The Iraq Coalition Should....

[Pangloss]

I realize this poll is overly restricted, but what I'm looking for here is a sense of which option you would choose if these were your only available options. Because of the restriction, nobody should hold any respondant responsible for claiming to advocate the position of their response in this poll. Thanks.

 

The question here is, which of these choices would you most favor?

[alibabba]

I would state an exit strategy, as the administration has done, many times.

 

The strategy is to remain in Iraq, assisting in the maintainance of order and in the training of the Iraqi military until the Iraqi government is established and with enough organization to maintain a stable government and resist the insurgency on it's own.

 

As they become more and more capable of handling their own problems, we will be less and less involved.

[Bettina]

I chose to stay the course, because there are really only two options. Your first three are basically the same thing....to withdraw.

 

So...the question is should we stay, fight, and destroy the terrorists that are coming there to fight....or withdraw.

 

The bottom line is....if we don't fight them there, we will have to fight them here.

 

Bettina

[Douglas]

In my opinion, at this stage in the game, there's only one option....stay the course.

[Nevermore]

The iraqis want us out, the insurgants are winning the fight by sheer sadism, and the entire world is angry at us. If we don't pull out it will cost thousands of lives, billions of dollars, and we will encourage the worldwide anti-american xenophobia thus increasing the chances of a 2nd attack.

We must pull out now.

[Pangloss]

The Iraqis want us out, the insurgents are winning the fight by sheer sadism, and the entire world is angry at us. If we pull out now it will cost thousands of lives, billions of dollars, and we will encourage the worldwide anti-American xenophobia thus increasing the chances of further attacks.

 

We must stay the course.

[-Demosthenes-]

We must pull out now.

 

Leave before the country is organized? Hmmm, I'm not sure, but wouldn't that cause some problems? You know your run of the mill messed-up country stuff like civil war. I guess if you don't care about the people of Iraq then of course we should leave.

 

Why waste money on some messed-up country that you don't live in, and that you do not profit from. All it does it cost your tax money and make your country more unpopular.

 

It's not worth the lives of millions who live far a way that will never thank you.

 

When did people become so selfish?

 

we will encourage the worldwide anti-american xenophobia

Ah yes, the theory that we will be more liked if we pull out of a conflict that we started. Yes I'm sure everyone will be love us we invade a country with intent to fix it and then leave half way through. Why didn't I think of that?

 

 

We need to look at history (the thing about the people that did stuff a while ago). There were a little bit more than a few examples of neglected countries and times when we did nothing and countries fell, countries conquered, countries were never the same after, and yes, innocent people died. Because of a philosophy we like to call: isolationism.

 

Good thing some people care.

[Dak]

I said stay the course, simply because any change of plan this soon after terrorist explosions might encorage the terrorists by making them think that their intimidation had worked.

[Skye]

My feeling is that there are alot of US troops tied up in Iraq, and that in the short term, a year or two or three, we should be planning on getting these numbers down to under say, 50 K. This will reduce the role played by the National Guard and reservists, and allow for more comfortable troop rotations in the Army and Marines. Most importantly it allows the US to have troops available for the next war. In the long term, with the number of troops stationed in Japan and Europe perhaps being lowered, there is the ability to maintain a reasonable force in Iraq indefinitely.

[john5746]

I chose state an exit strategy, because I don't see one. Rumsfeld himself said Americans could not get rid of the insurgency - so violence will probably continue after we leave.

 

Clear goals - such as X number of troops will be trained within a year, etc should be stated. I don't see why we should give government a blank check when it comes to rebuilding a nation. Rebuilding the military should be the primary focus, with a train the trainer approach. This means they should be able to train themselves after we leave.

 

The military is designed to kill and destroy the enemy, not to hand out Teddy Bears while getting shot in the back. They need clear and attainable goals to achieve. This is really supporting the troops, not blindly saying "stay the course", when we don't even know what the course is.

 

Fight the terrorists there and not here? That is not very smart, since the very act of invasion INCREASES the terrorist ranks. Not to mention do we have the right to keep a country screwed up by attracting terrorist to it so we can fight them? Maybe we can have Bush just say "Bet you can't bomb London again" and fight them there.

 

Immediate withdrawel, no we should not do it, but this government that the right doesn't think can educate our children or do anything well, better pick up the pace on training and start using the military more efficiently.

[Skye]

THE US and Britain are considering the withdrawal of more than 100,000 coalition troops from Iraq next year, despite former Iraq interim prime minister Iyad Allawi warning his country faced civil war.

 

...

 

The document said Washington hoped to hand over control of security to Iraqi forces in 14 out of 18 provinces in the country by early next year, allowing it to slash US-led troop levels from 176,000 to 66,000.

Meh, close enough is good enough. From http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,15884372%255E2703,00.html

[john5746]

That sounds good to me...if they choose to go with it officially.

[Ophiolite]

It was contrived, ill conceived, improperly planned, unjustified and short sighted to go in. It would be simply evil to leave.

[Pangloss]

I think the results of this poll are interesting. 60% favor "staying the course".

 

A bigger statistical sample would be cool. Come on, folks!