Previously, I laid out why, on a strategic basis, we should return to Iraq. This time, I lay out the reasons on a humanitarian basis.

The Iraqi people were freed from dictatorship by our brave men and women in uniform. Directed by our previous Commander-in-Chief, and led by able generals and officers, our team rolled into Baghdad and liberated the people in 2003. In the next five years, hard fighting proved to the Iraqi people we believed in freedom and democracy for them, and fought side by side with our men and women.

2007 was a turning point. Insurgents, terrorists really, bought terror and chaos to the Iraqi people. GW decided to surge troops, and from 2007 to 2009, thousands of US troops, as well as coalition troops, surged into the country and worked to stifle the terrorists. This was a resounding success, as the insurgents were thoroughly pushed out of Iraq. Stability started taking hold, and Iraqi security forces started getting trained. The Iraqi people started rebuilding their country, believing our promises to help keep them secure and free. Many Iraqi people worked alongside people from the embassies, worked with US contractors, to learn the best way to rebuild their lives, and to rebuild their country. All this, believing we would always be there to help, notice I said help, protect them.

The Iraqi people were starting to lead normal lives. With US military forces training Iraqi security forces, the Iraqi security posture was starting to improve. In the Kurdish north, tourism started to begin to happen, industry was being rebuilt, and people were electing leaders who looked after the people’s interests. In the south, PM Maliki was trying to consolidate his control, but elsewhere, people were beginning to rebuild their lives, and their infrastructure, with US and coalition assistance. By direction of obama, however, forces started to withdraw, even though Iraqi Defense Chiefs were continually asking the administration to leave enough combat and training troops to insure the stability of Iraq. The overall plan was to have been, to leave combat and training troops to help Iraqi security forces learn to properly perform patrols, maintain the security forces equipment, and help rebuild the local and federal level governments. The state department’s role was supposed to be to work with the political and civil sides to build up a coherent, non-corrupt, all inclusive government. This was the plan that GW had, to be able to eventually have Iraq manage every vestige of its own country. But in the interim, the plan was to insure that Iraq could grow to meet the challenge.

barack obama abandoned that plan. Elected on a wave of false euphoria, called “hope and change”, barack implemented the complete withdrawal of troops from Iraq, without insuring there was adequate support in place for the vacuum. The result was thousands of people, people who believed our presidents’ pledges of support and the words from the secretaries of state, that we would always support and keep safe the country were abandoned. And the excuse we were given by the administration was: The Iraqis won’t give us immunity for our troops.  What??!! We kept people in Saudi Arabia, and, even though its a strict monarchy, the people are safer knowing we have bases there. We kept people in Kuwait, and and Kuwaitis sleep safe at night, knowing we have bases full of troops ready to defend them. So why could we not leave troops in Iraq? Why could we not have permanent installations, with forward deployed troops, ready to help defend the Iraqi people for such as this? Why? Because barack obama, hillary clinton, joe biden, were all more concerned about “polls” and their “legacies” than in the strategic needs of our allies. Because of this, thousands of Iraqis have died, millions are displaced, and we need to return immediately.

We have a legacy of helping those who have helped us. We need to return, before Iran gets a bigger foot hold into Iraq. We need to return now, not later.

“We Must All Stand Together, Or Assuredly, We Shall All Hang Separate….”