Sounds good to me. As long as the fortified bases we withdraw to are Fort Benning and Camp Lejeune.
I suggested that some time ago. I also suggested that we cinsider ourselves morally bound to accompany the plea with a blank check.
Ya know, oddly enough, there’s kind of a looooong shot chance the thing could work, they might actually blunder their way to peace.
Consider: the Sunni are expecting the worst, they are expecting the Shia dominated government to sic the Americans on them. The Shia probably figure on controlling the target identification process, sending American firepower onto their Sunni enemys. So the Maliki government and the Sadrist element might make a tacit agreement: remain peaceful so that you don’t attract the attention of the Americans, and then point them at Sunni “insurrectionists”. Americans kill insurrectionists, insurrectionists kill Americans, its a win-win.
Suppose the Sunni counter the ploy by remaining passive themselves? Lay low, hide the weapons, stock up on ammunition, but otherwise play dead.
For an indefinite period, there might even be peace, of a sort. A peace scare, as it were.
Sir, I like the way you think and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Sorry, but that’s highly unlikely. You really think the Iraqis are so different to you or I? Would your goal be to track down and kill US soldiers, or to get some semblance of order and safety for you and your family?
I’d say it has to be worth a try.
First, the odds are good that the fighters are trying to avenge their family’s death or suffering at our hands. Second, you assume that the families, if alive, aren’t screaming at them to kill us.
Third, you assume that they are stupid enough to believe that we have either the ability or desire to bring them order, or safety, or anything at all besides death and suffering. We are the bad guys. We are the killers and torturers and destroyers that have laid their country waste; we are never going to convince the Iraqis that we are anything but enemies. Because we are their enemies. They will regard “tracking down and killing US soldiers” as key to achieving a "semblance of order and safety ".
And yes, they are different than us. Americans wouldn’t fight back nearly as hard; they would collapse and grovel before their conquerers in a similar situation.
Good lord. I’m hardly a fan of the occupation, but even so your post really is a bit shrill. In order of your claims:
- I’m sure the fighters have terrible grievances that have driven them to fight back. Unfortunately that doesn’t really matter, as the idea is not to win them over, but win over the people who aren’t yet fighting.
- Yes I do assume that the big majority of families are not screaming at their adult males to take up arms and kill. I think it’s a safe assumption that most of the people there just want some peace and stability. They might have the US and UK for the rest of their lives, and they’d have good reason to - but in the same way that most people in Ireland didn’t succumb to the urge to shoot at British soldiers, I’m guessing that most of the people in Iraq won’t have been driven to killing yet.
- It’s not about assuming what people will believe. It’s about demonstrating the ability to provide safety through setting up very well controlled zones. This idea has been shown to work in the past, if the occupying force is prepared to put enough resources on it.
By all means continue with the angry outbursts, but as this is obviously a topic that you care about may I ask just what your proposal is? Immediate withdrawal is quick and easy for us, but I’ve got quite a few concerns over what might happen next.
That would, of course, be all those people that:
- weren’t bombed out of their homes or related to those who were bombed since we started this fracas,
- weren’t wisked off to Guantanamo Bay or related to someone who was,
- weren’t terrorized by either U.S. troops or the factions that have sprung up because we toppled a somewhat stable government, or
- weren’t killed or seriously injured, or related to someone who was, by the above-mentioned U.S. troops or factions that have sprung up since we started this fracas.
Now, what percentage of the (still living) populace of Iraq does that leave to “win over”?
People around the world are all essentially the same. Arabs and Americans are, at heart, not really any different, and both are not really any different from anyone else. They will react the same to the same stimuli. Anyone who says otherwise is a racist and a fool.
Are you a racist and a fool?
No, the people who aren’t fighting are the ones that aren’t fighting.
I’m sure that a vast number of people have justified grievances against the occupying troops there…but that doesn’t mean that they’re actually ready to start shooting. By all means argue that we’ve left it too late to win over any hearts and minds, and god knows I’d find it hard to prove you wrong. If we’re going to get any sort of result out of this whole fiasco though, this is about the last thing I think we can try. Of course we can just get out immediately, but I really am concerned at just how much trouble we could see when what little authority we’ve managed to impose is suddenly removed.
I know we’ve fucked this whole thing up dreadfully, but I’m actually worried that leaving at this moment might make things even worse. We owe it to all the people we screwed up to at least make one honest and considered attempt to try to fix things at least a little bit.
That sounds very laudable. I don’t think however that the powers that be really give a shit about this anymore apart from talking the talk. It can’t be fixed IMO.
The Iraqi government seems like it is provoking tension between the Sunni and the Shia population. There also seems to be a fair amount of Iraqi security forces who are at the very least supportive of the Shiite militia or the Sunni insurgency. These two groups are causing the vast majority of death and carnage on the streets. There are death squads that go out every night and every morning the are up to 50 bodies found in and around Baghdad.
The allies have no real way of stopping this. It’s invisible to them on the whole and they are just scrapping the surface with raids etc.
The US is all about self interest. They are now completely in spin mode. The current “surge” plan is sure to fail IMO as even if it turns out to be effective the Iraqi’s will just keep their heads down and wait for their chance.
The UK is also in spin mode. They are more openly looking to leave and will as soon as Blair goes.
The pouch is screwed. Iraq is fucked one way or the other. I’ve no solution as I honestly don’t see one apart from the horror of a all out civil war and a hope that some stability can be found after the bloodshed as mass slaughter has ended.
Eventually the US and the UK will leave and nothing will be accomplished. They will then blame the slaughter on the Iraqi’s(naturally they do hold a large amount of responsibility).
There really should be a moment of legal accountability for the warmongers who started this war but there won’t be. They’ll go to their executive positions, lecture tours etc. and the people of Iraq will suffer for decades and the normal Joe Soap in the US and UK will pay for the cost of the war for years to come.
Once again, my proposal is leave. We have neither the ability or the desire to do anything but harm.
Hardly. Neither am I a fool who thinks everyone everywhere is the the same. Nor do I insult people from other cultures by claiming they are just copies of us. And a nationality isn’t a race anyway.
Nationality most certainly can be a race: “any people united by a common history, langage, cultural traits, etc.” is a perfectly acceptable definition of the word. If you feel one people united by a common history is superior to another, you’re a racist by definition.
All humans are fundamentally the same. You are not better. Deal with it.
Apparently, Bush’s evaluation of the Iraq Study Group report: It was “a flaming turd.”
With such a devastating rebuttal of the bipartisan effort to save Bush and the Republican Party, one wonders how any plan could survive his command of the facts and material on this issue.
You do realize you are claiming that, say, modern Sweden is no better than Nazi Germany or the Aztecs ?
If all these people who are for us would turn in the insurgents, the insurgency wouldn’t last long. These people are not living in caves, they’re living in the middle of a city.
Of course you’d also need a police force you could trust to go after the insurgents, not you, but if a vast majority of citizens were anti-insurgent, the situation would be different. It’s gotten worse. If you’re a Sunni moderate, but the Shia come and bomb your mosque, and the government won’t or can’t protect you, you tend to think your local Sunni militia is the way to go. Same for Shia.
Bush is like the pilot of a plane in a nosedive not letting you bail out because to do so would be admitting defeat.
Some people would say that we created the problem when we pre-emptively attacked a country that posed no threat to us in the face of overwhelming international opposition so they don’t have an obligation to do anything to help and can just stand by and point a finger at us for everything that goes wrong in Iraq.
It’s worse than that. He is the air traffic controller who told the pilot to do something that put the plane in a nosedive and won’t give him clearence to pull up because that would be an admission the plane is going to crash. And like the air traffic controller, Bush is not in danger of dieing.
I think we should just up sticks and leave. It’s simply not our problem any more. Saddam’s death provides an excuse. Bush can say that we ousted a repellent dictator and stayed to ensure he got a fair trial and was punished acording to the law. Let the Iraqis sort themselves out.
That’s wrong on so many levels it’s almost impressive:
- Ethically, it most certainly is our problem. We’re the ones who invaded, we’re the ones who overthrew the previous government, claiming it was a dictatorship that harmed it’s people. You think we can just cut and leave now, saying “not our problem”
- Economically. Me, I’d like to see crude rise in price by 200%, I work for an oil service company. The rest of the UK and the US might just find it a bit of a problem though if turmoil continues in the middle east.
- Politically. You really think it’s a clever idea to vacate an area that you’ve just stirred up massive hatred in, leaving a political vacuum?
Actually, I’m dying to know. Just how do you consider this whole mess not to be our problem any more?