One wonders what prolonging this will accomplish as long as Adminstration officials remain clueless about jihad and Islamic supremacism, and even about basic matters such as the reasons why Sunnis and Shia cannot get along. By Thomas E. Ricks for the Washington Post, via MSNBC (thanks to Jeffrey Imm):
BAGHDAD - U.S. military officials here are increasingly envisioning a "post-occupation" troop presence in Iraq that neither maintains current levels nor leads to a complete pullout, but aims for a smaller, longer-term force that would remain in the country for years. This goal, drawn from recent interviews with more than 20 U.S. military officers and other officials here, including senior commanders, strategists and analysts, remains in the early planning stages. It is based on officials' assessment that a sharp drawdown of troops is likely to begin by the middle of next year, with roughly two-thirds of the current force of 150,000 moving out by late 2008 or early 2009. The questions officials are grappling with are not whether the U.S. presence will be cut, but how quickly, to what level and to what purpose.One of the guiding principles, according to two officials here, is that the United States should leave Iraq more intelligently than it entered. Military officials, many of whom would be interviewed only on the condition of anonymity, say they are now assessing conditions more realistically, rejecting the "steady progress" mantra of their predecessors and recognizing that short-term political reconciliation in Iraq is unlikely. A reduction of troops, some officials argue, would demonstrate to anti-American factions that the occupation will not last forever while reassuring Iraqi allies that the United States does not intend to abandon the country.
tar baby
–noun
a situation, problem, or the like, that is almost impossible to solve or to break away from.
The problem with this plan is that the insurgency will, like nagging gnats, constantly attack the remaining troops to the point that the troops won't be safe. Even at this point, we're unable to completely secure the GREEN ZONE.
Stupid move. Why can't the Administration learn to let these animals battle each other without American intervention? Continuously pouring money to either Sunni or Shia is a wasteful proposition; only serving to expand the massive debt America accumulates and providing little if no upside. Already 1 trillion dollars spent in Iraq and what has it gotten us? It strengthened Iran's influence, divided us amongst our allies, and has strengthened the radical influence which was greatly suppressed under Saddam Hussein. 1 TRILLION DOLLARS of America's 6 Trillion and counting debt. We keep weakening our ability to pay for a strong military and domestic programs going forward with TERRIBLE investemnts such as thins. ALL FOR WHAT??
STRENGTHEN THE DAMN BORDERS AND STRIKE WITH AN IRON FIST AND REGIMES THAT DO US HARM, BUT STOP FRIIGING AWAY OUR DOLLARS ON THESE ANIMALS.
Greetings:
Gee, I thought the entry into Iraq was the intelligent part. It's the hanging around that's all messed up.
The military is useful for two things, breaking things and killing people. Anything else is using a chisel for a screwdriver.
Our time line should be that of; at such and such a date the bill starts going to the Iraqi's themselfs!. They can join the deficit crowd just like the rest of us! Jizya for living!
I give up, time for plan 'B'
SELF PRESERVATION!!!
That is.. if they do have this planned out right this time! Where are the chips? I urge soldiers loved ones to do this for them! Implant today!
We don't keep troops in Iraq to police it. We keep them there to monitor the movements of Iran, maintain fortified bases for future use, and to retain the means to take oil in the region in an emergency.
Really people. Think. Real American generals to not go into any theater without a longterm plan. Now, I'm not so sure the "real" ones are in-charge, so that's got me irritated, but I know that they are in the system somewhere, being heard and probably loudly sometimes.
We can't go anywhere until we hammer Iran into submission. That much I am adamantly clear on.
When the Iraqis put Islamic law into their constitution, they declared perpetual war against the rest of humanity. Our moral responsibility for anything that happens in that country ended at that moment.
To prop up such a inherently fascist government, dedicated as it is to the destruction of our civilization, is criminal.
Any of our forces remaining in the region should be used for one purpose--to destroy this self-declared enemy's means and will to fight. That means attack attack attack. There are no hearts and minds to win over there.
Good will and public relations efforts, such as building schools, where Islamic supremacism and total war is taught in continuous indoctrination of children from birth, are efforts founded on sheer stupidity. We are not only funding our enemy's current jihadist operations, but funding the indoctrination of future generations of Muslim fanatics dedicated to the extermination of "the other" within their territory and dedicated to the destruction of our own freedoms and our way of life.
Have you seen the new weapons they have? Wo-cow!
They need this now! There are a few but the war would be over in minutes..days! Hardly NO notta soldiers!
George W. Bush for permanent in-country US Ambassador to Iraq starting Jan. 21, 2009. He broke it, he can own it.
They said FINALLY Amadmanofjews is asking for it! It sounded like to hell with Amadmanofjews threats to destroying Israel than United States.
Russia!-o(*/^)?>>>hello.., bbb,erant! bbb-er-an...
"One of the guiding principles, according to two officials here, is that the United States should leave Iraq more intelligently than it entered."
And as an example of how they are looking to do this: they are ARMING the SUNNIS of ANBAR PROVINCE. They have decided that since the Sunnis finally turned against al Qaeda that they can trust them.
Forget leaving intelligently. (Which means what, exactly? Maybe we just ramrod our way through Turkey, a NATO "ally"?)
How about acting intelligently while we're still there?
"A reduction of troops, some officials argue, would demonstrate to anti-American factions that the occupation will not last forever while reassuring Iraqi allies that the United States does not intend to abandon the country."
...I would argue, fewer troops would mean the American targets would be easier to find and they would be less well defended...
...all the more reason to leave the cesspool to wallow in its own dilemas...
Keeping troops in Iraq will do the following:
1) Be a constant target of possible attack from all kinds of Arabs in Iraq-- Sunnis of all kinds who are members of Al Qaeda, local Sunnis some of whom are temporarily at war with Al Qaeda who are further divided into two groups -- those "Anbar tribes" that Lt. Col. David Kilcullen, doing his Lawrence-of-Arabia "I know how to talk to these people, I know what makes them tick" performance, and a group inside Baghdad that temporarily made war on, and now has temporarily made a truce with, Al Qaeda in Iraq; Shi'a of all kinds, including Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, and others, in and out the army, or the police, or non-government militias, and associated with either the Da'wa or the SCIRI parties, or some other group or faction or no group at all. And that's only the Arabs.
2) Be the target of Iranian agents and their collaborators within Iraq who will see the remaining Americans as the best kind of hostages, presented on a platter nearby, who can be threatened if the American or any other govnerment decides to damage Iran's nuclear project.
3) Continue to be hideously expensive to maintain, as the costs of resupply from Kuwait go higher and higher as southern Iraq becomes more and more dangerous to the Americans, who entered Iraq as conquerors, but who would remain in a far less intimidating, and therefore more vulnerable, position.
4) Continue to depress the levels of recruitment for the National Guard and Reserves. Already standards for all forces have had to be lowered --educational standards, standards as to criminal record, and maximum age, in order to keep forces up, while the hemmorhaging of young officers (including many from West Point) will continue.
5) Continue to be the target, on the part of the endlessly warring Iraqi factions, of plausible attempts to acquire, by force or guile, American advanced weaponry. And since the American generals and some of those "counterinsurgency experts" unwilling to study Islam, and the thousand methods of putting into practice Muhammad's "war is deception," there will keep being efforts to arm this side, or that, without realizing that all the sides are hostile to America, none of the sides can be trusted. Whether it has been bases, such the one in Morocco that was hidden from Moroccan view, or Wheelus Air Base in Libya, seized when Khaddafy came to power, or alliances (CENTO, that was merely a vehicle for various Muslim countries to acquire weapons and training from Great Britain and the United States, and had no value, none, for keeping the Russians out of the Middle East), every single time the Americans think they are finding "allies" or "staunch allies" among Muslims (Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, Egypt or Jordan) they have been, sooner or later disabused. Usually later, and usually after tens of billions have been spent, and usually after the snookering has prevented other, intelligent measures, to have been taken.
6) Continue to be the source of political worry and unease, and take up entirely too much of the attention and time of our political class, and of the Pentagon itself.
7) Iraq always was a minor theatre in the war of self-defense against the Jihad. What happens in Iraq can use up, can squander, American lives, American wealth (more, in what has been spent or committed, than was spent in all the wars, save World War II, in American history), war materiel (look at the National Guard armories, look at the armories of the regular forces), and morale, civilian and military, which cannot easily be revived.
But those generals and analysts focussing on Iraq may not see the larger picture. They say nothing, for they are even unaware, of how Jihad proceeds, of what the real instruments of Jihad are -- the Money Weapon, campaigns of Da'wa, and demographic conquest. Had the American government, for example, instead of squandering $880 billion in Iraq, instead spent it on energy programs of every kind: on government-funded nuclear reactors (as in France), on subsidies to mass transit (as in England and Italy), on government subsidies to private parties to install solar collectors on their houses (as in Gwermany), had it supported coal gasification, and wind energy, and had it forced the car companies to improve gas mileage by new taxes or government fiat, where would be the Money Weapon today?
Had the American government not been so preoccupied with Iraq -- and if tens of thousands of troops remain, the country will remain preoccupied with Iraq -- it might have begun, in a war that is too complicated and various and the instruments of the enemy so far from being those of military warfare which is the only kind, apparently, that this Pentagon understands and can prepare for, and mlilitary conflict is only a small part of the Muslim march toward a Muslim destiny which is simply not understood, or not recognized, in the Pentagon and among the Yesterday's Men who apparently are fated to continue to rule us for a little longer.
Unless these generals can explain to us, not the original "mission" (not even Bush and Cheney can explain that) and why it made sense, but why keeping 50,000 troops, or any troops at all, in Iraq makes sense, and here they must not avoid the main instruments of Jihad but tell us exactly how, in what way, helping to stabilize Iraq serves our interests, helps us more than would a comlete withdrawal which is more likely to lead to the Americans resisting the temptation to meddle in the sectarian and ethnic fissures that, if we only leave them alone, can divide and demoralize Islam, and weaken it.
How does remaining in Iraq halt the demographic gains, perhaps irreversible unless people begin to think as Masaryk and Benes and the Czechs thought in 1946, in the lands of Western Europe? How does having American troops remain in Iraq help limit and diminish the Arab money weapon, that pays for mosques, madrasas, campaigns of Da'wa, and an army of Western hirelings (see Eugene Bird, see the ad in yesterday's Sunday Times from the comically-named "CNI" or "Council for the National Interest" which is a front group for Arab anti-Israel propaganda of the most transparent sort)?
Is it possible that no one in the Pentagon -- no one at all - is going to get beyond the "counterinsurgency experts" and begin to think like Halford Mackinder, or Alfred Thayer Mahan, and analyze a picture much bigger than that of Iraq, a tiny theatre in a world-wide war?
Foehammer,
How does that long-range plan to "hammer Iran into submission" even get executed from Iraq when the majority population of Iraq is on Iran's side?
The Iraqi fighters are being trained at camps in Iran and then returning to "resist" the US "occupation". Iraq is not on our side. How in heaven's name will we use Iraq as a staging ground? It's less friendly than Saudi Arabia was in 1990.
How do we "hammer Iran into submission" when Russia is arming them to the teeth? Iran is already turning into the casus belli for a new cold war.
Where are the Iranian people? An Iranian ex-pat living in America claims that it's "payback time", that Israel owes something to Iran for its past support of the Jewish nation. Never mind that that was a millenium and a half ago, at a minimum. He makes the ridiculous assertion that it's Israel's responsibility to remove the government installed with the assent of the Iranian people. What are they (Iranians) doing? They brought down one dictator. They can bring down another. There's just one problem. THEY BELIEVE IN AHMADINEJEAD. THEY WORSHIP THE MULLAHS. AT THE VERY LEAST, THEY WON"T OPPOSE THEM.
We might as well save the aggravation and, more important, save the lives of American soldiers. The Iranian people are proud of the nuclear program. They might learn that pride can be a deadly sin in more ways than one. They need to make a choice. From here, it looks like they have. It's Nut Job all the way.
The Iranian people made their own bed. Let them lie in it.
The opposite way
With the same cognitive dissonance that we have about Islam itself, we've avoided discussing what the fallout would be from leaving Iraq.
The Shiite taking command of a substantial slice of the world's oil supply. An unbroken swatch of openly terrorist Islamic states from Lebanon to Pakistan, with more bad news developing in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and even the Phillipines.
Wouldn't it make sense to make our occupation of Iraq less good hearted? Instead of rumbling up and down Iraqui streets to draw gunfire, RPGs, and IDEs, let our troops redeploy with heavier arms as an unfriendly occupier, more interested in oil and hegemony that turning black-hearted Moslems into freedom lovers.
Anybody ever think how many Moslems tacitly support the Jihad terror warriors with their silence as they watch IDEs being set along roadsides? I estimate Iraqui support for them somewhere around 100%.
Let us buckle down to a nice 300 yr occupation. Increase our naval power and force our freeloading allies -- Germany, Commie China, France, Sweden, and even sickening Russia -- to pay a premium for us letting their oil supplies go through.
@PMK & Hugh: What do Iraqis have to do with the United States attacking Iran from our bases located in Iraq?
Nada.
Americans are going to die in greater numbers than we are seeing in Iraq regardless; far greater numbers if we do not resolve the Iranian issue firmly, and violently.
The Islamic regime in Iran will not target Americans like they have been doing with contempt since 1979 if we finally open wounds and make them fear for their miserable lives. The gloves have got to completely come off.
The Islamist threat here at home is growing by leaps and bounds. I see it every morning when I'm scanning headlines and pitching ideas in my head for my weekly editorials.
It's only 6 years after 9-11 and yet the Muslims are here in the USA in greater numbers, have more lobbyists in D.C., more mosques, more visa-holding students, more Islamic sororities and fraternities on campuses, more American-born women married to Muslim immigrant men, growing inroads towards a polygamist future thanks to the Gay-marriage lobby, training camps in out-of-the-way regions of VA & NY at the very least, who knows how many terrorist sleeper cells nationwide, and worst of all, a path towards nuclear terror that's being drawn for them by jihadists in Pakistan and maniacs in Iran.
Yes, let's worry so much about a relative handful of professional soldiers that have sworn an oath to protect this nation by fighting her enemies, that we forget about the 300 million Americans back home that are ripe for slaughter.
The Iraq situation sucks. No doubt about it. But this is a war that too many people are still phoning in. The United States needs to wake UP.
WAKE UP to the reality that Islam is not our friend. Islam is a political animal that is hellbent on using our system against us, and we have far too many people throwing the gates wide open for them in the name of Appeasement that it makes me nauseous.
Words barely suffice any longer.
Outlaw Islam or it will destroy us.
We all know that the Maliki government is a puppet for Iran. We know that Shiite militias, under the public leadership of Al-Sadr are fighting against the Sunnis. We know Al-Qaeda is present in Iraq and will fight anyone that they deem to be in opposition of their specific goals, whatever that may be. We also know that Iraqi military units are being trained and funded by the US, but the underlying loyalties of each person is in doubt. It is obvious they are either pro-Sunni, pro-Shia or pro-Al-Qaeda, we just don't know exactly which one.
No more money for re-building Iraq's infrastructure. Give them ALL guns and let them have at it. That way the US can say, "hey, we tried, but these people were not being up-front with us."
It sounds like a good plan to me, as long as a near-complete withdrawal of US forces accompanies it. To off-set concerns about a potentially unified and now armed Iraq??....LOL, it ain't gonna happen.
If the US is not committed to taking the Islamists out due to a moral quandary, let the Islamists do it themselves, for they most assuredly do not suffer from the same moral malaise.
The biggest question, in my opinion, is why we must fit the bill for this latest endeavor of arming the Sunnis? We all know the Saudis do not want Iraq to fall to Iranian Shia expansion, so why aren't they funding the Sunni militias in Iraq?
But those generals and analysts focussing on Iraq may not see the larger picture. They say nothing, for they are even unaware, of how Jihad proceeds, of what the real instruments of Jihad are -- the Money Weapon, campaigns of Da'wa, and demographic conquest. Had the American government, for example, instead of squandering $880 billion in Iraq, instead spent it on energy programs of every kind: on government-funded nuclear reactors (as in France), on subsidies to mass transit (as in England and Italy), on government subsidies to private parties to install solar collectors on their houses (as in Gwermany), had it supported coal gasification, and wind energy, and had it forced the car companies to improve gas mileage by new taxes or government fiat, where would be the Money Weapon today? - HUGH
Hugh, I couldnt have said anything in your post better myself. If we had spent 880 billion dollars on the programs you mention above, and seriously curtailed our dependance on foreign oil, that would be the greatest & most effective weapon yet for stopping the Da'wa and terrorist elements. In my view, and apparently yours, America needs a MAJOR SHIFT in the way it conducts foreign policy in a much more intelligent and effective manner. Lets start by pulling out of Iraq, cutting of ALL funding to Muslim nations since ALL elements are hostile (or practicing Taquiya; lets SECURE THE BORDER and strike with an iron fist by destroying rogue nations which repeatedly violate international law. Under no circumstances should we occupy them or try and win hearts and minds. Its amazing how our Massive foreign deficit doesn;t get more mention... We are literally bankrupting ourselves with our foreign policy and strengthening hostile elements by providing them funds.
Albert Einstein once defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Radical Islam is getting exactly what it wants, and what bin laden and ImANut threatened.
To challenge them, you must pay for a war (which our children and grand children will have to pay). So, a military and economic war. Horrendous cost.
Or,
You can try and pay them for peace, (which will really never occur). So guess what...an economic war... islamic plunder. Horrendous cost.
Or,
You can leave them alone and after they have killed off the weaker muslims, they will bring the war to you and to your economy. So guess what.....an economic war. Even more horrendous cost.
Either way, it's neverending.
Unless, we face up to it now and outlaw Islam as Foehammer suggests, and only then one might eventually get a handle on the costs, also to be paid for by our children and grand children by the way,
We, the west, have let all this go far, far too long because we can't see, nor admit, who or what, the enemy is.
BunrattyBill said
Nah, I bet he's angling to be either the Saudi or Kuwaiti Embassador to the U.S.
I am no Einstein but I defined it when I was 13 as; when you CANNOT help yourself!
Doing something over and over again is compulsive behavior then combine it with narcist selfish egotist ideology insane totaly no facts! No lead of real facts to the basis of the core the heart the nexis of love.
Forgot Bi Polar! ADD
The Bush gov't has said all along you will need presence in the gulf area especially with iran getting armed with nukes. right now oil runs our economy, people like to run their cars, a/c's, computers you know the style of lifestyles you all expect. well there is a price to pay for this, if any of you have a better idea bring it up. we need to cut iran down to size to get stability in the area and to deal with islam with educated politicians with help by their constituents.
Aaaahhh the old cake and the eating of it too.
If you can't appease one side,appease both sides.
Perhaps this is why the Illegal Alien bill of old hero Bush will pass is due to the selling of those targets who will be left behind to continue the bringing of harmony and uniting those so pious and peaceful and who revel in the true islam.
It's not a real hard sell to get that Illegal Alien bill passed,afterall they all want the easy way don't they?
They all want that extra boost to thier parties,some fresh brains to eat and appease to retain or to gain thier persoanl power.All that is needed is for them to go into that room and close that door,forget that there are people that have lived in this country all thier lives,bled sweated and died for it and give all peoples but those peoples what THEY deserve,what they have earned.It's easy,that first hit the one idiot will take is a doosey but it's all caviar after that.
The longer stay was never a doubt and no surprise and those who thought otherwise are the fools who keep electing the fools.
Maybe this next election will be different.
Perhaps there is someone who is now running to fill that oh so comfy seat will win because the fools have seen the light as that great and noble future leader has seen the light.
Go back to sleep fools that drool on your pillow will be there when you next arouse from your slumber to do your great and honorable part.
Maintaining a low-profile footprint in the form of isolated airbases is the right strategy. The Democrats have the right answer for the wrong reason, and are supported by the majority of the electorate. Schumer talks of switching the mission to ‘Anti-terror’ from the current police action.
We have built massive, bomb-proof airbases that go for miles and miles in north, west, and central Iraq. They are surrounded by large swaths of no-man’s-land criss-crossed with barbed wire fences. Our men should be in these bases. The mission should be readiness, so when the rules eventually change, the Russians and Chinese won’t control the oil.
We need a dose of walk softly with a big stick. We’ve been doing the exact opposite for the last five years.
Pez wrote:
"Maintaining a low-profile footprint in the form of isolated airbases is the right strategy. The Democrats have the right answer for the wrong reason, and are supported by the majority of the electorate."
Agreed. Substantial US withdrawal is the way to go, but not from a position of weakness.
No more policing the Islamic sects that want to destroy each other. They should be encouraged to do so, unencumbered by a US presence.
When re-deployment is complete, attack on Iran's nuclear and military infrastructure should commence post-haste. No more "boots on the ground", bogging down our limited military infantry resources with little to nothing to show for it.
'We have built massive, bomb-proof airbases that go for miles and miles in north, west, and central Iraq. They are surrounded by large swaths of no-man’s-land criss-crossed with barbed wire fences. Our men should be in these bases. The mission should be readiness, so when the rules eventually change, the Russians and Chinese won’t control the oil.'
-PEZ
The point is, we could be off the damned energy dependance if we had invested the close to 1 trillion in Iraq on alternative energy solutions. We would not need to be bogged down in the quagmire, at great expense to American lives and cost. We could have let the Russians and Chinese fight it out over their damned oil, and all the negative political ramifications that go along with it. The problem is, the administration does not get that the massive flow of currency to the Middle East's ONLY resource , oil, is responsible for the spread of terrorism through petrodollars - as well as intertwining us irrovoquably to the Saudi's da'wa and mosque funding. Of course, Bush and Cheney have great personla fortune to be gained by allowing Haliburton to gain a foothold to oil reserves while turning a blkind eye to the true terror source. We have the technology; we need to turn to funding massive research instead of projects like the Iraq neverending disaster.
While I don't want to berate the message intended, I know a better source of info can be had than the "Militant Socilaist Neo-Bolshevik Communications", same bunch who kiss up to kooks like rosie o'commie, and that greenpeace militant FRAUD masquerading as a combat expert william arkin, who got called the fraud he is, calling our troops "paid mercenaries" (through the very same washington post)and unhinged disparaging remarks more approp from pravda and islamic republic news.
We can do better than this source to get the point across.
Foehammer writes:
FYI, Pentagon and Bush Administration documents that were recently declassified under the Freedom of Information Act prove conclusively that the Bush Administration NEVER had a long term plan to deal with Iraq after the Saddam regime was ousted. Take a look for yourself:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB214/index.htm
The "plan," such as it was, assumed NO SIGNIFICANT INSURGENCY. And it even assumed an intact Iraqi security force. Most Iraqis, it was assumed, would just pitch in to start building a new democratic society. And the U.S. would be able to start withdrawing its troops--by now all the troops were supposed to be out of Iraq except for a token force of 5,000.
THAT was the plan.
And it failed.
Foehammer writes:
FYI, Pentagon and Bush Administration documents that were recently declassified under the Freedom of Information Act prove conclusively that the Bush Administration NEVER had a long term plan to deal with Iraq after the Saddam regime was ousted. Take a look for yourself:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB214/index.htm
The "plan," such as it was, assumed NO SIGNIFICANT INSURGENCY. And it even assumed an intact Iraqi security force. Most Iraqis, it was assumed, would just pitch in to start building a new democratic society. And the U.S. would be able to start withdrawing its troops--by now all the troops were supposed to be out of Iraq except for a token force of 5,000.
THAT was the plan.
And it failed.
Foehammer,
The situation you describe (numbers of Muslims in America) will not be solved by attacking Iran. There are twenty-one other Muslim countries also sending their people here. It can only be solved by KEEPING THEM OUT OF THE US.
You're not worried about the "handful of professional soldiers"? So when are you going to sign up and go over there? (Heaven help me, I'm beginning to sound like a Democrat!)
I have no doubt that our soldiers can do the job if called upon. The question is: should we ask it of them and does the world have any right to ask it of us without contributing to the effort?
Outlawing Islam will not help. Destroying the Muslim bases will. I understand what you're saying but there's just one problem:
WE CAN"T DO IT ALONE!
Not only do we need the rest of our "allies", we need the Iranian people to show us they mean business. We don't have the numbers that we had in 1990. Clinton practically cut the army in half, when the cold war ended. The Iranian people are going to have to be willing to fight the mullahs and the [whatever] guard and they are going to have to be willing to kill their fellow Iranians in order to have freedom. Are they up to the task? Are they willing? The few soldiers we have cannot run a hostile country unless you want them to use an iron fist. No one on the streets after dark, shooting first and asking questions later, not worrying about "civilian" casualties.
It's not 1945. Heck, it's not even 1985. We don't have the support that is needed to do this job. The rest of the world is going to have to suffer first before Americans take the blame for everything that goes wrong in Iran, as it did in Iraq.
Everyone knows that no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy but the US has been hung out to dry because Turkey abandoned us (some ally!) and the French and Russians were doing business with Saddam in violation of the sanctions and the US was left holding the bag.
When we do the world's dirty work we get little to no assistance and other countries benefit from our cleaning up the mess THEY made and American taxpayers are stuck with the tab.
NO MORE.
STOP ALL MUSLIM IMMIGRATION. Heck, STOP ALL MUSLIM TRAVEL to the US. No student visas, no tourist visas.
Our soldiers are here to protect US, not to protect the rest of the world. People who want to join the fight are welcome.
Take Nancy Pelosi as your model. She promised the immigration bill would not come up for a vote without at least seventy Republicans backing it.
We should follow a similar line. We do ZIP in Iran without at least FIFTY countries backing it and all of NATO in for the long haul and every NATO country contributing ten thousand troops at a minimum. No country will be allowed to withdraw its troops prematurely (as so many have done in Iraq).
Normally I would agree with you, but the Iraq experience shows me that the world needs to join us. We can't force them and if they don't see a problem then they will have to deal with the ramifications of doing nothing. We have to stop assuming responsibility for the welfare of the world. Worry about this country.
The paradigm is Europe in WWII. If the Europeans had stood up to Hitler when he seized the Sudetenland rather than give in to his demands in order to have "peace in our time" they might have avoided the second world war. Now they and the Arabs are doing something similar with Iran. Ahmadinejead's recent threat to attack many countries if the US bombs their nuclear sites illustrates the problem. Are these countries willing to risk it or do they want Iran placated? If they choose the latter then it will only delay the moment of reckoning. By not fighting now they will have to fight later, but that is what most will choose: kick the can down the road and hope it goes away. Unless they decide to act responsibly they will risk being destroyed.
That means backing up those inane UN resolutions with action. That means every permanent member must join in the fight because they passed the resolution. Every one of them has a military. That should be the price of permanent membership on the Security Council. Be willing to back up every resolution you pass with the blood of your own soldiers. The US and Britain are the only ones doing it. That has to stop.
"A reduction of troops, some officials argue, would demonstrate to anti-American factions that the occupation will not last forever while reassuring Iraqi allies that the United States does not intend to abandon the country."
Let's analyze the above a bit. A reduction in troops will certainly demonstrate that the occupation will not last forever, but that will encourage the jihadis to think they're winning, and only increase the violence, and Iraqi allies will begin to jump from the allied ship. The above is just wishful thinking, just like the thinking that got us into this mess in the first place.
PMK...I agree with you about stopping Islam, but to depend on the UN for much of anything is risky.
If the US must be dependant on all the thing's you listed, we might as well forget it.
I dont know if you are demanding foreign support (50 country's) because you think Iran is too tough for the US to whip, or you want their support on the general principal of doing their share.
The UN membership have made it a career to vote against the US, and Israel, whenever possible. I dont think they would be willing to enforce their resolution's. They never have an they never will...
Foehammer,
Thinking "outside the system"--what is considered acceptable--is discouraged in the military as well as most organizations. Any officer rising to General will rather go with the flow than splash and make waves--if he values his career, retirement, etc.
The hope that there are "real Generals" out there somewhere is just that: a hope. The much-touted Petrakis, the other hot-shots and experts that have been fielded in Iraq could not come up with a solution.
The prevalent emphasis on "working with the population," in the hope that it will point out the "insurgents," al qaedas, and Shi'ite militia bully-boys, is worth as much as the hope that a General worth his salt will come to the fore and solve the Gordian knot that is Iraq.
And sadly, there are no Alexanders in our leadership.
Ummmm, that same gwu "archive" came from the very same fraud, william arkin, I mentioned.
I wouldn't put an ounces worth of pI$$ into anything that fraud says, since his entire position has been exposed for what is was/is.
Let's find something credible, arkin's isn't it.
Too many people do not take the threat of nuclear terror seriously enough.
Iran's ambition have to be squashed. There is no way around this.
Everything else discussed here is meaningless the moment such a weapon detonates on American soil. And if our leaders are not taking every precaution to stop such an outcome, then they are traitors.
Unfortunately, the Islamists themselves are probably right: in order to save our democratic nations we will have to reconstruct our own governments. Omar Bakri said so himself in a partial interview I managed to catch from the "Islam vs Islamists" film that PBS is trying to hard to keep us from seeing. They know how to use our systems of government to defeat us and to pave the way for Islam right in our own backyards. They laugh at us, knowing that either way we have lost something, and because they have a taste for violence and death, they believe we can not defeat them regardless.
The Islamic Glacier, as I like to call it, just keeps moving.
If current trends continue and people lack the will to spill blood and sacrifice some of their own to save the United States and Europe, then Bakri is simply one very astute terrorist clergyman. And there are many more ready to take his place when he is gone.
The Islamic Glacier, as I like to call it, just keeps moving
Foehammer...
Remind's me of 'The Blob'. Ate everything in sight and jusy kept growing. Also 'creeping meatballism', come's to mind, that's Islamic hegemony.
I like how Jihad Watch can look at this objectively and pragmatically, instead of having jingoistic flag-waving about fighting evil, spreading democracy and supporting the troops. I really can't stand the way many conservatives just blindly support the Iraq war because it's patriotic and God bless America.
Since we're gonna stay our troops should retreat into fortified enclaves and let the iraqi military do the patrols and contract the iraqi civilians to deliver goods and services. In the meantime we need notify civilians and start the continuous bombing of the suspected hideouts of these ignorant bastard insurgents. One of our biggest mistakes was that we did not flood Bagdad with bureacrats and show them how to set up an independent united states of iraq. If we would have done that and strongly suggested to them to use our constitution as a primer maybe we would be somewhere today. But the fact is we have treated this conflict as a military problem from the beginning and did not look at the whole picture. Of course they are mostly muslim so I'm not sure that would have worked either.