Set a date for withdrawal

Some claimed we should set a hard date and pull out of Iraq. That's stupid. Never telegraph your moves to the opposition. Some claimed we should set a hard date and pull out of Iraq. That's stupid. Never telegraph your moves to the opposition. Idiots think the way to peace is through appeasement. This is terminal narcissism. What they fail to understand is that to sociopaths weakness is provocative: they'd be foolish to NOT exploit every opportunity given. ℹ️ Info           ~ Aristotle Sabouni Created: 2004-08-04

History shows that appeasement often emboldens the enemy, and often leads to more violence. They will only negotiate for peace when the alternative is worse; not before. Many people care about their self interests, not yours.

But Europe wants it

Setting a date would appease the Europeans and make them slightly less unhappy... but really who cares?

Remember, Europeans made noise about Reagan and taking on the Soviets. They despised him for talking tough and not appeasing them. Then the Russians bankrupted themselves trying to keep up with us, rethought their ways, the Berlin wall fell because of it, and 10 or 20 years later the Europeans suddenly realize what he did for them, and most hate him a lot less and many celebrate his success.

So we shouldn’t cave to stupidity just because it is popular in Europe, we need to do what is right for ourselves and the world.

Hypotheticals

Let’s say we agree to pull out in 12 or 24 months, what happens?

The insurgents and terrorists realize they only have too keep anarchy going for another year, and they win. They see the statement as weak, and themselves as winning. This encourages more violence and gives them hope of winning, instead of the desire to learn to coexist with the new reality, because the alternative is too expensive. Thus, you not only encourage violence by setting a date.

If the date comes, and the violence is still going on, then you’re left with a lose-lose scenario.

1. If you pull out, you abandon the people you promised to help; which tells our allies that are words are meaningless and we just tear down nations and leave them to the wolves. This supports terrorists all over the world, “Look what evil Americans did to poor Iraq”. Iraq gets taken over by the worst fanatics.
2. If you don’t pull out, then you prove to the terrorists that you are liars, and they use that in the propaganda war against you. This supports terrorists all over the world, “their word is no good, they said they’d leave by this date, but they didn’t”.

Conclusion

So making this sort of statement on an end-date is diplomatic suicide. you’ve turned yourself into a liar and a fool.

• It would cost more lives than it could possibly save.
• It would hurt our morale and help the enemies.
• There would be no way to win, unless we got blindingly lucky and the terrorists just happened to all rethink their commitment to violence and the meaning of their lives at the same time.

Betting on the introspection of terrorists just doesn't have odds that I want to put faith in. I’ll opt for a more sane policy, which is to tell the world that we will see things through until they are finished, but we can’t know when that is until it gets here.

Diplomacy is about pressure. We won’t take options off the table, because those are bargaining chips.

We aren’t really likely to invade Iran or Syria, even tactical strikes are unlikely; but if we take those options off the table, they are free to escalate without fear of those consequences.

You don’t tell a bully, “I won’t hit back, no matter what you do”. Bullies tend to leave you alone when they fear the consequences. So why embolden them?

The motivation to keep fighting an insurgency goes down as our commitment and effectiveness is strengthened; the futility of the fight becomes more obvious. And vice versa. As long as the insurgents have hope and support, the violence will continue; and a date for us pulling out gives them both.

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👁️ See also

• Iraq War - Disagree with American policy or bumbling implementations of that policy. Be anti-war. Just be honest and consistent
• Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11 - The war on Islamic terror didn't start on 9/11 and wasn't about Osama Bin Laden, they were symptoms of something bigger.
• Preemptive War - Iraq was the first preemptive war except for all the others.
• Legality of Iraq war - No war is legal or illegal, there's only moral or immoral -- and all wars are immoral (some just more than others).
• Give it more time... - Some have said we should have waited for France or the U.N. to change their minds, or for sanctions to work...
• Violence never solved anything - Some say war/violence is wrong or that it never solves anything. It ended many wars and most mass murderers just fine.
• Bush lied - Bush didn't lie: the world's intelligence disagreed on specifics, but all agreed that Saddam was trying to get WMD's.
• Valerie Plame - Ex-CIA agent lies that she was outted by Bush Admin. Media perpetuates the lies for years.
• Quotes/Iraq War - Leftists want to pretend they had nothing to do with the Iraq War. History (and these quotes) begs to differ.
• Muslims can't do democracy - Muslims aren't capable of a successful democracy".
• Iraq/Set a date for withdrawal - Some claimed we should set a hard date and pull out of Iraq. That's stupid. Never telegraph your moves to the opposition.
• America made Saddam - During the mid 2000's it was popular among the dim of wit, and big of mouth, to claim that Saddam was created by America.
• Iraq is because of Israel-Palestine - Israel/Palestine is a convenient scapegoat for all problems in the middle east. But only rubes buy it as the root problem.
• Iraq is because of oil - All the time I hear people say that the U.S. invaded Iraq because of oil, money, or some other dumber reason. Oil is not a dumb reason.
• The U.S. targeted innocents - I’m flabbergasted that such stupidity is ever said, let alone how often I’ve heard it repeated.
• Iraq War Costs - Everything comes with costs, action or inaction. The price of war, the price of peace.
• Patriot Act - The 2002 version doens't bug me, what it might devolve into does. (Is it a slippery slope).
• Halliburton - NYT invented “evil conspiracy” to pay off a company for cheating us. The rubes believed it.
• Guantanamo - The left made a big deal about Guantanamo, where we had the right to treat people far worse than we did.
• Abu Ghraib - Abu Ghraib was one small group of U.S. Soldiers that something bad things, were caught and punished quickly.
• Security in Iraq - Militarily Iraq was one of the greatest successes in the history of mankind. Sociologically? We'll see.
• Americans are imperialists - People that say Americans are imperialists don’t understand America (or what imperialism means).
• Iraq's impact on Terrorism - Poverty doesn't cause terrorism; totalitarianism and a lack of control does.
• We should have done nothing - Of course we can’t know if doing nothing is ever the better choice or not. But we can look at some facts.

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Iraq Republic of Iraq, in Western Asia, borders Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan and Syria.

War War, what is it good for? Democrats seem to like is as a tool for dividing us. (Imagined Imperialism).

Falsehoods Iraq War Falsehoods (things that just aren't true).

Tags: Iraq  War  Iraq War/Falsehoods