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UberDog:
Is there a goal that would have brought the country to this war that you would have supported?

Afghanistan made sense to me but Iraq, because of the obvious sectarian tensions encompassed by its British imposed borders, was a recipe for disaster from the start. What we took from AQ in Afghanistan, we restored to them in Iraq: a fool's errand, and totally unnecessary.

Like I said, I've been speaking strictly in terms of salvage.

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kenmeer:

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ou open up a can of war and you get Abu Grab and Haditha and everyone is shocked. Didn't you all read the instructions on the bottle?

Hmm. If memory serves, the reason things were allowed to degenerate to that state in the first place was that a lot of Americans took the attitude, "Well, war is hell. That's what happens." It was thought there was no alternative, so for four years the US public shrugged its shoulders when, all along, the insurgency was being fueled by resentment for our systematic failure to treat the civilian population with a modicum of human dignity (+ a little gadfly called AQ).

All these things you mention were already on the label in 2003. Especially the shoulder shrug.

War IS deception, especially of one's home population.

Then why not put that on the bottle instead?

But come to think of it, I should amend my comment. It wasn't just the utter lack of differentiation between conventional and unconventional goals, there was also a concerted innuendo campaign to link AQ to Saddam Hussein which effectively defined the mission as a punitive campaign. Retribution, the real causus belli for the war in the hearts and minds of way too many Americans, and precisely the reaction 9/11 was designed to evoke. Have we really learned anything since then? If so, what is the lesson? That it's the dawning of the Age of Aquarius? ...only until the next deliberate act of provocation, would be my guess.

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In my experience, the vocabulary of chivalry--big ping effect words like honor and cowardice--has always had a powerful effect on the imagination of right-wingers.

Ah, but mostly when it involved killing others and sacrificing some of our own troops.

Mostly, in other words, when it involved punitive action: wounded resentment; cowardly, knee-jerk retaliation: this is not the language of chivalry.

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Honor and cowardice in terms of, say, ethical transnational corporate behavior, pingeth not or very little.

Which is why Bush relies on OBL for justification, and vice versa. Both pit the extremes against the center, turning centrists into extremists via the agency of personal tragedy. The strategic agenda I'm proposing aims to kill both birds with one stone. The idea is to delegitimize their tactics (whether we call it 'terror' or 'shock and awe'), and in so doing, politically marginalize them both.

In a struggle for hearts and minds, our ideals are our sharpest weapon, whereas the Republicans would have us walk into this fight naked and unarmed. The last thing we should have surrendered was the first thing we surrendered. But I think Americans long to be reunited with American principles, I think Americans have the courage of American principles, and I think American principles can defeat AQ! [e.g.]

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Witness:
Anyway, my original point was that their is less violence because their is less opportunity for violence. Mixed neighbourhoods are a thing of the past, a massive proportion of the population chose exile instead of waiting to be cleansed and many of those who decided to stay put have been killed.

The surge wasn't going to change that dynamic, no matter how many extra people they sent to Baghdad. From what I understood more American soldiers are trying to keep their heads down and get through their patrols without getting shot at, which does help keep casualties down but it does little to actually stabilize the situation.

I don't know where you're getting your information from, but your source is either very misinformed, or being very unfair.

I think I already mentioned how culturally ill-suited I think Americans are for this sort of thing (if only the Brits had been in charge), but the effort is there, and it is a demanding one, to put it mildly. Leaving their bunkers (FOB's) and moving into Joint Security Stations in the neighborhoods most definitely exposes US forces to increased risk--increased risk that translated into increased US casualties in the opening moves of the surge, if you recall.

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If I'm right and the violence starts up again when the host nations start to insist that the refugees return home, well then the surge will be a failure.

I hate to disappoint, but I think the refugees are, by and large, people who just want to stay out of the crossfire: moderate and middle class, anyone with the means and good sense to high tail it. The ones who remain, generally speaking (along with the poor), are the ones with an axe to grind.

Still, you might be right about the civil war flaring up again as soon as they are rid of AQ (and, preferably, Uncle Sam). It's not in our hands to resolve their political problems, but I think some of the steps being taken to equalize the balance of power on the ground--which is as much as we can do to promote political detente short of toppling the government again--might come as a surprise.

from The New Yorker, again:

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The new strategy, like most of the previous strategies employed in Iraq, had the drawback of having been imposed by the Americans. Many of the Shiite politicians in Iraq’s government were angry about the U.S. decision to wall off Baghdad neighborhoods and to recruit and arm Sunni volunteer organizations without consulting them. There were fears that the U.S. was simply arming a new set of militias—undermining the authority of the fragile coalition government. This may have been part of the goal. Iraq, with a hundred and seventy thousand U.S. troops on its soil, is not a sovereign country, and the U.S. uses its military power to shape the Iraqi political scene. By strengthening the hand of the Sunnis, the U.S. effectively forced the Maliki government to incorporate more Sunnis into the security forces—a step toward national reconciliation.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: the_Etruscan,

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Originally posted by the_Etruscan:
I don't know where you're getting your information from, but your source is either very misinformed, or being very unfair.

Quite possibly, the different sources keep giving conflicting accounts, even the ones that seem to be doing their best.

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I hate to disappoint, but I think the refugees are, by and large, people who just want to stay out of the crossfire: moderate and middle class, anyone with the means and good sense to high tail it. The ones who remain, generally speaking (along with the poor), are the ones with an axe to grind.

I actually agree. What I was trying to say was that eventually the patience of the nations providing them with temporary asylum is going to wear out and many of them will be sent home. Or the violence will wind down and they'll start to assume it's safe to go home.

With the people who chased them out still at home that's a profoundly dangerous reality. Just because they're not going to go out looking for people to kill doesn't mean they're going to tolerate their hated enemies waltzing back into their old homes like nothing had happened.

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Still, you might be right about the civil war flaring up again as soon as they are rid of AQ and (preferably) Uncle Sam. It's not in our hands to resolve their political problems, but I think some of the steps being taken to equalize the balance of power on the ground--which is as much as we can do to promote political detente short of toppling the government again--might come as a surprise.

I just hope that they're given the chance to sort things out for themselves. If the only way it's going to happen is through an entirely unavoidable bloodbath then it might be too late to stop it.

Picking sides is the worst thing we can do, and being thought to have picked sides is the second worst option.

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Originally posted by Witness:
With the people who chased them out still at home that's a profoundly dangerous reality. Just because they're not going to go out looking for people to kill doesn't mean they're going to tolerate their hated enemies waltzing back into their old homes like nothing had happened.

Yeah, the streets are paved with vendettas. It's going to be a long row to hoe.

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I just hope that they're given the chance to sort things out for themselves. If the only way it's going to happen is through an entirely unavoidable bloodbath then it might be too late to stop it.

We should have come on strong with a Nelson Mandela style reconciliation effort for the crimes of the Saddam era, from the start.

At any rate, I think they have a much better chance without AQ as an accelerant.

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Picking sides is the worst thing we can do, and being thought to have picked sides is the second worst option.

Agreed. The kind of balancing act mentioned is a devil's bargain, but we (yanks) are responsible for opening the political vacuum in the first place.

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Picking sides is the worst thing we can do, and being thought to have picked sides is the second worst option.

Maybe LEAVING is the worst thing we could do? I fear setting the precedent that America is allowed to go in to a random country whose leader isn't to our liking, selectively prune their government, gut their infrastructure, be the direct (or indirect) cause of 200,000 or more lost lives... and then leave them to deal with the aftermath. Maybe just me though.

The precedent is in place already and it's not just the U.S. leaving a trail of broken crockery behind them. Most of the active participants in the coalition have begun to distance themselves from the debacle, if they haven't already done so. The situation has reached a point where one country isn't going to be able to fix it, especially if that country is the one all sides blame for causing the problem to start with.

I've never advocated just turning around and washing our hands of the situation, there are lots of things we could be doing instead of giving everyone more guns and hoping they use them on our enemies instead of us. We could be providing refuge for some of the millions of exiles until it's safe for them to be resettled in Iraq, or at least making sure they're being taken care of properly in the countries that have been willing to accept. Alternatively we could be taking advantage of Iran's desire for stability in it's neighbour to take some off the pressure off of us and the Iraqis.

"a) War IS deception, especially of one's home population.

b) Then why not put that on the bottle instead?"

It's been on the warning label for millennia:

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In war, truth is the first casualty.
Aeschylus, Greek tragic dramatist (525 BC - 456 BC)

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Retribution, the real causus belli for the war in the hearts and minds of way too many Americans, and precisely the reaction 9/11 was designed to evoke. Have we really learned anything since then? If so, what is the lesson? That it's the dawning of the Age of Aquarius? ...only until the next deliberate act of provocation, would be my guess.

I must've dreamed it once, or maybe Humphrey Bogart really *did* say in one of his movies:

"Revenge is for suckers."

ANyway, he ought've. Sounds great in my B&W imagination.

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But I think Americans long to be reunited with American principles, I think Americans have the courage of American principles, and I think American principles can defeat AQ! [

I belive that attempting to defeat AQ is self-destructive folly.

Just as with Russia. We didn't defeat the USSR; it fell apart on its own. We hurt ourselves horribly 'fighting communism'.

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Maybe LEAVING is the worst thing we could do? I fear setting the precedent that America is allowed to go in to a random country whose leader isn't to our liking, selectively prune their government, gut their infrastructure, be the direct (or indirect) cause of 200,000 or more lost lives... and then leave them to deal with the aftermath. Maybe just me though.

Well, see, hardly anyone cares to have the rapist stick around to father the child it sired with syphilitic semen.

Ah. It's Paul Newman in The Sting, not Bogie in my mind.

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I belive that attempting to defeat AQ is self-destructive folly.

Just as with Russia. We didn't defeat the USSR; it fell apart on its own. We hurt ourselves horribly 'fighting communism'.

Didn't I mention somewhere, "the idea is to politically marginalize them both."? What we're doing to AQ in Iraq, we should do to the neo-conservative party at home.

The key phrase you passed over in my little stump speech was American principles--not conventional military muscle, not draconian domestic policies, not Guantanamo Bay and extraordinary rendition--can defeat AQ.

The point you're side-stepping here is that terrorists vote Republican--not with ballots but with bombs and ignited jet-fuel (speaking of pinging the amygdala). As long as the GOP is seen to hold the trump card on defense--and Democrats never stray from the Republican frame of reference, merely echoing the same "get tough" rhetoric whenever the subject comes up--any future terrorist attack will serve as a dramatic piece of political theatre in support of jingoistic and draconian reaction, the Republican strong suit (although it applies to both parties until the Democrats adopt an original frame of reference).

Peace.

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Originally posted by kenmeer livermaile:
Just as with Russia. We didn't defeat the USSR; it fell apart on its own.

That's not entirely true. The USSR fell apart for a myriad of reasons.

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Originally posted by the_Etruscan:As long as the GOP is seen to hold the trump card on defense--and Democrats never stray from the Republican frame of reference, merely echoing the same "get tough" rhetoric whenever the subject comes up--any future terrorist attack will serve as a dramatic piece of political theatre in support of jingoistic and draconian reaction, the Republican strong suit (although it applies to both parties until the Democrats adopt an original frame of reference).

Ehh... I see the real problem not that the Republicans seem the go to for defense but rather they are the only go to for a descision, however bad it may be.

The democrats are impotent and cowardly, the republicans ballsy and stupid.

In that contest the people shouting the loudest, or at all, win.

People aren't listening to the republicans because they are strong on defense but because their message is clear, consistent and immune to all attacks of reason or intelligence.

BUSH: "Iran has no program to make nuclear weapons. Iran is still an enoromous nuclear threat. I loved it, it was much better than Cats, I'm going to invade it again and again...."

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Originally posted by UberDog:
Ehh... I see the real problem not that the Republicans seem the go to for defense but rather they are the only go to for a descision, however bad it may be.

The democrats are impotent and cowardly, the republicans ballsy and stupid.

In that contest the people shouting the loudest, or at all, win.

People aren't listening to the republicans because they are strong on defense but because their message is clear, consistent and immune to all attacks of reason or intelligence.

BUSH: "Iran has no program to make nuclear weapons. Iran is still an enoromous nuclear threat. I loved it, it was much better than Cats, I'm going to invade it again and again...."

That sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy if I ever heard one.

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Originally posted by vecna:
Maybe LEAVING is the worst thing we could do? I fear setting the precedent that America is allowed to go in to a random country whose leader isn't to our liking, selectively prune their government, gut their infrastructure, be the direct (or indirect) cause of 200,000 or more lost lives... and then leave them to deal with the aftermath. Maybe just me though.

I know the feeling.

Still, I take the Sunni wormturn as a sign that cooler heads are beginning to prevail--they're beginning to use US forces as a mediating buffer for their own irreconcilable differences. I may be overly optimistic in saying so, but I think that puts us on the path to sanity (always a bumpy road).


edit. verbiage

This message has been edited. Last edited by: the_Etruscan,

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Originally posted by Witness:
We could be providing refuge for some of the millions of exiles until it's safe for them to be resettled in Iraq, or at least making sure they're being taken care of properly in the countries that have been willing to accept. Alternatively we could be taking advantage of Iran's desire for stability in it's neighbour to take some off the pressure off of us and the Iraqis.

In a saner world.

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Maybe LEAVING is the worst thing we could do?

Liberal imperialism from Vecna even? Gordon Bennett.

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Originally posted by the_Etruscan:

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Originally posted by UberDog:
Ehh... I see the real problem not that the Republicans seem the go to for defense but rather they are the only go to for a descision, however bad it may be.

The democrats are impotent and cowardly, the republicans ballsy and stupid.

In that contest the people shouting the loudest, or at all, win.

People aren't listening to the republicans because they are strong on defense but because their message is clear, consistent and immune to all attacks of reason or intelligence.

BUSH: "Iran has no program to make nuclear weapons. Iran is still an enoromous nuclear threat. I loved it, it was much better than Cats, I'm going to invade it again and again...."

That sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy if I ever heard one.

Which part?