They, also, do not represent the majority. Not all Iraqis want to negotiate in blood.
I do not use the word “majority” as loosely as it might seem. Most of the majority is actually a silent majority of everyday Joes who just want to go to work, raise their kids without having an opinion any more important than what to have for dinner tonight. That’s just the way it is. If you don’t beleive that, try going the the local A&P and start up a conversation on this subject. You’ll be pushed out of the way by some lady in Nike sneakers and sweats with a $20 haircut as she reaches for the milk to feed her bawling three-year-old.
The majority of people want peace. Their voices are rarely, if ever, heard during a crisis of this kind.
I never said it had to be our troops if that eases some of your guilt.
Has anybody told you you’re making a lot of unsupported assertions?
It sucked. But you said yourself that most people want peace, and there was greater peace and stability under Saddam, with more rights for women and more reliable services. The Kurds are happier now, but I’m not sure anyone else is.
This is nothing but a hand-waving, “motherhood is wonderful” statement. As long as there are determined groups on both sides who are willing to kill each other along with our troops and innocent civilian Iraqis what difference does it make that the majority wants peace?
Sure, peace would be great. The majority want peace. I haven’t heard one word about how we are to bring peace in the face of groups who are willing to commit suicide in order to prevent there being peace. Nor have I heard how we will go about harnessing the strength of that presumed majority to bring about peace.
Your argument is like that of GW when asked for a plan. That is, how wonderful it would be to have a peaceful, democratic Iraq to serve as an example in the Middle East.
Why not call me an empty-headed idealist and be done with it.
You might find it amusing that most of my friends and think I’m some sort of cold-hearted warmonger for supporting this administration’s policy in Iraq.
Some vestige of my liberal past must be stuck to the bottom of my shoe. I’ll try to find a patch of grass and remedie that right away!
:dubious: Ermmm . . . no. There are several words that come to mind, but “idealist” most definitely is not one of them. Nor does it come to mind in connection with any neocon.
You say that with so much love. 
Say we were to leave troop levels as they are and begin a phased pull out in, say, six months. What then? What happens then?
What I haven’t heard a word about is what the frag happens then?
I would rather say that this post
merely states a truism that no one disputes without any hint as to how you think that fact can be turned to advantage in sercuring the peace that the majority wants.
And this one asks an answer to a hypothetical question.
to which no one has an answer. It probably wouldn’t be pretty, and there would be a bad civil war. However you, yourself, say that military action sometimes settles disputes.
I think the question is whether or not we are doing any good by staying. At some unspecified time in the future will our staying result in an Iraq from which we can withdraw without that bloody civil strife taking place?
The next six months will be crucial.
That’s because we don’t know what could happen. What seems to be lkely to happen is a civil war. But there’s already a civil war going on, we’re just entrenched riiiiiight in the middle of it.
By reminding ourselves of the human element - staying to protect those who cannot protect themselves in the event we should fail.
one example:
In one Iraqi neighborhood, security returns
By Damien Cave - The New York Times
Published: September 4, 2006
*The remainder of this is not a quote from the article[/I]
The Iraqi government would surely fall victim to yet another bloody coup in its long history of bloody coups and once again we would be faced with another hostile, oil rich nation, condemning its people to a relative third world social status.
The human element that most concerns me are the humans in the US military that has been thrust into a swamp.
Everyone seems to have forgotten that there was an election in which the voters took at least one rein away from the president. The clear demand was that something radically different needs to be done. Support for the war itself, and not just the running of it, has fallen off the table.
Increasing the overall size of the military establishment will not help things in Iraq unless you assume that we are going to hobble along with what we have for a couple years while the expanded military gears up in recruitment, training and equipping the new forces.
A one-time surge in Baghdad troops will not accomplish much. It is already known that we don’t intend to keep the increased force there for long, intending to replace them with Iraqi forces. But, their state fo training and willingness to police their own side are both shabby. It is doubtful that they can be brought up to standard in the time alloted. The Iraqi police force is widely recognized as little more than a Shia militia with government backing.
So all the insurgents need do is lie low, if necessary, clandestinely plant roadside bombs and wait until the surge is over.
However if that’s what it takes to get us out, fine. If that will convice people with your opinion that we have done all we can, fine. We can leave, the Iraq army will be unable to keep order and the police force won’t even try to stop Shia on Sunni violence. But at least we would be gone.
Oh yes, your statement that we should stay to protect those who can’t protect themselves is to laugh if it weren’t so outlandish.
What protection are we giving now?
[hijack]
Depends on your definition of “free”. The NSDAP won 37.3% on July 31, 1932 which meant that, for the first time, no coalition was possible without the nazis or the communists (who had won 14.3%).
When it became clear that Hindenburg, then president, was still reluctant to accept any leading role of the NSDAP, Hitler declared publicly that he wouldn’t accept any office but chancellorship.
Another election on November 6th was meant to establish a working coalition of right wing parties but the result was disillusioning: one party, the DNVP, gained 800,000 votes (8.3% of all votes) but the NSDAP lost considerably (around 2 million votes) - though remained the largest group with 33.1%.
Interestingly, the decline of Hitler’s NSDAP led to his breakthrough: the major player of the time, von Papen, became convinced that the NSDAP would soon fade into obscurity but could be used in the meantime to establish a new (meaning: less democratic) order.
Hindenburg, despite his reservations, finally agreed when von Schleicher failed miserably as chancellor and Hitler was appointed (not elected) as his successor on Jan. 30, 1933. But still he was leader of a cabinet that was dominated not by the NSDAP but by conservatives.
The following months changed that: the already established obstruction of left parties became persecution of all opposing forces (even Reichstag deputies were arrested), and when the so called last free elections where held on March 5th, 1933, the SA controlled the streets. Hitler’s party won 44% and after the communists were arrested or scared away, the NSDAP finally held the majority of all seats.
You’re going to have at my innards for this…
I agree with you. Still, it will be the right thing to do. We will have met our obligations to the newly formed government and will leave with some semblance of vindication and the Iraqis with the opportunity to sink or swim. I am betting they will sink and I’m positive we will still be blamed for that (at home and abroad).
Winters, your post outlines closely the thesis of a book I read some time back. An excellent book with intriguing speculations, that I should like very much to recommend to other sniveling history geeks, if I could be remember the name. Advise?
Well, if it is assumed that we have to stay because we are responsible for the present situation, then why shouldn’t we have to accept some blame?
Our political leaders that is. I refuse to take any blame because I have consistantly said this war is, was, and will be one collossal mistake, fully consonant with the history of GW Bush…
Its all so goddam murky, especially as regards the intentions of our CinC, The Ditherer.
I’ve heard it forcefully suggested that our strategy will be throw ourselves wholly on the side of the Shia dominated government, and henceforth align ourselves against the Sunni insurgency. A path to stability, to be sure, but I recoil in horror that our troops might be used to support, however remotely, an excercise in ethnic cleansing, with its potential to break out into a full scale nightmare. I would dearly love to believe that there is some factor, normal or supernatural, that ensures that Iraq will not plunge into horror of the Hutu-Tutsi variety. If anyone has such a factor at hand, please do not hesitate to advise. Soonest.
I’ve also heard it suggested that our troops in Baghdad would be utilized to crush the Mahdi militia of Muktada al-Sadr. Which would be, of a necessity, house to house combat. Against the political base of the presiding government of Greenzonia.
The only other option would appear to be imposing martial law and order on Baghdad as a whole, which means fighting everybody! As well as making us the sole focus of their anger. Peachy.
I lack the capacity to weigh those options in terms of innocent blood shed, or American lives lost. And bitterly pissed that I should have to.
Call in the Free Mexican Air Force for an emergency airlift! 