Iraq is nearly over. BTW we won.
The American press can't admit it. The Brit press just did.
Iraqis lead final purge of al-Qaeda
American and Iraqi leaders believe that while it would be premature to write off Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Sunni group has lost control of its last urban base in Mosul and its remnants have been largely driven into the countryside to the south.
Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s prime minister, who has also led a crackdown on the Shi’ite Mahdi Army in Basra and Baghdad in recent months, claimed yesterday that his government had “defeated” terrorism.
"They were intending to besiege Baghdad and control it," Maliki said. "But thanks to the will of the tribes, security forces, army and all Iraqis, we defeated them."
A companion story details one battle:
"Al-Qaeda is driven from Mosul bastion after bloody last stand" and provides one little note that will confuse radar again:
All that the soldiers found otherwise was a solitary Kalashnikov assault rifle.
"We let him keep the gun because every Iraqi family is allowed to have a personal weapon," said Major Awad al-Juburi, 39, standing in the road in full battle gear.
C'mon UT - its supposed to be a secret till after the election.
Yay! Where's the VI Party? I want to get drunk and kiss a sailor.
I have a feeling this is like the exterminator claiming victory over the cockroaches... they're always lurking in the dark.
Secret haul of 550 tons of "yellowcake" from Iraq to Canada
No, this is the stuff the UN knew about. Uranium yellowcake is processed into power stations and nuke bombs. It was kept under UN seal - the inspectors put their own lock on it.
This was the stuff Bush said they were looking to buy more of in Africa?
So they've secretly moved roughly 1,200,000 pounds of the stuff, worth about $20/lb when he bought it, worth about $100/lb today. Nice return on investment.
How come it's always the sailors that get all the kissing?????????
We all look good in our crackerjacks!
G.I. beans and G.I. gravey...G.I. wish I'd have joined the Navey....
I want to get drunk and kiss a sailor.
What, is it weekend already?
Yeah, we're totally done in Iraq.:rolleyes:
How come it's always the sailors that get all the kissing?????????
Put your camos on and pucker up, baby.
UT, never assume that you know anything that would confuse me. We most certainly haven't "won" in Iraq. You can't win a war that has no stated goals, and which we already lost the moment we started it. The world is a more dangerous place. The war on terror has resulted in more terrorists and more terrorism. If that's victory in your book, we have a very different view of the word.
"You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.
-Jeanette Rankin
Yeah, we're totally done in Iraq.:rolleyes:
:)
Yes, let's all hold our breath until the troops come home and Bush admits the war was 100% unconstitutional.:jig:
never gonna happen. even if the war in Iraq is won. If it is won we will certainly set up bases there as we did in Europe after WWII.
Iraqi Official Says Government Wants Timetable for Withdrawal
BAGHDAD, July 8 -- Iraq's national security advisor said Tuesday that his government would not sign an agreement governing the future role of U.S. troops in Iraq unless it includes a timetable for their withdrawal.
The statement was the strongest yet by an Iraqi official regarding the politically controversial negotiations between Iraq and the United States over the U.S. military role in Iraq. A United Nations mandate that sanctions the presence of U.S. troops in the country expires in December.
Speaking to reporters in the holy city of Najaf, National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie declined to provide specific dates, but said his government is "impatiently waiting" for the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops.
"There should not be any permanent bases in Iraq unless these bases are under Iraqi control," Rubaie said. "We would not accept any memorandum of understanding with [the U.S.] side that has no obvious and specific dates for the foreign troops' withdrawal from Iraq."
So, "we" "won", great. Why are we still there?
And this confuses me:
The Bush administration has long opposed a firm timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, arguing that the American military should leave only when Iraq's security forces are capable of securing the country and that setting a pullout date would allow insurgents to lay low until after U.S. troops were gone.
What are the alternatives? Stay indefinitely? Sneak out and hope the insurgents don't notice? How in the hell can you square this circle?
The insurgents will be giving up en mass if Obama wins the White House. They'll all be wanting their free tickets to Club Gitmo before Obama surrenders.
So, "we" "won", great. Why are we still there?
And this confuses me:
What are the alternatives? Stay indefinitely? Sneak out and hope the insurgents don't notice? How in the hell can you square this circle?
Well if anyone thinks we will not be there indefinately is fooling themselves. Maybe not in Iraq, but we will be close by. I would guess we will keep support personel and some form of aviation as well as a quick reaction force, maybe a few battalions, in Iraq for many years to come. The majority will be out in a few years. As long as our relations sour and continue to decline with Iran we will have a few carriers on station to protect the oil routes through the straight. Don't kid yourselves, we aren't completely leaving.
UT, never assume that you know anything that would confuse me.
I put it in bold, put your name on it and you still glossed over it. You should always read for comprehension, not for attack.
[SIZE=3]
"We let him keep the gun because every Iraqi family is allowed to have a personal weapon,"[/SIZE]
Yes, it's true: we can leave now. It is becoming time for us to leave. Install a nice protectable embassy and a few bases, and otherwise leave.
Iraq says timetable. US says no.
Iraq says complete withdrawal. US says "a few battalions" "a few bases" (I paraphrase, but that is a very common sentiment).
Who decides? If there is no timetable, will we have "won" that battle? If there are no bases and no battalions will we have "lost" that battle? Will Iraq have "won"?
I think this paradigm "win / lose" is nearly useless by virtue of its rigidity. It is counterproductive, at best, even for those in favor of this whole process, to continue to oversimplify the possible outcomes this way.
never gonna happen. even if the war in Iraq is won. If it is won we will certainly set up bases there as we did in Europe after WWII.
U.S. seeking 58 bases in Iraq, Shiite lawmakers say
By Leila Fadel | McClatchy Newspapers
BAGHDAD -Iraqi lawmakers say the United States is demanding 58 bases as part of a proposed "status of forces" agreement that will allow U.S. troops to remain in the country indefinitely.
Leading members of the two ruling Shiite parties said in a series of interviews the Iraqi government rejected this proposal along with another U.S. demand that would have effectively handed over to the United States the power to determine if a hostile act from another country is aggression against Iraq. Lawmakers said they fear this power would drag Iraq into a war between the United States and Iran.
"The points that were put forth by the Americans were more abominable than the occupation," said Jalal al Din al Saghir, a leading lawmaker from the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. "We were occupied by order of the Security Council," he said, referring to the 2004 Resolution mandating a U.S. military occupation in Iraq at the head of an international coalition. "But now we are being asked to sign for our own occupation. That is why we have absolutely refused all that we have seen so far."
Other conditions sought by the United States include control over Iraqi air space up to 30,000 feet and immunity from prosecution for U.S. troops and private military contractors. The agreement would run indefinitely but be subject to cancellation with two years notice from either side, lawmakers said.
"It would impair Iraqi sovereignty," said Ali al Adeeb a leading member of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's Dawa party of the proposed accord. "The Americans insist so far that is they who define what is an aggression on Iraq and what is democracy inside Iraq... if we come under aggression we should define it and ask for help."
Both Saghir and Adeeb said that the Iraqi government rejected the terms as unacceptable. They said the government wants a U.S. presence and a U.S. security guarantee but also wants to control security within the country, stop indefinite detentions of Iraqis by U.S. forces and have a say in U.S. forces' conduct in Iraq.
The 58 bases would represent an expansion of the U.S. presence here. Currently, the United States operates out of about 30 major bases, not including smaller facilities such as combat outposts, according to a U.S. military map.
" Is there sovereignty for Iraq - or isn't there? If it is left to them, they would ask for immunity even for the American dogs," Saghir said. "We have given Bush our views - some new ideas and I find that there is a certain harmony between his thoughts and ours. And he promised to tell the negotiators to change their methods."
Maliki returned Monday from his second visit to Iran, whose Islamic rulers are adamantly opposed to the accord. Iran's Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei said following meetings with Maliki that we have "no doubt that the Americans' dreams will not come true."
Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi foreign minister, criticized the lawmakers for poisoning the public discussion before an agreement is concluded. He said U.S. officials had been flexible in the talks, as well as "frank and honest since the beginning."
"This is an ongoing process," Zebari said. "There is no agreement yet. Proposals have been modified, they have been changed and altered. We don't have a final text yet for them to be judgmental."
Zebari, who said a negotiating session was held with U.S. officials on the new accord Monday, said any agreement will be submitted to the Iraqi parliament for approval. Leaders in the U.S. Congress have also demanded a say in the agreement, but the Bush administration says it is planning to make this an executive accord not subject to Senate ratification.
Republican presidential candidate John McCain didn't respond for requests for comment, but the presumptive Democratic nominee, Barack Obama, said through a spokesman that he believes the Bush administration must submit the agreement to Congress and that it should make "absolutely clear" that the United States will not maintain permanent bases in Iraq.
Lee Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana, said he had not heard of a plan to seek 50 or more bases in Iraq, and that if it is the case, Congress is likely to challenge the idea. "Congress would have a lot of questions, and the president should be very careful in negotiating," Hamilton, who now directs the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, told McClatchy.
The top U.S. Embassy spokesman in Iraq rejected the latest Iraqi criticism.
"Look, there is going to be no occupation," said U.S. spokesman Adam Ereli. "Now it's perfectly understandable that there are those that are following this closely in Iraq who have concerns about what this means for Iraqi sovereignty and independence. We understand that and we appreciate that and that's why nothing is going to be rammed down anybody's throat.
"It's kind of like a forced marriage. It just doesn't work. They either want you or they don't want you. You can't use coercion to get them to like you," he added.
U.S. officials in Baghdad say they are determined to complete the accord by July 31 so that parliamentary deliberations can be completed before the Dec. 31 expiration of the UN mandate.
The agreement will not specify how many troops or where they will be deployed, said a U.S. official who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the subject, but the agreement will detail the legal framework under which U.S. troops will operate. The U.S. official said that in the absence of a UN resolution authorizing the use of force, "there have to be terms that are in place. That's the reality that we're trying to accommodate."
Iraqis are determined to get their nation removed from the purview of the U.N. Security Council under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which allows the international body to declare a country a threat to international peace, a step the U.N. took after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Iraqi officials say that designation clearly is no longer appropriate.
But even on that basic request, the U.S. has not promised to support Iraq, Saghir said, and is insteadn withholding that support as a pressure point in negotiations.
U.S. demands "conflict with our sovereignty and we refuse them," said Hassan Sneid, a member of the Dawa party and a lawmaker on the security committee in the parliament. "I don't expect these negotiations will be done by the exact date. The Americans want so many things and the fact is we want different things."
"If we had to choose one or the other, an extension of the mandate or this agreement, we would probably choose the extension," Saghir said. "It is possible that in December we will send a letter the UN informing them that Iraq no longer needs foreign forces to control its internal security. As for external defense, we are still not ready."
Margaret Talev in Washington contributed.
I put it in bold, put your name on it and you still glossed over it. You should always read for comprehension, not for attack.
[SIZE=3]
"We let him keep the gun because every Iraqi family is allowed to have a personal weapon,"[/SIZE]
Perhaps now they are allowed to have guns, but this was not the case when America invaded in 1991, or 2003.
America didn't invade in 1991.
Yes, American soldiers illegally invaded Iraq in 1991 when Iraq and Kuwait were having a dispute that had nothing to do with America.
Uh, I thought one of the major complaints was that this current Iraq war was due in large part because our troops stayed in Kuwait rather than driving all the way to Baghdad?
Yes, it's true: we can leave now. It is becoming time for us to leave. Install a nice protectable embassy and a few bases, and otherwise leave.
I suppose few adjusted for inflation is 58. I'm all for declaring victory and getting out, but that would involve actually getting out. We've, reportedly, defeated an enemy that wasn't there when we invaded, but if that's what it takes to declare victory and actually get out count me in.
Of course, some would assume that this clears the decks for the next war of choice in Iran. Anyone interested in a world war should really get rolling on that before a new administration takes over. I'll leave the bin Laden commentary to tw and the other nutters who think that the Stans have oil er... terrorists.
Perhaps now they are allowed to have guns, but this was not the case when America invaded... in 2003.
So now your narrative is that the entire country was systematically disarmed so that a massacre could take place, but has re-armed in the last, what, six months?
US troops killed in Iraq in the first 9 days of July: 2
You're only as sovereign as the country occupying your land...
So now your narrative is that the entire country was systematically disarmed so that a massacre could take place, but has re-armed in the last, what, six months?
I've seen video of soldiers breaking down doors, shoving people to the floor, and taking all of the guns in the house so don't even pretend it didn't happen. As far as the massacre, America is responsible for the deaths of at least 1 million Iraqi people and probably closer to 2 million. This is through 2 illegal invasions on the part of America, and bombing Iraq daily for 12 years, setting up illegal "no fly" zones, searching homes illegally...including those of the leader of their country, keeping Iraq from life saving medicines and food, destroying Iraq's ability to defend itself and thus allowing a flood of terrorists into their country, imprisoning people who have committed no crime, torturing them (sometimes to death), etc.
I don't know when they decided to start allowing people to have guns again. Perhaps it was when they had their fake election?
Every household in Iraq has always been able to posses one AK. Always.
What was the context of the video's you've seen? Do you know? Did the soldiers receive fire from the building, or structure being video tapped? All weapons would indeed be confiscated in that case, and handed back out when the situation is sorted out. No, I won't pretend it didn't happen, I also won't pretend that U.S. Soldiers enter an Iraqi household with the purpose of abusing the people living there and taking their fire arms. This simply does not happen.
How many of the civilian deaths in Iraq are non uniformed belligerents?
Belligerents? That's an interesting word to describe people who don't cooperate with an armed invasion force from a terrorist rogue nation that invaded them without justifiable cause....namely the USA.
I've seen video of soldiers breaking down doors, shoving people to the floor, and taking all of the guns in the house ...
Ohhh, then I guess it MUST be true - puhlease.
As far as the massacre, America is responsible for the deaths of at least 1 million Iraqi people and probably closer to 2 million. This is through 2 illegal invasions on the part of America, and bombing Iraq daily for 12 years, setting up illegal "no fly" zones, searching homes illegally...including those of the leader of their country, keeping Iraq from life saving medicines and food, destroying Iraq's ability to defend itself and thus allowing a flood of terrorists into their country, imprisoning people who have committed no crime, torturing them (sometimes to death), etc.
You keep spouting those exaggerated numbers ... Oh hell, throw in a few other reasons like global warming and some other BS - I'm sure you could claim more like 3 or 4 million. Why don't you just add "distraction or stress" and make America responsible for every death over there.
Yeah Iraq sure was defending itself when IT INVADED Kuwait - lol. :headshake
Torturing all those people who committed no crime - yeh - thats what we are there to do - just for the friggin fun of it too! :eyebrow: We've got nothing better to do, do we?
I don't know....
You should have just stopped there.
I don't care where I am in the world, when someone picks up a rifle and slings lead my way, they are called a belligerent.
Lets not pretend that all, or even a majority of the deaths in Iraq have been innocent bystanders. You pick up a rifle, you pick up the responsibility. Me, and everyone else who does.
As far as collateral non-combatants killed, those freedom fighters you are eluding to, have killed 10's of thousands more then the U.S. ever will.
It sounds to me like you might have to pick up a rifle and get on over to Iraq, or get on over to Iraq and pick up a rifle. They need lots of help over there. Hope to see you there.
Radar speaks volumes for the flaw in libertarianism. Sadam Husein, and every other murdering dictator, has a right to kill, to torture, or whatever, because he is an individual, and his country is an individual country. If there is nothing illegal, there is no crime.
I don't care where I am in the world, when someone picks up a rifle and slings lead my way, they are called a belligerent.
Lets not pretend that all, or even a majority of the deaths in Iraq have been innocent bystanders. You pick up a rifle, you pick up the responsibility. Me, and everyone else who does.
As far as collateral non-combatants killed, those freedom fighters you are eluding to, have killed 10's of thousands more then the U.S. ever will.
It sounds to me like you might have to pick up a rifle and get on over to Iraq, or get on over to Iraq and pick up a rifle. They need lots of help over there. Hope to see you there.
Hey joe--
I like you. Your posts, including this one, display a clear thinking and an articulate voice. Respectfully, I want to ask you for some clarification on a couple things.
"someone who picks up a rifle and slings lead your way is called a belligerent"
"you pick up a rifle, you pick up the responsibility. Me and everyone else..."
Those are reasonable statements. And I agree with them. Here are my questions.
From your perspective that person who picks up a rifle (and the responsibility) and slings lead your way is an insurgent. What are you called from his perspective? Are you a belligerent?
What do you call yourself, who picks up a rifle (and the responsibility)?
From the perspective of that other person, what does he call himself?
I understand I'm asking (respectfully) for a considerable amount of speculation. I would appreciate it if you would indulge and enlighten me.
Thanks in advance.
Ohhh, then I guess it MUST be true - puhlease.
Yes, generally speaking, when you see something happening, it's true. Perhaps in your warped little mind this isn't the case. Do you often hallucinate?
You keep spouting those exaggerated numbers ...
No, I keep detailing real numbers. The 2003 invasion alone has resulted in a million Iraqi deaths.
Oh hell, throw in a few other reasons like global warming and some other BS - I'm sure you could claim more like 3 or 4 million. Why don't you just add "distraction or stress" and make America responsible for every death over there.
Each and every single death in Iraq that has resulted from America's invasion of Iraq in 1991, the bombing and starvation of Iraq for 12 years, and the other illegal invasion of Iraq (including those by insurgents we allowed in) are America's fault.
Yeah Iraq sure was defending itself when IT INVADED Kuwait - lol. :headshake
Actually Yes, Iraq was defending itself when it invaded Kuwait. Kuwait had been practicing slant drilling for years and was warned many times about stealing Iraqi oil, but they refused to stop. Iraq told them if they didn't stop, they'd be invaded. They still didn't stop. Iraq told America that they intended to invade Kuwait and America said it was none of our concern and we wouldn't get involved.
Torturing all those people who committed no crime - yeh - thats what we are there to do - just for the friggin fun of it too! :eyebrow: We've got nothing better to do, do we?
Ever heard of Abu Ghraib prison? The overwhelming majority of the people in that prison weren't guilty of anything...not even jay walking.
You should have just stopped there.
You never should have started.
I don't care where I am in the world, when someone picks up a rifle and slings lead my way, they are called a belligerent.
Lets not pretend that all, or even a majority of the deaths in Iraq have been innocent bystanders. You pick up a rifle, you pick up the responsibility. Me, and everyone else who does.
As far as collateral non-combatants killed, those freedom fighters you are eluding to, have killed 10's of thousands more then the U.S. ever will.
It sounds to me like you might have to pick up a rifle and get on over to Iraq, or get on over to Iraq and pick up a rifle. They need lots of help over there. Hope to see you there.
America never belonged in Iraq. Not for one second. Not ever.
We are the invaders there. We are the offensive force of aggression and the Iraqi people who took up arms against us are defenders. Why would I go to Iraq? The only Americans there are traitors.
Radar speaks volumes for the flaw in libertarianism. Sadam Husein, and every other murdering dictator, has a right to kill, to torture, or whatever, because he is an individual, and his country is an individual country. If there is nothing illegal, there is no crime.
You're an idiot. I never said what Saddam Hussein did was ok. He was a murdering scumbag and he most certainly committed crimes. That doesn't give America the authority to intervene. It doesn't mean Americans should die over there. The invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with defending America, and nothing to do with "liberating oppressed Iraqi people". It had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction either. America isn't the police of the world or the enforcer of UN sanctions.
I wish freedom for the people of Iraq and the people of everywhere else. They must win their own freedom, and I must win mine.
You're an idiot. I never said what Saddam Hussein did was ok. He was a murdering scumbag and he most certainly committed crimes. That doesn't give America the authority to intervene. It doesn't mean Americans should die over there. The invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with defending America, and nothing to do with "liberating oppressed Iraqi people". It had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction either. America isn't the police of the world or the enforcer of UN sanctions.
I wish freedom for the people of Iraq and the people of everywhere else. They must win their own freedom, and I must win mine.
It is posts like this that ring true that keeps me from dismissing you, Radar.
I don't like the tenor of your attacks in other recent posts, but I can't argue with this one.
You are completely correct here. Well spoken.
If you knew the history between those I was dealing the intellectual smackdown to, you'd understand why I took a particular tone. We have a long and rich history of mutual hatred. I hate dishonesty and those who support the insane policies of the Bush administration, especially the Iraq.
When I take a hostile tone, the hostility is only intended to be for the source of my ire.
I've seen video of soldiers breaking down doors, shoving people to the floor, and taking all of the guns in the house so don't even pretend it didn't happen.
So your narrative is that the entire country was systematically disarmed so that a massacre could take place, but has re-armed in the last, what, six months --
-- is based on the videos you've seen?
You saw videos and this was proof to you that the country was being disarmed?
I just want to make sure I have this straight. On these videos, did the reporter say "they are strategically and completely disarming the citizenry of Iraq"? Or was that something you divined? Or did you watch it without a reporter describing it?
From your perspective that person who picks up a rifle (and the responsibility) and slings lead your way is an insurgent. What are you called from his perspective? Are you a belligerent?
What do you call yourself, who picks up a rifle (and the responsibility)?
From the perspective of that other person, what does he call himself?
I understand I'm asking (respectfully) for a considerable amount of speculation. I would appreciate it if you would indulge and enlighten me.
Thanks in advance.
I'll try and keep this short and to the point. Yes, I am a belligerent. In the exact sense of the word, in keeping with the international rules of war. To be exact, I am a soldier. A uniformed member of the Armed Forces of the United States.
The guy or gal who picks up a rifle and fires rounds at me may or may not be an insurgent or a belligerent. They are certainly a combatant.
I really don't want to speculate as to what anyone else may think of me or themselves.
If you have a gun and you are in their country, you are an invader. If they take up arms against you, it is in their DEFENSE. If you take arms against them, it's because you are a hostile invader.
I've seen video of soldiers breaking down doors, shoving people to the floor, and taking all of the guns in the house so don't even pretend it didn't happen.
So your narrative is that the entire country was systematically disarmed so that a massacre could take place, but has re-armed in the last, what, six months --
-- is based on the videos you've seen?
You saw videos and this was proof to you that the country was being disarmed?
I just want to make sure I have this straight. On these videos, did the reporter say "they are strategically and completely disarming the citizenry of Iraq"? Or was that something you divined? Or did you watch it without a reporter describing it?
Get this right. CNN reported the FACT that in 1991 and subsequently, American soldiers kicked down the doors of Iraqi homes, shoved the inhabitants to the floor, searched the homes, and took all of their weapons including AK-47S. NOBODY was allowed to have them . America also shut down the free press in Iraq when they were reporting unfavorably about the American military.
If you have a gun and you are in their country, you are an invader. If they take up arms against you, it is in their DEFENSE. If you take arms against them, it's because you are a hostile invader.
That all depends on your definition of who "they" are.
If you are attacking them I agree, If you are there defending and protecting them I wholeheartedly disagree.
So you watched CNN reporting and understood that "NOBODY" meant the entire country?
what about this?
L. Paul Bremer, the former top U.S. administrator in Iraq, did not try to step between Iraqis and their weaponry. He issued an order in 2003 that essentially upheld Iraqi law: Every man and woman 25 and older with a "good reputation and character" was entitled to own one firearm, including a fully automatic AK-47 assault rifle, the world's most popular killing machine.
or this?
The Pentagon has lost track of about 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, according to a new government report, raising fears that some of those weapons have fallen into the hands of insurgents fighting U.S. forces in Iraq.
That all depends on your definition of who "they" are.
If you are attacking them I agree, If you are there defending and protecting them I wholeheartedly disagree.
If you are attacking them? You mean the way America attacked Iraq, destroyed their military and their infrastructure, killed civilians, etc.?
The U.S. Military has
NEVER belonged in Iraq. Not for a single day. No actions of America in Iraq are defending Iraqi people from any dangers that we didn't create in the first place. Nothing America is doing in Iraq is legal, or morally or ethically correct. No American in Iraq is defending America from danger. No American soldier in Iraq is upholding their oath. No person who supports the war in Iraq also supports the Constitution. No person who supports the war in Iraq is a libertarian. Those are the facts. Here is my opinion. Those who support the war in Iraq aren't worthy to call themselves American.
America's actions in Iraq are those of a rogue terrorist nation that violates international law, and doesn't even adhere to its own laws. Anyone who attacks an American soldier in Iraq is attacking an invader who has no business being there. There is no defense for the presence of the U.S. military in Iraq at any point in history.
blah blah blah - Maybe your attitude is why you didn't get elected when you ran for office. See the thread about perspective.
1. I ran against a 20 year incumbant.
2. I ran against a black woman in a mainly black district where white people are 10% of the population.
3. I ran in a district where more than 80% of the voters are registered in the Democratic party.
4. I ran as a Libertarian which is like having an anchor tied around your waist and being tossed into the ocean.
I never thought I would win the election. I ran an information campaign. I gave the voters of my district someone better to vote for and got libertarian ideas out there. My attitude had nothing to do with my election results, and if it did, it worked in a positive way for me because I pulled down 8% of the vote (most Libertarians get about 1%) and I spent a total of about $1,600.
My attitude is the same as that of our founders...who were all libertarians.
I'll try and keep this short and to the point. Yes, I am a belligerent. In the exact sense of the word, in keeping with the international rules of war. To be exact, I am a soldier. A uniformed member of the Armed Forces of the United States.
The guy or gal who picks up a rifle and fires rounds at me may or may not be an insurgent or a belligerent. They are certainly a combatant.
I really don't want to speculate as to what anyone else may think of me or themselves.
Thank you for your reply.
If you have a gun and you are in their country, you are an invader. If they take up arms against you, it is in their DEFENSE. If you take arms against them, it's because you are a hostile invader.
Radar doesn't share .joe's reluctance to speculate, and does so con brio. I think there is a fair argument in favor of these labels though.
Each side feels justified in their actions. *Regardless* of the actions. Sometimes that justification is an appeal to rules, sometimes to fairness, sometimes to desperation or passion or history or hysteria.
NO ONE thinks their actions are unjustified, evar. There's always a "But..."
Always.
Where two parties agree on the authority, the jurisdiction of the source of the justification, whether it is the the law, the chain of command, the moral imperative, or the voices in their heads, there is harmony and solidarity. Where there is a difference in the respect granted to those sources of authority, there is conflict.
Radar, did they disarm Iraq?
Thank you for your reply.
Radar doesn't share .joe's reluctance to speculate, and does so con brio. I think there is a fair argument in favor of these labels though.
Each side feels justified in their actions. *Regardless* of the actions. Sometimes that justification is an appeal to rules, sometimes to fairness, sometimes to desperation or passion or history or hysteria.
NO ONE thinks their actions are unjustified, evar. There's always a "But..."
Always.
Where two parties agree on the authority, the jurisdiction of the source of the justification, whether it is the the law, the chain of command, the moral imperative, or the voices in their heads, there is harmony and solidarity. Where there is a difference in the respect granted to those sources of authority, there is conflict.
Or, as in the case with Iraq (and many other situations in the past ) if America wants something, it gets it because it has the muscle to do so. Saddam went rogue on the US and so the US went all out to first correct him and then finally just get rid of him. Of course, they had to use a lot of subterfuge to do it.
Radar, did they disarm Iraq?
Are they still getting shot at?
Are you avoiding the question in your own mind as fiercely as you're avoiding it here?
I've already answered it. American soldiers were kicking down the doors of homes in Iraq during and after the invasion of 1991. They were TRYING to disarm all Iraqi households. America also shut down the free press in Iraq due to unfavorable articles.
America failed in this, and after the insurgents started flooding into Iraq, America reversed its position.
That's a slightly different answer than what you've given before, so "I've already answered it" is not a good foreword. Also, your answers are unclear, so I ask for clarification.
Is it your position that Americans were disarming Iraqis of firearms between 1991 and 2003? Or is it that they stopped in 1991 and resumed in 2003?
The addition of "TRYING" and "failed" is a change in your position from what I gather. Can you point to some sort of source that indicates disarming Iraq of firearms was the military's position?
1. I ran against a 20 year incumbant.
2. I ran against a black woman in a mainly black district where white people are 10% of the population.
3. I ran in a district where more than 80% of the voters are registered in the Democratic party.
4. I ran as a Libertarian which is like having an anchor tied around your waist and being tossed into the ocean.
Which is why you are a failure.
4. I ran as a Libertarian which is like having an anchor tied around your waist and being tossed into the ocean.
Ever wonder why that is? Could it possibly be that while the ideas and rhetoric sound and feel really great, they just won't survive long when they come in contact with reality? Outside the little club called libertarianism the rest of us have to say, "that sounds great. now let's try something that will actually work. you know, beyond the world of theory?"
Your other three reasons for losing may be relevant but they're just gravy. You lost because you can't convince enough people that you have the ability to apply your ideals to real life.
Libertarian ideas and philosophy do work in real life not merely theory. They work perfectly in reality. They survive perfectly when implemented. In fact they worked in America for 86 years before the enemies of freedom started violating the limitations on government and making America less free.
Libertarian ideals aren't the anchor that sinks us. The Libertarian party itself is. The fact that they think shaking your hand and saying "good luck" amounts to supporting candidates. The LP is all about individuality and while that's great, a party that focuses so much on individuality attracts some who are freaks. People who walk around in Druid robes or butterfly wings, etc. These few people have made it tough for the serious libertarians to be taken seriously.
This plus the media outlets, and major parties practice exclusionary tactics. They will not allow us into debates and do everything they can to avoid giving libertarians equal airtime.
Most people have never heard about libertarians or if they have heard of them, it was from a third party who really knew nothing about libertarians.
Most Americans aren't very well educated. They were taught in government schools that they should rely on government for everything and that government is always doing what is best for us. They are taught to be collectivists from an early age. They have no comprehension of what freedom really means and they fear personal responsibility so much, they'd gladly serve their rights up on a platter to avoid having to take responsibility for themselves and their own actions.
This is especially true in my district.
I ran an informational campaign and a very successful one at that. I never entertained any thoughts that I'd actually win the election in such a rigged race and such a rigged system. With more money, my results would have been better. I only put in about $100 - $200 of my own money and the rest was raised online. With only $1,600 I got 8% of the vote. With real money, a campaign staff, and advertising, I'd have done better. But even if I had unlimited funds, I couldn't win in that district because of the reasons I've already listed.
Libertarian ideas and philosophy do work in real life not merely theory.
I ran an informational campaign and a very successful one at that.
So no Libertarian has ever won, that speaks volumes...
And yet you are still a total failure as a voice of political reform.
You always win when you fight against air. Don't believe me, look at the Star Wars Kid.
According to the power point, everything is going down, except caches found and cleared, which is going up.
Does that mean there are more caches, or that we are finding them now?
It is an indication that the locals who know where these caches are, are telling the Iraqi Army and or us where to find them.
Re more people cooperating because the want the US out?
Sure, many do, many don't. Providing credible information of any kind, for an Iraqi, is more about trust. I'd say it's all about trust. I believe about 1/4 to 1/2 of anything I'm told by an Iraqi on first meeting. It's not because they are outright liars. They, like many cultures have a thing about saving face for others, and not being truthfully direct when first meeting people. It really is about how well known you are, and trust.
Being American, we tend to judge others intentions and motivations against our own. It seldom works well, and leads to trouble down the road if done continually.
To just say "Meh, they want us out and are thus turning over more cache sites." Would be about as accurate as information passed on first meeting the average Iraqi. Only slightly so. There is a grain of truth in there, but not the whole truth.
You're an idiot. I never said what Saddam Hussein did was ok. He was a murdering scumbag and he most certainly committed crimes. That doesn't give America the authority to intervene. It doesn't mean Americans should die over there. The invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with defending America, and nothing to do with "liberating oppressed Iraqi people". It had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction either. America isn't the police of the world or the enforcer of UN sanctions.
I wish freedom for the people of Iraq and the people of everywhere else. They must win their own freedom, and I must win mine.
Radar, you're a bigger idiot for not getting the big picture. Libertarianism promotes anarchy. Whether it's individual, or corporate. Governments exist to prevent anarchy. The founding fathers were not anarchists or libertarians. The created a constitution of laws. Not perfect, but with provision for amendment. Take away the laws, you take away our liberty.
Libertarianism is not anarchy and it doesn't promote anarchy. Libertarians believe in having a government and want to keep it as small as possible. The founding fathers fit this perfectly. They founders were indeed libertarians. If you think otherwise, it only proves your own historical and political ignorance.
They created a constitution of laws, and those laws were made to place strict limits on the powers of the federal government. The federal government is given very limited and specific powers and everything it does beyond those specific and limited powers that are listed in the Constitution is unconstitutional and an attack on our freedom. Allowing the government to do anything other than those specific and limited things (even for a good reason) is a slap in the face of our libertarian founders and an attack on liberty itself and it opens the door for others to violate the Constitution for bad reasons.
Unlike you, I actually do get the big picture and unlike you, I actually understand the Constitution and the principles that guided our founders when they created it.
The founders wanted the fed to be very small and virtually invisible to regular people with the states having the vast majority of the legislative powers and 100% of law enforcement powers. They wanted people to remember that the people hold the power, not the government.
Unlike you, I actually do get the big picture and unlike you, I actually understand the Constitution and the principles that guided our founders when they created it.
And how's that been working out for ya?
Ooh, today the riddle: how can the US media report Iraq as a "win" without giving in to the idea that... something was
successful there?
Here it is. Didn't see this one coming.
Iraqi PM backs Obama troop exit plan
BERLIN (Reuters) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told a German magazine he supported prospective U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's proposal that U.S. troops should leave Iraq within 16 months.
"Never Mind," says Iraqi PM
But a spokesman for al-Maliki said his remarks "were misunderstood, mistranslated and not conveyed accurately."
Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the possibility of troop withdrawal was based on the continuance of security improvements, echoing statements that the White House made Friday after a meeting between al-Maliki and U.S. President Bush.
In the magazine interview, Al-Maliki said his remarks did not indicate that he was endorsing Obama over presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain.
"Who they choose as their president is the Americans' business. But it's the business of Iraqis to say what they want. And that's where the people and the government are in general agreement: The tenure of the coalition troops in Iraq should be limited," he said.
In other news -- from a blog, featuring sundry links to here and there.
Plenty of incidental blasting of the Left as unprincipled idiots, with no one left to be useful to.
Well, Undertoad, the Democratic Party footdragging on the WoT has been a national disgrace from its first moment, and their want of a strategic vision exceeds myopia and goes all the way to astigmatism. You can't win a war -- one started by rude foreigners, I never tire of pointing out to the thickheads who don't want the fascists disturbed -- by searching for substitutes for victory. That's the same non-achievement they've been at since 1954 -- and is not that a little too long? No wonder I have no faith in the Democratic Party.
Republicans made the effort to sink international Communism, and they succeeded. Democrats, not so much. We'd like to think Kennedy might've, but we'll never know. Johnson, as John Keegan writes in
Americans At War, essentially fought Vietnam as a strategic retreat -- not the best way to get a success from the American military. Or, I suppose, any military. Design a war for failure, and that's what you're likely to get. Rambo put it rather well, didn't he, with his wistful "Do we get to win, this time?" The Republicans say yes, the Democrats... don't.
In the meantime, we have Barack Obama setting forth a military strategy outline in a recent speech that looks exactly like -- well, the very strategy the Administration and the Republicans would carry out. I'm pleased that the Dems are finally getting an inkling of how America might succeed, but there remain limitations to my optimism here.
The call for withdrawl was arguably the first time that Iraqis "got it" -- oh the Americans want to leave? They don't just want to stay here and keep our country? This message changed the debate for them. It was probably a necessary component of the whole thing. And all the Ds were doing was expressing the will of the public.
Furthermore, this is a nice narrative but when you look at what happened, it doesn't match up; until Petraeus the rules of engagement were part of the problem, and lack of troops was part of the problem, so saying "being allowed to win" is a double-edged sword. Do we get to win? The strategy had to change 180 degrees mid-stream, so who was making the calls when we weren't winning?
Do you remember who was against winning in Bosnia?
Republicans made the effort to sink international Communism, and they succeeded. Democrats, not so much. We'd like to think Kennedy might've, but we'll never know.
Goodness. And I bet Eastern Europeans never even bothered to thank them. The selfish gets.
I assume they're working on sinking it in China now? Ooh, fingers crossed Obama doesn't get in then, China might stay Communist otherwise.
The Eastern Europeans were a little too obsessed with Solidarity demonstrating how a worker's union can make real change in a society, and overthrow governments. Come to think of it, Karl Marx was proven right all along, hee hee.
I'm not sure I get the points made in posts 75 and 76. If they are moved to clarify, I'm sure I'd appreciate it.
Though deadbeater seems to be saying syndicalism rules.
And a correction: John Keegan didn't say it, Steven Ambrose did. Drat this absence of mind.
Sundae, it looks like they won't have to: the Chinese seem to be developing their way out of Communism, and will in due course abandon it as the state religion also. Good riddance, of course.
But the Democratic Party has an indelible record of nil accomplishment in tyranny removal since the Second World War. That's three generations ago now. That's too long. See why they don't deserve my support? I vote for everybody but them. That is, everybody who's smarter.
If you want the world to become better, you do a few things. You globalize, you educate women too, not just men; and you eliminate tyranny, replacing it with democracy or the constitutional-monarchic equivalent. And you're ruthless with anyone who tries to impede the great liberation.
(note: From
http://www.blackfive.net/)
NPR: Was the Surge Successful?
Posted By Blackfive
I like NPR. They are one of the very few media outlets that have treated me extremely fairly.
But here, in this NPR interview with General (retired) Jack Keane, you can hear the bias of host Alex Chadwick, and the surprise in the response of GEN (ret) Keane - one of the architects of the Surge. I think it's important to hear both Alex Chadwick and Jack Keane discuss the events around the Surge.
To me, this is an indication of the level of effort being made to spin away the Surge as not successful or due to the the planning and efforts of our active military and people like GEN (ret) Keane and David Kilcullen.
It is horribly false for anyone to claim that the Surge is not a success. Make no mistake, there's a long way to go, but some people on the left seemed determined to throw our progress away.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93065894&ft=1&f=1001
Dwellars know, but somebody forgot to tell half of all Americans. The narrative change, for them, leads closer to election season. Oopsie! A whole lot of confused people, coming up!
13 casualties in July - lowest monthly total so far - 5 of those were non-combat
KFC Fallujah.
The restaurant has several employees, and three that work full time. Employees there serve an average 25 customers per day.
This is not really a great return, but they've gotta start somewhere. Hopefully in a few years they can install in a mall food court.
Washington Post notices. Page A01.
Surge in numbers of troops is over:
The last of five additional combat brigades sent to Iraq last year left in July, leaving about 140,000 U.S. troops in the country. About 130,000 were in Iraq before the buildup began.
Deployment times drop:
Starting Friday, Bush said, troop deployments in Iraq will shorten from 15 months to 12. The policy, first announced in April, applies to troops heading to Iraq but not those already stationed there.
About time. Our guys down here are getting hammered by the deployments. And the ones that just returned, from the surge, are already slated to go again in 9 months. 3-ID out of Ft. Stewart and Hunter AF.
KFC Fallujah.
This is not really a great return, but they've gotta start somewhere. Hopefully in a few years they can install in a mall food court.
Am I to believe that having a KFC or a food court is a sign that things are better than not having one?
You believe whatever you like, sunshine.
You know I always do sparky.
So there's no need to actually post about it.
There is a need to question whether this is what someone wants others to believe. That is why I asked the question.
You can't discern that without asking?
I find the best way to answer a question is to ask someone who knows the answer rather than trying to guess or to be a detective. Without asking, I could only speculate as to motives, desires, or goals of others, but asking the them gives me a concrete answer that isn't merely a speculation.
What happens when the person you're asking doesn't give a shit what you think?
I find the best way to answer a question is to ask someone who knows the answer rather than trying to guess or to be a detective. Without asking, I could only speculate as to motives, desires, or goals of others, but asking the them gives me a concrete answer that isn't merely a speculation.
Hmmm, does this apply to your "perception" of what the writers of the constitution meant? And since they are all dead, how do you "know" what they meant?
There is no difference between my "perception" of what the Constitution means and what it actually says. I can only assume the writers of the Constitution meant what they said, and since they wrote many articles, pamphlets, letters, etc. explaining each of their positions, it sort of helps out.
This from the man who believes conducting foreign policy or any likely approximation thereof is unconstitutional. Sorry, radar, your legal thinking has not passed the giggle-test for quite some time now.
And if you cannot understand how somebody might conclude that is your view from reading your posts, then your faculty for understanding is grossly inferior and in great need of repair and a brushup.
There is no difference between my "perception" of what the Constitution means and what it actually says. I can only assume the writers of the Constitution meant what they said, and since they wrote many articles, pamphlets, letters, etc. explaining each of their positions, it sort of helps out.
Just like the rest of us, my friend. That was my point exactly, thank you for finally clearing that up.
The difference is that Radar believes he knows what they meant without possibility of variation. He only has to assume they meant what they said. His conviction is based in the idea that, rightly or wrongly, he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt, what some guys meant when they wrote some words more than 200 years ago.
Just figured I'd get that out there.
Since we're getting things out in the open, I should tell you that I'm not sorry about your finger.
me either, that's what you get for taunting a dolphin.
me either, that's what you get for taunting a shark.
Originally Posted by lookout123
me either, cuz Flint is a stoopid poopy head.
Fixed better
This from the man who believes conducting foreign policy or any likely approximation thereof is unconstitutional. Sorry, radar, your legal thinking has not passed the giggle-test for quite some time now.
And if you cannot understand how somebody might conclude that is your view from reading your posts, then your faculty for understanding is grossly inferior and in great need of repair and a brushup.
Conducting foreign policy? Is that code for "starting illegal wars"? It's most certainly not against the Constitution to trade with other nations or even to befriend them. This is the best foreign policy you can have.
My thinking is as serious as it gets, and my policies work in the real world. Your laughably stupid desire to be in a state of perpetual war against those who pose no threat to us is not realistic economically, it violates the Constitution, it violates common sense, and it violates all libertarian principles.
I'd comment on your thinking, but it doesn't seem like you do any.
The difference is that Radar believes he knows what they meant without possibility of variation. He only has to assume they meant what they said. His conviction is based in the idea that, rightly or wrongly, he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt, what some guys meant when they wrote some words more than 200 years ago.
Just figured I'd get that out there.
Yes, I must assume. I must assume that when the founders wrote down words, they actually knew what they were writing, and they knew how to speak the English language. What they wrote was very articulate, intelligent, and cogent and leaves no doubt that they did know what they were writing and did speak and write the English language. Therefore their words mean exactly what they say.
When they say the federal government has no powers that aren't enumerated in the Constitution, they meant exactly that. I suppose an insane person might assume that they were insane when they wrote the words and didn't mean what they actually wrote. As a sane person with the same level of intelligence as our founders and exactly the same desire to strictly limit government powers, I wouldn't make any such assumption.
If you think the Constitution means anything other than what it says, and what I've consistently said about it, you prove your own stupidity.
I can only assume ....
Yes, I must assume.
... you prove your own stupidity.
Think you did it there for me.
So in the real world, you got elected to Congress because your ideas and politicking worked so well?
I seem to recall your Congressional run produced a post from you that under no pressure nor stimulus whatsoever assigned blame for your electoral loss to everyone except yourself. And that you picked up your ball and left the LP.
And now we're looking at completing withdrawal in December 2011, per agreement, and busily getting a new Iraq and a national government completely up and running by then.
Just about the way we always said we wanted to do these things.
Oh horseshit, there was no plan. This exit strategy is a new development after Petraeus pulled their fat out of the fire. Up until he took over they were just going in circles, not knowing what to do next. :rolleyes:
No, no, you're wrong Bruce! The whole thing was carefully planned and executed exactly according to that plan. That whole 'going round in circles' bit was just a double-bluff to fool the insurgents!
Oh dear, silly me. :blush:
Combat deaths in Iraq so far this month: 7
Combat deaths in Afghanistan so far this month:
10
Deja vue Nam!
We need a timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan. No more war for rubble!
Just think of it as strangling fascism and you'll be fine with it -- like I am. It is, after all, hardly unlibertarian to remove libertarianism's most determined foes, or democratic republicanism's as an intermediate step in the development of a more libertarian society in a country that not only could use it, but is probably incapable of being run any other way, between geography and psychology.
A libertarian democracy's foes ought to get removed and stay removed -- consider forever as only barely long enough. Take the world away from tyrants and let that liberty that is humanity's birthright be the only thing that reigns.
[And UT, don't imitate tw's needlessly eccentric spelling of dejà vu -- he can plead all the ignorance and incapacity he needs to, but the rest of us don't have those excuses.]
That, UG, depends on whether what ends up there is a Democratic Republic. Most pundits say it won't. Does that change your usual?
Why would it? That would presuppose that his usual is in some way affected by facts :p
[And UT, don't imitate tw's needlessly eccentric spelling of dejà vu -- he can plead all the ignorance and incapacity he needs to, but the rest of us don't have those excuses.]
Well
technically, it's
déjà vu. Y'know, if we're being picky. [COLOR="White"]Did you get a handle on
Philippines yet?[/COLOR]
Well technically, it's déjà vu. Y'know, if we're being picky.
Technically we also won in Nam because body counts also proved we were winning. No poltiical settlement in Nam or Iraq? Deja Vue. We just ignore basic military poltical principles to declare victory. Clearly a light at the end of the tunnel. UT tells us it is so.
Welcome my friend! We've been waiting patiently for your first post in the thread. I must say this one disappoints, however. It's far too short to be a rant, only contains one baiting, does not mention mental midgets, big dic, etc.
There weren't US casualty counts this low in Nam until we left. But please, continue to predict the worst possible outcome! There'll always be *something* negative to crow about, so keep on jerking that knee. I'm depending on it!
Tw is ever the apologist for tyranny, never the partisan of democracy. It's what I loathe about the man -- his habit of kowtowing to tinpot dictators suffering from delusions of adequacy. Or of benevolence, take your pick. Well, the stupid anti-Republican bigotry just plunges him deeper into the abyss.
There's been a generation or two of hollering from certain disreputable quarters about those mean ole conservatives and/or Republicans; they're this and they're that. Then you look at the record and at the conservative Republicans' writing and it is to be reliably presumed their thinking, and you find the accusations just aren't justified.
Well, the peckerslaps of the Left stopped fooling me quite some time ago.
Well technically, it's déjà vu. Y'know, if we're being picky. [COLOR="White"]Did you get a handle on Philippines yet?[/COLOR]
Why,
déjà.;) Gee, it would have been
meilleur vu in a font color other than white. :p
Welcome my friend! We've been waiting patiently for your first post in the thread. I must say this one disappoints, however.
Nothing has changed strategically. Many parties are stocking more weapons for what nobody wants but may be necessary. Shiites are removing Sunnis from positions of power. Once the Americans are gone, Sunnis will be completely disenfranchised and unrepresented in government. Only thing keeping that from happening is American troops. Also unknown is what the Shiites will do with the Kurds who have all but separated from Iraq. Will the Shiites attack the Kurds to take back the oil fields?
What we do know. Shiites what the Americans out. Shiites such as Sahdr are stocking weapons, training soldiers, and preparing for what may be necessary - open civil war. UT just ignores that. UT confuses tactical victories with a strategic objective - deja vue Nam. UT confuses body counts with victory - deja vue Nam.
Why no political settlement? Because an American created civil war will not end when Americans leave if no political solution exists. A lesson well proven in history. UT ignores what also happened even in Nam. He does this by mocking posts that only define those well proven principles from history.
Petraeus even said so. He cannot create a political solution - the strategic objective. He can only make it possible a tactical solution to permit a political solution to happen. Nothing new and still ignored by UT. There is no political solution ongoing. Just a demand by Shiites that Americans leave and have no remaining bases. Then a political solution may begin.
Technically we also won in Nam because body counts also proved we were winning. No poltiical settlement in Nam or Iraq? Deja Vue. We just ignore basic military poltical principles to declare victory. Clearly a light at the end of the tunnel. UT tells us it is so.
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.
UG is always the apologist for tyrrany .... as long as it's America who is the tyrant.
No political reconciliation could take place when factions were fighting mob-style for control of the country. Now that this aspect is over - Iraq took control of Basra the other day, in the midst of more important news about teen pregnancies - they have to remain united in the face of the threat of Iran, and the majority wants to stay united. The ending of violence allows reconciliation to go ahead - and it is.
I can't help but wonder if the baddies just decided to lay low until the U.S. draws down it's presence? :confused:
could be. I'm still waiting for the Germans to strike again.
I can't help but wonder if the baddies just decided to lay low until the U.S. draws down it's presence? :confused:
That sounds plausible, likely even. Then the question becomes "What happens then?". Can we possibly prevent such an outcome? Should we? When does it become a local problem?
Certainly no one expects there to be perfect harmony, order without dissent, even violent dissent. Some level of this dissent is ... criminal misbehavior. And in my estimation, the responsibility for the response to crime is the purview of the justice and law enforcement arms of the state. Not our state.
Some greater level of dissent, exceeding the state's ability to maintain order, is beyond criminal misbehavior--it is revolution. Or, liberation, depending on the color of the jersey. On whose side will we be then?
could be. I'm still waiting for the Germans to strike again.
The Germans:thepain:
[youtube]1k7U-_tJVmw[/youtube]
Thanks Griff. That made me LOL just a little.
what channel is that on, anyway? I love new shows.
Perhaps they're just waiting till the democrats take over and remove as many troops as they can. Then the baddies will do whatever they want - they know the democrats won't retaliate. They'll just blame the previous administration.
The US turned Anwar over to the Iraqi army and policemen who are now in charge of maintaining order there.
Wait a minute! The D's won't let us drill for oil because of the cute animals but we'll turn it over the Iraqi's??? and won't they be cold up there anyway? I'm telling you we better investigate this Palin character some more.
That's why he chose Sarah Palin! We're giving ANWR to the Iraqis!!!
i figured. i just thought the image of a bunch of iraqis running around the alaskan wilderness was kind of funny.
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.
As the Iraqi vets against the war in Iraq say....
YOU CAN'T WIN AN OCCUPATION!
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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, [SIZE=-1]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.[/SIZE]
I have a firm and accurate comprehension of reality, geopolitical conditions, and American and world history.
:lol2:
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.
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.
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'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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
China has nothing to worry about our navy, and China paid for it anyway.
Cite please?
I think he's referring to the fact that China has bought a large share of the US government bonds used to finance the military.
I think he's referring to the fact that China has bought a large share of the US government bonds used to finance the military.
Bingo!
I think he's referring to the fact that China has bought a large share of the US government bonds used to finance the military.
China has long believed they were being helpful by returning boatloads of dollars to America by buying US government bonds. Unfortunately, this has further made Cheney, et al feel that massive deficits don't matter. If China did not buy so much American debt, then Cheney, et al would have to come to grips with a government without cash.
Well, the Highway Trust Fund has already been so depleted and having trouble meeting next month’s payments. States are complaining that Highway fund payments are no longer arriving in a timely manner. Even with China, et al massively buying American government debt, the government was still having cash flow problems in some locations. What happens if foreigners stop financing the George Jr administration? Well what do we stop funding? Infrastructure and education - or troops on the other side of the world?
The reason that George Jr (Cheney) could spend like drunken sailors? China, et al made Enron style accounting appear to be balanced. Without China, et al, the American government could not spend $2 trillion to bail out Wall Street.
...the American government could not spend $2 trillion to bail out Wall Street.
Really, is that what the final tab will be? :mad:
Really, is that what the final tab will be?
It's currently just under $1trillion. This is what happens when accounting standards and regulation enforcement change to make Enron, et al acceptable and when government throws money at elite member of the economy (ie tax cuts, welfare to Halliburton) to make the economy look good.
Why not just pay everyone to rip up and replace their front lawn every year? It would have accomplished this same thing but made the little people richer.
BTW, the stock market goes down the year after a new Republican president gets elected. It happens every time. Can things get worse?
Can things get worse?
They can always get worse.
China has long believed they were being helpful by returning boatloads of dollars to America by buying US government bonds. Unfortunately, this has further made Cheney, et al feel that massive deficits don't matter. If China did not buy so much American debt, then Cheney, et al would have to come to grips with a government without cash.
Well, the Highway Trust Fund has already been so depleted and having trouble meeting next month’s payments. States are complaining that Highway fund payments are no longer arriving in a timely manner. Even with China, et al massively buying American government debt, the government was still having cash flow problems in some locations. What happens if foreigners stop financing the George Jr administration? Well what do we stop funding? Infrastructure and education - or troops on the other side of the world?
The reason that George Jr (Cheney) could spend like drunken sailors? China, et al made Enron style accounting appear to be balanced. Without China, et al, the American government could not spend $2 trillion to bail out Wall Street.
bold text mine
My question is, and I am starting out professing I am no expert on this subject, what happens when China calls in the loans? Are we really immune to a takeover? Will China own us?
Also, why did everyone in the know walk around with their heads up their asses until the crisis got THIS BAD? :mad: Why is this typical of the Bush administration? Until things hit rock bottom, they're counting birds in the sky or something.
I am less of an expert than S123,
What has congress done about anything - anything at all - anyone?
Oh thats right - they went on ANOTHER three week vacation.
My question is, and I am starting out professing I am no expert on this subject, what happens when China calls in the loans? Are we really immune to a takeover? Will China own us?
They are not loans. For example, when America was on the verge of fiscal responsibility, we stopped selling 30 year bonds. But now that we must mortgage America's future to pay for fiascos (ie tax cuts to the rich, 50% of companies paying no taxes, “Mission Accomplished”), the Chinese, et al are buying America’s 30 year bonds.
Bond's are not mortgages. A bond promised to pay the holder years or decades later. However, China can choose to sell those bonds to others.
A more serious problem is so many American dollars held in overseas banks. What happens if the world decides to no longer buy oil in dollars? Suddenly the dollar has even less value. What happens when countries such as China fear the American dollar is overvalued? They dump dollars causing same problems.
Some say the lower dollar creates more American exports. They also forget that most of those exports are dependent on imports that would cost more. What would result is massive inequities in the American economy as businesses constantly change prices or scramble for new suppliers or customers.
Confused? Well it gets even more complex. This is only a snapshot of chaos should the American economy suddenly have less value to foreign dollar holders.
Those maybe three American companies every week being sold to foreigner? Just like in the 1970s, America had to sell itself to pay for the party and resulting hangover. Back then, the world's third largest industrial base was American owned foreign industries. We had to sell them off to pay for our fiscal mismanagement. What do we sell off this time?
Snapshots of what might happen. Appreciate why deficits do matter after Cheney is long gone. Many will forget to blame the economic hardships on Cheney just as so many forgot to blame Nixon and other bad management in 1979.
Thank you, tw. I appreciate the explanation; I know it is a complex issue but even with limited knowledge I know it is a very scary situation.
Speaking of Cheney, I must read
"Angler" by Barton Gellman.
The depths of evil have reached some proportion, eh?
bold text mine
Also, why did everyone in the know walk around with their heads up their asses until the crisis got THIS BAD? :mad: Why is this typical of the Bush administration? Until things hit rock bottom, they're counting birds in the sky or something.
I don't believe for one whit that they were clueless. In fact, I believe that they knew the risk (of deregulating the games that helped to create this mess) and had this back-up plan ready to go. Wall Street is so deeply embedded in our government that they feel they can pretty much do as they please.
I am in no way whatsoever an expert on these matters. This opinion is just my gut reaction. But tell me...when they started to dish out thousands of ARM's to low income people, didn't they know what was going to happen? That must be why these
'assets' were sold off so quickly.
bold text mine
My question is, and I am starting out professing I am no expert on this subject, what happens when China calls in the loans? Are we really immune to a takeover? Will China own us?
Also, why did everyone in the know walk around with their heads up their asses until the crisis got THIS BAD? :mad: Why is this typical of the Bush administration? Until things hit rock bottom, they're counting birds in the sky or something.
I don't believe for one whit that they were clueless. In fact, I believe that they knew the risk (of deregulating the games that helped to create this mess) and had this back-up plan ready to go. Wall Street is so deeply embedded in our government that they feel they can pretty much do as they please.
I am in no way whatsoever an expert on these matters. This opinion is just my gut reaction. But tell me...when they started to dish out thousands of ARM's to low income people, didn't they know what was going to happen? That must be why these 'assets' were sold off so quickly.
Absolutely. Note the "in the know" portion of my post. They chose to walk around with their heads up their asses and only acknowledge any problems when it has become so big that even the typical non-financial American notices it's effed up. They KNEW KNEW KNEW they would get bailed out no matter how badly they effed it up. Fuck the rest of us, is exactly what happens.
Note the "in the know" portion of my post. .
Yup, I was agreeing with you...:)
(Just sayin just in case)
:)
I know, I was just making sure, but also re-vamping my rant. I love a revamped rant, don't you? :)
Oh yeah...vamping a rant always deserves a 2nd go around.
:biggrinje
They KNEW KNEW KNEW they would get bailed out no matter how badly they effed it up.
Getting bailed out was not even in their mind. As America graduates more bean counters and less product people, this mindset of decisions based on spread sheets sees no risk.
Our current administration contributed massively to this. For example, previously, investment banks could only hold 12 times debt for one dollar. They got the administration to permit 30 dollars debt for one dollar. Some may have been in the $40 debt to $1 equity. Why? This administration believed the economy was healthy only because spread sheets showed higher profits. That is the myth even promoted by Carly Fiorina in HP - or why bean counters make the worst leaders in industry and government.
NINJA - issuing mortgages without any Income or Job Apparent? That too comes from new rules due to a myth that all deregulation is good. Where regulations must be largest are where (historically) the greediest and dumbest congregate. Finance industry. Look sometime in the WSJ at the full page of stock brokers prosecuted every month. Criminal mindset is highest among these people which is also why every stockbroker earns well over $200,000 annually. Bean counters doing no work (No Income No Job Apparent) were making massive incomes.
They knew nothing because they did not have to know. Unfortunately, the people who created this mess will mostly walk away richest. That stock broker that does almost nothing complains that he lost 40% in this crash? So now he is worth $60million instead of $100million. Woe is he?
Our previous administration also contributed by putting lawyers in charge of Fannie Mae. No lawyers in charge of finance, please.
A few appropriate scapegoats of the current scandal are
Franklin Raines and [COLOR=black]
Jamie Gorelick[/COLOR].
A few appropriate scapegoats of the current scandal are Franklin Raines and Jamie Gorelick.
Both were gone when the major problem in Fannie and Freddie were created. Sub-prime loans that once never exceeded 10% of the loans were suddenly increased to something like 25% of all loans starting 2004 - after Raines and Gorelick were long gone.
Major problem with so many institutions were the large number of sub-prime and other (ie NINJA) loans that were implemented about 2004 to *stimulate* a sagging economy even to people who should not have had those loans. We are now paying for that economic boom recreated only by throwing money at the economy - after Raines and Gorelick were gone. A problem created by the George Jr administration need to *stimulate* the economy.
Getting bailed out was not even in their mind. As America graduates more bean counters and less product people, this mindset of decisions based on spread sheets sees no risk.
But shouldn't these trained bean counters, more than anyone, see the risk of the voodoo acounting practices that have pervaded Wall Street? :confused:
But shouldn't these trained bean counters, more than anyone, see the risk of the voodoo acounting practices that have pervaded Wall Street? :confused:
Those trained bean counters were doing voodoo accounting because they could and because it was ordered by top management. Without any law enforcement to help them say "No", then bean counters even in AT&T, MCI, Enron, etc all had no choice but pervert the spread sheets. Yes, even AT&T was on the verge of bankruptcy when Sandy Weil was discretely told this by a lesser AT&T executive that AT&T could not meet their short term loan obligations.
BTW, how to get promoted? I will never forget that corporate president on the deck, while drunk, saying "____ makes the spread sheets say what they have to say." ____ knew why he had the #2 job. 85% of all problems are ...
Both were gone when the major problem in Fannie and Freddie were created.
Leaving the organization just before and just after a major accounting scandal, leaving it leaderless until 2 weeks ago.
Leaving the organization just before and just after a major accounting scandal, leaving it leaderless until 2 weeks ago.
Leaving Fannie and Freddie to do what George Jr has been doing for the past seven years? Pumping government money into the economy. We are now reaping those economic stimulus packages including a feast of free mortgage money and 30 to 1 debt to equity ratios.
Let's see. Raines and Gorelick left in 2004. George Jr's people could not find anyone to take the job for four years? Oh. With all those White House lawyers rewriting science, then no lawyers were available to replace Franklin Raines and Jamie Gorelick? Apparently.
As near as I can figure out, we're both right.
Like modern airline crashes, the crash can't be pinned down to any single failure, but a perilous combination of them. Starting with the S&L failure, the community reinvestment act, the sudden need for backed securities and the eagerness of the congress to give it to them, the greed, the nest of backed and unbacked securities behind the mortgage market. The desire to put more money in the market. The desire to get poorer Americans into home ownership. The Countrywide "special loans" and lobbying and wheeling and dealing to preserve their setup and keep getting rich. Fannie Mae pushing ARMs because it was the only way they could keep growing. (By 2004 92% of FNMA-backed loans were ARMs) The sudden SEC deregulation was the final burst of too much water over the hull.
Nobody was smart enough to predict the combination of failures and everybody wanted to protect their phoney-baloney jobs. One obvious truth is that government can't really be trusted to ensure securities too far, because there's too much money and power to be gained; and thus we could expect the sort of wheeling and dealing where everybody could get a little richer and blame was spread around thin enough not to point the finger at any single entity.
Demonstrated are some basic facts.
Any effort to fix an economy by throwing money at it; the economy will only take revenge with even more severe consequences.
Whereas money can be used to address isolated problems, the only solution for an economy in recession is to let companies go through bankruptcy early so as to fix their #1 problem - top management.
Deficits do matter.
Enron style accounting is still alive and well. The greatest reason credit market seizure - nobody could trust anyone else's spread sheets. Industries get the regulation they deserve. Historically, finance industry regulation was and should be massive since no other industry so worships "Greed is good" and so overpays their top management for doing so little.
Tax cuts without spending cuts simply guarantee even higher taxes or other equivalent economic punishment in the future. Warren Buffet was correct. There is no free lunch even though our government said otherwise six years ago. How many forgot $8billion of free money to the airline industry with no strings attached and no repayment required. How many saw increasing debts, saw current profits as high, and therefore assumed everything would be OK ten years later?
Always go to highest levels to find why all those other guilty parties exist.
Ross Perot said that if any company did accounting routinely done in the federal government, then all corporate officers would be jailed immediately.
Any industry that will not innovate until required to by government regulation deserves to be sold to foreigners OR terminated with the stockholders getting exactly what they deserved. There never was any reason for government to protect the auto industry, big steel, or airlines. Only thing that saves a company is the same thing that is the only purpose of that company - product innovation.
Nobody was smart enough to predict the combination of failures and everybody wanted to protect their phoney-baloney jobs.
These problems were predicted. For example, The Economist front cover showed a falling brick labeled housing prices. Everyone knew the economy would be hurt by the housing market. Housing prices at 40% too high must eventually fall and typically fall hard - especially when government was trying to protect those high prices rather than address the problem. From the Economist of 16 Jun 2005:
Perhaps the best evidence that America's house prices have reached dangerous levels is the fact that house-buying mania has been plastered on the front of virtually every American newspaper and magazine over the past month. Such bubble-talk hardly comes as a surprise to our readers. We have been warning for some time that the price of housing was rising at an alarming rate all around the globe, including in America. Now that others have noticed as well, the day of reckoning is closer at hand. It is not going to be pretty. How the current housing boom ends could decide the course of the entire world economy over the next few years.
This boom is unprecedented in terms of both the number of countries involved and the record size of house-price gains. Measured by the increase in asset values over the past five years, the global housing boom is the biggest financial bubble in history (see article). The bigger the boom, the bigger the eventual bust. …
Enron made it obvious how corrupt accounting had become. But we did nothing for how long? Few would admit how massive mortgage backed secuirities had so contaminated the financial markets. The few who openly acknowledged it included a Senior VP of Merrill Lynch (who got fired for being honest) and Goldman Sachs (who hedged sufficiently to protect themselves).
Everyone know NINJAs were widespread. Everyone knew these problems would come back with negative consequences (those not blinded by greed). However nobody knew 'when'.
I remember a girl who asked about investing in the market in August 1987. It was obvious that the market would suffer a big downturn. The only problem - as I told her - was that I could not say if it would occur next month or next few years. The downturn was that obvious and inevitable. I recommended waiting to invest after the crash. That became the October 1987 crash. Nobody could predict 'when' the obvious would occur.
These problems were obvious. What people cannot say is when the inevitable will occur.
Bankruptcy is averted by perverting the spread sheets. This only permits a simpler problem to get worse - ie Enron. The sooner a symptom of bad management becomes obvious, then less damage results. Unfortunately, the past decade plus had simply subverted regulations that require honest spread sheets. This became most obvious when Harvey Pitts (SEC Commissioner) refused to accept a doubling of his budget by Congress. The 'powers that be' wanted 'less regulation'. Those same 'powers' literaly has to be embarrassed when Oklahoma filed suite against Enron - forcing the 'powers that be' to concede and prosecute Skilling and Lay.
Deregulation to permit spread sheet games has only made it even harder to predict "when".
Maybe
this fits better in this thread - whatever. I'm sure the left will label it as right wing propaganda and the right will say its the absolute truth. As usual, I'm caught right in the middle. Like most of this stuff, I'm sure there is some truth to some of it. Everyone's too busy pointing fingers at each other to solve the problems.
These problems were predicted.
I agree. People were talking, (and writing) "The Real Estate Bubble", for a hell of a long time. Everyone knows that "bubbles" inevitably pop, so like you said, it was just a matter of when.
But that said, the general public was mostly unaware how the mortgage market was polluting the other financial institutions, although the people whose business is the money game, and those that are supposed to be keeping an eye on them, sure as hell should have known what was happening. :mad:
Getting back on topic - sorta
Life Returns to Iraq's StreetsThanks Classic.
It always helps to see the human face of people affected by conflict.
That chemists shop with the same brand of hair-dye I've used in the past really made me stop and think.
I hate the fact that different sects of the same religion kill eachother. Whether it's Sunni and Shi'ite or Catholic and Protestant. I hope those caught up in it manage to resolve their differences and rebuild their country - physically, politically and emotionally.
The faces that we are not seeing are the 1.5 million Iraqi refugees from the war stranded in Syria and Jordan or the 2+ million displaced within Iraq as a result of the sectarian violence.
Most of these 4+ million (12-15% of the Iraqi population) have no home to come home to.
Five years into the US military intervention in Iraq, the country is dealing with one of the largest humanitarian and displacement crises in the world. Millions of Iraqis have fled their homes – either for safer locations within Iraq, or to other countries in the region – and are living in increasingly desperate circumstances. Failure to address the needs of Iraqis will have dramatic impacts on security inside Iraq.
http://www.refintl.org/where-we-work/middle-east/iraq
The new Iraq democracy is a good thing, despite the cost in US and Iraqi lives and US $billions. But they still face enormous challenges, mostly political and economic in which the continued large US military occupation cant help.
Its time for the US to get out in an orderly and reasonably short term time frame....according to the wishes of both the Iraqi people and the American people.
And we're beginning to hear of refugees returning home and making a success of things. Things are beginning to look up. Fox News mentioned a restauranteur reopening his place in Adhamiyah, a city formerly an insurgency stronghold and now much pacified. This is not
this guy a few years back but another. Exerpt:
SINCE OCTOBER, CAPTAIN WILLIAM MURPHY AND HIS MILITARY CIVIL AFFAIRS TEAM HAVE PUT IN HUNDREDS OF SOLAR LIGHTS IN ADAHMIYAH, A FORMER INSURGENT STRONGHOLD.
THEY SAY... IT'S ALREADY PAID OFF--
STREETS ARE GETTING SAFER...
AND BUSINESSES ARE BENEFITTING.
THE NEIGHBORHOOD'S MOST POPULAR KEBAB SHOP RE-OPENED SEVERAL WEEKS AGO..
WHEN THE OWNER RETURNED TO BAGHDAD FROM ABROAD... ENCOURAGED BY IMPROVING SECURITY.
AL KAS says: "I am [K]asim, and I am back in Adhamiyah. I have other shops in Qatar, Syria and Amman, Jordan. the street is lit now. before it was dark, so when there is light, people start to go out."
From
here.Nobody left Iraq when Saddam was there did they? Oh thats right they and their children were probably murdered if they tried. Whatever.
Most estimates puts Saddam's murders at the 200,000 - 300,000 level...a horrific number.
So are 4 million refugees in a population of 25 million.
And we're beginning to hear of refugees returning home and making a success of things. Things are beginning to look up.
I havent seen or heard those stories. Most of the Sunni refugees who fled Baghad have no home or its been taken over by Shiia's.
One serious issue that the government is attempting to cope with is that these refugees represented a large part of the professional working class in Iraq.
Nearly all non-Muslims who lived in relative security under Saddam have fled Iraq for good for for fear of religious backlash and limited rights under the new Constitution.
Baghdad is still a walled and divided city by most accounts.
Gotta admit the four million's chances are a lot better than the three hundred thousand's.
Gotta admit the four million's chances are a lot better than the three hundred thousand's.
I would guess that depends on whether it becomes a generational issue.
The record or Iraq's neighboring Arab states treatment of other Arab refugees is nothing to brag about.
Figuring out exactly how many people were killed in Saddam's 24 years as president of Iraq isn't easy. Saddam's murders were frequent and numerous, but the victims and their executioners were often the only witnesses. The true extent of his murderousness will be revealed only when Iraq's many mass graves are exhumed, an enormous and painfully slow task that has just begun. For now, though, we have credible estimates to work with. Almost certainly, most of them understate the regime's bloodletting.
In a single episode in the mid-1980s, the regime rounded up and killed around 10,000 Kurds. Human Rights Watch estimated that Anfal killed "more than 100,000" Kurds, and that Kurdish victims of the regime's campaigns between 1983 and 1993 reached "well into six figures."
60,000 lives a year, if we use UNICEF's numbers.
Ok according to the UNICEF numbers just multiply 60,000 times the 28 years - and you get something like 1.7 million - thats a far cry from 200-300,000.
hell he killed over 100,000 Kurds in the late 80's alone...
November 14, 2006
Kurds Want Early Death for Saddam
by Mohammed Salih
ARBIL - As Saddam Hussein faces his second trial, this one over the killing of an estimated 180,000 Kurds in the late 1980s, people in Kurdistan are taking a particular interest whether the death sentence in the first case will be carried out before there can be a verdict in the second.
Ok...we won. Saddam is dead....a fledgling democracy is in place.
Iraq's challenges ahead are, for the most part, political and economic.
Now lets go home!
The cost to the US has already been more than 4,000 US deaths and $500 billiion (and will be in $trillions for long term vet care for many of the more than 25,000 wounded.)
"With only a few days of 2008 remaining, the year so far has seen another 8,315-9,028 civilian deaths added to the IBC database. This compares to 25,774-27,599 deaths reported in 2006, and 22,671-24,295 in 2007. This is a substantial drop on the preceding two years: on a per-day rate, it represents a reduction from 76 per day (2006) and 67 per day (2007) to 25 per day in 2008.
Iraq's elections: a win for Prime Minister Maliki and the US
Iraq's January 31 provincial elections were another important milestone on Iraq's long and difficult journey toward becoming a stable democracy.
According to preliminary results, the big electoral winner was Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's State of Law coalition. While 10 per cent of the votes must still be counted, it is apparent that the relatively peaceful atmosphere on Election Day was a triumph for US policy and a vindication of the Bush Administration's surge strategy.
But it remains to be seen whether all the contending factions will peacefully accept the provincial election results and, more importantly, the results of national elections slated for December. The Obama Administration must be careful to maintain adequate US troops in Iraq to safeguard the prospects for continued political progress.
US dominance over Iraq has ended: Maliki
BAGHDAD (AFP) — Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Tuesday that the era of US dominance in Iraq was over, in a broadside to Washington almost six years after the invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.
The Shiite premier, boosted by the strong showing of his allies in provincial elections, said Iraq was now taking charge of its own destiny and was making good progress towards rebuilding the war-torn country.
His remarks were a pointed rebuke to US Vice President Joe Biden, who last week said Washington would have to be "more aggressive" in pushing Baghdad towards faster political reform.
"The time for putting pressure on Iraq is over," Maliki told reporters when asked about Biden's comments.
"The Iraqi government knows what are its responsibilities. We are carrying out reform and we are in the last step of the reconciliation."
Biden said the January 31 provincial elections -- in which Maliki's allies triumphed -- had shown that progress was being made, but more needed to be done as Iraq's leaders had not "gotten their political arrangements together yet."
The new US administration of President Barack Obama would have to be "much more aggressive... forcing them to deal with those issues," Biden said.
But Maliki insisted: "If there are demands for political reforms, it is up to the government, the Iraqi parliament and political forces.
"It was we who took the initiative for national reconciliation, and we have stated that without national reconciliation there will be no security in the country."
Maliki's remarks were a strong signal ahead of a parliamentary election due to be held in about a year that he is unwilling to allow the United States to dictate how Iraq should rebuild and consolidate its fledgling democracy.
Ok...we won. Saddam is dead....a fledgling democracy is in place.
Now lets go home!
Remember the principle stated by Project for a New American Century. We must protection **OUR** oil. So much of the US military has now been deposited in Iraq that it will easily take a year to get out. We moved into Iraq to stay - as if we intend to rescue victims of a Hurricane Katrina disaster. It will easily take a year to leave - assuming the civil war does not break out.
It was no accident that a massive (but not majority) of the US military is in Iraq. We moved in to stay permanently as a 1996 PNAC doctrine stated. We moved in to stay permanently despite administration denials. Massive amounts of permantly fixed and very secret equipment must be removed. It will take that much longer to leave.
....assuming the civil war does not break out.
Interesting article in the Wash Post Today:
The war in Iraq isn't over. The main events may not even have happened yet.
We created the environment for civil war by buddying up and arming both (or more) sides for the political expediency of declaring victory and a very fragile democracy so the PNAC crowd could proclaim "told you so"
Interesting article in the Wash Post Today:
"The war in Iraq isn't over. The main events may not even have happened yet".
Slowly we are seeing indications that we have no idea what will happen once we leave. We know violence diminished when various insurgent groups were ordered to stand down. They still have weapons - and plenty of time to rebuild stockpiles. Do they still have the hatred of their countrymen? "Mission Accomplished" was always a civil war. Within the past year, cities that were once safe have now become 'unstable'. From the NY Times of 23 Jun 2009:
Falluja Rumblings Threaten to Disrupt Withdrawal Script
Then a series of troubling attacks began cropping up this year. One in particular, at the end of May, seemed to drive home the possibility that things were changing for the worse. On a heavily patrolled military road between a Marine camp and the wastewater plant, a huge buried bomb tore through an armored American convoy, killing three prominent reconstruction officials and striking at hopes that the way was completely clear for peacetime projects.
With the June 30 withdrawal deadline for American combat troops from Iraqi cities and towns drawing near, that attack and others like it are particularly ominous for officials who see Falluja as a test case for the rest of the country. Security here is becoming a solely Iraqi operation, and while the United States military says the number of attacks remains encouragingly low, there are signs that Falluja could again plunge into violence.
We are out because our leadership has grasped reality. It is their country to build or destroy. They had a year to decide what kind of country they want - now that we had enabled so much violence.
We broke it. We owned it. Now we leave it with our legacy. Nobody can predict that legacy with certainty.
I just hope this doesn't cause us to stay longer. As it is, I don't trust that we will be leaving completely anyway, and I think we should.
From reading T.P.M. Barnett's latest book, Great Powers: America and the World After Bush, I don't think we should. He doesn't think we can or should. Take a read of his stuff. He's also got a blog for the week-to-week.
It isn't a link. I just underlined the title. Still like $32.00 at Borders or Barnes & Noble. Here's the blog, though.
Thomas P.M. BarnettAre you saying you don't think we should stay either? sorry, I'm just a little confused. :)
I said back in '03 or '04 around here that the final victory in Iraq would not be ours, but necessarily must be the Iraqis'. What we should do is to set up the conditions for a victory by the globalizer Iraqis, the democratic Iraqis who got themselves a bellyful of undemocracy under Saddam and his ilk and are now ready to try something else, and something better: a more democratic social order. We should set it up so this victory is in the end inevitable -- at least so far as that may be possible. The thing that makes social science so much less than a science, and social engineering so much less than engineering, is that the fundamental unit of social science is not a molecule, but a self-willed organism. Organisms actively seek their own advantage, and this kind of behavior is what fuzzes up the results in social science. It reduces a socalled science to an art, and we're stuck with that.
And back then, I expected that the timing of our eventual and always-expected departure would be controversial: some would argue too late, others would say too early, more work is needed yet, and almost no one would claim in print (at the time) that it was timed about right.
This Barnett guy seems to offer some pretty cagey ideas for how to pursue this kind of strategy not merely in Araby, but globally -- shrinking the Non-Integrating Gap, as he puts it, nation by nation, increment by increment, developmental stage by developmental stage -- these stages being essentially economic ones, the most earthshaking of which is the rise of a numerous middle class, in places that never had them before. Education of women is another essential, and often catalytic to the required social growth. It is also the one thing our antiglobalist foes oppose most bitterly -- and locally and temporarily, with greatest success.
ahhhh, I see. Thanks UG for that explanation. I actually think I agree with you. (quick! call the press!)
The one comment I will make, is there are certain people who will ALWAYS argue it's too soon, more work is needed, even if it's 20 years later.
This moment is like when the 16 year old son borrows the car for the first time.
You've taught him to drive, lectured him on safety, shown him car crashes, taken him to the ICU to talk with the quadraplegics; now, you hear the rumble of the exhaust down the driveway...
Will he drive sensibly and carefully like you told him? Will he turn into a hoon and wreck everything? Will some idiot smash into him despite everything you have done?
My guess is that the next few months - maybe even a year or so - will stay relatively quiet, as more and more foreign troops slowly leave. But I also guess there are trouble makers just biding their time, and when they judge that enough foreign troops have left, they will start to stir up shit. Mosque bombings, street killings, etc.
Whether that remains under control or descends into civil war and ends up like Lebannon is the question. It depends on so many things - almost all of them to do with the Iraqi people and whether they really support their government, enough to serve in its armies; or whether they become disenchanted with the rulers and apathetically allow extremists to screw things up.
I am not very hopeful. Iraq isn't a "natural state" - three big groups with different ethnicities, religions, and languages, and a history of bad behaviour towards each other. And some juicy oil deposits to keep things interesting. Add in meddling neighbours, and I think the odds are moderately against them. On the plus side, they have got a glimpse of life under religious whackos, and they didn't like it. Most of them will surely understand what civil war will mean for them, I hope.
Wait and see.
I think ultimately it might have been better to divide it up into 3 states for the 3 factions.
I have thought of that, but Bagdad is a huge multi-ethinc mix. It wont divide neatly. Splitting the country would almost certainly lead to awful bloodshed in Bagdad. Also, the oil is not distibuted evenly - some groups wont want to split.
It may end up Balkanising, but the process will be very ugly. But, that may in the long run be the only viable stable solution.
:corn:
I have thought of that, but Bagdad is a huge multi-ethinc mix. It wont divide neatly. Splitting the country would almost certainly lead to awful bloodshed in Bagdad. Also, the oil is not distibuted evenly - some groups wont want to split.
It may end up Balkanising, but the process will be very ugly. But, that may in the long run be the only viable stable solution.
:corn:
The obvious solution is a secular dictatorship. No matter how bad Saddam was, Iraq was more or less stable under it, so that has to be remembered. Though, that obviously is not a preferable solution.
ahhhh, I see. Thanks UG for that explanation. I actually think I agree with you. (quick! call the press!)
The one comment I will make, is there are certain people who will ALWAYS argue it's too soon, more work is needed, even if it's 20 years later.
Yeah. Goes without saying. Maybe not without linking to here, but without saying...
There were 0 (zero) hostility-related coalition deaths in Iraq during the month of December.
That is incredible! yay US
That is amazing, all things considered. Probably underreported as well, but still awesome.