The cost of freeing Iraq

[MichaeltheGreat]

I need a good literary agent.

[techumseh]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
I need a good literary agent.

How about writing a book, "Dude, where's my Empire?"

[techumseh]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat

You should at least get your facts straight...blah, blah, blah....we (like the Kuwaitis, Saudis, and everyone else) supported Saddam because he was the only semi-credible barrier to Iranian fundamentalist domination of the entire gulf.

I stand corrected.

So come on, pick an alternative - I gave you two, but you ducked those.

If it were up to me? Immediate, unconditional withdrawal. Pay all damages. And turn Bush and his gang over to the Hague for trial as war criminals.

The real world question isn't what's an acceptable number of deaths. People would be dying with any alternative. So just pick one.

Gimme a break. Of course people die, all the time. But when you bomb them, destroy their infrastructure, and attack them with tanks, they die much faster. Much faster. And if you destroy their civil authority so they have no security, they keep dying. Faster.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Security for Kurds and Shiites in the Baathist Iraqi regime wasn't that great. They couldn't even keep their mass burial sites a secret.

And apparently, you think it's more important to prove a point regarding Bush than whether Iraq returns to Saddamite oppression, Islamic fundamentalism, post-Saddam Baathism, or some other -ism - or if they simply have a good civil war to sort out who will run the next thugocracy. Gald to see you're such a humanitarian.

[techumseh]

The point here is not whether Iraq has a civil war, or not, or whether it returns to an oppressive regime, or not. The point is it's up to the Iraqi people, not the American government. You're only making a bad situation worse. Just go home.

[MichaeltheGreat]

So who gives a ****, as long as they just kill each other? I can see you're Africa's best and brightest hope.

And yes, we're sooooooooo much worse than Saddam.

[Drake Tungsten]

And apparently, you think it's more important to prove a point regarding Bush than whether Iraq returns to Saddamite oppression

Am I the only one who thinks "Saddamite oppression" is a humorous phrase?

[MichaeltheGreat]

I have used "Saddamite" in various ways to describe our beloved villain and his government.

[Drake Tungsten]

It has other uses, though. For example, I don't think you would be out of line in calling the British monarchy a "Saddamite" institution.

[techumseh]

Another left wing organization suggests strong Iraqi support for the Resistance:

'We could lose this situation'

· CIA says insurgents now 50,000 strong
· Crisis talks over transfer of power

Julian Borger in Washington and Rory McCarthy in Baghdad
Thursday November 13, 2003
The Guardian

The White House yesterday drew up emergency plans to accelerate the transfer of power in Iraq after being shown a devastating CIA report warning that the guerrilla war was in danger of escalating out of US control.
The report, an "appraisal of situation" commissioned by the CIA director, George Tenet, and written by the CIA station chief in Baghdad, said that the insurgency was gaining ground among the population, and already numbers in the tens of thousands.

One military intelligence assessment now estimates the insurgents' strength at 50,000. Analysts cautioned that such a figure was speculative, but it does indicate a deep-rooted revolt on a far greater scale than the Pentagon had led the administration to believe.

An intelligence source in Washington familiar with the CIA report described it as a "bleak assessment that the resistance is broad, strong and getting stronger".

"It says we are going to lose the situation unless there is a rapid and dramatic change of course," the source said.

"There are thousands in the resistance - not just a core of Ba'athists. They are in the thousands, and growing every day. Not all those people are actually firing, but providing support, shelter and all that."

Although, the report was an internal CIA document it was widely circulated within the administration. Even more unusually, it carried an endorsement by Paul Bremer, the civilian head of the US-run occupation of Iraq - a possible sign that he was seeking to bypass his superiors in the Pentagon and send a message directly to President George Bush on how bad the situation has become..

[MichaeltheGreat]

Only 50,000? In a country of 25 million? Not bad.

Before the war, the Saddam Fedayeen, Special Republican Guard, and Iraqi Special Security services, which are the hard core of the hard core, numbered about 100,000. Add in regular Iraqi Republican Guard units, which were supposed to be elite and politically committed, and you've got another 100,000 on paper, probably not more than 50,000 in actuality. Then add senior Baath party members who have too much blood on their hands and too little stashed in overseas bank accounts to really "adapt" to change, and you've probably got 30,000 to 50,000 more. Add al Tikriti clan beneficiaries of the Saddamizing of the rest of Iraq, and you've probably got another 20,000.

So out of all those *******s who have everything to lose and nothing to gain by any non-Saddamite regime change, and you've only got 50,000 who can be arsed to actively oppose us? That report even concluded that not all are actively fighting, but the 50,000 number includes those who are providing "support" and "shelter."

Of course "we could lose this situation" - so can anyone, in any form of conflict, if you stop paying attention and let the other guy dictate the pace of things without responding appropriately.

[techumseh]

I will forgo the delights of shooting fish in a barrel, and just ask one question: Given that this report was intended for public consumption (how often do CIA reports get "leaked"?), what do you think the REAL number is?

[Q Classic]

mtg

pretty much what i've been thinking all along; though i still think it's absolutely disgusting that the administration is baldly changing its rationale and then accusing those who are calling them on it as "revisionists".

[Sikander]

Originally posted by techumseh


How about writing a book, "Dude, where's my Empire?"

[mindseye]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Also, O brilliant foreign policy visionary, what would you have done?

(a) Left Saddam Hussein and the Baath party in power and continued sanctions ad infinitum (...)

or

(b) Left Hussein and the Baathists in power (...)

Hey, you got that false dilemma from **** Cheney! Because the rest of your arguments have been spot-on, I'll assume you were providing as examples two of many options, right? I know I was far from alone in favoring (c) Take another year for an all-out attempt to build a legitimate international coalition that would be better positioned politically and economically to deal with the aftermath.

Even if one last all-holds barred attempt failed, it would have put more post-war pressure Germany and France for refusing to contribute to the re-building (after years of hand-wringing about the sanctions' effects on the Iraqi people).

Why is it there's never any leftist handwringing about the cost of leaving this kind of ******* in power?

I think your "they're all ****s" view of "the left" and "the right" is a bit over-simplified. I think that plenty, if not the majority of "the (American) left" were in favor of trying a little harder before playing the military card. Saddam's regime was just about a textbook example of the kind of government that "lefties" abhor the most.