In the US, if we speak strongly against the actions of the gov't, we risk retribution. This administration has shown that it is more than willing to attack one's career and livlihood if you counter it enough to make an impact. This is minor compared to the threat of death that a "dissentor" experiences in the Middle East. We have occupied Iraq and that breeds and entrenches more and more terrorists. If you are an Iraqi and proclaiming your love for the occupieing country and your hate for Iraq's own insurgancy (whether or not you and I think that it's right), you will likely be killed. So it's not as easy as you all candy-coat it.
Iraq - what do we do now?
- Thread starter Leto2
- Start date
In the US, if we speak strongly against the actions of the gov't, we risk retribution. This administration has shown that it is more than willing to attack one's career and livlihood if you counter it enough to make an impact. This is minor compared to the threat of death that a "dissentor" experiences in the Middle East. We have occupied Iraq and that breeds and entrenches more and more terrorists. If you are an Iraqi and proclaiming your love for the occupieing country and your hate for Iraq's own insurgancy (whether or not you and I think that it's right), you will likely be killed. So it's not as easy as you all candy-coat it.
local 12 proud
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- Mar 5, 2004
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local 12 proud
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local 12 proud
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Why tell untruths ch.12? are you a convert looking for recognition? :blink:
fact:
Christianity grew out of Judaism in the 1st century
fact:
Islam appeared in arabia in the 7th century
That's noble...to try to eradicate the Turks from Turkish lands just so that the Europeans could have a vacation...er pilgrimage...spot. Sounds like trying to eradicate the Arabs from Arabian lands. My how things stay the same.
The native people of Turkey and beyond were just that...native to the region. What happened is that a new religion formed and was catching on with the people NATIVE to the region. So those that were NOT native (Europeans) agreed to help "eradicate" the natives from their lands. The "islamic invasion" was a cultural and not a physical happening. The theology of Islam spread amongst the people of the region...it was not that some people magically invaded from nowhere. Again...get a grip on history/reality. Even though Fox has made it seem so...you can't just manufacture "truths" to cover up history.
As I just explained...Islam did not come about b/c of an invasion by foreign people...it developed through prophets of the native people. This is the same with Christianity.
Now...if we want to restore the true native religions of the region, you have to go further back than Christianity...by thousands of years. I say that we bring back the polytheism of the Roman, Ottoman, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian Empires. All of which, based on your logic of first religion wins, would beat out Christianity. All hail polytheism.
Gotta go...a helicopter just landed in my back yard.
Garfield1966
Veteran
Who the hell cares who was there first second or third. You guys are talking about this as if it matters. We are in the 21st century. What happened 2000, 3000 or 4000 years ago has very little bearing on what is going on now other than giving someone the right to say "I was here first". In so far as Iraq is concerned, it has nothing to do with what is transpiring there now.
Bush is not going to bring democracy to Iraq. The Iraqis are no more like to adopt democracy from us than we would adopt communism or socialism from Lennin were he to come here to the US trying to sell his wares. The idea of either of those scenarios being successful is laughable.
The American people are beginning to realize that Iraq is a lost cause. My guess is that is why support for bush’s cluster f&*k is at an all time low. The decision that needs to be made is how long we want to stay in Iraq before we withdraw our troops and let them have a civil war. In my opinion, how long we keep our troops in Iraq will not affect the out come in any way. When the last troops leave the ground, all hell will break loose. The only thing we control is when it will happen. There are 3 factions who hate each other. The only thing they hate more than each other is us. There is an article in this weeks Newsweek. It talks about world conflicts. Out of all the civil wars (30 or 40 I think) only about 5 were resolved with a acceptable brokered peace where all involved factions participated. All other instances were factions were fighting each other only came to an end when one faction won out over the others. The 3 factions in Iraq will never live peacefully in Iraq. They do not trust each other, they do not like each other. They will continue to kill each other until one is victorious.
Mean while the US is wasting tens of billions of dollars every year in that cesspool. We tried and we failed. Time to move on. The sooner this country learns not to medal in other countries affairs which have no bearing on us, the better off we will be. It is a noble cause to try prevent genocide. Bosnia, South Africa, Dafur, Mogadishu (sp?). Those are valiant causes. One could also argue that had we gone into Iraq for that reason that it would have been a valiant cause. What people seem to forget is that it does not always work. There are places (Iraq seems to be one of them) where the anger / hatred is stronger than we are able to comprehend and that they just do not want to be friends with their neighbors. At that point we have to pick up our toys and go home.
Iraq will not be successful. We are trying to fight close to 2000 years of history.
Bush is not going to bring democracy to Iraq. The Iraqis are no more like to adopt democracy from us than we would adopt communism or socialism from Lennin were he to come here to the US trying to sell his wares. The idea of either of those scenarios being successful is laughable.
The American people are beginning to realize that Iraq is a lost cause. My guess is that is why support for bush’s cluster f&*k is at an all time low. The decision that needs to be made is how long we want to stay in Iraq before we withdraw our troops and let them have a civil war. In my opinion, how long we keep our troops in Iraq will not affect the out come in any way. When the last troops leave the ground, all hell will break loose. The only thing we control is when it will happen. There are 3 factions who hate each other. The only thing they hate more than each other is us. There is an article in this weeks Newsweek. It talks about world conflicts. Out of all the civil wars (30 or 40 I think) only about 5 were resolved with a acceptable brokered peace where all involved factions participated. All other instances were factions were fighting each other only came to an end when one faction won out over the others. The 3 factions in Iraq will never live peacefully in Iraq. They do not trust each other, they do not like each other. They will continue to kill each other until one is victorious.
Mean while the US is wasting tens of billions of dollars every year in that cesspool. We tried and we failed. Time to move on. The sooner this country learns not to medal in other countries affairs which have no bearing on us, the better off we will be. It is a noble cause to try prevent genocide. Bosnia, South Africa, Dafur, Mogadishu (sp?). Those are valiant causes. One could also argue that had we gone into Iraq for that reason that it would have been a valiant cause. What people seem to forget is that it does not always work. There are places (Iraq seems to be one of them) where the anger / hatred is stronger than we are able to comprehend and that they just do not want to be friends with their neighbors. At that point we have to pick up our toys and go home.
Iraq will not be successful. We are trying to fight close to 2000 years of history.
KCFlyer
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- Aug 20, 2002
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And unfortunately...THAT is exactly why we can't just pull everything out. Once two of the three have been wiped out, that hatred will be directlly at the US. While Iraq had no ties to terrorist attacks on 9/11...if we pull out, the most certainly will in the future. And that's why we'll either be there long enough to make Vietnam look like a cakewalk, or we'll be facing daily terrorist attacks in the US...thanks to our "decider in chief" - George W Bush.
U
UAL_TECH
Guest
Didn't you all hear this?
Garfield1966
Veteran
The alternative is to make Iraq a US protectorate and we stay there indefinitely. Is that what you are advocating or am I missing something?
Eventually we will with draw our forces. Do you believe they will ever be able to run their own country with any semblance to a democracy? For this example, you can define democracy as loosely as you wish.
U
UAL_TECH
Guest
Not necessarily, we are still in South Korea and have served peace very well since the 'Peace Talks' in 1953.
(Technically, Korea is still at war as an armistice has not been agreed upon and signed.)
Although there still exists conflicts from time to time, there is a general peacefulness that would not exist without a US and UN presence. Without our (and the UN) presence, there is little doubt that NK would not have attempted total war and subjugation of the South.
If we 'manage' our withdrawal actions methodically then we can pull out over time. But I doubt it will be within my life span.
Unfortunately, it appears that our presence in Afghanistan will have to be revisited by the next generation as we have ‘really’ lost a missed opportunity to clean that mess up and IMHO, we lost this one big time.
Let’s not allow irrational exuberance and political divisiveness to not permit us to meet these challenges head on and work towards a common goal of ‘PEACE’.
Now if we could only find the 'leadership' to pull this off...
B) UT
Garfield1966
Veteran
I do not see the similarity between Korea and Iraq. Korea is the US drawing a line in the sand and saying “Don’t cross thisâ€. Iraq is the US moving and trying to change a way of life. It is the US trying to get 3 sects who hate each other to play nice. Seems like apples and oranges to me.
I believe we will be out of Iraq in a few years if not less. We cannot afford this fiasco and as I stated earlier, IMO it is not a matter of if civil war will break out, but when.
I believe we will be out of Iraq in a few years if not less. We cannot afford this fiasco and as I stated earlier, IMO it is not a matter of if civil war will break out, but when.
KCFlyer
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- Aug 20, 2002
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And all I am saying is that one reason we are hated over there is because we have a tendency to urge the locals to rise up, and then sit back and watch them get slaughtered. 1991 is a good example of this. If we pull out, and civil war starts, "the great satan" will be viewed as the root cause of all the losses. If the battling sects somehow unite - it will be united in a hatred of the US - and THEN we get to experience more terror attacks on US soil. Of course, that will be far enough in the future that 'the decider' will not be tarred with that event. It's a Catch 22 - we're damned if we leave and we're damned if we don't. Something that should have been considered before we set out to democratize Iraq.
I don't know what the correct answer is anymore but for the most part outsiders to Iraq are the ones stirring the pot over there trying to incite civil war.And they keep getting wacked and dwindle as time goes on.I think the Iraqi's are tired of these ingurgents coming to their country....Looks like the Iraqi police must be affecting some outcome as far as the insurgents go or they wouldn't be targeting them and it doesn't seem to discourage Iraqi's from joining the police force.
local 12 proud
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Heres your free history lesson, get your facts straight.
Enjoy your ride!
http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_early_pal..._when_islam.php
Flying Titan
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- Oct 14, 2003
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I am one of those who doubted from the beginning that we had good reason to go into Iraq. I thought (and still think) that containment and inspections were working, and that there was no apparent connection to the Sept. 11 attacks. Having said that, we can NOT just walk out. President Bush's (and therefore, our) mistake going into Iraq will only be compounded if we just walk out.
Having said all of that, here's how I see it going forward. I don't believe there are any good options here, so we must choose the least bad option.
I believe we must choose sides in the current civil war in Iraq and help them defeat the other side. In our current referee role, we are backing a government that nobody there seems to really support. The Iraqi government is not collecting taxes, building infrastructure, delivering any services, or even providing the most basic protections of a credible fire or police service. Justice is currently being handed down by militias in most of the country - not any government system. So, in reality, there is no government. It's in name only. We need to pick a side that we can help WIN, even though it's not likely to be as democratic as we would like.
The only other option that would make sense is to partition the country - Kurdistan (US friendly), Sunni-stan (who knows?), Shi'a-stan (who knows?). Help them devise a way to share oil revenues and some critical natural resources and then leave them to their own devices - with a permanent US military base in Kurdistan, of course! (Sad, but probably necessary)
That's my two cents. I think we may see something pointing the administration in one of these directions in the next few months as a follow-up to whatever recommendation comes from the Baker commission. Seems like it could provide cover for Mr. Stay-the-Course to actually shift strategy and find a plausable way out.
Having said all of that, here's how I see it going forward. I don't believe there are any good options here, so we must choose the least bad option.
I believe we must choose sides in the current civil war in Iraq and help them defeat the other side. In our current referee role, we are backing a government that nobody there seems to really support. The Iraqi government is not collecting taxes, building infrastructure, delivering any services, or even providing the most basic protections of a credible fire or police service. Justice is currently being handed down by militias in most of the country - not any government system. So, in reality, there is no government. It's in name only. We need to pick a side that we can help WIN, even though it's not likely to be as democratic as we would like.
The only other option that would make sense is to partition the country - Kurdistan (US friendly), Sunni-stan (who knows?), Shi'a-stan (who knows?). Help them devise a way to share oil revenues and some critical natural resources and then leave them to their own devices - with a permanent US military base in Kurdistan, of course! (Sad, but probably necessary)
That's my two cents. I think we may see something pointing the administration in one of these directions in the next few months as a follow-up to whatever recommendation comes from the Baker commission. Seems like it could provide cover for Mr. Stay-the-Course to actually shift strategy and find a plausable way out.
