A warning to Jorge(dubya)from his own people: "WASHINGTON - House Republican moderates, in a remarkably blunt White House meeting, warned President Bush this week that his pursuit of the war in Iraq is risking the future of the Republican Party and that he cannot count on GOP support for many more months." http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18586983/
The surge is maybe pissing off the Iraqis. Should the USA just abolish this troublesome Iraqi parliament? -- in the name of demcoracy , of course. *********** Iraqi Lawmakers Back Bill on U.S. Withdrawal By Joshua Partlow Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, May 11, 2007; Page A12 BAGHDAD, May 10 -- A majority of members of Iraq's parliament have signed a draft bill that would require a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. soldiers from Iraq and freeze current troop levels. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/10/AR2007051000387.html?hpid=topnews
well it wouldnt suprise me that a lot of them want the US gone, b/c once they are and given an unstable govertment, there will be a massive power grab.
Is it our responsibility though to hold their hands indefinately until they figure out how to play nice? The danger that I see with continued occupation is that the Iraqis seem to show little incentive towards working towards stability themselves. This shouldn't be unexpected as the South Vietnamese government and military was corrupt and weak and the only time they actually showed some capability was after the US had withdrawn. Of course by then it was too late for them since they had been dependent on the US for so long. For the Iraqis groups they have little incentive to work together while we are still there doing most of the heavy work for them. We're in the position of maintaining an artificial situation, and doing a poor job at it, when the only way to force them to compromise with each other is to have them actually deal with trying to run and secure the country themselves.
i didnt mean for it to be the USs responsibility to hold their hand. i was just providing an explanation for what they want the US gone.
Petraeus begs troops not to torture. From today's WaPo -- The top U.S. commander in Iraq admonished his troops regarding the results of an Army survey that found that many U.S military personnel there are willing to tolerate some torture of suspects and unwilling to report abuse by comrades. "This fight depends on securing the population, which must understand that we -- not our enemies -- occupy the moral high ground," Army Gen. David H. Petraeus wrote in an open letter dated May 10 and posted on a military Web site. He rejected the argument that torture is sometimes needed to quickly obtain crucial information. "Beyond the basic fact that such actions are illegal, history shows that they also are frequently neither useful nor necessary," he stated. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/10/AR2007051001963.html
Why not torture. We have a permanent prison for them to stay in, so how will his people possibly know. In fact, let's keep away our own journalists so the American people won't be uncomfortable as well. It's a perfect solution!
Has Petreus cleared this stand on torture with Bush-Cheney and Alberto Gonzlez , who would probably disagree that torture is counteproductive.
Hey Sadam was probably worse than the Bush-Cheney Administration . What more can we expect? It is unrealistic to always expect us to be so much more noble than our enemies when we have the GWOT. Speaking of the "Global War on Terror". Has it been abandoned? As a slogan? or somehow? I haven't heard it mentioned constantly. Granted I rarely tune into Rush or Fox News.
Sishir, do you? Forget for the moment your, I would argue, eccentric position wrt to Congress and or war funding etc. PS where were you born and where were you raised prior to the of 17? How about your parents? I assume you are Asian of some sort and perhaps born and raised in the USA. If mentioned before, I missed it.
No I don't. Our invasion removed the one force that had kept Iraq stable and it was our responsibility to give them some sort of framework to reestablish it. Given that we've set up a government and have started building a military the problem appears to be that the Iraqis themselves aren't interested in stability and the presence of US troops is itself a destabilizing factor. We've given them the tools but I don't feel we should remain indefinately handholding them when they aren't willing to take the tough steps themselves to build a stable government and society. People like to bring up the example of how long it took our own government and society to stabilize. While this is a problematic comparison on many grounds it is perhaps most problematic that we didn't have a foreign power occupying us and guiding our steps. If France after they helped us kick out the British had decided to occupy the US to guarentee stability and shepherd the formation of the American government its not likely that things would've turned out the way it did and probably for the worse. That's the situation we're in in Iraq. So no I don't think we have a responsibility to stay in Iraq. I think for awhile after the invasion we did but we have both bungled that responsibility but at the same time have given them the tools for stability. Its a matter of the Iraqis wanting to use those tools. Also I don't see what my ethnic background has to do with this.
Sishir It might have something to do with your views on the role of the Presidency vs Congress when it comes to fighting wars. Also any recent foreign background in your past might cause you to view Iraqi or even Afghan life as more important than say many in the US seem to. It is often helpful to know the background of people who you disicuss thngs with politically. We are all effected by that background, not just our formal education or reading and media habits. Sadam provided significantly more stability than apparently we or our Iraqis in government. I dont think it fair for you to try to blame most if not all the violent chaos in Iraq on the Iraqis or shift much of the enormous blame from the USA.
The US Constitution is a unique document to the US so I'm not sure how respecting that would be affected by my ethnic background. Unless you're hinting that as an ethnic Chinese I am somehow more prone to respecting oriental despotism and see the Presidency as the equivalent of the Emperor. That would be a wrong assumption since I also strongly argue for the preservation of the Constitutional checks and balances against the Executive branch. Its true that exposure to other's people would make you value other people more but at the same time there are plenty of people who are exposed to other people and don't. I don't think it is a requirement to have travelled widely or to be an immigrant or first generation American to value the lives of non-Americans. To a certain extent we are but our ethnic background isn't always the most determinative factor of our views and it is presumptious to believe that for any given person that would be the case. If you believe my background has some bearing on my views please state so why you think they might and I would be happy to discuss that rather than working from a basis that my ethnicity is such so my thinking is such. If we believe that it is their country then the Iraqis should be responsible for their own safety and stability. The US was responsible for removing Saddam and the resulting chaos but the problem I see is if the US can ever stabilize Iraq as our own presence is destabilizing. Most of the fighting and killing is being done by Iraqis targetting Iraqis. True there are foreign fighters there trying to kill us and those Iraqis they perceive are our allies. That isn't likely to be a factor if we aren't there and as we've seen recently foreign fighters are fast wearing out their welcome. Without our presence I doubt that even the hard core Sunnis will still want Al Qaeda there since there isn't a foreign occupation force to fight against.
Good comparison with France re the Revolution. In no time at all, I can easily imagine all hell breaking loose, and the French being driven from the country after suffering terrible casualties from the armed citizenry. Can anyone doubt it? We would never have accepted French occupation after kicking the British out, who were, after all, kicked out because of the actions of their government, not because of an overwhelming hatred for things British, being for all practical purposes British ourselves, at the time, and not at all united in the idea of leaving the bosom of the Motherland, certainly not early on. Once the fighting started in earnest, there were still about 20% loyal to the Crown. Indeed, there was a period between 1798 and 1800, referred to as the Quasi-War between the young United States and Revolutionary France. France saw the Jay Treaty between the States and Britain as a violation of the alliance it had signed in 1778. France started seizing American ships trading with Britain, refused to accept the new American ambassador in 1796. France even secretly asked for a bribe from the US to restore relations. The "XYZ Affair." Fascinating stuff frequently forgotten about our early history. (lots of stuff about it on the Net, if you dig) No, we would never accept foreign occupation from any power, at any time. Why "we" would think for a moment another country would is unfathomable. And glynch, what's up with the goofy 3rd degree with Sishir? Who cares? He is what he writes here, as are we all. D&D. Replicant City.
'More troops' call as Iraq murders soar 234 bodies dumped in Baghdad in only 11 days Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor The US military surge in Iraq, designed to turn around the course of the war, appears to be failing as senior US officers admit they need yet more troops and new figures show a sharp increase in the victims of death squads in Baghdad. In the first 11 days of this month, there have already been 234 bodies - men murdered by death squads - dumped around the capital, a dramatic rise from the 137 found in the same period of April. Improving security in Baghdad and reducing death-squad activity was described as one of the key aims of the US surge of 25,000 additional troops, the final units of whom are due to arrive next month. In a further setback, the US military announced yesterday the loss of an entire patrol south of Baghdad, with five soldiers dead and three others missing, after they were ambushed by insurgents in the town of Mahmoudiya. The new figures emerged as the commander of US forces in northern Iraq, Major General Benjamin Mixon, admitted he did not have enough soldiers to contain the escalating violence in Diyala province, which neighbours Baghdad and has become the focus of the heaviest fighting between largely Sunni insurgent groups and the US army, which has seen casualties increase by 300 per cent. Sixty-one US soldiers have been killed in Diyala this year, compared with 20 in all of last year. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2078422,00.html
