Al Q has it's back broken in Iraq. ZERO Al Q control in Baghdad!!

Sorry to disappoint you, the Paulians and the Democrats, GoSlash, but we're not losing.

Even the NYT reported this as fact, and that probably had to be dragged out of them one painful word at a time.
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I love the blind self righteousness of those who think just because people believe the war horribly planned and incompetently carried out that we WANT to loose and have more troops die. We are not the ones suggesting we spill the blood of American troops to do what the Iraqis themselves should be doing.

Wow, the USA with all of its troops, tanks, helicopters, artillery, satellites, aircraft carriers, bombers and associated hardware are able to eventually put down what has consistently been reported (by the administration) as a small group of insurgents. By that logic if Donald Trump and I go into a poker game, him with $1,000,000 and I with $100 and he cleans me out after 14 hours of no limit gambling he can declare victory, right?
 
Sorry to disappoint you, the Paulians and the Democrats, GoSlash, but we're not losing.

Even the NYT reported this as fact, and that probably had to be dragged out of them one painful word at a time.
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Maybe I read a different article than you did. I saw the NYT report this as the statement of one of our military commanders, not as fact. Reading that article, it sounds like things are going well in some ways, and still going poorly in others. And again, I'll say the real measure will be what Baghdad (and, you know, the rest of Iraq) looks like next year...not what the commander responsible for Baghdad at the moment says is going one.

After all:

And though Sunni extremist groups could revive and “reinfest very quickly,” General Fil said, Iraq’s leaders should now have the peace they need to build a trusted, cross-sectarian government. But progress toward that, he said, has been “disappointing.”
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Maybe you're right. Maybe this isn't "losing." But I wouldn't call it "winning," either. I'll say it again: the odds that a "victory," by any definition of the term worth the cost in money and lives spent, in that country are still pretty slim. Moving the goalposts doesn't count.
 
I love the blind self righteousness of those who think just because people believe the war horribly planned and incompetently carried out that we WANT to loose and have more troops die. We are not the ones suggesting we spill the blood of American troops to do what the Iraqis themselves should be doing.
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I don't love it. I hate it. :mad:
There's not one benefit from this fiasco that's worth the price paid by our troops. It infuriates me that even the Democrats aren't willing to put a stop to it, yet aren't willing to fight like they mean it.
Our troops are coming home in wheelchairs and boxes. Our dollar is crashing and our economy is bleeding like a stuck pig, and all for what? Our enemy is getting stronger worldwide, not weaker.

Disgusting.
 
If you knock over a hornet's nest, way out in the woods and far away from your home you don't stand there like an idiot trying to swat each hornet while being stung to death, you leave.
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Alright ... metaphors are supposed to be simple ... but to relate this totally to what is happening ...

So you've stupidly knocked over a hornet's nest while on a picnic, and if you flee the swarm you end up right where your family and children are. And the hornets will follow and attack them.

In that case, you've got to stand and keep knocking them down. And it's not like you're helpless; you brought along the best hornet killing devices money can buy, and compared to historical hornet attacks you're really not getting stung that bad (i.e. compare the entire Iraq war to Iwo Jima).

But if we managed to utterly expel Al-Qaeda from Iraq, and even weaken the groups such that they can't manage another attack for decades, I'd still not consider the operation a rousing success if Iraq as a whole ends up under an extremist theocracy or devolves into genocide.
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Well ... what are our options? If we turn tail and run like scared rabbits (I mean redeploy like scared rabbits) Al Qaeda will have a huge victory, and Iraq may devolve into your nightmare scenario.

If we stay and fight, continuing to damage Al Q, the same may happen to Iraq but we will have fought well.

Every foreign fighter/suicide bomber going to Iraq is one that is NOT coming to America.

Personally, I'd rather see them have to fight our army THERE, even if there are a few more of them, then see them come HERE. Because these guys with hatred in their hearts are going to go somewhere. They aren't going to suddenly love us because we decided to cave in and do what they wanted and run (I mean redeploy) hime. YMMV.

If you want to impeach/arrest everyone who got us into this war, be my guest. I do think we got into this with the best of intentions, but in any case it's been SNAFU. And maybe they should pay the price.

But bottom line is it's a war agains terrorism now. And we need to win it.
 
Garand,
So sorry, but your "they'll follow us home" assertion 1) isn't supported by the facts and 2) smacks of appeasement.

Don't you realize that it's our very presence there that's generating the hornets in the first place? Look down at your feet. You're standing on the friggin' "generate hornets" switch.

We're stretching this analogy to the breaking point, but suffice it to say that a terrorist is nothing more than a torqued-off Muslim Arab and if we quit agitating them the terrorists (the hornets already generated) won't leave us alone but at least we'll quit making more of 'em faster than we can kill them.

And just how many American lives are a fair price for your safety? If we feed them...say 100 servicemembers coming home in boxes for your safety, is that a fair price for your temporary safety?

I'm going to jump into another analogy here: When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. How long is it going to take you to hammer this mess back into one piece?
 
So sorry, but your "they'll follow us home" assertion 1) isn't supported by the facts and 2) smacks of appeasement.
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You're right ... we have no empirical evidence. We have not yet started a war with an arab country and then run away to see what would happen.

But we do have common sense.

Al Q attacked us before we were in Iraq. They still want to attack us. There are a finite number of suicide bombers/men willing to give their lives for this cause.

It is foolish to think the problem will just go away. I'd say, let's keep funneling thos killers and suicide bomers to Iraq.

Don't you realize that it's our very presence there that's generating the hornets in the first place? Look down at your feet. You're standing on the friggin' "generate hornets" switch.
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So sorry, but your "we're responsible for making them kill us" assertion 1) isn't supported by the facts and 2) smacks of appeasement.

Al Q declared war on Americans and attacked us in multiple places, not just the twin towers, before we went to war in Iraq. Read the writing of Osama, look at the suicide attacks that took place, etc.

There were men filled with hatred before the war took place, and even if there are a few more now ... I'd rather our troops fight a 100 terrorists in a foreign land than 10 here. I'd even say 100/1 would be fair.

And just how many American lives are a fair price for your safety? If we feed them...say 100 servicemembers coming home in boxes for your safety, is that a fair price for your temporary safety?
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It's not my safety; it's the safety of America overall. And we're not sending American's over there to die, we're sending them over there to fight. There's a significant difference, as Iraq is a war zone and not a Nazi death camp.

I myself would have no problem going over there to fight for my children's future if I were still of army age. If the current soldiers did not join to fight for America, I've got to wonder why they signed on the dotted line.

I'm going to jump into another analogy here: When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. How long is it going to take you to hammer this mess back into one piece?
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When all you have is a hammer, and there's a job that has to get done or people will die, then you hammer until it's finishd.

War is a pretty crappy tool. But at the moment, for the short term, it's the only tool we have.
 
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Al Q declared war on Americans and attacked us in multiple places, not just the twin towers, before we went to war in Iraq. Read the writing of Osama, look at the suicide attacks that took place, etc.
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Yeah, I know. Which had NOTHING to do with Iraq. Nada. zip. And in case you forgot, Al Qaeda attacked us because we were building permanant bases in Saudi Arabia after the Gulf war. They had no beef with us prior to that.
And as a result of our attempt to deal with our enemy (Al Qaeda) through attacking somebody who had nothing to do with it (Iraq) we have weakened ourselves and strengthened them. It's stupid. It's worse than stupid; it's giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
And here you are telling me that we have no recourse other than continue the same course of action and hope for a better result. There's a word for that behavior: insanity.

There are a finite number of suicide bombers/men willing to give their lives for this cause.
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Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong!!! If you seriously believe that they've got a fixed number of terrorists you're sadly mistaken and have no idea what you're up against. Every misstep we make over there creates more.


War is a pretty crappy tool. But at the moment, for the short term, it's the only tool we have.
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Nonsense. We have an entire arsenal at our fingertips for dealing with this threat. The current administration is reduced to using the hammer if only because their erratic hammer-swinging caused everyone to take away their toolbox, lest they try the band saw next.

Don't believe the hype. The threat posed by terrorism is not new, not all that dire, and does not warrant the goofy lengths we've gone to.
The "war on terror" (such as it is) is a national security matter and worth winning. The "war" in Iraq, otoh, isn't worth even one American life.

Seriously; You do not know your history and you do not know your enemy. Sun-Tzu is rolling in his grave as you type.
Go study up and get back to me.
 
We could always just pay them off like the Saudis did
Or perhaps we could just cut Israel loose
Or maybe we could stage a great big hands across the World event
Or what about if we all just convert to Islam or at least forbid any depiction of the Christian religion in public


Whether AQ wanted us in Saudi Arabia or not means nothing
The Saudi government wanted us there and last I checked the government of a country ran it
Not a bunch of radical jackasses

There are a lot of radical jackasses that don't want the Paris Hilton posse around here, should they be able to blow them up?
How about abortion clinics fundamentalist, Christians don't want them around
Should they be excused for blowing up clinics and killing doctors?
 
"Those "insurgents" are supposedly all foreign fighters and the overwhelming minority in Iraq, according to our administration. The same Admin says the Iraqis themselves are fully in favour of democratic rule. Now they say that AQ has been effectively knocked out. Is there any reason we are still needed there then? Shouldn't the Iraqi's, if they really believe in their own nation, be able to defend it? If they don't then why should we?"


b/c it is still our obligation to train enough Iraqi's, up to our standards, to take over for us. al qaida is beaten b/c the iraqi rag tag militias are fighting against the foreigner fighters, alongside us nonetheless, instead of attacking us. wether we won their hearts and minds or swayed them with money or they finally grew a brain and decided to take back their country from al-q, doesn't matter, we train enough iraqis to take over for us we leave but i still see a collapse of everything we did and the sunnis, shiites, and kurds battling it out for control. or the kurds set up their own border and sunnis and shiites battle it out for the rest of iraq.
 
"The threat posed by terrorism is not new, not all that dire, and does not warrant the goofy lengths we've gone to.
The "war on terror" (such as it is) is a national security matter and worth winning. "



should be a war fought by spec ops and spec ops only, b/c you can't wage traditional war with terrorists, you just can't win.
 
It's not my safety; it's the safety of America overall. And we're not sending American's over there to die, we're sending them over there to fight. There's a significant difference, as Iraq is a war zone and not a Nazi death camp.

I myself would have no problem going over there to fight for my children's future if I were still of army age. If the current soldiers did not join to fight for America, I've got to wonder why they signed on the dotted line.
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Having been there, I can tell you this...at least during OIF III, it didn't look like much of a "fight." Hell, from what I've read that's supposedly part of why so many soldiers are coming back with psych issues...constant threat of death from an enemy they don't even get to "fight back" against. Something just blows up and you're either dead or you aren't. I'd know, I experienced it many times.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong!!! If you seriously believe that they've got a fixed number of terrorists you're sadly mistaken and have no idea what you're up against. Every misstep we make over there creates more.
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Also, this.
 
Juan: I have two sons that have been there! Both tell the same story. One was in Afghanistan, the other was in Kuwait and Iraq. You just don't know who the bad man was! No uniforms, No flags.....Alan just got back yesterday from Afganistan.

Garbage cans can go BOOM! Is it that car? Do you see the soft spot in the road? Was that Boot in the road yesterday? Yea ! You just don't know where, when, or how. Not good.
 
we train enough iraqis to take over for us we leave but i still see a collapse of everything we did and the sunnis, shiites, and kurds battling it out for control. or the kurds set up their own border and sunnis and shiites battle it out for the rest of iraq.
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I think that if we left, or tried to leave, Turkey would have to do something about the emergent Kurdistan, because some of it would be trying to emerge in Turkey. Turkey is a NATO ally and would be really pissed. Iran would solidify the Shiite control of Iraq that we put in place, and they'd have a new friend. Sunni Saudi Arabia would be pissed as never before about the new Iran/Iraq Shiite pair, which is already making them unhappy. There might be a Sunni-Shiite war. And our soldiers would stop getting killed trying to prevent all that from happening.

You can't pay attention to the names of the nations and the lines on the maps. It's the tribes which have the first loyalty of the people, not the countries. The Sunnis controlled Iraq, and now the Shiites control it, with our help. I didn't think this was a good idea when this war began, but that's the situation now. I think that if we left now, it would actually make matters worse, not better. We won, but we can't leave, because the nation of Iraq is inherently unstable.

Our friend Hugh Damright the Virginian is, I think, pretty rare in America. I was born in Florida, and I love my state. Still, my birthplace makes me an American first and foremost to me, and to the rest of the world. I don't believe most Iraqis are loyal to Iraq as much as they are loyal to the Sunni or Shiite or Kurdish group to which they belong. We have this thing about empowering minorities in America, and being a melting pot. It works for us, and we think it is right. I don't believe that most of the Middle East shares this cultural attribute. Control of government is all about helping out your tribe, and gaining advantage over the others.

We can leave and watch the whole mess unravel, or we can stay and try to keep it from unraveling. I think we should stay.

By the way, don't forget that tomorrow is the Veteran's Day money bomb for the Paul campaign. I'm going to send a few more bucks, though I disagree with Ron Paul about leaving Iraq immediately.
 
[Terrorism] should be a war fought by spec ops and spec ops only, b/c you can't wage traditional war with terrorists, you just can't win.
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I disagree. History has shown that terrorist are only a significant threat to other nations (particularly nations at a distance) when those terrorist have a safe base of operations. UBL was unable to effectively strike at other nations when he was "on the run" in Saudi Arabia and the Sudan. It wasn't until he had safety in Afghanistan and was under the protection of the Taliban that he became a threat. If you look at other terrorist organizations you see the same thing. I'm not suggesting we can (or should) go to war with every nation in the world, but I am suggesting that nations are the prop that holds up terrorism. And nations can be dealt with.
 
Well the drift here is as expected. The usual parties with the usual rebuttals. A tiny tiny bit of looking would have revealed a 'Fatwa' passed by BOTH Shiite and Sunni Clerics against violence. :eek: The 'Rule of the Gun' is now unlawful in both secular and tribal (Islamic) law.

Further, if folks would have been paying attention to General Petraeus' testimony instead of discounting the man out of hand, you would know why these large gains have manifested and why they have staying power. Local to central sums it up, but read up for yourself before prematurely taking a posture on this. You may very well be impressed.

This is far and away from the same old same old. This is the result that Abizaid failed to accomplish. Local Iraqis doing the work of fighting for, and gaining, their own liberty on their own terms. Not the rule of the gun. Bring up years old arguments when this General has had the job less then a year isn't equating the situations intellegently or meaningfully. More has been accomplished in the last 5 months then in the years before by former Generals.

As mentioned just after General Petraeus' testimony by those that were paying attention to what he was doing there, this General's method of dealing with this formally untenable military conundrum may very well become historic and textbook for Command Officer War School.

The gains made are SIGNIFICANT now and to deny this requires a deliberate suspension of rationale.
 
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Publius,
Your post was extremely well-informed, rational, and insightful. Kudos on that.

Now let me tell you why I draw the opposite conclusion from the same facts...

You can't pay attention to the names of the nations and the lines on the maps. It's the tribes which have the first loyalty of the people, not the countries. The Sunnis controlled Iraq, and now the Shiites control it, with our help. I didn't think this was a good idea when this war began, but that's the situation now. I think that if we left now, it would actually make matters worse, not better. We won, but we can't leave, because the nation of Iraq is inherently unstable.
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With the ratification of a Sharia-based Constitution now solidly fixed in the history books, the "best" we can hope for is a solidly Shia-controlled nation that will eventually ally itself with Iran. I certainly don't think that outcome is in our national best interest and certainly not worth the price we will undoubtedly pay for it.
However, as you correctly point out; Iraq is an inherently unstable nation. Meaning that when we have sacraficed however much more to establish these lines on a map for these people who's first alleigance is to their tribes...it's all liable to fall apart anyway. Again, certainly not worth the price we will pay going forward.

Either way, not worth the price already paid (which is water...or blood...under the bridge) and certainly not worth the blood, treasure, and political capital we will invest in the coming years.

Looking at it from a purely cynical view, perhaps the best outcome for us would be the fracturing of Iraq into tribal regions. That'd ease sectarian tensions, but even if it didn't at least they'd spend more time battling each other instead of us.

Anywho, thanks again for the intelligent and thoughtful post.
 
I posted this in another thread, but it kind of fits here as well.

I hope we have gotten better at nation building over the years, and I think avoiding a larger war in the region makes staying in Iraq the best choice for now...

Flash forward a few years, and you might find a US President saying this about Iraq...

The central government of Iraq that we were trying to help had all but wasted away, with Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish believers splintered into many competing sects, Iraq's political landscape had become a clutter of disorder, violence, and mayhem. Our policy was based on the expectation that the Iraqi army would subdue the militias of these rival groups and reestablish the central government's control over the country while the multinational force helped maintain order. But the Iraqi army simply wasn't strong enough to bottle up the centuries of seething sectarian hatred in Iraq; nor did they have the will to fight their countrymen, especially those with similar religious beliefs.
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The quote is originally from Ronald Reagan, and he was talking about the Lebanese civil war. I just changed it to refer to Iraq.
 
I had a wonderful oportunity last week to talk with the Governor of Al Anbar province and visit with a lot of the provincial and tribal leaders. They were not what I was expecting. They were wearing suits, many spoke basic English and some spoke it very well. They were polite and grateful for the asistance they've received from us and expressed discontent with the form of Government they had right now. The governor actually was interested in a federalist system such as we had a century ago where people with vast differences could still be a single nation.

They were here looking at how cotton (and other crops) is grown in Texas as well as curious about the purchase of turbine machinery to generate electricity off of natural gas. They also were inquiring about American expertise in agriculture and education as they have plenty of money but little know-how and their agriculture has been all but destroyed through the war.

Y'all may recall that Al Anbar, home of Falluja and other notorious cities switched sides about nine months ago and began actively helping the American side find Al Qaida. Now apparently, the place is fairly calm and they are trying hard to get life back on track with education and investment. The Governor's brother was the Sheik who switched sides and was soon thereafter assasinated. He himself has had 31 attempts since he took power, so seeing that kind of courage and determination and a serious yearning to learn how to better his people's lot in life was encouraging to me.
 
The ability to superimpose new words into an old statement is hardly profound or enlightening. A bit surprised at how much GoSlash was impressed.

As for being a fantasy, well, what is it you don't comprehend or believe that you find so fantastic? Is this the first you have heard of the progress in Iraq? I realize that many are stuck in 'lost cause' mode. There is no need to believe it out of hand. You can find out about the progress and the Peterus plan yourself. I'll summarize it later when I get more time but if you familiarize yourself with it you will see why it is so effective. It is actually very good.
 
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