<p>Of course, they’ll blame it all on the Iraqis. Call it something different. After all, we “won” the war (it’s just that the hostile, aggressive occupiers weren’t embraced.)</p>
<p>I just wish the Dems, starting with Hillary Clinton, would embrace a similar pull-out.</p>
<p>It is now almost two years worth of “wasted lives” (to quote a well-known Republican) since Murtha first called for a “redeployment”. Of course, if we keep the Dick Morris’ suicide death squads to be shot at there, the enemy won’t follow us home to shoot at them here. Meanwhile, James Pinkerton reports that Homeland Insecurity Chief Chertoff “has stopped incremental border-security measures, as a way of punishing us for being uppity.”</p>
<p>The father of two girls at my d’s gym had his life wasted in Iraq on Wednesday. About a third of the rest of the gymnasts have a family member as part of the hostile occupying force. Last week, I was part of a statewide meeting regarding health and safety questions administered to students in schools. It was suggested that we include several questions about military deployment stress. We already ask (I’m not joking) “How many servings of carrots (or potatoes - separate question) have you eaten in the past seven days?” The local school representatives all want to put the military deployment stress question on. The state department of health and office of superintendent of public instruction are resisting, because there are no funds to deal programmatically with the answer.</p>
<p>There are now two million Iraqi refugees, the bulk of them secular, and pro-Western, many of them doctors, lawyers, teachers, and university professors and their families, who will never forgive the U.S. for what we have done to their country. But we don’t have to look that far. The war has already come home, and it has nothing to do with the actions of a bunch of ineffectual liberals.</p>
<p>The occupation could end anytime funding is proposed, and without a vote. There is no obligation that the funding even be voted upon. Without a vote, the President would either have to use funds allocated to other parts of the military to continue the occupation, or use the residual funds to bring the occupiers home. No Republican and no Democrat would ever have to “vote against the troops”.</p>
<p>There should be “benchmarks” of course. Tens of billions of U.S. dollars have been spent to rebuild the country - where are the benchmarks that they were spent wisely and well? Billions more were spent on repairing the oil infrastructure so that the costs of the war could be paid for out of Iraqi oil revenues. Where are the “benchmarks” on the repayments? If I were an Iraqi politician, and I heard all this garbage about their failure to meet “benchmarks”, I’d tell U.S. politicians to hold up a mirror.</p>
<p>Every vote to spend more money on the occupation, and every dollar spent is a vote for, and a dollar spent, on increased Al-Qaeda recruitment.</p>
<p>Sometimes I think about what might have happened if Bush had not been elected (well, not that he really was, but, whatever). I imagine we had never gotten involved with Iraq’s civil war. I think of what we could have done with that money (although, admittedly, our kids and their kids might have wanted some say in that). I think of the lives that would have been spared. I think of the different direction our country, indeed the world, could have gone in.</p>
<p>“I imagine we had never gotten involved with Iraq’s civil war.”</p>
<p>Much of the civil war is a U.S. creation. In 2004, the U.S. (not the Iraqis) decided to divide up the government along religious/ethnic lines - this was NOT an Iraqi decision. The U.S. could have decided to find the best qualified bureaucrats of whatever persuasion, and given them control of the provisional administration. Alternatively, they could have handed the government to Sistani in exchange for protections of the Sunnis and Kurds, and Sistani would have wiped up the little bits of Al-Qaeda to be found in 2004 with ease. </p>
<p>Instead, the two million people most likely to have supported a tolerant, more secular society have been forced into exile, and every U.S. soldier has become an Al-Qaeda recruiting poster. </p>
<p>Things may get worse before they get better, or maybe they won’t. The Administration and the generals have lied so often now that it’s very difficult to take anything they say particularly seriously. And if the Democrats hadn’t been sold the Clinton/Tenet lies of February 1998 (confirming the building of biological and chemical weapons even when the weapons inspectors specifically denied their existence until the very day Clinton kicked them out in December 1998, and the need for military action), they wouldn’t have bought the later elaboration of the same lies four years later. Indeed, if Biden, Levin, Dodd, H. Clinton, etc. hadn’t bought the Bush/Tenet/Powell lies in 2002, they would have looked like total fools.</p>
<p>Now they do anyway. Well, let 'em look like fools, and maybe now we’ll get the Republican-led cut’n’run that should have happened years ago.</p>
<p>"think of what we could have done with that money "</p>
<p>That’s part of the problem with this one, we haven’t spent any money. GW put it on the country’s credit card. The one with no credit limit and an open ended interest rate. </p>
<p>We should not have spent the money period, it wasn’t there. It shouldn’t have funded social programs, healthcare or anything. It just simply never should have been spent. </p>
<p>I know that sounds cold hearted but I want my kids and grandkids to have a chance in life.</p>
<p>"Sometimes I think about what might have happened if Bush had not been elected . . "
So do I. Cleary, Iraq wouldn’t have happened. But what would have happened in this alternate history? What would have happened on 9/12? (I assume a Gore administration would have been no more alert to the threat than the Clinton or Bush administrations.) Would Gore have rallied the public and the politicians to support an invasion of Afghanistan to hunt down Al Qaeda? My guess is no. I suspect he would have fired a few missiles at some training camps, some facilities, etc. And that would have been it. Which would certainly have been in keeping with past administrations’ (plural!) reaction to attacks on U.S. interests by Al Qaeda. And then what would have happened? I obviously don’t know the answer, but susepct that we would, overall, be in a worse position then we are now vis a vis Al Qaeda. Ok, gentlemen (and ladies), stamp your feet, get in high dudgeon, and start to throw your firebombs!</p>
<p>^ No firebombs (don’t need to anymore, now that most of the country is paying attention), but I guess I don’t understand your assumption that Bush somehow rallied the public and the politicians to support an invasion of Afghanistan to hunt down Al Qaeda. Nothing Bush has done (including the Afghanistan invasion) has cut down on Al-Qaeda. He hasn’t even really controlled the Taliban. All he’s done is enriched various military contractors, alienated the entire world, strengthened the powers of the executive branch, and caused countless lives to be lost. None of this is about controlling terrorism. Absolutely none of it.</p>
<p>By his actions, George Bush is Al-Qaeda’s leading supporter, and has done more to recruit new Al-Qaeda members in the past five years than Osama Bin Laden. </p>
<p>No, I don’t think that was his intention. I think it is also worth remembering that Reagan armed the Taliban (against the Soviets), to the tune of 65,000 tons of military equipment a year, much as the Rumsfeld Handshake blessed Iraq’s use of chemical weapons against Iran. </p>
<p>Overall, an Administration that did nothing in Iraq would have put the U.S. in a much better position vis a vis Al Qaeda.</p>
<p>Mini and Weenie - at a recent Dem debate, when the question was asked “How would you respond to an attack on U.S. soil that was clearly an Al Qaeda attack?” every candidate focused on first responders, getting more info, etc., until Hillary saw the trap and jumped in with the notion of a strong retaliatory attack. If a Democrat is elected, and there is such an attack, we will get the chance to test the notion of whether a strong response or a measured response serves us better in the long run. I hope it doesn’t ever come to that.
I believe is Bush had avoided the Iraq debacle, he would have been an extraordinarily popular president, based on the success of the Afghanistan invasion. The approval ratings at the time were at an all-time high. I think the suggestion that his intention in Afghanistan was to reward his military contractor friends and expand his own power is just nonsense, but since I can’t read his mind, and neither can Weenie, I guess we will just have to disagree on that point…</p>
<p>And indeed I was thoroughly disgusted with the Dems’ response to that question! (Except Dennis Kucinich who actually had the courage to use the word “peace.” Hmmm. Maybe I’ll vote for him. ) The last thing we need in office are more warmongers and war profiteers. </p>
<p>Anyway, where does it end? Should Spain declare war against Morrocco, Syria and Algeria? Should Indonesia attack Malaysia? Should England declare war against their Muslim neighborhoods? Go to Wiki and look at the “List of Terrorist Incidents.” Which deserve a retaliatory attack? And exactly how does a country respond when they are attacked from within?</p>
<p>Do you honestly think we can kill all the terrorists? Or beat them into submission? See, I don’t think so, and, incidentally, neither do some countries who have been dealing with terrorists for decades.</p>
<p>And it’s way too early to celebrate some kind of huge success in Afghanistan. The jury is still out there. For everyone who thinks things are great in Afghanistan now - think for a moment about being a woman there. 1 out of 7 will die in childbirth. The Taliban is still alive and well.</p>
<p>And whose idea was it to do rebuilding simultaneously with fighting a war? Some schools, hospitals, etc. have been destroyed and rebuilt several times, and countless contractual workers have been killed. (I say countless b/c we hear of Iraqi deaths, GI deaths, and killed insurgents, but nothing of non-Iraqi civilians.) Guess who is benefiting from this scenario? </p>
<p>“Do you honestly think we can kill all the terrorists? Or beat them into submission? See, I don’t think so, and, incidentally, neither do some countries who have been dealing with terrorists for decades.”
Weenie - you raise interesting points, but I tend to disagree with your conclusions. Indeed, we will never defeat and kill all the tewrrorists, but neither will they go away if we don’t react strongly to their attacks. Israel has always responded aggressiovely, and while the threats continue, would Israel even exist had they taken the more measured resonse approach? Tough times.</p>
<p>But since (as regards Iraq) we CREATED the terrorists, and serve as their main recruiting tool, with George Bush being the best thing that ever happened to Al-Qaeda, what matter is it whether we think it a good idea to kill “all the terrorists”?</p>
Typical talking point that is not in touch with reality. If it were not Iraq as “the main recruiting tool” it would have been Afghanistan. And, do recall that we were not in Iraq when 9/11 happened. And, also, do recall that many countries that have had nothing to do with Iraq (and many who have been against US policy in Iraq) have also been attacked by terrorists. </p>
<p>The bottom line is that there will always be an excuse for terrorists to attack us and all of the countries of the world that hold to a view that is non-fundamentalist Islamic. We can choose to ignore it as weenie seems to suggest or try to take action against it. If the attacks would never get worse than the occasional suicide bombing, ignoring them may be a viable option (not one that I would subscribe to, however). </p>
<p>However, how many people would say that “ignoring the terrorists” was the best strategy if their town or city ended up being vaporized by a terrorist, who, left unfettered, managed to get his hands on a nuke? This is not a far-fetched theory, with several independent studies by security experts claiming that the probabilities are frighteningly high of such an event.</p>
<p>[edited out - Mod JEM] When you create two million refugees out of those most likely to support you - secular, pro-Western, professional minded - and crowd them into slums and refugee camps outside of their own countries - chances are a large proportion aren’t going to like you much any more, and some will resolve to do somehting about it.</p>
<p>Gee, I don’t recall Mohamed Atta being crowded into a slum before he and his crew tried to “do something” about us. And, what about the slums that all those fine doctors must have been living in when they decided to bomb the UK.</p>
<p>[edited out as response to deleted section of previous post - Mod JEM]</p>
<p>Ah, so you’re of the “Islamofascism is attempting to vanquish the world” mindset. Now I get your concern which you have avoided saying in another context. </p>
<p>The first principle in sound retaliation is to know your enemy. “They” come to attack us in our countries largely because we are involved in their lands – bases in Saudi Arabia previously, now the invasion of Iraq, and perhaps most saliently in Israel. Attacking us in their own lands has done little, so they are increasingly activating plans to do so in our countries. The more we are involved with their lands in a confrontational, and sometimes even not so confrontational, way, the more “their” populations will resent us.</p>
<p>They don’t have the power nor really the will to convert or subjugate non-Islamic countries on our own turf. But they do want us to withdraw from “their” territory.</p>
<p>They don’t attack us through the organs of a state army, but through non-state (though sometimes state-funded) terrorist type activities, often suicidal, that will eventually culminate, perhaps, in the detonation of a nuclear weapon in one of our cities or the use of another kind of “weapon of mass destruction.”</p>
<p>If you believe as you apparently do that Islamofascism drives all terrorism against the West, it is very strange that you would support the invasion to depose a secular, socialist Saddam Hussein. Yes, Hussein funded some suicide bombers in Israel, but his abilities and ambitions particularly with respect to Israel were nothing compared to Iran’s “we will eradicate Israel with nuclear weapons” ambitions which are about to be met with nuclear capabilities. And Iran was always to some extent foiled by Iraq. There was a time when Rumsfeld was seen shaking Hussein’s hand because we considered Iran the much greater threat in that region. We are already well on the way to thinking that way again, now that we’ve eradicated the check to Iran’s power by conveniently (for Iran) getting rid of Iraq as a threat – and in fact effectively turning it over to the sphere of influence of Iran via its majority Shi’ite brethren in Iraq. Iraq was largely secular; now it’s going to go fundamentalist.</p>
<p>People like well-educated, and not poor, Mohamed Atta subscribe to creeds greatly resentful of the West’s involvement in the holy lands of Islam. Saudi Arabia has many people like this because the House of Saud has enjoyed a render unto Mohamed what is Mohamed’s and let us run and profit from our country’s governance kind of bargain with Islamic fundamentalist Wahhabism. People like Atta have learned in Madras and religious universities that the non-Islam West is the barrier to Islam’s supremacy, or their utopia, and they loathe us for it. They believe we stand between them and a golden era when Islam was ascendant.</p>
<p>But “they” – meaning people like Mohamed Atta – are very different folks than people like the Iraqi secular middle class that Mini is just saying we destroyed. Now there are two million people [I am using his number] whose entire lives and careers have been demolished. In such places where hope and stability have been demolished, terrorists arise.</p>
<p>Now because I am trying to apply analysis and intelligence to understanding what we are up against, does this mean I am an Al Qaeda appeaser? According to you, yes, because I don’t subscribe to your rather simple notion that Islam is one big wall of people amassed against us and that our only option is invasion and warring. Because that’s what you are implying.</p>
<p>I am not a pacifist, but any general will tell you we are better choosing our battles wisely and fighting at a level with well-calibrated strategies and an honest sense of our own limitations.</p>
<p>Because you lack the understanding of our enemy, you are in fact helping him through the positions you espouse. Mini is right in this case.</p>
<p>But the really worrisome thing is what you propose will be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more we try to stamp out terrorism through military actions in distant lands without regard for our ability to let people lead their lives and feed their families, the more we will create recruits for Al Qaeda and other groups that have it out for us or our allies. It’s the concept of us driving them into the arms of our enemies. Have you ever heard of it?</p>
) The last thing we need in office are more warmongers and war profiteers. </p>
1 out of 7 will die in childbirth. The Taliban is still alive and well.</p>