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Summer Wine
Joined: 20 Mar 2005
Location: Next to a River
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 Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 3:55 pm Post subject: |
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I guess just as legitimate morally or otherwise as the companies selling chemicals to a country they knew were being used in nefarious activities. Which occured pre Invasion.
Lets be honest though, the Iraqi people (not the militants maybe) voted/ chose certain people to be their leaders. They have not yet made it clear as leaders of Iraq that they want all Americans out tomorrow.
Its a complicated situation at the very best, and I didn't want America to go in the first place, but now they are there. They have a responsibilty to stay until the situation in Iraq stabilizes.
Now if you really want to punish the businesses like Haliburton. Then get them to fund the reconstruction of Iraq out of their company and personal bank accounts, but cutting and running as one person on Daves once suggested is just painting a bulls eye on your back.
I wouldn't recommend it as a long term strategy. Thats just my feelings on the matter. Short term solutions are not always the best for long term causing problems. Also please don't use the vietnam argument as why it may not matter. It did matter to those Vietnamese, Hmong, etc who lost a country and it was clearly a different situation. |
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EFLtrainer
Joined: 04 May 2005
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| Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 8:38 pm Post subject: |
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| Summer Wine wrote: |
| I didn't want America to go in the first place, but now they are there. They have a responsibilty to stay until the situation in Iraq stabilizes. |
Where do you get your ideas from? Tony Snow? Have you paid attention to the polls of Iraqis, and what they want? Have you actually thought about what the American presence affects? Have you thought at all about whether Iraq can EVER be stable? And, what does stable mean?
I've said it from the beginning and polls of Iraqis support this: The presence of the US military is a destabilizing one. As long as we are there it will be impossible to have stability. We are the cause, not the cure.
As I read recently, the Iraqis are trained. They have been brought up to speed. But there is no cohesion there. We cannot and will not create that cohesion with military force.
And we haven't even touched on the whole infidels in the lands of Muslims...
Don't base your point of view on talking points, actually study the history of the region and listen to the people that really matter: the every day Iraqis.
| Summer Wine wrote: |
| Now if you really want to punish the businesses like Haliburton. Then get them to fund the reconstruction of Iraq out of their company and personal bank accounts, but cutting and running as one person on Daves once suggested is just painting a bulls eye on your back. |
Cut and run? How can you trot out such BS platitudes, particularly when they have been absolutely discredited?
Cut and run? How about get the hell out and let them heal the wounds we opened? |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 9:47 pm Post subject: |
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| EFLtrainer wrote: |
Cut and run? How about get the hell out and let them heal the wounds we opened? |
If you leave, would not many of the people who assume this is truly a jihad against the great satan interpret this as a triumph of their tactics against American tyranny etc? A small band of muslim faithful have beaten the greatest military power on earth, etc.? Many fence sitters would, no doubt, come over to their side. The band wagon effect.
How does one exit Iraq without emboldening those with their own ax to grind against the USA?
This is not a justification for going in and not a justification for the tactics of the early days and not necessarily a justification for how the war is currently being persecuted. But what is the blow back of such a move in the here and now? |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 10:03 pm Post subject: |
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| How does one exit Iraq without emboldening those with their own ax to grind against the USA? |
By declaring victory...... Fallows argued such over a year ago in the Atlantic. Mission accomplished, bye-bye......
If you do believe that jihadists will become "emboldened" by a pullout, then you have the hook all the way in. What fuzzy logic, the administration has asked its citizens to by into. First a never ending war and now, "well since we made shat there, we got to keep the flies from landing in it....."
Relax, those jihadists will be and have always been there. Making them into boggie men and Dr. Nos, is just what they want. Which is why it is a delight that America is in Iraq......much better ways to unembolden them.
DD |
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Summer Wine
Joined: 20 Mar 2005
Location: Next to a River
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| Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 11:44 pm Post subject: |
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I could answer all your arguments, but I wont. I know your feelings on the matter. I just don't feel its worth rehashing all the points that have been argued over the last 4 years.
Its done and I am sure that Iraqi people probably do want the US out, but if they don't leave it doesn't mean its going to get any worse. Sure more american lives and money will be lost, but I feel thats maybe the cost of carrying out war and should be expected.
It also doesn't mean that things will get better if the Americans leave. It may mean that the country will disappear and be absorbed into surrounding states. It may even mean worse conditions. Its too uncertain and only hindsight will provide an answer.
I would state that you would convince others of your arguments more if they didn't seem to sound so strident and accusatory. They are good points you make, just sometimes lost in the noise.
Though, stay or leave. Iraqi people will suffer, americans will go about thier lives blinded by thier personal views and life will go on. I support the US doing a better job then they have and that doesn't mean that if the troops leave that america should stop having a role to play in Iraq, even if it is just giving Haliburtons money to them. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 1:47 am Post subject: |
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| ddeubel wrote: |
| Quote: |
| How does one exit Iraq without emboldening those with their own ax to grind against the USA? |
By declaring victory...... Fallows argued such over a year ago in the Atlantic. Mission accomplished, bye-bye......
If you do believe that jihadists will become "emboldened" by a pullout, then you have the hook all the way in. What fuzzy logic, the administration has asked its citizens to by into. First a never ending war and now, "well since we made shat there, we got to keep the flies from landing in it....."
Relax, those jihadists will be and have always been there. Making them into boggie men and Dr. Nos, is just what they want. Which is why it is a delight that America is in Iraq......much better ways to unembolden them.
DD |
There are plenty of historical examples where a victory (especially a large victory as the insurgents vs the USA would be) has led people to join in the side of the victor. Lots of Greek cities were allied with the Persians but after several Athenian/Spartan victories they quickly threw in with the victors.
The jihadists have always been there, certainly, but the US has certainly given thousands and thousands of Iraqis push to join, no? There are a lot of fatherless sons, made fatherless by the USA, that I'm sure are looking for payback these days. There are lots of Gitmo prisoners looking for payback upon release. (Whether the US is on the wrong or right side about making those sons fatherless is immaterial, a son deprived of his father isn't going to be content with "war is hell, sometimes innocents get hurt".)
The USA can spin it's declaration of victory to its own people but I doubt the people of the middle east will look upon the US pull out as just that. Who won the War of 1812? That depends on who you ask, American or Canadian, eh. |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 2:13 am Post subject: |
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mindmetoo,
What it comes down to, is that you and those who'd argue with logic of historical examples and ill logic (comparing Jihadists to Greek states????) is real people dying for NADA.
Your logic as well as Summerwine's is just armchair polemics. Let's keep a spin and shine on this situation -- all for the "name" of America and NOT doing the right thing. I am against that. America has no interest being there and if it truly wants to help Iraq, it should give dollars, support in a non military fashion to those who'd govern it well and with principles of "the people's will". All else, including the orgy of violence the U.S. is principally responsible for, is just immoral.
DD |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 6:34 am Post subject: |
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| ddeubel wrote: |
mindmetoo,
What it comes down to, is that you and those who'd argue with logic of historical examples and ill logic (comparing Jihadists to Greek states????) is real people dying for NADA.
Your logic as well as Summerwine's is just armchair polemics. Let's keep a spin and shine on this situation -- all for the "name" of America and NOT doing the right thing. I am against that. America has no interest being there and if it truly wants to help Iraq, it should give dollars, support in a non military fashion to those who'd govern it well and with principles of "the people's will". All else, including the orgy of violence the U.S. is principally responsible for, is just immoral.
DD |
What leads you to believe the jihadists won't be emboldened? I cite the Greek defeat of the Persians as but one example of this phenomenon of humans lining up behind a winner, which to the citizens of the middle east, the insurgents certainly would appear to be. The US pulling out will cause a power vacuum. Which strong man are the Iraqis going to line up behind? The allies of the US or the insurgents who beat the greatest military power on the face of the earth by their faith in Allah yaddie yaddie?
I liked your dung/fly analogy, even though you didn't think it was valid for the Iraq situation.
America should never have gone in. It ran the whole operation 100% wrong once it went in. George Bush should be impeached for this botch up. I wish like hell America would pull out and stop sending young men and women to get blow to pieces by snipers armed with RPGs (just watch some of the video on liveleak.com... it's horrifying what sitting ducks US forces are). However, America leaving is going to seem like a victory to someone in Iraq. No? You see no blowback from that? |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 8:00 am Post subject: |
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The US ought to redeploy US forces in the Kurdish areas.
That way there is no withdrawal by the US and the US can do much of what they went into Iraq in the first place for. To stop it the insurgents will have to invade Kurdistan. If they do so then they will have no longer have the advantages of fighting as guerilla fighters. |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 2:23 pm Post subject: |
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| However, America leaving is going to seem like a victory to someone in Iraq. No? You see no blowback from that? |
I think the victory will be to seen as "taking back control of their country" and not as "the U.S. is defeated".
I think my larger point (and which I failed to state well), is that the mandate of the U.S. was never never to stay. So look at it this way; there is a govt there, they were given support, America can help where relevant but now it is their turn to take care of things. No defeat in that........only maturity.
Besides the horrible deaths of both Americans and Iraqis by violence --- what gets lost in the shuffle also, is the terrible cost to the society by continued war. Before this, Iraqi kids were dying in large numbers by many preventable causes...now it is drastically worse. Plus, you have the psychological havoc of this state of affairs on generations of families, their losses....these are the untalked about victims that keep bleeding and bleeding....
The only choice is to get out. The jihadists will spin everything as they wish. Always have and America should not set its policy by their "suppossed" tune -- because these guys don't got any. They are dispersed, not united and the concept of "rallying around the winner" does not apply here.
DD |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 3:54 pm Post subject: |
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| ddeubel wrote: |
I think the victory will be to seen as "taking back control of their country" and not as "the U.S. is defeated". |
What leads you to form this belief? Clearly there's a large armed insurgency and many muslim sympathizers across the globe that would view an American pull out as a victory for Islam. That they call themselves jihadists and muslims are coming in from the middle east seems to support the notion this is viewed by many in the region as a religious war against America, a religious war fought to drive America out of the region.
| Quote: |
| I think my larger point (and which I failed to state well), is that the mandate of the U.S. was never never to stay. So look at it this way; there is a govt there, they were given support, America can help where relevant but now it is their turn to take care of things. No defeat in that........only maturity. |
That government doesn't really have a lot of support, no? Iraqis are trying to take control of their country. However, it's not the side the USA supports. It's split along religious lines and they're trying to take control of their own parts.
| Quote: |
| The only choice is to get out. The jihadists will spin everything as they wish. Always have and America should not set its policy by their "suppossed" tune -- because these guys don't got any. They are dispersed, not united and the concept of "rallying around the winner" does not apply here. |
What leads you to believe the insurgency is dispersed and not united? They seem to be working in coordinated ways. They're operating in very effective ways for a dispersed and un-united insurgency: taking down helicopters, chemical warfare, employing tank busting weapons, etc. So how do you support the comment "the concept of 'rallying around the winner' does not apply here" when in fact insurgents are rallying around a cause and, presumably, would rally around the winner. |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 9:53 pm Post subject: |
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| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
The US ought to redeploy US forces in the Kurdish areas.
That way there is no withdrawal by the US and the US can do much of what they went into Iraq in the first place for 
To stop it the "insurgents" will have to invade Kurdistan.
If they do so then they will have no longer have the advantages of fighting as guerilla fighters. |
"Support" the troops: BRING THEM HOME!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CROgpqIPvUk |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 4:13 pm Post subject: |
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Iraq Expels American Security Firm
By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD - The Iraqi government announced Monday it was ordering Blackwater USA, the "security firm" that protects U.S. diplomats, to leave the country after what it said was the fatal shooting of eight Iraqi civilians following a car bomb attack against a State Department convoy.
The order by the Interior Ministry, if carried out, would deal a severe blow to U.S. government operations in Iraq by stripping diplomats, engineers, reconstruction officials and others of their security protection.
The presence of so many visible, aggressive Western security contractors has angered many Iraqis, who consider them a mercenary force that runs roughshod over people in their own country.
Sunday's shooting was the latest in a series of incidents in which Blackwater and other foreign contractors have been accused of shooting to death Iraqi citizens.
None has faced charges or prosecution  
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070917/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq;_ylt=AqPxgVdv_FOffL6Y1Ho7wSADW7oF |
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yawarakaijin
Joined: 08 Aug 2006
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| Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 7:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Adventurer wrote: |
| I am not sure exactly why so many mercenaries were sent there. We do know, however, the death toll for Americans surpasses 4,000 including the ex-soldiers. Not to mention the 10,000 or so wounded. It seems the wounded are not really talked about adequately. |
Hey man! F-you! 10,000 wounded? really? Can you provide some links to that? I haven't seen anything in the media about there being some 10,000 wounded soldiers. 
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cbclark4
Joined: 20 Aug 2006
Location: Masan
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