What Is The Iraq Answer

Find a pus-encrusted cyst on your ass like El Rushbo did and take out a medical deferment. It'll work every time.

What's the answer to this? Well, first of all, take some time to figure out who the fuck you're fighting, where you want to fight them and what their tactical weaknesses are. Goes all the way back to Sun Tzu. But nobody ever accused any of these people of thinking things through.

The classical U.S. military doctrine of overwhelming firepower and close air support is now antiquated. Gone. See ya at the movies. It held up in the early days of the invasion, back when everyone thought this was going to be a homecoming game against McNeese State, and led to a smashing victory by coalition forces. But as the war in Iraq turned from Axis and Allies-type tabletop battles to a swarming insurgency, Rumsfeld and friends found it difficult to make needed adjustments on the fly.

Mainly because they didn't have the faintest clue what they were getting themselves into in the first place.

 

The answer is that it's going to get a thousand-fold worse on so many levels. I don't know the answer, either. It's not just Iraq anymore. It's Iran and Syria and Israel and, well, the entire damn region.

 

Find me a cleaner copy of that and I will put that in my sig.

 

I say we pull out and take EVERYTHING with us. They don't like us that much? OK, that's fine. We'll just leave and take all of our medicine, food and supplies. Want to complain? Talk to the assholes that kept blowing both your people and ours up all the time. And let's not kid ourselves here: this war was about oil, so unfortunately (and I hate to say this b/c I know people over there), a lot of good men and women have died in vain. If it was really about getting rid of Hussein, a small SEALs team would have gone in, taken out some of his top men and then given him a double-tap to the noggin. That's all she wrote.

 

Tony, that's a noble concept, but it's impossible. Terrorists will never go away. They've been fighting in Iraq/Middle East for centuries. They'll be fighting for more centuries.

This is an unwinnable war and it has been from the start.

 

This is an unwinnable war and it has been from the start.
[/quote]

has it? Seems like a little better plan back in '03 might have worked ... now I don't know what that plan would have been, but it seems that way.

I was reading a short piece in the latest Time, and they had some "interview" with one of the biggest guys doing all the kidnapping. Lord knows if it was even him -- they sent a paper with some questions to a source who gave it to this guy, who answered the questions and set the paper back -- but he was like "Oh yeah, I used to love the US when they came in and took Saddam down, but now I see what their true goals were, so that's why I kidnap thousands of people and kill them all" .... I might have paraphrased a bit.

Anyway, if there's any truth to that at all, maybe if the cards had been played a little better early, we wouldn't be in this mess. I'm not sure why that guy's opinion of us has changed so much ... I mean, does he think we want to keep 100,000+ troops there for 100 years? If so, someone should sit down and explain a few things. What did he expect, anyway? Did he think we'd just roll the tanks in, knock off Saddam, then throw them in "R" and move out two weeks later? That would have been pretty stupid too, I think. Where did we loose all the people of Iraq? Obviously when their houses got blown to hell, their fathers got shot to shit bla bla bla, but I think if they'd just stop blowing the fuck out of one another for a few days, kick the insane Pakistani out of their guest bedroom and chill the fuck out, we'd be able to have most people gone in six months. They clearly don't agree, however. Why not?

I didn't have a huge problem with the war when it started, and for a long time I didn't have a HUGE problem with the way it was being run. Up until a few weeks ago I thought giving the country up to the vultures would be far worse than staying, but now ... what a cluster fuck. I don't know that we can do anymore good, no matter how many more troops are there. Short of moving in damn near everything we have, all the way down to Civil War reenactors and putting people on every street corner until shit settles down, I don't think there's any way to win it. Maybe six months ago, but not now. And even if we tried that now, it'd probably just reinforce the Iraqies thoughts that we're trying to turn them into the 51st state.

I'm glad this hasn't turned into a complete and total Bush-bash fest of a thread ... it clearly has the potential. But these are real questions, and there are real answers (pull out, included, as is "we're fucked"), questions that usually get igorned with the "Bush sucks" comedy hour begins.

 

Win? If the goal is to create a stable, Democratic Iraq that will work with us and be an ally, how do we win?

 

As my dear old Dad would say: get all of our boys out of there and if any jerks out there start causing trouble, push the Big Red Button.

 

Great. World War III.

 

What, you didn't know nukes solve everything?

 

Here's what we tell President Maliki: Two years from today, the United States is pulling out of Iraq. Every American soldier, tank, fighter jet and helicopter is going home. Between now and then, we'll help train your troops, but here's the date when you're going to have to stand up for yourself. Your country is going to have to show a commitment to do it; otherwise, the 100 Iraqis getting killed every day isn't going to stop. You have enough oil to make your country very rich. Figure out a way to defend that commodity and your people. Other countries manage to do it. You can, too.

 

The folks in charge, other than Powell didn't understand the Iraqi people. That was the mistake. It's not the planning of the war, or troop levels, or target selection etc. that ruined this. It was an impossible idea, which to me speaks to Rice's incompetence. (As an aside, I'm a little confused why she seems to have gotten a pass on this whole mess. I hear her name come up as a Presidential possibility! They must be kidding)

Imagine the Nazis are in control of Mississippi in the 50's and 60's. Everyone fears and hates them. Someone gets rid of them, then says "Now the whites and blacks need to compromise on how to run things." Huh? Now that the Nazis are gone, the whites and blacks are at each other throats. The KKK on one side and Black Panthers on the other, and they are both armed to the teeth with modern weapons. How is anyone surprised there is fighting?

Now add the overlay of religion to this, with the Sunnis and Shiites feeling that God is telling them to kill all of the others. The situation is hopeless. Democracy is a system that will absolutely NOT work in that society.

There is no good answer for what we should do, no good ending to the story. We should get up and leave, and tell the Sunnis and Siites that the civil war is now on them, we're out. Our strategy should be to contain it inside the Iraqi borders, let them duke it out if they want. Eventually, there will be a last man standing and the war will be over. Until then, it will go on and on and on...