[benVFR]

Originally posted by Doc
[b]Would Chaos and instability would effect the region?

How would it be different right now? Occupying foreign army, militant insurgency, bombings every day, infrastructure trashed, thousands and thousands of dead civilians, etc..

Sounds like chaos and instability. If we leave we replace chaos + instability + occupying "infidel" army with chaos + instability. When the average citizen now views us as a part of the problem if we remove one of the 3 problems they will probably think it's better.

Escalating violence, civil war, more militants to worry about because now "the Americans left us". We can't just pull out like Vietnam because things are not going well, ask the Vets. Is it because they are brainwashed that they want to "finish the job" or is it because they see progress?

We have escalating violence right now. Whether or not it already qualifies as a civil war is debatable. Obviously the insurgents don't like the government we put in place. That could be called a civil war IMO. Obviously Bush and the administration have been working overtime to keep us all from calling it a civil war, that's the only reason we're not all calling it civil war.

I don't know if you are specifically referring to the views of enlisted men in Iraq or officers, or the military as a whole. I get the distinct impression the enlisted men and officers have differing opinions about how things are going in Iraq. But everything we get here is Propaganda, whether it's military propaganda to keep enlisted moral up or media propaganda. We get occasional input from people like yourself who have been to Iraq but we never hear what their rank was. Personally the people that I have known well who have been to Iraq are 1 enlisted person (relative) and 2 officers (friends). The enlisted guy doesn't really know what to say about the whole thing, the guys who are officers both think the situation is a mess and not going well. None of them really want to talk about it.. they just want to move on. Same thing when I see things in the press. Upper level officers are way more likely to be criticizing the war effort.

Look what the area spawned when we weren't there before.

Arguably we have hurt the situation on the street for the average Iraqi, why do you think they're so unhappy? People need to keep in mind democracy vs. dictator vs. communism is all moot when there is no food on the table. No one cares about representative government until they are well fed, safe, and are worried about their place in the world. If they think they're going to be less likely to die under a new dictator they're going to want that. They won't be ready for democracy until they have time to worry about it.

Look what is happening in Korea. The next "hotbed".

Not sure how we can really predict anything about Korea from Iraq. Too different situations. We should have focused on Korea and ignored Iraq.

Do you recall what happened on 9/11/01? Or Even the first Trade center attacks? Has anything like that happened on our shores since? Do you think it is because we stayed home?

No I don't think Iraq has made us any safer or prevented another 9/11 level attack. The majority of Americans feel this way now. The scare tactics aren't working anymore.

I won't even get into the whole "oil" argument but Prices would go up. (we need to be less dependent here)

I doubt anyone would disagree with this but more wars in the middle east will not be an energy solution. That oil isn't going to last anyway and even if we have stability we are going to have to compete with the Chinese and Indians, oil prices are going to go up no matter what until we get a real strategy to get off oil. Obviously something that's not going to happen as long as big oil controls washington.

If we just pull out I predict a massive outcry from Iraq and the area. I predict MORE hatred will be born and we will see MORE acts of violence around the world.

You're free to predict that, I will predict the opposite at least outside of Iraq. If Bush pulls out we will save a lot of face, many of our allies may view us more highly again. I think if Bush continues to flail around without direction until he leaves office we will have squandered that though. Say a Democrat wins in 2008 and pulls out in 2009 or 2010 our allies will still view us badly. Bush needs to be the one to get this solved in order for us really to save face.