Success in Afghanistan seems contingent upon something that seems highly unlikely; NATO sending adequate troops. I don't like the sound of this:
From a SPIEGEL INTERVIEW WITH NATO COMMANDER JOHN CRADDOCK
SPIEGEL: If NATO fails in Afghanistan, would it be the end for the most powerful security alliance in the world?Craddock: I think it would put the alliance in jeopardy. It is the most important mission in NATO and I think it's critical that the alliance come together and support it totally and completely.
SPIEGEL: Do you think NATO is up to the task?Craddock: I am encouraged and I am confident. But I don't promise. I can't guarantee a thing. If we get what we need to do that mission, the forces, then there is a reasonably good to very good probability of success. We have yet to get that. What we still don't have is the full force which allows us not only to provide security throughout the country but also to provide the capacity to get into the reconstruction. If we had the full forces we could lay those forces down and would not have to move them around.
I am not faulting the General. It's the message that I am hearing; that unless the NATO gets serious and commits, the chances for success in Afghanistan are "not so good." Police training lags military training by four to five years. We can't or won't pay military and police wages commensurate with the Taliban pay scale and we don't have enough boots on the ground. Add to that, the poppy situation. Where's the opium money going? Private armies or tribute for the jihadis. I don't blame the General for not promising what he can't deliver. I seriously doubt that he's going to get the manpower that he needs in Afghanistan. Certainly not from the Europeans and "likely" not from the United States. In other words, "he's screwed."
Why won't western people support the effort to beat back fundamentalist Islam? Is the West no longer a serious society? Has it has become so sick, so nihilistic that, believing in nothing, it will fight for nothing? Have multiple generations of post WWII agnostics been trained to depend on the nanny state from cradle to grave? Have we trained the Ritalin boys that via conflict resolution and anger management every thing can be worked out by dialog? Have our fat, increasingly illiterate kids been trained to believe that guns are evil and self-defense should be left to the police?
Do our daughters worship the "Pop tarts of the popular culture?" Has each succeeding generation gotten fatter and fatter on the "light bread" of humanism? Is this "rich, multi-ethnic, rainbow of diversity" culture going to succeed or will it be cast down like the Tower of Babel? Is Islam like the Borg; an irresistible force which assimilates or destroys everyone within it's path?Stay tuned, but be warned, you may not like what you see as the west retreats from yet another distasteful war.
It's a rout. 60% of Americans want out of Iraq, think defeat will be bad for America and terror attacks will come. Yawn.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile...who will the next American Idol?
We'll be run out of Afghanistan too. Let the battle be fought on Mainstreet, USA.
Stu Bykofsky | Wake up, Americans: We're at war!
ReplyDeleteALONG WITH several thousand soldiers at Fort Dix, I was a potential target of the murderous plot allegedly hatched by six Islamofascists living in America - in the Delaware Valley.
In addition to Fort Dix and other military bases, the Navy Yard and the Army-Navy game were targeted, according to the government's criminal complaint. I attend that game every year, with 68,000 other fans.
Government allegations are not convictions, but for the pointy-headed intellectuals and TV talking heads who scoff about the "global war on terror," this is another wake-up call. (The "global war on terror" was really a default name. What we really have is a "war on Islamic fundamentalists," but using the "I-word" in any form might freak out Politically Correct Americans and some hypersensitive Muslims who are hungry to accuse us of a "Crusade.")
9/11 wasn't enough for some people, who seem to think it was a one-act play, despite massive physical evidence to the contrary and ceaseless calls for "death to America" from individuals such as Osama bin Laden and states such as Iran.
Is America ready to wake up yet?
Name it as you will, but we are at war. That is not an invention of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Halliburton and the neo-cons. If it makes you happy to think this is all Bush's doing, you'll have to explain the attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa and the U.S.S. Cole carried out on Bill Clinton's watch.
Terrorism is an American problem in America today.
We are at war not against a specific country and not against a specific religion. We are fighting a different kind of war that will last for generations against Islamic jihadists.
The plotters are quoted by the government - which tape-recorded them day and night - as saying they needed a fatwa, which is religious approval, before they could
launch their plot. This is not the first alleged Islamic terror cell uncovered in America and it won't be the last. We don't have to wait for them "to follow us home" from Iraq. They are already here.
The government has already gotten convictions in Brooklyn, Buffalo, N.Y.; and Lodi, Calif.
That the Fort Dix Six didn't raise suspicions of their neighbors is creepy and chilling. They seemed like "normal people," by most accounts.
The unsung hero is the Circuit City clerk who found the plotters' jihad training film disturbing and called cops. His name has been kept private to protect him.
The guy ought to get a medal, but the government fears to name him. It's believed he'd be a target of other jihadists - and I hope no reporter outs the clerk for the sake of a cheap scoop. This is America today. Meanwhile, peaceful U.S. Muslims fear a backlash against them because of home-grown Islamic terrorists.
Here's what the alleged plotters had in common: Male, 20s, Muslim. Just like the 9/11 mass murderers.
No amount of Political Correctness can disguise the most likely face of the most likely enemy.
The question is: How do we go about rooting out the jihadists without terrorizing peaceful Muslims?
The first step is to be far more careful about whom we let into this country in the first place. Yes, I mean intense scrutiny of incoming Muslims. Caution isn't racism. Three of the Fort Dix Six were here illegally.
The second step is to round up illegals and ship them home, starting with Muslim illegals. It will take time. It will cost money.
Think of what a successful attack on Fort Dix would have cost, financially and emotionally.
We are at war. We have to act like it. *
E-mail stubyko@phillynews.com or call 215-854-5977. For recent columns:
http://go.philly.com/byko.
Moreover, all those arrested were “doing jobs Americans won’t do” – like blowing up Ft. Dix. The terrorists included:
ReplyDeleteThere is an irony in your title. The drug addling is supported and profitable to the Muslims in Afghanistan, Albania and the hard European and English streets.
ReplyDeleteThe terror attacks will come, or not, regardless of the US Army being in Iraq.
ReplyDeleteTheir being in Iraq has not improved security along the US southern frontier, did not intimidate the Fort Dix Six and will not stop the next attack.
The Jihadist movement is a Saudi funded and Pakistani trained operation. Neither are in Iraq, except as US atagonists.
The very concept that this is a "war" that will take "generations" assures defeat.
But then the fact that some believe the west is "drug addled" exemplifies the success of the "War on Drugs".
In that unsuccessful "war" the enemy is named, while Islam and the mussulmen are our friends, the President said so, loudly and repeatedly.
When the President speaks of a crusade and is not ashamed, then, maybe, the tide will turn.
If the elites in government, media and business bend over backwards any further to obfuscate what this war really is, their spines will snap so their heads can finally fit up their asses.
ReplyDeleteReality:
We are in a hot war with the Islamic shock troops. This is the first wave and the front line.
It's nowhere and it's everywhere.
We are in a cold war with the madrassas, the Islamic petro governments, the mosques and agitators in our own countries.
What our own people don't get, is that the musselmen have embraced globalization better than anyone else. They want it as much as we do, but they want Sharia rule sets to govern it. They want our infrastructure as much as we do. We think it brings a global, interconnected economy. They see it as the key to the global caliphate.
The unconnected savage that will abandon jihad once he gets broadband, a cellphone, an engineering degree and 7-11s on the corners is a myth. Those are his force multipliers. Mohammed Atta was no dumbass from the sticks, and neither is bin Laden.
The six musselmen who were going to attack Fort Dix had been living in the USA for years, and it appears their taste for jihad came about relatively recently.
These were not unconnected yobs in a cave. These guys were here, in the belly of the beast. All of our connectedness and feel-good gloablist crap did not prevent them from deciding that it was jihad time.
Our elites don't get that our foes are irrational. They don't crave globalization and the free flow of Chinese crap throughout the consuming world. They crave the free flow of jihad and submission to Islam across the globe. Sorry that doesn't fit on the 10K and foward-looking statements.
As we explain away how we are not at war with Islam, the jihadis know they have us by the balls.
I remember how the world feared us and our next move after the Taliban were sent packing in weeks. Those were good times, eh chums?
By Robert Novak
ReplyDeleteColombia's President Alvaro Uribe returned to Bogota this week in a state of shock. His three-day visit to Capitol Hill in Washington to win over Democrats in Congress was described by one American supporter as "catastrophic." Colombian sources said Uribe was stunned by the ferocity of his Democratic opponents, and Vice President Francisco Santos publicly talked about cutting U.S.-Colombian ties.
Uribe got nothing from his meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders. Military aid remains stalled, overall assistance is reduced, and the vital U.S.-Colombian trade bill looks dead. The first Colombian president to crack down on his country's corrupt army officer hierarchy, and to assault both right-wing paramilitaries and left-wing guerrillas, last week confronted Democrats wedded to out-of-date claims of civil rights abuses and to rigidly protectionist dogma.
This is remarkable U.S. treatment for a rare friend on the South American continent, where Venezuela's leftist dictator Hugo Chavez can only exult in Uribe's embarrassment as he builds an anti-American bloc of nations. A former congressional staffer, who in 1999 helped author Plan Colombia against narco-guerrillas, told me: "President Uribe may be the odd man out, and that's no way to treat our best ally in South America."
A truer portent of the Colombian reaction to the rebuff in Washington last week was Vice President Santos's television interview Tuesday. Santos, a University of Texas graduate and former editor of the influential El Tiempo newspaper, said failure to ratify the free-trade agreement would "send a message to the external enemies of the United States" (meaning Venezuela's Chavez) that "this is how America treats its allies." He added that Colombia might "have to re-evaluate its relationship with the United States." A U.S. diplomat called that "a cream pie in the face" of the visiting Negroponte.
ReplyDeleteOne must remeber, bro D- day, that the US military was not in charge, in taking down Afghanistan.
ReplyDeleteWhen they were finally needed, on the ground, in Tora Bora, they failed to arrive.
Nor were the heavy bombers sent in their stead.
Tra la la
Osama got away, to live as an immortal icon of Islam, in the mountains of Pakistan.
We really did miss an opportunity when we did not re-landscape Tora Bora. There was never a more perfect time and place to use a take your pick
ReplyDeleteCan a Drug Addled, Feminized Western Culture Survive?
ReplyDeleteNO!
One of the interesting lines in elijah's link to the nuclear terrorist attack response, the US retaliation would not be, most likely, nuclear.
ReplyDeleteNo the plan is for a conventional response. That'll sure rouse the 12th Imam out of the well.
WASHINGTON, May 8 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The arrest today of six Islamic radicals in a plot to attack Fort Dix, New Jersey, should put an immediate halt to plans by the Senate to craft an illegal alien amnesty bill next week, declared the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). The fortuitous arrest of the six terrorists before they carried out their plot provides strong proof that lax enforcement of our immigration laws does pose a severe threat to the security of the nation, and that the government's screening process for granting green cards and other immigration benefits is perilously flawed.
ReplyDeleteThree of the men arrested in New Jersey today were illegal aliens, while two of their comrades were green card holders, meaning that the government had investigated their backgrounds and failed to identify them as threats to homeland security. The facts of this case demand that Congress end all discussion of an amnesty or a "pathway to legalization" and focus instead on their primary responsibility of protecting the security of the American people, demanded FAIR.
"Today we found out once again that our failure to control illegal immigration and our inability to manage the current caseload of people applying for immigration benefits poses a lethal risk to the nation," said Dan Stein, president of FAIR. "After years of denying the obvious -- that terrorists can and will take advantage of the same unenforced immigration policies that have flooded this country with illegal immigrants -- we now have irrefutable proof that the terrorists understand where we are vulnerable. We can be certain that there are many more terrorists who entered the country illegally or overstayed visas, and we may not be as lucky next time."
The arrests in New Jersey further provide proof that the sort of amnesty program being considered by the Senate, with the support of the Bush Administration, would compound the threat to homeland security. "At the current caseload, the government has neither the resources nor the competence to identify terrorists who apply for green cards," charged Stein. "An amnesty or a 'pathway to legalization' program would add tens of millions more applicants to the queue. If they can't pick out a terrorist now, how are they going to protect this nation when a flood of new applications hit their desks? While the names of the agencies in charge of protecting our security have changed, the screening process is still being carried out by the same people who renewed Mohammed Atta's student visa six months after he crashed an airplane into the World Trade Center.
"Given today's events, the American public has a right to demand, not ask, that Congress and the Bush Administration drop all talk of amnesty and guest worker programs and get to work on the single most important priority: controlling our borders and fixing an immigration system that allows terrorists and just about anyone else to enter and hide out in this country," continued Stein. "Luck was on our side this time, but luck is not a substitute for due diligence and an immigration enforcement policy that protects the nation and its people.
The neutron bomb delivers blast and heat effects that are confined to an area of only a few hundred yards in radius. But within a somewhat larger area it throws off a massive wave of neutron and gamma radiation, which can penetrate armour or several feet of earth. This radiation is extremely destructive to living tissue. Because of its short-range destructiveness and the absence of long-range effect, the neutron bomb would be highly effective against tank and infantry formations on the battlefield but would not endanger cities or other population centres only a few miles away. It can be carried in a Lance missile or delivered by an 8-inch (200-millimetre) howitzer, or possibly by attack aircraft.
ReplyDeleteIn strategic terms, the neutron bomb has a theoretical deterrent effect: discouraging an armoured ground assault by arousing the fear of neutron bomb counterattack. The bomb would disable enemy tank crews in minutes, and those exposed would die within days. U.S. production of the bomb was postponed in 1978 and resumed in 1981."
reference: http://www.britannica.com/seo/n/neutron-bomb/
It is not even September and the GOP on the Hill are looking for the life boats.
ReplyDeleteNot wantin to go down with the ship. Mr Snow has to describe a meeting with GOP House members and the President as not reminesent of the Goldwater/Nixon meeting.
former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, also presented Bush dismal polling figures to dramatize just how perilous the party's position is, participants said. Davis would not disclose details, saying the exchange was private. Others warned Bush that his personal credibility on the war is all but gone.
Snow, who sat in on the meeting in the president's private quarters, said it should not be overdramatized or seen as another "marching up to Nixon," a reference to the critical moment during Watergate in 1974 when key congressional Republicans went to the White House to tell President Richard M. Nixon that it was time to resign.
"This is not one of those great cresting moments when party discontents are coming in to read the president the riot act," he said. But Snow acknowledged that the meeting included some blunt, if respectful, discussion.
That the similarities are even food for thought, shows just how badly things are going for the Administration.
Where oh where is the ace in the hole, the card up the sleeve? Now that the President has gone "all in", but without fanfare.
According to trish and rufus, Mr Bush's hands are tied. On a speeding frieght train straight towards a washed out bridege.
"... Republicans will remain united against the Democratic bill in the House today. But the search for an exit is almost inevitable. "The key for everybody is to try to find a way to declare victory and get out of there," ..."
ReplyDeletewesthawk is up with a new thread, "Bing West and a ‘bottom-up’ approach".
ReplyDeleteHe quotes Mr Webb
1) Small-unit Iraqi security forces, up to the battalion level, are performing better and better.
2) From the brigade through national government level, the Iraqis are failing badly.
Again, from the bottom up, not the top down, is how things grow.
But "big organization" men have never been in a bottom up circumstance. Not a Federal man or woman, anyway. Expecailly one that becomes a General or Ambassador, now-a-days.
westhawk
Because, no matter the "outcome" of the surge, we need to know what's up next.
ReplyDeleteAnnounce the turnover to the Iraqi of the Security mission, write the new military aid and training program, between now and then.
Not wait to be overcome by events, but appear to be creating them.
Instead Mr Bush is in a bunkered down White House.
A Green Zone mentality.
Could it be the season of the Jihadi in the US? This could turn out to be interesting in that regard. Or not (as rat would say).
ReplyDeleteBOULDER, Colorado (AP) -- A high school in Colorado was locked down Thursday amid unconfirmed reports that two masked men were seen entering the building.
Officers from various law enforcement agencies could be seen outside Boulder High School, and the entrances to the parking lot and the building were blocked off.
Boulder Police spokeswoman Julie Brooks confirmed that the school was locked down and that authorities were on the scene, but she released no further details. She would not confirm a report by KOA Radio that a school staff member had seen masked men entering the building.
If so, what with the Fort Dix jihadis and sympathizers like Ishamel Ax, the Spring Offensive could be under way. Who knows what else may be heading toward our porous southern border from the Tri-Border Area, that even MSNBC is now recognizing as a threat.
Western civilization assumed that it was the only way to the future. It assumed that unfettered migration into Europe and North America would all come together in a diverse but melded cultural unit. We were wrong.
ReplyDeleteFrom 2164th quote of
ReplyDeleteStu Bykofsky | Wake up, Americans: We're at war!:
"The question is: How do we go about rooting out the jihadists without terrorizing peaceful Muslims?"
With Desert Rat's following:
"The very concept that this is a "war" that will take "generations" assures defeat."
I think this gets to a critical problem in the whole formulation of the problem. This notion of "its a WAR". And this problem became rooted immediately following 911. War implies we will meet with a win, that we can mobilize and bring to bear our superior military force and overpower the problem. This is to misunderstand the problem. We are not warring against nations or large organized groups. Nope, the whole damn war thing is conflating a war, like a war on drugs with a war, like a war with other nations.
The war on drugs is essentially a police action and so to is the war on terror. I can see the eyes rolling now, the gasps of exasperation, but really, that is the meat of it, and the sooner we realize it the better we will be able to counter the problem.
Stoutfellow is a modest soul. look at this
ReplyDelete"The war on drugs is essentially a police action and so to is the war on terror."
ReplyDeleteif your logic is solid, it should hold viewed through a different perspective...that of jihad
Is islamic jihad is a police action?
If so, please explain.
If not, your original statement is incorrect.
Also, you never provided the international list of evangelical terror groups committing terrorism in the name of Christ in different nations, across the globe.
Teach me, i have far to go and much to learn.
Deuce and DR,
ReplyDeletePoint well taken. We started getting politically correct as victory was near in the Afghan campaign and the lawyers won the day. How soon I forget.
I love the smell of paperwork in the morning.
You now confuse me with ash.
ReplyDeleteI am not one to claim that there are evangalical christian terrorists, operating in groups and cells.
The entire effort, from Afghanistan to Iraq is a policing action. Combatants detained in Iraq are turned over to Iraqi criminal courts for adjudication, in their criminal system.
Mr Padilla, the O'Hare arrested "dirty bomber", is being tried in the US criminal court system, as was the "shoe bomber", not as "enemy combatants".
Police activities and Systems being employeed, not "war" in the classic sense.
Similar to the "war on drugs" and first attempting to use the Columbian criminal system to adjudicate and control Pablo. That effort failed.
Even after Pablo was dispatched the drug traffic did not falter, it just de-centralized.
Same is true in Mexico, though the names of the players escape me.
Same is true of the jihadists.
Except where there are established camps and infrastructure, as in Warizistan, there are no military targets to "war" against. Given present doctrine.
The Fort Dix Six
ReplyDeleteFederal Criminal Court.
Not Military Tribunals.
Police Action, literally, not a War.
Police Action, literally, not a War.
ReplyDeleteA commenter at Jihad Watch put it something like this: The Islamists are waging War and we are waging Law.
Not confused at all, unless u are posting under another name
ReplyDeleteThu May 10, 10:54:00 AM EDT -
"The war on drugs is essentially a police action and so to is the war on terror." I can see the eyes rolling now, the gasps of exasperation, but really, that is the meat of it, and the sooner we realize it the better we will be able to counter the problem.
However, your comment...
"Given present doctrine"
is interesting, as is its implications.
Any thoughts on
1) What will change the present doctrine?
and
2) What the new doctrine should look like?
Ash said...
ReplyDeleteThe war on drugs is essentially a police action...
That has yet to yield any results that can be viewed as a "win" or some eradication of the problem.
So far, the WOD has been successful at making the fedgov huge and turning the 4th and 5th Amendments into toilet paper.
...and so to is the war on terror.
If fought the same way as the WOD, then I guess we can expect similar results. Nab six here. Nab twelve there. In the meantime, the terror "trade" flourishes in the background as corrput governments live off of drug and petro dollars.
Let's see how many drug-runner speedboats can swap their coca powder for low-yield nukes or dirty bombs. All it takes is a higher bidder.
I can see the eyes rolling now, the gasps of exasperation, but really, that is the meat of it, and the sooner we realize it the better we will be able to counter the problem.
But we haven't countered the drug problem at all. The drug business is bigger than it has ever been. Americans are still getting as high as they ever were. All we're getting is a police state that takes a defensive posture against the drugs and an offensive posture against the citizenry.
The big similarity between the two is the delusional way the government has defined and deals with the problems.
brother b-day,
ReplyDeleteI in no way wish to defend the War on Drugs. Simply because the war on drugs is misguided it does not follow that the war on terror is also misguided. I think addressing the demand for drugs is crucial. Similarly addressing a similar construct on the terror side would also be helpful but the effort should not be fixated on that one aspect.
"Pop tarts of the popular culture?"
ReplyDeleteHooked On Trivia While Threats Fester
I do not think you can find a snippet of me speaking of christian terrorists, particularily organized.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't categorize neo-nazis in OK or KS as christians.
Jewish terrorists, I've referenced to the Irgun and the British Mandate era in Palistine.
As to changing the present doctrines, some series of events that causes the publics' perception of the enemy to change. A major casualty event or a major oil supply disruption.
ReplyDeleteSomething more than incremental cost increases.
A reason for the public to demand the US unleash the dogs of war.
Who makes the target list, well that depends on who's in charge, when the shift in opinion occurs.
The public still believes the US omnipotent. That we choose not "do what it takes", not that we can't.
The only reference to christians that I've made, as to military events is with regards Russia.
ReplyDeleteI used to reference a National Journal piece on Putin's Russia,
"... The Aksaisky school illustrates what Cossacks are about. Education in the Russian Orthodox faith -- also a patriarchal institution and the only accepted religious belief for Cossacks -- is a core part of the curriculum. The cadets, who are exclusively male, participate in ballroom dancing (with girls from a local school), choir singing of patriotic tunes, and target practice. The school is popular -- 900 applicants for 42 slots last year. All applicants must have a recommendation from their local ataman, the elected leader of a Cossack band. About three-quarters of the pupils come from orphanages or other vulnerable circumstances, and pay no money.
"I am proud of my children -- this is the future of Russia," the school's director, Vasily Dontsov, a retired Russian army colonel and paratrooper, told me. His small office features a portrait of Putin and various religious icons.
The rise or return of the Cossacks, in Russia, to positions of authority.
Linked here, an interesting piece, from Jul '06
"Why won't western people support the effort to beat back fundamentalist Islam? Is the West no longer a serious society? Has it has become so sick, so nihilistic that, believing in nothing, it will fight for nothing?"
ReplyDeleteThe first step would be to stop thinking of it as "the West," as if it is a unitary unit that works for all.
We're the only people who think that way.
Meanwhile, the poppy problem isn't even addressed, is it? I don't see the crop duster boys out at all, spraying Round-up. Would tick the war lords off.
ReplyDelete"Western civilization assumed that it was the only way to the future. It assumed that unfettered migration into Europe and North America would all come together in a diverse but melded cultural unit. We were wrong."
ReplyDelete"the West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do." - Samuel Huntington
They need a poppy specific beetle. With St. John's Wort here, it's recommended not to spray, just let the beetles eat em. That might do the trick, beetles making small targets for the manpads and machine guns.
ReplyDeleteExactly, cutler, what are the lessons learned, by the Chinese, from the 19th and 20th centuries?
ReplyDeleteBy the Israeli?
By the Indians?
By the Pakistani?
By the Iranians?
How do they guarentee their independence of action from the reckless and feckless West?
"Also, you never provided the international list of evangelical terror groups committing terrorism in the name of Christ in different nations, across the globe."
ReplyDeletethe statement was not for you desert rat
That is good, as your memory may be more reliable than mine. I cannot think of any modern christian terror groups, perhaps the KKK, at a couple of points in US history, but not today.
ReplyDeleteSome in Europe perhaps, but not currently, post WWII, that I'm aware of. Are neo-nazis christian, I tend to think not.
But Christianity can militarize or militantize quickly, historicly.
The sad thing is that there are ideas that the rest of the world have taken from 'the West,' but its more often than not been fascism and socialism than [real] liberalism. I.e., the worst of the Western tradition, rather than the best.
ReplyDeleteThose were the aspects they came in contact with that most closely mirrored their existing structures. One step up from tribalism, then only in rhetoric, not so much in practice.
ReplyDeleteRather than than the Federalist Papers.
Seems from here.
These people were probably blown out of importance in the wake of Oklahoma City (committed by an Agnostic), but they do exist.
ReplyDelete"Those were the aspects they came in contact with that most closely mirrored their existing structures. One step up from tribalism, then only in rhetoric, not so much in practice.
ReplyDeleteRather than than the Federalist Papers.
Seems from here."
I thought about that.
I'd also say that for politicians, they provide the suitable ammo for demagoguery, as well as attaining power. Since, of course, Liberalism is about disseminating power, rather than collecting it. It also provides no intrinsic enemy to focus attention on (since it is inclusive).
"blown out of importance"
ReplyDelete*blown out of proportion
They do not get much ink, if they are active terrorists.
ReplyDeleteThat they could be radical, that goes without saying, but active terrorists? I do not think they qualify.
John Brown, now he was a christian terrorist.
Go back to happy old Europe, of yore, you'll find plenty of Christian terrorists of all sects; happily we seem capable of learning, and it was 'far away and long ago'.
ReplyDelete"But Christianity can militarize, and militarize quickly, historically." Also true.
"The first step would be to stop thinking of it as "the West," as if it is a unitary unit that works for all."
ReplyDeleteExactly, cutler. No such thing as a monolithic entity, the West.
"Why won't western people support the effort to beat back fundamentalist Islam?"
ReplyDeleteSo, leaving aside the fact that there is no "western people," one must ask: Beat back fundamentalist Islam how, exactly? Are we beating back fundamentalist Islam, a state of mind, by occupying two - count 'em, two - little Muslim countries, both of which have Muslim governments and Muslim armies? I mean, is that the really the hope and the plan?
And that leads me to a question for Rat, who wants us to name the enemy. To call it, specifically, Islam.
How are we supposed to this AND establish and perpetuate those workaday "indig" relationships you deem vital? Who do you think those people are - in Afghanistan, Iraq, and countless other places? Noncommital agnostics? Closet secularists? Latent Mormons?
Hence, my joke about declaring war on Turkey and Kurdistan simultaneously.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteOther 25 nations: 2500 troops.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it is that far on a limb to suggest this might be one of the most dysfunctional command chains, ever.
As it is, cutler, we've given the toothpaste tube another squeeze in Afghanistan. So the Taliban pops up and begins operating in Hermat.
ReplyDeleteThank God it's not the central front in the war on terror, hm?
Herat.
ReplyDeleteWonder if that pleases or worries the Iranians. I.e. who they want to fail more, us or the Taliban.
ReplyDeleteAs it is, I don't know if it is truly the central front in the war on terror. Only the one that everyone claims to agree on - at least so long as Iraq takes the heat.
ReplyDeleteSo, the idea of the "west" is a myth. I suppose that I have also been mislead about Judaeo-Christian heritage and about the shared bonds of the English speaking countries of the Former British Empire specifically the US, Canada, Australia and Great Britain.
ReplyDeleteI am also confused about whether Muslim governments and Muslim armies are or are not our natural enemies. Is there or is there not a distinction between ordinary Muslims and jihadists.
Seeking clarity,
Signed, Another drug-addled Westerner.
Were I an Iranian, without a grand bargain, I'd want it to be a long statemale.
ReplyDelete"Only the one that everyone claims to agree on - at least so long as Iraq takes the heat."
ReplyDeleteC'mon, cutler. It is concretely the central front - merely counting resources and assets. Bush wasn't lying, for heaven's sake. It IS the central front.
You didn't say, whit, that the West consists of English-speaking countries. Even if you had, those English-speaking countries are not in harmony.
ReplyDelete"I am also confused about whether Muslim governments and Muslim armies are or are not our natural enemies. Is there or is there not a distinction between ordinary Muslims and jihadists."
ReplyDeleteHow do you make that fine distinction if Islam is the problem and Islam is the enemy?
In harmony?
ReplyDeleteWhat two people are? How much harmony is in a family? Much less nations?
Of course, we not in harmony but once upon a time, when the chips were down we banded together to roll back an enemy far more threatening and powerful than the jihadists who are nothing more than zealot thugs. Unfortunately, to do nothing about these thugs will result in a Gaza strip running from the Mediterranean to the Philippines. Today, the thugs are still relatively weak but left unchecked they will prevail and their oil money will purchase influence and nuclear weapons.
"once upon a time, when the chips were down we banded together to roll back an enemy far more threatening and powerful than the jihadists"
ReplyDeleteSo how do you roll back a far less threatening enemy?
Islam is a problem.
ReplyDeleteFortunately, many Muslims are like so-called self professed Christians. They are not devout, they do not attend Mosques. To paraphrase the Christian lingo, they are of the world, not of Allah. They're apostate, no more concerned with the Koran than the average American is with the Bible.
"How do you roll back...?"
ReplyDeleteKill the thugs.
"Only the one that everyone claims to agree on - at least so long as Iraq takes the heat."
ReplyDeleteC'mon, cutler. It is concretely the central front - merely counting resources and assets. Bush wasn't lying, for heaven's sake. It IS the central front."
You lost me for a moment. I thought you were being ironic about Afghanistan not being the central front.
I personally think that Iraq is now it, but if you asked half the country today, they wouldn't agree.
Afghanistan's always been a political backwater, except for its symbolism.
"Kill the thugs."
ReplyDeleteWhich ones? Where?
"I personally think that Iraq is now it"
ReplyDeleteYou pick and choose your battles. And Iraq is the battle.
Come on trish.
ReplyDeleteAre you saying that because it is too hard we shouldn't do it? We should "redeploy" and lick our wounds and go back to a 9/10 mentality?
A little bit of historical perspective. For the last 60 years or so we worked with the British.
ReplyDeleteDuring the interwar years, the US Navy ernestly planned to fight them over sea lanes in the Atlantic. For much of the 19th century we had issues with them. 18th century, well self-explanatory.
France, also rocky.
Germany, a traditional ally? (HAHAHAHA)
The lesson to me is not to get too attached to the recent past, things change.
If I asked the majority of "Westerners" if they wanted the West to fail, they probably wouldn't know what I was talking about. They aren't thinking that big.
And those who did, wouldn't be able to agree on whose in it or what its legacy is. Europe? Or the Anglosphere? If it is the former, then socialism and Fascism are as much Western as liberalism.
If the latter, maybe the British and Australians might have a lasting conception of it, but certainly not the Canadians and Kiwis.
We're Americans. Sometimes we're able to work with Commonwealth countries, cause they're somewhat close to us culturally. Sometimes we work with other Europeans, who aren't, but are still closer than others in the World.
Personally, the world's confusing enough without forcing it into catagories that can be obsolete yesterday or tomorrow.
Why don't you go teach that Bravo Sierra to some of our university freshmen?
ReplyDelete"Are you saying that because it is too hard we shouldn't do it? We should "redeploy" and lick our wounds and go back to a 9/10 mentality?"
ReplyDeleteYou wanna whine about the lack of enthusiasm of "the West" - predict its absolute decline - and then tell ME it's too hard?
I'm not disputing your facts but your argument is not helpful in mobilizing disparate people against a common enemy. It also discounts the common bonds in favor of hard facts which as I pointed out are simply a part of Human nature.
ReplyDeleteTrish:
ReplyDeleteJust because we're killing ourselves doesn't mean we should let someone else do it.
Maybe we should have Fallon seek terms from Bin Laden. Offer to lay down arms in Iraq and Afghanistan, march to the sea and depart the world stage forever. We could offer hostages, perhaps all of the residents of California, and pay $200 per barrel of oil as jiyza. Let the young jihadis murder a few thousand Americans a year to sate their natural bloodlust without threat of prosecution. Oh, and rape our women as needed.
ReplyDeleteWhat ya'll think?
"I'm not disputing your facts but your argument is not helpful in mobilizing disparate people against a common enemy."
ReplyDeleteWhat's yours?
Whit,
ReplyDeleteAny US ally watching the Democrats would be wise to put some distance between themselves and the US.
The Dems just spit in Columbia's presidents face. And we're fixin to bug out of Iraq this fall and Afghanistan soon thereafter.
Would you trust us?
"Just because we're killing ourselves doesn't mean we should let someone else do it."
ReplyDeleteProblem is, you haven't decided who your real enemy is.
No, I would not trust the Democrats but there's still hope that the public will be thoroughly appalled by their behavior. Slim hope, I admit.
ReplyDeleteTrish:
ReplyDeleteI was hoping that you would tell me.
No, you weren't.
ReplyDeleteDrug addled culture
ReplyDeleteFox News is reporting:
Ocycontin manufacturer Perdue Pharma has been fined $635 million for concealing and misrepresenting the dangers of abuse and addiction.
Hundreds of young people killed by the drug.
trish said...
ReplyDelete"Kill the thugs."
Which ones? Where?
therefore, the opposite is true...
Kill the infidels
Which ones? Where?
Right?
Trish:
ReplyDeleteYes I was. See my 5:29 post signed "seeking clarity."
Whit,
ReplyDeleteThe public is busy buying Chinese stuff to beef up their narcissim. War is boring unless it comes to Ms. Hilton's club (then it is annoying).
Sorry Whit, no public to wake up here.
The clarity is in your post. The enemy is us.
ReplyDeleteIn the big picture, what's the loss of 3000 Americans and a couple buildings every few years. Tis only .001 percent of our population. That many Mexicans cross the border every day.
ReplyDeleteLet's just kick back with an Oxy and dream of being famous. No need to chase goatherds. Hell, they just want to be famous like us.
Trish,
ReplyDeleteIn my world, anyone who says he wants to kill me is my enemy.
Want the police to come investigate your murder? Or soldiers to go kill the guy who made the threat? As far as I'm concerned, if the village won't control the guy who made the threat, then the whole village can burn. Men, women, children and goats.
But, I'm kind of a Dark Age bastard myself when it comes to these things.
That's it Lugh, you got it. We're tired of the war, such as it is. If the war can't be won in 223 minutes, the movie is too long.
ReplyDelete"In my world, anyone who says he wants to kill me is my enemy."
ReplyDeleteAnd you're gonna do what, lug? You're gonna wait for them to cross over the border into your path, hoping that you can identify them when they do. That's what's you're gonna do.
Because that's the policy set by the CIC.
One must say, these Fort Dix six fellows weren't exactly gun shy in their choice of a target. Of the arrays of targets they considered, evidently they were choosing to go right in the middle of the hornets nest, when many other soft saturday or sunday afternoon targets abound. A real suicide expedition. A real death wish showing itself, but not much thought about effectiveness. If it slows down the bill marching through congress concerning immigration maybe they have done us a small favor.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure that the enemy i "all" of the Islamists in the world. But I am also sure that the enemy is more than the Sunni malcontents in Anbar.
ReplyDeleteThe core of the problem lies in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, while the US frets about Iraq and Iran.
Both far from the heart of the real ideological battle, both Iraq and Iran being diversions set up for US by the Sauds and the Israeli assisted by their agents and sympathizers.
Trish,
ReplyDeleteAre you inciting me to do my duty as defined by the Declaration of Independence?
I'll give CIC his due until it gets personal, then all covenants will be considered null and void. State of nature and all that Hobbesian stuff.
"I'll give CIC his due until it gets personal"
ReplyDeleteWhen would that be, lug?
DR,
ReplyDeleteMoney will make people behave contrary to their best interest. CIC has calibrated American willingness to sacrifice and found
Bush should've nuked Mecca the evening of 911. Too late now. We showed our weak hand. Now the jackals are circling our standing corpse.
Trish,
ReplyDeleteWhen my clan gets hurt. Don't much care about you and yours. I'm flying skull and crossbones these days.
"When my clan gets hurt. Don't much care about you and yours. I'm flying skull and crossbones these days."
ReplyDeleteThe White House isn't, lug.
On what grounds you - with your scull and cross bones - might indentify with that clique, I don't know.
Trish,
ReplyDeleteAnd how is turning your back on CIC in wartime helping the situation? Will a sullen pout make you safer?
I've never thought in terms of clan.
ReplyDeleteYou, a member of clan, are both staunchly parochial and - for lack of a better word - presidential.
You must hoist the skull and bones, but hold up the enterprise abroad - feeling you've not been touched.
Rat-7:54--I expect you'll be hearing from Elijah soon.
ReplyDeleteTrish,
ReplyDeleteClan is all you really have. The village may be there for you, but city? state? nation? C'mon.
I have a covenant with the nation. It holds up it's end then I hold up mine. Otherwise duty requires that I haul down the stars and stripes and hoist the jolly roger.
The US is collapsing. Putin knows it. Chavez mocks us. Amadjihad laughs at us as he builds the bomb. And we're fixin to run away from Iraq like French schoolgirls.
Should I hold out and hope the American people come to their senses? Reason says yes. So I support CIC.
but
I have a fallback position.
But I see where the American people are going with this and I'm getting ready for the shit that is accelerating towards the fan.
God help the city folk.
Trish,
ReplyDeleteClan is all you really have
- lug
No. I spent enough years overseas to know that my country is what I have. And I am grateful.
CIA TO Study Climate?
ReplyDeleteKudlow thinks things never looked rosier for the Republicans.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIn this context, tying our foreign policy to Europe, rhetorically or otherwise, is like tying ourselves to a sinking boat. All responsibility, little payoff.
ReplyDeleteNo thanks.
How many sinking boats are there, cutler?
ReplyDeleteIf the West had a "drug addled, feminized" culture, how would we know?
ReplyDeleteIf that were the case, how do we explain:
-popularity of 24
-popularity of 300
-popularity of Mixed Martial Arts (its rise in popularity occuring concomitant to the decrease in interest in tamer boxing)
-gun purchase rates:
The purchase of handguns from licensed dealers was expressed as the number purchased per 100,000 population per year. RESULTS: The handgun purchase rate increased for the total population between 1950 and 1992, from 169 to 2,076 per 100,000 persons. Between 1983 and 1992, the purchase rate among men aged 21 to 24 years increased 184%; among women of this age group, the rate increased 127%. Among men aged 21 to 24 years, the rate of 9 mm handgun purchases increased 1,682% between 1983 and 1992, the greatest increase for any age-caliber category. CONCLUSION: The greatest increase in rate of legal handgun purchases in Washington state from 1983 through 1992 was among the youngest purchasers. Sales of 9 mm handguns increased most rapidly, especially among the youngest buyers.
Anecdotally, I've observed the following:
-In Obama's, Jackson's and Daley's IL, I saw many females at the indoor ranges this winter.
-For every vegan-convert pissant I know, I know two suburban-raised good-ol boys willing to take up learning to shoot, be it trap, targets or game.
Shame about our government though. We need a broader definition of national defense, not a retreat into the tribal.
We need patriot lawyers fighting nationalist lawfare.
We need patriot NGOs filing suits in foreign courts and buying up their media space.
We need patriot activists of all radicalized spectra denouncing all who oppose our national interests.
We need patriot celebrities, media personalities and fads and fashion.
But instead we have George W Bush, a ridiculous Congress and Americans that are still scratching their heads, their only recourse is a fantasized "kill em all" strategy that could never be articulated as a policy, only rendered to the those in such a need as imagery.
I pick and choose my sinking boats. :) Some countries are in better shape than others, obviously, but collectively they're making my job easier by collecting many of them in one big basket for the time being.
ReplyDeleteTruthfully, I think we have many of the problems that they have, but hopefully we'll take note of them going off the economic and demographic cliff.
The Middle East, on the other hand, was never even afloat.
ReplyDeleteGuess you can call them the anchor.
ReplyDeleteWinning Dirty Beats Losing
ReplyDeleteWe've been reading of that scenario for years, bob. It is what happens if we pull back to the mega bases or begin to withdraw.
ReplyDeleteWe were in the midst of it when the "Surge" began. 100 dead per day and headed north. Senor al-Sadr and his merry band of thugs operating in the Los Pepes role.
Now it seems we have recruited a new group to police the Sunni insurgents.
Though this AP piece says it is now going south in what were once secured areas of Baghdad
BAGHDAD (Associated Press) -- Three months into Baghdad's security crackdown, sectarian violence is back on the rise _ this time, in a mixed neighborhood that had previously been relatively calm while Sunni-Shiite strife tore apart other parts of the Iraqi capital.
Baiyaa, a middle-class district in western Baghdad, has started to display the fears and flight that have already carved up much of the city, which has become a patchwork of separate Sunni and Shiite enclaves.
Snipers have begun appearing in parts of Baiyaa. Many stores have closed, and both Shiite and Sunni families have fled the area in recent weeks. Last Sunday, a car bomb devastated a food market, killing 30 people.
Averaging around 30 to 50 deaths, now, guesstimated me.
Success of sorts.
The House just passed a two month War funding Bill. One that Mr Bush has promised to veto.
It's off to the Senate
Will it make it to the White House for a veto, or will the GOP Senators filibuster.
Mr Bush vetos a "clean Bill"
No benchmarks or timetables. As requested.
Every scenario we discussed is coming into play. Where is wu wei?
He believed Mr Levin. ha ha ha.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWASHINGTON (Associated Press) -- The Democratic-controlled House voted Thursday night to pay for military operations in Iraq on an installment plan, defying President Bush's threat of a second straight veto in a fierce test of wills over the unpopular war.
ReplyDeleteThe 221-205 vote was largely along party lines and sent the measure to a cool reception in the Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is seeking a compromise with the White House and Republicans.
Under growing political pressure from Republicans, Bush coupled his veto threat with a sign of flexibility. Visiting the Pentagon, he said he was willing to sign a military money bill that includes political and military goals for the Iraqi government.
"Time's running out, because the longer we wait the more strain we're going to put on the military," said the president, who previously had insisted on what he termed a "clean" war funding bill.
Benchmarks won't be enough for the Dems, or maybe they will. Mr Bush in retreat, instead of him taking the offensive.
Get ahead of the curve, on the way to a foregone conclusion. The US will handover more and more authority in '08 to the Iraqi.
Announce it today, hand in hand with Mr Maliki and a long term basing and training & advising agreement.
Democratic presidential candidates may have come across a new campaign issue: spotlighting excessive executive compensation.
ReplyDelete...
One obstacle is the White House. The Bush administration says legislation isn't needed and wants time for new Securities and Exchange Commission rules on pay disclosure to take effect.
...
Kevin Madden, a spokesman for former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, 60, referred a reporter to comments Romney made saying shareholders already had the right to set the rules for companies. Maria Comella, spokeswoman for former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, 62, had no immediate comment.
Executive Pay
"Announce it today, hand in hand with Mr Maliki and a long term basing and training & advising agreement."
ReplyDeleteDammit, Rat.
WE CANNOT SIGN A LONG TERM BASING AGREEMENT. WE NEVER WILL SIGN A LONG TERM BASING AGREEMENT. A LONG TERM BASING AGREEMENT IS POLITICAL SUICIDE FOR ANY IRAQI LEADER. A LONG TERM BASING AGREEMENT IS NOT IN THE INTEREST OF ANY *AMERICAN* LEADER. IT IS NOT IN THE INTEREST OF THE *AMERICAN MILITARY*.
Maybe capital letters will help.
That is one opinion, trish
ReplyDeleteTo not get one is political suicide for the GOP, defeat for the US and a sure sign of failure in the whole affair.
Pray tell, why is it political suicide for the GOP not to have a long term basing agreement?
ReplyDeleteHell, Rat, we don't have a long term basing agreement with Belgium. But there we are. After all these years.
ReplyDeleteWe don't have long term basing agreements with most countries we're in.
ReplyDeleteBecause without basing rights, there is no victory, with one, there is.
ReplyDeleteIt becomes the hallmark of Mr Maliki's government "emergence".
It turns the "war" into a "police chase", which is what it is now, in all reality.
The US will be drawing down regardless, who we hand off to and how is the only real question. By announcing now, instead of after a report by General P that will be of both improvements and setbacks, Mr Bush gains some inititve.
Closes the window on aQ "forcing" US out of Iraq.
Changes the debate in DC.
Mr Bush and General P begin a new "Year of Stabilization" followed by 4 or 5 "years of training and advising".
Gives General P a time extension to achieve some anti aQ military goals and the Iraqi a deadline to get their political house in order and some more troops online.
Which they either will or won't accomplish.
As Bing West reports, accurately I assume, a Bn and lower levels the Iraqi military are effective.
ReplyDeleteIf the US uses the train and advise mode of operational control with those troops and police, the central government would remain, while local autonomy and order, as in Anbar and the Sunni triangle, could be maintained.
A defacto Federal partition, mirroring reality. Each faction having US advisors, hopefully limiting inter factional combat.
The terror attacks may continue, but become an Iraqi responsibility to stop, at the local level.
Which is where it's going, anyway.
"Because without basing rights, there is no victory, with one, there is."
ReplyDeleteRat, the long term basing rights are not important. We can stay without them, as we do most other countries. For Iraq, as a practical matter, it makes no sense to do it. We'd be shooting ourselves in the foot, as would the Iraqi government.
Speaking of which - we don't know what government it will be or whether we will be able to support it.
"A defacto Federal partition, mirroring reality. Each faction having US advisors, hopefully limiting inter factional combat."
ReplyDeleteWell now you've wandered off into some kind of fantasy. Limiting inter factional combat. In perpetuity.
You've gotta be shitting me.
Is that Owen West's idea?
ReplyDeleteI have no idea, if it is his idea, as well.
ReplyDeleteEven Ms Clinton has said a residual force will stay behind. The Funding Bill vetoed, had that provision. Training, advising, force protection.
The US will be remaining for some time. That is evident.
Acknowledge it, hand in hand with the Iraqi Government.
Work out the details. Announce we're doing it, then begin. It's going to happen, regardless. Put some structure to it and use reality to the political advantage of the US.
"The US will be remaining for some time. That is evident."
ReplyDeleteRat, you don't get it. We're in the middle of a civil war and trying to keep the country from coming apart. (WELL, no we're quite beyond that.) And we're supposed to say that we're there to stay? That'll fly in fucking Anbar and the Shiite south, to be sure.
As with your adamant suggestion that we declare war on Islam, this is just incredibly....
I've never suggested declaring war on Islam.
ReplyDeleteJust the Wahabbists.
Just take the war to aQ sanctuaries and camps, in Pakistan.
I've advocated for naming the Enemy. I think it's the Wahabbist faction of Islamic ideology, primarily.
The Iranians use their anti US rhetoric and sabre rattling to maintain high oil prices. While irksome and pests, they are no major current threat to US.
Not as much so as the Saudi funded Wahabbist movement, combined with the exisiting Mussulman nuclear capacity, in Pakistan. Pakistan where a majority (52%) of Pakistani believe that Radicalize Mussulmen are a threat to their country. So how far fetched an idea is it that those Wahabbist Mussulmen will take control of the Government, Army and nukes. General Gul is but the public tip of the iceberg. 43% of Pakistani believe democracy can work there, 62% believe Islam plays a large role in political life.
It is the wahabbists that back the terror network of aQ and fellow travelers. I'll bet that the Fort Dix Six were Sunni, not Shia.
Radicalized Wahabbists.
The Iranians pose a conventional nation state threat that can be dealt with by many avenues. The US is moving forward on multiple diplomatic and economic fronts. I'd hope some covert training and support is being given antiMullah factions, in Iran, but ....
"I've never suggested declaring war on Islam."
ReplyDeleteOK. My bad. You want us to name Islam as the enmy.
I am a little puzzled as to why you would think announcing long term basing rights would help anyone at this stage. Most Americans just want out of Iraq so any announcement stating we are hanging around for a long long time wouldn't present very palatable optics.
ReplyDeleteAnd the Iraqis won't be too keen to hear it as well. Heck they have trouble with US there for the short term, any 'agreement' for the long term would just solidify the notion that we came to pillage their nation. Heck even parliament seems to be moving to push US out the door:
Iraqi Lawmakers Draft Timetable Bill
Thursday, May. 10, 2007 By AP/QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA
(BAGHDAD) — A majority of Iraqi lawmakers endorsed a draft bill calling for a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops and demanding a freeze on the number already in the country, lawmakers said Thursday.
The legislation was being discussed even as U.S. lawmakers were locked in a dispute with the White House over their call to start reducing the size of the U.S. force in the coming months.
The proposed Iraqi legislation, drafted by the parliamentary bloc loyal to anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, was signed by 144 members of the 275-member house, said Nassar al-Rubaie, the leader of the Sadrist bloc.
The Sadrist bloc, which holds 30 parliamentary seats and sees the U.S.-led forces as an occupying army, has pushed similar bills before, but this was the first time it garnered the support of a majority of lawmakers.
The bill would require the Iraqi government to seek approval from parliament before it requests an extension of the U.N. mandate for foreign forces to be in Iraq, al-Rubaie said. It also calls for a timetable for the troop withdrawal and a freeze on the size of the foreign forces. "
Because, ash, then that is what you'd have. A timetable of withdrawal, combined with a victory, of sorts.
ReplyDeleteTurn over the Security Mission to the Iraqi on 1 Jan 08. Begin to draw down 1 Mar 08. Reconfigure US force structure to an adivise and train along with force protection as in the vetoed funding Bill.
Draw down to a force of around 50,000 by 1 Jun 09. The remaining US troops stay on in their new role for five years.
Timetables, benchmarks, realistic goals and timing. As General P suggested on his last visit home.
"Long Term Committment", I think he said was required.
Maybe it would not pass muster in the Senate, but I'd bet it could.
"Because, ash, then that is what you'd have. A timetable of withdrawal, combined with a victory, of sorts."
ReplyDeleteAt no cost to the mission, of course.
mission?? is there a mission?
ReplyDeleteBy Jun09 there could be another 150,000 or more trained Iraqi ready to fill the role of policeman.
ReplyDeleteLocals in Anbar and in Basra.
Iraq for Iraqis.
With a US presence.
The Mission is defined in the Treaty.
ReplyDeleteIf there is no Mission, the Treaty would not be ratified.
But Iraqis leading the way, after what will then have been five years is not an outlandish idea, if we are not there as occupiers.
They have their "emerged" government and, by then, over 300,000 man security force.
Five more years!
ReplyDeleteRat's in denial, ash.
Let him be.
An orderly withdrawal, with a stay behind presence remaining, or a rout?
ReplyDeleteThose seem to be the options still available.
That's what the General says he needs. trish.
ReplyDeleteSo, if he says it's a "Long term committment" or nothing
What other options are there?
The "majority" in the US want to see a successful "end".
Not a rout or a defeat. That is what those GOP congressmen said. By September ...
Give it to them, now. With an announcement, with a new UN mission treaty, as ash mentioned, rewritten during its' scheduled June review.
As long as success can be claimed, which it can, Saddam is gone.
With the elected Iraqi government emerging to take the lead, it will not matter when the final curtain comes down.
Like in Korea, where the curtain is still up, while the play continues, but very few notice.
Iraq could be spun the same way.
Or the Senate says no, come home today
ReplyDeleteAs a Treaty it becomes US law without a House vote.
ReplyDeleteJust Senate Ratification.
Operate as if it was ratified until it is.
"An orderly withdrawal, with a stay behind presence remaining, or a rout?"
ReplyDeleteA stay behind presence is what we've had for four years. Who're you kidding?
You want more stay behind.
Well, that's your prerogative.
They'll get their asses kicked just the same.
I think there is a very real possibility that could throw a spanner in the works of any draw down or redeployment and that is the collapse of the elected government. The divisions witnessed in Iraqi society extend right through the parliament and armed forces. US troops sitting on their bases standing by (like during the looting) would be a tough challenge. Then up pops Sadr, or Badr, or 3 states, or no states, or...
ReplyDeletethose dang bases might be a tad uncomfortable in such a situation.
Well there you go, then.
ReplyDeleteAss kicked from the start, no where to go but up, or out.
Let the Senate decide.
In 2007
Long Term or Leave.
Decided before the Election
It is a political solution, because there is no military one.
ReplyDelete"That's what the General says he needs. trish."
ReplyDeleteIt's what Odierno said. I know. But it won't be come September.
Staying was never about winning for the devout.
ReplyDeleteStaying has some special virtue that transcends winning.
Isn't that what the desire for bases is about?
No, ash, the US is not sitting in bases, they are deployed, integrated within Iraqi security forces, in an advise and training program. About 1 US for every 10 Iraqi over all, but the actual distributions would be more concentrated.
ReplyDeleteAround 25,000 US troops in that role. The balance in base security and logistics. The fixed air wings kept over the border. Rotary begin to train and transfer to Iraqi, which would be a three year training and transfer program, minimum.
"those dang bases might be a tad uncomfortable..."
ReplyDeleteThey already are. The combined bases are extra fun.
And what of it?
Rat tells us we need more of it.
His son, though, didn't want more.
another guy who was in and keen then stoplossed and now not at all keen
ReplyDeletehttp://funwithhandgrenades.blogspot.com/
That's right, trish. He did not want to return to Iraq and sit around.
ReplyDeleteBut that does not mean it could or should not be done, if the US decided it needed to be.
Thaat's my whole point, resolve the issue in the US Congress, this year, don't put it off until after the election.
ReplyDeleteOther wise there'll be train wreck, here, as well as "over there".
Who wins, then?
Sorry, Rat. It was rude of me to bring a family member into the discussion anyway.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's moot. Like arguing whether to go to war w/ Iran.
Not gonna happen in present circumstances. For good reason.