Iraq and Vietnam

[pantom]

I am advocating that they sell it, you know, so I wouldn’t take that bet.
I wouldn’t believe it, but I’d be happy to buy it.

[annaplurabelle]

@xtisme

On the other hand, the numbers of Insurgents is also growing…at least according to the article I mentioned earlier. They showed a progression of estimates from 4-5k all the way up to 40+k for the insurgency. If its 40+k we and the Iraqi’s have serious problems.

This is from the BBC:

The head of Iraq’s intelligence service Gen Muhammad Shahwani now puts the number of insurgents at 200,000, of which 40,000 are said to be the hard core and the rest active supporters.

These figures do not represent an insurgency. They represent a war.

Is there any reason to doubt these numbers, one way or the other? (I’m asking sincerely, since it’s increasingly difficult to determine who or what to believe re Iraq).

If true, the US troops are outnumbered. How do you propose to deal with that problem? Seems to me you need either more boots on the ground (a draft?), or a withdrawal plan. But I’m no military expert…

[elucidator]

I quite understand. I’ll meet you behind the tree, when we’re puking out guts out.

[elucidator]

That was to Pantom, of course.

[ElvisL1ves]

Ahem. About that Iraqi army so much depends on:

Bush administration officials and specialists now acknowledge it could take years to prepare viable police and military units unless the current training program improves dramatically.

In some of the most violent areas of the country, Iraqi forces have been ''rendered ineffective," the State Department wrote in the report dated Jan. 5. Due to intimidation and attacks by insurgents, ''large numbers" of police, highway patrol, and border enforcement personnel ''have quit or abandoned their stations," it said. And many units are still waiting for key equipment such as rifles and ammunition, the report said.

…
US commanders and Iraq specialists say one of the biggest failures has been to focus too much on numbers of troops trained – portrayed by Bush as a sign of progress during the recent US election campaign – and not enough on the quality of the training.

[ralph124c]

Which I advocated two years ago: write the whole damn thing off! Allow Iraq to be dismembered into three states, and encourage civil violence between the factions. We migh even arm the Kurds. Then, sit back within fortified bases, and let the whole thing burn itself out. Will it be nice? No, but at least we won’t be involved in it. Maybe these people WANT this state of affairs…if so, let them have it!

[BrainGlutton]

@Ryan_Liam

I don’t see how you can sympathise for people who kill your fellow countrymen, and chop off heads and cripple and destroy countless Iraqi lives who are only working to make their lives a little bit better than the countless tyrannies they’ve experienced in their lives.

I don’t much sympathize with them. They’re fanatics, villains and fools. OTOH, they are fighting for, among other less admirable things, their own country’s independence, and against an illegal and exploitive foreign occupation. (I admit the exploitation aspect hasn’t worked out so well – how much Iraqi oil has Halliburton actually been able to export since the occupation began? – but anyone who doubts that was one of the principal aims of the invasion is completely deluded.) And they see perfectly well that under the circumstances of the occupation, no election will give Iraq anything but a new U.S.-controlled puppet government with more clout than the one they’ve got now, and the occupation will continue as long as the Bush Admin wants to maintain it, and the U.S. will position itself to go on controlling that government even after our troops leave.

But it doesn’t matter, does it? For these purposes, who I “sympathize” with is completely irrelevant. If we’re going to have Board rules about wishing death on people, it should be applied without reference to any judgment as to whether those people deserve it. (Debating whether they deserve it is, of course, perfectly legitimate and essential to what we’re doing here.) If you can get away with wishing death to the insurgents in this forum, then I demand the right to wish death on President Bush, his entire Cabinet and Administration, the CEOs and Boards of Directors of a lot of major corporations, and anybody else I might find objectionable. I demand the right, if the humor should strike me, to advocate in this forum for an armed revolution that might end in a lot of now-prominent Americans getting shot by a firing squad, live on television. I do not, here and now, express any such death-wishes, I merely demand the right to do so without getting banned. Whaddaya say, Mods?

[BrainGlutton]

@xtisme

Afaik, Alde wasn’t banned…just spanked by the mods. And if memory serves he didn’t just wish ill on the American troops but said something to the effect that he’d like to go there and bag his limit himself.

He was banned. See http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=293642 and http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=294490.

@xtisme

Along with those two groups, who, IMHO make up the majority of at least what brains this resistance has, you probably have some truely disaffected Iraqi spear carriers…getting shafted by both sides.

Nyuk-nyuk-nyuk!

[BrainGlutton]

@Ryan_Liam

Laughable, the French resistance at least wanted to return France to democratic principles and government, whereas the insurgents don’t.

<snip>

Even though we’re trying and succeeding, I admit at a heavy price to implement democracy, we’re helping them achieve what they’ve been denied for years, and I believe it was the only way they could of been liberated, the situation had deteriotated that badly it took an outside force to implement change.

But ever since WWII, the international community has accepted the principle – such international peace as we have had has been based on the principle – that national sovereignty is a more important consideration than the value of any particular political or social system. By that standard, we have no more right to invade any despotism to give its people democracy than North Korea would have a right to invade South Korea to impose Communism.

[BrainGlutton]

@ralph124c

Which I advocated two years ago: write the whole damn thing off! Allow Iraq to be dismembered into three states, and encourage civil violence between the factions. We migh even arm the Kurds. Then, sit back within fortified bases, and let the whole thing burn itself out. Will it be nice? No, but at least we won’t be involved in it. Maybe these people WANT this state of affairs…if so, let them have it!

From the U.S. perspective, that is not an option. Everybody in Iraq would be preoccupied with the conflict, nobody would work the oilfields, lines of transportation would be blocked by fortified borders, and it would impossible to get any oil out of the country. (Not that we’re getting much now . . .)