THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, ELEVENTH THREAD

I believe we must transfer full responsibility to the Iraqis for their own protection, before we can exterminate al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Quote:

I believe we must transfer full responsibility to the Iraqis for their own protection, before we can exterminate al-Qaeda in Iraq.

But, there simply is no group called 'the Iraqis.' It's a myth. There is no unified presence there for us to transfer authority to.

Also, the IArmy has no ability whatsoever to defend anything. Their battalions and units are unreliable in the extreme; they have no artillery, no tanks and no airpower, the last of which being critical for the kind of fighting that we engage in. There's credible evidence that both the IA and the police force are riddled with insurgents and Shiite militas of various stripes.

It's a lose-lose situation, man...

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Quote:

I believe we must transfer full responsibility to the Iraqis for their own protection, before we can exterminate al-Qaeda in Iraq.

But, there simply is no group called 'the Iraqis.' It's a myth. There is no unified presence there for us to transfer authority to.

Also, the IArmy has no ability whatsoever to defend anything. Their battalions and units are unreliable in the extreme; they have no artillery, no tanks and no airpower, the last of which being critical for the kind of fighting that we engage in. There's credible evidence that both the IA and the police force are riddled with insurgents and Shiite militas of various stripes.

It's a lose-lose situation, man...

Cycloptichorn

Let's test your thesis and compel another election to be held in Iraq.

ican711nm wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Quote:

I believe we must transfer full responsibility to the Iraqis for their own protection, before we can exterminate al-Qaeda in Iraq.

But, there simply is no group called 'the Iraqis.' It's a myth. There is no unified presence there for us to transfer authority to.

Also, the IArmy has no ability whatsoever to defend anything. Their battalions and units are unreliable in the extreme; they have no artillery, no tanks and no airpower, the last of which being critical for the kind of fighting that we engage in. There's credible evidence that both the IA and the police force are riddled with insurgents and Shiite militas of various stripes.

It's a lose-lose situation, man...

Cycloptichorn

Let's test your thesis and compel another election to be held in Iraq.

I agree 100%. Would you like to place a bet on this happening this fall? I think you can guess which side of the bet I would like to take.

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

ican711nm wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Quote:

I believe we must transfer full responsibility to the Iraqis for their own protection, before we can exterminate al-Qaeda in Iraq.

But, there simply is no group called 'the Iraqis.' It's a myth. There is no unified presence there for us to transfer authority to.

Also, the IArmy has no ability whatsoever to defend anything. Their battalions and units are unreliable in the extreme; they have no artillery, no tanks and no airpower, the last of which being critical for the kind of fighting that we engage in. There's credible evidence that both the IA and the police force are riddled with insurgents and Shiite militas of various stripes.

It's a lose-lose situation, man...

Cycloptichorn

Let's test your thesis and compel another election to be held in Iraq.

I agree 100%. Would you like to place a bet on this happening this fall? I think you can guess which side of the bet I would like to take.

Cycloptichorn

No!

Yes!

I would like such an election to be held before July 2008. Elections in the coming fall, winter, spring, or even early summer would make me happy.

However, unfortunately I expect such an election will not occurr before 2009.

By the way, would calling the non-murderers residing in Iraq MOSULBAGHDADBASTRAis? be consistent with your thesis?

ican711nm wrote:

...
By the way, would calling the non-murderers residing in Iraq MOSULBAGHDADBASTRAis? be consistent with your thesis?

I don't know why you insist on inventing crazy acronyms. They don't affect the conversation one way or the other.

If there's no elections in 2008, then there won't be any in 2009, because we will be gone and their government will have fallen - guaranteed.

Cycloptichorn

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?

»

Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, has repeatedly said that the United States must wait until September to assess the success of the President's escalation policy in Iraq. Last month, Petraeus said it was "premature right now" to discuss the way forward in Iraq.

But yesterday on C-SPAN, Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), who recently returned from a trip to Iraq, suggested that those comments aren't Petraeus's real views. Rather, he is shilling for the administration. "I got the impression from Gen. Petraeus that he wasn't waiting" until September to reassess the Iraq policy. "Now he might be overruled by people in the White House and, you know, wait until September. But he seemed very eager to come forward as quickly as possible with a new direction and policy." Watch it:

False dichotomy. There is no evidence that leaving Iraq will lead to our population being endangered in any fashion.

You posit that leaving Iraq = doing nothing about terrorism or AQ or even the AQ in Iraq. This is a false position; no one has suggested that the right answer is to do nothing about the problem.

Cycloptichorn

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?

In other words, if we were to leave Iraq before we succeed there, we take a huge risk that there will be nothing we can do short of becoming Muslims (as al-Qaeda defines it) that will prevent a large part of our population being mass murdered or maimed?

Quote:

In other words, if we were to leave Iraq before we succeed there, we take a huge risk that there will be nothing we can do short of becoming Muslims (as al-Qaeda defines it) that will prevent a large part of our population being mass murdered or maimed?

Baseless assertion. 'Huge risk?' You just make stuff up.

How did you calculate that after we leave Iraq, AQ will have increased capability to attack us here at home?

Cycloptichorn

BAGHDAD - Dozens of Shiite villagers in the north were massacred by Sunni extremists, two officials said Tuesday, while a car bomb exploded across the street from the Iranian Embassy in the heart of Baghdad and killed four civilians.

Meanwhile, Shiite legislators loyal to anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr decided to end their five-week boycott of parliament, one of their leaders said. The Shiite protest along with a separate Sunni boycott had blocked work on key benchmark legislation demanded by the U.S.

Police Col. Ragheb Radhi al-Omairi said 29 members of a Shiite tribe were massacred overnight in Diyala province when dozens of suspected Sunni gunmen raided their village near Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles northeast of Baghdad. The dead included four women, al-Omairi said.

Al-Omairi said he had not seen the bodies and it was unclear whether they had been retrieved.

An Iraqi army officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not supposed to release the information, said the attack occurred in the village of Diwailiya and that at least 10 bodies were mutilated in the hour-long raid.

The village is in the same province as Baqouba, where fighting escalated Tuesday. U.S. and Iraqi troops regained control of western Baqouba last month, but al-Qaida and other Sunni insurgent elements remain active in the rest of the city. The al-Qaida front Islamic State of Iraq had declared Baqouba its capital.

In Baghdad, the deadliest bombing occurred when a suicide driver detonated his vehicle near an Iraqi army patrol in Zayouna, a mostly Shiite area of eastern Baghdad, killing 10 people, including six civilians, police said.

Police said 11 people, including seven civilians, were wounded.

The blast near the Iranian Embassy occurred in late morning a few hundred yards north of the U.S.-controlled Green Zone, sending a huge cloud of black smoke over the city. Three civilians also were wounded, said police.

All the Baghdad police officers spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release information.

Also Tuesday, the bodies of two security guards were found in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Mansour, two days after they were kidnapped from the office of a cell phone company where they worked, police said.

U.S. forces have launched offensives around the Iraqi capital to try to halt the flow of bombs and fighters into the city. The latest strike began Monday southwest of the city in an area where al-Qaida and other groups have been active for years.

The U.S. command said American soldiers had killed about a dozen insurgents during a three-hour gunfight Monday in the Fadhil district, a Sunni enclave in the center of the city. The battle began when paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division came under fire from the Islamic Bank building, the military said.

One U.S. trooper was slightly wounded, the U.S. said.

U.S. Marines also have started a new offensive to establish a presence in towns along the Euphrates River long used as insurgent sanctuaries.

Operation Mawtini, begun Sunday, includes more than 9,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops and aims to establish control in remote areas of western Anbar province, the U.S. said.

The leader of the 30-member Sadrist bloc in parliament, Nasser al-Rubaie, said the decision to end the boycott was taken after the government agreed to rebuild a Shiite mosque in Samarra which was destroyed in two bombings and to secure the highway from Baghdad and the shrine.

Pressure is now expected to mount on the Sunnis to end their boycott, which began over the ouster of the Sunni speaker of parliament last month. Sunni leaders say agreement is near on ending the protest.

Both protests have paralyzed work in Iraq's fractious, 275-member assembly as pressure is growing in the United States to bring an end to the U.S. military role here.

However, the Sadrists also oppose a number of bills sought by the government, including legislation to regulate the oil industry. That could make it tougher for key benchmark legislation to win approval.

Meanwhile, a group in Switzerland said nearly 2.2 million Iraqis are living in a precarious state of displacement inside Iraq, struggling to access regular food supplies or adequate shelter and health care.

About 60,000 additional Iraqis are being uprooted from their homes each month, spurred by sectarian violence, military operations and general lawlessness, said Jemini Pandya, a spokeswoman for the International Organization for Migration.

The 120-nation migration body has been distributing aid to hundreds of thousands of displaced and vulnerable Iraqis since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Pandya said it has become increasingly difficult to guarantee assistance for those most in need in Iraq, largely because of the insecurity in the country and limited resources for aid groups.

Also Tuesday, commercial air service resumed at Basra's international airport after rocket or mortar fire damaged the runway a day earlier, a British spokesman said.

The attack caused minor damage and a one-day suspension of commercial air service, but no casualties, said Maj. Matthew Bird, a British spokesman.

Basra's airport is controlled by British troops who come under almost daily attacks from Shiite militiamen in the southern oil-producing region. Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia and other Shiite factions are competing for control of the area.

In Kirkuk, families collected the bodies of relatives from hospitals a day after a triple bombing killed about 80 people. Others were searching debris still left on the street, hoping for clues about what happened to friends and relatives whose bodies have not been identified.

All but one of the victims died when a massive truck bomb exploded near the Kirkuk Castle and the headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the party of President Jalal Talabani.

It was the deadliest attack in Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad, where Arabs, Turkomen and Kurds are competing for control of the city at the heart of the northern oil region.

Voters in the city are to decide whether to join the Kurdish self-ruled region in a referendum by year's end.

With three ethnic groups competing for control, violence in Kirkuk has been frequent. But Monday's blasts were on a far bigger scale than most attacks.

U.S. and Iraqi officials have said Sunni Arab insurgents are moving farther north to carry out attacks, fleeing U.S. offensives in and around Baghdad.