The War is Over - We've Lost
- Thread starter michaeledward
- Start date
Marginal
Senior Master
Yep. It's lucky for us that France invaded the British colonies and told our ancestors to get to work drafting that Constitution. Exactly the same situation. (If that history seems off, well, I guess I just souldn't try to rewrite history to fit crazy analogies now should I?)Sapper6 said:
Sarge, you and Sapper there owe me a new keyboard...I think I did a spittake there....those were priceless. :cheers:sgtmac_46 said:
michaeledward
Grandmaster
By international law, if we invade a country, we are legally responsible for the stability of that country until such time as the indiginous people are able to assume responsibility. I believe Secretary Powell was mis-quoted with the 'Pottery-Barn-Rule', if you break it you own it.mrhnau said:
It takes at least 10 years to build a military from scratch (according to the late Colonel David Hackworth), which is what needs to be done because the occupying forces have disbanded the indiginous military and restricted those alum from serving in the new services.
'Ferretting out the insurrectionists' requires the will of the populace. As long as the local people are willing to shelter and hide those insurrectionists, the occupying power will be helpless.
As to how much good we are doing in the region, there is currently less electricity in Baghdad than prior to the invasion, there is currently less clean water than prior to the invasion (although the marsh land is coming back).
Assuming the current Constitution is put to a vote without the participation of the Sunni Iraqi's (which is completely possible), and assuming that the vote passes (which is also completely possible as not many Sunni's have registered to vote), we have ended up with a country with a Theocratic governence program (just like Iran) with at least twenty percent of the population having been disenfranchised. Even with this Constitution, the region is situated for a prolonged civil war.
What we should be preparing for is Genocide. The Shi'ite militia are going to exterminate the Sunni's. What strange bedfellows we are becoming. That we will be defending the former Baathists against the Mullah's of Iran. Wonderful.
And to think that these outcomes were somehow unpredictable is naive in the extreme. These possibilities had to be intentionally discounted by those in power, in the same manner they discounted intelligence that did not fit their designs.
Ok, looking at this in 3 phases Pre-War, War and Post-War....
Pre-War was all the UN stuff, the inspections, the posturing, etc. We won, but we lost because it went to stage 2:
War. The war we won. Sadamn is gone, his government toppled, his country conquered. (Sorry, 'liberated'. Only took 30 years but hey, we was busy.)
Post-War. This is mop ups, clean ups, rebuilding stage. This is still to be decided. In some areas, we are winning. People are working, water and food and utilities flowing, public safety improving, and things are looking up. In others, we are losing. People are still dying, bandits, insurgents, rebels, etc are running free, lawlessness, poverty and despair enmasse. The next year or 2 will be key to how it turns out. It'll either stabilize, or it'll go 'namish'. A real all out civil war would be a huge blow.
It's not as good as we think, and it's not as bad as we think.
Pre-War was all the UN stuff, the inspections, the posturing, etc. We won, but we lost because it went to stage 2:
War. The war we won. Sadamn is gone, his government toppled, his country conquered. (Sorry, 'liberated'. Only took 30 years but hey, we was busy.)
Post-War. This is mop ups, clean ups, rebuilding stage. This is still to be decided. In some areas, we are winning. People are working, water and food and utilities flowing, public safety improving, and things are looking up. In others, we are losing. People are still dying, bandits, insurgents, rebels, etc are running free, lawlessness, poverty and despair enmasse. The next year or 2 will be key to how it turns out. It'll either stabilize, or it'll go 'namish'. A real all out civil war would be a huge blow.
It's not as good as we think, and it's not as bad as we think.
sgtmac_46
Senior Master
But a disorganized, tribal civil war is less a threat to the international world than an organized, armed Dictator. Worse case scenario, Iraq degenerates in to ethnic and religious internal conflict for a couple generations. Still better than a nuclear armed Saddam in 10 years no matter how you spin it. Sub-Saharan Africa for all it's evils and depravities, is zero threat to anyone but itself.michaeledward said:
That having been said from a pragmatic position, we have a moral obligation to deal with the consequences of our actions. We broke it, we fix it.
The difference between Africa and Iraq though, is money. Places like Somalia are pretty much zero cash places. Iraq has oil, and more importantly, anger. Oil wealth + anger + willingness to blow once self up is a greater threat than gangland somalia. Regardless of things, there are weapons missing in Iraq that if properly deployed by an organized enemy, may be a risk.
I agree with both of you. This was avoidable, intellegence was flawed or discounted, but now that we are there, we need to do our best to get them peacefully self-sufficient. Preferably with as few casulties as possible.
I agree with both of you. This was avoidable, intellegence was flawed or discounted, but now that we are there, we need to do our best to get them peacefully self-sufficient. Preferably with as few casulties as possible.
Marginal
Senior Master
Not really. Just gives terrorist organizations more room to set up shop, train and then export terrorists. Lawlessness tends to be a handy breeding ground for such activities.sgtmac_46 said:
Execpt for the centrifugal force induced by that largely baseless supposition on your part of course.
Pragmatic would've been to box Saddam off indefinitely. A stable Iraq's better for national security.
sgtmac_46
Senior Master
A point i've been pounding on for quite some time. Without oil, the Arab world would be just like sub-saharan Africa.Bob Hubbard said:
Though, the key analogy is this. United Iraq under Saddam was a nation with a singular will ruling it toward a common goal, using oil revenue to reach that goal. A divided Iraq is less of an international threat, though oil revenues can definitely cause quite a bit of internal harm.
In essence, we are all in agreement on that important point.Bob Hubbard said:
Though I might add, though, just because something went wrong with a plan, didn't mean planning was poor. Soldiers all over the world know even the best plan never survives first contact with the enemy. I'm not sure there could have been a reasonable enough plan to have achieved this goal any better.
If we don't like Bush, we can use this as an opportunity to blame his poor planning, but that doesn't mean it's objectively true that planning was poor. Food for thought.
But that's all academic. We have to deal with the situation we have, not the one we could have had or wished we'd had.
michaeledward
Grandmaster
Bob, Just for the record, my position is we need to get the hell out of there, as soon as possible. I find myself allied with the hyper conservative local radio commentator Jay Severin (a very offensive Boston talk-jock). It makes no sense to be shipping six billion dollars month, and 60 to 70 soldiers to their death each month, for the next 10 years while we train a minimally acceptable security force.Bob Hubbard said:
My position is an immediate withdrawl of all Coalition forces. Park three aircraft carrier groups in the Gulf and three more in the Mediterrainian. Set the nuclear attack submarines patrolling covertly in the area.
Let the Shi'ite, Kurds and Sunni's civil war themselves out of existance is that is there desire. If they attempt to go beyond the artificially established boundaries of Iraq, we start levelling cities with the biggest bombs and missles in our arsenal.
I believe first in peace. But, if the military needs to be engaged, they should kill people and capture territory. If the civil war stays within the Iraqi boundaries, we can peaceably observe. If the civil war threatens to spread to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Syria, we stop that spread by levelling Basra, Baghdad or Kirkuk.
I am in no way think we need to fix something because we broke it ... especially when we shouldn't have broke in the first place.
Sapper6
3rd Black Belt
michaeledward said:
of course we could do all that but it just isn't PC... :ultracool a great plan, a plan i even agree with. (holy crap, did i just say that out loud?)
nobody wants to be there. but when are we gonna stop bitching about why we are there? i'd like to see us withdraw too, but dammit, i just wanna win the damn thing.
...and how the hell we gonna succeed with you letting the entire world in on our plan...? so much for covert... :uhyeah:
outstanding discussion, the thread title could use some work, but what the hell...
Did someone say facts...Tgace said:
http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery;jsessionid=19rt8mhpkbs5j?method=4&dsid=2222&dekey=Conspiracy+theory&gwp=8&curtab=2222_1&sbid=lc01b&linktext=conspiracy%20theories
And incidentally, we aren't through yet. Iraq is the second stop for this bus. Among the folks who edit the Weekly Standard it is said, "everyone wants to go to Bagdhad. Real men want to go to Tehran."
mrhnau
Senior Master
Imagine you smoke marijuana or something. someone tips off the authorities. you go into negotiations regarding the right to inspect your house. They give you a list of rooms they check on different days and the order in which they will be checked. Simple solution, you move the joints from room to room. no problem there (satellite images of trucks coming and going from inspection sites days before inspections occured).
authorities get upset, and say they will take over your house unless you give up the dope. They give you MONTHS of warning, saying "you better do this or else!". Simple solution, get it out of your house, give it to a friend before they come and do anything (tons of anthrax found in Syria by the border. anyone think they made it there?)
Could we have done it better? It would have been difficult. unannounced inspections, forced entry into the palaces would have been a start... I try to mention these things when I hear "there were no weapons". They also had long range missiles which were "illegal" by UN sanctions, but I'm hearing nothing of that. No, they are not nuclear or biological, but still against sanctions. I think things could have been handled a bit differently, but I prefer to discuss these presuppositions before drawing out the discussion of "why did we go in".
On the concept of "faulty intel", would you rather we get the best info we can and act on it? could this have in fact prevented 9/11? If all info says "they have this stuff", what should we have done? disbelieve it?
authorities get upset, and say they will take over your house unless you give up the dope. They give you MONTHS of warning, saying "you better do this or else!". Simple solution, get it out of your house, give it to a friend before they come and do anything (tons of anthrax found in Syria by the border. anyone think they made it there?)
Could we have done it better? It would have been difficult. unannounced inspections, forced entry into the palaces would have been a start... I try to mention these things when I hear "there were no weapons". They also had long range missiles which were "illegal" by UN sanctions, but I'm hearing nothing of that. No, they are not nuclear or biological, but still against sanctions. I think things could have been handled a bit differently, but I prefer to discuss these presuppositions before drawing out the discussion of "why did we go in".
On the concept of "faulty intel", would you rather we get the best info we can and act on it? could this have in fact prevented 9/11? If all info says "they have this stuff", what should we have done? disbelieve it?
