Amputate Your Head

Top Iraq general: U.S. army 'must stay' until 2020 - Aug 2010
Commander expresses concerns about readiness as U.S. forces prepare to exit


[BACKLINKED]

LONDON ? The commander of Iraq's military is calling for U.S. forces to stay in the country for another decade, reinforcing his stance that his country's military won't be able to secure the nation on their own after U.S. troops leave. "At this point, the withdrawal is going well, because they are still here, but the problem will start after 2011," Gen. Babaker Shawkat Zebari said.

"The politicians must find other ways to fill the void after 2011... If I were asked about the withdrawal, I would say to politicians: the U.S. army must stay until the Iraqi army is fully ready in 2020," the BBC reported. Under the Obama administration's plans, U.S. forces are due to start withdrawing from Iraq at the end of August, apart from 50,000 troops who will support and train Iraqi forces before leaving the country by the end of 2011.

Violence in Iraq has fallen since the peak of sectarian warfare in 2006-2007, but the number of violent civilian deaths, from daily bombings, shootings and other attacks, rose sharply in July. Zebari also raised his concerns earlier in the summer, telling the AP in June that Iraq needs the U.S. military in place until Iraqi forces prove capable of defending the nation, a benchmark which he also said at the time forces could take a decade to reach. "Look at the Turks, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain," he told the AP. "All of these countries have American bases under bilateral agreements. And I don't think we should be afraid of that idea."

Iraq's security forces have made great strides since the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein, after which officials disbanded the dictator's army and the once-feared police were jeered as toothless. U.S. commanders say violence is down by more than half since a year ago, when American troops pulled out of Iraqi cities, and has dropped 90 percent since October 2007 ? the peak of the U.S. military surge in Iraq. But bombings still happen almost daily across Iraq, often targeting the security forces. Drive-by shootings and kidnappings are common. And despite at least $22 billion the U.S. has spent on training and equipping the forces since 2004, many of the problems that have long plagued the army and police remain unresolved.

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This was inevitable. My guess is we will see this actually happen. Get ready for another couple of decades of occupation in Iraq.

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Randy West

Nikki_Licks

I don't think it matters when we leave, these people will never or don't want to defend themselves. There is only so much you can do to try and train people, if they don't get it...oh well ;)

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Nikki_Licks

Sure fits you.......

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IllTestYourGirls

Until Ron Paul becomes president we are never leaving Iraq. So I guess we will never be leaving.

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Black Ops

But Obama has elections to worry about. He must pull them out or he will never get re-elected when the time comes.

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Dirty Lord

what a new

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Amputate Your Head

It's not up to Obama. The President (whoever it may be at any given point in time) is nothing more than a puppet. A figurehead. A face. A centralized scapegoat for everything that is wrong and a focal point for the frustrations of the little people.

He has about as much say in the matter as I do.

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ottopottomouse

Where are you going to invade next Amp?

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↑ see post ↑
13101

_Richard_

the difference is this is by request of their forces. That means a lot to the legitimacy of the troop presence and potential cooperation of the people of the country

Nikki_Licks

Once again, your statement doesn't make any sense.....

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_Richard_

if they made the request, it empowers them to fight

if the general made the request, it means he thinks he can win

Fenris Wolf

We haven't left Germany, Japan, South Korea, and even Kosovo. So based on past conflicts, why should this be any different? I don't know if it's remnants of Cold War strategy but at some point changes need to be made.

fatfoo

Based on life expectancies and actuaries, it is possible that soldiers in their 20s will become soldiers in their 30s. Soldiers in their 30s will become soldiers in their 40s.

If the same person stays in the land for 10 years, he will surely have better knowledge of the geography of the land. He will become a more successful fighter.

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sortie

We left Vietnam.

so......

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Amputate Your Head

and Mogadishu.

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sortie

And Granada.

And Panama.

And Lebanon.

And Iraq already one time before.

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Fenris Wolf

Sortie yes we did leave Vietnam. In my opinion the circumstances at the time were different in comparison to what we are dealing with in Iraq. We do have a contract with the Iraqi government that they can renew every year to continue having our forces present. As long as the Iraqi Government feels that our presence is to their benefit I think we will continue to see U.S. personal in Iraq. It may not be 50,000 or even 20,000 but none the less U.S. boots on Iraqi ground. Do I believe we need all these bases around the globe? Supposedly smarter people than me think so.

sortie

OK, we still had the "No Fly Zone" in Iraq so maybe that counts as not leaving.

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Fenris Wolf

Ok I just read the posts of all the places we left and I concede that notion. But I will say that if any of those countries had the wealth of oil reserves that Iraq has maybe we would not have left.

sortie

The thing for me is that staying in Iraq and Afghanistan is a nightmare because
the factions in these countries will continue to battle until we leave.

We are not really winning because winning is not determined by winning battles
with these groups.

These groups "win" in their mind just by throwing a rock at a US troop.
In other words as long as the enemy is still fighting the enemy believes they are
winning because they are engaged in a "war of attrition".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attrition_warfare

This particular attrition warfare is basically that the enemy prolongs the fighting until we
get tired of killing them or we go broke trying to kill them.

We are already broke and I'm fucking tired.

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Fenris Wolf

But here lies the problem. We have a government that looks at all the costs both direct and supplemental and still feels that it is cost effective to be there. What ultimate goal they have set up for Iraq is worth the countless military and civilian lives and the billions of dollars spent and trillions of dollars to be spent.

That's why we continue to see rhetoric when you have one side say we are committed to meet U.S. withdrawal dates and then someone will come out and say well that all depends on the situation on the ground and the current security climate will dictate how many troops leave and how fast.

We are all tired but the government doesn't seem to be.

Dirty Dane

Saddam was caught. There were no WMDs. Fuck the oil, fuck unemployed generals. No one win a war. It's time to withdraw.

cosis

see you when we invade in another 10 years

sortie

There is a simple reality in play here in the US economy that no one seems to
care to acknowledge :

Plain and simple :

Dead soldiers don't pay rent, don't buy clothes, don't buy food, don't buy cars, etc...

Further, badly wounded troops don't get jobs, but still need medical attention for
life. So they don't pay rent, buy cars, food etc... with their earned money because
the US government is going to pay.

This kills the small businesses in the "military towns".
Then we get the lay offs and the domino affect of civilians not being able to
work and buy.

When 911 happened I heard many reports stating that Osama Bin Laden said
he welcomed war with America because his goal was to ruin the US economy.

Osama used this same method against the Soviet Union and it worked and the
Soviet Union collapsed and no longer exist.

Denial of the economic toll these war have had on America is killing our economy even
more.

No invading power of Afghanistan has ever been capable of maintaining power.
We are suffering for an arrogant delusion that we can.

All that came eventually lost, no matter how many years it took.

We will never defeat the Taliban to the extent that they cannot return to fight again
with the current level of force that we are using.

We lost. Lets just get the fuck out.

The only thing we are doing over there now is capturing a small area of dirt from
a small faction of Taliban and they just move to another patch of dirt to regroup
and it starts all over again as we leave on patch of dirt to go take another patch
of dirt and the Taliban just go back to the patch of dirt we just left.

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sortie

If we pull out now then maybe in 10 years we will have enough money to
actually go in and win.

Right now we are just blowing cash out the ass with no real victory in site.

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SallyRand

But I thought that The Chosen One would bring both Hope AND Change? Will He too continue this useless war?

Sally.

sortie

The Chosen One had people like John McCain and Dick Cheney screaming bloody
murder about pulling out and their screaming was disrupting to the point that
the Chosen One needed to make concessions just to shut them the fuck up.

The troop surge in Afghanistan was done to "quiet" people down so that the
White House could actually move into other debates like health care.

Dick Cheney was a fucking jackass about the troop surge and he galvanized the
Tea Baggers with this shit. The Chosen One could not afford to let that monster
grow. So he shut them up a little with the troop surge.

Remember Joe Binden's suggestion to scale down troops was rebuffed by
General McChrsytal in public and then backed by other power heads.
This was the start of the need to fire McChrsytal. Eventually it happend.

Bottom line : The Chosen One has had to restrain his own agenda to prevent
the congress from becoming one big filibuster with Dick Cheney and John McCain
promoting the stalemate.

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