While a reluctant President Bush met with an independent panel to cast about for some sort of Plan B for Iraq, militants in Baghdad were moving ahead with Plan A.
Tuesday’s kidnapping of up to 150 Iraqis from a government office in Baghdad is only the latest catastrophe in a city full of them, but it set a new standard in both organization and scope. Witnesses said about 25 police vehicles, manned by men in police uniforms, carried out the mass abduction at the Ministry of Higher Education.
The government ordered the apprehension of several police officials, and Iraq’s minister of higher education suspended classes at all universities.
But the impunity with which armed groups seem to work in Baghdad does not bode well for stability anytime soon.
Posted by Dave Knadler
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128 Comments
No doubt the U.S. inadvertently financed all these well equipped militias.How many troops do we have there?And we can’t account for 370,000 some small arms and rockets?And a repug tried to sneak through a bill killing any oversight?
It’s time to bring our people home and work on our own backyard.
Have you noticed that the more Iraqi Military/Police we train, the higher the violence goes?Could it be???… nah!
We have a master plan in effect.Now we just need Master to run it!
Great! We are teaching these folks to be more efficient at thuggery and violence. Real fine.
Can we hold elections today and just get someone new in office to run this trainwreck?
We need help, lets face it. We cannot do this alone, and we need to repair our relations globally to get some damn help in there.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!!!!!
An even bigger fallacy than thinking democracy will work in Iraq, is to think that this society is homogenous. It is not; it was put together in the 1930’s by Winston Churchill ( if my memory is correct), and he said that was the worst mistake of his career!(See current edition of Time)I think a mechanism should be created to fairly share the oil wealth, and then leave and allow them to fragment their country and solve their own problems.
Problem is, gster, what do you do with the cities; particularly Baghdad? Bush has created a horrible mess over there.
I saw where Maliki said that if we let him he would “crush” his opposition. Isn’t that what Saddam is on trial for?
Blair calls for new focus on Israeli-Palestinian conflictBritish PM says that conflict’s resolution is key to peace for the Middle East.By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com
In a major policy speech Monday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair called for renewed effort on finding a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which he called the “core” to a wider peace in the Middle East.
The Guardian reports that in the speech, which the paper called “an open plea” to US President George Bush to focus on the conflict, Mr. Blair said the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle is the key to pinning back “the forces trying to create mayhem inside Iraq.”
Mr Blair, famously cautious about pressing the Republican administration in public, is trying to seize the rare indecision in Washington in response to the Democrat victories to persuade the White House to acknowledge the central importance of the Palestinian peace process.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1114/dailyUpdate.html?s=mesdu
Something I read, and immediately lost the link to, stated that the Shia are demanding 90% of the oil revenue; an obvious nonstarter for the Sunni; the Kurds are, IIRC, totally ignoring the whole situation, not flying the “national” flag in the three provinces they control. Tell me again how we are going to convince these people to form a democracy?
Ed – you are correct. All along I have maintained that the road to Baghdad goes through Jeruselum; not the other way around as BushDaBum claims. If we can ever transform ourselves into an honest broker for peace in Palestine we can become trusted elsewhere in the Middle east. But as long as we are seen as agents of the terrorist Stern Gang (look up King David Hotel terror-bombing) we will continue to be seen as the enemy.
So, is this what “winning” looks like? I was just wondering since nobody seems to be able to provide a definition of winning in Iraq.
RE: “Problem is, gster, what do you do with the cities; particularly Baghdad? Bush has created a horrible mess over there.
I saw where Maliki said that if we let him he would “crush” his opposition. Isn’t that what Saddam is on trial for?”
I read that 250,000 Iraqis have relocated and are doing so now at a rate of 50,000/month. There is fragmentation going on now, with people relocating to what I presume is more acceptable place on a tribal level.
Either there will be 3 distinct areasas determined by tribal/ethnic/religious preferences, or there will be one big Kahuna running the whole show;i.e., a Saddam replacement. IMHO.
Very true gster. Looks like our new ally will be as big a despot as our ally he replaced.
If I remember correctly, the number that I quoted were families leaving Bagdad- the 50.000 number only!
We can help them create new cities in their provinces, if that is how it goes. I’m not worried about Baghdad.
We may have to p-mom. We should send the bill to BushDaBum and Halliburton.
Perhaps that’s why Saddam ruled the place with an iron fist.
The alternative is what we’re seeing now.
Interesting thought, Capn. Maybe we’d be better off putting Saddam back where we found him. Send him a month worth of Halliburton bribes and all will be forgiven.
Right after the sex change operation! He’ll be known as Saddamette.
Still waiting on that definition of ‘winning’. Hank, fleetwood, et.al. where are you?
WINNING: The oil flows freely and I control it.
Actually Dick, OPEC will be controlling it. You will only make money off of the oil.
The best solution for Iraq would be partition. The lesson of Iraq is the same as the former Yugoslavia, USSR, America, etc; you can have liberty or diversity but you can’t have both.
Viva La Revolucion Blanco!!
Where are the wingnut stalwarts, proclaiming progress and railing against the ‘Defeatocrats?’ Oh, that’s right, reality bit them in the ass.
All US troops out of Iraq (not necessarily back to US or even out of Mideast, but out of Iraq) by the end of 2007. Its the only way.
ddub – Poppy Bush is telling crackhead that he must change course. The BushBots are still trying to figure out how to spin this.
Controlling the Iraqi people is like trying to herd cats.Funny, I heard an old 1992 interview with Dick Cheney on NPR, when asked by the reporter why we didn’t overthrow Saddamm’s regime during the Gulf War, he replied that it was discussed, but the concensus was that we’d just get caught in a quagmire.
Like many U.S. officials, Levin expressed some frustration with the lack of political progress in Iraq in recent months. “We cannot save the Iraqis from themselves,” he said. “They, and they alone, are going to decide whether they’re going to have a nation or whether they’re going to have an all-out civil war.”
Sen. Carl Levin kind of summaarizes my thoughts tonight.
Link to article I copied above quote from:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/12/AR2006111200250.html
As I have mentioned before, I am reading a book named: “The Secret History of the Iraq War”. Over half way in and I am to July, 2003. I am still not sure if it is a work of fiction based on facts or we as a people only knew about a 1/3 of what actually was happening. It is starting to come out just how much Iran and Syria is playing a role in all this. how the entire middle East for one reason or another does not want us there. The Palestinian/Israeli conflicted is used by both the west and the Arab countries. Iran truly could not care less about the Palestinians but see them as a catalyst for finally driving the west from the middle east.
BTW, yes Churchill did say it was the worst mistake forming Iraq and yes it was Saddam’s heavy hand that has kept Iraq from falling into a civil war before this. Something that has not really been touched on till recent, the Kurds and Turnkey. Turnkey will not stand for the Kurds forming a nation in Iraq, they see it as a threat to their nation. According to the book, Turnkey amassed 80 thousand troops on the broader and just inside Iraq before the invasion. And threaten a two front war if the U.S. did not swear to the Kurds not having their own nation. BTW, Turnkey still have those troops at the ready and has once again stated their concern about the Kurds.
In June of 03, in the Shiite region, six British military police were sent to train local Police in a town.When the training started, a large group of people gathered around the group and started shouting and throwing rocks. The Iraqis trainees fled leaving the six British MP to face the crowd, finally the MP faced the crowd and two MP were shot dead. In the pitch gun battle another MP fell before reaching the Police station. The three that were left held off the crowd but the only radio had been left in the land rover.Finally they negotiated a bargain that if they surrender their weapons they would be given safe passage.They were executed shortly afterward but the crowd that had grown according to one Iraqis trainee to “Everyone in the town”. It had been a planned ambush by Iranian intelligence, also a day later a patrol of ten British paratroops were ambush while patrolling just out side the same town. With two of their vehicles disable, they called for an emergency e-vac. But as soon as a British Snook helo started to land with twenty more paratroops. A much larger force of ambushers appear that had been hidden all this time and try to down the helicopter with small arms and RPGs. The rescuers managed to land pick up the ten Troopers and lift off again but two more troops were wounded and the helo suffer sever damage. In the investigation of both incidents, it was concluded that they had been well planned and professional executed.Meanwhile Bush&Co. were maintaining that the only problem was with “Saddam loyalists” in the Sunni region.
Finding a solution for Iraq will not be a good one and I thought balancing my check book was hard.
Ian Santiago,
Partition is off the table, at least as far as Turkey is concerned. To cut up Iraq would be completely unacceptable to Turkey, since it would stoke the nationalist aspirations of their own Kurdish minority.
If partition happens, war between Turkey and an independent Kurdistan becomes quite possible. And this has the effect of dragging not only the regional neighbors into the fray, but NATO as well, since Turkey is a member.
This scenario, among other reasons, is why I have a hard time taking Joseph Biden seriously. For him to be pushing partition seems, well, reckless and ill-informed.
CF,
If what you say is true, is it inevitable that a civil war in Iraq will occur?
What if they (the three ethnic groups) were like states with a lose federal government handing out the oil wealth.
The Kurds have functioned independently, pretty much, since the first gulf war. And, I have heard that Turkey is one of the main reasons why the three state solution won’t work.
Maybe the liar and crook, Baker, has some ideas not yet thought of. The reason I have hope that he might think of something is that his vast fortune pretty much depends on it.
Partition is a dumb idea on its face. The major cities are all ethnically mixed.
India split into India and Pakistan. They’re still fighting in places like Kashmir. “East Pakistan” became Bangledesh and that meant many years of futile death and destruction.
Partition doesn’t have a stellar track record.
I remember John Kerry during his campaign.
HE advocated that the Iraqi police and security be trained out of country.
THAT would have made sense. Take them to a place like Paris Island. Break down individuality like our military does. No Kurds, No Shia, no Sunni. Just one cohesive group.
Maybe send them to restore order in Sudan. Put them under fire TOGETHER. Make them brothers in arms.
THEN send them back to restore order in Iraq.
The genie is out of the bottle as far as racial and ethnic nationalism is concerned. The Turks should be made to accept partition and diverse, hostile poeples should never be forced to live together.
Democracy is a rotten form of government and diverse democracy always devolves into a racial/ethnic headcount and tryanny of the majority, or tyranny of the minority in guilt\ridden sefl hating countries like ours.
Viva La Revolucion Blanco!!
Of course you can have partition. You’ll have whatever the people of the region decide to do, and have the will to carry out. Britain invented Iraq. We’re now trying to deal with that colonial scheme, just as we tried to do in the French colonial scheme called Vietnam. Whose leader Ho Chi Min helped us in WWII and called on us to help him and his people be free. We rejected this. So they took it upon themselves, but needed help, and only the Soviet Union was available. Then we became their enemies.
But now Vietnam is in the WTO, and Bush is there, and Vietnam will probably get “Most Favored Nation” trade status with us in the near future. (Failed yesterday in the Congress, but the very fact that it was voted on speaks volumes.)
Germany and Japan were our sworn enemies in WWII, but became our friends afterwards, because the Marshall Plan treated them fairly, with deliberate intention to restore their economies, which then thrived. (If Clemenceau hadn’t imposed crippling reparation conditions on Germany at Versailles, we might never have seen WWII.)
We should withdraw. The people of what is now Iraq will figure out what works for them. To have an oil pipeline going from Kurdish territorial oil fields through Sunni-Arab territory will require revenue sharing. Otherwise it will be sabotaged, which won’t be in anyone’s interest.
Steven,
“Actually Dick, OPEC will be controlling it. You will only make money off of the oil.”
No… looks like Iraq will lose control of most of their oil, due to production sharing agreements.
And “Dick” may get rates of return of 42% to 162%, much better than the normal 12% minimum.
‘Crude Designs: The rip-off of Iraq’s oil wealth’http://www.carbonweb.org/showitem.asp?article=57&parent=4&link=Y&gp=3
Wow, what a bunch of speculative BS…
“No doubt the U.S. inadvertently financed all these well equipped militias.”~Tracy
“Have you noticed that the more Iraqi Military/Police we train, the higher the violence goes?”
~gster
“Great! We are teaching these folks to be more efficient at thuggery and violence.”
~JR
I was just having a conversation today with a bunch of my fellow Marines and Sailors about how tragic it will be if the Democrats actually make us leave before we finish helping the Iraqi people.
All you guys see is the same repeat stock footage of battles already fought strung together.
You don’t see the Iraqi children who didn’t have food and clothing 3 years ago who now are attending school and getting an education.
You don’t see the Marines/Sailors/Soliers who have spent the last 3 years helping provide infrastructure and security to the people here.
All you see is the one or two bad bombing incidents on the TV and start to demand our withdrawl.
You don’t care about the people here, all you care about is your anti-war rhetoric and political standing.
You want to leave the people in Iraqi out to dry and for what purpose?
Levin says let them figure it out on their own. Real easy for a man sitting in washington who doesn’t have a family to loose to the violence which will ensue if we leave too early.
You guys can sit back in your nice American lifestyles and talk all the political BS you want to while we continue to do our job here helping the Iraqi people.
But don’t act like you actually care for the Iraqi people, all you care about is using their death to beat Bush over the head with and to fuel yoru fire of calling for withdrawl.
Ya know what Nathan, there is another soldier on another blog that posts. I asked him once that if he was there to liberate them, why he talked like he did. He said he couldn’t care less about them, that he’s there to kill terrorists. So not all of the soldiers over there think they’re doing good for Iraqis or that the Iraqis are good people.
cosmos,Thanks for the link. So we really are out to steal Iraq’s oil wealth. That should not come as any surprise.
Those investors are going to have a hard time getting the oil out when the country is mired in civil war for the next ten years.
Nathan- I guess it’s really rough when reality doesn’t follow your preconceived plan! So sad.
Steven – the civil war will be “crushed” (Maliki’s term) when our new Saddam takes over. The irony in this is that this is what we tried Saddam for.
“we(USA) are worse than Saddam”
Nathan, our “help” has completely destroyed their country.I know you’re to young to remember Westmoreland.I remember him vividly when he said: “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.”
TRACY,
Have you seen the country? It looks pretty good for being completely destroyed.
I will just add your comment to the other BS statements.
http://www.obsessionthemovie.com/12min.htm
Nathan,
“Have you seen the country? It looks pretty good for being completely destroyed.”
So you think a mass kidnapping “looks pretty good”?
This “looks pretty good”?’Bechtel ends Iraq rebuilding after a rough 3 years’http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/11/01/BECHTEL.TMP&type=printable“Bechtel Corp. went to Iraq three years ago to help rebuild a nation torn by war. Since then, 52 of its people have been killed and much of its work sabotaged as Iraq dissolved into insurgency and sectarian violence.”
The children’s hospital in Basra wasn’t finished.
“Looks pretty good”?’Baghdad’s morgues so full, bodies being turned away’http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/11/12/baghdad.morgue.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories “Men fearful of an anonymous burial are tattooing their thighs with names and phone numbers.”
Cosmos,
Nice job of cherry picking any bad thing that happened.
I suppose if all I did was quote to you the car jackings, home robberies, and murders which takes place in New York you would agree that it is an awful place too?
I wonder if anyone thinks there will every be a homegenous Military/Police force of both Sunni and Shia that functions in accordance with the law instead of at the Tribal level?It seems to me that will determine if Iraq survives as a country or fragments.
Nathan
What is your take on training the Iraq police and military out of country as Senator John Kerry suggested and I expanded on?
We have to find a way to fight this type of war. When this was being fought on the battlefield we kicked their ass like there was no tomorrow. When it hit the streets, tangos quit wearing uniforms, and started with this type of fighting, we fell apart.
If we don’t come out of this without some sort of tangible “win” then we invite chaos unto ourselves. What will be the recourse for further attacks on our soil? If they can just blend back in and we can’t fight them?
JR,
I don’t see how moving the location will do much of anything.
Anything that could make training them better can be implemented here easier.
It would be a bit of a logisitical nightmare to move forces out and in when it is really not needed.
I am not sure exactly what moving them out of country for training would accomplish.
Nathan, perhaps it would be futile, but by moving them out of the country for training, it would divorce the trainees from the tribal and religious factionalism they face, and maybe instill a “nationalism” in them.
That said, it would truly be a logistical nightmare.
Sol – the difference is that when we invaded it was the Iraqi army that dissolved; now it is the Iraqi population that is doing the fighting. So, what is winning? Exterminating enough of that population to terrorize the rest into submission?
The military and police were told that if they showed up for work, their families would be killed. A reservist battalion was supposed to have a drill for a week. Of close to 3000 that were supposed to attend, less than 500 showed up.
The Iraqis don’t want to police themselves. We can train them until the cows come home. If they won’t show up for work and/or don’t do what we trained them to do, we wasted everyone’s time.
It looks good?Talk about BS!!Shit Nathan, if I say the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, you’d contest that too.
I don’t have an answer for that hmmmm.
But it doesn’t change the fact that if we don’t “win”, we lose and in a big way. If we don’t learn a tactic for this type of street fighting, we are doomed. What would stop another group from rising up and attacking us again?
By not “winning” thus far, we generate more zealots. We have to find a way to make this a “very bad thing to do” or we will be overrun.
Sol, you’re right man.They didn’t ask for our “help”, as Nathan calls it.They didn’t want us there, Saddam or no Saddam.They still don’t want ANY western influence there.What in the wide world of sports makes you think we’ll ever get any more than lip service.
Sol, they wanna’ be trained long enough to get weapons and supplies.Then they can dissapear back into the populace.
Tracy,I don’t know brother. I know we need to get our troops out of there and we need to walk away from this with the zealot’s butts in a sling. If we don’t, then all we are doing is redirecting our troops to the next crap hole some zealot pops out of.
hmmm….I’d like to know that too.Where are the goal posts?
Until we know that, our people are paddling with one oar.
TRACY,
You didn’t say the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
You said we destoryed the country.
Which is on it’s face a complete load of crap.
The difference between you and I is that I recognize that things are not perfect here and that there have been many setbacks and there continues to be some very horrible things that happen.
However, I also acknowledge the good things that happen here and the positive things too.
You on the other hand see nothing but doom and gloom and apparently blame it all on Bush.
So don’t give me the crap argument that I would argue with anything you say.
No sir, I just argue that if anyone were to say that we destroyed Iraq that the statement is total BS.
Nathan,
Has NY had a mass kidnapping of government officials? Are NYorker’s getting i.d. tattooed on themselves?
Bechtel was supposed to rebuild Iraq. Quoting their failures isn’t “cherry-picking”, it’s reality.
How reliable is electicity and sewage across the entire nation?
Are families still evacuating? How many of those who earlier left are returning?
These many post invasion problems seem to not have been considered or planned for prior to invasion.
If you read Woodward’s latest book, he continually refers to that shortcoming , primarily courtesy of Rumsfeld.
It’s 20-20 hindsight, it’s amazing what wasn’t thought of or done after the initial invasion , and they continue to haunt us!
Problem is Sol….We’re fighting their fight, on their terms and at their liesure, if ya’ wanna call it that.
Like I said before, what happened to Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War”.
This whole fiasco defies tactical logic.
Tracy,I see this boiling down to one of two things.
a) We train their troops to police themselves ‚Äì and (hahahaha) they do –b) We get very aggressive, use the Geneva Convention just as much as they do (which is they don’t) and bring them a war that will discourage anyone from raising so much as a finger against us.
Beyond that, aren’t we just over there killing and dieing without progress?
Yes. I’ve said all along that if we couldn’t put 300-400,000 troops in there, then we shouldn’t stay.
How are more troops going to help if they aren’t aloud to attack the enemy in the same way they are being attacked?
I say get brutal. Make them terrified to fight back.
You have to have enough people to actually police day and night.And be brutal. I don’t believe we’re holding back right now.Anyway, driving streets during the day, waiting to get blown up,just ain’t good.Once the sun goes down, we don’t even drive the streets.
‘Top Marine: No Plan For Post-Saddam Iraq’http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/13/national/main2177031.shtml
thanks cosmos, good link
TRACY,
We actually drive a bunch of our convoy’s at night. We do so to reduce the likelyhood of innocents being killed in an IED attack.
Where did you get your info on us not driving at night?
SolDevVB,
“I say get brutal. Make them terrified to fight back.”
Tell us how you identify who “them” are? They aren’t wearing uniforms.
Nathan, I don’t remember.A TV interview I think.I believe you though.I stand corrected.They drive at night.
That’s where you go astray from the Geneva Convention. We know how to get information from folks. Let the CIA do their job.
I sometimes think it would be poetic justice to send Rumfeld’s ass over there to be in charge of the infrastructure improvements.
He could be the victim of his own pre-invasion planning incompetence!
Instead, he’ll just slither off to a cushy retirement.
“I say get brutal. Make them terrified to fight back.”
In other words, engage in terrorism.
So solly….
It is our adherence to the Geneva Conventions that causes us to “not win”?
When you cant even identify what “winning” is? Or what it would look like?
Just a little more torture and we would win?
“What would stop another group from rising up and attacking us again?”
Perhaps if we retaliated against that group it would make sense. Remember, the 9/11 hijackers came from SAUDI ARABIA. We don’t retaliate against Saudi Arabia by attacking their enemies.
Now, looking at it from an Iraqi view – how do you tell them they should not retaliate against terrorism?
hmmm….I’d like to know that too.Where are the goal posts?
Until we know that, our people are paddling with one oar.
It doesn’t do much good to try terror on them when they came there to die anyway.
“Make them afraid to fight back.”
Uh……These folks are not afraid to DIE! In fact no small number of them are willing to DIE because they think it wins them eternal reward.
You cannot scare people who are not afraid to DIE.
“when they came there to die anyway.”
On that you are incorrect TRACY. Iraqis are in Iraq because that is their country.
…still waiting to hear what would make solly think “we won”.
KSG,
Read the rest of the post to find your answer.
There is a lot of Bush an Rummey bashing here, but no answers.
If we can’t find a way to make killing Americans a “very bad thing” then we are screwed. If they want to die, then we can help them on their way.
If they are so willing to die, then why are they setting up remote IEDs?
I’m talking about the actual insurgents, not the locals.
The locals did not want our “help”.Now they are in a world of shit because of our “help”.
This ain’t goin anywhere.This is the same old ground.
“Winning” is making the “bad guys” understand that killing Americans is a “very bad thing”.
I think it was Patton in the Philippines who had a problem with Islamic zealots. He had his men capture 50 of them. He had the zealots dig their own graves in front of the posts they would be tied to and shot. He brought in 50 pigs and butchered them. His men dipped their bullets in the pig blood and put the entrails in the open graves. He shot 49 of them and buried them with the entrails. He let the 50th one go. Didn’t have anymore problems with the zealots.
According to the DoD most of the insurgents are locals. Many are the ARI that we trained and armed.
Sol – they don’t want to die either. However, they ARE willing to die to defend their country. What they are trying to do is to “make killing Iraqis a “very bad thing”" Maybe somebody should have thought about this before we set about to killing Iraqis and occupying their country.
How would YOU react to a hostile military occupying OUR country? An IED perhaps?
Sol – what you describe is what we try war criminals for. Ask Saddam.
If they get their shit together we will go home. That should be a no brainer.
Y’all are all over this, but shoot everything down. We send 400,000 troops over there and then what? It’s the same shit with more folks over there.
So if y’all are so smart and my ideas are so dumb, then enlighten me. What is going to settle Iraq and get our boys home?
Sol – they might think that they do have their shit together. Based on what you advocate it seems clear that they did BEFORE we went in.
So once they are scared we win?Sol, if you’ve ever been anywhere near an artillery round going off, you’d know they are scared now.They are scared and want to kill us or make us leave.It’s their country.
It’s simple.Get Maliki to DEMAND we leave, so they can carry on.They get “democracy” as a gift,we get to declare victory and come home!!win-win.Maliki gets support for standing up to us, and we get out.I believe that “seeding democracy” is about the only victory we’ll be able to claim. Even if it’s not true.
Sol, as I have posted at other times, it is my opinion that until and unless there is the formation of a sense of national identity among the various ethnic and religious groups in Iraq, all else we try to do will eventually be shown to be futile.
Before we went, Saddam was killing civilians; I’m talking about killing those folks trying to kill us. The act of picking up an arm against a soldier makes them a civilian no more. There is a difference between what happened before we went and now that we are there.
Tracy, scared to fight back. If they quit fighting back, we leave. Easy.
And the only way for them to get their sense of identity back is for them to believe that Maliki’s govt ran us off.
OK sol, here goes:
Set up three quasi-independent states: Kurdistan, Sunnistan, Shiistan. Build satellite cities near Baghdad to relocate Sunnis and Shiites to in order to ethnically cleanse Baghdad.
Ethnically cleanse the ’stans’ at great cost to the taxpayers of the country that deliberately and with malice afore-thought created the mess. Relocate people to their “stan’
Get Syria to help nation-build Sunnistan and Iran to help nation-build Shiistan. Kurdistan is pretty much already ethnically cleansed.
Pressure UN member Turkey to not destabalize Kurdistan.
Hope that the mess BushDaBum deliberately created doesn’t get any worse.
Send Bush, Cheney and Rummsfeld to Baghdad without any military protection. Turn them over to the ARI.
And, Sol, I recall hearing pre-invasion from folks whose careers it had been to study this area that to invade was to end up just where we are; no, I have no links right now; I also recall those who voiced these opinions being labeled unpatriotic by various members of the Administration.
As I posted sometime back, I also recall reading/hearing that folks with expertise in that area of the world felt that the only difference in the final outcome when considering withdrawal now vs. withdrawal later is that withdrawing later merely postponed the inevitable civil war among the various factions.
“Set up three quasi-independent states: Kurdistan, Sunnistan, Shiistan. Build satellite cities near Baghdad to relocate Sunnis and Shiites to in order to ethnically cleanse Baghdad.”
I’ve posted that before. Not the same words, but the same idea. I got jumped all over for it. But now it’s a good idea… hahahhaa. Silly of me. hahahahha
VT,I hear you. I hear that this is why Bush Sr. stopped where he did.
Gee, hmmm, part of your hypothetical solution sounds like what happened in South Aftica, what with removal of the indigenous peoples to their “homelands” and all.
There is another way, one which would ensure winning the battle but losing the war: going in and bombing everything in sight to the ground, civilian casulties be damned; then, in the mode of the Roman Empire, putting sufficient forces there to keep everyone cowed; of course, as history teaches, this only works short term; eventually, the Barbarians will sack Rome (D.C.).
“I know we need to get our troops out of there and we need to walk away from this with the zealot’s butts in a sling.”
Sollie, is that your final answer to what “winning” would look like?
sol – it is a horrible solution; just maybe a little less horrible than anything else.
Step 1. We admit that we are powerless over the Iraqi population and that the situation has become unmanageable.
“the zealot’s butts in a sling”
That is why I send them (Bush, Cheney, Rummy, and the rest of PNAC) to Baghdad for trial.
Winning would be a terrorist free Iraq that has become our ally. An Iraq that stops Iran from building nukes and talks Syria into destroying the weapons Saddam shipped over there when we came in. An Iraq that would not only sell us oil at $10 per barrel, but donate $10 billion each year to help us discover alternative fuels.
Winning would at least be an Iraq that is stable, does not host terrorists, and leaving enough of a sour taste in the terrorists mouths not to mess with the US again.
Sol – you never actually acknowledged the ethnic cleansing that would have to happen nor specified building new cities to house the ‘cleansed’ populations.
“Step 1. We admit that we are powerless over the Iraqi population and that the situation has become unmanageable.”
And that gets us where? It is obvious to everyone we are not in control over there. It is obvious that we are stagnant….
“Winning would be a terrorist free Iraq that has become our ally.”
And if we have to exterminate every man woman and child there we will make it that!
“Winning would at least be an Iraq that is stable, does not host terrorists, and leaving enough of a sour taste in the terrorists mouths not to mess with the US again.”
It WAS stable, it left us alone, it was an enemy to alQuada and Wahabi.
Hmmmmmm,
That’s not our gig. That needs to be done by the Iraqi’s. The whole idea of separate states needs to be the Iraqi’s idea. The devil is in the details. The Iraqi’s need to work on that.
“It is obvious to everyone we are not in control over there. It is obvious that we are stagnant….”
Not to the crackhead.
“The Iraqi’s need to work on that.”
In that case we need to get out of their way.
Enjoyed it as always. Thanx for y’all’s feed back. Enjoy your evening.
sol – you never answered my question. How would you react to a hostile military bombing, invading, and occupying our country?
heheheheh
I think this latest pic of the cover of The New Yorker says it all.
You repubs had how many years to “win” in Iraq?
I think the american people have spoken. And this little pic says it all.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364×2723946
I especially like the idea that the hard core righties wont click to get the joke….
ksfg, good catch!
sol
Your idea of what victory in Iraq looks like?
Might wanna get some help from Jiminy Cricket and the Blue fairy. Cause you are wishin’ on a star.
“Winning would at least be an VietNam that is stable, does not host terrorists, and leaving enough of a sour taste in the terrorists mouths not to mess with the US again.”
Didn’t Bush just finish normalizing relations with VietNam? Our loss there was not the disaster that so many of the hawks said it would be.
General Abizaid to Senate: status quo is unacceptable; more Iraqi troops needed:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/11/15/senate.abizaid/index.html
hmmm, yet another parallel to Vietnam. However, I’m not so sure the eventual result will be quite so favorable to the U.S.
I still think that in order to finally settle things in the area, there must be a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian question.
Shooting suicide assassins.
Yeah, Devo, great plan.
That fear of death thing will stop ‘em.
Also, I heard that same story about Patton except it was Israeli commandos and the Islamicists were Palestinians.
Worked great so far, hasn’t it?
Do you have a link to the Patton myth?
A link to your butt doesn’t count, by the way.
Does Bush know it is unmanageable?
“But Bush himself has given no indication he will make concessions to Syria or consider a softer line toward Iran. After meeting with Israel’s prime minister, he insisted anew that Iran must stop uranium enrichment before any talks.
His secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, has struck the same tone, showing no new public willingness to ask for help from U.S. enemies.”
So, the US intends to continue to dictate top Iraq’s neighbors instead of enlisting their help.
Link to article on soldier’s testimony about raping and killing Iraqi girl, family, as part of the Care inquiry concerning his guilty plea:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/15/iraq.slaying.ap/index.html
Not quite the same as Me Lai (sp), but horrible enough.
This 1999 U.S. Central Command sponsored report predicted much of what has happened. It’s a shame the American public could not read it BEFORE the invasion.
‘War simulation in 1999 pointed out Iraq invasion problems’http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/11/04/war.games.ap/“A series of secret U.S. war games in 1999 showed that an invasion and post-war administration of Iraq would require 400,000 troops, nearly three times the number there now.
And even then, the games showed, the country still had a chance of dissolving into chaos.” (MORE)
I, for one, never read that crap Vaughn. I know war is brutal and that a certain percentage of U.S. soldiers are criminals. It has nothing to do with Iraq policy. It is used by the leftist media, I suppose, to leave a bad taste in everyone’s mouth, because it has no value in the logical discussion.
Yeah, whatever happened to the “domino theory” that if we pulled out of Vietnam and the South fell into communist hands, the rest of the world would follow and be ruled by communists?
And meanwhile, back at the ranch, er the white house, bush is fighting the vietnam war NOW instead of when he was supposed to be in uniform.
And he continues to piss off people we are trying to befriend…
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/11/15/vietnam-bush-wrong-flag/
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