When is Iraq no longer our problem?

"After all, it's not their sons and daughters serving there,"

Um, didn't three of the four people on the ballot this year have sons serving there?

But, yeah, I've been wondering the same thing about Iraq and feeling guilty for having such thoughts.

If you'll pardon my combining thread topics, it may be time to return to the economic policies of President Calvin Coolidge, the domestic policies of Dwight Eisenhower and the foreign policies of Robert Taft.

Your servant,

Lord Karth

My thoughts on this very question from about a year ago:

http://www.protestantpontifications.com/?p=505

Here is a textbook, nay, a cartoonish, example of how American exceptionalism works as a machine for turning our own crimes into self-righteous self-pity.

"I wish, desperately, that we had not caused the destruction of their civilian infrastructure, the murder of a generation, and the extermination or exile of the entirety of Iraq's professional class, so necessary for genuinely rebuilding the country."
...
"we have made our country into a martyr nation, purely devoted to the good of other people, at no expectation of repayment or considerate behavior from those we bless with our beneficence."

Asking "what is the best thing for my country" may be out of fashion, but I find it both moral and pragmatic.

One should never feel guilty asking this question. It is a government's duty and obligation to care for its own first, and to neglect its citizenry in order to secure secondary interests overseas is immoral. When we're spending millions of taxpayer dollars building bridges in third world countries while our own are collapsing from neglect, there is something gravely wrong with our leaders' priorities. When we're facing recession and are in deep national debt, yet our leaders choose to spend more on waging lengthy and indefinite wars overseas, they have lost sight of their priorities.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with ensuring a country's self-preservation; it is our leaders' moral obligation to do so. The way we've been acting reminds me a bit of a mother who feels so much compassion for the beggars on her street corner she gives hundreds away to feed them--while her own children are starving at home.

Uh oh, Iraqis taking responsibility for themselves...sounds like Obama talk to me. Isn't he the one who's been calling for that?

But, Rod, this isn't Mr. Bush's war. It's ours. We voted for it. And, what a great little war it was. Taking names and kicking ass. Our technology blowing stuff up from far enough away that we didn't have to see any blood, not even our own, because we didn't show any of those inconvenient body bags coming home. And, it was great while it lasted...who can forget that stirring sight of them pulling down Saddam's statue?

The only problem is that they didn't want to put up our statue in its place. This war was a failure before it started. Don't get me wrong, our troops fought magnificently and bravely. But the war was supposed to eliminate WMDs that weren't there. Then it was to reshape Iraq into a middle eastern version of us. They were supposed to want a fast food restaurant on every block, be willing to give us cheap oil and be a springboard for a little America in every country in the Middle East. Only, that's not what they wanted. The problem with letting people be free is that they get to choose, not us. No, they didn't want Sadddam, but they apparently want to pal around with Iran. Who'd a thunk it? And about fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here: they killed about 3 thousand here, we've lost 4 thousand there, we've created more sympathy for them and Rand says that the best response to terroism is law enforcement rather than war.

No matter how you look at it, we started out with a foreign policy objective that we couldn't achieve. Our WWII troops had an acronym for our situation: FUBAR. We did that. So now what? We do have an obligation to help them, but we no longer have an obligation to let them kill us, no matter whose children they are. Luckily, the authorization for us to stay seems to be expiring and they don't want us to stay. Maybe they should want us to, but they don't seem to. So, we should leave and they should take responsibility and we should help if they want it.

The problem with this is that continued occupation is *not* about helping the people of Iraq. If we wanted to help the people of Iraq we'd be withdrawing our troops, working with *all* the surrounding nations to create regional peace (which is in everyone's interests there), and paying reparations for the damage done during the invasion. Occupation is about maintaining control and power.

None of this was ever about helping the people of Iraq, although certainly it was sold that way.

The way we've been acting reminds me a bit of a mother who feels so much compassion for the beggars on her street corner she gives hundreds away to feed them--while her own children are starving at home.

Civilizations have the morality & ethics that they can afford.

MI, I prefer Heinlein's approach in Starship Troopers.

For those who have seen the movie but not read the book, please take this respectfully: you do not know Heinlein's approach.

What bothered me the most about the movie was that it came so close to the book, but never told the story as Heinlein told it. I got the "modern audience" decisions, but I mostly disagreed with them. I would find it interesting to know if there was any discussion around those points of change. If they settled on using Hiroshima, why didn't they choose Dresden instead (for example)?

Heinlein saw possibilities, then expanded upon them in a contemporary context. I've read nothing to support this, but my view is that the Johnny Rico character was a metaphor for the birth and maturation of the US, and the "Federation" was the ideal culmination of that evolution.

Good golly gosh, anonymous poster, I didn't know that it was possible to fake pulmonary tuberculosis. After all, a man who rises to the naval rank of Lieutenant is surely a coward and would never want to serve in wartime.

I don't know why I bother, but the truth of the matter is that the vast majority of US citizens alive or who ever lived never served a day in a combat zone, and according to you are clearly not qualified to have any thoughts or ideas about patriotism. It's really amazing that we've not long since been conquered by Red Hordes or some such.

Baldy, I agree with you, but with one to me critical caveat: they have to ante up. They have to show in a substantial way that they are ready to pay the price of liberty with their own blood.

We can't deliver liberty on demand. It's not turning our backs if we refuse to act before those who want liberty demonstrate their willingness to earn it.

Fair enough, Your Name. I would suggest, though, that you be a bit more careful around the distinction between willing but unable and unwilling. Your swipe at Heinlein missed by a country mile.

Iraq will always be our problem, now. Even if we decide to withdraw, if things go wrong, even decades from now, people will point fingers at us. We broke it, we bought it. I am not a supporter of staying indefinitely. Iraqis by the look of things want to run things themselves, their own way. Whether or not that way is fair to all parties in Iraq, they have the same right to self-determination that we have been touting since Wilson.

It would be better to withdraw slowly, handing over the day to day running of the country to Iraqis as time passed. But then, we don't really have that luxury. There are only so many ground troops in our arsenal. If we are serious about adding them in Afghanistan, we are confronted with two choices: divert them from Iraq thus lowering total numbers there, or lengthen combat tours again. I can tell you from experience that fifteen months is rather too long for a tour over there. And I never even went on a patrol. At any rate, the decision seems to be diverting from Iraq. One of 10th Mountain's other brigades has been switched from Iraq to Afghanistan for their upcoming rotation overseas.

So in the end, we have to draw down troops, and will be partially responsible for whatever ensues, regardless.