Fair Weather Friends
Unlike Dick Cheney most of us are having a hard time finding signs of progress in Iraq. Al Qaeda is stirring the pot as enthusiastically as ever, reconstruction has basically ended while violence makes building unfeasible. Bloody civil war, reprisals and counter-reprisals and even the safety of our own troops (how many helicopters have we lost in the last two weeks?) seem to indicate a country that is slowly, inexorably circling the drain.
It could be that Cheney had in mind the 300,000+ new Iraqi forces that we’ve trained and equipped. In a happy world where everything works exactly as advertised, that would be a great point. Too bad we don’t live in that world.
U.S. Army commanders and enlisted men who are patrolling east Baghdad, which is home to more than half the city’s population and the front line of al-Sadr’s campaign to drive rival Sunni Muslims from their homes and neighborhoods, said al-Sadr’s militias had heavily infiltrated the Iraqi police and army units that they’ve trained and armed.“Half of them are JAM. They’ll wave at us during the day and shoot at us during the night,” said 1st Lt. Dan Quinn, a platoon leader in the Army’s 1st Infantry Division, using the initials of the militia’s Arabic name, Jaish al Mahdi. “People (in America) think it’s bad, but that we control the city. That’s not the way it is. They control it, and they let us drive around. It’s hostile territory.”
[...] After U.S. units pounded al-Sadr’s men in August 2004, the cleric apparently decided that instead of facing American tanks, he’d use the Americans’ plans to build Iraqi security forces to rebuild his own militia.
So while Iraq’s other main Shiite militia, the Badr Brigade, concentrated in 2005 on packing Iraqi intelligence bureaus with high-level officers who could coordinate sectarian assassinations, al-Sadr went after the rank and file.
His recruits began flooding into the Iraqi army and police, receiving training, uniforms and equipment either directly from the U.S. military or from the American-backed Iraqi Defense Ministry.
The infiltration by al-Sadr’s men, coupled with his strength in Iraq’s parliament after U.S.-backed elections, gave him leeway to operate death squads throughout the capital, according to more than a week of interviews with American soldiers patrolling Baghdad. Some U.S.-trained units carried out sectarian killings themselves, while others, manning checkpoints, allowed militiamen to pass.
Keeping in mind that the army and the militias are one and the same, it seems difficult to come up with a workable strategy for imposing American will on Iraq. By ourselves we lack the manpower to do much more than defend our own bases. Even when we “surge” in to Baghdad we won’t have the force to clear neighborhoods and then hold them. Without the help of the militia-infused Iraqi forces we end up stuck in an endless game of whack-a-mole while the bandits clear out ahead of us and then reform after we move on.
Real power in Iraq now rests with the major Shia power brokers, Muqtada al-Sadr and the Iranain-backed parties. America can’t change that. All that we can do now is go on bleeding until either politics or readiness constraints pulls the plug.
The Sunni minority, of course, knows what’s coming and our Sunni allies in the mideast are understandably frantic about it. We owe it to the mideast to maintain enough force to dissuade Turkey and Iran from going in and to prevent the bloody civil war from going out, but to be honest I expect that the president’s quixotic windmill quest won’t even leave us with that option. By the time reality makes it through the bubble there may be nothing left to do but come home.
jake
Gosh. What a huge surprise. I mean, who would have thought they’d be clever enough to figure out: Free weapons + free training + free official uniform + get to know one enemy = A lot more power?
However, I don’t think there was any realistic way to stop this especially when you consider the time frame. After a decade of nothing but occupation? Sure. In the middle of trying to rebuild a country and dodge bullets while a civil war heats up? Forget it.
Otto Man
Come on, Tim. Clap louder!
Pb
Yep, I saw this coming. Not that the media has been making the obvious connection—’insurgents’ with US/Iraqi military looking outfits, equipment, vehicles… where could they possibly have gotten those? Then again, I guess it can work both ways sometimes.
Faux News
Tim,please allow me to pre-empt Darrell:
1. Why do you hate our troops?
2. Why do you want Iran to get Nuk-lee-ar Weapons?
Punchy
Jake nails it. It’s much more than just the guns and ammo they’re rooking. It’s the training BY US forces so that they later KNOW US forces when they battle. No wonder they’re so disgustingly effective…
Jonathan
The US Army’s own manual (just rewritten by Gen Petreus) on counter insurgency operations (COIN) calls for a troop to population ratio of 20 troops for every 1000 civilians. Iraq’s population is roughly 26 million, so we should have roughly 520,000 troops in country to do a COIN operation.
How many troops do we have in country now?
Bahdad’s population is 6 million so we should have 120,000 troops in Baghdad alone.
Zifnab
To the first, there are large areas of Iraq without any serious sectarian violence. Most of the insurgency and bloodshed takes place in the major cities – Bagdad, Kirkut, Anbar – and squelching it there is the main issue.
But yeah, that’s a problem. I’m with Otto on this. We require more clapping.
Also, tax cuts.
Pb
Jonathan,
According to a recent report from the Brookings Institute, it’d take at least 450,000 troops, because they exclude Kurdistan (“which hopefully would remain stable”). Also note that I wouldn’t be surprised if Iraq’s population is currently lower than 26 million due to the number of people who have died or fled:
tBone
“The idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. forces I think is far off the mark.” – Rummy
Wilfred
Tim says:
We can’t change it because we enabled it; by A) Disbanding the Army, and b) De-Baathification. The Administration will try to frame this as a heroic, well-intended mistake, while not mentioning the high probability that the current mess was the desired result.
Bush doesn’t care, in fact Muslims killing Muslims is best case scenario for Americangelical foreign policy.
Mukhtar Limani, the Arab League Ambassador and de facto spokesman for Sunni Muslims resigned last week. Take a look at his comments http://www.iraqslogger.com
Jonathan
The manual for the COIN operation is predicated on starting immediately after the cessation of kinetic combat. There has been over three years now for the insurgency to gain momentum and the troop levels called for in the manual probably will not be adequate to quell an already raging insurgency.
ThymeZone
I call for more troops at Balloon-Juice. Insurgents caused an all-night crash and outage last evening.
So, who tripped over the power cord?
Zifnab
There’s only one solution to this problem, and I’ve said it many times before, is a Time Machine.
We go back in time and kill Dinosaur Jesus. Then none of this ever happens.
Jonathan
A COIN operation is more akin to police work than to kinetic combat (what our troops are trained for). Police work requires being able to communicate with the local population. Our troops are woefully untrained in speaking Arabic.
If we were truly serious about pacifying Iraq, all our trigger pullers would be intensively trained in Arabic. This is not happening as of this moment.
Pb
Yeah, good luck with that. No, if we were really serious and/or competent in our prosecution of this, we’d have at least one or two guys in each unit who could speak Arabic (and English) decently—but all of them? No way that’s happening.
scarshapedstar
Tell us about the schools.
Jonathan
Every trigger puller in Iraq should be equipped with a laptop with RosettaStone language training sofware for Arabic. Their commanders should be ordering them to spend off duty time studying Arabic.
RSA
You know, if I were President right now, I’d be running around like a chicken with its head cut off: “How could this have happened?! We’re totally fucked!” Bush and Cheney, not so much. While my first thought is, “I want some of the meds they’re on,” I honestly think my reaction would lead to better solutions than what we’re seeing from these guys.
cleek
Tell us about the schools
it’s best to avoid them.
Jonathan
REMFs should be training in Arabic also but that is not as important as they do not come into contact with the population as much as trigger pullers.
AkaDad
This is all hogwash!
Andrew
Of all the stupid military neologisms, “kinetic” ranks among the worst. A “kinetic weapon” is fine. Using it to describe operations is silly. Holy shit, you mean you’re moving during an invasion? Let’s repurpose words to make shit sound flashy.
Stupid terminology + PowerPoint Rangers = piss me off.
Pb
No way I’m letting you get near defense appropriations. Look, I think they could find a few native speakers somewhere to hold classes…
Pb
Andrew,
I think ‘kinetic’ works nicely as a counterpoint to ‘potential’ combat. But yeah, it’s not quite the same. :)
tBone
Yeah, I think that would go over well. After a 12-hour patrol, there’s nothing a soldier would rather do than study Arabic on a laptop.
It would be nice if every soldier knew Arabic; it would also be nice if they each got a pony at the conclusion of their tour. Neither is going to happen.
Jonathan
Compared to what we already spend to recruit, train, equip, transport and support our troops, a laptop is a drop in the bucket.
Besides, a lot of them already have their own laptops anyway.
tBone
What would become of ThymeZone’s yard guy then? I don’t think you’ve thought through the potential consequences.
The Heretik : Locals Rule
[...] The tribes aren’t going anywhere. Americans eventually will. The tribes know all clocks run on Baghdad time. Let the whack-a-mole games begin. Let us work with the Iraqi army that is the militia that is the army. Let our army surge under our general Petraeus, but let the Iraqis take the lead with their army which is the militia which is the army under their own chain of command. Let us continue to be chained to our own illusions as we really yank the Iraqi chain. [...]
tBone
I think we should take care of the basics before we worry about equipping everyone with laptops.
Jonathan
We train all of our trigger pullers in all the other skills needed for combat, why not language training also.
And also as to the cost of training. The value of a single life is considered to be around $6 million. How many troops do you have to save before any cost of laptops and software will be more than compensated for by lives saved.
An armored Hummer costs around 250k, for instance. How many of those have we lost so far?
chopper
i don’t think you understand the ‘gravity’ of this situation. we don’t want the us army to be seen as a ‘weak force’. just the sort of thing i’d expect from the ‘pions’ in the blog world.
Jonathan
If it was likely to save your life or keep you from disabling injury you might feel differently.
Troops do as they are ordered, that is the culture and training of the military. You don’t ask questions, you just say “aye aye sir” (I was a Marine) and go do what you are told.
Jonathan
Do you have any suggestions for alternative terms?
Pb
How about ‘ongoing’, or ‘active’. Or in the case of ‘kinetic combat’—how about ‘combat’? Or just get a thesaurus, sheesh.
Jonathan
We’ve lost 3,000 troops so far at a cost of 6,000,000 each. That comes to 18 billion. Injured troops cost even more than that what with often extensive medical care and
Paddy O'Shea
The big winner in this war is Iran. All they have to do is stand by until we pull our troops out of Iraq, and then they just waltz on in to fill the vacuum.
Sure hope Tehran appreciates all the hard work we’ve done taking care of their Sunni enemies.
Andrew
Indeed. I thought that combat was straightforward enough, but apparently not. We can also call invasions invasions and occupations occupations.
Acronyms are one thing, but it really pisses me off that even the top brass brings this Orwellian silly talk to press conferences.
Jonathan
Combat would include trench warfare which is hardly kinetic and is not what our troops are trained for.
Active would also include trench warfare as would ongoing.
I didn’t coin the term, I’m just using the commonly accepted phrase that is used throughout the the US military.
Pb
At least.
Actually, all told, it’s probably more than that, even.
Jake
There are a couple of hand-held devices that are hyped-up versions of those little [foreign language] to English calculator thingies in development. The problem is…they’re in development and so far they don’t work that well. More money for contractors though!
(Yes, I’m looking for a link to the story)
Pb
Jonathan,
Here you go:
Soo… combat. Works for me.
Jonathan
A car bomb is a VBIED in miltalk. Vehicle Based Improvised Explosive Device.
Lot easier to say car bomb than VBIED.
Pb
Jonathan,
Yep. Just another reason to say what you mean instead of sticking in extra—and often unnecessary—jargon.
Jake
Handheld translators.
Jonathan
The link wouldn’t open for me.
But a COIN operation is a form of combat, it’s just much lower intensity than kinetic combat. You are still killing folks, you just aren’t killing as many or as fast and you’re not moving around nearly as much.
US forces are trained and equipped to be highly mobile. A method of warfare that has existed since the Wehrmacht Blitzkrieged into Poland and has only become even more mobile ever since.
fester
Jake, Carnegie Mellon University is working on a bunch of translation machines if that will help your search out.
Jonathan
Actually, this is wrong. The OK city bomb was ammonium nitrate/fuel oil/nitromethane combination. A straight ammonium nitrate/fuel oil bomb wouldn’t have had nearly the destructive potential to do the damage that was done.
Nitromethane is the fuel used in top fuel dragsters, along with a smidgen of alcohol.
Andrew
Why don’t we hear more about provised explosive devices?
If a bomb is designed and purpose built, such as those we are accusing Iran of importing, isn’t it not “improvised,” by definition?
tBone
Troops do as they are ordered, that is the culture and training of the military. You don’t ask questions, you just say “aye aye sir” (I was a Marine) and go do what you are told.
I have a friend over there now; he’s picked up as much Arabic as he can, and would like to know more. The problem is, he’s also pulling long patrols, regularly going without sleep for 24-hour periods, dealing with paperwork, etc. etc.
I just don’t think it’s realistic to expect people who are over there now to study Arabic in their offhours. They have plenty to deal with already. Save the intensive language study for training/predeployment.
Jonathan
Well, Duh!
I guess none of these people have ever been to the UK, a small country with a wide range of dialects, some of which to the American ear aren’t even recognizable as English.
Jonathan
Another of the “planning for the occupation” chores that Rummy forbade his staff to do.
Even fifteen or thirty minutes a day of language training would help a lot.
ThymeZone
If you buy the thing ready to use, at Bombs-R-Us, that’s “provised.”
Or at a convenient McVeigh-Nichols Bombarama Drive Thru.
ThymeZone
Sorry, that’s “Obamarama.”
My bad.
Jonathan
You’re right of course. My info is that the IEDs are being mass produced, just where is anyone’s guess. Could be Iran, or even in Iraq itself, we just don’t have the troops to seal the borders and search for bomb making facilities.
ThymeZone
Sorry, that’s “Osama-bama-obomba-romba-bamalama-dingdong.”
tBone
I’m looking at you, Deep South.
Pb
mobile translators:
The U.S. army has granted a contract management of translation and interpretation services in Iraq to Global Linguistic Solutions (GLS) worth a maximum value of $4.645 billion over 5 years.
Err. On second thought, what were you saying about laptops? Anyhow, my answer to both plans is still the same: “Look, I think they could find a few native speakers somewhere to hold classes…”.
tBone
Sorry, that’s “Osama-bama-obomba-romba-bamalama-dingdong.”
You forgot the “Hussein” in the middle.
Punchy
If Iran were smart, they’d install a puppet in Iraq and develop all their nukes in Iraq.
Imagine…the U.S. suddenly screaming “WMDs NOW IN IRAQ!!” and nobody, and I mean NOBODY, believing them or backing them up…genius, really.
Pb
Bzzzt, does not compute! That’d be a PED, or maybe a UED, or—actually, let’s just stick with ‘bomb’, ok?
ThymeZone
Or, the dreaded IUD.
ThymeZone
Sorry, I was just pulling your PUD.
Teak111
Late to the conversation but, once Amer troops pullback, malitia leaders will cleanse baghdad of sunnis, plain and simple. Are we trying to prevent this tragedy? I guess, but how long. Maliki needs to step up and say this won’t happen. But he can’t because his army, the illusionary Iraqy army, is infiltrated with malitia members. Ah, who cares, tomorrow I’m taking my kids to Disneyland, my son’s middle school band is playing and it will be a fun day. What the hell can I do, cept vote democrat in 08. We miss, you Molly. You made the Great state of Texas proud.
Jonathan
I think you misspelled “Brooklyn”.
Jake
Hell, the same thing occurs in the good old US of A. Especially when President Bush speaks.
Andrew
I don’t even mind ‘IED’ so much, when it’s an accurate description. But when the military and administration are contradicting themselves (and the pro-war press gleefully plays along) at a base semantic level on a regular basis, it’s a pretty clear indication that groupthink rules everything.
Not that this is anything new.
tBone
I think you misspelled “Brooklyn”.
Point taken. :)
Lee
Why?
1) Pull back to Kurdistan and protect them (letting them have Kirkuk).
2) Let Turkey and Iran kill all the others they want.
3) PROFIT!
/sarcarm off
As time goes on I am caring less and less about the ‘tragedy that might occur’ and just want our forces to get the fuck out.
Unless we are ready to start dropping nukes and killing off millions of Iraqis we no longer have the man power to pacify Iraq. So the sooner we leave the better.
If Iran and Turkey want to sharpen there swords in Iraq, have at it.
Jonathan
I did the math a few weeks ago and we have spent well over a million dollars per “bad guy” killed in Iraq. Depending on what proportion of those killed are innocent, the figure could be as high as eight to ten million per “bad guy”.
Put that in your bong and smoke it, eh?
Wilfred
In other acronyms, the NIE finally came out (see TPM):
Remember, just because there is a civil war doesn’t mean there’s a civil war. Because if there was a civil war it would be stupid to put even more Americans in the middle of it.
Computer translators are useless. I make good money re-working botched Spanish and Portuguese to English translations made with software; Arabic is far more complex than either. Try putting National Intelligence Estimate into Portuguese, for example. You may get Estimativa Nacional de Inteligência, or Estimativa da Inteligência Nacional, both of which would be rendered concretely back into English as National Estimate of Intelligence.
After 6+ years of Bush, what would you estimate?
Jonathan
And if you count the true cost of the Iraq war, the price per bad guy killed soars even higher than that.
http://niemanwatchdog.org/inde.....ndid=00138
Punchy
The prob with learning Arabic on one’s own, besides the fact that they read backwords and their alphabet involves “symbols” that a 4-year old would be embarrassed to draw, is that it would almost guarentee a visit by the CIA and entry on the no-fly list.
Seriously, can you imagine checking out 10 books on Arabic at the library, or purchasing on Amazon the same? Your phone’d be tapped faster than you could utter “reckdkgurk fcshoolie praise Allah”, or whatever “what the?” is in Arabic…
Jonathan
I’d like to see the troops out of Iraq too. But we are responsible for it. You can’t just set off a holocaust and walk away from it if you have any claim to “morality”.
Fe E
We have entered the very defintion of “no win situation.” Just bailing out after unleashing a civil war is immoral—but if staying only makes it worse, what purpose exists in that?
Well, at least it isn’t like modern life is pinned to ready access to a product which is only truly abundant in that region.
Oh wait, shit. Thanks neocons!
Andrew
This is completely and utterly wrong and this sort of thinking will get more Americans killed.
The “holocaust” in Iraq was set off as soon as Bush decided to invade.
There is no chance to “fix” Iraq with the present leadership.
Morality shot its wad a long time ago.
demimondian
Technically, Punchy, Arabic script is “bidirectional”. Text in the language itself is written right-to-left, but included text is written in the preferred direction of the language from which the included text is drawn. (So, a Hebrew quotation would be rtl, but a string of math is ltr, although an Arabic named item in the math would be rtl.)
demi “and don’t get me started on Thai or Kannada” mondian
Pb
Moreover, at this point, we’ll have a better shot at fixing it by leaving—we should largely get out of Iraq and retreat to the borders, and fund the UN and anyone else who will help stabilize things.
That is, except in Bush’s case, who would fuck that up too, at which point we should get Congress to ban us from ever setting foot in the Middle East as long as he’s President. (and incidentally that ban would probably do more to stabilize the Middle East and promote pro-American sentiment than anything Bush has ever done or will do in his life, which is probably why he wouldn’t stand for it!)
Jonathan
Who elected Bush?
The American people.
Try to keep the lid on with the troops we have.
Immediately draft one million more. We can have the first of them in country in about eight to nine months.
We inducted, trained, equipped and deployed 16 million troops in WWII for a war we didn’t even start and when the country had less than half the population it has today.
Jonathan
Nobody else has the manpower that even we have, not even close.
There is no moral alternative but to stay and do our utmost to help the Iraqi people in any possible way we can.
Zifnab
There is no chance to “fix” Iraq with the present leadership.
Morality shot its wad a long time ago.
I wouldn’t go that far. We could have successfully invaded and pacified Iraq, but as General Shinseki pointed out, we would have needed an extra 100k troops and an a higher amount of investment capital.
We could have listend to our generals. We could have planned for Phase 4 operations. We could have sent in seasoned and experienced diplomats rather than Bush appointed political hacks. Iraq very well could have tossed off the shackles of dictatorship and assumed the political freedoms of Lebanon or Jordan at the least. But then the focus would have been on nation building, not raping the collective US and Iraq Treasures. And like Bush pointed out during the 2000 elections, he doesn’t do nation building. Just tax cuts.
Personally, I believe the jury will be forever out on whether Iraq was the right decision, but we (minus the Darrells) can all agree that Bush was the wrong one.
Andrew
These are like the triple gainer of super-pony-rific alternate universe wishes are daisies thinking: things that did not happen, wouldn’t have happened, and will not happen.
There’s as much hope of initiating a draft of a million men with Bush as president as there is of Jessica Biel walking into my office before I finish typing this. (Though I dearly want both to happen.)
ThymeZone
Well, most Americans now think it was the wrong decision, what would reverse that trend?
Has—-Has Not—-Unsure
31———64—————5
As of about ten days ago.
Pb
The American people.
Not even a plurality of them, and on false pretenses, to boot:
Andrew
I would also point out that this is not just wishful thinking, but plain wrong. We could not have invaded with 400,000 troops because we did not have them. Admitting that we would need to double the size of the active Army and pay the honestly predicted hundreds of billions would have increased opposition to the point where we would not have invaded.
Going in to Iraq with only 150,000 troops was necessary for the war to be politically possible.
Lee
Jonathan,
I think the ‘all in’ scenario would only guarentee that we would be engaged in a war with most (if not all) of the major countries in the ME.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that ;)
ThymeZone
Well, that was then. After the coronation by the Lords of Scotus, a new George W. Bush, who had formerly only worked as a comedian, replaced the one who appeared in the campaign.
You can see him regularly now on the Tonight Show.
Lee
QFT
Pb
I doubt it—those idiots would have invaded anyhow. This war was already responsible for the largest protests ever before it even started! And then they invaded anyhow—quick, before the inspectors report back that they didn’t find WMDs! And I guarantee you that Cheney would have gone to war without authorization from the Congress—in fact, he said he would have for Gulf War I, but back then he was more marginalized by Powell and Scowcroft. For a while there, it didn’t even look like they were going to bother going to the UN, and if it wasn’t for Powell fighting for it, we probably wouldn’t have!
Tsulagi
Sadr’s story has been a real pisser. Years ago you could see he was positioning for a civil war. Stayed away from the first election pretending to be a friend of the Sunni then used subsequent elections to be part of the government ostensibly controlling the police and military forces his militia members had already helped populate. Isn’t a secret now, wasn’t a secret then. Smart little fat bastard hasn’t taken a seat in the Iraqi parliament or a cabinet position himself. After us, Iraqis blame their government for their problems.
Several years ago after Sadr’s Mahdi Army fought us killing U.S. soldiers, we issued arrest warrants for him. We went after him. Word among those in Iraq is that during one engagement we entered the building Sadr was holed up in to kill or capture when orders were received to stand down and return to base. Arrest warrants evaporated. We left Sadr pretty much alone after that.
The decision not to take out Sadr then was a political one, not military. Chalabi whispering in the ears of Cheney and his fellow brothers in arms in the administration. You can understand why they’d be charmed by him, they’re made of the same cloth. Which is probably why after we issued arrest warrants for Chalabi after we found he sold us out to Iran, the PNAC frat boys couldn’t stay mad at him and quashed those warrants too after a little while.
Now, it probably wouldn’t matter that much if we took Sadr out. He’s built his organization to the point where it has its own momentum. I’m sure there are plenty of clerics who’d be more than willing to step up. Remember, stay the course.
Jonathan
I know all about that, nevertheless it is the American people’s fault that Bush is in office. If the election was crooked it was our responsiblity to stand up and call bullshit on it as a people. If we were lied to, and we were, it was our responsibility to see through the lies. I did, why couldn’t the rest of the public and our leaders do so also?
We allowed the media to pick a stupid, willfully ignorant, arrogant psychopath as our leader because we were too damn lazy and stupid to know any better. The evidence was out there that Bush would be a disaster, the media didn’t report it but they spent a lot of time telling us that Al Gore invented the internet and that he was the inspiration for “love story” and a ton of other false and misleading bullshit.
Faux News
I’m still waiting to hear about the “dancing and flowers” and “cakewalk” phase.
ThymeZone
A tad melodromatic and anti-democratic (small d).
I’d say that the Dems lost their way. They really had no inspiring message in 2000. “Don’t touch that Social Security Lockbox” was not exactly a rallying cry.
TenguPhule
A million more green troops who can’t speak Arabic in a country where the locals are almost universally pissed off at the USA is a recipe for FUBAR.
There’s no fixing this rotten egg on the ground. Stay and bleed or cut the limb off and call it quits. American reputation has been too throughly poisoned by Bushco for our troops to get a chance to make a difference anymore.
No Mulligans in real life.
Mike
What’s this “we” shit Tonto? You got a turd in your pocket?
Other than that, Word.
Pb
Indeed. You know what the number one issue on both sides was? Cheaper prescription drugs for seniors. You know what I wanted to hear about? All that stuff they didn’t mention that actually turned out to be important. (Sorry, ThymeZone, I didn’t care about your pill prices! :))
Zifnab
I’m not arguing that. There’s possibility and political possibility. Was it possible for Bush to draft a million troops from across the US? Sure. We have 300 million citizens. We just take one out of every 300. Bam, there’s your army. Was it politically possible? ... Honestly, after 9/11, if he’d said “We need a million man army to make sure this never happens again”, he could have had more troops – maybe not a million, but certainly more.
Even with our current troop levels I think we could have done much better than we are doing today had Halliburton and Friends not been in charge of the war planning. Was it possible to plan for Phase 4 deployment? YES! Was it politically possible? I guess not.
What we see in Iraq is the worst case senario, but I don’t believe it was inevitable by fiat. You can’t honestly claim that poop spewing from police academy fountains was a non-factor in post-combat operations. Or the vast number of weapons that just “went missing”. Or the political hacks like Maliki – who WE backed – too busy deep-throating the Shiite clergy to run the country responsibly. These things weren’t automatic. They weren’t destined. They happened because Bush and his cronies let them happen and they directly contributed to the mess we find ourselves in today.
But responsible management of the invasion wouldn’t have engourged the right people’s pocketbooks. So it wouldn’t have been “politically” possible. In that sense, I suppose Iraq never would have been done right. I simply contend that it could have.
Pb
Wow, I didn’t even see that the first time. That is mega stupid.
Punchy
I nearly peed myself laughing at this. Americans are finally starting to realize what 98% of the rest of the world realized 3+ years ago…
TenguPhule
And you would be wrong. Iraq was never possible to ‘do right’ because responsible management wouldn’t have invaded in the first place. It is the rank dishonesty and incompetence that made the invasion possible which precluded any result other then complete failure.
Better countries and leaders have tried to impose their vision on the Middle East. All have failed.
Pb
Jonathan,
Ok, so: a majority of Americans didn’t vote for Bush. More Americans voted for Gore instead. And Bush lied his ass off to get elected in the first place. Therefore:
Riiight. Blame the victim. Go on:
So where the hell were you? Were you organizing people? Were you on the steps of the White House, protesting? Are you not paying your taxes? Or moving to Canada? Because, you know, what we really needed was a good old fashioned revolt and/or military coup, as provided for in The Declaration of Independence—forget about Iraq, we could have had that here, so we didn’t have to fight them there! And I’m sure they had already picked out a nice little cell in Gitmo for you, too…
Punchy
Wow, I didn’t even see that the first time. That is mega stupid.
Hate to admit it, Letters, but this would be THE quickest way to end our warmongering government. Put a whole SHITLOAD of unwilling and potentially important and/or famous sons and daughters on the front line and watch how fast we suddenly dont need to start killing any more Brown guys…
Jonathan
I’d say that the Dems lost their way. They really had no inspiring message in 2000. “Don’t touch that Social Security Lockbox” was not exactly a rallying cry.
We didn’t hear about Bush’s dodging out of the ANG and failing to take his flight physical from the MSM, I knew about it before the 2k election, why didn’t they?
We didn’t hear about Bush’s DUI until immediately before the election and even then it was played as a Democratic “trick” rather than a serious indictment of Bush’s fitness to lead the country. A DUI will ban you from a lot of jobs waaay less important than POTUS. Again, it was the MSM falling down on the job, I think deliberately.
We didn’t hear about Bush’s terrible record as Governor of Texas from the MSM. Again, I knew it before the election, why didn’t they?
We didn’t hear about Cheney’s DUIs from the MSM. Again, I knew it before the election, why didn’t they?
We did hear practically an infinite number of times how Gore had claimed to have invented the internet, an outright lie. Again, I knew this before the election, why didn’t the MSM?
We heard all about Gore’s supposed claim that he discovered the Love Canal toxic waste dump. I knew this was a lie before the election, why didn’t the MSM?
We heard all about how Gore supposedly claimed he and Tipper to be the inspiration for the characters in “Love Story”. Again, I knew it was a lie before the election, why didn’t the MSM?
That’s just a list off the top of my head, I’m sure I could find other falsehoods from the MSM that were pro Bush and anti Gore.
Remember when it was pointed out that Bush didn’t seem all that bright and the MSM told us not to worry that he would surround himself with smart advisors? Another lie.
ThymeZone
Sure, I have to eat wallpaper paste to get by. Nobody cares if I live or die.
{ sobs }
Oh ho ho, sonny, your day will come. Oh yes. Sooner than you think you will be carrying one of those Weekly Pill Reminder boxes in your pocket and standing in line at Walgreens with the rest of us.
Pb
Punchy,
Yes, starting a real draft would effectively end our involvement in the war—that’s why you’d never get a million people sent over there in the first place.
Jonathan
Glad I could amuse you. :-)
Fuckin’ pathetic aint it?
ThymeZone
Probably. But I don’t believe in the push-pull, cause and effect theory of MSM -> Voters.
I think MSM is a follower and a whore, not a leader or an influencer.
It’s not irrelevant that people rate their trust of MSM somewhat below that of mass murderers and lawyers. Sorry, lawyers.
We live in an age of almost unimaginable information availability and ubiquity. MSM is just entertainment for a small slice of the population.
It’s a new age. People are responsible for the food they eat and the information they consume. McDonalds, and FoxNews, are not.
Bubblegum Tate
But wait, the wingnuts have confidently assured us that the sue of guerilla tactics simply means that the small cadre of Baathist dead-enders is a bunch of pansy-asses who are in the last throes of their last throes. Failure to go head up, army vs. army is a sure sign of defeat for the side that doesn’t field an army. And our army can certainly never be defeated by guerilla warfare. That has never, ever happened and never, ever will!
Also, tax cuts.
Also, a ban on gay marriage. That’ll show ‘em!
Pb
Worse, they propped up Cheney as the experienced statesman that would steer the young Bush down the right path. If it’s at all possible to be more than 100% wrong about something, then they were about that.
Punchy
Holy Effin Christ…
Bush just asked for—get this—$245 Billion-with-a-B bones for just the next two years of wars.
Demi…Mr. Math…how much health care would that buy each American? How many teachers could get raises?
I’m about to un-eat my lunch I’m so furious at this…
Jonathan
I was screaming my head off. Nobody would listen to me and I got called everything from a crank to delusional to a traitor. I live in one of the reddest of the red states, I was (and am) surrounded by people who thought Bush was the second coming of Christ.
I wasn’t on the steps of the Supreme Court because I’m mostly disabled.
That’s why I’m so fuckin’ poor too, and in debt so far I’ll never see daylight, especially with the Republican bankruptcy “reform”.
Jonathan
Sorry, you are absolutely incorrect on that.
http://www.prwatch.org/fakenews/execsummary
tBone
Freedom isn’t free, moonbat. It costs a buck-oh-five. Plus $244,999,999,998.95.
ThymeZone
Wouldn’t matter if your numbers said 100%, people think for themselves, they don’t let the media tell them what to think.
That was my point. If that weren’t the case, support for the war wouldn’t have collapsed while MSM was still asleep.
That’s just one example, but it’s current.
Jonathan
— Ralph McGehee, Deadly Deceits
– Andrew Jackson
Pb
Time to get it in quick before Iraq goes further south, before more of Congress against him, and force a confrontation to shore up the base, to boot! Yep, that’s just the sort of dickish thing they’d do. Strong. Smart.
Jonathan
Ring any bells?
Pb
Jonathan,
D’oh! In that case, kudos to you for bothering to vote for President there in the first place.
That didn’t stop Larry Flynt, though—who, incidentally, dug up an interesting bit of dirt about George W. Bush’s past just before the election that the MSM decided to bury instead of following up on it…
Yet another reason to not pay taxes and/or move to Canada, I suppose.
Jonathan
I heard about that, although I’m pretty sure it was after the election. It is an interesting point that the story still hasn’t come out in the MSM.
Larry Flynt is multimillionaire and has access to private planes and has any amount of help he needs to get wherever he wants to go. I don’t have that luxury, unfortunately.
Tsulagi
You got that right. Behind that self-assured, articulate persona is intelligence literally second to none competing only with Bush for the prized #1 None spot. He got a pace maker for his heart, too bad not one for his brain.
Tsulagi
Just another quarter of a TRILLION dollars. No whoop. Toss it in with the others. No price is too great to keep our petting zoos in Indiana safe.
Jonathan
If America walks away from the holocaust we have unleashed in Iraq we will rightfully become an international pariah.
Bubblegum Tate
Well, it would certainly expose those goddamn Defeat-o-crats, Dhimmicrats, and Peloshiites as the terrorist-worshipping America haters that they are, wouldn’t it? And isn’t that really the point of all of Bush’s proposals?
Pb
Jonathan,
Nope, check the link—apparently it first came out on Crossfire, 2-3 weeks before election day—and then they scrubbed it from the transcript a day or two after they published the transcript. Flynt tried to push it, but it fizzled. And yeah, virtually nada since. I posted about it around the time of the election, and we had a pretty good discussion about media bias.
Pb
I think it’s a bit late for that.
ThymeZone
Sure. I think the Internet age has made that sort of thing beyond difficult, towards impossible now.
Information is cheap, and everywhere. People are learning the tools, and how to sift the material.
The age of mass gross manipulation is coming to an end.
Why celebrate its heyday? It’s over.
ThymeZone
Nice sloganeering, Herr Jonathan. Now if anyone can tell me what the fuck that actually means in terms of plans, measures, goals, objectives, strategies, tactics?
Appreciate it.
Jonathan
No, I meant I heard about it after the election. I did check the date, I think it was Oct 20.
Jonathan
But 70% of Americans still get their news from the TV, and that study was in 2006. I suspect a lot of the rest just don’t watch news at all.
Most of the people on the intertubes are using it for entertainment one way or another. Porn, YouTube, MySpace, gambling sites, gaming sites.
My daughter is on the intertubes almost as much as I am, but the only time she goes seeking information is when she needs it for an assignment for the online college classes she is taking. She’s on the Dean’s list in the course she’s in so she is no dummy, she just doesn’t care to know.
My wife is also no dummy, she’s a regional manager for a major retail chain and yet she is totally uninterested in seeking out information on the intertubes, all she does is play online games to relax and unwind. She does like The Daily Show and Colbert and so is somewhat politically aware but if it weren’t for that and what I tell her, she would be clueless.
It is only the intellectual elite who seek out information on a regular basis. The intellectual elite is a quite small percentage of the population.
Jonathan
That wasn’t totally honest, cutting off the part where I said we would become an international pariah. Did you think I wouldn’t notice?
Do you wish to claim that we won’t become an international pariah if we walk away from the holocaust we deliberately created?
ThymeZone
Whatever you say, man.
Jonathan
http://www.salon.com/opinion/f.....index.html
Feb. 2, 2007 | Congress is gearing up for a big Iraq debate next week. The Senate will take up the John Warner-Carl Levin resolution, which some are portraying as an important, symbolic rebuke of the president’s Iraq policy. Symbols can be powerful, but only if they have substance behind them. Read the fine print of the resolution itself, and you will find that it is not a rebuke at all. In parts, it reads like a reauthorization of the war, rejecting troop redeployment and specifically authorizing “vigorous operations” in part of Iraq. This resolution isn’t a symbolic rebuke of the president; instead it symbolizes a Congress that is too timid to challenge the president’s failed Iraq policy.
Under the guise of constructive criticism, this resolution signs off on the president’s policy of maintaining military operations in Iraq indefinitely. While a resolution like this might have been all you could expect from a Republican Congress, it hardly seems like the product of a Congress under new Democratic leadership.
After voters registered their opposition to the war last November, the new Congress was supposed to offer dramatic change. Instead, less than a month into this Congress, some members in both parties have rallied around a resolution that endorses the catastrophic status quo in Iraq.
More:
Andrew
Yes. We will not become an international pariah if we walk away from the holocaust we deliberately created. Why? Because we are already an international pariah.
Victory!
Jonathan
I really didn’t think you would pull a Darrell.
I’m kinda’ disappointed.
ThymeZone
Fuck off. I don’t have to quote your entire post. This has nothing to do with MY point. Yours is lost on me.
You have quoted Goebbels twice in a short time, as if we were somehow stuck in 1935.
It’s 2007, and this is a different time.
You are full of crap.
And your troll is just an act of sloganeering. Answer my question if you want to assert you are wrong, here it is:
Otherwise your post isn’t worth the pixels it is written on. Professor Irwin Corey might have said it.
ThymeZone
Jesus, not my yard man, wept.
ThymeZone
assert you are wrong = assert I am wrong
Jonathan
We have a chance to at least partially redeem ourselves in the eyes of the world. Better to take that chance than completely seal our fate.
Seven years ago the US was the moral leader in the world, rightly or wrongly, today we are a moral cripple.
And it is due to a corrupt, lying MSM and a complacent, ignorant and stupid electorate.
ThymeZone
We are the Drive Thru Pariah for the whole fucking world right now.
But you know, Geobbels said …..
I have it right here … hold on ….
ThymeZone
Wow, what a great goal. That will make Americans dab their eyes, and start a whole new movement.
Jonathan
You lose.
TenguPhule
And if we stay the only difference will be a higher body count.
Nobody wins in this game. Can we stop playing now?
Jonathan
I’ve already outlined the strategy.
The tactics are those of General Petraeus.
ThymeZone
Really? What do you think I lost?
Call for the vote.
Question before the room:
Jonathan posts a load of crap suggesting that we are stuck in 1935 and operate according to the rules of Goebbels.
I shit on his post.
Vote:
Jonathan Full of Crap
Shit on his post _
Call for the vote.
Let me guess. Since you think Americans are “too stupid” to govern themselves, why have a vote?
Right, assbite?
Oh sorry, you and your family are smart, it’s the rest of the people who are dolts.
ThymeZone
.
Uh huh … so your troll is, We’ll be a “pariah” unless we follow the plan of Petraeus?
Okay, let the fascinating discussion begin ….
Jonathan
Human nature is the same now as it was in 1935, that doesn’t change.
The same is true of group dynamics.
The truths of warfare are the same as they were when Sun Tzu wrote them down ~400 BCE.
-Sun Tzu, the Art of War
We are losing because Rumsfeld did not allow his generals to make the necessary calculations.
ThymeZone
Oh brother. It’s the Platitude Channel.
Give me the remote, please.
Jonathan
Shit on his post _
You are really impressing me with your eloquence.
I’m sure the lurkers are impressed too.
ThymeZone
Who gives a fuck?
You are full of crap. Your dismissive bullshit can’t change that, compadre.
Call for the vote.
Jonathan
Sun Tzu is still studied in military academies around the world, as is Carl von Clausewitz.
Jonathan
No problem.
OK, vote everyone.
Who is making a better case, me or ThymeZone?
Who is acting more like an adult, me or ThymeZone?
ThymeZone
OMFG, it’s another character being written by John Cole’s class.
I must say, it’s a hoot.
Funny stuff, “Jonathan.”
Oookay, checking our TV Listings to see what’s on while this clown figures out that he has lost the attention of yet another audience…...
Pb
Godwin’s law swings it to ThymeZone.
And Jonathan, if you’re really interested in the numbers and demographics, check out Pew’s Typology Groups, I can’t speak highly enough of them. And incidentally, you’re right about the elites (in both parties) being the ones who are most likely to (and most closely) follow the governmental and political news. And yes, the rabid Bush supporters watch Fox News the most, whereas the Liberals are the most likely to go to the internet for news.
ThymeZone
The Goebbels Fan Club Stampede Has Begun!
Welcome to the Class of 1935!!
Herr Jonathan, the floor is yours…......
Jonathan
Why should I care about the audience?
I have made my case with facts and logic.
You have presented no facts and very little logic, merely abuse.
I like it when my opponent becomes abusive because that shows they have lost their temper and have no reply other than abuse.
ThymeZone
I dunno, you tell me?
Oh, I forgot, you are the guy who thinks that the people are too stupid to understand reality and that they just herd like cattle before their cable news feeding troughs, right?
So no, you shouldn’t care about the audience. Unless your wife is in it, and then we should because she is so smart.
ThymeZone
Just one: Your bullshit “pariah” post was a troll.
That’s a fact, asshole. And everybody here knows it.
Nothing else really matters, does it?
ThymeZone
Ridicule is not abuse, butthead. What are you, in Kindergarten?
Nut up.
Jonathan
Godwin’s law does not say what you think it does.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin’s_law
And besides, I made no comparisons, I merely used Goebbels as an authority on propaganda, which he is.
The typology site is fascinating, I’m taking the test now.
Pb
Well, at the least, you have interspersed some facts and logic along with your case—but a lot of it has just consisted of bald assertions. Of course, it’s fine to have opinions, but I often found myself disagreeing even with the premise—and politically, we seem to be more or less on the same side, so go figure. So the case needs work. As for ThymeZone, he hasn’t been making much of a case as such in this thread—thus, less work required to shore it up.
TenguPhule
Wrong.
This war was lost the moment the decision was made to start it in the first place. Everything after that was just playing catch up. Stop trying to find the Pony.
Jonathan
More abuse does not further your argument.
Pb
Actually, it does, because I know what it says—how’d ya like them apples? Similarly, Moore’s Law technically had to do with transistors, but that’s often not how it’s used in practice, nowadays.
Odds are, you’re a liberal too.
ThymeZone
He was, in 1935. But he’s really got nothing on you.
You de authority on propaganda. I seen your work.
Hey, let’s be friends. 72 years too late is really not all that bad a miss. Hell, I still quote Lincoln.
Abe, I mean.
Jonathan
What bald assertions have I made, other than America is on the way to becoming an international pariah?
Do you disagree that America is on the way to becoming an international pariah?
ThymeZone
Wow, you are really bad at this.
Ridicule is not abuse. Unless you’re a child.
ThymeZone
Read the fucking thread, asked and answered.
Jonathan
As you can see, Godwin’s law does not state that he who first brings up Nazi’s loses the argument.
ThymeZone
No, but Schnerdnagle’s Law states that the biggest horse’s ass loses the argument.
Point to me.
(Arcane reference, you might not find it :-))
TenguPhule
Uh, how about this one?
You keep ignoring that it’s too late to help. More troops will only add to the body count at this point. The egg is broken, it stinks and the best we can hope for is that when we wash our hands of it the stench will not stick.
Pb
Where to begin… I think my favorite was the first one, actually, about training all the trigger-pullers in Arabic by buying them laptops and language software.
Yes, I did, in fact. See above, I think we’re way past that point. In fact, check out this story:
“The thing that comes up repeatedly is not just anger about Iraq,” Kull said, adding that the BBC poll is consistent with numerous other surveys around the world that have measured attitudes toward the United States. “The common theme is hypocrisy. The reaction tends to be: ‘You were a champion of a certain set of rules. Now you are breaking your own rules, so you are being hypocritical.’ “
Jonathan
You keep ignoring that it’s too late to help. More troops will only add to the body count at this point. The egg is broken, it stinks and the best we can hope for is that when we wash our hands of it the stench will not stick.
More troops will add to the US body count true. Are American lives worth more than Iraqi lives?
Do you think the majority of Iraqis are not worth saving from the extremists?
Or do you think that the majority of Iraqis are extremists themselves?
The US should play Pontius Pilate then?
He was not a particularly sympathetic figure.
And no, the stench will not wash off, it will only become worse.
Pb
False choice. If we can’t stabilize Iraq, then staying longer will only result in more deaths on both sides, as Iraq will fall apart once we leave. Therefore, leaving now will result in the least possible loss of life, on both sides.
Jonathan
Do you disagree that being able to speak the local language at least haltingly would be helpful to troops engaged in a COIN operation?
Keep in mind that COIN operations are very much like police work. How effective would police be if they couldn’t speak the local language?
Jonathan
ThymeZone
Sound effect: Thunder
Lights: Flash, then dark.
Curtain falls.
Music: Up, finale.
House lights up.
ThymeZone
Hard to find. Obscure.
It’s a MYL reference, really.
Jonathan
You say if we can’t stabilize Iraq. If we cannot do so, then it is our moral obligation to stay and maintain what stability we can, for as long as it takes.
Do you believe that the majority of the Iraqi people are fanatics who are not worth saving?
Do you think that Iraqis are somehow a different sort of human being than Americans?
chopper
i love it when TZ goes off his anger meds. it all happens at once, too.
Rome Again
Why in the hell was it our responsibility to go save the world again? And if we broke it, does that mean we are most absolutely responsible to fix it? Perhaps nothing we do fixes it? Wouldn’t it be better for Iraqis to fix it? Financial help, yes… why do we have to go over and do it ourselves?
Oh that’s right, I forgot, we gotta make Baghdad look like New York.
NOT!
Jonathan
As a liberal I belive in moral obligations.
As a Marine I learned that personal honor is the most important thing that a human being can have.
I believe we have a moral obligation to fix that which we deliberately broke.
Does anyone disagree with that statement?
Pb
No, I disagree with your original proposal, because I think it’d be unrealistic, unreasonable, and ineffective. I also proposed a pretty obvious alternative. In short:
ThymeZone
You are a spoof, right?
Uh no, we are not going to have perma-peacekeeping in Iraq. First, it won’t work, second, the American people are fed up with Iraq. The Iraqis are going to have to show some ability to maintain their own stability, pronto. They are going to be on their own soon.
We’ll keep up the charade only as long as it is necessary for political cover in the US. Which won’t be long. By fall 2008, if this shit is still going on, any candidate outside of Idaho and Mississippi who doesn’t take a stand against this bullshit, is toast.
Hey great beginner’s troll question. Maybe you can find a list of fools who can be trolled by such crap?
What a fucking wanker.
Rome Again
If you only knew what he was saying in e-mail, you’d be amazed at the level of control that man has.
ThymeZone
Kiss me.
Jonathan
If you are an honorable person you fix what you break, or you spend the rest of your life trying.
Do you wish your country to do the honorable thing?
Or do you think that honor is an outmoded concept?
Pb
Do you believe that the majority of the Iraqi people are fanatics who are not worth saving?
Do you think that Iraqis are somehow a different sort of human being than Americans?
Ok, enough of that—I can play this bullshit game too:
Do you believe in maximizing the number of dead Iraqis and Americans in the long run?
Do you believe in destroying the economic foundations of Iraq and the United States, thus resulting in further world instability and depression?
Do you think that everyone else here is really an evil green reptillian creature?
Do you want everyone to die?!
etc., etc.
Rome Again
Define fixing it Jonathan. What does that include?
ThymeZone
That’s it.
Spoof alert. Sensors maxed out.
Spoof sprinklers—on.
Spoof alarm sent to security company.
Spoof warning issued by DHS —Orange.
Fuck me, I’ve been sucked in by another one.
Pb
Do you like false choices?
Or are you a traitor?
ThymeZone
And, I mean this in the most loving way.
Jonathan
The native translators cannot be trusted, how do we know that they are not insurgents themselves?
Any translator working with the Americans is in severe peril for his life if he is not an insurgent.
Pb
ThymeZone,
Well remember, Jonathan—as an American—is responsible for Bush being elected. Therefore, he’s still got a long ways to go to fix that, but now I fully expect him to die trying.
TenguPhule
Are Iraqi lives worth more then American lives?
Shorter Jonathan: We must stay in Iraq forever.
Strawman. We can’t save the Iraqis. It’s too late. They’re going to fight it out and the entire US military is not going to stop them from doing it. At this point we can only stop adding to the body count.
Darrelling Foul. Credibility -5.
The problem is this, Jonathan, we can’t trust ANY SIDE in Iraq. Even the Iraqis nominally on our side are putting their own self interests over that of the long term interests of Iraq as a country. It’s all going to hell and we’re not stopping it, not even really slowing it down anymore.
No mulligans. No second chances.
tBone
The tactics are those of General Petraeus.
The counterinsurgency doctrine, the much higher troop levels, many more trained Arabic speakers, etc. – all of that would have been great . . . back in 2003, before we invaded.
We’re four years on now, the genie is out of the bottle, and she ain’t going back in. None of the strategies you’ve mentioned are going to be implemented, or at least not implemented in a way that will give them any chance of success. Hence the flak you’re taking in this thread. Everyone is tired of talking about ponies. How about we talk about reality?
Rome Again
Yes, but if you look back over the last 30 years, little of what we have done is honorable.
I think nothing we will do will be honorable and it’s time to go home and leave Iraqis to create their new reality. I think we should pay for the damage, but stop creating the damage. Got it?
ThymeZone
He’ll be missed.
Pb
That’s the least of our worries—the Iraqi security forces can’t be trusted. But we also have Iraqi refugees from other countries and Iraqi-Americans that we could hire on and bring in as translators. Or, we could hire on native Iraqis that we do trust, and promise to take care of them—but odds are, we don’t trust them because they don’t trust us. (The ones that do trust us are most likely to be Kurds, followed by Shia, and then there’s the occasional Sunni.)
TenguPhule
Any translator working with the Americans is in severe peril for his life if he is not an insurgent.
Shorter Johnathan: The Iraqis willing to work for us must be either the enemy or stupid. We must kill them all just to be safe.
ThymeZone
I like those quick-dissolve antipsychotics.
I get them at the animal hospital.
Andrew
I’m writing Jonathan. I admit it. This character will probably protest that I’m not, but that’s just very clever writing on my part.
Rome Again
I get them at the animal hospital.
Oh gosh, you didn’t tell me about those pills.
ThymeZone
Well, I’m really an animal when you get to know me.
ThymeZone
Speaking of which … did you all see the Onion article where Bush announced he was sending One More Troop to Iraq?
I think that’s the way to do these things.
Rome Again
::purr::
ThymeZone
Sorry, that One Troop is headed for Afghanistan, not Iraq.
Not a policy shift, just a minor error on my part.
Jonathan
Bringing the level of sectarian violence down to the minimum level possible.
Repairing the infrastructure so that Iraqi’s can have at least a minimum of basic utilities such as running water and electricity that stays on more than a couple of hours a day.
Reaching a political settlement that will allow Iraqis to gradually take over the control of the country.
That would be a start, obviously there is more that needs to be done.
With enough troops in country, it can be done.
I was violently against the invasion right from the very start, but now we are there and have deliberately broken the country it is our honorable obligation to do our utmost to fix it. No matter how much or how long it takes.
Marines have honor, we do not leave a brother Marine on the battlefield injured, we risk and if necessary sacrifice our lives to get him to safety. If our orders are to assault an impregnable position we assault it, no matter the risk or cost.
I have carried that honor code with me ever since 1971 when I was discharged from the Corps. I am applying it now to the situation we have deliberately created in Iraq.
I didn’t vote for George Bush and I think he was unconstitutionally installed. Nevertheless, it is our obligation as an honorable nation to fix that which he broke.
ThymeZone
Absolutely awesome job. Some of the best spoof we’ve seen in here. This is DougJ – GOP4Me grade material.
I am honored to know ye.
Rome Again
Sorry TZ, I’ll stop purring long enough so you can keep your head ;)
ThymeZone
See, all it takes is one gaffe to blow two weeks worth of fine quality spoofapalooza right out the dirthole.
Too bad. It was like watching a great movie.
ThymeZone
I think our friend Jonathan is the one who is trying to give us head.
Disgusting thought, but …. there it is.
Pb
I’ll tell you right now, there’s simply no way that will happen. Either we’ll send too few troops to get the job done, or we’ll leave—we can run through whatever scenarios you like, but the political will isn’t there, and Operation Blame The Iraqis started a long time ago. I figure the best thing we actually can do at this point is redeploy most of our troops outside of Iraq, tamp down what violence we can, try to get a real UN peacekeeping force in there, and also help with the growing refugee crisis.
Jonathan
I know what I’m calling for is not going to happen. The American people are too craven to allow it.
The US had 407,000 dead troops in WWII, a war which we did not choose to start. At the time the population of the US was 133 million.
Now we have just over 3,000 dead troops in a war which we deliberately chose to start over lies. Now the population of the US is just over 300 million.
We really have lost a lot of honor since WWII, I guess they really were the “Greatest Generation”.
Andrew
I’m basing Jonathan on the Gunnery Sergeant Tom Highway, the Marine character played by Clint Eastwood in Heartbreak Ridge.
Before my ruse was discovered, I was going to introduce a second Marine character based on Damon Wayan’s Major Payne, with whom Jonathan would agree with on almost everything.
Rome Again
The sectarian violence will certainly not get better while we’re stirring the pot. The fact that we are there is a sticking point.
It has taken us almost five freakin’ years to do this, WHY? Don’t you think we could have trained enough Iraqis to do this job? Perhaps if we left, the utilities might stand a better chance of staying on.
Hmmm, version 3.0?
With enough troops in country, it can be done.
With enough troops in country, we create more disaster each day. We are not there to fix anything. Are you out of your mind?
Job training for Iraqis (such as utility works), financial help, and giving them space to solve their issues, as I see it, is the only thing that will work. Armies are not there to solve problems, they are there to stir violence.
I have carried that honor code with me ever since 1971 when I was discharged from the Corps. I am applying it now to the situation we have deliberately created in Iraq.
Emotional point that has simply NOTHING to do with what we are speaking about.
What makes you think we can do anything right over there when everything we’ve done has been wrong?
ThymeZone
Awesome post, Rome.
ThymeZone
Andrew, what the HELL will it take to get you join our mail list?
I will change deodorant if you insist.
What? WHAT??
Jonathan
America has become a nation of cowards. We were all for war when we thought it would be quick, easy and cheap. Now that we see that we have bitten off more than we can easily chew we are like a bully who has what he thought to be a weaker child suddenly turn on him and he runs away in fright.
We are fat, lazy, selfish, ignorant, stupid and lack any sense of honor.
At least the damn righties whom I hate have enough honor to wish to stay the course in a fight we chose to pick.
I’m disgusted with my fellow liberals.
Rome Again
Why thank you TZ, I am to please ;)
Rome Again
Perhaps YOU were, I never was.
ThymeZone
Yeah, yeah. I am 6’ tall, 165 lbs, hard worker, generous, smart and educated, and ethical to a fault.
You must be describing yourself. But not your smart wife.
Jonathan
Where did I mention killing anyone?
All I said was they are not to be trusted, with good reason I think.
Even the hawks like McCain are having second thoughts about combined Iraqi American operations.
Rome Again
Now we have just over 3,000 dead troops in a war which we deliberately chose to start over lies. Now the population of the US is just over 300 million.
Sounds like you don’t put very much value into the life of one person. I’m a swords into plowshares person myself. We are all afforded a chance to live a life on this earth, why do we spend it playing stupid war games?
Jonathan
On the intertubes no knows you’re a dog.
jg
Yes. And we’re the reason. Which is why we can do nothing but more damage over there. We’re not going to nation build by trying harder.
Pb
Great. Next topic?
No, but there’s really no comparison all around. We weren’t attacked (by Iraq), Saddam was no Hitler, and Bush is no FDR (or even an Eisenhower). No, what’s going on now looks much more like another war entirely.
TenguPhule
Shorter Jonathan: Darrell! Darrell Darrell!
Shorter Jonathan: ME! ME!
Shorter Jonathan: Stupid dirty hippies, why won’t you make a big mistake worse?
Shorter Jonathan: I like to dress up strawmen and call them liberals. Sometimes I spank them.
Punchy
I gotta vote here for Jonathon, as he’s been in the military and fought these battles. Never f*ck with a Marine, and all that. History of war most likely on his side (although I havent the time to peruse the entire thread)...is the first 200+ thread thats got NO Darrell in it? is this a first?
Jonathan
Insufficient troops to maintain order and guard the infrastructure.
Shinseki was right, we needed several hundred thousand troops to occupy Iraq. It is the fault of Rumsfeld and Bush that this disaster has ocurred. But they will never pay any price, they will retire to their estates with their pensions and in Bush’s case with their lifetime Secret Service protection.
Instead it is the Iraqi people and the American people who will pay the price.
http://niemanwatchdog.org/inde.....ndid=00138
TenguPhule
Even the hawks like McCain are having second thoughts about combined Iraqi American operations.
Shorter Johnathan: We must save the Iraqis, but we can’t trust them. We must treat them as equals except when they’re working with us. Iraqis are not the enemy, but they are not our friends.
TenguPhule
We’ll see. We’ll see.
Jonathan
LOL, I became a dirty fucking hippy after I got out of the Corps. In many ways I’m still a dirty fucking hippy.
I believe in peace and love, but I also believe in honor.
Rome Again
Shinseki was right, we needed several hundred thousand troops to occupy Iraq. It is the fault of Rumsfeld and Bush that this disaster has ocurred. But they will never pay any price, they will retire to their estates with their pensions and in Bush’s case with their lifetime Secret Service protection.
Instead it is the Iraqi people and the American people who will pay the price.
As long as our artillery is over there, that infrastructure stands no chance of being repaired permanently. Don’t you get it?
Jonathan
That’s exactly my point. We were the attackers of innocent people.
Why is that so hard to get through everyone’s head?
TenguPhule
There is no honor to be found in the Iraq war or occupation. None.
All honor is now is a figleaf to cloak the Bush demand that our troops stay and bleed until it can be dumped on a Democratic President.
Rome Again
Okay Jonathan, you’ve got two scales of justice standing in front of you. One one you have peace and love. On the other you have honor. Which do you choose?
dreggas
America has become a nation of cowards. We were all for war when we thought it would be quick, easy and cheap. Now that we see that we have bitten off more than we can easily chew we are like a bully who has what he thought to be a weaker child suddenly turn on him and he runs away in fright.
We are fat, lazy, selfish, ignorant, stupid and lack any sense of honor.
At least the damn righties whom I hate have enough honor to wish to stay the course in a fight we chose to pick.
I’m disgusted with my fellow liberals.
Zell? Zell Miller is that you?
Listen up and listen damn good Jonathan. I didn’t allow this war to happen and I damn sure didn’t vote fore the fucktard in chief. As an American I resent the fact that you sit here and try and tell me I am fat and lazy and craven because of the fact that I support pulling our people out which is the only way to bring the rest of the world in.
Staying the course to prevent it from getting worse is a foold errand. Let me enlighten you on a bit of History. Iraq as a country with borders has existed very, very briefly and was carved into what it is now by the brits who had absolutely no clue about the peoples there either. Then end result? Shia to the east (near Iran), Sunni to the west and kurd to the north. The only thing controlling that holding that mess together was the Saddam and thanks to a fool with an oedipus complex and severe insecurities the lynch pin was pulled out and now the shit that would have hit the fan if Saddam wasn’t there is hitting the fan now.
We have reports that the people we are “protecting” and “training” to protect themselves are the ones using said weapons and training against us and somehow we’re supposed to just stay there and say “thank you may I have some more?”
You sit their on your self-righteous high horse and claim that it’s my fault that we have a leader that ain’t worth the flesh he’s printed on? That I, a voting American Citizen am responsible when I voted for the other guy? I’ll tell ya what why don’t we just arm shrub and dead-eye and the rest of the people who ARE responsible for this and let them go over there and fix it.
In short I didn’t break a damn thing nor did I enable this shithead. You want to be disappointed in something, be disappointed in the people who ran this show and who have been. Be disappointed in the fuckheads in Congress on both sides who authorized this shit (which btw Bush has maintained he would not have gone for if it wasn’t for the political cover…that’s right Jonny he was gonna invade no matter what).
Be disappointed in and pissed off at the assholes currently laundering my tax dollars through this war machine while reaping profits from their investments in the corps making money on this shit. But don’t you DARE sit there and think you are above me and that I am worthy of ridicule just because I am an American. You can sit their and bloviate all you want but let the rest of us work on ways to untarnish our reputation at home and abroad and the first order of business for that is getting the fuck out of the quicksand that is Iraq.
Jonathan
Oh, by the way, no one has admitted I was right about Godwin’s law.
I notice that got dropped like a hot potato.
Y’all are always on Darrell because he won’t admit when he is wrong but you are no better.
Pb
And of course we did the opposite—we disbanded their military, brought in our own contractors, and threw money at them. The unemployment rate is unreal, as is the inflation rate.
Pb
Yeah, there’s a reason for that. If you read my replies, then maybe we could have a conversation.
Pb
Apparently, it’s not. But I have no idea what’s going on in your head, and I think I want to keep it that way.
Rome Again
What dreggas said.
ThymeZone
Jonathan is a concern troll on steroids.
I may be a dog, dude, but that would mean you are losing this match to a dog.
What kind of dog do you think I am, Jonny? Pekinese? Chow? Mexican hairless? Shitzu?
ThymeZone
Ditto, fine post by dreggas.
And, Arf!
Jonathan
False dillema.
You can strive for peace and love while simultaneously upholding honor.
If we were an honorable people who believed in peace and love we would never have attacked Iraq in the first place.
tBone
I will change deodorant if you insist.
You’d be doing all of us a favor, Andrew. None of us wanted to tell him.
TenguPhule
Shorter Johnathan: You are all DougJ! Admit it!
ThymeZone
You should know! All trolls know how to construct a false dillema, right Johnny?
Rome Again
Except your honor would kill people. That is not peace and love.
Pb
How about “victory with honor”? That’s your plan, right?
TenguPhule
And if Ponies were Strawberries dancing in the Sky the Sugarplum fairies would pixiedust the problems away.
Stop looking for Ponies. Stop telling us to look for Ponies. And stop beating the dead one.
ThymeZone
Johnny, this is me.
I am pleased to meet you.
Where’s that smart wife of yours? Does she have a leg?
Rome Again
Stop looking for Ponies. Stop telling us to look for Ponies. And stop beating the dead one.
Exactly.
and strawberries too, yummy, I like me some strawberries.
Jonathan
I know all that. How do you think the tiny island of Britain ruled the largest empire the world has ever seen?
The Brits deliberately set the wogs at each others throats and played them like a Stradivarius. As soon as one faction became too powerful, the Brits would give a rival, weaker faction modern weapons and point them at the stronger faction. The wogs always hated each other more than they hated the Brits so it worked wonderfully.
They did it in every colony they had. The Brits had the advantage of a thousand years of vicious European political infighting and they went through wog political structures like a hot knife through butter.
Rome Again
Woof!
Jonathan
I voted for the other guy too. I live in one of the reddest of the red states so it didn’t make a tinker’s damn that I voted for Gore.
When I say “we” are responsible I mean all of us, all Americans, and I mean me too.
ThymeZone
Why don’t you run for office with this bullshit platform? Perpetual Damage Remediation—The New Ethical America.
Oh wait .. the people are too stupid to choose the right way. They’ll stupidly vote that their interests lie elsewhere.
Whose idea was this fucked-up America thing, anyway?
Rome Again
Well, it certainly wasn’t mine.
Jonathan
People are going to die whether we do the honorable thing or the dishonorable thing. Therefore doing the honorable thing is the right path.
Jonathan
Voting for Bush was the smart thing to do?
Pb
Last I checked, I didn’t get a vote on that one, chief. But if I did, well, check out the pre-war polling in detail sometime—America did not sign on for this war, and the only reason we ended up in it is because we had dishonorable leaders who weren’t telling us the truth, and indeed generally seem to be opposed to peace and love. As a nation, we were sold a false bill of goods, and as that increasingly became clear, we reacted as you’d expect.
Rome Again
You certainly don’t seem to have a problem with that. You sure you’re really about peace and love?
I do have a problem with that. I also think, personally, that as long as we are there, more people are going to be killed.
dreggas
That’s just plain bullshit. That’s like bush trying to foist the war off on everyone else using the talk of “we”. I did not vote for this policy and if I remember correctly a large segment of the population was against it too but we were all ignored.
THIS is the kind of shit that pisses me off about the left, this sense of collective guilt and boo-hooing that we’re so bad and such oppressors. Well guess what buddy we’re oppressing a helluva lot more by staying in Iraq than by getting the fuck out.
I for one made my apologies, spoke my mind when I voted, and I am not going to feel guilty about this anymore, I’ve made my peace and I can look at myself in the mirror because I oppose it, I voted against it and I speak against it.
All the navel gazing in the world ain’t going to fix this mess and none of it will be fixed by hanging around. It’s like the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme “all the kings horses and all the kings men couldn’t put humpty together again”. Well in this case Humpty Dumpty vis-a-vis Iraq ain’t gonna be put back together by clapping louder let alone by committing more people to go there.
This civil war has been being waged for ages, indeed probably millenia and we aren’t capable of stopping it, it was merely “cold” when we toppled Saddam and made it hot.
Honor dictates that we make ammends but ammends and reparations in this case do not mean sending more people of our own to die for a mistake or so we can somehow restore our honor. That’s what shrub thinks, that if he just sends more troops he can somehow salvage his reputation.
It’s time the adults took little shrubs hands off the controls and started driving again.
ThymeZone
He didn’t get the most votes, remember Jonny?
The other guy did. It must have been SCOTUS that was stupid. Yeah, that’s it. Stupid SCOTUS.
Another American idea that turned out to be shit.
TenguPhule
Shorter Johnathan: It’s not about saving lives, it’s about honor. It’s not about stopping the madness, it’s about making sure the Nation’s cock can still stand tall.
Rome Again
Hey dreggas, at least Hilly Clinton said today that she’d end the war if she became president.
Unfortunately, I’m still not sure I could pull the lever for her.
Rome Again
TZ, I want to personally apologize for being a Floridian, even if I didn’t vote for Bush
Can we do something about that, me being Floridian I mean?
Jonathan
Precisely the point I was making with the Goebbels quote. Thank you for backing me up.
TenguPhule
I welcome our future Supreme Empress of the Galaxy and her super-mice Overlords.
ThymeZone
I think we have room for one more Arizonan.
Jonathan
He won by the rules of the game.
And I agree with you about the SCOTUS.
Rome Again
But, this is not Germany. We are not living 50 years in the past. History only repeats itself by re-employing a technique, not by replaying the whole damned movie again. The plot is not exactly the same, the ending has different dialogue. Nuremburg trials are not expected at this time.
Rome Again
Not exactly, Congress was supposed to decide if the margin was too close to pick a winner.
Rome Again
I’ll be right over ;)
Jonathan
I have no clue whether more people will die if we leave or if we stay.
And neither does anyone else, including our leaders.
ThymeZone
Support for the Bush’s handling of Iraq, even in the face of lies, was marginally in the majority at the beginning. It’s in the toilet now, and the governing party in Congress has been fired.
Please don’t encourage Jonny Goebbels. Let him live in his 1935 Forever bubble.
Jonathan
Vincent Bugliosi prosecuted Charles Manson
http://www.lightparty.com/Misc.....eason.html
In the December 12 ruling by the US Supreme Court handing the election to George Bush, the Court committed the unpardonable sin of being a knowing surrogate for the Republican Party instead of being an impartial arbiter of the law. If you doubt this, try to imagine Al Gore’s and George Bush’s roles being reversed and ask yourself if you can conceive of Justice Antonin Scalia and his four conservative brethren issuing an emergency order on December 9 stopping the counting of ballots (at a time when Gore’s lead had shrunk to 154 votes) on the grounds that if it continued, Gore could suffer “irreparable harm,” and then subsequently, on December 12, bequeathing the election to Gore on equal protection grounds.
If you can, then I suppose you can also imagine seeing a man jumping away from his own shadow, Frenchmen no longer drinking wine. From the beginning, Bush desperately sought, as it were, to prevent the opening of the door, the looking into the box—unmistakable signs that he feared the truth. In a nation that prides itself on openness, instead of the Supreme Court doing everything within its power to find a legal way to open the door and box, they did the precise opposite in grasping, stretching and searching mightily for a way, any way at all, to aid their choice for President, Bush, in the suppression of the truth, finally settling, in their judicial coup d’état, on the untenable argument that there was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause—the Court asserting that because of the various standards of determining the voter’s intent in the Florida counties, voters were treated unequally, since a vote disqualified in one county (the so-called undervotes, which the voting machines did not pick up) may have been counted in another county, and vice versa. Accordingly, the Court reversed the Florida Supreme Court’s order that the undervotes be counted, effectively delivering the presidency to Bush.
Now, in the equal protection cases I’ve seen, the aggrieved party, the one who is being harmed and discriminated against, almost invariably brings the action. But no Florida voter I’m aware of brought any action under the equal protection clause claiming he was disfranchised because of the different standards being employed. What happened here is that Bush leaped in and tried to profit from a hypothetical wrong inflicted on someone else. Even assuming Bush had this right, the very core of his petition to the Court was that he himself would be harmed by these different standards.
Much more:
dreggas
Hey dreggas, at least Hilly Clinton said today that she’d end the war if she became president.
Unfortunately, I’m still not sure I could pull the lever for her.
Honestly, Shillary would say she’d do a strip tease if she won the presidency if polls showed that’s what the people wanted. Don’t get me wrong I want a responsive government that listens to the people but I don’t want one headed by someone who twists whichever way the wind is blowing.
ThymeZone
Well, that settles it. It’s the Stupid Pilot Problem.
Unknown mountaintop ahead, either 4000 or 6000 feet.
At night. In the clouds.
What to do? Split the difference, fly at 5000 feet!
That’s what Captain Jonny Goebbels would do!
Rome Again
Me neither, that’s why I wouldn’t pull the lever for her, but, hmmm, that strip tease might be interesting. LMAO
ThymeZone
I’ll leave a light on.
dreggas
Me neither, that’s why I wouldn’t pull the lever for her, but, hmmm, that strip tease might be interesting. LMAO
Ya know I do believe that older women are like fine wine, they only get better with age, but there are some I just don’t want to see naked…ever.
Rome Again
I believe you’re correct.
Pb
Another obvious point that did not need a quote from Goebbels.
Right—a majority of the country was for it, until the preponderance of the lies became clear to them. If you look at the early polling, you’ll see that a majority of Americans thought this was going to be quick, easy, painless—we’d go in, Saddam would fall, and then we’d rush out of there before we got crushed by all the candy and flowers. A majority of Americans also thought Saddam had some sort of direct role in the 9/11 attacks—heck, if I had thought that, maybe I would have been for it too…
Rome Again
I said interesting, not seductive.
Jonathan
I was quoting Goebbels as an expert on propaganda, not for historical reasons.
Isn’t this exactly what happened?
We were told we were being attacked and the pacifists were denounced for lack of patriotism.
Rome Again
Thank ya kindly sir.
Jonathan
If I’m not mistaken a majority still does.
dreggas
If I’m not mistaken a majority still does.
No, thankfully.
Rome Again
Right, propaganda is the tool, but that doesn’t mean it is completely used in exactly the same way each time. Things change, new twists are added each time. We are not fighting the Nazis, we’re fighting the NeoCons.
[Interesting aside, Neocon has been a term I have lived with all my life, it used to be just a convention in Chicago my parents attended every year, now it is an ideology].
dreggas
I said interesting, not seductive.
I have an overactive imagination and there are some things my mind cannot unsee…I’d prefer to just avoid it altogether as bleaching my brain does not tickle.
Jonathan
You claim to be absolutely sure?
dreggas
Hmmmm…Neon sales-people?
Rome Again
Jonathan, do you seriously believe that most of Americans believe Iraq had something to do with 9/11?
Why did we recently install a Democratic Congress again? Oh yeah, because the majority of the people doesn’t believe Iraq had something to do with 9/11.
Jonathan
http://regimeofterror.com/arch.....ans_belie/
Harris Poll: 64% Americans believe Saddam Hussein had “strong” links to al Qaeda
The latest Harris Poll (hat tip Ray Robison) has some interesting results on public opinions of Saddam Hussein’s possible links to al Qaeda.
Of those Americans polled, 64% agree that Saddam Hussein had “strong” links to al Qaeda.
Hussein’s latest claim of innocence (below) is not convincing the American public opinion, as the percentage of Americans who believe the two groups had “strong” links has remained fairly steady for over a year.
In Saddam Hussein’s latest letter to the American people, he urges U.S. withdrawal from Iraq because of his professed innocence on a number of issues.
In the letter Hussein claims Iraq did “not have any ties to so-called terrorism.” Of course Hussein’s Iraq certainly had extensive ties to terrorism and thus had been listed on the State Department’s annual list of State Sponsors of Terrorism for over a decade.
ThymeZone
That was in September last year. Certainly down since then.
No, people don’t believe that fairy tale any more.
TenguPhule
We know more will die if we stay. We know more will die if we leave.
But at least the bleeding on our side will stop if we leave.
There are no Ponies in Iraq.
Jonathan
You were saying?
ThymeZone
That you are an idiot?
Yes, I would say at this time, pretty sure.
Confidence level, high.
Jonathan
American lives are more valuable than Iraqi lives?
Rome Again
Yeah, I’m a brave soul, I have a tendency to go where angels fear to tread.
dreggas
See here’s the fatal flaw in polls. You can randomly choose people and get one result, randomly choose more and get a different result. Now of course the same could be said about polls showing Americans not wanting us to stay in Iraq but the proof of that is in a congress controlled by the opposition party…therefore fact to back-up the polling numbers.
I bet if I randomly called a bunch of people in the midwest I’d hear the following:
A. Jesus is returning next week.
B. The earth is less than 6000 years old
C. They were probed anally by Aliens (even though their bibles say we are the only life in the universe)
D. Every muslim is a terrorist
and the list goes on. Sorry but those polls can say whatever they like, it’s pretty darn clear America ain’t buyin the snake oil anymore.
Jonathan
No, people don’t believe that fairy tale any more.
I showed you a poll that supported my position, show me one that supports yours.
That poll was less than two months before the “landslide” election.
dreggas
Short answer and callous as it may sound…you bet your sweet ass. Sorry but if they want to kill each other and use the training we are providing them with to kill our boys and theirs then fuck ‘em.
Jonathan
That was a Harris poll I quoted, they are designed to give statistically valid results.
Rome Again
Jonathan, the election itself is the proof. What do you think was the reason why people wanted so many Democrats in control of Congress?
They do not agree with this war. If Iraq truly attacked us, the people would not feel that way, to a large extent. That would be like saying America didn’t want to enter WWII after Japan attacked us.
ThymeZone
Kiss my ass. Show me your support for the idea that this is 1935 and we are operating under Goebbels rules of public information.
Your cover is blown, asshole.
You’re a stupid troll. Pariah, anyone?
This started with the trollish “Pariah” post.
C’mon, get out the proof for that crock of shit.
Jonathan
Certainly sounds bigoted to me.
I though liberals were supposed to be against bigotry?
ThymeZone
Exactly right. Protecting Iraq from itself is not worth one American life AFAIC.
Not one.
Jonathan
They do not agree with this war. If Iraq truly attacked us, the people would not feel that way, to a large extent. That would be like saying America didn’t want to enter WWII after Japan attacked us.
Saddam is dead. The one that Americans think attacked them has been vanquished. Of course people want an end to the war, as far as they’re concerned it’s over.
Rome Again
Agreed. I would add, it’s not worth one Iraqi life either.
TenguPhule
Iraqi lives are more valuable then American lives?
Admit it. Given a choice between a Marine’s life and an Iraqi’s, who do you choose?
ThymeZone
They’re for luthery, though.
Rome Again
Saddam died AFTER the election. My memory isn’t that short. Yours is apparently.
Rome Again
Careful TP, he’ll just cry “False Dilemma”.
Jonathan
I already pointed out that human nature and political dynamics have not changed since 1935.
People are the same gullible fools now as they were then.
Propaganda is propaganda, we were fed propaganda and enough of us fell for it to allow the propagandists to do what they want.
ThymeZone
Shorter Jonny Goebbels:
Americans are too stupid to vote right, but I am the expert on what they think. I’ve been studying stupid people all my life.
TenguPhule
Pro-Harem!
dreggas
I though liberals were supposed to be against bigotry?
Bigoted? In whatever high and mighty Narcissistic world you live in where your shit don’t stink…maybe. Here on earth, you know in the real world, the reality is you can’t help those who don’t help themselves.
From this vantage point the only thing that the Shi’a are celebrating is the fact they have the guns now and the Sunni are fighting for their very existence. We have no business standing in the middle.
Oh and uh…whoever said I was a liberal or that I had to believe in pie in the sky utopias to be one?
ThymeZone
And then He gave us Jonny Goebbels to lead them.
Andrew
Well, is the Marine white or brown?
Jonathan
It depends, if were someone like a child that I was sure was innocent, I would have to pick the child. That would be the honorable thing to do. The Marine has an expectation of death or injury from his actions, the child does not.
If the person is a combatant, obviously I would pick the Marine.
Rome Again
Does your yardman have a cousin?
ThymeZone
You mean my housekeeper, Mary Magdalene?
Rome Again
Exactly.
Jonathan, Iraq is nothing more than an experiment, playing with people’s lives. An experiment, which, no matter how it turns out, still turns a profit in gun-running. Get it?
ThymeZone
Shorter Jonny Goebbels:
I got my Playing God Certificate. Try me.
TenguPhule
And if you can’t tell? Then what? Will you parse it down further? Or will you admit the truth?
Jonathan
We put them in that situation, it is not their fault that we invaded without sufficient troops to maintain order.
The same damn thing would happen in the US if the Iraqi’s invaded us and destroyed all our police and military.
First we would start fighting them and then we would start fighting each other for the scraps of civilization that werre left.
dreggas
Of course now that child is taking up guns himself:
See here
Rome Again
Not, she went to France. DaVinci’s Code told me so. ;)
TenguPhule
Typhoid Mary?
Rome Again
And therein lies the problem. You seem to still believe invading Iraq was a good thing, we just didn’t have enough troops to do the job.
Priceless!
ThymeZone
Maybe London, maybe France …
I see Jonny’s underpants.
Jonathan
The scenario I was given was to choose between a Marine’s life and an Iraqi’s. I personally would not fire on a car full of Iraqi’s just because they got a little too close, as has happened many times in Iraq by US troops.
If the Iraqi is not an obvious threat then why would I need to make the choice?
TenguPhule
And yet you want our Marines and Army to stay in that mess…forever.
Pooh
Funny, because all I can think to say in response to all the “serious” commentary here is
“Model A for and a tank full of gas/
Hand full of pussy and a mouth full of ass”
(Much funnier if you’ve actually seen the movie.
Oh, and Jonathan
dreggas
We put them in that situation, it is not their fault that we invaded without sufficient troops to maintain order.
As my wife is fond of saying “Who’s we white boy?”
In case I didn’t make myself absolutely clear. I did not enable this, I did not vote for this and I am done feeling any semblance of guilt for what this administration has done. In fact about the only thing I feel bad about is that more U.S. troops are being sent to die for Pretzel boy and some ephemeral legacy.
THAT I feel sorry for. If the Shi’a and the kurd and the Sunni wanna kill one another then they will do so with or without us and no American should be in the way of it.
As I said we took the cork off the bottle, they are the ones choosing to be djinn…
Rome Again
I see Jonny’s underpants.
Actually, some people say Mary (mother of your yardman) went to Glastonbury (close to London).
So, Mary in London, Mary in France actually makes a bit of sense.
Jonathan
We are the ones who set the experiment in motion. It is dishonorable to do such a thing and then walk away from it.
ThymeZone
Thanks. I enjoy studying under you.
TenguPhule
Because you are proposing exactly that kind of choice.
Marines and Army we will lose vs Faceless Iraqis who will die either way. Perhaps not the exact same Iraqis, but Iraqis nonetheless.
Jonathan
I’ve already stated on this thred that I was adamantly opposed to the invasion. That doesn’t change the fact that we did invade and we invaded without sufficient forces to do the job properly.
TenguPhule
It is dishonorable to send soldiers into a situation they can’t win just because you find it ‘dishonorable’ to disengage.
How do you ask a soldier to be the last one to die for a mistake?
Rome Again
With Marines, we can solve any problem in the world.
Jonathan, swallow your pride, and admit, Marines KILL.
Pooh
ThymeZone
Shorter Jonny Goebbels:
I was against the war in Iraq, before I saw how right I was, and ended up being in favor of staying there forever because it was our fault and we have to fix it no matter how long it takes.
Or … something. Yeah, something like that.
Jonathan
For as long as necessary.
We broke it, it is our honorable responsiblity to fix it.
Rome Again
So you were “For not being for the war, before you were against it?”
Rome Again
I was against the war in Iraq, before I saw how right I was, and ended up being in favor of staying there forever because it was our fault and we have to fix it no matter how long it takes.
Or … something. Yeah, something like that.
Exactly what I just said, and I didn’t see your post TZ, thank you for confirming.
ThymeZone
Shorter Jonny Goebbels:
It’s essential that we always stay at war with EastAsia.
For, uh, ethical reasons.
Jonathan
I didn’t vote for the Decider either, I fucking detest the man. Nevertheless he is the elected leader of our country and we are resposible for his fuckups.
Pb
Regarding the Saddam – 9/11 poll numbers: a majority of Americans didn’t think he was involved as of September of ‘06, but the size of that majority apparently depends on what question you ask them, and how you ask it.
TenguPhule
Like I said, Forever. Welcome to the McCain-Lieberman-Johnathan Party of Three.
Some things can’t be fixed. Iraq is one of them. You can talk ‘honorable responsibility’ when it’s only your own life being placed in harm’s way. Not when you want to send thousands of others to their deaths for nothing.
Rome Again
It is a killing machine so long as we perpetuate it.
Rome Again
Studying TZ? Is that what you call it?
Jonathan
How do you know for sure they can’t win?
I don’t pretend to know and I’ve been closely studying the situation in Iraq as an amateur student of military history even since before the invasion.
ThymeZone
Whoever is writing the Jonny Goebbels character now (Andrew?) is probably cursing the idea at this point.
TenguPhule
Shorter Johnathan: Yes Bush is one Dumb MoFo. But we still need to follow him off the cliff because he’s the decider!
I welcome President Empress Pelosi in 2007.
ThymeZone
Shorter Jonny Goebbels:
If the shoe might fit, you can never quit.
Jonathan
Killing is our profession.
Pb
Because I’ve seen how this war has been run from the beginning, and by whom—it was lost early on, the only question now is by how much.
Jonathan
If you are in some small foreign country and a revolution breaks out, who do you want to show up to protect and save you from the violent fanatics?
Pb
Who started the revolution, who are the fanatics, and are they worse than the “protectors”? Time to flee.
Jonathan
In two years we will most likely have a Democratic president, I certainly hope so.
We might even have president Pelosi sooner than that if things keep on developing in the Scooter Libby trial.
Jonathan
I guess you’ve never heard of “sending in the Marines”.
Marines and only Marines are US Embassy guards.
Richard 23
Jonathan is acting like a classic concern troll. Well played, sir! But you’re not accomplishing anything here except taking Darrell’s place in driving a comment thread beyond 250.
And quit saying “we” to insult everybody. I think the “turd in your pocket” line is required here.
Staying in Iraq (to fuck it up more) because “we” broke it will only end in more tears. Two (and more) wrongs will not make a right.
“We” are not becoming a parriah. “We” are one and will remain one until “we” get decent management.
ThymeZone
Heh. You’re killin us here, that’s for sure.
Jonathan
I posted a link and a quote upthread to a piece by Senator Russ Feingold who says that the current Democratic resolution for withdrawing from Iraq is a bunch of crap that actually authorizes further engagement.
ThymeZone
Have Feingold come down here and talk to us. You can go.
Jonathan
http://www.salon.com/opinion/f...../feingold/
Here it is again:
Under the guise of constructive criticism, this resolution signs off on the president’s policy of maintaining military operations in Iraq indefinitely. While a resolution like this might have been all you could expect from a Republican Congress, it hardly seems like the product of a Congress under new Democratic leadership.
After voters registered their opposition to the war last November, the new Congress was supposed to offer dramatic change. Instead, less than a month into this Congress, some members in both parties have rallied around a resolution that endorses the catastrophic status quo in Iraq.
Beyond a tepid disagreement with the president’s “surge” strategy, this resolution does nothing to stop the escalation. It even rejects “any immediate reduction in, or withdrawal of, the present level of forces.” For Congress to reject bringing troops out of Iraq, after almost four years of a disastrous policy, makes no sense. It ignores public outrage over the war and the need to address other pressing national security priorities. The American people recognize that there is no U.S. military solution to Iraq’s civil war. And as long as we focus disproportionate attention and resources on Iraq, we will not be able to counter the full range of threats that we face around the world.
The resolution also fundamentally ignores the reality on the ground in Iraq. The resolution calls for continuing “vigorous operations in Anbar province, specifically for the purpose of combating an insurgency.” This is a recipe for disaster. Al Anbar province is where a majority of U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq. The insurgency there, as well as general opposition to the U.S. presence and to the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad, is fueled by the Sunnis’ political and economic grievances. Conducting targeted missions to take out terrorists makes sense; using U.S. troops to put down an insurgency doesn’t. Maintaining a substantial U.S. presence in a primarily Sunni area, without a political solution, means a continuation of our unending, and self-defeating, policies in Iraq.
As you can see, the Democrats aren’t about to do anything substantial about getting out of Iraq, at least at the present time. They are terrified of being painted as “weak on defense”.
TenguPhule
Because they never had a chance in the first place.
The battlelines have already been drawn between Shia, Sunni and Kurd. And our troops are stuck in the middle.
Jonathan
If we pull out and Iraq descends even further into the outer circle of the seventh ring of hell than it already is we will never regain our reputation, no matter who is elected.
TenguPhule
And if we stay, the same thing. Only with less casualties.
Jonathan
Bush has sent America sliding down the slope from which it will probably never recover.
Our international reputation is crap at best. Our Army and Marine Corps are near the breaking point and will take years if not decades to recover.
Our economy is running on borrowed Chinese and Japanese money.
Our national debt on a per capita basis is $28,905.27 , that’s including every citizen, babies, elderly and all.
When Bush attacks Iraq, the Mideast will likely go up in flames and gas prices will soar, further damaging our already shaky economy.
Personal savings are the lowest they have been in 74 years.
Commercial fish stocks in the oceans are predicted to be depleted by 2050.
Malthus is cackling in his grave and the four horsemen are saddling up.
ThymeZone
Shorter Jonny Goebbels:
Peace with a Pony.
Jonathan
Oops, I meant to say when Bush attack Iran
Pooh
The army you have and not…(no, not that one)
Protecting them there so that… (nope)
Dead-enders! (not so much)
Wait, wait. OUR violent fanatics. We got Cheney, and Boykin, and Rumsfeld, and Feith, and Cully Stinson, and the 101st Chairborne and Chuck Krauthammer and John Yoo. Like the Guiness dudes say, BRILLIANT!
Richard 23
So that means you agree with it, right? You seem to be in love with the idea of further engagement to preserve “our” honor. Thanks, but no thanks.
Fucking knock that shit off. I’ve seen the Goebbels quote at least three times here (hundreds of times elsewhere) and now you need to repeat the Feingold bit I’ve already read?
Do I need to repeat myself? Did I stutter? Arrrrgggh!
So let’s keep on going! Whee!
So let’s stay and make it worse!
So let’s borrow more!
Shorter Jonathan: I’m running out of material here, but I’m sure finding a pony in Iraq will help with the fish problem.
Hey, why not do the fish slapping dance?
Andrew
1) Always the CIA.
2) Commies/Facists/Islamists/FARC/the French
3) Yes
Pb
Were we talking about Embassies? I missed that part, I thought I was being thrust into some sort of incredibly vague small foreign country Choose Your Own Adventure setting for no apparent reason.
Pb
> inventory
> look
Jonathan
The carrier Eisenhower is currently in the Persian Gulf.
The carrier Stennis is steaming there now, to arrive in about three weeks.
The carrier Reagan is steaming for the Western Pacific, from which it can reach the Persian Gulf in a matter of a week or so.
All these carriers are accompanied by their strike groups which have attack submarines, destroyers, guided missile cruisers and other ancillary craft.
The officer in overall command of all forces in the Mideast is being changed to Navy Admiral Fallon.
The dark of the Moon over Tehran starts about March 19.
US air attacks almost always occur at night when we have an even more significant advantage over opponents because of our technology.
All these signs point to an attack on Iran.
Pb
Also British, Mexican, Canadian, Middle Eastern, etc., etc. We’re money-agnostic, really—you want to fund our debt, we’ll take your money, yay!
ThymeZone
Shorter Jonny Goebbels:
Pariah troll failed. Stay in Iraq forever troll crashed.
New troll! Look! Iran!
Fuck me. Seriously, fuck me.
Pb
Future is cloudy, 9/11 changed everything.
NIE released on a Friday, outlook not so good.
This is the subject of an ongoing investigation, ask again later.
ThymeZone
Behold, the Internet Political Magic 8-Ball
Pb
Commercial fish stocks in the oceans are predicted to be depleted by 2050.
Feline AIDS is the leading killer of domestic housecats.
Chlorinated water increases your risk of bowel cancer.
If you keep doing that, you’ll go blind!
Pb
ThymeZone,
Beat you to it—it’s a good idea though. :)
ThymeZone
Great minds ….
Jonathan
If you think things are bad in Iraq now, just wait until Bush attacks Iran. All hell will break loose.
Iran may well attempt to sink tankers in the straits of Hormuz, blocking the sealane for oil tankers. They have Russian Sunburn anti ship missiles overlooking the straits of Hormuz.
The Russians hold at least a ten-year lead over the US in the vital area of anti-ship cruise missile technology.
We are in for some interesting times.
Andrew
Hug it out, bitches!
Pb
No, that was four years ago—now it’s the Republicans.
ThymeZone
I can’t quite make out this post ….
ThymeZone
If only that were true here ….
Richard 23
Get a room, you two! ;-)
But “we” should stay there forever once “we” break it.
When are we going to go after those WMDs that were shipped off to Syria?
Jonathan
The US forces will try to knock out the Iranian Sunburns but remember in the Gulf War how much trouble they had finding all the Scud missile launchers.
The Iranian leaders are far more cagey than our neocon dimbulbs and when Bush strikes they are guaranteed to have something nasty up their sleeves.
Pb
What are we at now, 40% of hell broken loose?
Did you know that Iraq is #4 on the Failed States Index for 2006 (and 2005)? The same three African nations are still hogging the top spots, though.
ThymeZone
You mean …me, and Mister Hand?
Pb
Ok, Johnathan. Riveting, really. Now take a deep breath and try saying something non-obvious. If you really can’t come up with anything, then just a simple “I like pie!” will do.
Jonathan
If only that were true here
There are other threads and other sites on the intertubes, no one is making you stay.
Pb
Just so long as it isn’t you and Mister Hankey!
ThymeZone
Then why are you here?
Jonathan
Unsurprising, the legacy of colonialism is coming home to roost.
Nigeria has oil, that’s probably our next war after Iran.
Richard 23
But once “we” break it “we” have to stay for reasons of honor. “I” can hardly wait!
Richard 23
::spit take::
Thanks for that. Now I need a Mister Hankey. I was expecting a Mister Bill reference and you threw me a mean curveball, which, incidentally, we could use to provide the justification for invading Iran, Syria and Nigeria.
Pb
I thought we were going in alphabetical order?
Jonathan
Because Nigerian oil is so vital to the American economy, President Bush’s State Department declared in 2002 that—along with all other African oil imports it was to be considered a “strategic national interest.” That essentially meant that the president could send in the U.S. military to protect our access to it.
Jonathan
I’m not the one who’s bored.
ThymeZone
That’s wonderful. The troll gig is still working for you, then?
Jonathan
If that were true we would have hit Iran first
Jonathan
What makes you think I’m trolling?
Pb
Nigeria oil ‘total war’ warning:
That was the story that was in the news
right before we invaded Nigeriain February 2006.Pb
Have you forgotten who our President is already? I think he’s just making up for lost time now.
Pb
That’s the most charitable interpretation.
Jonathan
That place is already pretty thoroughly “broken”.
Jonathan
You can’t deal with an honest difference of opinion?
Pb
No, I just have trouble dealing with crazy people. In my defense, I think most sane people do. But trolls, of course, are sane people who are just pretending to be deranged. So if you aren’t a troll, then what’s your excuse?
ThymeZone
It’s pretty obvious.
Pooh
My mistake. You’re just a tool, then.
Andrew
I had no idea the militantly militant “liberal” character would be so popular.
Jonathan
I learned a sense of honor in Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children
Jonathan
But crazy people are the most fun. I really enjoy messing with Darrell.
BTW, you still haven’t admitted I was right about Godwin’s law.
Rome Again
God DANG I hate Dell Computers! GRRRRRRRRR
I’m back.
Jonathan
I’m a good bit more “liberal” than most liberals on almost all subjects. I’m in favor of doing whatever it takes to protect the environment, I’m in favor of raising taxes on the wealthy, I’m in favor of ending drug prohibition, I’m in favor of immediately releasing any prisoner who is in just for drug posession or sales, I’m in favor of affirmative action for those who need it, I’m a card carrying member of the ACLU, I’m in favor of reinstating the fairness doctrine.
Is that good enough liberal credeentials?
Rome Again
It means, if you’re not careful, you’ll shoot your eye out with that thing.
Didn’t we just go over this a couple of days ago? LMAO
Pb
Jonathan,
And you never addressed my original reply to you on that subject. But as I said subsequently, “there’s a reason for that”.
Pb
Er. I didn’t reply to that first blockquote, apparently.
Well, you’ve got a point there! :)
Jonathan
I can sympathize.
I have an ancient HP which I have to baby along, I have to restart it several times a day if I open too many windows.
Pb
Well, I’ll assume you did score as a liberal on the Pew test? So where are you on the Political Compass...
Rome Again
I have an ancient HP too, it’s in storage. I didn’t hate it anywhere near as much as I hate this one.
Jonathan
Pb,
As far as I can tell, this is your first reply to me about Godwin’s law.
Jonathan
I never got the chance, I got too busy trying to keep up with the conversation here and then my computer froze and I had to restart it so I lost the link.
I’m about to try it out now.
Pb
Jonathan,
Correct!
Punchy
My guess is no.
Jonathan
OK, I came out a liberal
Jonathan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin’s_law
Rome Again
Yup, he’s gonna SAVE THE WORLD, one war at a time.
Jonathan
OK, I came out a libertarian liberal, just about in the middle of the lower left quadrant.
Jonathan
LOL, It looks like the Dalai Lama and I would find almost nothing to disagree about.
Rome Again
10:05 he says he came out a liberal
10:20 he says he came out a liberal libertarian.
HMMMMMMMMMMMMMM! Something fishy goin’ on here.
Jonathan
I suspect it’s going to be at least two at a time.
Jonathan
Two different tests with the second one being far more discerning.
Rome Again
Well, simultaneously I’d say he thinks he can go for 5 or 6. But, each one is its own monster.
Pb
I am too, but IIRC, not quite as far out as you are, there.
And to the confused, yes, those were two different tests—the Liberal typology in Pew’s Typology Groups, and the Left-Libertarian quadrant in the Political Compass tests.
Rome Again
“I see said the blind man with the deaf dog and the dumb kid”
Pb
Jonathan,
And, yes, as I said originally, I know what Godwin’s Law is, so there’s really no reason for you to repeat it, let alone twice. Heck, I didn’t even quote Moore’s law, but I thought I made my point. However, to spell it out, if you had read the Wikipedia page for Godwin’s Law, it directly mentions what I was alluding to as well:
Jonathan
Pb,
Ready to give it up on Godwin’s law?
Pb
LOL.
Jonathan
Hmm.. I cited the actual Godwin’s law formulated by Mike Godwin in 1990 and you cited a tradition which has come to be known as Godwin’s law.
So we are both correct but I am more correct than you.
Do a search and show me where I wrote the word “Nazi(s)”.
I never mentioned Nazis.
Pb
So we are both correct but I am more correct than you.
Actually, I’d argue that I’m more current than you—and indeed, more conversant with the tradition.
I never mentioned Nazis.
You mentioned a Nazi, actually.
Richard 23
That place [Iran] is already pretty thoroughly “broken”.
So let’s fix it! And then “we” can stay out of honor. Honestly, you are having us on aren’t you? You are trolling for kicks aren’t you?
Andrew
I think that the pedantry is the icing on the cake of spoofery.
Pb
Andy, yer doin’ a heckuva job!
Jonathan
So let’s fix it! And then “we” can stay out of honor. Honestly, you are having us on aren’t you? You are trolling for kicks aren’t you?
Actually I was referring to Nigeria, which is quite “broken” already, even more so than Iraq.
If you went into someones home uninvited and broke a priceless heirloom, how would you expect to be treated?
Do you think you should be allowed to just walk away with no consequences?
Would you feel no guilt for performing such an act?
This is my country, I feel a deep and abiding sense of guilt that the country that I love and have pledged my life to protect comitted such a horrible crime. My sense of honor that I learned in service to my country will not allow me to just shrug my shoulders and forget the crime.
Honor and justice are inextricably intertwined, you cannot have one without the other. To walk away from such a horrendous crime is not just, it violates my sense of honor in a way that I lack the words to express.
When the USA won WWII, a war in which we were attacked without warning, we did not walk away from those who attacked us. Rather, we helped them, we occupied them at our own expense in order to help the citizens of those countries maintain a civil society and not fall back into the savagery we see in Iraq. We helped them financially and materially. We helped them rebuild their industries and their homes. We helped them build, equip and operate hospitals for their multitude of wounded.
And we did all this immediately after fighting a world wide war against two of the most powerful military machines on the planet, a fight which exhausted us physically, mentally and financially and in which we lost over 400,000 dead.
Why did we do all this? Because in the long run it was the best choice for us. The lessons of the victory in WWI were learned, Nazi Germany arose from the bitter ashes of the German loss in WWI, a loss in which the victors, instead of helping Germany, made them pay reperations which made an already impoverished and devastated nation suffer even more. A suffering which made the German people bitter and angry, which led directly to the rise of Nazism.
In contrast Iraq is a small, almost third world nation which we savagely attacked under false pretenses and then allowed to descend into savagery because we were too cheap to do the job right and commit the neccesary resources for the task at hand. We lost only about 140 troops in the kinetic combat portion of the invasion but, because we deliberately failed to plan for the occupation, we have lost nearly 3,000 more troops.
Now we plan on walking away from Iraq and abandoning the Iraqi people to a cruel fate. The Iraqi’s will remember this injustice in their very bones and Arabs are a vengeful people with very long memories and a very strong sense of honor. We will pay, sooner or later, for our lack of compassion and honor that has led us to deny justice to the Iraqi people.
That’s about as clear as I can make my thoughts on this subject, I think I’m done argueing with people that lack compassion, honor and foresight.
Good night and good luck.
Jonathan
So let’s fix it! And then “we” can stay out of honor. Honestly, you are having us on aren’t you? You are trolling for kicks aren’t you?
Actually I was referring to Nigeria, which is quite “broken” already, even more so than Iraq.
If you went into someones home uninvited and broke a priceless heirloom, how would you expect to be treated?
Do you think you should be allowed to just walk away with no consequences?
Would you feel no guilt for performing such an act?
This is my country, I feel a deep and abiding sense of guilt that the country that I love and have pledged my life to protect comitted such a horrible crime. My sense of honor that I learned in service to my country will not allow me to just shrug my shoulders and forget the crime.
Honor and justice are inextricably intertwined, you cannot have one without the other. To walk away from such a horrendous crime is not just, it violates my sense of honor in a way that I lack the words to express.
When the USA won WWII, a war in which we were attacked without warning, we did not walk away from those who attacked us. Rather, we helped them, we occupied them at our own expense in order to help the citizens of those countries maintain a civil society and not fall back into the savagery we see in Iraq. We helped them financially and materially. We helped them rebuild their industries and their homes. We helped them build, equip and operate hospitals for their multitude of wounded.
And we did all this immediately after fighting a world wide war against two of the most powerful military machines on the planet, a fight which exhausted us physically, mentally and financially and in which we lost over 400,000 dead.
Why did we do all this? Because in the long run it was the best choice for us. The lessons of the victory in WWI were learned, Nazi Germany arose from the bitter ashes of the German loss in WWI, a loss in which the victors, instead of helping Germany, made them pay reperations which made an already impoverished and devastated nation suffer even more. A suffering which made the German people bitter and angry, which led directly to the rise of Nazism.
In contrast Iraq is a small, almost third world nation which we savagely attacked under false pretenses and then allowed to descend into savagery because we were too cheap to do the job right and commit the neccesary resources for the task at hand. We lost only about 140 troops in the kinetic combat portion of the invasion but, because we deliberately failed to plan for the occupation, we have lost nearly 3,000 more troops.
Now we plan on walking away from Iraq and abandoning the Iraqi people to a cruel fate. The Iraqi’s will remember this injustice in their very bones and Arabs are a vengeful people with very long memories and a very strong sense of honor. We will pay, sooner or later, for our lack of compassion and honor that has led us to deny justice to the Iraqi people.
That’s about as clear as I can make my thoughts on this subject, I think I’m done argueing with people that lack compassion, honor and foresight.
Good night and good luck.
Jonathan
So let’s fix it! And then “we” can stay out of honor. Honestly, you are having us on aren’t you? You are trolling for kicks aren’t you?
Actually I was referring to Nigeria, which is quite “broken” already, even more so than Iraq.
If you went into someones home uninvited and broke a priceless heirloom, how would you expect to be treated?
Do you think you should be allowed to just walk away with no consequences?
Would you feel no guilt for performing such an act?
This is my country, I feel a deep and abiding sense of guilt that the country that I love and have pledged my life to protect comitted such a horrible crime. My sense of honor that I learned in service to my country will not allow me to just shrug my shoulders and forget the crime.
Honor and justice are inextricably intertwined, you cannot have one without the other. To walk away from such a horrendous crime is not just, it violates my sense of honor in a way that I lack the words to express.
When the USA won WWII, a war in which we were attacked without warning, we did not walk away from those who attacked us. Rather, we helped them, we occupied them at our own expense in order to help the citizens of those countries maintain a civil society and not fall back into the savagery we see in Iraq. We helped them financially and materially. We helped them rebuild their industries and their homes. We helped them build, equip and operate hospitals for their multitude of wounded.
And we did all this immediately after fighting a world wide war against two of the most powerful military machines on the planet, a fight which exhausted us physically, mentally and financially and in which we lost over 400,000 dead.
Why did we do all this? Because in the long run it was the best choice for us. The lessons of the victory in WWI were learned, Nazi Germany arose from the bitter ashes of the German loss in WWI, a loss in which the victors, instead of helping Germany, made them pay reperations which made an already impoverished and devastated nation suffer even more. A suffering which made the German people bitter and angry, which led directly to the rise of Nazism.
In contrast Iraq is a small, almost third world nation which we savagely attacked under false pretenses and then allowed to descend into savagery because we were too cheap to do the job right and commit the neccesary resources for the task at hand. We lost only about 140 troops in the kinetic combat portion of the invasion but, because we deliberately failed to plan for the occupation, we have lost nearly 3,000 more troops.
Now we plan on walking away from Iraq and abandoning the Iraqi people to a cruel fate. The Iraqi’s will remember this injustice in their very bones and Arabs are a vengeful people with very long memories and a very strong sense of honor. We will pay, sooner or later, for our lack of compassion and honor that has led us to deny justice to the Iraqi people.
That’s about as clear as I can make my thoughts on this subject, I think I’m done argueing with people that lack compassion, honor and foresight.
Good night and good luck.
Jonathan
So let’s fix it! And then “we” can stay out of honor. Honestly, you are having us on aren’t you? You are trolling for kicks aren’t you?
Actually I was referring to Nigeria, which is quite “broken” already, even more so than Iraq.
If you went into someones home uninvited and broke a priceless heirloom, how would you expect to be treated?
Do you think you should be allowed to just walk away with no consequences?
Would you feel no guilt for performing such an act?
This is my country, I feel a deep and abiding sense of guilt that the country that I love and have pledged my life to protect comitted such a horrible crime. My sense of honor that I learned in service to my country will not allow me to just shrug my shoulders and forget the crime.
Honor and justice are inextricably intertwined, you cannot have one without the other. To walk away from such a horrendous crime is not just, it violates my sense of honor in a way that I lack the words to express.
When the USA won WWII, a war in which we were attacked without warning, we did not walk away from those who attacked us. Rather, we helped them, we occupied them at our own expense in order to help the citizens of those countries maintain a civil society and not fall back into the savagery we see in Iraq. We helped them financially and materially. We helped them rebuild their industries and their homes. We helped them build, equip and operate hospitals for their multitude of wounded.
And we did all this immediately after fighting a world wide war against two of the most powerful military machines on the planet, a fight which exhausted us physically, mentally and financially and in which we lost over 400,000 dead.
Why did we do all this? Because in the long run it was the best choice for us. The lessons of the victory in WWI were learned, Nazi Germany arose from the bitter ashes of the German loss in WWI, a loss in which the victors, instead of helping Germany, made them pay reperations which made an already impoverished and devastated nation suffer even more. A suffering which made the German people bitter and angry, which led directly to the rise of Nazism.
In contrast Iraq is a small, almost third world nation which we savagely attacked under false pretenses and then allowed to descend into savagery because we were too cheap to do the job right and commit the neccesary resources for the task at hand. We lost only about 140 troops in the kinetic combat portion of the invasion but, because we deliberately failed to plan for the occupation, we have lost nearly 3,000 more troops.
Now we plan on walking away from Iraq and abandoning the Iraqi people to a cruel fate. The Iraqi’s will remember this injustice in their very bones and Arabs are a vengeful people with very long memories and a very strong sense of honor. We will pay, sooner or later, for our lack of compassion and honor that has led us to deny justice to the Iraqi people.
That’s about as clear as I can make my thoughts on this subject, I think I’m done argueing with people that lack compassion, honor and foresight.
Good night and good luck.
Pb
Do you think you should be allowed to just walk away with no consequences?
To extend the analogy a bit… if you’re a bull in a china shop, and you break something, should you then:
a) Leave.
b) Stick around.
Ok, ok… but if you’re a bull in a china shop and you stuck around, and you’ve already broken, like, ten more things… well, see above, rinse, lather, and repeat.
Jonathan
I’m not going to argue any more Pb. I’ve said my piece as best I can. If you don’t understand my thoughts and feelings then I guess it’s my fault for not being able to express myself clearly enough.
If you think it is just to walk away, then I guess you’ll have to deal with your own conscience. I know mine will be bothering me for the rest of my life.
Sooner or later we will pay a horrendous price for our crime. Sixty two million people died in WWII, a war that happened because the Allies punished the Germans for starting WWI. Now we are punishing the Iraqis for a war which we started under false pretences, I hope the inevitable consequences don’t lead to far more deaths than WWII but somehow I doubt it. We have started a religious war and those are the most vicious kind.
“With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil; – that takes religion.”—Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg
Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil because I’m the meanest motherfucker in the valley. —Marine Corps saying
Pb
Jonathan,
Oh, I understand your position, I just don’t share it. I wish we hadn’t invaded Iraq—and I certainly was against it at the time. And I wish we could fix Iraq now, and do more good than harm—but I don’t see how, especially if we don’t leave. Humpty Dumpty has fallen, we pushed him, and he isn’t too fond of us anymore. For now, someone else is going to have to pick up the pieces. Is that responsible? Maybe—sometimes the best thing you can do is to just walk away. But it definitely sucks all around.
And as for the religious war aspect of things—that’s why we really need to redeploy and contain this thing—because as I’m sure you know, if we ended up with a full-blown religious war across the Middle East, that’d be way worse than what we have now. And yeah, that might very well be the goal of the current administration, or at the least the end result of whatever their policies actually are.
Cheers.
Jonathan
Pb,
I see you sleep about as much as I do. ;-)
I gotta tell you, I was kind of surprised at the amount of abuse, insults and foul language thrown my way by my fellow liberals simply because I disagreed with liberal orthodoxy. I tried hard to remain polite, as I always do, and yet supposed liberals kept up with personal attacks rather than dealing with my arguments in a calm, logical manner. I was not impressed.
I’m used to getting personal attacks, abuse and insults from righties but I really thought lefties were a little better. I’ve learned a valuable and eye opening lesson that I will not forget.
Even Darrell calmed down and treated me with respect when I pointed out that I had treated him likewise. I hate to think lefties are worse than Darrell but apparently that is so.
As for Iraq, I don’t think there is anyone capable of picking up the pieces. No one but the US has anything approaching the manpower needed. The UN is not going to throw troops into that meat grinder and I doubt anyone else is all that eager to do it either.
I have this sickening feeling that full blown religious war is inevitable and that it will come to the US sooner or later. Our borders are porous, documents can be forged and all it would take to send the US into a full blown panic is half a dozen or so sniper teams like the DC snipers spread around the country. Well trained and properly equipped snipers with serious money behind them would be much harder to catch than the DC snipers were.
When panic comes, rationality leaves. I’m reminded of a line in Frank Herbert’s Dune: “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear… And when it is gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear is gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
Fear is the mind killer for sure. In fear we will lash out at anything that is perceived to be an enemy and in doing so we will do nothing but create more enemies which will create more fear in an ever widening spiral of hate, fear and violence.
Jihad vs McCrusade, coming soon to a location near you.
ThymeZone
Yeah, well this is pure shit.
First, you are puffing yourself up. What makes you think that people are insulting you for any reason other than they just think you’re an ass and don’t like you?
Second, you’re a passive aggressive jerk. This whole politeness thing you do is part of the act. Take note of the name of this blog. Take note of its legacy in the comments and the general rough tone and longshoreman language. You try to leverage phony politeness and phony erudition into something you can climb up on and look down upon other people. You constantly talk about how stupid other people are. Your posts drip with arrogance and condescension.
This is what you deserve: Fuck you. Shut up. Get real. Stop trolling. Write shorter posts. Cut the crap. You aren’t really fooling anyone here.
I write this obnoxious character just for the fun of it, and within its bounds, I can run circles around you here with one hand tied behind my back and doing three other things at the same time. You aren’t nearly as hot as you think you are, sport. If you aren’t a spoof, then you’re just another troll. If you are a spoof, good job, but it’s over.
What happened to the bullshit Pariah troll, Jonny? Did you realize that you’d blown your cover with that one, and have to make up a new theme for the thread?
Do you honestly think that there’s a future for the collossally dumb idea that the Pottery Barn rule now means that we broke Iraq, and therefore we are forever responsible for fixing a people who haven’t been able to stop killing each other for 1000 years? Are you seriously going to peddle that kind of crap and then ask people to take you seriously?
Oookay. Then I’ll be here to make sure that there’s a pie in your face and a Kick Me sign on your back at all times. Watch your six.
ThymeZone
This is one reason why I know you are full of crap, Jonny.
Between this NIE and the report of the ISG last year, any reasonable person can conclude that Iraq is probably headed for one of two states: Partitioned, split up into chunks that can at least manage to keep from becoming death machines to their own people, or, an ongoing larger death machine of chaos and civil conflict going on indefinitely.
Those are the only two outcomes that are likely AFAIC. And US involvement there is not really that relevant. We can delay the inevitable, but not prevent it. The idea that somehow our presence there is a “good thing” because it allows us to keep our eyes on a pony is just bullshit.
And you, Jonny Goebbels, are nothing but another fucking pony salesman. Pony pimp. Boo hoo, says Jonny, I in my infinite wisdom of Semper Fi plus the world’s biggest ethical mandate of my own making plus some crap I pulled out of my ass, have decided that my heart would break unless we Americans decided that since we broke Iraq, we now have a lifelong … no, beyond lifelong, because it may extend to our children … we will now saddle our children with a lifelong obligation to make Iraq all better again and turn it into Club Mesopotamia somehow.
Without doubt, the biggest and most insane crock of shit ever proposed on this blog since I have been here these two years.
Stuff it, Jonny. Take your delusional pony and ride it back to wherever you came from. If you believe it, you’re nuts. If not, then you’re just a troll. Either way, it’s crap.
Pb
Jonathan,
You get what you put in—for example, explain to me how these arguments of yours were oh so calm and logical:
Do you think that Iraqis are somehow a different sort of human being than Americans?
Yeah. So put down the sackcloth and ashes and think about how your statements might have engendered the responses you received.
Well in that case, your suggestions are way more fatalistic than mine.
In some ways perhaps it has begun—but when we do have another attack, I hope we manage to respond better as a nation. And yes, our borders aren’t secure, and apparently lite-brites are enough to send some people into full-blown panic mode.
Fear and self-righteousness, baby. Bob Altemeyer is covering it well.
TenguPhule
Do you think you should be allowed to just walk away with no consequences?
If the owners of the house are telling to you to get out and start shooting at you, will you stay?
Zombie Santa Claus
Sure, for the right amount of cookies. This kind of thing happens to me all the time!