Ryan, I oft observe, but rarely comment, that you are dim-witted asspuppet. For the love of fuck, go away.
There is a point, though, where the cost-benefit analysis just doesn’t hold up anymore.
If for every insurgent we kill, we create (cautious estimate) two more, we are losing.
If for every insurgent we kill, we create more general distrust of Americans, we are losing.
If for every insurgent we kill, we give radical groups a PR goldmine, we are losing.
I’ll admit, I’m not quite sure what to do in this situation, but it seems that blowing more shit up and killing more people, ‘enemies’ or not, will not help us.
My plan? Immediately and unequivocably make a ‘mea culpa’ before the UN, general and security councils. Admit that we waged a war on horrible intel, (we can leave out the cherrypicking). Admit that we had no real plan to win the peace. Admit that we are losing the war. Admit that cronyism was bad. Admit that this is a global problem and thus we need a global solution.
Disolve all contractual obligations with Haliburton, et al.
Allow foreign companies to bid on reconstruction.
Declare Iraq to be a region in need of UN peacekeepers.
Step out of any leadership role, turn this over to the international community.
Will this work?
I honestly don’t know.
But I do know what more of the same will get us.
(can you tell who I didn’t vote for?)
FinnAgain, I agree with the broad strokes of your plan. However, since the administration is too stubborn to do this, I think you need to consider: Yes, every act of violence could create more insurgents. I don’t know that they are created more quickly than they are quelled. I don’t think you know this either.
I honestly do not have a plan that any US president would be likely to adopt. Personally, in addition to UN oversight, there needs to be at least 3 Iraqs, not one.
I dunno if it would work, either, but the NHL will be playing in Hell before we’d ever find out.
Stubborn…
Corrupt venal slimelords who redefine hubris and are dragging the entire nation down with them.
Tomato, tomahtoe.
No, I don’t have any cites on the creation of insurgents, which is why I gave a cautious estimate.
On preview, though, I would suggest tentatively that if we were to delve into the rate of European Jihadists going to fight in Iraq verses the ‘coalition’ figures on insurgents killed, we’d find far more coming in than going out. And that’s just European Jihadists.
I can, however, definitely furnish you with cites as to the attitudes of many people in Iraq and the Islamic world in general.
And I think, in the end, that having people who will give aid and comfort to insurgents is as dangerous as the insurgents themselves.
For what it’s worth, I had hope that someone else might’ve taken the country in a new direction. ~sighs~
Agreed.
The nation was created (IIRC) by British mandate, and we now need a UN partition plan.
Then again, that series of events has a nasty precident in the ME…
EddyTeddyFreddy:
Unfortunately, you’re right.
There are days when I am embarrased by the actions of my president, then there are days when I am energized and feel like fighting and restoring America to where I feel it should be.
But it’s always depressing.
I really wish someone could come along and convince me I’m wrong, wrong, wrong. “Depressing” is putting it mildly.
That about covers it. To bad that will never happen in any way shape or form. A shame considering the world might actually forgive us for our stupidity.
To be honest, the election hit me very hard.
I was sobbing when I listened to Kerry giving up the ghost, when that supporter called out from the balcony “we’ve still got your back man!” and Kerry replied “I’ve still got yours.”
Just… sad.
And sad that I honestly feel that we need a champion in government to protect us.
But, this is my country goddessdamnit!
And I will fight them for every inch of ground.
I’ve had enough of despair, I don’t know if the solution lies in Hakim Bey style T.A.Z’s, or what, but I am not giving up, I am not.
Grim determination and ruthlessly holding to principles will get me through.
I hope
Like we have to do in Iraq. Withdrawing is NOT an option at this moment in time.
Disregarding the Kurds to a point, the people of Iraq, consider themselves Iraqis first, rather than their distinct brand of Islam. Besides, if we split the country up, why stop their? Why not seperate them on basis of tribe? Its not a possibility.
Nope. Never. I might seem bad, or have a bad viewpoint. But not as bad as your airy fairly dumbass views on how to win this conflict. Get back to reading the Guardian.
Haha, but even worse for you would be for me to agree and say it is a bad thing, which it is, but then again your assmuppet (like somone put so eloquently) views on us just leaving and abandoning them to their fate against ruthless fuckers who chop off heads, car bomb rape and kidnapp is an even more insulting propostion and belief than even I have. So Fuck you.
And regarding you ‘I hate the bullying stumbling US’ retarded posts which I’ve seen around this board countless times, its not surprising I take a stance against what you believe in.
Do you know anything about the ethnic groups of Iraq? Their history? Why would you make up such factoids?
Jesus Christ on a turnip. Fuck. There’s no engaging you in intelligent discussion, so let me just make the qualitative statement that this is pure extract of stupidity.
Boiled down, triple distilled, essence of stupidity.
LBJ, is that you?
Ryan: When come back, bring cite.
Where did I say there should be total withdrawal?
Or did I say the UN should take over?
Try not to conflate the two.
(and by the way, I am going to ‘stay the course’ in America becuase this is my country and I love it dearly. Why, pray tell, must we bear the lion’s share in Iraq?)
I say again, do you have a shred of proof or are you only going to make stuff up and hope nobody catches you?
Indeed, if it was found that the most stable configuration was a partition along tribal lines, why not?
Why is it not a possibility?
[English major]And just a quibble, “their” is possesive, you meant “there”[/English major]
Hmmmm…
You pull ‘facts’ out of your ass and have no understanding (from what I’ve seen) as to what’s going on in Iraq or the world…
okay, I’ll bite, provide cites for how we are mistaken, please.
First, another quibble. It would be “assmuppetesque”, or some such. Otherwise you are using a possesive clause to denote one’s owenership of an assmuppet and said assmuppet’s views. (which is kinda funny, I must admit)
Now, quit with the strawman.
Nobody has advocated pulling out totally and just letting Iraq become a failed nation and a breeding ground for terrorism.
Also, you are aware that missiles and carbombs do the same thing, right?
You are aware that American troops were kidnapping Iraqis, right?
You are aware of Abu Graib, right?
You are aware of something, please, maybe, right?
I hate, am embarrased, and am ashamed by the actions my government has undertaken many times the world over. Names like Pinochet spring to mind.
If you are not appauled, you are not paying attention.
P.S. I am still waiting for you to respond to this.
Oh really? What the worst that could happen? Civil war? The rise of an Islamic state and a breeding ground of terrorists? Well, I’ve got news for you, those things are going to happen anyway. Sooner or later, some American president, Democrat or Republican, will come to the realization that imposing peace and democracy on Iraq with the barrel of a gun is impossible. Unfortunately, that realization will come after the deaths of thousands of American soldiers and the draining of hundreds of billions of dollars from the US treasury.
Nixon was right to withdraw from Vietnam, but it took him six years and the sacrifice of tens of thousands of lives before the futility of the war became inescapable. That same ultimate outcome in Iraq is unavoidable; why must we destroy thousands of families before we realize that? I say get out now, rather than later, and save a few families some tears at least.
I don’t agree.
If things continue as they are, then yes, that is the most likely outcome.
But I do not believe that it is the only possible outcome.
Problem is, if we get out and what you’ve described does come to pass, you can bet your bottom dollar that we’ll be going back in.
If they didn’t use Mosques as home bases for terrorism we wouldn’t need to go in there and make those poor women cry. Unfortunately, over and over again, with the full support of the religious authority, terrorists have been literally operating out of Mosques. Sorry.
By the way I wouldn’t take something from “anti-war.com” written by someone calld Dahr Jamail to be a paragon of unbiased reporting when it comes to this stuff. Those people shot in the Mosque could have been “gunmen,” or “militants,” or “combatants,” or maybe even “insurgents” firing “guns” at the US soldiers.
By the way I’m not even in favor of the Iraq war. I’m just saying…
They “could have” been, but the burden of proof…
In any case, it doesn’t matter what they actually were, only how this will play all over the Muslim world.
More cluless nonsense from Ryan. Nothing to respond to. So instead, I’ll leave him with two fairly basic questions that’ll hopefully eleicit some sort of semi-coherent response:
1-Who or what, exactly, is the US fighting in Iraq and why?
2-Should you be able to elaborate on that first response, presumably you can also tells us how this war can be won. I contend that you’ve already lost. Convince me otherwise using facts and cites.
One man’s terrorist in onther’s freedom fighter. And while there are certainly criminal elements currently running ammock in Iraq – blame the faith-based post-invasion plans for that particular failure – it’s rather disingenuous to label all resistance members in such manner. As for raiding Mosques for what is being said inside, can’t you see how contrary that is to the very notion of the ‘democracy’ you’re supposedly exporting? So much for freedom of throught and speech in the ‘new’ USaq.
In that vein, I also wanted to comment on something mentioned upthread (by Waverly, methinks) that we have “no way of knowing whether we’re creating more insuregents than we’re putting down.” Well, strictly speaking he’s probably right, for all we’ve ever heard are ‘estimates’ from the US Gov. Which only highlights only of the most glaring weaknesses of the occupying forces: their lack of solid intel on the nature and number of the enemy. Hard to ‘win’ a war lacking said inofrmation. OTOH, what we do know, is that the Falluja siege, far from ‘breaking their backs’ as one eargerly overoptimistic US General said shorthy afterwards, has actually had a reinvigorating effect on the resistance. Insurgent attacks continue across Iraq, despite fall of Fallujah.
We might also take notice that the attacks have steadily increased – especially since the Abu Ghraib torture scandal – in the past few months, that the rate of desertion in the newly formed Iraqi security forces is extremely high and that polls show that a very high percentage of Iraqis **intensively dislike their occupiers and want the to leave at once**. Combine those three indicators together and I think it wouldn’t be far-fetched to suggest that you are, indeed, facing a largely popular insurgency hardly confined to those that are actually takings arms against you.
Yes, in current form, it is mostly confined to the Sunni triangle. And for obvious reaons as they are the ones that stand to lose the most politically in the rare case of a truly open election. And I say ‘rare’ because if anyone really believes that the US will allow a Shiite fundamentalist regime with close ties to Iran, to take power in Iraq, I have some oceanfront property in Colorado I’d like you to take a look at. No need though, Rumsfeld has already publicly said as much – not like the US is so incredibly noble as to spend blood and treasure (especially in these copious amounts) to be left out of the lucrative geopolitical loop that is Iraq and its assets.
But that brings us to another problem. As quiet as the Shiites have been as of late – some might even view the current battles between the Sunnis and the US forces as having a proxy army doing their bidding for them – we need only go back to this past summer and the Najaf standoff, to see how quickly they’d be ready to fight for their interests as well. Remember Muqtada al-Sadr? Turns out he’s quite a recognized/admired force amongst the Shiite for having stood his ground so ‘gallantly’ against the mighty Americans. Rather shewd too, for he has recently come out in full support of the Sunni resistance. As have a large number of Islamic clerics – including Iran’s own Ayatollah Ali Khamenei **scathing attack**
**
In sum. Not a pretty picture, no matter how you look at it. But since “we told you so” is of very little use or intellectual satisfaction at the moment, the present brief summary is only offered in the hopes that some of you might listen this time arounds. Solutions? Nothing fool-proof and all fraought with danger and more carnage – Iraq’s way past the point of no return – but my thinking is not far off from many of the things proposed by FinnAgain upthread.
Because I am more than fairly confident that the ‘alternative,’ the present course (i.e. more of the same) is on a steady track to nowhere but ultimate and crushing defeat. IMO, it’s only a matter of time – and a steady stream of casualties – before American public opinion turns will finally see this war as the folly that it’s always been.
Hmm…where did I read about something similar happening not long ago? Dind’t that Kerry guy have a major role in putting a stop to that particular insanity?
I read news from all sources in order to gather as much information as available. The build-up to the war and the endless propaganda put forth by American mainstream press during that timeframe – which even the ‘liberal’ NYT was forced to acknowledge after the fact – should have been a clear red flag to anyone geuninely interested in looking for the truth. Or as close as we can get to it sitting confortably in front of our monitors. That means reading all you can, from as many sources as you can, and reaching your own conclusions. OTOH, I am not surprised that anyone restricted to a steady diet of Fox, CNN and the networks, would think that the right thing to do is to wrap oneself in the US flag and shake the dust off the ol’ pom-poms. No doubt it must be cozy in that fictional world.
At any rate, Dahr Jamail is an independent reporter on his second Iraq tour, published in a number of magazines as well as doing some radio reporting for the BBC. here, **this a brief summary of his accomplishments**:
**
So far, I’ve seen no reason to doubt his reports any more or less than say oh, those of the mainstream press.
Pardon the typos. Long day, long post and no energy to preview/fix.
Answer my question fucktard, if you think seperating them on basis of religion and ethnicity is going to be a good idea, tell me what how you’re going to explain the next hundred or so fiefdoms that pop up on basis of tribe, retard. Don’t you get it? If we divide, then who knows where it will stop, and remember, this place is twice the size of France in an area of large scale Islamic extremism, do you want to hand it over to them on a plate?