Bush Supporters' Aftermath Thread III

hamburger wrote:

why , oh why , do people have to be so stubborn and refuse to see the truth ?
hbg

Another common mistake, made in the past, is ignoring a growing threat, allowing the threat to fully materialize, making it more difficult to destroy the threat in the future, at a much greater cost.

I do not claim to be fair and balanced. I have a very conservative view of the world and the actions taking place.

You admit to being a liar, McG. Some time ago you stated that you were a middle of the road type guy. What a laugh!

I do not wish to sympathize with either terrorist nor insurgent. I only want them to stop their activities and if they do not, I wish them an early death so life can go on for those that want to try to go on with their lives after living under the reign of Saddam for so long. They deserve a chance at peace and prosperity.

They only wish you the same. They are plumb sick and tired of the USA and other western countries messing in their business and their lives. And you think that the people of Iraq will get that from the USA. Look at how the people of Cuba were used and abused. Same for the Phillipines, same for ... .

McGentrix wrote:

Terrorists target civilians with car bombs and suicide bombings and IED's. Insurgents tend to target military and government officials. Neither do so in such a fashion that would be acceptable in civilized society.

Good point.

January 11, 2007, 6:30 a.m.
The Surge Gamble
All eyes now turn to Baghdad and Sadr City.
By Victor Davis HansonThe American people will support success and an effort to win, whatever the risks, but not stasis. We saw that with the silent approval of Ethiopia's brutal rout of the Islamists in Somalia, and our own attack on al Qaeda there.


So where does that leave us? All eyes now turn to Baghdad and Sadr City and our courageous Americans fighting in them. If they are allowed to rout the terrorists, all will trumpet their victory; if we fail, President Bush alone will take the blame.

In other words, as in all wars, the pulse of the battlefield will determine the ensuing politics. So let's win in pursuit of victory, and everything else will sort itself out.Victor Davis Hanson is a military historian and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His website is victorhanson.com.

Quote:

January 11, 2007, 6:30 a.m.
The Surge Gamble
All eyes now turn to Baghdad and Sadr City.
By Victor Davis HansonVictor Davis Hanson is a military historian and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His website is victorhanson.com.

Ticomaya wrote:

Quote:

January 11, 2007, 6:30 a.m.
The Surge Gamble
All eyes now turn to Baghdad and Sadr City.
By Victor Davis HansonVictor Davis Hanson is a military historian and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His website is victorhanson.com.

Robert Fisk writes better than this fellow- and more convincingly, too.

I hope you took the trouble to open my "Independent" link and read therein.

...

Yes, I read your link. Robert Fisk is a stridently biased buffoon, unqualified to brew Victor Hanson's coffee.

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January 09, 2007
Sandy Berger's Free Ride from the Media
By Joel Mowbray

With the release of an internal investigation last week, we now know that former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger not only knowingly flouted laws for handling classified documents, but he also went to incredible lengths to cover his tracks and thwart investigators.

While Berger's "punishment" was a pittance of a fine, former Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin has been financially ruined and sentenced to 12 and a half years for passing along far less-classified information to unauthorized third parties.

...

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Yes, I read your link. Robert Fisk is a stridently biased buffoon, unqualified to brew Victor Hanson's coffee.

That's funny, you wrote Beer, and somehow A2K printed it out as Coffee.

Cycloptichorn

McTag wrote:

Ticomaya wrote:

Quote:

January 11, 2007, 6:30 a.m.
The Surge Gamble
All eyes now turn to Baghdad and Sadr City.
By Victor Davis HansonVictor Davis Hanson is a military historian and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His website is victorhanson.com.

Robert Fisk writes better than this fellow- and more convincingly, too.

I hope you took the trouble to open my "Independent" link and read therein.

...

Yes, I read your link. Robert Fisk is a stridently biased buffoon, unqualified to brew Victor Hanson's coffee. I'm sure he writes well-enough to convince you, and I can see why you are so enamored with him.

That's my personal comment.

Patrick Cockburn: The man who now holds Iraq's future in his hands
Published: 11 January 2007

He is a strange figure to be targeted as the number one enemy of the US in Iraq. Four years ago, few had heard of the Shia nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr inside or outside Iraq. Even somebody as suspicious as Saddam Hussein, who murdered his father and two brothers, did not think he would play any role in the coming crisis.
Now he holds the future of Iraq in his hands. He has far more popularity and legitimacy than many of the pro-American Iraqi leaders cowering in the Green Zone. He is seen by millions of Shia in Baghdad and across southern Iraq as their spiritual and national leader. Rightly or wrongly, he is feared by Sunnis as their nemesis, a physical symbol that they are battling for their existence in Iraq.
He has now become part of the White House's demonology in Iraq. At one time the US believed that Saddam Hussein was responsible for all its problems in Iraq - problems that would be resolved once he was overthrown. Today Sadr, a 32-year-old cleric in his black robe with fierce, staring, dark eyes, is denounced as the fomenter of sectarian warfare.
Many Iraqi leaders never leave the Green Zone. Sadr has never entered it. He has a cult-like following. He controls Sadr City, the ramshackle, sprawling slum in east Baghdad which is home to two-and-a-half million Shia, important cities such as Kufa and provinces such as Maysan. He can probably put 100,000 armed militiamen into the field. Much of the Baghdad police force follows him. Army barracks where Shia units are stationed have pictures of him pinned to the walls.
Once in 2004 he was wanted "dead or alive" by the US forces and dismissed as "a firebrand". They soon found that his movement had deep roots. He controls 32 out of 275 seats in the Iraqi parliament. He is the most important ally of the Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki. In 2004, the US and its former exile allies paid a heavy price for trying to exclude him from power. In 2005 and 2006, they recognised his strength. He became part of the political process in Iraq while opposing the US-led occupation.
Now, astonishingly the US may be about to confront Sadr and his powerful social and political movement. This could lead almost immediately to a crisis for the US and President Bush's new strategy for Iraq.
If the US Army, along with Kurdish brigades of the Iraqi army, do assault Sadr City, they are unlikely to win a clean victory. The rest of Shia Iraq is likely to explode. A confrontation will convince many Shia that the US never intends to let them rule Iraq despite their success in the elections. The US is already at war with the five million-strong Sunni community and is now fast alienating the Shia. For the first time this year, polls showed that a majority of Shia approve of armed attacks on US-led forces.
An offensive against Sadr's Mehdi Army will be portrayed as an attempt to eliminate militias. But it is, in reality, an attack on one particular militia, because it is anti-American. The Kurdish brigades in the Iraqi army take their orders from the Kurdish leaders and not from Maliki. The US also has good relations with the other Shia militia, the Badr Organisation, which is the military wing of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
There is no doubt that the Mehdi Army includes death squads targeting Sunni - but this is also true of Badr.
Sadr first confronted the US when he twice fought the US Army in 2004. Though militarily unsuccessful the fighting established his credibility in his community. He attracted supporters because of the prestige of his family, and his blend of Iraqi nationalism and Shia religion. He is also seen as the voice of the impoverished Shia while Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and the Hawza, the Shia religious establishment, are more representative of the better-off.
His emergence as one of the most important political figures in Iraq was one of the great surprises after 2003. He is neither eloquent nor particularly charismatic, but he has made very few political mistakes. His swift rise is explained first by his family. He was born in 1974, the third son of Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr. He is a distant cousin of Ayatollah Mohammed Baqr al-Sadr, the Shia revolutionary thinker, who was murdered by Saddam along with his sister in 1980. He had sought to develop a religious response to Marxism and Baathism by advocating a politically and socially activist Islam in contrast to the traditionally quietist Shia religious leaders.
Muqtada's father, Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, became influential in the 1990s. At first he was given leeway because he was an Iraqi nationalist and opposed to Iranian claims to lead the Shia of Iraq. His sermons began with the words: "No, no to America; no, no to Israel; no, no to the Devil." But it soon became clear he was also opposed to Saddam. He was assassinated by Saddam's gunmen with two of his sons in 1999.
Muqtada al-Sadr became so powerful so fast because he was in the same tradition as his relatives. His militiamen are generally not paid and supply their own weapons. They are beginning to have a core of trained, paid professionals but they were never as militarily effective as the Sunni insurgents, many of whom were experienced soldiers.
A US attack on Sadr will open another front in the war in Iraq. It would split the Shia coalition into pro- and anti-American factions. It would disrupt the Shia-Kurdish alliance. It probably would not conciliate the Sunni insurgents.
Sadr's movement thrives on martyrs. The only certain result of an all-out US assault on the Mehdi Army would be to deepen and widen the war in Iraq.

So into the graveyard of Iraq, George Bush, commander-in-chief, is to send another 21,000 of his soldiers. The march of folly is to continue...

Yes, I read your link. Robert Fisk is a stridently biased buffoon, unqualified to brew Victor Hanson's coffee. I'm sure he writes well-enough to convince you, and I can see why you are so enamored with him.
That's my personal comment.

Just when I was being quite polite, too. Ah, me.

Ticomaya wrote:

Yes, I read your link. Robert Fisk is a stridently biased buffoon, unqualified to brew Victor Hanson's coffee. I'm sure he writes well-enough to convince you, and I can see why you are so enamored with him.
That's my personal comment.

Your personal comments are as valuable as ever.
Robert Fisk is the British journalist who has won the most international awards for his work.

And by the way, I don't see him ever using the phrase "See ya, wouldn't want to be ya" in an article intended to be taken seriously.