Posted on 08/19/2005 9:31:26 AM PDT by oldtimer2
I TIPPED
August 19th, 2005
Today, I tipped.
Today I’ve reached my personal tipping point regarding America’s efforts in Iraq. We must either dramatically increase the size and aggressiveness of our presence in Iraq, or. . . get the hell out. I say this not as one who has ever opposed the very notion of going into Saddam’s personal, nationwide torture pit. No, I’ve always thought we had no choice but to rid the world of him. But in decapitating the Iraqi regime and executing the vile progeny of its leader, Uday and Qusay, we have unleashed forces even more evil and find ourselves fighting a snake with a thousand heads. Why did this happen? Was it inevitable? Was our noble effort doomed from the start? Well, yes and no.
Not doomed in the sense that it was a mission impossible – if one properly defines the mission. Thinking that we could be midwife to the birthing of a constitutional democracy in a matter of only thirty months or so was probably a bit of a stretch. Underlying that plan was a not-so-hidden assumption that the three main ethnic and religious groups that comprise the Iraqi population – the Shia, the Sunni and the Kurds – would somehow be willing to set their differences and mistrusts aside while forging a new nationalistic union from dissimilar metals. How to alloy those who’ve never been allies does seem an intractable dilemma.
BTT....hit the nail right on the head....the cost of losing, or retreating, will far outweigh the cost of seeing this out to the end......IMHO
I'm not in favor of cutting and running, but if Iraqis get themselves a government based on Sharia Law, then I say we're still at war with them.
I've read some reports that Sharia Law is a distinct possibility there. This is more than troublesome.
it's possible yes, but not even half of the Shia in Iraq what Sharia otherwise Mookie Sadr would have more than 3 reps in the government....
Sharia is not even likely at this point, but that is what is holding up the Constitution in Iraq. The 5 or 6 moonbats EVERY political process has is holding it up. But it does appear that the Iraqis have moved past that.
Does anyone know if there is an article re: our soldiers being attacked and the Iraqi citizens forming a structured barrier to keep the soldiers safe? I only heard this by word of mouth.
Sounds good. I think. (I think you left a word or three out of that reply, but I understand what you meant. I think.)
I'm not sure about car bombs, but I'm pretty sure that the Japs and Germans weren't killing civilians. Islamic terrorists don't care who they kill. I'm also pretty sure that not everyone just put down their weapsons and gave up after WWII. Remember the stories you sometimes hear about a Japanese solidier surrendering after hiding out for 50 years on some island?
The difference of course is that the media then was pro-American. It didn't report terrorist activity in the same way because they knew it would be demoralizing both to the troops and to the American people. Now the media is anti- American and they know it's demoralizing both to the troops and to the American people so they report it this way. If to
Nicely put.
"Stay the course" indeed.
Those fighting the coalition and Iraqi forces in Iraq today are:
(1)former Baathist party and government officials under Sadaam, mostly Sunni, who have known nothing but power through the barrel of a gun for most of their lives, and they comrpise a minority of all Sunnis who altogether comprise but 20% of Iraqis;
(2)Islamist radicals, like Sadr, whom Iran has hired to try to foment civil war between Shias and Sunnis (Sadr is supported by no other Shia clerics in Iraq and represents a very minor portion of all Shias in Iraq = 60% of the country), and
(3)Al Queda and associated groups loosely affiliated around Al Zarqawi - a Jordanian - and consisting largely of Syrian, Saudi, Jordanian, Egyptian and Yemeni fighters, though aided by some Sunni clans who are Salafists (like the Taliban) and have decades of links across the southern deserts of Iraq into Saudi Arabia and the Al Quedai $ supporters there.
So one can read all this and say the terrorist glass is half full, or one can realize that most of the insurgency does not come from most of the 60% Shia's, almost zero of the insurgency comes from the 20-25% Kurds and, if you read ALL the news lately you would have seen where Sunni clan leaders in the west in Ramadi mounted their own successful fight against Al Queda fighters who demanded the Sunni's kill all the Shia Iraqi's in their area.
Next, try to remember and plot in your mind a mental map of where most of the insurgent bombings occur and who are most of the victims of those bombings. The vast majority of the insurgent attacks occur in the Sunni triangle and the vast majority of the casualties are everyday Iraqis.
In other words, increasingly the insurgency is not a popular uprising of the majority of the Iraqi people and is in fact largely targeting, and more and more offending the Iraqi people.
And you ask if any of this was "inevitable"?. Well, no it wasn't. Yet, there was always bound to be some attempt by former Baathist leaders to hang on, Iranian attempts to influence the situation and Al Zarqawi left Afghanistan for Iraq before in invaded Afghanistan. Did any of those things permit the ability to predict everything about any insurgency? No. But, regardless, if building up the Iraqi military and the Iraqi political process is the antidote to any insurgency, and that is what we are doing, then what's the difference?
"Underlying that plan was a not-so-hidden assumption that the three main ethnic and religious groups that comprise the Iraqi population – the Shia, the Sunni and the Kurds – would somehow be willing to set their differences and mistrusts aside while forging a new nationalistic union from dissimilar metals. How to alloy those who’ve never been allies does seem an intractable dilemma."
So the heart of your "doom" lies in the preception that the Shias, the Kurds and the Sunni's will not resolve their political means to maintain a federal nation.
The Kurds in the north have been building democracy since we began protecting them from Sadaam and they are not about to give it up. The majority of the Shia want to chose their government by democratic means as the elections demonstrated - even to the point of risking their lives for that democratic choice. The minority Sunnis are the leased unified (split between moderates, former Baathists, and a minority of Sunnis alligned with Osama type Saudis). The Sunnis and their majority neighborhoods are both the source of most insurgant activity and taking the brunt of most of that activity.
Here are my optimistic and pessimistic assessments.
Optimistically, the Kurds and the Shia and the Sunnis will resolve their political questions, get the government up and running and provide the political support for a maturing Iraqi military. It is that Iraqi military (not the U.S.) who will end the insurgency, with U.S. support.
Pessimistically, the Kurds and the Shias will not be able to bring the Sunnis into full engagement in the political process. The Al Queda and the Baathists, although only a minority of the minority Sunnis, will, mostly through terroristic threats keep too many Sunnis from participating in and cooperating with the a new Iraqi government. Having caused the Sunnis to refrain from full participation in the democratic process, the insurgents will use that lack of Sunni participation as their own justification. How pessimisstic is that? Some, but at some point the Shia and the Kurds will move ahead together and finally decide enough is enough. They will make ultimatims to the Sunnis and that is one civil war that the Sunnis cannot win. When the chips are finally down, the Sunni general population will turn on the foreign terrorists and the Baathists, so that they can keep living in Iraq.
The only thing that can prevent either of these two scenarios in my view is the willingness of Americans to join the new leftist anti-war crusade, just as the left did with Vietnam.
The biography of the North Vietnamese General duing the war quotes him as saying that without U.S. anti-war organizations like those led by John Kerry, the North Vietnamese would have had to accept defeat.
The same is true today. Wars are one by those who are willing to persevere to victory and lost by those who give-up. Period.
Defeat always begins with a willingness to accept it. Iraq is not now is never going to be "Vietnam", because we are not going to let the left do it to us again, ever.
Either works for me.
Iraq has never been a unified nation. It was cobbled together out of the remnants of the Ottoman Empire, and contains three major religious/ethnic groups that really have no interest in being a "nation." That's why places like Iraq can only survive under a totalitarian dictator.
Yesterday, this guy at my hotel carried my bags to my room, and I gave him a couple of quarters.
Then, I gave the nice lady who brought my dinner a couple more quarters.
I think we should all tip.
We are not playing. Check out this link:
http://web.njit.edu/~krane/johnkrane.com/fallujah.asf
"Iraq has never been a unified nation. It was cobbled together out of the remnants of the Ottoman Empire, and contains three major religious/ethnic groups that really have no interest in being a "nation." That's why places like Iraq can only survive under a totalitarian dictator."
America has not been a unified nation in 30 years. It is cobbled together out of the remnants of the Liberal Movement of the 60's and the drug Culture of the 70's and the prerpetual Christian Right, and contains three major religious/ethnic groups that really have no interest in being a "nation." That's why places like The United States can only survive under a democratic republic.
America only exists as a democratic republic today because we're running on "political momentum" that has been in place since the early 1900s. It wasn't cobbled together out of anything -- it already existed with a common language, secular culture, etc. If the U.S. had been a religious monarchy from 1900-1960, we'd probably still be one today even if we had every intention of changing it.
We have no idea what will happen in our governing structure over the next 30 years, do we?
There wasn't? From German Culture
On May 8, 1945, the unconditional surrender of the German armed forces (Wehrmacht) was signed by Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel in Berlin, ending World War II for Germany. The German people were suddenly confronted by a situation never before experienced in their history: the entire German territory was occupied by foreign armies, cities and infrastructure were largely reduced to rubble, the country was flooded with millions of refugees from the east, and large portions of the population were suffering from hunger and the loss of their homes. The nation-state founded by Otto von Bismarck in 1871 lay in ruins.
Read the rest of this history to find out just how long it took to "denazify" Germany.
Iraq has never been a unified nation. It was cobbled together out of the remnants of the Ottoman Empire, and contains three major religious/ethnic groups that really have no interest in being a "nation." That's why places like Iraq can only survive under a totalitarian dictator remnants of the Ottoman Empire, and contains three major religious/ethnic groups that really have no interest in being a "nation." That's why places like Iraq can only survive under a totalitarian dictator.
That's exactly what the King of England said about the United States.
You mean, you gave up.
I hate quitters.
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