12 more years?

[burningwheel]

apparently Rummy said we'd be in Iraq for 12 more years. so how many AMERICANS not to mention Iraqis will die? i predict 10,000 AMERICANS. stupid crazy Bush-heads FVCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[pfflam]

From what I heard, it wasn't that we would be in Iraq for 12 more years, but that the insurgency could last for 12 more years.

:wow: :devil:

I guess they got the Cato institute figuring out the numbers here: let's see, if a suicide bomber blows himself up every day . . . it'll take 12 years to get them all . . . "bring it on"

:mad: :mad:

(sorry about the mean-spirited post . . . it just makes me so angry!)

[OBJRA10]

(how long have we been in Germany?)

I certainly agree more and more lately that the war was a mistake, but the reality is we are there. Does it suck that they won't admit they made a mistake? Yeah. Of course, there's still a reasonable chance that they know a lot more than you and I.

However, we're there and to leave now would probably leave us in a worse situation than before we went. It's going to take a while... what will be a sad reality is the day that we have lost more soldiers in Iraq than American's who died on 9/11

[Gene Clean]

This Will Not Be Another Vietnam™!

[BRussell]

Originally posted by OBJRA10
However, we're there and to leave now would probably leave us in a worse situation than before we went. It's going to take a while... what will be a sad reality is the day that we have lost more soldiers in Iraq than American's who died on 9/11 I always believed that, but I'm not so sure anymore. I'm beginning to wonder if we simply left, things might actually get better over there, not worse. It might reduce some of the reasons for the terrorism there now - to get at the US.

And I also wonder about this aversion to a timeline for withdrawal. Again, it always used to seem a bad idea to me. But if we gave a timeline, it might take some of the strength out of the insurgency, because at least some of it would lose its goal (to get us out), and it also might give the Iraqi government a real reason to toughen up.

I certainly can understand why staying is safer, because things might really escalate out of control if we simply left. But I'm beginning to think that if we set a date for withdrawal - say, one year - things might improve. As things are now, they're just getting worse and worse.

[addabox]

Originally posted by OBJRA10
(how long have we been in Germany?)

I certainly agree more and more lately that the war was a mistake, but the reality is we are there. Does it suck that they won't admit they made a mistake? Yeah. Of course, there's still a reasonable chance that they know a lot more than you and I.

However, we're there and to leave now would probably leave us in a worse situation than before we went. It's going to take a while... what will be a sad reality is the day that we have lost more soldiers in Iraq than American's who died on 9/11

The trouble with "mistakes were made, but now we have to deal with situation we have" is that the administration has never admitted that mistakes were made, and as a result is still just carrying on as if everything were going to plan.

You can't really adapt and respond to the realities you're likely to face in the near future if you never have never accepted the reality of your recent past.

So, sure, "stabilize the country, train the Iraqi army, etc." before we withdraw, but how? What is the plan? What are its chances of success?

Has the Bush administration given any indication at all that it's capable of even formulating a "winning" strategy, much less successfully implementing one? There's along list of strategic blunders, miscalculations, ruinously wishful thinking and lack of planning that suggest they cannot.

So the choice can't realistically be between "cut and run and leave Iraq a haven for terrorists" or "stay the course until Iraq is a functioning democratic state and the insurgency is manageable by Iraqi security forces", because the latter is nothing more than blue sky speculation from an administration that produces little else. They're demanding that we choose between a somewhat speculative failure and an entirely speculative happy ending their track record so fare suggest they are entirely incapable of delivering.

Without some sense of a plan, progress, a metric for success, a timetable, something, all you get is Rumsfield babbling about how war is hard and life is hard and things take time and now, really, this time really for sure, the insurgency is on its last legs.

So calling for the withdrawal of American troops can never be fairly contrasted with what the Bush administration would like to happen. I would like to make a million dollars in the stock market, but that in no way represents a coherent argument against selling at a loss, especially if I have proven myself to be a really really shitty speculator.

Until we become willing to cut through the miasma of bullshit that has surrounded this entire adventure, from its dubious origins and its outright fraudulent promotion, through its inept prosecution and its seeming evolution into quagmire, we will never be able to make informed choices about what to do next.

As long as trying to tell the truth about Iraq is labeled as "treasonous" by the cynical shills of a failed policy and their obedient echo chamber, there is no point in talking about how "maybe' the war was a mistake but now we have to face up to reality.

We haven't. We're not. And it's the last thing the Bush administration wants.

[sammi jo]

It’s a circular mess with no way out. One may ask, why it is that the troops are still there, and the usual answer is that ‘the insurgents need to be defeated’. But one also needs to ask the obvious, which is ‘why are the insurgents are still fighting us?’. One answer is supremely obvious: People, regardless of race, color, creed or whatever, tend to despise the presence of foreign troops on their land, especially foreign troops who are abusive, disrespectful or ignorant of ethnic customs and traditions. Doubling the number of troops on the ground will merely provide more targets for the insurgents, and undoubtedly will encourage more angry Iraqis to join the insurgency.

Think of it this way, (and I think Defense Sec. Rumsfeld put it correctly when he said that the insurgency could go on for a decade of more): If it was America that happened to on the sharp end of a superior and unwelcome foreign occupying force (fortunately, this is a thought experiment rather than a likely future scenario), I would imagine that most able-bodied patriotic Americans capable of firing a weapon would be taking the fight to the enemy in whatever way they could. I would for sure. This is a no-brainer.

I am not suggesting a way out of this mess, for the simple reason that a workable solution involves some degree of “loss-of-face” for the architects of this war. Knowing that “loss-of-face” is the ultimate no-go area for testosterone-addled hawks in the Pentagon, then its plain that we are in there for a long and painful haul.

oh well...