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The fantasy is over, we must partition Iraq and get out now (a view from the thames)
The Sunday Times (London) ^ | 5/21/2006 | Simon Jenkins

Posted on 05/21/2006 4:51:33 AM PDT by FerdieMurphy

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To: MNJohnnie
We have been paying the price for this utterly stupid "Stablity over progress" thinking for almost 30 years now

What, in Bush's plan, do you see that will prevent the inevitable warring of religious factions in the next 30 years? When (if) the US leaves Iraq, the thugs will come. Greed is eternal. Religious animus is eternal. Iran is the perfect example. They had a chance at democracy and they failed. Which color will you be wearing if news reports are correct?

41 posted on 05/21/2006 6:47:12 AM PDT by Glenn (Annoy a BushBot...Think for yourself.)
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To: Glenn
First off, let's get one thing real clear. News reports, as concern Iraq, are not correct and have rarely ever been correct since this thing began. News reports are so removed from the truth, it's pathetic.

Troops will eventually draw down to well below combat levels, but the U.S. will maintain a military presence in Iraq for years to come.

After all, we still have bases in Germany, Japan, Italy and Korea. Iraq will join that list.

42 posted on 05/21/2006 7:02:11 AM PDT by Allegra (My Tagline is Humblegunner Approved)
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To: Glenn

If you meant that a civil war is inevitable SOMEDAY, then you're just mindlessly carping.


43 posted on 05/21/2006 7:05:42 AM PDT by RedRover (Annoy a Bush-Hater...Ask for Logic)
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To: RedRover
then you're just mindlessly carping

As are you if you believe the opposite.

44 posted on 05/21/2006 7:06:51 AM PDT by Glenn (Annoy a BushBot...Think for yourself.)
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To: Glenn
Don't waste our time merely repeating what Mike Savage tells you to think. The people on this thread either have direct contacts in Iraq, background in Military and International Relations, or are actually in Iraq. Most of the posters on this thread actually know what they are talking about instead of merely regurgitating what a ignorant Radio Jock tells them to think. You would be wise to turn off the Radio and listen to them.
45 posted on 05/21/2006 7:11:10 AM PDT by MNJohnnie (Conservative, The simple fact about DC is this . "There is more work to do"...)
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To: Army MP Retired

"Hmmm... I humbly disagree that the Iraqi people are backwards. They live their lives they way they have always done it - up until now, they've known no other way"

In otherwards they are backwards. Arab society collectivley is poor, corrupt ackwards given towards violence and fanatcism. Some have worked there way out of that but many have not. They are the most dysfunctinal culture on earth. As I said they are doing better then I expected. But, I would really take a good look at things if I was in the administration and utilize all of the inteligence that they have before I would in.


46 posted on 05/21/2006 7:12:13 AM PDT by bilhosty
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To: MNJohnnie
Don't waste our time merely repeating what Mike Savage tells you to think.

As a defie, I have a little trouble listening to anyone these days.

One of us will be right and the other wrong. We'll see.

47 posted on 05/21/2006 7:30:05 AM PDT by Glenn (Annoy a BushBot...Think for yourself.)
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To: FerdieMurphy

This is an interesting switch. Now we have an Englishman steal Joe Biden-Biden's ideas. Nothing new under the sun, I guess.


48 posted on 05/21/2006 7:33:22 AM PDT by jmaroneps37 (John Spencer: Fighting to save America from Hillary Clinton..)
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To: Darkwolf377

More cut-and-run nonsense, I see.


49 posted on 05/21/2006 7:58:09 AM PDT by rdb3 (Honey, you keep that up and it's whatever you want it to be. --Family Guy)
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To: Tribune7
This place is a failed state. There is no rule of law. Murder is unpunished.

"Sounds like parts of the U.K."

And which parts would that be?

50 posted on 05/21/2006 8:03:47 AM PDT by Churchillspirit (Anaheim Angels - 2002 World Series Champions)
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To: bilhosty
I for one felt that it was a mistake to try to "nation build."

"Nation building" can be quite messy and it has none of the dramatic glory of a World War One counter-attack at Belleau Wood or the World War Two storming of the Normandy beaches.

However, "nation building" does make the difference between between a lasting victory that has lasted to this day as with the European Pax Americana after World War Two and a wasted victory such as World War One where the job had to be done all over again 21 years later at the ultimate cost of 40 million European dead and over 400,000 American dead.

It makes the difference between fighting the Gulf War in 1991 and then fighting the Iraq War in 2003 and fighting Iraqi War III 12 years after that and Iraqi War IV 12 years after that.

In the end, however, it all boils down to strategic considerations. Some wars require fighting for vital national interests and other wars can be totally ignored without any strategic consequeces whatsoever.

If Iraq were in the middle of Africa, America could simply yawn as we watched radical Iraqi factions plunge the country into genocidal bloodbaths just as we did in the cases of Rwanda and now Darfur and, no matter which side won, it would not affect American vital interests in the least. The only effect such a war would have on most Americans would be a slight guilt attack but, after Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton apologize about it, America would go back to talking about how terrible it was that Barbaro broke his leg at the Preakness and America, as a nation, would care more about who will be the next American Idol than America ever cared about about a few hundred thousand dead Rwandans.

Unfortunately, however (from a strictly Realpolitik perspective), Iraq and Iran sit right smack in the middle of the region of the Planet Earth that controls the world's largest known oil reserves. Whoever controls the Persian Gulf controls the economic life's blood of Western Civilization.

Imagine the strategic consequences of Iranian and Iraqi radicals controlling the oil valves to Western Civilization. The Peacenik waving the "No Blood for Oil" banner in front of CNN cameras did not bicycle to the demonstration.

Before the Iraq War, America dealt with that prospect by keeping U.S. military forces in Saudi Arabia which brought about the Osama bin Ladin "no infidels on sacred Islamic soil" problem which brought us 9/11 and the War on Terror.

Imagine Iraq turning into another Egypt (certainly not perfect today but infinately better than the radicalized Egypt of Nasser) and imagine such an Iraq leading to the overthrow of the radical Iranian mullahs by a new generation of young Iraqis who are sick of having radical Islamist cramming religious fanaticism down their throats. Imagine those two nations safeguarding the oil valves to Western Civilization.

At that point, America could take it's major military marbles and stay out of the Persian Gulf as it did prior to the overthrow of the Shaw of Iran.

Right now, for such strategic stakes, America has lost as many dead in the entire Iraq War as the U.S. lost in the Guadalcanal campaign alone.

After Guadalcanal, the U.S. still had years of major combat ahead against the mighty Japanese Empire but the U.S. had the stomach to finish the job.

Today, we have years of what, from a military historical perspective, would be considered very low intensity combat ahead of us if we do not wish to surrender Iraq to an enemy whose only military capabilities are suicide bombings and planting road side bombs in the middle of the night. (For historical perspective, the British casualties at the FIRST DAY of the Battle of the Somme totaled 57470, of which 19240 were fatal).

The difference between 1943 and 2003, however, is that in the 21st Century, even at the very start of a war, the American liberal news media and the Democratic Party do everything in their power to demoralize the American Home Front.

As a result, regardless of what some say about 21st Century America as a "hyper-power", the America of the 21st Century has become a nation with a glass jaws that, even after the war on the battlefield ends in a victory on a scale never seen before in military history, finds it very difficult to even stomach the unglamorous and messy business of finishing the job by "mopping up".

"Mopping Up" (A World War II Poem That is Relevant Today)

51 posted on 05/21/2006 8:15:15 AM PDT by Polybius
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To: MNJohnnie
The people on this thread either have direct contacts in Iraq, background in Military and International Relations, or are actually in Iraq.

And in what category do you fit?

52 posted on 05/21/2006 8:40:16 AM PDT by FerdieMurphy (For English, Press One. (Tookie, you won the Pulitzer and Nobel prizes. Oh, too late.))
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To: bilhosty
...it was a mistake to try to "nation build"...

Same here.

I was, and am, all for retribution for what the muslims did to us on 9-11 and what they continue to do to us within and without our nation.

I draw the line at building them a nation. Give them seeds and a shovel (I was going to say a fishing pole, but they're limited as to where it could be used) and bid them farewell.

53 posted on 05/21/2006 8:44:45 AM PDT by FerdieMurphy (For English, Press One. (Tookie, you won the Pulitzer and Nobel prizes. Oh, too late.))
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To: rightazrain

Yep, eventually parts will be and all the oil too.


54 posted on 05/21/2006 8:45:26 AM PDT by ßuddaßudd (7 days - 7 ways Guero » with a floating, shifting, ever changing persona....)
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To: Allegra

RE: # 19: you can't help but wonder what percentage of Brits feel the same as this socialist.


55 posted on 05/21/2006 8:46:09 AM PDT by FerdieMurphy (For English, Press One. (Tookie, you won the Pulitzer and Nobel prizes. Oh, too late.))
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To: FerdieMurphy
Those with a vested interest in occupation are more entrenched. Bases are enlarged, contracts let, corruption extended.

The author drops this accusation about corruption yet provides not a single point of evidence to support it.

56 posted on 05/21/2006 8:48:07 AM PDT by Starboard (Liberal superiorists hate the system that allows average people to make more money than they do.)
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To: USMMA_83

We have only to look back at the time before and after WWI to see how great their "diplomacy" and partitioning was.


57 posted on 05/21/2006 8:48:12 AM PDT by FerdieMurphy (For English, Press One. (Tookie, you won the Pulitzer and Nobel prizes. Oh, too late.))
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To: MNJohnnie
Your post was so far removed from reality one has to wonder why you wasted our time with it.

Time wasted here is reading the vile you spew about.

You are always so busy insulting FReepers that you can't think of anything else to add to the discourse.Begone!

Oh, never mind, you'll just change your screen name and return to haunt.

58 posted on 05/21/2006 8:51:45 AM PDT by FerdieMurphy (For English, Press One. (Tookie, you won the Pulitzer and Nobel prizes. Oh, too late.))
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To: FerdieMurphy
RE: # 19: you can't help but wonder what percentage of Brits feel the same as this socialist.

Quite a few. I was just in England and Ireland on R&R. The Irish, as charming as they are, are just as bad, if not worse.

The Brits and the Irish kept trying to bring up politics when they found out I was American, and I kept waving them off of the subject. I will give them credit for respecting that. Once I made it known I didn't want to discuss it (I learned long ago it's pointless and leads to contention and anger), we moved on to talking about more fun things.

59 posted on 05/21/2006 8:53:20 AM PDT by Allegra (My Tagline is Humblegunner Approved)
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To: MNJohnnie
you have a complete ignorance of History.

See?

60 posted on 05/21/2006 8:53:58 AM PDT by FerdieMurphy (For English, Press One. (Tookie, you won the Pulitzer and Nobel prizes. Oh, too late.))
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