COMMENTS:
Voted : other, see comment
We can have a positive influence; but, the recent vote of a Democratic controlled House has shown us to be, in many ways, what the insurgents have been saying all along. He's not alone. We need a different strategy, and I don't agree with the way my local newspaper has biased the report. The "Democrats" didn't "lose." It was up for a vote, a vote which THEY controlled; so, HOW the HELL could they "LOSE?" Wake up, people! My coffee pot is brewing up a new batch for you, if you haven't had yours yet.
CI, we don't know that our forces can't do the job, because they've been so spectacularly *mismanaged* by those Clowns On High. Right now, there are twenty-five people inside the Beltway who have *ultimate* command-decision capability regarding this war. Of those twenty-five, eighteen of them have *never seen combat*. And the Clown at the Top put on the uniform, then went on an extended vacation. When they decide to let the commanders in the field do their jobs and stay the fuck out of the way, who *knows* what might come of it?
Pardon my Latin, please.
Truthseeker
So in the perfect world, if the military were controlling things, would the insurgents have surrendered by now?
Maybe, maybe not. I can only believe that this would've been better managed. Hell, I doubt it altogether. After all, let us not forget- *we're standing in their country*. We've blown the infrastructure to hell and back, made every day a struggle for the civilian populace to survive. The insurgency is no more than a due response to the state of affairs. A ballot was once posed here, asking "If America were to be occupied, would there be an insurgency?" (to such effect) The overwhelming answer was YES, and you KNOW that you'd be a part of it. I'D BE A PART OF IT. None of us would want a foreign power sitting in OUR country, telling us where we could and couldn't GO, when and when NOT to travel the streets of OUR HOMETOWNS, forcing us to live in FEAR of the possibility that a suicide bomber might be sitting next to us at Starbuck's or in line at the grocery store. And, let us not forget...
Mister Bush had CREDIBLE INTELLIGENCE that such WOULD OCCUR BEFORE WE EVEN INVADED IRAQ. He CHOSE to IGNORE IT.
I admit, post-9/11, I wanted blood, too. I spent most of that day working every channel I knew of, trying to get back into uniform in some capacity to aid in justice for those who died. UNLIKE many in D.C., I had a personal angle to the matter. I lost a friend in the Towers. Again, unlike many n D.C., I have apersonal angle on the ground in Iraq now. I have six friends who are there now, and a seventh who'll be back after he recuperates from combat wounds he suffered there. Every time I turn on a TV and hear the words "__ Marines were killed", I can't BREATHE. I spend more time looking over the rosters of the dead than I do my own e-mail. I don't want this war. No sane person DOES. But, since I'm saddled with it, I'd at LEAST like to have it RUN sanely.
^ That was me. In the depths of rage, I forgot to log in.
So, if you were in their shoes,...no amount of foreign military intervention would make a difference?
A tad more, since I'm still in the area, answering directly to the area of mismanagement...
Waaaaaaaaaay Back Yonder, in the early days of the War, General Eric Shineseki, then-Army CHief of SZtaff, was ahnded a memo regarding the gross misamangemet of Army requisitioning and pay disbursement from Your Friend and Mine, Halliburton, who had been awarded a no-bid contract to manage these things fro the Army in Iraq. Shineseki ordered the Army Inspector-General and JAG to conduct aq thorough investigation into this. Shineseki was ordered to belay that order, on instruction from the *White House*. Not long after, Shineseki was forced to resign. At his resignation ceremony, no White House representation was present, marking the first time in AMerican military history that a four-star general officer was not so honored. Might be off-point, might not. I'll let you judge. Might be back later, as more horrors come flooding back.
CI, nothing short of total overkill right now. Shock-and-awe on the order of Dresden, done daily. Which would serve us *oh-so-well* in the perceptions of the world. We're fighting *their* type of combat right now, guerrilla warfare, and we haven't done that in two-plus centuries. We are (ostensibly) a First-World Power. We're at the point now, IMO, where we can only win by laying our game. Power. Don't kill ten and twenty per engagement. Kill ten or twenty *thousand* per. Make them realize that they might win the moral victory, but those arent well-savored when you're so much ash on the breeze.
CI, there's one reality that has to be faced here.
There aren't any terroroists in Iraq. Probably never were. Most of the 9/11 hijackers?
*Saudi citizens*.
Place where we *know* that fundamentalist teachings at the grade-scool level are still going on, as I type?
*Saudi Arabia*.
Personally, were I on the hunt for terrorists, that'd be the first place I'd start.
Public, mass executions of terrorists, suspected terrorists, accomplices of terrorosts, and anyone who shelters terrorists is one of the many ways to speed things up. But we'll never do it because the Islamo-Fascist-Apologists will cry and say it's "not fair." Besides, we're too effing nice.
I think we're getting away from the core question. Can the Iraqi military handle this even though the American military isn't.
We lack the desire for a long, protracted guerrilla war, defending someone else's country. It's a matter of will. Iraqis have nowhere to go, and no choice but to solve their own problems eventually.
^I agree. The same thing can be said for Afghanistan.
for soem reason, the brits seem to have a bit better control over basra than the Yanks over baghdad
by aya on Sat May 26, 07 9:18pm
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^Hard to say but I don't think the Afghan military will fare much because against the Taliban when NATO is having trouble doing so.
^rewrite
Hard to say. I don't think the Afghan military will fare much better against the Taliban when NATO is having trouble too.
We can defeat them.
It is just that scumbags like pelosi, Mullah Murtha, and Jane Kerry won't let us.
(it's good to have people you hate in Washington to blame the Iraqi failure on)
by Jyl on Mon May 28, 07 7:47pm
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The hard thing for a lot of people to comprehend is that the "grab em the by the balls and shake em and the hearts n minds will soon follow" approach doesn't work in the least. It does upto a point but what it ultimately does is allows ill will against our troops to develop in teh people as a whole and fester thus allowing the enemy to more easily achieve the aim of gaining public support. As a British soldier i can assure you that, the soldiers who came before me in the british army applied the "Hearts and Minds" concept in malysia, Oman etc to devestating effect. Sooner or later The civ-pop will realise that under us they get equality, freedom both of speech and literally speaking and that their nation can be given something i think, every nation wants...DEMOCRACY and CHOICE.
But then on the flip side of the coin you have to see the fact that, many of these Arabs have been used to living under the foot of a tyrant ..and that their civilisation has been operating in their chosen way for not just hundreds of years..but thousands.
Its a hard one to be so final and definitive about, so im trying to see it from a varied point of view, even though again, as a soldier, i would very often like to go in hard and wipe them out...especially in Helmand, Afghanistan.
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