U.S. may have botched training of Iraqis By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 18 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Training the police is as important to stabilizing Iraq as building an effective army there, but the United States has botched the job by assigning the wrong agencies to the task, two members of the Iraq Study Group said Wednesday.
"The police training system has not gone well," said former Rep. Lee Hamilton, who co-chaired the bipartisan commission.
old europe wrote:
...
If a call for a genocide on the Palestinian Arabs doesn't make someone a racist because "Palestinian Arabs are not a race of humans", would that mean that the Nazis who planned the extermination of the world's Jews were no racists either - as Judaism is not a race, but rather a religion?
Who called "for a genocide on the Palestinian Arabs"?
Anyone who calls for a genocide on the Palestinian Arabs or on the Palestinian Jews is a genocidal maniac.
The Nazis were not racists. The Nazis called for genocide on the Jews. The Nazis were genocidal maniacs.
The reality is, the Palestinian Jews are not going to get more peace and the Palestinian Arabs are not going to get more peace, because neither will do what either one has to do to get more peace. To get more peace either the Palestinian Arabs have to stop killing Palestinian Jews from time to time or kill all the Palestinian Jews; or the Palestinian Jews have to leave Palestine or kill all the Palestinian Arabs.
I hate that reality, but hating it won't change it.
I am curious about why we (US) are spending so much time worrying about Iranian support of the Shiite in Iraq (if such does exist) and not about the Saudis support of the Sunnis who are the ones killing our armed forces and have been behind the insurgency from the beginning?
Saudis reportedly funding Iraqi Sunni insurgents
Two Iraqi generals suspected of complicity in attack on US GIs
John Byrne
Published: Thursday February 1, 2007
Citing Pentagon officials, Fox News Channel is reporting that two Iraqi generals are suspected of complicity in a Jan. 20 attack in Karbala, Iraq that killed five US troops.
"There are 2 senior Iraq generals that US officials say are now suspect of involvement in an attack against American forces in Karbala on Jan. 20th," a Fox News host reported on air. "A number of people were killed. These gunmen apparently stormed an Iraqi security dressed like American soldiers and driving SUVs. So again, US officials are saying that 2 senior are suspected of taking part in an insurgent attack that killed 5 American soldiers."
The fake US military convoy that kidnapped and killed 5 soldiers had previously been blamed on Iranian elements.
"We have Pentagon officials telling us this was incredibly sophisticated orchestrated attack, at troubling attack from their perspective," Fox News Reporter Mike Emanuel reports live on air. "There's a great investigation underway trying to figure out exactly how this happened and who may have been behind it. There is some suggestion due to the level of sophistication, planning, coordination, perhaps Iranian agents had been involved in some way. Now we have sources telling us that at least 2 top iraqi generals are the center of this investigation being looked at to see if whether they may not be loyal allies ot the united states, after all. Whether they may be traitors in betraying US forces serving in Iraq trying to help their country."
Originally, the US said the five soldiers had been killed during fighting, but the Associated Press revealed the US statement was a lie.
"It makes you wonder if they are able to pass themselves off as Americans and get into this place in Karbala, could they do further attacks in places like the Green Zone," Emanuel continued. "Driving up in SUVs looking like they are an American security detail or American forces going into other places, other locations and perhaps put more Americans at risk. So, there are a lot of questions at this point. Again, it's early on in the investigation. We're hearing sources whether they're looking at the possibility that Iranian elements, parts of the Iranian government may have been involved. Now, the latest, 2 Iraq generals under suspicion."
More details as they become available.
DEVELOPING...
revel wrote:I am curious about why we (US) are spending so much time worrying about Iranian support of the Shiite in Iraq (if such does exist) and not about the Saudis support of the Sunnis who are the ones killing our armed forces and have been behind the insurgency from the beginning?
Saudis reportedly funding Iraqi Sunni insurgents
The Iranians are developing nukes, too.
The Saudis are not developing nukes, too.
It's evident again that ican has no clue about middle east politics, and why Iran is helping the US, and Saudi Arabia is supporting the "wrong side."
Grand Delusion
Politicians in Both Parties Act as if They Can Make the War Go Away Soon. It Won't.
By Robert Kagan
Washington Post
Sunday, January 28, 2007; Page B07
It's quite a juxtaposition. In Iraq, American soldiers are finally beginning the hard job of establishing a measure of peace, security and order in critical sections of Baghdad -- the essential prerequisite for the lasting political solution everyone claims to want. They've launched attacks on Sunni insurgent strongholds and begun reining in Moqtada al-Sadr's militia. And they've embarked on these operations with the expectation that reinforcements will soon be on the way: the more than 20,000 troops President Bush has ordered to Iraq and the new commander he has appointed to fight the insurgency as it has not been fought since the war began.
Back in Washington, however, Democratic and Republican members of Congress are looking for a different kind of political solution: the solution to their problems in presidential primaries and elections almost two years off. Resolutions disapproving the troop increase have proliferated on both sides of the aisle. Many of their proponents frankly, even proudly, admit they are responding to the current public mood, as if that is what they were put in office to do. Those who think they were elected sometimes to lead rather than follow seem to be in a minority.
The most popular resolutions simply oppose the troop increase without offering much useful guidance on what to do instead, other than perhaps go back to the Baker-Hamilton commission's vague plan for a gradual withdrawal. Sen. Hillary Clinton wants to cap the number of troops in Iraq at 137,500. No one explains why this is the right number, why it shouldn't be 20,000 troops lower or higher. But that's not really the point, is it?
Other critics claim that these are political cop-outs, which they are. These supposedly braver critics demand a cutoff of funds for the war and the start of a withdrawal within months. But they're not honest either, since they refuse to answer the most obvious and necessary questions: What do they propose the United States do when, as a result of withdrawal, Iraq explodes and ethnic cleansing on a truly horrific scale begins? What do they propose our response should be when the entire region becomes a war zone, when al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations establish bases in Iraq from which to attack neighboring states as well as the United States? Even the Iraq Study Group acknowledged that these are likely consequences of precipitate withdrawal.
Those who call for an "end to the war" don't want to talk about the fact that the war in Iraq and in the region will not end but will only grow more dangerous. Do they recommend that we then do nothing, regardless of the consequences? Or are they willing to say publicly, right now, that they would favor sending U.S. troops back into Iraq to confront those new dangers? Answering those questions really would be honest and brave.
Of course, most of the discussion of Iraq isn't about Iraq at all. The war has become a political abstraction, a means of positioning oneself at home.
To the extent that people think about Iraq, many seem to believe it is a problem that can be made to go away. Once American forces depart, Iraq will no longer be our problem. Joseph Biden, one of the smartest foreign policy hands in the Senate, recently accused President Bush of sending more troops so that he could pass the Iraq war on to his successor. Biden must assume that if the president took his advice and canceled the troop increase, then somehow Iraq would no longer be a serious crisis when President Biden entered the White House in 2009.
This is a delusion, but it is by no means only a Democratic delusion. Many conservatives and Republicans, including erstwhile supporters of the war, have thrown up their hands in anger at the Iraqi people or the Iraqi government. They, too, seem to believe that if American troops leave, because Iraqis don't "deserve" our help, then somehow the whole mess will solve itself or simply fade away. Talk about a fantasy. The fact is, the United States cannot escape the Iraq crisis, or the Middle East crisis of which it is a part, and will not be able to escape it for years. And if Iraq does collapse, it will not be the end of our problems but the beginning of a new and much bigger set of problems.
I would think that anyone wanting to be president in January 2009 would be hoping and praying that the troop increase works. The United States will be dealing with Iraq one way or another in 2009, no matter what anyone says or does today. The only question is whether it is an Iraq that is salvageable or an Iraq sinking further into chaos and destruction and dragging America along with it.
A big part of the answer will come soon in the battle for Baghdad. Politicians in both parties should realize that success in this mission is in their interest, as well as the nation's. Here's a wild idea: Forget the political posturing, be responsible, and provide the moral and material support our forces need and expect. The next president will thank you.
Robert Kagan, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund, writes a monthly column for The Post. His latest book is "Dangerous Nation," a history of American foreign policy.
ican, The article only shows Bush botched everything from the very beginning. The neocons only argument today is that liberals haven't forwarded any "solutions" to this mess that Bush created. DUH~! The Iraq Study Group made several recommendations that Bush ignored.
Bush continues to show ignorance and absurdity when he continues to ask for suggestions, but ignores them when given.
Quote:What do they propose the United States do when, as a result of withdrawal, Iraq explodes and ethnic cleansing on a truly horrific scale begins?
Let me answer that question in two parts:
1, we don't trust people who were war cheerleaders all along for assessments of the situation any longer, or their predictions about what will happen if we leave. That's what happens when you are consistently wrong about things; people don't believe you any longer.
2, the situation he proposes could take place at any time after we left. He essentially is proposing that we stay indefinitely in Iraq; otherwise, the extremists on either side will just wait us out, no matter how long it takes.
And an additional point -
None of those who are suggesting that we stay there for a much longer period of time have shown how this is going to be
paid for. It costs horrendous amounts of money for us to stay in Iraq; we cannot afford to do so in perpetuity, and what more, many of us don't believe that this is how the US gov't should be spending their money.
If we leave and the whole things goes downhill, those who deserve the blame are the ones who conceived this f*ckup of a war, who failed to plan properly for it, who failed to secure the country in the critical months following the invasion, who failed the rebuilding, who failed to account for where money went, who failed to change strategy until it was far too late. Attempting to pin this on those who would stop the bleeding is pure bullshit.
Cycloptichorn
George Soros and his fellow gangsters claim the following:
Quote:I do not accept the rules imposed by others. If I did, I would not be alive today. I am a law-abiding citizen, but I recognize that there are regimes that need to be opposed rather than accepted. And in periods of regime change, the normal rules don't apply. One needs to adjust one's behavior to the changing circumstances.
Usually it takes a crisis to prompt a meaningful change in direction.
Ousting Bush from the White House is the central focus of my life. It's a matter of life and death.
My greatest fear is that the Bush Doctrine will succeed--that Bush will crush the terrorists, tame the rogue states of the axis of evil, and usher in a golden age of American supremacy. American supremacy is flawed and bound to fail in the long run.
What I am afraid of is that the pursuit of American supremacy may be successful for a while because the United States in fact employs a dominant position in the world today.
These are not normal times.
The principles of the Declaration of Independence are not self-evident truths but arrangements necessitated by our inherently imperfect understanding.
Help Design the Constitution in 2020 to match a progressive vision of what the Constitution ought to be.
Now the Democratic Party is our party. We bought it, we own it.
Interesting non-sequitur there, Ican, seeing as Soros has nothing to do with the war in Iraq at all
Cycloptichon
ican711nm wrote:revel wrote:I am curious about why we (US) are spending so much time worrying about Iranian support of the Shiite in Iraq (if such does exist) and not about the Saudis support of the Sunnis who are the ones killing our armed forces and have been behind the insurgency from the beginning?
Saudis reportedly funding Iraqi Sunni insurgents
The Iranians are developing nukes, too.
The Saudis are not developing nukes, too.
We should be more concerned about quelling the insurgency who are the Sunnis because they have been the ones from the beginning who have been against settling post war Iraq from the beginning and did their level best (and succeeded) to incite civil strife in Iraq by bombing Shiite holy places and Shiites. Now we are just going after the Shiite militants and basically leaving the Sunni insurgency alone to continue to bomb the Shiites. If we are so concerned about outside influences we would concentrate on Saudi and other gulf states who have been arming the Sunnis. It seems to me that we have picked sides in this civil "unrest" and it is the very same people who have killed our armed forces that we have picked. Bush just doesn't care about all dead soldiers and the ones who will continue to die by Sunnis. He would rather go after the Shiite who has not been killing any US soldiers.
Cycloptichorn wrote:
...
Attempting to pin this on those who would stop the bleeding is pure bullshit.
Cycloptichorn
"those who would stop the bleeding"
Those who claim they are trying to stop the bleeding are frauds. Those who are trying to get the US to fail in Iraq are not interested even a little bit in trying to stop the bleeding. What they are interested in is gaining more power in the US government and over the American people. They think that there constant diatribes against the Bush Administration will get the American voters to give them that power--they may succeed using these despicable tactics. They know as well as I do that the US leaving Iraq before the Iraq government can stop--or at least control--the bleeding, will incease the bleeding in Iraq and increase the bleeding in America and the rest of the West. They simply do not give a damn about that.
Cycloptichorn wrote:Interesting non-sequitur there, Ican, seeing as Soros has nothing to do with the war in Iraq at all
Cycloptichon
Malarkey! Soros along with his fellow gangsters are doing whatever they can--investing millions in buying who and what they can--to cause the US to fail in Iraq.
revel wrote:
...
Bush just doesn’t care about all dead soldiers and the ones who will continue to die by Sunnis. He would rather go after the Shiite who has not been killing any US soldiers.
Malarkey! The Bush administration is going after both the Sunni and the Shiite mass murderers of non-murderers.
If you want to have a serious discussion about Iraq, I'm okay with that; but your conspiracy theories about Soros are uninteresting and there really isn't much to discuss about them...
Quote:Those who claim they are trying to stop the bleeding are frauds. Those who are trying to get the US to fail in Iraq are not interested even a little bit in trying to stop the bleeding. What they are interested in is gaining more power in the US government and over the American people.
This is a pretty a$$holish thing to say. I am trying to stop the Iraq war because I believe that our presence there isn't helping the situation. I know for a fact that many others are doing the exact same thing. For you to belittle our effort as an attempt to grab power is pretty insulting, but your level of discourse has kind of slipped a little lately so I'm not surprised.
Cycloptichorn
ican711nm wrote:Cycloptichorn wrote:If you want to have a serious discussion about Iraq, I'm okay with that; but your conspiracy theories about Soros are uninteresting and there really isn't much to discuss about them...
I quoted exactly what Soros has written in his books. I also quoted what one of Soros's fellow gangsters said about their ownership of the Democratic party. It is not a conspiracy theory. It is a conspiracy fact. Whether or not you personally are on Soros's payroll, you consistently present the arguments Soros presents.
Quote:Those who claim they are trying to stop the bleeding are frauds. Those who are trying to get the US to fail in Iraq are not interested even a little bit in trying to stop the bleeding. What they are interested in is gaining more power in the US government and over the American people.
This is a pretty a$$holish thing to say. I am trying to stop the Iraq war because I believe that our presence there isn't helping the situation. I know for a fact that many others are doing the exact same thing. For you to belittle our effort as an attempt to grab power is pretty insulting, but your level of discourse has kind of slipped a little lately so I'm not surprised.
Your personal attempts to help the situation will not help the situation. I'll take your word for it. You nonetheless believe that what you are advocating will "stop the bleeding." Soros says the samething and but is attempting to stop Bush. How do I know? Soros says so! You are at best an unwitting follower of the Soros doctrine.
For God's sake get real and think outside your self-imposed mental box. Ask yourself the obvious questions. How is the US leaving Iraq before the Iraqis can control the mass murder of themselves, going to control the bleeding? How is it going to control the growth of al-Qaeda in Iraq so as to control the bleeding al-Qaeda causes in the West?
Cycloptichorn
THINK!
Christ, you're intelligent, so don't act stupid -
I want to stop the bleeding for
us. It is my personal opinion that nothing we can do in Iraq will help the situation any longer. This is based off of both my observations over the last three years about the nature of the Iraqis's struggles with each other, a realistic assessment of the situation in Iraq, and the continued and compounding problems caused by our poor leadership.
If we want to stop AQ, then we should redeploy our troops from Iraq into hunting down Al Qaeda. We should play defense at home, perhaps. Some of the money we save on Iraq could make that happen.
The whole thing is screwed, royally. We have the opportunity to leave before we are chased out, but we won't take it out of pride and we won't do the necessary things to stay and win; so what is the possible positive outcome?
Cycloptichorn
The Iraq government will not be able to control the violence, because they are in a civil war that's been going on for some 1,400 years.
All it guarantees by our involvement is an escalation of the ivolence, more of our soldiers getting killed, and more of our treasure spent on a lost cause.
We are wasting money in Iraq that can be spent at home to help the people living in the Gulf Coast of the US of A. They are being ignored while we waste billions in Iraq.
