Brave Iraqi Freedom Fighters attack New World Order Baghdad HQ

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap



Of course the admin. said it would not be easy early on (though they never qualified the costs or what it would take beofre the war anyhow): they changed their tune by mid time (I remeber all those triumphal comments and cartoons that came out mid April to early may), but now we are back to "long term?" What ever happened to the occuaption being done and over in 6 months? (though the guy who made tha statement did not outlive it for long)

How quickly views on this change, no?

the triumphalism in mid april was largely a response to the quagmire talk in late March.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap


You mean the same Bush who on May 1st declared and end to "major combat"?

well that was probably a stupid thing to say, and flying out to the carrier was stupid to. I never said dubya was brilliant.

OTOH, its pretty clear what was meant by major combat. Conventional combat - our divisions against their divisions was over. Now maybe it was wrong to imply that this kind of guerilla and terrorist warfare isnt major combat, but its a bit disingenous to claim he was lying on that basis. I mean from that POV theres also major combat going on in Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco.

[Defiant]

"So your "real solution" is to blurt "Yeah, let's do nothing, that worked real well!"

Did you ever hear of sarcasm, hence the little

We know we can't ignore the situation, and everybody wants to just critize, since the wars began we still haven't had a terrorist attack on this soil since 9/11, so you guys can ***** all you want about Bush policies, but so far it appears to be working.

[GePap]

This was no simple suicide attack. Suicidal truck rampages have only been used by islamists up to now. It is the safer bet to assume it is still only them now.

As for bands of partisans working together. The ppositoion in Iraq does not rise to that level. These guys seem to work in cells. As for partisans working together, certainly, if their aims do not differ sufficently. In some places though, partisans did not work together. The Ukraine was a rather ugly mess of Germans vs Soviet partisans vs Ukranian nationalist partisans.

As foir the distinction between Baathist and Islamist; ofr me it is clear and the distinction center on the end game: what version of Iraq one gets if the US was driven out. Neither the Baathist nor the islamists see much role for the other guy in their Iraq. I would say then tyheir incentive to work cooperatively is limited by the knowledge that if they succeed at this point, they have to kill the other guy afterwards. Thius would be more true of the Islamist, who are more liekly to be the ones seeking ideological purity more.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Defiant
We know we can't ignore the situation, and everybody wants to just critize, since the wars began we still haven't had a terrorist attack on this soil since 9/11, so you guys can ***** all you want about Bush policies, but so far it appears to be working.

We had a terroist attack against the US on US soild (and at the WTC no less) in 1993. There was no other one on US soil for 8 years. I assume you credit the Clinton's white House's anti-terror policies for that success, no?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap
Iraq was not Nazi germany: it didn;t take years an hundreads of thusands of lives to win this war, and the enemy was not a significant power. Plus most of the people you name were lower, second tier scum. Hitler didn;t make it past day 0 after, people like georing and Himmler and Geobles were gone pretty much instantly, or less time afterwards. Ditto for the Speer's and Fricks and so forth.

well yeah. Nazi germany was a power going for immediate world domination. to end as leader of a resistance group would be a humiliation, and with the world united in support of the occupation, probably hopeless. Whereas Saddam has turned defeat into victory simply by surviving once before, and the debate in the UN has given him and his followers the impression that if they hold on long enough, a divided world will force coalition withdrawl. To the extent the world pulls together in support of the Iraqi people and against the Baathists and terrorists, the more the violence will fade and hope will be restored to Iraq.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap
As foir the distinction between Baathist and Islamist; ofr me it is clear and the distinction center on the end game: what version of Iraq one gets if the US was driven out. Neither the Baathist nor the islamists see much role for the other guy in their Iraq. I would say then tyheir incentive to work cooperatively is limited by the knowledge that if they succeed at this point, they have to kill the other guy afterwards. Thius would be more true of the Islamist, who are more liekly to be the ones seeking ideological purity more.

What end state within 5 years can you look forward to if youre a SUNNI islamist in Iraq (assuming Osama hasnt established a kalifate from Indonesia to Morocco by then) You simply cant rule alone - its not possible demographically, unless all Sunni arabs were islamists, which theyre not. You have to either ally with the Baathists or with the Shiites. Both present ideological problems - and the Shiite mainly dont want to play, whereas the Baathists are eager.

[Defiant]

GePap,
We are now engaged with the fellows that are attacking us, a bunch of your kind said all we would do by attacking Afghanistan and Iraq is stir up the hornet's nest and cause more attacks on US proper, so far, thank God it hasn't happened. I truly believer by taking the fight to them we protect our own.

In football terms, "a good defense is an excellent offense."

I'm not saying we will never be hit again, just too many bases to cover but the hits should be extremely limited.

As much as I would love to blame Clinton for 9/11, it is quite obvious, today, it has been the lack of communication between our specified offices of security, which now should be getting fixed.

[HershOstropoler]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
To the extent the world pulls together in support of the Iraqi people and against the Baathists and terrorists, the more the violence will fade and hope will be restored to Iraq.

Bush should have thought of that beforehand. It's too late now.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap


We had a terroist attack against the US on US soild (and at the WTC no less) in 1993. There was no other one on US soil for 8 years. I assume you credit the Clinton's white House's anti-terror policies for that success, no?

well none on US soil, but there were attacks on US forces at Kobar towers, there were very nasty attacks on the Nairobi and Dar es Salaam embassies, and there was the attack on the Cole. Granted not on US soil, but more dramatic attacks on US hard targets, as none of teh attacks since 9/11 have been.

Of course we dont know what theyve got in the works now, so youre right we cant assert success based on 2 years record. The visible things - arrests, disruptions of money flows, response from the muslim street and from muslim states, etc, looks fairly good though.

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
well yeah. Nazi germany was a power going for immediate world domination. to end as leader of a resistance group would be a humiliation, and with the world united in support of the occupation, probably hopeless. Whereas Saddam has turned defeat into victory simply by surviving once before, and the debate in the UN has given him and his followers the impression that if they hold on long enough, a divided world will force coalition withdrawl. To the extent the world pulls together in support of the Iraqi people and against the Baathists and terrorists, the more the violence will fade and hope will be restored to Iraq.

Iraq after the first Gulf war was never even remotely the same threat to even its neighbors that Germany was, far less to the international community, so expecting international consensus on what to do with a dinky third rate power which happens to have lots of oil (though there is plnety outside of it too) is in my view far fetched.

Why should the world pull together for the Iraqi people any more than it does for any people? Sorry, but sady the world does not work that way yet. As for the nazis' they had plenty of plans for firece resistance, specially vs the Russian: all came to naught, and not due to ego. The Germans were not only soundly beaten on the battlefield, but also ideologically and in the minds of all participants. The same is not true in this war. The Iraqi people did not identify wth their rulers, and do not think of themeslves as vanquished. The regime members lost on the battlefield, but for the most part they had melted away to fight another day, and I don;t think they know themselves to be dead enders. Little has yet happened to make that clear to them. The future political structure of Iraq remains a mystery.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by HershOstropoler


Bush should have thought of that beforehand. It's too late now.

he certainly thought of it, but didnt allow its absence to stop the US from acting.

And its hardly too late - the world still has a chance to pull together.

And even if it doesnt, we will still pull this out, with the assistance of the coalition of the willing, and, most importantly, the Iraqi people. But it would go faster and more like WW2 (as descirbed by GEpap) if the world was more supportive.

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark



well none on US soil, but there were attacks on US forces at Kobar towers, there were very nasty attacks on the Nairobi and Dar es Salaam embassies, and there was the attack on the Cole. Granted not on US soil, but more dramatic attacks on US hard targets, as none of teh attacks since 9/11 have been.

Of course we dont know what theyve got in the works now, so youre right we cant assert success based on 2 years record. The visible things - arrests, disruptions of money flows, response from the muslim street and from muslim states, etc, looks fairly good though.

Since 9/11 we had Bali, Riyahd, attacks in Tunis, Karachi, and now Baghdad.

As for the visible successes: fine, we have had them, But none sufficient to end the organization. There is areason why we still have papers claiming 9/11 style attacks on the Us within a year. I seem them as chicken little, but someoen in the gov. does not feel as confident as you.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap


As for the nazis' they had plenty of plans for firece resistance, specially vs the Russian: all came to naught, and not due to ego.

they came to naught eventually. Are you sure the Baathist resistance wont come to naught eventually?

[Defiant]

"The regime members lost on the battlefield, but for the most part they had melted away to fight another day, and I don;t think they know themselves to be dead enders. Little has yet happened to make that clear to them. The future political structure of Iraq remains a mystery."

GePap, fight for what? Their money for killing US Soldiers is vanishing, their leaders are vanishing, our forces will soon be in the background, once a strong Iraq police force is formed, I don't see the reason to continue fighting, especially if they start killing Iraqi supporters to the new gov't because Iraqi families won't stand for it too long and will turn them in. Their time is done, much more advantageous to commit themselves to the new Iraq and make something out of themselves, now.