La Belle Dame Sans Merci
Hmm, without mercy or without thanks?
No, it means dear elucidator has conjured Elysium.
Mr. B, if we were talking about impoverished sections of Baghdad, or a farming community, or someplace where we can give the population the benefit of the doubt…then I would see your point. But this is Saddam’s territory and it has an insurgency problem, which is no longer solely directed at the US. The international peacekeepers are at risk, the Red Cross, the UN, the Iraqi security forces, the infrastructure, the people, etc. The average Iraqi might even think this is a good idea.
Hic! Hoq? Bartneder…another Mermaid…
Whaddaya mean “cut off”? I’m Johnny Keats! Ode to a Grecian Yearn! Yeah, thats me! Want me to show you my club foot?
Yeah, OK, that little bitch Georgie Gordon…fuck you…[i[Lord* Byron…You know, I met this cutie pie. She had no pity, no pity at all.
Pithy though. She was pithy as all get out.
Reminds me of the old ‘un, How much does a Grecian Yearn . . . (about 400 euro’s a week – boom, tish, tumbleweed)
Btw, you’re all talking bollocks. The ultimate purpose of ‘Shock and Awe II’ is to engineer a situation whereby the US can extract most of its forces from <Mind my knee> Quagmire <Ouch!> . . .
George trying to save his re-election skin should suit you crazy liberals; he needs the troops home just as much as you want ‘em.
But maybe that’s the dilemma, he needs the troops home, you want the troops home . . . but doing so probably gets him re-elected . . . where now lies the path of enlightenment for the moral liberals ?
Does anyone remember free fire zones? Does anyone remember the rape of Belgium? This is a self destructive tactic. This is shoot now and ask questions later.
If all fairness, soldiers are imperfect law enforcement agents and maneuver unit commanders are ill suited to make subtle distinctions. These people have been thrown into a situation in which they are taking casualties every day (meaning that they are watching their friends and comrades getting killed and maimed with a fair chance that they are next). To use area weapons-aerial bombardment, cannon and tank fire–is a natural and understandable reaction to the insurgency/ resistance. In the long run, while it may cow some into complacency, it does nothing to help the stated objective of making Iraq a stable liberal democracy and it certainly does even less to place Iraq oil at the disposal of the United States. It almost guarantees the eventual emergence of a Islamic Republic controlled by radical clerics and hostile to the West and especially to the United States.
We have two choices–work like hell to transform Iraq from withing or use overwhelming force to install exiles and ex-patriots as a ruling elite. We can’t have it both ways. If we try to bully Iraq into submission without smothering the country in 19 year old armed Americans then we are going to have a substantial bloody nose in exchange for this experiment in imperial adventure.
Do I hate America? No. But I’m not very pleased about the course that the leaders of my country have chosen to pursue. I direct your attention to the comments of that notorious America hater, Representative Abraham Lincoln, on the late war with Mexico.
Seriously, I’m sure the average Iraqi is OK with most of what the articles sailor posted describe. I honestly can’t find anything super horrible about it. If the residents of that village are in fact wealthy relatives of Saddam, it should have been sealed off months ago. That’s not brutality, that’s common sense.
I’m not finding anything objectionable here. I’ve posted in other threads that security is key. It is. The soldiers have to do what they’re doing. The war is what it is. Being against actions like these is like being against the Sun rising in the East. You may prefer for it to rise in the West, but it ain’t going to happen.
That’s not an endorsement of any of Bush’s policies. But we’re there, and we’ve got to do the right thing by the vast majority of Iraqis, who are now depending on us to guard their lives and their property.
What London Calling posted is a good, cynical, realistic appraisal of what’s possible here. My most realistic hope is that the scenario he put out in fact unfolds. Looks like the best deal everyone can make in this situation.
Yegads, think me besotted
in the wine that is Canary,
Elysium, as heady praise,
the trifurcated meaning plays.
What stroke me really bad in the news were the troops shelling, well, something; there wasn´t a subtitle specifying the target; I mean, for goodnes sake, what the heck were they shelling???
"And the way to create a positive outcome is NOT to bomb the crap out of people who should be supporting the same goals as you. Alienating (not to mention blowing up) the people you have ostensibly come to rescue and protect is not the way to create a lasting peace. Whatever happened to determining guilt or innocence before imposing punishment?"
The way to create a positive outcome is to find/kill Saddam. Let’s find/kill Osama, too. Obviously, it’s not easy, but the situation demands it.
I’m not a Bush fan by any means. I don’t think he’s going to win next year, and that won’t break my heart. But we’re committed to a policy. Let’s finish what we’ll find ourselves back in the awfulness of 1973.
- PW
Don’t think so. If he brings them home, it will be seen as a defeat, not a victory, and that would ensure his loss in the election. Just imagine the photos of the helicopter on the roof in Saigon juxtaposed with photos of, well, however it plays out - perhaps of Saddam’s return to one of his palaces as the last US troops board their C-17?
Palewriter, you’re right, and I hope it’s simple bungling that has kept Osama, Saddam, and the anthrax mailer free so far.
But that ain’t the plan, Elvis. That’s not in anyone’s interest; Bush, UN or Europe.
The image you’re supposed to be seeing 'round Springtime is blue helmeted ‘nation builders’ waving off the heroic 101 Airborne, the US kicked ass – made the world a safer place and now they’ve handed over and are comin’ home!
Well, ‘cept for the oil industry, all those contractors and the US forces needed to protect the infrastructure and investments.
Anyway, that’s where ‘Shock and Awe II’ is supposed to get us, to the Security Council negotiating table . . .* in one giant leap!*
Well, from the Neocon perspectiuve (which I share) the goal all along was to free Iraq, and rebuild it into a stable democracy. Not so much because we needed an ally, but because we needed an example to other states in the region. Along with Afganistan, this is a powerful symbol that you do not fuck with America and walk away happy, an impression that every President since Carter has given. It also places in the center and origin of the Arab world a powerful symbol saying that they could succeed and could be a free and prosperous state. Combiend with Turkey’s power, the increasingly wobbly Saudi and Syrian states, Iraq will make a strong example for Mid-Easters to follow.
We chose the weapons issue because it looked rather promising for a Causus Belli, and we figured even France and Germany wouldn’t fight with us over it. And for a while the political game worked, since everyone - possibly including Saddam - thought he had checmical weapons. Those weren’t a non-issue, as we’ve been having collective nightmares for the last decade after Bush (senior) ran out of Iraq like a bloody coward. And note that no one, including the hard-left, doubted that Saddam did have them.
We’re honestly self interested. But it is enlightened self interest. We recognize that the interests of the US of A are no longer coincidental with those of dictatorial regimes. Bush (senior) failed to understand that, and shamefully got a bunch of people killed. He had peace [sort of] in his time, at the cost of war in ours.
And to tel you the truth, the more I learned about Iraq, the more I wanted us to go. Because, yeah, I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try to do something to put an end to the Baathist state.
Not gonna happen, either. With Bush’s disdain for the UN or anything else resembling internationalism being so well-established, a change of policy to depend on it would have to start with a seriouis amount of public self-abasement on his part. That would certainly be seen as a defeat, with all the negative electoral effects. So you do have to expect him to keep doing what he’s been doing, and hoping to be bailed out by new events he can spin.
smiling bandit, the Iraq-democratization goal is a laudable one, but it’s deeply questionable if the administration actually shares it. You do have to be active and questioning about whether your support of the war is really advancing that goal. As to calling it a “neocon” perspective, I dunno - seems like simply a humanist perspective, however realistic or not it may be. The “neocon” perspective would seem to be that of PNAC, the outfit whose alumni are running the show in Washington at the moment, and that looks more neoimperialist than humanist.
Can someone tell me the difference between what the US forces are doing and what Israelis are doing in the occupied territories?
Anyone?
Enjoy,
Steven
Mtgman: they had reason to believe, according to them, that it was being used to plot attacks. That’s why they said it was a “meeting place”.
When Israel blows up a house, the notoriety of it is that the terrorist is usually a suicide bomber who’s already dead, so it serves no purpose, not even a punitive one.
I find it particularly telling that the President altered his speech today to sharpen his criticism of Israel’s methods. It was a concession to 10 Downing Street.
elucidator: what say ye? Is my name also writ on water? 
Easier than walking, I suppose.
Since when is it permissable for one nation to invade another in order to change the way the other nation runs itself? Adhereance to this position would give permission, for example, for Cuba to invade Florida in order to establish a more stable, dictatorship, after all, that whole democracy thing can lead to all sorts of instability etc. (we may personally believe that democracy is the ‘best’ way to run a nation, but it is immoral for us to require/mandate/ force / invade another sovereign nation in order to effect that change).
** (Parenthetical comments added by moi, to clarify ‘them’ )
I’s gonna quibble with this a bit. As a member of the ‘liberal but not a fucking lunatic’ section (which I figure puts me a bit more centrist than ‘hard left’ but no matter): The entire world knew SH had such weapons, 'cause he’d used them. Note the use of the past tense.
what was being claimed by the administration was that SH was in current possession of piles and piles, stores and stores, tons and tons (remember Colin at the UN w/his sattelite imagery?). This, I do not recall saying that I ‘knew’ it was true. I recall saying “don’t know for certain, he might, he might not” also recall coming up with plausible scenarios for why he’d not overtly prove that he didn’t have them (remember his oh, so friendly neighbors in Turkey and Iran? the potential of Chemical warfare certainly would be a chilling notion for either of those if they were considering an invasion); also remember suggesting that even if he had them, it was pretty damn certain that he **couldn’t ** lob 'em on the United States. (IE that the US was in danger 'cause of his ‘possession of WoMD’ was most likely not to be true)