Kissinger says Iraq not winnable

[Proteus_MST]

Do it.
But don´t complain afterwards if Iraq has turned into an islamist state under the Shia, which supports Iran, in 5 years from now on
(something which, at a slower pace, might happen nevertheless, now that there is no dictator that keeps the fundamewntalists at bay)

[malsa]

Oerdin,

Some westerns are so ignorant and gullible that they allow the media to decieve them.

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com

http://pilger.carlton.com/

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/

http://www.bubbleshare.com/album/46717/overview

http://www.palestinemonitor.org/eyewitness/Westbank/a_targeted_operation.htm

http://www.sunnahonline.com/ilm/contemporary/tia_index.htm

[malsa]

Photos of victims of the US / GB war on Iraq cam from the site of this man:

Robert Fisk, Middle East correspondent of The Independent, is the author of Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War (London: André Deutsch, 1990). He holds numerous awards for journalism, including two Amnesty International UK Press Awards and seven British International Journalist of the Year awards. His most recent book is The Great War for Civilisation: the Conquest of the Middle East, published by 4th Estate on 3 October, 2005.

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
[q]
They're dying. You set up the situation. Running away before average Iraqis can be responsible for their own problems is cowardice of the highest order.

And THAT is why we call Chickenhawks Chickenhawks...

When the going gets tough - the cowards get out of dodge!

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by Bosh

Agreeing completely with Ned....
Must stop head from exploding....

Agreeing completely with Ned to the point that I mentioned both his points AT THE TIME (Told you so, told you so etc... ), and not with 'Nedsight' (a curious form of 'hindsight' where the afflicted have to wait a lot longer for the benefits to set in - three years in Ned's case!)

[Dinner]

Originally posted by malsa
Oerdin,

Some westerns are so ignorant and gullible that they allow the media to decieve them.

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com

http://pilger.carlton.com/

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/

http://www.bubbleshare.com/album/46717/overview

http://www.palestinemonitor.org/eyewitness/Westbank/a_targeted_operation.htm

http://www.sunnahonline.com/ilm/cont.../tia_index.htm

A link about how Nostrodomus the coming world war against Islam. A book claiming Tony Blair is a dictator. A link claiming Jews sneak into the houses of Arabs to kill children. Some crap Palestinian propoganda page. And an Islamic fundimentalist website which says Pacificism is ruining Islam and to kill the infedels.

You are a complete ****ing lunitic.

[Arrian]

It's pretty funny when people throw around the (rather tired) charge that Americans are ignorant and deceived by their media and then present, as evidence, a bunch of piss-poor propoganda.

The people here at 'poly are generally far better informed than Joe-Q-Public. Lots of us actually pay attention.

-Arrian

[Straybow]

Originally posted by Proteus_MST

Originally posted by Straybow
Don't forget, our initial plan to use ports in the Med and tranship over Turkish roads was quashed. That doubled the time required to get supplies to Iraq. Why? Because our so-called allies in NATO (who were on the take, but we didn't know it yet) wouldn't support even this phase of the operation and Turkey didn't want to get caught in the middle.

No wonder,
after all your government successfully managed to piss off nearly all of its allies which only years before supported your invasion of Afghanistan.

Don't try to put that on us. The attitude problem, at the best, goes both ways.

It was certainly aggravated by baseless accusations from the long-standing Bush critics on both sides of the pond. At the worst it was complicated by hidden motives on the part of France and Germany who had been circumventing restrictions all along.

Moderate Europeans (the ones who didn't stoop to accusations of warmongering) didn't support the war because they thought it would be too difficult, too bloody. When proved wrong they didn't admit it, or even credit us with a lucky break, and come to the table to talk about support and reconstruction.

Instead they continued war-for-oil accusations and tried to cover up the oil-for-food kickbacks. They chose to back Boutros Gali and dismiss the kickbacks with a wave of the hand. They took a haughty approach and demanded that reconstruction be placed in UN hands.

As Oerdin keeps pointing out, there was a sizable window of time where rapid reconstruction could've made a difference. I doubt that the overall pace would've changed dramatically. A few highly visible projects could've been chosen for PR value. A highly visible NATO joint effort, including access through Turkey, would have gone a long way to securing the trust of the Iraqi public.

[Arrian]

It WAS warmongering, though.

And how do you get to blame Europeans who didn't choose the war for not helping once we'd gone and done it? WTF?!

We chose to do it, without their help. Then, when we **** it up, it's THEIR fault?

-Arrian

[Proteus_MST]

I cannot say something about the Bush critics,
but I can say that the reason for the moderates in Europe to be against war in Iraq was not the belief that the war would be too bloody.

It was rather the belief that your reasons for invading were false (which were always said to be the WMD Iraq possessed) as at the same time that your government stated the possession of large stockpiles of WMDs to be a fact (just think of Colin Powell showing these nice satellite photos around in the UN security council) the UN inspectors which oversaw the weapons inspections in Iraq denied the claims by the US government.

Most people in europe rather believed the UN weapons inspectors than the claims of the US government and therefore preferred the UN weapons inspections to continue rather than the invasion that was preferred by your country.

And in the end one can say that the belief of the moderate europeans seemed to be right as no sizable stockpiles of WMDs were found despite all of your efforts to find them after invasion

[Straybow]

Originally posted by Ned
Oerdin, I think the main problem were 2) lack of US troops and 2) dismissing the Iraqi army. A greater number of US troops could have kept order better from the get go, and keeping the Iraqi Army intact would have least kept those troops on base and out of the insurgency.

Iraqi Army before invasion: 375,000
Armed insurgents: 10-20,000 (at least half foreign)

That would have little impact on domestic insurgents, and none on foreign fighters. The radicals in the Army who wanted to be jihadis would've easily dropped out or gone AWOL.

The other problem was that the US didn't dissolve the Iraqi Army. The Iraqi Army was commanded by Saddam to disperse into the population and continue the fight from there.

What we dissolved was the formal command structure, which was loyal to Saddam after many gruesome purgings.

[Bosh]

Armed insurgents: 10-20,000 (at least half foreign)

Wow, you truly are delusional when you come out against Ned for not being right-wing enough.

What can we call that which transcends the Nedaverse? The Straybowsphere?

[KrazyHorse]

He's not as funny as ned though. I might take ned off ignore and put this joker in his place.

[Bosh]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
He's not as funny as ned though. I might take ned off ignore and put this joker in his place.

Right, he doesn't have Ned's winning earnestness. Delusional grumpiness isn't funny.

[Straybow]

Sorry, those were really old figures. Very few foreign fighters have been found. Well, captured alive. It's kinda difficult to know how many among the dead.

The 10-20k is an estimated total of active fighters at any given time that's been presented a number of times. The major strongholds like Fallujah had a few thousand each. The rest are scattered.

In any case, very few insurgents are attributed to disgruntled ex-Army members, not hundreds of thousands.