@Sam Stone This is the second time that you have made a cogent presentation of views that are held by people in support of the Iraq invasion. The arguments are quite persuasive - to someone of a fairly benign mindset with a charitable view of human nature and no understanding of the Middle East.
Probably, for cultural reasons, you don’t understand the visceral hatred that people have for invaders. Daphne du Maurier wrote a book called ‘Rule Britannia’. It is a simple, almost child like novel, but well worth reading. The plot is that the UK falls into economic decline with the possibility of a revolution, so the government ‘invites’ the USA to send over troops to help out - initially things are fine, it then slides into a bloodbath.
@All I don’t think that the US is training Iraqi troops and police, those guys understand the local culture - and they know how to deal with opposition. They are using the US troops as ‘robot warriors’ - they probably snigger because the stupid f/ckers don’t speak Arabic and can’t distinguish regional accents.
What the USA is doing is training the insurgents in guerilla warfare, and it looks as if they are doing a grand job of it.
In the South the UK is probably doing a better, but equally useless, job - simply because our troops have memories of Northern Ireland. Even then, the UK are in a lousy position to conduct ‘intelligence driven’ surgical … assasination - the highlight is attacking a police station as it is really an enemy base.
@Brainglutton I was aware that the Iraqi bit of Kurdistan (or Kurdish bit of Iraq) has been used as a coridoor between Iran and Syria, but I would be very surprized if ‘Al Qaeda’ had any permanent presence there.
I’m not exactly sure what ‘Al Qaeda’ is nowadays, probably little more than a loose organization of thugs extracting cash from reluctant, but cowed, Middle Eastern businessmen.
@All My view is that we should get out, in future we should restrict ourselves to surgical high tech operations, covert operations - but never ‘boots on the ground’ stuff, well never urban warfare.
The astonishing thing is that the USA learnt that in Somalia.
It wouldn’t be Easter without a martyr on a cross, and we are so lucky **Sam ** eagerly volunteered again this year! You are the only one to call yourself a ‘chickenhawk’, so knock off all the whining about how unfair the mods are.
Indeed you have been BB – and I remember reading some mighty fine posts by you on the topic at hand. However, this time around, it appears we’ll have to agree to disagree.
Because, from my POV, China and Iran must just love Americans (and/or any of her allies, or individuals) who think like this – you know, Sam’s “side”. America clearly does not know when to fold and China is just lovin’ it.
This war is being prosecuted with ever diminishing hopes for a miracle turnaround. The prospects that it may pay off are diminishing to the point of vanishing but the continuation of the war does not come without a cost. For the tiny possibility that something small may be gained, let us do a cost-benefit analysis. Let us look at the costs.
There is a cost in the standing of the USA in the world and I think most Americans are just not aware of just how low America’s standing in the world is these days. There are plenty of nations out there, including European, who have standing arrest warrants against agents of the American government. You know, like it used to be with Libya. America has become a rogue nation by all standards. A nation sheltering people accused of terrorism. In the meantime China’s standing and influence are growing greatly. China’s influence in Africa and South America are growing exponentially.
But there is also an economic cost. America does not have the money to pay for this war and it is paying for it with money borrowed … from China! And, of course, China is just too willing to lend money for America to dig its own grave. The US is addicted to power and China lends it money to feed that addiction knowing that it will lead to the weakening and downfall of their competitor. And America just continues with its addiction not wanting to face reality. China lends money to the US by buying treasury debt. America spends thousands upon thousands of borrowed dollars training and equipping its soldiers with the best of the best. And all so that an Iraqi insurgent equipped with $2.50 of dynamite, kindly donated by Iran or even China, can blow these soldiers to kingdom come. Is this really a good course to follow for the vanishingly low chance that Iraqis may all get drunk and/or high one day and proclaim they do want to be America’s puppet after all? It seems to me the chances are that the winner in all this is and will be China who at the end of the day will be holding America by the nuts. China holds more than one trillion dollars in US debt and it is rising by $17 billion a month (Newsweek Sept. 4, 2006 issue). Do Americans really think it is a good idea to continue borrowing money to pay for this war?
It is comical in a sad sort of way how America is willing to pay millions just to delay by one more day accepting they have been defeated. It is no longer about victory but about losing face so nobody uses the word “defeat” just like nobody uses the word “withdrawal”. It’s “victory” and “redeployment”. It is just so puerile when seen from outside. Truly sad. Sad in a Baghdad Bob sort of way.
Trust that makes not just some sense to you, but also yet another (convincing) argument of why I said that there really is no ‘other side.’
You wouldn’t think so if you just read the headlines this morning: Iraqis march in honor of Baghdad’s fall
Made me think of flowers, and kisses, until I looked a bit deeper:
So, the next six months will be crucial? That has an oddly familiar knell to it. Like the muffled funeral bell for the lives to be sacrificed. For “glimmers”, Sam.
Bush is stalling for time. I credit him with sincerity, he really believes this buttwhistle. Just a little longer, a few more months, maybe a year, OK, two at most, two and a half at the outside, well, maybe three, we’ll have to see…
Not at all sure what point you’re trying to make with this, Sam. Gen Petraeus seems an ok sort of fellow, I suppose. Hippies probably are not the best analysts of a generals tactical and strategic savvy. Thats probably best left to Canadian software guys, who have a firm grasp on military realities. Are you putting forth the (rather astonishing!) premise that confirming Petraeus is somehow tantamount to a ringing endorsement of his “strategy”?
That’s rather odd, isn’t it, Sam? One would have thought that if this marvelous new strategy, this utterly innovative new gambit (add more troops! Thats a new one, that’s thinking outside the coffin…) was actually the pinball-wizard-miracle-cure it is being sold as, every muscle and fiber would be strained to get them in place toot damn sweet! So why not? Perhaps it is as has been suggested, that we have but little to send? That we are forced to send the wounded and unfit? (You want a cite? Google “unfit soldiers return to Iraq”. Take a bucket.)
Despite the grave suspicion, you see such undeniable and rock-solid signs of progress that you are willing to overlook your grave doubts. And yet you describe these developments as “glimmers”? Rather a leap of faith, don’t you think? Rummy’s a “glass half full” kind of guy, you appear to be a “cup runneth over” sort of fellow.
If my embellishments are so weak, you will have no difficulty proving it. Knock yourself out.
Yes, it “may be”. Yet despite your “pretty low” opinion, you are willing to credit them with a super-human, even saintly, degree of compassionate toleration. Have we a cluster of Ghandis in the Green Zone?
Oy, again with the Kurds, already! Why do you insist on dragging them into this? What makes you think that the Kurds are willing to risk everything, or anything at all, in order to protect the Sunni Iraqis? Have they made any public declarations of their undying affection? Or is this a conjecture out of whole cloth?
Both? Neither? I don’t really know, Sam, I am suspicious of all my sources, as all such sources are loaded down with agenda. I am amused, however, that you seem to believe that your case is stronger, a conjecture built on a foundation of “maybe”, buttressed with firm support from inference. And all of this based on nothing more substantial than “glimmers”.
If you review your previous posts, I think you will find that your firm assertions are made largely of “wiggle words”: “seems”, “looks like”, “maybe” and “perhaps”. Can you seriously be suggesting that we ask soldiers to kill, and perhaps die, for “glimmers”?
I think that burden is on the proponents of expending more resources.
If you can get more or less equivalent outcomes by (a) expending lives and money, or (b) not doing so, there’s no argument for (a), is there?
You mean, like all the other times we’ve tried to do all of the above? I think people were talking like this in the fall of 2003.
Bolding mine. Your thoughts aren’t a good cite.
It may well be. The problem is, at no point has our occupation (as of today, into its fifth year) made things any less of a disaster waiting to happen.
At some point we’re going to leave. The only argument you have for leaving later rather than sooner is that somehow the pony will materialize, and things in Iraq will have improved under our occupation. What’s the chance of that? Bush is still running things. He’s still the Fuckup-In-Chief. He’s the guy who agreed with his generals that we didn’t need more troops, until he got back the recommendations from the Iraq Study Group, then all of a sudden he got rid of all his generals who didn’t want more troops. But it allowed him to thumb his nose at the ISG and the Dems.
If we simulpeached Bush and Cheney, and inaugurated President Pelosi, then you might have some slim basis for saying “let’s give this or that approach a chance to work,” knowing that grownups were in charge again. But any plan that’s run by fuckups will almost surely fuck up.
Some of them to Afghanistan, some of them to Kuwait or somewhere else close by, and most of them home.
Then they would have an insurgency on their hands.
Where’s this ‘flood’ going to come from?
Maybe we should wait and deal with this when it happens. Based on what I’m reading, I’m not seeing that it’s especially likely.
We explain to the Kurds well in advance that if they go independent, we won’t lift a finger to help them if the Turkish Army drops by.
We laugh at them as they try to put down a Shi’ite insurgency.
I don’t think even the craziest factions in Iran are that dumb. What they have now is a majority Shi’ite ally to their west. If they invade, they have an Arab enemy to their west that they’re trying to occupy part of. If you’re Iran, your attitude towards Iraq is “keep it friendly, keep it weak.”
The other thing we can do with an over-the-horizon force is bomb the crap out of any invading army. If Iran sends conventional troops across the border, they’re a target.
My plans for the aftermath would be exactly as they have been for the first four years, since it’s too late to undo them.
If there were anything we could do beyond what we’ve done, that had a decent chance of success, I’d be game to do it. I’d still support an effort, for each ethnic group X, to provide protection for voluntary moves from X-minority areas to X-majority areas, since most of the killing is of group X by group Y where group Y is better situated.
But barring that, I don’t see that it matters that much how we leave. We’re going to leave chaos and violence behind, no matter when we leave, so we might as well leave sooner rather than later.
They are? I guess it depends on what one wants to see.
Why should I be sick and tired of them?? We’re the ones who put them in an impossible position - destroyed all of their institutions and continuity, and expected them to build a nation amidst the ruins of Baghdad Year Zero.
I’m tired of Bush and Cheney and their minions, of course. And it’s hard to see how anything we do will bear fruit if they’re in charge, because they don’t know what they’re doing.
Makiya, redux? I don’t think so. Because there’s always a chance that things can be made even worse than they are, by our intervention. In fact, a pretty damned good one. (This, of course, was the problem with Makiya’s logic originally, no matter how great it sounded.)
Somebody had to be in charge of our military in Iraq, and Petraeus was a fine choice. Should the Dems have insisted on keeping this position vacant until Bush submitted to them a general who advocated getting out, which event would have occured sometime after the Rapture?
Peatreus was a fine choice because he was willing to go along with the surge. The generals who did not were broomed. The surge is about time. If they can find a way to hang on to elections and keep saying all is well ,they will have a chance in the elections. If they have to withdraw they will get creamed in the next elections. Maybe someone else will save them. Perhaps one of the local leaders will gather power and push out the fighters. All hope has to do with staying until the vote.
If I had stated things with any more certitude, you would have attacked me for being so sure about things. So I couched my statements in qualifiers, and now you attack them because they’re qualified. Nice work.
And yes, I understand the skepticism when listening to people request ‘another six months’. But that doesn’t mean you dismiss it out of hand, especially when the person doing the requesting is a new general - one with a track record of better success than anyone else in that war, and one who has a different plan to be tried. If it were the same old guys, with the same old strategies, who were saying, “Just wait another six months, and it’ll get better”, I’d agree that you have a good point. In this case, I feel enough justification has been offered as to why it makes sense to try one more time.
Except that by stalling it drops the Iraq war pullout debate squarely into the middle of the presidential election season. It would actually be politically smart for Republicans to simply let the Democrats pass their bill, pull out the troops now, and get the issue off the table. It would actually be a no-lose scenario for the Republicans - if they pull out now and Iraq turns out alright, they could claim success in the war. If they pull out after the Democrats pass their bill defunding the war, and Iraq turns to hell, they can say, “We had it under control but the Democrats yanked the rug out from underneath us. This is now all their fault.”
And in fact, a bunch of Republicans want to do just that. Bush sticking with Petraeus is not a political calculation.
You can stop with the snottiness and sarcasm any time. It just makes you look childish. I’m not a military expert, but I know where to find them, and I’ve read lots of their stuff. I’ve found lots of respect for Petraeus, from people who have in the past shown plenty of willingness to criticize the plans of other Generals. I’ve been convinced that he’s good, and that his plan is a big enough departure from what’s been tried before to justifiy giving it a shot.
The answerer would be Wesley Clark. HE appears to be willing to give Petraeus a shot at this.
If you want to read Petraeus’s own point of view of what the ‘surge’ is and why it’s working, please read this interview.
Seriously, please think about the difference between Petraeus’s tactics and what’s come before. I think you’ll appreciate the guy. He’s a real ‘hearts and minds’ type. None of this “raid an area, kick in doors, scare the daylights out of people, bomb a few houses, then get back to base” stuff. He worked wonders in Mosul, and Mosul was one of the early success stories of the war. It only started to go to hell again after he was re-assigned and the new commander changed tactics.
The guy deserves a shot. I know you have fully committed yourself to the position that America has lost, and that the only thing to do is to get out immediately, but if you claim to have an open mind, at least consider the differences in his approach and whether or not he deserves a try. After four years of war and 500 billion dollars, I think a few more months with a radically new strategy is not out of line.
Tell you what: In that interview, Petraeus says we’ll be able to evaluate the surge strategy by late summer and determine if it’s going to work. Let’s hold him to that. Sign on to the surge plan, give him 'till late summer, and if it’s not working by then, pull the plug.
And yes, I’m saying precisely that confirming Petraeus is an endorsement of his strategy. If a general comes before Congress and says, “I have a plan for Iraq - confirm me, and I’ll attempt to implement it.”, then yes confirming that general is a tacit sign-off of his plan.
Why did the Democrats vote to confirm him? For the same reason they’re now voting to cut funding - politics. Public trust in the military is still extremely high, while public trust in Congress and the Presidency is at all-time lows. Petraeus has such a stellar record that there was no way the Democrats could tie their anti-war plans to a rejection of Petraeus. So they confirmed him, told him he was doing a heckuva job, sent him on his way to implement his plan, then immediately started working to undermine it. That’s politics. Republicans probably would have done the same thing had the political winds put them in a similar position.
First of all, the plan is not just ‘more troops’. The plan is to change the past failed strategy of sending out security sweeps then pulling them back into garrisons, which doesn’t work against an insurgency, to permanently stationing garrisons of troops within the population. It’s a radical change in tactics. It requires more soldiers to do that, hence the ‘surge’.
Actually, when Petraeus was being confirmed, he was asked repeatedly by Republicans if he could use more soldiers than he requested. He repeatedly said no - it wasn’t about just bringing in more soldiers, it was about bringing in assets the plan called for. That’s what he wanted, and no more.
The difference this time is in the details of the plan, not the fact that there are more soldiers going to Iraq.
Again, this is a fine bit of sophistry on your part. I never once said that there were ‘undeniable and rock-solid signs of progress’. I used words like ‘initial signs’, ‘tentative’, etc. I’m willing to overlook my doubts not because I think this is a slam-dunk, but because the alternative is disaster. You use the chances you’ve got. You quit when it’s clear there’s nothing else you can do and that your presence is counter-productive.
Oh, that’s rich. You make a claim that I said something. I ask you to cite it. And your response is that I’m supposed to prove that I DIDN’T say it? You know better than that. Put up the cite, or retract the comment.
Really, I think you are letting your attempts to be condescending and clever outweigh your judgement here. Stop trying to be a wise-ass, and debate honestly.
Again, trying to put words in my mouth? Please show me where I said anything of the sort. Hell, please show me where I even hinted that the Malaki government’s actions were even based on compassion or toleration?
Gee, I don’t know… Maybe because they are Iraqis? I know they pain you, because they don’t fit into your ‘Iraqis hate us, and the war was devastating to all of them’ meme. The fact that a significant chunk of the country has about a 90% approval rating of America and a booming economy and peace and stability must stick in your craw, huh? Better to pretend that they aren’t ‘real’ Iraqis. Which makes about as much sense as saying the Shia don’t count, because they are closely tied with Iran.
Yes, in fact they have. Have you been paying attention? The Kurds have repeatedly stated that their intention was to stay within Iraq. They want a federation. They have already made lots of concessions to both Sunnis and Shiites. They are a big part of the current coalition government.
Opinions in the Kurdish region have been changing recently, but only because they, like you, have begun to see the Iraq situation as becoming hopeless. If Petraeus can turn it around, the Kurds will remain within Iraq. If he can’t, they’ll probably split off at some point, or at least wait and ride out the civil war while defending their region, and see what comes next.
This is the first time I’ve ever heard you utter anything remotely resembling suspicion of your own sources. Usually, your own cites are presented not just as the other side’s opinion, but as bald fact, any opposition to which should be treated with derision and mockery. What, did you fall out of love with Seymour Hersh so soon? Did he not send you an Easter present or something?
Nice try. Next time, I’ll try using more forceful words. Then I can be treated to more sniggering about how certain I appear to be. It’s a nice tactic. Just be aware that sophistry is no substitute for real debate on issues as serious as this.
Whatever happened to Colin Powell’s ‘you broke it, you own it’? Didn’t you agree with that? The burden is on America to fix Iraq. It should only leave when it’s clear that there’s no possible way it can be done, and that the presence of Americans is hurting and not helping.
Begging the question. It’s still to be established that the two courses of action will result in the same outcome.
Petraeus’s strategy was tried in Mosul, and it worked. It was tried in other areas, and worked. Petraeus was then recalled, and other generals had other ideas. They failed. Based on Petraeus’s proven record, he was given the job. He’s now trying to implement his strategy nationwide. Early signs show the kind of progress he expected. It’s NOT just the same old pig with different lipstick. This really is a dramatic shift in tactics. Petraeus has the endorsement of a lot of people, including Wesley Clark as I posted above.
I’d disagree. Petraeus’s 101st Airborne had great early success in Mosul and other regions. In fact, if you want to make a (very) short list of the things done ‘right’ in Iraq, Petraeus is responsible for just about all of them. In fact, his initial tour in Iraq was so successful that after he arrived back in the states he was asked to rewrite the U.S. Army’s field guide for counterinsurgency warfare. His procedures are now SOP, based on a proven track record. That’s also what got him command in Iraq - he rose from a 2 star to a 4 star general in the past 3 years based on his track record in Iraq. That’s pretty impressive.
Not good. But better than zero. There are also degrees of failure. If the U.S. can stabilize things enough to give the Iraqi army a fighting chance, it’s possible that half the troops could withdraw and the other half could stay to support the Iraqi army and fight al-Qaida. Iraq is still a country with great resources, a functioning economy (not well, but functioning), and an educated population. There has to be hope in all that of achieving something short of total destruction and a failed state.
Okay, I’ll give you that. Frankly, I think what has happened with Bush is that his willingness to ‘trust his commanders’ turned into a bubble where people with agendas got what they wanted by simply spinning a yarn to Bush, and he’d just rubber-stamp it. The result was incoherence and incompetence. The faith I have isn’t in Bush, but in Petraeus. I think he’s the real deal, and deserves a shot. And he’ll be the first guy to tell you if he sees mistakes being made higher up (he was one of the few generals to adopt a cautionary tone after the liberation of Baghdad - I remember him saying words to the effect of, “This was the easy part. It means nothing. Now the real work begins” while everyone else was waving banners).
Let’s not even go there. My opinion of Pelosi is best left for another thread.
Let’s do better - Murtha wants to ‘re-stage’ to a safer place. IF the time comes to withdraw from Iraq, I say we offer the Kurds protection in exchange for basing maybe 50,000 troops in the Kurdish region. They’d probably jump at the chance.
Right. Bush is an idiot, but the holocaust-denying, radical Islamic Iranian leadership is ‘not that dumb’. These are the guys who, after taking control of Iran from the Shah, killed all the pilots and maintenance crews of the air force, then went, “Oops. Now we can’t maintain the aircraft”. As a result, they destroyed their own air force. Real bright guys. They’re fanatics. Trying to predict what they will do with any certainty is a fool’s game.
Maybe. Or maybe the Dems will pull another Vietnam, where they got their withdrawal in part by promising all kinds of guarantees and weapons to the South Vietnamese - then reneged on the deal at the first opportunity leaving them helpless.
Great. Have a look at Petraeus’s plan, and tell me why you are sure that it categorically cannot work.
You don’t have the foggiest notion of what you’re talking about. Petraeus didn’t ‘go along with the surge’. The surge was HIS plan. HE is the one who pushed for it. The surge is required to implement a nationwide strategy that HE started in Mosul 3 years ago.
I agreed with it until it was clear that things were getting worse, no matter what we did.
NO. Absofuckinglutely NOT.
Imagine this. I’ve got a box of chocolates, and a hammer. We roll the dice, and if it comes up boxcars, I give you a chocolate. Otherwise, I bang your toe with the hammer. It’s unequivocally possible that I will give you some chocolates. But would you sign up for that deal? Of course not.
If rolling boxcars meant I gave you a chocolate, and any other outcome meant that I did nothing at all to you, then sure, we should roll the dice until you’ve gotten as much chocolate as you want. But that’s not the right analogy. The one where you get hammered is.
Go back and look at the question you asked. You’re asking me to show that no cost results in a better outcome than great cost. That’s silly; I don’t have to show that at all. Same outcome is a win for the no-cost route.
And who did the Cossacks work for? The Czar. We still have the same Czar.
No, he’s not. He’s trying to implement it in Baghdad, and doesn’t even have the troops for that.
In February and March. BFD. In 2004, things were quiet in February and for most of March.
In the past couple weeks, things have started looking all too much like the way they normally look when the weather warms up.
Hell, he’s got my endorsement, but he doesn’t have the troops to properly execute.
It is. But he isn’t a magic wand. He can’t roll attitudes in Iraq back to where they were when he did his good work in Mosul. Time has passed, things have gotten worse, and he doesn’t have the resources to do more than play whack-a-mole - pacify things here while they erupt there.
Like it or not, the Iraqi army is mostly Shi’ite militia in uniform. Or peshmerga in uniform. We can give the Iraqi army a fighting chance to take their revenge on the Sunnis.
Whatever.
We’re trying to loot the oil on behalf of the big oil companies, and the educated population has largely fled.
No, he just plain likes his bubble.
Yeah, except all the commanders agreed on this one.
He’s the real deal, but he doesn’t have the real resources, and he’s got a C-in-C who will fuck him up if he gets the urge.
Any general who wasn’t saying that should have been cashiered on the spot. A freakin’ paramecium should have been able to see that the invasion was the preliminary round, and all it did was win us admission into the real game.
She’s a grownup. I’m not saying she’d be a great President. But just like Ford, simply by not being Nixon, was a hell of an improvement over Nixon, Pelosi would be a tremendous improvement over Bush and Cheney.
Until you have a grownup in the (White) house, why expect things to be run in a less silly fashion than they’ve been run so far?
It’s not the first, second, or third time I’ve seen an account like this. The instance changes, but the recurring theme is: someone in a critical position in the U.S. government does some patient work to try to improve things. And after expending a lot of time and energy, is undone by a call from the Shooter.
And if the Iraqi Kurds let their territory be used as a staging ground for operations in Turkey? Yeah, that’ll work out really well.
So you’re saying that what they did in the first few months after the revolution is something they haven’t advanced past.
All that does, Sam, is undercut your own self.
Got a linky on that? For one thing, I was under the impression that McGovern lost the 1972 election.
As I said up top, you’re basing your decision on the possibility of getting chocolate, without factoring in the possibility of getting your toe hammered.
I’m not going to say it categorically cannot work. But I will still contend that our presence in Iraq is more likely to continue to do net harm than it is to be helpful.
“You broke it, you bought it” only makes sense if “bought it” doesn’t mean “staying around and breaking still more stuff.”
