What does this mean, basso? You found a cartoon unrelated to reality? Reality is that Bush's "defining moment" amounted to a humiliating defeat for al-Maliki and humiliation for Bush. I don't know how else someone could view it, unless they had their head buried deep in that sand that blows around over there. Impeach Bush. A Defining Moment that would Mean Something.
He surrendered? I must have missed it. Please explain. Impeach Bush. A Defining Moment that would Mean Something.
I wouldn't expect you to know either if our own policymakers -- the guys paid to do this stuff -- haven't figured that one out as of yet, and have had five years to do it.
At this point, we could see an Al Qaeda Contra scandal in the future featuring a hearing with a befuddled John McCain and some convenient memory lapses.
Just from the reading and links provided here, it appears that Sadr did not lose, but that it was a cease fire type of thing, with most of the gains won by Sadr. Please explain how you feel that Sadr lost in this deal. I know the point has already been brought up here before, but I'm curious on your take since you seem to disagree.
Iran is already funding, supplying, training, and negotiating cease fires in a country that we occupy so I would say Iran has already moved in. I would say it's doubtful Iran would put up with much of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. First, Al-Qaeda is Sunni and Iran is Shia so they're natural enemies. Second, if Iran let Al-Qaeda use Iraq as a staging ground for strikes on the US it would give us cause to bomb the hell out of Iraq and Iran. Our military is much better at blowing **** up than mediating a civil war in a place that nobody wants us. In fact I'd rather us be in a position to bomb Iran into oblivion without having 130k US troops as sitting ducks in Iraq.
At the moment the coalition is giving Sadr the opportunity to put down arms peacefully, but the coalition is not going to allow Sadr to remain in power. The use of force against citizens is the exclusive province of the state. Since when did violent upstart militias constitute a civil war? This isn't territories of Iraq going to war with each other, it's a bunch of thugs and gangsters trying to murder and terrorize citizens into submission. It's sad that people want to fit the square peg into the round hole to stick it to others politically.
Clueless. 1. Sadr ain't going anywhere, no matter what the "coalition" (Is this the coalitionn of Iran and the Badr brigades?) says about it. 2. By state do you mean the Badr militia is the state? OK, so if this is true.... 3. When a rival faction is at war with a nominal state over oil resources in Basra - and the nominal state doesn't even win, in part because the "state' soldiers and police took up arms to join the other faction. I'm calling that a civil war - in the context of one that has been going on for about 5 years now. YOu call it a mere police action - Police actions don't require apache helicopters. Talk about a round peg/square hole.
Poll show roughly 70% of Americans and Iraqis want our troops to leave soon. The Bush-Cheney-McCain warmonger axis and their puppets the Maliki government want us to stay indefinitely in the hope that the minds of the Americans and Iraqis will eventually change to accept long term occupation. What the warmongers view as a "defeat" is a victory for the majority of us who want to bring the troops home and stop throwing good money and lives after bad.
Sadr's militia is a gang, nothing more. They don't represent any constituency in Iraq. They aren't providing safety and security for their people. They murder and terrorize people. The fact that Iraqi forces are not yet capable of rooting out Sadr's forces is exactly the reason we need to keep doing what we are doing and not leave. McCain talks about his experience in Vietnam, how we left in disgrace, and what a profound impact that had on him, and how it devastated our military. There are several reasons not to send our heavy artillery in to root out Sadr. We want the Iraqis to fend for themselves and believe that they can. We want to hold out for some kind of peaceful reconciliation while Sadr is relatively quiet. The fact that Sadr's forces are entrenched among citizens means collateral damage from an engagement is likely. But our military can defeat him any time we want. We are better trained, better equiped, better disciplined. All Sadr has is a willingness to slaughter innocents. Calling it a civil war is drawing a moral equivilance that is insulting. As if there is no difference between the forces of a duly elected government of the people, and a gang with guns.
^sadr's militia is a gang - really who cares, nobody said they were anything more than that. The problem is that the Iraqi "government' (of which Sadr is part by a bizarre twist) is also basically a gang itself. And not even a good one at that - one that was basically unable to beat its rival gang despite having the US army behind it. This is where we are after five years and a trillion bucks. Sponsoring pro-Iranian gang fights. Sweet. Even better, the policymakers don't even recognize it (or at least didn't until it was too late). But you can worry about the moral equivalence of calling it a civil war - that is the real issue here. ..... More on Sadr's surrender: Time: How Moqtada Al-Sadr won in Basra http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1726763,00.html
via TPM -- From "defining Moment" to "we didn't know about it" in one week! ------------------ Paltry results of Iraqi offensive silence U.S. withdrawal talk By Warren P. Strobel and Nancy A. Youssef | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — The Bush administration was caught off-guard by the first Iraqi-led military offensive since the fall of Saddam Hussein, a weeklong thrust in southern Iraq whose paltry results have silenced talk at the Pentagon of further U.S. troop withdrawals any time soon. President Bush last week declared the offensive, which ended Sunday, "a defining moment" in Iraq's history. That may prove to be true, but in recent days senior U.S. officials have backed away from the operation, which ended with Shiite militias still in place in Basra, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki possibly weakened and a de facto cease-fire brokered by an Iranian general. "There is no empirical evidence that the Iraqi forces can stand up" on their own, a senior U.S. military official in Washington said, reflecting the frustration of some at the Pentagon. He and other military officials requested anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak for the record. Having Iraqi forces take a leadership role in combating militias and Islamic extremists was crucial to U.S. hopes of withdrawing more American forces in Iraq and reducing the severe strains the Iraq war has put on the Army and Marine Corps. The failure of Iraqi forces to defeat rogue fighters in Basra has some in the military fearing they can no longer predict when it might be possible to reduce the number of troops to pre-surge levels. "It's more complicated now," said one officer in Iraq whose role has been critical to American planning there. Questions remain about how much Bush and his top aides knew in advance about the offensive and whether they encouraged Maliki to confront radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr. A senior U.S. lawmaker and four military officials said Tuesday that the Americans were aware in general terms of the coming offensive, but were surprised by the timing and by the Iraqis' almost immediate need for U.S. air support and other help. One senior U.S. military commander in Iraq said the Iraqi government originally told the United States about a longer-term plan to rid Basra of rogue elements. But Maliki changed the timing, and the nature of the Iraqi operation changed, he said. "The planning was not done under our auspices at all," the American commander said. The plan changed because "the prime minister got impatient." http://www.mcclatchydc.com/staff/warren_strobel/story/32337.html
Well if you can get over this misconception perhaps you can start to see beyond Bush propaganda if you want to. Ever wonder how the mighty US army can't handle a gang member with no constituency? Sadr is from the most famous religious family in Iraq and could beat Maliki in an election among the 60% of the country who is Shia. So why don't we work with him more? He is not in favor of the US occupation so we can't accept him. An interesting article on Sadr. http://www.motherjones.com/interview/2008/03/who-is-iraqs-firebrand-cleric.html
