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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
 Posted - 10/23/2006 : 12:12:43
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I was getting irritated by the claim that Democrats don't have a plan to deal with Iraq. If they did have a plan, I'd be irritated with the Conservative slanted US media. If they did NOT have a plan, I'd be irritated with that party's inept leadership. So I did a search to see what I could find and on the Democrats.org web site, they really don't articulate much of a plan, which friggin' irritates me. (Note: if anyone has a link to something more substantive from the democratic party, I'd love to see it.)
However, I did find a Web site about Joe Biden's plan (D-DE). Here's the link:
http://www.planforiraq.com/
And here's an outline of the plan:
quote:
The plan would maintain a unified Iraq by decentralizing it and giving Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis breathing room in their own regions - as provided for in the Iraqi constitution. The central government would be responsible for common interests, like border security and the distribution of oil revenues. We would secure support from the Sunnis - who have no oil -- by guaranteeing them a proportionate share (about 20 percent) of oil revenues. We would increase economic aid, ask the oil-rich Arab Gulf states to fund it and tie all assistance to the protection of minority rights and the creation of a jobs program. We would convene a regional conference to enlist the support of Iraq's neighbors and create a Contact Group of the major powers to enforce their commitments. And we would ask our military to draw up plans to responsibly withdraw most U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of 2007 - enough time for the political settlement to take hold.
Anyone have a critique of this plan? It sounds reasonable enough to me, except maybe the Sunni's won't trust the Shiite dominated government to deliver on their 20% share of the oil money. I think that's a legitimate concern, tbh. The Shiite government appears to be hideously corrupt.... Perhaps a highly transparent UN Commission or something to administrate the money?
What do you guys think about this?
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-Chaloobi
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 10/23/2006 : 12:38:11 [Permalink]
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quote:
What do you guys think about this?
Sounds a little like Tito's Yugoslavia. Works well if there is a strong dictator keeping it together.
Undoubtedly, like Yugoslavia, the NED and other such groups have been in Iraq for years, trying to give extremist separatist groups some money and give them some appearance of legitimacy, and my guess is, that's why anyone gives them any credence now, and why there is a civil war. Just a guess, but that's the way the U.S. (and western Europe) works.
The best plan is to give the present administration a fair trial, pledge to do better in the future, pull all troops out, and apologize to the world for U.S. behavior. Then give the past administrations a fair trial. Then start from there. |
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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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 10/23/2006 : 12:48:01 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Gorgo
quote:
What do you guys think about this?
Sounds a little like Tito's Yugoslavia. Works well if there is a strong dictator keeping it together.
Undoubtedly, like Yugoslavia, the NED and other such groups have been in Iraq for years, trying to give extremist separatist groups some money and give them some appearance of legitimacy, and my guess is, that's why anyone gives them any credence now, and why there is a civil war. Just a guess, but that's the way the U.S. (and western Europe) works.
The best plan is to give the present administration a fair trial, pledge to do better in the future, pull all troops out, and apologize to the world for U.S. behavior. Then give the past administrations a fair trial. Then start from there.
What's the NED?
And please, don't hijack this thread with another discussion about the crimes of the current and past administrations. Focus on the topic.  |
-Chaloobi
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 10/23/2006 : 13:13:24 [Permalink]
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| To answer your question would be off-topic. Sorry. |
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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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 10/23/2006 : 16:45:42 [Permalink]
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It's pretty hard for me to fault the Democratic Party for not having a fix-it plan for Iraq. Thanks to Mr. Bush and Company, the situation there is in total chaos. It may come down to an orderly retreat being the only option, by the time the Democrats take the presidency in 2009. Even that's optimistic, as Bush may be forced to pull out earlier (as at the end of the Vietnam War, when Nixon suddenly had no choice but to let Saigons be bygones).
All of the Bush League planning seems to have been for the invasion itself, with the assumption that everything afterward would be easily administered by making decisions on the fly.
The invasion phase was pulled off on the cheap, with too few troops, which caused needless deaths. But the US and UK military are pretty competent in a stand-up fight, and they got the job done, anyway. That was when the enormity of the incompetence of the NeoCons began to become evident.
The only place where there is any kind of stability in Iraq is in the Kurdish north, and that is mainly to the credit of the Kurds themselves. Otherwise, Iraq is in a full-scale civil war between the Sunnis and the Shi'ias, and has become a beacon for terrorists in the entire region to come and ply their trade against Americans and religious rivals.
There's probably no way that Democrats (or, for that matter, God Almighty) could now come up with a plan that would result in anything but a continuing disaster for Iraq. Joe Biden's plan looks good on paper, but that paper would have to be fireproof to survive the environment that Bush and Rummy have created through their greed- and ideology-driven incompetence in Iraq.
I just hope that someone in the military has developed a viable evacuation contingency plan for use when staying in Iraq becomes completely untenable. I'd be surprised if the US and UK presence (outside Kurdistan) will survive in Iraq until the next President is inaugurated.
We need a good skedaddle plan, even if we don't have a real exit strategy.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 10/24/2006 : 06:54:04 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by HalfMooner
There is an interesting discussion of fix-it plans in the new issue of Time.
That's an interesting article. Thanks for the link.
From a stance of logic, it seems reasonable that to ensure everyone gets their fair share of the oil revenue should work - removing the major reason for civil war. But this isn't about logic. It's about religion. It's about revenge. It's about fear and mistrust.
At this point it looks to me like the question is more about how bad it will get. How bloody and long will the civil war be? What will the cost be to the US to get out in terms of blood, money and political capital? Will the civil war become a regional conflict between Sunni and Shi'ite, inflaming the entire Middle-East? Will the oil flow be interupted and affect the global enconomy? Will the victors of the Civil War be willing to deal (economically, ie oil) with the West? When you ask the question 'how bad can it get' the answer is an ugly 'pretty freaking bad.' |
-Chaloobi
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 10/24/2006 : 08:29:32 [Permalink]
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And now the Times is getting in on the act:
quote:
That road is vanishing. Today we want to describe a strategy for containing the disaster as much as humanly possible. It is hardly a recipe for triumph. Americans can only look back in wonder on the days when the Bush administration believed that success would turn Iraq into a stable, wealthy democracy — a model to strike fear into the region's autocrats while inspiring a new generation of democrats.
Read on... |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 10/24/2006 : 13:50:11 [Permalink]
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| Wow. That NYT editorial is pretty stark. And honest. A good read, if a little depressing. "The worst foreign policy debacle in American history..." I'm sure Bush wanted to have a memorable Legacy. . . well, he's got one now. Asshole. |
-Chaloobi
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| Edited by - chaloobi on 10/24/2006 13:51:13 |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 10/25/2006 : 02:11:45 [Permalink]
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I have a plan. I want to start getting it out there where maybe someone with influence will see it.
Here's the deal. The reason we are staying is because Bush wants a US friendly gov and oil companies. If we give that up we can go with honor. How? We let the Iraqi people vote whether they want us to stay or not. They vote we go. We do the bidding of the Iraqi people and it isn't a defeat or an abandonment. Should they vote we stay, (unlikely but who knows) that would be a statement against the insurgency. It would say the majority want us there and the insurgency was a minority.
It's a win win.
Bush doesn't want to ask the Iraqi people what do they want. Bush wants his puppet government and doesn't want it known what the Iraqi people want. |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 10/25/2006 : 02:18:40 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by beskeptigal
Here's the deal. The reason we are staying is because Bush wants a US friendly gov and oil companies. If we give that up we can go with honor. How? We let the Iraqi people vote whether they want us to stay or not. They vote we go. We do the bidding of the Iraqi people and it isn't a defeat or an abandonment. Should they vote we stay, (unlikely but who knows) that would be a statement against the insurgency. It would say the majority want us there and the insurgency was a minority.
It's a win win.
That's actually a damn fine idea in my opinion.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 10/25/2006 : 02:57:58 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by beskeptigal
I have a plan. I want to start getting it out there where maybe someone with influence will see it.
Here's the deal. The reason we are staying is because Bush wants a US friendly gov and oil companies. If we give that up we can go with honor. How? We let the Iraqi people vote whether they want us to stay or not. They vote we go. We do the bidding of the Iraqi people and it isn't a defeat or an abandonment. Should they vote we stay, (unlikely but who knows) that would be a statement against the insurgency. It would say the majority want us there and the insurgency was a minority.
It's a win win.
Bush doesn't want to ask the Iraqi people what do they want. Bush wants his puppet government and doesn't want it known what the Iraqi people want.
Sounds good to me, too. Sure, it's unlikely to make things better for Iraq, but what could at this juncture? We need a way to get off the hook, soon. This sounds as good as anything I've heard.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 10/25/2006 : 03:09:56 [Permalink]
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It seems that people are making the assumption that the present situation is some kind of mistake. Sure, the elites would prefer that Bremer could have remained as dictator or appointed a puppet government and that would be that, but is it really evident that this is not a second-best choice for them?
It seems to me that Saddam Hussein's greatest crime (to the elites in the U.S.) was his Pan-Arab nationalism. The U.S. (and UK) could not bear any kind of Pan-Arab movement. Civil war is much more preferable to any kind of Arab nationalist association, loose or otherwise. |
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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Ghost_Skeptic
SFN Regular
Canada
510 Posts |
Posted - 10/25/2006 : 06:45:43 [Permalink]
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UN weapons inspector Hans Blix is calling the whole debacle a "pure failure" and arguing that Iraq was better off under Sadam.
Lamentably, this is probably correct - As reprehensible as Saddam was, fewer people were getting killed and peple generally knew what they had to do to avoid getting killed. |
"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. / You can send a kid to college but you can't make him think." - B.B. King
History is made by stupid people - The Arrogant Worms
"The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism." - William Osler
"Religion is the natural home of the psychopath" - Pat Condell
"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter" - Thomas Jefferson |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 10/25/2006 : 07:08:20 [Permalink]
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quote:
Civil war is much more preferable to any kind of Arab nationalist association, loose or otherwise.
Not just Arabs involved, obviously. Any noticeable threat to U.S./Israel/U.K. terror must be stopped. |
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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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 10/25/2006 : 07:35:05 [Permalink]
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In the medium term, assuming the US and interested Iraqis are unable to stem the blooming civil war, it would not surprise me at all to see the conflict become regional. It's really about the upset of the former balance of power between Sunnis and Shi'ites - and Sunnis and Shi'ites live side by side all over the Arab middle-east. So maybe the Shi'ites see an opportunity to turn the tables, to stop being the dog kicked around by the Sunni power brokers. Emboldened by their successes in Iraq and Lebannon, spurred on and supported by Iran, they fight. And Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia support the Sunnis as their nations are destabilized by Shi'ite insurgencies. Boom - the whole region goes up in flames.
Not to be so glass-half-empty, it can be reasoned that this situation might crack the power of the US oil industry, upsetting a bit of their political stranglehold (wishful thinking at best, I know). But in the above worst case, oil flow in the Mid East is going to be interupted. It's world market price is going to shoot much higher. The West will be forced into alternatives. A further benefit, perhaps those alternatives will be greener, inadvertantly forcing the US to reduce carbon emissions too. Maybe the Iraq invasion will kick start a Clear Skies initiative that isn't a cynical Orwellian lie. You never know.... |
-Chaloobi
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| Edited by - chaloobi on 10/25/2006 07:36:52 |
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