U.S. options in Iraq worsen as unrest grows

[August]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

August, im not picking on you, only these 3 words that orginally came out of George W Bush's mouth.

These words are hallow, empty, meaningless rhetoric. Spoken, trumpeted, repeated, and is the patriotic battle cry by people who have absolutely nothing to directly deal with the situation they're supporting. Its easy to support "the course" when your not the one who has to travel it. Its as if your in support of gambling with other peoples lives, with zero risk to yourself.

These words are meaningless unless spoken by the men doing the fighting. If your not there, nor you, or i, have any buisness speaking words like these.

Well obviously i disagree. "Stay the course" as a term was not invented by George Bush. No war has ever gone well from the beginning. One should never start anything that one isn't willing to see through.

For example in 1862 things looked pretty bad for the Union. There were many calls to quit on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line but thank God for our nation that there were people like Lincoln in charge who stayed the course and kept this country from fragmenting into a collection of nation states.

Skip to 1940. Hitlers u-boats were roaming the atlantic squeezing the lifeblood from England while his bombers raided London day and night.

In these and many other conflicts throughout our history there were voices calling for us to quit or stay out of it. Leave the British and French to fend for themselves.

Support for a conflict MUST come from BOTH the troops "over there" and the folks back home. Maybe my opinion is indeed meaningless but then again i don't see the opposite side of this debate asking the troops over the what they want either.

I have relatives, friends and former comrades, people i served with in the Army, "over there" and they are telling me their biggest fear is that they will be pulled out before they can finish the job. If that happens their sacrifices will indeed be meaningless.

[STEED]

Is this mess ever going to have a good ending?

Hard to see that at the moment.

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

A thinking like yours brought us/America into Iraq. But a thinking like yours won't get us/you out. You let your troops staying there all for nothing now. That is called "staying the course", doesn'T it sound heroic. And while they risk their heads, it simply is because politicians do not want to admit that it was a big mistake, and that it even is no wishable option for the West to have a democratically elected Islamist rulership over there.

They cannot accomplish a mission there anymore, for the mission is gone, and it was a mission impossible from the beginning. And noone cares if sad little Iceman likes that or not. Get your countrymen out of there if you really care for patriotic sentiments. The game is over. You lost.

And listen to guys like blue3gulf, or Ducimus.

And thinking like yours kept the Coalition in Desert Storm from finishing the job that was started way back in 1991. The US and Britain have been in Iraq since then, keeping the lid on Saddam. Being shot at and being killed to keep that monster from regaining his strength.

Germany was quite happy to have the Americans and British do that dirty job forever. All the while making back door deals with Saddam to rebuild his military capabilites. Should we now see you as the voice of reason? I think not.

[STEED]

Originally Posted by August

Germany was quite happy to have the Americans and British do that dirty job forever. All the while making back door deals with Saddam to rebuild his military capabilites. Should we now see you as the voice of reason? I think not.

That's a hard sell, but don't forget Germany stared two world wars and these days they keep a low profile. But on saying that it's a good case August.

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by August

[And thinking like yours kept the Coalition in Desert Storm from finishing the job that was started way back in 1991.

Can you tell us why Papa Bush did not eliminate Saddam back then and why the US did not stand behind the Shi'ite revolt against Saddam shortly thereafter?

[August]

Originally Posted by The Avon Lady

Can you tell us why Papa Bush did not eliminate Saddam back then and why the US did not stand behind the Shi'ite revolt against Saddam shortly thereafter?

My personal opinion is that GB senior was afraid of the potential political backlash both at home and abroad if he allowed Swartzkopf to do anything more than just eject Iraq from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

I have long been ashamed that we abandoned the Kurds and Shi'ites after encouraging them to revolt. No fly zones helped a little but obviously not nearly enough.

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by August

My personal opinion is that GB senior was afraid of the potential political backlash both at home and abroad if he allowed Swartzkopf to do anything more than just eject Iraq from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

I have long been ashamed that we abandoned the Kurds and Shi'ites after encouraging them to revolt. No fly zones helped a little but obviously not nearly enough.

Just so you should know where I'm coming from:

1. I don't believe the US waged war in Iraq for oil.

2. I do believe that WMDs was an actual security concern.

3. I do believe that US security agencies failed (and that's an understatement) in their on-the-ground assessments.

4. I do not know if said WMDs were snuck out of Iraq or simply did not exist.

5. I do believe the US did the right thing in attacking Iraq at the time.

6. I don't believe the US made a good assessment of what would happen after the invasion (same said security agencies are to blame - along with overly optimistic and seemingly ignorant top military planners).

7. I do believe that an Islamic Sha'ria law government will arise in Iraq, whether the US does or does not succeed in Iraq.

8. I do not believe that such an Islamic government will be an ally of the US.

9. I do believe that getting rid of Saddam was overall a good thing.

10. I do believe that had the coalition forces not been fighting Al Qaeda now in Iraq, there would have been many more 9/11s, Madrids and Londons over the last 3 years.

11. I do believe that the Coalition should expedite whatever is needed to prepare the present Iraqi government to fend for itself and wish them "goodbye and goodluck" ASAP.

12. I do believe in cutting one's losses and hedging one's bets.

13. I don't believe that the west has seen the last of military conflict in the region, even should the Coalition forces leave Iraq tomorrow.

14. I do believe that I'm am a patriotic US citizen, proud of my county's attempts to free Iraq of the tyranny that gripped it for some 40 years and that suggesting that the US get out of the way and let the 2 battling sides within Iraq go at each other's throats is in the best interests of the Coalition and possibly even the vast majority of Iraqis.

15. There is no 15th thingy.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by August

And thinking like yours kept the Coalition in Desert Storm from finishing the job that was started way back in 1991.

Certainly not me. I have always criticised that decision to stop that war and leave Saddam untouched. I always sdaid that it was an unfisniehd job. And I always said that I regarded it as a betrayel of the troops that were enaged on that conflict.

And finally I never said anythign different from that 1991's silly decision was the triggering event that lost the Iraq issue once and for all in the next 15 years. It is like in chess, sometimes one player makes a silly move, and then can never recover from that stupid move, and thus inevitably looses the match.

Tell me one thing, what do you prefer: a brutal tyrant and suppressor ignoring democratical legitimation but by use of furce keeps fundamentalism in check, or a Sharia-based fundamentalist government with democratical legitimiation that nevertheless is hostile towards the West? Before making your selection simply assume that you cannot have both.

Your country was pressing hard on Mubarak to allow more democratical elections in 2005. the direct result is that mubarak now has to deal with a fundamentalist oppositon formed by the extreme Muslim Brotherhood, they increased their size and influence from 17 seats to 84, that's a factor of five. Their "parliament" has 454 seats. There are other minor extremist groups as well. If the election would have been fully democratic, you now would have one open enemy more in the ME.

I red the biography of Steven Kuhn, who was tanker in that war of 91 (he was member of that crew that won the Canadian Army Trophy 1987). He did a very impressive job in describing how the troops felt when seeing the massacre against the Shias and they themselves were not allowed to do anything about it while in their viewing range hundreds and thousands were slaughtered down and Iraqi soldiers laughed at the namercians on the other side of the red line. (Kuhn'S book
http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASI...277241-5714605
is that critical and bitter that until today no american publisher was willing to publish his book, it is available in German only. Today Kuhn lives in Berlin, deeply disappointed, but still considering himself an american patriot. After he had broken down after the war, suffering from GWS, he once said: "America made me a man/male, but Germany turned me into a human"). It needs more than a star and a rifle to command men, I think. You also need the ability to "climb" inside your fighters heads and minds, you need to feel how they feel in their hearts. Both Bushs fail with flying colours in this, that's what makes them so miserbale leaders, they are clever in fishing people by using the right words, and that is all. That's why I call them the greatest betrayers to their own people since Vietnam. You may complain about Junior being called an imbecile by someone above, because he got elected and is in office. Okay, than he is an elected imbecile in the wrong office, then. Isn't it great what offices are in reach for such a man if only he has enough hundreds of millions of dollars to spend and enough contacts in the economy are supporting him for their own interests?

You are loyal to someone who does not deserve your loyalty, and who is lying to your people and is betraying your countrymen who in good belief sacrifice their lifes for this Zero. That way you put the interests of that man above the interests of your people. And this you call patriotism? I call it a personal cult. The american system, on paper, is a good one, but it also holds great risks. In germany we have no figure like your president, the power is more diverted, enabling the parties to act in their own interst to a greater degree, and preventing a strong "centre" to form decisions and see them through. That way political situation in germany often appears to be paralysed. This weakness was wanted by the Allied who insisted on the Grundgesetz beeing designed like that, so thta no central "Führer" shall be able to emerge again. The American president, on the other hands, is such a strong figure, that he can act with greater independence from the parties (of which there are only two), enabling him to impose his political course more easily on the country, and the parties. this comes at the risk of that this concentration of power is more easily abused and corrupted, because the mechanisms for countercontrolling the president (weakening him that way, like in germany: several german chancellors had not been brought down not by the opposition but their own parties!) are weaker. Unfortunately the current guy in the white house makes maximum use of this weakness, deactivating major principles of your constitutional order that way.

Concerning Germany's deals with Saddam - it was not alone in doing so. Your country did as well. And all Western countries supported Saddam and enabled him to build chemicals. And we all hailed him when he slaughtered the Iranians after his aggression, and we did not oppose when he gassed the Kurds. It is of no use to selectively pick up those notes only that fits your views. No Western country deserves any fame for it's role towards Iraq.

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

....

Sky it would take simply too much of my time to argue each and every one of your points in that post.

It is, i believe, a tactic you commonly employ here. Sort of like an internet debate version of the Chinese human wave attack. IE: Overwhelm the opposition with posts that are so lengthy and that cover so many topics that it would take an inordinate amount of time and effort to counter each and every one.

Suffice to say i disagree with nearly all of it. I do recognize however your claim to have been against the premature ending of Desert Storm.

[Skybird]

No tactic. Just doing justice to the fact that things in reality are not so simple that they allow solutions that can be described in 20 seconds news-spots, or a headline without a report.

You may be surprised, but I think on a theoretical level we are not so far apart. Just in our judgement to what degree theory is implemented in practice we start to differ. But some basic splits would remain, admitted.

Nichts für ungut,
Sky

[TteFAboB]

The only tactic I see here is smoke-screen.

The future of Iraq goes to the backstage and George W Bush and Saddam come into the scene again.

[Kapitan]

Dont believe america waged war just for oil what else is there to wage war about in that region ? they went into afghanistan that is also an oil rich country now iraq that too is oil rich and iran is on the books oh and that has the 2nd largest oil reserves on earth.

Amazing they are not waging war for oil.

I personaly see america as a greedy arrogant nation that is big headed and pompus (note not the people just the policy). why would you go to war on a whim because some one might be telling the truth about them wanting to use nuclear power for domestic reasons?

In going to war with arabs all the time it only creates more problems for all sides.

1) people on both sides die
2) economys slump
3) millaterys become over streached
4) creates more terrorism because people are hacked off with the west for what they are doing to thier home land.

if america acctualy got its head out of its arse for once and see they aint doing good to the world but more damage then maybe we could all get along nicely.

America is the police state and just like the real police there a bunch of W***ers

( NOTE THIS IS NOT TO OFFEND AMERICANS IT IS A RANT ABOUT THIER POLICY AND JUST MY PERSONAL OPINION PLEASE DO NOT BE OFFENDED BY THIS STATEMENT!)

[Iceman]

Originally Posted by The Avon Lady

15. There is no 15th thingy.

Lol...

Skybird....Have you ever heard the saying when you are green you grow when you are ripe you rot?
.... please...no more I told you so's ... it sounds like something a child would keep saying,really I think it is beneath you.

and Kaptain don't bother with trying to hide behind a smoke screen of ...I'm not trying to offend the American people....the American people elected it's officials so we stand behind our government in it's decisions...it's ok...we as Americans don't really trust Germany for that matter either possibly because of your past worldly ambitions...and I recognize it is your people to blame not your government...the people are the governments don't try to dance around the truth....we still think ya suck it's ok.

[SmokinTep]

Maybe we should just let them kill each other off.........

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by SmokinTep

Maybe we should just let them kill each other off.........

That is indeed one of the assumed occurrences should the Coalition pack up.

Kaptain, so where is all this extra oil the US is basking in? And check your facts: Afghanistan is not an oil producing country. And are you saying that the US attack on Afghanistan was not justified? Do you recall the reason for the offensive or did it slip your mind?