The only plan that I would support regarding Iraq...

[mikelewis]

In a little while, the President is going to unveil some new fangled plan to help save face and ensure that America "wins" this war. Frankly, I don't give a shit if we lose this war, I don't want this war and I damn sure don't think we should be sacrificing treasure and life in some ridiculous attempt to maintain the impression that we are undefeatable. Clearly, Vietnam has shattered that image and Iraq is only reinforcing that every single day. I think we should pull our troops out of there right now... no delays, no stopping to ask directions... just point the convoys due West and keep moving until you hit Virginia. With that said...

There is only one way to convince me that we should stay in Iraq for even one minute longer. There are a few steps to this plan and hopefully I can make it simple enough that even George can understand it.

1) The President must issue a public apology.

Now the apology I'm looking for is not the bullshit apology he offered after Katrina... No, I'm looking for a Jimmy Swaggert type of breakdown; crying, snotting, sobbing... the whole nine yards. The apology must include the fact that he lied about the evidence and deceived the nation into this unjust war. He must also apologize to the U.N. for degrading that institution and belittling the work of a program that was clearly working in the worlds best interests. The apology must be humiliating and sincere or he can shove his little war right up his ass.


2) Stop killing Iraqi's!!!!

That's right. The policy of the United States must no longer be one of offense. We must not sanction any attacks, we must disband Negroponte's death squads, we must remove any threat of hostility from any U.S. troops serving in country. That is not to say that our troops cannot defend themselves... if attacked, they will use appropriate force to enable them to immediately disengage and fall back to a safe location. To ensure their safety, our troops must have the absolute best defensive protection money can buy... full body armor, reinforced troop carriers and overwhelming force anytime they leave their safe sites.

3) Authorize the largest humanitarian relief effort the world has ever seen.

We must flood Iraq with food, medical supplies, clothing, construction equipment, telecommunications... anything and everything a country would need to get back on their feet. Not one Iraqi civilian should worry about food, not one parent should worry about a sick child, not one Iraqi should worry about repairing their damaged homes... all Iraqi's will have equal access to the basic necessities of life to help them deal with the disaster we brought down on them. The supplies must also include anything needed to restore their infrastructure. Power plants, heavy construction equipment, refinery plants, water works... all the things they'd need to rebuild their nation must be offered to the Iraqi Government so they can restore the functions of their state.

4) Strengthen the Iraqi Government and maintain local independence.

By providing the Iraqi Government with the access to major rebuilding projects, they will be able to create a New Deal type program that will get millions of Iraqi's back to work. By putting the people back to work, the Iraqi Government can in effect starve the insurgency. If the Iraqi Government puts a hammer in a man's hands, it's less likely he'll put that down to pick up a gun or blow up a marketplace.

However, by turning over all the equipment and supplies to the Iraqi National Government, we run the risk of creating another totalitarian regime and I am opposed to this. This is where American troops come in. The American troops will provide the humanitarian supplies and equipment to the local Iraqi towns and villages. The local mayor or leader will be responsible for providing advanced security for U.S. convoys traveling to each location and also will be responsible for providing the labor for distribution. The U.S. troops will only go into villages and towns where they are welcome and in places they are shunned or attacked, the local government will be responsible for providing the labor to get the supplies to the individual towns. We will supply the trucks and supplies, they can figure out how to get them to their people. Under no circumstances will the supplies be cut off from any town or village... or used as any type of political leverage. Any Iraqi can come to U.S. distribution locations and get the supplies on their own and if the local government decides to use the supplies to hold their people hostage, we will no longer deal with that leader and demand another representative be elected to distribute the supplies.

5) Set a definite time line for total withdrawal.

This message must be loud and clear. U.S. troops are leaving Iraq within 3 years. During the first year, we will maintain current troop levels to ensure the delivery of supplies to all locations in Iraq. One year from the commencement of the relief effort, U.S. troop levels will draw down by 1/3 each year until all troops are off Iraqi soil regardless of the political situation in country. At the end of the first year, the Iraqi's will be responsible for transporting the supplies from centrally located distribution sites. By the end of the second year, all troops will fall back to the 9 major bases located around the country and at the end of the third year, we are gone.

Once we are gone, relief efforts will begin to draw down and be replaced by Iraqi oil trade or no interest loans. At the end of the third year, once we leave the Iraqi's will be responsible for weening themselves off U.S. assistance. Assistance will continue for a period of 3 more years to be phased out by year three with the amount cut by 1/3 each year. Any additional aid required can be purchased by the Iraqi government at cost to make up for any deficiencies in coverage. Hopefully, by then, they can have their oil production up and running at full speed and will be able to make the purchases necessary otherwise we can provide the supplies on no-interest loan for a period not to exceed 6 years.

.....................................

That's it, that's the only way you can convince me to stay in Iraq. They can shove any other plan they have right up their asses. If they want to keep killing innocent people or divide up the country or try to ram through their ideas of how Iraqi's should live, they can go screw themselves. I want our guys and girls out right now but I also don't want the Iraqi's to be left to clean up the mess our government created. They should be given everything they need to get back on their feet, helped in any way humanly possible and then left the fuck alone to find their own destiny. If we don't intend to clean up our mess, then we need to just get the hell out right now. Of course Bush won't listen, he's a "stay the course" kind of guy but if they want my support for a continued deployment, they need to adopt a plan like this or something even better. I'm tired of this bullshit already...

[Name removed]

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[mikelewis]

3. An apology is essential to winning in Iraq...

Is the pResident so proud, he'll continue losing American troops just to save face?


2) Of course you have to defend yourself but fire only when fired upon, establish perimeter security and then get the hell out of the line of fire. The soldiers won't be any any more danger than they are right now and in fact, they'll probably be in less once the relief starts flowing in.

3) We're already going to spend Billions more in Iraq regardless of what we do with the money. Better it goes to the people of Iraq instead of our beloved corporations.

4) Hopefully the relief efforts will help starve the insurgency and give the National Government something to offer the people other than ridiculous rhetoric.

5) It's not based on goals, the goals are based on the timeline. If Iraq spirals into chaos, it won't be because we didn't do everything in our power to help get them back on thier feet.

Like I said, I think any plan other than withdrawal is simply bullshit but if they came up with this plan, I'd shut up about an immediate withdrawal.

[mike_c]

2. mike-- your heart's in the right place but we can no more fix the damage...

...we've done in Iraq than we can "win" anything there. I think the U.S. should pay reparations through a third party, perhaps the U.N., and we all need to understand that the inevitable corruption that results is simply not something Americans have any right to criticize. Beyond that however, the best course is to withdraw immediately and completely, and arrest and convict the war criminals responsible for Iraq. That is the BEST way to show the world contrition-- arrest the criminals and send them off to The Hague to face an international tribunal.

[Name removed]

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[mike_c]

8. it is starting already....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2680619

[mikelewis]

9. Wow... you're not going to last long...

Fresh from Freeperville are we?

You should read a little bit about who we are before you call someone a nutjob...

Only a "nutjob" (or a Freeper) would say they aren't war criminals...

Lying about the reason for a war...
Getting thousands of Americans and anywhere between 150k to 650k Iraqi's killed over that lie is, by definition a war crime...

[mikelewis]

5. They're never going to send Bush to the Hague...

... it would take an invasion for that to happen and there's not much political will out there for an invasion of the United States. I agree, we should withdrawal but we should at least try to lessen the damage as best we can. If the U.N. would administer the relief, that'd be even better but they've already said they want nothing to do with this mess and I can't blame them.

On edit...

Also, we're not going to even attempt to try and fix the damage... but offering them the tools to fix it themselves is the right thing to do.

[Old and In the Way]

6. Well thought out.

Frankly, there is no good way to exit. The longer we stay, the worse it gets for Iraqi's. The shorter we stay, the worse it gets for Iraqis.

I think we need to go begging to the UN to get a true multi-national security force, with emphasis on countries in the region who have an interest in a stable Iraq. The only credible option would be a world force with no vested interest in one side or the other, or the other having a dominance. Conduct a real vote that reflects the will of the Iraqi people (not the US administration) and get them in power. Provide the money necessary to start a real rebuilding program that utilizes Iraqis to do the work. Money has a way of getting everyone to stop fighting and start earning...that's important. We have that obligation because we did break it.

Then investigate the underlying reasons why this administration lied about the casus belli and how this war provided a conduit to transfer our nation's wealth into the hands of the benefactors of this administration. Hang the war profiteers.

[mikelewis]

7. I'm not sure we should hang them...

...but taking back every dime they bilked us out of would be a great start and coupling that with massive jail time... that includes the pResident and the Dick. I also agree that we should leave now but sending in a relief effort is not going to make them hate us any more than they already do now. If we stop attacking them and limit our presence to only providing the relief, we can maintain a low profile and hopefully ease some of the suffering we've caused.

[Old and In the Way]

11. Hanging War profiteers is a pretty good way to send a signal to

future war profiteers that there is a consequence to those ill gotten gains.

[rucky]

10. That'll mend fences with US/Iraq...

but will it make peace between Sunnis/Shias/Kurds?

I'm thinking 3-state solution in inevitable. As far as the oil goes, make it a public consortium between the three new nations & split the profits by population for social programs. Most of the oil fields are on Shiite territory, the way the borders would pan out, but they haven't seen self-government in years, so I think they'd be up for it.

[mikelewis]

12. We can't forge peace between them... they have to do that for themselves...

...but we can alleviate some of the driving factors that inflame the situation. The insurgency is fueled largely in part by lack of hope not necessarily by sectarian strife. Religion, in this case, is a tool that those who want power use to manipulate the minds of desperate people. It is not the cause of the insurgency, it's merely the banner which different groups are flocking to in order to form some sort of unified identity. Because they have no concept of a state or flag to rally around, they rally around an idea and that paradigm can be broken. Nothing ends a war quicker than victory and so there are ways to hand the Iraqi people the victory they believe they want while still providing those things they need to rebuild their nation.

The shock and awe campaign against Iraq in the initial invasion overwhelmed the people and left them in a daze. To momentarily stifle the insurgency, that can be done again but not with bombs and bullets. That won't work any longer so we need to come up with something that accomplishes the same effect and I believe we can break this insurgency with overwhelming generosity and public repentance. We can kill the insurgency with kindness much faster than we ever could with a gun. By avoiding direct confrontation, we can pull the splinter from their eye and at least fill their bellies and the bellies of their children while they thrash around blindly in vengeful rage. There's going to be violence no matter what we do but once they see we are committed to making amends for the wrongs we brought them and publicly committed to leaving, much of the driving force behind this insurgency will weaken. A dramatic display on the part of the most feared man in the world would be that "shock and awe" necessary to momentarily quell their passions and once their view of who we are is shaken, we can start chipping away at how they see themselves.

As for the oil, the oil is also another red herring. First, the Iraqi people know damn well most of them won't see a dime of the oil money. They're not fighting for oil, they're fighting because they believe all we want is the oil and they believe we don't give a shit about what we have to do to get it. They believe that if they control the oil, they can gain some real power over us or anyone who wants to manipulate them in the future. To alleviate that problem is actually pretty easy... cheap fuel and plenty of it. Imagine the shock and awe that would create... imagine an unlimited supply of Iraqi's finest flowing into their tanks and generators like water from the Tigris and Euphrates; all for pennies on the dollar. The Sunni know the Shia and Kurdish regions of the country are floating on an ocean of oil and they worry about the loss of control and money from the oil influence. But as it stands now, no one in country is benefiting from all that oil. The entire country suffers from wide-spread fuel shortages. How can this be? Is there no reasonable solution?

If it were up to me, the first public works project should be the worlds largest refinery, right outside Fallujah... right smack dab in the middle of Sunni territory. The Kurds and the Shiite's might have access to crude but without sufficient refining capabilities, it's useless to the Iraqi people. The oil is only a problem because the oil power is not spread uniformly among the various sects but by setting up a major refinery in Sunni controlled areas, there would be a balance of oil-derived power among the different factions. That would give the Sunni's in the triangle a very real stake in the oil program of the country and would end much or the ignorant fighting over dividing the country into thirds. If a nation can't solve it's problems when they are one country, how can they hope to solve their problems when they are three separate regions with three separate sets of rules for dealing with one another? We shouldn't be looking to divide Iraqi against Iraqi; we should be looking for ways to unify all Iraqi's under one banner and alleviate the need for people to turn their religion into a hypocrisy. That can be done but it must be done by them... and we must offer whatever help they need to facilitate that end. If we're not willing to do that... then we need to just get the hell out right now.