Surge or Surrender
POSTED BY: Hero
UPDATED: Saturday, January 20, 2007 17:03
VIEWED: 15139
PAGE 7 of 21
Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
...nonetheless there are MANY parts of the world that will be unaffected by events in Iraq.
Unaffected directly, perhaps. But the next time a Darfur-type crisis or Ruwanda-style genocide comes up and we attempt to organize a response, we'll hear, "Sure. You Americans are with us, right until the going gets tough." Don't you think the South Koreans are sort of wondering if we won't leave them in the lurch if Kim starts waving his nukes around? Like it or not, the idea that America will fight for our friends is the only thing which keeps the lid on in many places around the world.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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Quote:Because we have no business invading other countries that have not declared war on us? Because it is not our job to remove the hundreds of despots all over the world? Because there are less offensive and costly solutions to political threats than armed invasion?
Originally posted by Hero:Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Here is why we should leave. We shouldn't have been there in the first place.
Why not?
Quote:We have "enemies" everywhere. We are not waging war with all the people who are our "enemies." There are other solutions to enmity besides use of sheer force.
If the enemy is there and we are there why should we not fight them there?
Quote:Well, you don't retreat by sending more troops.
And who cares about the 'first place' how can we retreat in the face of the enemy today...not 2003...today.
If I had the say so, I'd outline a 3 month plan for bringing our troops home. In these three months, I'd hand out a weapon to every civilian Iraqi household that wants one, and provide the military training to use it. Then I'd pack us up and leave.
The only way to protect the Iraqi people is to empower them to protect themselves. It is better to teach a man to fish than to make oneself responsible to providing him a fish every day for the rest of his life. End of story.
Can't Take My Gorram Sky
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Ever heard of The Emperor's New Clothes?
The issue is not whether we win or lose the war now. The issue is whether or not we recognize reality now or later. Sending 20,000 more troops into a hopeless meatgrinder simply doesn't make sense--if the situation is indeed hopeless, sending more troops is barbaric.
I perceive the matter as hopeless, others do not. Now those of us who consider the situation hopeless are considered traitors to our country by some. Now, they're saying my love of my country hangs on whether I believe we can do the impossible, while our sons and daughters die daily attempting the impossible.
The impossible. Sure, we humans have a way of surpassing ourselves, sure we are prone to underestimate ourselves out of a good thing. But for the moment, forget Captain Kirk, forget Man of La Mancha and all the g.d. leadership seminars you've attended--there actually is such a thing as the impossible: that which will never ever be achieved.
This war was a failure before it began. Those of us who were not blinded by fear and rage after 9/11 could see that plain as day. The GWOT was a failure before it began. Thankfully, the GWOT is not necessary. Like Communism before it, this new "evil empire" will fall of it's own internal contradictions.
NOW HOLD UP! I'm not saying that our various brinksmanshippings and li'l wars in convenient corners of the world didn't help communism along to its innevitable grave. It was innevitable that America would battle "Communism" just as it is innevitable that America will battle "Terrorism." I'm just saying that "losing" Viet Nam did not harm our status in the world or bring the commies marching down mainstreet, much as the warhawks of the day swore it would. And "losing" Iraq (seriously, I put losing Iraq in quotes 'cause you can't lose what you never had--unless you believe that the CIA owned Saddam for a while, at which point you'd have to say we "lost" Iraq years before 9/11 and what we're doing there now is trying to get it back and failing miserably), losing Iraq, I say, will not bring the world crashing down around our ears. It will however discredit the warhawks, just as it did after Viet Nam, and that's not such a bad thing either.
You see, the Emperor didn't start out the day with a shiny new outfit that then began to fade; it didn't vanish somewhere in the middle of lunch; the guy was naked from the get go. And I want the tailors responsible brought to justice.
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
But I'm not sure what the additional 21,000 troops are for. To wrest control of Bahgdad from the Shiite death squads?
I had understood that it was to wrest control of the Sunni parts of Baghdad from the Sunni death squads while the Iraqi Army took on the Shi'a. This is supposed to be better because it won't give Sadr as much reason to gripe about the Americans, since they weren't going up against his people.
Some are also going into Anbar province to hunt down Baathists and foreign fighters.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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Quote:Which no one here is doing...
Originally posted by Hero:
Traitor
1 : one who betrays another's trust or is false to an obligation or duty
Quote:...which no one here is doing.
Treason
1. Violation of allegiance toward one's country or sovereign, especially the betrayal of one's country by waging war against it or by consciously and purposely acting to aid its enemies
Technicalities of law have fucked up your brain, Hero.
Yep. I said that Chrisisall
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Quote:Again, nicely put (and without resorting to the F-word like I did).
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
You see, the Emperor didn't start out the day with a shiny new outfit that then began to fade; it didn't vanish somewhere in the middle of lunch; the guy was naked from the get go. And I want the tailors responsible brought to justice.
Ashamed (well, not really) Chrisisall
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Anybody read what our Officers in Iraq are calling "the surge"? JEL - Just enough to loose.
Meanwhile, England is pulling out 3000 troops. Good thing we have our multi-national coalition to fill the gap.
Oh, wait...
"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."
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I remmeber a quote from Mark Twain Tonight!
Hal Holbrook as Twain is talking about war. " Even tho' the war be wrong, we are in it. We cannot retire without dishonor. ( Pause) Why, not even a burglar coulda said that better."
And what is it Zoe said about heroes? People who do things that get OTHER folks killed?
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Quote:Anyone that uses that term is a TRAITOR!!!! Even THINKING we might lose is a treasonable offence!!!
Originally posted by Storymark:
Anybody read what our Officers in Iraq are calling "the surge"? JEL - Just enough to loose.
WIPE THAT F***ING SMIRK OFF YOUR FACE, SOLDIER!!!!!!
Patriot Chrisisall
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Quote:Geezer, I think one of us misunderstandz the situation. Sadr City was the one place where American troops were not allowed (by the Maliki government) to enter.
I had understood that it was to wrest control of the Sunni parts of Baghdad from the Sunni death squads while the Iraqi Army took on the Shi'a. This is supposed to be better because it won't give Sadr as much reason to gripe about the Americans, since they weren't going up against his people.
Quote:And it is not Sunnis who've formed semi-governmental "death squads", but Shias. In any case, it appears that Maliki has NOT bought into this plan. (No wonder I couldn't figure out why he was going along with this.... he isn't.) He, being Shiite, simply wants to take over all of Iraq. He has not personally endorsed the Bush plan. And the reaction in Baghdad is
American soldiers rolled up their barbed-wire barricades and lifted a near siege of the largest Shiite Muslim enclave in Baghdad on Tuesday, heeding the orders of a Shiite-led Iraqi government whose assertion of sovereignty had Shiites celebrating in the streets. The order by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to lift the week-old blockade of Sadr City was one of the most overt expressions of self-determination by Iraqi leaders in the 3 1/2 -year-old U.S. occupation.
Quote:The troops ARE mainly going to Baghdad- at least, that's what Bush said
In the streets of Baghdad, reactions followed, broadly, the familiar pattern in a city that is more and more divided on sectarian lines. Many Shiites said that Iraq's own security forces, which are predominantly Shiite, should be left to do the job of stabilizing the city, while many Sunnis, shocked by the violence of Shiite death squads in recent months, said they would welcome the Americans if they could rein in the sectarian killing.
Quote:I think the plan is that there will be about a half-brigade (2000?) of American troops for each Iraqi Army brigade and each police brigade (about 2000 each, total 4000) for each district in Baghdad. I think the point is to keep the Iraq forces honest. Good luck.
The vast majority of them — five brigades — will be deployed to Baghdad.
---------------------------------
Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.
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