Patraeus: Surge a Failure?

[Upchurch]

Which all could be said runs contrary to a majority of the people who have voted for a somewhat democracy and what the US is pushing together with the current Iraqi government.

That vote was a long time ago and it isn't like the somewhat democracy managed to accomplish much.

The biggest principle of democracy is self-determination. That the Iraqi people are self-determining themselves in a different direction than what we other-determined for them can hardly be surprising.

 

[Whack01]

Of course it's working, leaving Arafat alive for a decade worked so well for Isreal that we don't want to kill muqtada al sadr. We may anger the people who are blowing themselves up to kill us!

/end sarcasm

I am not worried so long as the violence is not directed against civilians and is being instigated by our side. If the enemy is instigating the engagements and including civilian targets then he's accomplishing his objectives and our progress has stalled. On the other hand if we are instigating the engagements, and choosing the place of combat then we are making progress. However, even if progress stalls for a week after five months of progress I would not call that a bad thing, nor unexpected.


/but in all seriousness were you folks asking "is the surge working?" when troop casualties were down?

//Republicans have till november, then thats game as far as I'm concerned. I'll sit down review the last six months of news and give their asses the boot most likely. With the exception of blanche lincoln who blocked the Dorgan-Grassly amendment by threatening a filibuster forcing democrats to do some high speed maneuvering to save face. I'll vote for anyone who runs against lincoln, as long as it's not another xenophobic demagogue like Jim Holt.

 

[mrbaracuda]

That vote was a long time ago and it isn't like the somewhat democracy managed to accomplish much.

That vote was in December of 2005, wasn't it? I don't see how that is such a long time like you are proposing. It's barely been one and a half years. You also got to consider how many lists are in the parties. 22 alone in the one Maliki's heading. It's not going to be easy, but the will seems to be there - and not just because the government or the US said so.

The biggest principle of democracy is self-determination. That the Iraqi people are self-determining themselves in a different direction than what we other-determined for them can hardly be surprising.

Who are "the Iraqi" people you're talking about here? The 41% who voted for the ruling party? The other 21% for the party that called itself democratic (although it's Kurdish, but still, it's part of Iraq)? Sure, some have withdrawn their members from the government, but this is something new to many there.

What is the other-determined direction they want to go? Is it establishing an Islamic state? Do you know how many people want to go this way?

If you'd rather "cut and run" instead of giving it a shot, go ahead. To do this after the government has somewhat "settled down" for not even two years is in my opinion too early, even if it's hard.


Gotta say though, I'm not too interested in it - mainly because it's a problem of your country, not ours. I try not to butt in into foreign countries' problems and suggest what's right or wrong.



But thank goodness the remnants of the Nazis weren't violent, devout Muslims and the Allies firm.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

How were they going to define success? A reduction in the number of Iraqis killed? Or just Americans? (Hopefully both!)

Has that been achieved?

The way I define success in Iraq would be for us to be gone and the country to have established a peaceful functioning country.

We are not closer to either of those goals as far as I can see. The Iraqis on their own may or may not be closer to working out a stable government. That one is harder to judge given the reporting we get is not very complete.

A reduction in the number of deaths is an important goal, don't get me wrong. But when all it means is ethnic cleansing is complete in various sections of the country or that the Mahdi army is holding off attacks while Muqtada al-Sadr is on the US corruption payroll, then what you really have is a simple facade of success Bush can present McCain just before the Nov elections.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I thought the goal of the surge was the spend more money, which I think was a success.

LLH

It might be if you own stock in the military industrial complex, the oil companies, or you are in the Chinese government.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...(what would you call someone who has supported and continues to support this horrible war?)

Gullible!

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Sunni tribes have started to take on Al-Qeada. That's quite promising.

Well d'uh! Why would they let some outsiders take over their country?

There wasn't support for al Qaeda before we invaded. The only reason Iraqis would appreciate al Qaeda's assistance would be if the Iraqis couldn't do it themselves or they bought into the ideology. I don't think they buy the ideology (they certainly didn't before all this), and since we armed them with all the weapons and explosives that they had before we got there, and since there are countless unemployed men among them, more than motivated to hate American soldiers, then the Iraqis shouldn't need any outside help.

The idea al Qaeda will move in if we leave an unstable government is a crock o'. In addition to the negative opinion of the US should total civil war breakout the other big problem is not knowing who would win that Sunni-Shiite-Shiite-Kurdish civil war and the Bushco Neocons are afraid the winners will prefer to sell oil to other customers than the US since they can and since we trashed their country.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

It has a legal definition you know, and by that definition Iraq has not been occupied since June 2004. That was when Iraq was handed over to the Iraqis.

Per the Geneva Conventions, Iraq is no longer occupied.

Like I said, gullible!

WC, get real. If we really handed the reins over to the Iraqis how is it the Iraqis were unable to prosecute the Blackwater murder suspects like the Iraq government said they thought they should be able to do?

In fact, if I recall, at the least the Iraqi government wanted to evict Blackwater from the country and they couldn't even do that.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

And if I'm not mistaken the thread's title is rather meh and judging by the OP's citations it's not the surge that's failing, but the Iraqis themselves / Iraqi gov.

It is a bit egocentric to claim the Iraqis are just incompetent and the big strong US can't play momma forever.


The Bush failure to manage this right goes a lot deeper than just not having enough troops. Prince Brenner, appointed by King George set the country up to fail with a slew of laws favoring the corporatocracy and outlawing labor unions. They brought in almost all foreign crony contractors, who in turn brought in cheap foreign labor while millions of Iraqis were unemployed. Prince Brenner and King George thought those good old Libertarian policies would let the market forces fix everything without noticing how absurd that idea was given the conditions we left behind as the "major combat operations .. ended"

And we've allowed the incredibly corrupt Maliki government to rip us off and the Iraqi people see it even if the Americans naively don't. Do you really think the inability to rebuild the infrastructure is just because Iraqis are fighting among themselves for greedy reasons? That might be true for some of the leaders who want a piece of the power pie, but for the rest, they are reacting to what they see as occupying forces because of our behavior and policies, not just because we are there and we are foreigners.

I think it is wrong to think the problem here is just incompetent Iraqis. They had a lot of our help screwing things up, and not just the first few months of our invasion. The ambitions of Bushco were to have permanent military bases and foreign oil companies with majority control over the oil resources. Just as the Neocons before Bushco, they believed all they needed was to prop up a Maliki type government, vote or no vote, and we could get the rest. Maliki obviously does not enjoy the widespread support his being elected suggests. It is US policy, cronyism and Bushco ambitions that have kept Iraq from reforming a stable country.

 

[mrbaracuda]

Well d'uh! Why would they let some outsiders take over their country?

There wasn't support for al Qaeda before we invaded. The only reason Iraqis would appreciate al Qaeda's assistance would be if the Iraqis couldn't do it themselves or they bought into the ideology. I don't think they buy the ideology (they certainly didn't before all this)

Oh, you sure about that?



You can say "Oh but that was just propaganda before the invasion!", but that ideology - called Islam by the way - didn't just come into existence because Saddam let that guy preach freely.

Bushco Neocons

Amusing as always. What are (Bushco) Neocons?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Bushco is short for the bunch of them, Bush and company, and Neocon is just being redundant.

I'm not going to argue with you or anyone about al-Qaeda in Iraq. There are people in this country that sympathize with al-Qaeda, so what? And Iraq is the Islamic center of the world. But clearly Iraq was not an al-Qaeda centered country before we invaded and the only home-grown al-Qaeda there now are probably only more popular thanks to Bush.

Shiites outnumber Sunnis in Iraq and al-Qaeda is mostly a Sunni group. The Sunnis getting the most attention right now for militant resistance are loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr, not Bin Laden.

So what are you trying to claim, that every extremist Muslim group is an al-Qaeda group?

Here, try this interview transcript for a summary of the deep divisions among the groups you seem to see as all the same.

 

[mrbaracuda]

Bushco is short for the bunch of them, Bush and company, and Neocon is just being redundant.

Right. Hm, I'm tempted to use "Skeptigirlco and Neoredundants" in the near future. Still though, what are "Neocons" - to you? Your definition should be.. interesting.

So what are you trying to claim, that every extremist Muslim group is an al-Qaeda group?

Nope.

Here, try this interview transcript for a summary of the deep divisions among the groups you seem to see as all the same.

Nope. You seem to have missed my frequent posts about Islam and Muslims, although to be fair I think I haven't touched the diversity much or at all. To suggest I see all Muslims as a homogenous group is ridiculous, so I don't know what you are trying to achieve with this. I'm pretty sure I have never expressed such thing.

 

[Darth Rotor]

And Iraq is the Islamic center of the world.

Huh?

I thought that was in Mecca, the center of the Islamic world. Ya know, the place where all those Muslims go on Hajj once before they die. It is located in the wasteland holy land Osama wanted all the Americans out of, Saudi Arabia. This is the same holy land Syria and Egypt sent troops to fight for in 1991, though they didn't do much fighting alongside their alleged ally, the US.

Would you care to explain what you meant by that? Were you just being careless, or do you honestly believe that, Iraq being the Islamic center of the world?

The Dome of the Rock is in Jerusalem.
The Black Stone is in Mecca.
The Prophet was from Medina.
The Imam Ali Shrine, OK, that is in An Najaf, Iraq, but is only a big deal among the Shia, who are about a tenth of the Muslims in the world.

DR

 

[Gurdur]

.... And Iraq is the Islamic center of the world. ...

It is?

The Sunnis getting the most attention right now for militant resistance are loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr, not Bin Laden.

Just how many Sunnis are supposed to be loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr, and be getting all the attention you allege?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Huh?

I thought that was in Mecca, the center of the Islamic world. Ya know, the place where all those Muslims go on Hajj once before they die. It is located in the wasteland holy land Osama wanted all the Americans out of, Saudi Arabia. This is the same holy land Syria and Egypt sent troops to fight for in 1991, though they didn't do much fighting alongside their alleged ally, the US.

Would you care to explain what you meant by that? Were you just being careless, or do you honestly believe that, Iraq being the Islamic center of the world?

The Dome of the Rock is in Jerusalem.
The Black Stone is in Mecca.
The Prophet was from Medina.
The Imam Ali Shrine, OK, that is in An Najaf, Iraq, but is only a big deal among the Shia, who are about a tenth of the Muslims in the world.

DR

Well I was counting a bigger circle, should of said "in the" rather than "is". My bad.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Right. Hm, I'm tempted to use "Skeptigirlco and Neoredundants" in the near future. Still though, what are "Neocons" - to you? Your definition should be.. interesting.

Be my guest. If my shorthand for the "the Bush administration, supporters, and all the evangelical minded Republicans using the government to bully the rest of the world, using the government for their own selfish monetary gains and using the government to push their religion on the rest of us" is not to your liking, I see no reason I should care. The full description is much too long.

Nope. .... Nope. You seem to have missed my frequent posts about Islam and Muslims, although to be fair I think I haven't touched the diversity much or at all. To suggest I see all Muslims as a homogenous group is ridiculous, so I don't know what you are trying to achieve with this. I'm pretty sure I have never expressed such thing.

Why then do you think al Qaeda is likely to have a large presence in Iraq? They didn't seem to be there before we invaded the country.

 

[mrbaracuda]

The full description is much too long.

But would be so worth it!

Why then do you think al Qaeda is likely to have a large presence in Iraq? They didn't seem to be there before we invaded the country.

I doubt I've called it a large presence. There seems to be a presence, so why should I not think this after reading a bunch of articles about it and even some al-Qaeda-written article about how it's coming down to a somewhat decisive last stand in Iraq?

Are you denying there is a presence of al-Qaeda in Iraq? Or are you just nit-picking over how large this presence is?

Let me ask you something: How large is the presence of those so-called "Islamists"? You don't need al-Qaeda for the "ideology", you might need it for planning, funding and coordinating.

And have you ever noticed there was a not-so-religious dictator ruling with an iron fist in Iraq prior to the invasion? What does it matter if they weren't there before? Looks like you like living or at least thinking in the past.

Would you rather have Saddam back in place, who probably had the habit of squashing "Islamists" when they were getting too much power, like Sadr?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

At the moment, yes, if we could go back to Iraq before GW, definitely yes, I would prefer that. And I imagine more than a few Iraqis would prefer the pre-GW Iraq, even some of the Shiites. Not so sure about the Kurds.

It's typical for the GW supporters to drag that motto out every time they are reminded what an incredible mess this President has made of everything. Oh, but Saddam was such an evil man. Kim Jong-Il let a few million people starve to death. Whoever is in charge in Darfur is encouraging mass rape and mutilation as a form of terrorism. The list is rather long and Saddam wasn't even at the top of it.

Face it, this war has done nothing but make terrorism worse. It's absurd to rationalize it.

 

[mrbaracuda]

At the moment, yes, if we could go back to Iraq before GW, definitely yes, I would prefer that. And I imagine more than a few Iraqis would prefer the pre-GW Iraq, even some of the Shiites. Not so sure about the Kurds.

Yea, maybe Baathists. Shiites probably not so much. How come you're not so sure about Kurds? Oh right, who cares. You'd rather have them getting killed again instead of flourishing!

It's typical for the GW supporters to drag that motto out every time they are reminded what an incredible mess this President has made of everything. Oh, but Saddam was such an evil man. Kim Jong-Il let a few million people starve to death. Whoever is in charge in Darfur is encouraging mass rape and mutilation as a form of terrorism. The list is rather long and Saddam wasn't even at the top of it.

Then I guess it's typical for rabid left-winger nuts to drag out other dictators and the likes for whatever reason. It doesn't even connect.

Face it, this war has done nothing but make terrorism worse. It's absurd to rationalize it.

What has become worse compared to what?

 

[Elind]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/13/AR2008031303793_2.html

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the point of the surge to get the violence levels down to get the government working? I mean, if violence is leveling off, isn't that the best we can do from a military POV?

(And yes, I noticed the typo)

He said there has been "insufficient progress", as is to be expected from Iraqis.

You said he said it was a "failure" which is blatantly rewriting someone else's words, but only to be expected I suppose.