I served as a flight surgeon and aviation medical office in the US Army for 2 years, one year in Vietnam. I, and most of the officers submitted reports, routinely, that we simply made up.  Everyone knew what was going on, but no one cared to say anything. I also spent most of 7 months in the last year at the Army hospital at Fort Bliss in El Paso. Lastley, one of our kids and his fiancee are Arabic speakers in the US Navy, and one is deployed in the Gulf.

I pay a lot of attention to Iraq.

There at least 8 reasons that I can advance for our leaving Mesopotamia forthwith. The aggregate leaves no option but our prompt withdrawal;

1) We have no idea about what is going on, never did, and won't in the foreseeable future. Pres. Geo Bush took us to war there to burnish his image as a war president. He cited intelligence reports that Saddam was  1) building WMD, 2) that he was training and arming terrorists in Al Quaida, (ridiculous since Baathists are secular, socialistic, nationalistic Arabs, just the opposite of Bin Laden's bunch), that 3) he threatened stability in the region, and 4) that we needed to spread "democracy" (the same stuff that the Founding fathers feared because it meant rule by the mob) in the
region.                                                                                                                                                                                         Now my wife and I knew that these assertions were hogwash as early as 2002.  We don't have a television or get the newspaper, but rather read good quality magazines like the Economist and Atlantic monthly, and they reported just the opposite.
More recently, it's been reported by the CIA/NSA that Iran was making nuclear bombs, and then last year, that they had abandoned the effort in 2003. Could the CIA, the NSA and the rest be wrong? Were they mistaken? Lying? Pressured into shading the truth by sinister political forces, or merely befuddled? Why would we believe anything that they, or the leaders in our government say? They are more lost than the rest of us.

2)  We have never heard our leaders relate the history of the area (they don't know it). The Turks, Persians and Arabs all hate each other. The Kurds are really closer to being Persians, but you wouldn't know it from news reports. Sunnis, Shiites, Christians Wahibis, and other minority religions feel it's their duty to kill rivals. Everyone is armed, and yet they don't overthrow their corrupt governments. If we had wanted to oust Saddam, we could have supported one  or two of his  devoted  enemies.  We certainly supported  him when  he invaded Iran  in 1981; a million men died in that war. We should use finesse, not armies.

3)  Our Army is being wasted. Currently their human resources are at the breaking point. They are misallocating resources, people are being used in positions that are inappropriate because there is no one else available. I personally saw two schizophrenic soldiers, one was deployed, and the other about to be. The army is scrapping the bottom of the barrel, and the really good people all plan to leave when their contracts run out.

4) We are wasting huge, marginal resources that we can't afford in light of our trade and budget deficits, the continuing debauching of our currency, and threatened deflation from the housing debacle.

5) Last year there arose a theory that a Surge would bring peace to that troubled nation. The Surge coincided with the perception by the Shiite leader, Al Sadr that we would leave soon enough, and so he could bide his time, and not engage in sectarian and anti-American warfare. The Sunnis realized the same thing, and that they would be  the victims of the next blood bath, and that the Americans might protect them, so they started helping Americans. This is a temporary respite that will climax as soon as we leave. And, as our staying there cannot continue forever, it will end and the civil war will commence. Maybe, we really know nothing about Iraq.

6) Pres. Geo Bush and allies have promised that we would withdraw as soon as the Iraqi government asked us to. The Prime Minister, Al Maliki, a Shiite, has asked us to leave, so what is the problem?

7) Widespread corruption, waste of resources especially by the contractors that have been used (see Congressional Testimony by Barry Halley) as a kind of paramilitary

8) The assertion by at least one officer who had just returned from the Green Zone, of easily available heroin which is abused by American soldiers, and Iraqis in Baghdad. The heroin, grown in Afghanistan, comes accross the border from Iran, leaves across the western border through Jordan and Syria, and thence to Europe. Saddam would never have tolerated that kind ofcommerce.

The following is a more in depth analysis of the Iraq war, and is the notepad that I used in constructing the arguments for our withdrawal.

Iraq war.

In order to understand our involvement in Iraq, and why and how we must extricate ourselves from this pickle, it helps to review the history of the region.

Three ethnic groups prevail from the Bosphorus through upper India/southern USSR, northern Africa and into China.

The Turkic, Arabs and Persians. Persians and Arabs have been at war for millenia, and Turks ruled most of Araby for centuries. Surprisingly, the groups rub along together remarkably well. Mixed in are Christians, Jews, Nestorians, and Armenians. Bedoiuns wander across borders following their flocks. Kurds are closer to Persians ethnically and linguistically than to Turks or to Arabs.

We ought to understand that Iran and Iraq are both at the center of these conflicts and that this conflict has to be part of any resolution. These two countries are newer names for Mesopotamia and the Persia which have fought over the now oil rich province of Kuzestan for millennia. Kuzestan, now in SW Iran, is unknown to most Westerners. Persians consider Kuzestan to be the birthplace of the Persian nation, (much like Serbs cite Kosovo as the place were the Serb people first congealed), but is mostly inhabited by Arabs. The power in the region for centuries was Turkey, and it had controlled Iraqi Arabs for centuries. After the Turks were defeated in 1918, Mesopotamian Araby, or Baghdad, was set up and ruled for about 10 years by the British. The natives indulged in a bloody civil, and guerrilla war against the British who left, basically defeated. The latter established Mesopotamian Baghdad as Iraq and included a rather illogical grouping of Shiite and Sunni Arabs, as well as Kurds in that territory. They divided Kuzestan off and gave it to the Iranians causing hard feelings on both sides as Kuzestan was inhabited mostly by Arabs but was important in Persian nationalism. This hostility worsened after oil was discovered there.

1963 Baathist ( sort of pan Arabic nationalists, secularists, aka Arab Socialists (not Marxixt) parties take over in Syria and Iraq. It was mainly a Sunni party, and non Sunnis were disadvantaged.

Iraq and Iran broke diplomatic relations in 1971 over the Kuzestan question. We took Iran’s side in the 1970s.

1979 The Persians had a revolution and cast out the Shah. Radicals, with the connivance of the Ayatollah Khomenei (head of a theocratic regimen)  took  over our Embassy in Tehran. Jimmy Carter lost his presidency in the ensuing brouhaha  Reagan.

Iran in the early 1980s  was a fairly decent democracy and had the credibility that it could encourage revolts of Shia against the oppressive regimes in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt etc…  Saddam Hussein made a miscalculation that if he attacked Iran that the Arab minority (about 10%) would rally to his cause, and that he could retrieve Kuzestan for the Arabs.   This first Persian gulf War; lasted from Sept 1980 until 1988.  The Arabs did not revolt preferring the rather liberal democracy that they enjoyed in Iran.

We supported Iraq in a that very bloody war against Iran. Iraq used chemical weapons. 1 million died in the conflict between two countries. Iran did not have aircraft or tanks because the stuff we’d given the Shah was not backed up with replacement parts, so substituted teenage boys to detonate nines before sending in infantry. That war ended in a stalemate.

Since that time, the theocracy in Iran has (like all governments) became corrupt, and oppressive. Young people are thoroughly disgusted with the ancient regime. Elections are rigged, and revolution simmers just below the surface. The government in Iran resorts to warmongering to generate some kind of  support (war is the health of the state).

1980 and 1990s, Iraq becomes a fairly well educated, secular society, albeit oppressed by Saddam.

1990-Saddam with the possible encouragement of our ambassador to Baghdad invades and takes over Kuwait, an oil rich sheikdom and the neighbor of Kuzestan and claimed by Baghdad as another province.

George Bush orchestrated an international alliance to oust Saddam from Kuwait, in the so called First Gulf war (really 2nd war. ) though I’m not sure what the point was since Iraq had at least the patina of democracy.

After the end of that war, economic sanctions were imposed against Saddam, really caused hardships with an estimated 500,000 Iraqi children dying due to lack of medications and poor nutrition.

Inspectors for nuclear weapons, and other so called weaons of mass destruction (wmd) were constantly circulated in the international press, and Sadam played along by obstructing inspectors trying to verify or refute his war like activity. It may have been that reports of successful programs were circulating in the Iraqi hierarchy to appease Saddam. A kind of Potemkin village may have been created on paper in an attempt by the Iraqi bureaucracy to please the boss.

On Sept 11 2001 3k Americans died, in an attack by some stateless thugs, and President  George Bush launched us  into a “war on Terror”, a war on a concept, not on a nation, or on a definable enemy. Al Quaida is blamed. The chief of Al Quiada, Osama Bin Ladin initially denied involvement with the plot, although he apparently knew it would happen a few days before 9/11, and praised the damage to his sworn enemy. His (and apparently that of the 19 suicide bombers) hatred of America grew from allied support for Israel and presence of military forces from Islamic countries, especially the country where the main Islamic holy sites were located, Saudi Arabia. He also insisted that western countries cease supporting the corrupt governments in the Islamic world. Specifically, Pres. Bush invades Afghanixtan where Bin Ladin had been hidden. Islamic fanatics in Afghanistan had

Jan 2002 Bush II mentions Axis of Evil, Iraq, Iran and No Korea as building wmd. Probably right about 2 of them. (So what.)

Unaccountably goes to war in Mar 03 and defeats the Iraqi army. The International community, UN etc opposed our attack. UN Resolution 1441 is cited but may not be apt. Tries to convince international community, but is rebuffed by UN Proceeds despite international disapproval, and against international law.

Only aabout 48 “allies” helped us, mostly tame regimes, and others that were bought off, the coalition of the willing..

Reasons given for the invasion are that Saddam has wmd, and that he is supporting terrorism vs. USA. Secondarily is that he is a brutal dictator, and that we have to spread “democracy” through out the Arab world.

The Baathist party, the secular nationalist one, was immediately disbanded and outlawed. We have turned Iraq from a secular country into a fanatical religious one. No weapons have ever been found, Saddam was 69yo when hanged. The republic that we tried to set up cowers behind high walls protecting them from their own citizens,

USA now has a dilemma There are brigands, patriots against Americans, Shia/Sunni wars, and political parties warring with each other, Sometimes Americans get attacked and killed. 100s of thousands of Iraqis have died. The infrastructure is in ruins.

There is widespread deprivation, and maybe 2 million refugees. Oil production is nil.

Americans guilty of atrocities, and the individual soldier has to work with numerous restrictions, must be deeply conflicted when on patrol..

2006 National elections saw Republicans ousted and Democrats installed in large part because the latter promised to end our involvement in the war. Reason given is that we cannot under international law leave a conquered enemy in ruins, or without a government, or something. Also cannot abandon those who have collaborated with Americans to their fates.

2007 Congressional Democrats compromise and continue funding war. Time to oust this gang also?

Just war theories, St. Thomas or Acquinas. 1270 AD or so  proposed the following  conditions  to judge whether a war be justified;

just cause: The reason for going to war needs to be just and can therefore be recapturing things taken or punishing people who have done wrong

A contemporary view of just cause was expressed in 1993 when the US Catholic Conference said: "Force may be used only to correct a grave, public evil, i.e., aggression or massive violation of the basic human rights of whole populations"

Comparative justice: While there may be rights and wrongs on all sides of a conflict, to override the presumption against the use of force, the injustice suffered by one party must significantly outweigh that suffered by the other;

Legitimate authority: Only duly constituted public authorities may use deadly force or wage war;

Right intention: Force may be used only in a truly just cause and solely for that purpose—correcting a suffered wrong is considered a right intention, while material gain or maintaining economies is not.

Probability of success: Arms may not be used in a futile cause or in a case where disproportionate measures are required to achieve success;

Last resort: Force may be used only after all peaceful and viable alternatives have been seriously tried and exhausted.

Land Letter of Oct 03

such an action would be defensive

the intent is found to be just and noble. The United States does not intend to 'destroy, conquer, or exploit Iraq'

it is a last resort because Saddam Hussein had a record of attacking his neighbors, of the 'headlong pursuit and development of biochemical and nuclear weapons of mass destruction' and their use against his own people, and harboring al-Qaeda terrorists

it is authorized by a legitimate authority, namely the United States

it has limited goals

it has reasonable expectation of success

non-combatant immunity would be observed

it meets the criteria of proportionality—the human cost on both sides would be justified by the intended outcome

War as a Racket.

Being a War president

America as Empire

Oil in the Caspian sea, and the difficulty of getting it out

Protecting Israel. The neocon and Zionist arguments

Pro war arguments

Saddam's human rights record is among the worst in the world and in history.

Saddam is a major threat to stability of the Middle East.

Saddam is connected with terrorists and may supply them with weapons of mass destruction.

It would send a forceful message to other dictators and would-be state sponsors of terrorism.

A model democracy could be set up in the Arab world, possibly leading other Arab governments to follow suit.

Oil prices could dramatically drop with a short, successful campaign.

We can remove our troops from Saudi Arabia and much of the Arab world if he's gone.

We would have Iran and Syria, perhaps the biggest terrorist sponsors, surrounded by U.S.-friendly governments.

Most Arab governments want Saddam gone; the public opinion backlash may not be as great as portrayed in the media.

Saddam continues to fire on U.S. and British planes enforcing U.N. no-fly zones.

Saddam refuses to return the booty he stole from Kuwait during the Gulf War or account for hundreds of prisoners.

The cost in lives and dollars of containment is higher than that of war.

The credibility of President Bush and the U.S. is at stake.

Saddam deserves to be punished for the death & misery he's caused to the world.

The credibility and relevancy of the U.N. is on the line.

Anti war arguments

Many soldiers & innocent Iraqi civilians will be killed.

The financial cost of executing the war may be prohibitive.

Weapons of mass destruction could be launched at Israel or other allies.

Anti-American sentiment could grow in the world, creating new potential terrorist recruits.

Hard evidence on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction still hasn't been found.

The post-Saddam Iraq situation could be unstable and destructive.

A pre-emptive attack is against what the U.S. stands for.

Saddam can be neutralized without the brutality of a war.

With the economic and domestic security problems we have, this is a bad time to go to war.

Saddam could torch oil fields, leading to even higher oil prices, world recession, and an environmental disaster.

Retaliatory strikes from Al Qaeda, Hamas, and other terrorists could occur.

U.S.-friendly Arab governments could become unstable.