So, what does McCain have to say about this? (withdraw related)

[audtatious]

Ah, I see. Obama has been preaching for a year or more his "16 month time table for troop withdrawal". Now that the surge is working and the Iraqi Govt has met 13/15 conditions that Congress put in place and they are expecting troop removals to start based on Gen Petreus word startng September then it is Obama and his plan that is to be followed to save the day.

Man, such work did Obama put into that plan, with supporting and orchestrating the surge, with not wanting to cut-n-run immediately and implementing such a detailed withdrawal time table of 1-2 combat brigades each month.

Why are you caring about voting him President? He's already acting as one with implementing his plan and has single handedly ended the majority of terrorism in Iraq!!!!!

[smockers83]

My question is, do the Iraqi people want us to leave or is it just the leaders?

Going back to my original question, looking through this polling data I found, I believe Iraqis want us to stay. However, it is obscured in the fact that they provide different answers to essentially the same questions. But the majority of them want us to stay for some period of time and an overwhelming majority (I believe most cases its a super majority, if not all) of them want us to stay and help out. What I see in this is that they want us "out" for other reasons, whether that be pride, to really start new, whatever, but don't literally want us out, they just want us to stop what we're doing and give them more of a sense of their own control and have us stay.

[rn79870]

Going back to my original question, looking through this polling data I found, I believe Iraqis want us to stay. However, it is obscured in the fact that they provide different answers to essentially the same questions. But the majority of them want us to stay for some period of time and an overwhelming majority (I believe most cases its a super majority, if not all) of them want us to stay and help out. What I see in this is that they want us "out" for other reasons, whether that be pride, to really start new, whatever, but don't literally want us out, they just want us to stop what we're doing and give them more of a sense of their own control and have us stay.

They want our money to stay, not our troops. Anyone who looks at the issues in the middle east will realize that one of the obstacles to peace in that region of the world is US presence. The US leaving isn't the complete answer, but it is a good start. Reexamine the results you posted.

[smockers83]

Reexamine the results you posted.

What for? There's nothing in there saying they want us to stay for our money, so I'm not drawing that conclusion, although it could be true underneath it all. That would require more research and a different poll.

[audtatious]

They want our money to stay, not our troops. Anyone who looks at the issues in the middle east will realize that one of the obstacles to peace in that region of the world is US presence. The US leaving isn't the complete answer, but it is a good start. Reexamine the results you posted.

Saudi Arabia wants us there and that is one of the issues OBL had with the US. Instead of taking it up with their Gov, he proceeds to do terror attacks against us. You are throwing out your wide blanket statements/assumptions again.

[rn79870]

Come on Matt, keep your eye on the ball...

The Saudi monarch has made a forceful appeal for Arab unity, denouncing US policy in Iraq and the embargo imposed by western nations on the Palestinians. At the Arab League summit in Riyadh, King Abdullah described the US presence in Iraq as an illegitimate occupation. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6505803.stm

Sure, that applied to Iraq. Lets look at what they think about the US in SA

From NYT 7/21/08Saudi Arabia's leaders have made far-reaching decisions to prepare for an era of military disengagement from the United States, to enact what Saudi officials call the first significant democratic reforms at home, and to rein in the conservative clergy that has shared power in the kingdom. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/f...C8B63Yep, that's wanting us there...

Seems like my “blanket” pretty well covers the middle eastern region of the globe...

[audtatious]

That's right, because the news reports today rewrites the history leading up to 9/11/2001.

Damn, I keep forgetting that

IMO, we should pull out of all those areas after we open up our drilling process. Then let them blow the hell out of each other, which is exactly what they would do. No more $$ and no more military contact. The US turns into an isolationist society. That would solve the issues and people would not have a reason to dislike us.

I actually expected similar news to come out from SA as they seem to wait and take their queues from other in order to take pot shots at the US. Again, we need to leave and let them face Iran themselves.

[rn79870]

This should be the final word on whether or not the Iraqi people want us in their country. I think it provides a definitive answer to that question. That answer is that they clearly want us out and soon.

According to a report in the The Times, and others in the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post and numerous other outlets, the Bush administration presented the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki with a list of demands that some Iraqi leaders have dismissed as tantamount to “colonization” of the country.

These include the continued power of American troops to conduct missions and arrest Iraqis without the consent of the Iraqi government; immunity from prosecution for troops and contractors; control of Iraqi airspace up to 29,000 feet; and, last but not least, the right to construct up to 58 military bases.

President Bush protested today that both the U.S. demands and the Iraqi opposition to the pact have been exaggerated in misleading news media reports.

From a year and a half ago…

– A large majority of Iraqis–71%–say they would like the Iraqi government to ask for US-led forces to be withdrawn from Iraq within a year or less. Given four options, 37 percent take the position that they would like US-led forces withdrawn “within six months,” while another 34 percent opt for “gradually withdraw[ing] US-led forces according to a one-year timeline.”

– Support for attacks against US-led forces has increased sharply to 61 percent (27% strongly, 34% somewhat). This represents a 14-point increase from January 2006, when only 47 percent of Iraqis supported attacks.

– More broadly, 79 percent of Iraqis say that the US is having a negative influence on the situation in Iraq, with just 14 percent saying that it is having a positive influence.

Asked what effect it would have “if US-led forces withdraw from Iraq in the next six months,” 58 percent overall say that violence would decrease (35% a lot, 23% a little).

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/27/iraqis-poll/

From a year ago…

On Tuesday, without note in the U.S. media, more than half of the members of Iraq's parliament rejected the continuing occupation of their country. 144 lawmakers signed onto a legislative petition calling on the United States to set a timetable for withdrawal, according to Nassar Al-Rubaie, a spokesman for the Al Sadr movement, the nationalist Shia group that sponsored the petition.

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/51624/

From a few weeks ago…

AMMAN -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has made a substantial policy shift by insisting on a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, defying his close ally, U.S. President George W. Bush, and submitting to domestic pressure for an end in sight to foreign occupation.

Pressure was stepped up in Iraq, as Friday sermons in Shiite and Sunni mosques across the country called for the U.S. and other foreign forces to leave their country, almost five-and-a-half years after the American military led an invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam Hussein's regime.

The Maliki government in Baghdad made it clear this week that any security deal with the United States defining the role of the U.S. troops should entail a time frame for the withdrawal of these forces, a demand that the Bush administration has repeatedly refused.

http://www.metimes.com/Interna.../5785/

It’s pretty obvious the Iraqi people want us out of their country, and they want us out as soon as we can get out...what they don't want is a US presence in their country for up to 1000 years.

[audtatious]

And those troops are moved to Dafur or to Afghanistan? Do we go ahead and close our bases in Saudi? Do we go ahead and stop supporting Israel? Do we actually try and protect our own borders and build our own missle defense system?

People don't like us so let's go ahead and pull out. We also stop sending them our money. Let's see how they like us then.

[rn79870]

People don't like us so let's go ahead and pull out. We also stop sending them our money. Let's see how they like us then.

Maybe if we respected their right to live as they choose, and we stopped interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, the US would regain much of the respect it lost. Why do we think that it is our job to save the world, when much of the world doesn't want saved? Food for thought.