The Iraq thread 3

[sputnik monroe 102]

You people baffle me sometimes. You wan't to see the United States defeated in Iraq, yet out the other side of your mouthes you say it's their duty to rebuild them. I don't get it, how do they reconstruct Iraq if they get "defeated"?

[Badgerboy 0]

You people baffle me sometimes. You wan't to see the United States defeated in Iraq, yet out the other side of your mouthes you say it's their duty to rebuild them. I don't get it, how do they reconstruct Iraq if they get "defeated"?

Sigh. I don't know how you form your impressions, but they are seriously flawed.

[denoir 0]

You people baffle me sometimes. You wan't to see the United States defeated in Iraq, yet out the other side of your mouthes you say it's their duty to rebuild them. I don't get it, how do they reconstruct Iraq if they get "defeated"?

Who wants to see the US defeated? The US is getting defeated as it looks now, that's a statement of facts, not a wish.

Show me where any of the regular posters wishes the Iraq "project" to fail.

[IsthatyouJohnWayne 0]

Denoir-

Quote[/b] ]The US is getting defeated as it looks now, that's a statement of facts, not a wish.

Id say thats putting it a little strongly. For instance general Petraeus in the north seems to have had some successes. And as the article Tex beat me to posting shows, there are nuances even in the militias. The US is having difficulties, but overall defeat does not seem imminent. Of course it depends how one categorises defeat. If a lack of ability to provide the desired level of services and rebuild the country is the measure then at the moment the US is 'losing' . But i dont see overall power spiralling away from the US just yet except in the direction of the new government (which theoretically would be the aim for victory according to the coalition). Anti US Gunmen may hold streets but they dont seem to me to hold the nation as a whole.

I dont see a nation wide uprising or a credible alternative to the de facto US sponsored power bloc.

[Tex -USMC- 0]

And as the article Tex beat me to posting shows

You were going to post the Cheney thing too?

[bn880 5]

Denoir-

Quote[/b] ]The US is getting defeated as it looks now, that's a statement of facts, not a wish.

Id say thats putting it a little strongly. For instance general Petraeus in the north seems to have had some successes. And as the article Tex beat me to posting shows, there are nuances even in the militias. The US is having difficulties, but overall defeat does not seem imminent. Of course it depends how one categorises defeat. If a lack of ability to provide the desired level of services and rebuild the country is the measure then at the moment the US is 'losing' . But i dont see overall power spiralling away from the US just yet except in the direction of the new government (which theoretically would be the aim for victory according to the coalition). Anti US Gunmen may hold streets but they dont seem to me to hold the nation as a whole.

I dont see a nation wide uprising or a credible alternative to the de facto US sponsored power bloc.

I would say they have failed, just check the number of civilian/police casualties lately. No security after so long/for so long is in effect failure. At least that is my view on the state of things.

This stuff was not happening in Iraq 2 years ago, that is except for the US bombings of towers etc.

[denoir 0]

Turn on BBC if you have it now, and watch the interview with the UN special envoy to Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, and former favourite to lead the interim government, Dr Hussain al-Shahristani, talking about the new government and answering questions from viewers calling in.

It's very very interesting.

They have something on the BBC webpage, possibly realvideo or something http://news.bbc.co.uk/.

[walker 0]

Hi all

What is it with people that they confuse their leaders with their nation?

Everyone here who has made arguments against TBA or TBA2 or incorrect tactics used by millitary. This is being very specific that those we are blaming are leaderships not the whole of a people who live in a country; that way lies racisim.

The same as Iraqi's cannot be tarred with the brush of Sadam the US cannot be tarred with the brush TBA and the UK with the brush of TBA2.

The Iraqis were badly lead by Sadam.

The US is badly lead by TBA.

The UK is badly lead by TBA2.

It is bad leadership.

With regard to the millitary it is bad tactical and strategic decision that are leading to failures of the US millitary.

Bad decisions about torture at the level of the US Secretary of Defence, Atourney general and possibly the President (he had to get personal legal represntation when he was investigated with regard to the pro torture memos which tells us something) lead to US soldiers torturing people at Abu Graib. I do not excuse the soldiers they should have ignored what the bad Leadership from Rumsfeld and many of those testifying did and infact the majority of soldiers at Abu Graib refused to participate and some blew the whistle.

Bad Decisions at the Pentagon lead to the US not putting in enough troops. The light agile force is not one suited to occupation which is the task at hand.

Bad Decisions at the Presedential, Cabinet and Pentagon level lead to a war with No Exit Strategy. If any one has seen the Exit Strategy please point to it.

Bad Tactics initialy by 4th infantry (an Assault Infantry Division designed equiped and trained to fight battles not hold ground) lead to the retreat in to the bunkers in the sunni triangle.

If you compare it to the mature US Airbornes ativity in the north there is a marked diference.

Failure to control the land held and communicate with the people has meant that the US soldiers are left in a hostile sea of people they cannot understand unable to determine friend from foe.

They need to break out of the PX and bunker mentality.

Next the international community is distrustful of George Bush Jnr.

George Bush Jnr. said there was WMD and there was not

George Bush Jnr. said Sadam was in league with Al Qaida and Sadam was not.

George Bush Jnr. said Sadam was a threat and he clearly was not the man was a paper tiger

Many in the rest of the international community and the various intellegence communities warned TBA and TBA2 that they had miss assesed Sadam. For which advice they were spurned and called names by many in the US media and administration.

Now TBA want those same people whos advice they ignored and who they insulted to pick up the bill for fixing the mess.

To blame Iraqis for the dire seccurity state in Iraq is actualy against the laws of war when you invade a country it is the Invader who must then secure the borders.

It is policy of the occupying force to leave the borders pourous as part of a stupid fly paper plan.

Most of the rest of the middle east is jittery as hell even once stable countries like Saidi Arabia.

The only ones making any money out of this are the Oil Speculators who are ripping off US drivers by overcharging for gas on the fears of those same jitters.

On a personal level I am peaved that to get my support for the initail invasion I was either lied to or the leaders of the country I live in and its closest Allie were criminaly negligent in their assesment of the threat of Sadam.

As a result they have killed tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers and innocent civilians and wounded probably close to 6 times that, a nation has been economicaly and socialy destroyed and after a year this has not been fixed, that during the course of that war fast aproaching a thousand soldiers lives were needlessly lost and 5 or 6 thousand of those same soldiers have been badly wounded.

Finaly we have been diverted from the main task of destroying Bin Laden and his terror network with many US  UK and Australian Special forces and intel people waisting time in in Iraq because George Bush Jnr. cant be bothered to swat flies and he wants to be seen as a big sexy war president rather than a what he realy is which is a Vietnam War Dodger.

Guess that about covers it Walker

[bn880 5]

A good question I may pose here is: "What do people who supported the "action" in Iraq consider a failure of the mission, a failure of part of the mission, and the mission was?"

mission/campaign obviously

EDIT: I did not support this, but I will get you started:

part of the campaign was to depose Saddam (check), this point includes the end of his regime

[denoir 0]

LMAO, BBC Dateline opening "Is the transfer going to end up in bloodshed or is it going to be much worse?"

Anyway, I've heard some interesting arguments, especially on the new government and the security situation. One major points that that I agree with is that training Iraqi troops, getting Iraqi policemen isn't the problem. The problem is to get them to trust the leadership of their country to the extent that they would die for it. And we're far from that point.

The UN envoy Brahimi basically said, that this is not a legitimate government. This is not a representative government. That this is not even an acceptable government, but that he was hoping that it was the least unacceptable government that could be formed under these circumstances.

The people in the government do not represent the people of Iraq, but represent those power factions that are willing to cooperate with the Americans. They also mentioned that Allawi was a former CIA employee, which I found interesting.

Another very interesting thing discussed was the grave misconception of the resistance in Iraq. That sure, there were some periferal AQ connections, but that it was not really relevant. The relevant part is that the resistance enjoys a great deal of logisitical support from the population. And the obvious mistake of kicking out all Baathists and soldiers - which joined up the resistance and could provide them with weapons and training.

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]George Bush Jnr. said there was WMD and there was not

George Bush Jnr. said Sadam was in league with Al Qaida and Sadam was not.

George Bush Jnr. said Sadam was a threat and he clearly was not the man was a paper tiger

Many in the rest of the international community and the various intellegence communities warned TBA and TBA2 that they had miss assesed Sadam. For which advice they were spurned and called names by many in the US media and administration.

Now TBA want those same people whos advice they ignored and who they insulted to pick up the bill for fixing the mess.

1. it seems somebody forgot about something that happened a few weeks ago.

2.there is a debate if a fedayeen officer was a Al-Q man....

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/21/politics/21PANE.html

Plus, there is a New York times article about Iraq and Al-Q...

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/25/politics/25TERR.html?pagewanted=1

Furthermore, the 9/11 com. said there were no strong ties between Iraq and Al-Q for 9/11 but there is evidence that they had meetings, communications, and etc not dealing with 9/11....Bush has never said Iraq had a role during 9/11 in public....

I thought Saddam was making the west look like a paper tiger by his various actions in the 90s....

[denoir 0]

I really would not like to play poker against Rumsfeld.

I don't know if anybody else saw the BBC interview with him, but that man is an impressive liar. With a straight face he described how great the situation was in Iraq, how more or less the whole world supported the war, how fair the Guantanamo military tribunals were and how the prison torture had nothing to do with the interrogation of prisoners. What I found most amazing is his claims that the sanctioned "torture" on Gitmo - the things that he approved of - intimidation with dogs, perssure positions, sexual humiliation etc - were used against one specific prisoner there, who was suspected to have been part of the WTC attack plot. As if that was quite justifiable (it turns out that the prisoner in question didn't have anything to do with the WTC attacks).

Quite a poker face.

[bn880 5]

Good liars we've seen before in war, remember WW2 and how Germans fooled the Jews that they were just going to relocate them. So, dozens of German officers assured and convinced the Jewish population the trains were going to a new place where they can set up. etc. etc. Rumsfeld has a gread liar seed in his genes apparently.

[denoir 0]

The scary part is how convincing he is. Had I not been in the habit on keeping myself up to date with news (other than FOX News ), I would have no trouble believing him.

[bn880 5]

True.

[Duke_of_Ray 0]

You people baffle me sometimes. You wan't to see the United States defeated in Iraq, yet out the other side of your mouthes you say it's their duty to rebuild them. I don't get it, how do they reconstruct Iraq if they get "defeated"?

Who wants to see the US defeated? The US is getting defeated as it looks now, that's a statement of facts, not a wish.

Show me where any of the regular posters wishes the Iraq "project" to fail.

I don't think at all the U.S. is getting defeated, does not even look that way to me, I just don't think we are doing what we need to do to stop the terrorist in Iraq.

[brgnorway 0]

You people baffle me sometimes. You wan't to see the United States defeated in Iraq, yet out the other side of your mouthes you say it's their duty to rebuild them. I don't get it, how do they reconstruct Iraq if they get "defeated"?

Who wants to see the US defeated? The US is getting defeated as it looks now, that's a statement of facts, not a wish.

Show me where any of the regular posters wishes the Iraq "project" to fail.

I don't think at all the U.S. is getting defeated, does not even look that way to me, I just don't think we are doing what we need to do to stop the terrorist in Iraq.

I think you are wrong!

If bringing peace and at the same time restoring Iraq politically and rebuilding the infrastructure I'd say USA (and the coalition of the evil) is failing big time - or rather that they are being defeated.

They barely control the highways (convoys are still being attacked) .

They certainly do not control the cities.

They lack the trust of the general iraqi citizen.

We are not talking about a traditional military defeat as this almost doesn't exist anymore (example: Soviets in Afghanistan) . But we are still talking about defeat as they cannot control Iraq with military means. It won't change untill they realize that not all of the resistance are "terrorists" but  belonging to various factions not nessecarily connected to eachother except for the common goal of fighting the occupation - and if you ask me - some of them are rightfully legitimate in doing so!

[Balschoiw 0]

no comment

[brgnorway 0]

Hehe.......good one - but I wish it was a plastic bag..........

[Duke_of_Ray 0]

You people baffle me sometimes. You wan't to see the United States defeated in Iraq, yet out the other side of your mouthes you say it's their duty to rebuild them. I don't get it, how do they reconstruct Iraq if they get "defeated"?

Who wants to see the US defeated? The US is getting defeated as it looks now, that's a statement of facts, not a wish.

Show me where any of the regular posters wishes the Iraq "project" to fail.

I don't think at all the U.S. is getting defeated, does not even look that way to me, I just don't think we are doing what we need to do to stop the terrorist in Iraq.

I think you are wrong!

If bringing peace and at the same time restoring Iraq politically and rebuilding the infrastructure I'd say USA (and the coalition of the evil) is failing big time - or rather that they are being defeated.

They barely control the highways (convoys are still being attacked) .

They certainly do not control the cities.

They lack the trust of the general iraqi citizen.

We are not talking about a traditional military defeat as this almost doesn't exist anymore (example: Soviets in Afghanistan) . But we are still talking about defeat as they cannot control Iraq with military means. It won't change untill they realize that not all of the resistance are "terrorists" but  belonging to various factions not nessecarily connected to eachother except for the common goal of fighting the occupation - and if you ask me - some of them are rightfully legitimate in doing so!

May be, but I think we are doing better than people might think. Besides most of the media disgustingly liberal, so I doubt we get a very "fair" view of what is going on. I think if we really stepped it up over there we could get the job done, it's just Bush can't be to worried what the rest of the world thinks. Personally if it takes actions that would make many people mad at us to save our soldiers lives, and bring peace to Iraq then I say so be it.

[brgnorway 0]

Quote[/b] ]Besides most of the media disgustingly liberal, so I doubt we get a very "fair" view of what is going on.

I can't see what's "liberal" about newsreports on bombings, killings, lack of water/electricity/medical help and medicine?

Quote[/b] ] ....... it's just Bush can't be to worried what the rest of the world thinks.

I'd say it seems he doesn't care very much what the world thinks except whenever he asks for help after US clearly fucked it up. Maybe he should think twice about going to a war he can't handle next time.

Quote[/b] ]Personally if it takes actions that would make many people mad at us to save our soldiers lives, and bring peace to Iraq then I say so be it.

The two aspects above are incompatible.

[scfan42 0]

I can't see what's "liberal" about newsreports on bombings, killings, lack of water/electricity/medical help and medicine?

Oh just the parts about the majority of Iraqis being glad that Saddam is gone and the fact that more parts of the country have water and electricity now than pre-war, not to mention all the rebuilding (or building in some places).

And since you seem to complain about the US doing a poor job guarding, how about you try and protect every square mile of highway from a random roadside bomb. Or try to pick out the terrorists in a crowd of a couple thousand people.

[brgnorway 0]

Quote[/b] ]Oh just the parts about the majority of Iraqis being glad that Saddam is gone

True enough - but it doesn't mean they are very gratefull towards your chaps does it?

Do you care to wonder why? Try this then: lack of electricity, water shortages, lack of medicine and health care AND lack of basic security. And don't forget basic rights as you won't deliver the goods in the democracy department because you more or less dictate the canditates. So, for the ones who wanted democracy they could just as well go back to Saddam as he at least gave them: electricity, food and basic security for the ones that kept their mouth shut. The medical care-bit is another question but very much caused by US and UK as they denied Iraq various medical drugs and treatments.

Of course, Saddam was a bastard but you are certainly putting his prisons to good use arn't you?

Quote[/b] ]and the fact that more parts of the country have water and electricity now than pre-war, not to mention all the rebuilding (or building in some places).

Yeah right - and I believe in the easter bunny.

Quote[/b] ]And since you seem to complain about the US doing a poor job guarding, how about you try and protect every square mile of highway from a random roadside bomb. Or try to pick out the terrorists in a crowd of a couple thousand people.

I don't have to, and I'm not feeling any worse because of it! My point has always been that the war should never have been started. AND a lot of the forum members including myself, predicted this would happen. You failed to provide moral arguments for the invasion/occupation and many believe you did it for the wrong reasons. Clearly your nation acts like an amateurish bully and you'll get your fingers burnt once more.

And I don't feel sorry for you at all!

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]I don't have to, and I'm not feeling any worse because of it! My point has always been that the war should never have been started. AND a lot of the forum members including myself, predicted this would happen. You failed to provide moral arguments for the invasion/occupation and many  believe you did it for the wrong reasons. Clearly your nation acts like an amateurish bully and you'll get your fingers burnt once more.

Somebody on a mean streak........ People have presented moral arguments but YOU want to skip those posts or it seems do not care for them (posts) because they do not follow your point of view or called them wrong....

[billybob2002 0]

Anyway, it seems NATO has entered the fold....

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm....ush

Quote[/b] ]

NATO to Back Plan on Training Iraq Forces

2 hours, 5 minutes ago

By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent

ISTANBUL, Turkey - NATO (news - web sites) closed ranks Sunday on a pledge to take a bigger military role in Iraq (news - web sites) as violence and bloodshed surged before the delicate political turnover in Baghdad. President Bush (news - web sites) declared that the alliance was poised to "meet the threats of the 21st century."

Quote[/b] ]

NATO's agreement on an Iraq training program allowed the alliance to stand united after being torn last year by sharp divisions over the U.S.-led invasion. U.S. officials conceded that details of the plan still have to be worked out about its size, cost and timing, and Germany expressed some reservations. Still, the administration viewed the plan as an election-year victory for Bush, answering Democratic rival John Kerry (news - web sites)'s criticism that the president has failed to enlist global allies in Iraq.

Quote[/b] ]

In addition to a training program in Iraq, NATO is expected to say it will consider further steps to support Iraq's security, a senior administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the document has not been released. NATO also will agree to expand its Afghanistan (news - web sites) mission beyond Kabul, where there are 5,800 NATO troops, the official said.

Quote[/b] ]

Germany's Schroeder renewed his opposition to sending troops to Iraq, even for training. "We are already working to train police officers in the United Arab Emirates, and we do that happily," Schroeder said. U.S. officials indicated they would be content with that.

Quote[/b] ]

Powell said the training plan would not require more troops from the United States, beyond the 135,000 soldiers already in Iraq. The United States had once hoped other countries would contribute troops but dropped that idea when it failed to raise interest.

........no comment.....