Troops to remain in Iraq until 2009?

[GameSnake]

And the cause to goto war was... WMDS? Find Bin Laden? Remove an established leader of a country? I guess.. now we got a mess.. I'll give him a D+.

[Joe]

I never agreed with any of this, but I suppose that the troops stay there until they actually have a government set up and functional.

[JTN Designer]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/21/bush.newsconference/index.html?section=cnn_topstories

Even I think that's a bit too long... it's gonna turn into a war that we win just like we did in Vietnam...

Technically we did win the conflict over their, our goals were met.

http://www.commondreams.org/views/050300-102.htm

No -- but Zorm tried to say Bush did not create the present Iraq war -- when infact he did.

Bush didn't start the cause for the war, though...

War is designed to resolve problems.  Saddam Hussein was definitely a serious problem.

I saw this at work yesterday (yes I can watch CNN where I work ), I found it quite interesting, although it's an opinion from a well respected journalist, it seems to shed light on the ties between Iraq and 9/11 (leading up to the war). Scroll down until you see Wolf quote: "BLITZER: President Clinton once said of her -- and I'm quoting now -- "Presidents come and go, but Helen's been here for 40 years now." And that was back in 2000. The veteran reporter Helen Thomas has covered every president since John F. Kennedy, and they've all faced her no-nonsense questions, including President Bush today." Then the article starts.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0603/21/sitroom.03.html

[zorm]

No -- but Zorm tried to say Bush did not create the present Iraq war -- when infact he did.

Proof that he did? We had troops committed to combat operations in Iraq before he was even president. Nice try and all but no he didn't start it.

[iago]

Although I definitely did not support the original war, America should look after it as long as they possibly can.  As soon as America withdraws, there's going to be serious problems there.  Part of invading a country involves taking control of it, but in this case America is doing it the lazy way.  They should stay there as long as it takes. 

If you agreed with the war that was on the premise of WMD's, you were wrong, and why would you agree to the war now as opposed to back then anyway? I believe Bush just kept pushing Iraq untill there was actually a noble cause in it -- and now there is -- but going to war on false premises is never right.

I agree that the war's premise (WMDs) was totally faulty, and that they shouldn't have started it in the first place.  But that is not what this discussion is about. 

If the US left Iraq now, they would do even MORE damage to their country than they have already done.  The people there aren't used to having a democratic government, and the leaders probably aren't strong enough to lead by themselves (they've been using the US as a crutch).  I don't want to see more harm come to Iraq. 

The situation is analogous forcing somebody to cross a rickety old bridge.  You make them cross, you drag them onto the bridge, with the promise that you will help them the whole way because you are good at crossing bridges.  Then, half way across, you let them go and leave, forcing them to try and cross alone.  Even though you never should have taken the person onto the bridge in the first place doesn't mean you can just leave them half way across. 

[MyndFyre]

And the cause to goto war was... WMDS? Find Bin Laden? Remove an established leader of a country? I guess.. now we got a mess.. I'll give him a D+.

OK, so let's review what we know about the cause for the war.

1.) For oil - great, but we're not taking it.  Why not?  Oh, maybe the war *wasn't* for oil.  I don't know, maybe we're secretly taking it.
2.) For WMDs - great, but we haven't found any.  Oh, but Iraq is a giant desert.  The UN thought that Iraq had WMDs (see resolution 1441).  And he had six months to get his weapons to other countries before the US came in (GWB offered this timeframe in advance).  Of course, there might not have been any (aside from the caches we did find). 

What *mess* do we have?  From what I have seen, I don't think it's going too terribly bad.  In fact, I think it's pretty benign for that part of the world.  In the American revolution, we had lots of dissent even immediately following the war with Britain.  The Americans were lucky though; we'd been exposed to moderate classical liberalism for a long time by then.  Of course, European countries who had been exposed to these ideas had some rough times, too (at least in Iraq we're not calling what's going on "The Reign of Terror").

Also, I'd like to include this little nugget from an actual scholarly article:

In short, governments of potentially intervening powers find themselves in a situation in which they must choose between two evils: either they renege on their commitment to human rights or they bear the costs of a humanitarian intervention from which they can hardly expect any direct benefit.
[...]
In light of this situation, there ought to be a reversal of the burden of proof.  Whereas intervening powers previously have had to demonstrate that they were justified in intervening for humanitarian reasons, today they should have to justify not intervening militarily in the absence of other efficient means to stop massive human rights violations.

Merle, Jean-Christophe.  (2005).  The problem with military humanitarian intervention and its solution.  The Philosophical Forum, 36(1), 59-75.