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Willravel: Actually, Military enlistments are rarely for more than 4 years and are often for only 2. I can guarantee that everybody in the army today knew about the war when they signed up (or reenlisted).
Some national guard guys may have attempted to get easy money by signing up and hoping not to deploy, but they still signed on the dotted line knowing full well what conflict we were engaged in.
Also, an awareness that we don't belong in Iraq is very different entirely from an opinion that we shouldn't be fighting the war or that we are not needed. Of course we don't belong in the middle east. But an asshat of a dictator necessitated our return.
Whether you agree with the war or not, you should realize that the original war has been won...we kicked the crap out of saddam hussein, his army, and the bath party. We could have pulled out and left Iraq in ruins.
But that wouldn't be very nice. So we are trying to help get Iraq back up and running again. But since we displaced the ruling Sunni minority (basically like apartheid) and for the first time installed a predominately Shia government in the arab league of nations we are facing a lot of opposition from the Sunni radicals in Iraq who had it good living under Saddam and extorting people.
We have made some committments in that part of the world that require us to either 1: finish the job or 2: leave and betray all the people who stood up and have been working with the US to get their country up and running again...they will most likely be slaughtered if we leave. Not to mention Kuwait (one of our allies) will probably get taken over (again) during the resulting civil war. Democracy in the middle east is considered a threat by many neighboring countries (*Cough* *Iran* *Cough*) and they are actively working to undermine US interests as well. To pull out now is to simply hand them (and all others working against the US) the ball game.
Even if you were against the war you shouldn't be against reconstruction and the honoring of our national committments. Could you sleep at night if you had all our troops pull out only to have all former Interpreters, Interim Government members, Iraqi Police, and all their families tortured and killed? Not to mention the bloodbath that ensue from the civil war. What would you do when Kuwait gets sacked, again?
It is far easier to fight and win wars when you adopt a scorched earth policy. If we wanted to simply crush Iraq and leave the country in ruins we would have been home years ago. Instead we have a broader goal...helping people escape tyranny. Which, if I recall, is the reason we fought our war of independance and I can think of none better to fight a war over.
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"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." - Winston Churchill
"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act out their dream with open eyes, to make it possible." Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence
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