The first thing that I am ashamed to see in our government is the absolute failure to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. I believe the problem that we have is that we have been very aggressive, and even immoral, in our history of the Middle East, and that this must stop. In order to truly do so, we must give much more then a half-hearted effort. For instance, the Democrats already wish to abandon Iraq. I do not agree with this. Then again, I do not agree with the war being as run as sloppily as it has, and I question the moral integrity of our current administration as a result of this. I do not wish to criticize in order to bring the government down, but to be constructive.

For instance, right now, we should be sending more troops to Iraq, not less. They should be put in place to guard civilian projects that are to go up. They should be in place to better train the Iraqi army. What is more, we need to keep better track of where our generous funds are going. We have spent ENORMOUS sums of money in Iraq--to little effect. Let's not forget, Iraq is not much bigger then California. Not only this--Iraq is much poorer. The marginal value that they gain from a billion dollars is, to put it lightly, enormous. Where has all of it gone? These large sums of money should not make us have to dig for news stories to tell about how well Iraq is doing now. Although some utilities have increased substantially, the country as a whole should have already begun to look phenomenally better compared to the way that it was before--in some ways, it is arguably worse.

What is more, I do not agree with cutting aid to the Palestinian government. i do not believe they could really suander it without political suicide occuring. It sends a bad message to the people of Palestine, and to the middle east in general. I certainly do not agree with the Hamas led government, but it was, after all, Democratically elected. And let's not forget--Israel has not exactly been the nicest player in the Middle East. The Palestinians have some amount of right to be angry at Israel, as bad as that may sound to some of the people on this board.

In any case, it makes it difficult for us to win the hearts and minds of the Muslim world. We have hundreds of thousands of troops at our disposal, and virtually infinite resources compared to the middle east. This should not be as difficult as it has been, and we truly should be granted with open arms. It is my opinion that we have not been because the government does not really care about the people of these countries, and that this blame falls upon both sides of the table. Perhaps we are in Iraq for oil, perhaps for weapons contracts, perhaps for a temporary political purpose, or a combination of them all; however, we certainly were not there for a long-term solution. The middle east in general remains a @#$# storm.

For the most part I agree, especially on Iraq.
I'm not so idealistic about Hamas though. While I don't think we should do anything nasty against Hamas, I don't think we should give them aid until they drop the militant stance against Israel.
What I'd like to see is US funding to NGOs that operate within Palestine to offer aid under the government's nose. I'd like to see the same in Africa and throughout the Middle East. Such programs have had some success in rural India. But Palestine is so turbulent that it probably scares off a lot of on-the-ground foreign aid.
Palestinians should be thanking us rather than their government for any aid they get. The message should be clear that we care about people but will not support militant governments.

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"It's never over... BOY!"
The Tall Man, Phantasm III

I wouldn't put it that way... in fact, I don't even know where you pulled that from, other than the possibility of it coming from...oh, never mind.

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excellant idea, good contribution. I don't care about Hamas, I think they're bad, but I do believe we shouldn't cut aid to the people of Palestine in general, that sends a bad message. And, in some ways, I believe we should cut funding for the Israeli government if we wish to be fair; their occupation and use of force is excessive to say the least.

You believe the majority of Iraqis support the U.S. being there still??? Come on. They did a poll TWO YEARS ago that showed Iraqis wanted us out. If you have a newer poll, I would be glad to see it.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5217874/site/newsweek/

I don't need a poll to see what Iraqi's think. I know. You don't. Don't even start...

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urge you to read this:
http://www.democracynow.org/article..../04/25/1343214

Why should U.S taxpayers continue to foot the bill for reconstruction that is not happening?? Why continue to conspire to control their oil? Why put American boys in harms way when we are inciting more violence than the U.S. is controlling? Why stay when Iraqi's ask for a timetable to have us gone?

Would you care to share how you acquired this knowledge?

Where? Iraq.

Where did he get it? The "news" and the "web".

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Regardless of what the results (people seem to have evidence for any which way) on hearts and minds, there have definitely been moves by the administration that undermine the efforts and produce worse results than what we could have.
On the other hand, at least they think it's worth it to try for the hearts and minds.

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"It's never over... BOY!"
The Tall Man, Phantasm III

So you know the reactions of the individual people you saw in Iraq that chose to show how they felt in front of US troops. I don't think it would be particularly intelligent to express that you want the American troops out of Iraq by screaming bad things at them. I find it unwise to insult people with guns.

The most accurate way to obtain the feelings of a population is through the use of scientific polling. This removes bias and represents the entire population due to random sampling, not the sampling that comes from personal experience. According to the poll in this thread 47% of Iraqis approve of attacks on American troops. Apparently a lot Iraqis do not want the US there.

http://www.politicalforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=16129