[quote]Bismark wrote:
[quote]Brett620 wrote:
Do 275 marines sent to safeguard our embassy constitute as “boots on the ground”? If not, what type of soldiers does?[/quote]
Offensive infantry or special operations forces. Pretty simple. [/quote]
So I guess the 100 special ops guys he’s sending now as “advisors” qualify.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Has anybody mentioned that Dick Cheney is a piece of shit?[/quote]
You owe me a new keyboard SMH.
[quote]Bismark wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Has anybody mentioned that Dick Cheney is a piece of shit?[/quote]
You owe me a new keyboard SMH.
[/quote]
Done!
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
It’s irrelevant because sitting presidents, not former ones make decisions on troop deployment. [/quote]
Sitting presidents inherit the signed and sealed international commitments that their predecessors make. In November 2008, the government of the United States, under George W. Bush, signed a Status of Forces Agreement prescribing in simple language the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraqi territory by December 2011. This is not a point about which controversy is possible.
[quote]
I posted hard evidence too. Obama’s own words. No third party, no interpretation, his first hand declaration. Exact quotes.[/quote]
No, you didn’t post hard evidence. If I post a transcript of an Obama speech wherein he describes himself as a foreign policy success, have I posted hard evidence? Will you yield the point? I thought not.
Again, Obama was spouting rhetoric in your quote, and, as with just about all political rhetoric, it was nonsense. My evidence (videlicet, the SOFA) is fact, yours is a self-serving politician’s interpretation. There isn’t anything more to this discussion. Unless you can prove that the SOFA I linked is a forgery, your argument is finished. Like everything else about Iraq, the withdrawal is Bush’s baby. Literally. He signed the agreement that prescribed its manner and exact date. That’s all the ink that this disagreement deserves–unless, again, you can prove that the SOFA is somehow a counterfeit.[/quote]
Did you read it? Because if you did, it’s all she wrote on this issue. Nothing more to be said, it was obama’s baby, he claims it and owns it. His decision.
Everything is rhetoric if you want to boil it down. Obama made the decision to pull out the troops. Nobody else but obama could make that decision he’s the only one with the legal right to do so.
It doesn’t matter what Bush did in 2008, it’s not binding, at all. There is no precedence that it’s binding, it’s simply a conditional agreement based on certain conditions. It’s main purpose wasn’t to lay out conditions for ending the war, it’s main purpose was to protect American military assets from Iraqi law enforcement.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Whether the exit was Obama’s idea the whole way through, as if he came up with this defeatist plan and pushed it through the Iraqi government himself, is a non-issue. I have proved it wrong. It was negotiated, designed (including dates–exact ones), and signed under Bush.
Do you want to say, instead, that Obama should have violated the SOFA? Because that is equally fantastical.[/quote]
The SOFA ended on 12/31/2011. He should have put another one in place. And yes, if the situation on the ground warrant’s it then it’s obama’s job to stabilize it regardless of any non-binding agreements in place. Yeah, maybe the Iraqis didn’t want it, but that doesn’t matter. We invested a lot of blood and money into the place and we have the right to protect our investment.
Had we had the George W. Bush military base in Iraq like we should have, then our ability to prevent the current situation and deal with the situation would be exponentially better.
[quote]Sifu wrote:
[quote]Mufasa wrote:
(And I’ll take a “strawman hit” or whatever on this one… because I can’t get past Cheney’s arrogance…)
Let’s also try 40 BILLION plus for IRAQ ALONE for Halliburton (…and counting…and not counting Afghanistan…)
Millions of dollars for him in the War “effort”…
And most importantly, the death and sacrifice of thousands of Americans.
Cheney just needs to retire on his millions and shoot some more of his friends…
Mufasa[/quote]
This is a great example of the hypocrisy of the left. They try to act like Cheney and Halliburton is some awful boogeyman while completely ignoring the fact that it was President Clinton who got Halliburton started in the military support business. Then he attacked Serbia, a country that really wasn’t a threat to us and we still have troops in Bosnia today because of that war.
[/quote]
And it’s interesting that we still have troops in Bosnia and not Iraq. Why there isn’t a military base in Iraq is beyond me. That should not have even been an option.
As soon as Republicans stop trying to shift the blame, learn the desperately needed lesson, and realize that not even republican voters want American boots back on the ground, the sooner they might earn an audience on other issues. The McCain party has no future.
However, the funny thing is, victory was almost a certainty in Iraq.
“Nope, not seeing all those bio/chem weapons whose exact locations we knew. All done here.”
And maybe
“Ok, got Saddam, turn it over to the 2nd in charge. Let’s go home. We’re done here.”
The great big government run liberty/democracy welfare program was doomed.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Why are we walking in circles?
I have addressed the Obama “I ended the war” rhetoric multiple times.
Nothing of what I’ve written has changed, and the facts I’ve linked to have been, you know, facts. Not transcripts of stump speeches.
My participation in this thread began in response to a number of specific claims which were factually and provably inaccurate. I have shown them to be so beyond the possibility of doubt and to my thorough satisfaction.
I know that most of you would just love it if the December 2011 withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq had been Obama’s initiative and doing. I know you’d love it if he had come into office and forced a defeatist SOFA through the Iraqi government, signing off on draw-down dates while the brilliant analysts at Fox told us how fucking terrible the SOFA was. (I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what many around here thought, before I started ruining the party.) That was exactly the narrative that was being peddled, and it was my purpose in entering this debate to dispossess its pushers of their misconceptions.
Because, thing is, the partisans have a small problem: That narrative–it ain’t what happened. Bush, abject failure that he was, initiated this enormous fuck-up in 2003. He directed his diplomatic officers to negotiate an agreement with the Iraqis in 2007. A year later, he signed off on the exit, dates and all. And he failed to secure the jurisdictional conditions for a substantial vestigial force, just like his successor did. Sucks, I know. But its the way things went down.[/quote]
Sure we shouldn’t be there in the first place. So if you want to blame bush for that, I got no issues with that.
Just because we shouldn’t have been there doesn’t mean we allow the place to go to hell because we cannot. The consequences of doing so are dire.
You don’t fix a wrong by doing a whole bunch of other wrongs. We cannot undo it so we need to protect our investment.
This hopefully has squashed any idea of yanking troops out of Afghanistan. For however unready the iraqis were, the afghans are far less stable. Afghanistan would destabilize even more quickly than iraq did.
The worst option for us, is to go in, kick ass, leave, let it go to hell, then go back in and have to kick ass again. How many times do we want to repeat this cycle?
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
The point you’re missing - or glossing over - is that the dates weren’t set in stone. They were subject to conditions on the ground. Conditions to which Obama paid no heed in his rush to pull stumps.[/quote]
Correct.
[quote]pat wrote:
Did you read it? Because if you did, it’s all she wrote on this issue. Nothing more to be said, it was obama’s baby, he claims it and owns it. His decision.[/quote]
Nope. (Already addressed.)
[quote]
Everything is rhetoric if you want to boil it down.[/quote]
Nope. I already posted something that isn’t rhetoric. It’s a document. With a date. And a signature. And it disassembles your argument, all by itself.
[quote]
Obama made the decision to pull out the troops. Nobody else but Obama could make that decision he’s the only one with the legal right to do so.[/quote]
Nope. Already proved incorrect with documentary, inarguable evidence.
[quote]
It doesn’t matter what Bush did in 2008, it’s not binding, at all.[/quote]
Nope. But where did you get that idea? Are you literally making this up? Do you understand what would have happened if this “non-binding” agreement had been violated? If so, why don’t you tell me? [Underlined because this is the important part. Please answer it. The rest are points are just re-hashes of sub-arguments I’ve already won on hard evidentiary grounds.]
[quote]
It’s main purpose wasn’t to lay out conditions for ending the war[/quote]
I quote the title of the SOFA: “Agreement Between the United States of America and the Republic of Iraq On the Withdrawal of United States Forces from Iraq and the Organization of Their Activities during Their Temporary Presence in Iraq.” Emphasis mine. You are incorrect again, and again you’re just saying things for no reason. You don’t get to say what the “main purpose” of this agreement was–it is all interconnected–and you sure as hell don’t get to act like, because you think one of its provisions wasn’t a main purpose (which, in fact, it absolutely was), it can be ignored, or it is “non-binding.”
So, we find ourselves here: You have distanced yourself from your original claim, which was nonsense and has proved so. Now you’re arguing that the SOFA was “non-binding,” which carries the implication that your new, much-watered-down criticism of Obama is that “he should have ignored the SOFA!”
Please tell me why he wouldn’t have done that, and no American president would have done that.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
The point you’re missing - or glossing over - is that the dates weren’t set in stone. They were subject to conditions on the ground. Conditions to which Obama paid no heed in his rush to pull stumps.[/quote]
What? Cite this in the Status of Forces Agreement. I linked it a few pages back.
And let’s say you’re right. That adds a nuance, but it doesn’t change a thing about my point here.
But anyway, please cite the relevant portion of the SOFA.[/quote]
The agreement does state that “all United States forces shall withdraw from all Iraqi territory” by the end of 2011. The barely disguised intent, however, is that the terms will be renegotiated beforehand to sanction an enduring American presence. The associated “Strategic Framework Agreement,” which was signed between the Bush administration and the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on November 28, commits both parties to a “long term relationship in economic, diplomatic, cultural and security fields”.
In three years time, the Iraqi security forces will still be incapable of conducting operations against significant insurgent activity without American support, let alone defending Iraq’s borders against potential regional rivals…
John Nagl, a retired US officer who assisted General David Petraeus draft the counter-insurgency plan applied in Iraq, told the Washington Post last month: “Everyone knows the Iraqi security forces are not going to be self-sufficient by 2011. There are going to be Americans helping Iraqis keep their F-16s in the air for at least a decade.” The Iraqi ministry of defence has stated that the earliest it will have an “independent” air force is 2020.
Moreover, in dealing with “external or internal threats,” the Strategic Framework sanctions the US to use “diplomatic, economic or military measures, or any other measure, to deter such a threat”.
My apologies for the source.[/quote]
“all United States combat forces shall withdraw from all Iraqi territory”
I want to make sure that the important part–the only part that isn’t just a rehash of an argument that has already ended decidedly–gets noticed, so I’m going to reiterate it:
Obama came in with a SOFA. He wanted more troops left behind, just like Bush had. You’re now arguing that the SOFA was “non-binding,” implying that Obama should have ignored it and left the troops on the ground. Do you know why he couldn’t do that? Why no president would have done that under any circumstances?
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
The point you’re missing - or glossing over - is that the dates weren’t set in stone. They were subject to conditions on the ground. Conditions to which Obama paid no heed in his rush to pull stumps.[/quote]
What? Cite this in the Status of Forces Agreement. I linked it a few pages back.
And let’s say you’re right. That adds a nuance, but it doesn’t change a thing about my point here.
But anyway, please cite the relevant portion of the SOFA.[/quote]
The agreement does state that “all United States forces shall withdraw from all Iraqi territory” by the end of 2011. The barely disguised intent, however, is that the terms will be renegotiated beforehand to sanction an enduring American presence. The associated “Strategic Framework Agreement,” which was signed between the Bush administration and the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on November 28, commits both parties to a “long term relationship in economic, diplomatic, cultural and security fields”.
In three years time, the Iraqi security forces will still be incapable of conducting operations against significant insurgent activity without American support, let alone defending Iraq’s borders against potential regional rivals…
John Nagl, a retired US officer who assisted General David Petraeus draft the counter-insurgency plan applied in Iraq, told the Washington Post last month: “Everyone knows the Iraqi security forces are not going to be self-sufficient by 2011. There are going to be Americans helping Iraqis keep their F-16s in the air for at least a decade.” The Iraqi ministry of defence has stated that the earliest it will have an “independent” air force is 2020.
Moreover, in dealing with “external or internal threats,” the Strategic Framework sanctions the US to use “diplomatic, economic or military measures, or any other measure, to deter such a threat”.
My apologies for the source.[/quote]
“all United States combat forces shall withdraw from all Iraqi territory”[/quote]
Incorrect.
Article 24, Section 1.
[quote]
All the United States Forces shall withdraw from all Iraqi territory no
later than December 31, 2011.[/quote]
Why are you posting first and learning second?
Pat:
This is the problem that I have with what you are suggesting should have been done.
Even at the height of our military engagement and involvement in Iraq; all we were doing was a) keeping LARGE numbers of people apart whom have wanted to exterminate each other for going on 1,400 years (there were still bombings, executions, kidnappings, etc.) and b) placing our people in the middle of the conflict. “The Surge” just pushed them further apart.
The idea of “stabilization” simply never was, and most likely never will be, in this area…and CERTAINLY not by Military Force.
IF the idea is somehow we should have kept troops and forces in place to “stabilize” Iraq; my feeling is that it would have required two things (IMO):
A never-ending presence and Trillions upon Trillions of more dollars and
A willingness to accept daily flights of planes filled with flag-draped coffins.
Even if we accept those two things; “stabilization” in Iraq amounts to no more that an illusion.
Mufasa
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
The point you’re missing - or glossing over - is that the dates weren’t set in stone. They were subject to conditions on the ground. Conditions to which Obama paid no heed in his rush to pull stumps.[/quote]
Correct.[/quote]
No, not correct, and shown to be not correct a bunch of times in a row. There is nothing about conditions on the ground. There was a SOFA, and a list of things that would have constituted a violation of it.
Why is everybody just making shit up?
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
The point you’re missing - or glossing over - is that the dates weren’t set in stone. They were subject to conditions on the ground. Conditions to which Obama paid no heed in his rush to pull stumps.[/quote]
What? Cite this in the Status of Forces Agreement. I linked it a few pages back.
And let’s say you’re right. That adds a nuance, but it doesn’t change a thing about my point here.
But anyway, please cite the relevant portion of the SOFA.[/quote]
The agreement does state that “all United States forces shall withdraw from all Iraqi territory” by the end of 2011. The barely disguised intent, however, is that the terms will be renegotiated beforehand to sanction an enduring American presence. The associated “Strategic Framework Agreement,” which was signed between the Bush administration and the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on November 28, commits both parties to a “long term relationship in economic, diplomatic, cultural and security fields”.
In three years time, the Iraqi security forces will still be incapable of conducting operations against significant insurgent activity without American support, let alone defending Iraq’s borders against potential regional rivals…
John Nagl, a retired US officer who assisted General David Petraeus draft the counter-insurgency plan applied in Iraq, told the Washington Post last month: “Everyone knows the Iraqi security forces are not going to be self-sufficient by 2011. There are going to be Americans helping Iraqis keep their F-16s in the air for at least a decade.” The Iraqi ministry of defence has stated that the earliest it will have an “independent” air force is 2020.
Moreover, in dealing with “external or internal threats,” the Strategic Framework sanctions the US to use “diplomatic, economic or military measures, or any other measure, to deter such a threat”.
My apologies for the source.[/quote]
Further:
"SOFAs are peacetime documents and therefore do not address the
rules of war, the Law of Armed Conflict, or the Law of the Sea. In the event of armed conflict
between parties to a SOFA, and because the agreement is a contract between the parties and may
be canceled at the will of either, the terms of the agreement would no longer be applicable. "
and:
“Even though the term of the agreement is three years,
and either party may cancel the agreement with one-year notice, both countries retain the right to
remove U.S. forces independent of the agreement”
The article is from '05, but I thought the comparison’s between post war Iraq and post war Japan were interesting.
Comparisons of Iraq to post-war Japan fail, historian asserts
http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2005/rebuilding-iraq-0316
[quote]pat wrote:
"SOFAs are peacetime documents and therefore do not address the
rules of war, the Law of Armed Conflict, or the Law of the Sea. In the event of armed conflict
between parties to a SOFA, and because the agreement is a contract between the parties and may
be canceled at the will of either, the terms of the agreement would no longer be applicable. "[/quote]
Not remotely relevant. What this is saying is that if the U.S. were to go to war with Iraq, the SOFA would dissolve. Which is painfully obvious.
[quote]
“Even though the term of the agreement is three years,
and either party may cancel the agreement with one-year notice, both countries retain the right to
remove U.S. forces independent of the agreement”[/quote]
And, again, why did the U.S. not want to cancel an agreement without a new one in place? Why would a president want to not, under any circumstances, allow the SOFA to dissolve?
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
@Bismark
I have a question for you. In 1960 RAND strategist Herman Kahn developed a nuclear strategy based on the Mutually Assured Destruction theory. His idea was to link a computer to a series of hydrogen bombs programmed to detonate upon the detection of an enemy launch. These bombs were designed to spread nuclear fallout across the entire planet and destroy all life on earth.
The key principle of the device was that it cannot be turned off or stopped. The theory being that the enemy would never launch a first strike knowing that this device was in place. Do you think it’s a sound strategy? You’ve said previously that Iran is a “rational actor.” Do you think such a device would constitute a good deterrent against an Iranian nuclear strike?[/quote]
Actually, a closer reading of Herman Kahn’s “On Thermonuclear War” demonstrates that the “Doomsday Machine” he presents is a rhetorical device intended to show the limits of the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction, of which he was a vocal critic. In no way does Kahn propose that such a weapon system actually be developed and deployed. This misconception of Kahn’s work was perpetuated by his portrayal in Dr. Strangelove as the character of the same name.
Kahn not only saw nuclear war as possible, (given the massive arsenals of both the US and USSR) but winnable as well. While his work is profound and seminal within the field of nuclear strategy, I disagree with his belief that nuclear weapons are viable military tools. The idea of “limited” nuclear war is not only strategically disastrous, but ethically unconscionable.
As it is impossible to put the nuclear genie back into the bottle, I see John von Neumann’s strategy of mutually assured destruction as a necessary evil in the nuclear age. Limiting the number of potential conflict dyads by limiting the number of nuclear weapons states is the best course of action next to universal disarmament, which I believe cannot be realistically implemented. Even then, nuclear deterrence would be replaced by conventional deterrence, with is much more precarious given the vast asymmetries in conventional military power among states.
Realism (International Relations) holds that states are rational actors. This is not a blanket psychological diagnosis, but the application of Economic Man’s rational egoism to the realm of politics. For Political Man, interest is expressed as power, and he rationally seeks to maximize his relative to his peers.
In regard to the Iranian nuclear program, I assert that Iran seeks nuclear capability to bolster its preeminent goal, and that of all states - survival. Iran cannot rely on conventionally deterring the US, as its military forces are much weaker vis-a-vis their American counterparts. Invading a nuclear Iran would be unthinkable from a Western perspective. Surely the Iranian regime noticed that Western calls for regime change in the DPRK, a fellow member of the “Axis of evil”, ceased when it became a nuclear weapons state.
[quote]Brett620 wrote:
[quote]Bismark wrote:
[quote]Brett620 wrote:
Do 275 marines sent to safeguard our embassy constitute as “boots on the ground”? If not, what type of soldiers does?[/quote]
Offensive infantry or special operations forces. Pretty simple. [/quote]
So I guess the 100 special ops guys he’s sending now as “advisors” qualify.
[/quote]
Army Special Forces, AKA Green Berets. Not if they are conducting Foreign Internal Defense (FID), which they are almost assuredly being limited to. A company sized light infantry element is not going to be conducting offensive operations in the present security environment of Iraq.
Further, the boots of the CIA Special Activities Division’s covert operations officers and paramilitary operatives have assuredly remained on the ground in Iraq since the withdraw of American combat forces.