National

Whiskey, Thank you for your logical post. I don't agree all the time on what you say, but you are fair and on topic. I don't like this war either, and it has been handled poorly by Bush. However ever thing that is bad that happens in Iraq is always our fault. The dad is to blame for his actions against his poor daughter not the USA n my opinion. Thanks.

Kathleen you stated we support that kind of action by this government. That is a rightout lie.

Trojan: you read beyond my post...my point is this government that invaded this country for "stated" humanitarian reasons is doing nothing to stop apparently inhumane acts and did nothing to stop Sharia Law from becoming constitutional. Yet we are there to bring democracy. Sharia Law is not democracy. More proof we went there on a lie. Iraqi citizens are not better off as a result of our efforts to democratize the middle east.

Cathleen

Cathleen, I did read beyond your post. Thanks for the information. You usually are fair minded, its that this type of action by the dad is hard so hard for me to understand. I love my kids so much its beyond belief.

I know you love your kids so much, Ron. This kind of act is incomprehensible.

Cathleen

We went there to fight terrorism.

Sorry, Al Qaeda did not exist in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Saddam Husseih had nothing to do with 9/11. Just because YOU believe there were WMD's there is not a good enough reason to invade a sovereign country. It's still a dumb war.

Lullaby of Baghdad

Are we winning the Iraq war, or is what little progress we have achieved actually an illusion?

Paul Starr | April 21, 2008

Is reduced violence in Iraq -- reduced, that is, from its peak in 2006--a sign that the United States is finally on the road to victory? Or is U.S. strategy in the war, as Steven Simon argues in the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs, "stoking the three forces that have traditionally threatened the stability of Middle Eastern states: tribalism, warlordism, and sectarianism" and consequently making Iraq ungovernable? In other words, is the Bush administration purchasing short-term stability in Iraq -- and a lulled electorate at home -- at the cost of a deepened and prolonged conflict?

There's no doubt that the "surge" in U.S. forces (now being drawn down to 140,000 troops) has bought the administration political relief. News coverage of the fighting has dropped, and congressional Democrats have been stymied in efforts to end the conflict. (I'm writing just before Gen. David Petraeus' congressional testimony.) Perhaps most important, although a majority of the public continues to believe that invading Iraq was a mistake, those who favor the war, such as Sen. John McCain, have been bolstered in their determination to fight on until victory.

The war's supporters say that whatever the earlier mistakes, the surge and the new bottom-up counterinsurgency strategy have improved security and put al-Qaeda in Iraq on the run. In this view, it would be a disastrous error to quit the war just as the tide has turned.

But a variety of analyses tell a different story. In early April, the congressionally funded U.S. Institute of Peace released a report by experts on Iraq concluding, "Political progress is so slow, halting and superficial, and social and political fragmentation so pronounced, that the U.S. is no closer to being able to leave Iraq than it was a year ago. Lasting political development could take five to ten years of full, unconditional U.S. commitment to Iraq."

But didn't the surge reduce attacks and casualties? Actually, the number of attacks has stabilized at about 570 per week (before spiking in March), and much of the reduction came from three other developments. In early 2007, even before the surge, violence began falling because the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad was mostly finished, and it dropped further after the Shia cleric Moktada al-Sadr declared a cease-fire by his Mahdi Army on August 28.

The third development -- the decision of Sunnis in Anbar and some other areas to abandon the insurgency and join sahwa or "Awakening" groups to fight the foreign jihadists--has been widely heralded as the war's biggest turnaround. But, as Simon argues in his Foreign Affairs article, the U.S. decision to pay and equip these tribal groups strengthens the centrifugal tendencies weakening the Iraqi state. America now funds the Kurdish Peshmerga, the Sunni sahwa, and the Iraqi Security Forces heavily infiltrated by the Badr militia. Our money and arms flow not just to the three major sectarian groups but to contending factions and strongmen within each one.

Current policy, retired Gen. William E. Odom told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 2, "has placed the United States astride several civil wars. And it allows all sides to consolidate, rearm, and refill their financial coffers" at American expense. And the U.S. Institute of Peace report warns, "Empowering the Awakenings -- often composed of former insurgents and leaders stridently opposed to the Iraqi government -- carries with it a major risk of blowback."

Some analysts hope that even with a weak state, a stable equilibrium will emerge among the warring sects, tribes, and militias, but that hope goes against the historical record and widely held expectations in Iraq that the contest for power will be settled by violence. The United States now finds itself in the bizarre role of arming rival factions to stop a civil war.

And the contradictions don't stop there. The president has defined victory in Iraq as the creation of a state that will be an American ally, while the Iraqi government we are supporting has close ties to Iran and is unlikely ever to oppose it.

But what about staying in Iraq to fight al-Qaeda? General Odom answered that question in his Senate testimony: "The concern... about a residual base left for al-Qaeda if we withdraw is utter nonsense. The Sunnis will soon destroy al-Qaeda if we leave Iraq. The Kurds do not allow them in their region, and the Shiites, like the Iranians, detest al-Qaeda."

That is as much of a victory as we are likely to get when, sooner or later, we face up to the limits of our power and recognize that American forces cannot be tied up indefinitely trying to prevent Iraqis from killing one another. Enough of the lullaby of Baghdad. Americans need their own Awakening.

Let's just imagine for a moment that the shoe was on the other foot. What if the U.S. was invaded and taken over by a Muslim or GOD Forbid an Islamic contry. Then their dictator ruled our country. Would any of you abandon your religious beliefs to bow to Mecca 5 times per day? Would you sing the praises of our new dictator? Would you marry your daughters off to their soldiers? I think most of our people men, women, and children would fight to the death to preserve our Democratic American Way. Christians would continue to believe what they always had. These intruders would be strangers in our country and they would not be welcome. Even if these intruders invaded our country for "100" years the stories and hopes of religious freedom would be passed down through families. Our hearts would never accept or give in to what we felt was wrong.

Basically that is what is happening in Iraq. Arab families are much more tight and controlled then American families. They circle their wagons and keep family in and intruders out. They do not like outsiders, they will not except outsiders in their families. In fact they will kill over marriages across religion within their own country. They certainly are not going to allow relationships with outsiders in their own families.

What exactly are we doing in Iraq? We will not change their religious beliefs. We will not change their aversion to outsiders. Even with a "100" year occupation - which we cannot afford we will not change what these people believe. If it is humanitarian aide - give them some food, provide safe exit for those who wish to leave to many destinations throught the world. Our presents there is not welcome. We are the intruders.

Do I think what happens in many parts of the middle east is horrible - no I think it's horrific. Do I feel sad about the people who are harmed there - no I am sickened. Do I believe that we will ever change these people - no we will not!

dolphin1 wrote:

Originally we thought there were weapons of Mass destruction and the obvious human rights abuses by Hussein.

It is more correct to say that we were led to believe, even though there was no hard evidence, that WMDs existed in Iraq. The Chief UN Weapons Inspector said there were none in Iraq after conducting on the ground inspections in Iraq in October, November and December of 2002. At the end of 2002, after having inspected the top 500 sites the US government said were weapons locations he reported there were no WMDs and no sign that there had been any.

Our own top inspector, Scott Ridder, said the same thing months prior to the invasion. He said the US had ensured that 99 percent of the WMDs were destroyed and there is no chance the program could have been reconstituted so quickly.

Bush ignored these experts.


(As a side note, I still believe that there were weapons of mass destruction, but when the United Nations pissed around for six month to a year, gee maybe they moved them, sold them.).

Where is the evidence for this? Only crack pots and idiots would make such a statement. Here is another example of belief without a shred of evidence. Not even the lying Bush administration has tried this one.

Where is the evidence of this?

And yes I can list backer by the left who supported going to war in Iraq.

Who cares? Your finding another wrong person means nothing.

We did not go to Iraq for oil. We went there to fight terrorism.

This is nonsense. The terrorists were in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and funded by Saudi Arabia. The 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia for the most part.

There were no terrorists in Iraq when we invaded. A few radical jihadists did come in 2003 from Saudi Arabia after the invasion. Was this the plan? To trap them in a land we destroyed so they could blow themselves up?

Do I hate hearing the number of troops that are killed every day, absolutely. I want to cry every time I hear that number growing. Do I see another way out of Iraq at this point, no? You can't set up a government in two weeks.

Two weeks? The only government that is set up now is a pro-Iranian religious state that practices Sharia law.

This kind of brutality DID NOT OCCUR in Iraq prior to the Invasion because it was ruled by SUNNI's who would not tolerate such Shi'ite practices.

The misconceptions on the right are so fantasy laden that it is dispicable.

I think the lesson that we can draw from the above exchange is the large part that a mental fantasy life plays on the right wing fringes. We have all seen posts where the wingnuts claim that the WMDs were found, were sold, continue to be hidden and so forth.

On the Christain page, one poster claimed that Bush was lying when he said there were no WMDs! And that US really found them and kept them a secret. On the same thread another poster claimed that the 9/11 Commission and Bush were lying when Bush (and the 9/11 Commission) said Iraq had NOTHING to do with 9/11.

Facts mean nothing to these folks because facts cannot be force fitted into their ideas. dolphin1 never responds directly to any question. Why? Doing the research would send her off to high school newspapers and fringe websites. And dolphin1 knows what level of credibility these sources have.

Anyway, the key point here is the importance of the mental fantasy that right wingers share...but can never support and how large a part this plays in their "analysis" of any position.

Considering that 30 percent of the population shares the goals of the Bush Administration, we can figure that 1 percent of these folks are the super-rich, then fully 29% of voters hold beliefs that are berift of facts and are merely based on right wing ideology.