Bring home our troops

[king kong]

I've had enough now, it seems to be every week now that we are hearing of yet another member of the armed forces has been killed, especially in Iraq and more so Afghanistan.
They have done what that had originally set out to do and was to over throw the existing regimes.
Our armed forces are now incredibly overstretched and in cases under funded, yet because of our 'special' relationship with the mighty USA we are being dragged into a long and drawn out conflicts.
It seems that the situation in Iraq is getting worse by the day, with constant tribal in fighting and the Taliban resurgance seems to be gathering momentum in Afghanistan. Its all getting very deppressing.
Its time to say enough is enough, if America wants to commit to oto Iraq then let them do so, bring our boys home.

[Mister James]

And when Iraq becomes a giant supply-cupboard for an ascendant Iran, what will we do then?

When we lose influence and bases in the Middle East, what will we do then?

When a militarily strong Iran makes an alliance with China, and freezes us out, what will we do then?

Many of the deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan have been scandalous, because they stem from what anyone who has served in the last decade can tell you - we don't give the forces enough money.

That said, they are doing an important job, and most of them that are out there accept and understand that. That we do not support them is disgusting.

What's annoyed me most about this is the comment from Downing Street:

[king kong]

[G]

Invading another country with no UN mandate to do so is pretty damn bad.

Especially when it's fairly obvious it's going to mess the country up quite badly.

Killing many thousands of innocent people in the process isn't exactly nice.

Claiming that we were going to help save the people of the country, then finding the average citizen is more likely to be killed after we 'saved' them doesn't sound very good.

But pulling out to allow the country to completely destablise - that could be considered to make us worse than dictators we over threw?
Through our actions we would have jeopardised the lives of many, many more than have been killed in any terrorist attacks we claim we were trying to prevent again.

From the way I see it, the current major source of 'terror' in the World comes mostly from the White House.

[Mister James]

[Mister James]

[G]

[colin1]

I agree that invading Iraq was a mistake and you didnt need to be that clued up to realise this. Unfortunately Bush and Blair were less clued up than most.

At least they have done the decent thing and kept the troops in. Iraqi forces are hopeless.

There was a handover recently of a british base to iraqi forces and with days it had all been looted down to doors and window frames.

They are not capable of providing security for the whole country if America and Britain pull out.

Israel are far more selfish, and shell the crap out of southern lebanon and then expect other people to clean up after them.

Iraq will still be of strategic important in 5 years time so keeping troops in may be better than the consequences of the alternative.

If i put my name into google, i see the picture of an officer who is a bit older than me who died 3 years ago leaving a wife and 11 month son, and a daughter of 12 and a son of 10 by an earlier marriage. He comes from the same part of the country that my mum comes from. He knew the risks. He shouldnt have died but he was there to do a job.

They are dying for their country to look after our interests. I dont think they should be there in the first place, but I think they are standing their ground for good reasons so that makes the occupation honourable even if its probably illegal.

The invasion of iraq didnt prevent terrorism, it provokes it and feeds it.
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colin1 is officially faster than god

[bazza]

[king kong]

[Kickstart]

Hi

Tend to feel that the chaos in Iraq was expected (I certainly did, although I did not expect it to be as bad as it is).

However, having gone in there are allowed the current situation to develop, I cannot see how we can pull out. And if we did then it would be a huge boost for those who could be far more damaging to us than Saddam.

Can see to a limited extent why we went into Afghanistan, based on the public justification. On the other hand I can also see why Afghan "authorities" refused to hand over Bin Laden when nobody was propared to give them any evidence of his involvement in the trade centre attacks.

We seem to have had almost as many reasons for attacking Iraq as we have had news broadcasts.

All the best

Keith
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[JonB]

Bazza is absolutely fecking spot on, 17 million people didn't vote in the last General Election. Those people could have got our terrible government out of power. Though i'm not too sure any of the opposition would have done a better job.
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[Kickstart]

[bazza]

[kawakid]

Even though its of no help.

Look at the millions of troops who died in the first and 2nd world wars, the numbers here are tragic, but no comparisson.

However think about recent wars, when the Falklands was over, Kosvo, the "enemy" surrended and withdrew and it was all over. This will never happen with a hidden religeous terrorist.

I think someone has to police such spots, remember what happend and why we are in Afghanistan and what Saddam was like. If the religeous factions sorted themselves out and layed down, i'm sure all Western troops would be home now.

[mr jamez]

What Tony Blair has said doesn't seem to make sense, 117 British soldiers have died to somehow protect us over here? in a war that doesn't seem to have an end or way of winning. We have had the London tube bombings, another attempt at the same thing a few weeks later, the plot to blow up airliners, people buying iron oxide and perhaps other things. It just seems as if he has happily sacrificed those people so that he can bleat on about the war on terror and how it is protecting us.

The only long term solution I can see to protecting people over here is to remove our dependancy on oil.

[Mister James]

[mr jamez]

[Mister James]

I didn't say that Iraq was stable, I said that much of it was.

People constantly slate the Americans and British for underestimating the scale of the rebuilding required - strange how we hear so little abuse thrown the way of Iran - the very nation that is bankrolling the insurgency and providing Revolutionary Guard troops and the sophisticated IED's that are killing our troops.

The Iraqis are killing each other now, egged on by nations that simply wish to control their resources and throw egg in the US/UK's face. Should we just leave them to it? To say that hope is beyond them is grotesquely prejudiced, and suggests that we should just abandon the majority of Iraqis who just want a chance to live a peaceful life.
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>Soultrader Mister James, I bet you are a copper
>Bazza Wow. Eyes like a shithouse rat, you...

[colin1]

well what do you really expect Iran to do ? let us get Iraq sorted so we can invade them next ?


wheres the sense in that ?

Iraq would still be a mess without Iran helping as America had been bombing it for years and imposing sanctions, and then cut the head off by invading and taking out all the people who ran it.

if iran is creating a bit of instability in their national interest, its nothing compared to what america does when they think something is in their national interest
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colin1 is officially faster than god

[Mister James]

[colin1]

you know far more have been killed in the bombings, sanctions and invasions than by a few terrorists since then

more like hundreds of thousands

Iran is just doing the same thing America does but on a lower budget so they arent quite so effective

killing ppl is bad mkay but Iran is hardly the only nation to go round killing ppl

and Iran isnt controlling all of the insurgents

if you invade someones country, quite a few tend to be cross about it and fight back some people might refer to it as a resistance movement

they know if life gets too tricky for the americans they might pull out and the bush backed government might be overthrown
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[zaknafien]

[Mister James]

The Kurdish areas of Iraq, for example, are almost totally peaceful.

Large swathes of the country outside the major cities are also relatively quiet - it just doesn't make the news because it isn't interesting enough.

[colin1]

so you are saying that the americans invade a country which had nothing to do with 9/11 citing 9/11 as an excuse, topple its government resulting in anarchy followed by a very weak government and all sorts of unrest, but we cant blame america for this ?

what did they expect to happen ? that every single iraqi would say thankyou ? the problem is that americans are stupid and thats exactly what they did think, which is why we can blame america

the problem is that there are more stupid people in america than clever people and the stupid people vote in stupid people to run the country

i am aware that there are some clever americans, but they are regarded with distrust by all the stupid ones.
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