US Not Winning in Iraq?

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
61

[quote]pookie wrote:
That’s why they want you out; you can’t do anything to help them at this point. Go home and let them settle it so that they can get back to some sort of peace.
[/quote]

Yes, I think so too. Tell al Sistani it’s in his lap to prevent a bloodbath. Religious leadership is about the only thing that can save the day now. Let’s hope being a good Muslim means more to them than being a good Christian does to us.

I mean: if it were between the U.S. and Canada, the Pope mixing in would probably not be a feature.

62

Iraq as a ‘country’ is a purely political construct which was based on the needs of the colonial powers controlling the region at the end of WW1.

Absolutely no heed of ANY of the social or political realities of the region were taken in its formation,so the only way Iraq functioned as a political entity was either under the heel of a colonising power. (Ottomans,English,etc.)or when ruled by a ruthless despot.
Iraq as a country will not function as a democracy.

Not now,not ever.
Once the pull out is done,it will fragment with all the relevant parties gravitating back towards their natural allies.
Bets,gentlemen?

63

[quote]pookie wrote:
endgamer711 wrote:
My point was that had you gone in with more troops, you could’ve secured an imposed peace soon after “Shock & Awe” and the whole post-war effort could’ve gone a lot better.
[/quote]
Oh my, it’s worse than that. We had that and threw it away.

64

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
pookie wrote:
endgamer711 wrote:
OK, 9 for “esprit” but zero for realism. You only put those down when you’re not scared anymore. That’s the whole point of counter-insurgency tactics.

What about having enough troops to impose martial law, and then going house to house to pick up all the Kalashnikovs?

Temporarily disarming the populace would make it a lot easier to restore order to the place.

Once you’ve secured the country, managed to put in place working institutions (government, police, schools, etc.) Then you can pull out and hope it keeps running.

"The recipe for victory in Iraq is simple. Establish that we are in charge there by killing a great many more people. This may take more troops. It might just take a shift in emphasis from politics to fighting. Try hard to ensure that the dead are enemies bearing arms, but remember that trying too hard to avoid collateral damage will only guarantee futility and frustration. Stop worrying about hearts and minds. As the old saying goes: “when you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.” Get a good grip and hang on.
[/quote]

Funny, but we tried that, for the most part, in Vietnam, and it didn’t work out that way. That pithy last three sentences is the height of stupidity. Unless you literally propose a Nazi-esque occupation policy, i.e. massive collective punishment, unrestrained aerial bombardment, and summary executions of suspected insurgents, I’m not sure what you want to see us do there.

Aside from the fact that we’d be no better than Saddam, do you even think that would work, given the historical record? Or are you completely unaware of what I’m talking about?

65

[quote]endgamer711 wrote:
Oh my, it’s worse than that. We had that and threw it away.
[/quote]

When did you have “it?”

I can’t seem to remember any time when the violence had really died down.

66

[quote]pookie wrote:
endgamer711 wrote:
Oh my, it’s worse than that. We had that and threw it away.

When did you have “it?”

I can’t seem to remember any time when the violence had really died down.
[/quote]
I think in the few months following the invasion, there was a lull (what we’d consider to be these days, anyhow) and widespread hope that something good would come of it all. But then the Iraqi army was formally disbanded, and Sunnis began to get the idea that the good part wasn’t going to include them.

I’ve heard folks argue the point of whether disbanding the army was a bad idea. They say, well you know de-Baathification could be very tricky, very tricky, better to start all over with a clean slate.

I think this is one of those cases where the perfect is the enemy of the acceptable. The army was one of the major counterweights holding everything together. Massive Sunni unemployment resulted, and weapons were widely available even if you weren’t in the army. With the army intact, at the very least, you had many more of your bad eggs in one basket. Conceivably they might have been quickly remobilized to stop the looting. Just standing around, they could have been of use. They might have been used later to secure attempts to restore basic services and infrastructure.

If your intention is to stay around long enough to make sure the Iraqi oil fields are in the pockets of your favorite oil corporations, there is no way you get the story to come out decently. Our prolonged presence, with no prospect of our departure, was the ignition event. We needed to wait just long enough to make sure international sanctions were no longer necessary, hunt down the leadership, and clean up the officer corps. Ask for U.N. intercession to broker and guarantee a constitutional process (do not! wait for it to be complete). Then we should have gotten out and allowed Iraqi oil to flow to the market on its own.

Because we’re not quite that nice, Iraq is America’s tar baby, made to order.

67

By the way I hope the war isn’t cutting funds to other areas of the military such as weapons research. That would just suck ass.

68

Bush is totally out of ideas for Iraq, and so are the Chickenhawk Chorus. That’s why we hear people saying “lets just nuke 'em”… because they have no ideas that are actually rational.

Whatever Bush decides to do, everything will be based around avoiding as much blame as possible. Expect to see military decisions that are mainly designed to try to save Bush’s legacy. I think Bush’s going to try to stall as much as possible, to play out the clock, and dump the mess onto the next president.

As long as Bush keeps our troops over there, then he can claim that we haven’t lost yet. “If we’re still fighting, we’re not losing.” Bush will leave it up to some other president to “cut and run”.

There is no chance of success in Iraq using Bush’s definition of success: a ‘coalition’ government that is an ally to us in the war on terror. No freaking way. The Sunnis and the Shi’ites are enemies. When our troops train Iraq divisions, we have to separate the Sunnis and Shi’ites, they can’t even be in the same battalion.

How in the hell does anyone expect these people NOT to fight each other, once the US presence is gone? Bush’s whole mission is idiotic to begin with, if you buy into the idea that we went over there to help the Iraqi people.

69

[quote]Beowolf wrote:
China gets it. There going green now (it only took smog so thick you can’t see from building to building to convince them).

Why don’t we?
[/quote]

BS. China has far too much industry to be supported by green power sources. The smog is still there, btw.

70

[quote]GDollars37 wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
pookie wrote:
endgamer711 wrote:
OK, 9 for “esprit” but zero for realism. You only put those down when you’re not scared anymore. That’s the whole point of counter-insurgency tactics.

What about having enough troops to impose martial law, and then going house to house to pick up all the Kalashnikovs?

Temporarily disarming the populace would make it a lot easier to restore order to the place.

Once you’ve secured the country, managed to put in place working institutions (government, police, schools, etc.) Then you can pull out and hope it keeps running.

"The recipe for victory in Iraq is simple. Establish that we are in charge there by killing a great many more people. This may take more troops. It might just take a shift in emphasis from politics to fighting. Try hard to ensure that the dead are enemies bearing arms, but remember that trying too hard to avoid collateral damage will only guarantee futility and frustration. Stop worrying about hearts and minds. As the old saying goes: “when you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.” Get a good grip and hang on.

Funny, but we tried that, for the most part, in Vietnam, and it didn’t work out that way. That pithy last three sentences is the height of stupidity. Unless you literally propose a Nazi-esque occupation policy, i.e. massive collective punishment, unrestrained aerial bombardment, and summary executions of suspected insurgents, I’m not sure what you want to see us do there.

Aside from the fact that we’d be no better than Saddam, do you even think that would work, given the historical record? Or are you completely unaware of what I’m talking about?[/quote]

Funny that you bring up the Nazi occupation. They weren’t terribly succesful in large parts of France, Yugoslavia or Poland. Also large pockets of occupied Russia were liberated by all sorts of patriots, partizans and freedom fighters.

I guess it is about the harts and minds. To bad the chickenhawks kept saying it, but didn’t mean it.

71

Haven’t read all the posts. But how can one “win” a war with no purpose but oil control. Exactly what conditions have to be present before you can say USA won the war. Peace? Democracy? Death of all Iraqis?

There is no army. There are people, there are opinions, there is religion. Good luck at trying to change that by occupying a country that doesn’t want to be occupied. Look at any country that has been occupied against there own will and look who always prevails in the end, unless they are all murdered.

72

[quote]ill wrote:
Haven’t read all the posts. But how can one “win” a war with no purpose but oil control. Exactly what conditions have to be present before you can say USA won the war. Peace? Democracy? Death of all Iraqis?[/quote]

Iraq has to be made safe for Unocal and Exxon/Mobil, of course. Then “we” will have won. When the Iraqi oil law is settled, and if ever the civil unrest is quelled, and these particular oil companies can dip their beaks in Iraqi oil without fear of getting their asses either blown up or nationalized. But this ‘victory’ entails permanent bases and hence unending conflict with the locals. Self contradictory, and probably not what you were envisioning.

73

Thanks, Thunderbolt, I read the threads every day. But ever since ZEB and forlife got married and left together, it’s just not that much fun anymore. :wink:

I’m not sure about some of the views in this thread. And I think it’s a valid question to ask what to “win” a war means: Achieving the mid- and long-term goals?

I’ve grown up with the conviction that in a war there are no winners, just people who loose a bit less.

I really don’t see what could be actually won in Iraq now. Yeah Saddam is gone, but it seems like hell to me now. And it’s quite frustrating to see all the terrible fears that people like me who protested in London and all over the world have more or less all come true.

So Gates’ answers are quite a pyrrhic victory. No winning here either.

Makkun

74

[quote]makkun wrote:
Thanks, Thunderbolt, I read the threads every day. But ever since ZEB and forlife got married and left together, it’s just not that much fun anymore. ;-)[/quote]

Goddamnit! Could you please put a humor warning or something at the beginning.

I’ve got coffee everywhere now.

75

[quote]makkun wrote:
But ever since ZEB and forlife got married and left together, it’s just not that much fun anymore. ;-)[/quote]

ZEB left? Was there a final tantrum or any other interesting manifestation?

76

endgamer,

[quote]endgamer711 wrote:

ZEB left? Was there a final tantrum or any other interesting manifestation?
[/quote]

I don’t know. He hasn’t posted at all since end of November, and I’m sure I haven’t seen anything in the politics forum from him for some time - better for my bloodpressure, for sure; but since he used to be a very active member, I can’t help myself but notice it.

I’m far too manly of course, to miss him. :wink:

Makkun

PS: Sorry, Pookie.

77

"Have things changed on the ground in Iraq? Are our troops being routed? Hardly. The number of U.S. fatalities has gone from a high of 860 deaths in 2004 to 845 in 2005, to 695 through November of this year. If the Islamic fascists double their rate of killing Americans in the next month, there will still be fewer American fatalities in Iraq this year than in the previous two years.

Admittedly, it would be a little easier to track our progress in Iraq if the Pentagon would tell us how many of them we’re killing, but apparently our Pentagon is too spooked by the insurgents posing as civilians to mention the deaths of our enemies.

Moreover, it might seem churlish to mention the number of Islamic lunatics we’ve killed during the holy month of Ramadan. Half the time we do anything to them, it’s “the holy month of Ramadan.” It’s always Ramadan. When on Earth is Ramadan over?

It’s true that no one anticipated that al-Qaida sympathizers would stream into Iraq to fight the Great Satan after Saddam fled to a spider hole, but that’s because everyone expected al-Qaida to be fighting us here."

--- Ann Coulter (a great American)
78

"Have things changed on the ground in Iraq? Are our troops being routed? Hardly. The number of U.S. fatalities has gone from a high of 860 deaths in 2004 to 845 in 2005, to 695 through November of this year. If the Islamic fascists double their rate of killing Americans in the next month, there will still be fewer American fatalities in Iraq this year than in the previous two years.

Admittedly, it would be a little easier to track our progress in Iraq if the Pentagon would tell us how many of them we’re killing, but apparently our Pentagon is too spooked by the insurgents posing as civilians to mention the deaths of our enemies.

Moreover, it might seem churlish to mention the number of Islamic lunatics we’ve killed during the holy month of Ramadan. Half the time we do anything to them, it’s “the holy month of Ramadan.” It’s always Ramadan. When on Earth is Ramadan over?

It’s true that no one anticipated that al-Qaida sympathizers would stream into Iraq to fight the Great Satan after Saddam fled to a spider hole, but that’s because everyone expected al-Qaida to be fighting us here."
— Ann Coulter (a great American)

79

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
"Have things changed on the ground in Iraq? Are our troops being routed? Hardly. The number of U.S. fatalities has gone from a high of 860 deaths in 2004 to 845 in 2005, to 695 through November of this year. If the Islamic fascists double their rate of killing Americans in the next month, there will still be fewer American fatalities in Iraq this year than in the previous two years.

Admittedly, it would be a little easier to track our progress in Iraq if the Pentagon would tell us how many of them we’re killing, but apparently our Pentagon is too spooked by the insurgents posing as civilians to mention the deaths of our enemies.

Moreover, it might seem churlish to mention the number of Islamic lunatics we’ve killed during the holy month of Ramadan. Half the time we do anything to them, it’s “the holy month of Ramadan.” It’s always Ramadan. When on Earth is Ramadan over?

It’s true that no one anticipated that al-Qaida sympathizers would stream into Iraq to fight the Great Satan after Saddam fled to a spider hole, but that’s because everyone expected al-Qaida to be fighting us here."

--- Ann Coulter (a great American)

[/quote]

Painfully moronic. April 1975, U.S. Army Colonel Harry Summers to NVA Colonel Tu: “You know, you never defeated us on the battlefield.”

Colonel Tu: “That may be so, but it is also irrelevant.”

80

[quote]GDollars37 wrote:
April 1975, U.S. Army Colonel Harry Summers to NVA Colonel Tu: “You know, you never defeated us on the battlefield.”

Colonel Tu: “That may be so, but it is also irrelevant.”
[/quote]

When you don’t fight to win, when you fight just to ‘contain’ your enemy, you lose. What’s shocking about that? The descendents of the Vietnam libs won’t let us win this one either, so guess what’s happening?

Every dripping (in blood) lib who prevents us from winning, in word or deed, has to answer for this.