Why Won't George Leave Iraq? Seriously, Why?

[ThomWV]

If its not for the oil and there is not chance of a peaceful solution then you have to ask yourself, why? Is it to somehow save face? Does the man actually think success - however in all the mysterious universe he defines that - is right over the horizon?

Maybe they think the party isn't over just yet, maybe they think the looting can continue, maybe that's why it doesn't end. I don't know. I just can not see what George gains by staying, not for the life of me.

Has anyone got any reasonable idea of what might be in the collective mind of that Unitary Executive we keep hearing about? I haven't got a clue and dam few rational reasons have been forthcoming from either side.

[librechik]

1. he's gotta beat his dad

at nation buildin'

[baldguy]

2. Oil

[MichiganVote]

7. Second that.

[rfranklin]

9. It is part of the PNAC...build military bases in strategic areas like Iraq

to control the flow of oil and hem in Russia and China. They have no intention of leaving...ever.

[MichiganVote]

30. Yup.

[bdamomma]

20. it's all about the oil, we are dealing with oil businessmen

and they can all go to hell.

[DesertRat]

3. Because he's not a "cut and run" Democrat

:sarcasm: :puke:

[Demeter]

4. He Thinks He Can Outbuy and Outstubborn Everyone

but he's never learned that it's not nice to fool Mother Nature, or 150,000 pissed off voters.

[warrior1]

5. he rather the next

smuck take the heat for leaving. This is his war, he owns it whether he's is sitting in the wh or not.

[Faux pas]

6. I'm sure there's a few trillion more he and his cronies can suck

out of Iraq and the taxpayers. Greed seems to be a bottomless pit with this crew.

[dbt]

35. Yep, that's it!

Follow The Money. Why would the Regime knowingly send in WAY too few troops and materiel to control Iraq? The only way it makes sense is that it's being done for profit. The longer it continues, the more weapons GE/Lockheed Martin/etc get to sell to the Pentagon. The longer Halliburton gets to hideously overbill for "support." Blackwater gets to ride the gravy train longer. That precious OIL is kept off the market, thus driving up the price of gasoline (except between now and the Supposed Election). And on and on on ON it goes!

If bu$hco were the least bit serious about "winning the war," it would have been "won" the INSTANT that Junior's approval rating dropped below 60%. That it has now gone on longer than the time that the US fought Germany in WWII says only one thing: it's all about the profits.

:freak:
dbt
Remember New Orleans

[Faux pas]

39. I think it's time for the families of the people serving and dying over

there to file class actions suits up the wazoo. Target every war profiteering company and individual. "You can't sue the government" be damned. I think bushco should be tied up in lawsuits from now until he's out of office.

[Beelzebud]

8. I think our strategy is: GIT'R DUN

You know. The thinking man's mantra. :D

[Anakin Skywalker]

10. His corporate buds are making too much money

being engaged in this "war on terrah" thing right now.

[savemefromdumbya]

11. 'cos Cheney told him not to leave Iraq

there's oil and pipelines and all sorts of goodies like a US military base

[spindrifter]

12. Makes it easier for him to create his Unitary Executive.

As long as he has a "war" going on that is bricks and mortar with actual dead people--ours and theirs--he can bamboozle the fools into letting him strip us of our constitutionally protected rights.

[babylonsister]

13. He refuses to admit he/they made a gross mistake with no

clue on how to extricate them/us. And money is a powerful motivator.

[Yupster]

32. Best answer so far

There is no answer on how to leave. They don't have a clue.

If we leave, our supported government quickly falls and then we have months of a fundamentalist Islamic government taking over and spending its evenings televising the collaberators of the former government getting their heads sawed off live.

That's why I insist that when we do decide to leave, we must bring out the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have collaberated with us before we leave. We can't afford another Killing Fields in our lifetime, and this one will be proudly televised.

As soon as we announce we're leaving, the army, police and government will dissolve and any who stay will be at the mercy of the Mahdi Army. It won't be pretty.

So the answer is that the reason Bush won't leave is because he doesn't know how he can without causing a complete calamity - so he stays with no plan.

[Solly Mack]

14. Because it will be easier to say that the problems in Iraq are the

next President's fault if Bush stays in Iraq until his term is over.

If Bush "stays the course" but the next President withdraws, then republicans will claim Iraq got worse because the next President didn't have the courage to stay the course. So if Iraq is seen as a loss, it's not Bush's fault, he didn't withdraw...and they'll claim you can't prove staying the course is the wrong strategy if the next President doesn't stay the course. See how it works?

Bush is setting up a double bind - he attacks his critics by calling them appeasers and cut and runners and claims victory can be had if only we stay the course - he says morale is low because of the critics (think how he called his critics unpatriotic, etc) - attempting to force them into accepting his position through intimidation...once out of office, he'll attack his critics by saying they didn't stay the course, and that's why Iraq is a loss...it was the critics that lost Iraq...not him.



And Bush well knows the next President will be looking to pull out of Iraq, because it is already a loss.....so Bush sets up the talking points now for when he is out of office..."I said it was a long haul war. I said it will take time. I said whatever...so it's not my fault Iraq got worse because I wasn't the one who pulled out"

If Bush could claim victory now and withdraw and still be able to blame democrats and anti-war people for any problems in Iraq, he would. As it stands right now, it'll be easier to pawn off the blame once he's out of office.

[Norrin Radd]

15. Destabilizing the Middle East into chaos and conflict helps his

oil and military industrialist cronies make money. It's always about the bottom line.

[Richard Steele]

16. Why do you bother saying "If its not for the oil"? It _IS_ for the oil.

Billions of dollars worth of oil leaves Iraq, weekly
if not daily, and we are supposed to believe that
"no one knows where it goes".

Every day we stay there is one more day that the looting
continues. Those insisting we stay tend to have a vested
interest in the looting.

[The_Casual_Observer]

17. He has begun to slip in little messages about the importance of

protecting the Iraqi oil reserves from terrorists into his speeches over the last couple of weeks.

[muntrv]

18. Oil and helliburton.

[pretzel4gore]

19. it fills the news....

the bush criminals know this: the news is what keeps em alive, and it's what they've learned how to ride, like a rocking horse, of sorts. the iraq war, even moreso then the afghanistan war (afghanistan was a 'failed state' before the bs 'war' that has continued the sham - iraq, despite everything, was still one of the most materially together 3rd world countries in the world, as it remains even today) while afghanistan has tribal conflicts and so on, iraq was a unified state when the '03' war' was foisted on us by the bush pigmedia, and that means there's simply so much more to wreck. history will almost certainly prove that the rightists were helping the 'islamofascists' the whole time - they need the bloodshed and chaos, they need the headlines and the terrorism, and fabricate 'plots' outta thin air, or else the gears of legaility just might catch ahold of them :)...notice pat fitzgerald is no longer wasting anyone's time(?) but the 'war' percolates in the background, tarring the entire country with busheviks' crimes....

[karlrschneider]

21. Bush has no clue, he just says what the PNACers tell him to.

The man couldn't find his ass with 2 mirrors, both hands and a flashlight.

[tnlefty]

22. Along with other comments listed:

He said that god told him to invade Iraq. If he left how well would that bode with the religiously insane part of his base? I saw an article here a couple of days ago that McCain was thinking about an appearance at Bob Jones University - can't be mucking things up for those who might follow him.

It would fly in the face of his macho, swaggering posturing and pulling it out and swinging it at the rest of the world,, now wouldn't it? He can't admit that he made a mistake or he would lose (in my neck of the woods anyway) a large part of his aggressive male base.

[sinkingfeeling]

23. Are you trying to break up the Bush Empire? What's wrong with you,

don't you know it's UN-AMERICAN to not want to rule the world?

[leftofthedial]

24. their plan is to be in military control of Iraq's oil

when the Saudis et al run out

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

25. He watched too many "come from behind" sports movies.

You know the ones.

The boxer has his jaw smashed, 4 ribs broken, his nose is up around his eybrows, both eyes closed, and he looks like the star of "Passion of the Christ", but he remembers his old granpa made him promise to be the Champeen just before they hung him, and is so inspired by the memory that he gets up off the canvas and with a mighty blow from his broken hand, floors the 6'9", 483lb, sneering challenger.

Or, the one where it's the bottom of the ninth, the Home Team is behind 412-0 and the Hero, who has been benched because he's never played baseball, is blind, has only one arm, and is only 8 years old, is sent in to bat, because the rest of the team has given up and are now in Clancey's Bar & Grill dead drunk. He smacks a record breaking 800 yard homerun, and then beats his own record 412 times, with the final home run reaching the city limits 3 miles away.

It is reported that a maligned general named Custer was fond of similar stories.

[Imalittleteapot]

26. Egomaniacle manly pride.

[SmokingJacket]

27. It's not about Iraq alone -- it's about dominating the middle east.

Controlling the middle east means controlling the oil, among other things. So it IS oil, but not just grabbing some -- about OWNING IT ALL, forever.

Look at the permanent bases we're building!

[Sir Jeffrey]

28. Ethnic cleansing...

More specifically, depopulating the third world countries. To believe any other reason requires one to make the assumption that they are complete idiots. I don't buy it. I think they know exactly what they are doing.

If you look at this list, you will see that since the end of WWII, the US has consistently invaded and murdered millions of third world citizens.

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

The US dropped over 20 million gallons of Agent Orange in Vietnam. The US used over 300 tons of depleted uranium in the first gulf war. The US has been using white phosphorus, napalm, and depleted uranium munitions in Iraq since 2003. I could go on and on.

The fascists running our government couldn't get away with marching millions of women and children into gas chambers. They can, however, kill them indiscriminately in a war zone.

on edit: accidentally inserted "agent orange" as being used in Iraq now...actually, we're using napalm.

[aaronbees]

29. Oil and power

Specifically, power over U.S. citizens to spread fear and in the Middle East to muscle our influence over other nations as a bully. I think those are the dominant reasons with a host of other ones alongside it.

[gulliver]

31. Our troops are fighting to preserve Republican political careers.

It's disgusting at this point. The Republicans keep the troops in Iraq to keep a lid on it through election 2006, maybe even 2008. The GOP is abusing the troops -- keeping them away from their homes and getting them killed and mained -- and wasting gouts of our taxpayer's money to hide a failed war and failed, fake Republican leadership. To hide their shame, others must die. There's no lower than that.

[La_Fourmi_Rouge]

33. No war = no C in C status

If he pulls out of the war, he loses his pretext for unitary executive claims.

[Disturbed]

34. Busholini will not withdraw for all the reason listed.

He and his Criminal Junta will do and say anything to dominate the ME.

[Ganja Ninja]

36. Because they want to start a war with Iran next door.

At least an air campaign. Once they get that going they'll dump the whole can of worms on the next president.

In an odd way stirring up all this crap is almost an insurance policy against impeachment. What Democrat would want to step into the mess he's making? Once you do you have to take the blame for the outcome.

[leftchick]

37. first , I do not believe it is the chimp's decision

It is very obvious by now that we are on cheney and his fellow neo-cons path to that Mid-East Imperialism, which includes control of the oil, that the PNACers have been drooling for over 10 years now. The chimp is their sock puppet, though he does think he is running things.

The reason we don't leave is the neocons are so close to that total destabilization they so want. The bases in Iraq will serve to protect their oil concerns and launch the next wars in Iran and then syria.

It won't work of course but then that has never stopped these insane neo-freaks before has it? There will be much more blood shed and perhaps a few nukes before control is taken back by some saner person.

I hope. :(

[NoSunWithoutShadow]

38. All of the above and the HUGE new US Embassy being built

in Baghdad called "George W.'s palace".

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-2162249,00.html

Officially, the design of the compound is supposed to be a secret, but you cannot hide the giant construction cranes and the concrete contours of the 21 buildings that are taking shape. Looming over the skyline, the embassy has the distinction of being the only big US building project in Iraq that is on time and within budget.
...

The heavily guarded 42-hectare (104-acre) site — which will have a 15ft thick perimeter wall — has hundreds of workers swarming on scaffolding. Local residents are bitter that the Kuwaiti contractor has employed only foreign staff and is busing them in from a temporary camp nearby.

After roughing it in Saddam’s abandoned palaces, diplomats should have every comfort in their new home. There will be impressive residences for the Ambassador and his deputy, six apartments for senior officials, and two huge office blocks for 8,000 staff to work in. There will be what is rumoured to be the biggest swimming pool in Iraq, a state-of-the-art gymnasium, a cinema, restaurants offering delicacies from favourite US food chains, tennis courts and a swish American Club for evening functions.
...
Iraqi politicians opposed to the US presence protest that the scale of the project suggests that America retains long-term ambitions here. The International Crisis Group, a think-tank, said the embassy’s size “is seen by Iraqis as an indication of who actually exercises power in their country”.

[newportdadde]

40. Never underestimate the human ego.

[catmandu57]

41. Because then everyone will know that poppy does indeed

have the bigger dick.

Seriously though does anyone actually believe they let elections be held? They are in grave danger now, in danger of losing the government to the rabble.
The rabble who will demand blood, and they fucking know it. This is going to come down to forcibly remove these insane bastards from power.