Yeah, that’s why we have 2,600 dead. They were spoken to too loudly by the vocal minority.
You mean hand over Basra to Iran ?
It might work - certainly worth considering.
Kuwait would not like it, but that is no major problem.
Up in the North it is the Kurds, a problem for Turkey, Syria and … Iran
:dubious:
I don’t think it’s necessary for any part of Iraq to be occupied physically for Iran to control the political climate there. And that climate is what determines how Iraq handles its oil resource.
So you’re saying that a majority of Iraqis have taken up arms against the US and the Iraqi Government? Effective organisation of terrorist cells can cause a substantial amount of damage. They don’t have to be large to do this.
Then Kirkuk would be then handed over to pretty much the most solid US ally in the area, the Kurdish Autonomous region. If this situation were likely to happen, and as Kirkuk holds 40% of proven reserves, this would still be a win-win situation.
Well next time please don’t imply that the US was the sole aggressor on a bunch of barefoot guerilla peasants.
You misinterpret me, I’m saying that all sides were brutal, malicious and callous, to single out the US as if it was solely the perpetrator is misleading.
So it’s opinion, not fact. Fact proves that both sides escalated the involvement and use of military action.
I have.
That’s not the point, the point is that if the US were able to commit themselves to the agreements they hammered out, SV would not of folded so quickly and may of been able to stand on its own feet, since it was able too until '75 after the US withdrew its groundforces in '73, but since the US didn’t abide by the Paris Peace accords, as the NVA didn’t, that was not to be the case.
Your brother and friends were probably under orders to lie, or they was mistaken.
Last I heard, between 45%-65% supported killing foreign troops, depending on where you asked. That was months back, so I expect it’s worse ( or better, depending on your viewpoint ) by now.
Less than 1%, last I heard.
From here.
Please, our tax code heavily favors the wealthy.
We invaded them, not the other way around. It is ALL our fault. Nor is killing our troops terrorism; it is the clear duty of the Iraqis to kill as many of us as possible.
This assumes an autonomous Kurdistan, doesn’t it? That’s going to be a real sticking point for our friend Turkey, and for Iran too. They are both a lot closer to the Kurd’s lands than we are and I hope we have learned something about how far we can project adequate force into the middle east.
Even if there is an autonomous Kurdistan, oil is of no use to it in Kirkuk. It has to be gotten out to market through some mighty hostile neihbors.
Who is ‘them’, if it’s Iraq, dam straight we did back in Gulf War 1, we had a reture to hostilities when Sadam lied about WMD’s, making the world beleive he had them, though to be honset shooting at our planes would be enough of a violation to justify resuming hostilities.
Are you part of Sadam’s staff, then yes it’s all your fault - but please don’t say our fault, I didn’t support Sadam.
I do agree with you that taking up arms against our forces is not terrorism if you are defening your country, but these ‘insurgents’ are really getting Americans p’ed off at them and help fostering a anti-islamic sentiment here, which could very likely bring back racial profiling as open poliacy.
:rolleyes: Ours as in America’s fault. What Saddam did or did not do was irrelevant; we would have attacked regardless.
From their viewpoint that’s a good thing, since it creates dissension within their enemy, us. And I seriously doubt if they care if we are “p’ed off at them”, and I’m sure they already are quite certain of our implacable hostility to Islam.
Who is ‘them’, if it’s Iraq, dam straight we did back in Gulf War 1, we had a reture to hostilities when Sadam lied about WMD’s, making the world beleive he had them, though to be honset shooting at our planes would be enough of a violation to justify resuming hostilities.
Are you part of Sadam’s staff, then yes it’s all your fault - but please don’t say our fault, I didn’t support Sadam.
I do agree with you that taking up arms against our forces is not terrorism if you are defening your country, but these ‘insurgents’ are really getting Americans p’ed off at them and help fostering a anti-islamic sentiment here, which could very likely bring back racial profiling as open poliacy.
Double posts . . . an hour apart ?
I got a time out error the first time, hit the back button, went to dinner, then reposted when I got back.
what can I say, I don’t agree, actually I believe W gave Sadam a chance to surrender before we invaded, which would be kind of silly if we were going to invade anyway.
Perhaps, I think we are killing them, and their leadership far faster then they are getting replacements, plus the US is paying much more attention to the terrorists, sorry I see it opposite - they are loosing support and we are gaining support.
Nothing but show; some of Bush’s officals even admitted before the war ( one in an Italian interview IIRC; can’t find a link ) that they would have invaded even if Saddam left Iraq or died.
Then you are living in a fantasy world. We are losing support, and have from the beginning, and we are paying little attention to terrorists, and a great deal to people who resist our rape of Iraq.
In an earlier post I stated that we don’t know what is “the course” that we are supposed to stay.
On Meet The Press today Cheney touched on the subject. The desired end product is a freely elected Iraq government that represents the will of the Iraqis. I would suppose that such a government also maintains law and order so that people can get on with their lives.
Well, it would real neat if there was a Santa Claus who gives every child nice toys at Christmas.
What Cheney didn’t say is that a government that represents the will of the Iraqis is at least as likely to be inimical to US interests as to be friendly to us.
This pie-in-the-sky hope is not a plan. It is a goal and there is remarkable silence as to how this goal is to be gained.
So what? Egypt Jordan Saudi Arabia, and whole host of other Arab States are non democratic and are supported by the US for ‘vested US interests’ What, if you say that even if Iraq is democratic and yet still supports US interests, is the problem? At least they’ll be able to vote out their government every 4 years.
:rolleyes: The rather obvious point David Simmons was making is that a democratic Iraq won’t support US interests. Personally, I’d expect implacable hatred for generations, and a serious dedication to hurting us and our interests as much as possible. Jordon and Saudi Arabia work with us because they are not democratic; if they were, they would be out to harm us as well. In a region ( and more and more the world ) that hates us, democracy is directly linked to a nation’s hostility towards us, because we are hated by the people.
Let’'s see, the Iraqis have to do this democratization and maintaining law and order and as soon as they are ready to do that we will leave. But they aren’t quite ready yet. And now, and for quite a while, the administration has been pushing body count.
Why do those two things sound awfully familiar? All we need now is someone to play Westmoreland.
We went to war *because * he wasn’t a real threat after all? 
Now *there’s * an assertion we don’t see every day.
Maybe not. There have been too many command officers coming forward with honest assessments lately for the “light at the end of the tunnel” line to work. Only a shrinking minority of people still buy it.
The role of McNamara in this tragical farce is filled, of course (and notice how he hasn’t said a word in public about seeing this sequel?), but Rummy has to be too radioactive to get a chance at rehabilitating what reputation he does have left.
If you truly believe that, and believe that the average American soldier would follow that order once released, you have an incredibly naive take on things. My brother has told me some hair-raising tales, but I have no reason to question the truthfulness of what he says.
I imagine your take on it is better, since you explicitly stated that it’s your belief that the duty of all Iraqi’s is to kill American soldiers. If about half of the 26 million Iraqi’s support killing Foreign Troops, I’m curious to know why the number of Coalition dead is so low. One would think that in a country wherein weapons collections have failed abysmally, there would be a lot more dead soldiers.