The fact that we have over 3000 dead soldiers, tens of thousands of dead Iraqis, and scores of thousands of troops in country at the moment, and concerned citizens cannot readily answer these questions…is horrifying.
That is to say, if our presence is so vital, why has this case not been made unequivicobly (sp?) by those behind this war before now? Shouldn’t we, as an intellectually curious and concerned and somewhat well informed citizenry be able to say, “the government wants to accomplish A, B and C and then we are getting out”. We still do not have defined goals or an exit strategy except “victory”. Jingo often? :dubious:
We certainly bomb them; we just have airplanes to drop them from. As far as torture is concerned, while it can’t be proved that it’s policy, the Admin sure hasn’t hesitated to defend it, or play word games with the definition. As far as death squads go, we have the claim in at least one case that soldiers were ordered to kill all military age males; that’s pretty death squaddish.
We should, but Americans as a whole are intellectually incurious, unconcerned and poorly informed.
Not that its likely to get through to you, but we are a bit less indiscriminate in our bombings than insurgents/terrorists using improvised roadside bombs…or suicide bombers with explosives strapped to their backs.
Perception is everything. If the Iraqi’s perceive that torture is policy, then in their minds at least it is.
Right…there is the claim, but no proof. And this from soldiers accused of murder. Interesting that you would bring this up though.
This represents the type of absurd oversimplification that I normally expect to see from small children and Republicans. Do most Arabs hate us? Yes, which is understandable since we’ve been ruling and abusing several Arab countries indirectly via murderous thugs for the last few decades. Do most Iraqis hate us? Yes, again understandable since we invaded their country under false premises and committed many acts of murder, rape, torture, and abuse, all the while thumping our chests in moral superiority. Does this mean we can abuse Iraqis (and presumably other Arabs) without considering the consequences? Obviously not. First, “most Arabs hate us” is not the same as “all Arabs hate us”; we still have plenty to lose. Second, there are degrees of hatred, and abuse of the type you suggest might push some from “simmering hatred” to “plant an IED hatred”.
I will do my best to comply with this.
Technically impossible. Any collar could be removed, one way or another. You’ve been reading too many Jack Vance novels.
Would give Iraqis a very strong motivation to not become soldiers or police. Indeed, this proposal would probably shrink the roles of the Iraqi police and army to zero.
Bad idea on general principles. Collars are for animals and sexual perverts, not normal people. This would be an assault on the human dignity of the Iraqis.
What other Muslim country is that? Every Muslim is Shi’ite, Sunni, or some splinter group, so any country would have some form of prejudice.
The USA and most other modernized countries guarantee trial by “a jury of peers”, not a jury of non-peers from ten thousand miles away. There’s a reason for this. First, keeping trials local helps convince the populace that the system of justice is for their benefit. Second, jurors from halfway round the world can’t understand the social, economic, religious issues at work and thus are less fair than a local jury.
Public nudity or near-nudity is, again, for animals and sexual perverts rather than normal human beings. See response 3 to outside-of-box idea 1.
For religious reasons, this wouldn’t go over. If you tell Iraqis that their options are:
A) Public humiliation by nudity.
B) Death.
They’ll most likely choose either B or C) Death that includes taking some American soldiers with me.
Now you’re responded by saying that this is a long-term project. Still hopeless. A religion that’s lasted fifteen centuries doesn’t vanish overnight, or even over twenty years.
Lastly you say that sexual frustration and repression are a major driver of violence, and outside-of-box idea 3 will supposedly fix this. Forget about it. First of all, there’s no evidence that sexual frustration does lead to violence. Many earlier societies had constant sexual repression and low rates of violence; many still do. Second, many societies that are drenched in sex are still quite violent, the USA currently is the obvious example. Lastly, an individual with regular access to sex and sexual content can still be sexually frustrated. Indeed, I think that’s rather more likely.
My objections to outside-of-box idea 4 are quite similar to 3.
I’m not a conservative so perhaps I’m out of line by answering this, but throughout the thread you’ve retreated to declaring your ideas better than Dubya’s current policy. We’re in no way required to take either Dubya’s policy or you four ouside-of-box ideas; that’s a classic false dichotomy. Furthermore, your ideas don’t address the current problems. American troops are torturing, raping, and murdering at will, though if we believe the media it’s just a few “bad eggs” who don’t represent the general attitude of the American military. None of your ideas would have any effect on those bad eggs.
Now here’s my plan, which is definitely outside the box since no one who supports it would ever be allowed to participate in politics or the mainstream media at any level.
Step 1: Withdraw the occupying American troops from Iraq.
Step 2: Withdraw the occupying American troops from Saudi Arabia and other bases in the Muslim world.
Step 3: Issue formal apologies for the past three generations of American violence against Muslim nations.
Step 4: Implement an energy policy that weans America off foreign oil over the next five years.
Step 5: Let the Muslim world solve their own Allah-damned problems.
Assuming that is true, it’s also irrelevant. Dead is dead, whether or not it was offically on purpose or not. Anything we gain in precision we lose in sheer volume. Besides, unlike the resistance ( but like the terrorists ), we have no justification for killing in the first place.
Besides, I seriously doubt that all of the various groups kill civilains on purpose; do you have proof of that ?
Not yet, but it’s not the first time we’ve been accused of that sort of killing. Nor can a bunch of torturers and conquerers make any claim to being moral people; I see no reason why we wouldn’t do such things. If we we the sort of people unwilling to kill innocent people for no good reason, we wouldn’t be in Iraq.
Incorrect. Plenty of cultures have and do take a much less prudish view of the human body than America, much less Iraq. That being said, the Iraqi’s culture is certainly not fond of public nudity, and would react as you suggest. Besides, even in more tolerant cultures, few people react anything but badly to being forced to go naked.
Maybe initially, but its been some time since we have bombed in Iraq in the same volume that the insurgents/terrorist groups use IED’s or other bombs.
As for your second point we’ve been over that ground and I don’t feel like getting into it yet again here. You think the insurgents are justified while the US isn’t…I don’t see much justification across the board. To each his own.
How could I, since we don’t know which groups have carried out which particular attacks. I’m sure there are insurgent groups out there who might not SPECIFICALLY target civilians…but I doubt there are any groups that haven’t killed civilians as colateral damage using their improvised devices. In addition, ALL the insurgent groups attempt to use the civilan population for cover and as shields when attacking US and coalition forces, so they are at least partly to blame for those deaths too…IMHO. Obviously on this YMMV.
The story is complete bullshit, as I said in the thread on the subject. A rules of engagement change is rather hard to hide or cover up, as the entire batallion would know about it. It stretches credibility that EVERYONE in the batallion is in on it except these 4 schmucks accused of murder. However, if you want to keep thinking its plausable, be my guest.
Anyway, we are drifting away from the OP (such as it is) here.
Here’s my solution, that doesn’t involve pulling out (well… not completely) turns some of the oil back on and gives us a die hard ally in the region. We support an independent Kurdistan and secure basing rights there. We pull out of the rest of Iraq and let the chips fall where they may… since they obviously don’t want us there anyways. The Kurdish people IMO are the only population in that country right now that have behaved and are organizing like a people who want a stable and democratic country of their own and after leaving them hanging for so long I think they deserve it at this point.
Well, given that a certain percentage of Iraqis do hate us at the ‘IED’ level, and that we are unable to woo them back into the ‘simmering’ level, and that there are enough of them to make the current situation unworkable, does it really matter how many more get pushed into the ‘willing to plant bombs’ level, as long as the measures that pushed them that far also stop them from doing that violence?
I mean, isn’t a group of 100 people who would kill all Americans if given the chance better than 99 people that just hate Americans, and 1 that has the chance to kill them?
I’m personally in agreement. I’d go for total disarmament with instant death for Iraqis caught with weapons before something this complicated.
Again, what’s our goal here? Establish Truth, Justice, and the American Way? If so, then we need to be pushing as hard as we can to ensure that there is a local, functional justice system. If we’re just trying to establish a working Iraq, then we don’t need one.
It’s also not terribly effective; you’d need to destroy all forms of housing and vehicles and containers before you’d have removed everything which would let someone hide arms and explosives.
Y. You’d need 75-100 years and an effective genocide campaign at the very minimum, and that would only work within that region.
I’m not a statistician or an empire-builder, but I was under the impression that unmarried men were the ones most often behind systemic acts of violence such as the ones we’re facing in Iraq. I’d personally assume more of a self-selecting system in which obvious psychos have less luck attracting mates than any calming effect of regular nookie, but hey, if it could be shown to work and if we have no regard for such foolish, outmoded notions as civility and rights, then why not institute mandated coitus five times a day?
I’d say that the problem here (which both Evil Captor and I have both alluded to) is that we have not decided what our goals are and what we are and aren’t willing to do to acheive these goals. Given this, thinking ‘outside the box’ is an exercise in futility; there is no defined box which we are inside.
This would, of course, be extraordinarily effective at ending U.S. involvement and expense in the region. My personal preference would be either for this sort of plan, if we assume that our national interests are a priority.
Neighbors… you mean like Iran? I don’t think we could possibly incite them more than we have other than full on attack. Turkey? They’ll grumble and make noise but if the US threw it’s full weight behind the Kurds that would be that. Besides, I think Turkey might possibly consider a stable Kurdistan to it’s south preferable to an unstable Iranian client state in a more or less perpetual state of civil war. Syria?.. see Iran. We’re already screwing up beyond belief but at least this way we have a new nation up and running, pumping oil and at least somewhat happy with us.
You had me right up until “ecstasy in the water supply.” As I understand it, the Al-Qaeda types are already doping themselves to the gills prior to fights to give themselves an edge. Setting up extensive electronic monitoring, if it can be done, might cut down on the violence in Iraq. However, I see plonking away at electronic cameras at night becoming the next great sport for Iraqis if the cameras are just left sitting out in public.
You and I obviously have very different values. Killing and maiming people is the number one worst thing you can do to a person in my value system, and torture is number two. Enforced public near-nudity, espeically en masse, is WAAAAAAY down on the list. I would consider firing someone without cause to be MUCH worse, and that happens every day in the good old USA.
You’re right, this is speculative thinking. We can look at the accounting on the ideas, once we have the ideas. The idea is to get the ideas and see if they’d work.
See above. Not a bald assertion on my part any more.
Actually, I am a great fan of the US. That’s why I hate the Bush Admin. so much, because they have brought so much shame on the US by their despicable behavior.
I believe that’s where we’re headed under our current “leadership.” I’m trying to think of a way out.
I have a lot of trouble believing people would be more upset by public nudity than by having their kids blown up … and we’ve blown up a LOT of Iraqis with our bombs in recent years. Memories like that last a lifetime, donchaknow. Saying enforced public nudity, principally of Iraqi men, would be worse than that just doesn’t make any kind of sense to me. Frankly, a creature who would rather have his kids blown up than walk around in a Speedo doesnt really seem human to me. Does such a creature seem human to you?
In short, I’m not buying it. I agree, it would bug the very hung-up Iraqis one whole hell of a lot more than it would bug comparitively healthy-minded Americans or Europeans. That much we agree on. But once again, it represents a solution to all these surprise attacks we’ve been having. My idea is to reduce American casualties, and I’m surprised you’re so much more concerned with protecting Iraqi sensibilities than preserving American lives. Like I said, I’m willing to hear actual solutions to the problem.
Once again, I would LIKE it if the cultures of the Middle East magically migrated toward more humane values, but it seems like too neat a solution, and for that reason I distrust it. Sometimes the easy answer is the right answer, but most of the time … not. This sounds like more neocon hashish. I do not believe I will have a toke, thank you very much.
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Its not that your solutions can’t work (they obviously can’t), its that they show a lack of understanding of the underlieing problems. Its the mallot approach to solving problems…and the same general problem with Bush, who tried to do things in the same way. Sure, think outside the box, be wild and crazy…but you first need to really understand enough so that your solutions aren’t completely impossible AND irrational (rationality being defined by your target audience, not some absolute).
I thought the oil revenues weren’t coming through due to all the sabotage and terrorism and such. If they are, this strikes me as a good plan for cutting down on the cash-motivated violence, which I understand is behind a lot of the kidnapping of Iraqis.
to get as many of our troops home safe and sound as is humanly possible under the circumstances
to do so in a way that leaves the Iraqi people as free as possible, and as capable of leading decent (i.e., sufficient food, clothing and shelter) a life as possible, under whatever religion or system of government suits them, with as many civil liberties as they are capable of handling. (And when I say “Iraqi people” I mean Iraqi women, too.)
and to leave the US in as strong a strategic position as possible, consistent with the other goals.
You lost me right here. Inconsistent with goal number 2. Your plans seem to imply an unstated goal of punishing the Iraqi people.
