Republican presidential candidates say that it’s important to continue the American military occupation of Iraq in order to prevent massacres of Iraqi civilians. They aim to keep American soldiers in Iraq so that they can train more Iraqi police and soldiers as part of a plan to establish security, thus protecting Iraqi civilians from slaughter.
The plan may be well-meaning, but it is profoundly misdirected. Those who support the Republican plan are ignoring recent history in Iraq. During 2006, when American-trained Iraqi forces took the lead in operations Together Forward I and Together Forward II, the soldiers committed abuses against Sunni Iraqi civilians, including massacres.
The very plan that the Republicans propose to protect Iraqi civilians from genocide will actually empower genocide to take place.
(Source: Boston Globe, September 16, 2007)
You never know, maybe even though some innocent people were killed, maybe more would have been killed if it hadn’t been for America’s actions.
So what plan, if enacted, will prevent genocide from taking place in Iraq?
Yeah, well you never know, do you? Like, if Justin Timberlake had not ripped off Janet Jackson’s shirt at the Super Bowl, maybe more would have been killed.
Therefore, every year at the Super Bowl, we ought to have Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson repeat their performance, just in case.
Joseph, you dope, the Iraqi soldiers trained by the United States committed massacres! How can you possibly say that if they had not been trained and armed by the USA, more people would have been killed?
I rename you Mr. Ignoretheevidence.
Okay Potato Chip,
So your proposal is that the U.S. Military not train Iraqi soldiers.
Are you suggesting that the United States troops now do the jobs the Iraqi troops are doing, or are you proposing that the U.S. troops not train Iraqi troops anymore and then leave (meaning that the Iraqis would either get along or commit genocide against each other)?
Also, my argument as to why our troops may have prevented more bloodshed is that if our troops weren’t there at the time of the article, the Iraqis already had plenty of guns, so they just may have used a lot less restraint.