Cutting off funding is not a plan
If the plan is to withdraw, cutting off funding IS a plan.
Funny considering how much criticism we've heard from the left of the planning for post-invasion how little seems to be required for post-withdrawal. I guess it depends who's driving. :-)
Here is the video of Saddam Hussein being hung:
http://www.livevideo.com/video/landing/DE7A396FC77A4094A98B3E14554F37E7/saddam-hussein-hanging-video.aspx
This video shows why Iraq is a horrible country that has no hope of improving anytime soon. The hanging of Saddam Hussein is undeniably a significant event in human history - right? So how do the Iraqi people record this important event? With a cheap camcorder shot by some jerk who could not hold the camera steady to save his life!
I also love how the spectators are yelling and barking - what class! It was not a "hanging" it was a "lynching". How pathetic.
Can we please send our soldiers home now? Let the monkeys run their own zoo!
Here is the video of Saddam Hussein being hung
Hanged
This video shows why Iraq is a horrible country that has no hope of improving anytime soon. The hanging of Saddam Hussein is undeniably a significant event in human history - right? So how do the Iraqi people record this important event?
Cultural difference - it is not uncommon to see capital or corporal punishment in Arab countries - it is shown on the networks and/ or a public event. Horrible is neither here nor there - I personally think any capital punishment is horrible but I don't judge America by it
With a cheap camcorder shot by some jerk who could not hold the camera steady to save his life!
Clandestine filming. Probably on a mobile phone that he was trying to conceal. Are you complaining that you aren't getting a good enough view of the lynching then?
I also love how the spectators are yelling and barking - what class! It was not a "hanging" it was a "lynching". How pathetic.
They were there, it is their country and their idea of justice. You are the one circulating this for - what reason? - morbid curiousity value? titillation? unable to get tickets to your local execution?
Damn, if only there had been people with mobiles at the one where his half-brother's head popped off, right?
Can we please send our soldiers home now? Let the monkeys run their own zoo!
As long as they film the monkey deaths for us to circulate.
Well, the entire war is only going to cost, what,
50 or 60 billion dollars, right? I'm sure we could spare some extra change.
Oh, you say it cost
just a tiny bit more than that, currently?
What was once
$4.4 billion/month in 2003 is now almost double that. Instead of throwing/not throwing money at the problem, how about we look at what we're doing
wrong and
what isn't working.
Nah!
Let's just ignore the advice and stay the course!We need to something about it. I think the Dems have right idea but this will only cause more problems because Bush isn't going to budge and try to blame his loss on the Democrats.
Can we please send our soldiers home now? Let the monkeys run their own zoo!
Exactly who are the "monkeys" to whom you are referring?
Kitsune - did you even read the articles?
Democrats are positioned to offer a plan for Iraq, but cutting off funding is not a plan.
Democrats are not positioned to offer a plan in Iraq. The writer likes to call on Democrats to be bipartisan, but anything the Democrats offer will be ignored by Bush. The only thing they can do to affect what
Bush plans is manipulate the funding. Not that that is necessarily a viable idea, since I wouldn't put it past Bush to let the funds run out without pulling out, and then blame the results on the Democrats.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/16/AR2007011601334.html
Interesting comparison of the Iraq situation to Vietnam.
"This is like deja vu all over again."
-- Yogi Berra
Insurgencies Rarely Win – And Iraq Won’t Be Any Different (Maybe)
By Donald Stoker
Posted January 2007
Vietnam taught many Americans the wrong lesson: that determined guerrilla fighters are invincible. But history shows that insurgents rarely win, and Iraq should be no different. Now that it finally has a winning strategy, the Bush administration is in a race against time to beat the insurgency before the public’s patience finally wears out.
Not invincible: The that insurgents can’t be beaten is a myth, because history shows otherwise.
The cold, hard truth about the Bush administration’s strategy of “surging” additional U.S. forces into Iraq is that it could work. Insurgencies are rarely as strong or successful as the public has come to believe. Iraq’s various insurgent groups have succeeded in creating a lot of chaos. But they’re likely not strong enough to succeed in the long term. Sending more American troops into Iraq with the aim of pacifying Baghdad could provide a foundation for their ultimate defeat, but only if the United States does not repeat its previous mistakes.
Myths about invincible guerrillas and insurgents are a direct result of America’s collective misunderstanding of its defeat in South Vietnam. This loss is generally credited to the brilliance and military virtues of the pajama-clad Vietcong. The Vietnamese may have been tough and persistent, but they were not brilliant. Rather, they were lucky—they faced an opponent with leaders unwilling to learn from their failures: the United States. When the Vietcong went toe-to-toe with U.S. forces in the 1968 Tet Offensive, they were decimated. When South Vietnam finally fell in 1975, it did so not to the Vietcong, but to regular units of the invading North Vietnamese Army. The Vietcong insurgency contributed greatly to the erosion of the American public’s will to fight, but so did the way that President Lyndon Johnson and the American military waged the war. It was North Vietnam’s will and American failure, not skillful use of an insurgency, that were the keys to Hanoi’s victory.
Similar misunderstandings persist over the Soviet Union’s defeat in Afghanistan, the other supposed example of guerrilla invincibility. But it was not the mujahidin’s strength that forced the Soviets to leave; it was the Soviet Union’s own economic and political weakness at home. In fact, the regime the Soviets established in Afghanistan was so formidable that it managed to survive for three years after the Red Army left.
Of course, history is not without genuine insurgent successes. Fidel Castro’s victory in Cuba is probably the best known, and there was the IRA’s partial triumph in 1922, as well as Algeria’s defeat of the French between 1954 and 1962. But the list of failed insurgencies is longer: Malayan Communists, Greek Communists, Filipino Huks, Nicaraguan Contras, Communists in El Salvador, Che Guevara in Bolivia, the Boers in South Africa (twice), Savimbi in Angola, and Sindero Luminoso in Peru, to name just a few. If the current U.S. administration maintains its will, establishes security in Baghdad, and succeeds in building a functioning government and army, there is no reason that the Iraqi insurgency cannot be similarly destroyed, or at least reduced to the level of terrorist thugs.
ernment. If they reach this point, they can very well succeed.Insurgencies generally fail if all they are able to do is fight an irregular war. Successful practitioners of the guerrilla art from Nathanael Greene in the American Revolution to Mao Zedong in the Chinese Civil War have insisted upon having a regular army for which their guerrilla forces served mainly as an adjunct. Insurgencies also have inherent weaknesses and disadvantages vis-à-vis an established state. They lack governmental authority, established training areas, and secure supply lines. The danger is that insurgents can create these things, if given the time to do so. And, once they have them, they are well on their way to establishing themselves as a functioning and powerful alternative to the govt.
That’s why the real question in Iraq is not whether the insurgency can be defeated—it can be. The real question is whether the United States might have already missed its chance to snuff it out. The United States has failed to provide internal security for the Iraqi populace. The result is a climate of fear and insecurity in areas of the country overrun by insurgents, particularly in Baghdad. This undermines confidence in the elected Iraqi government and makes it difficult for it to assert its authority over insurgent-dominated areas. Clearing out the insurgents and reestablishing security will take time and a lot of manpower. Sectarian violence adds a bloody wrinkle. The United States and the Iraqi government have to deal with Sunni and Shia insurgencies, as well as the added complication of al Qaeda guerrillas.
But the strategy of “surging” troops could offer a rare chance for success—if the Pentagon and the White House learn from their past mistakes. Previously, the U.S. military cleared areas such as Baghdad’s notorious Haifa Street, but then failed to follow up with security. So the insurgents simply returned to create havoc. As for the White House, it has so far failed to convince the Iraqi government to remove elements that undermine its authority, such as the Mahdi Army. Bush’s recent speech on Iraq included admissions of these failures, providing some hope that they might not be repeated.
That’s welcome news, because one thing is certain: time is running out. Combating an insurgency typically requires 8 to 11 years. But the administration has done such a poor job of managing U.S. public opinion, to say nothing of the war itself, that it has exhausted many of its reservoirs of support. One tragedy of the Iraq war may be that the administration’s new strategy came too late to avert a rare, decisive insurgent victory.
Donald Stoker is professor of strategy and policy for the U.S. Naval War College’s Monterey Program. His opinions are his own. He is the author or editor of a number of works, including the forthcoming From Mercenaries to Privatization: The Evolution of Military Advising, 1815-2007 (London: Routledge, 2007)
Iraq war cost to hit $8.4 billion a month
Damn, I didn't realize the US troops were paid that well. I guess they'll all come home millionaires. :right:
If the current U.S. administration maintains its will, establishes security in Baghdad, and succeeds in building a functioning government and army, there is no reason that the Iraqi insurgency cannot be similarly destroyed, or at least reduced to the level of terrorist thugs.
Well, Duh. In order to "establish(es) security" and "build(ing) a functioning government and army" the insurgents must first be defeated.
What Stoker doesn't grasp, or at least address, is insurgents are fellow country men with different political ideals. Not true in Iraq. Iraq has a holy civil war going on, which is a whole different animal than political dissidents.
What Stoker doesn't grasp, or at least address, is insurgents are fellow country men with different political ideals. Not true in Iraq. Iraq has a holy civil war going on, which is a whole different animal than political dissidents.
Not exactly true...I believe most of the insurgents are Iranian or Syrians with a direct outside political viewpoint...with Iraq being a threat to their to their balance in the middle east.
What Stoker doesn't grasp, or at least address, is insurgents are fellow country men with different political ideals. Not true in Iraq. Iraq has a holy civil war going on, which is a whole different animal than political dissidents.
Not exactly true...I believe most of the insurgents are Iranian or Syrians with a direct outside political viewpoint...with Iraq being a threat to their to their balance in the middle east.
Not only "their balance", but also their POWER.
What Stoker doesn't grasp, or at least address, is insurgents are fellow country men with different political ideals. Not true in Iraq. Iraq has a holy civil war going on, which is a whole different animal than political dissidents.
Not exactly true...I believe most of the insurgents are Iranian or Syrians with a direct outside political viewpoint...with Iraq being a threat to their to their balance in the middle east.
If you look at the distribution of Muslim sects, Saddam's Sunni minority in Iraq are the majority in Iran. But that's it, the rest of the World is primarily Shia. I can see where the Iranians would have an interest in helping their Bros. But that said, I haven't seen any evidence of more than bomb building trainers and organizers....you know, scoutmasters, coming over. There's plenty of locals in Iraq, with nothing to do and nothing to lose. :(
You know that no one is going anywhere until we secure that oil... it is the reason we went there to begin with.
I can see where the Iranians would have an interest in helping their Bros. But that said, I haven't seen any evidence of more than bomb building trainers and organizers....you know, scoutmasters, coming over. There's plenty of locals in Iraq, with nothing to do and nothing to lose. :(
I don't know either, but I suspect that Iran is doing a lot more than we know of. I have no proof or anything, just suspicions. :shrug:
.......
Not exactly true...I believe most of the insurgents are Iranian or Syrians with a direct outside political viewpoint...with Iraq being a threat to their to their balance in the middle east.
I just love the US Constitution. You can say what you believe.
Even though it's crap of the first order.
I don't know either, but I suspect that Iran is doing a lot more than we know of. I have no proof or anything, just suspicions. :shrug:
Of course, everyone is always doing more than we know of...
As I expected, and as I called it elsewhere: the Dem Party will behave either stupidly or treasonably -- but not well.
Bastards.
Not as treasonous as the Bush administration.
Db, you know I'd tell you that's utter nonsense, and I figure that for reasons that are better than yours. First, and for information you won't ever understand (I know, you see, the rabid anti-Bushies) but which is just for you anyway, having difficulties with a war is simply not treason. You could read your Constitution if you think I'm full of it. I'm only going to speak truth.
If you look at the distribution of Muslim sects, Saddam's Sunni minority in Iraq are the majority in Iran. But that's it, the rest of the World is primarily Shia. I can see where the Iranians would have an interest in helping their Bros. But that said, I haven't seen any evidence of more than bomb building trainers and organizers....you know, scoutmasters, coming over. There's plenty of locals in Iraq, with nothing to do and nothing to lose. :(
I think you've mixed things a bit.
Shias Today
Iran is overwhelmingly Shia - 89%. Shias also form a majority of the population in Yemen and Azerbaijan, Bahrain and 60% of the population of Iraq. There are also sizeable Shia communities along the east coast of Saudi Arabia and in the Lebanon. The well known guerilla organization Hizbollah, which forced the Israelis out of southern Lebanon in 2000, is Shia. Worldwide, Shias constitute ten to fifteen percent of the overall Muslim population.You know that no one is going anywhere until we secure that oil... it is the reason we went there to begin with.
Considering instabilities that now exist, low oil prices are rather surprising. Russia cuts off oil (and gas) to Europe, et al sometimes unexpectedly and even unilaterally forces renegotiation on Sakhalin Island operations. Nigeria maybe headed for civil war. Venezuela clearly wants socialism and an adversarial US. Iraq will not be stable for how many decades? Iran on a list of countries to be unilaterally attacked. The world's most busy oil bottleneck - Strait of Hormuz - centered about numerous wars and adversarial nations thereby threatening supplies from both Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Supplies from both the Alaska North shore and North Sea diminishing at faster than expected rates. Caspian region always unstable.
What does that leave to maintain supply? American Caribbean Sea operations. Libya. A large number of much smaller producers.
Also little discussed is what maybe a major source of oil – Cuba’s west coast. Relevant because Castro may be dying.
I think you've mixed things a bit.~snip
Um...well....er....:o ...ah...I was testing ya...yeah, that's it testing.
Doh, seems I got that exactly backward, din'I. heh heh heh. Would you believe I changed the names to protect the innocent? Din't think so.
If you look at the distribution of Muslim sects, Saddam's Sunni minority in Iraq are the majority in Iran. But that's it, the rest of the World is primarily Shia. I can see where the Iranians would have an interest in helping their Bros. But that said, I haven't seen any evidence of more than bomb building trainers and organizers....you know, scoutmasters, coming over. There's plenty of locals in Iraq, with nothing to do and nothing to lose. :(
Yeah right... they just want to teach the "Kiddies" how to meet Allah in style! How do the MSM determine who exactly plants the bombs and do they interview the suicide bombers afterwards?
Just wind them all up and see who volunteers. Rebellious, sullen, Muslim teens don't have the option of going Goth or Emo, but they can go boom.:(
Db, you know I'd tell you that's utter nonsense, and I figure that for reasons that are better than yours. First, and for information you won't ever understand (I know, you see, the rabid anti-Bushies) but which is just for you anyway, having difficulties with a war is simply not treason. You could read your Constitution if you think I'm full of it. I'm only going to speak truth.
Nonsense? I tell you what is nonsense: not only starting a war based on a pack of lies, then having your cheerleaders calling those who dissent, those who say that the invasion will cause more problems than it is worth, 'Traitors'. Well, I guess that the truth is traitorous, isn't it, urbane?
By the way I favor the invasion, for one simple reason: Saddam was doing his best to foster terrorism. Not with al-Qaida, but with Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian terrorists by paying the families of suicide bombers. I thought that Bush was serious when he had the US troops topple Sadaam as an example of what befalls those who support terrorists. I was disillusioned when Bush did all he could to wreak havoc on ordinary Iraqis' lives, fostering the insurgency that rages into a civil War, and in the process brought Iraq back to the warring period pre-Sadaam.
With his handling of iraq and saying that he doesn't care where bin Laden is, Bush demonstrates that he isn't really serious about his War on Terror, but instead falling into some Neo-con brand of imperialism.
The real plan is to cut off funding in Iraq, reallocating it to Afghanistan, Somalia and the Phillipines, and whatever hot spots develop. In other words, to fight a real War on Terror, and not creating hostile countries in the process. Fight it like a real war. Don't lie to us Bush, don't lie to us.
Don't lie to us Bush, don't lie to us.
You have faith he knows the difference?;)
No I don't; he's just way too stubborn. He thinks he is the next Abe Lincoln that way.
Nonsense? I tell you what is nonsense: not only starting a war based on a pack of lies, then having your cheerleaders calling those who dissent, those who say that the invasion will cause more problems than it is worth, 'Traitors'. Well, I guess that the truth is traitorous, isn't it, urbane?
Constitution, Art. III, Section 3.1.:
"Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in
adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court." [emph. mine]
Section 3.2 goes on to limit the punishment awarded for acts of treason.
While the difference between hard-blown words and overt actions needs no mention, the adjective "treasonable" can certainly be applied not only to the kind of thing you've said, but likewise to the utterances of the bulk of the leadership of the Democratic Party, and this is exacerbated by their utter lack of any strategy put forward to win the war better than the Republicans can. You Democrat dullards can't even get that much right, but you're going to have to if you want ever to grow a moral leg to stand on. You haven't. You don't even have it on the same horizon you occupy. As being too much an American for it to make any difference to our foes whether they sever your American head or mine, you're under an obligation to do that. You have signally failed at this.
Now the "you" goes back from the antiwar people in general to deadbeater in particular: you can search every single post I've ever written. You won't find one solitary syllable of "giving them aid and comfort." Nothing I've said adheres to our nation's enemies, which Republicans simply are not -- and note the Republicans utter no outraged shrieks about having their patriotism impugned -- nary a shriek nor a scream, but listen to the Democrats on the same topic! It's guilt, son, that utters outraged shrieks of innocence.
The only one of your posts that isn't displaying this adherence is number 30 in this thread, which instead shows you being pretty smart and doing some thinking. The difference between thee and me is I know who the good guys are, while you are being purblind. I'd caution you that Bush-hatred is the refuge of the stupid. I don't need a refuge.
What you will find in my posts (aside from some tasty recipes and some pretty fair quips) is some notion of why I think it is worth the problems to have invaded Iraq -- chiefly moral, but from the moral comes the economic also, for the best economics are the moral. No one here has cogently disputed these points -- mostly I just get yelled at for making them and upsetting their comfy little shortsighted assumptions. The eagle sees a lot more than the cow.
Abe Lincoln also caught an awful lot of intemperate shit, mainly for trying to do things that would win the Civil War. Some of it was letters, much of it was editorials.
Sounds like flying BinLadins out of the country & not investigating and following-up in Saudi Arabia like we should have to me.
Rkzen, ask the rest of the bin Laden family if they can stand Osama. He's their remittance man, remember? Does anyone even know if he's recently cashed any of his checks?
And face it, the last people the House of Saud is willing to piss off -- is us. The same House of Saud has taken five thousand or so al-Q symps and operatives right off the table, and pretty permanently, I gather. We are, I think, duly grateful. Moving against these enemies within their own border seems to have worked fairly well, too; they've not taken many hits since, partly from taking enemies down by arrest or killing, partly from choking off the financial conduits these people were maintaining. Terrorism only looks easy and cheap; it's actually difficult and quite expensive to do. It would seem that terrorists, in common with conventional military forces, have ruled out the option of passing out bribes to defeat a foe...
Enemies like a nation that was no threat just to steal oil?
The entirety of BushCo. are traitors and should be treated as such.
Let's see: Osama wanted as one of his goals the US to pull troops out of Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, Iran wanted to get rid of their enemy for power Saddam Hussein. So what did Iran do? Plant evidence via Chalabi to convince Americans that Saddam had WMD on the ready.
So the coalition invaded Saddam on that pretense, and establish permanent bases in Iraq, enabling the US to pull out of...Saudi Arabia. Iran got rid of Saddam, without firing a single shot, and al-Qaida get to practice on Americans (troops and mercenaries) without blowing their budget on travel expenses. Doesn't it occur to you, urbane, that the policy of US troops attacking terrorists 'on their own turf' was exactly what the terrorists wanted? Martyrdom on the cheap.
No wonder Osama and Iran are more than pleased. Bush is essentially doing what they wished. Talking about aiding and comforting the enemy. Bush realized too late that he and his advisers have been majorly played by Iran. That is why he is posturing now, and feebly at that.
Bush is trying to act like Abe Lincoln. Unlike Abe, Bush went with what doesn't work for too long.
And I wouldn't go 'Hooray for Captain Spaulding' on the House of Saud just yet, the most repressive regime on Earth after the Taliban. To many, this is another example of the US propping up dictatorships in the name of 'national interest'.
It is not about giving Osama what he, & all the other terrorists say they want, wants, it is about getting out because we should.
Agreed, but you might as well put the lie to "but if we leave then the terrorists win" on the way.
The plan is to cut off funding, and make the first, second, third and fourth priority to get Osama bin Laden and his deputies. That's the only way to salvage this mess of a presidency.
Funny considering how much criticism we've heard from the left of the planning for post-invasion how little seems to be required for post-withdrawal. I guess it depends who's driving. :-)
Ahhhhh, but wouldn't it have been great if someone in the White House had considered planning what to do post-invasion?
They have, and they are doing it... secure the oil and get out.
Agreed, but you might as well put the lie to "but if we leave then the terrorists win" on the way.
We left Somalia. Notice those Somali terrorists now running rampant throughout the world. We did not even try to stop terrorism in Yemen - where bin Laden's Al Qaeda became active. Clearly Yemenis are now all over America hiding bombs in Turner Broadcasting advertisements.
If we leave, insurgents (that liars called terrorists) will fight among themselves in a civil war to eventually create a government of their choice. BTW, that is the only way a democracy will exist in Iraq. Liars also tell us that democracy can be imposed on a nation. Another classic lie. In each case, the same lies are directly traceable to the same extremists.
Only hope for peace in Iraq is the Iraq Study Group. By the end of 2007, that is it. Nothing more can be done. Even 500,000 American troops can no longer create peace because too many American even in the Cellar were lying to themselves in 2004 - promoting those lies about stopping terrorism. By now, anything from the anus of George Jr is automatically wrong until proven right. He lies that much.
Massive civil war in Iraq is inevitable. Do we prolong that civil war? Yes if stay after 2007.
Meanwhile a shitbag president is now lying about Iran. He did not get his 2006 invasion. Amazing how many Americans also believe Nixon long after it was obvious he was only a liar. America still has many brown shirts.
America still has many brown shirts.
See, I told you BigV's boy scouts were dangerous. Those UPS guys in the shorts, too. :worried: