Posted on 10/16/2006 9:58:48 AM PDT by World_Events
This article describes the almost demonic level of violence that is occuring in Iraq now, while we still have our troops there. Can you imagine what will happen if/when we leave and all hell really breaks out? I guess for those Iraqis lucky enough to be granted asylum in the US, they wouldn't think it's so bad. (/sarcasm) The rest might have a hard time thinking with their heads whacked off.
That's the problem, now, isn't it?
"Not politically viable" cuts both ways, of course. But what's closer to being politically viable: Taking the gloves off, or cutting and running?
Since the topic of Vietnam figures so prominently in this debate, what about the policy of Vietnamization as an option for Iraq? That policy was actually quite successful in Vietnam until Congress refused to grant any further American aid or air support to the South Vietnamese government, at which point the North launched a successful invasion.
This is the kind of policy that the current administration is engaged in, but it might help to announce the intention to withdraw American troops on a gradual basis as a means of lighting a fire under the butt of the Iraqi government to get their own act together and get serious about raising more effective security forces. The U.S. cannot stay in Iraq forever at current troop levels. The training wheels have to come off at some point.
Two words in response....STUPID QUESTION.
So much for the theory that the only dumb question is the one that is not asked.
Yes.
Overwhelming force. That is what people need to see. The current "drip, drip, drip" is difficult to take.
I'm developing a theory that duration of conflict is what determines support by the public, not casualties. I suspect we could take 20,000 killed on one day better than 3,000 killed over four years.
As he said in the article "I was wrong about those dominoes, as were almost all foreign policy experts". Well then, if all the foreign policy "experts" were wrong back then, it seems likely that they are wrong now about Iraq. How can we believe anything they write?
Leslie doesn't seem to understand that Muslims want all non-muslims DEAD! And they have 1400 years of wanting THE SAME THING! Even Ho Chi Minh wasn't that crazy.
Since you're new to FR, you should be made aware of FReeper Law #254: WWII comparisons to Iraq must be good, Vietnam comparisons to Iraq must be bad.
Now, I don't happen to agree with this. Neither scenario fits Iraq. The threats are different, we are different, and pretty much any factor you can name is different. It's better to look at it as a unique problem, because it largely is.
This is the kind of policy that the current administration is engaged in, but it might help to announce the intention to withdraw American troops on a gradual basis as a means of lighting a fire under the butt of the Iraqi government to get their own act together and get serious about raising more effective security forces. The U.S. cannot stay in Iraq forever at current troop levels. The training wheels have to come off at some point.
A resonable point. The only problem here is that the adminstration seems to feel that admiting that the current U.S. troop levels are counterproductive to the political landscape of Iraq would be counterproductive to the political landscape of America. That's why you're not seeing much debate between the two extreme points of "stay the course" and "cut and run". Both sides are afraid to move from those positions, mostly from fear of being called names by their own side.
The danger in that is that the "stay the course" option isn't politically tenable indefinitely. The cut and runners will eventually win, unless we come up with a plan B that looks reasonable. I think that your plan sounds reasonable enough, but, politics being what they are, we'll have to be forced into it.
"We need to salvage whatever we can and get out ASAP of Iraq."
Leading to 1 million deaths in a civil war, the loss of Iraq to the Iranian nutcase Ahmdinejad (who wants to nuke us), the invigorating of the muslim jihad, the loss of the Iraqi oil fields, and in general a loss of honor and prestige.
Brooklyn Dave, you are a moron. There is a point where people say things so utterly stupid that there is no other course but to call a spade a spade.
No higher a price than what the Iraqis will pay. I admit, I've gotten a little tired of Pres. Bush justifying the war in terms of what the Iraqis get out of it. But I'll be damned if I'm willing to stand by and watch them slaughtered by the hundred thousand (again) because Americans lack the belly for the job we've taken on.
All right. Educate this non-military man. What, exactly, are we facing in Iraq?
An insurgency? If so, it's not a very good one. The "insurgents" hold no territory, have not galvinized popular support, and cannot translate what little they have into a political movement (all three are needed for a successful insurgency).
A civil war? Maybe. However, no "side" in the civil war holds territory (once again, a neccesary ingredient to a civil war), and this isn't an armed conflict, per se, just people sneaking around and blowing each other up. Unpleasant, tragic even. But that doesn't rise to the level of civil war, in the classic sense. It's more like if the Crips and Bloods were having a turf war with high explosives. Nobody would say the US was having a civil war if that were to happen. Just criminals and thugs blowing each other up.
This is how Allegra has described the situation on the ground. (That's why I pinged her).
So, if it's not an effective insurgency, and it's not a civil war, what are we facing in Iraq that is SO bad we need to totally change course?
Is Leslie male or female? Oughtta ask him/her if watching their kids or parents get blown up by jihadi's or wearing a burka would be so bad. Damfools...
If that one day brought actual victory, then yes, you are exactly right. To paraphrase Stalin, one death is a tragedy, but 3,000 and 20,000 are statistics. Liberals complain bitterly about these milestones, but they don't feel any more pain with 3,000 than they do 30,000. They're just round numbers. Statistics.
The reason that Iraqis are willing to fight back is because there is a deep perception that they were cheated out of victory, not beaten. They think their army senior officers were bribed, and didn't put up a fight. We, in effect, fought as bloodless a fight as possible, and won so masterfully that Iraqis never defeated. For our part, we were so afraid of losing 20,000 men while winning a short fight, that we now risk losing a longer fight that's costing us far less.
So, our bloodless war bought us an empty victory. The Iraqi will to resist was never broken. What we did to minimize our own casualties, and those of our enemies, saved lives, but may wind up costing us the war.
Dear Leslie,
So apparently your word is not your bond. Your promises cannot be depended upon by anyone. You believe that you can change your mind whenever a situation makes you uncomfortable, and then you can abandon those who were counting on you.
That makes you a worthless pile of excrement.
The U. S. has made promises to the Iraqi people. We must follow through and keep those promises. We must defeat the Islamists, those terrorist animals.
Because of defeatists like you, we reneged on similar promises made to the people of Vietnam nearly 40 years ago. We also reneged on promises make to Iraqis in advance of the Gulf War. We who were ashamed of the U. S. for those broken promises are determined to do what we can to not make those mistakes again.
She believes that the Jordanians, the Kurds, the Turks and the Saudis (along with the Sunnis who were better off under Saddam than under the current government, if Bush is right that they are eager to take up arms against foreign fighters who are attacking us and Iraqi civilians) all have the will and the ability to take care of the foreign fighter problem in Iraq (perhaps better than we since they are more familiar with the language and culture). I think that's probably true. Withdrawing would force them to act. Now, we're letting them be slacker kids still living with their parents. The first step is to kick the slackers out of the house and withdrawing would be the equivalent. It's certainly a debatable point of view.
American Lefties have a HUGE blind spot regarding Cambodia, as well as the Vietnames re-education camps post-1975.
And they don't like being told about it one little bit. Just try it some time and see the reaction you get. They'll try to blame Nixon, when it was the Dem Congress that cut miliary support funding to the RVN in 1974-75 to nothing.
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