A Real Leader In Tough Times

[Marcus Bryant]

So the militants are turning Muslims against their movement. Good.

[Cant_Be_Faded]

Rather, we are discussing the proper method to utilize against Islamic militants bent on hitting American targets anyway they can.

But why are they bent? I believe that they would not be bent at this point in time if we had our eyes a little more open in the past.

This is not a pretty war but there is not the shiny, happy avenue of peaceful negotiation left.

That is a valid argument, but again, if most americans are thinking like you and dont even have a standard set for when a war gets too costly....then this is another vietnam in the making.

We can forget about trying to ignore the problem so that it takes care of itself.

Who said anything about ignoring the problem? Is the problem that they are bent on attacking us? Or is the problem that these factions believe their only resort to acheiving political agendas is terror? You seem to think the former, I think the latter.

This nation has tried those means again and again and again.

Give me a few examples. I'm not doubting, just asking.

Sometimes force is the only method adequate to address threats to national security.
Let us not forget that the last time the US dealt with an attack upon its shores it entered into a war that resulted in four years of combat, hundreds of thousands of American casualties, and a much greater economic cost. That was also with a much smaller general population.

A successful surprise strike in the heart of US political and economic power after a couple of decades of unanwsered strikes against the US is an effective recruiting tool for the enemies of this nation. Having to fight the world's best military on the ground is quite another. Having to resort to killing fellow believers and generating resentment within your broader faith is not. No one wants to join a losing movement.

I agree.

However, that still does not justify the indefinite continuation of this war.

[gtownspur]

Let me rephrase

not to appease them

but give them a voice, to let them know they are being heard, without them having to resort to guerilla tactics and terrorism to be heard.

Is that better?

That last statement is re ed though.

Goodness! are you out of your shriveled mind? Before you make assinine suggestions allowing terrorist to have their demands met, you must first think of the radical ramifications of such loonery.

First things first.
Number 1.
I don't know what terrorist you have blown in your lifetime, but the terrorist on everyone's tv dont give a rats ass about politcal representation in a democratic fashion. My God! CBF!, they're terrorist not ing gay activist with hot pink turbans and rhino dildos for weapons. They are goddamned red blooded, pagan hatin, ready to slice your jugular, rape your wife as you die and convert her to IsSLAM mf'ers. You give them a mile and they'll take the damn interstate. They dont want peace. They only know domination. Al Queda wants to radicalize the whole Moslem world and create a second Holocaust. They have a mission. And will not stop until Islam is the supreme religion of the land. The only way to please them is to worship Allah.

2.If you were to look in your ing history book and not the signed Noam Chomsky Book under your drag clothes drawer you would find that the U.S has been succesful in nation building. ANd no! it's not Goddamn Kosovo for all you Clinton s. It's Germany and Japan.


So dont ing act elitist you stupid tart and finaly use your damn brain.

[Nbadan]

Number 1.

I don't know what terrorist you have blown in your lifetime, but the terrorist on everyone's tv dont give a rats ass about politcal representation in a democratic fashion. My God! CBF!, they're terrorist not ing gay activist with hot pink turbans and rhino dildos for weapons. They are goddamned red blooded, pagan hatin, ready to slice your jugular, rape your wife as you die and convert her to IsSLAM mf'ers. You give them a mile and they'll take the damn interstate. They dont want peace. They only know domination. Al Queda wants to radicalize the whole Moslem world and create a second Holocaust. They have a mission. And will not stop until Islam is the supreme religion of the land. The only way to please them is to worship Allah.

Replace Muslims and Al Queda with Christians and the far right, and Allah with God and this sentence still makes chilling sense.

[Marcus Bryant]

First off, there was a time when the US sought to ally itself with various governments and groups in the ME. That, of course, was during the Cold War. Ancient history, perhaps. The US has made much more of a case for Palestinian independence than any other group in the ME could have done. The US certainly had tried to avoid armed conflict over terrorist strikes until 9/11. The most aggressive response we saw to terrorist strikes was Reagan ordering one airstrike on Qaddafi in the 80s and then Clinton shooting off a few cruise missles in the 90s.

The US is a prolific distributor of humanitarian assistance to countries throughout the ME. It has been attempting to force change through non-force means in nations such as Iran.

The ME remains a region of despotic government. The Hussein regime wasn't going away. It was clear that Hussein had been bribing his way out of the UN sanctions scheme and it was unclear as to the status of his weaponry as well as his connections to al Qaeda. With a Hussein who had begun to publicly embrace the militant Islamic movement something had to be done.

The world is not one that runs on 20/20 hindsight. Before it became an election issue a large number of major Democratic politicians supported the decision to remove Hussein. Regime change was a part of official US policy...in the Clinton administration.

The US tried relatively peaceful means in its efforts to force out Hussein for the better course of a decade.

Of course, the thanks the US received for protecting the Saudi Arabia from then-secular Saddam in 1990 was a decade worth of terrorist strikes culminating with the slaughter of 2,000 plus on American soil.

There is no way to deal peacefully with these enemies. I don't care if it is George W. Bush, Al Gore, John Kerry, Wesley Clark, Lou Rawls or the Easter Bunny in the White House. It is a proper use of American military power to deal with these threats proactively in the ME.

[Cant_Be_Faded]

Goodness! are you out of your shriveled mind? Before you make assinine suggestions allowing terrorist to have their demands met, you must first think of the radical ramifications of such loonery.

First things first.
Number 1.
I don't know what terrorist you have blown in your lifetime, but the terrorist on everyone's tv dont give a rats ass about politcal representation in a democratic fashion. My God! CBF!, they're terrorist not ing gay activist with hot pink turbans and rhino dildos for weapons. They are goddamned red blooded, pagan hatin, ready to slice your jugular, rape your wife as you die and convert her to IsSLAM mf'ers. You give them a mile and they'll take the damn interstate. They dont want peace. They only know domination. Al Queda wants to radicalize the whole Moslem world and create a second Holocaust. They have a mission. And will not stop until Islam is the supreme religion of the land.

So not only do you believe in reaganomics, you are also a bigot and a racist. Congrats. Goodness!

2.If you were to look in your ing history book and not the signed Noam Chomsky Book under your drag clothes drawer you would find that the U.S has been succesful in nation building. ANd no! it's not Goddamn Kosovo for all you Clinton s. It's Germany and Japan.


So dont ing act elitist you stupid tart and finaly use your damn brain.

Yeah, building Japan has really come in handy with them steadily increasing their dominance over markets the US used to own, and Germany is different because other nations took active roles in the rebuilding process.

The only way to please them is to worship Allah.

You're just flat out wrong. No other way to put it. Talk about picking up a book...

[Nbadan]

The world is not one that runs on 20/20 hindsight. Before it became an election issue a large number of major Democratic politicians supported the decision to remove Hussein. Regime change was a part of official US policy...in the Clinton administration.

There is a big difference between clandestinely supporting regime change in Iraq through aiding dissidents as Clinton was doing, and actively conspiring to mislead Congress and the American people into a war by presenting unvested, questionable intelligence. I think this is where the Fitzgerald investigation is slowly creeping toward.

[Marcus Bryant]

After 9/11 the US could not wait.

It was already official US policy to get rid of Hussein prior to 9/11. Sure, the intel wasn't totally accurate. What was accurate was that a number of parties were being bribed by Hussein in order to get the UN sanctions lifted. The time was to act. The Clinton policy was nothing.

[Nbadan]

After 9/11 the US could not wait.

It was already official US policy to get rid of Hussein prior to 9/11. Sure, the intel wasn't totally accurate. What was accurate was that a number of parties were being bribed by Hussein in order to get the UN sanctions lifted. The time was to act. The Clinton policy was nothing.

Yes, Saddam was violating provisions of the food-for-oil program, but many of the coupons Iraq used to sell discount oil on the market wound up in Texas Oilmen hands, so are we to invade Texas next?

Obviously, not every country was sold on the Iraqi-WMD intelligence, Russia wasn't, neither was Germany, nor China, or for that matter UN inspector Hans Blix.

[Nbadan]

2000 - Dedicated to those brave Americans who paid the ultimate price for us to be able to post our thoughts on these types of forums.

[jochhejaam]

[QUOTE]

This insurgency could have been mitigated by an administration with enough sense and competence to plan for it.

Jochhejaam: RG, stating that the administration didn't have enough sense and was incompetent is an opinion that can't be proven so isn't this a case of hindsight being 20/20? Are there substantiated pre-invasion arguements from any source predicting a prolonged and sustained insurgency and a means of dealing with it?

Please correct me if I'm taking this out of context and am interpreting it wrong... but are you suggesting that because no one predicted a prolonged and sustained insurgency, no one bothered to think of a plan to deal with it?

o scott. No, that wasn't the intent of my comment to RG but I see how it could have been interpreted as such.
I was merely telling RG that it's easy to be critical using hindsight. Critical opinions such as his would carry substansial weight if they had been given before the invasion.
I don't know how much forethought was put into the consequences of an invasion (my opinion would be not enough which unfortunately may be par for the course in war) but I believe we are dealing with the present insurgencies as well as they can be dealt with. I'm wondering how forethought would have had a mitigating affect regarding the insurgents but even with good arguements to that question we're back to hindsight being 20/20.

[jochhejaam]

[gtownspur]

Cbf! your killing me!

I was talking about terrorist not arabs. If anyone got racism out of those qoutes then it was because they were mildly racist or bigoted in equating all arabs to terrorist.

and ofcourse i would love to ask you who the rebuilt Germany and Japan. It was only us and the british and russia. Ofcourse russia only rebuilt their half of germany. There was no in UN at the time dimwit. So it has been done.

[gtownspur]

Replace Muslims and Al Queda with Christians and the far right, and Allah with God and this sentence still makes chilling sense.

Yeah Dan! Just like anyone can also replace Effimanate Canadians and the Spam Lobby and anything in your world would make sense. Since anyone is capable of being a terrorist.

[RandomGuy]

[QUOTE=jochhejaam]

I was merely telling RG that it's easy to be critical using hindsight. Critical opinions such as his would carry substansial weight if they had been given before the invasion.
I don't know how much forethought was put into the consequences of an invasion (my opinion would be not enough which unfortunately may be par for the course in war) but I believe we are dealing with the present insurgencies as well as they can be dealt with. I'm wondering how forethought would have had a mitigating affect regarding the insurgents but even with good arguements to that question we're back to hindsight being 20/20.

Jeezus H. Christ on a stick man, you can't tell me that you think that it isn't reasonable to expect that you need body armor in a war zone?

It isn't reasonable to expect that the US occupying a muslim country MIGHT attact a few attacks on convoys of unarmored humvees?

One only has to look at what happened to the Russians in Afghanistan to see the fanaticism that we would end up facing. SUR- ING-PRIZE!!! A predominantly christian army isn't well received no matter how good their intentions. *Nobody* could have forseen that...

, I was saying all this long before the invasion. I KNEW what was going to happen, and astoundingly enough we have pretty much what I thought we were going to have: an unstable country that is a magnet for nutjobs.

That is the frustrating part for me. I saw it coming and as much as I pointed all this stuff out, Bush apologists pooh-poohed it as liberal fantasy.

[RandomGuy]

And the spin coming out of this administration about the war has passed out of the realm of optimism, and gone far into the territory of outright lying and cynical manipulation. I can get "forward looking statements" but when you outright lie about your bottom line, you get Enron. This is no different, but people are dying for Bush lies.

Bush claims an "ever increasing number" of "combat ready Iraqi forces" are coming along all the time.

Last year, the US millitary reported 3 combat ready battalions of Iraqi troops.

How many this year did the generals in charge of our forces over there tell the Senate commitee they had?

ONE.

[Nbadan]

Bush claims an "ever increasing number" of "combat ready Iraqi forces" are coming along all the time.

Last year, the US millitary reported 3 combat ready battalions of Iraqi troops.

How many this year did the generals in charge of our forces over there tell the Senate commitee they had?

ONE.

Well, you obviously didn't see the train-wreck that was supposed to be a simulcast between W and some troops in Iraq about today's election. Notice how W never said or implied that enough Iraqi troops would be trained and/or ready anytime soon or in the foreseeable future, but he got his little staged-monkeys to say it, so the message got out anyway.

[boutons]

'the U.S has been succesful in nation building. It's Germany and Japan."

But the Germans and Japanese weren't shooting and bombing the occupiers and occupied after the war. There weren't 1000's of armed, financed, trained, suicidal religious fanatics pouring into those countries to fuel an insurgency. In Japan and Germany, the war ended definitively. In Iraq, the insurgency is continuing more violently than the war.

The all-powerful US military's inability to establish security in Iraq so the nation-building could progress makes Iraq totally different from the PEACEFUL re-building of Germany and Japan.

One of the huge mistakes the Repubs made was assuming the Iraqis would be as passive and willing about US nation building, after the other Repub mistake of assuming a "slam dunk" "flyboy mission accomplished" only 3 months after the invasion.

[jochhejaam]

[QUOTE]

This insurgency could have been mitigated by an administration with enough sense and competence to plan for it.

[QUOTE]

Jeezus H. Christ on a stick man, you can't tell me that you think that it isn't reasonable to expect that you need body armor in a war zone?

I never responded to your post about body armor but if I had my reply would have been that body armor is much more important than your suggestion of reasonable I would label it as essential. That would have saved some our soldiers lives.
In directing our dialogue off of the "body armor" bunny trail you chose to take and slowly redirecting it back onto your original statement that I was responding to, body armor most certainly would not have a mitigating affect on the strength of the insurgency . One can surmise that you have come to the rediculous conclusion that the insurgents would have said, "oh my, they have body armor, lets just go back home".

One only has to look at what happened to the Russians in Afghanistan to see the fanaticism that we would end up facing. SUR- ING-PRIZE!!! A predominantly christian army isn't well received no matter how good their intentions. *Nobody* could have forseen that...

Did I say nobody?...no, I didn't! In the future you might consider asking questions instead of taking the liberty of innacurately interpreting my posts in order to satisfy a point of your own.

, I was saying all this long before the invasion. I KNEW what was going to happen, and astoundingly enough we have pretty much what I thought we were going

So you KNEW yet you were astounded that your pre-invasion rhetoric panned out? If you KNEW, why were you astounded?
(predicting you'll write "astounded" off as sarcasm)

That is the frustrating part for me. I saw it coming and as much as I pointed all this stuff out, Bush apologists pooh-poohed it as liberal fantasy

.
Of course you did and it's a dam shame that they didn't take the brilliant foresight you claim to have had and incorporated it into our battle plans.
Oh that you would have been a General in our Military.

[Cant_Be_Faded]

But the Germans and Japanese weren't shooting and bombing the occupiers and occupied after the war. There weren't 1000's of armed, financed, trained, suicidal religious fanatics pouring into those countries to fuel an insurgency. In Japan and Germany, the war ended definitively. In Iraq, the insurgency is continuing more violently than the war.

That's a good point. What say you, gtownspur?

[RandomGuy]

What if someone is not loyal to any party but thought it had to be done and that invariably some things cannot be adequately prepared for? Insurgents do not employ standard military tactics.

Um, Yeah.

So planning to have enough body armor in a war zone isn't something you expect out of your administrations?

[RandomGuy]

[QUOTE=jochhejaam]

RG, stating that the administration didn't have enough sense and was incompetent is an opinion that can't be proven so isn't this a case of hindsight being 20/20? Are there substantiated pre-invasion arguements from any source predicting a prolonged and sustained insurgency and a means of dealing with it?

If the charges can't be persuasively argued by showing ignorance and a blatant disregard of some preexisting and proven effective methodology in handling an unknown quan y (and I don't see how it can) then what's the point of the charge?

almost midnight here, bedtime

I predicted exactly this before the invasion. A brief war that we would win, probably with relatively low casualties, followed by an insurgency of some sort. I was pretty sure that the Iraqis had some sort of WMD that they would likely use if they had the opportunity.

I didn't predict the complete anarchy after the Baathist collapse, nor the ferociousness of the insurgency. Both of which were fueled by inept administration mistakes. I assumed a level of competence that doesn't exist.

No few people predicted the post-war occupation would turn into another Vietnam.

Simple things like body armor and armored vehicles are easy to argue. , the GOP controlled congress thought it important to grill a Democratic president over a BJ, so tell me why the same shouldn't be done by a responsible body over the conduct of a war?

[RandomGuy]

The following is an essay that I wrote for a job application at Stratfor.com, dated early november 2003

The Guerilla Campaign in Iraq

Summary

The U.S.-led coalition has faced a guerilla campaign that has escalated since the formal end of hostilities in May. The nature and scope of the attacks have changed over time from initial “target-of-opportunity” type ambushes using small arms, rocket propelled grenades, and improvised explosive devices to also include high profile suicide bombings of en ies perceived, rightly or wrongly, as being complicit in the U.S.-led occupation. This steady escalation has lead to the U.S. commander using the term “guerilla war” in a recent statement. Although tempting to link this situation and the contributing factors to historical analogues, post-war Iraq remains a unique challenge to policy makers.

Analysis

Speculation by immediately following the fall of the Hussein government that elaborate contingency plans that included efforts to cleanse key ministries and facilities in preparation for the fall of the government to a U.S.-led assault appears to have been borne out. Given Saddam’s well do ented instinct for survival it is logical to assume that plans were also made for the ruling circle to go to ground after the war and continue the attempts at turning world opinion, especially Arab and Muslim opinion, against the occupation.

The end of the official war has seen a slow escalation of combat deaths to ambushes and attacks, especially in the “Sunni Triangle”. Given the large number of arms and unemployed ex-soldiers in Iraq it would be safe to assign some, but certainly not all, of this activity to increasing resentment of the occupation. However, given that the location of most of these attacks is in the geographic location of Saddam’s natural base of support, it is logical to assume that no small element of this guerilla action is due to an organized and planned resistance, mostly loyal to the Baathist regime.

Also of important note is the addition in recent months of an increasing use of bombings against a wide variety of soft targets, from the Jordanian embassy to compounds belonging to the Red Cross, UN, and very recently, Italy. Each of these targets seems to have been chosen for attempting to erode support for the occupation by encouraging a withdrawal of personnel. These tactics would seem to implicate the much talked about “foreign fighters” that this conflict naturally attracts, given the predominantly negative view of the U.S. in the Arab and Muslim world.

Factors

Many factors affect the situation on the ground in Iraq, such as the interests of neighboring states, especially Iran and Turkey, as well as the current U.S. political situation. The increasingly touted historical analogy of Vietnam falls short here. This insurgency is not backed by any formal government, as was the case in Vietnam. Iran undoubtedly is attempting to affect the situation for its own religiously motivated purposes. Whether such attempts will succeed in the long run given the more secular nature of the Shia population in Iraq or the pro-democracy pressures within Iran itself remains to be seen. Turkey for its part is torn between conflicting pressures. Neither it nor Iran wants to see the total collapse of Iraq as a nation that is a very distinct possibility if the U.S. does withdraw in the immediate future, but it also does not want to be seen by its population as an enthusiastic supporter of the U.S. led action.

Given increasing domestic pressure on the Bush administration for an accelerated withdrawal of U.S. forces, we will likely see an increasing reliance on Iraqi security forces to maintain order. While there are some parallels to post war Germany, especially in the use of former government functionaries to kick-start a post-war government, there are also distinct differences. The Marshall Plan was not ins uted until several years after the end of hostilities, and it also started with an educated population of a developed industrialized economy, however badly damaged.

The main challenge in forming a government in Iraq will be in getting the three main segments of the population, the Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the center, and Shia in the south, to do something that has not historically happened: work together as equals in a cooperative government.

Forecast

Much will depend on the U.S. ability to improve the lot of the average Iraqi. If conditions are bad enough for long enough, the ranks of resistance will start to draw upon a larger part of the population that is increasingly impatient for such an improvement. The guerillas, without formal support of some outside power, will not be able to inflict the kinds of Vietnam-level casualty rates that will seriously hamper American efforts to create a post war Iraqi government. The U.S. will eventually leave, but it is in almost no one’s interest to see the likely disintegration of Iraq that a premature withdrawal would likely entail.


Joccejam, it was easy to see then, and given the incompetance of the administration I was a bit too optimistic.

[RandomGuy]

Exactly. It does not work that way. Either this nation deals with threats to its national security or it goes back to the bipartisan policy of the prior three decades of trying to wish this particular threat away.

Saddam posed little threat to our national security, even IF he had possessed WMDs.

[jochhejaam]

The following is an essay that I wrote for a job application at Stratfor.com, dated early november 2003



Joccejam, it was easy to see then, and given the incompetance of the administration I was a bit too optimistic.

Let's see, the invasion began March 20th of 2003 and your "essay" was in October of 2003, your essay was a mere 8 months after the date of the invasion and you're calling that forethought?

I am dumbfounded, shocked and appalled that this essay wasn't immediately forwarded to the Pentagon upon it's receipt by Strafor.com.

It's a nice essay RG but no more insightful than hundreds of opinions that inundated op/ed papers across the country in the same time frame. Certainly nothing approaching profound.

p.s. having a smiley hold up a owned sign on your behalf is amusing, did you include one with your job application along with the essay?

p.s. #2 hope you got the job