Re: "defeatest ...mindset"
Ridiculous!
I'm not antiwar, I'm anti-failure!
I believe that by being smart, we 'win' (i.e., achieve strategic Western and US interests in the world).
Standing in the middle of an Islamic civil war is not 'smart'.
Getting out of the way, so we are not being blamed by the various nationalist factions for every little thing that is wrong in their societies, is 'smart' strategy.
Ultimately only they can define their own futures. All we can do is bleed and be shot at by both sides --- but the civil war will roll on regardless of whether we are there or not.
[This civil war would actually be GOOD for Western interests, because a Sunni-Shi'a cat fight would turn their attention inward, and away from us]
Re: "This shows imo that you don't really care how many of them die."
LOL!!!!!!!!!!
First you call me a defeatist peacenik... THEN you accuse me of being a blood-thirsty war monger!
Hilarious!
It just goes to show that you haven't understood a word I've said!
Re: "...Zarqawi and his cohorts would have another win agains the evil (and cowardly) U.S. and then THEY would run Iraq."
That's one of the stupidist things I've ever heard.
Once the US is out it becomes a 'straight-up' Sunni/Shiite title fight.
The Shiites will have their 'own' terrorists to attack the Sunni terrorists such like Zarqawi. (Remember the Iranian 'human wave' techniques deployed against Saddam's military might in the Iran/Iraq Gulf War? Hell, the Sadr Brigates --- Shiites --- have ALREADY been accused of masacres against Sunni 'insurgents').
Still, a straight-up civil war would probably *reduce* the utility of terrorism tactics in Iraq... because more conventional military warfare would prevail on the ground.
Re: "Try supporting the plan to get democracy going."
I'm ALL FOR true Democracy everywhere.
It's just that you can't go in to a civil war --- where both sides have territorial ambitions and grievances, legitimate amd otherwise, against each other --- and IMPOSE a government over all the warring factions. ESPECIALLY in a region that is VERY TOUCHY about foreign invaders, and where about the ONLY thing that can unite the various factions is a 'foreign invader' that they can both attack.
The only way the situation will be able to resolve itself is *after* we exit. Because the only resolution that will count is the one fought out and settled on the ground by the locals.
Iran and Saudi Arabia have LONG been rivals. Sunni Islam and Shi'a Islam has LONG had an unsettled conflict lying between the two camps. (For example: the one thing the rulers of Saudi Arabia fear the most is revolt among their minority *Shi'a* population --- who mostly live right in the HEART of Saudi Arabia's gulf oil provinces. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that either the Shiites in S.A. might be driven out to Iraq, and the Sunnis of Iraq driven to S.A., or --- faced with such a major conflict and consequent risks --- the Shiite/Sunni Reformation will finally come about.) |
