Iraq by the Numbers - or how to be dumb.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

The Cellar is far from the "general public", yesman. I find the number of people that don't have a clue, astounding. And the number that know they don't know, and don't care, appalling.

You found the group that Rumsfeld didn't mention (but relied on)! The uncared known unknowns!

[Ibby]

I think Jon Stewart summed this up the best.

"It's like, Bush has this big ol', BIG ol' pot of SHIT. And he looks at it and says... 'Needs a pinch of salt.'"

[yesman065]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

The Cellar is far from the "general public", yesman.

didn't say they were - more of a generalized statement than anything else - sorry if you took it as a negative, it wasn't meant to be.

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

I find the number of people that don't have a clue, astounding. And the number that know they don't know, and don't care, appalling.

Unfortunate, but true. This laissez faire attitude causes many problems or better put allows many to happen.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Naw, I didn't take it as a negative. I took it as a misplaced faith in the savy of the general public.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Tw's fundamental error is assuming the American population thinks as he does. But tw notwithstanding, what the American population really wants is to win the War on Terror, which is exactly the thing tw won't admit aloud that he doesn't want -- yet his desires bleed through all his posts on the subject.

You will note that the America-must-lose faction speaks of Iraq as some kind of separate war, rather than the real view of matters, which is that Iraq and Afghanistan are campaigns within the wider war.

The cut and run withdrawal means, in due course, coming back in there for a much larger and far more ruinous war, should the anti-Western fanatics not be discredited by defeat. This would be a strategy so poor as to amount to treason.

Tw's incapacity with written English makes him a dullard, not a communist, Ibram. His communist America delenda est views are quite independent of his bad English, though of course they don't help him do anything except maintain his fellational relationship with the shades of Lenin and Stalin. They certainly don't help him promulgate a strategy for winning that's an improvement over the "Republican Plan," which it looks as if the Democrats will try to take over, and then promply fumble. That's why I don't like the Democratic Party: they aren't in America's corner.

Former Republican President Richard M. Nixon was viewed by many as a domestic crook; but, was regarded as a foreign policy genius in some circles (he opened relations with China). In order to avoid another quagmire like Vietnam, he established 3 criteria that would have to be met before the US would again use military intervention abroad:

1.) The indigenous people must want our help.
2.) They must be willing to fight for themselves.
3.) They must be able to sustain our accomplishments after the US withdraws.

ALL THREE conditions would have to be met before the US would use military intervention to depose another government. Oh, the US could still go to war with another country; but, it would be to conquer nation (i.e. a people) - not just a government - (e.g. Japan during WWII; though, not necessarily using WMD).

This became doctrine and was actually taught in the military. Even when George Sr. blew the opportunity to invade Iraq (its invasion of Kuwait being the best rationale we ever had), he at least restricted our military action to containment of their military rather than trying to depose the government when he was unwilling to conquer their people at that time.

Jorge Dubya, OTOH, abandoned the lessons of Vietnam, for whatever reasons you wish to attribute his actions, and invaded Iraq to just depose the government when:

1.) The indigenous people wanted their government out, they didn't want the US in.
2.) They were willing to fight for themselves.
3.) They could not reasonably be expected to sustain our accomplishments due to sectarianism.

Now Jeorge Dubya, in order to correct a failed strategy, has decided to increase troop strength. He is NOT doing so to conquer a people; thus, right the wrong in his policy. He is doing so to conquer only a city (Baghdad). He expects the new government he has installed to conquer the people, the same people it derives its powers from, while maintaining some semblance of a democracy.

There is no reasonable expectation that Jorge Dubya has implemented anything more than a delaying tactic to get him through his final term. Americans think in terms of "the next 4 years." Middle Easterners think in terms of the next few decades or generations. Dubya is obsolete.

[yesman065]

NoBoxes, so you are saying what? That what he did was wrong but for the right reason? He was doing it incorrectly & #3 being rectified to correct that? Or are we Americans all just too short sighted and selfish to care or have enough forethought? I'm dense I know, sorry.

[JayMcGee]

is UG's viewpoint (that Iraq is part of the war on terror (wart?)) widespread in the US? If so, then I must congratulate dubya on the efficency of his propaganda machine.

And to noboxes & yesman, I've always surmised that he did to 'finish daddy's job' and thus get one up on him.

[Torrere]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

what the American population really wants is to win the War on Terror

I've just decided that I don't like the name of the War on Terror. It's too open ended. The terrorists are people who don't like our government and lack the political power to fight us in any other way. In order to win the War on Terror, we would have to make everybody like us. We would have to enrich everyone to the extent that they have something to lose by opposing us. To ensure that we have allies, we would have to always take the higher moral ground. We would have to outlaw visceral horror films. I don't think we can do that.

We can't win these wars because they're ill-defined. Couldn't we just call it "Operation Destroy Al-Qaeda", then destroy Al-Qaeda, and be done with it?

And UG, they are two entirely separate wars. We went to war with Afghanistan to destroy the state regime which harbored Al-Qaeda. We went to war with Iraq because they had WMDs, or to spread democracy in the Middle East, or something or another. It's always been a little hazy why exactly we went to war with Iraq.

[Ibby]

the problem with the war on terror is, like you said, that we have to make everybody like us. The problem comes when we try to do that with bombs and guns.

[tw]

Originally Posted by NoBoxes

Former Republican President Richard M. Nixon was viewed by many as a domestic crook; but, was regarded as a foreign policy genius in some circles (he opened relations with China).

Nixon and Kissinger regarded Vietnam as a proxy war with China. Nixon was desperate to get out of Vietnam without a defeat on his legacy. Nixon saw his trip to China as separating China from Vietnam. But Nixon did not understand the historical animosity between Chinese and Vietnamese. Nixon was doing anything to get out of Vietnam - to save his legacy.

Nixon even negotiated a thorn that plagues us today. Nixon essentially negotiated away Taiwan. Taiwan remains an only serious reason why US and China may end up in military conflict - because of that Nixon blunder. But then Nixon was doing anything he could to save his legacy.

This became doctrine and was actually taught in the military. Even when George Sr. blew the opportunity to invade Iraq (its invasion of Kuwait being the best rationale we ever had), he at least restricted our military action to containment of their military rather than trying to depose the government when ...

The US did not have to go to Baghdad to remove Saddam. It simply required Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfovitz, etc to understand basic military science 101. What is the purpose of war? The settlement at a peace table. Where were those conditions? When Schwarzkopf asked Washington for those conditions (that should have been defined immediately after 1 Aug 1990), instead, Cheney, et al were too busy drinking champaign.

Schwarzkopf had to make up conditions for surrender ad hoc. But what is worse, Schwarzkopf was told to end the war before it was over - by those same fools in Washington. Schwarzkopf begged for just one more day to get the 101st Airborne in position. Those fools in Washington ignored Schwarzkopf. And they did not do their job: define conditions for surrender.

Well Saddam was left fully in power with American blessing. As the US Army watched from 5 miles away, Saddam may have massacred 20,000 Iraqis in Basra. Had these idiots done their job, then Saddam would have been removed by a unity of other religious groups. We let Saddam massacre his own people after we told them to rise up against him. Notice who that is directly traceable to.

Well, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc hope their legacy did not last - so that you would ignore their failures in 1992. "Mission Accomplished" needed any excuse to fix their mistake. No, we did not have to go to Baghdad in 1992. Had Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc done their job, then Saddam would have been removed by Iraqis. They stopped Schwarzkopf before he was ready. They did not plan for the peace.

So what did those same fools not do in "Mission Accomplished"? Again, they made the exact same mistake. Again, they did not "plan for the peace". A Frontline documentary makes this woefully obvious:
The Lost Year

This is military science 101 stuff. Notice where failure keep arising every time. No planning for the peace. People who still don't understand military science 101 principles - planning for the peace.

The Iraq Study Group has a comprehensive plan for ending "Mission Accomplished". The fact that so much MUST be done demosntrated how "Stay the Course" or "Way forward" is clearly a lie from the same mental midget administration. They did not even plan for the peace - a military science 101 blunder.

[yesman065]

tw, do you work in the department of redundancy department?

Originally Posted by yesman065
NoBoxes, so you are saying what? That what he did was wrong but for the right reason? He was doing it incorrectly & #3 being rectified to correct that?

My personal opinion (others are welcome to disagree as it doesn't paint a pretty picture) is that George W. was saddled with a country that was ill prepared for terrorism and he acted out of desperation to move hostilities off American soil.

He needed a diversionary tactic. He attacked the terrorists proper in Afghanistan; however, US presence in that country alone was insufficient to draw terrorist interest away from attacking the American heartland. By subsequently invading Iraq, George W. was able to complete the diversionary tactic to buy time for building up US security capability at home. He piggybacked both a personal agenda (picking up where his father left off) and special interests (oil, reconstruction, and armed forces buildup ... etc.) on the plan for Iraq. In other words, US troops were to be offered as targets abroad to avoid civilians being targeted at home. From that the policy of preemptive strike was introduced, based upon the allegation of WMD, to make the whole situation palatable both here and abroad. That's why there was little attention paid to the aftermath of the initial invasion: the welfare of the Iraqi civilian population was not the foremost consideration at the time.

Later, the WMD cover story was discredited; so, the rationale for having invaded Iraq became Iraqi freedom. Then the US administration had to jump through hoops to establish a functioning free Iraq as an afterthought. Neither the appropriate strategy nor adequate forces were in place to accomplish that. Now, George W. is doing what he does best, creating another diversionary tactic by increasing troop strength in Iraq (Baghdad) to extend the status quo for Iraqi civilians beyond his term of office. The final disposition of the US occupation in Iraq will become the next President's problem.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by JayMcGee

is UG's viewpoint (that Iraq is part of the war on terror (wart?)) widespread in the US? If so, then I must congratulate dubya on the efficency of his propaganda machine.

There are basically two kinds of people: the decent and the indecent. Congratulate us instead on wanting a decent world, and moving to get it -- our foes are antidemocrat scum, our skeptics... cheerleaders for scum. Phooey. Where's the spirit that fought Hitler's Germany? I'd like to see some. Has the PM got the entire UK supply??

And to noboxes & yesman, I've always surmised that he did to 'finish daddy's job' and thus get one up on him.

If that isn't conspiracy theory, it's the next thing to it. It also quite forgets the events of Tuesday, September the eleventh. This seems insupportable in view of the London bus bombings, and the foiled transatlantic airline plot.

What's it going to take to get the lion fully awake?

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by tw

No, we did not have to go to Baghdad in 1992. Had Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc done their job, then Saddam would have been removed by Iraqis. They stopped Schwarzkopf before he was ready.

This is a surprise: tw adopting essentially the same position as the unabashedly patriotic magazine Soldier of Fortune.