I don't know if you're not understanding me or just ignoring what I write.
"Al Qaeda" per se was never the problem. "Saddam" per se was never the problem. If "Al Qaeda" were to vanish tomorrow - but be REPLACED by an EQUIVALENT terror organization - we'd have to fight against THAT too.
Similarly, while Saddam has vanish, if he were REPLACED by an EQUIVALENT expansionist dictator - we have to fight against that too.
This is because we don't want there to be an expansionist dictator ruling Iraq any longer. It's not, and was NEVER, that we don't want guys named "Saddam Hussein" ruling Iraq. It's the fact that he was an expansionist WMD-using dictator which was the problem. Hence, to oust him just to see him replaced by *another* expansionist WMD-using dictator would be, uh, bad.
That's why we have to fight against these street gangs, cuz that's what they're trying to do.
Understand yet?
So what are you suggesting? That all of these Iraq friends of ours can't fight their own battles?
As of now, that appears to be the case - they appear unable or unwilling to fight their own battles, or to recognize that they *are* their own battles. Believe me, I'm plenty ticked at any cowardly or mob-following Iraqi so-called "men" who sit there on TV cameras saying "I'm glad the US is here, I don't want them to leave, I didn't like Saddam, and I don't support Sadr", yet won't lift a damn FINGER to fight against these hoodlums, and is even too peeing in his pants to leave his own al Jazeera-hooked-up apartment and take control of his own damn neighborhood, relinquishing control of it to this or that smalltime gang of hoodlums or brainwashed mullah followers.
Yes, it appears to be the case that Iraqians won't fight this battle of theirs. So we will have to do it for them.
Because, again, we do not wish to see an expansionist dictator come to rule Iraq. That would be bad FOR US. So, we are not going to allow it. If Iraqis are too pansy-assed and cowed, or brainwashed and tribally-bigoted, to prevent it, we will have to. Yes.
If there are only a few bad guy terrorist there, what's the problem?
The problem is not the raw # of terrorists on the ground in Iraq. My goodness. That is not the problem at all. Please.
The problem is that Iraq is a vast nation-state in a key strategic region. If some power-hungry megalomaniac were squatting on it, exerting an autocratic control over the population, he can build up his wealth quite fast (due to oil). That wealth can be used to raise armies and invade neighbors (as Saddam did), and to develop WMDs (as Saddam did).
This is what we had to prevent Saddam from doing, and it wouldn't be any better if a guy not named 'Saddam' were doing it, would it?
And if you are right, does that mean we never leave?
We will not be leaving for quite some time, it seems to me. Not "never" but at least 10 years. At least. We still have troops in Germany, come to think of it.
Why can't we just supply arms to our good Iraq friends?
I think we have tried to do that to some extent. A reason not to do that, and then just pick up and leave, is, I think, that we don't trust them not to blow it yet. We don't trust them not to use those arms in the service of some maniac. Neither do we fully trust them to use those arms *against* a maniac who is strong-willed and fearsome enough, who is of their tribe and cloaks his powerlust in words they find "holy". For many Iraqis there is a reluctance or fear, it seems, to shoot a "holy" man or men who is "their own kind" or seems crazy-nuts-violent or both; the temptation is to acquiesce, make nice, nod heads, bow down, and so we don't trust them to stand up for their own freedom and their own civil society.
At least I don't quite trust them. And neither do you, right? So what are you arguing against?
I think we have tried to do that to some extent.
Well hell Doc, you think maybe would should have given them a bigger gun?
A reason not to do that, and then just pick up and leave, is, I think, that we don't trust them not to blow it yet.
So the reason we are afraid to give our good friends the iraqis arms to fight for their own damn country, is that they'll blow it?
LOL!
Good one Doc!