Thread: What are we doing in Iraq?

Originally Posted by FFE

I think the rhetoric is that we are fighting terrorists in Iraq, so the terrorists don't come to the USA.

I'd like to know which Congressmen and Senators have a family member serving in Iraq.

I'm also curious what medications are given to Bush so he can sleep at night.

I know that Rep Hunter has had I believe two sons rotate through Iraq. My old professor who has been termed a "neocon hawk" and was one of the prominent academia who had signed onto the go to war with Iraq letters just had his son return from Iraq. The bottomline is that this is a non-sequitir and bogus line of arguing.

Here's an older entry, but it has some of the data about children of Congress serving.

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/arc..._sons_in_iraq/

While the statistical analysis isn't complete, it appears that sons and daughters of Congress serve at a greater rate in Iraq than the general population. Furthermore, while I haven't run the numbers, given the party affiliations, if we were to logically extend the implicit argument that Congress would vote differently if their sons/daughters were serving, then we would end up with the same result in voting patterns.

So, even though it is a bogus argument, it still serves to highlight that you should be careful about what you ask for - you just might get it.

Again, this is not a question of left or right; democrat or republican. It's a question of competence and the utter failure in leadership our government has shown in directing this war; even if it was justified, That however is irrelevant of the fact, as Sniper has himself stated, that this war has been grossly mis-directed.
And if the streets of the City and County of Philadelphia are more dangerous for young black men than for our tropps in Iraq, that's just another failure of successive governments and diserves a thread in itself.

Also, and anyone who knows me fully knows I'm not any sort of radical leftist, so save your characterizations of me. Rejecting the bs the Republican party spews out doesn't make me any less radical than you. Any real conservative has long rejected the party line.

I'm not a Republican. I'm registered as a Democrat. I'm a conservative libertarian.

Here's the question regarding to this failure of the Iraq policy. How much of it is real and how much of it is hyped up by the leftist media?

Every time I turn on the 3 major network plus CNN I hear about how grim the situation is. Every few weeks CNN puts up some Iraqi telling us how he/she was doing better when Saddam was in power. No joke. I saw one about 2 weeks ago in the morning on Headline News before I left for work.

What if the major networks took 15 min every day to tell us the positive contribution our military has on Iraq since we threw Saddam out, instead of how many of our guys have been killed or maimed? Repeat that everyday for 3 years and I can guarantee you we'd have a different view on this "failure" in Iraq.

Rebuilding a nation isn't easy, especially when a good part of the people think they'll be oppressed. We owe it to the Iraqis for kicking out the only leader they knew for 3 decades. We can't just take off and leave the good guys to the wolves. We have to at least give them a fighting chance.

Besides, where else should we fight the terrorists? Iran? Pakistan? Afghanistan (more troops there)? Syria? Or redeploy them to our homeland? I don't know. I think Iraq is as good a place as any, for now.

Originally Posted by gunnut

I'm not a Republican. I'm registered as a Democrat. I'm a conservative libertarian.

Here's the question regarding to this failure of the Iraq policy. How much of it is real and how much of it is hyped up by the leftist media?

Every time I turn on the 3 major network plus CNN I hear about how grim the situation is. Every few weeks CNN puts up some Iraqi telling us how he/she was doing better when Saddam was in power. No joke. I saw one about 2 weeks ago in the morning on Headline News before I left for work.

What if the major networks took 15 min every day to tell us the positive contribution our military has on Iraq since we threw Saddam out, instead of how many of our guys have been killed or maimed? Repeat that everyday for 3 years and I can guarantee you we'd have a different view on this "failure" in Iraq.

Rebuilding a nation isn't easy, especially when a good part of the people think they'll be oppressed. We owe it to the Iraqis for kicking out the only leader they knew for 3 decades. We can't just take off and leave the good guys to the wolves. We have to at least give them a fighting chance.

Besides, where else should we fight the terrorists? Iran? Pakistan? Afghanistan (more troops there)? Syria? Or redeploy them to our homeland? I don't know. I think Iraq is as good a place as any, for now.

Again, you're off the beaten track. You rant about the leftist media, the leftist media which has Lou Dobbs on CNN fanning anti-immigrant sentiment for ratings, every night. The NY Times who's editorial pages pretty much led the war drums. You have the historically Democratic Left publication, the New Republic, backing Joe Lieberman over the establishment. The media definitely has its agenda, but it is not wholly leftist.

Originally Posted by Gio

Again, you're off the beaten track. You rant about the leftist media, the leftist media which has Lou Dobbs on CNN fanning anti-immigrant sentiment for ratings, every night. The NY Times who's editorial pages pretty much led the war drums. You have the historically Democratic Left publication, the New Republic, backing Joe Lieberman over the establishment. The media definitely has its agenda, but it is not wholly leftist.

You listed 3 examples, 2 of which are entirely commentary in nature. I'm not familiar with the New Republic so I can't comment.

I'm talking about the facts that the leftist media reports. Instead of every single day the number of dead soldiers they could also report the progress being made in Iraq. They could have told people the construction projects we do there. The schools we help build. The flourishing communication business. Free TV networks instead of state controlled networks. The concrete progress, the difference we have made.

Americans are generous people. We don't mind the sacrifice if we can see that we have made a difference in this world. We are, however, impatient. When we don't see results, we tend to question ourselves.

Originally Posted by Gio

What the f uc k are you talking about? Mind-less talking points don't distract from the orginal questions. Moron. Next time post something constructive instead of your mindless partisan bulls hit This country is tired of it.

Gio, your question has been answered continually since late 2002. If you don't like the answer then that's fine, but don't pretend you didn't get one.

-dale

Originally Posted by Gio

Also, and anyone who knows me fully knows I'm not any sort of radical leftist, so save your characterizations of me.

For the record, Gio is a big time conservative, and a very good guy. Heh, in some ways i actually consider him to be a protoge' of mine...when it comes to the fine art of scoring with the ladies.

Of course he'll tell you it's all him... lololol.

Originally Posted by Gio

Rejecting the bs the Republican party spews out doesn't make me any less radical than you. Any real conservative has long rejected the party line.

I have also utterly rejected the current administrators party line.

This should've been one of the most decisive victories in modern history, and it was absolutely flushed down the toilet by Rumsfled and Co.

Idiots.

Originally Posted by dalem

Gio, your question has been answered continually since late 2002. If you don't like the answer then that's fine, but don't pretend you didn't get one.

-dale

That's just it, sir. They have not been answered, contently attacking the oppostion party as non-patriotic still doesn't answer my questions, try again. Espousing on and on about positives can not cover up the basic fact that this war is failing and there political ramifications for that. Don't attempt to paint me as some sort of partisan flame thrower because that is going to be far less successful than you'll ever realize.

Originally Posted by Gio

Again, you're off the beaten track. You rant about the leftist media, the leftist media which has Lou Dobbs on CNN fanning anti-immigrant sentiment for ratings, every night. The NY Times who's editorial pages pretty much led the war drums. You have the historically Democratic Left publication, the New Republic, backing Joe Lieberman over the establishment. The media definitely has its agenda, but it is not wholly leftist.

I think what gunnut was objecting to was your post starting off with:

"Looking back it's become apparent we were fooled by the Bush administration into going to war under false pretense."

You stated like it was fact. You can say whatever you want about the mess we're in but saying Bush deliberately lied about it to take us to war, quite frankly, discounted the rest of your post in my eyes. I'm sure Dubya wants to leave Iraq ASAP, but like the saying goes, he broke it, now he bought it.

After three years, I still think invading Iraq was a good idea. Compared to other wars we have been in, this one is a total cakewalk.
And you know what?
It Still is.
But the spinelessness of the American people coupled with the usual everyday negative news from Iraq, led by the NY Times, is making it worse.

You'll see how fast this "awful quagmire" turns into a "wonderful ongoing success" in the polls if the media followd gunnut's advice and report the news from Iraq eually, without their leftist views attached to it.

Lets analyze what we know. The administration said there was WMD, Iraq is invaded on the presumption it has WMD in violation of UN resolutions. No WMD are found in Iraq. Saying something when it isn't true happens to be a lie. Accordingly, only when you know what's being said isn't true. So a big fat plea of ignorance is in order? At this point it's agreed we went into Iraq on a guess or "good-feeling."


Also, just because you deny something and claim media bias, it doesn't shy away from the reality of Iraq's situation. It's a war, death sells, it's the market, get over it. If you don't like it, launch a state broadcaster.

From where I was sitting in 2002 and 2003 (prince sultan afb) I really thought the invasion of Iraq was a pretty good idea. We had a oppresive regime that was shooting at our planes enforcing a UN mandate (I don't like fixing holes in airplanes and there was shrapnel damage in a few cases.), they were at least posturing to obtain various forms of NBC weapons and it was beleived at least some quantities were available for use to at least the o-7 lvl, (by the brits, france, saudi arabia, UAE, and US troups.), the whole breaking sanctions in the oil-for food thing, constant threats against their neighbors and troop deployment stress.
The need for a new long term stragegic basing in the middle east was also a desire. UAE and Afganistan alone aren't quite enough.


The invasion itself went great, the immediate aftermath not that badly everything after 01/2004 I have some serious doubts about. In theory I can comment about everything after July 31 2003. My personal feeling is that alot of the decisions made were with good intentions but incomplete knowledge, also a bunch of the decisions made as the suggestions of exiled iraqi's were more selfserving for those iraqis to gain further power as opposed the best welfare of the people of the country. I think allowing as much looting to go on as what did was a part of the problem however the best and perhaps only way to avoid that would have been beteen 10-15,000 security forces type troops following behind the frontlines and gaurding anything of value which still wouldn't have completely stopped the looting and there would have been more casualties however it would have assisted in preventing a feeling of lwlessness and power vacuum. The next problem was disbanding the miltary and alot of policing forces. If nothing else they would have provided basic policing and allowed a more gradual integration into the rest of the society as well as let the new government know where they were while investigations were being conducted to figure out which were simply soldiers and police and which were the enforcers of the previous regime.

The lack of numbers on the US lvl and the disbandment allowed something of an anarchy to appear in the absense of a formal government. No one was really expecting the populace to have such internal discord and a bunch of different rivals for power in each one looking to get armed as soon as sadaams men stopped gaurding the arsenals. The general citizen was fairly supportive at first the baathists hadn't helped them be prosperous of late the disruptions in supplies weren't particularly welcome, when utilities and commerce was not quickly restored due to various armed groups with bombing and formenting other forms of violence all about the general support is begining to fade and the US looking somewhat foolish so the people tend to latch onto whichever powergroup seems to most favors that individual. This exasberates the problem.

Personally I think the best move at this point is to hold steady while the new governement sets up, Then once they are relatively stable withdrawl onto bases somewhat removed from most population centers and assist as a reaction force for the governement and to do that as little as possible.

In other words, France, England, Russia and every other country you could think of lied?

They all said Iraq had WMD's.

The president can not go to Iraq and verify with his eyeballs that Iraq had wmds.
All he could do was trust his intelligence apparatus and believe what they say.

The only difference between those countries I listed and Dubya is that Dubya had the balls to go and find out. Now that there isn't wmds, France and the like is suggesting Dubya was "less than forthcoming" when he suggested there were wmds. It makes me sick.

Anyways, we seem to have gotten off the subject.

My Idea?

We move all the troops out of the cities and station them about 50 miles East of Baghdad. We supply them around the clock ( a mini Berlin lift) and we declare that Iraq's future is now up to it's own government and we will no longer be responsible for them. And then we stare at Iran and say, "OK, what do you want to do now?"

LoL

Not feasbile.

But that's what I would do.

"Which is why it was SO UTTERLY STUPID when Clinton retreated from Somalia to begin with(OBL's stated 'epiphany event', when he says he 'realized the US could be beaten')"

My understanding was that Clinton would have been forced out of Somalia by Congress, political suicide before an upcoming election. Is this so?

"the leftist media which has Lou Dobbs on CNN fanning anti-immigrant sentiment for ratings, every night."

Lou Dobbs is awesome! Don't attack Lou Dobbs, he'd kick your butt!!

The one area where I feel confident I'd know more than the average WAB poster is Iraq's interest in WMD's, atleast when it comes to biological weapons, which, by extension, would be indicative of their interest in other weapons, since bio weapons are extremely unwieldy, dangerous, can come back to get you, and can wipe out billions of people if used efficiently. Saddam was interested in biological weapons, post Gulf War I. He was skirting around the inspectors, and many suspicious incidents occurred. Richard Preston's (the Hot Zone guy) Demon in the Freezer is some good reading on the issue. Another one would be the Cobra Event. While it is a work of fiction, Preston interviewed tons of C.I.A., F.B.I., and other various intelligence officials, including the leading Soviet defector, and when it came out, our intelligence community freaked out a bit. Most of the stuff he wrote about was "supposed" to be classified. It also scared the crappola out of Clinton, and led him to pass some biological weapons bill, or some such. Excellent book. EXTREMELY graphic though, if you don't think a book can bring you close to puking, well, you haven't read the Cobra Event

Point. From what I know, it seems he DID want weapons. BUT, he wasn't going to use them against us. Why? He is your standard, selfish dictator type. Much like Stalin. Is he going to incite a major U.S. backlash? No!! He wanted an insurance policy. What we should have asked, is whether he hated us enough to WANT to hurt us. Then, we should have asked whether he thought he could hurt us without a sufficiently damning response. I think the answer to that, is no, and no. No?