Why are the troops not coming home from Iraq?

[Train]

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: Train

Originally posted by: Xavier434
Do you believe Bush would have kept his word if in some hypothetical world he would have been Pres for another 4 years? I don't.

wow that was a dumb argument. Is any prez required to "keep his word" on plans that extend past his presidency? Knowing full well that new pres/congress can pretty much throw those plans out the window if they so please?

That doesnt mean he cant at least lay the plans out, and let the new prez keep/modify them as s/he wishes

Kennedy said we would land a man on the moon before the end of the 60's, which meant (even had he served a full 8 years) it would likely (and was) completed after he [would have] left office.

Ronald Reagan said we'd land a man on Mars by 2020, a lot of the completion of that is and was way out of his hands.

It is really easy to make a bunch of plans and pass the buck. Talk is cheap. His previous actions do not fill me with confidence so in the hypothetical scenario that I laid out for you should he still be president today and for the next 4 years I just wouldn't trust him.

I do trust Obama though and give his words more credit at least for the time being.

I'm not even sure what point you are trying to make....

He cant be trusted to carry out his plan, even though he's not the one carrying it out...

 

[Moonbeam]

There is no magic recovery from the consequences of having elected 8 years of disaster. If you voted for Bush don't ask why the troops aren't home; you don't have the brains to comprehend an answer. Ask yourself how, instead, you could be such deaf, dumb, blind, assholes. You are the ones who fvcked America.

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: Train
I'm not even sure what point you are trying to make....

He cant be trusted to carry out his plan, even though he's not the one carrying it out...

I am saying that I would not have trusted Bush to carry out his plan if he were still in office.

We are already beating a dead horse though. I didn't intend for this debate to be extensive.

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

Originally posted by: Insomniator
You'd have to be an idiot to expect or want them to come home like tomorrow. Soon maybe, 1 day, no.

Just to move men and equipment out from a logistics standpoint will take years (this is from the height of our presence there). Currently if we did a 100% full withdrawl starting today, we would still be there into 2010 at minimum.

 

[Lemon law]

I am a little dubious about the Train statement of "while this is mostly true, you are forgetting the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police forces have been making huge gains the past couple years, and continue to grow and get better at thier jobs. This is really the factor that allows coalition troops to pull back."

I too hope that Train is right, but especially the Iraqi police have a rep of being corrupt. And with too much invested in the persona of Makili, there is a danger political divisions could wrench the Iraqi army apart,
especially after these current elections with the new political alignments they will bring.

In terms of GWB's status of force agreements, he had little choice and it was almost a 100% reversal of his policy, because without the UN seal of approval, the legitimacy of the American occupation would have vanished on his watch.

 

[Hulk]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
There is no magic recovery from the consequences of having elected 8 years of disaster. If you voted for Bush don't ask why the troops aren't home; you don't have the brains to comprehend an answer. Ask yourself how, instead, you could be such deaf, dumb, blind, assholes. You are the ones who fvcked America.

Actually your Democratic party fvcked America by pressuring banks to loan money to unqualified people. This tampering with the free market created the real estate balloon. As prices went up Wall Street jumped into the mix. When it started to turn around and prices dropped everyone defaulted on their loans and a domino effect ensued.

You might not like to hear it but YOUR DEMOCRATS, not Bush or the GOP, or Rush Limbaugh, CREATED THIS RECESSION!

No the liberal media (NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, etc..) won't talk about it but it is the truth.

Bash Bush if you don't like the war in Iraq, that was HIM. Bash him for the tax cuts. THAT was him. But don't bash him for this economy, THAT was the DEMOCRATS. YOUR DEMOCRATS.

When you tamper with the market there will be a correction. Serious tampering leads to serious correction.

This "stimulus" Obama is pushing will ease the suffering for now but hurt the market more in the long term. There is way, way too much pork in it as we all know.

So next time please, please, just for a second think before you spout your garbage. Jeez what Liberal institution of higher learning did you attend? You absorbed your liberal indoctrination quite well. I was unfortunate enough to waste my college years studying engineering and learning how to think. I guessed I missed my liberal indoctrination courses.

 

[Insomniator]

Originally posted by: Hulk

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
There is no magic recovery from the consequences of having elected 8 years of disaster. If you voted for Bush don't ask why the troops aren't home; you don't have the brains to comprehend an answer. Ask yourself how, instead, you could be such deaf, dumb, blind, assholes. You are the ones who fvcked America.

Actually your Democratic party fvcked America by pressuring banks to loan money to unqualified people. This tampering with the free market created the real estate balloon. As prices went up Wall Street jumped into the mix. When it started to turn around and prices dropped everyone defaulted on their loans and a domino effect ensued.

You might not like to hear it but YOUR DEMOCRATS, not Bush or the GOP, or Rush Limbaugh, CREATED THIS RECESSION!

No the liberal media (NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, etc..) won't talk about it but it is the truth.

Bash Bush if you don't like the war in Iraq, that was HIM. Bash him for the tax cuts. THAT was him. But don't bash him for this economy, THAT was the DEMOCRATS. YOUR DEMOCRATS.

When you tamper with the market there will be a correction. Serious tampering leads to serious correction.

This "stimulus" Obama is pushing will ease the suffering for now but hurt the market more in the long term. There is way, way too much pork in it as we all know.

So next time please, please, just for a second think before you spout your garbage. Jeez what Liberal institution of higher learning did you attend? You absorbed your liberal indoctrination quite well. I was unfortunate enough to waste my college years studying engineering and learning how to think. I guessed I missed my liberal indoctrination courses.

This is correct, but good freakin luck with the rest of this thread.

 

[Lemon law]

Hulk may have missed the liberal indoctrination courses, but he seeming took every conservative indoctrination course.

And Hulk also seems to miss the fact that this thread is about Iraq and not about the bank meltdowns that have a heavy lack of regulation aspects to it it also.

Hulk, If you want to spew the conservative evaluations of the banking meltdown, take it to a different thread, this thread is supposed to be about Iraq, Iraq, and Iraq.

Meanwhile back in Iraq, Moonbean is right, in GWB too many trusted, and in GWB everyone busted. Call GWB conservative, neocon, liberal, or radical if its trips your labeling fancy, it still added up to failure.

Getting into Iraq was easy, the far harder question is how do we get out without everything degenerating into a far more dangerous civil war?

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
Hulk may have missed the liberal indoctrination courses, but he seeming took every conservative indoctrination course.

And Hulk also seems to miss the fact that this thread is about Iraq and not about the bank meltdowns that have a heavy lack of regulation aspects to it it also.

Hulk, If you want to spew the conservative evaluations of the banking meltdown, take it to a different thread, this thread is supposed to be about Iraq, Iraq, and Iraq.

Meanwhile back in Iraq, Moonbean is right, in GWB too many trusted, and in GWB everyone busted. Call GWB conservative, neocon, liberal, or radical if its trips your labeling fancy, it still added up to failure.

Getting into Iraq was easy, the far harder question is how do we get out without everything degenerating into a far more dangerous civil war?

Not to worry. You mention 'assholes' to engineers and they immediately remember what became of their slide rules.

 

[AFMatt]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
In terms of GWB's status of force agreements, he had little choice and it was almost a 100% reversal of his policy, because without the UN seal of approval, the legitimacy of the American occupation would have vanished on his watch.

It was the Iraqi government who requested extensions to the UN mandate over the past years. In 2007 Maliki said it would be the last one, and from there they would work on an agreement between the nations involved without the middleman. That is where the current status of forces agreement comes from. It has nothing to do with a "UN seal of approval."
Bush's 'not setting a deadline' policy was in regards to our government not setting it, and those decisions were made things were much different in Iraq (violence was through the roof). This deadline decision was made by the Iraqi government, not us. If they feel they are ready and willing to take over all security, have at it!

 

[AFMatt]

Originally posted by: Aimster
Looks like all the talk has died. I thought the troops were going to start coming home or at least have a deadline of when they are going to come home.

As far as pulling out, we have agreed to be out of Iraqi cities by June 30th (happens to be the same time when the Iraqi govt expects all provinces to be under provincial control). While it looks like some will probably move to Afghanistan, I think most will probably come home. I doubt we will just move all the 140k+ troops into rural FOBs/COBs around the country. The rest of the pullout will obviously take time. We cant just pull all of our equipment out over night. The deadline for us to be completely out of the country in Dec 2011, I think we can beat that deadline by a few months.

 

[CPA]

Originally posted by: Gand1
Jesus Christ... how long has Obama been in office? I think the pile of shit is kinda huge on his desk atm.

He had 5 executive orders in his first 3 days, more than any past president. This was on of his key stances. Now all of a sudden he's been very quiet on the issue.

 

[Peelback79]

Yeah, he said he didn't have any friends in Washington and now has many high ranking positions filled previous administration. Cronyism ftw.
He also said he wouldn't have anything to do with lobbyists and three of the tops lobbyists in the DC area are part of his administration.
On topic: He promised to start withdrawing troops and end the war terror. Now there's a possibillity of adding 30,000 more.
He also promised tax cuts, but I'm not going to hold my breath on that one.

I want Jesus back, this messiah sucks.

 

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: Peelback79
On topic: He promised to start withdrawing troops and end the war terror.

Umm.....wtf?

 

[AFMatt]

Originally posted by: CPA

Originally posted by: Gand1
Jesus Christ... how long has Obama been in office? I think the pile of shit is kinda huge on his desk atm.

He had 5 executive orders in his first 3 days, more than any past president. This was on of his key stances. Now all of a sudden he's been very quiet on the issue.

It was a key stance during his campaign, but he has since clarified his stance to say we would have our combat troops out in 16 months. Combat troops dont even make up 50% of the 140k+ we have over there.

 

[piasabird]

It can be more expensive to pull troops out than it is to deploy them. Often lots of equipment is left in-country because it is so expensive to move it. It will cost lots of aircraft fuel to move equipment Out of Iraq. Not only that, but the Aircraft fuel is more expensive now. This is why a slow withdrawl is easier to afford. You can spread the costs over time.

Just imagine all the IED's we could set off trying to pack up and move a lot of people and equipment in a few weeks.

 

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: piasabird
It can be more expensive to pull troops out than it is to deploy them. Often lots of equipment is left in-country because it is so expensive to move it. It will cost lots of aircraft fuel to move equipment Out of Iraq. Not only that, but the Aircraft fuel is more expensive now. This is why a slow withdrawl is easier to afford. You can spread the costs over time.

You have to be kidding? Do you know how expensive it is to KEEP troops deployed?

That may be one of the more ludicrous things i've ever read.

 

[Lemon law]

The first task a new President has is to get his cabinet choices through the advice and consent Senate process, then that set can reshape the various administrative apparatus of the executive branch. Meanwhile the GOP is gridlocking Obama's economic recovery plans so his energies are going there.

After only 10 days, there are a lot of very impatient folks on this forum.

And since Obama claims to seek consensus, in terms of Iraqi policy, he is going to have to deal with a far wider set of diverse viewpoints than GWB. A maybe slower but more likely to achieve success policy IMHO.

There are basically 487 days in 16 months, and we expect instant results in 10 days?

 

[TallBill]

Originally posted by: Train
The troop level has been on a steady draw down for what, a year now?

If im not mistaken, Obama's 16 months from taking office actually puts the final date a couple months behind where Bush had them targeted for 100% out back in Oct/Nov time frame.

Yup. You can't change the decision to invade after the fact by debating whether or not invading a country was the good decision. Clearly the reason given to the public was the wrong one. Regardless, we're there, let's not fuck these people over and spend the time to try to re-stabilize things.

Things were not going well, this was recognized, and the surge was drafted and implemented. Since then, several areas are already under Iraqi control and violence is noticeably lower. We need to leave Iraq in as good of a condition as possible, and we're getting there.

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
There is no magic recovery from the consequences of having elected 8 years of disaster. If you voted for Bush don't ask why the troops aren't home; you don't have the brains to comprehend an answer. Ask yourself how, instead, you could be such deaf, dumb, blind, assholes. You are the ones who fvcked America.

lol :laugh:

 

[Ozoned]

Why are the troops not coming home from Iraq?

Because they are busy terrorizing and killing innocent civilians in the middle of the night, and randomly air raiding villages.

~When were done with that, we will bring them home.

 

[TallBill]

Originally posted by: Ozoned
Why are the troops not coming home from Iraq?

Because they are busy terrorizing and killing innocent civilians in the middle of the night, and randomly air raiding villages.

~When were done with that, we will bring them home.

Not!

/borat

 

[alchemize]

Originally posted by: Ozoned
Why are the troops not coming home from Iraq?

Because they are busy terrorizing and killing innocent civilians in the middle of the night, and randomly air raiding villages.

~When were done with that, we will bring them home.

Thankfully, Obama has said he'll continue the policy of invading other sovereign countries and killing innocent civilians in the middle of the night. So we can continue this once we're out of Iraq.

But that's ok, just ask Harvey and Jpeyton to explain how it's different

 

[TallBill]

Originally posted by: alchemize

Originally posted by: Ozoned
Why are the troops not coming home from Iraq?

Because they are busy terrorizing and killing innocent civilians in the middle of the night, and randomly air raiding villages.

~When were done with that, we will bring them home.

Thankfully, Obama has said he'll continue the policy of invading other sovereign countries and killing innocent civilians in the middle of the night. So we can continue this once we're out of Iraq.

But that's ok, just ask Harvey and Jpeyton to explain how it's different

Obama hasn't invaded any countries yet.

 

[Drakkon]

They will be funneled over to Afghanistan to clean up the mess we left there before they ever come "home", and then back to Iraq after that goes to crap after a few years, and so it will continue like that infuriating people of the region we have been there for - yes my friends that is what we call a "quagmire"

 

[zinfamous]

Originally posted by: Aimster
Looks like all the talk has died. I thought the troops were going to start coming home or at least have a deadline of when they are going to come home.

:roll: