"Wanting to succeed...is no excuse to ignore reality, and the reality in Iraq is ugly"

From the Powerline article: The careerists in the Army and DoD have leaned that not taking chances and reporting only good news up the chain are the ways to advance their careers. Just look at General Casey. The army is first and foremost a bureaucracy intent on taking its processes, forms, procedures and top down decision making with it wherever it goes. The Army is not flexible enough or well trained enough to win a counterinsurgency.

This is the exact same kind of things that American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines were saying about Vietnam in the late 60s. I feel as if I am reading something from an old newspaper story form 1969. The official line from 1966 through 1967 was that we are seeing "the light at the end of the tunnel." Then all hell broke loose in February 1968. The liars were exposed for what they were. My support evaporated, and my new goal to stay out of the military became topmost. I tore up my application for advanced ROTC.

In 2003 I thought all those political hacks who were predicting another Vietnam were just posturing for their left leaning backers. I am beginning to think that they were more prophetic than they ever thought.

This is eery and scary.

My boss is the last of the red-hot Republicans and is all for Bush all of the time. Naturally he supports the war, swallows the bullshit that we can't cut and run, etc.

So I just ask him, over and over and over again:

Okay, Boss, who are the good guys?

His response:

"I don't know."

Okay,Boss,who are the bad guys?

"I don't know."

"Well," I finally tell him, "if you don't know who the good guys are and you don't know who the bad guys are, I don't see how you can say we're going to win this war."

"The Army is not flexible enough or well trained enough to win a counterinsurgency."

...The military cannot win any conflict if you do not support the military and do not allow the military to kill the enemy....

....in vietnam, the insipid rules of engagement hampered most enemy contacts....the same insipid rules of engagement are now in Iraq....

....if you do not allow the military to do military things, then in all haste , pull them out , send them back to the US and wait for the enemy to show up in St Louis...

While the piece above, written by an American serving in Iraq, is labelled a "pessimistic" assessment, it would be more accurate to call it a "realistic" assessment. The fact that it has been put up at a website ordinarily an unshakeable supporter of the war may be that one swallow that doesn't make a spring, or it may mean that at long last, the swallows of more ruthless common sense are now winging their way back to all kinds of mental Capistranos. For Victory, Rightly Understood, Stands Shining Before Us, if Only We Get Out. When you hear dire predictions of "chaos" and "catastrophe," be sure to ask "but whose chaos" and "whose catastrophe?" The goals of the Administration have successivey been whittled down. The "democracy" is not true democracy, but Shari'a-limited, and so the merely one of purple-thumbed head-counting, which the Shi'a Arabs will gladly support (and dutifully vote exactly as they are told by their leaders) because they constitute 60-65% of the population, and the Sunni Arabs remain resentful of, because while they "know" that they are the "largest" group in Iraq they also "know" (i.e., obscurely realize) that in fact they constitute less than 20% of the population, and to regain power, and then to hold onto it, will require mass intimidation, through terrorism and economic sabotage, of the Sh’[a. Just as Muslims were quite capable of believing that 1) the Mossad and the C.I.A. were behind the World Trade Center Attacks and 2) Bin Laden achieved a great thing, did something wonderful, against the Infidels with those World Trade Center Attacks which, however, were committed by the Mossad or the C.I.A., so are the Sunni Arabs capable of understanding that they really do constitute 19% of Iraq's population but at the same constitute 42% of it and are, they believe, the largest group, the group entitled to rule.

I have written about this hundreds of times. We have our Victory in Iraq. The Bush Administration just fails to recognize it, because that Victory is not the “victory” that the Bush Administration has set out, and never swerved, from wishing to achieve – a “victory” that makes no sense. The real Victory, the one that makes perfect sense, was achieved long ago, and made certain at the end of 2003 when Saddam Hussein was seized. The time to start removing troops was at the beginning of 2004, and to have them all about by the end of that spring. No dreams of American bases safely tucked here and there into the comforting fabric of Iraq, no fabulous xanado of a $595 million dollar Embassy (let’s see what they thought they were going to build in their sheer craziness – can we have a picture please?), no Iraq the Light Unto the Muslim Nations, no bringing "democracy" to "ordinary moms and dads" in the Middle East, none of it. Just a sober understanding that the instruments of Jihad are many, that the threat is world-wide (and most dangerously shown in the accelerating islamisation of the advanced societies, the cultural heart of our civilization, without which the United States cannot survive in more than a physical sense, the lands of Western Europe, and that we must exploit, wherever and whenever we can, the fissures within Islam or the Camp of Islam.

There are ethnic fissures: in Iraq the Arab vs. Non-Arab Muslim battle is between Arabs and Kurds (in North Africa, and especially Algeria, it is between Arabs and Berbers). It is the Kurds, who now see their opportunity for independence, who can help provide an example, if they are successful, of a non-Arab Msulim people throwing off the Arab yoke, and in the effort to do so, the understanding will spread, among the 80% of the world’s Muslims who are not Arabs, that Islam has always been, and always will be, despite its universalist pretensions, a vehicle for Arab linguistic, cultural, economic, and political imperialism..

Even more obviously present in Iraq is the main sectarian fissure within Islam, that at between Sunnis and Shi’a. This split dates back to the first century of Islam, and those who, like the inimitable Dinesh D’Souza, claim it is “merely” a “political” rather than a “religious” split appear not to realize that the religious and the political are one within Islam, for as Bernard Lewis never tires of repeating (the same Lewis whom Dinesh D’Souza claims to have read with such attention, needing no other authority), the doctrine of “render unto Caeser the things which are Caesar’s” is an idea that permits the sundering of political and religious authority in the Christian West, an idea that makes no sense to Muslims, or in Islam. T he Shi’a having a long history of enduring, over many centuries, at times only contumely and discrimination, and at times the persecution and murder, at the hands of the Sunnis. In the history of modern Iraq, it has been mostly persecution and more recently, murder.

And finally there is the clear economic division between Haves and Have-Nots. The oil-rich Arabs lead lives of such luxury and languor, the result of an accident of geology, not of any industry or enterprise on their part, and this is in contrast to the impoverished state of those Arabs and other Muslims who do not possess that oil bonanza, and who, being Muslims, are incapable of the kind of enterprise and energy that the developmentr of modern econmies require. For inshallah-fatalism inhibits economic activity. Look at any country where there are significant numbers of bothMuslims and non-Muslims: look at Malaysia, and which group is responsible for economic development in that country, or at Indonesia, or at Lebanon, or at Nigeria. Look at the massive exploitation of the welfare states of western Europe, not by “immigrants” in general (not the Chinese, not the Vientamese, not the Hindus) but by one specific group: Muslims, and not in this or that country alone, but in every Infidel land of Western Europe, no matter what its history or current political setup, or benefits offered. Despite the fact that the oil-rich Arabs and Muslims have been the beneficiaries of the greatest transfer of wealth in human history, far far outreaching anything received by all the colonial powers through all the years of colonialism, amounting since 1973 to ten trillion dollars, it is not they, but we the Infidels, who have somehow become responsible, or who have allowed ourselves, in a moment of distraction or semi-dementia, to think that we somehjow should be responsible. For supply money and goods and services of all kinds to the non-oil-endowed Arab and Muslim states, and the conditions of such foreign aid, the way in which those receiving it take it as by right, and show not gratitude but continued undisguised hostility to those giving them that aid, and the way in which the givers of such aid do so with such alacrity, such an eagerness to please, and with such fear of cutting or diminishing such aid lest the beneficiare are angered, and begin to behave in a manner still more hostile to the donors who have been trying, tugging at their metaphorical forelocks, to comply in every why with what those recipients of aid demand. For the implication is always, as the Infidels fearfully see it, that if they don’t then those Muslim recipients will do them harm, or even more harm than they now do them. Yes, those Infidels convince themselves, we’d better not stop that aid to those inculcated to hate us by their own sacred texts, and one can almost hear, in the background, the aposiopetic threat of Neptune in the Aeneid, Book IV, when the God of the Sea shakes his triton and offers a dire warning, the “Quos Ego…” so carefully attended to in many a third-year Latin class. What we should be doing is not only cutting all aid to members of the Camp of Islam (and spending that money on efforts to alert the peoples of the West to the theory and practice of Islam), but publicly embarrassing the Arabs and Muslims, by pointedly making clear that the poor members of the Umma should be seeking whatever aid they need from the rich members of the Umma, given that the Umma al-Islamiyya is the only community, for Muslims, that counts, and where all that blague and blah about “social justice” should be duly noted, and the loyalty of rich Muslims to poor ones – yes, why isn’t Saudi Arabia, why aren’t the Emirates, why isn’t Kuwait, really sharing the wealth with the rest of the “Arab Nation” or the “Umma al-Islamiyya” – should be put to the public test .

Iraq presents us so clearly with two of those three main fissures. Those two are, for the thousandth time at this website, the sectarian and the ethnic fissures within the Camp of Islam that long pre-date our entry to Iraq -- pre-date the founding of the American Republic, in fact, by a thousand years. We need do nothing to "encourage" those fissures. We have in fact done everything we can to prevent them, to engender a spirit of sweet reason and compromise that shows how little we comprehend the belief-system of Islam, which nowhere inculcates the spirit of sweet reason adn compromise, but everywhere quite a different view of the universe, in which peoples are divided between Believers and Unbelievers, the rightful victors, and the rightfully vanquished. But of course, our leaders haven't bothered, or are incapable of finding advisers able to explain to them, what Islam's tenets, and attitudes, and atmospherics, are all about. Such people exist -- you can find a few of them right at this website. The government might have saved American taxpayers a cooll $500 or $600 or $700 or $800 billlion, had it chosen to listen to such people and to begin to fashion policies based on some understanding of the need to identify the instruments of Jihad (and stop focussing on this "war on terror"), and to render them less effective, and to cease the obsessive and obsessed attempt to make Iraq something it never could have been, and had it been, had that goal been achieved, it would have worked against the Infidels, and promoted only unity within the Camp of Islam.

It is not, however, too late.

Victory, rightly understood (as being defined as any acts which weaken, by demoralizing, or dividing, and using up the resources and attention that might otherwise be devoted, directly or indirectly to Jihad, the Camp of Islam) Stands Shining Before Us. It has been before us for several years. But Victory, in one of those seeming paradoxes, can only be achieved If Only We Get Out.

While the piece above, written by an American serving in Iraq, is labelled a "pessimistic" assessment, it would be more accurate to call it a "realistic" assessment. The fact that it has been put up at a website ordinarily an unshakeable supporter of the war may be that one swallow that doesn't make a spring, or it may mean that at long last, the swallows of more ruthless common sense are now winging their way back to all kinds of mental Capistranos. For Victory, Rightly Understood, Stands Shining Before Us, if Only We Get Out. When you hear dire predictions of "chaos" and "catastrophe," be sure to ask "but whose chaos" and "whose catastrophe?" The goals of the Administration have successivey been whittled down. The "democracy" is not true democracy, but Shari'a-limited, and so the merely one of purple-thumbed head-counting, which the Shi'a Arabs will gladly support (and dutifully vote exactly as they are told by their leaders) because they constitute 60-65% of the population, and the Sunni Arabs remain resentful of, because while they "know" that they are the "largest" group in Iraq they also "know" (i.e., obscurely realize) that in fact they constitute less than 20% of the population, and to regain power, and then to hold onto it, will require mass intimidation, through terrorism and economic sabotage, of the Sh’[a. Just as Muslims were quite capable of believing that 1) the Mossad and the C.I.A. were behind the World Trade Center Attacks and 2) Bin Laden achieved a great thing, did something wonderful, against the Infidels with those World Trade Center Attacks which, however, were committed by the Mossad or the C.I.A., so are the Sunni Arabs capable of understanding that they really do constitute 19% of Iraq's population but at the same constitute 42% of it and are, they believe, the largest group, the group entitled to rule.

I have written about this hundreds of times. We have our Victory in Iraq. The Bush Administration just fails to recognize it, because that Victory is not the “victory” that the Bush Administration has set out, and never swerved, from wishing to achieve – a “victory” that makes no sense. The real Victory, the one that makes perfect sense, was achieved long ago, and made certain at the end of 2003 when Saddam Hussein was seized. The time to start removing troops was at the beginning of 2004, and to have them all about by the end of that spring. No dreams of American bases safely tucked here and there into the comforting fabric of Iraq, no fabulous xanado of a $595 million dollar Embassy (let’s see what they thought they were going to build in their sheer craziness – can we have a picture please?), no Iraq the Light Unto the Muslim Nations, no bringing "democracy" to "ordinary moms and dads" in the Middle East, none of it. Just a sober understanding that the instruments of Jihad are many, that the threat is world-wide (and most dangerously shown in the accelerating islamisation of the advanced societies, the cultural heart of our civilization, without which the United States cannot survive in more than a physical sense, the lands of Western Europe, and that we must exploit, wherever and whenever we can, the fissures within Islam or the Camp of Islam.

There are ethnic fissures: in Iraq the Arab vs. Non-Arab Muslim battle is between Arabs and Kurds (in North Africa, and especially Algeria, it is between Arabs and Berbers). It is the Kurds, who now see their opportunity for independence, who can help provide an example, if they are successful, of a non-Arab Msulim people throwing off the Arab yoke, and in the effort to do so, the understanding will spread, among the 80% of the world’s Muslims who are not Arabs, that Islam has always been, and always will be, despite its universalist pretensions, a vehicle for Arab linguistic, cultural, economic, and political imperialism..

Even more obviously present in Iraq is the main sectarian fissure within Islam, that at between Sunnis and Shi’a. This split dates back to the first century of Islam, and those who, like the inimitable Dinesh D’Souza, claim it is “merely” a “political” rather than a “religious” split appear not to realize that the religious and the political are one within Islam, for as Bernard Lewis never tires of repeating (the same Lewis whom Dinesh D’Souza claims to have read with such attention, needing no other authority), the doctrine of “render unto Caeser the things which are Caesar’s” is an idea that permits the sundering of political and religious authority in the Christian West, an idea that makes no sense to Muslims, or in Islam. T he Shi’a having a long history of enduring, over many centuries, at times only contumely and discrimination, and at times the persecution and murder, at the hands of the Sunnis. In the history of modern Iraq, it has been mostly persecution and more recently, murder.

And finally there is the clear economic division between Haves and Have-Nots. The oil-rich Arabs lead lives of such luxury and languor, the result of an accident of geology, not of any industry or enterprise on their part, and this is in contrast to the impoverished state of those Arabs and other Muslims who do not possess that oil bonanza, and who, being Muslims, are incapable of the kind of enterprise and energy that the developmentr of modern econmies require. For inshallah-fatalism inhibits economic activity. Look at any country where there are significant numbers of bothMuslims and non-Muslims: look at Malaysia, and which group is responsible for economic development in that country, or at Indonesia, or at Lebanon, or at Nigeria. Look at the massive exploitation of the welfare states of western Europe, not by “immigrants” in general (not the Chinese, not the Vientamese, not the Hindus) but by one specific group: Muslims, and not in this or that country alone, but in every Infidel land of Western Europe, no matter what its history or current political setup, or benefits offered. Despite the fact that the oil-rich Arabs and Muslims have been the beneficiaries of the greatest transfer of wealth in human history, far far outreaching anything received by all the colonial powers through all the years of colonialism, amounting since 1973 to ten trillion dollars, it is not they, but we the Infidels, who have somehow become responsible, or who have allowed ourselves, in a moment of distraction or semi-dementia, to think that we somehjow should be responsible. For supply money and goods and services of all kinds to the non-oil-endowed Arab and Muslim states, and the conditions of such foreign aid, the way in which those receiving it take it as by right, and show not gratitude but continued undisguised hostility to those giving them that aid, and the way in which the givers of such aid do so with such alacrity, such an eagerness to please, and with such fear of cutting or diminishing such aid lest the beneficiare are angered, and begin to behave in a manner still more hostile to the donors who have been trying, tugging at their metaphorical forelocks, to comply in every why with what those recipients of aid demand. For the implication is always, as the Infidels fearfully see it, that if they don’t then those Muslim recipients will do them harm, or even more harm than they now do them. Yes, those Infidels convince themselves, we’d better not stop that aid to those inculcated to hate us by their own sacred texts, and one can almost hear, in the background, the aposiopetic threat of Neptune in the Aeneid, Book IV, when the God of the Sea shakes his triton and offers a dire warning, the “Quos Ego…” so carefully attended to in many a third-year Latin class. What we should be doing is not only cutting all aid to members of the Camp of Islam (and spending that money on efforts to alert the peoples of the West to the theory and practice of Islam), but publicly embarrassing the Arabs and Muslims, by pointedly making clear that the poor members of the Umma should be seeking whatever aid they need from the rich members of the Umma, given that the Umma al-Islamiyya is the only community, for Muslims, that counts, and where all that blague and blah about “social justice” should be duly noted, and the loyalty of rich Muslims to poor ones – yes, why isn’t Saudi Arabia, why aren’t the Emirates, why isn’t Kuwait, really sharing the wealth with the rest of the “Arab Nation” or the “Umma al-Islamiyya” – should be put to the public test .

Iraq presents us so clearly with two of those three main fissures. Those two are, for the thousandth time at this website, the sectarian and the ethnic fissures within the Camp of Islam that long pre-date our entry to Iraq -- pre-date the founding of the American Republic, in fact, by a thousand years. We need do nothing to "encourage" those fissures. We have in fact done everything we can to prevent them, to engender a spirit of sweet reason and compromise that shows how little we comprehend the belief-system of Islam, which nowhere inculcates the spirit of sweet reason adn compromise, but everywhere quite a different view of the universe, in which peoples are divided between Believers and Unbelievers, the rightful victors, and the rightfully vanquished. But of course, our leaders haven't bothered, or are incapable of finding advisers able to explain to them, what Islam's tenets, and attitudes, and atmospherics, are all about. Such people exist -- you can find a few of them right at this website. The government might have saved American taxpayers a cooll $500 or $600 or $700 or $800 billlion, had it chosen to listen to such people and to begin to fashion policies based on some understanding of the need to identify the instruments of Jihad (and stop focussing on this "war on terror"), and to render them less effective, and to cease the obsessive and obsessed attempt to make Iraq something it never could have been, and had it been, had that goal been achieved, it would have worked against the Infidels, and promoted only unity within the Camp of Islam.

It is not, however, too late.

Victory, rightly understood (as being defined as any acts which weaken, by demoralizing, or dividing, and using up the resources and attention that might otherwise be devoted, directly or indirectly to Jihad, the Camp of Islam) Stands Shining Before Us. It has been before us for several years. But Victory, in one of those seeming paradoxes, can only be achieved If Only We Get Out.

Ynkedoodl2

That was a brilliant comeback. Another one would be, "What are our goals? Making the Shia and Sunni like each other? They never have. And there are Shia Sunni conflicts everywhere - Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Bahrein, Pakistan, India, et al"

And if he knows more about Islam, ask him, "How did we allow Ali to get slaughtered by the Sunnis? After all, that's the root cause of the Shia Sunni conflict today. How do you live with yourself?"

Ex Sgt. Brown: wait for the enemy to show up in St Louis...

He's already in Saint Louis:

Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Preparing for War in the Streets of America
Can't reveal my sources on this but here's something to chew on.

"Public information officers or spokesman for law enforcement agencies are purposely downplaying and in some cases lying outright to the public about arrests of Muslims in the US," so said one Federal law enforcement official.

"We have been told what to say, and more important, what not to say, and warned not to deviate from the 'template.'

According to this source, this is causing some officers within various departments of federal agencies to become angry at the 'mandated political spin and pressure" created by 'orders from above." When asked who were giving such orders, this source could only say that it was from the "big boys in Washington DC."
Apparently this is killing morale and "everyone knows it's a joke." "It makes some of us sick, the politically correct shit we have to put up with."

The source whose father was an agent during the 1960s racial problems said what was happening then was nothing short of easy compared to now. "In those days at least there was some honesty in dealing with the problem, today there is none."

Specifically this source was responding to inquiries concerning one MOUSA M AMBUELAWI, 22, a Muslim fro St Charles Missouri who was charged buying or attempting to buy grenades, weapons and claymore mines to be used to "prepare for war."

MAN WAS ARMING FOR WAR St Louis Post Dispatch

A St. Charles man obtained fully automatic weapons and tried to buy as many explosives as possible in preparation for what an associate called "war," the FBI says in court documents.

He bought three rifles and a Claymore anti-personnel mine and negotiated for a case of hand grenades, documents obtained by the Post-Dispatch show.

Mousa M. Abuelawi, 22, of Franjoe Court, was arrested Dec. 29 and charged on complaints accusing him of three counts of illegal possession or distribution of a machine gun and conspiracy to violate machine gun statutes.

Abuelawi, a Palestinian immigrant free on $50,000 bond, could not be reached.

The context of the word "war" was not explained in court filings; the FBI declined to comment.

According to the agent, this case "fits a pattern we've been seeing."

"Wea re discoverng more and more trafficking in arms and these kind of explosives, the stuff you see in the Middle East."

There are more and specific cases that illustrate that there are Muslim men here in the US that are "preparing to fight on the streets of our cities, or at least that's what they think they are going to do." And so they are "buying these weapons and even explosives, stealing them in many cases, preparing for this eventuality."

The men invloved in this movement commonly refered to as "the paintball jihad" Besides buying weapons and anything they can get their hands on, they are practicing urban combat.

"What is surprising to us, such as the trafficking in rocket launchers ( a reference to case in Albany) is that we are seeing more of this, more attempts to buy the kinds of weapons that used to be unheard of in law enforcement circles. It's a growing problem, one that we will see in streets before long, I'm afraid."

Posted by Pamela Geller Oshry on Tuesday, February 06, 2007

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/jihad_in_america_enemy_in_our_midst/index.html

"My boss is the last of the red-hot Republicans and is all for Bush all of the time. Naturally he supports the war, swallows the bullshit that we can't cut and run, etc."
-- from a posting above

Please show your boss, last of the red-hot Mam...no, Republicans -- the posting just above.

Then see if you can convince him to read any of the articles in the JW archives (just click on the names "Robert Spencer" or "Hugh Fitzgerald" in the bars above. He might also be inveigled into reading a piece called "Never Have So Few Done So Much Damage To So Many" that is now to be found at www.newenglishreview.org.

Perhaps like some others, too many others, he is so maddened by MoveOn.org and Cindy Sheehan and the rest of that galere, to have blinded himself to the fact that the goals set by the Bush Administration for Iraq are

1) impossible to achieve but we can go on forever trying to achieve them, squandering men, money, material, and morale both military and civilian

2) that the obstinacy of the Administration is not admirable but sickening, and that the belief that this is merely a "war on terror" and that we need not be attempting to weaken the entire Camp of Islam shows a miscomprehension of the world-wide scope of the menace, and shows as well a misunderstanding of the main instruments of Jihad -- the money weapon, Daw'a, and demographic conqueste.

3) that whatever happens in Iraq will have no effect on the accelerating islamization of Western Europe, and that within two or three decades if Muslim immigration is not halted and reversed, Muslims as a self-contained and self-assured group could come to dominate those countries and their foreign and military policies, long before they become an absolute majority.

4) that this website is the only one where this clear-eyed and bleak view, and understanding of why the best way to divide and demoralize the Camp of Islam is not to stay in Iraq, but to leave it -- to leave it, endure the few weeks or month of triumphant ululation by Al-Qaeda, followed very quickly by the realization, already to be detected here and there, that such leave-taking would in fact spell disaster for the Muslim world, a disaster even greater in its consequences than was that eight-year-long war between Iran and Iraq.

If you want a Return on the Investment in the Iraq War (now about $880 billion, once future committed costs are factored in -- a total cost, even before macroeconomic costs are factored in, that is greater than the total costs, in current dollars, of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Civil War (on both sides), the Spanish-American War, World War I, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, then you should be shoutiing from the rooftops to get our trooops out now.

If you want Victory over the Camp of Islam, or at least a "victory" in the theatre of Iraq over the Camp of Islam, if you want to leave the Camp of Islam weaker than it would otherwise be, then you must want the American troops to leave at once. Forget about Cindy Sheehan and all the others you love to hate, who want or claim to want us to leave as well.

They don't know Iraq. They don't know Islam. They don't know that what they call for will, if followed, harm Islam and help the West.

That's okay. When your political enemies call for something, and you know what it will inevitably lead to, and that once it does lead inevitably to that outoome you desire, those enemies -- the same ones who only appeared to be in agreement with you (or you with them), will not be able to scream that we must go back in "to save the Iraqis."

Thank god. It's a fantastic opportunity. It must be seized. And if Bush and Cheney and Rice still can't get the hang of Islam -- they think of themselves as tough-minded realists, but they are nothing of the kind -- then just ignore them. They have not earned, they have un-earned, any respect one might be inclined (I'm not) to offer them.

“Imagine our Congress, and governorships, and police departments staffed with members of the Crips and Bloods. Imagine being a citizen, a victim of or witness to a crime committed by one of these gangs. What would you do? Where would you turn?”

Is this a nuanced article? For a moment I forgot you were writing about Iraq.

While there are similarities between Iraq and Vietnam the Vietnamese were not a global power based around religion. The ROE are similar, the way the gubment is fighting the war is similar as well. The same losers that were there during Vietnam both civilian and military are still with us today only now they are even bigger losers. If I had been in charge of operations in Iraq the war would have long been over. I would right now be a hero to some, others would want to see me hanged but who cares about them. Just as Nathan Hale said, my only regret is that I have but one live to give for my country. That’s “My Country” not this gubment or some of its fair weather citizens we have now. They are not the same. I can imagine some so called Americans of today fighting in the early days of the Revolution, It would probably have been a lot like having the French Army fighting alongside of us. America would never even have become reality. Thank God for small favors!

Anyone who professes that we should leave Iraq, fine, but they had better be right or the **** is going to hit the fan and I mean really hit it. It is not about winning in Iraq, it is about killing islamists, Iraq happens to be a islamist magnet. But what the heck we can always chase them around the rest of the world, right?

tgusa

Plan B: If they don't kill each other, we can always bomb them, but this time carpet bomb: none of those surgical strikes that would leave their army intact, and command and communications untouched, but this time, bombed into oblivion. Same applies in Iran, Pakistan, KSA, Yemen, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon (Hizbullah), et al

Infidel Pride,
Ok when can we begin implementing plan B? Oh and remember the Marine unit recently kicked out of Talibanistan? The big meanies, we need more just like them. Ooh rah you magnificent mofo’s, ya'll are on my Christmas card list.

"Anyone who professes that we should leave Iraq, fine, but they had better be right or the **** is going to hit the fan and I mean really hit it. It is not about winning in Iraq, it is about killing islamists,"
-- from a posting above

You mean everything is now going swimmingly in Iraq, with the $880 billion down the drain, and you argue that if and when we leave, only then is there the possibility of that demurely-asterisked shit hitting the fan? It has. It is. Not all of that tar is strictly tar, in Tarbaby Iraq.

And then there is that second idea you express: that Anyone who professes that we should leave Iraq, fine, but they had better be right or the **** is going to hit the fan and I mean really hit it. It is not about winning in Iraq, it is about killing islamists.

Let's take that phrase, let's lay it out right here for inspection:

"It is not about winning in Iraq, it is about killing islamists.

So, in a single phrase, you wish to dismiss the entire stated "mission" of Bush, the need to bring "freedom" and "democracy" to the "ordinary moms and dads" in Iraq, and then to let the wonderful model of Iraq (now of course Shi'a-dominated) to be eagerly emulated by all those other Arab states, all of them Sunni of course, and neither their Sunni populations, nor their Sunni governments, likely in the least to wish to find anything to emulate in what is now, and will be, Shi'a-run Iraq (but that was not, apparently, foreseeable to all those brilliant strategists in the Pentagon and their loyal supporters elsewhere; that's too much for them to figure in).

You tell us now that the sole reason for remaining in Iraq, at great cost with equipment that desert-degrades at 6 to 10 times its ordinary and predicted rate, and by keeping the troops there, suffer when all kinds of master sergeants and lieutenants and captains and majors and colonels quit, and quit, and quit, and when the Reservists and National Guardsmen, after serving once in Iraq, are told -- against all that they had been assured -- to go again, or even again, and these people, enraged at their misuse and abuse, vow not only to quit when their term ends, but to discourage others from signing up to lying or misleading recruiters, or an army that at will apparently thinks it can change the assurances that it made, and that many thought they could count on. No, it isn't going to work out that way and the army itself is the organization that is paying and will pay the price for the misuse of both the regular and the citizen army. That is why James Webb, and Congressmen Jones (from Fort North Carolina), and John Warner, and others who take a deep interest in the welfare of the military are the ones most alarmed, and willing to express that alarm about the war in Iraq - a war that from the point of view of Infidel wellbeing, makes no sense.

Finally, there is the Fly-Paper or Honeypot Argument. It goes like this: there are a finite number of Muslim terrorists, or rather "terrorists" or rather "bad guys" (that's the phrase, borrowed from kindergarten, that our officers and men are instructed to use -- just imagine if in World War II Mark Clark or Omar Bradley or Admiral Leahy had said "let's go get the bad guys." Imagine Churchill rallying the English, not against the Nazis, nor the Germans, nor the Huns, but agaisnt "the bad guys."

This argument tells us that all of these "bad guys" will just flock, in their finiite numbers, to Iraq, and get stuck on its fly-paper, and then be picked off by the Americans. Nonsense. Crap. There are not a small and finite number of Muslim terrorists, or Muslim fighters who may not use terrorism. Their numbers are endlessly replenishble from the ocean of Believers - a billion or more Believers. How many have been killed in Iraq? What are the Pentagon figures? 20,000? At $880 billion, that amounts to a cost, per capita (each "head" belong to one of those otherwise unidentified "bad guys") to $44 million each. Is that a bargain?

No, let's be fair. Let's try to make it a less embarrassing figure. Let's just, for the hell of it, claim that not 20,000 but 200,000 "bad guys" have been killed (it's nosense, but let's pretend). Now what? Now we've got the per capita cost of each "bad guy" put permanently out of commission down to only $4.4 million. Happy?

Meanwhile, in France, one out of every three babies born is now a Muslim. In the Netherlands, in 1970 there were 15,000 Muslims and today there are a million. Everywhere in Western Europe Muslims double as a percentage of the population every generation. Does this worry you? Do you think there aren't plenty of Muslims eager to fight, perfectly happy to die, not only in Iraq, but in Kashmir, in the Caucasus, in Madrid and London (as suicide bombers) or in France or Italy or anywhere you care to name?

This "flypaper" idea is the last gasp of those who simply cannot produce a rational and sensible argument for staying in Iraq, but cannnot allow themselves to recognize the folly, either because they are fixated on defending Bush against the so-called "Cindy Sheehans" who apparently are the only people, with the only conceivable reasons, for opposing this war, when it is doubtful that a single one of the reasons I have given here, over the past 3 1/2 years, for getting out would appeal, in the slightest, to the Cindy Sheehands of this world.

Yes, now the pathetic rationale comes down to ignoring Bush's stated "mission" of bringing a New Dawn to Iraq, and becomes that of the honeypot and the flypaper, and the "killing islamists." But there are plenty more, tens and even hundreds of millions, where those came from. And besides, those "islamists" would, if we only got out, start killing each other with much greater ferocity -- sparing us the need.

Why don't you start trying to look on the bright side? Why don't you start trying to admit that the only way to divide and demoralize the Camp of Islam is to get out? Why don't you openly admit that the Iran-Iraq War was a wonderful thing, and should have gone on forever, and that something of the sort, but something even more disastrous for Muslim unity and Muslim wellbeing, can happen if only we leave?

I’m not saying stay or go, I don’t like either choice. I don’t like the way the war has been waged from the beginning, however when we got saddam and sons inc. we should have begun our pullout. Now we look like weaklings and no matter what we do the islamists will call it a victory, use it as a recruiting tool, they already are. Yes, I dismissed the light unto the islamist world from the first time I heard it. Freedom is not something you give as a gift, it must be wanted, it must be fought for and some must die so others who desire it can realize it. Freedom goes against all of their tenets, they will never embrace it. I really don’t believe that much of the world cares anything for freedom, that is why many come to America from all around the world. I’m not a Bushbot, I didn’t so much vote for Bush as settle for him. Sad times indeed. If they wish to kill each other all day and all night as long as they do it in their own areas I care not. Who am I to tell them what to do or not do among themselves? Europe is another problem but I get the impression they don’t care for freedom either, we gave it back to them not 65 years ago and look what they have done with it. Between a rock and a hard place is where I feel wee are right now.

Iran needs to be reduced before the house of Islam can properly burn itself down.

We need to be fair about it. Equality and all.

Personally, I sleep well at night knowing that there must be close to 1 million Service Personnel who know their efforts were not appreciated.

"All we will do is kill a significan part of current insurgents."

...bah....under current rules of engagement, it is nearly impossible for a coalition military force member to even pull the trigger lest he be immediately arrested for shooting someone....

..we certainly could kill a significan part of current insurgents if we were allowed to."

"I don’t like the way the war has been waged from the beginning, however when we got saddam and sons inc. we should have begun our pullout. Now we look like weaklings and no matter what we do the islamists will call it a victory, use it as a recruiting tool, they already are. Yes, I dismissed the light unto the islamist world from the first time I heard it."
-- from a posting above

If you were such a skeptic all along about the war , and its aims (that Light Unto the Muslim Nations -- a phrase you found here), then in previous postings, when I have had these hundreds of contretemps, and early on virtual gang-ups, often by people invoking their military service as if that made them experts on Islam, and on the instruments of Jihad, and on geopolitics more generally, back-and-forths wth those who found my ideas those of a certified "lefty" cut-and-runner, and could not begin to grasp what I was in fact presenting, you were always on the side, if I remember rightly (and I can check all past postings by everyone, going back to the beginning), of those attacking my attacks on the Bush Administration's war aims. Suddenly you tell me you saw it that way all along -- if so, why did you join in those attacks, and why did you not, all along, express your agreement and support as indicated in your most recent posting?

Furthermore, in the posting above, you repeat this canard: that if we withdraw, the "islamists will call it a victory." Yes, I know. But it won't last. I keep saying that: it will not last. In a matter of weeks, the attacks by Shi'a militia, to teach the Sunnis a lesson they will not forget, once the Americans are out of the way, and then the Sunni reaction, and then the Shi'a reaction to the Sunni reaction, and then all kinds of things that will happen in Shi'a communities, or agaisnt Shi'a communities, in Sunni-dominated lands (such as Pakistan, such as Yemen, such as Bahrain, such as even Lebanon where the Shi'a outnumber the Sunnis but do not outnumber the Sunnis and their temporarly allies against the Shi'a, that is the Druse and the Christians).

Can't you stop repeating phrases that have no meaning? Stop this busines of saying "they will call us weaklings." What is this, a schoolyard, or are we grownups trying to inflict as much damage as we can, with as little damage to ourselves, to the Camp of Islam?

If you want to view the world as a schoolyard, the way I George Bush does -- and you think we'd better not withdraw from Iraq lest "they will call us weaklings" -- oh good god, sometimes one wonders why one bothers at all to set down a coherent, logical, sensible case, and to back it up, and back it up, and back it up, with evidence and not the dreams and schemes of the unintelligent and presumptuous man, or men, and their loyal claque, who are refusing to recognize their own, man-made disaster.

"We look like weaklings." That's not a sufficient argument for remaining in Iraq to prevent Sunnis and Shi'a from kiling each other, and to try to do the impossible, which is to get Muslims to exhibit a sense of compromise, decency, non-violence that flies in the face of both the spirit and of course the letter of Islam.

No. "We look like weaklings" and "they will call it a victory" will not do. Not after four years. Not after 2,500 dead and 25,000 wounded. Not after $880 billion spent or committed.

"We look like weaklings" and "they will call it a victory" and then they will "call us weaklings." Mama, los chics me fan burla. What utter idiocy.

I have several friends of the "Bush said it, I believe it, and that settles it" persuasion.

When I ask them if Bush was either ignorant about Islam or was telling the truth when he said, repeatedly, "Islam is a religion of peace", they get angry and accuse me of being "with THEM (the left). You can almost see cognitive dissonance steam coming out of their ears. I have never voted for a Democrat. I voted for Bush in 2000 but couldn't support him & his misguided Iraqi policy in 2004.

The same when I bring up border agents Ramos & Compean and Bush's refusal to grant them a pardon. Bush just MUST be right. Somehow. Maybe there's a "Secret Plan" that the Republicans will reveal just before the next election? Yes! That's the ticket!

We all exchanged email several times a week. I've sent 40 or 50 JihadWatch articles and Hugh comments over the last 4 years. I have never received a JW link or article from any of them. But I get a lot of feel good stories and photos of Marines playing with Iraqi kids (hey, didn't I see that photo in '93??)

mik_infidel:
Everyone says that it is unfair to expect Jeffersonian democracy from barbarous people who are still on tribal stage of development.

But that reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of Iraqi's. Shia and Sunni are not tribes.

And the assumption here is that Islam is compatible with democracy. The evidence is that it is not. And if it is not and never will be, then this mission is perpetually doomed if "victory" is defined to be leaving democracy at work in Iraq.

"And they already based their brand new shining constitution on Sharia. And Bush&Co supported that atrocity." posted above..

This is the truth, and where the party balloons started to pop. Freedom failed at the instant sharia was installed in the law of iraq, and we should have left at that point. Islam and freedom can not mix.

We did what we set out to do, we should claim victory, every single day, and start to remove the forces from iraq to focus on our national security needs.

The war is not over, just a battle was won.

Could it be possible that I was reading your posts and attacking them as you say with the arguments I had read from other sources in an attempt to see if you could shoot them down? And in doing so is it possible that you have risen to the challenge and increased my understanding in the process? I may be an idiot but I’m trying to evolve.

"the letter of Islam. "

...it begins with D...

Considering a conversation with a wounded American soldier of officer rank who stated in his Iraq service that Iraq is not that bad, that Iraq is a quite nice place and he could not understand how the media kept lying about things.

Noted Middle East expert Fouad Ajami stated on the BBC after his extensive tour, interviews and study of Iraq during the week of March 28 stated the following facts:

The Iraqi center has held. He assessed that the people of Iraq had a national spirit and were forming a cohesive government and people.

The Shia and Sunni while in their quarrels were not the catastrophe people were deeming it to be. The Shia had behaved for 2 years and would behave again as the American operation was carried out.

The Iraqi government was capable and handling the affairs of Iraq.

Now none of these people who have actually served and actually were interviewing Iraqi and American officials with an intimate association with the Iraqi people ever are brought to the light.
Instead people post things online as "experts" making analogies which make no sense as in Crips and Bloods.

For the record, try finding the favor ranks which inhabit almost every large American city in their police forces. One only has to remind themselves of New Orleans and police acting like thugs and criminals during the hurricane.
Yet none of the champions of Iraq is a disaster would for a moment consider abandoning the United States when compare to the same graft which operates in Chicago in the Daily machine nor cares to consider the junta which exists in the infamous Los Angeles police department.
Don't think evidence is planted and don't think there are contingents of America police breaking the law? Just check the criminal prosecution files.

For some reason people think Iraq must be this glowing fairytale for it to be wonderful and yet never think of the bribes, corruption, globalist sell out, Rockefeller cartel and criminals who are in the United States Congress.
Barney Frank running a male homosexual brothel to the various coup attempts on George Bush, and yet, no one considers America a failure or wills to abandon it.

The fact is the officers in the United States military and the "not hired shills" understand Iraq is a nation like all nations with corruption and murder...just like the United States of America.

The scab of Iraq is healing. It will never be perfect as it never was perfect. It is though a nation gelled and a nation of people intent on creating a united Iraq even though there are scores of "experts" daily telling the world it is falling apart.

"Could it be possible that I was reading your posts and attacking them as you say with the arguments I had read from other sources in an attempt to see if you could shoot them down? And in doing so is it possible that you have risen to the challenge and increased my understanding in the process? I may be an idiot but I’m trying to evolve."
-- from a posting above

Yes, it is possible, and I take back all ad hominem remarks -- take them back and swallow them right here. But I don't take back any of my arguments, nor the insistence that whatever "victory" they crow about will be very short-lived, and in fact would not have to exist at all if accompanied by all sorts of words, and proposals, including a sharp rising tax on gasoline, with a national address that has words to the effect of -- "in order to deprive the enemy of a major weapon -- the money weapon which is also a potent instrument of Jihad" and to make noises about seizing the southern Sudan and Darfur (or more than noises), and to summon defense secretaries of all NATO countries minus Turkey, to discuss present "and future threats to the stability and security of the Western world,, including internal threats." Oh, that's just a small sample of the things we could do.

So don't you agree, at this point, that this business of our "looking like weaklings" is silly, or easily avoided, and in any case will in a matter of weeks or at most a month after our withdrawal, will be seen, correctly, not as our American "catastrophe" but as a catastrophe for the Camp of Islam?

If you can accept that, then we have no quarrel.

Agreed.
Please don’t take back your remarks, I happen to like a passionate and aggressive defender of their beliefs.

How come Hugh came up with a similar assessment of the situation in Iraq, a long time ago, without having had to serve in the coalition forces (CF) there?

Does one need to serve in the military to be able to think strategically? Probably not, as such service would stunt rather than develop strategic thinking.

And don't anybody come at me accusing that I'm just defending non-military strategic thinkers because I haven't served--or denigrating the size of my penis or my brain for that fault. I have served in the military, during wartime, but in the immortal words of Forrest Gump, "And that's all I'm going to say about that."

Then on another tack, what about Gen. Petraeus? He's supposed to be the last word on Counter-insurgency warfare methods, learnt them from that Frenchman who had so much success in l'Algerie Francais. France lost Algeria because the intellectuals back home in France had enough of a war in which not highly moral standards were upheld, nor methods befitting these employed.

In theory the Petraeus method makes sense--buddying up to the "silent majority" of the population, leaving them behind to stabilize the (I was going to say "bitch," but that's not a term to use in such a learned discourse)--so to stabilize the country, ah, Iraq.

In theory, but that takes time, and the folks back home (in the houses of Congress) aren't going to give our military CF that.

Hence, the Fitzgeraldian solution: Pull back and let 'em go at it.

Only, there is Iran. Nature and warfare abhors a vacuum. So how do we solve that problem?

Keep Iran occupied with trying to survive as it stands today. How you do that?

What you think I am a military strategist or something?

tgusa
I’m not saying stay or go, I don’t like either choice. I don’t like the way the war has been waged from the beginning, however when we got saddam and sons inc. we should have begun our pullout. Now we look like weaklings and no matter what we do the islamists will call it a victory, use it as a recruiting tool, they already are.

First the war was fought on the basis of a lie - and that is never a good basis. In the USA, the public were sold the idea that Saddam (a secularist, a pan-Arabist (Baath party), a Sunni Muslim) and Osama bin Laden (a radical Muslim who wanted to overthrow the Saudi Government) were in bed tegether. In the UK, the public were sold the fact that Saddam had weapons of Mass destruction. Neither was true.

Second, the post-war period was never properly planned. The plan to make Iraq democratic is far-fetched. Apart from Turkey, there is no evidence than any country ruled by Islam can be democractised. A necessary condition for democracy is in your constitution - that all men are equal. And Islam is such that women are considered inferior to men, and non-Muslim have secondary rights compared to Muslims. Given that, how can there be a proper democracy?

On the business about staying or going, eventually you will have to leave sometime. That may be 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, 50 years. And the moment you do, whatever remains as a Government and society has to be sufficiently stable to take over.
In both cases in Iraq and Afghanistan, the governments are not loved, they have powerful enemies who make no bones about wanting to topple them.

So I agree with Hugh.
Right now, Bush, Condi, Blair show no signs of realising that Western civilsation is under attack and it is mainstream Islam that is doing the attacking not Islamic extremism.
Our misfortune is that the Quran, the Hadith & the Sira are extermist books, and all Muslims know that even the so-called moderate Muslims. But Bush, Condi & Blair are oblivious.
How can they fight if they do not know who the enemy is?
And how can they fight if they are hampered by political correctness?

Yes, I dismissed the light unto the islamist world from the first time I heard it. Freedom is not something you give as a gift, it must be wanted, it must be fought for and some must die so others who desire it can realize it. Freedom goes against all of their tenets, they will never embrace it.

It does not go against their tenets. What islam has is a hierarchly freedom where those beneath are effectively slaves to the ones above. It looks like

Caliph, Imans, Clerics
Muslim man
Muslim women
Non-Muslim man
Non-Muslim women

Now if you think about it, that goes against your constitution. It is not Universal freedom. And I as a non-Muslim man, dont wish to live in a society where I am subject to Muslims.

Europe is another problem but I get the impression they don’t care for freedom either, we gave it back to them not 65 years ago and look what they have done with it.

The European political leaders are blind.
In a perfect world, their liberalism would work.
But the world is not perfect, and Islam will easily take advantage of their liberalism and use it against them. The Dutch have woken up to that. Right now they are trying to appease it.
(And Jewish businessman tried to "buy" Hitler. It did not work, he took their money and still sent them to the gas chambers).
Sometimes it is necessary to fight for the freedom you have. And I think that time will come in Europe, round 2040-2080.

Between a rock and a hard place is where I feel wee are right now.

Yes we are. There is a gap but the gap is getting smaller. We are going to get squeezed.

Anyone who professes that we should leave Iraq, fine, but they had better be right or the **** is going to hit the fan and I mean really hit it. It is not about winning in Iraq, it is about killing islamists, Iraq happens to be a islamist magnet.

I think Hugh is 100% right
But the most important thing of all, tgusa, is that we educate all non-Muslims in every Western country as to what the real deal is with Islam. Once people understand, we are half way to winning.

Remember last century?
Thinking just ideologically:

1) America fought a short war against National Socialism (badly named, but that is what they called themselves - Nazism in Germany) from 1941 to 1945.

2) And off and on, America fought a protracted war against Communism that lasted from 1917 to 1985 with outbreaks in Korea & Vietnam.

In both cases (and more so the second as thinkers like Marx, Engels backed Communism up), it was wars against Totalitarism.

Well Islam is the same. It is Totalitarian.
It brooks no equals with any other religion.
And it is in it for the long term - it plots conquest over 100's of years.
And it will use guile, stealth, persuasion, murder, enslavement, rape, reduction of others rights to achieve its goals.
It has never rested from the goal of world domination.

But what the heck we can always chase them around the rest of the world, right?

We may need to.
But I think we need to deal with 5th columns in our midst, first.

tgusa:

Once the West has cottoned on (and weaned itself off Oil) to the fact that Islam is a problem and means our destruction, we can exploit the internal divisions within Islam.
The main faultline is Shia and Sunni.
They simply dont trust each other.
And if Shia and Sunni Muslims are busy fighting civil wars in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Bahrain, Yemen - as far as I am concerned that is good news. It weakens Islam. we should do whatever we can to destabilise Islamic countries. Right now, Saudi Arabia does not trust Iran and has said that it will support the Sunni minority if the US & UK leave. Well we should leave then. Let Iran and Saudi Arabia expend money and manpwoer fighting each other.

And if we really wanted to, we could flatten Mecca and Medina (which we should not - might unite Muslims - we should reserve as a last resort).

We should also help countries which have a small Muslim minority terrorising a larger non-Muslim majority within it. Thailand for example.

UK Infidel Lover,
Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts with me. I hope there are a lot more like you out there.

Why don't you start trying to look on the bright side? Why don't you start trying to admit that the only way to divide and demoralize the Camp of Islam is to get out? Why don't you openly admit that the Iran-Iraq War was a wonderful thing, and should have gone on forever, and that something of the sort, but something even more disastrous for Muslim unity and Muslim wellbeing, can happen if only we leave?

Posted by: Hugh

I think it's because the Saudis are telling Bush to keep the troops in Iraq. It plays into their hand. They'll have to help their sunni "brothers" if we leave. They'd much rather waste our "infidel" lives than their own.

The Saudis will also be increasingly destabilized at home when we leave.

Now I think that's a good thing myself. Who knows what dirt these Sowdis have on Bush and others in the political cabal.

iraq was and is a big mistake. why saddam?

well armed and fuelled with the yankee dollar he could've been the jihadists worst nightmare in the middle east.

now we have a nuclear iran with its sad syrian side kick.

expect a nuclear attack within the USA within the next 5 years. and today pelosi wore an islamic headscarf (and me and "her indoors" relocated to the USA to escape socialism and the jihad)

From UK Infidel Lover:"First the war was fought on the basis of a lie - and that is never a good basis. In the USA, the public were sold the idea that Saddam (a secularist, a pan-Arabist (Baath party), a Sunni Muslim) and Osama bin Laden (a radical Muslim who wanted to overthrow the Saudi Government) were in bed tegether. In the UK, the public were sold the fact that Saddam had weapons of Mass destruction. Neither was true."

I wonder if you asked the Kurds if Saddam had WOMD they would agree or not? Was the expulsion, early on in the toppling of Saddam, of the Al Qaeda cell in Northeast Iraq a figment of the Mainstream Media Press? Was the death of Abu Nidal (sp) in Baghdad just a coincidence? No Saddam had many contacts with enemies of the West. I am sure he aided them, but to what degree is up for debate, that he aided them is not. That he violated 17 UN Resolutions and the cease fire treaty he signed is also not up for debate! That he constantly shot at Coalition forces enforcing the cease fire and the UN Mandates upon him were also not up for debate.

The issues of the entry of Coalition Forces into Iraq to topple Saddam are not the issues being discussed here. I agree with Hugh 100% about withdrawal. But you have, I think, conveniently left off many reasons why we went to war.In the United States, we were told war against Saddam was necessary for all of the reasons I mentioned above and more. As Hugh has said we won that war and should have gotten the hell out of there as quickly as possible. We cannot win the hearts and minds of the vast majority of Muslims in Iraq.

Dear Hugh! You remind me so much of my Uni lecturers in history - both Antient and Moderne. Still, I managed to learn a lot and even to speak somewhat like them. So, verily, mighty swishers of the Banner of Truth, I offer a nifty contretemps:

Withdraw all US et al troops from Iraq. Have them march, with ALL their equipment, through Syria. I am sure that the Syrian gov'mint won't mind this. Take them straight through the Lebanon. I'm certain that Hizb'allah won't stand much in the way. Let the good troops have a well-earned holiday along the seaside of Israel. She definitely won't mind the diversion. Just ask the troops to behave around the ladies.

And get them to grease up them caterpillar tracks, because they'll need them real slick when Iran finally tries to drag the Mahdi out of the well... Maybe even this coming (northern) summer...

"In the UK, the public were sold the fact that Saddam had weapons of Mass destruction. Neither was true."

....SADDam did have WMD, he used chemical weapons against the Kurds in the north, (having killed thousands with toxic nerve agents)the photos are availiable on line to those who wish to see the photos of the bloated bodies of the men, women, and children of the Kurds. SADDAM also used chemical weapons in the Iran/Iraq wars of the 80s. He used Mustard gas, Sarin Gas, and other toxic chemicals to kill tens of thousands of Iranians, again, there are photos of the dead Iranians availiable...From time to time the US forces in Iraq have come across Artillery shells contaning Mustard Gas, Sarin Gas and other chemical agents. The MSM discounted these weapons as not WMD because they were of old manufacture....(well, guess what, old nerve gas and old chemicals will remain effective indefinitely)....There are some reports stating the Iraqis transported the bulk of their stockpile of WMD to Syria (with Russian assistance), other WMDs were dumped into the ocean (again, with the aid of the Russians).There is certainly documention giving credence that SADDAM was planning to acquire Nuclear weapons (remember, The Israelies bombed his nuclear facilities to rubble), SADDAM found out that it was easier to buy the weapons rather than to build them...I suspect the Iranian facilities have a short future ahead...

...on your other issue:
"the idea that Saddam (a secularist, a pan-Arabist (Baath party), a Sunni Muslim) and Osama bin Laden (a radical Muslim who wanted to overthrow the Saudi Government) were in bed tegether."

....There certainly is evidence that Iraq helped to finance and provide training camps for Bin-Ladens forces...They may not have planned operations together, but they certainly maintained a mutual desire to spread violence to the western world...The Iraqi also provided weapons and intelligence to Bin-Laden....This has also been documented...

...The web of Muslim co-existence and co-operation with regards to spreading death to the western world and to non Muslims runs deep...and it certainly existed between SADDAM and Bin-Laden...
"

I agree with many who say that getting out of Iraq's rebuilding their country for better or for worse is the course we should pursue.
I also agree that Iran will do what they wanted to do 20 years ago. They will annex large portions of Iraq (with oil) the afternoon of the morning we leave.
There lies in our path however one great obstacle to this. Distance from the middle East.
I don't agree that we should bring them back to the USA.
Ever wonder why, after Europe and especially Germany were rebuilt and thriving following WWII we still had US forces there in large and expensive numbers way up until the 1990's?
I had the good fortune in the 1980's to witness up close and personal, the operation of our US Military in something called REFORGER. What that means is return of forces to Germany. It was a regular exercise to practice the quick deployment of a large and capable fighting force to Europe in case the 'balloon went up' regarding the USSR rolling through the Fulda Gap.
Believe me, REFORGER was anything but quick.
And Europe is a lot closer to us than the ME.
What I would like to hear from someone smarter than me is where can we keep rolling stock, etc. and men in the ME without this terrible destruction of the mental abilities of our fighting men and woman? Israel?

Responding to Hugh's piece,

is it really that hard to stop guzzling ME oil. Feeding billions upon trillions to the ME, only for them to buy US ports etc., is it really that hard, or is the will not there to challenge entrenched US interest in the energy, defence and automotive industries.

Here's your way forward
* Run the cars on ethanol
* get the hell out of the ME, and let these guys there kill each other
* save trillions you don't have on defence
and balance deficit
* place 100% tariffs on products from china until it stops unfair subsidies and floats its currency.
* declare Islam an illegal ideology in the US like National Socialism. That should at least stop 'ex'-Taliban study in US colleges and CAIR can rest in hell
* Stop support for the military regime of Pakistan and the Saudis.

raven

"Antient and Moderne.."
-- from a posting above

Yes.

kwg1:
I wonder if you asked the Kurds if Saddam had WOMD they would agree or not?

They would agree. But we know that.
I remember Saddam used chemical weapons against the Iranians during the 1980-1988 war. I remember seeing pictures of Iranians in hospital with incredible skin burns.
And we also know he did chemical attacks against the Kurds over a failed assassination attempt.

But the question is that come 2001, did he have WOMD then? Hans Blix could not find any (and admittedly Saddam was being uncooperative). the balance of evidence is that Clintons sanctions were successful (even with UNs oil-for-food corrupt trading program).

Was the expulsion, early on in the toppling of Saddam, of the Al Qaeda cell in Northeast Iraq a figment of the Mainstream Media Press?

No probably not. Even Osama is known to have passed thorugh Baghdad. But so what?
We do know that Saddam had nothing going on with Al'Queda (and that is hardly surprising - idelogically they are poles apart).

Was the death of Abu Nidal (sp) in Baghdad just a coincidence?

No, it is reputed that Saddam killed him. He was probably a nuisance at that stage. Abu was a psychopath.

No Saddam had many contacts with enemies of the West. I am sure he aided them, but to what degree is up for debate, that he aided them is not.

Yes that is true. What is also known is that he made many enemies in the Middle East as well.
He fell out with Syria (despite the fact that they had the same Baath party in Government), Kuwait, Iran (On his death he cursed the Persians). And after the 1st Gulf War he was fairly isolated as Sunni Governments thought he was unstable. Only Jordan and the Palestinians, which made the mistake of supporting him in the 1st Gulf War were friends. He was a secular Muslim.

That he violated 17 UN Resolutions and the cease fire treaty he signed is also not up for debate! That he constantly shot at Coalition forces enforcing the cease fire and the UN Mandates upon him were also not up for debate.

Sure.

The issues of the entry of Coalition Forces into Iraq to topple Saddam are not the issues being discussed here. I agree with Hugh 100% about withdrawal. But you have, I think, conveniently left off many reasons why we went to war. In the United States, we were told war against Saddam was necessary for all of the reasons I mentioned above and more.

Reasons?
I dont think I have. What I have painted is that fact the US & UK Governments manufactured reasons to start a war.
I think Saddam is a monster and a war criminal, but apart from Kuwait he was no additional threat to the West. Clintons sanctions had had an effect. If you are going to go after Saddam, why not Mugabe, Kim il Sung and many other dictators round the world?

What was the real reason?
For that you would have to search Bush's mind.
Lets face it, Blair did not and could not start this - he was just a junior and willing partner.
So why did Bush do it?

I dont beleive it is Oil although the left-leaning among us do. I think it was 2-things in conjunction that made Bush's mind up:
(i) 9/11
(ii) That fact that his father had not eliminated Saddam at the end of the 1st Gulf War.

If 9/11 had not happened, Saddam would still be in charge.
And if the 1st Gulf War had not happened, Saddam would still be in charge.
And if Saddam had 100% cooperated with the UN, he would be in charge.

As Hugh has said we won that war and should have gotten the hell out of there as quickly as possible. We cannot win the hearts and minds of the vast majority of Muslims in Iraq.

Given what has taken place, yes I agree with Hugh.

But suppose we had never gone to war?
Then we would not have all this Muslim resentment and more importantly, it would be Saddam that would be holding Iran in check.
By removing Saddam, we have allowed Iran to surge.

Our best strategy now, given all that has happened is to leave Iraq and watch the Middle East implode.

Posted by:

Five dollar gas tax, Hugh?

That would drive the U.S. into the reef, into another depression. Also, some areas of the U.S. use domestic oil, it is not inported. The tax would hurt these areas as much as the importers of oil. A way must be found to balance this type of action, to reward those who are already correct with their efforts.

We should tap every source we can of our oil, doing so would get very much the same result you are looking for, without the disaster to the U.S.

Otherwise, islam wins a battle because of the changes to this country, and haves it without a shot fired.

It can be done by access to what we already have.