[SoConPubbie]

Agreed. We can’t blow it up and leave. We needed to keep a base of operation there.

For what reason? To make our servicemen targets for ISIL?

There is and never was a reason to stay. It always should have been just a shock and awe operation where we absolutely obliterated the enemy and left.

And if needed, as many times as needed, repeat until the enemy is pacified.

The motivation for any war with the adherents of Islam should be total destruction to impress upon them that anytime they attack, they will be destroyed.

There is no way to moderate their religion or the adherents.

The religion itself is the poison and it will not be reformed or fixed.

[papertyger]

There is no way to moderate their religion or the adherents.

Sure there is; we did it for almost a hundred years.

You don't have to declare war on Islam. We've existed quite satisfactorily with them for the same amount of time.

You also need not make asses of your national leaders by declaring a war on "terror."

The answer is simply to declare war on "Jihad."

[ilgipper]

We left and ISIS came in. Now we’re back. If the goal is to remove Saddam and high tail it home, we never should have gone in. We didn’t leave Germany when Hitler was removed. We are still there today for strategic reasons. We should never have fully left Iraq. We needed a base there for long term strategic value and to help Iraq develop.

What we shouldn’t have done, in retrospect, was continue our war footing after the new Iraq government was formed. We continued a costly street-level war operation for almost a decade, and that should have been ended a lot earlier. We should have used our power selectively by air and on the ground in post-war Iraq on a selective basis, and not a 24/7 force.