That is a problem, and probably was one of the goals of the revolt in the first place - to get the handover delayed and make the US look bad in the process. For that reason I expect the handover will take place on time, simply for appearances’ sake, even if it means Iraqi sovereignty is largely faked for a while. But I think that, once this is over, we’re far less likely to see more such events, simply because many of the people likely to participate are involved in this one, and also because even without this, US troops weren’t going to be fully leaving Iraq anytime soon, and their continued presence - even if just restricted to bases - will be viewed as a mark of the US’s willingness to repeat the current operations if necessary.
“Si vis pacem, para bellum” and all that kind of thing. Proving you’re willing to fight a war does tend to make actually having to fight one less likely.
The Iraqi police forces definitely need a shakedown though, this wouldn’t have happend without complicity from some of them.
So? We lost control of central LA during the Rodney King riots, and nobody suggested pulling out.
I strained my neck even trying to comprehend your stretch here.
As for the rest, you are making these statements of fact, even while your first post says it is unclear what is going on. So I guess sometimes that works for you, and sometimes you ignore your own point.
While I respect your position and I am sure as you type on your keyboard, you have a much clearer view of how this is playing out than anyone else, here is something for you to chew on.
But of course it is wrong, and I am sure your fact finding mission to the fridge will clear this up.
In every crisis and confrontation there is opportunity.
My personal opinion at this point is that Sadr shot his wad several months too soon. He is not that well liked and there is still a large US force structure in place.
The current situation has the potential to impair transition and stability, but it is not a given, or the only possible outcome.
Loss of order in a city and lots of hotheads running around yelling about how they’re being oppressed doesn’t necessarily mean anything in the long run. Does that make more sense?
As for the rest, you are making these statements of fact, even while your first post says it is unclear what is going on.
Ok, so I should’ve been a bit less certain in my wording. Feel free to view those comments as just my opinions (which I’m sure you’ll do anyway), based on the information available.
What they have to say about Iraq cannot be trusted. (First person reports are what I look for, preferably by people other than professional journalists - journalists today, of any stripe, give the most biased reports of all) The NYT, as much as anyone, is looking for The Story, and doesn’t let facts get in its way. I could give you equally comprehensive and convincing links to stories about how Iraqis are disgusted with this revolt and aren’t sure what to do but hopes the US comes out on top; that wouldn’t mean any more than this. We can selectively quote all day long, and the NYT does, but that won’t affect the reality of things on the ground; the only way to see that is to wait a week or two.
If the NYT is right, then the counteroffensive will stall and things will get visibly worse - on the military front, not just the propaganda one - quickly enough. As it stands there’s no sign of that happening yet.
Yeah, LA was previously held by rival militias and was a foreign city we occupied. Tom Chick only lives there now because the occupational forced have remained after the riots. Dead on comparison.
Hmm. The front page story in today’s Washington Post is pretty clear, too, Rollo.
You can take your pick though. There’s the story on the bleak overall picture, there’s the story with the civil affairs patrol in Fallujah under sniper fire, or there’s the editorial analysis of President Nero being on vacation and silent while all this takes place.
Oh, and when the frontpage story runs out, there’s another story on the collapsing of support even among our mid-east allies for our occupation in Iraq. It’s costing us not only there, but throughout the region, and we lack the troops to bring everyone into line with our unilateral agenda.
Solution? Here’s one: boot George Bush and his cabinet of buffoons out of office. Have the next president go to the UN with hat in hand and offer them control, responsibility, and the chance to bid on reconstruction contracts. Repudiate utterly the havoc Rummy and Wolfie have wrought on 75 years of geopolitical goodwill the US used to enjoy throughout the world. Might not solve all the problems, but it’d be a helluva start.
When can we join the EU? Wait, forget that. Let’s just talk about these 75 years of goodwill the US enjoyed, throughout the world no less. No doubt 9/11 was precipitated entirely by the Bush II administration, right?
While we’re at it, let’s go over the track record of the UN, in the Middle East in particular. I eagerly await the laundry list of triumphs.
It’s always been an ugly situation, with no easy solutions. What we are offering now isn’t a solution, but it at least has potential to make things significantly better in the long run. The preferred tactic of the past, that is, twiddling our thumbs and trying to bribe and cajole our way through obviously hostile governments, was really getting us nowhere. In a way, we were almost lucky (at least up until now) that 9/11 was as big a response as came our way. It could have been a lot worse.
And I think the situation is actually a LOT worse than any American news source is reporting. What I’m seeing on the CBC and BBC is completely different than what I’m seeing on CNN and the US networks. Right after I watched a CNN report earlier this week about how things were calming down, that the US military was taking control of the situation and there were just a few radicals causing problems for everyone, I flipped on CBC and watched a reporter’s first-person account of the craziness in Ramadi. His biggest point? The “few radicals” were winning and all of the American soldiers he spoke to were shocked over what they were facing and thought the entire situation was quickly becoming untenable. Maybe the guy was biased, but I’ve heard so many reports now on non-American news channels confirming accounts like this that I give them more credence than the spin being repeated by the US networks.
I’ve gotta say, I’m really disappointed in US news. I mean, it’s never been fantastic or anything, but now it seems to be an extension of the federal government. The absense of in-depth, critical reporting on Iraq is sickening. It reminds me of Vietnam (ha-ha, I said the V-word!), in that the US media was pretty solidly behind the war until Tet. That changed everything. Maybe the US needs someone to play Walter Cronkite and get the word out to the masses that this idiotic war is unwinnable.
Hell, you could even use the same phrase, as Cronkite’s urging that the US get out “not as victors but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could,” line from Feb. 1968 perfectly applies to the current situation. There is absolutely no way that Bush can realize his political goals in Iraq now. No matter what happens militarily, no matter how hard the Americans put down the current rebellion. The objectives cannot be met because Bush doesn’t have a partner in Iraq. There isn’t enough popular support.
What an awful, ridiculous mess Bush blundered into. The craziest part of it all? It was so easily avoidable. If just a couple of people in the administration had listened to people with real knowledge about the region, this whole thing could have been skipped and we’d be a lot further along in the campaign against the real enemy–the Islamists working under the al Qaeda umbrella. At the very least, the situation in Afghanistan would be a hell of a lot more stable.
Oh, and the best part of it all? Saddam’s being proven right. He always said that a firm hand was needed to keep Iraq from imploding. And now the Americans are learning that, as they’re being forced to kill all sorts of people to keep the general populace in line. Also, the US is even running some of Saddam’s old prisons now, and keeping hundreds-thousands of Iraqis “dissidents” locked up without trial and in complete isolation. There was a documentary report on CBC about this just this past week. Ah, let freedom ring!
They should get Saddam a nice hot shower and shave, apologize for that nasty business with Uday and Qusay, and set him back up in one of his presidential palaces. Yeah, I’m joking. But only partly. As I said from the very beginning, any alternative to Saddam will be a lot worse. Look at Sadr. He’s a fucking complete lunatic, a more radical and younger version of Ayatollah Khomeini. You can’t even kill him, because the replacement would be even more crazy, and he’s got so many supporters now that any military effort would be futile unless you’re willing to slaughter thousands of people. Like I said in the last post, Bush’s objectives–which were ridiculous from the very beginning–have finally been totally exposed as absurd. How anyone can defend the war with a straight face now is beyond me.
Isn’t it obvious at this point that the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire after World War I was a complete and total clusterfuck by the European powers involved? After the Cold War, we let the former Communist break up rather successfully. (Yugoslavia and Chechnya notwithstanding.) Why can’t we do that for Iraq?
If the Kurds want to have their own fucking country, I say give it to them and fuck what Turkey and Iran think. And let the Shiites and the Sunni go their seperate ways in the south. But why are we so intent on keeping Iraq in one piece, when everything in its history shows that’s damn near impossible without a tyrant keeping it together.
Brett, Brett, Brett, my sad misininformed Canadian. Maybe it is being covered up there, but don’t you see the domino effect happening? Other countries are seeing how great Democracy is under Bush, so Syria, Iran and others are now turning to democracy as we speak!
And where in the world would these guys come up with this idea of the Domino Effect? It is almost like another administration thought the same thing would happen in reverse unless we went to a place like South East Asia and stopped… oh hey wait, my bad, faulty comparison…
Chet
ps. I have even bought the domain WelcometoDemocracy.com where I one day hope to put tips for our new democratic friends, the only tip i can offer now is - “DUCK!”.
Actually, it’s the least we could do. Goes back to Kissenger in the 70’s our history of courting and betraying the Kurds. I think his quote was something like, “Covert operations isn’t missionary work” when we hung them out to dry, be massacred, the first time.
However, I just don’t see how we pull that off without pissing off Turkey completely. Maybe we can buy them off somehow? I’m certainly in the ‘screw Iran’ camp on this one. It’s really not their business. Frankly, it’s not Turkey’s business either but they’ll make it just that and with a vengence and we do kinda need them. They’re a secular Muslim state and a NATO member. That makes them a very rare bird we need to keep from alienating.
I’ve talked to folks about this angle before but it just seems diplomatically impossible. At least from what little I know about the situation.
The same UN that did nothing before during or after the premediated slaughter of almost a million people in Somalia a mere decade ago?
The same UN participated in by Western democracies that couldn’t stop ethnic cleansing in their own backyard without the aid of the US?
What can you point to that says ‘oh, the UN can fix things’ or ‘the UN can do this better’ with Iraq? Which countries have the capacity to make a bit of difference that aren’t already involved?
Criticism of US blunderings and mistakes I can completely understand. Believing in the delusion that the UN is something it is not would be laughable if not for the fact that it could result in death and misery that make the worst of the current situation seem like a spring day.
Turkey and Israel have actually a solid relationship. In fact, they’ve been cooperating militarily for some time (Israel is doing some work upgrading Turkey’s military, and they engage in joint excercises). And they’re both friends of ours. I’m sure there’s some kind of deal that could be worked out, and a strong Israel, Turkey, and Kurdistan would be a huge strategic asset to the US. (And make Syria feel very, very, very afraid.)
I’m sure there’s a way we keep the Turk’s happy. Like we ensure that a Kurdish nation would only take up Northern Iraq. Turkey’s fear is that their own Kurds in the eastern part of the country will want to join Kurdistan, taking a big chunk of Turkey with them. And we could also throw in a huge aid program, which should buy off the rest of their fears.
And we keep the Turkish Kurds happy by helping them move to Kurdistan if they want. Kind of like how Jews worldwide immigrated to Israel after it was founded. But we make it clear that we won’t tolerate any kind of rebel movement to split Turkey apart. Now, would the Kurds get the nothern oil fields? That’s the dicey prospect, because everyone is going to want those, and they’re far enough south that both sides could make claims.
But the Kurds actually like the US, in contrast to the rest of the country. And they’ve been semi-autonomous for over a decade, thanks to the no-fly zone protecting them. They’ve got good institutions in place already, including the closest thing to a free press in the muslim world. We guarantee their security and their borders, and that should also alleviate the Turks. We also give them economic aid so they can build a prosperous society.
The same UN that did nothing before during or after the premediated slaughter of almost a million people in Somalia a mere decade ago?
The same UN participated in by Western democracies that couldn’t stop ethnic cleansing in their own backyard without the aid of the US?
What can you point to that says ‘oh, the UN can fix things’ or ‘the UN can do this better’ with Iraq? Which countries have the capacity to make a bit of difference that aren’t already involved?
Criticism of US blunderings and mistakes I can completely understand. Believing in the delusion that the UN is something it is not would be laughable if not for the fact that it could result in death and misery that make the worst of the current situation seem like a spring day.[/quote]
While I know seeing the words “UN” in a discussion prompt a certain BF Skinner-like response in you poor deluded neo-cons (probably because it’s the only thing y’all have said that hasn’t been categorically shown to be utter bullshit), you’ve completely missed the forest for trees.
Rather than the usual, predictable laundry list trotted out here, please tell me what fundamental problems you’ve observed with the UN troops occupying the DMZ in South Korea or the UN troops in the Balkans keeping the peace there. Be specific please.
See, the idea isn’t to get any grand UN initiative. Rather we just need help with the occupation force, and this seems like the best way to extricate ourselves from one of the biggest foreign-policy boondoggles in US history.
