[Jamroll]

Originally Posted by Variable

A tough task considering there are people with a vested interest in making not work, are free to infiltrate the police forces at their leisure.

There are no easy answers in Iraq. But much of this infiltration has become so, because the US has a general attitude of backing their "team" to the hilt and looking the other way when there's dodgy things going on (such as the less-than-balanced police force you describe). They did it with Saddam up until the Gulf War, they do it with countless dictators all over the Middle East and over the world. The old adage "You reap what you sow", is in full effect here.

Like who?

I agree though, the Americans are pretty hypocritical when it comes to how they measure out support for gov'ts.

Well, off the top of my head, Muqtada al-Sadr is a very popular leader, but because he's on the "wrong side", they've been trying to demonise him, attack him, and even kill him. The US only pays lip service to "freedom and democracy", but when it suits them they ride roughshod over the will of the people. It makes any such claims seem greatly disingenuous. A similar example is the Palestinian choice, Hamas.

I find that very unlikely. Just from the Shia threads here that rage on forever, slandering one side or the other. The Americans didn't create violent tensions between the two groups. It was a characteristic of Saddam's rule. He kept a lid on it though through brutal oppression.

Okay, let's say for argument's sake, we take your points, about Sunni and Shia hating one another, and violent tensions being existent pre-US-invasion, as given. Even if that is the case, the Americans are providing no security. There's thousands of American soldiers in the country and God knows how many contract killers, and yet there's still been sectarian violence. If they can't stop it when they're there in their hundreds of thousands, how is this a relevant argument against withdrawal?

You still haven't answered how things would look if they did that. It would be good for the US probably, they wouldn't be losing the money as they are now, not to mention any more American lives. But do you really think that everyone in mixed areas of Iraq would let bygones be bygones and usher in a new era of peace and stability? And if so, how?

Like I mentioned before, there are no easy answers in Iraq, but one of them has to be withdrawal of all Americans. They're exacerbating any and all problems (such as sectarianism, insurgency, governmental corruption) by their presence. With the best will in the world, total withdrawal can't take place overnight anyway, not with the numbers currently in place. But a strict timetable of properly structured withdrawal would be the sensible answer. And certainly, not troop surges, and dropping hundreds of tons of bombs, as has been taking place in the last few months!

If at the end of the timetable there's still a need for other-than-Iraqi prescence to keep the peace, a deal should be worked out with other Muslim nations preferably of a similar culture (perhaps Syria, Iran (unlikely I know), or whoever) to have a mediating presence.