Ustwo

You mean people in the west don't support the terrorists in Iraq?

http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/05/1738080.php

http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/200...ml?id=np12.htm
So just how was that a troll again?

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Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Elphaba

Thank you, Tecoyah. It is my sincere wish to keep the politics forum alive with discourse that is sincerely open to opposing views.

Elphaba

Cheap shot Ustwo, as usual. Nice choice of publication excerpts for a guy that will not read anything from a "suspect" publisher.

Eh, it matters not. I do wonder how you find the time to be here 24/7, with your very busy professional obligations. What is that you do?

Dragonlich

Luckily, the nutjobs that wrote that, or agree with it, are a small minority. Most people that oppose the US on this issue aren't happy when US/UK troops are killed. They want the troops out, after all.

Interesting bit of info:

Iraqi officials say that all of the suicide bombers have been foreigners. Not a single Iraqi has blown himself up. This leads me to the following:

Iraqi "freedom fighters" are made up of
a) angry Sunnis/Ba'athists, who want their power back. They don't care about freeing the Iraqis as a whole.
b) Foreign nutjobs/terrorists who want to kill infidels. They don't care about freeing the Iraqi's, they're just another group that wants to control them.
c) criminals who want to maintain the current insecurity, so that they may profit. Not interested in freeing the Iraqis at all.
d) others who are indeed fighting the foreign oppressors in order to bring freedom to their people.

Now, does anyone care to give me their estimate of the relative size of group D? I bet it's pretty damn small, compared to the other three groups.

What you have to remember: in Islamic culture, the nation as a whole isn't important. The tribe is important, and the Islamic world as a whole is important. Remember that when you're trying to compare the sitation to people invading the US.

Ustwo

I agree they are a small minority, but we are still talking about millions of people. Take a look at the signs at a war protest or an anti-Bush rally. Even wanting the troops out is in indirect support of the terrorists. What do you think would happen if we just pulled out tomarrow? Reguardless of it being right or wrong, we made the mess, we have to clean it up.

I agree with your assesment.

Yes this is part of the problem. After the invasion I was reading the Arab press quite a lot and their reaction to it was as if they themselves were invaded and had lost as baddly as Saddam had. They honestly seemed to believe Bagdad Bob, and they were angry that they had been lied to. Even though they didn't 'like' Saddam they admired him for the percieved streangth of Iraq, and when that was brushed aside like a mosquito, it made them all feel impotent.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

martinguerre

You are quite free to state that you think that the war deserves American support, and explain why. It is not trolling to explain why you think Iraq is critical to the War on Terror, or whatever. I will note any disagreement i have with such statements with respect for your right to express that opinion.

That particular quote, as Tecoyah notes, accuses members of this board of treasonous sentiments. As such, i think i am with in my rights to state that i hold it to be trolling. None of the quotes you cite in clarification come from this community.

__________________
For God so loved creation, that God sent God's only Son that whosoever believed should not perish, but have everlasting life.

-John 3:16

jorgelito

Don't forget, the people have been fighting back. Locals (shopkeepers etc) got sick and tired of the chaos and instability caused by the "bad apples" (not all Iraqis are bad) and fought back. Does anyone remember a few weeks back, when these shopkeepers sucessfully fought off a bunch of "insurgents"? I think there was a thread on that somwhere around here.

I think the majority of Iraqis just want to have the water running, the power on, schools to go to, open their stores and stay open without fear of insurgent activity, and the resulting "lockdown" and "sweeps" by US troops. IMO, both have bad results.

The key is stablizing the damn place. We need more troops and committment to actually "fixing" the place instead of this dragging of feet and passing the buck. Putting an inexperienced, untrained local police and armed forces out in the field is disastrous. (this would follow your "right or wrong, we made the mess, we have to clean it up" which I agree with).

Anyways, people are tired of having their schools, shops, what-have-you blown up by the insurgents and fed up with the shakedown by US troops.

A veteran from Iraq came to our school last week and gave a powerpoint presentation in our class. He said the reason why schools etc were being targeted was because they were built by coalition (mostly US) troops, contracters etc. So it's like a bad cycle. If anyone's interested, we can open up another thread and I can share with you what this guy talked about. On a side note, the Syrian Ambassador came to speak to our class a few days ago. Very interesting stuff he had to say. We can open a thread on that too. The Israeli Foreign Minister is supposed to come next week. /end tangent

Also, even our good intentions, which some Iraqis no doubt "appreciate" to a certain extent, would still prefer all the foreign elements (not just Western" leave their country. Iraq has had a bad history of foreign occupations and meddling since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the British Mandate. You can't really blame them for not trusting us. But on the other hand, they (some) want us there as a stabilizing presence (which makes sense too). Makes for a tense and uneasy situation.

Best solution (which I belive we're trying to do), stabilize the place, get their institutions and security apparatus in place and get the hell out ASAP (easier said than done of course).

For those who are interested. Read:

"Threatening Storm", Kenneth Pollack - ex-deputy CIA Director who advised about the Iraq invasion of Kuwait. He provides excellent background about the region and great analysis. This guy has degrees from MIT and Harvard and is currently at the Brookings Institute (I think) or is it the Saban center for Near East Studies.

"Inventing Iraq" - Toby Dodge - explains alot of the British experience and consequences. Lends insight to the fractious state of Iraq. It also talks about the whole Islamic state versus tribal loyalty thing too.

"U.S. Policy in Post-Saddam Iraq: Lessons from the British Experience" - Michale Eisenstadt & Eric Mathewson - This book is awesome. It is pretty short but it is a collection of papers focusing on comparing/contrasting the current US experience in Iraq with the British.

All these books were written by people of high credentials: academics, think-tanks, military and the like. I highly suggest reading these. They are written in a user friendly format. Most of these people have first hand experience in what went on/goes on in makiing the decisions and stuff regarding Iraq.

tecoyah

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host

I think that it would save lives of American military and Iraqi civilians if we
"pulled out "tomorrow". The track record of the Bush administration is too similar to Baghdad Bob's for my liking, when it comes to accurate disclosure of the military situation in Iraq. Rumsfeld claims in a briefing linked below that trained Iraqi security forces now number 165,000. I advocate declaring "mission accomplshed", one more time, and then pull out.

Ustwo, earlier in this thread, I presented a well documented argument that details the complicity, support, and by the continuing relationship, (with no protest from the executive branch of the infamous gassing of the Kurds), the tacit approval of Saddam's regime by the Reagan and the Bush '41 administrations, until late 1990.
See:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...6&postcount=30

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...0&postcount=32

The argument that Saddam was supported by the U.S. for reasons having to do with a strategy of supporting Iraq to blunt the larger threat of Iran, rings hollow and empty when one counts the anti-tank missles delivered at the direction of U.S. to Iran during the same period, in direct contravention of the President's publicly stated prohibition of negotiating or supporting terrorist states, and Iran in particular, and in spite of vehement advice to desist by close advisors to President Reagan. See: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reagan/...e/index_5.html A reader can also observe in the timeline at the above link that other military support was provided by the U.S. to Iran in it's war with Iraq at the same time that the policy of aiding Saddam was justified as a way to counter Iran!

So now, "we have to clean it up", in your words. This sounds like the last refuge of justification for the continued occupation of a country that the administration declared so many times, posed an imminent danger to the U.S., and to it's own neighbors because of it's WMD programs. We were also told by President Bush and officials of his government that we were fignting them in Iraq, so that we wouldn't have to fight them here. This seems to be as dubious a claim as all of the others that turned out to be misleading and unreliable. Our own military provides us in it's briefings with little or no evidence that they are engaging "foreign fighters" in any signifigant or measurable numbers:
Above are three recent DOD briefings where several high ranking generals and Rumsfeld himself offer little in the way of admissions or facts to support a contention that the U.S. is engaged in a fight against "foreign fighters" in any signifigant numbers. 26 months into this occupation, Rumsfeld's comments in the third segment are most disingenuous; acting as if it just occurred to military intelligence to ascertain if the armed opposition in Iraq "Are they foreign fighters, Jihadist types?"

In the June 3rd news report, the Iraqi interior minister passes along firgures of 12,000 Iraqi civilian dead, in the last 18 months,casualties of the continuing
insurgency.

Here's the "news" from the other country that the U.S. has recently liberated, Afghanistan. The U.S. military presence there pre-dates Iraq by more than a year. Will another year of 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq bring this kind of progress?
Ustwo, 3-1/2 years after intiating military action in Afghanistan, our own State Dept. still does not deem that country's capital, specifically, the presumed secure areas where the U.S. maintains it's diplomatic mission, to be safe enough to permit the family members of diplomats to reside with them.
Unofficial travel to any part of Afghanistan (even to Kabul), by U.S. citizens is still deemed from a personal security standpoint, to be out of the question.

Is this the picture of present day Afghanistan that you, or most Americans, have planted in your head, as a result of listening to Bush admin. pronouncements of U.S. success and improvements there, at least in the capital, Kabul?

It cannot be demonstrated that the Bush administration can or will accurately disclose to the American people why we invaded Iraq, why we are there now in a larger military presence than during the invasion, or even, tell us whether we are battling foreign fighters in any signifigant numbers. I've documented the seldom discussed fact that the "liberation" of Afghanistan is vastly overrated.

I want our troops out of Iraq now, Ustwo, and in saying that, I am not supporting "terrorists". I am reacting to the reality that our U.S. administration has lost the trust of the small portion of it's citizenry that is actually informed about the circumstances of the debacles resulting from our post 9/11 military "adventures" in Afghansitan and in Iraq.

You are free to counter the details that I offer on this thread, point by point.
I do not see you doing that.

Dragonlich

Just one question here: when the inevitable civil war breaks out in Iraq, will you accept your responsibility?

IMO, pulling out now is the WORST the US could do. The overly used phrase "the terrorists will win" most certainly applies here, at least in the eyes of their supporters. The end result will be even more suffering, and the destruction of what little hope and freedom the Iraqis have.

(FYI, I would prefer a UN peace-keeping operation instead of the current US-led force. But that's not gonna happen.)

Seaver

I think that that thinking is what lead to the mass slaughter of many South Vietnamese tribes after we left. I think that thinking is what caused the massacres of the tribes in Iraq following the infandata uprising after we left Saddam in power in the first place. I think that your suppor of pulling out tomarrow is severely lacking historical proof and flawed.

xepherys

Agreed. Would I fight to save my country if I thought it was in jeopardy? Absolutely! Would I take out Americans left and right to do it? Not a chance! The fundamental problem with fundamentalists is that they seem to overlook (or never got to) the bigger picture.

Elphaba

My apologies, Ustwo. It was, indeed, uncalled for.

Elphaba

I would be very interested in both of these.

irateplatypus

i won't go so far as Ustwo and say that many in the West are in support of the terrorists... but i think it's quite obvious that many in the West aren't willing to support themselves.

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

Ustwo

Support is not a black and white word in terms of meaning.

I don't think any but a lunatic fringe would be giving any support like money, arms, info, or physical support allowing the terrorists to be better terrorists.

I do think many are quite happy that we are taking casualties and think the terrorists cause is legitimate. This doesn't include the group of indirect supporters who want our troops out regardless of the effect on the Iraqi people. It becomes a situation of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

host

None of your responses to my last post attempts to debate, refute, or counter any of the information that I used to back my point that it is time for our military to withdraw from Iraq.

How is it that Rumsfeld, who maintained that a U.S. force level of about 140,000 U.S. troops was adequate, even though there were still not enough troops to secure the six mile stretch of road to Baghdad airport, cannot now justify withdrawing any of them, when he states this:
The U.S. military will pull out of Iraq, eventually, and judging by what this U.S. executive and military/intelligence leadership has accomplished so far, the U.S. will pull out after a far greater number of non-combatants and U.S. troops are killed or wounded, and with the same, or possibly worse dismal set of results for the efforts, than if the troop pullout were to begin tomorrow.

The crux of the problem, is that, in addition to being untruthful and incompetent, the folks running our government and our military refuse to take the advice of anyone with an informed opinion, and the possibility of offers of better solutions, that disagrees with them, the discrediting of General Shinseki by Wolfowitz, et al, being the best example of this.

The vehement refusal of some participants here to consider and to react to the details and history of U.S. military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, for the purpose of adjusting their opinions in reaction to the progression of circumstances of the military presences in Iraq and Afghanistan, is not all that different from the description of the process described in the Downing Street memo, of the "Bush administration fixing the facts to match the policy".

Here is a fresh assessment of what some of you clamor for more of, in large part because you are incapable of even considering what you now regard as unthinkable, withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq without anyone believing that the "mission" has been accomplished. I need not worry that I will have to take some sort of responsibility as Dragonlich asks me to, for the "breakout of the inevitable civil war in Iraq". It is already a reality, although Bush and Rumsfeld will never tell you that, because then others would demand that they assume responsibility for triggering it.

I know that this report is from Newsweek, the magazine that published the true story of Koran desecration by U.S. jailers at Gitmo, but just muddled the now admitted details of how human excrement came to taint the muslim holy books. Consider that the reporter has been in Iraq for two years, far removed from the editorial decisions of the Koran story, and how his initial optimism was ground down during his time frame, by a series of missed U.S. opportunities and leadership, command, and training failures.
If ever there was a "no confidence" vote regarding the leadership of a military and the formulation and implementation of policy that the military is ordered to follow, the above article makes the case. I cannot believe that the Bush administration can continue to be trusted with the responsibility of occupying and maintaining order in Iraq, or of overseeing U.S. foreign policy and commanding and directing the U.S. military. It must take huge volumes of denial and "fixing of facts to make the catstrophe that is Iraq look in anyway positive, or defensible". This is a descritpion of a total failure of policy and of military administration.

Please, if you have documentation from reliable sources to counter the electrical production figures, or of the performance of the U.S. military regarding relations with the Iraqi people today, and of improvements in the state of security there, post it. Posting good news to counter the sober assessments contained in my posts would do more to bolster your arguments than the content currently offered in your posts.

host

The Reagan and Bush '41 administrations, with the help of first, Rumsfeld, and then under the DOD oversight of Cheney, apparently did just what you are describing, with reference to Saddam and his terrorist activities, starting a war of aggression against his neighbor, Iran, and then gassing his own people, with U.S. bio weapons stocks, advice, technical support, and even with the U.S. supplied crop dusting helicopters to deliver the biological agents to the skies over at least one Kurdish village.

Did Reagan qualify for your "lunatic fringe" catagory when he signed the secret order to supply the terrorist government of Iran with anti-tank missles and other military hardware, repeatedly, while simultaneously supporting Saddam? How about the secret and, contrarty to the stated policy of refusing to negotiate with terrorists, effort to curry favor with Iran by secretly supplying it's military with anti-tank weapons in the hope that it would influence Iran to help free American hostages held by factions allied with the Iranian government. Isn't a blanket policy to refuse to negotiate with terrorists necessary in order to discourage further acts of terrorism that might otherwise be encouraged if terrorists observe that their acts will influence concessions?

Can you consider that there is a legitmate reason to believe that the Bush administration never actually held a position that the "liberation of the Iraqi people", was a goal, in and of itself, was worth the expense of the life of even one American soldier, let alone, 1660 lives and ten thousand seriously wounded, a weakening of U.S. ability to attract and maintain the best recruits and non-com officers in it's ranks?

Can you read the above report by Newsweek's Baghdad Bureau chief on the state of things in Iraq, and not consider that labelling objectors to U.S. military policy in Iraq as possible terrorist "sympathizers or enablers, especially when viewed alongside the history of statements and actions of U.S. administrations of the past 25 years, may not be the most compelling or effective ways to counter my arguments and conclusions?

macmanmike6100

This post is especially revealing. What better evidence than an optimist-turned-pessimist editor with two years of on-the-ground experience in Iraq? <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?p=1804217#post1804217">Host's post</a>

martinguerre

Host makes a very good point. In addition, American funding of the mujihadeen (including Bin Laden) under the Reagan administration makes current claims of purity suspect. Bush now funds Uzbekistan, which under "President" Karimov operates one of the most despotic regimes in modern times. Indeed, it takes a special kind of person to fund a terrorist or despot in the search for peace or order.

Unfortunatly, George Bush is such a person.

__________________
For God so loved creation, that God sent God's only Son that whosoever believed should not perish, but have everlasting life.

-John 3:16

Dragonlich

That's probably why he supports the government of North-Korea, Iran, Belarus, and tons of other despotisms. And that's probably why he openly disapproves of Karimov's actions.

Politics isn't black and white...

martinguerre

That wasn't my point.

Slapping Karimov on the wrist while we still provide military support for his regime is about useless in terms of providing any significant pressure to change. So don't bother saying that we've done anything moral in the situation there. And despite long term violations of human rights, Bush only said anything when international media covered the massacres. Real stand up forgien policy that is. I think it's called "the hand caught in the proverbial cookie jar of supporting a brutal dicator who couldn't keep the massacres quiet enough."

In the war to bring down one evil, we may be tempted to accept another. sometimes, this is an unavoidable consequence of the situation we find ourselves in. but the real problem is the whitewash, the idea that America stands for freedom, period. No, we stand for freedom where it's handy for us to do so. For Uzbeks, we'd rather have their air space clearances so we can fight in Afganistan, than for them to be free of a ruthless and merciless dictator. Bush has made a series of pyhrric choices in this war on terror, and i think it is an indication of his Ahabian obession, and ability to ignore the human costs of our forgien policy.

__________________
For God so loved creation, that God sent God's only Son that whosoever believed should not perish, but have everlasting life.

-John 3:16

Lebell

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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