Losing in Iraq by Christopher Hitchens

Kara

I'm certainly glad you took the time to reply with an honest answer. Now I begin to understand the chasm between our positions of defining the "enemy" as seen by me and Hitchens.

If you cannot see the "enemy" after what they have wrought upon the US, the UK, Spain, and all the other cities/countries, where they have exloded bombs killing countless innocent civilians, then I certainly am not capable of defining the "enemy" for you.

Bin Laden declared war on the US in 1996, for reasons that were fully explained in his manifecto, and none of those reasons included the war in Iraq.

You have observed how al Queda through their propaganda machine, Al Jazeera, have manipulated the world press by blaming the most current bombings in the UK, on the war in Iraq. The press, and you apparently, have swallowed it completely.

Zargawi in continuing bin Ladens war in Iraq but there are indications from captured communications that they fear destruction of their complete machine in Iraq so they have decided to dispatch some 1000 of their best potential leaders and bomb makers to spots around the world to rebuild parts of their organization that have been destroyed. Is this really true......I don't know but it would make sense. We have always said that we want to destroy al Queda in Iraq instead of in the US.

Another of bin Laden's goals is to turn New York City or another very large US city into another Hiroshima. You say that if the enemy is Al Queda, we will be fighting them all over the world forever. I cannot deny the possibility of that but we must make every effort to destroy them before they carry out their threat of a nuclear detonation in one of our cities. I hope you don't think I am "fear mongering" in a rant because you would be wrong.......I am deadly serious.

The evil of Wahabism, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Al Queda is the enemy referenced by Hitchens..........I don't know any other way to say it.

If the enemies are Wahabism, "the Muslim Brotherhood" and al Qaeda, why the hell did we invade Iraq, slaughtering a couple of thousand American and English soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis? The dissociative rationale of supporters of the war is just stunning.

Equally stunning is the inability of the critics of the war to visualize and exploit the creation of an environment where a huge victory can be accomplished. That environment is the vacuum created by the destruction and disolution of Saddams army which sucked in all the rif raf who visualized 72 virgins awaiting. With an estimated 9 to 1 kill ratio, (nine terrorists to one Coalition/American soldier) we are sending them to meet the virgins at a great rate.

The single most tragic fault in the plan was not knowing the vast amount of explosives stored around the country there fore they did not send enough troops to locate, and destroy these munitions. These explosives were looted, hidden away and are now causing unnecessary casualties.

Historians never contribute to any victory, they merely record the mistakes and retell the tale to suit their own agenda.

Tommyrot, every bit of it. The nine to one kill ratio is a disgusting example of how little the Shrub and his supporters care for what happens to the troops. The insurgents are very likely Iraqis who were no threat to anyone outside their country had the invasion never taken place. Supporters of the Shrub come up with this disgusting suggestion that we have lured in the terrorists (a sufficiently vaguely defined group at the outset) and are fighting them there rather than here--but they have never provided any convincing evidence that foreigners are showing up in large numbers, and the evidence so far shows that the foreigners come from neighboring countries. There is no good reason to assume that these people would have gone out of their way to attack the United States had we not provided them such an opportunity.

Armchair generals are equally impotent.

Kara

I hope our momentary bickering contest, which has just ended, won't deter you from responding.

Rayban, I would never be deterred by a vigorous to-and-fro. As long as it is honest and as long as each person is willing to give way on a point or two, allowing for actual discussion.

I am unable to talk at the minute. Later.

Set, I have always enjoyed your posts. I want to comment on what you have written here.

This is actually helpful. It doesn't really matter but this is my position.

1. Fundamentalist Islamicists who want to rescurrect the Islamic Caliphate by the use of terrorism are indeed the enemy of the secular, liberal democracies of the West.
2. The invasion and occupation of Iraq - as been so colourfully and accurately described - was a monumental foreign policy blunder that will forever mark the Bush Administration as utterly and totally incompetent.
3. The stupidity of invading and occupying Iraq has made the real war against the real enemy (see 1 above) that much more difficult.

I heard today on radio that Salman Rushdie has called for a Reformation for Islam. I think he might be onto something. Unlike Hitchens he isn't trying to bolster a lost argument, he's actually doing some clear, independent thinking. Hitchens, take note.

GF

You are a real trip.......with your absolutisms such as this:



and this:



You are attempting to write history by parroting what other critics of the war have written. Not the best way to be taken seriously by anyone.


:wink:

History will confim this. and has been since the beginning of the war.

This was what many experts in the areas of Islam and the Middle East indicated before the invasion began.

I don't think we are all that far apart if we pull together our long views of what we see today.

Set and I and others have stated our views of how and why the US went to war, what has happened since, and how or why the issue of Islamic (if it is) terrorism affects our world. I see the view points of posters here diverging in the facts and opinions about al-Qaeda and their religiously driven terror attacks on the western world.

What I don't see or understand is why Rayban looks at evil and its purveyors differently from others here. Al-qaeda groups see a world that is skewed from my view. They see our world view of freedom, secularity, a commerce and market driven economy, and other western notions and values, as totally opposed to their religious world view that demands a different life of its adherents, a life style drawn from their interpretation of the Quran.

How could we not be at odds if this is true?

I think the line must be drawn, as it is in the West, so that my arm stops when it comes within striking distance of you. My freedom to move ends where your freedom begins. This is a western concept and is surely at odds with eastern ideas that we do not espouse.

How can we look at them as "evil?" We can only look at them as utterly different. Can we live together, is the question. We can live with them, but can they live with us? Only radical or radicalized Islamists act as terrorists. Or perhaps I am wrong here. Is radical and violent dissent built into Islam? It is (as I have read sometimes) written in the Quran that all dissidents must be destroyed? Then we need, as has been said here, for strong Islamists to step forward and disavow violence, setting a new and revolutionary philosophy of Islam to rewrite the myths of the past.

our enemy is much bigger now. When they attack us again Bush and Co. will do what they did in Vietnam. Sit and watch real Americans suffer while the fortunate sons watch it on plasma T.V's from private jets. Who benefits when we are deceived, Who benefits when we are not.

There are two wars going on in Iraq. First , there is a struggle between Sunni and Shia. Second, Iraq is a new front in the war between the US (with allies) against Islamic radicals (Al Qaeda).

The lie that is being used to justify the continued occupation is that these are the same war. This is not at all true.

When we withdraw from Iraq, the Shia will gain the upper hand in their struggle against the Sunni-- but this is a normal civil war and the Iraqis can handle it. If they are smart they will come up with a decent settlement. But anyway, we certainly aren't helping them resolve their issues here.

The real reason the US is in Iraq is to fight the second war-- which, before the Invasion, had absolutely nothing to do with the Iraqis.

So the Iraqis are dying not for their own good, but because we decided their country was a good place to invite our radical enemy to fight.

I think duking it out with Al Qaeda in Iraq is a strategically stupid for the US. The enemy isn't feeling any pain.. the battle isn't even in their turf. And the battlefield in Iraq favors them.

But whether or not Iraq is a good battlefield.. fighting our war there, which shouldn't concern the Iraqis, is really unfair to them. It is the Iraqi citizens who are most paying the ultimate price.

What is best for the Iraqis is clear.

The US should withdraw and leave the country to the Shia government to govern as they choose. They will need to deal with their civil insurgency they way every nation deals with civil insurgencies.

If the US goes, then there is no reason for Al Qaeda to be there. The Shia elected government has promised to make an Islamic government and with the US gone, there is no reason for religious violence. Based on the elected government friendly relations with Iran (a regional power) they will be able to deal with any insurgency just fine without the US.

This continued war just doesn't make any sense-- especially from the view of what's best for the Iraqis.

It is time to withdraw-- the sooner the better.

Kara

There is certainly a fundamental difference in our perceptions of evil and whether or not one can co-exist with evil.

When I look at any fundamentalist Islamic organization whose members have publicly stated that their intention is to kill me and my family, it is natural for me to believe them. Their disregard for human life has been demonstrated many times

Would you share a room with a poisonous snake that has no reasoning powers.........or with a human who has stated his desire to kill you.

You look at the same organization and/or the same snake and see something that is merely different from us.

I see you as naive and you see me as paranoid.........who is correct? Well at least for the foreseeable future I will stay on my path.....thank you.
There is no space for further discussion.

Me parroting? No, no Talking Points for me. I also try to avoid ad hominems too rayban, you should try it.

ebrown, I read your post carefully twice and am now reading more on the subject.

Rayban, I'm not naive. I did not express myself well in the wee hours when I was writing. Should have waited until sun up.

I think we must attack and defend ourselves against groups with deadly intentions, even if we must lose a few civil liberties by trying to anticipate and stop such attacks. I just think we are going about it in the wrong way. As Setanta pointed out earlier, the long range ambitions of the PNAC are to establish a foothold in the ME; and attacking Iraq, with all of the bogus and varying reasons the administration could summon up, fit in well with those ambitions. I think Iraq was irrelevant to the issue of terror until we created a terrorist haven there.
It is because we created that haven of terror that I don't think we should simply pull our troops out of Iraq and leave the current ill-formed and unprotected government, as well as the people who live there, at the mercy of the violence that we have allowed to happen.

It was after President Bush ran out of other reasons to defend his war that he began saying that we are fighting in Iraq so that the war on terror would not be brought to our shores. I've always wondered what the Iraqi people think when he says this. He doesn't want American civilians to die in a war on their soil but he doesn't seem to care if Iraqi civilians do.

.

Thank you for stating your belief on this point......I would not feel so frustrated if more on this forum would make the same admission. I didn't really believe you to be naive and it is obvious that you are making a sincere effort to understand the very complex forces at work in our effort to conquer the worldwide menace of Islamic Fascism (I don't like using that pretentious term but it seems to be the most concise definition of the enemy)

You yourself stated earlier that the enemy was world wide and we would fight it forever. You further state that we have created a haven for this enemy in Iraq. It has been established by all the investigations of our intelligence failure, that we had NO actionable human intelligence in Iraq before we attacked. How then could we have been certain that bin Laden and Saddam would NEVER unite against us as the common enemy, which would in turn allow al Queda to re-establish their training camps from Afghanistan to Iraq? We could not allow that to happen after expending so much time, energy, money and loss of life in our victory in Afghanistan.
It has been established by the 9/11 commission that there was some contact between al Queda and Iraq prior to 9/11 and there are many here who will scoff at any thought of Saddam making a deal with binLaden because of a supposed division in ideology. It is only a small step for two supposed enemies to unite against a much larger and more powerful COMMON enemy. I only want you to think about the possibilities here and to not form any firm decisions here about our motives or our perceived requirements for bases or objectives in this part of the world.

You are rightly concerned about the lives of Iraqis in the current situation. Many have died and many more will die but you seem to have forgotten that many were dying under Saddam. The only difference is......which group was doing most of the dying. Under Saddam they were mostly Shiites and some Kurds where as now the Sunnis are also feeling the pain.
The point I'm trying to make is that we have not suddenly caused all the dying but many here want you to believe we are responsible. That sort of thinking is just flat wrong and unjustified

Let me use a simple analogy to make my next point: When fishermen want to have the best chance of catching a lot of fish, they try to find schools of any particular food fish since at certain times of the year, every type of fish that we use for food, congregate in schools. Trying to find al Queda is similar to trying to find fish in the ocean. Now in Iraq, which you call a haven for terrorists, the terrorists have gathered in bunches from around the world in their zeal to kill Americans. Many here will again scoff and claim that those fighting us are all homegrown Baathists who would rightly be called insurgents rather than terrorists. If that is true then this guy Zargawi would not be a real threat to us would he? Why then have our guys found identification on dead fighters from all over the world......many are from Chechnia, Yemen, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia......in fact from every Muslim country. They have congregated to kill Americans.

Was this the initial strategy when we were planning the war?.......it makes sense to me. It may be the reason we did not send more troops to seal the borders. If we seal the borders, how do the fish come in to congregate? There will be more scoffing at this type of thinking. But the scoffers can't have it both ways. Many have called Rumsfeld stupid for not sending more troops to seal the borders. If all the fighters are homegrown, why seal the borders? Where as, if the fighters of al Queda congregate, why not kill them there instead of hunting them down one by one as if in the ocean?

You seem to justify some of your thinking by making it sound evil on our part to want bases in Iraq. Why not get something for all the treasure in money and loss of life we have expended. It is obvious to any amateur strategist that we need land bases in the ME because it is in our long term interests.......is that evil? If you think this way, you are buying into all the various unjustified criticisms of the Bush haters and conspiracy theorists.
It is a simple fact....we need bases in Iraq and we should keep them because the cost has been high in blood.

It has been pointed out on other threads that INSTABILITY has caused the price of gasoline to sky rocket. If we pull out of Iraq......INSTABILITY will reign forever. If we stay, we have a chance to bring stability to the entire region....eventually. I would venture a guess of three more years.....IF....we stay the course.

Bush was actually criticized during the hearings of the 9/11 commission for NOT invading Afghanistan....prior to the attack on 9/11. Just think about that for a second. The fact is......the American people, the American press, and the American left wing would never have accepted that action without the catastrophe and the horror of the World trade centers imploding. Those same people would never have accepted going to war with Japan had it not been for Pearl Harbor.

Invading Afghanistan prior to 9/11 would have amounted to pre-emptive war.......oh the horrors of pre-emptive war. On the other hand, now that 9/11 has become a reality, everyone is applauding the invasion of Afghanistan but now have switched to condemning Bush for Iraq because they were not smacked in the face with another attack somewhere else in America by.....perhaps al Queda using Bio/Chemicals supplied by Saddam.

The Bombings in London and Spain prove that the ordinarily peaceful citizens of the world must be....SMACKED IN THE FACE.....by a horrific attack before they will confront reality. In London now they are deporting preachers of hate and they are taking control of their destiny instead of waiting for the next attack.

I rest my case for now.

Other countries did.

There are none so blind as those who will not see.



<why did I type blind as blonde initially?>

Other countries did.......what?


Maybe you should open your eyes.


:wink:



Oh--Oh.....asking yourself questions is not a healthy sign.