That’s ridiculous sorry Blonde. It’s extremely simplistic however.
Anybody who wants to beat Bush in 2004 simply has to use the following slogan
Bush & Co. have successfully managed to push the hunt for Osama off the front pages and gotten us into a quagmire (which could have easily been prevented, even after the war ended) that’s tying up resources on a huge scale (the World Bank estimates the final price tag for fixing Iraq will come in at $500 billion dollars, I’d like to point out that we could go to fucking Mars for less) and doesn’t seem to be solving much of anything.
And Blonde, pulling out of Iraq now, isn’t going to solve anything. It’ll only make things worse. The instant we pull out of Iraq (even if the UN attempts to take over), the place is instantly Balkanized. The Loyalists will fight to put Saddam back in power, the fundies will fight to make it an Islamic state, the Kurds will fight to stay independant, the secularists (both of them) will fight to keep the Islamists out of power, and people who are just plain pissed off at everybody else will go after all of the above. Since Iraq is swimming in oil, the entire world will be covertly pouring money into the country in support of one side or the other. It will only get bloodier, nastier, and spread farther outside of Iraq.
Like or not, we’ve got to stay in Iraq until the shithole’s reasonably stable. If we pull out, then anyone else who tries to occupy the place will be met with the same kind of attacks our forces are suffering (after all, they kicked the most powerful nation in the world out by killing a few of their soldiers, how much resolve can the rest of the world have?). It’s our mess, regretfully, and we’re just going to have to swim in the shit for some time, I’m afraid.
I have a rhetorical question for those who think we should “stay the course” (out of curiosity only - no hostile fights allowed!)
What single event would change your mind? As in - what would happen that would cause you to do a 360 and say - let’s get the hell out of there?
Boo Boo Foo - I’ve been called worse than ridiculous and simplistic - and, come to think of it, so has the Bush administration. 
I have a rhetorical question for those who think we should “stay the course” (out of curiosity only - no hostile fights allowed!)
What single event would change your mind? As in - what would happen that would cause you to do a 360 and say - let’s get the hell out of there?
Boo Boo Foo - I’ve been called worse than ridiculous and simplistic - and, come to think of it, so has the Bush administration.
Damn it!
Well my goal isn’t to flame. In answer to your question - the single greatest difference between Vietnam and Iraq is the difference between philosophical policy, and pragmatic policy. As Tuckerfan pointed out, Iraq is effectively a desert based version of the Balkans. Vietnam wasn’t. Effectively, Ho Chi Minh was fighting for independance from Colonial Rule and South Vietnam was created to thwart his plans. A prolonged shit fight ensued. But it was, at least, a culturally homogonous country. Iraq is far from the case. It’s held together by rubber bands if truth be known.
Moreover, as Tuckerfan also pointed out, because Iraq is so awash with oil, the moment an opportunity to “divide and conquer” the country were to manifest itself, a really nasty series of “covert” operations would take place by outside countries to get their hands on that oil by playing certain sides off against one another and it would just be horrible, sustained civil war with no one really being the winner for decades.
As ironic as it seems, if there’s one country on earth which innately is capable of at least trying to do the right thing by the people of Iraq in so far as rebuilding it and letting them derive the benefits of that oil wealth, it’s actually the United States (and her loyal friends and allies). In many respects, that’s what it boils down to now - we have to do the right and proper thing in Iraq - for the sake of the innocent folks in Iraq who just want to raise their kiddies and lead a nice middle class life. And there’s the rub - if there was one signal that President Bush Snr sent in 1991 which was totally the wrong signal - it was that American lives are so sacred that the USA was prepared to run away from her commitments to the people in the North and South of Iraq. To this day, the actions of President Bush Snr in the months after the end of the 1991 Gulf War are still brought up as an abject lesson amongst the locals that the USA has a weak spot. And this very thread confirms the continued existence of that weak spot as well.
As we speak, there are a truckload of nasty insurgents with a seemingly endless list of agendas at play. Still, nothing - absolutely nothing - can convince me that it’s ultimately in Iraq’s interests for the United States to relinquish supreme responsibility for Iraq’s rebuilding. Quite frankly, there’s too much future revenue to be made out of Iraq to trust the good will of other countries who currently aren’t involved unless they’re under the umbrella of the United States.
I don’t trust the French nor the Russians. I’d bet my life savings that they would cut a deal with a local faction to pump oil which would undercut the rebuilding of Iraq as a whole - thereby adding pressure for the country to break up.
I can’t believe I’m sounding like a neo-con here - but oddly enough - the evil you know in this instance is better than the outright civil war which would take place otherwise. Millions would die I suspect.
Boo Boo Foo, you’ve made excellent points in all your posts in this thread, but the fault that you mention doesn’t lie with Bush Sr and GW I. It goes all the way back to the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beruit. Nearly 300 US military personnel died in that attack, and America’s response was to pull out. This was reinforced in Somalia, when we lost a handful of American service men and promptly pulled out.
Blonde, as much as I hate to say it, I don’t think that there’s anything that could happen which would make me think bailing on Iraq before it’s a stable nation was a good idea. And I hate that. I hate that it means that more people, both military personnel (the Poles lost a soldier today, BTW) and Iraqis are going to die, possibly in large numbers, but given the alternative of Iraq turning into some place like the Balkans, only with a lot more people fighting over the same territory, it’s the only choice there is.
Of course, if someone develops cheap, compact fusion units which enable us to spurn fossil fuels altogether, then pulling out of Iraq won’t be a big deal, since not nearly the same amount of folks will be interested in dying over the place, and the US or the UN could quickly restore order to the place. The chances of that happening, however, are so close to zero as to make no odds.
You present a good argument, Boo Boo Foo, but:
I doubt that the US can be trusted either - at least not with its current leadership. The non-stop stream of lies emanating from Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld makes me seriously doubt whether they have any interest whatsoever in the people of Iraq.
Your insurgents and deals scenario look exacty like what’s already happened. The US has cut a deal with Chalabi. What’s his agenda? To have the US take an entire country and hand it to him on a platter, while he in return hands out contracts, ostensibly on behalf of the Iraqi people.
Well, certainly Desmo you could indeed be right. The Zogby Poll which showed such glowing, favourable polling results by Iraqi’s within Baghdad has since been discredited by none other than John Zogby the man himself.
In a recent article in the New York Times, Zogby was quoted as saying that the Administration didn’t flat out tell lies about his polling - but they certainly manufactured some of the results.
Accordingly, it seems to me that the US has to get past the spin doctors just for once and show some balls and just plain tell the truth. If they’ve made mistakes, admit them. More importantly, be honest about the real reasons why we’re there. The spin doctors ultimately make things worse for everyone.
I, for one, am sick and tired of hearing Ari Fleischer start a sentence with the words… “No, what the President really meant was…”
I do not agree. The spin has worked very well. Lot’s of people believe the BS and I think they would be plenty pissed off if they were all of a sudden told the truth.
I don’t think Iraq will ever be reasonably stable. I think the one thing all the different factions in Iraq agree on is that they don’t want US there.
I started yesterday a thread on Great Debates on the Iraq like Vietnam comparable… check it out.
As for the US dead soldiers I think Ann Telnaes put it very well in this cartoon:
In recent events: (Cite from Foxnews.com)
**TIKRIT, Iraq — The U.S. military swept through Iraqi neighborhoods early Saturday, firing at houses suspected to be harboring hostile forces in the wake of an apparent attack on a Black Hawk (search) helicopter that killed six U.S. soldiers.
Backed by Bradley fighting vehicles (search), American troops bombarded buildings with machine guns and heavy weapons fire.
“This is to remind the town that we have teeth and claws and we will use them,” said Lt. Col. Steven Russell, commander of the 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment.**
Can’t you just feel the love? Um, Lt. Russell - that was supposed to be the ENEMY, not the TOWN.
I believe around 6 more of our soliders have been killed since I started this thread. I don’t know anyone serving there, but it must be hell to have a family member on the front lines.
I see it this way quite simply.
It looks like waiting before the war for a bigger, better plan would have been a good idea. The plan for reconstruction was insufficient and not implemented quickly enough. I don’t really expect France or Germany to send troops to Iraq.
OTOH, this is exactly what I’ve been saying since before the war.
What do we do about this reality? General Clark’s four point plan for begging the French and Germans for troops, did I hear that?
Cheering a helicopter crash, IMO, would vary from city-to-city, or neighborhood-to-neighborhood in Iraq. For every pissed off Sunni, Baathist, al-Qaeda, Iranain, Syrian, Pakistani covert ops guy blowing stuff up there are others going about their daily lives in Iraq.
Calming Germany down after the big WWII didn’t happen overnight.
Fighting enemies that are willing to die can save you some time.
Ari Fleischer?
Try, Counterpunch. My God, what is the time difference anyway?
Winning hearts and minds and all that. Israel has been doing the same kind of thing for some time now. Maybe we should ask them what kind of results they are getting.
This spiral of violence plays into the hands of the Iraqi resistance. Every time US forces search private homes and humiliate the dwellers, every time they mistreat people, every time they kill someone, they are making enemies of more Iraqis. It is a spiral which works against the US.
There is no way the USA can win this conflict by force. No way except the complete genocide of the Iraqi people. I just cannot see the Iraqis one day waking up and deciding they like being ruled by America. The way things are going they seem to like it less with every day that goes by.
I think the US government and some of its people are delusional in this respect. 30 years ago the USA wanted to impose a democracy in Vietnam and look how things went. There is a whole thread dedicated to the idea that this conflict is completely different and it is true. It is completely different except in the only thing that counts: the Iraqis, like the Vietnamese, do not want to be ruled by the USA.
It is impossible to win a war where anyone can be the enemy. Where a vehicle can be hit by a mine or rpg. If the majority of the population supports that then you are doomed.
As the spiral of violence grows, all Iraqis will be the enemy which will be self-fulfilling as it will make enemies of any who had any doubts.
A long war of attrition plays into the hands of China and other powers because it costs the US a fortune. It weakens the US economically and militarily. I expect the resistance fighters will have plenty of supplies even if it is all done quite secretly. The more the USA gets bogged down in Iraq, the less capacity it has to act in other places which is good news for its competitors.
But Centcom refers to the spot the chopper went down as a landing site. What could be more comforting ?
Yes, we can win. We don’t want Iraqakota.
The Vietnamese didn’t want democracy? I submit this.
Here are some Vietnamese [http://www.vietquoc.com/"]nationalists]( [url) that don’t seem really enthused about hardcore Communism.
Vietnam is not every war. It is the most overpoorlyanalyzed war in history. The US never tried to win the Vietnam war in any traditional sense. Could we at least get that one point clear? Trying to take NV with offensive military operations would have been one sure sign we were going the traditional route. There really is no single Iraqi nationalist movement any more than all the Vietnamese agreed.
More to the point, is the “Sunni Triangle” going to start a functioning state with the Kurds, etc., if we leave? No. There is no Iraqi Army. We wrecked it. There is no power to fill the vacuum except neighboring states, al Qaeda, or Saddam and the remaining Baathists. I like “other.”
I feel terrible about every casualty. I’m going to try to hijack other threads. Honoring their sacrifices means “staying the course” or other apt sailing analogies.
Only 45 americans died after WWII was declared over... (Newsweek Magazine number)I’m sorry, I must have missed where the war was declared over. Don’t get me on a sore subject this early in the morning on game day. I’ll start drinking for breakfast. Nah.
I’ve been carping about the nonend of the war for a while now. Join the club!
Downed statue: 1 Actual end to war: 0