Mother of dead soldier really pissed at Bush

ebrown, this is a rather bold statement. and i say that because the terrorists have not just been bombing US troops. they have also assassinated members of the new iraqi government and bombed them as well. i think they will continue to do exactly what they are doing, until they get their way which for the moment they are claiming is the US withdrawling, tomorrow it will be something else (as it is now the three groups are fighting over federated regions-why wouldn't terrorists kill those opposed to their views at that time?). now does that mean we have to stay in iraq? for the meantime. should we be out by next summer? maybe. i think the point i am trying to make is that it impossible for any one of us to assume what a terrorist will do next.

to simply assume that if we pull out because that is what they are currently demanding would stop their activity all together when they have already proved they have no issue killing those in their own government, it a little far fetched (and i am not trying to insult you in any way). and it is important for the terrorists to know that when we do leave, we aren't succumbing to their demands, but determining that Iraq doesn't need us anymore. it is a key distinction because as slkshock said, it would add to their resolve to carry out more attacks that suited their agenda.

Dragon,

There are two separate wars in Iraq. The first is a civil war between two factions-- the Shia and the Sunni-- over who will rule the country.

This civil war should be handled by Iraqis-- and it can be handled the way that civil wars are normally handled. The elected government which represents the majority Shia can handle the insurgency the way all governments handle insurgencies. This government has the means and the wherewithal to deal with this... and it has a pretty powerful ally that it can call on.

The point is that Iraq is, and should be a sovereign country. Why can't we leave Iraq to the Iraqis? The elected government wants us out, the people want us out. We aren't doing them any good by being there? Why not just get out?

The reason is the second war-- which is the holy war that Bush and Al Qaeda are waging against each other. This war is not helping the Iraqi people at all. They are paying in blood for a war that a few short years ago, they weren't even a part of.

Don't confuse the two wars.

1. If we leave Iraq, the holy war between Bush and his Al Qaeda countrerparts will go elsewhere. This is only fair to the Iraqis who are the ones who are losing their children to bombs and bullets from both sides.

2. If we leave Iraq, the civil war between Shia and Sunni will become just a civil war.

The Shia government has the leverage to take the upper hand. If they are wise (and sometimes it seems like they are) they will negotiate with the Sunni to limit the bloodshed, but they are a sovereign nation and have the means to resolve the insurgency as they see fit.

The United States policy is now directed on trying to keep Bush from "losing".

A quick US withdrawral is undoubtadly best for the Iraqi people.

hi slkshock7, welcome to a2k. i've only been a member for about a year, but most have been here for much longer. you'll soon see why. by the way, since you mention that you're former military and still involved, i want you to understand that i have never read any condemnation of the actual soldiers in the war, ala the vietnam era, on a2k by any continuing poster. :wink:


i understand what you are saying. and the war on islamist extremists is a very different war, with a very different adversary.

which is one reason why, all else aside, i have never been in favor of the invasion of iraq.

as you state, it is not like wwII. but the invasion of iraq follows the classic strategies of that kind of war. invade, defeat, reshape.

if the sole enemy had been the nation of iraq (government, military & citizens united in a single front against the usa, and having declared war against us ) or even a true international alliance such as the wwII axis, it would have been reasonable to proceed as the bush administration had.

if you think about it, beyond the use of the classic model, the way that the "news from the front" is still in that classic mode as well.

though the enemy is called "insurgent" or "terrorist" instead of "the iraqi republican guard", there is still the tracking on the map of armies engaged in land battles.

basra, falluja, baquba, ramadi, baghdad, karbala, kut, etc. all laying siege to an encamped enemy. who of course puts up enough of a fight to allow personnel and materials to be moved, then they vanish back into the general population.

so the question for the bush administration is; "if this is a different kind of war, why are we fighting a new, and shadowy, enemy the same old way ?".

for myself, i am of the belief that many surrounding the bush presidency have had their eye on iraq for a decade or more and saw that with the perceived easy victory in afghanistan ( which i supported, like gulf I...), that their focus and the public's backing could easily be shifted to iraq. and it was too.

unfortunately, nearly every assertion against iraq (the country. most of what has been said about the personality of saddam hussein is kinder than he deserves. ) has been proven to be false. in fact to some of us, the claims were pretty flimsy to start with, some were debunked before the first shot was fired, others have been shown to be totally wrong by not one, but two americans in charge of finding the stuff. mckay and duelfer.

at this point, i think most of us agree that we cannot in good concience simply split and leave the iraqis hanging fire. but that does not mean that we want to see this drag on and on and become exactly what people say it is not, another vietnam. (when they aren't saying it's wwII )

and really, anyone under 47 years old or so, has no reall understanding of how that (vietnam) worked. it's not like day one of the first big deployment to vietnam the country rose up and said "no". it was a gradual buildup that finally exploded into the national conciousness.

that appears to be what's happening now.

so if the first question for the bush administration is; "if this is a different kind of war, why are we fighting a new, and shadowy, enemy the same old way ?".

i guess the second question is; "if you insist on fighting a new war the old way, why are you cheaping out ? why don't the generals and soldiers have the numbers and materials to deliver the crushing blows needed to bring this type of war to a conclusion ? why do we never see you on television, simply sitting at your desk in the oval office and giving us the straight up without a lot of photo-oping (and photoshoping in at least one case) ? mr. president, if america is truly a country at war and you are "the war president" as you and others claim, why are you, the vice president, the cabinet and the entire congress on month long vacations instead of in washington d.c., getting it done ?".

okay, so that's 2nd, 3rd, 4th questions. lotta questions about the iraq war, i guess...

while there are frequent claims and accusations that those of us that are against the war in iraq are "unpatriotic", "blame america first" and that we "hate america", i want you to notice that in none of those 5 questions did i say any of those things.

because i'm not, i didn't and i don't.

thanks for pointing that out, i actually hadn't distinguished between the two. however, if we know al qaeda is in iraq and they are major enemies of ours (as bin laden is in afghanistan), would it not be prudent maybe to leave a much smaller contingency waging the war solely on al qaeda as we are in afghanistan? i don't even know if that is possible, but i would think we would want to do that (while leaving the iraqi people to govern themselves and deal with the civil war between factions).

i would think, but it is an assumption (which often times is bad) that even if we left iraq, al qaeda would still try to strike us at home or where ever they could find an american. i think i pose this more as a question of feasibility as to whether we would be able to distinguish that we were staying to hunt down al qaeda members and other known terrorists, yet stay out of the way of the government and their issues.

To suggest that al Qaeda is in Iraq is more than a little disingenuous. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is a Jordanian from a Palestinian refugee family which settled in Jordan before he was born. He is not a Wahabbi, he had no prior relationship to al Qaeda nor to bin Laden. When he arrived in Iraq to join the insurgency, he organized some of the foreign fighters--of whom there are far, far fewer than conservatives allege, and most of whom come from neighboring countries, based on the information Iraqis are able to glean, and they are a very reliable source, since they can spot a foreigner just by the way he speaks Arabic. Zarqawi chose to name his group "al Qaeda in Iraq" because of the cachet it would give him among islamic terrorists, and because he knows that al Qaeda is a bogey man for Americans. No one has ever produced a shred of credible evidence that he receives outside support from the original al Qaeda, nor that members of bin Laden's Wahabbi-dominated group have joined him in Iraq.

This is crucial to understanding the situation, as Zarqawi's decision to call his group al Qaeda in Iraq plays right into the hands of administration propagandists. Were the United States to leave Iraq (something the neo-cons don't want to do, since they have planned for years to build permanent bases in the country), Zarqawi and his followers would quickly lose the great propaganda value they now garner from calling themselves al Qaeda. Iraqis could effectively deal with Syrian, Jordanian and Arabian terrorists because they stick out like a sore thumb due to their accents and their relative ignorance of local matters in Iraq.

The whole Iraq/al Qaeda claptrap is a dodge originally designed to create an impression in the minds of Americans that invading Iraq is a part of the war on terror, which has never been true. We need to get out to leave the Iraqis to deal with the situation, which they are better qualified to do than we are, if once they can establish a stable government. I don't think we can in good faith leave until they have a stable government, but once they do, we need to make sure the door don't hit us in the ass.

The insurgents and al Qaida doesn't care whether they kill innocents or Americans. They even kill their own Arab/Muslims, so their war is quite different from any from the past.

Where do you propose this war be fought?

ebrown,

Most Iraqi government officials don't want the US to leave. They are not stupid, they realize that the US presence and undergirding of their government is the only thing preventing civil war. Eventually they want us to leave certainly, but not today, this month, or even this year.

"If we leave Iraq, the holy war between Bush and his Al Qaeda countrerparts will go elsewhere."

You're right there...they'll go to Afghanistan, or Kuwait, or Saudi Arabia where they will continue to kill Americans. Their goal is well published "to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam". Eventually this will include Israel and who knows what other countries bin laden considers "lands of Islam".

The worst thing about your rather naive statement is that you are suggesting we do exactly what Bin Laden wants us to do...from Bin Ladens declaration of War on the US:

"A few days ago the news agencies had reported that the Defence Secretary of the Crusading Americans had said, "the explosion at Riyadh and AlKhobar had taught him one lesson - not to withdraw when attacked by coward terrorists". We say to the Defence Secretary that his talk can induce a grieving mother to laughter and shows the fears that had enshrined you all with. Where was this false courage of yours when the explosion in Beirut took place on 1983? You were turned into scattered pits and pieces at that time; 241 mainly marines solders were killed. And where was this courage of yours when two explosions made you to leave Aden in less than twenty-four hours!

But your most disgraceful case was in Somalia; where after vigorous propaganda about the power of the USA and its post cold war leadership of the New World Order you moved tens of thousands of international force, including twenty eight thousands American solders into Somalia. However, when tens of your solders were killed in minor battles and one American Pilot was dragged in the streets of Mogadishu you left the area carrying disappointment, humiliation, defeat and your dead with you. Clinton appeared in front of the whole world threatening and promising revenge, but these threats were merely a preparation for withdrawal. You have been disgraced by Allah and you withdrew; the extent of your impotence and weaknesses became very clear. "

Would you prefer allow Bin Laden to add Iraq to his list of examples of the US paper tiger? By withdrawing into the continental US and cowering here?

i guess i am digressing from the topic some. i agree donttreadonme, i don't think anyone wants to see this drag on like another vietnam. and i find your post to be very intelligent. but do we as americans know truly what is going on over there? do we know we are fighting this new enemy the same old way? i remember hearing often that the administration was hiding things deliberately because the news media kept broadcasting our movements and amazingly the terrorists were watching it and prepared for us.

all i ever hear is how many people died in iraq today. not that 5 new schools opened today allowing 500 kids go to school that couldn't previously (i am making that up, but it shows my point). we love to focus on the negative, hear the negative on the news, and because that is all we hear, that is all we believe. yes it is a tragedy that we are losing american lives over there, but we are doing a great many things.

your questions are very valid ones and i dont find them to be anti-america, troops, etc. i can only hope that what we are doing over there, will in fact end the insurgency and bring our troops home.

Setanta
Setanta wrote: "something the neo-cons don't want to do, since they have planned for years to build permanent bases in the country."

At last, someone beside me writes about the permanent Iraq bases. I've been saying this on so many threads for so long, I thought I was blowing in the wind.

BBB

Tread

"the first question for the bush administration is; "if this is a different kind of war, why are we fighting a new, and shadowy, enemy the same old way ?".

I'd argue that we are not....yes, the battle for Baghdad three years ago was more traditional, but no longer. Now we are fighting with new weaponry (e.g Stryker), new rules of engagement, new objectives (not land-based objectives, but knowledge-based i.e. who and where bad guys are). From my perspective it is a very different kind of war and we are fighting it very differently. Perhaps a lot of the difficulty folks have with the war is because we are fighting it so differently that we have problems measuring and they have problems recognizing, success.

"i guess the second question is; "if you insist on fighting a new war the old way, why are you cheaping out ? why don't the generals and soldiers have the numbers and materials to deliver the crushing blows needed to bring this type of war to a conclusion ?"

How would you propose we deliver a "crushing blow" to an enemy that blends with the populace so well? I guess a few nukes over Baghad, Ramadi, or Fallujah would do the trick, but some others on this thread might have a problem with that solution. And why do you claim that we are doing it "on the cheap"? Soldiers today are better equipped than any in history. Unfortunately, war is not antiseptic. You can spend billions more in Iraq but soldiers will still die. I understand that the Iraq war is already approaching the cost of the entire 15 or so years of Vietnam. Doesn't sound cheap to me.

why do we never see you on television, simply sitting at your desk in the oval office and giving us the straight up without a lot of photo-oping (and photoshoping in at least one case) ? mr. president, if america is truly a country at war and you are "the war president" as you and others claim, why are you, the vice president, the cabinet and the entire congress on month long vacations instead of in washington d.c., getting it done ?".

Getting what done???And don't say "winning the war". That's the Pentagon's job...it is the President's job to make sure we have the resources to do it. I've heard no complaints from the military saying that his many vacations have hampered that task.

slkshock7

My turn to welcome you to A2K.......and to say I admire your style and content. I don't want to put a hex on you by supporting you but you will come to see that I am a bit more direct than you, and therefore I have only a few friends here......all on the correct side of the political spectrum of course..

Please keep contributing and I may be able to listen more and mix it up less.

Again welcome and keep shooting straight.

How exactly are we measuring success in Iraq and in the greater "war on fear".

Good question and one I'm not entirely satisfied with myself. Obviously capturing or killing the bad guys for one...and probably the one that offers the most satisfaction to the soldier.

Another one commonly addressed in the press is the training and equipping of the Iraqi military and police force.

Also rebuilding the Iraqi infrastructure...it should be noted that many of the soldiers killed or injured are support troops (i.e., military engineers, military police, signal, logistics) and contractors rather than the combat troops. That's because these are the ones traveling the countryside (usually in less armored vehicles) and prime targets for insurgents, while trying to do their good.

My dissatisfaction arises in that these are not the typical tasks soldiers (even support troops) train for. I sometimes wonder if it might be better to just pull out of Iraq but stay deployed at the border and use the threat of another invasion (something we've gotten quite good at) should Iraq begin going down the toilet.

hi dragon, thanks for your kind words. i try to be logical. with mixed results. hahahahahaha!

you actually bring up something that i've mentioned before.

i know what you mean about the bad guys seeing anything that could tip them off to the army's plans. loose lips sink ships and all of that. and i don't think that's what anyone is calling for. "my fellow americans, on august the 20th, we will be attacking the building at 5544 falafel way. to commence at 2200 hours". that's not gonna work.

since we know that some of the reports or stories we get are epks that have been produced by the administration (and the fcc ruled that they must be branded as such ), i have asked why it is that with that power, there haven't been similar packages put together that actually show the progress in rebuilding of things like schools, power plants, hospitals etc.

haven't gotten any answers on that one. seems like it would be a powerful way to counter skepticism. of course there would be some suspicion, but the lack of any evidence that there are good things on the scale that we are told only leaves the door open to an over arching criticism and even greater skepticism.

any thoughts ?

Iraq is already down the toilet. No amount of perfume is gonna make it smell any better, although this administration keeps telling us "progress is being made."

http://www.freedomhouse.org/pdf_docs/iraqconstitution.pdf

It ain't no democracy in Iraq.

Would making these types of "films" really do any good? Those that don't like Bush and his admin would only fling their arms in the air and dismiss them as propaganda and continue to spread news of doom and gloom. I don't see the point in it either. Any time news is posted that things are getting better and things are improving some left wing hack posts a op-ed piece about how its all lies and propaganda. Those that really like the op-ed poster will embrace the op-ed as gospel and spread it across the internet as sites such as these. It has happened and will continue to happen. I see it as a waste of time.

slk, welcome. Thanks for the words.

As I don't consider myself well educated in history or the complexities of today's world, I write from the heart and not so much the head.

Please believe me, as a former guardsman (part of why I feel as I do), I am fully behind our troops and feel for them more than you can imagine. It is for that reason I wrote what I wrote.

bermbits, Most Americans are behind our troops. We are only against this administration that got us involved in Iraq on misinformation. Being a soldier means to follow the command of our Commander in Chief and those below him. Politics and politicians run the military forces of most countries. That doesn't mean the leaders always make the right decision to go to war. Unfortunately, the justifications used by this administration to start this war in Iraq turned out to be false; there are no WMDs in Iraq that threatened the American People. This administration used their fall-back justification to "bring democracy to Iraq, and to free them from Saddam." Not good enough in my books - to have sacrificed over 1,800 of our military men and women and over five billion dollars every month - with more sacrifices to come for the unforeseeable future.