Some of the replies in this thread condemning Democrats for wanting a bad result are just downright insane!

 

NO ONE wants a bad result in Iraq, nor for our troops. You're picking and manipulating, and labeling based on misleading information. You try to point the finger at Democrats or Liberals as being media puppets.

 

Face it. There have been, are, and will continue to be, people who OPPOSE what's happened in Iraq, why we went there, the course of action throughout the time there, and the indecision of the future plans. That doesn't make one unpatriotic.

 

I love it when people decide that disagreement with this insanity indicates a lack of patriotism on the part of the person disagreeing.

 

So if the situation in Iraq the democrats would be excited about it? I highly doubt that. Both parties are completely power hungry. (some worse than others) If the situation were reversed the results would be nearly identical.

The surge is working inasmuch as it has shown that if our occupation force is boosted to an unsustainable level and strict curfews (that squelch economic activity) are enforced, you can reduce the number of headless bodies in the street in the morning. That doesn't mean that there has been any lasting change that will allow the country to stabilize. In spite of any improvement in security, the various factions in Iraq still have not settled anything politically, which means the surge has ultimately failed to accomplish what it was supposed to accomplish. I'm sure you've heard the old saying, "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." Well, this horse hasn't drank in about 1300 years.

 

 

 

It never was and will never be a realistic goal. Reference my comment above about the past 1300 years. You're counting on people who have never settled their differences to settle their differences because we want them to. That's rich. Japan and Germany were about a thousand times more homogeneous than Iraq, and as Hatz correctly stated, we posted large numbers of troops in those countries to counterbalance the threat of communism, not because either country needed holding together like Iraq. And clearly, there wasn't anywhere near the level of overt hostility toward our presence in Germany and Japan as there is in Iraq. Have you seen the Dick Cheney clip from 1994 regarding the reasons we didn't topple Saddam Hussein during the first Gulf War? They knew the mess that would be created.

 

 

 

 

The problems and unfinished business in the States absolutely pales in comparison to what is going on in Iraq. Where's the sense of urgency? You can put aside the blood of our troops who are being killed while Iraqi politicians sleep in and work on their tans--I'm sure they could not care less if any incremental Americans die. What about the chaos and death that reigns every day in various parts of the country due to sectarian disunity? Do they care? Let's assume they do. Why aren't they working night and day 24/7 to settle their differences? Because they're impotent, just like al Maliki is impotent. They don't have control of the situation, and neither do we.

 

 

Some valid points. But I'm not a fatalist. I don't believe that just because there has always been a problem in the middle east in the past, that there will always be a problem in the future. I believe that with leadership, there can be changes. And I believe it is in our national interest that there must be changes in the middle east. To apply your logic of "its always been a mess and its always going to be a mess because that's what's been going on over there for 1300 years", implies that "we should be doing nothing, since nothing that we do is going to have an impact" doesn't it?. Do you think that the problems caused by the instability in the middle east will go away? I don't.

 

I'm not happy that the Iraqi leaders are "working on their tan" either. But I'm not going to let that derail my policy of bringing economic and political stability to the region. Rather, I'm going to try to continue to get them to change their way of thinking. I'm going to try to bring some level of economic prosperity to the region that causes the citizens to have reasons to want to live; to have citizens want to elect officials who don't take the summer off to get a tan, but rather to work harder to solve problems. Heck, in spite of over two centuries of working with democracy, we in Kentucky just dealt with our political parties walking out of a special session in the legislature over political differences. Yet we expect people totally new to a different way of governing, after 1300 years of handling problems in a completely different manner, to do better than we are doing? The fact that the middle east has been the way it has been for 1300 years in my mind explains the slow sledding that we've experienced.

 

You and I can agree that for 1300 years, the culture in the middle east has been one of instability and of factions working against, not with, one another. The major difference between you and I H, is that I believe that if we did not take bold and very expensive steps in the middle east, that culture would not change and that culture would be a major threat to the U.S., and thus that those bold and expensive steps are an absolute necessity. As for the change in Cheney's thinking since 94, I believe there have been lots of changes in the world since 94; changes that necessitated a different way of thinking and addressing the middle east.

 

What causes the hatred of some groups the middle east towards the US? It was there way before the Iraq invasion so you can't blame that on Bush. Was it our support of the Israelis? If so, do you think we should abandon them? Is it our western culture "infecting" their culture? If so, can we really stop that from happening in this day and age, and if so, how? Is it the difference in religions? Is it their belief that all non-Muslims are infidels and must be killed? If so, is the only answer that we all convert? Is it our dependence on oil that is causing the problem? Should we go nuke and do you think that America is ready to accept nuke power? Do you honestly think that even if we became a country totally free of oil dependance that we still would not have a security threat from the middle east?

 

I don't believe that our answer can be: they always been that way and they will always be that way.

Man it's tough to debate a lawyer. :thumb:

Some valid points. But I'm not a fatalist.

 

I don't believe that our answer can be: they always been that way and they will always be that way.

 

As you may know, military units, often at the Regimental level, develop "mottos" or "creeds". A common one during WWII was "CAN DO". Audie Murphy's unit, the 15th Regiment, used that one.

 

"CAN DO" indicated an attitude that we believe we can accomplish the objective, and will do what it takes to achieve it.

 

Leatherneck, your (our) position fits right in with that attitude.

 

The opposition seems to take the "Anti" position: "CAN'T DO". I cannot comprehend that type of attitude.

 

Liberals want to pat themselves on the back even when their policies fail (the "war on poverty" comes to mind) by saying "at least we tried". Yet when it comes to our national interests in the Middle East, I don't see the same willingness to try.

As you may know, military units, often at the Regimental level, develop "mottos" or "creeds". A common one during WWII was "CAN DO". Audie Murphy's unit, the 15th Regiment, used that one.

 

"CAN DO" indicated an attitude that we believe we can accomplish the objective, and will do what it takes to achieve it.

 

Leatherneck, your (our) position fits right in with that attitude.

 

The opposition seems to take the "Anti" position: "CAN'T DO". I cannot comprehend that type of attitude.

 

Liberals want to pat themselves on the back even when their policies fail (the "war on poverty" comes to mind) by saying "at least we tried". Yet when it comes to our national interests in the Middle East, I don't see the same willingness to try.

 

The continued use of military force in an attempt to leverage a political solution perfectly highlights the folly of Bush's middle east policy. Do you know many people who would like being told what to do by a foreign occupation? Probably not. Yet with a little good ol' "can do" attitude, we're supposed to believe that if we just tough it out long enough, intractable centuries-old conflicts between wholly unreasonable groups of people will eventually work themselves out?

 

I think what you fail to realize is that we're not in the driver's seat in Iraq. The president's "strategy" is dependent on the actions of others (who, it turns out, were fighting more than 1,000 years before our country was founded).

Some valid points. But I'm not a fatalist. I don't believe that just because there has always been a problem in the middle east in the past, that there will always be a problem in the future. I believe that with leadership, there can be changes. And I believe it is in our national interest that there must be changes in the middle east. To apply your logic of "its always been a mess and its always going to be a mess because that's what's been going on over there for 1300 years", implies that "we should be doing nothing, since nothing that we do is going to have an impact" doesn't it?. Do you think that the problems caused by the instability in the middle east will go away? I don't.

 

 

We shouldn't be doing nothing, but trying to impose democracy through foriegn occupation is not, IMO, a realistic objective. Most people rebel when you try to force something down their throats. Worse than that, our invasion and failure to establish basic security in their country (along with the "oh well" response to collateral damage inflicted and the house to house searches by our forces) has left the average Iraqi with a very bad taste in their mouth. I'm not faulting our military--they're doing a reasonable job with the mission they've been given. But, as we discussed a few weeks ago on BGP, we demonstrated a much more sophisticated understanding of the complexities of Iraq in 1943 when the Army published "Instructions for American Servicemen in Iraq".

 

Like it or not, most Muslims view the Israeli/Palestinian situation as oppression of their fellow Muslims by the West. Rather than trying to impose democracy through invasion and occupation, I think a better course would have been to take this away as a source of friction by leading a peaceful settlement of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. There's no better way to undercut support for extremism than to eliminate situations that agitate the general population.

 

 

I'm not happy that the Iraqi leaders are "working on their tan" either. But I'm not going to let that derail my policy of bringing economic and political stability to the region. Rather, I'm going to try to continue to get them to change their way of thinking. I'm going to try to bring some level of economic prosperity to the region that causes the citizens to have reasons to want to live; to have citizens want to elect officials who don't take the summer off to get a tan, but rather to work harder to solve problems. Heck, in spite of over two centuries of working with democracy, we in Kentucky just dealt with our political parties walking out of a special session in the legislature over political differences. Yet we expect people totally new to a different way of governing, after 1300 years of handling problems in a completely different manner, to do better than we are doing? The fact that the middle east has been the way it has been for 1300 years in my mind explains the slow sledding that we've experienced.

 

You and I can agree that for 1300 years, the culture in the middle east has been one of instability and of factions working against, not with, one another. The major difference between you and I H, is that I believe that if we did not take bold and very expensive steps in the middle east, that culture would not change and that culture would be a major threat to the U.S., and thus that those bold and expensive steps are an absolute necessity. As for the change in Cheney's thinking since 94, I believe there have been lots of changes in the world since 94; changes that necessitated a different way of thinking and addressing the middle east.

 

It is a hubristic point of view to think that we can change views that have been ingrained for many centuries before our country even existed. Is it defeatist to think otherwise? Would I be a defeatist to say that you can't teach a stone to sing? I'm sure you think we can prevail if we stay long enough. I think our presence under the circumstances we created makes this impossible (especially the longer we stay). In the end, the patience of the American people to wait for a decades-long lesson in democracy for the Iraqis just isn't there. Especially given the fact that our 19-year old kids keep coming home in plastic bags and untold billions are squandered while the Iraqis do nothing but lob veiled insults back at the U.S.

 

 

What causes the hatred of some groups the middle east towards the US? It was there way before the Iraq invasion so you can't blame that on Bush. Was it our support of the Israelis? If so, do you think we should abandon them? Is it our western culture "infecting" their culture? If so, can we really stop that from happening in this day and age, and if so, how? Is it the difference in religions? Is it their belief that all non-Muslims are infidels and must be killed? If so, is the only answer that we all convert? Is it our dependence on oil that is causing the problem? Should we go nuke and do you think that America is ready to accept nuke power? Do you honestly think that even if we became a country totally free of oil dependance that we still would not have a security threat from the middle east?

 

I don't believe that our answer can be: they always been that way and they will always be that way.

 

See my comments above about Israeli/Palestinian conflict. That would be a start. A second action would be a serious policy effort to develop alternative energy sources (beyond oil). I do support nuclear and other (non-petroleum based) energy generation sources. It is absolutely true that we are financing both sides of the Iraq war and indeed the struggle against radical Islam itself with our addiction to oil. In some parts of the world, Americans are referred to as "useful idiots". Given our stubborn reliance on oil and the anti-American attitudes our consumption enables, I can't think of a more appropriate description. You ask if we would still not have a security threat from the middle east if we became a country totally free of oil dependence? The U.S. imports 12.2 million barrels per day of oil, valued at $854 million. If we were able to reduce that amount by a fraction (10-20%), global oil prices would collapse and the financiers of radical Islamic terrorism would see their funds rapidly dry up. Then, we might actually have some leverage over countries like Saudi Arabia to force them to deal with the radical elements within their populations that actively support terror operations (http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/013/937fxvva.asp).