Posted on 11/25/2006 10:13:46 AM PST by Lunatic Fringe
I wonder if Kofi has something to do with this...
Good points.
The point is that our little experiment of creating a pro-Western oil-supplying Arab Islamic Democracy has failed.
You say the Iraq venture has revealed that America "has no stomach for the pain" entailed in this venture. My answer is: not yet it hasn't. Although if more people listen to you, perhaps it will.
Uh, yes.
Are you trying to compare life in a major American city to life in Iraq?
We've been a lawful country for over 200 years, yet we still have crime and lawlessness in pockets throughout our country. Iraq has only been a lawful country for 3 years. You can't expect them to be better then we were back when we started. Remember the wild west? Remember sheriffs and gun slingers? Train robbers? Gangs?
Al Qaeda in iraq has become SPECTRE
bump for later
given enough time, they will burn themselves out- while their finances may be sustained, for now, their population of murderous maggots will not sustain itself- they're already grasping at recruiting younger and younger children to help them http://sacredscoop.com
There's a big difference here. The American colonists were willing to work together to create a workable system. They had traditions of British common law and a common ancestry as former British subjects on which to draw from.
PING
Like the justification for the war in the first place, the administration has posited several explanations for our continuing presence which I suppose is another way of saying, the administration is trying to articulate a strategy.
After it became clear that no weapons of mass destruction were to be found in Iraq the administration emphasized the need to create a democracy. In fairness, that goal was accomplished so long as it is defined only as the election of a government by a majority, and under a constitution ratified by a majority. We soon learned that this definition is deficient because it leaves out a critical element, the rule of law. So we have a democracy without a rule of law and are on the verge of anarchy and civil war inside a shell democracy.
Worse, the creatures of our democracy, the elected leaders, are descending into tribalism and sectarianism and have affirmatively interfered with US military operations undertaken in pursuit of the rule of law. The Iraqi democracy tells United States military that it may not even seek to rescue its own soldiers taken hostage and that there are "no go zones." How long do you think the American public will stand for that? We have established a democracy but it appears that our democracy is window dressing and that the real power is vested in the mullahs. Again worse, it appears that whole departments of the democratically elected Iraqi government are but murder machines for the likes of Al Sadr. I resist the temptation to characterize this mess with the word "Frankenstein"-but not entirely successfully.
We have been told that the strategy is in effect "Iraqization" which means that the Iraqi military and the Iraqi police shall be stood up so that the Americans can stand down. This has been exposed as a total fiasco. The police are worse than corrupt, they are murderers. It is no longer deniable that the real power in Iraq is inflicted on the people by the militias, sometimes operating through departments of government, through the Iraqi army, or through the police. Yet this is the only strategy General Abazaid could articulate in his last bit of testimony, the hearing in which General Abazaid stated under oath that the American military machine is so attenuated they could not sustain an increase of troops in Iraq by a mere 20,000! By this admission, the general in charge has betrayed that we have a policy of Iraqization because we have no other choice. We cannot put more troops in. We are played out.
We were told that we should "stay the course" a hortatory phrase which you wisely failed to use in your remarks but which I think could fairly characterize your meaning. Even the administration recognized the fatuousness of its slogan and abandoned that before the election in a futile attempt to stave off the disaster. The slogan had to be abandoned because it was on its face preposterous and would be turned against the administration as every American began to recognize that the situation is rapidly deteriorating. To stay that course was a ridiculous proposition. Stay what course?
At the beginning of World War II Churchill made a speech in which each asked, "what is our policy?" And he answered the question, "to wage war" and he outlined the theaters and the means. Every leader must be able to answer the question, what is our policy? Can you tell me what our present policy in Iraq is? Even if you can articulate it, whom can you persuade? Has Bush persuaded the people?
Let me respond to some of your criticism of my piece. I hope you understand that I respect your remarks and I'm grateful they have taken the time to express your position.
You overinterpret the election results.
In our representative democracy that's the way it always works and the results are always interpreted as the voice of the people. I know it is unseemly to quote oneself, especially from a vanity, but I wrote a postmortem of the election titled, WHY WE LOST http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1737230/posts and the graveman of it was that "The essential reason for the defeat was that it was anti-Iraq war and anti-Bush." It contains this quote from Newsweek:
85 percent of Americans said the “major reason” was disapproval of the administration’s handling of the war in Iraq, 71 percent said disapproval of Bush’s overall job performance, 67 percent cited dissatisfaction with how Republicans have handled government spending and the deficit, 63 percent said disapproval of the overall performance of Republicans in Congress, 61 percent said Democrats’ ideas and proposals for changing course in Iraq. Tellingly, just 27 percent said a major reason the Democrats won was because they had better candidates. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15667442/site/newsweek/
The overall picture you paint of Iraq as a "calamity" or "catastrophe" is way overblown and hyperbolic.
I agree with every observation you make about the relative finiteness of our casualties and expense compared to the size of our population and our wealth. In fact I made the very same arguments myself in support of Bush's own reelection campaign two years ago. The problem is they are no longer relevant because the people have spoken. The election is over, the discussions over, and the politicians are going to do what they have to do to survive. In fact, you will see that the election is terribly significant because it is the Republicans who must get their fingerprints off Iraq before the next election and they will abandon Bush as soon as Congress comes back into session. Bush may find himself indeed isolated with his wife and his dog.
As is becoming embarrassing but I must quote myself at least one more time.
Many of us on this thread seem to instinctively recognize (although they have yet not articulated it exactly) the real root of the matter: when attempting to suppress asymmetrical resistance ("insurgency") to an occupation, the inferior indigenous enemy has one great advantage, he can always ratchet up the violence one more step. This means that the occupying force must always be a half step behind unless it is willing to leapfrog the progression and employ indiscriminate, brutal suppression of innocent and guilty alike.
There is no question that the United States was quite prepared to leapfrog into such brutality in the occupation of Germany and Japan and the occupied peoples damn well knew it. The bombings which destroyed city after city in both countries proved that beyond any doubt. There was not a man or woman, boy or girl, in America in 1945 who did not believe that the Germans and Japanese, every single one of them, deserved everything they got. But this reservoir of anger is not available to an occupying power who has just invaded in a war of choice which was the case in both Vietnam and Iraq. In such an occupation in a war of choice, the public simply will not stand for brutality even on a limited scale and the reactions to Abu Ghraib prove that. If the occupying power is condemned by its own people for conducting what amounts to little more than fraternity hijinks at Abu Ghraib, how, as one poster has advocated, can you "B-52 Falluja"?
All of these problems were infinitely compounded when it was shown that the original reason for the war in the first place, the alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction, was misplaced. It matters not that Saddam, having effectively evaded the sanctions, and on the verge of breaking free of them entirely, would have used his petrodollars to buy them as soon as he had wholly evaded scrutiny. It matters only that the air went out of the balloon. The alternative justification for the war, the granting of democracy to the Iraqis, will carry the American people only so far, just as it did in Vietnam. It will not carry them through even very limited casualties if, as was the case in the last election, they do not see a light at the end of the tunnel.
So we have two kinds of wars: wars of national survival such as those waged against the axis and recognized to be such, and wars of choice. The last election demonstrates that the public no longer believes, if it ever did, that the war in Iraq is a war for national survival as part of a general war against terrorism or more precisely, Islamist terrorism. As the public began to regard the war in Iraq is a war of choice, the options of the administration and especially the grace period accorded to it by the public became very limited. In fact, George Bush is very very lucky that the clock did not run out on him for the last election. But a war of choice such as occurred in Iraq has two separate identifiable phases: the invasion and the occupation. No one can argue that the invasion was not a stunning triumph of American arms and gained us geopolitical advantage throughout the world in places like Libya and Pakistan and even Syria. The American public was unwavering in its support throughout this phase. It is only in the occupation phase that the American support ebbed away. if
It does no good the play wudda, coulda, shoulda, it is the job of the Commander-In-Chief to rally the people behind his war. Lyndon Johnson failed to do it, recognized his failure, and stepped down. In our democracy you cannot wage war without the people.
But the real reasons for describing Iraq to be a "calamity" is that it is a calamitous setback in the war against terror. It reveals that the emperor has no clothes when it comes to asymmetrical wars of occupation. It emboldenes all the Muslim world against us rather than intimidating them and their regimes to stomp out terrorism. It is having the opposite effect. There are 1.4 billion Muslims in the world and we cannot fight wars of attrition against all of them. In fact we cannot win the war against terrorism unless we set Muslim upon Muslim, unless we enlist the sane Muslims to destroy the insane Muslims in their own interests. The Iraq war is a setback in this regard and that is a calamity.
I'm more or less with you about the need to do something about Iran but this doesn't really work as a critique of anything we have done or haven't done re: Iraq. You worry that because of Iraq we don't have the military required to invade Iran. I would speculate that invading Iran was never in the cards anyway.
Iraq has cost us our ability to intimidate Iran and that is the greatest calamity of all because if Iran gets the bomb and passes it off to terrorists who detonate a series in American cities we probably lose our democracy not to mention millions of our countrymen. The fiasco in Iraq has killed the Bush doctrine. It has killed our ability to intimidate Iran. It has probably killed our ability to wage war against Iran. It is brought a potential disaster closer to the homeland. And by any definition, that qualifies as a "calamity".
The 'treacherous neocons' construction is silly and revealing, and damages the casual reader's ability to take you seriously.
Please understand that this reference is to and in reaction to the criticisms by several neocon former administration officials who unloaded on Bush just before the election. You will note that I am quoting my own previously published posts which were timely to that reference and the construction is therefore not "silly."
You speculate that the reason there have been no successful AQ attacks since Iraq is because they haven't tried, OBL apparently wishing to "see American founder in Iraq"
I cannot find the reference now but there is a report out of Scandinavia that a written document of Al Qaeda was found reciting that they were deliberately withholding attacks. Who knows? As you point out, it is my speculation, which is as good as anybody's. I articulated it because it is in keeping with the principle of war, assume your enemy will do what he ought to. I started articulating this formulation in reaction to idiotic assertions by posters like MNJonnie that our killing terrorists in Iraq somehow prevents (another 19) from a strike in the Homeland.
"turns our friends against us" = misplaced concern. What 'friends' would those be, exactly? and if they've been 'turned against us' because of something to do with Iraq, then what the hell good were they?
A European court has just ruled it was improper for the Belgians to turnover financial records of terrorist to the United States. These are exactly the kind of "friends" we need and we are losing. It is the aim of Al Qaeda to isolate America from Europe first. What effect on this has the Iraq war had? How do you propose to stop stealth attacks on the homeland without the intelligence of these "friends?" What happened in Spain?
the only thing that is required of us, in order not to lose, is not to leave until/unless asked to by said government.
The game is over, the matter has been decided in the election, and it is not my fault.
How silly...the MSM is, at least partly, responsible for several of these avenues. The media pays the terrorists to release their reporters (which is insane that they're even kidnapped given that many are part of the terrorist propaganda machine) AND the media (NYT) has aided the terrorists in blowing the lid off of secret government programs designed to stop this flow of money. I'm always astounded as the MSM reveals just how black their hearts are. How do they live with themselves?
I never said that they were free under Saddam, all I was saying is we are a tool for them to attain there freedom. Most appreciate it while the very violent few (who get all the MSM attention) object to Iraq being free. By the way it won't happen in short order. It will take some time (South Korea, Japan and Germany still have American troops stationed there and they have standing Armies)for them to be self sufficient.
Well thought out but I don't agree with you on all points.
First I do agree with you in terms of public thought on wars. Certainly a war of choice affords us less brutality than a war not of choice.
However we have a test case in which your theories prove incorrect. The Russians employed the sort of brutal tactics afforded a country who doesn't have to play by the rules of "war by choice". In Afghanstan(in which they lost) and Cheneya(in which it took them basically 10 years with a break in between) to win(for the most part).
The fact of the matter is that war is not some state of perfection in which the only way we can judge is that it goes perfectly for us and ends in a short period of time.
We have forces on all sides that are fueling the conflict to send us packing as losers. The war of choice as you put it limits our ROE but certainly doesn't have to limit our will to help good Iraqi's fight the good fight(and yes I do believe there are those in EVERY country that fight for the same things that many in this country fight for).
The war on terror was always suppose to be a long war. I'm not talking about the fact that the military didn't get everything it asked for. However, at some point this nation is going to have to realize that Iran, NK, and China are going to require us to beef our military force up.. draft will be neccessary.
But the simple fact about Iraq is that there is nothing wrong with staying the course. Let everyone keep pouring the resources in. They and we are killing hundreds of men everyday.. if the Middle East wants to every man in their society killed based on their own bloodlust than so be it.
It is possible that Iraq idealists in all their perfect world mentality will give the terrorists and their benefactors another Somilia on a much larger scale. That to me is the greatest tragedy. That the American people are so ignorant on Geo-politics that they are willing to hand Russia(and now China) a big fat win.
Yeah, one of those people helping "fund" the insurgents, in an emotional and political sense, IS THE FREAKIN NEW YORK TIMES.
What corrupt news organizations we have in the US. First they help destroy what is good and righteous, and then blame others.
Iraq's democratic government has requested our military support and we have agreed. In addition, we are actually required to do so, according to the UN. That's what we're doing now. I shouldn't have had to explain that, because it's pretty straightforward. The question to me really isn't what are we doing but why are so many Americans whining about it when it isn't affecting them.
Like the justification for the war in the first place, the administration has posited several explanations for our continuing presence which I suppose is another way of saying, the administration is trying to articulate a strategy.
No, it's another way of saying, There is more than 1 reason for us to be doing this. Like most worthwhile things.
Every leader must be able to answer the question, what is our policy? Can you tell me what our present policy in Iraq is?
Just did.
Even if you can articulate it, whom can you persuade? Has Bush persuaded the people?
Maybe I can persuade no one. Maybe Bush hasn't persuaded the people. That does not make the policy incorrect. Whom/how many I can "persuade" has no bearing on the correctness of the policy. In any event, as I've stated several times, one of my main points here is that most of the people who "aren't persuaded" (i.e. are whining about the Iraq military presence) have no good reasons, because the Iraq military presence isn't affecting them. So the question to you becomes, Can you justify all the whining?
In our representative democracy that's the way it always works and the results are always interpreted as the voice of the people.
Not by me. I don't interpret 51-49 in my favor as "the people" agreeing with me and I don't interpret 49-51 against me as "the people" repudiating me. If all you are saying is that's how our policy is made that's true of course. But overinterpreting narrow majorities as you are simply is not correct in any sense.
Notice, it's not correct when either side does it. Bush asserted in some speech after 2004 that he had a "mandate" to do something-or-other, that he had political capital. That was not correct either. He overinterpreted the results, as is now obvious, as you would now agree. That's all I'm saying. It's possible to overinterpret results in either direction if you pretend that "majority" = "the people".
The problem is they are no longer relevant because the people have spoken. The election is over, the discussions over, and the politicians are going to do what they have to do to survive.
The people "have spoken" in the sense that the majority of Congress has swung to the other party. It is not clear what that party will do. It is not clear that all the seats that swung parties did so in favor of an isolationist candidate (some of the (D) winners are not really in the Pelosi camp). It is not even clear that the Democrats, when in power, will find it in their political interest actually attempt the sort of retreat you imply has already been chosen by "the people". In short, you are painting all of these things as foregone conclusions when they are not. Congress changed hands, yes. There's a much longer distance between that and retreat than you seem to think.
But the real reasons for describing Iraq to be a "calamity" is that it is a calamitous setback in the war against terror. It reveals that the emperor has no clothes when it comes to asymmetrical wars of occupation.
It will, if we leave precipitously and Iraq becomes nothing but a failed-state terror camp. So, let us argue against doing so, as I am. What else is there to say?
In fact we cannot win the war against terrorism unless we set Muslim upon Muslim, unless we enlist the sane Muslims to destroy the insane Muslims in their own interests.
Well, as I pointed out up above in this thread, one interesting feature of the Iraq operation not much discussed is that we have, in effect (by intent or not) set Muslim upon Muslim. The vast majority of killings and violence now in Iraq are Muslims victimizing other Muslims. Neither side may exactly be "sane" :) but perhaps it's a start. I'm just saying it's a dimension of this conflict that may not be fully appreciated by many.
Iraq has cost us our ability to intimidate Iran
That presumes that we ever had this ability. If intimidation required threat of invasion, then once again, any invasion of Iran would have gone through Iraq anyway. If threat of air strikes can intimidate, this possibility can only be enhanced by being in Iraq; if threat of air strikes can't intimidate then Iraq has had no effect on our intimidation ability either way.
The interesting part is that Iran has never seemed to agree with you; Iran has certainly behaved for the past three years as a nation intimidated by our military presence in their neighbor.
['treacherous neocons'] Please understand that this reference is to and in reaction to the criticisms by several neocon former administration officials who unloaded on Bush just before the election. You will note that I am quoting my own previously published posts which were timely to that reference and the construction is therefore not "silly."
Fair enough; so noted. Sorry I misunderstood.
I cannot find the reference now but there is a report out of Scandinavia that a written document of Al Qaeda was found reciting that they were deliberately withholding attacks. Who knows?
Well, that just gives us these two pieces of evidence:
1. document out of Scandinavia advocating no attacks
2. several thwarted attacks
The simplest way to resolve this would be that Al Qaeda has various factions and whichever Scandinavian one had that document indeed believed in let's-not-attack, but many others didn't.
A European court has just ruled it was improper for the Belgians to turnover financial records of terrorist to the United States. These are exactly the kind of "friends" we need and we are losing.
Again, "losing" implies some sort of change in relationship status. In what alternative universe, do you believe, would that court have gone the other direction? if Iraq were pacified by now, do you believe the court would have ruled otherwise? I don't understand the point you think you're making.
What effect on this has the Iraq war had? How do you propose to stop stealth attacks on the homeland without the intelligence of these "friends?" What happened in Spain?
Spain's government at the time aligned himself with the United States against the predominance of his domestic public opinion. Spain's "friendship" was therefore shaky and rootless. That is why the Madrid attacks so easily tipped the balance against him. The correct interpretation of those events would be to say that Spain was never truly our "friend" to begin with, not that we "lost" them. Another way to put it would be that if we think we can rely on or somehow assemble a lasting coalition of "friends" of the depth-level of Spain, pre-Madrid, to help us fight a long civilizational war, we are only fooling ourselves. Such a coalition would be a house of cards set to crumble at the next election cycle anyway.
The game is over, the matter has been decided in the election, and it is not my fault.
It's not your fault, but you're not helping.
And nothing has "been decided" per se.
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