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Iraq "too successful"

varwoche

Penultimate Amazing
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varwoche
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The difficulties in Fallujah bring to mind that in the 1st debate, Bush explained that one of the reasons for the unexpected insurgency in Iraq is because the invasion was too successful -- that the enemy melted into the population.

DUH! How in the name of Ed could this have been a total surprise? The exact same thing had just happened in Afghanistan. How could this possibility not have been anticipated? Were we really this stupid, or is "too successful" just a handy excuse?
 
varwoche said:
The difficulties in Fallujah bring to mind that in the 1st debate, Bush explained that one of the reasons for the unexpected insurgency in Iraq is because the invasion was too successful -- that the enemy melted into the population.

DUH! How in the name of Ed could this have been a total surprise? The exact same thing had just happened in Afghanistan. How could this possibility not have been anticipated? Were we really this stupid, or is "too successful" just a handy excuse?
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Because they (Saddam mostly, but France too) didn't really believe we'd do it. There was very little precedent, after all. AFG wasn't a good clue because that was a foregone conclusion.

"Melting" into the rest of the population was (should have been) to be expected. I can see (in hindsight) no other possibility. Plus, it's only the 'smart' ones that survived long enough to do so. (by smart I mean leadership).

That's a Bush failure, so to speak, but I don't know how it could have been avoided. Possibly by ensuring that they "melted in" only in geographically distinict areas...such as they did. Did they do that?

It appears that they did somewhat, but probably not as compactly as some (I) would have liked.

If you can look at it from a stratigic perspective, rather than a political one, there are more advantages than not. Of course, I must confess that I flunked out of war college.
 
Look at the bright side, we have them all holed up in one place. All the easier to exterminate them.
k21rd
 
There are no civilians left in that rat hole. Three hundred thousand people have fled the city in the last year.
 
Hey, why not nuke Mecca and Medina just like Michael Savage says? Then we could move troops into Saudi Arabia. Strategically, we would then control the entire Islam religion, and therefore we would control the Islamofascists too.
 
A quick look at the map reveals one possible clue and may even send a sharp chill down your spine

Yes, Afghanistan was a forgone conclusion. We diverted our attention from there and the Taliban is now back everywhere outside of the capital where our troops are holed up. I guess nobody learned anything from the soviet adventure there. It remains to be seen just how tenuous the hold will be on Afghanistan. Bush's strategic mistake was not to finish the job and occupy the entire country which would've meant destroying the heroin biz there which he needed as a trade-off to prevent opposition from the war lords and their tribes. The continued existence of the drug/war lords are a destabilizing factor; they are scum that would sell their mothers for a pittance.

But Iraq is not only strategic for its oil reserves, but also because it shares a huge border with and sits to the southwest of Iran. By having Afghanistan to the northeast of Iran and Iraq to the southwest, there may be a plan in their somewhere to consolidate that territory by invading Iran on two fronts.....and unlike Iraq, Iran admits it has a nuclear program in the full works.

Now that Bush doesn't need to worry about getting re-elected he can plow forward like a mad man on any adventure he can even remotely justify and attacking Iran is eminently justifiable.
 
Richard G said:
There are no civilians left in that rat hole. Three hundred thousand people have fled the city in the last year.
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And none of them were enemies, I suppose. The U.S. has been rattling it's sabre over the pending Fallujah raid for weeks. Anybody who'se wanted to live to fight another day has left long ago.
 
Afghanistan and Iraq are apples and oranges though. The Taliban didn't have a republican guard.
 
Does anybody seriously think that any enemy with two brain cells left to rub together is still going to be Falluja? I mean, they've had weeks of warning about what's coming.

So I'm a terrorist. What am I going to do? Wait here for the US army to come bomb the hell out of me? Of course not! I'll bury my RPG and my AK-47 and simply leave. If I'm stopped then I'm just another civilian getting out of harm's way. I go spend six months blowing up cars in Baghdad instead, then when all the fuss dies down it's back to Falluja to dig up the weapons and start again.
 
materia3 said:


But Iraq is not only strategic for its oil reserves, but also because it shares a huge border with and sits to the southwest of Iran. By having Afghanistan to the northeast of Iran and Iraq to the southwest, there may be a plan in their somewhere to consolidate that territory by invading Iran on two fronts.....and unlike Iraq, Iran admits it has a nuclear program in the full works.

Now that Bush doesn't need to worry about getting re-elected he can plow forward like a mad man on any adventure he can even remotely justify and attacking Iran is eminently justifiable.

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Well the US can't control Iraq as it is. Iran is bigger and in much better shape than Iraq was and the US is short of troops and heavily in debt. So the US does not seem to have the resources needed for the job. One also has to factor in the risks of huge popular arab and muslim opposition. An oil embargo and the closure of the Suez canal would be real possibilities.

So unless Bush really is crazy, which I don't believe, I think the mullahs will live to fight another day.
 
Bah! The US has nigh infinite credit limits. You think Dubya and the Republicans are worried about a doubling, even tripling our already ruinous national debt?

Especially when they think that success in their efforts means Jesus will show up and wish their problems away - if only they stick to their 'principles'?

I don't take Dubya's supposed 'sanity' for granted.
 
And if they stash their weapons and 'blend'? What shall we do? Round up the whole city and torture people at random some more?

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=234070

I will disagree with Seismosaurus on one point.

There are probably 3,000 (or more) people who are going to go down fighting, forcing the U.S. to pretty much raze the city in order to 'martyr' them, and getting plenty of noncombatants into the line of fire.

There are certainly many others just laying low, waiting to repeat the cycle in the next city. Once another 300,000 Iraqis are impoverished and homeless refugees, and many freshly aggrieved for losing homes and family members, even a 1% yield of new insurgents from that population alone will replace their losses.

They'll get plenty of excellent propaganda out of it because there's just no way mosques, hospitals, schools and public utilities will be out of the line of fire. That will contribute to recruitment elsewhere.
 
If you think they are all in Iraq, you ARE nuts.
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I know there are terrorist Islamic militards are all over the Arab world. Whats ludicrous, and idiotic is the fact there are people who think NONE of them are in Iraq.
 
Well, they're OBVIOUSLY in Iraq now.

Other than in your fevered and paranoid imagination, I'm certain you won't find anyone here who seriously doesn't believe there are terrorists in Iraq right now.

Nobody's ever produced clear evidence they were in Iraq in any sort of numbers BEFORE the war (other than the administration's 'say so' - and they can't even make up their minds whether Usama Bin Laden is important).

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010916-2.html
Q Mr. President, do you believe Osama bin Laden's denial that he had anything to do with this?

THE PRESIDENT: No question he is the prime suspect. No question about that.
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http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010917-3.html
Q Do you want bin Laden dead?

THE PRESIDENT: I want justice. There's an old poster out west, as I recall, that said, "Wanted: Dead or Alive."

Q Do you see this being long-term? You were saying it's long-term, do you see an end, at all?

THE PRESIDENT: I think that this is a long-term battle, war. There will be battles. But this is long-term. After all, our mission is not just Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda organization. Our mission is to battle terrorism and to join with freedom loving people.

We are putting together a coalition that is a coalition dedicated to declaring to the world we will do what it takes to find the terrorists, to rout them out and to hold them accountable. And the United States is proud to lead the coalition.

Q Are you saying you want him dead or alive, sir? Can I interpret --

THE PRESIDENT: I just remember, all I'm doing is remembering when I was a kid I remember that they used to put out there in the old west, a wanted poster. It said: "Wanted, Dead or Alive." All I want and America wants him brought to justice. That's what we want.
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http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020313-8.html
Q But don't you believe that the threat that bin Laden posed won't truly be eliminated until he is found either dead or alive?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, as I say, we haven't heard much from him. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don't know where he is. I -- I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run. I was concerned about him, when he had taken over a country. I was concerned about the fact that he was basically running Afghanistan and calling the shots for the Taliban.
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corplinx said:
Afghanistan and Iraq are apples and oranges though. The Taliban didn't have a republican guard.
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The Soviet Union was bogged down in Afghanistan for years. It was their Viet Nam. Reason: not the Taliban but fighting the war lords and their tribal fighters. We didn't have to fight them because we made a deal with them to let them keep their dope business. The USSR didn't do that.

Here's what happened there. Less than a year before 9/11, we give the Taliban cash, I think $40 million, as part of a deal to make their farmers stop growing heroin. Which they did but the war/drug lords were not too happy about this probably because the Taliban (predictably) ripped off most of the cash for themselves.

Then along comes 9/11 and we decide to attack Afghanistan
because we know it is used for training AlQueda with Taliban blessings.

Guess who doesn't now have the war lords on their side? That's right: the Taliban. Why? See above.

We "win" the war in Afghanistan by forging alliances with the drug lords and drug smuggling scum known as the northern Alliance .

Of course those alliances include protection for their heroin operations. Today, as a result of Bush's protectionist policies for the drug crops, Aghanistan is #1 heroin producer and provider in the world. This makes Bush, as a result of his actions, #1 moral equivalent of world's biggest goddamn drug dealer there is or ever was. How Kerry was bought off from pushing this fact out into open is a mystery that will be solved one day as Kerry has a history in office of fighting drugs but somehow and for some reason allowed this one to slip away. He probably was blackmailed into acquiescing or run the risk of turning Afghanistan, our one true and only terrorist target, into a failure.

The news is it will be a failure anyway: the Taliban is back, the drug lords run the country and there will be no way of stopping them short of nuking the place which won't happen. Maybe we get trick Iran into doing it for us. And now that Kharzai is making noises about clamping down on the drug trade. his days are numbered as well. They will get him.
 
Richard G said:
I know there are terrorist Islamic militards are all over the Arab world. Whats ludicrous, and idiotic is the fact there are people who think NONE of them are in Iraq.
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No, actually, they're just plain all over. Indonesia. Europe. North America. That is why putting so much of our assets in one place is a diversion from the real threat.
 
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