Most Iraqis support attacking American troops

Great Debates
41

I don’t think a Sunni/Shia clash is inevitable at all. Most sectarian conflicts are borne of a sense of real oppression and hopelessness. If a middle class can rise in Iraq, and the standard of living of all can be improved, the Iraqi people will have a lot to lose in a civil war. If an equitable oil deal can be reached that brings money to everyone, and a federalist system developed that gives each region enough autonomy to believe that they can manage their own affairs while still benefiting from living in a greater Iraq, I think Iraq can come back from the brink.

This is what the surge is hoping to accomplish. The federal government in Iraq sucks, so the military’s strategy has been to rebuild a civil society from the bottom up and empower local governments. So far, that seems to be working. Economic activity in Iraq is booming. New businesses are starting up every day. People who fled the country are coming back. Shops are re-opening. And better yet, local leaders are starting to reach out to other groups and form economic and security alliances that expand the scope of peaceful areas.

This in turn will hopefully cause the people at the grassroots level to put more pressure on higher-level politicians to get their collective acts together. This also is happening, and a number of the original benchmarks for reconciliation have now been met and more are being negotiated.

The longer the U.S. can keep Iraq from blowing apart, the greater the likelihood that it will find a way to glue itself back together again.

42

The economy is “booming”? What is the unemployment rate in Iraq, Sam?

43

Or possibly, the longer the US prevents the explosion, the greater the pressure will build, with resultant inevitable explosion being even bigger, and recovery even more prolonged and misery-filled.

It could go a lot of ways, but I have yet to see good evidence that we’re benefitting the Iraqis in the long run with our presence.

44

Maybe…

Myself I think that while the surge has worked fairly well on the military side (hell, it’s worked a lot better than I thought it would), that it’s only the threat of that overwhelming force that is holding things together as much as it is that is keeping the country from flying apart, and folks like Sadr from renewing his own ambitions and sending his private army back into the field. Once we start stepping those force levels down (and we WILL have to do that at some point…sooner rather than later as our logistics and force structure are already strained to near the limit and I don’t see anyone else surging along with us) I think we’ll shortly be back to the way it was last year. I hope I’m wrong…but after this effort I’m ready to start bringing the troops home if it DOES seem to be flying apart and going back to the way it was a year ago. This, to me, is the last shot…if we start bringing our force levels back down later this year and things revert then it’s time for us to call it a day, acknowledge that we fucked it up and can’t fix it, and bring the troops home. I feel bad for the Iraqi’s…but to a degree they are also responsible for the renewed chaos if they don’t take this opportunity to try and keep things from flying apart.

ETA: This was in response to Sam Stone’s post.

-XT

45

Things are so much better. Electricity a couple hours a day, the plumbing is blown apart and waste is everywhere. There are walls separating the neighborhoods. The educated have fled the country. We have bombed the shit out of the infrastructure and the beautiful buildings than were once there. People are living in fear. That is what we have done.

46

How is that relevant to whether the economy is now starting to take off?

[url=http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=ia&ID=IA42308]The Iraqi Economy: From Shocks to Take-off?
[/quote]

47

Which pretty much requires getting rid of us.

First, Iraq is already “blown apart”. That’s what we did. And second, it can’t even start to put itself together again, so long as we are there. Any Iraqi government that exists under our occupation is collaborationist, and will have no respect, no legitimacy, and no power beyond what we enforce for it.

48

Here’s a farirly in-depth and what looks to me, balanced report on the state of Iraqi political affairs:

Inside Iraqi Politics

It’s a mixed review, showing progress and roadblocks. But overall, the message is cautiously optimistic.

49

I wouldn’t call that booming. And your cite didn’t give any stats about the unemployment rate. The latest estimates are 25-40%. Look at page 40 of this PDF file.

50

Sorry to further the hijack, but there were a lot of us Americans (and even more amongst our now-reluctant allies) who though going into Iraq would be a colossal cock-up. As a US citizen, I accept that “we” did indeed go in, but I’d like it to be known among my own country and the rest of the world that many of “us” did not support this at all.

51

But I didn’t claim anything about the unemployment rate. You’re the one that injected that into the debate. I’m aware that the unemployment rate is high. The question is whether it’s growing or falling. If it’s growing, it’s a good sign because it means more people will become vested in the continued good health of the Iraq economy.

52

You said:

Growth is good, of course. But I don’t think “booming” is close to being accurate, one reason being the unusually high unemployment rate. Employment is very much a part of “economic activity”. No?

53

Well, Sam, you know how folks can be, sometimes. You present this wholly unbiased research, fair and balanced, you know, some folks are gonna be suspicious, quick to catch the scent of agenda.

This Long War Journal, for instance. (For the lumpendopers, the Long War is equivalent to the War on Terror, apparently…) Its mission statement is the very embodiment of civil sanctimony, they are four-square and unshakeable in defense of liberty and democracy.

Certainly nothing wrong with that! Heavens, I’m all for liberty and democracy! Lets have a show of hands, who here hates liberty and democracy? I’m just about convinced of their golden bona fides.

Who can we thank for this marvelous effort? Well, for starters, a Mr. Bob Roggio, editor:

“…His articles have been published in The Weekly Standard, The National Review, The New York Post, The Toronto Times, and Die Weltwoche…”

Hmmm. Yes. * Standard, National Review*. The very paragons of agenda-free information. Yeppers. That’s them.

“…an Adjunct Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies…”

Splendid fellow! The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies! Here he is exposed to the cross-currents of modern non-partisan theoreticians, the likes of Jeane Kirkpatrick, Jack Kemp, Steve Forbes and Mr. Newt Gingrich. Newt. Gingrich.

Of course, you knew all this, yes, Sam? So you will understand, won’t you, if I suspect these celebrated experts might bear a faint odor of agenda? Kind of like week-old roadkill smells like dead?

54

I believe this a mistranslation from Canadian into English. I’m pretty sure you mean a growing employment rate is a good thing. Not a growing unemployment rate.

Advise.

55

I don’t doubt that the violence comes from many sources, as you say. I’d like to see you back up your statement that violence is down in ALL areas.

The same fate awaits Iraq whether the U.S. exit happens in one year or ten.

56

What do you think was happening in Iraq before we invaded?

Ever considered Iraq’s history?
Or middle-east history? How about colonialism?

57

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41284 Unemployment 60 to 70 percent.
Before we went in over half the university students were women. Women had jobs and could wear western style clothes. We fixed that.

58

John Mace got it right, I think. He’s not the first. Years ago, in Atlantic, Harper’s? a writer pointed out that if the Iraqis need to fight it out, they will. As a comparison, the writer asked what would have happened if the European powers had intervened in our own Civil War.

This comes off as so cold-blooded, I should be taken in front of a firing squad. And I stand by this notion: the best we can do is get out of the way. I express helpless pity for the victims. The American soldiers CAN be saved. By withdrawing. Every night, on the news, there’s another funeral for some local sap who got offed in Iraq. What do I have against them? Them being my neighbors would suit me much better.

59

I quite honestly blame Rumsfeld in part for this debacle. He overrode almost every commander’s stance as to the amount of boots on the ground required to invade, capture, hold, rebuild Iraq. The surge was a weak-handed attempt to rectify what should have been done in the first place.
Shinseki was a learned military man, and got replaced when he didn’t agree with “El Supremo’s” (Rumsfeld’s) perception of how many troops were needed to accomplish the goal. There were estimates as high as 400,000 troops needed to accomplish the mission en toto.
But, 100,000 were committed. Yes, the invasionary force was a spectacular success in terms of our military versus theirs, but we shoould have foreseen their military’s unwillingness to fight us in the open battlefield and instead melt into the civilian population and instead fight us in unconventional ways.
The lack of foresight of this administration in terms of it’s committment to this war is it’s biggest failing, IMO.

60

John Mace got it right, I think. He’s not the first. Years ago, in Atlantic, Harper’s? a writer pointed out that if the Iraqis need to fight it out, they will. As a comparison, the writer asked what would have happened if the European powers had intervened in our own Civil War.

This comes off as so cold-blooded, I should be taken in front of a firing squad. And I stand by this notion: the best we can do is get out of the way. I express helpless pity for the victims. The American soldiers CAN be saved. By withdrawing. Every night, on the news, there’s another funeral for some local sap who got offed in Iraq. What do I have against them? Them being my neighbors would suit me much better.