Bush Not Aggressive Enough?

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
21

Iraq is a strange kind of war, and it is one America hates to fight. We like tank battles on European plains, or in the iraqi desert, where we blow them apart, and the infantry mops up. This is the conventional war that we had with Iraq.

What we are in is a guerilla war, and it is similar to the way the American revolution was fought from our perspective (as far as tactics go, such as Francis Marion, or Washington, even though Iraq doesn’t have an “army” per se). And, ironically, the way they fight is similar to the Vietnamese.

Another similarity is in the type of mindset both sides have. In Vietnam, we fought like hell for Hamburger Hill, only to have the Vietnamese pop up somewhere else…they didn’t care about the hill, they cared about casualty counts, and killing the invader. The Iraqis are fighting the same way. They don’t care about government, or buildings, or towns. They will trade space and land for time, just as Washington did, and use guerilla tactics, just as the Vietnamese.

This type of war is not geared for a superpower to be involved in. Guerilla war is the war that the poor and disorganized use against a much more advanced foe. However…how often do guerillas lose? All they have to do is survive, while America must “win”. There is no way to be “more aggressive”, this is not like McClellan in 1862. There is no one to attack until they attack first…and anyone who advocated killing civilians and nuking them is as heartless as the terrorists themselves.

I am a liberal, and hate this war and the President that leads it. But my buddy is sitting in Baghdad now, and he’s been hurt enough times already…its time to bring the guys home.

22

[quote]pookie wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
…

At some point (hopefully soon) the Iraqis will need to take a stronger role in their own security.

That’s why I think that disbanding the Iraqi army was ill advised. Getting rid of the loyalists would’ve sufficed; I’m sure many of the soldiers would’ve stayed on in the new Iraqi army, for the love of their country instead of for Saddam.

…[/quote]

Bush was in a damned if you do, damned if you don’t position regarding the disbanding of the army.

All the competent people (Officers, NCOs) in the Iraqi army were Ba’athists. Some likely joined the Ba’ath party just because it was away to get ahead. Some joined because they believed in it.

Either way if he left these people in a position of power he would have upset the Shia (the majority).

Disbanding the army may have fueled the insurgency, but it bought good will from the majority of the population.

Disbanding the Iraqi army also brought good will from the American press.

Post WW2 when Patton said we should have kept the mid level Nazi bureaucrats and soldiers he was crucified in the American press.

Overall it is hard to know if it was a mistake or not. It certainly is appealing to think that the insurgency could have been limited by maintaining part of the Iraqi army, but it is impossible to really know.

23

[quote]pookie wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
No kidding. If you Canadians didn’t talk so funny we would have an even harder time keeping you out, eh?

Don’t look now, but Quebec is slowly invading Florida, using sleeper cells composed of old french speaking retirees.

Be afraid.[/quote]

There is nothing slow about it. You take your life in your hands on US 95 when you share the road with those snowbirds.

24

[quote]pookie wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
No kidding. If you Canadians didn’t talk so funny we would have an even harder time keeping you out, eh?

Don’t look now, but Quebec is slowly invading Florida, using sleeper cells composed of old french speaking retirees.

Be afraid.[/quote]

Hahahah. Well New Jersey beat you to it, we have invaded Florida with old Jews and Italians who have been invading for years. More deceiving, because they speak English.

25

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
I am a liberal, and hate this war and the President that leads it. But my buddy is sitting in Baghdad now, and he’s been hurt enough times already…its time to bring the guys home.[/quote]

Don’t you think that pulling out now would leave Iraq in a worst way than it was before you went in? It’d probably end up as another Islamic Republic like Iran, or, why not, be annexed by Iran.

And worst, it would be a severe blow to the image of the U.S. as a world superpower. Bin Laden could gloat that he’d beaten both world superpowers within 20 years. The “Paper Tiger” image of America would probably embolden even more rogue state into openly defying the West.

Do you think you could ever go in somewhere else and expect the support or the locals if they think that as soon as the going gets tough, you’ll cut and run?

The U.S. HAS to win this one before pulling out.

26

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Bush was in a damned if you do, damned if you don’t position regarding the disbanding of the army.

All the competent people (Officers, NCOs) in the Iraqi army were Ba’athists. Some likely joined the Ba’ath party just because it was away to get ahead. Some joined because they believed in it.

Either way if he left these people in a position of power he would have upset the Shia (the majority).

Disbanding the army may have fueled the insurgency, but it bought good will from the majority of the population.

Disbanding the Iraqi army also brought good will from the American press.

Post WW2 when Patton said we should have kept the mid level Nazi bureaucrats and soldiers he was crucified in the American press.

Overall it is hard to know if it was a mistake or not. It certainly is appealing to think that the insurgency could have been limited by maintaining part of the Iraqi army, but it is impossible to really know. [/quote]

Good points. It is not an easy black-or-white situation.

I still feel that getting rid of the officers and then replacing them by promoting soldiers from the base rank might have helped to get a competend Iraqi army ready faster.

Then again, maybe they were so fanatically devoted to Saddam that they’re just wasn’t any way to do that while insuring that you wouldn’t be fighting the same army a few months later as they attempted to seize power.

Rebuilding a whole army from scratch while simultaneously fighting insurgents with too few troops and equipment supply problems is one hell of a task.

To me, it justs appears that there was a complete lack of planning for the post-war events. That, or the planning was woefully inadequate and unrealistically optimistic.

27

Everyone keeps saying when the war is won… But have you thought that perhaps there will always be terrorism in Iraq. There has been around 100 000 Iraqi casualties since the beginning of the war. If my country was ruled by an oppressive dictator and a foreign power dropped 40 000 bombs on my people I’d be pissed. Especially if the reasons for going to war were proven to be nothing but lies and political trickory. Their country has been blown to shit, 100 000 innocent people victim to american air srtikes, all for no reason. If that doesn’t give the bastard terrorists means to recruit more people then what will. And to those who say you have to secure Iraq’s borders, you can’t even secure the border with mexico so there is no hope for Iraq’s borders. Meanwhile Bush just let Pakistan buy jet fighters from american arms manufacturers when Pakistan is clearly a terrorist friendly nation and probably the current hideout of Osama Bin laden. Before I shut up i want you all to remember THE FUCKING VICE PRESIDENTS EX COMPANY HAS CONTRACTS WORTH BILLIONS TO GET IRAQS OIL.

28

Paul

Cheyney has not been associated with Halliburton for many years and does not own any stock. How could he possibly benefit from Halliburtons contracts. In this country members of the Executive branch are not allowed to remain active in their former business. Halliburton gets this type of work because they are qualified to do it and not many others are.

Additioanlly the 100,000 civilian casualties number was created by the press in Europe. The real number, based on Iraqi records and US investigation is closer to 12,000. How many of those were active insurgents has not been verified. 12,000 is a big number but is actually less then Sadaam killed every 3 months for the entire time he held control.

29

[quote]paul bunyan wrote:
Everyone keeps saying when the war is won… But have you thought that perhaps there will always be terrorism in Iraq. There has been around 100 000 Iraqi casualties since the beginning of the war. If my country was ruled by an oppressive dictator and a foreign power dropped 40 000 bombs on my people I’d be pissed. Especially if the reasons for going to war were proven to be nothing but lies and political trickory. Their country has been blown to shit, 100 000 innocent people victim to american air srtikes, all for no reason. If that doesn’t give the bastard terrorists means to recruit more people then what will. And to those who say you have to secure Iraq’s borders, you can’t even secure the border with mexico so there is no hope for Iraq’s borders. Meanwhile Bush just let Pakistan buy jet fighters from american arms manufacturers when Pakistan is clearly a terrorist friendly nation and probably the current hideout of Osama Bin laden. Before I shut up i want you all to remember THE FUCKING VICE PRESIDENTS EX COMPANY HAS CONTRACTS WORTH BILLIONS TO GET IRAQS OIL.[/quote]

I think the ‘civility’ is slipping away. Anyway…if history teaches us anything, it’s that the world is better off when one nation has overwhelming power and polices the globe. We now have a swing toward chaos, because of the downsizing of very powerful weapons. The U.S. must literally intervene immediately if it even ‘sniffs’ a threat. The force must be overwhelming.
The British once encountered a tribe in Africa where the king drank a yearly potion made with 6,000 human hearts. Their solution was to kill the king and all his family and troops. Sounds like a damned good policy!

30

[quote]vroom wrote:
I’m not sure people realize how hard it is to control a nation, or a border hundreds of miles long.

It’s not something you “just do”, it is a very huge undertaking… especially when the bad guys are indistinguishable from the good guys.[/quote]

What we need to do is put up a big damn wall all along our southern border with individuals ready and willing to pull the trigger on any silly fuck trying to sneak through.

Wanna come to the greatest Nation in the world?

Through the fucking gate asshole.

31

I hope the following article describes an absolute exception. Somehow, it shows exactly what was said earlier in the thread. Quite depressing…

Makkun

Under US noses, brutal insurgents rule Sunni citadel

Guardian gains rare access to Iraqi town and finds it fully in control of ‘mujahideen’

Omer Mahdi in Haditha and Rory Carroll in Baghdad
Monday August 22, 2005

32

[quote]hedo wrote:
Pookie

I’ll disagee with the land issue. They need a base and they need to build support among the population. If they can’t hold ground they will lose face. They lost it along with any sort of ability to win over the population. All they have now is fear and the fear is falling away. The locals are tipping off the Iraqi police and coalition forces.

Fallujah was thier last gasp as a military force. Now they are nothing more then criminals and terrorists who see the handwriting on the wall.[/quote]

Hedo does not understand low-intensity conflict (this is the correct military term). The terrorists groups are not conventional armies in any sense therefore are in no need of holding territory the way a conventional army would. They are also not traditional guerrilla rebels in that they pretty much could care less about winning the hearts and minds of average Iraqis. Pookie makes a good point: Iraq is a country with artificial borders, created by England, France, America, et al, between the world wars, without any consideration of ethnic, tribal, religious or linguistic differences. So now we have the word of the day, quagmire, in Iraq.

That little op-ed piece at the beginning of the thread is as disconnected from reality as the Bush Admin. How about an op-ed piece from someone who has actually been to Iraq and can therefore report or opine using some actual real world info?

WMD

33

[quote]bigflamer wrote:
vroom wrote:
I’m not sure people realize how hard it is to control a nation, or a border hundreds of miles long.

It’s not something you “just do”, it is a very huge undertaking… especially when the bad guys are indistinguishable from the good guys.

What we need to do is put up a big damn wall all along our southern border with individuals ready and willing to pull the trigger on any silly fuck trying to sneak through.

Wanna come to the greatest Nation in the world?

Through the fucking gate asshole.

[/quote]

Feeling a bit xenophobic, are we? How’d we get from Bush not aggressive enough to let’s shoot the wetbacks? I live in Texas, have worked and lived side by side with illegal Mexican immigrants and they are to a person decent hard working people. Perfect Americans in other words.

What’s your beef with them, that they come here and do the work Americans disdain, for a lot less money than any American would accept? Is it anything like wanting to keep the black men away from the white women?

This nation is great because of all the different people who have come here and added themselves to our mix. What kind of base ingnorance and stupidity fules this kind of hatred? This is one of the most low down things I’ve ever read on this site.

WMD

34

[quote]pookie wrote:
It not being easy is quite an understatement. You can hardly do it at home with Mexico; what chance have you got of closing off the Iraqi borders when your troops are woefully outnumbered?[/quote]

Our open border with Mexico is due to lack of will on our politicians part, not a lack resources.

35

[quote]WMD wrote:
Feeling a bit xenophobic, are we? How’d we get from Bush not aggressive enough to let’s shoot the wetbacks? I live in Texas, have worked and lived side by side with illegal Mexican immigrants and they are to a person decent hard working people. Perfect Americans in other words.

What’s your beef with them, that they come here and do the work Americans disdain, for a lot less money than any American would accept? Is it anything like wanting to keep the black men away from the white women?

This nation is great because of all the different people who have come here and added themselves to our mix. What kind of base ingnorance and stupidity fules this kind of hatred? This is one of the most low down things I’ve ever read on this site.

WMD[/quote]

I agree with you. I am from Texas as well but currently live in Florida. I was in a small convenience store the other night and a hispanic guy in front of me who wasn’t speaking english (I don’t know if he could or not) starts talking about how I must workout and how can he get arms like that (I speak some spanish).

This older caucasian woman comes in line behind me and as soon as he leaves and states, “what is the deal with all of these Mexicans coming here all of a sudden…you can’t go anywhere now without seeing one!” I just left. For one, she has no clue where the man was a resident of (he simply didn’t speak English in the store).

You almost have to speak spanish if you live in Texas or Florida as a professional unless you just plan on not treating that population at all. I just don’t share that hatred of other cultures. I can easily imagine that had this been just 50 years ago, she would have said the same thing about me after I left the store.

I understand the issue of being an “illegal” immigrant, but anyone with desire to shoot and kill someone just because they are looking for a better life in this country is insane and bigoted. It is amazing how people feel it is ok to speak loudly about an entire group of people like this.

36

[quote]WMD wrote:

Feeling a bit xenophobic, are we? How’d we get from Bush not aggressive enough to let’s shoot the wetbacks? I live in Texas, have worked and lived side by side with illegal Mexican immigrants and they are to a person decent hard working people. Perfect Americans in other words.

What’s your beef with them, that they come here and do the work Americans disdain, for a lot less money than any American would accept? Is it anything like wanting to keep the black men away from the white women?

This nation is great because of all the different people who have come here and added themselves to our mix. What kind of base ingnorance and stupidity fules this kind of hatred? This is one of the most low down things I’ve ever read on this site.

WMD[/quote]

Does the word ILLEGAL mean anything to you? We have a process by which someone can immigrate, either follow it, or stay home. It’s not about race, it’s not about money, it’s about the LAW

37

[quote]WMD wrote:
Feeling a bit xenophobic, are we? How’d we get from Bush not aggressive enough to let’s shoot the wetbacks? I live in Texas, have worked and lived side by side with illegal Mexican immigrants and they are to a person decent hard working people. Perfect Americans in other words.[/quote]

I believe that this area (illigal immigration) in one of Bush’s failings and is not nearly aggressive enough. I’m not looking to shoot the wetbacks, I’m looking to shoot any and all individuals willing to invade our country. Period. Why is it that they don’t want to immigrate legaly? Something to hide?

[quote]
What’s your beef with them, that they come here and do the work Americans disdain, for a lot less money than any American would accept? Is it anything like wanting to keep the black men away from the white women?[/quote]

Again I repeat that I have no beef with honest hardworking LEGAL immigrants from any corner of the world. I have known many hardworking individuals from many backgrounds, I am pro LEGAL immigration. The last statement was just a bit stupid. Grow up.

[quote]
This nation is great because of all the different people who have come here and added themselves to our mix. What kind of base ingnorance and stupidity fules this kind of hatred? This is one of the most low down things I’ve ever read on this site.
WMD[/quote]

I agree that this is the greatest nation in the world because of our diversity. I was thinking of that the other day as I was watching “windtalkers” while pounding out the miles on the treadmill. We threw the Japanese a real curvball because of our diversity. Good movie. A real good example of how our diversity has made this country great.

Is it ignorant and stupid for me to want immigrants to come here legaly? What’s wrong with coming thru the damn gate? You’ll find that I’m a big proponent of LEGAL immigration as is alot of other conservatives, we just want to control the border. Is it bad to want some semblance of control at our border? The great Ronald Reagan once said “A nation that can’t control it’s own borders, isn’t much of a nation at all”.

I think this is one of the dumbest assesments of a thread I’ve read. You have completely shot your damn mouth off without thinking through, proving youself to be ignorant, stupid, and full of hate.

My football coach used to say “diaria of the mouth denotes constipation of the brain”

Thanks for playing douchebag.

38

[quote]bigflamer wrote:
I think this is one of the dumbest assesments of a thread I’ve read. You have completely shot your damn mouth off without thinking through, proving youself to be ignorant, stupid, and full of hate.
[/quote]

That’s funny…I had the same opinion of most of what you have written. Didn’t you write:

[quote]What we need to do is put up a big damn wall all along our southern border with individuals ready and willing to pull the trigger on any silly fuck trying to sneak through.

Wanna come to the greatest Nation in the world?

Through the fucking gate asshole. [/quote]

Yeah, that was full of “non-hatred”. I am not for illegal immigration. However, I think there are better ways to handle this than the sentiment that people need to be shot for trying to live a better life here.

My understanding is that the current legal process is fairly extensive (I don’t have exact facts of how long it takes to gain citizenship). I would guess that if this was just a simple matter of paperwork, there wouldn’t be such a large problem.

39

[quote]Professor X wrote:
Yeah, that was full of “non-hatred”. I am not for illegal immigration. However, I think there are better ways to handle this than the sentiment that people need to be shot for trying to live a better life here.

My understanding is that the current legal process is fairly extensive (I don’t have exact facts of how long it takes to gain citizenship). I would guess that if this was just a simple matter of paperwork, there wouldn’t be such a large problem.[/quote]

My point Prof is that nobody has a right to violate another countries border no matter how good their intentions are. Are you justifying illigal immigration because it’s difficult to immigrate legaly? That’s retarted.

Anyone trying to violate our countries borders then fall into one of these catagories:

-They are too lazy to immigrate LEGALY

-They are hiding something that would prevent them from immigrating LEGALY

-They are terrorists, and therefore cannot immigrate LEGALY

-They are too stupid to go through the process of immigrating LEGALLY

Don’t try to water down the issue by feeding me touchy feely shit like “their trying to get a better life”, it doesn’t give anyone the right to disregard our laws. Period.

If I was violating another countries border I would expect to be shot at. Getting real damn aggresive on illigal immigration and controlling our borders is an important aspect of the war on terror.

40

[quote]hedo wrote:
Paul
Cheyney has not been associated with Halliburton for many years and does not own any stock. How could he possibly benefit from Halliburtons contracts. In this country members of the Executive branch are not allowed to remain active in their former business. Halliburton gets this type of work because they are qualified to do it and not many others are.
[/quote]

CHENEY HAS OPTIONS FOR 433 000 SHARES

[quote]
Additioanlly the 100,000 civilian casualties number was created by the press in Europe. The real number, based on Iraqi records and US investigation is closer to 12,000. How many of those were active insurgents has not been verified. 12,000 is a big number but is actually less then Sadaam killed every 3 months for the entire time he held control.[/quote]