"Shock and awe" doesn't pave the way for flower-strewn streets. We destroyed their infrastructure, disbanded their military, fired their civil service, and then expected everything to fall into place. They had no backup plan; in fact they believe that backup plans are counterproductive.

Thanks for that link - Nice of you to add the... "They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things. And that's what's going to happen here." ...now and not in your original post. Although there are many, I'll add just one more for good measure. "...help pave the way for a new Iraqi government, a government that will be chosen by the Iraqi people, not by anyone else."

The Iraqi people are too divided to ever unite under a democratic leader.

Yes, in my paraphrase I skipped the platitudes and highlighted the horribly horribly wrong thing he said. How unfair of me.

Of course, the pollyanna platitudes show their lack of planning as well. Destroy their infrastructure and civil structure, and they can live their lives and do wonderful things! Then we can set up a more friendly government that will be chosen by the Iraqis and not anyone else! And it'll just take a few weeks!

Anyone who thought this would take a few weeks and not YEARS was kidding themselves. As we all know now, this is but a part of the war on terror.

This vague, lingering association between Iraq and terrorism...it got us there, then evaporated...but it just won't go away...what does it consist of?

The war on terror is no different than the war on drugs, It is impossible to win. We can not get everyone in the world to like America and the western world. "War on Terror" is just a catch-phrase that is used by the Bush administration to get people to support their agenda.

Do you think the Iraqi police are helping the situation at all? Did you see the video I posted on a different thread? The war isn't Iraq versus America it is Sunni Iraq versus Shiite Iraq and America is caught in the middle.

no way dude, we had that war on drugs and now nobody does drugs anymore

We learned to just say no *thank you*

You finally convined me - you're right we should just pack up all our shit and come home.

Lew Rockwell wrote an interesting piece on the nature of Saddam's regime. He argues that Saddam had very carefully and sometimes brutally woven together a country in which groups of people really hated one another. Iraqis lack a common ideology so the Bushite idea of implementing a new state by killing Saddam and holding elections falls far short. Rockwell's solution is much cheaper in blood and treasure and comes from the Iraqi people themselves.

So what should happen? The US should abandon Baghdad. It should, in effect, allow the country to "fall apart" in the same way that Gorbachev let his empire dissolve. Iraq would split into many states, some of them noncontiguous. Governing units of all shapes and sizes would appear. The main reason for the ghastly killing – fear of the rule by one group over another – would vanish. Here is the highest hope for peace in Iraq.

So long as the US insists that Iraq be a single nation under one government, it will inspire chaos and killing. Bush was wrong, but in a way that is usually not understood. His mistake was not in overthrowing the state but in hoping to create and control a new one.

I've often thought the same thing. But the argument against that is that Turkey will attack the Kurds if that happens.

Maybe they won't if we ask/tell them not to. Of course we would have to guarantee the Turks that the Kurds won't give them trouble.
Of course the Kurds that live in Turkey, we couldn't do anything about, unless we occupied that area or expelled all the Kurds out of Turkey.
Kind of like the wonderful way the British separated The Indians and Pakistanis.:rolleyes: