whatever you think of the war, you've got to be praying they succeed. via andrew sullivan: http://www.andrewsullivan.com/index...04_04_04_dish_archive.html#108145289152141796 -- Things have been busy here. You know I can't say much about it. However, I do know two things. One, POTUS has given us the green light to do whatever we needed to do to win this thing so we have that going for us. Two, and my opinion only, this battle is going to have far reaching effects on not only the war here in Iraq but in the overall war on terrorism. We have to be very precise in our application of combat power. We cannot kill a lot of innocent folks (though they are few and far between in Fallujah). There will be no shock and awe. There will be plenty of bloodshed at the lowest levels. This battle is the Marine Corps' Belleau Wood for this war. 2/1 and 1/5 will be leading the way. We have to find a way to kill the bad guys only. The Fallujahans are fired up and ready for a fight (or so they think). A lot of terrorists and foreign fighters are holed up in Fallujah. It has been a sanctuary for them. If they have not left town they are going to die. I'm hoping they stay and fight. This way we won't have to track them down one by one. This battle is going to be talked about for a long time. The Marine Corps will either reaffirm its place in history as one of the greatest fighting organizations in the world or we will die trying. The Marines are fired up. I'm nervous for them though because I know how much is riding on this fight (the war in Iraq, the view of the war at home, the length of the war on terror and the reputation of the Marine Corps to name a few). However, every time I've been nervous during my career about the outcome of events when young Marines were involved they have ALWAYS exceeded my expectations. I'm praying this is one of those times.
Lt. Smash has some thoughts on what's happening in iRaq (iPod, iRaq...) as well as some excellent advice for all of us, particularly the senior senator from massachusettes, as we debate the war. http://www.lt-smash.us/archives/002800.html#002800 -- The Objective THE UPSURGE IN VIOLENCE in Iraq over the past week has left many people asking questions about the nature of our enemies, what their objectives are, and how we can best defeat them. Here are some answers: Who are we fighting? There are three main groups aligned against the Coalition: 1. Sunni Arabs – These are former loyalists to Saddam who stand to lose much under an Iraqi democracy. They are mainly from the “Sunni Triangle” in central Iraq, but it appears likely that they have launched some “out of area” operations in the past. These are the main forces currently battling the US Marines in Fallujah. 2. Radical Shiites – Let by the young cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, these militia have the support of prominent mullahs in Iran, who hope to turn Iraq into a Shiite theocracy based on the Iranian model. There are also reports that Sadr’s Mahdi Army, a several-thousand man militia that has taken up arms against Coalition forces all over southern Iraq, may have ties with the Iranian-supported terror group Hezbollah. 3. Al Qaeda – Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is widely considered to be the leader of al Qaeda forces in Iraq. There are strong indications that Zarqawi has teamed up with Baathist holdouts in the Sunni Triangle, and may be providing training and other resources to these groups. Several hundred would-be “jihadis” have recently been captured attempting to enter Iraq from Syria, most likely in response to a call by Zarqawi for more forces to battle the Coalition. Political disagreements about the reasons for going to war aside, Iraq IS the critical battlefield in the War on Terror. We are now seeing indications that these three groups, which in the past have been at odds with one another, may be coordinating their actions against the Coalition. Indeed, it now appears that al Qaeda may be attempting to pull their own forces away from Afghanistan and elsewhere in order to engage Coalition forces directly in Iraq. What do they hope to accomplish in this offensive? These groups cannot realistically expect to defeat the Coalition in direct combat. Any gains they make on the battlefield will be temporary, and extremely costly in terms of men and resources. They know this. The goal of this offensive, therefore, is not to take and hold any particular piece of territory in Iraq; but rather to create and reinforce the impression that the United States is bogged down in an increasingly costly and “unwinnable” war. The objective is nothing less than to break the American fighting spirit, and force an ignominious withdrawal from the Middle East. Their models are the American experience in Vietnam and the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan. In this goal, our enemies have found unlikely allies in the West amongst those who believe, for political or ideological reasons, that they stand to benefit from seeing the United States humbled and defeated. How do we achieve victory? First, we must allow the military to do its job. This means not only giving commanders the troops and resources they need to defeat the enemy, but also the flexibility and authority to respond to potential threats before they fully develop. The men leading the troops on the battlefield have the training and the will to win this fight. The best thing we can do for them is to give them the proper tools, and stand back. Second, and most importantly, we must remain united in our resolve to fight this battle to the finish. This does not mean that all domestic dissent must be silenced (which would certainly NOT be in keeping with our cherished right to free speech), but rather that we should be careful to avoid expressing our dissent in such a manner that it provides encouragement to our enemies. There can be no doubt that we have the ability to defeat our enemies militarily. There should be no doubt that we possess the will to do so.
This is turning into a horrible mess, even worse than it already was, and it's the administration's fault for getting us into it. But we can't pull out now. We can't create another Afghanistan, an unending and massive civil war. Now that we've begun it, we must finish it. I don't know anymore if it will really be possible to set up a secular democracy there, or any democracy at all. But we've got to try. It would be an incredible irony if we attacked a state that held no threats to us to become a new massive breeding ground of terrorism.
This marine is wrong. This is unlikely to be a decisive battle, in the struggle to make Iraq do what the neocons hope for, much less the war on terror. Sadly the presene of this marine doingm his duty in Iraq increases terrorism. The marines, like the Israelis in Jenin, will put down the residents of Fallujah, this time, but realistically they can't kill all the men and teenage boys, so those family members who are left will live to fight another day. However, if the marines kill too many in their "victory" (and his remark about few innocents in Fallujah is troubling), this may turn out to be like the Alamo in Texas history for the Iraqis and could indeed turn out to be a turning point..
We will have to do like Vietnam, try to pull out with as much dignity as possible and rebuild relations with Iraq and the Arab/ Muslim world. We can't impose our will militarily. The militarists and neocons of that day used the same arguments they use today to put that off as our troops kept dying and slaughtering hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese. In reality the militarists don't seem to have enough faith in the real strength of America to move forward and iike bullies always fear that if we give an inch all will be lost. Andy used the word "hubris". The US must return to the family of nations and realize that we can't do just what we want, despite our military power. Let's say we had never pulled out of Vietnam, but had upped the troop levels from 500,000 to 1.5 million or whatever, we might still be hanging on in the war there and things would never have gotten better. Now we are doing business with Vietnam and American tourists can go there. This could have happened even earlier if we had changed course sooner and reestablished trade sooner.
I believe we should do this to Cuba. Let's arm all those Cuban Americans who long for the Bay of Pigs II, let them flail away at Cuba for a bit, then after they come home with their tails wagging between their legs, declare victory and normalize relations so we can crush the Cubans with McDonalds and Walmart. It's much easier that way.
ya know, glynch, you (or I) don't know **** about Fallujah and the battle there. I'm interested to see the post, though I'd love to know the rank of the guy who allegedly wrote this letter. I find it a little suspect in that it's so well-groomed and ready for presentation, but hey, it's possible. Who mailed this letter to whom? I'll reiterate that we have to stick it out, even past June, to give a real non-radical government a chance in Iraq. It will cost lives. I don't think we should have gone there, but leaving now would be the worst, the absolute worst outcome I can imagine.
i no longer trust "personal" letters from the military ever since the bush administration got caught fabricating them from afghanistan.
Yeah, that was another low point, and it's difficult to believe any of these letters, especially when they're sanitized. (sigh). If they'd just not faked letters, used rubber turkeys, lied about the huge posters made for appearances, etc, then a modicum of trust could be established. It's just so damned sad.
B-Bob, I've struggled with this issue myself. While, obviously I opposed the decision to invade Iraq, I believed that once we we had invaded and overthrown the Hussein regime, we couldn't just leave the country to descend into chaos. Furthermore, I felt we had a responsibility to try and rebuild what we had destroyed. However, my views on this are starting to change. I think that because this Administration is so incompetent and blinded by ideology, there is practically zero chance that we will have any real success in stabilizing and rebuilding Iraq. Therefore, it is not worth the cost in US and Iraqi lives to continue the occupation. It is only prolonging the inevitable- a U.S. pull out and a shake out within Iraq among the Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis. Undoubtedly, there will be a lot of bloodshed as this shake out takes place, but at this point I don't think there is much we can do to ameliorate it. Ironically, and tragically for us, the current formation of a Shiite, Sunni united front against the US may go aways towards healing the rift between these groups and lessening the post-occupation violence. This being said, I do think a post-Bush administration can potentially do a lot of good in Iraq (and for our own national security) by putting in place development incentives administered through the U.N. that will reward steps towards a stable, democratic government in Iraq.
yes, absolutely, let's do that, because the UN has performed so admirably in iRaq over the past 12 years. i'm sure the iRaqi people appreciate their efforts.
B-bob, you are right, I don't KNOW. No one can predict the future. Just my humble opinion, which I'm entitled to. Of course I have been more correct than the neocons and the mainstream media, about "imminent threat" and what would happen in Iraq when we decided to do our optional war. NOt that hard really when the CIA, most foreign intelligence agencies, Bush Sr.., Powell, Rummy and the gang said the same thing before they worked for Dubya who just didn't have the experience not to fall for the Cheney-Wolfowitz-Perle line of bull. I do get impatient. I know we have the Dakota, types who aren't that involved and who thoughts like "well in 20 or 30 years or so we will know if this all was worth doing. " are suffcient for the war. Of course we have the other "the world is better off without Sadam" group Maybe this second group, now that Sadam is gone, should just except their "victory" and let other people's children quit dying for their neoconned utopian vision and come home. Ditto with repsect to faked letters from the humble troops writing letters about how they support the war, have high morale and believe strongly in the mission etc.
I think b-bob's point is that there is no victory if you just come home. Perhaps they shouldn't have gone in...but you can't undo that now. Leaving a power vacuum in a place as militant, as divided, as economically and geographically and strategically important would be even more misguided. You cannot just pretend it didn't happen and come home. You've got to help clean up the mess.
I'm not sure what your point is here. Do you think the Iraqi population generally looks more favorably on the US than the UN?
You cannot just pretend it didn't happen and come home. You've got to help clean up the mess I'm not. You can't just pretend that our presence is not a major part of the post Sadam problem. Millions of Iraqis hate our presence and are resisting us. Sad to say, but true. We can't just roadblock them , search them, iterrogate them, imprison them and kill them till they moderate. Israel has tried this for the last 37 years in the occupied territories. On what basis do you think it will work for us now. It is tempting given our own arrogance, and our belief in our own innate goodness to believe that we can do this till they love us due to our good deeds in rebuilding the infrastructure that our bombs and sanctions have previously destroyed. This is unlikely to work. People like freedom from occupation and like to choose their own leaders. It can be tough to convince them or buy them out of this desire. Once we withdraw their hatred of us, will gradually begin to subside, particularly if we act fairly with respect to Israeli occupation. We can and should then spend 10's of billions to atone for our actions. We can show our supposed love for the Iraqi people by doing this. Surprisingly to the neocon world view, as we saw with Vietnam, this approach may actually making them like us and respect us.
I don't think it's any secret I was against the war. But I also agree with those that say we can't just leave, after what we've done. The problem is that we started with a puppet Iraqi council that the Iraqis don't like. We can't hand things over to them. We need to have a new representative council ready to go. We can let the Iraqis elect them. We can offer to stay and offer whatever aid they will need in getting the country moving again. Then we replace the current council with the elected one. We don't place any conditions on who is electable and who isn't. The only thing we do is that we bring in the UN to help monitor the elctions and make sure they are fair. We work with whoever is elected to the new council, handing over documents, control etc. We offer to stay on as long as they wish for security, advisory functions etc. We actually let the Iraqis run things like the idea supposedly was from the beginning. The new council will decide their structure of govt. They will implement the formation of it. They will decide if we do or don't have military bases there for years to come. They will decide if Haliburton gets the contracts or if they give the contracts to someone else. If we do this we can still leave(or not) and still say we brought democracy to Iraq. But we have to be willing to live with some things that we don't like. We may not like what they do with oil field contracts, etc. We may not like that they elect some hardline Muslims to high positions. We may not like that they want all of our troops out sooner rather than later. But if we do this, we can leave, and preserve dignity and even a victory. Prior to doing this we need to do everything possible to provide services, hospitals, schools etc. We need to show that we want to help. That will make the elected Iraqi govt. more likely to listen to us for advice.
I agree with you, FranchiseBlade, in what we should and need to do. However, this is not the reality of what Bush is trying to do. They want the US-inspired version of the constitution which forms the basis of the government to limit the involvement of Islam. They don't want another Iran style of government taking root in the Middle East. Iran claims they have a democracy but, in reality, they have hard-liners calling all the shots while democratic reform has been a failure for them. If the only way Bush or the US is going to leave Iraq content is with our imposed constitution and government on Iraq, then this will continue to be a recipe for disaster. Even if we leave, then how long will this hold up before an overthrow or revolution? The Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds will end up in a power struggle with each claiming they deserve more power than they have or the other. Then, this will eventually lead to a civil war. What I see is Bush, Bremer, and cronies are inflexible in that they want the ultimate say in how the new Iraqi constitution and government is formed. While they may preach elections and democracy as the foundations of the new government, it is still going to be seen as an imposed puppet government no matter what. So, we either do it the Bush way which will mean many more years of occupation with no guarantees of the aftermath OR we do it the UN/Iraqi way and let them decide their ultimate form of government regardless of the outcome. I think we will find that, if left to the Iraqis, then we could be looking at another Iran type of government based on Islam with little room for true democracy or democratic reform. I personally see it as a mess with no solution. I think anyone who claims to have the solution is a liar. Just like we had our own civil war to make our country what it is, they may need to do the same thing. I see Iraq being led by those who hold the most power through internal conflict. This conflict may not happen right away but I think it will happen. As long as our troops stay, it won't happen. The other way it won't happen is if the Iraqi government is in complete control with their police forces, Iraqi army, etc. . I just don't know that this will work out. Iraqis don't know crap about government or running a country. So, if their not willing to accept it from the US, then they may have to forment their own government based on whatever means they do it by...which is probably more violent conflict. Like I have all the answers. I see a clusterf*ck over there. That's probably the best word I can find to describe it. Surf
I agree with Surfguy mostly. One might think, hey, let's just split this place up into Sunni, Shiite, and Kurd states but so many countries with Kurd populations afraid of encouraging their internal populations with ideas of statehood they raise a hissy fit any time this is mentioned. They get democracy in Iraq, but they don't get respecting the rights of the minority, at least from my reading of their announcements second hand. Here is an excellent, almost day to day journal of what's going on from a different perspective. http://www.juancole.com/
I think surfguy is right about what the Bush admin wants out of Iraq. They don't a real democracy, they want something that ensures a friendly pro- U.S. govt. in post Saddam Iraq. I think it is possible, or may have been possible to get that, but it isn't guaranteed. We have to let what happens happen. By being more authoritarian in our rule over there we are only hurting our chances at an organic U.S. friendly govt. Appointing all these Iraqi exiles to the governing council was a big mistake. I think Woofer is also correct in saying we shouldn't split the country up. It appears that Sunni's and at least some Shiia can get along fine when they have a common enemy(the U.S.) to fight. The Iraqis have a great shot at improvement now that Saddam is gone. Democracy will be in it's infancy there. And just like with children growing up they will make some mistakes. We need to allow them to make and learn from those mistakes. If we could be a friendly advisor to them and show them ways to make sure that the minority has some rights such as certain things requiring a 2/3 approval by council(or parliment, or congress, or whatever they have) or a 3/5 approval it can force them to work together on some things. But if they hate us(for justified or unjustified reasons) they won't listen to any of our ideas good or bad.
