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Some Small Good News From Iraq

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  • #31
    It's only a matter of time until a good part of the shiite population has enough of your occupation regime. Your presence is also an invitation for every nutty fundie to target your troops.

    I don't look at it that way. The great majority of people may feed us a bunch of rhetoric, but they can see and recognize progress. So the goal is to show continuous progress. It's tough.

    But how much do you want to bet our good Republican friends want to set that up as the model for their free-market Iraqi democracy?

    Actually, I think that's what they're going for, at least at first. Socialized medicine, even though the medical system currently is a public/private hybrid, etc. I guess the biggest thing is that we've got to be able to insert a lot of money into the South quickly. The South really does have a lot of people in it--cities of surprising size.
    I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891

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    • #32
      Basically, just providing density of coverage and some rotation to secure areas for the forward deployed MP's and grunts on security duty.

      Another big point is how much mass you can put on a problem area. Instead of a brigade task force scraped together (and thinning a lot of other areas out) when the *******s get uppity in Fallujah, I'd like to see a reaction force of two full divisions be able to go to one of those cities and essentially lock the whole place down - make sure nobody can take a **** without American soldiers being there, and that you can't step out of your house without seeing at least a couple of armored vehicles and some additional troops.

      And literally sweep every building, every block, and lock it down so there's no back infiltration. Control rooftops, sewers, probe for tunnels, jam off radios, and let the bastards know who their daddy is now. Confiscate all the unauthorized weapons, ID everyone who appears to be of interest, and reward the general populace for putting up with the inconvenience by giving them food, medical attention, fixing water treatment and water supply while they're there.

      The goal is double-edged: Show them massive force like they've never seen or imagined existed, but at the same time, show them there's something to gain by cooperation and compliance, not by defiance.
      When all else fails, blame brown people. | Hire a teen, while they still know it all. | Trump-Palin 2016. "You're fired." "I quit."

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      • #33
        The power of political Islam is also at work: read some of Kristoff's columns in the NYTimes. More and more women in the south women have to cover up, liquor stores closed, so forth and so on. They may not be heading for an Iran style Clerical rule, but this is not the same secualrism of the old regime, and that may cause porblems in the south long term, plus I agree with MtG that the Kurds are bidding their time, and that an idependent Kurdistan is their overall goal.
        If you don't like reality, change it! me
        "Oh no! I am bested!" Drake
        "it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong" Voltaire
        "Patriotism is a pernecious, psychopathic form of idiocy" George Bernard Shaw

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        • #34
          According to The Economist the strategy for rebuilding the economy is to increase payments to Iraqis and to import consumer goods. It seems to me that all the money paid to Iraqis will just leave the country as Iraqis buy the imported goods. What they need to do is create some domestic industry as well as increase payments to Iraqis. Imported goods should be kept to a minimum, especially consumer goods.
          I drank beer. I like beer. I still like beer. ... Do you like beer Senator?
          - Justice Brett Kavanaugh

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          • #35
            Establishment of broad-based consumer oriented domestic industry will take years.

            Ultimately, if the Iraqis handle their oil revenues well, they could become a net creditor nation and have relatively low imports.
            When all else fails, blame brown people. | Hire a teen, while they still know it all. | Trump-Palin 2016. "You're fired." "I quit."

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            • #36
              It seems to me that all the money paid to Iraqis will just leave the country as Iraqis buy the imported goods.

              But this isn't a problem with any oil economy. What else are they going to do with the dollars, other than buy imported goods and equipment? Burn them for heating?
              I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891

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              • #37
                Purchase US treasuries.
                DISCLAIMER: the author of the above written texts does not warrant or assume any legal liability or responsibility for any offence and insult; disrespect, arrogance and related forms of demeaning behaviour; discrimination based on race, gender, age, income class, body mass, living area, political voting-record, football fan-ship and musical preference; insensitivity towards material, emotional or spiritual distress; and attempted emotional or financial black-mailing, skirt-chasing or death-threats perceived by the reader of the said written texts.

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                • #38
                  Yeh, but that gets boring after a while.
                  I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891

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                  • #39
                    Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat

                    We can't withdraw.
                    You can't stay either.

                    Nice quagmire.
                    “Now we declare… that the law-making power or the first and real effective source of law is the people or the body of citizens or the prevailing part of the people according to its election or its will expressed in general convention by vote, commanding or deciding that something be done or omitted in regard to human civil acts under penalty or temporal punishment….” (Marsilius of Padua, „Defensor Pacis“, AD 1324)

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                    • #40
                      Well, "withdraw" implied leave before we've done whatever it is we're supposedly doing.

                      Once we've done whatever we're supposedly doing, whatever it may be and whenever that happens, then we can hold a little parade and leave.
                      When all else fails, blame brown people. | Hire a teen, while they still know it all. | Trump-Palin 2016. "You're fired." "I quit."

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                      • #41
                        Having no clue what to do there makes it easy to find some excuse for a job finished. But it makes it hard to make that excuse credible.

                        And maybe the neocons want to stay there forever? Who knows...
                        “Now we declare… that the law-making power or the first and real effective source of law is the people or the body of citizens or the prevailing part of the people according to its election or its will expressed in general convention by vote, commanding or deciding that something be done or omitted in regard to human civil acts under penalty or temporal punishment….” (Marsilius of Padua, „Defensor Pacis“, AD 1324)

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                        • #42
                          Killed People are never good News.
                          Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!

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                          • #43
                            Originally posted by HershOstropoler
                            Having no clue what to do there makes it easy to find some excuse for a job finished. But it makes it hard to make that excuse credible.
                            Essentially we just have to install our lackeys and be able to keep them from getting assassinated or deposed for some period of time so that it's not tooo immediate.

                            And maybe the neocons want to stay there forever? Who knows...
                            No, for two reasons: Direct imperialism is out, imperialism by proxy is in, and if we stay there, we won't have enough people to go somewhere else.
                            When all else fails, blame brown people. | Hire a teen, while they still know it all. | Trump-Palin 2016. "You're fired." "I quit."

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                            • #44
                              Originally posted by Main_Brain
                              Killed People are never good News.
                              They are if they're the enemy. If they don't want to get their asses killed, then don't **** with us, it's that simple.
                              When all else fails, blame brown people. | Hire a teen, while they still know it all. | Trump-Palin 2016. "You're fired." "I quit."

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                              • #45
                                this isn't good news... when people stop dying... that will be good news.
                                To us, it is the BEAST.

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