Iraq is nearly over. BTW we won.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Radar

Actually, it's the end of the Bush nightmare, so suddenly without any change in circumstances, they magically want to declare victory...and what an empty victory it is.

Nixon also knew Nam was unwinnable when he entered office. His only objective - not lose that war under his watch. Spin included "peace with honor". So Nixon sacrificed precious treasures for his greater glory. Like Iraq, Nam was a civil war made more complex by American presence. As in "Mission Accomplished"", the president said anything to avoid that reality. Where have the reasons for civil war been eliminated in "Mission Accomplished"?

George Jr got exactly what he wanted - a war that would not end on his watch. We are now committed to "Mission Accomplished" until 2011 when Iraqis kick us out. We learn after that whether a strategic objective was achieved - and whose strategic objective gets achieved.

As in Nam, body counts don’t measure results or define a strategic objective. Known to those who learned the lessons of Nam.

[Radar]

As the Iraqi vets against the war in Iraq say....

YOU CAN'T WIN AN OCCUPATION!

[tw]

Originally Posted by Radar

As the Iraqi vets against the war in Iraq say....
YOU CAN'T WIN AN OCCUPATION!

Since a "Mission Accomplished" occupation has almost been won, then American troops will be leaving soon. After all, Phase four planning is mostly accomplished in 6 months. The strategic objective - a political settlement - is almost complete. However Sec of Defense Gates says "Mission Accomplished" will be ongoing for many years. From the Washington Post of 10 Sept 2008:

Pentagon chief cites caution on US troop pullout
But even as Gates hinted at possible further troop cuts in Iraq, he said a go-slow approach is justified by several worrisome circumstances, including slow progress on the political front.

Slow is an understatement. A political solution - the purpose of war - all but does not exist. How can this be if we are winning? Another lesson from Nam. One can win every tactical objective (every battle) and still lose the war. In "Mission Accomplished", a political settlement is absolutely required. Even Sec of Defense Gates admits that will not happen for many years.

"Our military commanders do not yet believe our gains are necessarily enduring _

Of course not. No political settlement is in sight. The surge has not achieved a strategic objective despite so much rhetoric posted by others that ignores that fact.

The Defense secretary said sectarian tensions still exist in Iraq and have the potential to undo recent security progress.

which is exactly what happens when a political settlement does not exist.

How curious. Our leaders said a Nam victory required many more years. With no political settlement, that war was lost. George Jr (Cheney) got exactly what he (and Nixon) wanted - the war to be lost on someone else's watch. The Surge accomplished what George Jr wanted.

Meanwhile, due to no Phase Four planning and due to no strategic objective, Afghanistan is only getting worse. Same mistake made by same wacko extremists. Troops removed from Iraq must be deployed in greater numbers in Afghanistan. Another Vietnam because the time to achieve a strategic objective in Afghanistan was instead wasted by Pearl Harboring Iraq. Just another example of why wacko extremists are so dangerous to their own nation. "Mission Accomplished".

Despite so much rhetoric here to the contrary, Iraq is no closer to being a victory - as even Gates' testimoney before the House says. Without a political settlement, "Mission Accomplished" cannot and will not be won. Deja vue Nam.

[TheMercenary]

Round table discussion with commanders.

http://www.blackfive.net/main/2008/0...roun.html#more

[classicman]

An interesting piece form Merc's link

Iraq's central government has had a good year due to the inflated price of oil and the return of their oil industry. (The US government has been complicit in keeping the price of oil artificially high through this period, by pursuing a weak-dollar policy: the oil market runs on dollars, not Euros or other currency, and so our government is directly responsible for this flow of revenue to Iraq. In terms of stabilizing Iraq, the economic boom our weak-dollar policy generated made tremendous sense, but I have yet to see the politician with the guts to explain it to the public in an election year.)

[xoxoxoBruce]

The weak dollar means a bigger pile of dollars for Iraq, but that only helps them if they are spending those dollars here. I suspect they are buying substantial amounts of food and arms from the U.S.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Radar

UG is always the apologist for tyrrany [sic].... as long as it's America who is the tyrant.

This kind of thinking keeps you in a condition of complete noncomprehension of American history, radar, particularly the history of the last hundred years. Everyone but you knows better, and a good many of the ones who do are now glaring at you. Your desire that we be the tyrant -- howsomever -- makes you one very stupid leftist, committed forever to the wrong. Geez, are you ever easy to sucker. You cannot be right and be the way you are, radar. Wise up -- what America does is shoot at tyrants, which you will never acknowledge, from remarkably silly motivations. You are a slave to many stupid emotional desires, and you really need a liberation which you aren't able to comprehend, owing to your resolute purblindness -- you'd rather be the schmuck you're used to being than a rational thinker about policy. Ranting emotionalism and telling me how awful I am for pointing out where your ideas aren't cutting it do not amount to reinforcing your argument. Instead, you lose it utterly.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Tw thinks active strugglers for democracy amount to "wacko extremists." Noted, and despised. Tw has no faith in democracy or in liberal social orders' historically-proven goodness, prosperity, and general fairness. After all, if he objects so vehemently to removing tyranny and replacing it with democracy, then what social paradigm does tw prefer instead of democracies? He's afraid to answer frankly.

Effin' wacko. Likely got a swastika inlaid in his linoleum.

[Radar]

Democracy does not equate to freedom or liberty. Killing people to force democracy on them is not spreading freedom and is not spreading libertarianism.

America does indeed practice tyranny, both at home and abroad. Unlike UG, I have a firm and accurate comprehension of reality, geopolitical conditions, and American and world history. America props up dictatorships, overthrows democracies, trains and arms terrorists, puts murderers into positions of authority, sticks its nose where it doesn't belong, bullies other countries (including our allies), acts like America is the police or the boss of the world, gets involved in every petty dispute among other nations, arms both sides of every conflict, etc.

UGs philosophy can't stand the light of day. It's the philosophy of murderers and tyrants. He doesn't think clearly or rationally. He is devoid of reason and intellect. The hilarious thing is hi outcries that we should violate the U.S. Constitution and misuse the U.S. military to murder other people to force American democracy on them is nothing but emotional whimpering. If he were able to think clearly, objectively, and intelligently, he would see the HUGE flaws, gaping holes, and pure emotionalism of his arguments.

He is actually stupid enough to believe if someone else invades a country without provocation, murders people, and overthrows the leadership of that country, they are a tyrant, but if someone does the same thing with an American uniform on, they are defenders of freedom.

UG has never been the brightest bulb on the tree. He has never had anything even remotely resembling facts, logic, reason, or truth behind him; just emotional pleas, an inferiority complex, and a philosophy shared by despots and tyrants like Kim Jong Il, Robert Mugabe, Vladimir Putin, Saddam Hussein, etc.

Despots and tyrants always think they are doing the right thing. They always believe they are helping people. Adolph Hitler genuinely believed he was helping the people of Germany and cleaning up the world. Of course these pathetic people are insane, clueless, and have no grasp on reality; much like UG.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Radar

I have a firm and accurate comprehension of reality, geopolitical conditions, and American and world history.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Radar's elaborate disguises of his tyrannical nature behind a cloak of social acceptability and moral pretense fool no one, and show the dimness of his own bulb.

Paul, you continue in your daily abdication of any moral standing. Quit digging yourself deeper before the hole caves in on your head.

You have long ceased to argue the actual merits of your own case, and absurdly enough concentrate on attacking a homemade caricature of what you would like my argument to really be, or which you think it is. Strawman tactics when you try them may impress you. Why do you think they'd impress me?

Your situation, quite in keeping with the likes of Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, is in essence that you set some consideration over the worth of human liberty. Yet as a libertarian, you need to understand that without liberty, life just ain't worth living, and that this is true not merely for Americans, but for all of humanity. This idea you will note does not stop at America's borders. Humanity's troubles come from the places that are unfree -- as even you do not dispute. When unfree places are blessed with freedom, wealth and contentment ensue, because the greatest human obstacles to wealth are swept aside. Hence, liberty is the most important thing. I recognize this. I want to get it for the peoples who don't have it, and I see no moral tinge supplied by who does the getting. Fighting for it brings two things: death for the slavemongers, and a consequent inability to keep anyone enslaved. You are half right: the people who get killed don't get democracy forced on them. Instead, it forces them out of the oppression game, and permanently. Those who survive are the ones that get the democracy, and it isn't forced. It is what they want, and if they get it, we get much less in the way of trouble.

Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot as well as Mugabe etcetera all thought something else should be set above human liberty, and all acted on this belief. You too set something above obliterating tyranny (clear enough from your vehement opposition to it) and above human liberty, which is something I do not do. You, my friend, are keeping some very unsavory philosophical company. It's a symptom of a narcissistically disordered personality -- examine Mao in particular for pathological narcissism, and the light may dawn. Well, it'll dawn for a man capable of thinking rationally for real, and not just simulating the ability.

The argument against the idea that America practices international tyranny is easily and convincingly made to sane readers: the United States Navy is a huge, bluewater operation beside which all other navies on the planet look more like coast guards, and often handle only a coastguard mission. The interesting point is that no one, not even the well liberated and rather prickly and quite wealthy English-speaking nations, is trying in the least to build a navy to fight ours, and the US Navy can readly put ordnance on target in nearly every nation on the globe. Not even China, on which some cast a suspicious eye, is making anything visible as an effort at this. Japan is abundantly wealthy and could raise up a two-ocean (Pacific, Indian, Persian Gulf) navy that could eclipse the Imperial Japanese Navy for global power. They could use a navy like that themselves to act in their national interest, but clearly conceive that they don't need to.

No one not a self-declared enemy is worried about what we will do with our Navy, and they are not worried about what we will do with our Army either. Something heard often, and in all kinds of odd places in trouble spots is, "When will the Americans come and help?" Tyranny, my bilobate ass, Paul. Your entire argument has just collapsed, falsified.

The entire globe trusts us to shoot only at the bad actors or they would be arming against us. They aren't.

Time for you to stop desiring the United States to be tyrannous; what happens to Paul Ireland's corporeal form should your manifest desire come true? I figure it'd be a wall and a blindfold. This might be understandable after somebody gets enough of a bellyful of your Michael Newdow fashion of thought and interaction with mankind, but still it would amount to just a bit much, no?

Your incapacity for liberationism tells me that on some deep level, you just plain don't get humanity. Not like I do. You don't have, for you flatly refuse it, the clue that humans want their freedom, and can do things with it that anything less cannot allow, and never does.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

This is really part of the previous post, but Edit seems to be glitching.

The entire globe is trusting us to shoot only at the bad actors. If they did not trust us so, and if we were not proving worthy of the trust, they would be arming against us. They aren't, and they aren't planning an arms race either.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Meanwhile, on the blog The Monarchist, some thoughtful commentary; the blogger reckons libertarianism to be the second-best governmental mindset, setting constitutionalism in first place.

[Radar]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Radar's elaborate disguises of his tyrannical nature behind a cloak of social acceptability and moral pretense fool no one, and show the dimness of his own bulb.

Paul, you continue in your daily abdication of any moral standing. Quit digging yourself deeper before the hole caves in on your head.

If we were to compare our moral standings on earth, yours would be at the deepest part of the Mariana's Trench and mine on the top of Mount Everest. You have no moral standing whatsoever. You are trying to rationalize invading other nations and killing people, and I am saying that killing people is wrong, and they have a right and a duty to determine their own destiny. I've never even hinted that the tyranny others suffer through is socially acceptable. I've said that it is horrible, and I hope that they will find a way to shed the chains of their oppressors for themselves in the same way America did for ourselves.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

You have long ceased to argue the actual merits of your own case, and absurdly enough concentrate on attacking a homemade caricature of what you would like my argument to really be, or which you think it is. Strawman tactics when you try them may impress you. Why do you think they'd impress me?

As usual, you accuse me of doing the very thing you are doing. You used a strawman in the last paragraph of this same post. I am willing to bet I could find 20 strawmen you have created and attacked in this thread alone.

I have provided concrete proof that your positions are not only unconstitutional, but violate the teachings of every single historically significant libertarian. I've proven that you don't know the meaning of the word libertarian or its origins.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Your situation, quite in keeping with the likes of Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, is in essence that you set some consideration over the worth of human liberty. Yet as a libertarian, you need to understand that without liberty, life just ain't worth living, and that this is true not merely for Americans, but for all of humanity. This idea you will note does not stop at America's borders.

It is not up to you to decide what priority others should place on liberty or whether their lives aren't worth living. That decision belongs to each of us. In every country where people are living under the thumb of a tyrannical government, the people of that country have placed life above liberty. In even the harshest and most restrictive countries on earth, the people could take over the government if they chose to. If they really believed that liberty was worth more than life, they could beat the forces of that government. They can do this in North Korea, Russia, China, Vietnam, or anywhere else. No government has the power or desire to kill everyone in their country. They would have nobody to rule. If the people stand together, they will win. Liberty is to be won by those who would have it.

I agree that freedom and liberty are for all people. But America has no moral, ethical, or legal authority or obligation to take part in winning freedom of liberty for anyone but ourselves. I am the well-wisher of freedom and liberty to all, but the champion only of my own. This is one of the principles upon which America was built.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Humanity's troubles come from the places that are unfree -- as even you do not dispute.

Humanities troubles come from humanity. When humans learn not to invade other countries or kill people simply because they live under different laws, or have a different view of what freedom or liberty mean, the world will be a better place.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

When unfree places are blessed with freedom, wealth and contentment ensue, because the greatest human obstacles to wealth are swept aside. Hence, liberty is the most important thing. I recognize this.

You are entitled to your opinion, but not entitled to force it upon others.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

I want to get it for the peoples who don't have it, and I see no moral tinge supplied by who does the getting. Fighting for it brings two things: death for the slavemongers, and a consequent inability to keep anyone enslaved.

You see no moral problems with invading and murdering thousands or millions of people because you are insane. You are a tyrant at heart and you think you have some god given right to kill people and to enforce whatever YOUR vision of freedom happens to be (which in this case is an unlibertarian nightmare). What you want to do is on a moral par with a scenario where China invaded America and "liberated" us from the oppression of democracy and capitalism. Their view of freedom and liberation is different from ours. They have absolutely zero moral or legal authority to invade, murder Americans, or to enforce what they believe to be freedom; nor does America have the legal or moral authority to do this to anyone else.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

You are half right: the people who get killed don't get democracy forced on them. Instead, it forces them out of the oppression game, and permanently. Those who survive are the ones that get the democracy, and it isn't forced. It is what they want, and if they get it, we get much less in the way of trouble.

Stop using the term democracy and freedom interchangeably. They are not the same thing. Democracy isn't what those people want, or they would already have it. They don't need your help or that of the U.S. military to get it. The role of the U.S. military doesn't include spreading or diminishing democracy or to "liberate" people of other nations. You are mentally damaged enough to suggest that murdering people (and yes, it is murder) because you want them to live in a way that they haven't chosen for themselves is okey dokey and indicative of libertarianism. This is like saying you want to promote abstinence through rape. No part of what you believe is even close to being a billionth of libertarianism. The only thing you know about libertarianism is how to spell the word, and you probably have to look that up.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot as well as Mugabe etcetera all thought something else should be set above human liberty, and all acted on this belief.

Wrong. Hitler, Stalin, etc. believed that THEIR VERSION of human liberty could best be spread by killing what they believed to be the enemies of liberty, like Jews. In short, they shared your exact philosophy. They wanted to "obliterate tyranny" by killing those they saw as enemies of it... in their insane and twisted little brains....like yours...only yours is smaller.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

You too set something above obliterating tyranny (clear enough from your vehement opposition to it) and above human liberty, which is something I do not do.

This is because, unlike you, I am a sane person with a grasp on reality and a comprehension of the world around me. I set protecting my own freedom and liberty and those of my countrymen above misusing the military to murder people and enforce so-called "freedom" at the point of a gun. Freedom is under constant attack right here in America. It's something you don't seem to grasp...a little something called personal responsibility. I am responsibile for my freedom and making sure my government doesn't infringe on my freedoms or those of my family or countrymen. People in other countries are responsible for their freedom and for making sure their government best represents them. I have no authority beyond my own borders to enforce what I believe to be freedom onto others who may have a different viewpoint. They have no authority to do that to us. The U.S. Government has no authority beyond the borders of the U.S.A., especially to practice nation building or democracy spreading.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

You, my friend, are keeping some very unsavory philosophical company.

Yes, the company I'm keeping is very unsavory. Characters like Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Locke, Harry Browne, every libertarian author in history, Jesus of Nazareth, etc...

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

It's a symptom of a narcissistically disordered personality -- examine Mao in particular for pathological narcissism, and the light may dawn.

You seem to know a lot about that mental disorder. Perhaps because you have this and many others. My self-esteem is well placed and has nothing at all to do with narcisissm. I'd say claiming that YOUR vision of freedom and liberty supercede those of millions of other people across the world and that this empowers you to muder people to force it on them is pretty damned narcisisstic.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Well, it'll dawn for a man capable of thinking rationally for real, and not just simulating the ability.

Says the guy who supports wholesale murder and thinks his personal vision of freedom or liberty empower him to slaughter innocent others so he can force it on the people of other nations.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

The argument against the idea that America practices international tyranny is easily and convincingly made to sane readers:

Sanity is something you know nothing about; nor is making a convincing argument.

[Radar]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

the United States Navy is a huge, bluewater operation beside which all other navies on the planet look more like coast guards, and often handle only a coastguard mission. The interesting point is that no one, not even the well liberated and rather prickly and quite wealthy English-speaking nations, is trying in the least to build a navy to fight ours, and the US Navy can readly put ordnance on target in nearly every nation on the globe.

You’re actually stupid enough to suggest that other nations not building a gigantic navy in order to fight ours means they support and agree with the insane idea that America should overthrow non-democratic nations? America's military is paid for by China. America borrows money to build this bloated and misused military. America spends more money on military spending than the next 20 militaries combined. Do other countries want to go into debt to fight an American military? Not unless they must. Why? Because they aren't insane people who think they have a duty or obligation to kill those who don't share the same form of government we do.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Not even China, on which some cast a suspicious eye, is making anything visible as an effort at this. Japan is abundantly wealthy and could raise up a two-ocean (Pacific, Indian, Persian Gulf) navy that could eclipse the Imperial Japanese Navy for global power. They could use a navy like that themselves to act in their national interest, but clearly conceive that they don't need to.

China has nothing to worry about our navy, and China paid for it anyway. Japan enjoys not paying for a military. They'd rather be under the bloated, oversized, and expensive American military.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

No one not a self-declared enemy is worried about what we will do with our Navy, and they are not worried about what we will do with our Army either. Something heard often, and in all kinds of odd places in trouble spots is, "When will the Americans come and help?" Tyranny, my bilobate ass, Paul. Your entire argument has just collapsed, falsified.

Being a self-declared enemy of America is an invite for insane and idiotic assholes like you to misuse the military to attack them. America doesn't invade nations that actually pose a threat to us anymore. We only attack weak nations who have natural resources we want. When America steps on the wrong toes, which will be sooner than you think, the world will unite against us and no matter what you think of America's military, we will lose.

Your entire argument is nothing. Mine is as solid as a rock. You do nothing but lie, accuse me of the stupid tactics that you are guilty of, and trying to rationalize genocide.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

The entire globe trusts us to shoot only at the bad actors or they would be arming against us. They aren't.

This is an outright lie. The world doesn't trust America to only kill the bad guys. In fact the world now looks at America like the single most dangerous rogue nation on earth that attacks without justifiable cause against countries that posed no harm to it. Even our allies hate our guts now thanks to the ignorant ilk in the Bush administration who share your stupid ideas.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Time for you to stop desiring the United States to be tyrannous;

I don't desire it. In fact I desire the United States to stop being tyrannous. This is why I'm setting idiots like you straight, and demanding that the government abide by the Constitution and stop using our military for any reason other than to defend America.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

what happens to Paul Ireland's corporeal form should your manifest desire come true? I figure it'd be a wall and a blindfold. This might be understandable after somebody gets enough of a bellyful of your Michael Newdow fashion of thought and interaction with mankind, but still it would amount to just a bit much, no?

Don't be so dismissive. The U.S. Government has indeed murdered, tortured, and imprisoned innocent American people and otherwise violated their rights.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Your incapacity for liberationism tells me that on some deep level, you just plain don't get humanity. Not like I do. You don't have, for you flatly refuse it, the clue that humans want their freedom, and can do things with it that anything less cannot allow, and never does.

Your dishonesty, and inability to both grasp reality and the essence of libertarianism tells me that you are as inhuman and tyrannical as they come. You are genuinely insane. You are only care about liberty, freedom, and humanity as much as Adolph Hitler. You have no clue whatsoever about humanity or reality for that matter. Those who want freedom will have it. Those who don't won't. Those who don't choose democracy may still be choosing freedom. Democracy and freedom are not synonymous. Neither you, nor the U.S. Government has any mandate, or authority to invade other nations to "liberate" people who live under a different system so you can force whatever you deem to be freedom onto them.

Seek the help of a team of psychologists for your narcissistic personality disorder, your delusions, and your pathological lying.