THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, ELEVENTH THREAD

ican wrote :

Quote:

Shall we leave Iraq and risk a large part of our population being mass murdered or maimed?

it would be interesting to know about the risk-assessment that was made showing that large portions of the u.s. population will be murdered or maimed by a-q following a withdrawal of u.s. troops from iraq (and afghanistan) .
i don't thnk even president bush has made such statement .
imo the risk to america (and the rest of the world) is probably much higher from nations currently in possession of the atomic bomb , but i doubt any kind of proof is available for that OPINION of mine .

there certainly is nothing to indicate to me that the last four years of action by u.s. troops in iraq has made the world a safer place .

waiting to hear about the risk assessment .
hbg

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ican711nm wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:
ican711nm wrote:
cicerone imposter wrote:
The mandate was heard by most people when the GOP led congress changed last November. You probably didn't hear it, because your head was up your arse. Bush didn't hear it either; same problem as yours.

Pardon my arse, with my head up it, but what was the people's mandate? Or less picturesquely put, what the hell was in the Democratic platform that you think was mandated?

Get us out of Iraq.

Cycloptichorn

I cannot find anywhere in the Democratic Patform for the 2006 election where it specifies either when or what their cconditions are for getting us out of Iraq.

Funny, I couldn't find it anywhere in the Republican platform either.

Cycloptichorn

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

ican711nm wrote:
Cycloptichorn wrote:
ican711nm wrote:
cicerone imposter wrote:
The mandate was heard by most people when the GOP led congress changed last November. You probably didn't hear it, because your head was up your arse. Bush didn't hear it either; same problem as yours.

Pardon my arse, with my head up it, but what was the people's mandate? Or less picturesquely put, what the hell was in the Democratic platform that you think was mandated?

Get us out of Iraq.

Cycloptichorn

I cannot find anywhere in the Democratic Patform for the 2006 election where it specifies either when or what their cconditions are for getting us out of Iraq.

Funny, I couldn't find it anywhere in the Republican platform either.

Cycloptichorn

This is precisely the reason congress has such a low performance rating by the American People; all polls show their ratings going lower. They still don't seem to "get it." However, more republicans are voicing their displeasure with Bush's stay the course - which shows they are concerned about the next election. Democrats are too dumb to realize that simple truth.

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hamburger wrote:

ican wrote :

Quote:
Shall we leave Iraq and risk a large part of our population being mass murdered or maimed?

it would be interesting to know about the risk-assessment that was made showing that large portions of the u.s. population will be murdered or maimed by a-q following a withdrawal of u.s. troops from iraq (and afghanistan) .
i don't thnk even president bush has made such statement .
imo the risk to america (and the rest of the world) is probably much higher from nations currently in possession of the atomic bomb , but i doubt any kind of proof is available for that OPINION of mine .

there certainly is nothing to indicate to me that the last four years of action by u.s. troops in iraq has made the world a safer place .

waiting to hear about the risk assessment .
hbg

For purposes of establishing some perspective, let's note that the death rate in the US due to ground, air and water traffic accidents is about 50,000 per year. If 19 Suicidal mass murderers (Smm) of American non-murderers (Anm) can intentionally and not accidentally, kill almost 3,000 Anm within less than 3 hours, how many Smm would it take to mass murder 50,000 Anm per year?

Assuming the Smm do not get more efficient about it, my estimate is it would take less than 20 Smn per year to kill 3,000 Anm per year, or 20 x 50,000/3,000 = 333 Smm per year to kill 50,000 Anm per year. I'll round that up to 340 Smm to kill 50,000 Anm per year. So less than 340 al-Qaeda Smm per year could murder at least 50,000 Anm per year.

Three questions:
(1) How could 340 Smm per year murder 50,000 Anm per year?

In Iraq, each Smm murders about 5 Muslim non-murders (Mnm) per year, with bombs strapped to their bodies. More than 2,100 Mnm are murdered by Smm per month or more than 2,100 x 12 = more than 25,000 per year. Thus 25,000 / 5 = 5,000 Smm per year are required in Iraq to murder that many Mnm per year. .

In the US, each of 340 Smm per year could regularly rent, buy, or steal airplanes, store bombs in them and fly those airplanes into crowded buildings, stadiums, refineries, or power plants with each of them killing more than 3,000/20 = 150 Anm, for a total of 340 x 150 = 51,000 Anm killed per year. Also, trucks, SUVs, boats, trains and other vehicles could be used to help do the same thing. By this calculation 340 Smm could kill 51,000 Anm per year which is 2% more than are killed by traffic accidents in America per year.

(2) How could 340 Smm per year be recruited to learn to fly airplanes and do their thing in America?

The first 340 Smm may have been recruited and are already in America. Close monitoring of communications between Smm in America by HLS and their computers since 9/11 may have discouraged or prevented the Smm in America from murdering Anm. Or, the Smm in America are simply waiting for the USA to pull out of Iraq before they commence their program.

The recruiting of young educated Muslims to be Smm is apparently easy for al-Qaeda. You see Muslims already believe that anyone who sacrifices his life for Islam is a martyr (I posted about this a day or so ago). Based on my personal experience, training 340 Smm per year to fly airplanes well enough to do their thing would be easy. All this flight training need not take place in America nor in airplanes. Some computer flight simulators, that can be located anywhere, are now so sophisticed that little actual non-simulator flight training is required.

(3) How could 340 Smm get into America each year?

Since America's borders are much larger than Iraq's, entering America on foot or vehicle should be a lot easier than entering Iraq. Furthermore, they could arrive with little difficulty by airliners or other airplanes.

Evaluation of results

This is just a first estimate. Perhaps more or perhaps less than 340 Smm could be recruited, found or brought in to America, and trained per year to do their thing, and perhaps each one would be more or less able to kill 150 Anm. And perhaps the total Anm killed by these Snm would be more or less than 51,000 per year.

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ican, Are you in your right mind?

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cicerone imposter wrote:

...

This is precisely the reason congress has such a low performance rating by the American People; all polls show their ratings going lower. They still don't seem to "get it." However, more republicans are voicing their displeasure with Bush's stay the course - which shows they are concerned about the next election. Democrats are too dumb to realize that simple truth.

By the way, some of those Democrats elected to Congress in 2006, are alleged to be conservatives. If so, I guess the Democratic leadership thought the best way to regain control of Congress was to put up conservative candidates.

If all this is true then perhaps the Republican leadership has something to learn from all this ... huh? Rolling Eyes

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cicerone imposter wrote:

ican, Are you in your right mind?

No! I'm in my classical liberal mind--neither right nor left nor center.

Now don't get your pants bunched. I know what you meant. You meant am I sane.

Why do you ask? If you knew I were not sane, would you trust my answer whether it be a Yes or a No? If you truly did not know whether I was sane or not, what would lead you to trust my answer?

In other words, your question tempts me to ask, you, cice, whether you are sane or not? But I won't make that mistake and yield to that temptation since I am sane. :wink:

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a british point of view re. withdrawal from iraq (reported by the BBC) :

Quote:

'No easy way' for Iraq pull-out
UK troops should withdraw from Iraq as soon as they have trained local forces - regardless of the security situation, a group of senior politicians has said.
The US-led coalition has "no easy options left, only painful ones", a report by the Iraq Commission stated.

Commission chairman Lord Ashdown said the coalition had suffered from "ridiculously over-ambitious" goals, and had become a target for violence.
Ministers have repeatedly declined to put a timetable on troop withdrawal.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband said he would assess the commission's report "in the sober way it requires".

'Re-creating Washington'

The commission, set up by Channel 4 and the Foreign Policy Centre think tank, took evidence from a series of interested parties and made a number of recommendations in its 119-page report.

Our withdrawal rate should be determined not by the security situation
Lord Ashdown

Lord Ashdown, who co-chaired the commission with Baroness Jay and former Defence Secretary Lord King, said that coalition forces could no longer suppress the violence.

"We are, in a sense, a target for the violence, and therefore we need to hand this process over to the Iraqis," he told BBC One's Sunday AM programme.

"We committed the cardinal sin of these interventions, which is to have ridiculously overambitious aims."

He said the coalition had tried "to re-create Washington in Baghdad, to re-create a fully-functioning western-style democracy in a Middle Eastern country".

'Crucial reconciliation'

The former Liberal Democrat leader added: "Our withdrawal rate should be determined not by the security situation - which allows the militias, the insurgents, to determine our withdrawal - but by the state of training of the Iraqi forces."

I don't think there is any military solution to the problems of Iraq
William Hague
Shadow foreign secretary

He said former prime minister Tony Blair had "failed to use the leverage" he had to influence US President George W Bush's policy in Iraq.

Shadow foreign secretary William Hague said politicians in Iraq must prepare to take control of their country.

"Iraqi politicians themselves are still not doing enough to achieve the crucial reconciliation within their country," he said.

"That is really what now their future depends on, because I don't think there is any military solution to the problems of Iraq still available."

'Diplomatic offensive'

The commission's report recommends that the UK should "actively and urgently... pursue changes of policy from our allies".

Among the report's recommendations were:

The UK, along with the US and EU, should initiate a "diplomatic offensive" to stabilise Iraq's borders

The prime minister should seek the appointment of a high-level UN envoy to facilitate political reconciliation within Iraq

No timetable for withdrawal should be set, but a pull-out "will happen as a consequence of the completion of training activity"

The British government should pass legislation regulating private security firms operating in Iraq

The UK should support the creation of a free media through NGOs such as the BBC World Service Trust.

source :
A BRITISH POINT OF VIEW

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It's obvious that those in the UK understand better the "real" situation in Iraq. We can't win; it's only a matter of how to withdraw.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

ican, Are you in your right mind?

With respect, may I point out that you used "Ican" and "right mind" in the same sentence.

A basic error.

:wink:

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Saudis' role in Iraq insurgency outlined

Quote:

Al Qaeda in Iraq and its affiliate groups number anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 individuals, the senior U.S. military officer said. Iraqis make up the majority of members, facilitating attacks, indoctrinating, fighting, but generally not blowing themselves up. Iraqis account for roughly 10% of suicide bombers, according to the U.S. military.

So there are about 5,000 to 10,000 and only 135 are foreign fighters with 45% coming from Saudi Arabia. They are there to keep Iraq from becoming a Shiite/Iran state. This has nothing to do with Al-Queda proper and its fight against western nations and civilians. In other words, nothing to do with the US.

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This is the reason why the 22,000 more troops isn't going to help secure Iraq. This was a "given" before the surge.

Twin bombings in northern Iraq kill 80 By YAHYA BARZANJI, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 3 minutes ago

KIRKUK, Iraq - Twin suicide car bombings exploded within 20 minutes of each other in Iraq's north on Monday, killing at least 80 people and wounding around 150 in attacks targeting a Kurdish political office and ripping through an outdoor market, police said.

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Another 22,000 more troops isn't going to accomplish anything except to get more of our troops exposed to getting killed and maimed. We need about 300,000 more to make any difference; to control the borders and the towns and villages that come under control of our troops that includes the Iraqis.

Pace: Another troop buildup possible

By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer
1 hour, 1 minute ago

The U.S. military's top general said Monday that the Joint Chiefs of Staff is weighing a range of possible new directions in Iraq, including, if President Bush deems it necessary, an even bigger troop buildup.

Making no predictions, Marine Gen. Peter Pace revealed that he and the chiefs of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force are obliged to consider various troop-level scenarios before September, when Bush will receive an assessment of the Iraq situation from his top commander there, Gen. David Petraeus.

"We're (doing) the kind of thinking that we need to do and be prepared for whatever it's going to look like two months from now," he said in an interview with two reporters traveling overnight with him from Washington aboard an Air Force C-17 cargo jet.

"That way, if we need to plus up or come down" in numbers of troops in Iraq, then the details will have been studied and the military services will be in position to carry out whatever policy Bush chooses, Pace said.

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Quote:

07.16.07 -- 11:46AM // link

I must confess that I almost feel sorry for the White House in their desperate attempts to spin the Iraqi parliaments vacation. Most of the bamboozlement that comes out of the White House these days is meant to cover up for the administration's failures and deceptions -- mainly how well things are going in Iraq, how the whole fight there is against al Qaeda, how jihadists in Pakistan can't send teams to the US unless we pull out of Iraq, etc.

But in this case, you know the White House really, really doesn't want these guys to take August off -- for pure optics, if for no other reason.

Now, I don't think these guys are going off to Biarritz -- okay, maybe some of them are. But I think it's a little misleading to imagine -- as the US conversation suggests -- that these folks are just a bunch of ne'er-do-wells or loafers. I think the whole drama puts the lie to the administration line in a more telling way. And that is that Iraq doesn't really have a government. It's a country that remains under military occupation. And the 'government' is just a group of factions playing a multi-layer chess game, partly under our watch and partly gaming out position for our departure. The key is that our timelines and deadlines are clearly not theirs. And they seem fairly indifferent to the benchmarks and dramas that the White House is telling the American people are so important.

In other words, the vacation issue appears to be both less and more than it seems -- not the caricature it's portrayed as in the American media perhaps but also a sign that the narrative of events the White House is feeding the US public is a sham.

--Josh Marshal

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015429.php

Cycloptichorn

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IRAQ: Partition Fears Begin to Rise
IRAQ: Partition Fears Begin to Rise
By Ali al-Fadhily*
Credit:US Defence Dept/Spc. Olanrewaju Akinwunmi
BAGHDAD, Jul 16 (IPS)

Many Iraqis are now beginning to see the rising sectarian violence as part of a larger plan to partition the country.

"Americans want to alter the shape of our cities, dividing Iraqis into ethnic and sectarian groups living separately from each other," Khali Sadiq, a researcher in statistics at Baghdad University told IPS.

"They are not doing this directly, but they have obviously given room to militias and Iraqi forces to do the job," he said. "We are more than halfway towards a sectarian Iraq."

A recent report has raised further suspicions that there is a U.S.-backed plan to partition the capital city, and possibly the country along sectarian and ethnic lines.

According to the Initial Benchmark Assessment Report issued by the White House Jul. 12, "the government of Iraq has made satisfactory progress towards enacting and implementing legislation on procedures to form semi-autonomous regions."

The report also states that the U.S.-backed Iraqi government formulates "target lists" of Sunni Arabs. These lists are compiled by the Office of the Commander-in-Chief, which reports directly to U.S.-backed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The report says fabricated charges are brught to purge Sunnis from the Iraqi security forces.

Samara city, 100 km north of Baghdad, seems to be one of the current targets of this demographic change. The bombing of the shrine of al-Askari in February 2006 ignited a sectarian wave of violence that swept Iraq. Shia clerics in Baghdad and other Iraqi provinces who are supportive of the occupation began to speak of a need to change the city from predominantly Sunni to predominantly Shia.

Shula and Hurriya in western Baghdad, and most areas on the eastern bank of Tigris River are now purely Shia after years of killings by death squads. It has been known for over a year now that Shia death squads have been operating out of the U.S.-backed Ministry of Interior, often in the guise of the Facilities Protection Service (FPS).

The FPS was created under extraordinary circumstances. The U.S. occupation authorities and the Iraqi leaders working with them set up several new army and police forces under the supervision of the Multi National Forces (MNF). It was decided that each ministry could establish its own protection force away from the control of the ministries of interior and defence.

The FPS was established Apr. 10, 2003, the day after the fall of Baghdad, under Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) order 27.

This document states: "The FPS may also consist of employees of private security firms who are engaged to perform services for the ministries or governorates through contracts, provided such private security firms and employees are licensed and authorised by the Ministry of Interior."

Global Security.Org, a U.S.-based security research group, says: "The Facilities Protection Service works for all ministries and governmental agencies, but its standards are set and enforced by the Ministry of the Interior. It can also be privately hired. The FPS is tasked with the fixed site protection of ministerial, governmental, or private buildings, facilities and personnel."

But evidence has emerged that this and other police forces have been taken over by Shia militia.

Capt. Alexander Shaw, head of the police transition team of the 372nd Military Police Battalion, a Washington-based unit charged with overseeing training of all Iraqi police in western Baghdad, has said: "To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure we're ever going to have police here that are free of the militia influence."

Shaw said about 70 percent of the Iraqi police force had been infiltrated, and that police officers are too afraid to patrol many areas of the capital.

Many Iraqis today believe this is part of an intentional plan to divide Iraq along sectarian lines.

"They (death squads) evicted many of our good Sunni neighbours and killed many others," Abu Riyad of the predominantly Shia Shula area told IPS. "We protected them for a while, but then we could not face the militias with all the support they had from the Iraqi government and the Americans. It is a terrible shame that we have to live with, but what can we do?"

On the other hand, many Sunni Iraqis seemed unwilling to evict their Shia countrymen -- for a while. But people in one mixed area of Baghdad described strange developments.

"It is true that our neighbours did not evict us, but then the Americans swept the area and local fighters had to disappear from the streets," Hussein Allawi, a Shia who lived in a predominantly Sunni neighbourhood told IPS. "A group of masked strangers then entered the town right under American soldiers' eyes. Only then did we realise that we must leave, and that our good neighbours could not help us any more."

Many such stories are told around Baghdad.

"We had to leave our house in Isskan in the western part of Baghdad," Dr. Fadhil Mahmood, a Sunni, told IPS. "A Shia friend of mine telephoned me to leave the house instantly because he heard some people were heading there to kill me and evict my family."

Mahmood said that his neighbours later told him that death squads arrived half an hour after he left his home.

(*Ali, our correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who travels extensively in the region)

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SO WHICH SHALL IT BE AND WHY DO YOU THINK SO?

Shall we stay in Iraq until we succeed and risk never succeeding,

OR,

Shall we leave Iraq and risk a large part of our population being mass murdered or maimed?

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Al-Qaeda advocates, recruits, supports, and practices suicidal mass murder of Muslim non-murderers.

Consequently, al-Qaeda must be exterminated ASAP.

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ican wrote :

Quote:

SO WHICH SHALL IT BE AND WHY DO YOU THINK SO?

Shall we stay in Iraq until we succeed and risk never succeeding,

OR,

Shall we leave Iraq and risk a large part of our population being mass murdered or maimed?

and after iraq there are : afghanistan , iran , pakistan - a real muslim hotbed WITH an atomic bomb , probably syria , saudi arabia ... ...

i do not believe that the current type of occupation of iraq is going to make any difference to the security of the united states - except perhaps to make it worse by fostering the recruitment of more young muslims to become "terrorists " (i believe they call themselves "freedom fighters") .
hbg

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Bin Laden statement, [u]The Sword Fell[/u], [u]Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders[/u], the New York Times, October 8, 2001, p. B-7, wrote:

[America is the] modern world's symbol of paganism ... helpers of Satan ...]

Osama Bin Laden, in [u]Letter to America[/u], November 24, 2002, wrote:

Contrary to the deceptive lie you are a great nation, [you are] based on oppression, lies, immorality, and debauchery. Reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and trading with interest. [Embrace] manners, principles, honor, and purity. You are a nation that permits acts of immorality and you consider them to be pillars of personal freedom ... President Clinton's immoral acts committed in the Oval Office ...You are a nation that permits gambling in all its forms ... the sex trade in all its forms ... you are the world's largest consumer of alcohol and drugs ... [generating through its sexual immorality and drug use] diseases such as AIDS that were unknown to man in the past ...you are a nation that exploits women like consumer products ... you then rant that you support the liberation of women ... you separate religion from your policies ... contradict the absolute authority of the Lord and Creator ...

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hamburger wrote:

ican wrote :

Quote:
SO WHICH SHALL IT BE AND WHY DO YOU THINK SO?

Shall we stay in Iraq until we succeed and risk never succeeding,

OR,

Shall we leave Iraq and risk a large part of our population being mass murdered or maimed?

and after iraq there are : afghanistan , iran , pakistan - a real muslim hotbed WITH an atomic bomb , probably syria , saudi arabia ... ...

i do not believe that the current type of occupation of iraq is going to make any difference to the security of the united states - except perhaps to make it worse by fostering the recruitment of more young muslims to become "terrorists " (i believe they call themselves "freedom fighters") .
hbg

I think you are probably right about "the current type of occupation of iraq." If that type continues, using the bulk of our military's troops to protect Iraqi non-murderers instead of exterminating al-Qaeda, it's difficult for me to see an end to our occupation. I believe we must transfer full responsibility to the Iraqis for their own protection, before we can exterminate al-Qaeda in Iraq.

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THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, ELEVENTH THREAD

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