Iraq Defense Minister Sees Need for U.S. Security Help Until 2018

...he is in deep doo doo, when the dhimmicrats takeover the Whitehouse, the American troops will be gone in 2009..

Sounds like the Aribian King Fahd.
"I summon my blue-eyed slaves anytime it pleases me. I command the Americans to send me their bravest soldiers to die for me. Anytime I clap my hands a stupid genie called the American ambassador appears to do my bidding. When the Americans die in my service their bodies are frozen in metal boxes by the US Embassy and American airplanes carry them away, as if they never existed. Truly, America is my favorite slave."
King Fahd Bin Abdul-Aziz, Jeddeh 1993
E-Mail Address - sauduction@sauduction.com

Sure, why should they make any effort to be self-sufficient,to defend their own country, when America will do it for them?

Keep the US and coalition forces over there, drain the economies and the morale of the countries that help you, while infiltrating their governments and schools. All the better for islam, it will make it easier to reach the ultimate goal, the world-wide caliphate.

And most importantly, He wants the Jizya to Iraq to continue forever.

About the only good thing I see a Democratic administration doing is removing the troops
from Iraq, which is the wish of both the American and Iraqi public by a large majority.

"Finally, in almost all of the universities as of this writing, student religious fanatics rule the dormitories, the hallways, and the classrooms, sometimes backed up by local police forces now infiltrated and controlled by militias loyal to the Sistani/Hakim branch of 'moderate' Shiite ideology or attached to the even fiercer brand of zealotry of Sadr's black-shirted Mahdi army. Intimidations, beatings, and murder in the name of modesty, of orthodoxy of religious belief and interpretation, and of conformity to Islamic mores and customs are pervasive on today's university campuses. I know it's considered politically unhelpful to say it, but it is nonetheless true there is today considerably less everyday freedom on the campuses of most Iraqi universities than there were under Saddam. Operation Iraqi Freedom unleashed the dark and despotic underside of the Iraqi soul..."

John Agresto - Mugged By Reality

By the year 2018, in the countries of Western Europe, the Muslim population will have swelled further. Attempts to silence all critics of Islam will continue. They will continue in every way, through political pressure, as has been done in the case of Will Cummins (fired from the British Council for a handful of very mild articles critical of Islam), or through death threats, sometimes against individuals (as now limit the mobility, and life, of Geert Wilders, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali -- the latter having had to leave the Netherlands, where like Wilders she was a member of the Dutch Parliament, for the United States), or against whole peoples (all of the Danes were threatened with death in Muslim lands, because of those cartoons published in Jyllands-Posten), or not merely death threats made, but death threats carried out, as has happened to translators of Rushdie, to Pim Fortuyn (leader of an important Dutch political movement), to Theo van Gogh.

Western politicians, of the craven sort, will -- are already -- pandering to Muslim voters, and so far a countervailing force, that of non-Muslim voters intent, as they should be, on voting out of office any politicians who are not alarmed, and willing to act on their alarm, about Islam and what it means for the legal and political institutions, what it means for art, science, education, social arrangements and understandings, in non-Muslim lands that, full of people who are busy proving themselves not up to the measure of those who created the civilizational legacy they inherited, at least must recognize that legacy and must do what they can to defend it from those in whose lands those who created that legacy -- Spinoza, Hume, Leonardo, Shakeseare -- could not have been produced or survived, even for one minute.

Meanwhile the most powerful country, the United States, is being asked to continue to squander fantastic resources -- men, money, materiel, and morale, both civilian and military -- for another ten years, in Tarbaby Iraq.

Let us review exactly what has been spent so far. And then let us review the explanation, and the coherence of that explanation, for continuing to remain in Iraq to achieve certain goals.

First, there is the expense.

Let's start with the human cost. Nearly 4,000 troops have been killed. Nearly 30,000 have been seriously wounded. The morale of the army is low. The young officers -- those who are not close enough to promotion to a level at which certain benefits accrue -- are leaving. The captains are leaving. Why are they leaving? What does this mean? And where will the officers of tomorrow come from? The recruitment of new soldiers (and Marines) has required all kinds of things: a lowering of educational and other requirements, at a time when warfare becomes ever more complicated. Who, today, will join the National Guard, or the Reserves, knowing how the members of both were so exploited, and their trust in what they thought they had signed up for repeatedly and blatantly abused, by the Pentagon, in sending them not merely once, to Iraq, but in some cases several times, as if they had no right to make the assumptions they did make, when they first signed up for the Reserves, or for the National Guard. Who will sign up for the army, if the army is committed to being in Iraq, Tarbaby Iraq, for the next ten years?

And what will the financial cost be, and how well can we bear this cost, when our own country is so clearly in economic distress, its infrastructure (those roads, those bridges, those schools) falling down, its manufacturing being shipped abroad to low-cost producers, and a kind of savage sauve-qui-peut dickensian capitalism destroying or at least putting on permanent edge the middle class, without which this becomes merely one very large Banana Republic, with malefactors of great wealth enjoying their fantastic returns, while all the rest of us scramble, waiting and hopiong for the muckrakers (Ida Tarbell, Upton Sinclair, Gustavus Myers) to appear, waiting for those who recognize the injustices to do something intelligent, before marxisant pied-pipers appear to lead too many astray.

But how will the country, if it continues to make Tarbaby Iraq its project, and attempt to keep attaining goals that are both unattainable -- always receding into the distance, the desert equivalent of a swamp's ignis fatuus or will-o'-the-wisp -- manage to turn its attention to other things, one of them being domestic disarray, and the other being the world-wide Jihad that will continue, no matter what happens in Iraq, and will indeed be strengthened by our refusal to understand that the correct outcome, from our point of view, is not a unified and prosperous Iraq, but an Iraq that serves as a fault line for Sunni-Shi'a hostlilities, that ideally will be a source of constant unsettlement for Iraq's Muslim neighbors, and that will, in the best of circumstances, lead both Shi'a Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia to spend their money, send their men, expend their war materiel, in support of their co-religionists. And it would be good, too, if the Kurds were to throw off entirely the Arab yoke, not because we need be sentimental about them, but because the issue of Arab supremacism, of Islam as a vehicle for that Arab supremacism, could be a powerful force in causing non-Arab Muslims – who make up 80% of the world’s Muslims -- to begin to question, first the use of Islam by the Arabs to manipulate non-Arab Muslims, and then, just possibly, Islam itself. If the Berbers, for example, were to be heartened by the example of a free Kurdistan, that would be, for Infidels, useful. If those unhappy with “the Arab example” in Indonesia, could play on local distrust or dislike of those Arabs, and hence bring Islam itself into question, that too would be good. And any force that serves to divide and demoralize the Camp of Islam is to be encouraged, and Iraq, if the Americans not only cease to try so hard to attain a unified state, but leave, understanding full well that the attitudes and atmospherics of Islam will never allow the Shi’a to surrender what they have won, and never allow the Sunnis to acquiesce in their new, inferior status – for Islam posits only Victor and Vanquished, and Western notions of sweet reason and compromise are not known. The Qur’an, Hadith, Sira, are all about two kinds of humanity – the Believers and the Infidels – but the attitudes carry over into intra-Muslim conflict. So if one group of Muslims does appear to be making an agreement with enemies (Shi’a with Sunnis, or Arabs with non-Arab Muslims), the same attitudes are reflected, carry over, as is only natural. And any agreement made, any concessions seemingly offered, are not permanent or deeply meant, but are observed only until one side feels itself able to gain more by breaking whatever agreement it has made.

The Americans in Iraq are now so deeply involved in the task at hand, that they – from General Petraeus on down to the kristols and kagans here at home – cannot, it appears, see that the phrase “the surge is working” means little, means nothing. “Working” for what? Working so that Sunnis and Shi’a will get along, permanently? And why is that a good thing? How does that help the United States, or the countries of NATO, with the Islamic threat in southern Thailand, southern Sudan, southern Nigeria? Or the Muslim threat in France, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Great Britain, Spain, Italy? How does making Iraq a place that is not a source of conflict between Sunnis and Shi’a or a conceivable example, in its north, of a non-Arab Muslim people successfully breaking free of Muslims, useful to us, in trying to contain, to constrain, the world-wide Jihad that was made possible not because of a change in Islamic doctrine, but by changes in the wherewithal (those OPEC trillions, those millions of Muslim migrants now deep inside Dar al-Harb, those technological advances that make the dissemination of the full message of Islam, both to Muslims and to targeted audiences of non-Muslims, that much easier), available to Muslims.

Ten more years in Tarbaby Iraq?

The result will be a still degradation in our armed forces, at a time when those forces need to be much stronger. It will be a further decline in civilian and military morale, a decline likely to make the message of those who do not wish us to recognize, or deal with, the threat of Islam more attractive to those who are disheartened or disgusted by the waste in Iraq. And meanwhile the Arabs and Muslims, having been rescued – by the Americans sacrificing their men, spending their money, using up their war materiel – from the fissures, sectarian and ethni c, that Iraq presents to us on a platter (if only we’d just remove the lid, and look inside) – will continue to pile up those trillions in unmerited oil wealth,and use more of it to pay for mosques, madrasas, campaigns of Da’wa all over the Infidel world, the buying up of still more Western hirelings, and arms purchases, of the most sophisticated and dangerous weaponry.

It’s a fantastic folly, and the folly is shared not only by those pushing it – those “the surge is working” boys – but by those who, while opposed to the war in Iraq, are opposed for all the wrong reasons, and so have failed to present the intelligent reasons for opposing that war.

What are those reasons again? For the thousandth time at this website: the reason is that Islam is a menace, but “terrorism” is not the only instrument of Jihad, and certainly not the most effective one. If the meaning, and menace, of Jihad is understood aright,then the recognition, and exploitation, of the pre-existing fissures – sectarian and ethnic – within Iraq – will naturally be seen not as something to work against, but to welcome, and to do nothing to discourage.

But mental inertia by some, loyalty to Bush and to a misconceived idea of what constitutes “victory” in Iraq, and inability to recognize Islam (or, if you prefer, the “Jihad”) as a permanent menace, one that cannot be done away with, one that is not a “problem” to be “solved” (any more than the Lesser Jihad against Israel is a “problem” susceptible of a “solution,” including that “two-state solution” we hear so ridiculously much about) but a situation to be handled, explains the continued presence, a presence that is just swell by many Iraqis – the ones who are making out like gangbusters with American money, tossed to them like confetti, and American soldiers delaying any reaal need to come to grips with Iraq’s problems.

The Iraqis are merely being as grasping and meretricious as one would expect. But the Americans alas, are being even more ignorant, even more obstinate in the varieties of their ignorance, than one would ever have expected.

That is what disappoints. That is what more than disappoints, but sends one into a fury at the mental level – the dumbing up, not dumbing down – of our political and media elites.

We can’t take ten more years of this colossal folly in Iraq. We can’t take two more years of it.

"The Iraqi defense minister said Monday that his nation would not be able to take full responsibility for its internal security until 2012, nor be able on its own to defend Iraq’s borders from external threat until at least 2018."

Then the government of Iraq is not sovereign and it shouldn't be treated as such.

Asking for assistance is one thing. Saying they can't take full responsibility means they can't take any responsibility. That means they aren't in power. That means they don't belong in any international body. Iraq is not a nation.

Hugh's right, it's a bum deal.
Why would Iraq, or any intelligent leader anywhere, want to send away the cash cow? I need a couple of those myself, but Bush refuses to put me on the cash cow list no matter how many time I have asked him.
Instead, he takes my money (and yours) and 'gives'
it away like there was no tomorrow. And if he and his his fellows continue this policy into the future, we will be broke, and defeated.
This is just another time that the political establishment have presented the voters with candidates that are good for globalist, but bad for citizens, and the country. No matter who is elected we will probably get a Bush clone. I don't think President Hillary will smooch with King Abdullah, but that is only because smooching with women is not allowed, smooching with men, apparently is. So when Bush gets done frolicking with Abdullah, he may very well stop by Baghdad, and smooch and frolic with Makiki. He can deliver a few suitcases full of cash on his stop. How sweet it is, and an excellent road map for his successor to follow...

Never forget, that poor people will beg for money under any guise they can come up with! This is a double-edged sword. They will say what we and our leaders want to hear - they are excellent at that.

Will President Hillary wear the hijab when dealing with Arab leaders or when she goes to an American mosque?

““terrorism” is not the only instrument of Jihad, and certainly not the most effective one.”

Posted by Hugh above.

Until March 11, 2004, I would have argued that terrorism can be counter-productive to the jihad because a devastating attack can serve to energize the counter-jihad. The best jihad strategy is to continue to emigrate to the West and have many children. Islam has no official timeline so so-what if that takes another hundred years or more. (Yes, some demographic studies indicate a shorter time-line.) There seems to be no awareness as to this danger among Western leaders, and even if there were awareness, there is no political will to stop it.

On March 11, 2004, the terrorists scored their greatest political victory at the ballot box with the Madrid bombings.

1. Before attacks, most polls predict an Aznar victory.
2. Bombs go of, many die.
3. Group responsible is a loosely affiliated Al-Queda group.
4. One of Group’s goals is to influence the election so that Aznar will be defeated.
5. Spanish voters turn Aznar administration out of office.

Yes, some argue that Aznar lost because of his government’s bungling of the investigation. While I reject this hypothesis, even if it were true, Al-Queda still won a huge political victory. They were able to affect the ballot-box without even needing to vote.

The Spanish people awarded the very villains who set off the bombs by giving them exactly what they wanted. The lesson Al-Queda learned is that terrorism can pay because much of the West is spineless. This will only serve to increase future attacks. I believe that a devastating attack can still serve to energize the counter-jihad, but Madrid shows that terrorism can pay huge dividends.

"When the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down."
G. Bush Aug 11, 2005
That was always my favorite.

I know it's considered politically unhelpful to say it, but it is nonetheless true there is today considerably less everyday freedom on the campuses of most Iraqi universities than there were under Saddam.

I am sure there isn't any more freedom that that at Columbia U. So don't sweat Iraq. We got this right here at home.