It is astounding that you would compare Saddam getting 100% of the vote with Florida debacle. There aren’t enough eye rolling smiles to convey how much my eyes are rolling, but I’ll try. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
Furthermore, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t paint America with such a broad brush. It was the election procedures of Florida, a single state of the union, that was the problem. I’d hardly call it a “laughingstock” either.
Let me get this straight. Are you saying that if Sadr is killed, captured, or surrenders and joins the political process, then the insurgency will end? Will you put your money where your mouth is?
We invade them, we occupy them, we tell them what kind of government to form, we give billions away in bogus reconstruction contracts, we lose 1,000 troops, we’re under fire every day, we’re feeding the cause of Islamic extremism, and we’re supposed to give some more? No. We shouldn’t have gone there in the first place, and we shouldn’t be there now. The Iraqis should make their own chances, it should be up to the Americans to give them more.
I have no idea what inspires someone to be an apologist for a failed plan of invading countries, but an altruistic love of peace and freedom sure can’t be it.
:smack:
… it should NOT be up to the Americans to give them more.
Iran cares, and they are willing to put their money where their mouth is:
Iran arming insurgents, says Iraq
This news puts the lie to the Bushista line that this insurgency is just a few thousand Baathists that will soon burn out for lack of support. Just as the Viet Cong fought for decades as clients of the USSR and Red China, these rebels will thrive on Iranian oil money.
Sooner or later, whether it is a Republican president or a Democrat, America will pull a Nixon; simply declare victory and go home.
For the record, the American colonies managed to produce a regular army to fight and defeat the Brittish.
Does anyone think that there is just one group in Iraq fighting? Does anyone think al Sadr’s group view themselves as patriots or are taking advantage of the power vacuum left by Saddam to grab a chunk for themselves? And I’m willing to bet that there are foreigners there from Iran and Syria and other places hoping to prevent a pro-American government from being established.
Maybe we shouldn’t be there, but I predict very bad things will happen if we just up and leave without some kind of permenant government in palce.
Comments about the make up of his militia is not the same thing as a citation in support of your assertions about Sadr in the character of “no one cares if he succeeds or not”.
Your personal conjectures based on odd bits of information and misinformation (like Clwyd’s), while clinically interesting (IMHO), is not exactly the kind of answer I was hoping for.
The question remains the same and unanswered. In hopes of being more clear, I ask differently as follows:
Assuming that your comment about the make up of Sadr’s crew implies that you think the evidence that “no one cares if he succeeds or not” (also assuming this phrase is intentionial hyperbole on your part) is a certain conclusion from the make up of his militia. I ask these two questions 1) What evidence do you have that the make up of Sadr’s troops necessarily means that “no one cares if he succeeds or not”? 2) What evidence do you have that Sadr’s troop composition profile matches the criteria you established while answering the previous question?
Or, alternately, you could provide a link to a poll or some such something or another showing that Sadr’s success is irrelevant to most Iraqis.
Once again, I ask politely for a citation for an assertion you’ve made.
Do you have any evidence to support these claims, or is it more of your personal conjecture?
The 68% number reflects views of reality. The 2% number reflects views on tangentially related (at best) hypotheticals. Sadr gets 68% ‘aproval rating’ doing what he is doing. He doesn’t have his ‘rating’ because he is running for president.
It’s not entirely clear how true those reports of Iranian interference are. Iran denys messing around in Iraq:
And relations between the two countries are good enough that Allawi plans to visit Tehran:
The accusations against Iran appear to be coming from defense minister Hazem Shaalan, rather than Allawi (by your own link and here). There appears to be an internal struggle going on in the Iraqi government about this, as Prime Minister Allawi has "forbidden Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan and Interior Minister Falah al-Naquib from speaking publicly about the Sadr movement, yet they continue to do so.
Things were so much simpler a few months ago, when everyone thought the US would appoint Ahmed Chalabi to be the democratic-president-of-a-free-Iraq-for-life. It’s too bad he turned out to be an Iranian secret agent. 
Jesus H Chri… No! But I do believe there will be a decreased number of organised and effective opposition to the Interim government in the style he’s portrayed. Everyone seems to forget Al Sistani and his powerful calming effect on the people, and this is a guy who supports the Interim government.
Well, I meant the Iraqi people on a whole, should of made it bit clearer, apologies.
I’d hardly call it misinformation, that came from the guardian which opposed the war, and opposed American intervention in Iraq as a whole.
Well of course (backtracking here) people care if he succeeds, but if he doesn’t no tears will be shed for him, he’s a criminal, who’s used the people of Najaf and surrounding areas to carry out his bidding mostly because they have no jobs and no place to go, sure, you’ll see some who will do it out of ideological purposes and nationalism, but thats in the minority, if he was so popular to Iraqis as people seem to want to point out, it would be quite strange to have large amounts of the population of Najaf hate him. If he had any decency or any respect for the Iraqi people, he wouldn’t have taken the most holiest site in Shia Islam hostage.
Go to Blogs. And since some poor are actually crooks and criminals, well, there you go.
They know if a democratic government gets elected there, and succeeds, its the end for them in the long run.
My conjecture, but it isn’t like he’s going to declare that he wants them to stay to increase his legitimacy is he?
But the thing is, the South Vietnamese government didn’t have any legitmacy from the start, or guarantee any rights for its citizens and basically just treated them like shit, maybe we’ve not noticed this yet in Iraq, but I’d hardly call the comparison a good one. If Bush and Co try to keep the moral highground (barring Abu Gharib) with the Iraqi people, it may very well burn out. Plenty of Iraqis hate the Iranians, there is no love lost between them.
No we shouldn’t have gone there I agree. But we’re there now and we have a moral obligation to ourselves and to the Iraqis to see it through. Leaving them the prospect of their state turning out like another Afghanistan or Somalia is not what I would call very promising for our long term security. This isn’t going to turn out like another 79’ Shah being deposed.
I’m no apologist, what I do find surprising is how some people will nitpick at everything the US army does there just to see it fail. Talk about defeatism. Freedom comes at a price, and should never be given up no matter the cost.
I know, I just like using it as it is my favourite smiley 
“The resistance is made up of criminals” has been the standard excuse of dictators and invaders since the dawn of recorded history.
Why the quotation marks?
No, I assure you it will continue to be a puppet government for years to come.
Not unless the previous government was worse than the one they installed.
All the more reason to support the interim government.
[/QUOTE]
Comparing real life to bullshit movies.
This is a great mistake, and you should forget all the movies you have ever seen. I realise that this is an impossibility. Therefore this post is utterly futile, yet I am moved to say these useless words, perhaps in the hopeless thought that you might just be a little changed by these words. What price these few words compared to all the thousands of hours of fakery you have seen?
This is Iraqis saying this, no dictator.
from the Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1290819,00.html
I don’t how the US government could get away with this without having a full scale insurrection from the majority of Iraqis.
Until elections, yes.
Ryan, you accept that 97% of Iraqi’s think the US are occupiers, 55% would feel safer if they left, and that Allawi has only 23% support.
Yet your explanation for the lack of support for Allawi (a leader installed by the occupiers that make people feel unsafe) is that he is “not doing enough to combat the assholes like Sadr and AlQueda from launching attacks.”
Instead of contorting yourself like a pretzel, how about you draw the obvious short, straight lines between the frickin’ dots, fer chrissakes, man.
Ryan let me ask a theoretical question:
If you choose (a), you are the only leader in a situation comparable to the above in the whole of history ever to have done so. If you choose (b) you are certainly breaking no new ground.
I assume that you are addressing me. It would greatly enhance the clarity of your posts if you would be so kind as to accurately attribute the quotes that you use. As to the misinformation that I made reference to, it was indeed published in the Guardian. However, it was an opinion piece, not a news story. It was the opinions of a politician. The politician ‘misspoke’ about what the CPA poll said.
Whether or not the politician knowingly ‘misspoke’ is a matter for conjecture. It is, after all quite possible that Clwyd is merely a simpleton who could not read the report well enough.
However, the point remains that what Clwyd said is not true.
The venue (the Guardian) for the faulty information (misinformation) is entirely irrelevant. No matter where Clwyd’s comments were published, they are still not true.
These comments and conjectures do not actually constitute evidence.
This is the famous FOAF citation, I suppose.
Do you even realize that you’ve started addressing the comments of another person here in the middle of your post?
You pick up again with my comments immediately afterword.
I strongly suggest that you accurately attribute the quotes that you use.
There’s little else that will increase the clarity of your posts as immensely for so very, very, very little effort. If you need help to do this, it is available in the About This Message Board forum.
As Sadr had a following prior to the invasion of Iraq, it doesn’t seem likely that he needs the occupation of Iraq to be continued to maintain his following. Instead, the fact that he already had followers suggests that he can remain an influential person in Iraq years from now when the American troops leave.
Now you’ve gone of again responding to who knows who.
**I strongly suggest that you accurately attribute the quotes that you use. **
There’s little else that will increase the clarity of your posts as immensely for so very, very, very little effort. If you need instruction on how to do this, it is available in the About This Message Board forum.
It is a prompt for your readers. It is like the applause signs at a TV studio. When you place a :rolleyes: readers know that they are to now roll their eyes at whatever you’re writing.
Allow me be the one to tell you that this smiley face prompt of yours is superfluous, unnecessary and redundant. Readers already know when to roll their eyes at what you write.
FWIW, get over yourself.
I thought it was a pretty good movie myself. Not in the same class as the Bircher’s Invasion USA. (I shall never forget the scene of that carload of liberals being swept away by the destruction of Hoover dam. 
) But still, a decent film, for the genre.
I’m afraid you’ve got your analogies backwards. If you want to draw a parallel to Afghanistan, Americans are now in the place of being the Soviets: an invading foreign force unwanted by a large number of locals, who draw upon foreign support to try to kick them out. Having screwed things up, it is no more a smarter move for the US to stay than it was for the Soviets to stick around for ten years in an attempt to “see things through.” Bottom line, we’re losing on average two soldiers a day, the Iraqi people are NOT on our side, and they aren’t going to start liking us any more.
What we really need is a country/a group of countries to step up and follow through after the invader leaves the invaded countries, as the US should have done in Afghanistan in 1991 and as other countries should do in Iraq in 2005.
Unless you happen to be on the front lines at the moment, those are pretty cheap words.
[soapbox sidebar]
Despite the inexpensive costs of saying these words, the sentiment is still one that I like.
The prices paid by our military, intel and other personel on the front lines are very hard to exaggerate. These are essential, crucial and dozens other words that mean the same things. Yet these are not the only prices paid. Nor are these the only prices necessary.
Important, yet mundane recurring fees come due for all of us who are members of the electorate. Part of the price of freedom is keeping an eye on the gov and responding when they begin to have the appearances of misbehaving.
When these drab, daily dues are current, they decrease the need for the more dramatic and more valiant prices that those on the front lines pay. But it’s hard to get excited about wading through politicians’ shit piles.
Living humbly for the cause keeps people from having to die nobly for it.
In the long run, it is the more efficient of the two payment methods. If only it were sexier, we wouldn’t have to ask that so many pay the dearest price.
Thank God that the price is paid.
[/soapbox sidebar]
Clarifying some things… for Ryan and others.
No one here is rooting for Iraqis to become a dictatorship again. We’d love to see them become something better. We just don’t close our eyes and dream about it. Nor do many like the methods being used.
Being very rational and logical would mean that Iraqis should stop the insurgency and get on with their lives. I doubt someone thinks Iraqis are better off fighting… but then its not a “rational” situation where differences will be settled politically. Iraqis are fighting for several different reasons… many of which aren’t legitimate… but fighting will determine who rules… who has more power. The next decades of power in Iraq are being determined right now in a dirty mix of politics, insurgency and death.
“Freedom” is important… but HOW you fight for “freedom” is as important if not more. I don’t beleive using military power is the best way to do it… but just because someone says they are fighting for “freedom” doesn’t mean its true or that it will work.
I don’t think anyone is arguing it was a piece of cinematic genius. However, for all its flaws I think it can provide one interesting framework for looking at the Iraqi issue.
I for one find it extremely hard to imagine what it’s like to be subject to a foreign force invading one’s country. Maybe I lack imagination; it’s something I regret. Thinking about it in terms of a movie like “Red Dawn” helps me to think about “if the shoe was on the other foot” in a clearer way. That’s true even if the overall situation (the purpose of the invasion in the movie, for example) doesn’t apply to Iraq. That’s true even if the movie sucked.
I think it’s a thought-provoking question. If that makes me some lowbrow idiot, well, so be it.