Surge or Surrender
POSTED BY: Hero
UPDATED: Saturday, January 20, 2007 17:03
VIEWED: 15139
PAGE 9 of 21
Maliki didn't personally endorse the speech. He had a spokesperson say that they wouldn't oppose it. As usual with politics there is what people say and what they intend, and the two are usually not the same- especially in the Middle East where NOBODY can be seen cooperating with the USA. So part of the problem is figuring out public from private posture. But given Maliki's consistent alliance with al Sadr- and Sadr City- and his consistent protection of Shiite death sqauds, I think his tepid (at best) tolerance of the Bush plan is genuine.
The best I can figure is that the USA troops are supposed to disable Maliki's Praetorian guard of Shiite security forces/ death squads in Baghdad in a move to overthrow Maliki. I just read an article in the LA Times that Shiites are slowly but surely taking over Baghdad, burning and killing Sunnis out of their homes under the protection of the governement. The fact that this has NOW been made public in a major way leads me to think that the Bush admininstration is going to try to re-paint Shiites as "the enemy". We may at some point find ourselves tolerating- even supporting- al Qaida.
My humble opinion is that it's too little too late. THe one part of the plan that Maliki really gets behind is taking operational control by November. It's a race as to whether we can disarm/ depose Maliki before he takes control. He's betting on the idea that most American really just want out, and once that happens he can do whatever he wants. This strategic revision is a fine idea but it should have happened over a year ago. My advice to Bush would be to come clean to Congress and the American people for support.
OF course, I could be entirely wrong. It's possible that Bush has no long-term interest in Iraqi stability. It's possible that Bush wants to quiet Saigon- er I mean Baghdad- just long enough for us to make a credible getaway. It's possible that he wants to give Maliki total control of Baghdad to reduce the appearance of violence. It's easier to read Maliki than the Bush administration, which has made so many mistakes that it's impossible to read their intent from their (usually counterproductive) actions.
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Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.
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seems to me nobody has actually said , " I want America to Lose", except Chrisisall, facetiously. What a lot of us have said is, " I want America outta there, NOW."
And a lot of Limbaugh lovers have said, " Well, that means you want America to lose."
And some of us have said, " OK , we'll agree to that. 'We want America to lose'. Now bring the bos home."
And the Bush Buddies and Haliburton Huggers and Rove Rangers and Cheney Chums said, " Aha ! That proves it. Yer all commie faggot traitors."
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They know that. It's just the same old strawman crap. Bushites have made careers on deliberate logical fallacies. They can't discuss anything straight, so they have to mis-cast other people's statements and create false dichotomies to cover up the fact their position doesn't make any sense.
It's all fun and games until you stop and think about all the people dying for their sophistry.
SergeantX
"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
[BThe fact that this has NOW been made public in a major way leads me to think that the Bush admininstration is going to try to re-paint Shiites as "the enemy". We may at some point find ourselves tolerating- even supporting- al Qaida.
It's an interesting hypothesis. Truth is that we have an interesting situation. When it comes to Muslim countries then all of our friends are Sunni's, including Saudi, Egypt and the Emerates. However the Islamic nutjobs that attack us are also Sunni and indeed come from those kinds of places. If we look at countries in the region we are not friends with they are mainly Shi'te but on the other hand their proxies don't tend to attack America.
It is not in our best interests for the Shi'te majority in Iraq to form a Shi'te state, places like Saudi would become nervous and have already said that they would support the Sunni minority. Either we will see a situation like Northern Ireland where terrorist groups from the various communities fight things out on the street or we will see foreign terrorists constantly trying to destabilise the Shi'te government. In any case the power block that could emerge Iran-Lebanon-Iraq-Syria could spark a religious war in the region.
However, there is a lot to be said for leaving well alone and seeing what happens. Europe had a couple of hundred years of Catholic/Protestant conflict that ended up giving us the enlightenment. Nothing encourages folks to learn how to live with others quite so much as pointless internecene warfare.
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Quote:No, he wants to crush his enemies, have them driven before him, and to hear the lamentation of the women.
Originally posted by SignyM:
It's possible that Bush wants to quiet Saigon- er I mean Baghdad- just long enough for us to make a credible getaway.
Chrisisall the Barbarian
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"THIS is civilization ? Thank Crom I'm a barbarian!"
Conan, on first sight of Shadizar.
couldntresist Frem
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It's possible that Bush wants to quiet Saigon- er I mean Baghdad- just long enough for us to make a credible getaway.
SignyM
No, he wants to crush his enemies, have them driven before him, and to hear the lamentation of the women.
Chrisisall the Barbarian
"THIS is civilization ? Thank Crom I'm a barbarian!"
Conan, on first sight of Shadizar.
couldntresist Frem
Oh jeez, now I have coffee everywhere. THANKS! all for making my day, coffee spray aside. And thanks SignyM for your reply.
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http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=51&ItemID=11833
"Here's the situation we're in. President Bush and his gang lied us into a war. The occupation of Iraq has nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction or 9-11 or Saddam Hussein or democracy or making Americans more safe. There is no reason for this war respectable enough to discuss in public. And so, the U.S. corporate media does not discuss the reason, or absence of any reason, for the war. Instead we're treated to endless debates over whether the war is a civil war, or we're given hundreds of hours of coverage of a report that has no legal force and no coherent point to it. Or we learn all about new appointees and how their personalities differ from those of the outgoing war-makers. Or we learn about new committee chairs and power-shifts in Congress. Or we hear about polls and surveys on the war. Or media coverage focuses on whether to escalate the war by sending in an additional number of troops that is small relative to the number already there.
All of these stories, including the story of Bush's expected proposal for escalation of the occupation, serve the same purpose: they allow the U.S. media to claim to be covering the war without actually discussing what purpose the war serves and without showing us what the war is doing to people."
Pretty much says it Chrisisall
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Quote:
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? If the enemy is there and we are there why should we not fight them there?
The problem here is that little word, "if". If Iraq had actually had jack squat to do with 9/11, if our duly appointed President had actual proof (as opposed to cherry-picked wishful thinking) about WMDs, then we shoulda been there.
But since neither of those situations obtained, then, no, we shouldnt'a been there.
I do bow to reality; we cannot easily pull out of Iraq now, since one who mounts the tiger cannot soon dismount--but I reserve the right to feel anger at he who talked us into mounting that tiger under the carefully self-deluded perception that it was a carousel horse.
"She's tore up plenty. But she'll fly true." -- Zoë Washburn
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Quote:That may be the reasoning, but it seems seriously flawed at best, particularly in that it ignores any consequences of prematurely disengaging from Iraq. People who advocate a desire to “lose” the Iraq war never justify that with any discussion of strategy; their arguments are always anti-war positions (displeasure with casualties, disapproval with the casus bellum, etc). And really I think a lack of resolve or defeatism plays as much or a larger part then strategy.
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Well,
I think this is very much a 'lose the battle, win the war' type of mentality by those who say they'd like us to 'lose, and as quickly as possible.'
Their contention is that we are expending lives and resources on a failed conflict. So, the quicker we cut out losses, the better off we will be.
It’s hard to imagine how the challenges faced by the US in Iraq could possibly resemble those faced by Hirohito at the end of World War II. It’s even hard to imagine how Iraq resembles Vietnam. Four years into the US escalation of Vietnam, there were 20,000 US casualties, half a million servicemen incountry and a draft. Four years into Iraq, we have 3000 US casualties, less then a 150 thousand incountry and no draft. And then you look at the dangers of disengagement: Al Qaeda was formed partially as a consequence of Western disengagement from Afghanistan; 9/ll occurred in part because Al Qaeda leaders didn’t believe that the US had the resolve to respond or stay engaged and Saddam Hussein was able to thumb his nose at the UN because he didn’t believe the West would do anything either. The reality is that apocalyptic terrorist organization and rogue regimes thrive in a world where the only powers capable of containing them suffer from an international attention deficit disorder. If we were to lose in Iraq, it could be a major defeat for the war on terror. Regardless of how critical Iraq may or may not have been initially, it is now inexorably entwined with our success in the greater war against terror.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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