More troops

[Eghad]

That is why there are officers in the military; to keep NCOs and enlisted in their place and to assure the civilian leader of the military that "Yes sir" is the proper course of action in any situation

The NCOs are the backbone of the American Military. I had a deal with my OIC (Officer in Charge). All I needed was what to do and when to have it done. He went to the staff meetings and the NCOs and the enlisted got the job done to standard on or before the deadline. The only time I wanted to see my OIC was if some other Officer was being stupid and keeping me from doing my job or I needed his signature on an authorization by regulations or SOP. Sometimes when other folks got wacky on things he would get my back as I would do the same for him.

In fact my OIC would usually come back from the staff meeting with a task list of which we had already completed 95% of the stuff simply because we utilized the NCO network.

In fact I would submit that NCOs have to keep officers on the right track sometimes. Also an NCO is not obligated to follow an unlawful order from anyone. I have refused or advised the officers that such things were illegal.

To say that officers are around to keep NCOs and enlisted in their place does both a disservice.

 

[Eghad]

I will go along with more troops if it also includes a better plan.

When I read the articles I see the operation was done by US Forces backed by Iraqi Forces. It should be the other way around. I think we need to withdraw from Baghdad and let the Iraqi leadership decide what they want to do. So far we have been letting them off the hook by giving them the best of both worlds. They get safety and also get to blame and yell about the US screwing it up or doing something wrong. I say lets take that away from the Iraqi leadership and give them some motivation. Let the Iraqi people see how their ledeship functions.

To get a true western style democracy in Iraq is a pipe dream. WE need to let the Iraqis decide what type of government they want, not try to forcefeed them.

 

[Benonymous]

oil oil oil

The US cannot leave Iraq until it's got the oil assets in the bag, period. All other arguments are void. It's not a matter of honour or ego or anything else. Have a search for the "Carter Doctrine" and read the transcripts of Jimmy Carters speeches. All he declared then is sill current now. Western oil interests have been working closely with the US sponsored government in Iraq to hand control of oil assets to western corporate entities. Large numbers of land rigs have also been set p in Kuwait to slant drill into Iraq. Dictator, WMD, terrorsts, insurgents all BS. Without oil you won't be able to have the worlds strongest economy and everything crumbles into the sea for the US after that. "The US way of life is not negotiable" declared a notable politician. The men and women of the US military have been sent in to action to prove the weight of that statement, make no mistake. Extra troops buy more time for the oil guys to stitch up their deals. Conveniently if the Dems block funding for the 21000 extra bodies, the Republicans will be able to blame them for "losing" the war! Sweet!

 

[Red Grant]

...as well as talking baout the Iraq war get people riled up but they are not presented in any realistic context.

What would be the realistic context?

a hard workin American thats joinin the Marines to fight for the country...

Freedom is not free, somebody gotta be paid.

ill talk my recruiter into a bigger sign on bonus

but i do think its a good thing, for the people over there, that we went in and got him[Saddam]

Do the people over there include Al Qaeda, Al Sadr, and Iranian theocrats as well?

but i refuse to think it will be for no good cause.

ill talk my recruiter into a bigger sign on bonus

 

[Red Grant]

I am pleased and proud of our soldiers...

Me, too, (with the exception of a few "bad apples"), especially those who have shown their competence on tactical level engagements with the insurgents, but:

....and the progress of the war.

Are you pleased that about 3,000 of G.I.s have died, and thousands more became maimed?


Are you pleased that Iranian theocrats are strenghtening their positions in Iraq?


Are you pleased that thousands of Iraqis have been murdered by the likes of Al Qaeda, and Al Sadr?


Are you pleased that the credibility of U.S. has been damaged?

...if that somehow is upsetting to you then perhaps your uniform is the wrong color.

Does this mean that you are not somehow upset (in fact, pleased and proud) that about 3,000 G.I. have died, with thousands more crippled for life, with U.S. credibility damaged, with thousands of Iraqis murdered by Al Qaeda, and Al Sadr, with the Iranian theocrats strengthening their position in Iraq?

 

[Red Grant]

as a volunteer in today' Armed Forces you don't have the option to question orders,

Did a conscript in yesterday's Armed Forces have the option to question orders?

The only legitimate use of the military is the protection of the life and liberty of citizens of the United States from those who are a direct threat to those.

In response:

This type of thinking is called isolationism and it has real applications and utility from a civilian's perspective; none at all from a military perspective since as a volunteer in today' Armed Forces you don't have the option to question orders,

How does the notion that one doesn't have the option to question orders since one is a volunteer in Armed Forces have anything to do with the notion that there is no real applications and utility from a military perspective for the notion that the only legitimate use of the military is the protection of the life and liberty of citizens of the United States from those who are a direct threat to those?

 

[Red Grant]

Saddam was no such a threat.

Well, Camp David, let me quote in more complete form:

The only legitimate use of the military is the protection of the life and liberty of citizens of the United States from those who are a direct threat to those. Saddam was no such a threat.

and in response:

Well, neither was Al Qaeda immediately before 3,000 American civilians died!

Well, Al Qaeda was such a threat! ,a direct threat to the life and liberty of citizens of the United States prior to 9/11 unlike Saddam after the Gulf War.

What about U.S. embassy bombing in Tanzania and Kenya prior to 9/11?


Was Al Qaeda responsible for it?



What about U.S.S Cole bombing?

What about Kobar tower bombing?

The point here is...do you wait with an identified thread until that threat materializes or eliminate a threat before it acts?

The point here is...was Saddam an identified threat to the life and liberty of citizens of the United States after the Gulf War like Al Qaeda was prior to 9/11?

and if not, and did attacking Saddam help U.S. positioin or did it end up helping Al Sadr and Iranian theocrats?

Clinton didn't act on Al Qaeda and it acted.

As much as I dislike Clinton, he did act.


Who ordered the attack on Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan and Sudan prior to 9/11?


Was it Bush or Clinton?

hence 09.11.01...

Did Bush attack Al Qaeda prior to 09.11.01?


Could Bush have done something, such as aggressive sweep/attack on Al Qaeda operatives to minimize the chance of 9/11 happenning?

Did Bush succeed in preventing 9/11 from happening?

Bush acted upon Saddam before his threats with WMD could be carried out...

Was there WMD in Iraq?

Did Bush find any?

Did Saddam make threats against U.S. with WMD just prior to Iraq war?

Now, using such a logic, why not invade Iran or North Korea?

...Monday morning quaterbacking in any event...

......and guess who got the intelligence wrong about WMD?

Clinton or Bush?


....and who failed to prevent 9/11 from happening?

....and does this mean it's o.k. to squander the lives of U.S. soldiers and tax payer's money and credibility of the United States based on faulty intelligence so long as the declared intention was noble?

 

[BlueTrain]

Oh, but we aren't squandering the taxpayer's money on this war. Taxes have gone down since the war began anyway. We are using borrowed money to pay for things.

 

[Petre]

More troops at this point is insanity . It only serves as more cannon fodder.

The Generals that were part of the start of this war said we needed 300,000 troops in Iraq. HALF what we have. 20,000 will only replace the dead and wounded and essentially leaves us in the same mess we were in when wwe started.

And the COST ? Today's estimates of the total overall cost both primary and secondary ... $1.2 - 2 TRILLION dollars.

===========

What $1.2 Trillion Can Buy
By DAVID LEONHARDT
The human mind isn’t very well equipped to make sense of a figure like $1.2 trillion. We don’t deal with a trillion of anything in our daily lives, and so when we come across such a big number, it is hard to distinguish it from any other big number. Millions, billions, a trillion — they all start to sound the same.

The way to come to grips with $1.2 trillion is to forget about the number itself and think instead about what you could buy with the money. When you do that, a trillion stops sounding anything like millions or billions.

For starters, $1.2 trillion would pay for an unprecedented public health campaign — a doubling of cancer research funding, treatment for every American whose diabetes or heart disease is now going unmanaged and a global immunization campaign to save millions of children’s lives.

Combined, the cost of running those programs for a decade wouldn’t use up even half our money pot. So we could then turn to poverty and education, starting with universal preschool for every 3- and 4-year-old child across the country. The city of New Orleans could also receive a huge increase in reconstruction funds.

The final big chunk of the money could go to national security. The recommendations of the 9/11 Commission that have not been put in place — better baggage and cargo screening, stronger measures against nuclear proliferation — could be enacted. Financing for the war in Afghanistan could be increased to beat back the Taliban’s recent gains, and a peacekeeping force could put a stop to the genocide in Darfur.

All that would be one way to spend $1.2 trillion. Here would be another:

The war in Iraq.

In the days before the war almost five years ago, the Pentagon estimated that it would cost about $50 billion. Democratic staff members in Congress largely agreed. Lawrence Lindsey, a White House economic adviser, was a bit more realistic, predicting that the cost could go as high as $200 billion, but President Bush fired him in part for saying so.

These estimates probably would have turned out to be too optimistic even if the war had gone well. Throughout history, people have typically underestimated the cost of war, as William Nordhaus, a Yale economist, has pointed out.

But the deteriorating situation in Iraq has caused the initial predictions to be off the mark by a scale that is difficult to fathom. The operation itself — the helicopters, the tanks, the fuel needed to run them, the combat pay for enlisted troops, the salaries of reservists and contractors, the rebuilding of Iraq — is costing more than $300 million a day, estimates Scott Wallsten, an economist in Washington.

That translates into a couple of billion dollars a week and, over the full course of the war, an eventual total of $700 billion in direct spending.

The two best-known analyses of the war’s costs agree on this figure, but they diverge from there. Linda Bilmes, at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate and former Clinton administration adviser, put a total price tag of more than $2 trillion on the war. They include a number of indirect costs, like the economic stimulus that the war funds would have provided if they had been spent in this country.

Mr. Wallsten, who worked with Katrina Kosec, another economist, argues for a figure closer to $1 trillion in today’s dollars. My own estimate falls on the conservative side, largely because it focuses on the actual money that Americans would have been able to spend in the absence of a war. I didn’t even attempt to put a monetary value on the more than 3,000 American deaths in the war.

Besides the direct military spending, I’m including the gas tax that the war has effectively imposed on American families (to the benefit of oil-producing countries like Iran, Russia and Saudi Arabia). At the start of 2003, a barrel of oil was selling for $30. Since then, the average price has been about $50. Attributing even $5 of this difference to the conflict adds another $150 billion to the war’s price tag, Ms. Bilmes and Mr. Stiglitz say.

The war has also guaranteed some big future expenses. Replacing the hardware used in Iraq and otherwise getting the United States military back into its prewar fighting shape could cost $100 billion. And if this war’s veterans receive disability payments and medical care at the same rate as veterans of the first gulf war, their health costs will add up to $250 billion. If the disability rate matches Vietnam’s, the number climbs higher. Either way, Ms. Bilmes says, “It’s like a miniature Medicare.”

In economic terms, you can think of these medical costs as the difference between how productive the soldiers would have been as, say, computer programmers or firefighters and how productive they will be as wounded veterans. In human terms, you can think of soldiers like Jason Poole, a young corporal profiled in The New York Times last year. Before the war, he had planned to be a teacher. After being hit by a roadside bomb in 2004, he spent hundreds of hours learning to walk and talk again, and he now splits his time between a community college and a hospital in Northern California.

Whatever number you use for the war’s total cost, it will tower over costs that normally seem prohibitive. Right now, including everything, the war is costing about $200 billion a year.

Treating heart disease and diabetes, by contrast, would probably cost about $50 billion a year. The remaining 9/11 Commission recommendations — held up in Congress partly because of their cost — might cost somewhat less. Universal preschool would be $35 billion. In Afghanistan, $10 billion could make a real difference. At the National Cancer Institute, annual budget is about $6 billion.

“This war has skewed our thinking about resources,” said Mr. Wallsten, a senior fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a conservative-leaning research group. “In the context of the war, $20 billion is nothing.”

As it happens, $20 billion is not a bad ballpark estimate for the added cost of Mr. Bush’s planned surge in troops. By itself, of course, that price tag doesn’t mean the surge is a bad idea. If it offers the best chance to stabilize Iraq, then it may well be the right option.

But the standard shouldn’t simply be whether a surge is better than the most popular alternative — a far-less-expensive political strategy that includes getting tough with the Iraqi government. The standard should be whether the surge would be better than the political strategy plus whatever else might be accomplished with the $20 billion.

This time, it would be nice to have that discussion before the troops reach Iraq.

leonhardt@nytimes.com

 

[BlueTrain]

Here are a few more points that have come to mind:

The original poll questions did not mention the legality of the war but armies make war; not Congress.

Whether or not there should be a draft could be considered outside of the context of the present situation, as could the size of the army. As it is, if you listen to some people talking about the future army, we will have a smaller, more flexible, better trained, highly motivated, better equipped army--that will be entirely inadequate!

I believe newer troops are already reaching Iraq, so it is too late for anything to be settled.

Some contributor said something about getting the troops everything they need (as opposed to more troops). Could that person elaborate on that point?

The generals can't have 300,000 troops. The active army and Marines together have a little over 500,000, so it just might not be possible to actually field 300,000. The Phillipine Insurrection was handled with something over 100,000 troops, which included state troops. About 4,000 fatalities were incurred. I realize it might be a stretch but there are closer similiarities with that war than any other. Anyhow, they'll have to make do with what they have.

The dollar cost of the war should not be an insurmountable issue but taxes will unfortunately have to enter the picture at some point. Remember, ultimately, 100% of government income is from some sort of tax. If you don't think your taxes should be paying for the war or if you don't think you personally ought to be paying taxes and plenty of (rich, usually) folks don't think they should, then you are against the war, any war, like it or not. You are also against everything government, any goverment, does.

 

[Desert Heat]

There are far more deaths now than under Saddam.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,243878,00.html

Here is what the government that we created is doing.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...6jan16,0,2678083.story?coll=la-home-headlines


As you can see, not only did the US make everything worse than it was under Saddam, but the government we created is siding with Iran. Stay the course huh?

 

[Petre]

To Blue Train ... Here's just one reference to the 300,000 troops the generals believed they needed ... There's one by Powell and another by Franks out there . Do a search.
----------------------------------------
Gen. Zinni: 'They've Screwed Up'
Former Top Commander Condemns Pentagon Officials Over Iraq War

(CBS) Retired General Anthony Zinni is one of the most respected and outspoken military leaders of the past two decades.

From 1997 to 2000, he was commander-in-chief of the United States Central Command, in charge of all American troops in the Middle East. That was the same job held by Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf before him, and Gen. Tommy Franks after.

Following his retirement from the Marine Corps, the Bush administration thought so highly of Zinni that it appointed him to one of its highest diplomatic posts -- special envoy to the Middle East.

But Zinni broke ranks with the administration over the war in Iraq, and now, in his harshest criticism yet, he says senior officials at the Pentagon are guilty of dereliction of duty -- and that the time has come for heads to roll. Correspondent Steve Kroft reports.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“There has been poor strategic thinking in this,” says Zinni. “There has been poor operational planning and execution on the ground. And to think that we are going to ‘stay the course,’ the course is headed over Niagara Falls. I think it's time to change course a little bit, or at least hold somebody responsible for putting you on this course. Because it's been a failure.”

Zinni spent more than 40 years serving his country as a warrior and diplomat, rising from a young lieutenant in Vietnam to four-star general with a reputation for candor.

Now, in a new book about his career, co-written with Tom Clancy, called "Battle Ready," Zinni has handed up a scathing indictment of the Pentagon and its conduct of the war in Iraq.

In the book, Zinni writes: "In the lead up to the Iraq war and its later conduct, I saw at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility, at worse, lying, incompetence and corruption."

“I think there was dereliction in insufficient forces being put on the ground and fully understanding the military dimensions of the plan. I think there was dereliction in lack of planning,” says Zinni. “The president is owed the finest strategic thinking. He is owed the finest operational planning. He is owed the finest tactical execution on the ground. … He got the latter. He didn’t get the first two.”

Zinni says Iraq was the wrong war at the wrong time - with the wrong strategy. And he was saying it before the U.S. invasion. In the months leading up to the war, while still Middle East envoy, Zinni carried the message to Congress: “This is, in my view, the worst time to take this on. And I don’t feel it needs to be done now.”

But he wasn’t the only former military leader with doubts about the invasion of Iraq. Former General and National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, former Centcom Commander Norman Schwarzkopf, former NATO Commander Wesley Clark, and former Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki all voiced their reservations.

Zinni believes this was a war the generals didn’t want – but it was a war the civilians wanted.

“I can't speak for all generals, certainly. But I know we felt that this situation was contained. Saddam was effectively contained. The no-fly, no-drive zones. The sanctions that were imposed on him,” says Zinni.

“Now, at the same time, we had this war on terrorism. We were fighting al Qaeda. We were engaged in Afghanistan. We were looking at 'cells' in 60 countries. We were looking at threats that we were receiving information on and intelligence on. And I think most of the generals felt, let's deal with this one at a time. Let's deal with this threat from terrorism, from al Qaeda.”

One of Zinni's responsibilities while commander-in-chief at Centcom was to develop a plan for the invasion of Iraq. Like his predecessors, he subscribed to the belief that you only enter battle with overwhelming force.

But Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld thought the job could be done with fewer troops and high-tech weapons.

How many troops did Zinni’s plan call for? “We were much in line with Gen. Shinseki's view,” says Zinni. “We were talking about, you know, 300,000, in that neighborhood.”

What difference would it have made if 300,000 troops had been sent in, instead of 180,000?

“I think it's critical in the aftermath, if you're gonna go to resolve a conflict through the use of force, and then to rebuild the country,” says Zinni.

“The first requirement is to freeze the situation, is to gain control of the security. To patrol the streets. To prevent the looting. To prevent the 'revenge' killings that might occur. To prevent bands or gangs or militias that might not have your best interests at heart from growing or developing.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last month, Secretary Rumsfeld acknowledged that he hadn't anticipated the level of violence that would continue in Iraq a year after the war began. Should he have been surprised?

“He should not have been surprised. You know, there were a number of people, before we even engaged in this conflict, that felt strongly we were underestimating the problems and the scope of the problems we would have in there,” says Zinni. “Not just generals, but others -- diplomats, those in the international community that understood the situation. Friends of ours in the region that were cautioning us to be careful out there. I think he should have known that.”

Instead, Zinni says the Pentagon relied on inflated intelligence information about weapons of mass destruction from Iraqi exiles, like Ahmed Chalabi and others, whose credibility was in doubt. Zinni claims there was no viable plan or strategy in place for governing post-Saddam Iraq.

“As best I could see, I saw a pickup team, very small, insufficient in the Pentagon with no detailed plans that walked onto the battlefield after the major fighting stopped and tried to work it out in the huddle -- in effect to create a seat-of-the-pants operation on reconstructing a country,” says Zinni.

“I give all the credit in the world to Ambassador Bremer as a great American who's serving his country, I think, with all the kind of sacrifice and spirit you could expect. But he has made mistake after mistake after mistake.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What mistakes?

“Disbanding the army,” says Zinni. “De-Baathifying, down to a level where we removed people that were competent and didn’t have blood on their hands that you needed in the aftermath of reconstruction – alienating certain elements of that society.”

Zinni says he blames the Pentagon for what happened. “I blame the civilian leadership of the Pentagon directly. Because if they were given the responsibility, and if this was their war, and by everything that I understand, they promoted it and pushed it - certain elements in there certainly - even to the point of creating their own intelligence to match their needs, then they should bear the responsibility,” he says.

“But regardless of whose responsibility I think it is, somebody has screwed up. And at this level and at this stage, it should be evident to everybody that they've screwed up. And whose heads are rolling on this? That's what bothers me most.”

Adds Zinni: “If you charge me with the responsibility of taking this nation to war, if you charge me with implementing that policy with creating the strategy which convinces me to go to war, and I fail you, then I ought to go.”


READ THE REST OF THIS INTERVIEW HERE .... http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/21/60minutes/main618896.shtml

 

[Red Grant]

Oh, but we aren't squandering the taxpayer's money on this war.

and here's the answer to that:

The dollar cost of the war should not be an insurmountable issue but taxes will unfortunately have to enter the picture at some point.

Remember, ultimately 100% of the government income is from some kind of tax.

The Philliphine insurrection was handled with something over
100,000 troops, which included state troops.

I realize it might be a stretch but there are closer similiarities with that war than any other.

I agree on local tactical level. But in terms of grand strategy, the Iraq War is totally unlike the Philliphine insurrection.


The rebels in Philliphine had very limited access from outside, both in terms of recruits and logistics.....another word, in the war of attrition, they were pretty much doomed to begin with.

The insurgents in Iraq have extensive easily reachable access from outside, both in terms of recruits and logistics.


The purpose of victory in Philliphine was to secure a base from which U.S. could "check" the ambitions of the rival Colonial powers of the era in the region, and it was a relatively easily achievable goal, and it did.


The "purpose" of victory in the Iraq War (well, they keep changing, don't they?), what was it at first?

First it was WMD? Did we find any?

Later, it was To build Pro-Western Democracy that could ignite the new wave of democratic movement throughout the Middle East? Did we?

Later still, To prevent Al Qaeda from building a nest? because we can't afford to lose, which will embolden Al Qaeda and other Anti-U.S. nuts, both in the region and other parts of the world?

 

[Eghad]

I remember Rumsfeld scoffing at the $50 billion mark for the Iraq War.

If the Iraqis are more interested in religious differences, corruption, power than nationhood we need to get out. We can send 300,000 troops there and not make a difference if the Iraqis dont stand up and be counted.

This administration needs to serve them as the street folks say. Fear is a great motivator.

 

[Danzig]

Saddam was a dictator. Why? I can't intelligently try and explain why he did the things that he did. I can make certain guesses..but that is all they are.

However, I can speak very intelligently about the future of Iraq. The future leader of Iraq MUST be a dictator if he hopes to keep peace and order in the country. Sunnis and Shias will only live together peacefully if they are forced (with heavy hand) to do so. There are numerous examples of this, the Roman empire, the Soviet Union, etc. Some peoples will only be peaceful when under the yoke of a tyrant. Iraq is just so a situation.

My wife made a good point. The problem (as far as the US government was concerned) was not that Saddam Hussein was a dictator..no...it's that he was no longer OUR dictator. He was no longer a puppet of the US government..and that couldn't be allowed.

 

[Petre]

Saddam's biggest mistake was switching to the Petro Euro.

 

[Desert Heat]

He was left there for a reason. After Bush Sr. and Storman Norman invaded they left Saddam, his loyalists, some of the National Guard and bits of the army. It was very intentional. Bush Sr. left Saddam so Iran wouldn't take Iraq over and the US wouldn't be committed to stopping a civil war. They knew that Saddam did what he needed to do to prevent a civil war and more importantly, stop Iran from gaining more land, support, and power. Now, we took out everything to it is our responsibility to rebuild and that is going to take hundreds of years.

England was in the same situation when they invaded Iraq in the early 1900s for startling similar reasons and they faced the same problems. England was there about 9 years and they took too many loses and had to call it quits. If you look back at history, there are no amount of troops that can stabilize that region and they will always be fighting each other. It has been like that before Christopher Columbus was a gleam in his father's eye. There is no way to stabilize a region that doesn't want to be stable and is he11 bent on killing each other and now we will see how many US deaths it will take before we as country realize this.


It would also help to have a real strategy. Just sending more troops into a meat grinder isn't going to do any good is there is no real plan for victory, just more of the same. If we had a real military leader, like maybe ol Storman Norman or Powell back when he still had a pair then maybe we would have made progress, but things are far worse now then it was when Saddam was dictator.

 

[Musketeer]

Dale Carnegie said:

"The definition of insantity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."


That being said what is the real difference (not the unmeasurable best intentions and "goals" that have been put out) between the new Iraq plan and the last Iraq plan?

 

[Garand Guy]

Bring 'em Home!

Here's a thought:

You have a baby. You carry the baby around. Don't you think they whould be walking on their own by the age of 4-5?

I fully support the troops. I felt the war was justified. If the Iraqi's aren't willing to govern their own country after four years, it's time to say 'see ya'.

 

[tube_ee]

I fully support the troops. I felt the war was justified. If the Iraqi's aren't willing to govern their own country after four years, it's time to say 'see ya'.

I'd say that the Iraqis are very willing to govern their own country. At least, the various groups are very willing to govern the country, without letting the other two in on the action. That's why it's called civil war. You've got several different religiously and ethnically aligned groups, all trying to set themselves up to govern the country at the expense of the other groups.

If they're gonna have a civil war, they're gonna. They've proven that. Is there anything we can do to stop it? I don't think so, unless we're willing to pick a side and spend our blood and treasure to ensure that they win. I'm not willing to spend American lives to help one group of thugs beat up on another group of thugs. Especially when the group of thugs most likely to win (the Shiites) are a close ally of an enemy of the US.

The way I see it, no matter what we do, there's going to be continued chaos, and thousands of Iraqis are going to die. That's tragic, but If the only two choices are:

1) Tens of thousands of iraqis die.

and

2) Tens of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of Americans die

I'll take choice #1. I just don't see a choice #3 at this point. It's out of our hands now. It's time to come home.

--Shannon