I read it as implying that Americans are better than the kind of people that blow up civilians Harborwolf. I don’t think any group can be excluded from a potential terrorist subset based solely on their nationality. That is all I meant. If I took you up wrong then I’m sorry.
Hey Redfury don’t you read other pit threads 
Dunno, I would think going legit would reduce their current effectiveness. They’d just be another crazy party, the Libertarians of the desert. 
D&R…
21 Dead soldiers in the past 2 days. <sigh>
Maybe you should make this your sig?
Nope. We’re discussing the American presence in Iraq and I do think that we are closer to helping them than the insurgents. If they were to pack up their explosives and put that energy into helping rebuild their country, the “jackbooted foreign oppressors” would be able to pack up and get the heck out of dodge. I think we’d even be happy to do so.
Right now, we can’t. If we were to pack up before the country were stable, there would be all kinds of civil war and the country would end up no better than they were before the war and likely worse.
The way this thread is going, I’m considering it.
What Kimstu said. I can’t improve on that.
The insurgency appears to be drawn from three factions: foreign Jihadists, Ba’athists looking to restore their power, and Sunni nationalists looking to keep down the Shia. Many of the latter two groups are little more than bandit gangs whose interest is not to drive the U.S. out, but rather to profit from the instability. To call them “patriots” is really to stretch the word beyond all meaning. I guess the Jihadists have a sort of twisted idealism, but it’s more of a “kill the westerners” idealism rather than a “let’s liberate Iraq” idealism.
And I have a difficult time understanding why anyone would be rooting for people who did this.
FTR, I opposed the Iraq war, mostly because I thought it was imprudent and unneccesary, and would bog us down in nation-building of the most difficult sort.
Unfortunately I don’t think Iraq will ever be stable. From it’s creation it has needed some form of jackboot oppression to keep it together. There will never be peace in Iraq with it’s current make up IMO and if it does happen it will only be after a long and very bloody civil war.
As nasty as it may sound these problems generally have to be dealt with internally and can’t easily be imposed on people. Too many people have vested interests to just roll over and accept imposed rule. The ‘freedom’ that is promised to Iraqi’s will only give people freedom to fight for their own selfish needs.
I’m just pointing out that sometimes the best way to fight ignorance is to show it’s reverse image in a mirror. As can be seen by my post at #37, I’m not a big fan of the insurgants either. But ignorance into how the rest of the world sees this conflict and an unflinching defense of America’s intentions isn’t going to help ourselves. I would venture to say that this administration’s continued stubborness to admit any wrongdoing has only buried us deeper. An enlightened and diplomatic approach will help get our boys and girls home safe,
Instead this administration remains in denial, buries it’s head further into the sand that it has pounded up it’s ass, moves the goal posts, puts an asshole into the UN when we could use their help, and is exposed more daily as a bad actor. It’s no wonder that there is no pressure for the surrounding countries and communities, *the ones who actually have some power to turn opinion inside Iraq *to help out. They have no reason to. The ‘My Country right or wrong’ bullshit that is coming out of this administration and it’s supporters is only working to kill more of our soldiers.
And if the Israelis and Palestinians would just go “fuck it, this is stupid let’s work together”, then that problem would be solved too, it’s that easy.
As long as Iraq is destabilized, the insurgents are accomplishing their goals and winning the conflict. The longer we’re there, the more likelyhood of us during stupid things that make us look really really bad. This war is creating more terrorists globally then we’re eliminating, just through sheer PR value alone.
Bravo! Great post.
You can quibble about how long it took or the reasons behind it all you want, certainly with justification, but without western economic pressure driving change, blacks in South Africa would still be shuffling their feet and saying “Yes Baas” to the Boer. In Iraq, the US has forcefully overthrown a brutal minority ruling party that was oppressing a majority of the population. If this was South Africa and the insurgents were waving flags featuring 3 armed Swastikas, I bet you would be singing a different tune.
[VeggieTales]God’s way is the best waaaaaaayyyyy.[/VeggieTales]
Enjoy,
Steven
MrDribble, the next time you want to give a huge gift to the right-wing cranks on this board, you might want to consider gift wrapping it.
Like this one from GD.
For the record, it was Debaser who said what you quoted, not me. I was just quoting him.
Even if the insurgents only targeted American troops in traditional battle, they would still be fascist scum.
The ‘insurgency’ is made up largely of two groups: The remnants of Saddam’s fascist totalitarian state, who had privilege and power before and want it back, and foreign jihadists who are flooding into Iraq to attempt to squelch democracy and terrorize the population so that they give up and allow themselves to be dominated by an Islamist theocracy.
The average Iraqi HATES the insurgency.
Ask yourself this: If the U.S. left tomorrow, would the insurgency go away? Or would it step up its efforts to destabilize the country, overthrow elected leaders, and install its own bunch of thugs?
These scumbags are worse than Hitler’s brownshirts. They are fanatical, genocidal maniacs, and anyone cheering for them to win is either completely ignorant of the facts, or an obnoxious idiot, or both.
And they wonder why some of us say there are a few on the left who are actually rooting for the other side.
Great post? For another thread maybe. Your first sentence in post 37 made a wonderful point directly related to the OP. But, hey why not take another opportunity to point out what’s wrong with the U.S. What fresh insight!
You can’t even take an unequivocal stance against animals that blow up kids being handed candy? Unfuckingbelievable.
I don’t really see why a fascist regime gains any credibility simply by being homegrown. I also don’t like the “there is an enemy therefore the other side must be a friend” mentality. In this case, a hatred of the foreign US troops implies that the insurgents, regardless of motives, gets a free pass. This is a very bad idea.
Ultimately, the question is what is in the best interest of Iraqi lives? Would a pull out of the US troops at this point pave the way for democracy to take root? Or would the whole country collapse under the weight of political in-fighting? Or would a minority/majority race or religion take control and oppress the rest?
MrDibble, you say that you do not give a shit what the Iraqis do to each other, but rather are interested in what they do to US troops. This tells me that you are less interested in the actual fate of average Iraqis and more interested in viewing this as a spectator sport, where you hope your guy wins. This is an attitude which I have noticed on both sides of arguments like this. It’s a tragedy, because real people are caught in the middle while the rest of us watch on, popcorn and remote in hand.