Thanks for the reply. I am glad that you, Cogito (who also replied), and I are in agreement that appropriate future Iraq policy is, shall we say, heavily opinion-oriented. Certainly these opinions are, and should be, based on as much objective fact as possible. The problem lies in the fact that there are so many facts to deal with, and that which ones each of us considers important affects our judgement as to the proper course of action.
Let me say only that I believe that moves towards drawdowns of total U.S. troops deployed there is a desirable goal, and should, IMO, depend heavily on circumstances in that country. Including continued reductions in deaths and terrorist attacks, more responsibility taken by the Iraqi military for their own defense, and better progress by their government towards solving their internal disputes over oil and power sharing among their major religious factions.
Thinking about our own first 20-30 years of our representative republic, I think Iraq has made amazing progress in the last 5. And not surprisingly, they have a long way to go. |
