Iraq Government Misses All Targets

Great Debates
61

Where the fuck did I say or claim that someone said “war is fun(tm”)?

OTOH, yes, MH, ONLY speaks of “hitting insurgents.” Or can you find anything/anywhere in his posts where he at least acknowledges the high number of innocent civilians being killed by your fucking “surge”?

Personally, I think my prior post that appears to have riled you up so much, is not only in context – because, obviously, the more innocent civilians you butcher, the more “insurgents” and “AQ affiliates” your going to have – but rather one of the most salient points to this whole thread.

Perhaps visual aids might help you understand what I speak of. From the horse’s mouth:

KILL EVERYBODY: American soldier exposes US policy in Iraq

Meanwhile, if you don’t like either my posts or my evident disgust with this lawless, imperialist invasion, I’d invite you to ignore them. Shouldn’t be too difficult as the few of you who still support this genocide are quite willing to make your own reality – as you have from day one. Starting with your Boy King and his cohorts and their infamous “they’ll greet us with flowers.”

62

Where did I say I supported the war, or support genecide? :confused:

Your whole rant here makes my point, I think. You have no interest in the topic of the thread (which is the military or political goals not being met by the Iraqi government, and what the appropriate US response should be), but rather what Redfury thinks of the war. Okeedokee, opinion noted.

I will let this drop. Have a good one!

63

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,289181,00.html

Even the most right wing of comentators can see the writing on the wall.

64

Duh…

Half of the goals were “achieved” in only four-ish months. Ergofore, we’re halfway there. Four months and we’re gold, Jerry. Gold!

Can anyone explain to me the magic of “September”? What is this analysis method that makes it undeniably certain that in September we will be able to do a completely reliable analysis?

BTW, for those forgetting, it was Our Lord Dubya (and his Secretary) who said we’d be able to judge in six months. That was six months ago.

-Joe

65

Oh, and by the way, since you seem to be so concerned about sticking to the OP, the FACT IS that said surge, as laid-out by the opening post, is a PATHETIC FAILURE on all counts – parroting propaganda aside:

Bush’s optimism is impossible to square with the situation in Iraq

– highlights all mine. Delusions all BushCo’s and their dwindling band of sycophants.

On topic, are we?

66

Timed-out double post

67

Uh, no. All that a static snapshot tells us is that things are currently bad. No one is disputing that.

If this were 1941, I could point to signs that all was lost and the world should just surrender to the axis. Give Japan its sphere of influence, sue for peace with Germany and hope to save Britain. In the early stages of the war, the allies were in retreat everywhere. Half the U.S. fleet was smoking in Pearl Harbor. MacArthur was pushed out of the Phillippines. Paris fell. The first few engagements the U.S. got into ended in disaster. Rommel was storming around Africa. Britain was being pounded by aerial bombardment. In the meantime, the U.S.'s military hardware was outclassed by Germany and Japan.

And yet, all was not lost. It just took years of hard work, courage, and sacrifice. And even later in the war, there were huge setbacks and costly mistakes. Operation Market Garden was a disaster. A training mission for D-Day killed 700 soldiers in one accident. Major errors on D-Day cost thousands of additional lives. Later on, the Battle of the Bulge happened when everyone thought the Germans were done for - and killed nineteen thousand allied soldiers. That one engagement killed more than six times as many soldiers as have been lost in Iraq to date.

And yet, we perservered. I happen to think it was worth it.

Iraq is currently in a state of low-level conflict. There is a putatively friendly government in power, which is paralzyed by factionalism. The situation on the ground is bad, but improving slowly. The casualty rate, while always sad, is nowhere near limits of unsustainability. There has been some political progress - the latest report says that 8 of 18 political goals have moved forward. The military strategy has changed to one that has a proven track record against insurgencies, and is showing signs of working.

This describes a bad situation getting marginally better, not a hopeless situation and a lost war. People telling themselves that the war is already lost are doing so to avoid having to make the moral choice of attempting to save the situation at the cost of Allied blood and treasure vs sacrificing untold thousands to the violence that will erupt if the allies leave. It’s comforting to tell yourself that it’s hopeless, because then the issue is out of your hands, and you bear no moral responsibility for the results of your political demands.

But if the situation isn’t hopeless, and there’s a chance to still manage some sort of satisfactory conclusion that avoids major bloodshed, then advocating a pull-out DOES give you moral responsibility for the consequences, just as advocating a continuation of the military mission gives you a moral responsibility for the outcome of that.

68

Read, Sam, read. And then deal with the hard, cold, facts. If the cite I posted right above your post is not enough – and I doubt anything will ever be enough for some of you True Believers – I have plenty more. And they are all from journalist that are doing their job, not simply (again) parroting what the WH wants amplified – like the simplistic “8 our 18 goals have moved forward” that you duly repeat without analyzing what they are truly saying. IOW, do those eight mean anything as opposed to the other ten? More info, Sam, more info and less spin is what I am talking about:

Our view on the War in Iraq: Report card on Iraq ‘surge’ ignites misleading debate

Not going to bother to C&P since I don’t believe those of you still supporting this atrocity even bother reading what I slice into easily digested snacks for you. Why put in the work?

My fault anyway. Should know better after five plus years of dealing with people who create their own reality.

:::shrug:::

69

Yeah, right.

Nope, you are 5 years early. Most of that happened in 1942, this would be like 1946 and we have a president that would have invaded the Soviet Union instead of attacking Hitler.

It worked in Algeria all right, by making the other groups opposed to occupation take the opposition role when the so called most extremists were removed. In the end France had to leave.

No this descrives El Salvador x10, sure there is no more war now, but maras and death squads remain, and I do see the “margianlly better” coming from the fact that 2 million are refugees and more than a quarter million are dead in Iraq. The “peacefulness” and “success” (because it is still not going to work when the people is opposed to you) now is the result of us becoming what we feared.

What was that excluded middle? Oh yeah, redeployment. And as for “moral choice” turning everything into a paradise for mercenaries and death squads is not a good moral choice, and yet that is what we got from this administration.

No, you are still telling yourself that the same group that told you there were weapons of mass destruction can still be trusted, that is hopeless. And I already mentioned that I expect the right in the USA to become so fed up that they will be the ones that will remove funding for Iraq, even for redeployment efforts.

I don’t see any responsibility being taken from the ones in power that share those views.

70

There are still people who think the surge can work, that Iraq can be put back together, that we can cozy up to the 70% of the population who want to kill us in cold blood? That a “political solution” can be met that will matter as sewage and dead bodies filled with drill holes litter the streets? Bless their hearts. As for the OP…

“Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid.” – Mark Twain

It’s hard to see what the GOP wants to do. To me it looks like they’re going all the way on this one, going down with the ship as it were. A couple vulnerable GOPers are clucking in an attempt to have it both ways, but if you read their statements they still support the occupation, they just want a “new strategy” and not be associated with Bush, who is radioactive for future prospects (aka “Mr. 26%”).

I wouldn’t count on getting enough votes for a veto challenge. That’s crazy! They won’t even impeach Gonzo, they can barely pass a college bill, the idea of getting a veto proof majority before 2009 sounds crazy to me. Not even all the Dems want to leave Iraq! There are plenty of Blue Dogs and DLCs to be persuaded. Plus you’d have to get, what is it, 16 GOPers + Lieberman to go along? Mmm hmm…

But yes, the GOP is in trouble. If they don’t want to go down with Bush they could be setting up a (potentially) genius strategy where Bush declares victory in the summer of 2008, withdraws 100,000 troops to much praise and adulation, and then leaves that last 40-50K chunk + Blackwater, et. al in those hardened military bases. If could work to secure a GOP victory in 2008 in the White House as long as the MSM plays their role. I think Bush is far too gone into “true believer” status to pull that one off, thankfully.

Otherwise, the troops ain’t coming home. Period. Not as long as Bush is in office. Unless, maybe, that delicious oil bill is somehow signed. It’d take a miracle, since the people who would have to sign it would probably find themselves hanging from lamp posts the next morning and the streets would explode.

None of the Dem candidates are pulling us out, either, at least not completely, and I can’t imagine they wouldn’t try to work their magic for a year or two. They want those nice military bases anyway. They may dramatically reduce the size of our footprint as in the scenario above, but don’t kid yourselves. The only way all the troops are leaving is if the Iraqis take matters into their hands, which doesn’t look doable because with most insurgencies that work that way it seems they eventually snowball into a conventional force to finally throw the occupier out, but if that happened we could just bomb the hell out of them from the sky.

They are getting very good at it, though – we’ve been averaging 100+ dead per month for awhile now, and if we continue the strategy of leaving isolated posts/small groups living in the ocean of hostility I’d expect to see more and more stories of small groups of soldiers being lost completely (it’s already happened several times, actually, but I mean more widespread).

71

They just need more time. Wait till they get back from thier August vacation, tanned, rested and ready. Ponies.

72

That’s the ticket! According to Peter Pace, the Iraqi military had ten battalions operating independently last March, and now have six. Ignoring the general’s specious claim that a 40% reduction is a “minor variation”, a simple, linear extrapolation leads to the conclusion that the Iraqi’s will have zero battalions operating independently by next January. Once they reach that nadir, the Iraqis can begin to stand up, so that America can stand down.

-Progress around the corner is progress today!

73

You are now. Please, allow me to explain. I am treating your posts seriously, honest.

(Hehe. I know I said I would drop it, but I would rather leave you with the impression that I am a reasonable guy, and willing to listen to what you say, despite your name calling.)

Here’s how I saw this thread develope…

From the OP:

OK, that’s the OP.

So, a debate eventually developes on whether the surge (and the Iraqi Benchmarks as outlined in post #19 by Kimstu) is actually a failure.

Your first post here is thread #55, where you post stories of atrocities, as reported by thenation.com.

That article, I assume, took time to write and edit. “50 veterans interviewed, within dozens of these statements”. The surge is only a 4 or 5 months old, with the peak number of troops coming in country just this month. The troops interviewed, who are bound to be scattered across the US, are very likely speaking of experiences that occured before the surge started. Indeed, the article states in the first paragraph

(Bolding mine.)

The problem is, those atrocities (even if they represent a true picture of the overall war), are not a policy product of the surge, or the Iraqi Benchmarks.

Since the soldiers in your linked article were not deployed on the current surge (which some were debating), it seemed to me that you were merely coming in to plant this bomb in the thread just to “vent” about the war in general.

Hence my comments in post #57.

In your rebuttal post #61, you again post what I assume to be an anecdote of a soldiers experiences in Iraq. (I am not going to create a Youtube account. Dont want the spam.) Is he discussing the current surge? Or were his experiences pre-surge? (My WAG is that they are pre-surge.)

Anyway, you close the post with a request that if I disagree with your posts, I should ignore them. (In other words, shut up and let you post unchallenged. In a Forum section labeled “Great Debates”. Irony?)

However:

Post #65 is on topic, in so far as it is an editorial by stating that the surge failed. Not conclusive proof, just opinion, but it is On Topic. :slight_smile:

I notice you snipped this:

Then the author gives one other possible explanation for the “improvements”, but then spends the next two paragraphs, basically saying “Well, its still fucked up over there!”

Please don’t be mad. I do indeed treat all the doper’s views with all due seriousness and thought. I am fully aware of my own limitations.

74

Sam Stone:

Your characterization of the change in strategy is spot on. I’m sure the powers that be wished we had performed such sane counter insurgency at the start so we could be fully in control of Iraq, shove in a puppet, and move on to greener pastures, like Iran. I’m actually glad they were stopped, although at a terrible price to the Iraqi people.

Your characterization of our current situation in Iraq as comparable to that of the U.S. in WWII in 1941 is…very disagreeable. I think it’s best we all forget you even mentioned it (if you haven’t noticed, Bush has attempted to compare our current occupation to almost every war within the past 300 years that the average Joe will connect with being a “good idea,” except the ones which might actually stand up to a test, like, say counter-insurgencies in Algeria, the Philippines, our myriad adventures in Central/South America, or Vietnam, although he has referenced Vietnam as an example of the dangers of us liberals and war critics).

As for the moral culpability of those who call for a withdraw, yeah we’re responsible. You’re correct that many people mistakenly disregard the dangers, with many examples in this thread even. If we picked up and left a shit load of people will die. Of course, it’s debatable if more people will die in the spasms of war after we leave or if more will die in our attempt to pacify them through years, or decades of occupation and then leaving and then having the country erupt. We can’t know for sure either way.

A major obstacle in this chain of logic, by the way, is that we, both as a country in general and the leaders who run things, don’t give a shit about the Iraqi people, beyond a minimum threshold where the country is stable enough for us to operate military bases to extend our power in the region, make some corporations extremely happy via contracts, and eventually sell their oil and/or hold it hostage as leverage if need be in future geo-politics. This must enter into any moral equations we perform. Needless to say, I think all of that is bullshit and anything we do to get closer to that goal isn’t good. But that’s just me.

If you’ll notice the propaganda they use, it’s rarely about how many Iraqi people will die. Why? Average Americans don’t care. We just don’t. What they do say is that the terrorists will come if we leave Iraq and hide under our beds. That scares us. Or, that’s the intent anyway. I think we’ve built up a resistance to that, which is why some 65%+ of the U.S. population wants to leave on a timeline no matter what Bush and pals say. They’ve become immune to his lies.

But, returning to the moral problem, the only sure bet among those who want out is that a lot more Iraqis are going die and leave the country, no matter what happens. We’re monsters no matter what happens, what can I say? I look forward to the day when the U.S.’s imperialism is checked, hopefully in a peaceful internal realization that we should be part of the world community instead of through, say, an economic collapse.

Rest of the thread:

The Brookings Institution recently released a 60ish page report that is available here (WARNING: PDF!). There are many fun facts and figures to digest.

Page 14:

Numbers of civilian violently killed per month:
November = 3500
December = 3000
January 07 = 3000
February = 2500
March = 2750
April = 2890
May = 3000
June = 2600

This means, if I don’t suck at adding, that ~23,240 civilians have died in an 8 month time span. I couldn’t find anywhere where it talks about non-violent deaths – you know, similar to the sanctions from the 90s and early 00s? Those caused mass die offs. I wonder how the two situations would compare. If the infrastructure doesn’t even meet pre-war levels in many cases, which were already not good enough, then it must be comparable, and I’ve read figures of about 100,000 dying per year during the sanctions.

Iraqi refugees per month:
January = 90,000
February = 90,000
March = 90,000
April = 90,000
May = 80,000
June = 70,000

Look at the Iraqi opinion polls at the bottom.

97% of the Sunni population opposes the occupation
83% of the Shia oppose
25% of the Kurds oppose

The Iraqi population has experienced the following since the occupation:

Family member killed = 26%
Friend/colleague killed = 12%
Family member kidnapped = 8%
Kidnapping of friend/colleague = 6%
None of the above: 50% (21% in Baghdad!)

Do you think the U.S. will permanently occupy Iraq?:

Agree 80% (67 Kurd, 79 Shia, 92 Sunni)

Do you approve of a withdraw of occupation forces by timeline?:

Agree 87% (64 Kurd, 90 Shia, 94 Sunni)

Nothing we didn’t know already, but it’s always good to have it in black and white and to see the fluctuations (I did learn one thing – the Kurds maybe don’t like the occupation as much as I thought previously).

As for the drama which will be coming the rest of the year, especially in September, I don’t think the U.S. population will be buying it. They’ve been bitten too many times, and the polls show an overwhelming support for withdraw by timelines. I don’t see them being “convinced” to support Bush again unless he does what they want, does anyone really? So all the lies which will be flying will be useless, except for that last, durable 30%, and that makes me happy.

It’s funny though, the great thing about being a White House mouth piece is that no matter what happens you’re right and we’re “winning.” If the mass death, refugees, attacks, etc. are the worst of the entire war up to that point you can say that the insurgency is on the run and launching desperate attacks and that’s why things are so bad. When the attacks, deaths, refugees etc. are down compared to the peak, then that means we’re turning a corner. Of course, there’s never a follow through when this happens the next time, as each year brings higher and higher peaks. As far as I can see, the only force “in its last throes,” to use Cheney’s characterization of the insurgency a couple years ago, is the U.S. army.

I’ve been reading through the grave vine that they may be facing a serious crisis circa March-April of 2008. It’s just not sustainable unless they extend deployment even further.

75

mlees, I’m going to make this very brief, since I’ve already addressed the main point of your queries in my post #61.

Simply put, surge or no surge, you keep killing innocent Iraqis at a rather high rate (see the Brooking’s Institute numbers posted by marshmallow, which include after-surge casualties) thus having a multiplying effect on the number of resistance fighters – or whatever you’d like to call them.

You may also look at the poll numbers amongst Iraqis themselves: it couldn’t be any plainer that by a great majority (Kurds aside, and even they want a timetable for your departure as well) want you gone. Add that to the fact that your own General Petraeus talks about a “ten year time-frame to quell the insurgency,” and you can easily conclude that every additional day you stay in Iraq, is only going to generate more resentment. Never mind the fact – as those soldiers in the article and the one in YouTube illustrate – that your own forces are, as Powell said a few months ago “at their breaking point,” and that over 2/3 of your country’s own population is against your prolonged engagement.

Combine all of those data-points and see what they add up to. At best, all the Bush is trying to do is prolong the occupation until he leaves the WH. That way, not only does he hand-off the problem to someone else, but he can always claim “if only we would have stayed on the course I laid-out.”

After five years, I doubt many are still swallowing said Bushit. Just think of all the “turning points” that have come and gone during said time frame. And what’s happened to each and everyone of them.

76

Hearts and minds. I love it. How do you win hearts and minds as an occupier. Conditions in Iraq have decayed in the last 5 years or so. How do you tell the Iraqis that all the people that were killed do not count. How do you tell them that the destroyed infrastructure, living without water and electricity for years was just a miscalculation. Mosques have been destroyed, hospitals leveled people have been living in fear. Forget about it . We have a new general and all will be well.
A general. Not a diplomat. Not a religious person . But a general will save you. So quit fighting back now.
We should just take our oil and leave.

77

Abu Ghraib no longer counts. People in Iraq must learn that it is so yesterday.
A war that is fought like this one is will result in atrocities on a daily basis. They must be ignored. We have a new general after all.

78

If indeed this is a new attitude,and tactics change then why is the 2o k more troops significant. If the change is tactics and attitude it should have been implemented when Peterus took over. Therefore the report could be written now.

79

Sam, this isn’t 1941. This is 1949. We won the Iraq war 4 years ago. It’s over. For the last 4 years we’ve been trying to nation build, and now we’re mediating a Civil War. Thing is, we’re not even picking sides-- we’re fighting against both major factions as if we could just beat them into submission. The whole point of the surge was to create some “space” so that the political process could move forward. We can argue all day about whether or not we’ve created that space, but the bottom line is that the political process isn’t moving forward. So, either the surge isn’t creating the needed “space” or that “space” isn’t helping the process move forward. Granted, it’s only July and the “surge” has only been fully operational for 1 month, but the Iraqi parliament hasn’t even thrown us a bone. They seem intent on fighting a civil war, and I don’t see how we can stop them.

Despite all the posturing from the various sides about wanting us out, I suspect they’re happy to see us stay and provide some buffer against the violence. The Shi’a are happy to have us help them fight the Sunni, and Sunni are happy to have us shield them from the Shi’a militias. The thing that might, just might, make those two sides decide they need to talk to each other is if we announce that we’re getting out of there. Let them stare that reality in the face and decide if they want to escalate this civil war or try to make some kind of political accommodation. We’re not going to get out of there tomorrow, but as soon as we announce that we’re in the process of getting out, I think the ground rules will change for the two major factions.

80

I’m old enough to remember an earlier escalation, emphasizing body count, and the soldiers’ slogan “If it’s dead, it’s Cong.”

What makes you think that view is in any way related to reality?

What would constitute high-level conflict, then? :dubious:

Only if you beleive absolutely everything that Bush tells you, without looking into what it says at all. Read it yourself. Note that even he is using any change at all in a situation as evidence of not only “progress”, but “satisfactory progress” - and even then, he can’t find any way at all to spin the most important benchmarks, the ones this escalation was intended to provide the conditions for, into such a minimal definition.

Think back now: How well has that approach of yours, absolute belief in whatever Bush says, served you over the last 6.5 years? :dubious: Aren’t you tired of being fooled yet?