Is the situation in Iraq improving?

[LilShieste]

@Martin Hyde

This is the darker side of the Democratic strategy of withdrawal, and something the Dems don’t talk about. They talk about “ending the war” they can’t end the war with withdrawal any more than the Republicans can with the “surge”, withdrawal will absent us from the conflict, it sure as hell won’t end it. I wish more Americans realized that our withdrawal would doom an entire nation to anarchy and chaos that quite possibly could reach a level unparalleled in the history of the Middle East.

I hardly see it as something the “Dems don’t want to talk about” - but more as something the “Republicans say the Dems don’t want to talk about”.

A lot of us acknowledge the possible direction Iraq could take if we withdraw. But a lot of us also think that Iraq will inevitably head down the same direction, regardless of when we withdraw.
LilShieste

[ElvisL1ves]

There’d be some logic to a period of assisting the Iraqi “government” to stabilize their own country, sure - if they wanted to do it. But they patently *don’t * want to, even if they could.

So yes, every further dollar and every single troop deployed is wasted. It isn’t about morality, or “resolve”, or “victory”, or “wanting to lose”, it’s simple realism, and of a kind that conservatives used to be proud of.

@Martin Hyde

our withdrawal would doom an entire nation to anarchy and chaos that quite possibly could reach a level unparalleled in the history of the Middle East.

As compared to the *current * situation, you mean? The same delusion-oriented mindset that got us into this quagmire in the first place is now oriented toward the delusion that the terrible, bloody consequences that they predict would result from American failure haven’t happened already. They *have * happened already, because we *have * failed already. There is a much stronger case to be made at this point for our continued presence making it worse than better, Commander Guy’s new “strategy” (which is nothing of the sort) notwithstanding.

[LilShieste]

@Martin Hyde

My point is, our government deals with the Iraqi government, period. We don’t deal with France or Germany based on what their polling says, we deal with them based on the actions of their leadership (and vice versa.) It is the job of Iraqi politicians to respond to Iraqi polling, and if that lead them to request our leaving, I’d be okay with that.

I see what you mean - I was initially interpreting your comment to be similar to Bush’s oft-repeated “I don’t pay attention to the polls”. (I apologize for the confusion.)

The problem that comes in now, though, is that a lot of people see the Iraqi government as a puppet government of the U.S. That is, the Iraqi government would be more likely to listen to what the U.S. government says, than its own people.
LilShieste

[GIGObuster]

@Martin Hyde

The idea that “letting them fight it out” is the way to solve the problem is, to me, beyond idiotic. Do you have any evidence to suggest that once we pull out, they’ll fight a quick civil war, and move on? You’re aware that some civil wars CURRENTLY ONGOING have been going on for DECADES? Shit, Afghanistan has been in a perpetual state of war since the 1970s and a state of civil war since the early 90s.

And it would have been silly to intervene militarily then. Failed states are not worthy of dying for.

As I said before, the longer we stay then we are more likely to to the final Vietnam mistake: leave the region open to genocide, right now by redeploying we still maintain complete aerial superiority and some bases, if I was controlling this process I would say to the new leaders to come that the bases will only disappear if ethnic cleansing or terrors camps are prevented.

I think that right now we can move out by leaving clear that whoever forces remain (even UN ones) will have complete aerial support and be a check against civil war, IOW: there are many options to just leaving, my point here is that by insisting American troops are the only ones that can prevent civil unrest or that suddenly aerial targeting technology has gone back to WWII levels, that it makes little sense to be the bullet catchers for internal unrest.

I truly believe that insisting we should stay will, in the long run, make even many in the extreme right to eventually just say “forget it” and then only consider complete pull out as** the ** solution.

[DMC]

@Martin Hyde

My point was, not all interventions in a country should be based on whether or not the populace wants us there.

I don’t view Iraq as an intervention, I actually don’t even view the current situation in Iraq to be part of the same war we started in 2003. In 2003 we invaded Iraq with the intention of toppling Saddam Hussein by military force. We did so, for all intents and purposes we “won” that war.

If you don’t view Iraq as in intervention, then why was your point “not all interventions in a country should be based on whether or not the populace wants us there.”?

It’s often called the war in Iraq to this day, I wish it was “the war in Iraq.”

Not by the people who sent us there in the first place. To them, it’s “The war against terror.”

The current situation in Iraq is a complex situation in which the United States is attempting to provide security amidst multiple warring groups, some international terrorists, some anti-American fighters, but mostly the key issue is with domestic conflicts. Sunni versus Shiite, stuff that goes back centuries in the Mesopotamian region.

Stuff that was held in check quite well until we invaded.

if we had never invaded it still would have happened, but probably decades later and then we would have probably still intervened in an attempt at “peace keeping” except then we’d feel no moral responsibility for the situation and once it got ugly we’d withdraw and let the natives murder themselves wholesale because we can’t be troubled to try any more (like we did in Somalia.)

Not possibly, probably, or maybe? Cite?

Despite your claims, I’m not saying we need to defend Iraq from us, we need to continue to try and protect it from itself. That’s what peacekeeping is all about. This isn’t some stupid attempt to hide the fact that we’re responsible for the current situation in Iraq, we are, there, got that out of the way. Accepting responsibility to my mind doesn’t equate with saying we shouldn’t try and fix the situation, if anything it equates with the converse of that.

While I think everyone would be much better off if we had defended it from us in the first place, I don’t entirely disagree with this. I do think we need to take responsibility, but the method we’re using isn’t working. I’m personally of the opinion that it will continue to not work as long as Bush keeps maintaining the stance that it was the right thing to do in the first place. If he’d apologize for starting it, and then, and only then, ask for international help in peacekeeping, I think Iraq would have a better chance of stability. Right now, the people protecting them is the same people who attacked them in the first place. I don’t see how that’s supposed to make anyone feel good about the protection they are receiving. Sort of like the mobster that burns down a business, and once it’s put back up offers to “protect” it from fires.

[DMC]

@Martin Hyde

What’s unfortunate is the anti-war side, people like RickJay have long been presenting themselves as morally superior. When their position for all intents and purposes is, “let Iraq burn, tough for them.”

No, what’s unfortunate is that people like RickJay weren’t listened to in the first place, as we wouldn’t be counting hundreds of thousands of dead bodies if that were the case. Perhaps he is morally superior.

As noted above, I’m aware that leaving presents major problems, and I think there are possible solutions. Unfortunately, I see no signs that this administration is doing the things they need to do to implement similar solutions, even if we stay. So, unless we can get some new upper management of the U.S. in the next month or two, or see a complete change of heart in the current management, leaving, staying, I think it’s all the same in the end. That sucks.

[Der_Trihs]

@Martin Hyde

When they make that call, fine. But they haven’t.

They have; they want us to leave, and never wanted us there in the first place.

@Martin Hyde

The elected government of Iraq speaks for the Iraqi people, that is the situation around the world people do not make foreign policy decisions through polling, their governments make them.

The “government” of Iraqi is a joke; it doesn’t speak for anyone.

@Martin Hyde

A country isn’t remotely comparable to a coffee table, your china cabinet, or your house. That comparison just doesn’t fly. We didn’t break Iraq, Iraq was already broken. Its people were starving and its rulers were living in gilded palaces.

It was badly off, but it functioned. NOW it’s broken.

@Martin Hyde

We can let the Iraqis fail or we can try to stop it, and I’d rather injure myself trying to save someone from death than stand by and do nothing, to make a similarly poor personal-level analysis to the situation.

No, a better analogy is that of someone drowning in a river, and we are in a boat next to him screaming “I’ll save you !” while beating him with a club. Oh, and we threw him in the river.

@Martin Hyde

Do you have any evidence to suggest that once we pull out, they’ll fight a quick civil war, and move on? You’re aware that some civil wars CURRENTLY ONGOING have been going on for DECADES? Shit, Afghanistan has been in a perpetual state of war since the 1970s and a state of civil war since the early 90s.

No, but without us they have a chance. They have none as long as we are there. As I’ve said before, the first step to fixing Iraq, if it can be, is getting America out. We are one of the major causes of the ongoing disaster.

@Martin Hyde

Even CNN’s top military analysts has said a U.S. withdrawal will be disastrous for Iraq. And CNN isn’t exactly known for its conservative editorial bent.

Not by you, perhaps.

@Martin Hyde

I don’t view Iraq as an intervention,

Correct; it’s conquest and a failed attempt at turning it into a colony of America.

@Martin Hyde

Accepting responsibility to my mind doesn’t equate with saying we shouldn’t try and fix the situation, if anything it equates with the converse of that.

We won’t try, not seriously, and we can’t. This is just an attempt to push the withdrawal into the next Presidency. We are incapable of helping Iraq, and we have never cared about their welfare in the first place. This war is about greed, ideology, religion, and malice; not altruism. We are the bad guys in this. We are NOT well meaning, we DO NOT care about the Iraqis, and we ARE NOT trying to help them.

@Martin Hyde

I’d be sad that they wanted us to leave, because I think it’d make things worse; but I’d be willing to give that level of respect to their sovereign government.

They don’t have one; they have a near-powerless, illegitimate client propped up by the US.

[RTFirefly]

@Martin Hyde

If we’re going to leave on a strict time table, we should withdraw immediately. No six month warning, no six day warning, start pulling up the tents and leaving immediately in a massive redeployment.

Unless we’re committed to staying until some semblance of stability happens, then we are indeed wasting our time.

That’s why the “time table” is stupid. A six month or twelve month time table shows you’re not committed to stability in Iraq, so why bother? What are those 6 months? Just more dead Americans with no commitment to anything greater.

a) How, exactly, is this a response to the post of mine that you quote? This strikes me as a total non sequitur.

b) The simple logistics of getting out will require six months or more; there’s nothing straightforward about disengagement. Putting some some sort of time limit on it, however, isn’t about Iraq; it’s about reining in a Chief Executive who isn’t interested in faithfully executing the laws. If Congress passed a bill funding a withdrawal from Iraq ‘in good order’ or some such phrase, Bush would simply stay, and dare Congress to do something about it.

[RTFirefly]

Continuing from my previous post: there are really only two choices: to let Bush run the war his way for the next 20.5 months, or to force withdrawal via a funding bill with specific timelines.

There might be other, better choices, in a world where we didn’t have President Dumbfuck and Vice-President Crazy, but we’re stuck with the President and Veep we have, not the ones we’d like to have.

So to say that timelines say this or that about their proponents because they’re less than ideal in some way is nonsense. We can stay and do things Bush’s way, or we can set timelines for withdrawal. You can criticize the desire to withdraw, but not the means: there is no other means.

[RTFirefly]

@Martin Hyde

My point is, our government deals with the Iraqi government, period. We don’t deal with France or Germany based on what their polling says, we deal with them based on the actions of their leadership (and vice versa.)

Of course not: France and Germany are independent actors. Iraq isn’t. They’re not the sovereign in Iraq. We are.

It is the job of Iraqi politicians to respond to Iraqi polling, and if that lead them to request our leaving, I’d be okay with that.

Our military and our dollars prop up the Iraqi government. The government’s not going to tell us to leave.

[ElvisL1ves]

@Martin Hyde

It is the job of Iraqi politicians to respond to Iraqi polling, and if that lead them to request our leaving, I’d be okay with that.

Considering that Iraqi polling over a year ago showed over 60% actually approve of attacks on our people, you’re at least over a year late in being okay with that.

[RedFury]

First you declare, fist pounding firmly on table:

@Martin Hyde

No one makes major policy decisions on polling, NO ONE. Not liberals, not conservatives, not teh evil Bush or the savior of the world Democrats; polling is not where decisions are made.

The elected government of Iraq speaks for the Iraqi people, that is the situation around the world people do not make foreign policy decisions through polling, their governments make them. That’s how it has to be.

And then a bolt of reality apparently sinks in:

@Martin Hyde

It is the job of Iraqi politicians to respond to Iraqi polling, and if that lead them to request our leaving, I’d be okay with that.

– highlights in both posts mine.

So, exactly, what are you doing? Playing chess against yourself? Because, if so, you seem to be losing with both the white and the black pieces.

Good job.

---

Meanwhile, William Blum easily check-mates your side’s last remaining ‘argument’ for prolonging the occupation: The White Man’s Burden card.

America’s Deadly “Love” Embrace

@Blum

“If the United States leaves Iraq things will really get bad.”

This appears to be the last remaining, barely-breathing argument of that vanishing species who still support the god-awful war. The argument implies a deeply-felt concern about the welfare and safety of the Iraqi people. What else could it mean? That the US military can’t leave because it’s needed to protect the oil bonanza awaiting American oil companies as soon as the Iraqi parliament approves the new written-in-Washington oil law? No, the Bush administration loves the people of Iraq. How much more destruction, killing and torturing do you need to be convinced of that? We can’t leave because of the violence. We can’t leave until we have assured that peace returns to our dear comrades in Iraq.

To better understand this argument, it helps to keep in mind the following about the daily horror that is life in Iraq: It did not exist before the US occupation.

The insurgency violence began as, and remains, a reaction to the occupation; like almost all insurgencies in occupied countries – from the American Revolution to the Vietcong – it’s a fight directed toward getting foreign forces to leave.

The next phase was the violence of Iraqis against other Iraqis who worked for or sought employment with anything associated with the occupation regime.

Then came retaliatory attacks for these attacks.

Followed by retaliatory attacks for the retaliatory attacks.

Jihadists from many countries have flocked to Iraq because they see the war against the American Satan occupiers as a holy war.

Before the occupation, many Sunnis and Shiites married each other; since the occupation they have been caught up in a spiral of hating and killing each other.

And for these acts there, of course, has to be retaliation.

The occupation’s abolishment of most jobs in the military and in Saddam Hussein’s government, and the chaos that is Iraqi society under the occupation, have left many destitute; kidnappings for ransom and other acts of criminal violence have become popular ways to make a living, or at least survive.

US-trained, financed, and armed Iraqi forces have killed large numbers of people designated as “terrorists” by someone official, or perhaps someone unofficial, or by someone unknown, or by chance.

The US military itself has been a main perpetrator of violence, killing individually and en masse, killing any number, any day, for any reason, anyone, any place, often in mindless retaliation against anyone nearby for an insurgent attack.

The US military and its coalition allies have also been the main target of violent attacks. A Department of Defense report of November 2006 stated: “Coalition forces remained the target of the majority of attacks (68%).”

– highlights, once again, mine.

As is my call: US out of Iraq NOW.

[RTFirefly]

WaPo, today:

As the U.S. military prepares for an eventual handover of security duties to Iraqi forces, more of Iraq’s 120,000 soldiers are advancing to the front lines of the war, and more are being wounded. But because there are no Iraqi military hospitals, thousands have been left to the mercy of overtaxed and corrupt civilian hospitals and a military compensation system paralyzed by red tape and disorganization, according to soldiers, family members, doctors and military officials. Many, feeling abandoned, turn to their families for help.

“I was fighting and going into combat missions for three years. When I was wounded, I was thrown out to my house,” said Massen, a baby-faced man who slumped over a table, eyes downcast, during an interview at a Baghdad restaurant. “They did not provide me crutches or a wheelchair. They provided me with nothing.”

Iraq’s Defense Ministry has recorded 3,700 injured soldiers since the war began, but officials say the true figure is probably double that. The Congressional Research Service estimates that more than 33,000 Iraqi security force members – about two-fifths of whom are soldiers – were wounded by late April 2006. Last year, then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Iraqi forces were wounded at about twice the rate of American troops. About 25,000 U.S. soldiers had been injured as of this May 1, according to the Department of Defense.

And since so few doctors remain in Iraq, Iraq has created a civilian stop-loss policy (or actually, resurrected it from the Saddam era) to keep new doctors from leaving:

BAGHDAD – Iraq is hemorrhaging doctors as violence racks the nation. To stem the flow, the Iraqi government has recently taken a cue from Saddam Hussein: Medical schools are once again forbidden to issue diplomas and transcripts to new graduates.

Hussein built a fine medical system in part by withholding doctors’ passports and diplomas. Although physicians can work in Iraq with a letter from a medical school verifying their graduation, they say they need certificates and transcripts to work abroad.

[Ryan_Liam]

– highlights, once again, mine.

As is my call: US out of Iraq NOW.

So if we withdraw from Iraq, and a horrendous amount of ethnic cleansing happens because of this, you won’t be then jumping on the bandwagon saying ‘Why did the US leave those people to be massacred’ or ‘See? I told ya so, the minute the US left they would be butchering each other’

I see no reason as to why the US should leave now, I’m with the ‘we broke it we fix it’ crowd.

And since so few doctors remain in Iraq, Iraq has created a civilian stop-loss policy (or actually, resurrected it from the Saddam era) to keep new doctors from leaving:

Given the desperate situation, why is this a bad thing, I mean come on, they’re doing it to ensure that some frigging semblence of infrastructure and medical treatment is still possible. Because Hussein stopped doctors going to other countries for ideological and political reasons, we’re to compare the current government to that one because they’re doing it for completely different reasons? Come on.

**One senior medical school official in Baghdad has no sympathy with such arguments. In an interview in his central Baghdad office, he railed against what he views as “exploitation” by graduates, accusing them of stealing away with a “national treasure” – a free medical education. The students have a duty to stay, he said.

“Let’s put it right: What was happening in Saddam’s time was better than what is happening now,” said the official, who said he did not want his name published out of fear for his life. “There was order. There was discipline. This we are losing.”**

[LilShieste]

@Ryan_Liam

So if we withdraw from Iraq, and a horrendous amount of ethnic cleansing happens because of this, you won’t be then jumping on the bandwagon saying ‘Why did the US leave those people to be massacred’ or ‘See? I told ya so, the minute the US left they would be butchering each other’

I believe there’s at least one other option: “Yes, the U.S. contributed to this butchering, through its occupation.”

@Ryan_Liam

I see no reason as to why the US should leave now, I’m with the ‘we broke it we fix it’ crowd.

Did you happen to see that Borat movie? There’s this one scene where Borat is stumbling around an antique shop, breaking things left and right.

I was relieved when he finally decided to leave the shop.
LilShieste

[RickJay]

@Martin Hyde

What’s unfortunate is the anti-war side, people like RickJay have long been presenting themselves as morally superior. When their position for all intents and purposes is, “let Iraq burn, tough for them.”

When I have ever suggested I’m morally superior? I’m the realist in this situation. It’s the pro-war side that’s always taken the moralist stance.

[Ryan_Liam]

Did you happen to see that Borat movie? There’s this one scene where Borat is stumbling around an antique shop, breaking things left and right.

I was relieved when he finally decided to leave the shop.
LilShieste

I doubt how Borat occupies the same political dimension as America in Iraq.

I believe there’s at least one other option: “Yes, the U.S. contributed to this butchering, through its occupation.”

So why leave and allow the gloves to come off? I don’t give a shit if it’s got nothing to do with us, it has, we invaded, we’re there, we’re trying to establish some sort of authority, and it’s our duty to do so. Simply withdrawing and leaving them to kill each other because we can’t hack it politically, should be out of the question.

[Squink]

@Ryan_Liam

So why leave and allow the gloves to come off?

Because they’re not our gloves to be deciding whether they should be on or off. Iraq is not our society to be tinkering in.

[GIGObuster]

@Ryan_Liam

I doubt how Borat occupies the same political dimension as America in Iraq.

So why leave and allow the gloves to come off? I don’t give a shit if it’s got nothing to do with us, it has, we invaded, we’re there, we’re trying to establish some sort of authority, and it’s our duty to do so. Simply withdrawing and leaving them to kill each other because we can’t hack it politically, should be out of the question.

Sounds like the excuse the British told themselves on why they should remain in India. Of course the control that Britain had over the resources of that nation was pure coincidence and never a reason why to remain.

[Ryan_Liam]

Sounds like the excuse the British told themselves on why they should remain in India. Of course the control that Britain had over the resources of that nation was pure coincidence and never a reason why to remain.

India is a completely different context to Iraq. Why you brought it up, I really don’t know.

Because they’re not our gloves to be deciding whether they should be on or off. Iraq is not our society to be tinkering in.

It became our responsibility the moment we invaded, that’s what I keep hearing anyway, or is a withdrawal more morally acceptable than preventing whatever sectarian war which would conceivably draw in more countries in the Middle East?