Since Iraq is turning around and we are now winning the war?

Question

Why do dems and Barack Obama still insist on pulling out? This would be like pulling out of WW2 a year before Germany and Japan surrendered.

Answer 1

You dont even know who we are fighting, how are they supposed to surrender.

We arent winning, all parties are in a holding pattern waiting for our election.

The Sunnis are being paid to not fight ( with your tax dollars) and the Madhi army ( more powerful than the Iraqi army) is standing down

You have to get your news from a credible source

Answer 2

This isn't WW2. This is a pointless war that costs more money than the United States has.

Answer 3

The US is not "winning the war," despite what you may have been led to believe.  What the US is doing in Iraq is not fighting a war (that was over in 2003, when the Iraqi army surrendered), but trying to maintain an occupation.  The US has in fact ceded control of much of the country, including large swaths of Baghdad, to the Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish militias, all of which the US is both paying and arming.  Much of the country, again including Baghdad, has been segregated into Sunni and Shiite enclaves, either through ethnic cleansing or through internal migration.  At least in Baghdad, the US is busy building high concretes walls around to keep these enclaves segregated.  Much of the reason for the decline in violence is because this segregation has been completed.  Does this really sound like "winning" to you?  

Contrary to what another responder asserts, the Sunnis were never allied with Al Qaeda.  Al Qaeda is made up almost exclusively of foreign elements who were unwelcome in the country, but who thrive on the chaos created by the invasion and occupation.  The Iraqis have never wanted Al Qaeda around, because Al Qaeda is an anarchic organization, completely antithetical to any kind of organized Iraqi state.

The Maliki government doesn't even control all of Baghdad, let alone the rest of the country, and they are seen, rightly or wrongly, as the stooges of the Americans.

It is true that when -- not if -- the Americans eventually leave, there will be violence in Iraq as the various factions "sort out" who is going to have power.  But the longer the US stays, and the more money and weapons they hand out, the worse the violence is going to be.

Like another responder here, I am tired of the World War II analogies.  For one thing, the US couldn't have just "pulled out" of the war.  America had declared war on Japan, and Germany had in turn declared war on America.  The only way the US could have gotten out of that war would have been by making a separate peace with the Axis.

Further, your analogy precisely defines the problem in Iraq as compared with WWII -- there is no one to surrender to the US, and no one for the US to surrender to, even if they wanted to.  The situation is, as I have already said, one of the US acting as "an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land."  The quote is from the first George Bush, describing, quite presciently as it turns out, what would have happened if the US had gone on into Baghdad in the first Gulf War.  To bad Junior decided he had to try and one-up his dad . . .

Answer 4

haha nobody is winninng

Answer 5

You're not making any sense: Iraq is turning around because we've already won.

The Sunni insurgency, responsible for killing most of the US soldiers killed in Iraq, have decided to turn against their former ally which was Al Qaeda and have decided to side with the US for good.

The Iraqi Sunnis have been in the process of kicking AQ out of Iraq and are pretty much done.

The Shiites in return have told the US that they don't want any permanent US presence in Iraq which was a key demand of the Iraqi Sunnis.

I think that now more than ever the US is in a position to leave Iraq and claim credit for the democracy that is developing there.

Answer 6

It's not quite appropriate to think in terms of "winning the war," and especially comparing a fourth-generation war with a third-generation war. But the sentiment is correct. There is persistent progress, and Obama's think tank have pointed out to him that McCain's position is pretty close to right, so he's beginning to crawfish on his previous positions.

Answer 7

I think you answered your own question. We can pull out because we've won. Germany and Japan surrendered because they were nation-states. We are fighting terrorism in Iraq. Terrorism won't "surrender". We can leave Iraq knowing that Ameica is winning the broader war on terrorism.

Answer 8

They don't want to hear that, you're just making them angry.

See how exited they get when a few of our boys get blown up, I swear it's like their on the wrong side..oh that's right, they are.

Answer 9

The US isn't at war with the Iraqi people, it's just the Bush Administration trying to steal their oil and now, apparently, the whole country!  It's just plain wrong for us to continue this lie.

Answer 10

your just plain right

Answer 11

The US has no legal right to invade and occupy Iraq. It violates the UN Charter and makes the US administration a group of war criminals. The often referenced UN Charter specifically forbids this action.

If you mean that the US should stay in Iraq to steal oil for the next few decades, I think US planners have already thought of that.

Answer 12

Nobody Wins, thats the point.

Fucked if you do pull out , fucked if you don't really.

Answer 13

Do you guys ever get tired of the silly WW2 analogies? No, it would be like pulling out of Vietnam in 1968 instead of waiting till the inevitable end. Some of us remember Vietnam, people like you announced were we "winning" right up to the very end. And if you knew anything about Iraq, history, insurgencies (what you learn on Fox "news" doesn't count") you wouldn't make such ridiculous assertions. You can't "win" an occupation, you can only delay the inevitable.

Answer 14

Obama's right! The US should get out of Iraq, because the U.S. is not the ruler of that country. I am sorry. They have to leave...