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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
 Posted - 10/17/2004 : 05:26:56 [Permalink]
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War is unpredictable, and ending war is unpredictable as well. The U.S. has meddled in the Middle East enough, and has no credibility there whatsoever. There is no reason for them to stay and continue their crimes.
It all seems immaterial because it seems the U.S. is not going to leave Iraq any time soon. Kerry has already said that he's going to "win."
It would also seem, if the U.S. is going to win, it will require a lot more troops, and that means a draft, regardless of who wins the election. I think Kerry doth protest too much. If there is a draft, it would follow that repression at home would increase. That means we're going to need those National Guard folks at home.
Now that I've put it in writing that means that my prediction can't come true since my psychic abilities only work after the fact, and then only when subsequent evidence doesn't prove me wrong. Otherwise, I'm pretty much infallible.
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I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 10/18/2004 : 08:21:10 [Permalink]
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quote:
But there just is no similarity to Iraq.
Bullshit. You maybe don't want to see a similarity, but if we leave suddenly people will die on a large scale. How much more similair do you want the two situations to be?
We have political tinkering in our rules of engagment (i.e. no shooting at "sensitive" targets even if you're taking fire from them). ect...
There are factions who HATE one another, and would be engaged in open war with each other if we left abruptly. (Happened in Veitnam post US)
Other countries would love a chance to cross into Iraq and get a little bit of their own payback, given the chance.
quote:
And, in Vietnam, how many people would have died had we stayed longer? More? Less? The same?
Had we been willing to actually commit to a war (gloves off, no political tinkering in the "rules of engagement") the end result would have been fewer deaths. Or, had we been able to stabilize the situation before our abrupt withdrawl, fewer would have died.
The problem, imo, is that we should not have engaged in EITHER of these wars... Veitnam was a bad idea, and so was invading Iraq. |
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Siberia
SFN Addict
Brazil
2322 Posts |
Posted - 10/18/2004 : 08:41:45 [Permalink]
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quote:
There are factions who HATE one another, and would be engaged in open war with each other if we left abruptly.
Iraqi people aren't that fond of US either. |
"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa
"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 10/18/2004 : 09:56:02 [Permalink]
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quote:
Iraqi people aren't that fond of US either.
Never said they liked us.... only that our troop presence is the only thing preventing a massive civil war which will drag (at a minimum) Iran and Turkey into a large open conflict with the various factions in Iraq on top of the civil war....
The US screwed up bigtime by invading. It would be an even worse mistake, at this point, to abruptly leave. |
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 10/18/2004 : 10:00:05 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Siberia
quote:
There are factions who HATE one another, and would be engaged in open war with each other if we left abruptly.
Iraqi people aren't that fond of US either.
Not many people global-wise are fond of the US anymore. Which is really a shame. |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 10/18/2004 : 11:20:18 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
quote:
Originally posted by Siberia
quote:
There are factions who HATE one another, and would be engaged in open war with each other if we left abruptly.
Iraqi people aren't that fond of US either.
Not many people global-wise are fond of the US anymore. Which is really a shame.
All too true. Damn, I don't think I should discuss Bush any more. I'm running out of adjectives and in danger of becoming redundant.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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| Edited by - filthy on 10/18/2004 11:21:06 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 10/18/2004 : 14:04:56 [Permalink]
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quote:
Not many people global-wise are fond of the US anymore. Which is really a shame.
Yeah. |
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 10/19/2004 : 06:17:04 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Siberia
quote:
There are factions who HATE one another, and would be engaged in open war with each other if we left abruptly.
Iraqi people aren't that fond of US either.
They didn't like Hussein, either. But, he did suppress the violence with really intense violence.
Sort of like the Soviets and Bosnia-Herzogovina. Once the Soviets left, let the killin' begin. I fear the US would face the same challenges in Iraq. Bush made the mess, now the US has to clean it up. |
Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 10/19/2004 : 07:41:23 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Gorgo
As opposed to what? Americans at the word of some little Texan in big boots?
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">All you have to do is see these guys are willing to kill themselves and/or any innocents they can get their hands on at the word of their local cleric.
[/quote]Our political parties garner votes via deception, not because they speak for God. At least with deception, there's the chance that the electorate might find it's way to the truth. With voting at God's command, there's little chance reason might intervene. |
-Chaloobi
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 10/19/2004 : 07:48:06 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dude
There is an answer for the situation in Iraq, but W never had the balls (and neither will Kerry once he, hopefully, inherits the situation) to do it.
Short of a 100% withdrawl from the country, which would have largescale ramifications we are not prepared to deal with either, there is something we should be doing while we remain.
Now that we are there, we have an obligation to enforce order of some kind. Iraq will continue to kill US soldiers on a daily basis until we do one thing.
Use excessive force. Recognize no geography or location as a haven to anyone who threatens US troops. Drop 5000lb bombs on any position from which US troops are attacked from. Tell the people of Iraq that we will level their "holy places" unless they prevent their own people from fighting us from inside them. None of their buildings are worth the life of even one of our troops.
Either that, or leave. And I think leaving is probably the worse of those two options. I can see alot of people getting killed if we just up and pull out now.
But as for any reason or justification for invading in the first place? Well, oil. (I didn't say it was a good reason, but it's a reason) All you have to do to understand the motivation of oil is examine the $$ the US gives in subsidies and tax breaks to our oil companies. Something like $80Billion a year (I used to have a source for this.... can't find it, grrrr). Our alternate energy research budget is less than $2billion a year. Oil companies are the wealthiest and most powerfull companies in the world.
Excessive force would be the way to win militarily, but we would lose politically I think. I'm not sure what the effect around the world would be if we, say, stormed the big She'ite mosque. It apparently is a very real risk as the Bush Team refuses to do it.
I agree on the oil thing. That's the only reason we are there, ultimately. The true solution to the problem is to us a different energy source to power our economy and tell the whole middle east to go fuck themselves. That's really what our enemies there want from us anyway - to leave them alone. I say, fine.
And there ARE viable alternatives to oil. THE reason we don't put any effort into developing them is the power of the oil industry. It runs America. |
-Chaloobi
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 10/19/2004 : 07:51:16 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Siberia
[quote]<snip> I doubt you can pressure those people by violence alone.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think anything short of a total annihilation of Iraq would stop them. Maybe I'm just delusional.
I agree. The people we are fighting against welcome the idea of dying in battle against us. There is nothing we can do to them with the STICK to convince them to stop fighting us. Only a carrot will work - we have to give them something to lose -something they can gain by not fighting us. For the Sunni's, we've offered them nothing. |
-Chaloobi
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 10/19/2004 : 07:54:31 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by beskeptigal
Was there any good reason, hell no.
Does Bush think there was a good reason? From the last debate he said, "God wants to bring freedom to all people."
I just hope Bush doesn't think he's part of 'God's plan' to bring on the End Times and Armageddon like you hear some of those Fundies babble about. Bush seems just stupid enough to believe that.
Why do you think the Right Wing Christians support Isreal unconditionally? Because they believe that the State of Isreal must exist in the holy land as a pre-requisite for the return of Jesus. These people are making US policy based on Revelations and GW is their greatest victory yet in US government. You can bet this guy thinks he's goind God's work. |
-Chaloobi
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 10/19/2004 : 08:02:05 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dude
<snip> only that our troop presence is the only thing preventing a massive civil war which will drag (at a minimum) Iran and Turkey into a large open conflict with the various factions in Iraq on top of the civil war....
The US screwed up bigtime by invading. It would be an even worse mistake, at this point, to abruptly leave.
I agree, pulling out will make a very bad situation far worse. And don't forget that Syria is politically connected to the Baathists - they would like intervene on the side of the Sunnis in response to Iran's aid of the She'ites. Nobody's going to help the Kurds, everyone in the area hates them. |
-Chaloobi
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 10/23/2004 : 02:15:45 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dude
quote:
But there just is no similarity to Iraq.
Bullshit. You maybe don't want to see a similarity, but if we leave suddenly people will die on a large scale. How much more similair do you want the two situations to be?
We have political tinkering in our rules of engagment (i.e. no shooting at "sensitive" targets even if you're taking fire from them). ect...
There are factions who HATE one another, and would be engaged in open war with each other if we left abruptly. (Happened in Veitnam post US)
Other countries would love a chance to cross into Iraq and get a little bit of their own payback, given the chance.
quote:
And, in Vietnam, how many people would have died had we stayed longer? More? Less? The same?
Had we been willing to actually commit to a war (gloves off, no political tinkering in the "rules of engagement") the end result would have been fewer deaths. Or, had we been able to stabilize the situation before our abrupt withdrawl, fewer would have died.
The problem, imo, is that we should not have engaged in EITHER of these wars... Veitnam was a bad idea, and so was invading Iraq.
I'm not sure how far apart we are here in reality.
We both seem to think both wars were wrong. We agree leaving Iraq will mean death for many.
I don't think the gloves off rules of engagement would have made a difference in Vietnam. It would have just killed more people. What it seems you are saying is we could have killed more people to prevent the Viet Cong from killing more people. Sounds like a wash.
And perhaps in Iraq as well, the more ammunition and bombs we use, the more collateral damage, the more enemies we create. I think the idea more might, especially military might, will fix everything forgets to take into account how difficult it is to win a war where you have to stay on as complete occupier. If it were just a matter of military might and no holds barred use, then Israel would have subdued the Palestinians years ago. |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 10/23/2004 : 04:39:18 [Permalink]
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From all reports, the Iraqi people loved just about everything about the United States and its people before the first Gulf War, the dozen years or so of sanctions and the second Gulf war.
Without someone financing these fringe groups that want to kill one another over the world, most people get along pretty well. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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