Keep clicking on that link. I’m pretty sure there is a Democratic War Plan, and that you’ll be able to find it there. If you don’t, try clicking here. Or here. Wait a minute. I think it’s here.
Plus – they promise “A New Direction For America”
Keep clicking on that link. I’m pretty sure there is a Democratic War Plan, and that you’ll be able to find it there. If you don’t, try clicking here. Or here. Wait a minute. I think it’s here.
Plus – they promise “A New Direction For America”
You can Google “White House” but you won’t find any plan there either.
The MSM has done a wonderfull job of making the war in Iraq a lossing proposition. They have aided the enemy and have turned public opinion away from ever winning it.
No matter what the admiistration says or does it is never the right thing.
Pentagon planners and the administration have a better handle on this than we can imagine. But the Dems and the MSM can and have sabotage the operation.
Public polls ask questions that the average citizen has no clue about. So in the end there never can be a win win when the uninformed and ill informed public sway in the wrong direction.
Al Qeada is laughing all the way to the bank.
The Neo-communists can now make sure that Iraq becomes another Vietnam, by intentionally losing. Just like they did with Vietnam.
jose – why should the government plan be on the White House site?
Hasn’t the gov’t plan been articulated often enough? Remove the dictatorship, enable the Iraqi people to set up a constitution (done); to set up a democratic mode of governance (done); to have general elections (done). The rest – which is the establishment of a capitalist or demoractic economy – is up to the Iraqi people and takes time. It took the West four hundred years (got that, Jose?) to move from a tribal mode to a civic mode of socioeconomic activities. How about allowing Iraqi five or ten years?
The problems now are two-fold. First is that Iraq was deliberately maintained as a set of oppositional tribes by Hussein, rather than enabling them to drop tribalism and move into a collaborative civic mode. Hussein did this so that they would fight each other rather than his dictatorship. Tribalism has been the only infrastructure in Iraq and the ME. Ever. It’s dysfunctional in a multi-million population. But, tribalism and kinbased economic and social networks are all that the people know and it takes time to move out of kinship into civic collaborations.
The second problem is that the neighbouring states such as Iran, Syria, etc, don’t want democracy in their midst; that would encourage their own people to rebel against the dictatorships in their countries. So, they are working very hard to keep tribal fights going and prevent Iraqi from working well.
What I find astonishing is the utter naive expectations of people – to expect that a dictatorship and a tribal-based society can move, overnight, without trauma, into a peaceful civic, non-tribal mode. Astonishing.
There’s no 12 Steps to Democracy; there’s no Democracy For Dummies. It’s impossible. Instead, you must remove the dictatorship that has enslaved the people, and then, assist with discussions, with encouragement, them to drop the tribal kinship structure and start to trust each other and work together. If you think that can be done overnight – then you need some courses in psychology.
I supported the invasion….I dont miss hussein one bit….i think the world and the region are better off without him….
however, something went wrong….it isnt going well, or near as well as it should. so the question is whats next, what is the best path?
i am concerned that whatever they do they do with sufficient force and committment. If thats a surge then if 50,000 are required then use 50,000.
There really arent a lot of good options left.
The Western way has always been the unrelenting use of overpowering force through technology.
Overpowering force is required that is appropriate for the situation.
I have hope for Petraeus….he seems to know what he is doing….I hope he has asked for and is getting everything he needs
The Dems have a war plan, it’s obstructing any meaningful execution of advancing the WOT and securing Iraq. That’s all they have to contribute. They are the party of big unions, whining victims and their devisive behavior, the vacuous narcissists in Hollywood and the MSM, indecisive and uninformed sheeple and the fossilized lefties on college campuses.
Having no new ideas in the past 40 years, they can only obstruct and vilify to efforts of others. These are the same unserious folks that refused to assist Bush in overhauling Social Security, a huge problem that will come back to haunt my kids. We only got welfare reform because the Republicans controlled the congress then.
Squandering money, piddling away precious time, and keeping victim groups on their plantation is what they do best. Just look around you at who describes themselves as a Dem/Lib. Scratch the surface and it’s not the best minds when it comes to principles, logic or reason.
It is simply a question of will. The terrorists can’t win unless we quit. The only reason we will quit is because the lib-left politicians and their buddies in the media will try everything possible to make it seem hopeless.
“President Bush has said that the war against global jihadism is more than a military conflict; it is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century. We are still in the early years of the struggle. The civilized world will either rise to the challenge and prevail against this latest form of barbarism, or grief and death will visit us and other innocents on a massive scale.”
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/01/the_nature_of_our_enemy.html
The thing that pisses me off is the yanks keep electing a murdering wanker like Kennedy and a screaming granny like Pelosi. Then expect to be taken seriously. With this lot in charge they are not the leaders of the world, they are the followers. As anyone else noticed since a women took charge Kennedy as become more outspoken. Why wasn’t he killed for murder.
OT
I wonder if the yanks ever looked into Ted’s role in the deaths of John and Bobby. Both more intelligent than him. Jealousy rears its ugly head.
Actually, the Democrats’ plan for fighting terrorism in the Middle East is no secret, nor is it complex:
1. Cut
2. Run
So where in the anals of history does it say that battle plans must be made public and agreed to by the populus before they are implimented? If the democrats, lieberals and MSM of today were around in the 40’s then D-Day would have been a bloody riot.
Problem with the western world today is that they are an instant gratification generation. If it isn’t done in time for the 11 0’clock news then it has gone on too long. Wars aren’t fought like that. With the exception of the seven day war, can anyone point out a war that was quick?
I’m old enough to remember very well the Vietnam War era. In fact, I served in the USAF in the latter few years of America’s involvement and a couple of years afterwards.
I have the most awful, sickening feeling of deja vu about the Iraq War and the War on Terror in general. I see much the same anti-America, anti-fight-for-democracy agenda on the part of the left, both in America and elsewhere in what used to be confidently called the Western World.
I see America’s and the West’s MSM (aptly called by someone else The Enemedia) diligently doing it’s best to sabotage America’s and the West’s war effort and give victory to the Islamofascists. They have raised both lying by omission and lying by commission to journalistic art forms. They don’t have much to learn from Goebbels’s Ministry of Propaganda. In fact, they’re far more insidious because of their aura of respectability, earned in the past, which Goebbels and his Ministry never had.
I see the Democratic Party again proudly acting the part of the Party of Defeat and Appeasement. Their new catchword is “Redeploy”, their new euphemism for “retreat” and “surrender”. They have to use this euphemism as the American people haven’t degenerated as far as have they, and would, if given the truth, reject retreat and surrender.
Can anyone doubt that their precious icon, Jack Kennedy, would be un-nominatable in the Democratic Party today? Like Senator Joe Lieberman, the only responsible, moderate prominent Democrat, he’d be unceremoniously dumped from the Party.
Here’s an excerpt from Kennedy’s Inaugural Address, “…Let the word go forth…we will bear any burden, support any friend, oppose any foe, to insure the survival and success of Liberty”. Those strong words are parallel to much of what the hated Bush has said since 9/11, for which he has been made the object of a pathological hatred both domestically and by much of the West’s left and it’s lickspittle MSM propagandists.
The meaning of those words by Kennedy and by Bush haven’t changed. The American left, and that of the West in general, have changed, by a profound intellectual and moral degeneration. In that process, they have poisoned and debilitated all of Western Civilization.
Texas Canuck,
First Gulf War, Grenada, Panama, the second gulf war…..
That being said, they arent the same as fighting the Islamists….iraq is soemthing different. Iraq was a war of choice….the US chose the time, the initiative was all theirs. They won the conventional battle in an amazing amount of time with a thin force….it really is a testament to how powerful the US military is when it is unleashed.
However, occupation is different and they havent been able to see the same success. I honestly dont know what the answers are. I dont want to leave but they have found themselves in a pickle. There is no short term answer. The Iraqi military is coming along, the porblem is the police. Without good police the military has to take on additional roles.
David Petreaus is a well regarded anti insurgent….Give him what he needs, keep training the iraqi army and figure out how to clean the police up and get US troops disengaged to free them up for other missions and reduce expenditures.
Iraq SHOULD BE one of the richest countries on earth…..run even vaguely properly it SHOULD BE an oasis of stability. The Sunni Shiite fued may prevent all of this.
Dave, well said!
stephen. The US is NOT occupying Iraq. I find such an assertion, and it’s made by many, profoundly ignorant.
Occupation would mean that the foreign country ran the gov’t, in its political, legal, economic nature. The US isn’t doing that. You are ignoring and indeed, insulting the Iraqi people, who developed their own constitution and voted for – got that? – voted for their government. It is their government that is making the political, legal, economic decisions.
The US is there only in a military role, to help with the insurgency – which is being run not merely by tribal factions within Iraq but above all, by Iran, SA, Syria, etc.
Again, kindly remember that tribalism was an ancient political/economic mode in the Middle East. You don’t overturn it overnight!!! After all, tribalism was the key mode of governance in the feudal west for centuries. It took several centuries to get out of that and move into a civic mode of governance.
What puzzles me is why people aren’t willing to give the Iraqi people a few years and insist instead, on the immediate, Harry Potter type of Instant Transformation. That works in fiction. This is reality – and transformations, deep structural transformations (tribe to civic) take years.
Dave – thanks for your post. I remain more positive. The reason is, that the population now doesn’t rely just on the MSM for its information. There’s the Internet – and the domination of the MSM is over. It’s interesting but the left doesn’t seem able to deal with the Internet that well. I think it’s because the left relies for its power on propaganda, ie, lies and misinformation and emotional manipulation. These are rapidly exposed on the Internet.
Do you know what else is reminiscent of the Vietnam War? An extraneous power occupying and killing indigenous peoples and when the inevitable resistance occurs…scapegoat the media, leftwing, academia, etc.
Perhaps history has more to teach us than the consequences of the actions of Neville Chamberlain in 1938.
Although most Dems will denounce “neo-con” agendas, quietly they agree entirely with the Strausian principles in changing government’s roll to reflect this new imperialist statism domestically and in foreign policy.
When push comes to shove the Dems always support war…if they don’t institute it, after lying to the people they will keep America out of it, they are the most ruthless war hawks…like Wilson going to war after being elected on a platform of nutrality in WWI….or FDR in Europe (fire bombing civilian targets) to Harry Truman unleashing isotopes to scorch Jap imperialism and kicking Chi-com butts in Korea, to LBJ going to into Nam and funding Israeli wars of expansion after the Kennedys were out of his way…to the recent hawkish Dem congress where the Dems are introducing a manditory military draft again.
Who the hell ever equated Dems with peace?!?!…they have always talked peace and started wars…they know the military contractor economic sector swings to the party who supports militry solutions to foreign policy….the added benefit is domestic prosperity from war production and military mobilization…Dems ain’t stupid….they let the Bush Neocons take the insults while they run with their agenda and score politically.
It doesn’t take a clairvoyant to predict a Dem congress and president will continue and expand the conflict in the ME.
While the left and Right partisan media provides a diversionary front to the public as to the reasons for America’s compulsory long term, multi generational military involvement in the ME, dubbed “the war on terror” ( Left says it’s oil, Right says it’s high moral ideals and democracy)…the real reason is a much more dire need to keep a hyper inflated American dollar from collapsing.
Wars run on credit for the prospects of controlling ME oil makes America’s debt holders and dollar traders/holders happy and they will continue to float the besieged US Dollar as long as America shows the ability to mobilize productivity to run wars and pay debts.
Both parties in America’s 2 party system know they are inexorably hooked into this war making economic system to stave off economic disaster through dollar collapse in the global market.
If you want to see how long the ME conflict will last keep and eye on M3 stats as related to M1 and M2 ratios…..if you can ever pry them out of the Fed…as of the klast few years the Fed isn’t allowing government audits of its reserves nor is itreleasing M3 dollar inflation info either.
And the Lieberal/Dipper in Canada is exactly the same.
Keep your powder dry, folks. If these liberals have their way, we’ll be fighting here in North America in a few years. (Don’t get rid of your unregistered guns…We may desperately need them.)
😉
Great post, Dave.
What most Dem birdbrains and their minions aren’t getting is that if we lose this war against Islamofascism, this won’t have an ending like Vietnam. It’s going to have a profound effect that will get a lot more North Americans and Europeans killed in the long run.
We got 9/11 because the terrorist perceived us as weak and distracted. Iran released our hostages during Reagan’s inauguration because he was perceived as not a patsy. French property is being incincerated with impunity night after night because they are weak. I’ve said it before, if I was a terrorist living here, voting for the Democrats is a no brainer.
Sorry, WLM – I think your suggestions of causes of the Iraq war are pure fiction. It’s always handy when you don’t have any proof, isn’t it.
The US didn’t and doesn’t need to go to war to purchase ME oil. The ME, after all, has no economy, none, other than selling that oil. It has to sell it. And it requires the US as one of its major purchasers. Or are you going to suggest that eg, France, would be both economically able and require – all the ME oil? China? India? The producer has to sell; the producer requires purchasers. The US didn’t and doesn’t need to go to war to purchase ME oil.
Equally, it doesn’t need a war to enable a robust economy.
By the way – with regards to terror – and your rejection of it – it’s fascinating that you are thereby completely denying the reality of Islamic fascism. Hey- how have you managed to expunge its realities, the verbiage, the training camps, the bombings, the hijackings, the video beheadings, the preaching, etc from your mind? How do you do that? That’s quite the feat!
I see that you are equally contemptuous of democracy as a necessary mode of organization in a large population. I suppose you think that dictatorships, tribalism work just fine and don’t cause any ‘explosions’ within the enslaved population. Gee, that’s neat. Could you provide some evidence that repressed, totalitarian states work just fine and don’t lead to wars?
That’s incredible. According to you, the only reason for the war – is to support an economy. Well then, why don’t all countries in the entire globe move into a war? After all, according to you, it’s the best way to a robust economy.
The left still has their heads up their behinds with the “noble savage” fantasy.
Oil caused the war, so let’s stop using oil. Or in leftie terms, YOU stop using oil. We (i.e. YOU) must learn to live more simply – it’s more just. We (YOU) use too many of the planet’s resources. Our (YOUR) burning of oil is drowning the polar bears.
So let’s all live (i.e. YOU live) like the 3rd world, justly, and we (YOU) shall dwell in utopia.
Let’s have a round of trucked-in fruit juice and some trucked-in organic vegetable nibblies while we sit round the campire and discuss how we shouldn’t lose our heads and realize that converting to Islam wasn’t so bad after all.
What fools.
Japanese Shintoiism is similar to Islamic fascism.
A successful strategy was used to defeat political and imperialist Shintoiism. A failing strategy is being used against political Islamic fascism.
The WWII US strategy against the Japanese was brutal, short and successful on all counts.
The current US strategy against a tactic, in the glare of the media, all the while attempting not to upset the enemy, is not successful.
ET,
Occupation can be used as a pejorative, I didnt mean it that manner. However, They were occupying the country, and at some point you would say that ceased and they became invited guests.
For further clarification the americans themselves used the term “occupying power” after the invasion, there are rights and responsibilities in international law that go with that.
Be careful though because if they arent the occupying power and they are invited guests fighting an insurgency, an odd thing for a foreign army to be engaged in. Generally a foreign army is there to help fight off foreign invaders. If it is a domestic insurgency you risk being involved in a civil war, once again something you generally avoid directly as a foreign country.
The Iraqi’s have done the things you have said, to their credit. However, it is an incomplete project, the government is really not self sustaining at this stage.
Officially they are no longer an occupying power, as Iraq is a sovereign state, so yes you are technically correct. Once again the term is should not be used pejoratively.
However, the US is still not yet shed its responsibilities and roles completely as an “occupying power” not because it doesnt wish to but because it cannot at this stage and hasnt been asked to by the sovereign government of Iraq.
The US is in a world that really uinprecedented. There wasnt a serious insurgency in Post WWII Europe, this is the difference. Iraq is in a stage equivalent to post WWII Italy or Germany but with domestic and foreign insurgents challenging the government.
So no insult to the Iraqi people.
However lets not fool ourselves into thinking this event has either been short, it has lasted longer than the americans involvement in Europe in WWII, or that it must be short.
Iraq has many unique aspects to it and is unprecendented. Blaming peoples short attention spans doesnt work, I believe the American people have been extroidinarily patient and supportive. Only now is there significant opposition, that is quite a feat. And I wouldnt say that the opposition is deep or permanent if progress is shown or need demosstrated.
This especially for a war of choice. It is a testament to the US that they have stuck with it for this length of time, when Iraq wasnt the source of attack on 9/11. Democracies generally need a good reason to go to war. Had the WMD been found all would have been forgiven.
As I said, Petreaus is a well regarded commander and anti insurgent. Give him what asks for, which includes time. But at some point the US will have to find a way to generate the security to enable Iraq to be self sustaining, that ultimately means the Iraqi people. OR the Iraqi military takes over….that may yet happen.
stephen – the fact remains, the Americans were asked by the Iraqi gov’t, that elected gov’t, to remain. They are not occupying Iraq. I think we agree on this.
The fact that Iraq requires this military assistance and is therefore, not ‘self-sufficient’ is not relevant. A transition from a tribal to a civic infrastructure is not linear, it isn’t gentle; the old structure has to be destroyed and an entirely new mode of operation and interaction built up. That takes years, not weeks, not months.
The post WWII period in Europe was not months; it was years, with both massive economic assistance and US military bases on site. This assistance, which took decades, not months, not years – was in spite of the fact that Europe had a long history of democracy and a civic governing infrastructure, and a long history of industrialism. Iraq has none of this. None. It’s starting from scratch. Therefore, any comparison with post WWII Europe is false.
The insurgency is not, as you know, merely an internal tribal battle but is being funded and run by external forces (Iraq, SA, Syria, etc).
At some time, the US will be able to leave. Iraq, in my view, is an important first step in moving the ME out of tribalism (the ‘root cause’ of Islamic fascism) and into civic democracy. The other states – Iran, SA, Syria etc – have to follow, even though they desperately are trying to reject democracy.
Thanks for your thoughtful answer.
You nailed it ET and Stephen missed it.
“The insurgency is not, as you know, merely an internal tribal battle but is being funded and run by external forces.”
Talk about an insurgency without mentioning Iran. Sheesh.
(…reminds me of how people go hysterical about the climate without ever mentioning the Sun)
It isnt merely tribal, and it isnt merely external….it is unprecendented.
There is no example to guide.
The US is currently there at the request of the elected government, but once again this is an unprecedented situation.
As I said I supported the invasion, was as disappointed as anyone that there were no WMD’s found but it has to be seen through. There has been much progress but without sufficient force and/or sufficient will the situation will not change.
The US needs to ultimatley leave, whether thats in 2 or 20 years. Ideally closer to the former than the later.
While I share your goal of stability and democracy, I think we may have learned an important lesson that unprovoked wars of liberation are probably not the way to do this.
It would be a mistake to leave the project in its current state. But democracies have trouble sustaining wars unless summoned to proper anger, and even then you get the inevitable appeasers.
The project needs to be finished…I think they are closer than when they started. For all of our sakes lets hope they can and will finish the task they started.
As for the war against islamism…..that is an even longer struggle that iraq has become a front in. winning in iraq doesnt decide it nor does losing but the battle gets infinitely easier or more difficult based on the outcome.
give petreaus what he asks for….
I’m sure the Democrats have plans coming out their collective ass…
what they need is courage and a little political will.
Have gun — will travel… Crushing Al Qaeda… and a little payback
for Gary Gordon and Randall Shugart… just to ice the cake.
I don’t see the point whether it is precedented or unprecedented. Irwin Daisy has pointed out that Japanese Shintoism had similarities to Islamic fascism. I don’t think the original Shintoism was fascist, to the contrary, but only the 19c version of Shintoism, which merged the religion with the state, was fascist. I also disagree with Irwin Daisy’s ‘plan’ – which is simply total war against the ME states.
The US is trying to achieve the end of Islamic fascism by several tactics – first, changing one key zone in the ME to a democratic mode, and then, promoting a diffusion of this to the other states.
I don’t agree that the war is Iraq was ‘an unprovoked war of liberation’. Islamic terrorism is an aspect of Islamic fascism. Islamic fascism is a direct result of the repression of a population within tribalism, by means of military dictatorships, when the population base has become too large for tribalism and when the economy has moved out of peasant agriculture to industrialism. Sorry for the long sentence.
This degenerate socioeconomic structure is what is now operating in the ME. It is the cause of global Islamic terrorism. The only way to defeat Islamic fascism is to destroy tribalism and enable a civic democracy. Iraq was, quite frankly, the lynchpin for this agenda. And the only lynchpin. Why?
Importantly, it was under UN sanctions for its WMD. It had previously used WMD against the Kurds. It was a vicious, repressive dictatorship. It had ties to Al Qaeda. No other country in the area had all these attributes. Change a key, central Arab state from a dictatorship and enable democracy, and democracy would creep into the rest of the ME. Islamic fascism would lose its focal strength.
WMD was not the issue. Islamic fascism was and remains the key issue.
Democratic War Plan? The French can’t even win against the Muslims in their own Catholic cathedrals at Christmas.
Gee, why do they have to have Midnight Mass under armed guard in Montpellier, France? From Tiberge, of Galliawatch:
Here is some fallout from the holidays contributed by Fierté Gauloise at France-Echos. She refers to “CPF” – “Chances pour la France” or “bringers of good fortune to France.” That is how both Chirac and Dominique de Villepin have referred to France’s well-behaved immigrants.
In the cathedral of Montpellier, the faithful were listening to the bishop celebrate midnight Mass when some “CPF” came in screaming insults, showing their hostility in many ways to the Christian faith, which is, I remind you, the ancestral faith of this country and of Europe, whether they like it or not, the ancestral faith of the country that houses them, nourishes them and supports them.
One of them even entered naked into the cathedral.
In short, the Christians reacted and pushed these worthy representatives of the religion (or rather law) of war and hatred known as Islam outside of the cathedral, then called the police.
Let’s imagine the reverse – Christians interrupting the end of Ramadan prayer and insulting the Muslims in their place of worship. It would become a federal case! And yet, legitimacy is derived from the ancestral, and ours is Christianity, not the Mohammedan religion in any way, whether that pleases or not
those who try to impose on us their Muslim laws!
Yes, our country is of Christian ancestry and attacking our churches is declaring war on the ethnic French and on Europeans and peoples of European ancestry. It is giving yourselves – you of non-European heritage, or Muslims – the kick in the rear that will send you away from here, you who conduct yourselves like invaders. A word to the wise…
Note: I very much doubt that the “wise” will heed her warning. They are much “wiser” than that. They know which side their bread is buttered on.
If you know French, there is an audio posted at several websites including Le Conservateur where we hear the announcer and the deputy mayor of the city describe what happened. The most interesting thing about the audio is the remark by the deputy mayor that police protection should be provided at events such as this one, as it is for soccer matches. That’s really saying something…
Midnight Mass for Christians under police protection in the country that was once called the elder daughter of the Church!!!
i am new to this blogging and a bog host i guess posted my personal info and my ip address. is their anyway i can hide all that when blogging? if their is a kind soul who would tell me i would love him to death.
Unprecendented matters in that there are guides to this…
Your last para, agree with 100%, and that is how the war was sold. Now I dont think people lied, I think they really thought they would find them, I wish they had.
But war of liberation by choice this definitely was, there was no immeadiate catalyst, despite the fact that there were legitimate reasons to go in those reasons would have been valid later. WMD was the excuse to bring demicracy to this agreed keystone state.
Opposing Islamofascism doesnt mean you always use military power. WMD were the excuse to try the plan, which you describe. I have some sympathy for it….however I cannot honestly say this is the way it was supposed to work out.
Ultimately my point is I am not sure whether the timing was wrong, the plan was wrong or the execution was wrong. If this had to be done all over again what would be different to yield a different result. There are consequences to not doing this right, and that is why it being a war of choice matters.
The US didnt have to go when they did and therefore the results of the actions are theirs. There is a lot of good that came out of it, which leads me to the execution not being proper. The “war” went very well, the initial occupation less so.
Why does this matter? In general, so you dont make simialr mistakes, so you understand the situation your in and maybe it will tell you how to improve the position.
A weak, exhausted or demoralized US is not good for this battle in the long run. I think the US rid the world of an evil reginme, exposed complicity in allies and at the UN and definitely changed the game and demosstrated that the US is capable of a conventional fight that nobody else can match (that was a very important message to send)
We agree on ultimate goals, we have some strategic disagreement, not all…but I believe this will be a long battle. Saving Iraq in some form is an imperative, I just dont know if it was to be done again it would be done the same way or in the same time frame.
Once again, unprecendented but hopefully much has been learned and that there will ultimatley be positive results form this. The reverse is not a happy scenario.
In a WSJ article today, it was mentioned that with the increasing possibility of Iraq breaking down into a sectarian civil war, Arab states in the region have suggested a one Kurd/Sunni/Shia each military dictatorship put in place until the situation stabilizes. Religious parties like the ones dominating Iraq now would be banned from future elections. The US rejects this suggestion now, but, if all out civil war is the alternative I don’t think it’s that bad an idea.
We allowed the camel’s nose under the tent when we did not take out Sadr quickly. We should have insisted on no religious parties as representatives, our naivety in trying to win hearts and minds.
If an expanded Shiia – Sunni civil war spilled past Iraq’s borders, and it would, it would be catastrophic to the world’s oil supply. I hope the Dems are processing this. Europe too.
ET
Just what are you smoking? Iraq DID NOT have ties to Al-Qaida. Why? Because Iraq was one of the things Bin Ladin hates…a secular Islamic state. Bin Ladin HATED Saddam and wanted to see him brought down. Guess what, the US did the job for him. Somewhere, Bin Ladin is thanking George W. Bush and his Conservative allies.
Yes, Saddam was vicious and repressive. But he did not have WMD’s [ as shown by the distinct ABSENSE of them.], no ties to Al-Qaida, and was not an imminent threat to the West. And he was contained under UN sanctions.
So, where are we now. The US took their eye off the War on Terrorism in Afganistan, where Al-Qaida actually was, and is know bogged down in Iraq, which was NOT involved in 9/11 OR with Al-Qaida. The US has not been able to keep a viable Iraqi government in place [what number are we on ? 2nd? 3rd? ]. Al-Qaida is now in the country BECAUSE of the Americans. The country is being torn apart because of the differences between Shi’ia/Sunni/Kurd the US did not seem to take into account or Understand. And, as this board is so aptly showing, a complete disregard for these differences by handwaving them off as “tribalism”.
Now the US needs Canada and its allies to finish the job it failed to complete in Afganistan while it got diverted by a sideshow. And it seems to be saber-rattling at Iran now. It is not the Liberals who are out of control here.
As for “tribalism”…it was a conservative, Ann Coulter, who said we should invade the ME countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. Talk about tribal…
Murray, in the tangled web of terrorist circuits that cross borders in the ME, don’t count on Saddam and AQ not having business they could collaborate on.
Also, Murray, Saddam WAS a weapon of mass destruction, ask the Kurds. He used chemicals on them – a weapon of mass destruction. Wasn’t it the UN that pulled its nuclear inspectors out of Iraq because he refused to cooperate? Remember.
Trotting out Anne Coulter, who isn’t an elected official or policy maker, is stupid.
We are definately in a quagmire down here.
The MSM won’t insult a Muslim, and the Democrats embrace them. I fear nothing short of Civil War II will solve this problem.
,
stephen – I agree with much of your post. I don’t think, however, that removing tribalism, the root cause of Islamic fascism, from the ME, could be accomplished except by violence. External violence.
The reason for this, is that tribalism aka feudalism in the West, was demolished from within the West, over about four hundred years – a vicious, bloody fight – but, it could be carried out within Europe because the authorities were not military dictators funded by oil. The medieval kings, the church, the nobles, all had to rely on the peasants and the gradually evolving middle class, for their funds. But in the ME, the funding of the military dictators could last…well, as long as the oil was there.
So – breaking up their medieval structures, had to come via an external source.
And I think it had to be when it was done – because Islamic fascism was boiling over in the ME – because of those repressive tribal dictatorships.
And, it had to be violent. You cannot talk or negotiate a system from one structure to another structure. You first have to destroy the former structure to enable the new one to be built. This is not a ‘talkable’ process. Ever.
That’s why your comments about the ‘initial occupation’ not going well, are, in my view, not valid. There is no way that changing a tribal to a civic mode can be done without violence or a phase of anarchy. Therefore, I repeat – it is naive to expect this phase, the changing of one infrastructure to another, to be easy, non-violent, or short.
I’m trying to think of similar examples (transition from a tribal to a civic). As I said, this took place in Europe from about 1100 to 1450. Very violent. But internal.
The Soviet Union required communism to make the change and even so, it’s been very difficult.
China – the same. It required the violence of communism to make the change. It has moved much easier into capitalism than Russia and I even claim that it will find the transition to democracy easier than Russia.
Japan required the WWII to move out of tribalism to a civic mode. It has done that quite well, but, the US had to insist on the separation of church and state.
Now, we have the ME, locked in tribalism, and really locked – because that oil empowers its tribal dictators. Since tribalism is dysfunctional within populations in the millions, it explodes into fascism. This fascism moves out of the country, since it can’t be expressed internally. So – the US HAD to move when it did, or there would be lots more 9/11 events.
I think the West should support the US in this goal, and support freeing the ME peoples from Islamic fascism. But again – it’s not a task that will take a few months or few years. It will take at least a decade. And that’s a lot shorter than it took the West to make that same transition.
murray rennie. Don’t start with ad hominem. Kindly stick to the issues.
First, it has been repeatedly shown that Hussein did have links with Al Qaeda.
Bin Laden’s focus, by the way, is primarily Saudi Arabia.
Second, Hussein most certainly did have WMD. He used them against the Kurds.
And don’t act as an apologist for Hussein (well, yes, he was vicious but he didn’t have WMD, so he was OK, and it was OK to leave him continue to murder Iraqi people).
You simply don’t understand the causes of Islamic fascism. It isn’t simply Al Qaeda – which is only one branch of Islamic fascism. Try reading some of the previous posts on this thread. Or read some books. Try The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright.
The US is not ‘bogged down in Iraq’. And don’t insult the Iraqi people. It’s their government, not the US gov’t. The Iraqi people voted for it. So, stop with your insulting ‘The US gov’t hasn’t been able to keep a viable Iraqi gov’t in place’.
No, it’s you who doesn’t understand. The ME is tribal. I don’t think you know what this means. Its tribalism was maintained in Iraq by Hussein, as a means of keeping the people from attacking him. AND, when he and his ‘top tribe’ are removed from power, there is no way that a tribal infrastructure can move immediately into a civic mode.
The fact that you seem to think this will happen, merely shows your ignorance of the nature of tribalism, the nature of a civic mode – and the differences between them.
No, the US doesn’t need Canada and its allies in Afghanistan. I’d like to ask you – why you have the absolute nerve – to think that it ought to only be the US that engages in this war against Islamic fascism? How utterly arrogant of you to think that only the US people should pay for, and lose their soldiers to – this evil threat.
The fact that London was bombed, that Spain was bombed, that Indonesia was bombed, that murders were committed in the Netherlands, and elsewhere – by terrorists – none of that seems to affect you. You think that only the US should bear the global responsibilities. You do indeed have quite the perspective, don’t you?!!!
Your last paragraph, on Ann Coulter – has nothing to do with tribalism. As I said, it is obvious that you have absolutely no knowledge of what it means, how it operates politically, economically and socially – and the difference from a civic mode. I suggest a learning phase. OK?
ET, isn’t the real danger that the Shia-Sunni schism will find Islamic fundamentalism as its uniting cause, rather than secular civil democracy. Just like the ‘peace’ that was a byproduct of the Civil Courts in Somalia. Absence of violence does not equal peace – brutal suppression is not peace.
Islamic fascism, which imposes a theocratic regime as its vehicle of power, is as dangerous and destabilizing to the world as any other -ism in history which supplies some hollow ideology as the means of delivering power into the hands of a very few.
Who benefits from Islamic Fascism? Power-lusting men that would otherwise be failures in a competitive democratic setting.
There’s a reason the ME has as its currency of humor jokes about the Mullah.
shaken – hmm, that’s an interesting point – that Islamic fascism/fundamentalism could function in Iraq as a force of stabilization between the tribes.
Fundamentalism certainly kept resurging in Europe as it made the transition from a feudal/tribal mode to a civic mode, but I think that Iraq has gone too far – you may not believe this – along the path to a civic mode, to permit this. Plus, the US military presence will inhibit such a fundamentalist surge.
Without that presence, yes – a fundamentalism could have arisen in Iraq as a means of repressive stabilization.
It’s a very difficult situation. You have a nominally single country that has been maintained by intent, as a ‘set’ of tribes, each hostile to the other. They have been kept from expressing this hostility by the repression of Hussein, but, they have been encouraged to remain isolate and hostile to each by that same regime.
Then, you remove the inhibitor of expression, Hussein. And, you are left with a set of tribes, educated in mutual hostility to each other. How do you get them to abandon generations of training in hatred? It can’t be done overnight.
Without the US presence at first, I would be that, as in medieval Europe, one of the tribes might have fought to domination. But that was prevented and Iraq set up its constitution, its legislature, had open elections – and is now struggling to enable a civic democracy.
It’s not easy. Heck – look at what Belgium had to do, to deal with its Flemish and French populations which are linguistic forms of tribalism. Look at what Canada has had to do. It takes time. But, I think the Iraqi people will deal with it – despite the active opposition of their neighbours such as Iran, SA, Syria. And despite the fervent hopes that the Iraqi people will fail, held by many leftists in the world.
I appreciate the optimistic view, ET. I also hope that things have gone to far. Perhaps the militant factions understand this, and hence will increase expression through insurgency.
The risk is real, I believe, and I also believe that the US can (and must) prevent this. The rest of us should give a moment to think of whether we would like to see a fundamentalist Islamic state in Iraq.
Moreover, I believe, and have for some time, that the boots on the ground between Syria and Iran has not been co-incidental. The chessboard is more complex than ‘get out of Iraq’ strategy. Perhaps there was no overarching strategy with respect to Iran, but I suspect there was, and unfortunately, Bush has been hamstrung by not being able to express what’s really going on. I can only speculate. But I was also around when Iran through out the Shah, and in fact, I hired the son of the Minister of State under the Shah at one time. Interesting perspective (albeit slanted).
I believe it’s critical to prevent the ascension of fundamentalism in Iraq. A Saddam heart attack could have been enough to trigger events.
Contemplate an Islamic fundamentalist state right next door to Iran. Is that worth being proactive to prevent?
Attention Murray Rennie,
It is an established fact that there were connections between Hussein and Al Qaeda.
But looking at everything else you wrote, you don’t seem to spend much time reading or researching topics.
(sigh)
ET – the Black Plague, starting in the 1340’s and after it decimated Europe, played a big role in ending feudalism. With 30-60% of the population gone, a huge dislocation occurred, laborers became more valuable and mobile. Relationships with landlords and the Church were never the same again.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death#Socio-economic_effects
The only thing that would be that dislocating and disruptive, in my mind, and would have equivalence in the ME would be, God forbid, Iran acting out their insane nuclear threats.
Sounds like the Dems are gonna bring in a badly needed tax hike on the rich.
America is a fake economy, no different than a criminal with a stolen credit card on a three day crack binge. It is a fake economy with fake tax rates which, fakily, has created a fake image of prosperity. If you’re any kind of conservative you’ll agree with me that today’s deficit is tomorrow’s tax hike and that America needs a more realistic tax rate, now.
penny – actually, there were several such epidemics during the transitional period from tribalism/feudalism to a civic governance. These were repeated plagues, influenza, etc.
What would happen is that the population base would increase, because of the richness of the European ecological env’t, but beyond the economic carrying capacity of a tribal structure. Since the system was politically and socially trapped within this tribalism, it could not innovate new technologies and change its economic and political mode. So, poor nutrition, famine – and disease would set in. That would deplete the population and the Old System could continue on for a bit.
The very last thing any society wants to do, is change its ideology and operating structure. But eventually, Europe had to change. It had to enable itself to support this larger population. To achieve this, it required a middle class, a population not bound to the manor or village, not bound to operate economically within kinship loyalties, and it needed independent thinkers. Tribalism, which operates within a group/kin mode, had to go – and a civic mode, which operates around individual free thought – moved in.
bob – of course I don’t agree with you. Money belongs in the hands of the people, because they are the creators of new businesses, new factories; they are the consumers, the producers and doers. Wealth is necessary. Why? Because that wealth funds the new businesses, industries, research and dev’t. Gov’t doesn’t do these things very well. Give money to the gov’t – eg the Liberals, and they’ll just steal it for themselves. As Dingwall said ‘I’m entitled to my entitlements’. Socialists are lazy people; they don’t want to do the work themselves; they simply want gov’t jobs. Funded by the taxpayer. That makes for a very bad economy…check out the wrecks of socialism in Eastern Europe.
ET sez “Sorry, WLM – I think your suggestions of causes of the Iraq war are pure fiction. It’s always handy when you don’t have any proof, isn’t it.”
Hmmmmm I’d expect this type of reflexive talking point script from a “progressive” reactionary.
For those without partisan blinders, there is a wealth of concrete evidence for the existance of a military-industrial economic motive in US foreign entanglements than there is for some vacuous contention that the US spends trillions of $$$ on being a global Santa doling out “freedom” for free…a sort of wealthy johnny apleseed spreading democracy and good will on borrowed cash. Please!
Again , if you had read with understnding what I said, The Dems are as hawkish on ME war as the Straussian Republicans…the US does not want to outright own or maybe even NEED the ME oil…the issue is CONTROL of it…who it is sold to…..to establish that control will take long term military commitment and permanent military bases in the area and at least 1 US reliant nuclear power ( Israel)…once established, US military control in the ME is marketable…that power has value….and with the US dollar under global attack in the recent currency wars they need all the economic power they can get.
The “we the people” governance went out the window when their federal government gained super power status after WWII. America’s federal regime largely operates like a corporate extention of their economic community and there is no fiscal gain in running an expensive war without ROA (economic returns) to either defray the cost or fatten the national treasury in the short and long term….and in a era where deminished monetary reserves force an unbacked expansion of currency to get the the cash you need to run these affairs (with the distinct risk of massive over extention of treasuery reseves), you pick your wars carefully for maximum returns. In the hard ball world of global power politics gullible idealism is only useful as a sedative/placebo to calm a nervous tax-payer-voter base.
Contrary to naive contentions that this war is a highly morally motivated “spreading of the democratic ideal” event, the historic record shows war to also be a very profitable one to government war vendors and financiers. To discount a profit motive is to discount the factuality of historic record or human nature.
War is profitble for industry and good for the US economy…this is fact…war has pulled the US out of 2 depressions and a near currency inflationary trainwreck in the 60s. War industry has creted more technical innovation, the wider spread wealth and security and the largest economic growth than any other national mobilization….why would you deny this with naive idealism and Pollyanna ideas about government and pentagon motivators?
Face facts. The US continues to grow its economy with the “preventative” or “deterrent” war technology industry and kick starts a growth spurt every time it mobilizes for conventional conflict and it really does not matter if the US “wins” the limited conflicts or not, the domestic economic value is always positive when excess military ordnance is expended and new ordnance replaces it.
As other articles on Kate’s link state, currently the US has entered a time of low unemployment, sustained economic growth, low taxation and economic stability….do you suppose this is because the Governmet credit card fed mobilization to ME conflict is feeding this? When the Fed prints money to build war ordnance and feed foreign infrastructure replacement it rains cash domestically.
I make no partisan or moral ponouncements on this at all…war is profitable and the US relies on military production to help feed their economy from time to time because they have a highly developed military-industrial economic system. As an industrial engineer working for Canadian high tech companies I always attempted to get on the US military vendor’s list… I made contracting bids into this market and believe me US war work contracting is extremely lucrative. Industry and finance persue it at every opportunity and these forces have incredible influence in Wahington. I wulf guess the industrial and financiad military vendors are probably the largest best financed lobby in Washington…they are a formatable political force and to deny they influence policy decisions where military solutions are sought is disingenuous.
Maybe when reactionary Pavlovian chicken hawks come off the cheerleading seats, shoulder a battle rifle, put their ass in the grass in these tax wasting wars and take a bullet for the cause, then maybe I can accept their callow idealism as genuine and unwittingly blind to facts…OR if they pull their partisan-impared capacity to reason out of their butts, and admit the government’s motivations are not always the product of lofty idealism, I may cut them slack…but purposely blind partisan jingoism coming from the high bleacher seats just makes me laugh at the pusillanimous sanctimony of it all.
Always follow the money and don’t let misplaced idealism or partianism blind your assessment of government motivation.
Nope, WLM – I continue to disagree. Strongly disagree.
The reason the US is attempting to enable democracy in the ME is basic pragmatic realism. The cause of Islamic fascism is the lack of democracy. Enabling democracy will promote a safer US, and a safer world. It’s as simple as that.
If you have a blind spot and can only focus on economics, then, Islamic fascism is an extremely expensive threat. Destroying the twin towers cost the economy in the billions. Securing airports, planes, cities and so on is extremely costly. Islamic fascism exists; and it’s extremely expensive.
Your attempt to denigrate the US pragmatism by sneering at it as a ‘moral act’, as ‘pollyanna’ and your other derogatory terms, totally ignores reality. Democracy is required in the ME – it’s either democracy or Islamic fascism. It’s as simple as that. Which would you choose to function in the ME?
Well? Which will harm the citizens of the West and elsewhere? Which will harm the economy? Which is better?
I disagree with your insistence that the US agenda in the ME is to ‘control to whom that oil is sold’. It simply doesn’t make any sense, along with your claim that the US economy is only able to operate as a war economy.
Of course you are making a moral judgment and your denial that you are making one is empty. You claim that the only reason for the war against terrorism, is not to protect the US and the world against Islamic fascism. It’s just ‘good for the economy’. That’s your claim. I completely disagree.
I am fully aware of US military contracts; I have colleagues who work with them; I’ve been to IEEE conferences where the military shows great interest. But you are still making an invalid correlation.
Because the military in the US is a strong economic force, does not mean that the war against terrorism is being carried out for US economic reasons. It’s being carried out because of the very real threat of Islamic terrorism. You seem to utterly ignore this reality.
So- by all means, stick to your ‘it’s only about money’ tale. But it’s just a tale. Other people are aware and remember September 11; and the bombings in London. And Madrid. And Bali. And elsewhere. You ignore this. For you, it’s only about money. You know, that’s more idealistic, more partisan-impaired, more blind to facts than the equally naive ‘it’s all about oil’ rhetoric.
All I know is that the Republicans never had a winning War Plan. It’s easy to blame the opposition when you fail.
Les, the US DID win the war in Iraq. The war is over. Long over.
What you see now, is an insurgency, led by militants coming in from Iran, SA, Syria, etc, to destabilize the Iraqi government.
As I said, you can’t switch from tribalism to a civic structure rapidly. Or easily. The old ways have to be, quite literally, destroyed. That’s what the current situation is all about.
ET.
You protest way too much. You’d be a fool to think the U.S. attacked Iraq just to bring democracy. The U.S. doesn’t respect democracy. They plan to assininate democrat leaders and prop up and support undemocratic one’s.
The first thing the U.S. did when declaring victory in Iraq was tear up their oil contracts. You can check that. They were in control. Controling the middle east is very important to them. Economically. Developing nations also rely on middle east oil and they can control them that way. Why did they not attack Saudia Arabia? That’s where the 9-11 attackers were from. Why do they not attack North korea? No economic gain.
You can believe anything you want to justify your reasons.
Bringing democracy is an advertising campaign.
The U.S. has not won the war in Iraq. Over 70% of the population sees them as an occupier and the gov’t as propped up and a puppet of the U.S. And most of the insurgency is from Iraq. Denying the truth won’t make it true.
Les
Gosh Les, I’m guess I’m a fool. Or you are. Which is it?
Les, where to start. I’m only picking one. Iraq’s oil contracts were with France and they damn well should have been torn up, they did nothing to liberate the country. The liberated Iraqis stated immediately that Sadddam’s French oil contracts were over. Remember?
Have you ever thought of using Google or wikipedia, doing an little research, examine a contrary opinion, grab a fact, before you spew unsupportable nonsense?