Should We Be In Iraq? what do you think about the war in Iraq

[mirra 0]

In practice, however, this is not how human nature works. People generally try to fit the facts to their existing opinions, rather than the other way around. Those who had marched against the invasion barely paused to touch up their placards before campaigning for the immediate evacuation of the troops. Their attitude drove some supporters of the war into a bloody-minded determination to see things through, almost regardless of the merits of the case.Three years after the original invasion, supporters of the war should assess the situation with pitiless clarity. Three years is more than enough time to have trained a new generation of police recruits and native soldiers.The continuing insurgency can no longer be regarded as a mopping-up exercise, or a prolongation of the military campaign. The question we need to ask ourselves is whether our troops are containing a civil conflict that would be occurring anyway, or whether they are in fact exacerbating the unrest by their presence.A bit of both, is the honest answer; but, with each day that passes, the truth tilts towards the latter. No one likes living in an occupied country. Even the kindest and most disinterested of foreign soldiers eventually become resented by all sides.This is not 1950s Malaya, where we knew that we had to defeat a specific rebellion before pulling out; it is 1940s Palestine, where our mere presence made us targets.The goal of building up impartial state forces, trusted by their people, is an admirable one, which even anti-war hardliners ought to have the decency to support. But the converse of this argument is that it would be wrong to remain in Iraq simply to prove a point.