Rekna

Do you think the situation in Iraq is getting better, worse, or staying the same? (From the view of the United States)

Yakk

When you say "the resistance is getting better", what is it you are asking? ;-)

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tecoyah

Definately becoming worse from a military standpoint. As far as the political climate......one can only hope for the best, and plan for the worst. Unfortunately, if our record over the past year there is any indication, I doubt we are actually planning for the inevitable civil war.

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Rekna

I am talking about in terms of the United States. Are we gaining control, loosing control. I couldn't think of a really good way to ask the question because better or worse depends on what side you are on.

zen_tom

IIRC to date there have been over 10,000 US troops injured - that isn't a resounding success so far - but is it getting better? I don't know, but I do think the elections at the end of this month will be a good measure of the situation.

Rdr4evr

No, I don't think the US ever had firm control of the situation, and I don't think they will for a long time to come. I believe the situation will only get worse from this point on, we are going to see more attacks, more death, more violence and I would be very surprised if we see a peaceful election with a large turnout.

powerclown

It's like asking whether a 2 year old boy is going to grow up to be a success.
Too early to tell.

Manx

Nonsense. When is the last 40 year war fought by the U.S.? (Is 40 years enough time to judge the successes or failures of a human being?) Certainly not anything in modern times. Wars are not judged by how old they are on a human lifetime scale.

There are a number of ways of looking at this question:

1- Before the war, the measure of success was speed and Iraqi's giving us flowers. If you discount the war since post-fall of Baghdad, speed was successful (but why you would discount the war after one specific battle is beyond me). The flowers concept was a complete failure.

2- The "sovereignty" hand over. It happened. So in that sense it is a success. What it produced is essentially nothing different than what was before. So in that sense it was a failure. If counting the number of dead American's since the hand over to the artificial sovereignty, we have seen the body count increase. So in that sense it was a failure.

The future is obviously unknowable. So if that is what you were getting at, clearly you are stating the obvious. But your implication that not enough time has passed to judge the failures and successes of this war and specifically your time comparison to the duration of life necessary to judge the success or failure of a human being, to that I say nonsense.

Fourtyrulz

I think as we close in on the January 30th election things will only continue to worsen. It'll be a logistical nightmare trying to secure every polling place.

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the·o·ry - a working hypothesis that is considered probable based on experimental evidence or factual or conceptual analysis and is accepted as a basis for experimentation.
faith - Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.
- Merriam-Webster's dictionary

Rekna

Remember the question is not a matter of success or failure. Mearly a question of the current trend. Is it getting worse there or better. Sometimes things must go down in order to go up or vice versa. The future is obviously unknown but the present and the past are not.

powerclown

Well, no I didn't mean the literal analogy of 40 years until success in Iraq is quantifiable, just that it's way too early in the game to tell whats going to happen. History has shown that no 'successful' society was born 'overnight', or without war and violence to temper it into stability. So who knows about Iraq. The only thing one can say, at this point, is an attempt at Change is being made. All else is speculation.

powerclown

Aside from helping to navigate a difficult course, what would be the value in coming to a conclusion on the current state of affairs in Iraq? It is difficult times over there, no one will argue this.

ARTelevision

I'm in no position to judge this - as the main sources of information I have are untrustworthy media news sources. Also, it seems quite preposterous to simplify the complexities of a war/occupation/political transformation/historical process down to a choice between two words.

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cyrnel

Art took my words. My sources of information are like watching the world through a keyhole, or worse.

If we speak only of attacks against the US and Iraqi forces then I expect they'll continue and increase to the capability of the attackers through the elections, or their postponement. The elections are very provocative to those interested in Iraq's power structure. Everyone in the region has a stake.

To be sure, it's a challenging period. There's no way around it.

roachboy

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story...383333,00.html

i do not see anything good on the horizon in iraq for the americans.
it is really unclear whether the "elections" on the 30th can possibly go forward, which is really quite a damaging possibility at the symbolic level.

the two main lackies of american policy in this context--blair and allawi--have both expressed their support for going ahead with the elections no matter how absurd the undertaking. however, as the guardian article points out, this is becoming an increasingly unlikely scenario. but we'll see.

i suspect the logic behind this is like that of the "hand-over of sovereignty"--set up a puppet regime and repeat for an extended period that this puppet regime represents national sovereignty and maybe somewhere someone will believe it. looks like most of those people live in the states and watch alot of tv. but no matter.

the resistance is getting bigger, not smaller, more violent not less....the war--which is still ongoing (the term insurgency seems to me meaningless)--- is intesifying, not diminishing....the only thing i see that looks sure is alot more people are going to end up dead.

on this, i suppose you could adopt the "long view"----but i find that this "long view" is little more than a rationalization the primary function of which is to enable a disregard of information in the shorter term and continued support for this sorry, misbegotten undertaking more generally--i dont see much in "the long view" beyond avoidance.

besides, i think it was keynes who once said "in the long run we are all dead"

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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Manx

No. That would be to ignore the initial measuring stick of success. We were given that. It was hugely off the mark. So, you're welcome to state that if we throw out everything that was stated about how this war would unfold and work from a position of absolute ignorance, yes - no one knows what will happen. But that is not the reality we have had and continue to have. A position of pure ignorance, as you desire, affords the ability to never judge - the war is always acceptable because it is never approaching or achieving failure because there is nothing to judge it by. You cannot wage a war from that position unless you do not care about the consequences.

This war, as measured according to the initial claims, is an utter failure. This war, as reviewed over the past year is getting worse. Only from your position of intentional blindness could one claim otherwise.

powerclown

I hear what you're saying...but:

There is no book entitled: How to Build a Democracy in Iraq in 10 Easy Steps.

I would say that 'Nationbuilding' is more an art, than a science. So, yes there have been setbacks, yes there have been disappointments, yes things appear chaotic now...but the situation needs time to resolve itself, to run its course. Like I said before - and I really believe this - every stable, modern country had its growing pains in the early stages of its life, because progress and refinement don't occur overnight, they take TIME.

Taken from the start, I believe that the idea of introducting a democratic system of government in this troubled part of the world is a positive thing, positive for the people living there, and positive for the rest of the world. Dictatorships and theocracies have proven themselves a burden to everyone involved. These forms of government lead only to outward belligerence, and isolation from the international community. After all, what do the 'insurgents' have to offer the people of Iraq, what do they have to offer the surrounding countries and the rest of the world? What type of society do the 'insurgents' stand for? What are their values? I would say they stand for lawlessness, treachery, disregard for civil rights, ethnic segregation, no freedom of speech or press, the subjugation of women, a form of government based not on modern principles of law and order, but on a backward and medieval interpretation of Islamic scripture. We see in Iran and elsewhere the type of society this creates. So I think the effort, the effort, to try and help break the mold of past failure, and at least try to establish some sort of a stable, peaceful, prosperous and productive country is worth the trouble.

So logically, if you are against this idea from the very start - if you don't believe that this vision is possible, ethical, legal, necessary, moral, hopeful, constructive, productive, etc - then of course any and all activity on the part of the coalition will be characterized as hopeless.

I happen to believe the cause is just.
Just one person's opinion.

Manx

I understand your point. However, you are wrong.

You are either not paying attention to what is happening in Iraq (which I doubt) or you are letting your belief that this war is correct cloud your ability to answer the question.

You cannot answer this question with: things may need to get bad before they get better, therefore the fact that they are worse today than 8 months ago is simply "evidence" that things are getting better.

That is nonsense. You could use that excuse for any difficult situation as a means of avoiding the situation you face. You may believe things are going to be better someday off in the future - but the reality of today is that things are worse than they were in the recent past.

And to those who claim they are not in any position to know due to the filtration of media or similar - that too is nonsense. There are a few empirical facts that demonstrate quite clearly that more people have died over the past few months than had died in the same time frame during the previous year. More people dying is irrefutably worse than less people dying or the same number of people dying.

I believe it was Bush who once claimed that the increased attacks by insurgents was a sign of their desperation and weakness. That was over a year ago. He was wrong. Anyone attempting to make that claim today needs to understand that this wishful thinking card has already been played and is now in the discard pile.

RangerDick

Life Magazine, 7 January 1946, an article appeared entitled "American's are Losing the Victory in Europe": http://www.jessicaswell.com/MT/archives/000872.html

These quotes all sound a little familiar.....

..."A tour of the beaten-up cities of Europe six months after victory is a mighty sobering experience for anyone. Europeans. Friend and foe alike, look you accusingly in the face and tell you how bitterly they are disappointed in you as an American. They cite the evolution of the word “liberation.” Before the Normandy landings it meant to be freed from the tyranny of the Nazis. Now it stands in the minds of the civilians for one thing, looting."

"The first winter of peace holds Europe in a deathly grip of cold, hunger and hopelessness. In the words of the London Sunday Observer: Europe is threatened by a catastrophe this winter which has no precedent since the Black Death of 1348. There are still more than 25,000,000 homeless people milling about Europe. In Warsaw nearly 1,000,000 live in holes in the ground. Six million building were destroyed in Russia. Rumania has her worst drought of 50 years, and in Greece fuel supplies are terribly low because the Nazis, during their occupation, decimated the forests. In Italy the wheat harvest, which was a meager 3,450,000 tons in 1944, fell to an unendurable 1,304,000 tons in 1945. In France, food consumption per day averages 1,800 calories as compared with 3,000 calories in the U.S.' "

And here's the kicker...

"We have swept away Hitlerism, but a great many Europeans feel that the cure has been worse than the disease."


Although, this may not be an exact parallel to the current state of affairs in Iraq, I think it illustrates the point that even after a clear Allied military victory in Europe in WW2, things weren't rosy right away.

Saying things are worse in Iraq now than they were this time last year is like saying a patient who is lying on the operating table in the middle of a surgery is in worse condition than he was before the surgeon cut him open.

History will have to judge. But 20 years from now, when (hopefully) Iraq is a successful democracy, people will probably say Bush had nothing to do with it anway, that Baathism and the Saddam regime were on the decline anyway and that democracy was inevitable.

roachboy

the parallel to world war 2 is totally inappropriate. first because the war in iraq is not over. second because of everything else about the analogy.

the analogy to a patient on the operating table at least has the virtue of being funny. for some reason, it made me think of the game "operation"

i do not think that assessing the situation in iraq need come down to yet anther occasion for rehearsing your basic relation to the war itself....if you follow powerclowns argument out, it would mean that the view that the war is deepening follows from a hostile disposition toward the fact of the war rather than from looking at available information.

i might agree that some kind of democratization is a desirable goal for countries in the region in general terms (the states could use more democracy as well, for that matter), but nothing about the argument would lead one to conclude that the bush project is either legitimate in itself or that it advances that general cause. hailing "the effort" in the abstract runs us into the strange world of contemporary management literature, in which change and "leading change" have become ends in themselves--the obsession with "change" as an end in itself is something that should be looked at in the context where it makes sense, and carefully, rather than being taken as given and mapped onto other stiuations.

george w. bush and the war in iraq are to the discourse of democracy what stalin was to the discourse of worker revolution.

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

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

RangerDick

I think the comparison is appropriate in the sense that many people viewed the situation in Europe immediately after WW2 as dismal and worse than prior to the start of the war.
We hear plenty of comparisons to Vietnam (quagmire!), are those inappropriate too?

I love that game.

My post did not rest on my support (or lack thereof) for the war. Nowhere in my post did I express either sentiment.

I respectfully disagree. I think that the recent elections in Afghanistan, and the fact that Iraq will be holding elections this month is pretty clear evidence that the "bush project" does advance the cause of democracy.

Again, history will judge.

roachboy

ranger: sorry for one point, on which i must have been unclear--i shifted from your post to powerclowns in the middle of my response--not all of it was directed at your post.

for wht its worth, i have never made much of a point about equating iraq and vietnam--i have argued that there are parallels between iraq and the algerian war--many many parallels.
more generally, analogies should illuminate, not obscure. reference to world war 2 is one made to legitimate the undertaking in iraq, to refer it to what studs terkel called the last good war. the analogy is more wishful thinking, more propaganda, than it is anything else.

second problem: the war in iraq is not over. referring what is going on now to the postwar reconstruction of europe is faulty on those grounds as well.

on another point, i do not think history is some guy who dispenses judgement: history is made by the folk who write it. you will not escape political assessments of the bush project by looking to history. i think for a long long time you will have debate over the legality of the war in the first place, the problems of trying to impose pseudo-democracy in the american style at the end of a gun barrel, debates about other ways to pushing for more democratic types of self-governance, etc. these will continue, they will not go away. george w bush will not make out well in history.

the question of elections at the end of the month is complex--it is generally agreed outside of the us that already they are a process without content. the sunni community is boycotting them. something on the order of 30 political organizations within iraq have petitioned that they be postponed. there is division within the allawi regime on the question of whether they will happen. it is not obvious that the fact of an election indicates a functioning democracy. i know that the administration would prefer to pretend otherwise---they are desperate for something to legitimate the folly of the war in iraq--everything else has failed---it would be yet another blow to its public image were the elections to be postponed.

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

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

zen_tom

I just wanted to flag this up for a moment. I don't think this is what the insurgency is necessarily all about. The insurgents want; an end to occupation, and end to being raided in their homes in the middle of the night, an end to checkpoints, and end to civillian deaths, an end to seeing foreign troops on their soil, an end to their humiliation at the hands of the west, an end to their human rights being violently snatched away from them by western troops, and a form of government that isn't subject to manipulation and the cheapening of values that is evident in the decadent west.

This is why direct intervention and occupation never works, whatever you do, it will always be interpreted by the occupied as an affront. The removal of Hussain should have been attempted using a more intelligent and delicate approach.

powerclown

All due respect, but I don't think this is whats really going on in Iraq, I don't believe this is the mindset of the insurgency.

You have a society that, before the war, was held together by violence, fear and intimidation by one man and his (ethnic minority) tribe. The issues you bring up above, such as 'night' raids, civilians dying, personal humiliation and lack of civil rights; I would venture a guess that all these issues and worse flourished abundantly under Saddam Hussein's reign of terror. As far as the insurgency struggling against the spread of 'corrupted Western values', come on, who in the world is pure as the driven snow? The 'insurgency' itself has committed some pretty repellant and atrocious acts - I don't think they have a moral leg up on anyone. This Islamic purity that they espouse is, to my mind, a way to avoid the realities and responsibilities of the modern world, and at the same time a way these people forcibly corral their citizens together by appealing to age-old stereotypes and fears of the 'outsider'.

These 'insurgents', these leftover remnants of a violent dictatorship, fight for only one ideal that I can see: Power, and the right to control 25 million people and its resources in the same dysfunctional, violent, outdated and isolated way that many other suffering countries in that region operate.

edit: one more thing - can you imagine the type of Anti-Western government that these 'insurgents' would assemble if they came to power? If they hate the West so much now, can one picture how rabidly anti-Western they would become if they were let to come into power after all that has transpired?

zen_tom

I'm not saying that they are going about it in the right way, or that they hold any moral highground, I'm just trying to paint a less black-and-white picture of the events. I think it's often easy to say "They are Islamic Terrorists" as if that explains the issue.

Now I don't know whether the insurgents are Muslims, or if they are the leftovers from Saddam's secular state - but I don't think that makes a difference. Yes they are interested in power, of course, no one picks up a gun otherwise (unless they are led to believe in higher things like freedom, or religion, or nationalism by their masters). I'm not stating that anywhere is pure as snow of any kind, but it is so easy to demonise a foreign force that is occupying your country, it would be foolish to expect otherwise - no matter how good the intentions of that foreign force.

My point is that using a blunt instrument like millitary action may cause more problems than it solves, and more effective solutions might have been employed to remove Hussain from his seat of power. Any intervention in another nation's affairs is a dangerous business, and one that has to be done with the utmost care. I don't think that care was in sufficient quantities in this situation, and that these are some of the consequences.

powerclown

I think that the concept of 'nationbuiilding' is one of those political hot potatoes that people will either be completely for or completely against.

If you are of the former, this might be of interest:

Lee H. Hamilton: Nation-building calls for vital, prolonged exercise

roachboy

i'll repost this quote from robespierre:

The most extravagant idea that can be born in the head of a political thinker is to believe that it suffices for people to enter, weapons in hand, among a foreign people and expect to have its laws and constitution embraced. It is in the nature of things that the progress of Reason is slow and no one loves armed missionaries; the first lesson of nature and prudence is to repulse them as enemies. One can encourage freedom, never create it by an invading force.
--Signed, The Incorruptible [Maxmilien Robespierre], Paris, 1791

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

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

powerclown

I wouldn't disagree with any of this.

Yet, what's done - is done, despite the woulda-coulda-shoulda's. As RangerDick (hehe...do you mean Ranger RICK?) points out, there were short-term 'consequences' to deposing Hitler, but ultimately, things worked out for the better.

powerclown

Funny how he never mentions the second, third (fourth, fifth...) 'lessons of nature'...

zen_tom

Back to the question of is it getting better or worse, this article from the BBC is not encouraging.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/4145585.stm

roachboy

the article is right on a rhetorical point---the term insurgency is a fantasy, as is the idea that the war is over. this is still war. a different phase from the invasion itself, but war nonetheless.

as for why robespierre didnt talk about the other "lessons of nature":
i dunno.
he is kinda dead to call for a quick soundbite.
i'll check in with my ouija board and get back to you with what he says.

i might still have a collection of stuff he published around here somewhere: plan b would be to look up the statement. but that would require figuring out my girlfriend's system of putting books on shelves--i think there is one, but it remains a mystery to me.
i know where the ouija board is, however.
i wonder how the ghost of someone who was guillotined can talk....maybe i'll ask him that too, if he picks up when i call.

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

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

powerclown

Yes, it has been fully and undeniably established that the situation is far from stable. Are you implying that Iraq needs to be abandoned at this definitive stage, that its time for the coalition to give up on the idea of forming some sort of democracy?

I think the Coalition owes it to the people of Iraq, and the rest of the world, to see this thing through.

Wasn't one of the bitterest complaints from the Iraqis after Gulf War 1 the fact that the Coalition didn't stay and finish the job they started? Did they not want to see Hussein gone? I think implicit in this desire to see him gone was a desire to be free from tyranny, violence and oppression. A desire to enjoy the benefits we in the West enjoy: of living in a modern, thriving, dignified, prosperous, open society. I think Bush gets carried away sometimes with his awkward 'Let Freedom Ring' diatribes, but really, aren't the foremost values - upon which the Western world has been built - self-validating and universal to people everywhere?

zen_tom

I don't know if the benefits we in the west enjoy are necessarily the product of our free, open and enlightened societies more than they have to do with our expansionist history and the accumulated wealth from exploiting the resources from other parts of the world. It's easy being a democracy when you're sitting pretty on wealth amassed from past adventures.

And I would say that the Western world has most definitely not been built on these values, more that they were doled out to the people as a means of placating them when the elite realised the power of the mob, and their inability to control them through the more traditional methods of might and religion.

The West was built on adventure, private enterprise, imperialism, slavery and exploitation, a far cry from freedom, human rights or anything else so lofty.

Freedom is however, an infectious idea and has been shown to express itself spontaneously throughout history without its being forced from outside (interested) parties. Once achieved, it is also a much more efficient form of organisation.

But that doesn't help solve the current problem. The problem with the suicide-bomb is that it is next to impossible to defend against. The US could triple the troop numbers and still fail to provide any security. The very freedoms we are hoping to provide are being used against us. The presence of troops is counter-productive and swelling the ranks of the disaffected

Against this type of action, you have to either walk away, or swamp the area with troops.

Walking away would be disastrous and force the power-vacuum issue in Iraq - yes there would be a civil war, and yes it would be one that we precipitated, and yes, it would probably result in an Islamic dictator with a similarly firm grip on the region as the one Saddam held.

Another slight tangent - might it be possible to suggest that the reason a strict dictator rose to power in Iraq be due to the fact that only a strict dictator would be able to hold such a disparate country together? Here we are dealing with a rising tide of insurgency, and we are using violence to quell and counter it, and then calling Saddam a tyrant because he used the same methods. Might control over Iraq require those methods? Maybe Saddam was the only man vicious enough to keep Iraq from the meltdown we see at the moment. If this is the case, there is little hope for the goals of the coalition.

So what can we do?
Partition Iraq? As a policy that has been frowned on based on the histories of India/Pakistan/Kashmir, Israel/Palestine and Ireland/Northern Ireland.

Turn our backs while fighting and genocide start to occur as per the Balkan States (after the fall of the strict communist regimes that held them together) and coming back to help clean up the mess? No one is going to thank us for that either.

Or stick it out and hope the elections will precipitate some kind of normality? Personally, given the situation, I'd want to swamp the country with an international peace-keeping force with a strict mandate not to engage in activity other than providing security to the population. I'd bring an equal number of journalists in to try and enforce (or at least document) the correct behavior of those troops and try and involve other Arab nations in the rebuilding efforts.

These things however are all difficult to achieve given the coalition's insistence on war without sanction from the UN, and Bush's inflammatory remarks about the Axis of Evil and other such gung-ho-isms re the (politically beneficial for Bush) war on terror. We need as many friends as possible to help defuse this situation, and I'd like to see more steps being taken to try and smooth waters that could become rapidly very troubled indeed.

The West can't do this by themselves, no matter how much freedom and democracy we throw around.

powerclown

I'm convinced that values play a large part in understanding the differences between cultures. 'Freedom', personal and otherwise, only surfaces where it is allowed to surface - where it is fostered and encouraged and deliberately woven into the fabric of a society, from the top down, through a certain system of values. I don't see this as being a spontaneous occurence; on the contrary, if nothing is done to bring it about, you have the opposite of freedom: oppression.

As far as iraq, I think the best way to go about achieving stability at this point is to continue to train more and more Iraqis to create an Iraqi security presence capable of dealing with the insurgency. They have to stop these killers from attacking police stations, assasinating government officials, and blowing up civilians on a daily basis. Once an effective security force is established, people won't have to live in fear, and life will return to normal. Electricity will return full time, water, food, schooling, communications, people can go back to work, etc. The key to this entire thing is the creation of an effective Iraqi security force: police, national guard, army. This is no secret to anyone.

pinoychink790

i'm goin to have to agree with powerclown on this one.

Konichiwaneko

I kinda see Iraq as a potentially good movie with a lot of bad actors.

I personally don't think our military situation there is a failure. I guess it's just me but I don't take casualty counts as a measure of how favorable war is. Mind you if all of a sudden troops started dropping in thousands by the hour, I would have a wave of concern.

Another opinion factor though is yes I do feel very safe because of the war. My view of America is that we are a beautiful country, we mean well, but we won't get stepped on. I feel as if we've been fair, and that after enough alarm has been raised to potential harm us we reacted.

Feel as if you want about that statement, but I've firm belief in what I would say is not the moral superiority of the United States, but the Moral reasonablility of the United States. Compared to the world governments at play that could hold as much sway as us we are the most partisan over the influence we have. I think from us liberating Iraq we've given them more options then any other country with similiar potential has been available too.


Yes the election on the 30th will cause more problem as it gets closer, but what I'm hoping for is for the people to prevail. As our election got closer, more and more incidents occurred, and I think it rallied more of our voters. Some went for Kerry, some went for Bush but all together the American people voted in larger then normal numbers and they were not intimidated by the cowardly actions of those insurgents in Iraq. I'm hoping the people of Iraq choose who they want, and no outward force (either it us or rebels) try to sway the outcome of the election



In the end though I think Iraq may fail because of the people there, and the nay sayers here.

I will offend people by this statement, but I must say it.

I think Iraq has a potential of failure becauase the muslim people is an empire fallen. They were a group who had such beautiful potential yet wasted it away, and now in the face of someone who is willing to help, someone who looks to be in a better situation, they will hold a subconcious contempt for us. Yes many will take us in with open arms, but the small naysayers in the group will spread their gospel like wildfire and anything we've done would begin to offend them and that feeling will fester over time.

Who am I to say my way of life is better?...all I know is I wake up feeling safer.

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pinoychink790

yeah that's a good point

Mephisto2

How could invading a country that had no involvement with Al Queda make you feel safer? If anything, it's added to the recruitment drive for terrorists and made America a bigger target; therefore making you unsafer.

Before the invasion of Iraq, the vast majority of muslims (even militant muslims) saw the US as a lumbering and distasteful opponent. Only the crazies like Mullah Omar and Bin Laden actually thought that it was appropriate to "bring the war" to America, rather than simply fight them when US troops were in Islamic countries (like Lebannon for example).

Now, however, the US has made itself out to be a vast military train, bearing down on all "free Islamic nations"... Invading Iraq was the worst thing you guys could have done for your security.

And besides, everyone seems to forget (or be brainwashed) that it wasn't anything obvious about 9/11 that was used to justify the invasion, but a vague notion of punishing Iraq for breaking UN sanctions and declarations. The same UN, by the way, that the neo-cons now lambast at every chance.

As an analogy let me refer to Internment during the Irish Troubles. After some terrible terrorist attacks the UK decided to simply round up as many suspected Irish Nationalists, sympathizes and suspected terrorists as possible and intern them without trial. This was the greatest thing they could have done for IRA recruitment as it infruiated most reasonable Nationalists and fostered a sense of persecution. In their actions, the UK had created the biggest recruitment drive for terrorists that had ever happened and ended up doing them a favour.

I see the invasion of Iraq in a simliar light.

I agree with your first statement, but not your second.


And this is perhaps the most insightful, accurate and (dare I say) intelligent thing I've seen on this board for quite some time.

Well put. But so very often overlooked...


But this I disagree with. What makes you think any other democracy would have done worse? Italy, France, the UK? In fact, the job of "liberating" Iraq is more difficult for America than for anyone else. And therefore, less likely to succeed.

As is obvious with each passing day.

I agree wholeheartedly with you, but I don't have the same faith in people ignoring intimidation.

Remember, we're not talking about a few thousand terrorists here. We're talking about (according to the Iraqi provisional government itself) around 200,000 fighters.

I personally would not go to vote at a centre which I believed had a good chance of being blown up whilst I was there. Let alone suffer the whispering campaign and downright threats from the insurgents in my own neighbourhood as I was observed "collaborating". Be realistic. I doubt you would risk yourself and your loved ones either.

I don't think it's got anything to do with nay-sayers "here". Do you think the average Iraqi gives a shit what the New York Times or San Francisco Chronicle are writing? I doubt they also watch CNN or Fox. They're too busy trying to find food to feed their starving children and stay clear of the roving bands of US Marines.

I think there is a germ is half-truth in what you say.

The Islamic culture has failed. Failed to live up to its potential.

Bizare. I know that I wake up feeling less safe because of Iraq. And rightly so. Look at what happened in Bali, in Jakarta, in Singapore...

And all this just because Australia offered a few troops and moral support to the Bush war machine.


Mr Mephisto

smooth

What I haven't really seen addressed is the results of an election.

Some of what I see posted in here seems to operate under the assumption that the barrier is getting the elections conducted.

For myself, and I believe others, this is not the primary issue. I realize that elections are going to occur at some time. But here is where I draw issue with the results:

The people who are currently fighting are coming from a number of places. Some of them are fighting to retain or regroup their political power. Hopefully people here are aware that those politically powerful are an ethnic minority in Iraq.

That is, they have reasonable fear about the type of government that might be established and officially sanctioned in regards to whether it would address their needs as a minority group--further complicated by the fact that they have been tyrannizing the majority for quite some time.

Now thats the legitimacy issue. But I want to make some more clear here:
For both practical purposes (doesn't make sense to ask an insurgent to vote) and safety (they might even blow the darn polling places up) we are going to leapfrog certain regions in the voting process.

To use a very crude analogy, we might consider what would happen if the blacks, or mexicans, or even native americans were currently embroiled in a violent insurgency during our election cycle. Now, it would seem to make sense to skip over some border states, or southern states, or reservations because they were filled with training camps and combatents.

However, obviously the election would effectively disenfranchise the very population that is fighting due to its disenfranchisement.

I suppose it's a fair question to ask me what I propose to resolve that conundrum. unfortunately it's a question i can't answer. My view is the very structure of what is going on makes our positin unteneble.

That is, we can not ask insurgents to come to the polls, we probably don't even want them to know where they would be. Yet we can not leave them out of the process. That's why they are fighting on one level.


This is one reason I see our efforts as eventually becoming a failure. Even if we start to see empirical evidence of what we consider process--say, some kind of voting occurring.

It masks the fact that the very process was flawed to begin with and couldn't even come up with a valid result. This is the classic methodological problem of selection bias. *sigh* hopefully that gives some more insight to some of our position and gives you all something to ponder tonight.

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"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

Konichiwaneko

Actually Mr. M, I feel safer in my own opinion because I felt like we've done the right thing as a country. But as of now I can say it's my opinion and I can easily see and hear why people feel both ways.

I'm always up to hearing points for and against the invasion of Iraq though because I"ll be honest my point of view is based on a mixture of blind faith and facts.

Yes in some points of view the war in Iraq can be seen as an attack, but really after all the years of Iraq being what it was I saw it more as the cancer of the world, and the US with the techonology we had as a the instruments and surgeons to remove it.

I'll tell you why I feel safer though Mr. M, and remember this is just from me and I don't reflect anyone's point of view I don't believe.

I feel safer because America is standing strong. I think we were so concerned about acting PC and not offending other nations that we were losing our own indentity. If you want to boil it down to war time Machismo I guess you can, but really it's how I've felt the US has been potrayed the last 12 years.

I loved Clinton domestically, but I felt that foreign policy wise we were stepped on by people. I felt as if we were sidestepping dangerous situations by what I would say "Fluffed Diplomacy". Give KimJong-Il 76 millions dollars to shut up? I think that would be more incentive for him to bribe us. It was actions like that, and those we weren't even aware of that made me feel that US was becoming weaker and weaker.

I believe in the soul of the United States, I believe once again in our reasonability. I think we don't really want to dominate anymore as much as nuetralize the potential problems to us. Iraq has been a problem for a while, and it was also an outstanding symbol of the recent weakness of the United States. Don't capture the guy who started the war, accept his plea bargain, let him kill more people, let him break the laws that you and the world organization set up for him.... That was Iraq. I think that situation right there damages our reputation and security over time as a much as terrorist attacks.

So by ivading Iraq I felt as if the US was finally telling the world "They broke laws and we must enforce them, we can't expect results from half ass solutions. We made a mistake and we going to try to clean it up".


Knowing that though, and this is where all the cynics come in. Have what we done been good or bad (which is the question in the first place).

Seeing how it was before, the situation now, the freedom that hopefully these Iraqi people will have and seemingly want to embrace is infinitely better then what they had 15 years ago.


Heh as I said blind faith, but from me an honest answer.

Not to take anything away from other countries, what I meant by my statement was the US was one of the chooses with the Manpower, technology, and money to hold a war. I know it wouldn't happen but imagine Russia, or China, or other countries like that. I do admit though that reading it now, I was wrong because in my mind the I only saw a few countries capable of that action and you are right I didn't consider France, Italy, so on. Knowing what I know now, I do agree with you yes US would have a hard time with it, but also because of the US tenacity I think the plusses outweigh the negatives.

So true, yet once again this is blind faith... we've had so much more then they have had. If I wanted to be shallow I could say I don't want to vote because I will die and lose my car, home, and luxuries in life. I'm an American though and not an Iraqi.

They now have something we've had for a while and celebrate... they have choice. I think that will be enough to motivate some of them to going. It would motivate me if I was an iraqi.

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