![]() |
The faces that we are not seeing are the 1.5 million Iraqi refugees from the war stranded in Syria and Jordan or the 2+ million displaced within Iraq as a result of the sectarian violence.
Most of these 4+ million (12-15% of the Iraqi population) have no home to come home to. Quote:
Its time for the US to get out in an orderly and reasonably short term time frame....according to the wishes of both the Iraqi people and the American people. |
And we're beginning to hear of refugees returning home and making a success of things. Things are beginning to look up. Fox News mentioned a restauranteur reopening his place in Adhamiyah, a city formerly an insurgency stronghold and now much pacified. This is not this guy a few years back but another. Exerpt:
Quote:
|
Nobody left Iraq when Saddam was there did they? Oh thats right they and their children were probably murdered if they tried. Whatever.
|
Most estimates puts Saddam's murders at the 200,000 - 300,000 level...a horrific number.
So are 4 million refugees in a population of 25 million. |
Quote:
One serious issue that the government is attempting to cope with is that these refugees represented a large part of the professional working class in Iraq. Nearly all non-Muslims who lived in relative security under Saddam have fled Iraq for good for for fear of religious backlash and limited rights under the new Constitution. Baghdad is still a walled and divided city by most accounts. |
Gotta admit the four million's chances are a lot better than the three hundred thousand's.
|
Quote:
The record or Iraq's neighboring Arab states treatment of other Arab refugees is nothing to brag about. |
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
hell he killed over 100,000 Kurds in the late 80's alone... Quote:
|
Ok...we won. Saddam is dead....a fledgling democracy is in place.
Iraq's challenges ahead are, for the most part, political and economic. Now lets go home! The cost to the US has already been more than 4,000 US deaths and $500 billiion (and will be in $trillions for long term vet care for many of the more than 25,000 wounded.) |
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
|
Quote:
It was no accident that a massive (but not majority) of the US military is in Iraq. We moved in to stay permanently as a 1996 PNAC doctrine stated. We moved in to stay permanently despite administration denials. Massive amounts of permantly fixed and very secret equipment must be removed. It will take that much longer to leave. |
Quote:
The war in Iraq isn't over. The main events may not even have happened yet. We created the environment for civil war by buddying up and arming both (or more) sides for the political expediency of declaring victory and a very fragile democracy so the PNAC crowd could proclaim "told you so" |
Quote:
Quote:
We broke it. We owned it. Now we leave it with our legacy. Nobody can predict that legacy with certainty. |
I just hope this doesn't cause us to stay longer. As it is, I don't trust that we will be leaving completely anyway, and I think we should.
|
From reading T.P.M. Barnett's latest book, Great Powers: America and the World After Bush, I don't think we should. He doesn't think we can or should. Take a read of his stuff. He's also got a blog for the week-to-week.
|
All times are GMT -5. The time now is 02:14 PM. |
Powered by: vBulletin Version 3.8.1
Copyright ©2000 - 2025, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.