Stay in Iraq until the job is done.

I addressed your arguments. I did not give "filler" information. I showed why your claims were false, and why your claims didn't matter. Even if the reasons for the war were right and more correct than we believed, it wouldn't help us one jot addressing the question at hand. Should we stay in Iraq? To make this decision, the past doesn't matter. What do we have to gain if we stay? What do we have to lose if we stay? What do we have to gain if we leave? What do we have to lose if we leave? -- The past doesn't matter. It's sunk cost. Yes, Bush's decisions have been extremely horrible, but to really look at the choice we need to look at the situation we have today. Secondly, accusing me of being a liberal or of getting my information from MoveOn.org (what ever that is). Are simply genetic fallacies, they are ad homs. You are saying that the source of the information shows it to be wrong. No. That's not acceptable. You must actually show how the obvious facts that we have only more terror to gain by staying and massive lives, money, resources to lose. That is the core of my argument and they need to be address. * Next you say that most of our oil imports come from Canada. This is true. Most come from Canada and Mexico and locally. However, this is a red herring. It has nothing to do with the loss/gain of staying in Iraq. Though, ironically this comment is both irrelevant and naive. If you haven't noticed, we live in a global economy. If Saudi Arabia stopped pumping oil, we would be affected in a very real and dramatic way. The price of oil would go up and Canada would sell to other markets which paid more, and we would need to pay more. Just because shipping oil from across the world is more expensive and we get it from the local markets doesn't mean the global price isn't set globally. Let me stress this point. THIS HAS NOTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH THE ARGUMENT! I am very knowledgeable with regard the oil markets and could write at length on that topic. From the depletion of light crude to the technologies needed to extract oil from the tar sands, none of it matters. It isn't a cost of leaving Iraq. If I were to take your naive view of the world that only Canada it would suggest we need less involvement in the middle east, and thusly support my case. Again, we have everything to lose by staying and we don't have to lose any more. We don't have to lose another man or woman in action, another dollar down the sinkhole, another day protecting a government which cannot and will not function, another moment in the midsts of a civil war! You say that no one should ever live under a dictatorship? But, ignoring the problems of other dictatorships, they don't. Saddam is gone. That's a sunk cost. You are saying that you would invade to protect people from Saddam? There is no Saddam. He is dead, as are thousands of our soldiers. That is a sunk cost, we have no more dictatorship to overthrow in Iraq. We were the model of freedom. Now we're regarded as an inconsiderate bully with blood on our hands. The "purple finger revolution" aside, what are we gaining from staying? There's no there there. They elected a government we took down and put back up and we have an Iraqi government which does nothing. I'm glad you feel happy about people voting, but that's what happened in the past. It could have been the happiest, most fun, most perfect, most civil, most absolutely wonderful event in the history of the world. It doesn't make Iraq less of a torn-apart hellhole today. It doesn't give the Iraqis a functional government. It doesn't give us some benefit in the future. It doesn't do us one jot of good. We aren't going to gain anything by staying. That's the point. That's the only point anybody needs to realize. This ad hoc secondary reason to bring freedom to the Iraqi people is amusing, but again, isn't worth it. How many American troops should we lose due to some faint infantile hope that Iraq will become a magical utopia of democracy? How many more billions and trillions of dollars should we spend toward this phantasm of a hope? Sure, your race horse is running on three legs and is half blind... but if all the other horses magically die, you'll win. I mean we spent too much already and don't have a prayer... but we need to make it worth it by spending much more? Take a good look at the reasons there. It's sunk cost and the glue factory is offering real money. You're advocating actions not based on future returns but on pride, you don't want call it over because if it was over today George W. Bush would be the worst president ever who lost thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, billions of dollars and faith of the rest of the world for nothing! It would have been done for less than nothing, for more terror, more hate, more disrespect. Despite what you'd like to believe all we have accomplished. We could have done all the good we've done with one bullet. Even more good with two... where is Osama bin Laden when you need him? Oh, escaped. This is why we must only look forward. The lost lives and resources don't matter when it comes to the question of if we should stay. What matters is what do we have to gain? What do we have to lose? Nothing and everything, respectively. A lot of democrats voted to give the president the authority to use force as a bargaining chip to get Saddam to allow weapons inspectors in: it worked. We had them on the ground looking for, and not finding, the non-existent WMDs. Giving them time to do their jobs, would have done everything we needed to do there. Though this too is simply a red herring. It has nothing to do with future cost or benefits. You simply disagree with history. There was a stable and independent Iraq, in 2002. Democracies in the region tend to elect the likes of Hamas. Having the people elect those they agree with isn't going to help us out when, looking at the polls, most of them want us gone. But, I digress. You can't ask the question of if we should stay in Iraq and support it with a bunch of nonsense arguments about what happened in the past or some kind of odd revisionist history. You need to look at the situation today. We have a nonfunctional government, a civil war, and a massive amount of incurred losses... and more to come if we stay. And what do we get if we stay? A pipedream thirty years off? Not only that, it's a pipedream from the same people who brought us "greeted as liberators!" Finally, you made the comment that I'm using a search engine. Let me make three quick points on that. First, moot. If I were using a search engine it would have no bearing on the truth or falseness of my statements. They still must be looked at on their own merits. Second, false. I am not using a search engine. I assure you, I know a lot about world affairs and understand what's going on. I've been well informed for years and have a fantastic memory. I am, quite honestly, typing this out of my head. Third, thank you. I'll take that as a complement that you think I'm brilliant and are finding it nearly impossible to counter my position and well-made arguments. This probably has more to do with the dearth of reasonable argument for your position than it does my stellar performance... thank you all the same.