U.S. soldiers tell Gates to send more troops

[SlowwHand]

If it is, that's a bargain.

[Chemical Ollie]

Good that you're willing to pay, Sloww. You're a loyal citizen. You should demand a tax raise.

[SlowwHand]

If you're saying each citizen pays that a year, I'll have to call bull****.

My understanding was 4000+ per Iraqi.

[lord of the mark]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Ramo

"I was saying that SCIRI is Iran's natural ally, but that for the past year or so, they've been backing the Mahdi Army over the Badr Corps due to the growing power of his movement. I doubt that Iran could totally stop the violence from the Shia militias (particularly the Sadrists), but I do think that they could substantially reduce it. Not a perfect solution, but probably preferable to putting tens of thousands of American soldiers in Sadr City."

I still dont think theyre motivated too, and I dont know how much they could reduce it. And our leverage with them will be much greater if they arent our only hope. And I dont see how even they can restrain the violence if nothing is done about the Sunni violence against Shia. Which American troops in Baghdad are already fighting, but without adequate numbers.


"It's worth remembering that they fully cooperated in Afghanistan and their proxies joined the Karzai gov't. That's the sort of thing that diplomacy gets us."

A. Their power aspirations have always extended towards Iraq and the ME, not toward Afghanistan. They fought a 9 year war with Iraq that took a million casualties on both sides. Theyve hardly had a stake like that in Afghanistan. BAnd their proxies in Afghan, such as the Shiite Hazara, are relatively small and weak.

"As for Iran in their interest not to see Iraq turn into a failed state." Which they can avoid by intervening to stabilize it on their terms after were gone.

"Their Da'wa allies have controlled united Iraqi gov't's. "

Dawa, though closer to them than SCIRI, still is quite distinct from them.

"But we could offer a bunch of things, not least of which normalized economic relations."

Which would mean giving up our leverage over their support for Hamas and Hezb.

" Which would be imperative for the regime given the results of the recent Assembly of Expert elections. "

Its too early to say what the impact of that election will be.

[Ramo]

Exactly where do you want to send the extra troops in Baghdad? Generally? Keep them in a central base and have them function in similar roles as those currently stationed do? Why should they have any more of an effect than the 15,000 or so troops recently sent there?

I don't see us reducing Sunni violence without stationing troops in Sadr City. And if we do that, can we really expect these soldiers to have such an intimate role in Sadrist neighborhoods without provoking considerable violence from the locals? And if that happens, there's going to be retaliation. And so on and so forth. Similar in some ways to the escalation of violence we've had with Sunnis.

[SlowwHand]

So you vote pull out tonight?

[Ramo]

That follows from what?

[SlowwHand]

I'm asking what should be done.

[Bosh]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
I'm asking what should be done.

What SHOULD be done and what realistically CAN be done are very different things. There's all kinds of good things that we could do but our options are rather constrained by the incompetance of our current administration.

It's like if your fancy imported car breaks down and its theoretically possible to get it fixed but the only mechanic that services that kind of car in the area doesn't know a piston from a drive shaft. That kind of limits your options, but when the mechanic has been working on your car for three years and charging you every week then its time to just give up and sell your car for parts since obviously the mechanic doesn't know what the **** he's doing and there's no realistic prospect of getting another one.

[Chemical Ollie]

Dear mom. Having a great time in Baghdad! Please send more troops.