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Bush claimed Iraq was a throbbing hub of terror. It wasn't, but it is now.

Great insightful commentary. We're doing to Iraq what we did to Iran. When will we learn?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/st...034488,00.html

Quote:

The blind prophet

Before the war, President Bush told us Iraq was a throbbing hub of terror. It wasn't, of course. But it is now

Jonathan Freedland
Wednesday September 3, 2003
The Guardian

The warning was plain. Iraq was a breeding ground of terror, an incubator for al-Qaida and a clear and present danger to "the civilised world". Tony Blair was wary of that argument, but George Bush made it the heart of his case. At his eve-of-war press conference back in March, the president cast the coming attack as the next step in a story that had begun on September 11 2001. Iraq was providing "training and safe haven to terrorists, terrorists who would willingly use weapons of mass destruction against America and other peace-loving countries". The irony is that, at the time, this was not true. But it is now.

With astonishing speed, the United States and Britain are making their nightmares come true. Iraq is fast becoming the land that they warned about: a throbbing hub of terror. Islamists bent on murder, all but non-existent in Saddam's Iraq, are now flocking to the country, from Syria, Iran and across the Arab world. In the way that hippies used to head for San Francisco, jihadists are surging towards Baghdad. For those eager to strike at the US infidel, Iraq is the place to be: a shooting gallery, with Americans in easy firing range. Afghanistan is perilous terrain, but Iraq is open country. For the Islamist hungry for action, there are rich pickings.

Bush insisted that Saddam's Iraq was packed with these people, ready to be deployed at a moment's notice. Proof was always thin, thinner even than the evidence of weapons of mass destruction - which is why Blair, to his credit, never mentioned it. But never mind; events have taken care of that little lacuna in the US argument. Iraq may not have been a terrorists' paradise at the start of the year - a retirement home for a few has-beens, perhaps - but it is now. Operation Iraqi Freedom blew off the gates, and Islam's holy warriors have rushed in. Like the blind protagonist of a Greek drama, Bush, in seeking to avert a prophecy, has ended up fulfilling it.

Confirmation comes in the daily drip-drip-drip of the death toll, with one or two Americans (and now Britons) dying every 24 hours. It is a wonder the figure is not higher, with coalition forces now facing up to 20 attacks a day. There were more deaths yesterday, along with a car bomb at the Baghdad police academy.

Not that the victims have been chiefly Americans. Instead, the biggest strikes have been against those seen to be their partners: the Jordanian embassy, the United Nations and, in Najaf last week, Iraq's most powerful Shia leader. That bomb served as a warning to all Iraqis not to get too cosy with the country's new rulers - if the US cannot protect a first-rank, sympathetic cleric, how safe is everyone else?

The result is that no one wants to stand too close to the occupiers. One member of the new governing council resigned at the weekend; another warned the US viceroy, Paul Bremer, that the council "could become a morgue" if the Americans did not do more to protect its members. Others are taking the law into their own hands, hiring private bodyguards. Shias, angry at their vulnerability at Najaf, are taking similar steps, looking to groups such as the Badr Brigades to provide security. This takes Iraq one step closer to a Somalia or Afghanistan scenario: a lawless, failed state, where the only authority is the local warlord. With a murder rate approaching 5,000 a year, that kind of anarchy is not far off. Make no mistake, Saddam's Iraq was an evil tyranny. But it was not a failed state, the ideal climate for nurturing terror. With power and water still not working, thanks to constant sabotage, and thieves stripping vital cables for their copper, it could be soon.

Why is the occupation going so badly wrong? Hubris and incompetence played their part. The Pentagon's civilian planners put plenty of thought into the war, but almost none into the peace. They had a hyperpower's supreme confidence in their own abilities.

But ideology is surely the chief culprit. Republicans can barely spit the words "nation building", so it was a task they preferred not to think about. The Pentagon suits, led by Donald Rumsfeld, are hardcore unilateralists, determined to run the show alone, unencumbered by allies. They were also desperate to prove that new, 21st-century, pre-emptive wars could be light, nimble affairs conducted with minimal personnel and low budgets. From the outset, this wing of the administration has been determined to run Iraq on the cheap. Even now, they have not 'fessed up about the tens of billions of dollars that Bremer admits will be needed to rebuild a shattered country.

Instead, Team Bush seems to be paralysed, uncertain what to do with an Iraq adventure that refuses to follow the action-movie script they had written for it. By now they were expecting the credits to roll, with cheers for the US performance. What they have got is a situation trickier than any the US military has faced since Vietnam.

Only the most fervent anti-war voices are calling for a complete and immediate withdrawal; such a sudden vacuum would surely guarantee anarchy. On the contrary, providing basic security and services to Iraq will probably take many more, not fewer, people. There are now 140,000 American troops in the country; those who know say that it will take a force of 500,000.

The extra men cannot come from the US. American public opinion would hear too many echoes of LBJ's Vietnam escalation. Besides, the US military is already overstretched; short of reviving the draft, it just doesn't have the troops (and conscription is not much of a policy for an election year.) Above all, more Americans in Iraq just means more targets for the jihadists to aim at.

Some in the American press have wondered about Iraqification - training the Iraqis to look after their own, starting with the military now twiddling their thumbs. But that would mean reinstalling a whole lot of Ba'athists: not much of a regime change.

The only solution is, surely, allies. When you look at the zero-casualty rate the genuine coalition governing the Balkans has sustained, this sounds a smart idea. But it, too, is fraught with problems. It will be hard to win over the likes of France and Germany without offering them a degree of political control over the country; Bremer would have to share power. That would be a huge loss of face for the Washington hardliners for whom the UN is an expletive. Besides, how many nations will be eager to expose their young men to harm, now that they know a UN flag attracts rather than deters terrorists?

None of these problems is a surprise. An enterprise that was misconceived from the beginning was hardly going to reach a smooth end. Now that it has started, it has to be run differently - with more money, more personnel, more allies and a timetable for free elections. To get all that may require one more thing, which only the American people can provide, 14 months from now: new leadership.

I hope Bush wins the next election so that he alone can be held responsible for the Iraqi fuckup.

Quote:

Originally posted by Nad Adam
I hope Bush wins the next election so that he alone can be held responsible for the Iraqi fuckup.

Nice idea but how many Marines will die (remember Beirut?) to make that happen? Too fucking many in my opinion.

2Wolves

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Quote:

Originally posted by 2wolves
Nice idea but how many Marines will die (remember Beirut?) to make that happen? Too fucking many in my opinion.

2Wolves

True, but that will still happen no matter who wins the election, it's not like there's a way out of Iraq even if the democrats win.

Quote:

Originally posted by 2wolves
Nice idea but how many Marines will die (remember Beirut?) to make that happen? Too fucking many in my opinion.

Despite my teasing and mocking of Marines, when the first one died in Iraq, I despaired. When we didn't have a decent way out, i knew more would die. This is my generations Vietnam, and i don't like it.

One word for what this thread is about: Irony. :D

Quote:

Originally posted by vevaphon
Despite my teasing and mocking of Marines, when the first one died in Iraq, I despaired. When we didn't have a decent way out, i knew more would die. This is my generations Vietnam, and i don't like it.

You must mock Marines from the saftey of you computer desk.:D

I think it is time to reinstate the draft so we can have our share of draft-dodgers and malcontents just like Vietnam.

Quote:

Originally posted by reconmike
You must mock Marines from the saftey of you computer desk.:D

I think it is time to reinstate the draft so we can have our share of draft-dodgers and malcontents just like Vietnam.

Good idea. And after the idiotic hordes happily run to their deaths the rest of us intelligent ones in the Uni's on college deferrment will talk everything over and rise up and demand to bring their dumb asses back home--just like last time.

Then we'll pay to put them through college because we value learning over killing. Then we'll help them buy a house because we value raising a family over killing. Then we'll....just like last time.

Quote:

Originally posted by reconmike
You must mock Marines from the saftey of you computer desk.:D

i'll let you think that, make a handy reference to being gator Navy.

Quote:

I think it is time to reinstate the draft so we can have our share of draft-dodgers and malcontents just like Vietnam.

"An army of volunteers will always have the advantage over an army of draftees. They have purpose, loyalty, moral, and will.:"
-- paraphrased from R.A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers.

if i had a copy of the novel, i'd have the exact quote.

edited to fix a tag or two. go me.

we're far far far away from the draft.

it'll be the final blow needed to bring down gwb.

Even the slightest hint of that at this stage will mean total defeat for Dubya...
And I don't think there is any need for a draft in the current situation....

Quote:

Originally posted by Silvy
And I don't think there is any need for a draft in the current situation....

As cliche as this sounds: the US entered Vietnam as advisors to the French. When the French got smart, and started pulling back, we brought in our own troops to support our advisors. We did not once think about how to get out of that mudhole. When we dropped enough money, lives, and forces on Vietnam to saturate Rhode Island in bodies, cash, and steel, we couldn't back out. We lacked volunteers. So we drafted. It wasn't our war, it wasn't our fight, it simply demoralised our warriors and our citicens.

The potential, in Iraq and Afganistan is that we cannot leave. And, to top it off, the environment is once again against us.

The environment isn't even close to as harsh as the jungle of Vietnam.

Currently there are very few situations in which a draft will occur:
- War with North Korea and they hit us with a nuke first
- War with China
- War with other major world power

In all cases you can't disagree with a draft if you would like to win.

Quote:

Originally posted by vevaphon
[B]i'll let you think that, make a handy reference to being gator Navy.

"An army of volunteers will always have the advantage over an army of draftees. They have purpose, loyalty, moral, and will.:"
-- paraphrased from R.A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers.

if i had a copy of the novel, i'd have the exact quote.

edited to fix a tag or two. go me.

So I will give you an apology, didnt know you were a Squid :D .

Thanks for doing your duty to country.

Quote:

Originally posted by vevaphon

"An army of volunteers will always have the advantage over an army of draftees. They have purpose, loyalty, moral, and will.:"
-- paraphrased from R.A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers.

if i had a copy of the novel, i'd have the exact quote.

Since I don't recall that being said anywhere in ST, I dug out my copy.

Perhaps you were thinking of when Johnny Rico was in OCS:

Quote:

You would find it much easier (to restore my eyesight) than to instill moral virtue -- social responsibility -- into a person who doesn't have it, doesn't want it, and resents having the burden thrust on him. That is why we make it so hard to enroll, so easy to resign. Social responsibility above the level of family, or at most of tribe, requires imagination -- devotion, loyality, all the higher virtues -- which a man must develop himself; if he has them forced down him, he will vomit them out. Conscript armies have been tried in the past.

Major Reid, Starship Troopers

I hate to see any soldiers get killed and I don't think is war is all about iraq. I think it is a show to people over there that you bomb the US and we will take out someone maybe you next time

Quote:

Originally posted by krd913
I hate to see any soldiers get killed and I don't think is war is all about iraq. I think it is a show to people over there that you bomb the US and we will take out someone maybe you next time

Also referred to as the "Kick the Arab's in the ass domino effect".

...or the "Paving the way for Fundamentalist Assholes"-approach.

So far, it's been facelift.
Afghanistan is in the hands of druglords who couldn't give a damn. Sure, Kabul is under control, but the rest isn't.

I could understand the whole situation if the US forces were given what they needed. Funding, troops, etc.
But they aren't. Because the US government is afraid to get ousted next election.

Normally I couldn't give a fuck about soldiers in a professional army. But this is getting ridiculous. If the troops aren't getting what they need to take control, the whole Iraq situation will have been a sacrifice for approval ratings and nothing else.
Saddam Hussein has been the largest obstacle when it comes to Al Quida's goals for a long time. Now he's gone. This will come down to either an expensive long-term situation, or a total fiasco.
So far it seems as if the Bush regime is valuing short-term approval ratings more than long-term stability.

Quote:

Originally posted by XenuHubbard
So far it seems as if the Bush regime is valuing short-term approval ratings more than long-term stability.

You can substitute "any and all corrupt career politicians" for "the Bush regime", and that statement will still be accurate.

True.

But the current moves are just so cynical it amazes me.
I think it's a huge mistake, though. Not talking about International politics, but the ratings. :)

The administration is putting itself into a catch-22 situation.
The budget is an issue, so there is reluctancy to send in more troops, which would be needed to take control of the situation.
The military knows what they need, nobody listens.
And we're rapidly getting closer to the point where the loss of American lives in Iraq will become an issue.

When that happens, Rumsfeld will declare Iraq "fixed", and call home the troops, no matter what. That's my guess.

But hey, I'm the cynical type.

See, this is what happens when you lauch a unilateral pre-emptive strike against a country that did not attack you, and for that matter, had no intention of ever attacking you.

God loves the little guy sometimes.

George W Bush has lead America into the abyss.

Quote:

lurkette:
"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

So true but it's called democracy when the majority of these ten million people then decides to invade a weaker country because they can.

The quote is not part of her reply, it's in her sig.

You are right. I just liked her sig that's why I quoted from that.

I think it's right to say that the number of followers or the way a decision was made doesn't necessarily say anything about wether the decision is right or wrong.
In the case of iraq quite a lot of people said: "Let's bomb them to pieces. That should solve the problem."
Many others said: "War is not the answer".
Now I think things will get worse quite a bit before they can even start to get better.

If I mixed sth. up before, i'll try to improve next time.