Has the Iraq war made the U.S. safer?

Great Debates
81

The more I think about it, the more the “reasoning” of the Bush supporters (I refuse to say conservatives or Republicans, as I’d like to think some of them are sufficiently intelligent not to swallow all this crap) in this thread just infuriates me.

First we have Sam going on about how the US has appeared weak, and needs to be strong in order to avoid being attacked by terrorists. Jesus Christ, Sam, did you accidentally leave your historical literacy behind at Ralphie’s last fundraiser?!? When has strength or force ever had any success as a strategy against terrorists or guerillas? Napoleon had so much luck with the brute force tactics in Spain, didn’t he? It wasn’t Wellesley’s army Bonaparte was talking about when he complained about his “Spanish ulcer.” And the Brits in Ireland had so much luck using force to put down Irish revolutionaries that Emerald Isle is now largely independent, and we all know how the IRA just gave up in Northern Ireland due to the no negotiation policy. And the Palestinians have completely given up on terrorism due to Israel’s hardline stance, and the ANC just gave up the fight after the Soweto riots were brutally suppressed, the FSLN was completely stymied by Somoza’s shows of strength, and the Chechens will be giving up any day now. Good lord, man, open your eyes and take a look around! There’s only one way to fight terrorism, and it’s not brute force. It’s far more difficult. You have to address the legitimate grievances that drive men extremely illegitimate means. This isn’t appeasement. Hunt down the actual terrorists and jail them, fine. But if you don’t address the underlying problems, more will just take their places. Eliminate the breeding grounds, so that there aren’t any replacements to step into the gaps when the unholy bastards martyr themselves. Look at what’s happened in Northern Ireland. Take a good bloody look. It’s hard. It’s painful. It’s complex, and not easily reduced to sound bites. It takes a full generation or even longer. But it’s the only way. Address the real grievances, don’t listen to the people on one side screaming that it’s appeasing the terrorists and the people on the other side screaming that it’s collaboration with the oppressors, and whatever you do, absolutely refuse to let the bloody-minded extremists blow you off track with violence because they’ve grown up hating and don’t know how to stop, the way the Israelis and Palestinians keep doing.

And what have we done in Iraq? We’ve created a situation where hatred and extremism will breed like rabbits in Australia. Great. Just peachy. Oh, but it’s all good, we have Scylla and Brutus saying, because this festering sore will act as a magnet for terrorists, focusing them in a single area to make fighting them easier. Idiocy. Sheer idiocy. If you’re trying to get rid of flies on your front porch, you just hang up the flypaper. You don’t hang up the flypaper and unload 20 metric tonnes of pigshit in your front yard. How in the Nine Hells can you guys swallow this line? You really need to point me to your dealers so I can get some of what you’re smoking and kick back in blissful ignorance, cuz watching Baghdad turn into Beirut is pretty damn unpleasant without the altered mental state.

82

^ Perhaps one of the most profound summaries of the situation I have read to date.

83

Oh is that what this guy’s cartoon for August 23 was about?

84

OK, I’ll get semantic right back at you. Terms like ‘several’ and ‘a few’ are somewhat indeterminate, but IME, such as it is, ‘several’ picks up more or less where ‘a few’ leaves off, and 1.5 would be too small for ‘a few’, even. The American Heritage Dictionary says it’s more than just two or three. So if you’re gonna split semantic hairs, looks like ‘some guy in March’ (the Army’s chief of staff is just ‘some guy’? C’mon, Scylla, that’s beneath you!) was talking about troop levels at least double the current levels.

The same things the Administration’s been telling us all along: ‘Iraq is a big country, the size of California. You can’t expect a force the size of ours to do _________ in a country that large.’

They’re right.

I’ll admit I’m no expert. But I personally think this one’s obvious: Iraq’s a big country, we don’t speaka the language and can’t tell friend from foe, and both terrorists and organized criminals can swim in that sea without our being able to easily spot them.

The longer the state of disorder continues, the more people there will be with a vested interest in it, who will act with force to ensure that no order is imposed.

Since this was what I was worried about back in April, and after four months things are playing out worse than I’d expected, I’m increasingly apprehensive. Call me a worrywart if you want, but if we don’t increase troop levels drastically, check back with me next summer and we can see who told who so.

He’s not being offered troops to turn down.

I did, thanks. The American press seems to be focused on what happens to our troops and other foreigners involved in the reconstruction; for them, what happens to Iraqis isn’t the story. The British press is doing a better job of covering the overall situation.

85

Well, if that’s the way you’re gonna go, I don’t have time for this.

86

Here are some examples: [ul][]The Ku Klux Klan[]The “Werewolves” in post WW2 Germany[]Cuban Communists attempting to overthrow other Latin American govrnments[]The Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas[]American “gay-bashers” []Students for a Democratic Society and other “new left” groupsMurderers of abortion doctors[/ul]

87

[QUOTE]
Originally posted by december *
**Here are some examples: [ul][li]The Ku Klux Klan[]The “Werewolves” in post WW2 Germany[]Cuban Communists attempting to overthrow other Latin American govrnments[]The Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas[]American “gay-bashers” []Students for a Democratic Society and other “new left” groupsMurderers of abortion doctors[/ul] **[/li][/QUOTE]
Well, the definition of “terrorist” and “guerilla” that you’re using is probably a bit off. Anyway. Let’s consider the “werewolf” claim.

Let’s look at the last time you trotted this rubbish out, in the thread Bush had better do something pretty damn fast about the solidier’s being killed daily:

See, december, a lie doesn’t become truer through repetition. It gets more and more tedious dealing with this bullshit on a daily basis.

88

If America is commiting a strategic error in Iraq, it is the error of not using enough force (completely seperate from the non-issue of having enough manpower in the region).

Your flower-throwing and terrorist-loving ways will simply create more, happier, terrorists. Terrorists of today are not some poor, bedraggled creatures, who have no other options in life. Go back to September 11, 2001. Look at the 19 terrorists. All were from middle- or upper-class backgrounds. Bin Laden, as we all know, is from a wealthy and powerfull family. Raed Mesk, the latest suicide bomber in Israel, was well-educated, and was a school teacher, for a while. Great.

The actual terrorists are not from the poor and huddled masses; Ignorant peasants make shitty modern terrorists. A certain level of sophistication and education is needed, which is not found among the lowest layers of society. What specific ‘problem’ do you address to stop someone who is going off to kill a busload of kids, or maybe shootup a local western charity hospital? 70-some percent of Palestinians think that Bin Laden is the greatest leader in the world. How do you ‘reason’ your way with idiots like them?

Modern Islamist terrorists obviously have different goals from the Irishmen of yore. The Irish wanted ‘independence’ for Ireland at first, then the 6 counties in the north later. A tangible goal. Negotiable, if you have the taste for such things. But the goal of Islamist terrorists is…Well, other than kill Westerners/Jews/Christians as often as possible, they have no declared goal.

But they do share a single solution: Kill them, and those that support terrorists in any way, shape, or form. I emphasize the last part, since the first seems to be commonly accepted by anyone with a sense of self-preservation. The second part, however, elicits howls of protests from the squeemish. But it at least as important, if not more so, to kill off the supporters of terrorism as it is to kill the terrorists themselves.

I am not suggesting a Lidice-like solution to every attack. But we certainly need more liberal rules of engagement for our troops in Iraq. We need to give the CIA a free hand in dealing with emergent threats. We need to give our Special Forces whatever is needed to persue terrorists and their supporters, wherever in the world that may be.

For the bazillionth time: This will not be a short war. There is no instant solution, that is certain. We are not even 2 years into this; You need to give the system time to adapt to this new sort of war. Did Great Britain consider throwing in the towel in 1941, even though victory seemed all but impossible? No. Nose to the grindstone, and keep killing the enemy. That is how one wins wars.

89

Your post is meaningless drivel, Brutus. Your solution is this bit:

Fucking brilliant suggestion. If we actually knew who they were, we could do that. Or even just arrest them.

Point is, you’ve got absolutely no clue who’s guilty, who’s innocent. GWB doesn’t either, and so blunders about, making the situation worse rather than better.

90

Scylla: William Westmoreland and all the rest also had impeccable credentials in VietNam. Did them no good whatsoever. Their comments were strikingly similar to those coming out of Iraq now, and their supporters made almost the exact same arguments in justifying that conflict, right up to Brutus’s call for widening the conflict (which Nixon did at that time by invading Cambodia).
That statement about terrorists from Iraq hitting NYC was so breathtakingly inaccurate that I have a hard time believing anyone would say it.

91

You have quoted someone who argued that the Werewolves were not as serious a threat as the current Iraq sabotage. But, the post you’re responding to didn’t claim that they were.

My post said that the Werewolves were an example where strength or force had success as a strategy against terrorists or guerillas. It was not a lie. It was a correct statement .

You owe me an apology, Demostylus.

92

Look US citizens are dying, where’s the proof that we’re any safer now?

I don’t want any analogies to WWII or half-assed analysis.

I want proof that we are safer now.

Considering that there are people still dying as a direct result of this war now that it’s supposedly over, I’d say the cards are stacked against you.

93

Being factual does not necessarily entitle a statement to dress in the finery of truth. Case in point: friend Scylla labors to have us understand that Saddam is no longer capable of mounting a terrorist offensive against the US. This is factual.

However, it pretends to relevence by implying that this is different, this is a change brought about by the timely intervention of GeeDubya & Co. This is balderdash, sir, tommyrot. No evidence exists to support such an extravagant claim.

That the “werewolves” existed is not in doubt. They did. That thier existence has the slightest relevence outside of an exhaustively footnoted history is another matter altogether.

As to requiring an apology for offense to your dignity, I propose to give you the benefit of a doubt. Circumstances being what they are, I’ll take that as a droll joke.

94

Okay, guys. So strength isn’t the answer, huh? That’s just going to make it worse? And invading Iraq wasn’t the answer, right?

So, the question is, What is the answer? Let’s hear your brilliant strategies for ridding the world of terrorism. Or Islamic terrorism, anyway. It’s pretty easy to sit back and throw stones at anyone actually trying to implement a solution and call them idiots - it’s another to come up with a comprehensive strategy of your own and defend it against critics.

So time to put up. What would you do? Let’s hear your logical chain of action that will lead to a safer America.

95

elucidator:

Whatever are you smoking?

Who do you suppose brought this change about, France?

96

Not in the slightest, Sam, not even close.

If I come across a man who has poured gasoline in his lap and is reaching for the matches, I am morally obligated to slap them out of his hand. That is urgent, immediate necessity. I am not obligated to suggest alternatives, or at least not with the same urgency. I may suggest he take up macrame, or go bowling. I may not. But my first obligation is to prevent him from doing something blindly self-destructive.

Besides which, given the belligerancy with which you pose the question, one has scant hope of an open-minded consideration on your part.

97

**

But to continue semantically splitting hairs, what the guy said was “On the order of.”

150,000 is on the same order as several hundred thousand. I would say that for a hypothetical in March from a party trying to be sure not to underestimate the gravitas of what was needed that this reflects with current reality sufficiently.

Not that it matters. The guy dealing with facts, not hypotheticals says he has enough.

And I’ll agree that’s the problem. What you’re doing is taking a leap in logic to assume that more troops will alleviate the situation. This is not necessarily so. In fact, you have put your finger on the problem. The problem is finding them. Specific intelligence is what we’re lacking, not the ability to project power and deal with threats. We have the latter in place.

Again, what state of disorder?

Again, how do increased troops solve the problem.

The American press seems to be focused on what happens to our troops and other foreigners involved in the reconstruction; for them, what happens to Iraqis isn’t the story. The British press is doing a better job of covering the overall situation. **
[/QUOTE]

98

Scylla

I have since early adulthood maintained a strict regimen of glaucoma prevention. I have never had glaucoma, nor have I the slightest intention of taking any such risk. I fear that you lack the psychic flexibility required for such hygenic practices, hence I cannot, in good conscience, recommend it.

No change has been brought about worthy of the name. You have not, nor can you, produce any reliable evidence that Saddam posed a threat to the US. Facts, friend Scylla, facts!

If you have them, by all means, bring them on. Failing that, be so kind as not to trouble our attention with innuendo and implications. Perhaps you can inflate a Japanese condom into a Zeppelin, given enough hot air. Still won’t fly.

99

I knew what you were saying and I addressed it.

Iraqi terrorists are not just the issue. Saddam’s funding and aiding terrorists, as well is.

It is no longer a possibility that he will be able to do these things.

100

But the invasion gave plenty of time for the Osama clans to regroup, especially in Africa and East Asia.