It was easy to see that it was going to be as effective as if the fire-dept filled their trucks with gasoline before heading to a house-fire...
From Juan Cole:
Saturday, April 14, 2007
100 Dead in Bombings, Violence;
Iraq, Kurdistan, traded Barbs
After the bombings of a major bridge in Baghdad and the cafeteria of the parliament, guerrillas on Saturday detonated a car bomb at a bus station in the Shiite holy city of Karbala near the shrine of Imam Husayn. Dozens are thought to have been killed or wounded, with early reports of 56 dead and 70 wounded. Because Karbala is sacred to the sentiments of Shiites, any insult to its sanctity is likely to produce a great deal of anger and grief.
In Jadiriya south of Baghdad, a car bomb killed 35 and wounded 50.
The dead included 3 US GIs, with seven wounded. Guerrillas mounted a frontal attack on a US patrol base late Thursday
The Iraqi parliament is defiant after it was bombed on Tuesday.
Further incidents of political violence are reported by Reuters and by the McClatchy 's daily roundup.
Civilian deaths are up in the rest of the country, down slightly in Baghdad, since the mid-February beginning of the new security plan.
Iraqi politicians responded sharply to the threats of Turkish general Buyukanit to engage in hot pursuit of the Kurdish PKK into Iraqi territory. Even the Sunni Arab speaker of the parliament, Mahmud Mashhadani, warned the Turks that those who interfered in Iraq would have their hands cut off.
It was easy to see that it was going to be as effective as if the fire-dept filled their trucks with gasoline before heading to a house-fire...
Not really commenting on the surge as such as it will take time for it to be effective if at all, only a quarter of the new troops are deployed as I understand. Now for one who thought the war was folly to begin with and I am now looking at the best solution; I don't want us to leave the place to more chaos and misery, we went in there and we have a duty beyond just US goals to help these people. Has anybody got a clue as to the best plan of action? I really , really am stumped. Some reasoned ideas please.
on the left fail to realize is that in ANY war - no matter when fought - or with what weapons - civilians die. it is that simple.... what terrorists capitalize on is that fact. they use that fact. Even our colonial army used that fact (in essence the revolutionary war was more like a gurilla effort than a troup advancement war). So in this war, we try to have no civilian casualties... and we are loosing.
and the slugs on the right?
That they can win with technology alone. yea, we've smart bombs... but without smart leadership they are somewhat useless - at least for democratic purposes....
make no mistake about it, evil is evil - but evil is not stupid. Sometimes good (both left and right) just is.
Only a quarter of the troops have arrived. Three full companies and thousands more still have not left.
The special operations community is in the process of sending the largest concentration of special operation troops in our history. More SF, SEAL and Delta troopers are on their way.
If the surge isn't working then why did Sadr decide to have his troops attack Coalition forces but yet no attacks have happened - Oh yeah he has to recruit because most of his army is dead or on the run!
How come the media doesn't comment on the number of enemy dead or captured HVT - High Value Targets? That info is out there but rarely reported to the american public!! Why!!
I don't agree with how the war was run but if we were to pull out what then? The entire area would collapse. The elected goverenment of Iraq would be executed! The country would plunge into an archaic period beyond repair. Extreme Islam would flourish like it did in Afghanistan, no schools, women would have no rights, murder of the innocent - women and children would be accepted because Muhommad said! The country would be controlled by terrorists - who would control a large percentage of the worlds oil! What then?
Instead of complaining and bitching why not offer a solution. Anyone can complain how bad things are - (sounds like liberals) but a true leader would offer a solution or stick to the plan. But at least make a decsion not just sit back and BITCH!
-- Modified on 4/15/2007 10:07:45 PM
Always bad at this but hope this works this is a good video that just speaks to common-sense!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9Yc3wYJOtI
Really wish I had thought of this! I cannot stand regurgitation rather than an intellectual discussion of the finer points of the arguments. This guy makes very valid points.... but hey... he too is probably a tool! right?
I'd rather feel dumb and wrong, but I predicted on this board that as Iraq sinks, conservatives would blame liberals for it. Though Iraq is totally a Republican fiasco. Democratic Congress gets control, and now it was Pelosi's fault all along. And how do we mess the conservative mojo-- we use sarcasm, and guide that liberal press behind the corporate publishers' backs.
I guess it worked with Vietnam, which is part of the reason we ended up in Iraq, IMO. Soon we're going to have more urban legends about liberals spitting on soldiers.
The conservatives really help liberals' egos these days. So far liberals have been right all along about Iraq. It's not that we're smart, it's that Dubya is that dumb. I could never before imagine a president who could surpass my lowest expectations, but the conservatives who selected and elected him are not far behind now, especially after I see this.
The video was just rhetoric and attacks of the sort you can get from Michelle Malkin. He won't call the troops troops. No, he adds much more wind to it, and calls it "honor."
The only merit in the entire thing was quoting what Democrats said during the Clinton administration. The problem with that is: when the evidence was actually examined closely before the war-- there wasn't much. The main evidence we had was that Saddam wanted people to think he had them. The main thing he had was poison gas. If he was going to launch that at anybody, he had a decade to do it.
No, you can't dismantle a uranium processing facility and leave no trace. Same with chemicals. Biological? Perhaps you can, but that's not going to be delivered as a warhead. He wasn't going to unleash an attack on Britain in 40 minutes. I will point out that the evidence Colin Powell presented was flimsy, then discredited.
At the time, I kept on thinking: Okay that's the unclassified evidence, the classified evidence must be much better. Unfortunately it hasn't gotten better.
One thing, at least Michelle Malkin can deliver an entire spiel without a cut. The edits in this really gave me a headache.
-- Modified on 4/16/2007 5:36:01 AM
This post is a great example of how the right wing lies. It is full of gratuitous assertions and logical fallacies.
1. The poster makea a gratuitous assertion that only 1/4 of the troops of the surge have arrived. Providing no cite to back itup.
2. the Special Ops community would never tell us their plans That would be giving away tactical and strategic info.
3. Claims that The Sadr Army is mostly dead are made with no cite.
4. The media doesn't comment on how many enemy are dead because the Bush Regime will not tell us how many they have killed.
Of course the Bush "Dead enders" will beleive this lying tripe because it fits into their pre-formed conclusions.
Note the Bush talking point.. "solution and stick to a plan." Bush never had a solution and still doesn't have a plan, yet the Bush dead enders try and say others are doing what the Bush Regime is actually doing.
I got news for the Bush dead enders. The American people want the US out of Iraq. They see through the lies and deception from the White House and are tired of Bush sending their sons and daughters to die in Iraq for nothing.
You have to look for it, the info is there if you want to find it. I'm not going to do all your research for you.
Your local and national news have sited this info along with CNN, & FOXNEWS along with just about every major site on the web.
Everyone knows when the entire troop deployment will be, BUSH said it in his speech, so did the Joint Chiefs in their military address.
As far as the spec-ops community goes that info was mentioned on FOXNEWS in a special broadcast on "Spec-Ops the fight against terrorism" special.
Now we all know that we can't believe everything we hear or read 'cause the news is so one sided but you at least hope there is some truth to it.
I never said I supported Bush or was against him but hey if your gonna bitch why not cry about valid solutions instead of pointing out whats wrong!!
It just seems that the DEM's cry so much but offer no solutions, what gives?
-- Modified on 4/16/2007 3:35:54 PM
-- Modified on 4/16/2007 3:44:46 PM
Now that I've shown a liberal has a plan, though, you will move from the criticism that they don't have a plan to the accusation that the liberals are "second guessing" the Generals (except the ones who resigned that is). You'd say that the arrogant liberals really don't know the situation, not like our leader and the rest of the chicken hawks, or the soldiers on the ground-- don't forget to use them for your argument the way Bush is using them now.
Here's a key quote about terrorism winning if we withdraw:
"[Bush] gives two major rationales for rejecting withdrawal. At times he has warned that Iraq could become an Al Qaeda stronghold, at others that 'a contagion of violence could spill out across the country--and in time, the entire region could be drawn into the conflict.' These are bogeymen with which Bush has attempted to frighten the public. Regarding the first, Turkey, Jordan and Iran are not going to put up with an Al Qaeda stronghold on their borders; nor would Shiite and Kurdish Iraqis. Most Sunni Iraqis are relatively secular, and there are only an estimated 1,000 foreign jihadis in Iraq, who would be forced to return home if the Americans left."
Good editorial. But I don't believe anyone can actually know for sure what is gonna happen. But I will tell you this Al Qaeda will take what they want and no established goverenment in the Mid-East will stop them. You can be certain of that looked what they did in Afghanistan and Somolia!! Jordan and Iran and parts of Turkey already have Al Qaeda cells in them.
-- Modified on 4/16/2007 9:48:15 PM
They can have cells in any country. But given that al Qaeda is exclusively a Sunni operation, they are not going to operate well in Iran.
The problem is, with this war, we can now count on a Shiite counterpart of al Qaeda, too.
You're last point about sticking to the plan: George Bush's plan already succeeded, remember "Mission Accomplished?" That was the completion of his plan, and it was time to live happily ever after.
But wait: the "happily" part didn't work out. Since then, his plan has been to try this offensive and that offensive, first Fallujah, then Sadr City then against al-Zarqawi. There has been nothing else consistent in "the plan" except a military offensive-- against something or somebody in Iraq.
I don't count on Dubya reading Sun Tsu's "The Art of War," or he would have seen this quote: "Victorious warriors win the war first, then fight. Defeated warriors fight first, and then try to win."
The problem about sticking to the plan: it presumes that the plan isn't fucked to begin with. One guy who stuck to his plan was General Ludendorff on the Western Front at the end of World War I. I'm certain you can conclude how well that plan went. And he was a hell of a lot more manly and on the ball than Dubya.
Now, as for there only being about a quarter of the troops having been deployed: I presumed that only a part of the contingent had arrived there. (Though I remember Bush saying give it six months to work, it looks like we can count on that deadline being missed). However, all I was noting was no improvement yet. As in "Come on, please work!"
As for sending our Special Forces, I'm stunned. You mean they haven't been sent before now? I was under the impression that Dubya would have had the awareness of the situation to send them. I'm certain that there are troops like that among our contractors, though, in fact I know there are.
Sadr fighting our army in the field: I thought the whole point of terrorism was that you don't fight the Army in the field, because you know you're going to get your ass kicked. Expect more IED's and more human bombs, but no, his men aren't going to fight our soldiers directly unless they have to.
High Value Targets: I found a story from the Washington Post right away. My conclusion: one reason you might not see them reported is probably because those operations seem to be Top Secret "black operations." OGA's "Other Government Agencies," in other words-- contractors. They don't talk to reporters. The only reason why this reporter knew about them is that the story was released to him by General McCaffrey. A veteran of another futile but more metaphorical war.
For other reporters: I think they wisely stay in the Green Zone and just interview people who come in from the outside. Perhaps the reason that they don't have much good news is that they aren't hearing very much of it. Other than that, there are blogs written by Iraqis from Iraq. You could find them, and they confirm pretty much the same things reporters have been saying.
As for the danger of our forces leaving: yes that is the danger. However, if we keep our Army in there under strain, and it breaks, we possibly have all the problems you mention, but on top of that, we don't have a functional army-- outside the contractors perhaps.
I will concede that occasionally something good does happen in Iraq.
-- Modified on 4/17/2007 12:15:55 AM