[BRussell]

McCain and conservatives want to surge. Bush wants to surge, too, but his proposal may be less surgey. Democrats say they can cut off funds if they want to, but don't want to.

My view is that it's all about political positioning to place the blame on someone else:

1. Everyone knows things are not going to get better, and will in fact get worse no matter what we do.

2. McCain expected that there would be no increase in troops, so that when he ran for president, he could say "if only they had done what I wanted we would have won the war!"

3. Bush is going to call McCain's bluff by proposing his own increase in troops.

4. So now McCain and other conservatives are starting to say that Bush's surge isn't surgey enough. "20,000 more troops, that's nothing, we need 30,000 or it won't work!" That way President McCain can still place the blame on Bush for the **** up in Iraq.

5. Democrats don't want to deny funding for the surge, because then all the Republicans, including McCain as well as Bush, will try to blame the Democrats for the **** up in Iraq. "If only the Democrats had supported the surge!"

Everything that's going on right now must be understood in terms of political posturing for placing the blame during the 2008 election.

[subego]

If the Republicans hadn't fractured, the Democrats would be right in the firing line for all the blame. As it stands now, it seems the majority of the Republican politicians think that it's a safer bet to pin things on Bush.

Which it is.

[Warren Pease]

Originally Posted by BRussell 

McCain and conservatives want to surge. Bush wants to surge, too, but his proposal may be less surgey. Democrats say they can cut off funds if they want to, but don't want to.

My view is that it's all about political positioning to place the blame on someone else:

1. Everyone knows things are not going to get better, and will in fact get worse no matter what we do.

2. McCain expected that there would be no increase in troops, so that when he ran for president, he could say "if only they had done what I wanted we would have won the war!"

3. Bush is going to call McCain's bluff by proposing his own increase in troops.

4. So now McCain and other conservatives are starting to say that Bush's surge isn't surgey enough. "20,000 more troops, that's nothing, we need 30,000 or it won't work!" That way President McCain can still place the blame on Bush for the **** up in Iraq.

5. Democrats don't want to deny funding for the surge, because then all the Republicans, including McCain as well as Bush, will try to blame the Democrats for the **** up in Iraq. "If only the Democrats had supported the surge!"

Everything that's going on right now must be understood in terms of political posturing for placing the blame during the 2008 election.

That seems like a fair assessment of the situation. Bush has no future in politics. He'll take one politically for the team.

[subego]

Originally Posted by Warren Pease 

Bush has no future in politics.

I think the whole dynasty is tanked.

[tie]

I think escalation will kill McCain's chances, because of course it will fail. (Does anyone really believe otherwise? Even Bush is only proposing it as a way of delaying the inevitable until after he's gone.) But McCain probably isn't conservative enough anyway to win the nomination.

[Warren Pease]

Originally Posted by tie 

I think escalation will kill McCain's chances, because of course it will fail. (Does anyone really believe otherwise? Even Bush is only proposing it as a way of delaying the inevitable until after he's gone.) But McCain probably isn't conservative enough anyway to win the nomination.

Escalation of troop levels was the key to securing a peace in Iraq. Unfortunately, the effective time to do it was two or more years ago. Too little, too late. I feel that Iraq has been on a see-saw. While things collectively went downhill throughout Iraq, Bush and his administration balanced it out with hope eternal domestically, a rather ineffective faith-based policy. This policy, for one, refused to admit that Rumsfeld had run his course, but had to stave off admitting that fact until after the '06 elections, for purely political reasons. Bush is caught between two worlds, domestic politics and international reality. Nationbuilding is hard. I don't put it beyond him to try to make a '04 problem into a '08 problem.

I am beginning to think that the chance for a solution in Iraq is very grim. We have a very unstable situation - the two most powerful leaders in Iraq, US-backed Maliki continues to prop up Moqtada Sadr's Mehdi army, despite Sadr pursuing his own aims, because to do otherwise would be suicide for his government and the fate of a "united" Iraq. I'm not sure if Maliki suffers Sadr because he has some allegiance with him, or that he simply realizes the tenuous situation he finds himself in.

To do something forcefully about Sadr risks things getting worse in Iraq, and potentially drawing in more US troops, the "surge". To not do anything, risks the ability of the weak Iraq government being able to stand up to Sadr's influence.

We've heard of Iran's role in funding groups in Iraq. But what of Saudi Arabia? It would be naive to think that they too are sitting by obliviously, being simply the passive observer.

McCain's plan of more troops (as mentioned earlier, too little, too late) was the only way to secure any lasting peace in Iraq. Since we've been taking, blindly optimisticly, one step forward, two steps back, hoping that each step forward will make up for the other two, we have several giant leaps to take. This is the only way to protect the current democracy as we know it and privatize their oil industry but it won't be easy.

[Krusty]

Originally Posted by Warren Pease 

This is the only way to protect the current democracy as we know it and privatize their oil industry but it won't be easy.

Actually, I think this is the worst possible path. Have you seen the terms that we are proposing for privatizing their oil ? We take 75 percent of all profits until the infrastructure has been built (40% is the norm) and then 20% of the profits after that (10% is standard). We're getting ready to double-f#ck them out of the benefits of their oil ... hardly a recipe for stabilizing their democracy or rebuilding indigenous wealth in Iraq.

[tie]

Iraq would be better off without its oil. Oil wealth leads to tyrannical governments, sheltered from consequences of failed development. We should take it all to help them out.

[Warren Pease]

Originally Posted by Krusty 

Actually, I think this is the worst possible path. Have you seen the terms that we are proposing for privatizing their oil ? We take 75 percent of all profits until the infrastructure has been built (40% is the norm) and then 20% of the profits after that (10% is standard). We're getting ready to double-f#ck them out of the benefits of their oil ... hardly a recipe for stabilizing their democracy or rebuilding indigenous wealth in Iraq.

There was sarcasm in the oil statement - sorry it is hard to see sometimes. Actually, I had no idea that those were the terms of the agreement. I didn't realize that they were that bad. All I've read on the subject is the Iraq Study Groups recommendations.

Despite the fact that we handed over control of the country to Iraq in 2004 and then they held their own democratic elections in October 2005, the Study Group (2006) recommends the US help write the laws for the Iraqi Government about what it does with its own natural resource. How condescending.

I can't accuse Bush of lying in his speech when he promised all Iraqi's would get a piece of the profits from Iraqs oil trade, but i didn't realize it might be essentially a token gesture, after most of the cream has been skimmed off the top.

[Krusty]

Originally Posted by Warren Pease 

There was sarcasm in the oil statement - sorry it is hard to see sometimes. Actually, I had no idea that those were the terms of the agreement. I didn't realize that they were that bad. All I've read on the subject is the Iraq Study Groups recommendations.

Sorry, I totally missed the sarcasm (literal meter was set to 'high' )

Mind you, these are not the adopted terms, just the ones being proposed by the western oil mammoths ... ahem ... I mean western governments. It still remains to be seen what, if any, resolution gets passed by the Iraqi government. Ironic thing is, the justification given for the high premiums is that the security situation in Iraq is so dangerous for them to operate in. Funny ... let the place fall into chaos, charge a premium to give Iraq the privilege of having their oil swiped from them. And now we're boosting troop levels to the benefit of military contractors and other companies with close ties inside the administration. Looks like we're in the last big profit-making push before Bush leaves office and the war finally gets stopped.

[Millennium]

95% of all politics is positioning to place blame on your opponents.

[macintologist]

I still think Jeb Bush should try to run for president

[Face Ache]

What, and re-invade Iraq to avenge his brother?

[DLQ2006]

Originally Posted by Krusty 

. Funny ... let the place fall into chaos,

"let the place fall into caos"..............What? is everyone in Iraq nothing but a bunch of retarded children or something? A bunch of empty vessels just waiting for Americans to do all the right things and say all the right things to make everything good for them? Last I checked, Iraq and the ME is full of adults. Islamic civilizations didn't just spring up recently. They've been around for a heck of a lot longer than the United States of America has. Our military being over there is not what is making the Iraqis kill each other. My God, they can't even come together for the sake of making something decent out of their own country. Sunnis killing Shia and Shites killing Sunnis, all because of divisions within Islam. Those people don't live for this life. They live for the next. They didn't just start killing each other and become the way they are when Iraq was invaded in 2003.

Iraq is in caos because the Sunni and Shia sects of Islam live in the same country and they can't stop killing each other and we are caught in the middle of it. Without a brutal dictator to rule with an iron fist, they kill each other and there is caos. Blaming the U.S. for Iraq's failures reminds me of how we regard retarted people or something. Iraqis are real people with real values and real belief systems and like with most muslims, their religious belief system trumps everything. They don't value things like freedom, economic prosperity, peace, equality, and human rights more than they do their version of Islam and what they believe they must do for their religion in order to be rewarded in the next life. Their is no winning of hearts and minds with that kind of mentality and their is no making everything good for them. Not even the all powerful U.S. is in control over whether or not Iraq is in Caos. Only Iraqis are and they won't stop killing each other, much less stop killing us.

[DLQ2006]

Originally Posted by Millennium 

95% of all politics is positioning to place blame on your opponents.

Like how the leftists are already making excuses for how it won't be their fault if we are hit again by a terrorist attack, while they work to systematically make us less safe.

[tie]

i Think we shoul let Iran fall into khoas bcuz the redarted Iraqis shudn't have attaked uS on 9/11 if they didn't wnt us to attack them back!!!!

[DLQ2006]

Originally Posted by tie 

i Think we shoul let Iran fall into khoas bcuz the redarted Iraqis shudn't have attaked uS on 9/11 if they didn't wnt us to attack them back!!!!

This statement is retarded on so many levels I don't even know where to begin. You obviously view terrorism as something that started on 911 by Al Qaeda and that would end with the capture of Bin Ladin. The fight against global terrorism is not only about Al Qaeda, Bin Ladin, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, or any other single ME country ot terrorist group. Furthermore, my response had nothing to do with whether or not it was a good idea to go to war in Iraq. It was a response to the statement "let Iraq fall into caos". As if the U.S. is capable of making things good for Iraq. There isn't anything in this world... no amount of security forces and no amount of builing up their economic infrastructure.........NOTHING that can make things good for Iraqis but Iraqis. Things weren't good for them under Sadam. Things aren't good for them now that Sadam is gone and dead. Things aren't good for them because more of them than not have a belief system that is more powerful than any desire to live with peace, prosperity, and the things that people in successful cultures value.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

I refuse to take anyone seriously if they cannot spell "chaos" correctly.

That means you.

Good-night. Tomorrow, I ride.

greg

[Face Ache]

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton 

I refuse to take anyone seriously if they cannot spell "chaos" correctly.

KAOS.

I watch TV.

Originally Posted by DLQ2006 

Like how the leftists are already making excuses for how it won't be their fault if we are hit again by a terrorist attack, while they work to systematically make us less safe.

Oh it'll be the leftists fault alright.

[DLQ2006]

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton 

I refuse to take anyone seriously if they cannot spell "chaos" correctly.

I know how to spell chaos and am not sure why I made such a stupid spelling error except that I tend to make them when I'm tired. I'm sorry you won't take me seriously now because I'm sure you are a brilliant person that never makes stupid spelling errors and that when you speak, the waves in the ocean stand still and the clouds in the sky stop in their tracks to listen. You really put me in my place! ..........LOL.

[Krusty]

Just a quick link to back up my initial post from Dow Jones MarketWatch originally cited from Financial Times.
Also, whether you spell is chaos or caos or kaos, the lack of control in Iraq pretty much is our responsibility. We dismantled the power structure there and failed to fill that vacuum with a robust enough structure to take its place.

Originally Posted by DLQ2006

Iraq is in caos because the Sunni and Shia sects of Islam live in the same country and they can't stop killing each other and we are caught in the middle of it. Without a brutal dictator to rule with an iron fist, they kill each other and there is caos. Blaming the U.S. for Iraq's failures reminds me of how we regard retarted people or something. Iraqis are real people with real values and real belief systems and like with most muslims, their religious belief system trumps everything. They don't value things like freedom, economic prosperity, peace, equality, and human rights more than they do their version of Islam and what they believe they must do for their religion in order to be rewarded in the next life. Their is no winning of hearts and minds with that kind of mentality and their is no making everything good for them. Not even the all powerful U.S. is in control over whether or not Iraq is in Caos. Only Iraqis are and they won't stop killing each other, much less stop killing us.

There is not one stitch of one statement in your paragraph that is factually supported. Its mostly racist with a touch self contradiction. Didn't you describe them in preceding paragraph as "adults and not children" .... then follow up with this paragraph basically saying they're all religious robots, who cannot possibly do anything except kill each other for their reward in the next life. Poor US, how in the world did we ever get "caught in the middle" of their problem. We're "caught" in their problem in the same way that a person would be caught under a bus after they shoot out all the traffic lights and run into the middle of the street.

Wow, can't believe I wasted 2 minutes responding to that .... oh, yeah ... I was posting the link

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by DLQ2006 

Like how the leftists are already making excuses for how it won't be their fault if we are hit again by a terrorist attack, while they work to systematically make us less safe.

That wasn't the example I was planning on using for the Left, but from some perspectives I can see how you could come to that conclusion.

What I'd have used for the Left would be the sharp increase in the minimum wage that just got through the House. It's too politically popular for Bush to dare veto, but it isn't just going to sail through without a marked negative effect on the economy, at least in the short term. When that happens, Bush will be blamed for it.

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by DLQ2006 

"let the place fall into caos"..............What? is everyone in Iraq nothing but a bunch of retarded children or something?

At the moment they're certainly acting like it. They don't want these insurgent groups to overthrow the government -as evidenced by their own recent elections- yet they want the US to leave even though the coup they don't want is inevitable if the US leaves at this point in time.

This is what happens when terrorists win. The people of Iraq know how they want to lead their lives, and they've demonstrated it, yet they'd give it all up just so that a few psychos might stop intimidating them.

A bunch of empty vessels just waiting for Americans to do all the right things and say all the right things to make everything good for them? Last I checked, Iraq and the ME is full of adults.

Adults, yes, but adults who have recently been victimized by some truly terrible things, sometimes at the hands of the US but more often at the hands of insurgents. What they're doing now is a common psychological phenomenon, and is perhaps to be expected; it's not unlike a cultural form of post-traumatic stress. But it doesn't mean that they're being rational.

Our military being over there is not what is making the Iraqis kill each other.

We agree on something. This is good.

My God, they can't even come together for the sake of making something decent out of their own country. Sunnis killing Shia and Shites killing Sunnis, all because of divisions within Islam.

We agree on two things. This is better. Or rather, we almost agree. It's more about tribalism than religion, but the tribes have done a very good job of cloaking it in religious language so that it seems more meaningful than it really is.

[subego]

Originally Posted by Millennium 

Adults, yes, but adults who have recently been victimized by some truly terrible things, sometimes at the hands of the US but more often at the hands of insurgents. What they're doing now is a common psychological phenomenon, and is perhaps to be expected; it's not unlike a cultural form of post-traumatic stress. But it doesn't mean that they're being rational.

Whoa. Hold the phone.

When you reached the conclusion that millions of people are not acting rationally in concert, this should have set off all sorts of alarm bells that it is far more likely your premise is flawed.

What comes immediately to mind is (reading from this paragraph) you are trying to compare victimization on a one-to-one basis. Just like the war we are fighting, how the Iraqis are victimized by it is asymmetrical.

They don't think we're indiscriminately putting bullets in them. It's that they have no air-conditioning, and a big pile of sand comes out when you flush the toilet. All the while, other people are indiscriminately putting bullets in them, and the guys with the tanks who started all this don't seem to be able to do a damn thing about any of it.

They may short-sightedly want to get rid of the guys with the tanks, but seeing as how it was our guys with the tanks who killed their electricity and the plumbing in the first place, calling them irrational, is, like... really cold.

Though, since it's 120º in the shade, maybe they'll like cold.

[rimshot]

Thanks. Try the falafel.

[DLQ2006]

Originally Posted by Krusty 

Just a quick link to back up my initial post from Dow Jones MarketWatch originally cited from Financial Times.
Also, whether you spell is chaos or caos or kaos, the lack of control in Iraq pretty much is our responsibility. We dismantled the power structure there and failed to fill that vacuum with a robust enough structure to take its place.


There is not one stitch of one statement in your paragraph that is factually supported. Its mostly racist with a touch self contradiction. Didn't you describe them in preceding paragraph as "adults and not children" .... then follow up with this paragraph basically saying they're all religious robots, who cannot possibly do anything except kill each other for their reward in the next life. Poor US, how in the world did we ever get "caught in the middle" of their problem. We're "caught" in their problem in the same way that a person would be caught under a bus after they shoot out all the traffic lights and run into the middle of the street.

Wow, can't believe I wasted 2 minutes responding to that .... oh, yeah ... I was posting the link

It's about religious indoctrination and the pass they get for it. The fact that you can't understand my point but would rather cry racism (when Islam isn't even a race) is telling about what kind of person you are, not what kind of person I am. There isn't anything self-contradicting in what I said. They shouldn't be regarded as people that aren't capable of making life better for themselves. To do so is like how we regard retarded people and children. I've said over and over again on this board that only Iraqis can make Iraq a better place.

The fact that they don't and never have is because they are primarily driven by a religion that indoctrinates what they must do to make it to paradise. Making Iraq a nice, comfortable, peaceful place is not what drives them so no amount of us making things secure for them while their economy and infrastructure is built up is going to make them hate us less or make them a successful, peaceful society.

You can claim that nothing I have said is grounded in facts all you want to. What I base my opinions on are what I observe to be how things are and how they have been from what I understand of history and the purpose of a discussion like this is to express such observations in a way that shows you are taking things in that you've learned or have observed in your life and are able to draw conclusions using logic.

Anyone can regurgitate back what they've been told are the "facts". 10 year olds are capable of that. Reading something from a source because you believe that source will confirm what you already want to believe and this is what you base your "facts" on, is nothing more than being a follower. Attempt to tear apart my assessment of the situation all you want. That is what is expected. Simply telling me I'm a racist and wrong without countering my assessment of the situation with a salient argument of your own doesn't quite cut it outside of those who are on your caliber of thinking and the sure sign of someone on your caliber is that their primary debating tactic is to call everyone a racist that they don't agree with. You're about as transparant as it gets.

[Krusty]

Actually, go back feel free to peruse my nearly 8 years of history on these forums. I've called someone racist about .... once. There may be a couple of more times but its definitely not an accusation I've made more than once every 2 or 3 years.

Originally Posted by DLQ2006

They don't value things like freedom, economic prosperity, peace, equality, and human rights more than they do their version of Islam and what they believe they must do for their religion in order to be rewarded in the next life.

No, that doesn't sound racist at all "They" (all Muslims ? all Iraqis ?) sound pretty hopeless in your words.


Prior to our invasion, as brutal a dictatorship as it was, Iraq WAS probably the LEAST religiously divided Islamic nation in the entire region. Sunni and Shia intermarried regularly, and women had greater freedoms in that country than practically any other ME nation. The levels of literacy and technical education were amongst the top in the Middle East. It was certainly far Far FAR more secular than most of our allies (Saudi Arabia and the various emirates) which are Islamic theocracies.

Originally Posted by DLQ2006

You can claim that nothing I have said is grounded in facts all you want to.

No need ... your posts say it for you. Paul Wolfowitz, one of the major architects of the policy which led to the Iraq invasion has himself stated that the sectarian division in Iraq was virtually non-existent prior to 2003.

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by subego 

Whoa. Hold the phone.

When you reached the conclusion that millions of people are not acting rationally in concert, this should have set off all sorts of alarm bells that it is far more likely your premise is flawed.

More than likely, perhaps, but not impossible. Just about every modern ideology, and most ancient ones as well, all believe it about some other group, one way or another.

They don't think we're indiscriminately putting bullets in them.

No, they don't. They think the insurgent groups are putting bullets in them. That's what they want to stop, and so they want the US out because this is the line the insurgents have fed them: if the US leaves, we'll go away too. Any outsider can see that this is false on its face: these groups spend even more time fighting each other, not to mention the Iraqi government, than they do the US, so they have no reason to stop just because the US leaves. But then, outsiders have a very different view of the whole thing.

[subego]

Originally Posted by Millennium 

More than likely, perhaps, but not impossible. Just about every modern ideology, and most ancient ones as well, all believe it about some other group, one way or another.

Oh. I didn't mean to tell you that this aspect is non-existent or irrelevant. I felt you were proposing it as the primary reason, which doesn't seem right.

Originally Posted by Millennium 

No, they don't. They think the insurgent groups are putting bullets in them. That's what they want to stop, and so they want the US out because this is the line the insurgents have fed them: if the US leaves, we'll go away too. Any outsider can see that this is false on its face: these groups spend even more time fighting each other, not to mention the Iraqi government, than they do the US, so they have no reason to stop just because the US leaves. But then, outsiders have a very different view of the whole thing.

You're still doing it.

You're concluding that millions of people buy the insurgent line, and the only thing that is stopping them from being rational is not being an "outsider" like you.

Unless you can provide some proof for your claims, why isn't it far more likely that the insurgents have a better line than you imagine?

[DLQ2006]

[QUOTE=Krusty;3269606]

No, that doesn't sound racist at all "They" (all Muslims ? all Iraqis ?) sound pretty hopeless in your words.

No.....not ALL. I have no doubt there are a lot of good Iraqis who want freedom and to make life better for themselves. However, the reason we are still there is because so many of them are still killing each other. How many times has the point been made on this board by the anti-war members that what is going on in Iraq is Sectarian violence? Pointing out something that is pervasive in a particular culture is not being racist, it is simply being honest rather than being in denial because of how we would like it to be.

Prior to our invasion, as brutal a dictatorship as it was, Iraq WAS probably the LEAST religiously divided Islamic nation in the entire region.

Did you actually just admit that Iraq was under a brutal dictatorship, and then state that they were the Least religiously divided Islamic nation in the region? Why do you think that was? Why do you think it is that brutal dictators like Sadam rise to power in places like Iraq in the first place? My thesis that I laid out is that it is because of sectarian violence in the first place that creates a culture over time where the natural state of existence is that whoever is the most brutal rises to power and rules with an iron fist to keep people from killing each other. Now that Sadam is gone and the fear is gone, they have returned to their natural state of existence which is to kill each other.

I have never suggested that this state of existence is due to them not being capable of having the kinds of values that would make them strive as a collective society to be a peaceful democracy that values human rights, equal rights, and that can live in peace with those of other religions. My theory is that hundreds of years of religious indoctrination has created a culture where the same things that are important in ours is not important in theirs. Our goals are mostly economic because we see things like paved roads, good hospitals, an education, transportation systems, etc as the way in which to meet our full potential in this life. Islam teaches the opposite of that.

The fact that Sadam was able to contain radical islam does not mean that Islam is not primary to most Iraqis. I believe it is based on what I see happening in that country since Sadam was toppled and based on history. If I am wrong (and I am willing to accept that I can be proven wrong and actually would love nothing more than for the muslim world to prove me wrong) than please tell me one single society that has ever existed that is predominately Muslim that has also been a peaceful democracy, that has lived in peace with its Christian and Jewish neighbors. One that didn't require brutal force to contain sectarian violence. One that along with all these qualities, also was one that respected equality of all people and religions. Because this is why we are still in Iraq. Because we think this is possible there.

No need ... your posts say it for you. Paul Wolfowitz, one of the major architects of the policy which led to the Iraq invasion has himself stated that the sectarian division in Iraq was virtually non-existent prior to 2003.

Again............Why was it non-existent? Because the fear of being thrown down a human shreddar is pretty powerful that's why. A better point is........is there sectarian violence there now? Why? Because we are there? That is like saying that it is our military being there that has made Iraqis what they are and that is the blame game mentality that I don't buy. Sectarian violence between Muslims has existented long before the first European ever set foot in present day U.S. so to blame it on the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq now is not a thesis I have seen supported very well at all and it's actually a pretty worn out tactic used to blame U.S. foreign policy.

[DLQ2006]

[QUOTE=Krusty;3269606][QUOTE]

No, that doesn't sound racist at all "They" (all Muslims ? all Iraqis ?) sound pretty hopeless in your words.

Which one of those two things are a race? I'm pretty sure that "Muslim" refers to a religion and "Iraqi" refers to nationality. A religion is a belief system and it is fair game to make judgements about a belief system. Religious indoctrination is indoctrination of a belief system and it is that indoctrination that is at the root of my entire point.

It is really hard to believe that you've really been paying attention and just because you choose to come to a board where the majority of posters also call anyone willing to make a judgement about what the indoctrination over hundreds of years of Islam has done to cultures a "racist" means about as much to me as the fact that the sun came up this morning. It's exactly what I expected.

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by subego 

You're concluding that millions of people buy the insurgent line, and the only thing that is stopping them from being rational is not being an "outsider" like you.

Unless you can provide some proof for your claims, why isn't it far more likely that the insurgents have a better line than you imagine?

Well, let's take a look.

1) The Iraqis favor the current government. This is a matter of public record: they chose it in the freest elections that country has had in 20 years, elections which some say may have been fairer than those in the US around the same time.
2) If the US leaves now, that government will be overthrown in at least one coup, and there may actually be a series of coups. This is a stated objective of all the insurgent groups, and it's common knowledge that the current government cannot yet prevent this from happenning.
3) If the US leaves now, the violence will not end. This isn't even controversial anymore, at least not outside of Iraq. How can it be, when the groups spend even more time fighting each other than they do fighting the US?

Why, then, do the people of Iraq want the US out? They all know that the insurgent groups wish to replace the government with one of a number of superficially-different flavors of an evil, dehumanizing system as seen in Iran and Saudi Arabia. They had their chance to elect even these systems, yet they chose not to. So why? There is no rational reason for it: not when their own freedom is at stake. Therefore, we must look to the irrational, and when we do that, the answer becomes obvious: fear. They want the US out because they fear the insurgent groups. The terrorists have won there, and what we see are the results.

[subego]

Originally Posted by Millennium 

Why, then, do the people of Iraq want the US out? They all know that the insurgent groups wish to replace the government with one of a number of superficially-different flavors of an evil, dehumanizing system as seen in Iran and Saudi Arabia. They had their chance to elect even these systems, yet they chose not to.

As of this moment, the Iraqis have had the chance to elect one system. The system they have in place now. They had a yes/no vote.

So either you mistakenly assumed the Iraqis had the choice of more than one government, or you are trying to pull a fast one by implying that multiple choice is the equivalent of yes/no.

Since the meaning you ascribe to that vote is the premise upon which your argument is based, would you care to clarify?

[DLQ2006]

[QUOTE=Millennium;3272555]

3) If the US leaves now, the violence will not end. This isn't even controversial anymore, at least not outside of Iraq. How can it be, when the groups spend even more time fighting each other than they do fighting the US?

The violence would have ended along time ago if the situation was really one where Sadam was some sort of unique individual in his country. Where the Iraqi people themselves were a bunch of peaceful people interested in going about their own business to make Iraq a stable, prosperous nation but Sadam came along and was making that impossible. If that were true, then as soon as Sadam and his regime were out of power, things would have started solving themselves over there.

Our entire approach to fighting terrorism in the ME gives me the image of a juggler who believes that if he can just keep juggling balls in the air for long enough, he can eventually stop and the balls will all just stay in the air by themselves and not fall back onto the ground where he picked them up from. As long as this remains our approach, we can't even begin to deal with Iran or any other threat over there which is why I keep coming back to the idea that our military should be used to punish only.

It takes a whole lot less military capability to destroy places only without having to worry about securing them. Our military could be fighting Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran (and probably even more countries) right now all at the same time if we had to, if the only goal was to destroy places. The war could pretty much be fought from the air only if we didn't have to secure any places. And why do we secure the places in the first place? Because we have this approach of trying to build the places back up for the people of those countries.

Like the juggler analogy where the balls being juggled in the air are those Islamic nations........They were picked up off the ground in the first place, they've always been on the ground, and no amount of keeping them up by doing some kind of juggling act will ever keep them from dropping back down. They return to their natural state which is a state that allows those like Sadam, Arafat, Ajawannajihad of Iran, et al to rise to power in the first place. This is not the PC thing to say which makes anybody who dares to say it a target to be called a bigot and racist and everything else but at some point we are going to have to look at things for what they are rather than what we wish them to be. At some point our approach to warfare is going to have to return to one in which our only goal is to win and that will require us using our military for the purpose they are trained for which is to destroy stuff.......not secure places because we are so concerned about the well being and prosperity of the people. They are going to have to pick themselves up off the ground for that.

[subego]

Originally Posted by DLQ2006 

It takes a whole lot less military capability to destroy places only without having to worry about securing them.

Why is the problem the Rules of Engagement and not the number of troops?

[tie]

Originally Posted by DLQ2006 

The violence would have ended along time ago if the situation was really one where Sadam was some sort of unique individual in his country. Where the Iraqi people themselves were a bunch of peaceful people interested in going about their own business to make Iraq a stable, prosperous nation but Sadam came along and was making that impossible. If that were true, then as soon as Sadam and his regime were out of power, things would have started solving themselves over there.

Our entire approach to fighting terrorism in the ME gives me the image of a juggler who believes that if he can just keep juggling balls in the air for long enough, he can eventually stop and the balls will all just stay in the air by themselves and not fall back onto the ground where he picked them up from. As long as this remains our approach, we can't even begin to deal with Iran or any other threat over there which is why I keep coming back to the idea that our military should be used to punish only.

It takes a whole lot less military capability to destroy places only without having to worry about securing them. Our military could be fighting Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran (and probably even more countries) right now all at the same time if we had to, if the only goal was to destroy places. The war could pretty much be fought from the air only if we didn't have to secure any places. And why do we secure the places in the first place? Because we have this approach of trying to build the places back up for the people of those countries.

Like the juggler analogy where the balls being juggled in the air are those Islamic nations........They were picked up off the ground in the first place, they've always been on the ground, and no amount of keeping them up by doing some kind of juggling act will ever keep them from dropping back down. They return to their natural state which is a state that allows those like Sadam, Arafat, Ajawannajihad of Iran, et al to rise to power in the first place. This is not the PC thing to say which makes anybody who dares to say it a target to be called a bigot and racist and everything else but at some point we are going to have to look at things for what they are rather than what we wish them to be. At some point our approach to warfare is going to have to return to one in which our only goal is to win and that will require us using our military for the purpose they are trained for which is to destroy stuff.......not secure places because we are so concerned about the well being and prosperity of the people. They are going to have to pick themselves up off the ground for that.

We had good reason to attack Afghanistan; they had attacked us, or at least were strongly supporting an organization which had attacked us. We had no national security reason to attack Iraq. And we certainly had no reason to destroy Iraq.

There are occasional wars like Afghanistan where our national security is at risk. But most wars are purely voluntary like Iraq, and after these wars we are obligated to commit to nation-building. It isn't an option to destroy Iraq completely (although that seems to be what we've involuntarily achieved).

[subego]

Paging Dr. Millennium... Dr. DLQ... Dr. Millennium.

You have a debate in the ICU.