. The soldiers in command want a surge in forces. The troops on the ground want to help the country. I am a soldier and I want to graduate school and go over there as soon as possible. This is not a problem that will be fixed in this president's term alone. There are much bigger problems in the arena there. Iran is also a huge part of the problem in Iraq. Also, remember we have been attacked so many times and we weren't "sticking our noses in other's problems". It finaly took 9-11 to wake us up. Remember that gut-wrenching feeling you felt seeing the buildings crash down full of Americans, and dont forget it! We are over there because there is a huge problem with this hatred being bred there.
I hope this surge does good. It will take a long time before we see the good that is being done there. Let's just do whatever it takes to get their country up and running so that we can bring most of our troops home. We are committed, let's finish it.
Ryan,
>The arguement that "it didnt work last time, it wont work this time" is wrong.
You don't have enough evidence yet to make this claim. It would be correct to say that the argument might be wrong, but you can't come to a full conclusion yet.
>The soldiers in command want a surge in forces.
This doesn't seem to fit with the polls of soldiers that I've read. Notably this one. While it is true that many soliders agree with you, it seems that at least half disagree.
>Also, remember we have been attacked so many times and we weren't "sticking our noses in other's problems".
But we've never been attacked by Iraq. Not once.
>We are over there because there is a huge problem with this hatred being bred there.
The hatred behind the attacks was bred in Afghanistan, not in Iraq.
Well the hatred was bred in countries all over the middle east, Iran and Pakistan being major contributors of schools that teach hatred. It's true that the leaders of Al Qaeda were in Afghanistan at the time of the Sept 11th attacks, but it wasn't long after disposing of Iraq's regular army that the military wing of Al Qaeda became the primary organizer of anti-coalition attacks in Iraq. The debate between republicans and democrats of weather there was a connection or collaboration before the war, or if Bush was right or wrong to invade Iraq, is irrelevant to me. What's done is done, and Bush has no choice but to deal with the current situation, not the past.
I'm not sure that al-Qaeda is the primary organizer of anti-coalition attacks in Iraq. I've not seen evidence to support that argument.
While the reasons why we did it might be irrelevant to you, they aren't irrelevant to the situation. Our efforts are judged -- rightly or wrongly -- by our motives. Our allies and our enemies react to why we do things, so they do matter.
1- I guess claiming a *primary* organizer may not be correct since I was only in one part of Iraq at a time... however in my case after going after targets from the Baath (sp?) party for months after the initial invasion, the people that made our (my battalion's) high-priority list became almost exclusively those within Al-Qaeda. So I guess what I meant to say was that "weather Saddam and Al-Qaeda collaborated or not, Al-Qaeda is there now."
2- I know that the world will judge us based on weather or not Bush was right in the first place, but the discussion is about Bush's current plan and what he hopes to do about the situation. Being wrong 4 years ago doesn't automatically mean pulling out and letting it be is the correct answer. (If he was in fact wrong, of course.)
I don't think the region's problems can be placed entirely on Afghanistan; all things considered, the Afghanis are relatively apathetic towards world events compared to the rest of the middle east, due to the ever-present civil wars and infighting between warlords. Bin Laden, a Saudi, and the other leaders of Al-Qaeda, the majority of whom are not Afghani, likely stayed in (or moved to) Afghanistan after fighting off the Soviets because the "government" provided them sanctuary. While it is thought that right now another country like Pakistan or Iran is doing the harboring, playing a delicate balancing game between helping Al-Qaeda and staying out of the US's sights, if we simply leave an area of the middle east that we currently secure, and the government there fails to retain it's own legitimacy and sovereignty, it will be an open invitation for Al-Qaeda to set up shop there. Without a sovereign host government that could potentially be pressured by the US, Al-Qaeda could then go back on the offensive in the field of international terrorism.
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