ratbastid

The following came across Michael Moore's mailing list this morning, and was forwarded to me by my cousin.

PLEASE NOTE: I'm interested in discussion of the ideas presented here. I'm NOT interested in your opinion about Michael Moore. My opinion of him is fairly mixed, but I find this letter to be very interesting and worthy of discussion anyway. This thread is not for Moore-bashing. Dismissal of the ideas presented in this letter simply because they come from him will be met with scorn, laughter, and derision. You don't want that. Trust me. It's no fun. If that's all you've got, please just hit your "back" button and don't post in this thread.


There are a couple ideas here I really find compelling. The first is that political change always comes from within, or at least has abundant support from within. The US had a group of expatriate Iraqis who were calling for regime change, but there was no popular movement inside Iraq supporting revolution. And when revolution was thrust upon them, the result was sectarian separation and violence. It's shocking that 61% of Iraqis support the insurgency. That's the most telling statistic I've seen on the war.

The second is Moore's assertion that what we should do now is just leave. I've long suspected that the single most destabilizing factor in Iraq is the continued US presence. Moore seems to agree. I'm not sure about the "let them duke it out and help clean up the blood afterward" position he takes--it seems to me there must be SOMETHING we can to mitigate the damage we've done.

Your thoughts?

Charlatan

His argument about change coming from within is something I have been arguing since before the invasion. Lasting change can't be imposed.

The more I think about Iraq. The more it seems inevitable to me that there will be no fixing this mess from without. The only way to solve this is to have more troops. A lot more troops and then those troops need to kill just about everyone. Just to be sure.

Regardless this is going to end like Vietnam and like Afghanistan. The aggressor will finally get wise and leave. Iraq will roil in turmoil, much like it already is.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

Daniel_

The British tried to impose culture and democracy (of a sort) on people all over the world for generations, and it ended with my grandparents generation giving it all back to the locals, many of whom did things that seemed (and continue to seem) barbaric.

But they did it to themselves.

The country that invented "Live Free or Die" and "No Taxation Without Representation" seems an unlikely champion of the imposition of order on another country.

The problem is that the US appears to think that Iraq is the same as post-Nazi Germany, or post-Imperial Japan.

In both of these historic cases, the US forces were viewed on average as a stabalising influence in the reconstruction of a normal society after the destuction of an ultimately unsuccessful tyrant.

The key thing seems to be that the people WANTED the help that the Americans could give them (Marshal plans and so on).

Just look at the post war constitutions of Japan and Germany - neither are allowed to send troops abroad with the freedom that the US has (or the UK).

Think about that for a moment. The US wrote (or helped to write) the constitutions of Germany and Japan after the war, and placed heavy limits on where and how they could send their troops overseas.

If the US had to live by the rules that they gave to the Germans, they would not be allowed to have gone to Iraq in the first place.

Do as I say, not as I do, anyone?

The investigations carried out after the invasion seem to have shown that Iraq was not capable of being much of a threatto anyone beyond the local area, and there has been little published (that I've seen, anyway) that gives clear links to the finding of terrorism.

Overall, we (the Westrn countries with troops there) should leave as fast as we can, and let them go to hell if they want to, but welcome them into the world's family of nations if we can, and when they're ready.

War is endemic to the human condition, and most nations have been forged by one form of war or another ever since the idea of nationhod was invented.

The powerful cannot stop war - the Romans, the Greeks, The British, The Germans, The Americans and every oher imperial or crypto-imperial power has found that out the hard way.

In the end in India, the British empire was defeated by an old man in a dhotti, and the same will happen for the American empire in Arabia.

__________________

╔═════════════════════════════════════════╗
Overhead, the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air,
And deep beneath the rolling waves,
In labyrinths of Coral Caves,
The Echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand;
And everthing is Green and Submarine
╚═════════════════════════════════════════╝

Seaver

Yes there was, there were plenty. The problem is we never supported them like we said, and they all ended up dead... along with their entire family. There were plenty of revolutionary forces throughout Saddam's regeim, it's not as if they were happy.

I find it interesting how Moore changes with the winds. Before the war he proclaimed our troops as killers and rapists, now he's "supporting them" by pulling them out, something that the vast majority do not want to happen. Before the war he proclaimed the insurgents as the American Revolutionaries, now they're nothing alike.

We can not pull out right now. The Iraqi Army is gaining strength and is getting better. From what my friends who serve say, they are starting to carry out missions with Americans only providing support when needed. Once we rebuild the strength and confidence of the Iraqi Army, we can start withdrawing. We've already done that completely to a couple major cities, we need to keep that going. Once we leave a civil war WILL erupt, the strength of the war can not be measured at this point, no one knows. We have to ensure the Iraqi Army will be strong enough to maintain the peace as an autonomous force.

What is never understood about the MSM is that once we leave many of the militias and insurgents will disband. Many militias hate Al Qaeda and other Islamofacist units more than us, and frequently give us information about them. Once we leave, I believe the majority of these militias will throw their support with the government.

So how'd that work for Afghanistan?

__________________
"Smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge, and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth." - Ashbel Smith as he laid the first cornerstone of the University of Texas

ratbastid

That's sure not what the news is saying. Reports in the news are saying that the Iraqi police forces' training is in disastrous shape. Your friends' anecdotes notwithstanding, I don't have much faith we're making real progress there.

Willravel

They didn't all end up dead under Saddam. In fact, the largest center of insurgence against Saddam - right before the invasion and subsequent civil war - was in Fallujah (until we killed them all with white phosphorus and DU munitions). The hilarious part is that Fallujah wanted freedom from Saddam's dictatorship, then when we invaded their country and forced them to accept our form of government that makes it easy for us to control them, they rebeled against us. The difference between us and Saddam is that we massacred all of them, and Saddam only kidnapped a few.
We can pull out right now. Even Bush wil have to admit that soon, or risk damning his legacy and any hope of Republican control over the White House in 2008. Did you read the article?
** 71% of all Iraqis now want the U.S. out of Iraq.

** 61% of all Iraqis SUPPORT insurgent attacks on U.S. troops.

That makes us INVADERS. That means that we can't beat the insurgency without beating Iraq, and we can't use Saddam as a feable excuse this time.

We need to leave right now, forgive all Iraq debt, and formally apologize to the Iraqi people for all the invasion, civilian massacres, and basiaclly starting a civil war. We need to allow them to run their own elections, so that they don't have to elect a puppet government. We need to allow them to own their own oil and all the profits from it. While we should put restrictions on their build up of arms, we should allow them to have the ability for reasonable defence.
If they want their country to flourish, it will take work. If they are unwilling to work, they will have no one to blame but themselves for the resulting problems. Right now, the US is mostly to blame for the insurgency and fighting.

I call it natural selection of nations: the strong will survive.
We bombed them, destroyed their government, and left warlord in charge.

We aren't doing that in Iraq. A government is in place, Iraqi troops are trained (for years now), and our presence is to blame for most of the fighting.

mixedmedia

I understand the desire to pull out of Iraq, at least I understand why some people feel that way, but I do not understand the "leave them to their own devices" mentality. Whether you supported the invasion of Iraq or not (I did not), America must now own up to its responsibilities in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not only because it is the right thing to do, but it is the only thing to do. There is no "leaving." That is also what is different about the world of WWII and the world of today. The world cannot afford to leave a billion or so disenfranchised and angry zealots on the planet with no other future to look forward to than an afterlife.

I did not support the invasion of Iraq and I will never support the invasion of any other ME/SE Asian nation, but the fact is Western "civilization," for a century or so, has consumed and played and ignored the growing problems we are now facing. There is no closing our eyes and ignoring it this time - there is no going back. The world is facing the same problem with many nations in Africa, but for whatever reason, Africans tend to turn in on themselves. This we have ignored, too, after all, it is so much easier to ignore it when they are not killing us. Those days are over. I agree that things need to change. But walking away is not only foolish and short-sighted, but it is also a death sentence. That is my opinion anyway.

I like Michael Moore very much. I like his films. But I don't agree with this letter.

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

Willravel

Our occupation is the cause of almost all of the fighting there. If we want the fighting to stop, we either:
1) STAY THE COURSE: Continue to get people from both sides killed. Eventually one side will run out of people, probably the insurgency, and then everyone who was fighting will no longer be able to fight because they'll be dead. We'll absorb massive casualties over the years, possibly decades, we are there. If I had to guess I'd say 8-12 years, and maybe 30,000-45,000 American soldiers dead total (as when the insurgency really begins to shrink they will become more desperate and resort to desperate measures, this will lead to the end being more bloody).
2) SEND MORE TROOPS: We are already stretched too thin, recruitment is down, and I doubt any number of military games for the PS3 or stupid commercials are going to help. This means one thing: the draft. That will take the administration's current popularity (around 30%?) and drop it to 0%, damning the Republican party for decades of servitude under the Democrats. Also, this would lead to massive unrest in the US, where we are already massively polarized, and could lead to violence and even a pseudo-civil war. We can't fight 2 different wars at once.
3) SLOW WITHDRAWL OF TROOPS: This is probably the most popular choice right now, as options 1 and 2 are obviously flawed (read: insane), and people want their loved ones home and are sick of war. We need our troops home training to deal with things that are actually our problem instead of invading soverign nations that never asked for our help. Slow withdrawl means that we step up our training of the Iraqi security forces in a big way, meaning that they are the ones that monitor the streets and our troops do primarily training. Less soldiers covered with American flags on the streets will instantly decrease violence. We pull out more and more as their forces take over more and more. We set a goal of 1 year to get all troops out of Iraq and we stick to it no matter what.
4) INSTANT WITHDRAWL OF TROOPS: We pull out today, the civil war ends, and they are left to run their own country as it is theirs to run. They are allowd to develop in the way they wish or are able to, and we get to stop all the fighting. No more soldiers with lost limbs coming home to a country that doesn't really care about them as much as they care about gay marriage or stem cells.

Iraq is more likely to be stronger if left to develop a government on their own instead of us acting as crutches with guns mounted on them. They are liable to become dependant on us if we stay there longer, and if that happens, we will never be able to leave because they'll never be ready for us to leave. They will assume that they cannot fight the insurgence on their own, not realizing that the insurgency would end if we left.

Seaver

Ok, we've been there what, for 3.5 years? And we have amassed what, 3,000 casualties?

How do you double the time and get 10x the casualties? Overestimate much?

__________________
"Smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge, and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth." - Ashbel Smith as he laid the first cornerstone of the University of Texas

dc_dux

From what I have read, the Iraqi army still has no leadership and many of the ranks are more loyal to a sectarian militia then they are to the government or army. The same applies to the Interior Ministry forces (ie police). The predominately Shia army and police wont participate in offensives in Shia areas and turn their backs when militias attack in Sunni areas. Over ten thousands US weapons have been stolen from the Iraq military and are in the hands of the militias. I just dont know how anyone can put a positive spin on the capabilities of the Iraq military.

I dont know what either of you base your conclusions on, other than hope. The hatred between Shia and Sunni has been so inflamed by the results of our invasion, I think its unrealistic to expect the militias to disband or the civil to end on our departure. There are an estimated 20-30 different militias with allegiences to different sectarian leaders. As long as there is a power struggle within the government, the militias will continue to ac and civilians will be the targets. We have created a quagmire that is beyond short-term repair.

To abandon Iraq completely and immediately is, as Mixmedia said, morally unacceptable. We broke Iraq, we have an obligation to try to fix it, as best we can.

The best course that I see is Wills' option 3 - a slow withdrawal of US troops. But not until we can convince Iraq's moderate neighbors - Egyp, Jordan, Kuwait and`even Turkey (which will piss off the Kurds), Morocco, etc. - to replace our troops with some type of stabilization force to replace the US face of occupation, combined with forceful political pressures by the Arab League on the Iraqi government to disarm the militias. Easier said than done as the Arab League is predominately Sunni and the Iraqi government is not very trustful.

Bottom line, we fucked up and now no one knows what to do.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

mixedmedia

Perhaps a slow withdrawal of troops from Iraq coupled with a build-up of troops in Afghanistan. The suffering we have caused the people of Iraq is nearly equalled by our betrayal and desertion of the people of Afghanistan. Most notably in our abandonment of promoting progress and equality for women. When I think of the good we could have done in Afghanistan with the money we went spent invading Iraq it makes my head spin. Not to mention what it would have done for our public image in the eyes of the Islamic world.

BUT, our country invaded Iraq and Iraq is now our problem. Perhaps, if we left, they would straighten out their problems on their own, but I doubt it. I think it more likely that Iraq would remain unstable for, at least, decades, riven with political and religious strife and possibly turn into the proving ground for terrorism that the Bush administration tried to sell it as before the war. As Afghanistan is now...again.

I believe it is imperative for us to leave behind our endeavors in the Islamic world with some semblance of a positive effect that might lead to drastic changes in the region. I know, I tend to have my goofy optimistic streak, too, but I also don't see any other recourse.

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

loquitur

I think Moore would be well served thinking through the consequences of what he is proposing. These decisions don't exist in a vacuum, and every decision has consequences. Making a decision based on satisfying one's moral sense, without accounting for the likely effect of the decision on oneself or others is infantile and self-indulgent in the extreme.

djtestudo

I believe having a plan to leave Iraq is a good thing.

I believe having U.S. troops come home is a good thing.

I believe abandoning Iraq to warring groups without putting any kind of stable system in place, just because some people in this country are upset over the invasion is shameful and cowardly, and is an embarrassment to everyone who died in Iraq.

Again: plan to leave, good. Leave now, bad.

__________________
"Final thought: I just rented Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine. Frankly, it was the worst sports movie I've ever seen."
--Peter Schmuck, The (Baltimore) Sun

hiredgun

Unfortunately, there are no good choices left in front of us, only choices.

I think there are a lot of things Moore isn't taking into account here, strategically speaking: most importantly, the consequences of growing Iranian influence (control) over Iraq through its ties to the Shia government and its funding of the 'death-squads'. No regional actor has gained as much from the US decision in 2003 as Iran. We've removed their greatest military check and turned it into a relative asset, and we ourselves are far too tied down to engage them or prevent them from developing nukes. Combine that with Iranian leverage in Lebanon and high projected oil revenues over at least the next several years, and we're very clearly losing the battle for the region.

Iran will almost certainly come out on top following the bloodshed that will take place in Iraq if we leave now.

Then again, Iran will probably come out on top anyway, so maybe it's moot.

There are really very few options. With the downward slide the country has taken in recent months, the prospects for re-internationalizing the problem are grim or nonexistent. I'm not sure what a massive McCain-esque increase in troop levels would be meant to accomplish. It might succeed in briefly stamping out violence, though it would be a step backwards in terms of getting the Iraqi government to 'stand up'. But absent a nearly unlimited supply of troops, money, patience, and the will to really substantially apply ourselves to state-building over the next decade, I don't see it having a permanent effect.

And then there's the 'leave now' option, which virtually guarantees a subservient Iranian client state over probably two-thirds of what is now Iraq. Of course, the greater the prospects of a stronger Iran, the worse the prospects of our being able to deal with Iran diplomatically in the coming years as opposed to resorting to war.

So I'd say we're proper fucked. I will say that this is something that experts in the country should be able to debate without having to deal with the ridiculous stigma of 'cut and run' as cowardice.

EDIT: So as to more directly answer the OP: I don't have a very strong opinion on the question posed because I don't feel at this point that any one option is clearly much stronger than the others. I do think a 'change of course' on the level of strategy might be wise in principle. I also lean slightly towards withdrawal simply because while no possible endgame looks great for us right now, we can at least stop hemorrhaging troops and money in time to stop and contemplate the next phase of this conflict, if one will arise.

In the meantime there will be ways to use those resources to repair some of the damage done to our clout in the region. I think the obvious step is to re-engage in the peace process... we've all seen the disastrous results of our disengagement from that process over the last six years. The harder step will be dealing with the direct consequences of our withdrawal, i.e. what to do with Iran and what is left of Iraq. The shape of that policy will depend on how things go down once we leave, but this too, I think is probably preferable to either 'staying the course' or massively ramping up our presence.

ratbastid

Okay, but say more about that. What consequences do YOU see?

dc_dux

Isnt that exactly what Bush and the neo-cons did to satisfy their moral sense to bring democracy to the Middle East by force of invasion?

The top parties in the Shia majority in the government, Dawa and SCIRI, already have long-standing ties to Iran. Iraq also just restored dipliomatic relations with Syria. Both of which are all the more reason for the US to use whatever political capital we have left with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Kuwait to get them more engaged in order to balance the Iran/Syrian influence.

We are beyond any reasonable liklihood of a military victory in Iraq. Militaries are designed to fight and win wars, not perform police functions or to mitigate long-standing hatreds and cope new wounds created by those hatreds. It is not "shameful and cowardly or an embarrassment to everyone who died in Iraq"to acknowledge that Bush, Cheney et al "misunderstood, misread, misplanned and mismanaged our honorable intentions in Iraq with an arrogant self-delusion reminiscent of Vietnam. Honorable intentions are not policies and plans. Iraq belongs to the 25 million Iraqis who live there. They will decide their fate and form of government." (quote from Repub Senator Chuck Hagel)

Stepped-up diplomatic and political pressure on the Iraq government and our "friends" in the region, all of whom have a vested interest in stability in Iraq, is our best course of action.....and I would still accompany that with a clearly defined planned for a phased withdrawal to begin within the next few months to demonstrate to all in the region that the US has no intentions of being a long time occupying power.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Willravel

OMG! The civil war in Iraq has nothing to do with sectarian violence. It is violence against the invading US military. Some of that does spill over into violence against the security forces, as they appear to be puppets of the US, but almost all of it is to remove US troops from Iraq. I expect no one to disband, but I do expect that after we leave the government will have the brain cells to start concentrating on national pride and rebuilding Iraq for the good of Iraq instead of vengence or some other bullshit. Civilians aren't targets.

That's what my conclusions are based on. It's not 'cutting and running', it's realistic, responsible, and the only clear way to fix this horrible mess we created.
Is it morally unacceptable to invade a country. It's morally unacceptable to rebuild it and put that country into massive debt. It's morally unacceptable to use our military to make violence grow in the country so that no one notices that perminant military bases are being built near oil pipes and oil fields. It's morally unacceptable to damn US soldiers, Iraqi security forces, and even insurgents to death because our government places no value on human life.

It's morally responsible to finally place value on human life, be it American or Iraqi, be it soldier or insurgent. It's morally responsible to actually admit that this whole thing is the type of diabolical scheme that is worthy of a Bond villan, except that this is real life and people have died and had their lives ruined by this, to the benifit of the very few in power. It's morally responsible to apologize, put out guns down, back out and ask, on the telephone, what they need to rebuild their country. It's obvious we have no clue how to put a country back together, and Japan was a fluke.

So to clairify the immediate withdrawl: all troops pull out and go home, US officials meet with Iraqi officials and they make a full plan on how to fix our mess, and we follow their lead.
I'm not interested in asking what could still be called relatively radical Middle Eastern governments to step in to help what might not have to be a radical Middle Eastern government. I'd rather simply allow them to make their own way.
Oh, I almost forgot, you can't read! Here's what I wrote, minus what you left out:
Wars get worse at the end. Casualties usually get worse towards the end. Tell you what, why don't you estimate how many casualties we would absorb over 8-12 more years in Iraq and see how well that old "stay the course" rhetoric goes over with greaving mothers and fatherless children. Even if things go exactly the same, with no increase or decrease in the rate of deaths, we're still looking at 12,000 to 15,000 dead American soldiers. Also, not sure how you came up with that "10x" number. 30,000/12,000 = 2.5 and 45,000/15,000 = 3. So, it's closer to a factor of 2.75 than it is to 10. Underestimate much?

dc_dux

The civil war in Iraq has nothing to do with sectarian violence??? Civilians arent targets???

Thousands of civilian bodies are overwhelming the morgue in Baghdad every week and thousands more civilians are fleeing their homes to Kuwait and Jordan to save their families from militia death squads on both sides of the Shia-Sunni battle for power. The Iraq Minister of Health recently estimated that there have been over 130,000 Iraqi civilian deaths, most as a result of sectarian violence and 2 million others who have fled the country as the sectarian violence (and lack of basic services) has spread over the last year since the election of the "unity" government.

Our invasion and continued presence created it and sustains it, but the violence goes well beyond attacks on US forces or those perceived to be aligned with the US.

I agree it is morally unacceptable to invade a sovereign country that did not present an imminent threat to our national security. But we did and to abandon it to civil war, anarchy, and an infrastructure destroyed by out actions is equally immoral. We have an obligation to use whatever NON-MILITARY means we can along with a commitment to a NON-PERMANENT presence.
Unless we want the violence and insurgency to spread beyond Iraq, the involvement of the relatively less radical Middle East governments is critical to buffer the influence of Iran in both Iraq and the region as a whole. I point you to the comments by Jordon's King Hussein today.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Seaver

Sorry Wil, the vast majority of targets hit are not against us, but other Iraqis.

__________________
"Smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge, and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth." - Ashbel Smith as he laid the first cornerstone of the University of Texas

mixedmedia

I'm not sure where you've gotten the idea that there is no sectarian violence in Iraq. Our invasion disturbed a malignant imbalance in the status quo of Iraqi society that was only maintained by brute force. We popped the cork on Iraq. And if we left tomorrow the Sunni and Shi'a would still struggle for control. And the Shi'a would win. Making it not inconceivable that the country we fought to liberate from Saddam would become another ME theocracy. I don't think that is such a great idea. Ask the women of Iraq who are not accustomed to wearing the hijab every day how they feel about that.

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

Willravel

I have heard the 130,000 number, I have not heard any "most" as a result of sectarian violence. Is there a source for that? I'm asking honestly, I'd like to know. If I've been misinformated (God knows, we've all been misinformed about this one way or the other).
[QUOTE=dc_dux]I agree it is morally unacceptable to invade a sovereign country that did not present an imminent threat to our national security. But we did and to abandon it to civil war, anarchy, and an infrastructure destroyed by out actions is equally immoral. We have an obligation to use whatever NON-MILITARY means we can along with a commitment to a NON-PERMANENT presence.

I agree that Iraq shoudln't be looking to it's neighbors for help:
As stated, though: this should be the Iraqi's plans and we should be the assistants, not the leaders. Why are we in charge when we fucked the whole thing up? The way this should work is that the government should be setting goals and making plans, and we should be assisting them in attaining the goals of a stable government, stable econemy, stopping violence, etc. Instead, we are in charge and are building perminant military bases in another soverign nation after invading them and removing their government. If those bases are built, we won't be leaving until the Middle East has no oil left.
Are you saying 'sorry, will' because you were wrong in your last post when you corrected me and I pointed it out? Or did you ignore that and move on as if it didn't happen? If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine. Just let me know what's going on.

Do you have a source for the "the vast majority of targets hit are not against us, but other Iraqis" claim?

ASU2003

I wonder what would happen if we just pulled our troops out of the cities and placed them in the deserts between towns and at the borders. We are really good at finding people when there are no buildings to hide in or trees to hide under. We can randomly stop some cars or trucks. We can safely train the Iraqi police and troops far away from the cities.

Or there has to be other options, but when the American public isn't sure of what the administration is trying to accomplish because they won't come out and say it. (i.e. No Sharia law, no Islamic state, Iran stays out of it, the US gets cheap oil deals, they continue to price oil in dollars, no civil war, they buy things from our international companies, they won't be a threat to Israel, women can drive and not wear burkas,....)

dc_dux

Will....any death stats in Iraq are highly questionable. The 600,000 figure from the Lancet study and the US "estimates" (when DoD officials are pinned down and forced to offer an assessment in testimony) of approx. 30-40,000 both lack credibility.

The above figures and the assessments that the growing number of civilian casualties are from sectarian violence are from Iraq Health and Interior Ministries and the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq. (google for your own articles).

For further evidence of the growing ethnic sectarian violence, take a look at the most recent DoD report, "Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq", with special attention on Sec. 1.3 - The Security Environment".

And this is with the DoD putting the "best face" on conditions and the fact that the conditions have only gotten worse since the latest DoD report in August

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Bill O'Rights

I think that this is key.
We went in to clear out Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction. Fine. Well, um....er...that is...we, um...well, we can't find any. What!?! Well...we're there to liberate the Iraqi people from a ruthless tyranical despot. Ok. He's sentenced to hang. End ruthless tyranical despot. Ok...so now what? What is our goal? Seriously. What is it?

__________________
"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony

"Hedonism with rules isn't hedonism at all, it's the Republican party." - JumpinJesus

It is indisputable that true beauty lies within...but a nice rack sure doesn't hurt.

mixedmedia

Of course, I can't read minds, but I can read between the lines. I believe it has been our intention from the outset to impose democracy (albeit successfully) on a middle eastern nation with the assumption that the desire for democracy in the middle east would snowball into a regional democratic renaissance. This is not in and of itself a bad thing. After years of contemplating the implications of "globalization," I've come to the conclusion that consumer-driven societies in which most people have jobs and at least the prospect of one's children having more opportunities than their parents is far preferable to having bands of disenfranchised young men available to those who would try to profit from the contrivances of chaotic hopelessness. We see this happen everywhere there is a lack of opportunity for young men. Even here in the states. But I digress again...

I believe we were lied to when given reasons for the war and I believe they lied because Americans would never have supported the truth. Americans still want to be cowboys, not the world's democracy police. Even though that's what we've been for the greater part of a century.

Oh yeah, and we fucked it up. Gawd bless America.

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

flstf

People who want to stay the course are probably of the opinion that Islamic minds will embrace and actually want a democratic society once they get a taste of western style freedom. I fear that what most Islamic people want is a restrictive Islamic regime and they will impose one soon after we leave. The only question is which Islamic sect will control the country.

Perhaps western style democracy is not suited for people of this faith and freedom to them means the freedom to only allow one religion and laws based on it.

mixedmedia

I believe that most Islamic people want to preserve their varied cultures within a more democratic political framework than exists in the ME today. This already exists in various limited forms throughout the region. As far as freedom of religion goes, most ME nations already have many Christians and Jews living in them freely.

I see where you're coming from though, and among the radical elements in Islamic society it is certainly true, but I think it's a mistake to paint the desires of the Islamic world with such broad strokes. No doubt many of our media outlets have been in the practice of doing this since 9/11, but if you start to delve deeper into the facts about life in ME nations you begin to see not only how they are truly alike in some ways but also how surprisingly different they are in others. We have become ennured to the images of radicalized Islam in the streets and have consistently ignored the finer, more subtle, qualities of Islamic society that we could be appealing to. This frustrates me to no end. I can only imagine what it would be like if the roles were reversed and half the world was judging us all based on the activities of our own militant elements. As a person who basically wants to live peacefully without causing harm to anyone, I think I'd be pretty frustrated and resentful. Facts are, if the majority of the Islamic world really did want to kill us all and/or take over the world we would be majorly screwed. Nevertheless, we have largely been advised to see the conflict in this way. But it's not necessary. It's entirely possible to see the dangers clearly without condemning the whole society. BUT, it does make it easier to consider bombing them. Hmmm, how 'bout that?

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

flstf

mixedmedia

I agree and also would not like to be judged by some of the things western nations have done. I also agree that I am probably prejudiced and form most of my opinions of the Islamic world based on our newspapers and news shows.

But it seems like even those countries in the ME that we consider strong allies have very restrictive Islamic regimes and are no where close to what I consider western style freedom and democracy. Of course who are we to tell them they are not free to impose whatever kind of religious based government they choose.

host

I know that all of you mean well, but I think that even folks with whom I usually agree (willravel) with, are almost as out of touch about this crisis as Seaver is.

Consider the two people, in the past 90 years, who have had the most "lucK" in balancing the rival factions in Iraq, and thus, in maintaining the peace.
First, there was Gertrude Bell, a gifted linguist who fluently spoke Arabic of the shia and sunni, Farsi of the Iranians, and the Turkish language of the Kurds. Ms. Bell understood, as I've documented below, that there will be no peace without accomodation of the sunni minority. Bell came to know the sunnis as; <b>""The truth is I'm becoming a Sunni myself; you know where you are with them, they are staunch and they are guided, according to their lights, by reason;"......</b>

Gertrude Bell in 1921, chose and groomed a sunni to be the new king of the new nation of Iraq. History proved Bell's assumptions to be correct. Saddam is a sunni who worked within the framework of the reality that he faced. His constituency was less than 20 percent of the total population. He recognized that he could instantly end up as King Faisal's grandson did, in 1958.

Saddam surrounded himself with a loyal inner circle, he used a food taster. He periodically purged his inner circles and his military leadership to preserve a climate of intimidation. He appointed christians to key positions to avoid a closed, "sunni only" organization, and because he had no use for religiously dominated shia who were also untrustworthy because they were of the majority. Saddam was tribal centric, even as he worked to rid the influence of tribal influence and religious rivalry from Iraq. It was unprecedented that he was able, through charisma, repression, and propaganda, to summon all male Iraqis to war against an Iran three times the size of Iraq. Shia fought against shia.

Saddam was described as never sleeping in the same be two nights in a row, or of disclosing in advance, where he would spend the night. Please tell me how any man, in the collection of rivalries that is Iraq, with the grievances against him that Saddam accumulated, and with his main adversary being the shia, could survive and remain an effective head of state, without resorting to the oppression and brutality that Saddam projected. Externally, he was able to contain a belligerant, newly emerged, islamic republic, three times the size of his own country.

In hindsight, the bloodshed and misery that Saddam was responsible for, seems almost insignifigant compared to the balancing act that he was able to achieve, and which the US supported and exploited throughout the 1980's.
Saddam contained the kurds, and shia religiously fueled political ambitions, not only in Iraq, but also in Iran, to the extent that he kept Iran mostly contained and preoccupied with checking Saddam. Even after the defeat at the hands of the Desert Storm coalition, Saddam managed to hold kurdish ambitions and those of shia in Iraq and Iran, in check for 12 more years.

What is the record of the Bush administration, in comparison? In hindsight, instead of killing Saddam's two sons, shouldn't the US have been quietly grooming them to succeed Saddam, or at least not undermining them and their father?

The solution is to wipe out the male Iraqi sunni population, or to facilitate sunni rule of Iraq. Since Saudi Arabia is populated by a sunni majority, only the second choice is practical. Turkey will not accept an independent kurdish state, and Iraq will never see peace unless the country is partitioned; unacceptable to Turkey, or to the US, since if it happened, we might as well,
(hell....with current shia dominance, it is justified, now....) erect signs on southern approached to Baghdad, that read:
Link to my first post, two months ago, about Gertrude Bell:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...7&postcount=39

Willravel

Believe me, I know. I've heard the 130,000 number, and I believe that it's probably close to the actual number.
Here's the thing: there is a ton of incorrect and controled and edited information coming out of Iraq. Who does it benifit to leak that many or most deaths are from sectarian violence? The US and Iraqi governments. Puppet figures from a puppet government. I get a lot of my information from my friends who are on the ground there. I've asked, several times to several different people in different locations: who are the targets of voilence? Most of the violence is aimed at US military or civilian forces. Like you, I do have trust issues with figures released by interested parties, as they are contradicting other figures. I figure that the best source of information is from people who see it with their own eyes and people I trust.
Wasn't it the DoD who planted fake stories in Iraqi papers as propoganda without permission from the Senate? Didn't they spread the propoganda about weapons of mass destruction and nuclear capabilities of Iraq preceding the Iraq War? I mean these are not trustworthy people. I guess I've become so jaded by all the lies about this mess that I no longer am able to trust these people.

ObieX

I think its quite obvious what our goal there is and always has been. It is the OnLY reason why there is any interestin that region at all.. and that is OIL. That is the only reason we are there and to think it is anything else is just fooling ourselves. This administration did not care about WMD.. why do i say that? I say that because WE GAVE Iraq those weapons in the first place.
Removing a tyranical despot? No i dont think so there either.. since we are the ones who proped him up and supported him for many years because he was able to do the thing we are currently unable to do... which is keep the various groups from slaughtering eachother. I also really.. really really doubt the current administration gives half a shit about women wearing burquas. The burqua thing is more of an after-thought rationalization.

For that all you really have to do is watch the news reports. For every 1 US troop killed by anti-US actions there there are 50 people rounded up into busses out of office buildings by death squads and taken away to later be found dead dumped in a river or to make a statementin the middle of a major city.

I think assuming the people of Iraq will all of a sudden forget their hatred and blood feuds just because the US withdraws is in error. The way i see it, the majority of Iraqis place their first loyalty to their particular brand of Islam.. most likely their local groups and families second with national pride a distant 3rd or 4th. I really think most of them would prefer their own individual countries out of this than 1 unified Iraq. The unified Iraq thing is more a goal of the US becuase it gives us easier control over a large region.. which brings us back to the oil thing...

.. i mean just look at the map. Iraq is a large country in that region with a large amount of oil to be tapped. The current administration had this plan working for years.. before Bush was even in power. They want this region under their control by any means and anyone who gets in their way will pay with their life. This isn't paranoia.. this is what is happening and has been happening. To try to rationalize our actions there as anything other than a grab for oil and power is delusional.

As for solving this "problem" while maintaining control of the region? Well.. all i can really say is "good luck". Anyone who looked at the middle east before we went to war would have told you that it was a hornet's nest and any attempt to try to occupy or take military control of the region would end with that country's troops leaving covered in blood. *Somehow* this fact eluded the current administration or they simply didnt care how much blood it would cost. I think it was a combination of both.

A slow withdrawl is our only real option. 10,000 troops every few months. All of those new fancy permanent US bases will eventually just have to be closed down or turned over to Iraqi forces. I'm sure keeping 1 or 2 would be acceptable, but to try to use them as any means of control of oil over the Iraqi goverment would be a big mistake. In my opinion their strategic placement will only be useful to Iraqi military forces and temporary US security until we withdraw.

So, briefly: we shouldn't have been there.. start to withdraw Jan 1st 2007.. 10,000 troops every few months (2-3 months). We can keep ~20,000 troops there for training purposes and simply because we now "own" that region.. we'll never be out fully. The entire purpose of this operation was to impose our presence there.. so i don't think we will ever leave. If we're lucky we wont have to invade again in another 5-15 years to try to "fix" things again.

__________________
We Must Dissent.

NCB

Its quite enjoyable to read the pontifications of those who have choosen not to serve. Sayin'

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Willravel

Yeah, it's really cowardly of me not to want to be ordered to kidnap, torture, or kill innocent people whose country we invaded without provocation. Go get em, troops! Go spread democracy through fear, torture, warmungering, and the deaths of the people we claim to be liberating! God bless America, and f**k everyone else! Why bother providing for the defence of our country by establishing long lasting friendships and not exploiting cultures economically or by not starting wars? That's not how we roll! We're the big dogs, and if we don't get our big guns off, we might just lose it!

Or maybe we can stick to the subject at hand instead of trying to threadjack.

NCB

Hard to debate someone who actually thinks that we're out to kill, torture, and maim innocent people in Iraq, dont you think? But please, pontificate to the rest of us some more. We need it.

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Willravel

The soldiers who are ordered to go, in the middle of the night, into a home of a mother and two children and take them to a prison have had, and continue to have, the option of becoming conscientious objectors. Some of them just like to pile naked POWs that have been tortured for months and take pictures for all their beer buddies at home. Or maybe they rape a woman and kill some people to cover it up. Or they just open fire on vehicles who refuse to stop after the soldiers shouted to stop IN ENGLISH.

Do you have anything to say about troop withdrawl from Iraq versus staying or send more troops? I'd hate to threadjack.

spectre

Several posts have been removed from this thread now. The personal attacks end here. Any more will be met with temp bans.

Now, let's get this thread back on topic.

__________________
"Fuck these chains
No goddamn slave
I will be different" ~ Machine Head

Seaver

For being a person who decides who is out of touch, learn your history. Gertrude Bell did not choose King Faisal, the British Government gave him the kingdom because the Saudi Family established too much control over the Arabian Peninsula. Faisal, who lead the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Turks with the support of the British through Lawrence (of Arabia), was promised the Kingship over the Arabs. After the Arab provinces were divided up, the British government could either give him Arabia, or Iraq (as Muhammad Ali's successor Fuad held rights over Egypt). The Saudi house and Faisal hated each other, and the Saudi control over Mecca and Medina assured he could not rule Arabia. THAT is why Faisal was chosen to rule Iraq.

And the bring-back-Saddam speech is foolhearty. The same people who declare that Saddam was good because he kept everyone from fighting are the same people who would be up in arms if the new government asserted itself against the various militias.

__________________
"Smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge, and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth." - Ashbel Smith as he laid the first cornerstone of the University of Texas

roachboy

there is no obvious way out of iraq.

an immediate withdrawal seems appealing mostly because it is an obvious something...you can say it, and because you can say it, you can confuse it with a plan.

the situation in iraq, so far as one can make it out through the fog of "public diplomacy" is several steps beyond precarious. it is self-evidently civil war, and civil war had to be at the abosute bottom of anyone's lilst of desired outcomes. and given the way in which the neo-cons had relied on rewinding the history of vietnam, it hardly seems likely that planning for chaos and/or defeat would have been high on their agenda.
so the americans float about in about the worst possible scenario.

it looks like the administration is working the "this business is too big to be allowed to fail" argument diplomatically--the too big to fail business is of course the united states---the regional negociations are about this---and within these negociations, the horsetrading. i would expect lots of words and little in the way of actual help. iran, for example, has been a recipient of a whole lot of republican botched foreign policy since the 1980s and i cannot see why they would not find watching the americans twist in the wind to be really gratifying:how many iranians were killed in the iran-iraq war? and who did the americans arm?

appealing to the un doesnt seem possible, particularly not with that fucktard john bolton as the public face of the united states in that context--as if the appalling treatment of the un meted out by the bush people at the start of this debacle was not already a problem in itself, yet another gift from the american far right that keeps on giving.

i dont see any good options.
the one that seems to follow most logically, given the paucity of alternatives generated by the idiot policies of this administration, is increase troop numbers under the logic of increased military action in order to stabilize the situation so the americans can then withdraw. but maybe that is a pipe dream: on the weekend, a marine memo leaked that outlines a scenario you can only describe a military defeat in anwar, in the west of iraq.

this is what we call a fiasco.
it is kind of surreal.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

host

Seaver, I stand by my comments and I already posted supporting information, with links.....I'll condense it below. Feel free to back up your challenging statements....and I think that it is possible that we are both correct !

As far as the notion of "bringing back Saddam" is concerned.....it is telling that it even appears in print in a major US newspaper. Saddam was the way Saddam was, because Iraq was the way Iraq was. In the absence of his authority and repression, there is only chaos and high odds that southern Iraq will be permanently united with Iran, that Turkey will respond to Kurdish autonomy with armed force, and formerly dominant but now repressed sunni Iraqis will fight to the death to thwart the new shi'a dominance. In hindsight, putting up with a weakened Saddam, neutered by the coalition "no fly zone" was a small price to pay, since it prevented what is described above, and checked Iranian ambitions in the region.

Only a repressive and dominant sunni rule in Iraq will control Iraqi shi'a and Iranian ambitions, and placate Turkish concerns. No options, including a restoration of Saddam's government, backed by strong US support, and if neccessary, armed force, can responsibly be taken "off the table", in present circumstances. Unless you have some other proposals that will check Iranian hegemony, discourage sunni insurgents, wind down the influence of shi'a militia in the interior ministry and in cities and towns, and avoid the partition of Iraq and a Turkish reaction? If not.....our troops stay put, at or near present numbers.....
From Bell's letter of Aug. 16, 1920....to her father (2nd paragraph from bottom....)

ratbastid

I'd have to call that a pipe dream of the first order. No matter what we've thrown at the Iraqi insurgents, they've come back just as hard. They have us massively outnumbered, and the longer we stay and the harder we fight, the stronger their recruitment efforts become. Fighting fire with fire seems like a sure way to burn both of our countries down.