When Nixon was buried, Clinton said nice things about him…
No Doubt when Bush is buried, the current president will say nice things about him.
Pulling out means all out civil war in Iraq, with possible invasions by Turkey, Iran and maybe even Syria.
But let’s consider for a minute, the idea of a non invasion… Saddam was getting old and if he had not managed to live to an old age, would probably be killed in a bomb blast/sniper’s bullet…
and THEN Turkey, Iran and possibly Syria invade…
Iraq was an artificailly created state in 1917, by western interests. (So was Iran)
The creation of that state paid little attention to the people living there.
GW Bush wanted to secure western oil interests… Why? That’s for the repubs/liberals to argue over? They both need the oil.
The problem is we’re not trying everything possible. We’re just trying the same thing over and over and over and over…
If something isn’t working, you try something different. Instead, all we getting is the Bush administration telling us that the plan they said was going to work in six months has now been in effect for over four years but they’re still promising it’s going to work in six months.
In the interests of full disclosure, I’ve only read part of the site so far. But it seems to be basing it’s argument of the US committing Genocide on the assertion that we went into this war with the deliberate intent to dismantle the government, and establish a new cultural paradigm of a free democracy.
In that case, what we did in World War 2 to Japan and Germany was genocide, as I understand it.
Genocide is when an organization begins the systematic extermination of people in pursuit of the goal of completely eradicating them. I think most people can agree that making war on a country because the attacker feels that country’s government has to go, whether justified (as in WW2), mistaken, or heinous, is not genocide.
If you have a cite for the US & allied militaries enacting a program to try and eradicate large portions of the Iraqi civilian population simply by race, religion, etc., let me know. If all you can factually show is a plan to make war on their government, and any insurgency efforts against the Iraqi government we’re failing to establish, then it is not genocide.
As pointed out, we aren’t trying ‘everything’; we haven’t tried leaving, which is about all we could do that might help.
And how do you define ‘success’ anyway ? A success for Iraq is a failure for America; we are, after all, their mortal enemies.
Not really. If peace broke out between the factions in Iraq, that would just leave them free to turn all their efforts on us.
He’s willing to work for Bush, which instantly destroys his reputation, as far as I’m concerned. Bush doesn’t tolerate honest people working for him. I remember being told I could trust Colin Powell too; but when he went to work for Bush, I knew he couldn’t be trusted. He’s also collaborating in a war of conquest, which again shows him to be highly unethical and therefore untrustworthy.
Garbage. We are conquerers and mass murderers and thieves. Our motivations in Iraq are not even remotely benevolent, or even morally neutral.
It occured to me that I should make clear where I stand on the issue, since more than a few people have misinterpreted others stances.
I categorically oppose the use of the term genocide to describe our actions in Iraq.
I am also opposed to the war in Iraq.
If we had the will/desire/drive to commit to something on the scale of what marshmellow was speaking of, we might have had a real shot at making it work. And hey, a world with one less Sadam Hussein-style dictator is a nice thought. But he didn’t have WMD’s, and Iraq was not an imminent threat, and however real a chance such an extensive effort might have had at working (and make no mistake, the potential payoff of establish a democratic bedrock in the middle east that was primarily Muslim would’ve been a grand step forward), it would still be highly questionable whether we had any right to try it, let alone whether we should.
All of which is moot in the real, current situation. We went into this conflict for the wrong reasons, with terrible planning, and have continued to bungle things through and through. I don’t know what we should do now, but I think an immediate and/or rapid withdrawal is a bad move, I also think any attempt to continue the campaign is ridiculous. We need to put the wieght on the Iraqi parliament’s shoulders and begin a procedure to get out, or we need to do what it takes to get the UN to take a more active hand in trying to keep the peace until some resolution can occur. We created the mess, and we apparently can’t fix it, so we need to look into how we can minimize the consequences (for the Iraqi people) of our admitting defeat, imo.
An open-ended committment to back them up is like an open-ended committment to keep sending welfare checks. It breeds indolence. Indolence leads to dysfunction. Dysfunction leads to habitual dependency. Habitual dependency leads to failure (in this case, the creation of a failed state).
See previous post. It’s clear that a stone with a date (and an imminent date) etched into it needs to be banged against some Iraqi politicians’ heads, or they won’t do jack squat to try to fix their country.
Thanks for coming through Der Trihs. While I find your rantings like this misplaced and disgusting, I do admire your forthrightness and consistency. The question for me is just what percent of your leftist brothers and sisters share your views. Any idea?
This is a fairly compelling argument, and one I’ve thought about a lot. The trouble is, most analysts do not agree that the problem is laziness or willingness to let Americans do the lifting. If it were, then I’d agree that pulling out is the right thing to do.
The problem is that the Malaki government is simply biding its time. It wants the Americans to go, because it holds the majority and wants to solidify power without all that messy power and resource sharing the Americans are demanding. It would be better if the Malaki government knew the Americans weren’t leaving, so they’d be forced to make some accomodations.
The point I’ve been making is that the military isn’t trying the same thing over and over. There’s been a major tactical shift, away from the Rumsfeld policies and towards the actual military counterinsurgency playbook. And so far, it’s bearing fruit.
If the situation today were still the same ‘whack a mole’ strategy that’s been used for several years, I’d be calling for a pullout as well.
Most of the world agrees with me that we are the bad guys in this, and always has. Outside of America the majority always opposed the war. This isn’t a matter of “left wing”; it’s a matter of not believing in “America right or wrong”.
Uh, no. I gave a detailed response to your post. And at the very end inquired about your personal position. Rather than spell it out, I used the shorthand of asking if you agreed with the views of a poster whose anti-war, anti-American views are well known to both of us (and plenty of others). A simple “no” would have both answered the question and been much more efficient.
So, that question was not an ad hominem attack. It was just that, a question. But I am glad to see that while you incorrectly categorized it as such, you evidently do view any association with his views as somewhat of an insult. I’m glad to see it. Seriously. Good for you.
Now, I hope that suffices and you will cease with this diversionary tactic. I’m sure they’ll be plenty of other reason (excuse) for your to come after me soon enough. Look to the future.
You make a good point. It’s not that having a date like you suggest doesn’t have its advantages—namely, forcing the Iraqis to get there shit together—it’s that it might prevent us from leaviing at a time that is better; a time more in line with those of the Iraqi people and the U.S. This assumes, of course, that we would actually follow through on such a promise and leave. And there’s this hypothetical: what if we gave such a date, say, January 1, and the situation in Iraq chnages in a way that it makes leaving on that date a very bad idea (even in the eyes of the majority who now favor leaving). We are then stuck with two bad options: One, leaving on a date that we think is unwise and two, our not following through on our “threat” to leave. That’s two bad options, the former would most likely lead to more death, the latter reduce our credibility in the future even further.
As it is a necessity that the Iraqis be able to handle the situation much better than they have been, I am very tempted to ascribe to a pull-out date for the reason you mention. I feel I have to back away from it though for the two reasons I gave. I would be willing to revisit it, though, if Patreus’s report is pessimistic.
My only entry into the thread last night was to urge you to back away from your habit of making all discussions personal. Your “detailed response” was not even relevant as a response to me. It might have been relevant in your earlier response to RedFury when you chose, instead, to dismiss his observation with a personal remark, followed by a cryptic reference to a dictionary definition while failing to address his actual post.
Since I was not expressing any views regarding the matter of genocide, your decision to paint the U.S. experience as some wonderful, altruistic endeavor, then pose a question with an excluded middle that I either agree with your (off-topic to my comments) characterization of the war or that I side with a particular poster well known to be hostile to the U.S., you were pretty clearly attempting to make a personal comment about me.
You have now disingenuously claimed that I am the one who is making the matter personal. If you would stick to actual discussion points and leave the beliefs and personalities of other posters out of your comments, I would not have to keep addressing you for your antagonizing behavior toward other posters.
Supposedly, Rummy still has an office in the Pentagon and he’s still spending as much time there as he did when he was Sec. of Defense. If true, then WTH is he doing there all the time?
I expect the report to be “optimistic”. If the insurgents break into the Green Zone and slaughter everyone therein, I expect the report will be “guardedly optimistic.”
I’m not so sure about that. No doubt many, or even most, might agree that going into Iraq was a mistake, I don’t think that they have such a low estimation of our motivation—or those of our troops—as you do.
And thus you’ve rather neatly poisoned the well. So if the report comes out with anything other than ‘We’re totally fucked!’ you can just hand wave it aside…because it will have met your expectations. My guess is that even if it comes out with an over all negative picture some folks will think its still a whitewash of the situation.
Out of curiosity, what do you (you as in all of you who think this) base this on? Simply past performance by Bush et al? Without any reference to how things in the US have changed in the last year or so (i.e. seem to be a couple more Democrats about these days who aren’t willing to reach for the rubber stamp)? Is it really that much of a knee jerk reaction at this point? Or do you base this on your careful analysis of the general’s past performance as someone who will just parrot the party line and would never dream of telling it like it is? Or perhaps you base it on your favorite inst-pundit? I’m curious, as several people in this thread seem to share this belief that, even though an early report on benchmarks showed several glaring problems, that any final report will be completely worthless mouthings directly from Bush’s propaganda minister.
It’s a combination of past performance, no real change in strategy, and an awareness of the news coming out of Iraq on a daily basis, along with a review of those sites and resources that track measures of progress consistently.
What makes you feel like you can simply put full faith in the official report?
I don’t put full faith in…well, anything. So, I’ll take that often excluded middle position Alex for $500 (and the ceramic dog!). I am not going to poison the well by assuming anything about it, one way or the other. I’ll probably go in slightly skeptical (hey, I’m human…no way to be completely unbiased after the last 6 years), but I intend to read carefully and TRY not to have too many preconceptions.