US AND THEM: US, UN & Iraq, version 8.0

Quote:

False! This is bunk! Repetition of bunk will not change bunk from being bunk.

So, I'll repeat truth!

While we have so far failed to exterminate malignancy in both Iraq and Afghanistan, we must nonetheless persevere until we learn how and do exterminate it. Failure to do so is unacceptable!

It is non-exterminatable. That's the point. There may be other measures of dealing with our enemies, but violence is not the path to doing so.

Commentary No. 167, Aug. 15, 2005

"The U.S. Has Lost the Iraq War"

It's over. For the U.S. to win the Iraq war requires three things: defeating the Iraqi resistance; establishing a stable government in Iraq that is friendly to the U.S.; maintaining the support of the American people while the first two are being done. None of these three seem any longer possible. First, the U.S. military itself no longer believes it can defeat the resistance. Secondly, the likelihood that the Iraqi politicians can agree on a constitution is almost nil, and therefore the likelihood of a minimally stable central government is almost nil. Thirdly, the U.S. public is turning against the war because it sees no "light at the end of the tunnel."

As a result, the Bush regime is in an impossible position. It would like to withdraw in a dignified manner, asserting some semblance of victory. But, if it tries to do this, it will face ferocious anger and deception on the part of the war party at home. And if it does not, it will face ferocious anger on the part of the withdrawal party. It will end up satisfying neither, lose face precipitously, and be remembered in ignominy.

Let us see what is happening. This month, Gen. George Casey, the U.S. commanding general in Iraq, suggested that it may be possible to reduce U.S. troops in Iraq next year by 30,000, given improvements in the ability of the Iraqi government's armed forces to handle the situation. Almost immediately, this position came under attack from the war party, and the Pentagon amended this statement to suggest that maybe this wouldn't happen, since maybe the Iraqi forces were not yet ready to handle the situation, which is surely so. At the same time, stories appeared in the leading newspapers suggesting that the level of military sophistication of the insurgent forces has been growing steadily and remarkably. And the increased rate of killings of U.S. soldiers certainly bears this out.

In the debate on the Iraqi constitution, there are two major problems. One is the degree to which the constitution will institutionalize Islamic law. It is conceivable that, given enough time and trust, there could be a compromise on this issue that would more or less satisfy most sides. But the second issue is more intractable. The Kurds, who still really want an independent state, will not settle for less than a federal structure that will guarantee their autonomy, the maintenance of their militia, and control of Kirkuk as their capital and its oil resources as their booty. The Shiites are currently divided between those who feel like the Kurds and want a federal structure, and those who prefer a strong central government provided they can control it and its resources, and provided that it will have an Islamic flavor. And the Sunnis are desperate to maintain a united state, one in which they will minimally get their fair share, and certainly don't want a state governed by Shia interpretations of Islam.

The U.S. has been trying to encourage some compromise, but it is hard to see what this might be. So, two possibilities are before us right now. The Iraqis paper over the differences in some way that will not last long. Or there is a more immediate breakdown in negotiations. Neither of these meets the needs of the U.S. Of course, there is one solution that might end the deadlock. The Iraqi politicians could join the resisters in a nationalist anti-American thrust, and thereby unite at least the non-Kurd part of the population. This development is not to be ruled out, and of course is a nightmare from the U.S. point of view.

But, for the Bush regime, the worst picture of all is on the home front. Approval rating of Bush for the conduct of the Iraqi war has gone down to 36 percent. The figures have been going steadily down for some time and should continue to do so. For poor George Bush is now faced with the vigil of Cindy Sheehan. She is a 48-year-old mother of a soldier who was killed in Iraq a year ago. Incensed by Bush's statement that the U.S. soldiers died in a "noble cause," she decided to go to Crawford, Texas, and ask to see the president so that he could explain to her for what "noble cause" her son died.

Of course, George W. Bush hasn't had the courage to see her. He sent out emissaries. She said this wasn't enough, that she wanted to see Bush personally. She has now said that she will maintain a vigil outside Bush's home until either he sees her or she is arrested. At first, the press ignored her. But now, other mothers of soldiers in Iraq have come to join her. She is getting moral support from more and more people who had previously supported the war. And the national press now has turned her into a major celebrity, some comparing her to Rosa Parks, the Black woman whose refusal to move to the back of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama a half-century ago was the spark that transformed the struggle for Black rights into a mainstream cause.

Bush won't see her because he knows there is nothing that he can say to her. Seeing her is a losing proposition. But so is not seeing her. The pressure to withdraw from Iraq is now becoming mainstream. It is not because the U.S. public shares the view that the U.S. is an imperialist power in Iraq. It is because there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel. Or rather there is a light, the light an acerbic Canadian cartoonist for the Calgary Sun drew recently. He shows a U.S. soldier in a dark tunnel approaching someone to whose body is attached an array of explosives. The light comes from the match he is holding to the wick that will cause them to explode. In the month following the attacks in London and the high level of U.S. deaths in Iraq, this is the light that the U.S. public is beginning to see. They want out. Bush is caught in an insoluble dilemma. The war is lost.

by Immanuel Wallerstein

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Quote:

False! This is bunk! Repetition of bunk will not change bunk from being bunk.

So, I'll repeat truth!

While we have so far failed to exterminate malignancy in both Iraq and Afghanistan, we must nonetheless persevere until we learn how and do exterminate it. Failure to do so is unacceptable!

It is non-exterminatable. That's the point. There may be other measures of dealing with our enemies, but violence is not the path to doing so.

Genghis Khan didn't have much problem exterminating opposition in Afghanistan....

You say that you speak 'truth' but there is no evidence that what you say is true, at all. None. Because military solutions, 'extermination,' has so far had zero effect in lessening the numbers of our enemies. Cycloptichorn

May 19,1996: Bin Laden leaves Sudan – after escaping at least one assassination attempt -- significantly weakened despite his ambitious organization skills, and returns to Afghanistan where he establishes al Qaeda training bases.

[1996 fatwah excerpts]
Our youths believe in paradise after death. They believe that taking part in fighting will not bring their day nearer; and staying behind will not postpone their day either.

These youths believe in what has been told by Allah and His messenger (Allah's Blessings and Salutations may be on him) about the greatness of the reward for the Mujahideen and Martyrs; Allah, the most exalted said: {and -so far- those who are slain in the way of Allah, He will by no means allow their deeds to perish. He will guide them and improve their condition. and cause them to enter the garden -paradise- which He has made known to them}. (Muhammad; 47:4-6). Allah the Exalted also said: {and do not speak of those who are slain in Allah's way as dead; nay -they are- alive, but you do not perceive} (Bagarah; 2:154).

[1998 fatwah excerpt]
I have been sent with the sword between my hands to ensure that no one but Allah is worshipped.

The attacks on September 11 kill almost 3,000 in a series of hijacked airliner crashes into two U.S. landmarks: the World Trade Center in New York City, New York, and The Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. A fourth plane crashes in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.

The night of 9/11, the President broadcast to the nation that we will not distinguish between terrorists and those who harbor them.

The night of 9/20, the President Bush broadcast to the nation and to a joint session of the Congress that: our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and every government that supports them; that it is civilization’s fight to punish this radical network; and that we ask every nation to join us in this fight.

On 10/25, the pre-9/11 draft presidential directive on al Qaeda evolved into a new directive, National Security Presidential Directive 9, now titled "Defeating the Terrorist Threat to the United States." The directive would now extend to a global war on terrorism, not just on al Qaeda. It also incorporated the President's determination not to distinguish between terrorists and those who harbor them. It included a determination to use military force if necessary to end al Qaeda's sanctuary in Afghanistan. The new directive -- formally signed on October 25, after the fighting in Afghanistan had already begun -- included new material followed by annexes discussing each targeted terrorist group. The old draft directive on al Qaeda became, in effect, the first annex. The United States would strive to eliminate all terrorist networks, dry up their financial support, and prevent them from acquiring weapons of mass destruction. The goal was the "elimination of terrorism as a threat to our way of life."

The al Qaeda aligned, Ansar al Islam, was formed in northern Iraq in December 2001 and included some of those fleeing the US, October 20, 2001, invasion of Afghanistan . At the beginning of the US March 20, 2003, invasion of Iraq, the al Qaeda aligned, Ansar al Islam, controlled about a dozen villages and a range of peaks in northern Iraq on the Iranian border.

When the US invaded Iraq, it attacked the al Qaeda aligned, Ansar al Islam, training camps in northern Iraq, and this organization's leaders retreated to neighboring countries. When the war in the north settled down, the militants returned to Iraq to fight against the occupying American forces.

[2004 fatwah excerpt]
No Muslim should risk his life as he may inadvertently be killed if he associates with the Crusaders, whom we have no choice but to kill.

… eight reasons for global jihad. These include the restoration of Islamic sovereignty to all lands where Muslims were once ascendant, including Spain, "Bulgaria, Hungary, Cyprus, Sicily, Ethiopia, Russian Turkistan and Chinese Turkistan. . . Even parts of France reaching 90 kilometers outside Paris."

False! When did the Bush administration adopt my recommendation to exterminate and not incarcerate malignancy? Only if and when they do, will we be able to finally fully evaluate the effectiveness of the extermination policy.

oralloy wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Quote:

False! This is bunk! Repetition of bunk will not change bunk from being bunk.

So, I'll repeat truth!

While we have so far failed to exterminate malignancy in both Iraq and Afghanistan, we must nonetheless persevere until we learn how and do exterminate it. Failure to do so is unacceptable!

It is non-exterminatable. That's the point. There may be other measures of dealing with our enemies, but violence is not the path to doing so.

Genghis Khan didn't have much problem exterminating opposition in Afghanistan....

Unfortunately, we don't have the option of putting entire towns to the sword and burning them down if they don't accept us as leaders.

You'd probably be a lot happier living 5 centuries ago, yaknow?

Cycloptichorn

That which you just reprinted, for the umpteenth time, does not qualify as evidence of anything.

False! When did the Bush administration adopt my recommendation to exterminate and not incarcerate malignancy? Only if and when they do, will we be able to finally fully evaluate the effectiveness of the extermination policy.

How exactly do you recommend they go about exterminating people again? Specifics on killing methods, please. Because that's what exterminating means - murder and killing. So how do you propose we do it - and we gotta get them all, right? Cycloptichorn

How do you tell the innocents from the guilty parties, Ican? Or do you plan on exterminating them all, regardless of guilt? Because, as you must be well aware, the biggest problem is that we have very little way of telling innocents from insurgents.

Far fewer innocents (i.e., non-combatants who are themselves prisoners of malignancy ) will be entrapped with malignancy than innocents the malignancy will kill in the space of one day!

Do you want my response as if this was a perfect situation, built up from the beginning, or from today's standpoint? They differ.

First of all, the situation wasn't perfect prior to our invasion of Iraq, or prior to our invasion of Afghanistan, or even prior to the end of President Clinton's term. So, please, I want your solution for the situation that existed at the end of President Clinton's term, for the situation that existed the day after 9/11 , the end of President Bush's first term, and currently!

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

How do you tell the innocents from the guilty parties, Ican? Or do you plan on exterminating them all, regardless of guilt? Because, as you must be well aware, the biggest problem is that we have very little way of telling innocents from insurgents.

Far fewer innocents (i.e., non-combatants who are themselves prisoners of malignancy ) will be entrapped with malignancy than innocents the malignancy will kill in the space of one day!

Base assertion, impossible to prove. You'll have to do better than that.

Do you want my response as if this was a perfect situation, built up from the beginning, or from today's standpoint? They differ.

First of all, the situation wasn't perfect prior to our invasion of Iraq, or prior to our invasion of Afghanistan, or even prior to the end of President Clinton's term. So, please, I want your solution for the situation that existed at the end of President Clinton's term, for the situation that existed the day after 9/11 , the end of President Bush's first term, and currently!

Cycloptichorn

How do you tell the innocents from the guilty parties, Ican? ...

Do you want my response as if this was a perfect situation, built up from the beginning, or from today's standpoint? They differ.

First of all, the situation wasn't perfect prior to our invasion of Iraq, or prior to our invasion of Afghanistan, or even prior to the end of President Clinton's term. So, please, I want your solution for the situation that existed at the end of President Clinton's term, for the situation that existed the day after 9/11 , the end of President Bush's first term, and currently!

Cool!

First, at the end of president Clinton's term, we have to look at the situation realistically. I believe there were failures on the part of Clinton and his staff to properly understand the true threat of AQ and foreign terrorism. For a long time apparently people in the know in the gov't thought that this was a problem, but apparently not one that fit into the Clinton agenda. More attention should have been paid to defense and to border closings (and still should).

In retrospect, we were all kind of shocked by 9/11; after winning the cold war and steamrolling through GW1 I think many of us felt sort of invincible, like teenagers. Reality bit us hard on this one. It would be really easy to go back and say 'Clinton should have done xxxxx' but I think that a minimum number of things - heightened border defense, more correllation of intel, defense (NOT offense) as a national priority - could have been done a lot better.

Second, I believe that our response after 9/11, the invasion of Afghanistan and the begin for the hunt of OBL, was entirely appropriate. I believe that most Liberals would agree with me. I do not believe that diversion of funds and efforts from the war in Afghanistan to planning the War in Iraq was appropriate in the slightest.

I understand your arguments that AQ had a presence in Iraq; but they still had a presence in AFGHANISTAN and PAKISTAN when we started the Iraq war!

Yes, but Pakistan is and has been making some effort to rid itself of AQ. While neither Afghanistan or Iraq were making any such effort. I think there is ample evidence that after 9/11, both Iraq and Afghanistan were allowing AQ sanctuary in their countries.

We should have finished the job and caught OBL ourselves, instead of leaving that job to warlords (who didn't like us and were bribed off). We would have saved ourselves a whole bunch of trouble if we had taken the time to actually follow through with our actions in Afghanistan. If you have read about the place today, you will see that there is a whole lot of unrest and Taliban and AQ activity as well as gigantic increases in Opium production; obviously we left the job unfinished there, I doubt you will disagree with me on this one.

You speak about killing enough of the enemy to convince the rest that it's a bad idea to oppose us; taking out OBL would have been a major step in this 'idea war' that would be going on. As long as the symbolic leader remains, the movement remains strong. It is true that the removal of OBL would not mean the end of AQ but it can hardly be argued that his successors would not carry the same authority or effectiveness as OBL.

Third, and most complicated, what to do as of Janurary of this year: concessions. Not to the insurgents, or AQ members; but to other countries!

It has been obvious to me for a long time that we cannot go this alone. It takes a unified effort in order to ensure an adequate job is done! Imagine trying to clean a gang out of a neighborhood, and there's no police to do it for you; the citizens of the neighborhood self-govern through mutually agreed upon pacts and the judicious use of force.

If your household took the gang on alone, you would surely fail. You might even drive other households to support the gang members' side due to your rash actions. But, you get the whole block together, the whole neighborhood except for those few houses, and you should be able to evict the troublemakers and keep them from coming back; you should be able to convince their supporters that it isn't in their best interests to invite them back.

In order to get other nations to sign on board, we should have abased ourselves for not getting them onboard in the first place (Saddam wasn't going anywhere and the AQ in Iraq was hardly in a position to start attacking the US at the time) and offered monetary concessions: namely, a slice of the pie.

Up to this point, I agree with you with only reservations about what I think are relatively small matters!

The problem is, this will never happen under our current leadership, because of two things: money and greed. Our current admin is bought and paid for by corporations (note that I find the Dems to be only slightly better), who have made their intentions clear: Iraq is a veritable gold mine, a sophisticated and cultured people who have been denied free markets (and US influence on those markets) for years. Look up some of the things that, say, Monsanto has been doing in Iraq and ask yourself if those that are bought and paid for by Monsanto would ever allow foreign companies a piece of the action.

What do you mean in this paragraph by "a piece of the action?" If you mean an opportunity to do business in Iraq, then I think such opportunity cannot be increased more by Democrats than it can by Republicans, either before or after the malignancy is exterminated.

The "money and greed" argument often used against the Republicans by the Democrats, is a funny Democrat fraud in the context of the total wealth accumulated by Democrats.

In conclusion of the third point, we should have admitted errors (not with the prosecution of the WAR but with the administration of the PEACE) in Iraq. We should have abased ourselves and asked for help. We should have tried to get our neighbors involved before resorting to rash action.

The final point, what to do today? I feel like we are stuck! I don't think we can shoot our way forward and I don't think we can just pull out immediately.

I feel that a timeline for withdrawl is not as bad an idea as the Pres. makes it out to be. Why would it be? A major reason for the anger of Iraqis, for the malignancy as you like to say, is our presence and the bad things that have been done in our name in Iraq. So we tell them that we will leave, and we leave. Setting the date is a game for the politicians but I would say that Feingold's suggestion of Jan 1st, 2007 is not ridiculous or un-doable.

When we withdraw, we will have to recognize that we will be taking a huge loss in Iraq. There is no way around this now; we have TAKEN a huge loss in Iraq already. Better to admit it than to lie and claim that we haven't done so.

Whether or not the Bush administration admits all its bungles is irrelevant. What is relevant is the following (repeated once again):

While we have so far failed to exterminate malignancyin both Iraq and Afghanistan, we must nonetheless persevere until we learn how and do exterminate it. Failure to do so is unacceptable!

The consequences of our departure before malignancy is exterminated, or at least contained, are horrible to even contemplate.

Earlier I posted an Iraqi opinion on this: www.messopotamian.blogspot.com (first two articles)
The writer claimed to be writing what the Iraqi "silent majority" thinks. His view of the unacceptable that would most probably happen matches my own.

Once again, the problem is, the current admin has NO INTENTION of leaving Iraq. Ever. You don't build a 2 billion dollar embassy in a country you intend to leave.

"2 billion dollar embassy?" That's bunk!

Last I read, they are in the process of converting a former Saddam Palace into an embassy. The cost of that is more like several millions, and not even close to 1 billion.

"the problem is, the current admin has NO INTENTION of leaving Iraq?" That's more bunk!

The Bush administration wouldn't dare risk the 2006 and 2008 elections on such a flagrant and damnable fraud. If by some miracle the malignancy announced and did cease murdering Iraqi civilians as of this moment, then except for the usual embassy Marine squad our military would be out of Iraq in less than 7 months (no more than two months of that 7 required to assure ourselves the malignancy meant what it said).

I can see no good solution to the conflict at this point, so I believe that withdrawl at a set date is the best of a bad lot of solutions. The alternative is for them to kick us out; and I don't think that will look too good on our record.

Pisssss "on our record!"

I'd love the Iraqi government "to kick us out" by demanding we leave. That would mean they had finally developed sufficient gonads and capability to prosecute Iraqi peace without our help!

Cheers

and more Cheers!

Cycloptichorn

I'd love the Iraqi government "to kick us out" by demanding we leave. That would mean they had finally developed sufficient gonads and capability to prosecute Iraqi peace without our help!

August 22, 2005
Navy Officer Affirms Assertions About Pre-9/11 Data on Atta
By PHILIP SHENON
...

With his comments today, Captain Phillpott acknowledged that he was the officer who had briefed the commission last year. "I will not discuss the issues outside of my chain of command and the Department of Defense," he said. "But my story is consistent. Atta was identified by Able Danger in January-February of 2000. I have nothing else to say."

But not enough to make any difference in the overall scheme of things. It seems to this observer that we only have a one party system in this country.

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship.