0
   

THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

 
 
ebrown p
 
  1  
Reply Sat 6 Nov, 2004 10:49 am
Bill,

I say this respectfully. I feel you arguing for the sake of argument. Understand that as much as I enjoy a good argument, my horror and my opposition to what is happening in Iraq is real. There are real people dying and I accept the argument that things may get better (although I disagree), it is clear that right now things are getting worse.

Please give it up with this "thugs in LA" crap.

When there are suicide bombings in LA, deliberate attacks targetting police that kill hundreds, rocket attacks on foreign buildings and significant public support for insurgents (not gangs) you will have a point.

Read what is happening, and understand why many of us are horrified and angry.

CNN news

I apologize, but this debate is getting me more upset than ever as this is sadly much more than a intellectual discussion. I don't think there is any more to say.
0 Replies
 
Gelisgesti
 
  1  
Reply Sat 6 Nov, 2004 10:57 am
When the war began our troops expected the Iraqis to hold their ground and fight ...... they did not .... instead they melted into the population and began a guerrilla type of resistance .... hit and run.
After weeks of bombing,there is only one of two things our troops will find in Fallujah ..... either a bombed out city that is empty of Iraqis or, resistance of overwhelming numbers.
Either way .... we lose.
0 Replies
 
Foxfyre
 
  1  
Reply Sat 6 Nov, 2004 10:57 am
Quote:
Everyone seemed to be appalled at Putin's handling of the hostage situation in the theatre. I admired his grit. It is true that a lot of friendlies died that day and of course it is tragic. But not one died because of Putin's decision not to cave in to terrorist demands... they died at the hands of the terrorists themselves. Putin's behavior essentially put out the notice; "If you attack our innocent people, it is always a suicide mission". We'll never no how many Russian would-be hostage takers sh!t-can the idea as soon as it's suggested because they know their own death would be the result. Any weakness shown in the Zero-Tolerance for terrorism policy encourages terrorism. The more weakness shown, the more rational terrorism becomes.


Obill is spot on accurate here. I wish so much that each new generation could learn from the experience of the past. The world did not defy Lenin when his movement was a small band of rebel activisits and by his hand and those who followed, millions of innocents died. The world did not defy Hitler when his movement was a small band of rebel activists or even when Germany first started moving on his neighbors. Let him have his way there, they said, and he will be satisfied. Well he wasn't, and millions of innocents died.

We now have a choice. Leave the terrorists alone on the theory they will be satisfied and mind their own business--our own history suggests that would be pure folly--or take the fight to them and say enough is enough. You disarm and join the rest of the peace loving world, or we will take you out. I think the latter decision is the only practical decision for a just world.
0 Replies
 
OCCOM BILL
 
  1  
Reply Sat 6 Nov, 2004 11:21 am
ebrown_p wrote:
Bill,

I say this respectfully. I feel you arguing for the sake of argument. Understand that as much as I enjoy a good argument, my horror and my opposition to what is happening in Iraq is real. There are real people dying and I accept the argument that things may get better (although I disagree), it is clear that right now things are getting worse.
With the same respect, Ebrown, I take this as seriously as you do. Have you forgotten the heightened fervor of my first post to you in this discussion? Rest assured, I consider your position as absurd and untenable as you do mine. You don't think much of me if you think I consider people dying a fun opportunity to needle you with silly suggestions.

ebrown_p wrote:
Please give it up with this "thugs in LA" crap.
Not a chance... unless you can prove it false. Thus far you've only strengthened the example. Watch:
ebrown_p wrote:
When there are suicide bombings in LA, deliberate attacks targeting police that kill hundreds, rocket attacks on foreign buildings and significant public support for insurgents (not gangs) you will have a point.
And if there were those things would you then want the police to leave? Your example suggests that effective murderous strategy adds legitimacy to a cause. Wake up man! The worse the behavior of the killers becomes; the more important it becomes to stop them. NOT LESS. Your position encourages insurgency and lawlessness. We must not send the message that the better you are at killing, the more weight we'll give your message. Think it through man.

ebrown_p wrote:
Read what is happening, and understand why many of us are horrified and angry.

CNN news
This is a meaningless insult. It is the reason my tone is turning sour again.

ebrown_p wrote:
I apologize, but this debate is getting me more upset than ever as this is sadly much more than a intellectual discussion. I don't think there is any more to say.
That's plenty fair enough.
0 Replies
 
timberlandko
 
  1  
Reply Sat 6 Nov, 2004 11:46 am
ebrown_p wrote:
When there are suicide bombings in LA, deliberate attacks targeting police that kill hundreds, rocket attacks on foreign buildings and significant public support for insurgents (not gangs) you will have a point.


I submit the point precisely is that it is the prime interest of National Security to assure the fight does not come to US soil. I submit those who deny the jihadists are at self-declared war with Western Civilization misapprehend the reality. I submit that the jihadists are by no means a majority within the Islamic World. I submit that defeating the thugs on their own soil is the surest, in fact sole, means of preventing them from taking the fight beyond their region. I submit that defeating the thugs is the sole means by which The Islamic World may be freed of their pernicious, insidious influence.
0 Replies
 
squinney
 
  1  
Reply Sat 6 Nov, 2004 11:56 am
Bill, you missed my point. The game the insurgents are playing involves

1) Infiltrate a large city to lure US / coalition troops

2) When US talks for two weeks about attacking the city to get rid of us, we'll slip out with the residents and perhaps leave a couple hundred insurgents behind to have a show of some resistance for the televisions around the world. These left behind insurgents are suicides. They remain to resist US troops knowing they will be killed.

3) The rest of the insurgents (55-5800 of the 6000) move on to another city and infiltrate. They leave Fallujah along with the regular citizens, go to another large city and plan for the same thing as just happened in Faluujah.

4) Fallujah residents return to find that their homes, businesses and places of worship have been bombed. Everything they had is destroyed. They hear of the insurgents now being in another city and the same plan being made by US troops to attack that city. They figure out that the American plan is not working and that all that is happening is that Iraqi homes, businesses, mosques and people are being destroyed.

5) The killing of the Iraqi citizens will outrage many and many insurgents will replace those that remained to resist in Fallujah.

6) Cycle repeats.
0 Replies
 
timberlandko
 
  1  
Reply Sat 6 Nov, 2004 12:18 pm
That, squinney, is precisely why the counterinsurgency offensive now underway is being conducted in multiple locations. Fallujah gets the headlines, but al Ramadi, al Qaim, and Latifya, among others, are getting some serious attention from our troops right now, too. The goal is to render Iraq capable of legitimately carrying out the elections scheduled for January. I suspect that goal will be met.

I really have no idea what the outcome of those elections might be, how Iraq will shape itself, but I am confident Iraq will democratically vote to shape itself as scheduled.
0 Replies
 
Foxfyre
 
  1  
Reply Sat 6 Nov, 2004 12:21 pm
It is also interesting that the head of the U.N. is warning the U.S. against attacking these cities as it 'will compromise the January elections' while the provisional government of Iraq is shaking their heads and saying the U.N. simply doesn't know what they are talking about.
0 Replies
 
Walter Hinteler
 
  1  
Reply Sat 6 Nov, 2004 12:28 pm
Quote:
White House director of postwar policy for Iraq to step down

(11-06) 09:34 PST WASHINGTON (AP) --

The White House's director of postwar policy for Iraq, who was instrumental in helping to set up an interim government to lead that country until elections can be held, is stepping down.

Robert Blackwill, a former ambassador to India, has overseen Iraq strategy at the National Security Council since mid-2003. He decided "some time ago" to depart government service after the presidential election, a White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Saturday.

Blackwill's departure was first reported Saturday in The Washington Post. It was the second report in two days of a ranking official's decision to leave the Bush administration's national security establishment.

On Friday, the State Department confirmed the impending departure of J. Cofer Black, the department's chief counterterrorism figure. Like Blackwill, the former CIA operations officer had told superiors he planned to leave after the elections, and department spokesman Adam Ereli said he will end his 30-year government career in a matter of weeks.

Blackwill's absence will shorten the list of people reputed to be in the running to replace Condoleezza Rice as President Bush's national security adviser. Rice has told associates she will not stay in the post in the second Bush term and has talked about returning to academic life in California. She was a former provost at Stanford University and was a political science professor when Bush hired her.

Blackwill, whose formal title is coordinator for strategic planning on the NSC, spent months slipping in and out of Baghdad to put a U.S. stamp on a caretaker government in Iraq. The career diplomat was on the short list to become ambassador to Iraq in the spring, but Bush instead chose John Negroponte, former ambassador to the United Nations.

The White House would not comment about any impact of his departure on preparations for the Iraqi elections, scheduled in January, less than three months from now.

Blackwill worked at the National Security Council in the first Bush presidency. After advising the current president during the 2000 campaign, he spent nearly two years as ambassador in New Delhi. He served at the State Department under Secretaries Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig and George Shultz and has spent nearly 15 years teaching foreign and defense policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Source
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Reply Sat 6 Nov, 2004 12:34 pm
Cofer Black is going too, Walter.
0 Replies
 
OCCOM BILL
 
  1  
Reply Sat 6 Nov, 2004 12:37 pm
I understood you Squinney. I disagree. If you can see that strategy, so can the reasonable people of Iraq. While they may despise us, I believe they will despise the insurgents more. I don't think you give them enough credit. As that strategy becomes clearer, and it's ineffectiveness is proven, the insurgents themselves will become the hated enemy of the people… like the KKK is here. As the years roll by, the drawing power of the wrongful, hateful position will lose its potency. The fact that we can't take out a group of villains and be done with it, like it was a movie or book, doesn't mean the cause isn't just or the result isn't worthwhile.

Iraq has sufficient natural resources that their economy should thrive if we can push them over this hump. The more their lives improve with liberty, dignity and prosperity; the more they will come to despise the misguided menace that is the insurgency… much like the good people of the South have come to despise the KKK. Once upon a time, the KKK led the insurgency here, against the hated Yanks. Although the civil war was over, people continued to die in the struggle for many years. The passion of the rebel's beliefs lent no rightness to their cause. Right is right, oppression is wrong, people are people and in the end, if you give them a chance, the people in Iraq will cherish their freedom as much as you or I.
0 Replies
 
Walter Hinteler
 
  1  
Reply Sat 6 Nov, 2004 12:38 pm
blatham wrote:
Cofer Black is going too, Walter.


I know - that link was just an by-product when looking for some confirming sources of what Foxfyre wrote :wink:
0 Replies
 
Foxfyre
 
  1  
Reply Sat 6 Nov, 2004 12:44 pm
Walter wrote
Quote:
I know - that link was just an by-product when looking for some confirming sources of what Foxfyre wrote


I would have posted a link, but I've been seeing that unfold on TV and hearing it on the radio, so don't have anything to link.
0 Replies
 
mesquite
 
  1  
Reply Sat 6 Nov, 2004 12:56 pm
Foxfyre wrote:
Quote:
Everyone seemed to be appalled at Putin's handling of the hostage situation in the theatre. I admired his grit. It is true that a lot of friendlies died that day and of course it is tragic. But not one died because of Putin's decision not to cave in to terrorist demands... they died at the hands of the terrorists themselves. Putin's behavior essentially put out the notice; "If you attack our innocent people, it is always a suicide mission". We'll never no how many Russian would-be hostage takers sh!t-can the idea as soon as it's suggested because they know their own death would be the result. Any weakness shown in the Zero-Tolerance for terrorism policy encourages terrorism. The more weakness shown, the more rational terrorism becomes.


Obill is spot on accurate here. I wish so much that each new generation could learn from the experience of the past. The world did not defy Lenin when his movement was a small band of rebel activisits and by his hand and those who followed, millions of innocents died. The world did not defy Hitler when his movement was a small band of rebel activists or even when Germany first started moving on his neighbors. Let him have his way there, they said, and he will be satisfied. Well he wasn't, and millions of innocents died.

Not "Spot on accurate" concerning the deaths of the hostages.
RUSSIAN HEALTH OFFICIALS IDENTIFY GAS AS AN OPIATE
Quote:
The Fentanyl-based gas killed all but two of the 119 hostages who died in the siege. Hospital officials said most of them died of respiratory and heart failure. Of those rescued, 245 remain hospitalized, with eight in a serious condition.

That said, I do agree that the action was needed and appropriate. The deaths were caused because the medical teams were not notified in time about what they were dealing with. That is something that can be corrected if gas is ever used in the future.
0 Replies
 
revel
 
  1  
Reply Sat 6 Nov, 2004 02:13 pm
OCCOM BILL wrote:
Revel, I don't mean to ignore you but your points don't reflect any real understanding of mine. I understand you don't like the war... and I understand why.

Squinney; what do you suggest ? 125,000 people... over half of the city has already left. Clearly they don't agree with the insurgents that it's worthy of their lives. When the CRASH teams go in to arrest gang members, violence spikes there as well, but what's the alternative? Placating thugs encourages thug behavior.

Everyone seemed to be appalled at Putin's handling of the hostage situation in the theatre. I admired his grit. It is true that a lot of friendlies died that day and of course it is tragic. But not one died because of Putin's decision not to cave in to terrorist demands... they died at the hands of the terrorists themselves. Putin's behavior essentially put out the notice; "If you attack our innocent people, it is always a suicide mission". We'll never no how many Russian would-be hostage takers sh!t-can the idea as soon as it's suggested because they know their own death would be the result. Any weakness shown in the Zero-Tolerance for terrorism policy encourages terrorism. The more weakness shown, the more rational terrorism becomes.


It is ok if you ignore me. However my post did address your point about the invasion of Iraq being worth it if there were only a few people who needed rescuring from Saddam Hussien. I said that there are people all over the world that need rescuring but we can't invade every country and nook and cranny on earth to do it and besides that was not the reason stated for the invasion.

However, I read you and will not post after your post again as you made it plain I don't have anything of note to say.
0 Replies
 
revel
 
  1  
Reply Sat 6 Nov, 2004 02:16 pm
I wish that there was some way to be able to have realiable people on the ground in Iraq to talk to the everyday people there to get a sense of how they feel about everything.
0 Replies
 
revel
 
  1  
Reply Sat 6 Nov, 2004 02:17 pm
I am not watching the news so I don't know what is going on. Guess I better look.
0 Replies
 
Foxfyre
 
  1  
Reply Sat 6 Nov, 2004 02:23 pm
Here's a link to a raw CNN transcript re the skirmish going between Kofi Annan and the impending assault on Fallujah et al:

http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0411/05/ldt.01.html
0 Replies
 
OCCOM BILL
 
  1  
Reply Sat 6 Nov, 2004 02:37 pm
revel wrote:
It is ok if you ignore me. However my post did address your point about the invasion of Iraq being worth it if there were only a few people who needed rescuring from Saddam Hussien. I said that there are people all over the world that need rescuring but we can't invade every country and nook and cranny on earth to do it and besides that was not the reason stated for the invasion.
Insofar as there are people all over the world that need rescuing; we agree. That provides no reason or excuse not to rescue these people. The reason for removing Saddam is of little importance at this point. We did. We are now responsible for making sure his replacement is better, not worse. We broke it, we bought it. That means we cannot allow Islamic extremists to enslave the Iraqi women… and make no mistake… that is their intention. Would you have us let them?

revel wrote:
However, I read you and will not post after your post again as you made it plain I don't have anything of note to say.
I didn't wish to offend you Revel and I'm sorry I did. Embarrassed
0 Replies
 
OCCOM BILL
 
  1  
Reply Sat 6 Nov, 2004 02:40 pm
Kofi Annan needs to get with the program. How dare he suggest the Iraqi government should not interfere with outlaws in any particular part of the country?
0 Replies
 
 

Related Topics

Obama '08? - Discussion by sozobe
Let's get rid of the Electoral College - Discussion by Robert Gentel
McCain's VP: - Discussion by Cycloptichorn
The 2008 Democrat Convention - Discussion by Lash
McCain is blowing his election chances. - Discussion by McGentrix
Snowdon is a dummy - Discussion by cicerone imposter
Food Stamp Turkeys - Discussion by H2O MAN
TEA PARTY TO AMERICA: NOW WHAT?! - Discussion by farmerman
 
Copyright © 2025 MadLab, LLC :: Terms of Service :: Privacy Policy :: Page generated in 0.09 seconds on 07/10/2025 at 03:23:30