Posted on 10/13/2006 10:50:20 AM PDT by Blackrain4xmas
There was an article posted here some time ago, where a brit politician was unhappy and called Pres. Bush a name. He was upset, he said, because they (the leftists) had been promised 'the road map' in exchange for support in iraq.
WAYR?
Occupying a nation that has faced an overwhelming military defeat is a lot different than sending a glorified version of the Peace Corps to maintain law and order in a Third World sh!t-hole.
A closer parallel would be Korea. Did we pull out in 1953? How much has it cost to provide a shield over South Korea and Japan (and Taiwan)for fifty-six years? The flaw in Nixon's plan was not leaving a trip-wire force along the 17th Parallel as we did along the 38th parallel in Korea and in West Berlin in Germany, as a guarantor of good faith.
This author knows absolutely nothing. What a fool
Bush 41 caved to the UN.
There's also been an intervening event (on 9/11/01, I think) since the first Gulf War that rather altered the landscape.
That was my first question.
There is abolutely no discussion about this on the ground that I've heard.
More leftist speculation and wishful thinking, I imagine.
I'm just a tad skeptical of an article with no link that ends with a quote from John Kerry.
150,000 men is hardly a peace corps contingent. The Russians, of course, had a much larger force in Afghanistan with less result that we have in that country, and still have not pacified Czechen despite a much higher butcher's bill than we have paid.
"Imagine watching hundreds of thousands or millions fleeing."
If it follows the Vietnam model, many Iraqis will be deemed too close to Americans.
They will flee to America for permanent resident, then citizen status.
My area of Orange County is home to the largest Vietnamese population, outside Vietnam. Largely Christians and Buddhists; more conservative than otherwise. Good and proud Americans.
Therefore someplace else gets the muslim Iraqis.
From the article and it doesn't smell like leftist spew, but I have a cold so...
“Let’s get the hell outta there, let the insurgents win, abandon Iraq to chaos, and leave the problem for the next generation to face” OR “We broke it, we bought it, and let’s not leave it in a way that makes it so our kids and grandkids have to come back yet again.”
That’s our choice.
we defeated germany and japan - decimated them. did we do that in iraq? OK, you can make the case that this wasn't required as part of the initial invasion. But then even after that, we were reluctant to use acute US force as needed. not indiscriminate carpet bombing mind you, but a hell of alot more force then we've seen so far, especially in the sunni triangle. even to this day, we don't do it. we know material (IEDs, weapons, people) is coming in from iran and syria - do we bomb the border region? no. and on and on.
I don't know who made these decisions - my own sense for some time is that Bush has been poorly served by the decisions of the pentagon generals - Abizaid, etc. He should have been replacing them some time ago, but for whatever reason - he hasn't done it.
we've placed all out bets on the iraqis being able to come up to speed on security and political agreements. and they haven't done a very good job of that. they've made progress, but its slow, and with the american media grinding a negative message into the sheeple everyday, the political clock on being able to sustain our efforts in iraq is running out.
Enjoy things while we can. In a few years we'll cherish the memories.
On the transcripts of those interviews Mr Blair said: "I agree with every word of it."
"He sets in proper context what he is actually saying. What he is saying about wanting the British forces out of Iraq is precisely the same as we're all saying. Our strategy is to withdraw from Iraq when the job is done."
Mr Blair said when Sir Richard talked about the troops' presence exacerbating problems in Iraq, he thought he was "absolutely right".
"I've said the same myself, in circumstances where the Iraqis are ready to take over control of areas and we're still there."
In places like Basra, the presence of British troops was still "absolutely necessary", he said.
Mr Blair told the press conference he had received a "report" about the Daily Mail article on Thursday night, and Sir Richard was "plainly not" saying that troops should be withdrawn from Iraq now.
A spokesman for the Iraqi president said the departure of multi-national troops now "would be a disaster".
Mr Blair said he "suspected" Sir Richard had given a long interview with the Daily Mail, and that some of his comments had been taken out of context.
And so they had.
Ivan
Pissant,
you shoulda read the entire article
:)
The premise of the article is still B.S..
Sorry - DON'T READ THE ARTICLE! FreeReign says the premise of the article is B.S. !
I bow before your superior reading comprehension skills. It won't happen again your majesty.
No, he didn't. By insisting that a coalition of dozens of other nations get involved in the war, he basically guaranteed that nothing would really get resolved. The larger a coalition gets, the more "inclusive" its objectives become . . . and the more incompetent/ineffective it gets.
Bush 41 had no choice but to do whatever the U.N. wanted to do, since the U.S. had no formal (note that I did not say "legitimate") reason to even get involved in the first Gulf War other than to enforce U.N. Security Council resolutions. When you go to war on the basis of enforcing resolutions by an international body that has no standing in U.S. law, you have no right to complain when things don't go your way.
There's also been an intervening event (on 9/11/01, I think) since the first Gulf War that rather altered the landscape.
It only "altered the landscape" in that it gave the current Bush administration the political support to do something (i.e., invade Iraq and topple the Ba'athist government of that country) that it had every intention of doing anyway.
Idiotic
Sorry - DON'T READ THE ARTICLE! FreeReign says the premise of the article is B.S. ! I bow before your superior reading comprehension skills. It won't happen again your majesty.
You offered your opinion on the article and I offered mine, to which you feel the need to respond with hyperbole.
LOL, whatever.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.