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January 05, 2007Surge=Escalation, No?Roger Algase writes in to the FT: Sir, While both Gideon Rachman ("The president's dilemma: to soldier on or manage defeat", January 2) and your editorial ("An indecent end to a reign of infamy", January 2) wisely put the word "surge" in quotation marks in discussing the possibility that the Bush administration may send additional troops to Iraq, few - if any - US commentators have questioned the administration's use of this Orwellian term. Powerful points, these. Still, regular readers know that B.D. might support a "surge", at least if it's one that doesn't smell like a total 'hail-mary' (tamping down utopic "victory" talk wouldn't hurt), meaning many of the ISG's 79 recommendations are taken, infrastructure build-out and mass job scheme initiatives are pursued, the troop increase is also meant to back-stop serious regional crisis management initiatives (with people like Khalilzad and Negroponte heavily involved), and, apart from security stabilization operations, there is an even more accelerated emphasis on training and equipping the Iraqi Army, one aimed at doing everything humanely possible to achieve major troop reductions by, say, early '08 (yes, I know, two Friedman Units). But, as I said, this letter is right that a surge is really semantic fudge for escalation, and no one knows how such an escalation would turn out, save it's pretty clear it will mean more American deaths in theater. We therefore have to be very careful indeed that the President's plan for these additional troops includes detail regarding their specific mission, that it is one that appears genuinely realizable (at very least arguably, with the burden of proof on the Administration), and that the increased troop strength fits in coherently within a larger strategic context and overall plan that strikes sane observers (this doesn't include the Vice Presidents office) as credible. We have little choice but to wait for the plan, another week it seems, unpardonably slow and late in coming, I know (mostly because Rumsfeld wasn't fired before), but that's where we are, like it or not. Posted by Gregory at January 5, 2007 05:03 AMComments
Mr. Djerejian, comments on the 'surge' option skirts the real issues as follows: one, by surge it is widely held that this involves throwing 20-30 thousand more American troops into combat in Iraq; two it is also widely held that this will be for a limited amount of time (certainly not more than six to nine months). Now 'informed observers' of American military operations in Iraq, such as Gordon and Trainor of the New York Times, Ricks of the Washington Post, and CSIS's Cordesman, have all examined the surge option and have almost unanimously argued that based upon the above numbers and time variable, that it is highly unlikely, in the absence of some miracle to fundamentally change the nasty realities on the ground. Perhaps (a big perhaps) if say 100,000 troops were sent to Iraq for say 18 to 24 months, and, if things on the Iraqi side (like a better Central Government, and training of the army and police) were to improve markedly, than a policy of escalation would work. But, not the much more limited escalation being advocated, under the 'surge' option. What in essence I see the surge option doing and is meant to do, by those who advocate it (or at least some of them), is that it will allow within say eight to nine months, after it has clearly shown that it has not changed the situation on the ground, to begin the draw down of American troops from Iraq. The argument being that we have 'tried our best' and that 'it did not work', or words to that effect. Blame being put on the Iraqis of course. Posted by: Charles Coutinho, Ph. D. at January 5, 2007 06:31 AM | Permalink to this comment
Here is something I do not understand. Why do otherwise intelligent commentators continue to pretend that the Iraqi army is somehow a neutral force that is capable of stabilizing Iraq and thereby ending the civil war? In fact, we know that the Iraqi army is heavily infiltrated by the militias and is thus, to a large extent, a partisan in the civil war. Why do many people therefore think that stepping up training and arming of the Iraqi army will somehow pacify the combatants rather than enflame the civil war? The partisans in the civil war do have a solution for stabilizing Iraq - winning the civil war. This means increased bloodshed and conflict for the immediate future. Am I missing something? Is the "train more Iraqi troops" recommendation anything more than an illusory solution? Posted by: blah at January 5, 2007 07:05 AM | Permalink to this comment
Greg, What I'm hearing you say is that to get things right, a comprehensive and sensible plan needs to be undertaken, which probably requires more muscle on the ground (i.e. "surge"). In other words, you see a surge, not as the starting point of a plan (which is what Bush seems to be doing), but as a component of a complex and difficult undertaking. I agree with that analysis. But I'm very, very skeptical that the Bush administration has the expertise or maturity to get anywhere near that level of functioning. You've read it elsewhere, that the Bush plan is more of a political operation than anything else. That adding more troops in now means that more time will be needed to pull them out - so much more time that the (ugly) end game is handed over to the next president. It allows Bush to avoid facing the political and moral ramifications of his actions. What I'm getting at is this. If Bush wanted a surge (or whatever new plan he likes) and asked for it in early 2005 or early 2006, it would be a request that would have had the results - good or bad - clearly assigned to the administration while it was in power. Because of that, he would have gotten what he wanted. But we are on a different point on the timeline now. Maybe a Bush-proposed plan is a serious effort to get things right. But maybe it's a postponing action, and nothing more. Which side you take in that debate is a matter of personal judgment about the players involved. I've seen too much cynical political maneuvering by the White House to be comfortable giving them the benefit of the doubt Posted by: Quiddity at January 5, 2007 09:31 AM | Permalink to this comment
It costs the U.S. taxpayers about $750,000 a year to station a single soldier in Iraq. Another 10,000 soldiers sent to Iraq for a year will take an extra $7.5 billion in funds from the Democrats now running Congress. Let's hope they withold the funds unless someone provides them with a clear explanation of what these extra troops are supposed to accomplish in Iraq. Posted by: alphie at January 5, 2007 10:28 AM | Permalink to this comment
surge or escalation it's hard to imagine it is or will be about anything other than forcing the Democrats to end the war so that the GOP can then blame them for losing Iraq come 2008. McCain has been calling for a 'surge' for a year now and I remain convinced he never intended for it to actually happen - he was just preparing the ground for 2008. This is the only thing that makes sense. They don't have enough troops to escalate properly, but even if they did they wouldn't have enough to And so. unless the Bush administration has completely taken leave of its senses - a not impossible scenario - the surge or escalation or permanently temporary inflation must be a political feint. Posted by: saintsimon at January 5, 2007 12:27 PM | Permalink to this comment
as to the nature and mission of the escalation/"surge", here is the latest trial balloon as found in today's New York Times..... The troop increase option under discussion would focus on improving security in Baghdad. Under this approach, two Army combat brigades would be sent to the capital during the first phase of the operation. A combat brigade generally consists of about 3,500 soldiers. At the same time, a third brigade would be positioned in Kuwait as a reserve, and two more brigades would be on call in the United States. Now, if my math is correct, this means a total "surge" of 19,900 troops (5*3500=17500, 2*1200=2400, 17500+2400=19,900). And while the purpose of the 2400 troops going to Anbar is pretty clear, the actual nature of the "mission" in Baghdad remains amorphous -- and regardless of what strategy is employed, is fraught with serious risks and problems. At this point, the only way to "secure" Baghdad would appear to be facilitating the "ethnic cleansing" going on which would turn Baghdad into a Shiite city. Basically, the US troops would be used to ensure Sunni's safe passage out of Baghdad....and that's about it. Combined with the enhanced efforts in Anbar, this is basically a "kinder and gentler" version of the "80% solution" that was reportedly favored by Cheney. It could work as a means of pacifying Iraq long enough to allow for the "graceful" exit of US forces by mid 2008.... of course, all hell would break loose by early 2009, but that would no longer be Bush's problem --- and with each day that goes by it becomes more evident that the Bush strategy is to "pass the buck" to his successor in the White House. Unfortunately, while the above scenario does have the potential to be successful within its own limited terms, its highly unlikely that Bush would pursue such a strategy, given the fact that he is, for all intents and purposes, certifiably insane. So what we are likely to see is the "surge" in Baghdad used to attack the Mahdi Army -- an abosutely disasterous course of action, and thus the most likely choice that will be made by Bush.
On the Republican side McCain has the most to lose with this strategy. He's betting his presidential run on it. Should it fail (which I think likely) he'll end up with egg on his face.
Reading GD is becoming increasingly frustrating. I like sand castles as much as anyone, but not so much that I want to watch people build them every day. Are "infrastructure build-out and mass job scheme initiatives" necessary? Sure. Who's against "regional crisis management initiatives" and "security stabilization"? Nobody. And I'll guess that pretty much everybody who frequents this site endorses motherhood, honesty, and good posture, besides. Why should anyone believe for one second that Bush isn't lip-syncing what he thinks is a popular tune? Even if he isn't lying through his teeth (ha!), when has he ever been capable of following through on anything without completely fucking it up? More than any administration in American history, the Cheney regime has the reverse Midas touch. And I don't believe that they have any "strategy" beyond the one p.lukasiak describes -- run out the clock, dump the whole tragic mess in the next guy's lap, let him take the blame for making the unpleasant decisions. Even by the standards of politics it's an astonishingly cynical "plan", but I'm pretty certain that's what "stay the course" has meant for a couple of years now. Posted by: sglover at January 5, 2007 02:56 PM | Permalink to this comment
as p.lukasiak and sglover say: run out the clock, dump the whole tragic mess in the next guy's lap, let him take the blame for making the unpleasant decisions. Even by the standards of politics it's an astonishingly cynical "plan", but I'm pretty certain that's what "stay the course" has meant for a couple of years now. That's Bush's plan. It has always been about creating his legacy, his cult of personality. He wishes to be remembered as the warrior president, the hero of the hour, the man who took on the enemy when the world was against him. Any failure is due to others who just weren't up to the same task he was. Because, hey, he was elected by God. Posted by: Dan at January 5, 2007 03:06 PM | Permalink to this comment
The "run out the clock" theory gives Bush too much credit for situational awareness. He probably still thinks this thing is winnable. I do agree the message in his head is that "he won't be the President that lost Iraq". But he probably does NOT understand yet how big a steaming mess he will be leaving for his successor.
Surge=Escalation, No? Quite definitely, Yes. And that is true regardless of whether the additional troops are to stay in Iraq for a day, a week, a month or a year. The time period is irrelevant. It would definitely be an escalation. Unless, of course, the additional troops would be sent there merely to sit on their hands. I suppose that is possible, but it is highly unlikely. Let's understand something. Over the years, Republicans have shown themselves to be masters of euphemisms: that is, masters of deceit. In the mid-1980s they renamed tax increases as the new term for "revenue enhancement." They invented "regime change" for "overthrow a foreign government." And now they are using "surge" instead of "escalation." The only thing that is amazing about it is that the news media falls in lock-step with the Republicans' new-speak almost immediately. As if they "got the memo" ahead of time. Posted by: raj at January 5, 2007 03:33 PM | Permalink to this comment
On the Republican side McCain has the most to lose with this strategy. He's betting his presidential run on it. Should it fail (which I think likely) he'll end up with egg on his face. Look, if you don't see egg on McCain's face at this point, rolling him around in an omelette isn't going to make a difference.
No doubt that training the Iraqi army means training the sectarians who will have at it when we leave. The Sunnis will desert the army, as will the Shias who will join the Mahdi Armi. The fundamental question for the average Iraqi is who is protecting them. For Shiias it is the Mahdi army, and for the Sunnis it is their own militia and death squads. If we fight the Mahdi army again it will look like we are fighting the ones who are protecting the Shiias. Few people like the partitioning of Iraq, yet that is what is happening through ethnic cleansing. The comment about the only positive thing we can do is facilitate the ethnic cleansing by helping the Sunni to evacuate to safer places. The fundamental quality for a soldier is his or her loyalty. Until that is established, training troops of questionable loyalty is an exercise in futility. Tell the Iraqi army to fight the Mahdi army? They don't want to do it. The troops are loyal to their region and to their tribe and to their religious sect. Posted by: James K. Bachmann at January 5, 2007 07:00 PM | Permalink to this comment
Davebo, Look, if you don't see egg on McCain's face at this point, rolling him around in an omelette isn't going to make a difference. Well said. Didn't McCain say he was going to kill himself if Democrats won in November? Posted by: Dan at January 5, 2007 07:06 PM | Permalink to this comment
Whether or not there's a grand plan to hurt the democrats, this strategy is pretty much inevitable. Since there is no security in iraq, anything we do must be military. The choices are -- do something that looks like no change, do something that looks like a change that can lead to improvements, or do things that look like preparation to pull out. To americans, keeping the same number of troops in iraq looks like no change. They've been talking about new plans using the same troops for several years now without any successes to show for it. Not like it's all been the same. We did manage to get a cease-fire with Sadr so we could concentrate on Fallujah. Then after the sunnis mostly pulled out of Fallujah leaving only a few thousand male civilians for us to kill, we learned to take sunni cities without so much physical destruction, but we didn't have the forces to hold them. Not like the situation is static -- but it tends to look static to the US public. So we tend to lump anything that leaves the same number of troops there as more of the same. Removing troops looks like preparation for pulling out. That would be OK if the news was good, we could say we were pulling out the troops except for those still needed. But when it looks bad, reducing the forces looks like losing. So it has to be adding troops. 30,000 is the most we can add without intense stress on the military. Our military was saying last year they couldn't continue at that rate, but they've had time now to figure out how to continue at that rate if they have to. So 30,000 is the number. It has to get advertised as a temporary surge because that's what the public is ready for. It's a plan that isn't obviously disastrous (like attacking iran would be). It kicks the can at last 6 months down the road. 6 months from now they'll need another plan that doesn't look like they're accepting defeat. I don't know what it will be, but they have 6 months or so to come up with something. Just hold on a few months at a time, and do it however they can. Maybe something will turn up. If they see political advantages, so much the better.
Am I out to lunch thinking this is a big clue?? Right around the time Bush realized Baker was coming a' callin', we felt AEI scurry into action. Then about a month ago - right when Bush said he would make his final decision after the holidays - Kagan & Co. put out a bare-bones PDF called "Choosing Victory" which was roundly mocked as a simplistic slide show less informative than the stick-figure one creatied by the Army Captian. But yesterday, coinciding with the article that you quote above that announced that Kagan and Kristol have Bush's ear and also just in time for a weekend WH read, that PDF has been updated. The AEI plan sets up a four phase plan: Deploy (double the Baghdad presence) Isolate (figue out who the bad guys are) Clear (as in level entire neghborhoods) and finally, arriving where we thought we were at the beginning of last year, Hold and Transition to stable Iraqi government. Although it remains powerpoint friently, between the lines it's a horrorshow. No way Congress or the American people go for it. It should be an 'interesting' week. Posted by: chasm at January 6, 2007 03:23 AM | Permalink to this comment
it's clear what y'all don't want to do. but what is it you WANT to do (Flee, flee.......) preferable stategery: duck our head in the sand. and seriously TALK to people who want us, and our way of life,........dead. (btw, their strategems will become much more clear very shortly....and I'm sure y'all know what I refer to) Posted by: neill at January 6, 2007 06:44 AM | Permalink to this comment
We've heard all of that before, neill - at the end of Vietnam. Strangely, the Red Flood never materialized. When will you enlist to fight for your convictions, instead of demanding that other people die for them? Posted by: Mentar at January 6, 2007 06:57 PM | Permalink to this comment
they wouldn't accept me due to injuries resulting from a car accident. I would be proud to be able to serve my country in the armed forces and if need be, die for it. And I am profoundly grateful to those who have and are making that sacrafice. your implication is that my arguments for not retreating, but rather staying on to win, are somehow discredited because my life is not on the line in Iraq. one has nothing to do with another. Your arguments for retreat are compromised because they fail to take into account the very grave consequences of a retreat for the country. your comparison to Vietnam is laughable. Scowcroft: "we must constantly remember that this is not just a troublesome issue from which we can walk away if it seems too costly to continue. What is at stake is not only Iraq and the stability of the Middle East, but the global perception of the reliability of the United States as a partner in a deeply troubled world. We cannot afford to fail that test." we are engaged in a world war. the loser of that war will suffer deeply.
your comparison to Vietnam is laughable. Your comparison to WW2 is even more laughable. Prove to us that this is a world war. Why should we treat a bunch of lunatics plotting in caves and bombed-out Mesopotamian villages as strongly as we did madmen in charge of some of the most industrialized nations in Europe and Asia? Hell, we aren't even treating said lunatics like we did Hitler et al. No draft, no military gear-up, no call for national sacrifice... This is not a world war. Posted by: Doug H. at January 7, 2007 03:19 AM | Permalink to this comment
areas of conflict with islamists: USA
guess'n you pine for your daddy's war. well this ain't it. these folks ain't a country. we've knocked over two, and they still seem rather..... vital...... don't ya think? What's YER plan for this non-world war? Posted by: neill at January 7, 2007 07:43 AM | Permalink to this comment
afghanistan
we are engaged in a world war. the loser of that war will suffer deeply. Which unit are you with, neill? How many tours of duty do you have under your belt? How many in your unit are injured or dead? Posted by: CaseyL at January 7, 2007 05:04 PM | Permalink to this comment
neil is in the unite in his mind. Posted by: SomeOtherDude at January 7, 2007 06:11 PM | Permalink to this comment
Neill isn't the first guy I've run across who couldn't make the cut for military service, yet feels the need to compensate by gassing. Maybe if he had been in the service (like yours truly), he'd be a lot less confident that the DoD offers a solution for every "problem". In any case, look at the "problems" that he cites. According to him, American foreign policy ought to be concerned with the internal problems of every state that's got any kind of domestic security problem. Since when did Chechnya fall under the Monroe Doctrine? Or Morocco? Or Algeria? And if Neill bothered to do a little digging, he'd find that the aggregate economic output of the regions affected by his "world war" amounts to maybe 5% of the productive capacity of the U.S. and the E.U. A Hitlerian juggernaut this is not. You wanna know who Osama's best friends in the West really are? They're hysteria-mongers like Neill. The ONLY leverage bin Ladenites have against us is our own fear and stupidity. Posted by: sglover at January 7, 2007 08:04 PM | Permalink to this comment
osama's best friends in the west will hand him his ultimate propaganda victory on a platter, highlighting for the muslim world the truth of his prediction: the west is the weak horse.... jihadis are the strong horse....it is the will of Allah. First the jihadis brought down the soviets, and now have laid america low. Posted by: neill at January 7, 2007 10:04 PM | Permalink to this comment
SG, Monroe Doctrine? What the hell are you talking about? All these countries are under varying degrees of jihadist/muslim seige, and are allied by their resistance to it. Their economic output is irrelevant . That's so 20th century. This is a 21st century world war against a stateless enemy. Strategic location is important (i.e. somlia). But every victory provides momentum for the jihadi narrative, anywhere, and is a defeat for the anti-jihadi alliance. Let alone the Mother of All Victories. Which you so blithely will provide. Would you like fries with that, Mr. bin Ladin? Posted by: neill at January 7, 2007 11:15 PM | Permalink to this comment
Neil, so when the Sadrites and the Saudi and Iranian funded militias kill each other in Iraq, whose side are we on, since this is WWIII? The Iranians are the good guys? Or what? Posted by: Klaus at January 8, 2007 07:28 AM | Permalink to this comment
Neill: Considering who they're now accepting into the military, I suggest you contact them again. How about you undergoing medical training to help with our veterans? We're having an awful lot of people wounded in this war. Don't be fooled by the low death rates. There's a lot of ways you can contribute more than posting on a blog. Posted by: grumpy realist at January 8, 2007 10:04 AM | Permalink to this comment
steadfast refusal to discuss the potential consequences of your own policy recommendations.....how liberal of you Posted by: neill at January 8, 2007 02:51 PM | Permalink to this comment
Neill,
don't like the message, attack the messenger.....how VERY liberal of you. Posted by: neill at January 8, 2007 03:45 PM | Permalink to this comment
steadfast refusal to discuss the potential consequences of your own policy recommendations.....how liberal of you Welp, Clausewitz, lots of us opposed this bastard Iraq adventure precisely because it was likely to destabilize the region. So it's hard to avoid a low but bitter laugh when war advocates start flailing their arms and moaning about "potential consequences". The case for ending this epic strategic disaster is simple. Our capacity to influence events, let alone "control" them, has dwindled to something close to zero. We don't have the resources that are really necessary for a mission of such lunatic grandiosity. Even more worrisome, events of the last three years have demonstrated pretty convincingly that we don't have the competence to pull off anything that's remotely congruent to American strategic interests. Under the circumstances, the only thing that any informed observer can expect from either the status quo or spastic "surges" is the deferral of an outcome that's already pretty clear -- the resolution of the civil war that is already well underway. At best, this will be brief. It will certainly be bloody. Iran's influence in the region will surely increase. Of course, unlike America, Iran is actually located in the region, so it's a little difficult to understand why this is necessarily a symptom of "evil". In fact, while it's certainly not a very appealing regime, Tehran has a quarter-century track record of generally refraining from overt expansionism -- which is a lot more than can be said about various American clients in the vicinity. In any case, war advocates who piss and moan about "potential consequences" might want to do a little reflection, and ask themselves if they ever expected G.W. Bush to be the greatest strategic asset Tehran ever had. The hawk prognostication track record ought to be a source of embarrassment, and humility. Anyway, if you want to wet your bed about "potential consequences", you should at least recognize what our "strategy" is really all about. It is about nothing more than marking time until the Cheney administration is safely retired, so that all the truly difficult and unsatisfying decisions are left to the next President. It represents a truly astonishing level of cynicism, even by the standards of Beltway politics. Bush and Cheney want American troops to die so that they will not be associated with the admission of defeat.
One of the most tiresome things about Bushco is their constant use of slogans - surge, war on terror, culture of death, etc. I work in advertising, so I know why they do it, but I think maybe they should give it up and actually use real words, cause the fake crap ain't doing them any good anymore. Again, I have to ask, where is this "surge" supposed to come from? Do we have 30,000 troops in suspended animation in the "break glass in case of emergency" section of the Pentagon? Are they moving people from other areas of the world to Iraq? Sorry, I haven't been keeping up on the Bush BS of the week if he's already revealed his cunning plan, but I stopped listening to him long ago. I'm also tired of weenies warning all of us about the imminent global takeover by the jihadis if we fail to take their advice. Of course the "jihadis" are a threat, anyone can be a threat, but are they a global threat on par with the Nazis? I'm sure they'd like us to think so, but Osama's PR doesn't work as well on me as it apparently does others. The infighting that we find so troublesome in Iraq may turn out to be our greatest ally. They (fundamentalist Muslims) all hate each other so much, if they ever did achieve their dream of global domination, they'd soon destroy it from within with their constant bickering over stupid religious doctrine, the way Europe did for so long. The fact is, "terrorism" has been around for a long, long time and no single war or battle is going to get rid of it. It's here to stay. Get over it. We will never be "safe," as in free from fear of any terror attack. We can kill "jihadis" all the livelong day and there will always be idiots to replace them as long as they can be made to believe they are in some glorious global jihad in defense of Islam.
Neil- "But every victory provides momentum for the jihadi narrative, anywhere, and is a defeat for the anti-jihadi alliance. Let alone the Mother of All Victories. Which you so blithely will provide. Would you like fries with that, Mr. bin Ladin?" --------------------------------------------------- I figured if I read enough from the BD lunatic fringe, sooner or later somebody with common sense would arrive to admirably pee in their Wheaties. Kudos to you, and blessed be the law of averages. More to the point: allow me to offer a twist, a larger perspective, on our multidimensional Iraq engagement. Beware! You didn't get to read this in the ISG. I submit to you we're winning the battle against bin Ladenism. Uh, oh. Let me repeat that....The Iraq invasion-ugly as it is, unsettled as it is, uncertain as it is-has become bin Laden's ideological Trojan horse. The Iraq invasion has accorded us the sweetest of unintended consequences, contrary to the wail of Pelosi and her latest choir of do-nothings. It has created a vacuum in the Jihad. Bin Laden and al Zawihiri are cut from the Qutb school of revolution(Qutbism.) Their jihaad against the (mostly western) jahilayyah and a total return to the Caliphate singularly accounts for their theocratic zealotry. Toss in a lust for Sharia and egocentrism. But their twisted zealotry demands an equally-twisted audience, an audience ready to accept a retrograde dominion. Iraq has induced bitterness and chaos and calamity-and too many dead patriots-but it had also spread the sphere of modernity and enlightenment. We see in Iraq, if you will, the yin and the yang of the battleground. Just the former is emphasized, however (or welcome to Belgravia.) Like you, I am not pessimistic at our mideast enterprise, despite the blood. Not at all. This is the blood erupting from a regional tourniquet, one allowing us to stop global rivers of red. The picture is clear. The war in Iraq transcends Iraq, and that we cant' forget. Bin Laden and his apparatchik are the only real enemy, and our presence In Iraq is haunting him. It gnaws at his dizzy eschatology. His great Jihad is playing second-fiddle to religious and irreligious men searching for governance. Don't be mislead. The Iraqi cause is noble. The quiet beauty of democracy, even the embryonic and nascent kind, and even if violently imposed, is always in its subtle power to transform. Civilization attests to that fact. Just watch. Hell, in 10 years it will even have the Left telling us how they just knew that Baghdad was bin Laden's Waterloo. Keep up the good work. -resh
Let me translate 'resh' into words we all can understand: "Getting thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed for what may or may not turn out to be a flower of democracy is well worth it because we made Bin Laden and his ilk even more irrelevant than they were before." Are you really that sociopathic, or do you just like to play one on the internet? Posted by: Doug H. at January 9, 2007 03:14 AM | Permalink to this comment
Er, um, reshufflex.... Is there any actual meaning in there amidst all the gaseous tourniquets and Trojan Horses? A single specific fact, just one, would be nice. All I see is wish-thinking, melodrama, vapor. I mean, look at this passage, which I believe you consider your clinching argument: But their twisted zealotry demands an equally-twisted audience, an audience ready to accept a retrograde dominion. Iraq has induced bitterness and chaos and calamity-and too many dead patriots-but it had also spread the sphere of modernity and enlightenment. We see in Iraq, if you will, the yin and the yang of the battleground. Just the former is emphasized, however (or welcome to Belgravia.) Ummmmm.... Modernity? You mean because the factions use electric drills on captors, rather than traditional hot irons? Enlightenment? You mean because every professional or middle-class Iraqi has got "enlightened" to the fact that if they value their skins, they'd better get the hell out of their own country? Yin and the yang of the battleground?!? What the hell are you talking about? Did you just read the comic book version of Sun Tsu or something?!?! Anyway, I'm glad you can admire the "quiet beauty of democracy" from your living room sofa. To me, and I think most sentient observers, Iraq looks like an anarchic hellscape, and bin Laden's ideal recruiting poster. I suspect that, in his new quasi-state in Waziristan, he shares your enthusiasm for Bush's Iraq "strategy". Oh, and why haven't you enlisted? Posted by: sglover at January 9, 2007 03:31 AM | Permalink to this comment
Hey, Doug H -- when's the last time you saw anybody say so little with so many syllables? That's a mighty confused brain in reshufflex' dome.... Posted by: sglover at January 9, 2007 03:33 AM | Permalink to this comment
Isn't he being ironic? I long for the days when I could distinguish parody from mainstream right-wing thinking. Satire's been impossible for a few years now.... Posted by: sglover at January 9, 2007 03:35 AM | Permalink to this comment
LL -- "I'm also tired of weenies warning all of us about the imminent global takeover by the jihadis if we fail to take their advice. Of course the "jihadis" are a threat, anyone can be a threat, but are they a global threat on par with the Nazis? I'm sure they'd like us to think so, but Osama's PR doesn't work as well on me as it apparently does others. The infighting that we find so troublesome in Iraq may turn out to be our greatest ally. They (fundamentalist Muslims) all hate each other so much, if they ever did achieve their dream of global domination, they'd soon destroy it from within with their constant bickering over stupid religious doctrine, the way Europe did for so long." Osama's PR isn't really directed at you, LL. Nor was 9-11 primarily, believe it or not. This is all for the consumption - and hoped-for leadership of - the greater muslim world. Who is really the strong horse? Whose actions are blessed by Allah? The jihadists - the purists - or the corrupt moderate Arab rulers? This is an internal battle for the soul of the greater muslim world. The greater destruction wreaked upon the infidels, the more their case is made. Westerners are second-fiddle players in this. We're no more than crash-test dummies to the jihadis. And yes, the sunni and the shia extremists hate each other, but not nearly as much as they despise us. And they both benefit from our destruction. plenty of time to deal with ech other once we're dealt with. so in the meantime they help each other.
so the withdrawal y'all preceive a "solution" to Irq will actually be a steroid for the jihadists. Posted by: neill at January 9, 2007 04:51 AM | Permalink to this comment
bringing more of the greater muslim world into their fold...possibly much more... to our infinite peril..... Posted by: neill at January 9, 2007 04:55 AM | Permalink to this comment
"Iraq looks like an anarchic hellscape, and bin Laden's ideal recruiting poster." Americans fighting and dying is not his ideal recruiting poster. Most muslims grudgingly respect that (maybe Osama is wrong about americans...). Americans RUNNING from a fight is..... Posted by: neill at January 9, 2007 05:49 AM | Permalink to this comment
Isn't he being ironic? If he was, he did a bang up job of it and suckered me. I may have to retract that last one. Hey, Doug H -- when's the last time you saw anybody say so little with so many syllables? I was going to pull the 'Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer' schtick, but I know GD likes to turn a phrase or two so I kept quiet on it. Posted by: Doug H. at January 9, 2007 05:58 AM | Permalink to this comment
Resh is referring to the struggle in Iraq (and beyond) between the forces of primitive domination and enlightened self-rule:
But their twisted zealotry demands an equally-twisted audience, an audience ready to accept a retrograde dominion. Iraq has induced bitterness and chaos and calamity-and too many dead patriots-but it had also spread the sphere of modernity and enlightenment." Not really worth fighting about though. Who was it said 'give me liberty or give me death'? Crackpot. Posted by: neill at January 9, 2007 06:43 AM | Permalink to this comment
sg, clearly the confused brain is yours. Keep at it though. Your comprehension will increase. Posted by: neill at January 9, 2007 07:08 AM | Permalink to this comment
"Getting thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed for what may or may not turn out to be a flower of democracy is well worth it because we made Bin Laden and his ilk even more irrelevant than they were before." Yea, bin Laden's "irrelevant." I suppose you wrote those same mindless words as part of the epitaph for your family or friends who were visiting the Twin Towers on 911. But we're impressed by your self-righteous cri de coeur for dead Iraqis. No doubt your empathy is legit. I know I'm moved. You seem like the real sentimental type. Exactly where were your tears, btw, during the previous 30 years as those same Iraqis were reduced to zombies? Nevermind. I already know. They were dripping down crocodiles. -resh
resh, You believe you are rescuing Iraqis? Sheesh. You guys raped irony, waterboarded it and then killed it. Posted by: SomeOtherDude at January 9, 2007 06:13 PM | Permalink to this comment
I know Osama's PR isn't directed at me; I'm an American non-Muslim AND I have a uterus, so of course he doesn't give a rat's ass what I think. But a lot of other Americans seem to take his every utterance seriously instead of dismissing them mostly as the ravings of a madman. Not that he and his followers are not threats, they demonstrably are, but there's a difference between noting a threat and assessing it rationally vs. quoting Osama's rantings and saying, "See, we're helping Osama if we _________." Both sides (pro- and anti-war) do this, and it seems equally stupid no matter who does it. Osama is the PR wing of Al Qaeda, its "spiritual" leader. We didn't listen to him and pay attention when it could have done some good (pre 2001, or actually, pre 1998), so now some of us act like his every statement is significant and has deep and far-reaching implications for what we should do in Iraq, here and everywhere else, really. I think he's played out. Osama hates the West and wants to see it destroyed. Yeah, we sorta got that in 2001. Duly noted. Let's move on and not have any more "this helps Osama" from anybody. Just a suggestion. People are free to say/write whatever they want, but I tend to check out as soon as they start quoting a religion-addled psychopath.
" A single specific fact, just one, would be nice." Ok. Here's one: number of dead Americans on US soil since 911? "You mean because every professional or middle-class Iraqi has got "enlightened" to the fact that if they value their skins, they'd better get the hell out of their own country?" Middle-class Iraqi? What a hoot. Would that be those majority Shiites who prospered under Hussein? Perhaps the Kurds? NO? Oh, you must be referring to the trendy Baathist clan or those progessive Sunnis who played footsie with Uday and Qusay. No surprise. How terrible that we've assaulted their corrupted, if elegant preserve. Let me break the news to you: any intellectual or class edge that existed under Hussein's regime was tantamount to apartheid. Excuse us for finally removing the chains. "Oh, and why haven't you enlisted?" Probably for the same reason you arent out burying those dead Iraqis for whom you weep ad nauseam. -resh
Middle-class Iraqi? What a hoot. Would that be those majority Shiites who prospered under Hussein? No, genius. By middle-class Iraqi I mean the educated and professional classes, without whom any kind of "stability" or "progress" in Iraq is merely a wish. They don't seem to share Our Dear Leader's optimism. They're fleeing Iraq in droves. You really don't know very much about Iraq, do you? Probably for the same reason you arent out burying those dead Iraqis for whom you weep ad nauseam. Like your original post, I can't make any sense out of this remark. It's.... Beyond non sequitar. So again -- why haven't you enlisted? This time without the nonsensical buck-passing, OK? Posted by: sglover at January 9, 2007 07:43 PM | Permalink to this comment
"You believe you are rescuing Iraqis?" No. I'm concerned with Iraqis from a utilitarian angle only. To the extent that their liberation and progress abets our effort to erase bin Ladenism (and the nexus is significant), I support the war. End of story. -resh Posted by: resh at January 9, 2007 10:12 PM | Permalink to this comment
"They're fleeing Iraq in droves. You really don't know very much about Iraq, do you?" Uh, oh. Another on-line-expert-on-Iraq alert. Please. Spare us. Dime a dozen. The Iraqi middle class has been frozen in time for 30 years. Party loyalists and Hussein's relatives (those he didn't kill) got the plush jobs. Everyone else struggled, despite Hussein's episodic PR literacy campaign. The fact is, everybody in Iraq ought to have been middle class long ago-their oil reserves alone should have elevated and educated the masses. Ten times over. Didn't happen did it. Maybe that's why 2 or 3 million bolted when Hussein reigned. You can waste your next compelling post telling us how the sanctions were to blame for the ruin. More to the point, comes now team USA. Now everybody has a shot at the Big pie, from Shiites to Kurds to Sunni. That the opportunities for immediate and widespread gain are being forestalled is more the pity. I'll happily fault the Bush junta if it makes your indigestion go away. You ask me, I see the enmity and warmongering as the residue of desperate men long deprived. Toss in the madness of zealotry. Not to worry. For all the horrors of Pandora's Box being opened by us, it will ultimately prove to be more beneficial to us than ignoring the lids of oppression. Oh, wait. That's a bit heavy on the symbolism for you. Regrets. "So again -- why haven't you enlisted? This time without the nonsensical buck-passing, OK?" Yawn. Do you clowns ever tire of this sophmoric straw man? Gee. Lemme think for a minute. Ok. I got it. The position pays about 10x less than I now make. Capeesh? Now answer my question: why arent you over in Iraq burying the bodies of those dead Iraqis that so move your soul? All talk, perhaps? -resh Posted by: resh at January 9, 2007 11:02 PM | Permalink to this comment
The fact is, everybody in Iraq ought to have been middle class long ago-their oil reserves alone should have elevated and educated the masses. Ten times over. Didn't happen did it. Maybe that's why 2 or 3 million bolted when Hussein reigned. You can waste your next compelling post telling us how the sanctions were to blame for the ruin. More to the point, comes now team USA. Now everybody has a shot at the Big pie, from Shiites to Kurds to Sunni. There comes a time to recognise that communication is not going to happen. It's like, you listen to somebody and he's saying "The sky is black, the sky is always black. The ground is red, the ground is red everywhere. There are two moons." And so on. And at some point you notice that he's on Mars and he thinks everybody else is on Mars too. You just have to walk away and hope that we don't have too many Martian voters.
Does 'liberty' have something to do with the success of America relative to other countries with less attachment to the concept? Posted by: neill at January 10, 2007 01:54 AM | Permalink to this comment
well...since no one wants to touch that one with a twenty-foot pole.... (wonder how George Washington or Abe Lincoln would re-evaluate their sacrafices when succeeding generations won't even open their mouths to utter a single syllable about 'liberty'?)
Monday, January 08, 2007
Lots of talk has been made lately of the majority Republican idea of sending more troops to Iraq in an attempt to quell terrorism once and for all. Democrats (most of them at least) want us to pull out of Iraq and come home so that not one more soldier will die, or something like that. My real guess at what the democrats want is for the troops to come home so John Kerry will stop putting his foot in his mouth when he refers to them thus making potential voters angry. So here we are with two options but still without a real plan so if I may offer my two cents on the topic we’ll see if we can’t clear up a few issues. As you already deciphered from the title of this post I am in favor of a troop increase and think it will help enormously as long as the troops are put to good use. My support for a troop increase stems from some of my experiences while in Iraq on my second yearlong tour with the army. The town I was based in was somewhat of a model for all Arab Iraqi towns. I say Arab Iraqi towns because a true model for Iraq would be that of the Kurdish areas but since Arabs do not play nicely with Kurds we’ll take what we can get. Sometime before I arrived there the town I was in was a haven for terrorists. Due to the effort of many brave American and Iraqi soldiers the town had been cleaned up and was for the most part about as safe as you can get in Iraq. Since the town was safe, reconstruction efforts were able to get underway which in turn allowed the inhabitants of the city to see the benefit of not allowing terrorists to operate in their midst. It is simple mathematics: 2+2=4 and no terrorists=better quality of life. When water starts flowing and schools start opening up, among many other things, people realize that we are not the Great Satan that they once thought we were. They understand that we really are there to do as we said we were four years ago. We don’t want their oil; we want to make it flow better. We don’t want to indoctrinate their kids; we want to open up schools so they can learn and make their own decisions. We only need the time and cooperation of the local population to make these things happen. With more troops in Iraq I believe we would better be able to secure towns and allow reconstruction to happen on a larger scale. I mentioned that we cannot simply send more troops into country with the hopes of everything magically getting better but that they must be put to good use. Much has been made about the Rules of Engagement (ROE) being too strict thus hamstringing our troops from adequately doing their job and I agree. I have mentioned several times before about instances when I thought twice about doing something simply because I was worried if what I was going to do fell within the limitations of the ROE. While soldiers need to learn and memorize the ROE, the ROE need to be relaxed if we ever hope of truly crushing the terrorists. We need to be allowed to walk into any Mosque at any time to search it since they have generally been places for terrorists to hide their weapons caches. We need to come up with a standardized set of rules for Iraqis to follow when around soldiers so that anything out of the ordinary will be easily recognizable. These suggestions among many possible others should go into effect along with any troop increase that might happen in Iraq. More troops is only part of the answer, and while it is a major part, we also need to fix the ROE. Fighting wars by political means has never worked in the past and it will not now. We need to let our war fighters do their jobs and that means having the politicians in Washington sit out of the meetings when the new ROE are drawn up. So by all means send more troops to Iraq but make sure they are helping to secure Iraq so that all Iraqis can see the benefits of the greatest democracy in the world at work and perhaps gets some notions of their own and follow in tow. That is what we want in Iraq after all isn’t it?
LL: "Osama is the PR wing of Al Qaeda, its "spiritual" leader. We didn't listen to him and pay attention when it could have done some good (pre 2001, or actually, pre 1998)," (we were doing virtually nothing about bin laden and al quaeda...but if we had really listened to him before 9-11, we might have avoided it...) "so now some of us act like his every statement is significant and has deep and far-reaching implications for what we should do in Iraq, here and everywhere else, really." (so now that we are fighting al-queada on many fronts.... we should not listen to him to get sense of the enemy because....IT WON'T DO ANY GOOD....) I think he's played out. Osama hates the West and wants to see it destroyed. Yeah, we sorta got that in 2001. Duly noted. Let's move on and not have any more "this helps Osama" from anybody. Just a suggestion. People are free to say/write whatever they want, but I tend to check out as soon as they start quoting a religion-addled psychopath. (good idea... please do... oh sorry....you're right..... he's played out.....wait...uh.....how do you...uh....know that?....oh.......................GOD TOLD YOU..................................................................on second thought please go ahead and check out....) Posted by: neill at January 10, 2007 07:37 AM | Permalink to this comment
You just have to walk away and hope that we don't have too many Martian voters. Concurred. Posted by: Doug H. at January 10, 2007 08:00 AM | Permalink to this comment
"You just have to walk away and hope that we don't have too many Martian voters." I have to agree. But I always wonder if they believe what they are saying or are they just yanking my chain. Jack Posted by: Jack Ballard at January 10, 2007 02:17 PM | Permalink to this comment
"yanking my chain. "..... Or paid posters from some entity with huge contracts in Iraq.... after all it will be hard to make buck once the US starts drawing down. In certain industries peace is bad for profits.
"You just have to walk away and hope that we don't have too many Martian voters." Or said otherwise: "We play with our liberal-pinko ball; we've always played with that ball; the rules are to use the pinko ball. But he wants to play with another ball, mommy-he doesn't play by the rules! So we're taking our pinko ball and running home. Wah wah wah wah."
resh,
RE Posted by: neill at January 10, 2007 07:37 AM: So.... many.... ellipses.... can't.... type.... your.... online.... kung fu.... is.... too.... strong.... Alrighty then, thanks for playing. Posted by: LL at January 10, 2007 05:00 PM | Permalink to this comment
Osama's PR isn't really directed at you, LL. Nor was 9-11 primarily, believe it or not. This is all for the consumption - and hoped-for leadership of - the greater muslim world. Who is really the strong horse? Whose actions are blessed by Allah? The jihadists - the purists - or the corrupt moderate Arab rulers? This is an internal battle for the soul of the greater muslim world. I suggest reading The Looming Tower, a history of Al Qaeda. It explains how large the legend of Afghanistan looms in the jihadi imagination. They believe that their valor both drove the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan and also caused it to fall. Given that, if you want to counter bin Laden's PR, Afghanistan is much more important than Iraq. It's also not so near the brink, though the Taliban is resurgent. More populous, too, which covers the humanitarian angle. That given, it's scandalous that troops are being moved out of Afghanistan for the "surge": Radical Islamist Taliban forces, shattered and ejected from Afghanistan by the U.S. military five years ago, are poised for a major offensive against U.S. troops and undermanned NATO forces, prompting American commanders here to issue an urgent appeal for a new Marine Corps battalion to reinforce the American positions... We must succeed in at least one of these places. A strategy that ignores Afghanistan because Iraq is the place Americans know about would be the most craven sort of followership. Of the many things the President must say tonight to redeem his strategy and legacy, I'll be looking especially for words about Afghanistan. Posted by: BrianM at January 10, 2007 05:09 PM | Permalink to this comment
Hey, LL --
Of the many things the President must say tonight to redeem his strategy and legacy, I'll be looking especially for words about Afghanistan. Wise. But I'm betting that you'll be disappointed. I expect that if the word "Afghanistan" appears in the speech at all, it'll be surrounded by fuzzy, vacuous, feel-goodisms -- we're supporting Freedom, we won't quit until Victory, the usual litany. Posted by: sglover at January 10, 2007 06:05 PM | Permalink to this comment
"we are making progress"..."the next three month are critical"..."but thucididyes says"..."be afraid"..."islamomenace"..."freedom"
resh really wasn't being ironic. I think. For a moment, this feels like the nineties again; I really can't tell. And as for Iraq and al-Qaeda, the war has indisputably helped an ailing al-Qaeda revive its fortunes. Its ideology is that of an Ummah under attack by everyone: Christians, Hindus, Communists/Atheists, Persians, etc. So when USA attacked Iraq for no reason, it validated al-Qaeda's paranoia. The oft-cited Huntingdon fact that 70% of all violent conflicts today include Muslims as one or both sides is taken by one set of fanatics as proof that Muslims are aggressive and violent, by the other set of fanatics that Muslims are indeed under attack by everyone. So it may help some people to think of AQ as an ideology rather than an organisation, and play it that way, if indeed AQ is such a big concern. Posted by: Klaus at January 10, 2007 07:46 PM | Permalink to this comment
"Your adhominim attacks calling people "liberals" and "pinkos" on this blog is laughable. You must not be very aware of the make-up of the posters here. Most a very serious,reality based well read, center-right types." Oh. Admittedly I am a visitor. If I've misread the pulse, and it appears I might've, my apologies. No harm intended. Sorry to any and all. Allow me to indict myself as the coxcomb of the hour.... FWIW, I've been lingering in the atheist forum for the past years ( praise god), and therein rests (besides the obvious iconoclasm) a political persuasion just left of Ernesto Guevara. Thus my rabbit ears. Thanks for the heads up.
Klaus- "And as for Iraq and al-Qaeda, the war has indisputably helped an ailing al-Qaeda revive its fortunes. Its ideology is that of an Ummah under attack by everyone: " That's the Bernard Lewis spin on AQ. The "clash of civilizations" dude. What about the flipside, if true? the view that AQ sees their peril as self-induced, as Allah's curse being cast upon them for abandoning the jihad? I lean toward the latter, reading al Zawihiri's musings. Thus, if the latter mentality is what drives AQ-rather than as serving as the vanguard, as a Maginot line for the Ummah, then we're in deep frickin' do-do. What we're then fighting is the scorned Muslim Alpha male whose finish line is the beyond the heavens. Better lock the doors and get the kids off the street. This aint about the revenge of Baghdad, partner.
Yes, and don't forget to vote Bush. What popular support there is for AQ among Muslims has fuck all to do with abandoning Jihad and fear of not going to heaven, it has everything to do with watching video upon video of Palestinians killed by Israelis, Muslim Indians killed by Hindus, Kashmiris, Chechnyans, Lebanese, etc., more in that vein. And now Somalis too. It's a narrative. Also, AQ is only a peripheral player in Iraq. To argue that USA must stay and escalate in Iraq to stop an AQ propaganda victory is to be led by the nose by that very propaganda. Just because bin Laden says something, that doesn't make it true or important. Posted by: Klaus at January 11, 2007 03:20 AM | Permalink to this comment
"What popular support there is for AQ among Muslims has fuck all to do with abandoning Jihad and fear of not going to heaven..." Then their mentioning it so consistently would erode support mong muslims, right? So why do they keep doing it? "Also, AQ is only a peripheral player in Iraq. To argue that USA must stay and escalate in Iraq to stop an AQ propaganda victory is to be led by the nose by that very propaganda." What do you mean by peripheral? If AQ was behind the blowing up of the Golden Dome, how is that peripheral to the current state of things in Iraq? How the fuck do you KNOW this? Posted by: neill at January 11, 2007 03:57 AM | Permalink to this comment
Klaus, I think J Thomas, above, had the sanest response possible for these people. Posted by: sglover at January 11, 2007 06:03 AM | Permalink to this comment
sg, as usual, y'all can't respond to an actual ARGUMENT, so just snark away... Posted by: neill at January 11, 2007 06:51 AM | Permalink to this comment
argument-wise, you guys have gotten the shit kicked out of you. but if I need folks good at name-calling, you guys are tops.... Posted by: neill at January 11, 2007 07:02 AM | Permalink to this comment
"What popular support there is for AQ among Muslims has fuck all to do with abandoning Jihad and fear of not going to heaven..." Then their mentioning it so consistently would erode support mong muslims, right? So why do they keep doing it? No, it would not. It won't help either. But it's important for the core Jihadists that actually carry out suicide operations. Notice I said popular support. What do you mean by peripheral? If AQ was behind the blowing up of the Golden Dome, how is that peripheral to the current state of things in Iraq? That is their claim to fame in Iraq, and yes, that was important to incite Shia-Sunni hatred, as Zarqawi intended. Apart from that, Iraqi deaths by suicide bombs do not come close to matching those that die by gunshots. Estimates on AQ strength in Iraq are at about 1000 nutjobs. How the fuck do you KNOW this? Because I'm cleverer than you. Posted by: Klaus at January 11, 2007 10:36 AM | Permalink to this comment
Klaus, has al Qaeda admitted blowing up the Golden Dome? They used to deny it. An al Qaeda member was badly wounded and captured far far away from there, and under interrogation he admitted to doing it. This is hardly definitive, they'll admit to anything under torture -- that's what it's good for. Easy to torture people into saying what you want them to, harder to get them to tell the truth. From what I've seen so far, there's no more evidence that al Qaeda did it than that the US military did it. But various american politicians and iraqi politicians have talked as if it's known that al Qaeda did it, and that idea has gained traction without any credible evidence except the one force confession and the general belief that it's something al qaeda would do.
"it has everything to do with watching video upon video of Palestinians killed by Israelis, Muslim Indians killed by Hindus, Kashmiris, Chechnyans, Lebanese, etc., more in that vein. And now Somalis too. It's a narrative." Followed by: "Also, AQ is only a peripheral player in Iraq." Ok. Now I get it. You've put it in terms we can all grasp. Bin laden and his jidadist musketeers were sitting in the Tora Bora cave, reading moonlit gospel and studying the latest al jazeera videos of fellow Muslims being pummeled by team USA and the infidels. (Hmm...the Quran meets E-video...way to keep up the hunt for the glorious past, Bin Laden.) Anyway, it's another day in the hard life of the select mujtahid. Anger and vengeance permeates the air, and the lost soul. And these boys get real cranky, we're told, when their long lost soul mates in Somalia became the latest to feel the bite of AC-130s. As everyone with a Klausian perspective suspected, al Qaeda continues with its grand design of doing exactly noth...well, we don't know what they did. Or do. We just know they've opted to become a "peripheral player" in Iraq, home to 150K US forces and arch foe. We know all this because Klaus is clever and has a misused coffee-stained keyboard afront him. Yep. You got it nailed. Al Qaeda is obviously driven and impassioned by the horrific sight of all those dead Muslims. So driven that their interest in Baghdad, where the West now meets East in the mother of all ideological battles, is exactly squat. Could they have at least sent a postcard? Just guessing here, but I'll say that AQ doesn't give a rat's ass about the Muslims in Somalia or Lebanon or Chechnya, not really-except to the extent that they're pawns in a bigger, uglier game.
We mostly beat al Qaeda. Cut off their international banking, damaged their communications, captured some key people. Al Qaeda is now a franchise. Anybody who wants to say they're al Qaeda who does a good enough job at pretending to be al Qaeda, the head office will say yes, they're al Qaeda. It appears an independent organisation in iraq wanted to get permission to call themselves al Qaeda, and after awhile they got permission to call themselves al Qaeda in Iraq. Talking about what al Qaeda wants makes no more sense than talking about what MacDonalds wants. There's the head office that wants to sell more franchises and beat out the other franchise operations, and there's a bunch of franchise guys who want to make money, and a bunch of employees who want to get by, and a whole bunch of customers who're hungry enough to eat at McDonalds.
Ok. Now I get it. You've put it in terms we can all grasp. Bin laden and his jidadist musketeers were sitting in the Tora Bora cave, reading moonlit gospel and studying the latest al jazeera videos of fellow Muslims being pummeled by team USA and the infidels. Why don't you fucking read what I fucking write, you illiterate cunt? Popular support, popular support. Not Al-Qaeda itself. Just like only 12% of all Germans of Nazi Germany were members of the Nazi Party, so those sympathetic to the AQ organisation do not mean members of the organisation itself. Fuck me you're stupid. Piss off to Little Green Footballs and have a wank with the other war whores. Posted by: Klaus at January 12, 2007 05:59 AM | Permalink to this comment
What do you mean by peripheral? If AQ was behind the blowing up of the Golden Dome, how is that peripheral to the current state of things in Iraq? "That is their claim to fame in Iraq, and yes, that was important to incite Shia-Sunni hatred, as Zarqawi intended. Apart from that, Iraqi deaths by suicide bombs do not come close to matching those that die by gunshots."
AQ's 'claim to fame', the destruction of one of the most important Shiite shrines in Iraq.......had nothing to do with the increase of gunfire in Iraq. Posted by: neill at January 12, 2007 07:33 AM | Permalink to this comment
fyi, the quote: What do you mean by peripheral? If AQ was behind the blowing up of the Golden Dome, how is that peripheral to the current state of things in Iraq? "That is their claim to fame in Iraq, and yes, that was important to incite Shia-Sunni hatred, as Zarqawi intended. Apart from that, Iraqi deaths by suicide bombs do not come close to matching those that die by gunshots." Posted by: neill at January 12, 2007 07:41 AM | Permalink to this comment
Klaus, you see now how the game is played. There is no credible evidence that al Qaeda was connected with the Golden Dome bombing. But once you accept the propaganda effort that says it was, then the deceitful propagandists throw it in your face from then on.
There is no credible evidence about anyone blowing up the Golden Mosque. But I'm leaning to what Allbritton said, that a Zarqawi/Jihadist action was the only thing that made sense. As in motives: No Shi'ite would have done it. Americans wouldn't do it, since it would mess up their grand democracy scheme even more, which it did. USA does not want civil war. That leaves Sunni Arabs, Sunni Jihadists and Kurds. Let's forget Mossad, ok? Kurds don't in any conceivable way profit from civil war. The most likely would be someone intensely disrespectful of Shi'ism and who wanted to incite war between Sunnis and Shi'ites. Zarqawi fits the description perfectly. http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/2006/02/sunnis_hitting_back.php Posted by: Klaus at January 13, 2007 09:27 PM | Permalink to this comment
Klaus, I agree that from my perspective it looks like something that al Qaeda Iraq would plausibly do. But that doesn't make it so. Whyever would you forget Mossad? What possible reason is there to think they wouldn't do it? It fits their interests even more than Zarqawi's. And you say that it doesn't make sense for the USA to do it, as if that makes it plausible that we wouldn't do it. Look at everything *else* we've done in iraq that didn't make sense. Look at the Salvador Option (which we haven't confirmed actually doing, we were only caught seriously discussing doing it). Look at de-Ba'athification. Look at the CPA as a whole. Look at our "clear-and-hold" strategy mixed with our hearts-and-minds strategy mixed with iraqi sovereignty. Nothing we've done in iraq has made sense from the victory onward, and a lot of what we did during the initial invasion didn't make a lot of sense either. I'm sorry, but your argument that it wouldn't make sense for us to do it is no evidence at all that we didn't do it.
Well, the subject has dropped off the front page, making commenting a pain, but I feel I should reply to this. This is motive analysis. If the act was carried out without rational or emotional logic, motive analysis is pointless. So USA may have done it without any reason, real or perceived, but that's useless for this analysis. And it was a very deliberate act, very targeted, not wanton destruction, and went completely against US interests. As for Israel, there have been no reports (far as I know) about any Mossad activity in post-Saddam Iraq. I also do not see how a failed Iraqi state could benefit Israel at all. Certainly a pro-USA puppet government, which was the implicit intended result of the invasion. And this act accelerated the civil war, taking matters out of the hands of USA. The Salvador Option was intended to fight insurgents, not encourage more of them. Blowing up the Golden Mosque could in no way be perceived as fighting insurgents. And please note, there is no evidence, only speculation about who did it. I'm not bringing evidence, because there is none, only analytical speculation. If motives matter, AQ or some other Shia-hating Jihadist outfit is the most likely option. But AQ is no less peripheral to Iraq for that. The idea that 'we're fighting AQ in Iraq', or that AQ will set up bases, sell oil to fund terrorism and grow immensily powerful like Hitler if USA pulls out is just neocon propaganda bollocks. Posted by: Klaus at January 14, 2007 10:47 PM | Permalink to this comment
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