View Full Version : Iraq Study Group Reaches Consensus
thuh Freak
11-30-2006, 11:01 AM
slashdot (http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/30/132219&from=rss) wash post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/30/AR2006113000025.html) nyt (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/30/world/middleeast/30policy.html?hp&ex=1164949200&en=b95eba287d888001&ei=5094&partner=homepage)
The consensus is a major withdrawal of US troops from combat situations. Full report is to be released on Dec 6.
southside grabowski
11-30-2006, 01:21 PM
The report calls for US troops in Iraq to be switched from a combat to a support role, according to sources quoted by the New York Times newspaper.
It also recommends direct talks with Syria and Iran, the paper says.
What an insult to the troops who have died and been injured.
iPoster
11-30-2006, 01:38 PM
What an insult to the troops who have died and been injured.
Mmmm, yeah. Let's keep them over there in a never ending situation that is impossible to win militarily short of genocide. (Not to say they haven't been winning tactically) Exactly how much time have you spent in uniform? None or not much from the way you act...
IRT the article, 'Iraqization', anyone? I expect the same results too...
Gilsch
11-30-2006, 01:44 PM
What an insult to the troops who have died and been injured. Yeah, cause there was nothing wrong with sending them to a war under false pretenses and bungling the securing of the country majestically to further put them in danger.
You have a really warped vision of reality. Let's keep the troops there while Iraq further slides into civil war and our troops become the one common enemy everyone will be shooting at. Brilliant!
The only reason I would ever support leaving the troops there is so that when you turn 18 you prove to us how courageous you are and enlist and ask to be sent to Iraq. Then and only then I may have a gram of respect for keyboard commandos such as yourself.
I don't think it's gonna make much of a difference what that Study Group says. Baker and the other "war heroes" are pushing some things but with a soft timetable and the Admin. sticks with "staying the course".
addabox
11-30-2006, 01:45 PM
The report calls for US troops in Iraq to be switched from a combat to a support role, according to sources quoted by the New York Times newspaper.
It also recommends direct talks with Syria and Iran, the paper says.
What an insult to the troops who have died and been injured.
Because the only way to honor the dead is to pile more dead on top of them. The dead totally dig that.
MacRR
11-30-2006, 02:43 PM
I see most of the responses are to immediately thrash you. I am new here, so I have no context of why you'd say such a thing. Would you mind expounding a little bit?
What an insult to the troops who have died and been injured.
[I]
What an insult to the troops who have died and been injured.
Yep!
Anybody with a shred of honesty and realism left will concede that what this administration has done is a clusterfuck of so gigantic proportions and on so many levels that this overture "saltato affretando" to the 21st century will continue to needlessly cost many a life in all hemispheres long after "Iraq" is over.
But Grabo won't have any of that.
None of it!
Now, Southside, if you tell me you'd be ready to send ten of your most loved ones to Iraq to get killed and maimed and broken, all for the higher cause, then I might buy it.
Stay with me, Southside, stay right here and fscking look me in the eye!
You tell me you'll send your Dad, your daughter, your wife, your brother to Iraq, not you Southside, them - not you, because it is the right thing to do, then I might change my mind.
If not, then you and your circle of ideological friends are the fscking "insult to the troops who have died and been injured".
Because that's what you ask of others.
Edit: spell
southside grabowski
11-30-2006, 04:58 PM
Troops died for a job we are not willing to finish. Our military supports the mission and the president. The leftist media likes to parade a few malcontents and CINDY SHEAN in front of us, but they are not representative of our military.
Aurora
11-30-2006, 05:09 PM
The report calls for US troops in Iraq to be switched from a combat to a support role, according to sources quoted by the New York Times newspaper.
It also recommends direct talks with Syria and Iran, the paper says.
What an insult to the troops who have died and been injured.The insult is taking us into Iraq with no WMDs, we were played by Bush & Cheney while Bin Laden the guy who did 911 got away. This president ignored all the evidence and even went as far as playing Powell with the yellow cake story in front of the U.N. after Cheneys office outed a CIA agent for telling the truth.
We should never throw our troops into harms way for fiction. This president repeated WMDs in iraq a thousand times if he said it once. There werent WMDs except for some left overs from when Rumsfeld was helping Saddam during the Iraq/Iran war. FIGURE it out. Ill say it one more time for you, there werent the WMDs in Iraq we were promised so this makes it even harder to deal with the REAL WMDs in Iran & North Korea. Bush & his draft dodging team F'd this all up.
Northgate
11-30-2006, 05:48 PM
Troops died for a job we are not willing to finish. Our military supports the mission and the president. The leftist media likes to parade a few malcontents and CINDY SHEAN in front of us, but they are not representative of our military.
Got it. The media reports on the civil war (reality) and sends a few cameras to Crawford to report on a grieving mother's fight to end the war and you think THAT'S why the administration is in a world of hurt.
Wow.
Basically what you're saying is that well over half the nation doesn't have the GUTS or RESOLVE to finish this thing. Is that what you're saying? That liberals have convinced the nation to not support the troops, tuck tail, and run?
What exactly is the "end game" if we were to stick it out, send more of our boys to their deaths, and "finish this thing"? Please. I want to know.
Liberty?
Democracy in Iraq?
Pardon my petulance, but fuck Iraq and fuck the Iraqi people. They aint and aren't worth half a TRILLION DOLLARS and 3000 American lives and 20,000 maimed and injured. No way. Not now. Not any day.
Gilsch
11-30-2006, 06:33 PM
Troops died for a job we are not willing to finish. We?? Our military supports the mission and the president. I thought the president said the mission was "accomplished" years ago. What was the mission again? Do you support the military? Have you enrolled yet?
they are not representative of our military. And you are? 101st Keyboardists? :lol:
We should know better than to take you seriously.
Pardon my petulance, but fuck Iraq and fuck the Iraqi people. They aint and aren't worth half a TRILLION DOLLARS and 3000 American lives and 20,000 maimed and injured. No way. Not now. Not any day.Okay. That's a good thing to consider before starting a war. After, there's this thing called responsibility for your actions. You break it, you buy it.
That said, I think the responsible thing to do towards the Iraqis is to pull out the troops, because keeping them there is a recipe for prolonging the pain. It would not end the responsibility, nor should it end compensation for the damage.
MacRR
11-30-2006, 08:08 PM
The real honest way to dishonor our troops is to not only put them in battle knowing casualties will result, but to keep them there with no strategy based on an afterthought, grab. All these people might want to thrash you, but I'd like you to really consider that. You can't bring the dead back, but you can certainly keep the alive protected and give them every chance to have a life, families, a future. Our troops deserve that. It's a dishonor to rob them and their families of that, and it's people that won’t see that and support this... well, war? Occupation? Clusterfuck? ...I don't even know what to classify it, but to support it at this point is an insult.
I do know that troops in life would never want their comrades harmed, and tend to die for each other. Why do you think it fits as an insult to the dead when it clearly would not to a soldier?
I understand to an extent, you'd hate to see them die in vain. But the fact is, they did die in vain- and it's up to us to pressure congress and the president to stop the damage. And it's also up to us to make sure it never happens again. We are capable of being the greatest country in the world, and we are falling far far short of that. We need to put standards back into our government, and it starts with calling a bad decision for what it is, and to correct it. If we go to war, we should win. It should be worth it enough to win.
My little brother served a tour over there, and believe me- it's no picnic for a family to have to deal with that. I can't really explain to you how much of a real disrespect it is to put vanity in the picture and force these fine troops to stay there. My family- my mother especially- you can see the battle and emotion raging in their minds- I have to support this war, my family can’t die for nothing, etc. It’s a real difficult ordeal to put yourself in.
The thing that bothers me is the fighting at home- be it partisan, ideals, what have you, while these guys are out there doing their duty with no direction and no leadership. I'd hope you'd consider this and make a point to make sure you have the troop’s best interest in mind when you say they should stay there.
southside grabowski
11-30-2006, 09:15 PM
The real honest way to dishonor our troops is to not only put them in battle knowing casualties will result, but to keep them there with no strategy based on an afterthought, grab. All these people might want to thrash you, but I'd like you to really consider that. You can't bring the dead back, but you can certainly keep the alive protected and give them every chance to have a life, families, a future. Our troops deserve that. It's a dishonor to rob them and their families of that, and it's people that won’t see that and support this... well, war? Occupation? Clusterfuck? ...I don't even know what to classify it, but to support it at this point is an insult.
I do know that troops in life would never want their comrades harmed, and tend to die for each other. Why do you think it fits as an insult to the dead when it clearly would not to a soldier?
I understand to an extent, you'd hate to see them die in vain. But the fact is, they did die in vain- and it's up to us to pressure congress and the president to stop the damage. And it's also up to us to make sure it never happens again. We are capable of being the greatest country in the world, and we are falling far far short of that. We need to put standards back into our government, and it starts with calling a bad decision for what it is, and to correct it. If we go to war, we should win. It should be worth it enough to win.
My little brother served a tour over there, and believe me- it's no picnic for a family to have to deal with that. I can't really explain to you how much of a real disrespect it is to put vanity in the picture and force these fine troops to stay there. My family- my mother especially- you can see the battle and emotion raging in their minds- I have to support this war, my family can’t die for nothing, etc. It’s a real difficult ordeal to put yourself in.
The thing that bothers me is the fighting at home- be it partisan, ideals, what have you, while these guys are out there doing their duty with no direction and no leadership. I'd hope you'd consider this and make a point to make sure you have the troop’s best in
terest in mind when you say they should stay there.
The post that sent Moe into retirement for good.
MacRR
11-30-2006, 11:57 PM
..........Joe?
The post that sent Moe into retirement for good.
Gilsch
12-01-2006, 01:20 PM
Curly?
MacRR
12-04-2006, 02:17 PM
lol- Larry!!!!?
anyways- an interesting relevant article turned up in the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/03/AR2006120300932.html?nav=rss_print/asection
SDW2001
12-06-2006, 07:57 PM
So the report is out. Where to begin:
Everything I've read on the report makes me think one thing that I didn't expect to be thinking at this point: What a total waste of time and money.
They spent months studying and traveling and likely having "working lunches" all likely on the taxpayer dime....and this is what they come up with: A fucking term paper that basically says:
1) Pull US Troops out by 2008
2) Gradually switch troops to support roles from now until then.
3) Talk to Iran and Syria.
That's it. 142 pages and that's all it really boils down to. It's frankly insulting. And guess what? We all paid for it.
MacRR
12-06-2006, 08:19 PM
2008 sounds a lot like 18 months, eh SDW?
I agree- it's shite. It shoud call for immediate removal of troops, and should also encourage accountability for the entire operations failure.
FormerLurker
12-06-2006, 08:20 PM
What a total waste of time and money.
It's frankly insulting. And guess what? We all paid for it.
Yeah, I feel the same way about the whole WAR.
A bit more time wasted, though.
And a LOT more money.
And, yeah, those 3000 dead and 20,000 maimed US solders.
Oh, and there were some Iraqis killed also, I believe.
MacRR
12-06-2006, 08:28 PM
no way- that's how they say it in Chi-town! :)
A "couple-two-tree" dead Iraqis as they say in Scranton.
shetline
12-06-2006, 08:42 PM
That's it. 142 pages and that's all it really boils down to. It's frankly insulting. And guess what? We all paid for it.
There was an engineer who had an exceptional gift for fixing all things mechanical. After serving his company loyally for over 30 years, he happily retired. Several years later the company contacted him regarding a seemingly impossible problem they were having with one of their multi-million dollar machines. They had tried everything and everyone else to get the machine to work but to no avail.
In desperation, they called on the retired engineer who had solved so many of their problems in the past. The engineer reluctantly took the challenge. He spent a day studying the huge machine. Finally, at the end of the day, he marked a small "x" in chalk on a particular component of the machine and said, "This is where your problem is." The part was replaced and the machine worked perfectly again. The company received a bill for $50,000 from the engineer for his service. They demanded an itemized accounting of his charges.
The engineer responded briefly...
One chalk mark: $1.00
Knowing where to put it: $49,999.00
It was paid in full and the engineer retired again in peace.
If, and that's a big "if", these guys know "where to put it", and Bush actually pays attention, the report is easily worth a hundred times whatever it cost. (I'll bet that a hundred times the cost of this report is still less than 1% of the cost of the entire fiasco that is the Iraq War.)
sammi jo
12-06-2006, 09:06 PM
The report calls for US troops in Iraq to be switched from a combat to a support role, according to sources quoted by the New York Times newspaper.
It also recommends direct talks with Syria and Iran, the paper says.
Good! Talk with Iran! Trade with them. That is the best way of getting western culture and influence over there, and dilute the current march to extremist medievaldom. Lets have more dialog, more of everything apart from folly of sanctions and more silence. Lack of communication (which is the policy of this admin) creates the conditions ripe for conflict, every time. It's when dysfuctional, egomanical or psychopathic/sociopathic men, usually over-full of testosterone and bluster, fail to adhere to something every child is taught... ie.. using their words. Or... they are swayed too easily by well-placed and nfluential war-mongers who benefit $$mightily from warfare. Sounds familiar? :(
What an insult to the troops who have died and been injured.
That is beyond the pale. For what reason beneficial to the national security of the United States have those almost 2900 troops given their lives, and some 20000+ seriously hurt? There is no reason. The national security of the U.S. has been severely compromised as a result of this crazy-assed folly. War on terrorism? What a pile of Orwellian doublespeak that phrase is... the reality is a war in order to create a greater likelihood of terrorism.
Washington still doesn't understand that this is religious in nature. All you have to do is look at a photograph of the commission's members -- you can smell the latency. The report is just more conventional wisdom.
LBJ was confused in this way as well when he thought he could negotiate -- 'cut a deal' -- with Ho Chi Mhin.
Outsider
12-07-2006, 11:04 AM
From kos (http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/12/7/72759/5888):
If George W. Bush played Deal or No Deal:
Howie: Mr. President, you have picked every case in numerical order from one through 23. Each successive case you chose contained the highest dollar amount on the board. And every time the banker offered you a deal you shouted...
Bush: No deal! Stay the course! HehHehHeh!
Howie: So now we're down to three cases. The one dollar case, the five dollar case, and the ten dollar case. If you like, you can talk over your next choice with the Iraq Study Group...
Iraq Study Group: Mr. President, we think that the situation is dire and we...
Bush: Hey, I'm the decider, not you! And what I decide is I want lucky number 24!
Howie: Condi...open the case.
Condi: I hope it's a million dollars for my husb...er, the president!
[Zzzzzing!]
Howie: Oh, what a surprise. You picked the ten dollar case.
Bush: Hell yeah! Did I win a million dollars?
Howie: No. You really should've done some planning before you came on the show...
[Brrreep! Brrreep!]
Howie: Hello banker. Yes. Yes. No, I can't say that to his face, he's the president. Okay. Mr. President, the banker is offering you a deal: three dollars and 12 cents.
Bush: Whaddya think, Dick?
Cheney: Well, uh, I think, uh, the banker's in his last throes, if you will.
Bush: Rummy?
Rumsfeld: Gosh, I still think the million dollars will be located. It's in Burbank and parts north, east, south and west somewhat.
Bush: We will not cut and run until the mission is accomplished. No deal, Kojak!
Howie: Unbelievable. Okay, the last case on the stage is number 25. Karen Hughes...open the damn thing.
[Zzzzzing!]
Howie: There it is---five dollars. That means your case, Mr. President, contains the sum of...one dollar.
Bush: I win! Get my flight suit...it's time to party!
thuh Freak
12-07-2006, 11:39 AM
According to the AP (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_iraq_violence_figures) (as reported by yahoo), the Iraq Study Group claims that the administration has been underreporting violence. A choice paragraph:
The panel pointed to one day last July when U.S. officials reported 93 attacks or significant acts of violence. "Yet a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light 1,100 acts of violence," it said.
The article goes on to explain that the criteria for reporting violence was suspect. Acts by unknown assailants don't count, when the US mil isn't hit it doesn't count, etc.
"Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals," the report said.
One more quote from Franklin the applies to 'wheeling & dealing' with Syria, Iran, etc. on Iraq.
Necessity never made a good bargain.
OfficerDigby
12-07-2006, 04:14 PM
So the report is out. Where to begin:
Everything I've read on the report makes me think one thing that I didn't expect to be thinking at this point: What a total waste of time and money.
They spent months studying and traveling and likely having "working lunches" all likely on the taxpayer dime....and this is what they come up with: A fucking term paper that basically says:
1) Pull US Troops out by 2008
2) Gradually switch troops to support roles from now until then.
3) Talk to Iran and Syria.
That's it. 142 pages and that's all it really boils down to. It's frankly insulting. And guess what? We all paid for it.
I would add a number (0) Don't not invade and destroy Iraq in the first place you arrogant bastards!
All four rules could be worked out by any high-school student in 2002 but there you go.
George Will (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/12/maliki_is_not_the_right_guy_in.html) has a great column on this...
Halliburton, writes Chandrasekaran, hired Pakistanis and Indians for kitchen work, but no Iraqis. "Nobody ever explained why, but everyone knew. They could poison the food.'' Of the CPA staff, "More than half, according to one estimate, had gotten their first passport in order to travel to Iraq.'' Two CPA staffers said that before they were hired, they were asked if they supported Roe v. Wade. The traffic code the CPA wrote for Iraq stipulated that "the driver shall hold the steering wheel with both hands'' and "rest should be taken for five minutes for every one hour of driving.'' But Chandrasekaran's driver, who like other Iraqis had obeyed the laws under Saddam's police state, began disregarding all traffic laws. "When I asked him what he was doing, he turned to me, smiled, and said, 'Mr. Rajiv, democracy is wonderful. Now we can do whatever we want.'''
Not exactly.
addabox
12-07-2006, 06:16 PM
I'm can't quite tell what Will is getting at, but it seems to have something to do with this:
The ISG's central conclusion, important to say with the group's imprimatur even though the conclusion is obvious, is that the problem with Iraq is the Iraqis, a semi-nation of peoples who are very difficult to help.
Oh. So that's the "problem". Not that we invaded the country, removed the government, disbanded the military and spent the first year afterwards using what was left as a play pen for Bush loyalist 25 year olds with some bizarre idea of building a neo-con free market deregulated corporate friendly utopia.
Not that we relied on demonstrably unreliable con-men and shady players to "explain" the situation on the ground for us.
Not that we failed to do even the rudimentary planning for the occupation, or commit enough resources to provide for the security that the Iraqi's no long had any way to provide for themselves.
Not that there was precious little oversight on how money allocated for rebuilding the infrastructure was being spent, or if much of anything was getting done. Haliburton knows what it's doing, nothing to see here, you hippy conspiracy nut.
Not that quite a few people in a position to be knowledgeable about such things predicted that invading Iraq would result in exactly what we are seeing now. Those people were Saddam lovers and scum.
No, it's that the Iraqi people are "hard to help".
I actually predicted several years ago (in the midst of much talk about tender feelings for the the noble participants in Iraq's nascent democracy and how hateful it was that "liberals" apparently didn't care if the Iraqis stayed enslaved by Saddam for all time) that the way this would end would be with declaring the Iraqi people worthless assholes not deserving of the gifts that we had bestowed upon them.
But what do I know, I'm just a dirty hippy who's not serious about keeping America safe and with an irrational hatred for Bush that drives me to say foolish things.
SDW2001
12-07-2006, 06:51 PM
SDW, I'm not following you here.
It's hard not to see your criticisms as petty because it's not really clear what's wrong with:
1. The fact that the report... is a report
2. And the specific conclusions reached.
The ISG certainly isn't perfect as their far-too-late 2008 pullout date suggests.
I simply mean it's just more bureaucracy. The conclusions it draws are not exactly anything new. Yet, everyone's running around screaming "I can't wait until the ISG makes its findings public!"
Please.
I'm can't quite tell what Will is getting at, but it seems to have something to do with this:
Oh. So that's the "problem". Not that we invaded the country, removed the government, disbanded the military and spent the first year afterwards using what was left as a play pen for Bush loyalist 25 year olds with some bizarre idea of building a neo-con free market deregulated corporate friendly utopia
....
But what do I know, I'm just a dirty hippy who's not serious about keeping America safe and with an irrational hatred for Bush that drives me to say foolish things.
It's much bigger than that addabox. Running into the country and deposing a real lowlife was supposed to trump some pretty deep-rooted resentment of the west.
It didn't.
I think the obvious answer -- which is repulsive -- is that Saddam and his police state is more palatable than letting the Jihadis unleash holy hell. If you can come up with another scenario, I'm all ears. But this is the question the Left refuses to answer.
SDW2001
12-07-2006, 06:53 PM
If, and that's a big "if", these guys know "where to put it", and Bush actually pays attention, the report is easily worth a hundred times whatever it cost. (I'll bet that a hundred times the cost of this report is still less than 1% of the cost of the entire fiasco that is the Iraq War.)
This kind of thinking is what I'm taking issue with. You're holding this report up as some sort of magical solution...as if the conclusions it draws are not utterly obvious.
...you mean the left-backed idea that we never should have invaded in the first place doesn't somehow imply a preference between those two choices?
God.
You mean the reasons for not invading that kept changing? The ones that ran the gamut from Moore and his fantasies to "Saddam was no threat?" The excuses of a whining child, or a teenager with a 'tude don't constitute a foreign policy roadmap. There will be more Afghanistans and Hussiens in the future.
So, if starving children is a morally acceptable tool in your foreign policy toolbox -- just say so.
jimmac
12-07-2006, 08:02 PM
The post that sent Moe into retirement for good.
Nah! You'll just think of a new handle.:D
You killed 400,000 people with this war, kiddo.
Don't even lecture us on foreign policy when the people in charge of the policies you supported were cataclysmically wrong about everything. Not invading Iraq was a valid foreign policy option for a myriad of well-articulated reasons-- now and then. Now we have a clusterfuck on our hands and a national situation made immeasurably worse by that invasion and subsequent occupation-- and you have the balls to criticize the "Left"-- the people that were *right* about everything-- for one petulant reason or another. It's completely infantile. I don't think it's wise to take your cues on responsibility from your children. You should know better, frankly.
Those be Lancet numbers 'matey -- in any case, sanctions still have that number beat by 100,000.
...and there is no lecturing going on, what is being asked is a morally cohesive way to deal with the ME. The questions are there to question containment versus expansion, and we need more from the Left than dithering between who to blame for this failure.
Do we throw sanctions on every Tom, Dick, and Hussein who cheeses off the UN? Yes? How many kids need to die? No-fly zones? Do we go NATO-in-the-Balkans when the body count hits a certain number? What?
What do we do when even the UN sanctions reinforce Jihadi notions of oppression? or help recruitment?
This problem isn't going away.
MacRR
12-08-2006, 12:04 AM
Was that guy serious? ? He left? Cause of MY post?
Well, i'd like to know why at least .
Nah! You'll just think of a new handle.:D
MacRR
12-08-2006, 12:08 AM
where as Shawn makes sense- you are just convoluting the situation with other non-relevant situations.
You are right, we need more from the left- and we need the right to stop and get together with the left and EVERYONE needs to figure out how to get us out of the R tarded situation the right manufactured. Actually, how about we just drop this high school like clique left-right BS and move on as Americans? It's like everyone takes sides based on some stance or another when we all should find a common stance. But nooooo- the right HAS to have their stance and the left HAS to have theirs, meanwhile both sides lose. It's so fucking pathetic with this right left shit at this point our country deserves to burn out like the Roman empire
Those be Lancet numbers 'matey -- in any case, sanctions still have that number beat by 100,000.
...and there is no lecturing going on, what is being asked is a morally cohesive way to deal with the ME. The questions are there to question containment versus expansion, and we need more from the Left than dithering between who to blame for this failure.
Do we throw sanctions on every Tom, Dick, and Hussein who cheeses off the UN? Yes? How many kids need to die? No-fly zones? Do we go NATO-in-the-Balkans when the body count hits a certain number? What?
What do we do when even the UN sanctions reinforce Jihadi notions of oppression? or help recruitment?
This problem isn't going away.
There's a time and place for that discussion.
Well, that time is now, and not much else will be relevant until the question is settled. Too many deckchairs.
(You're probably too young to have heard of the album Aqualung)
"Locomotive Breath" (something of a minor rock anthem in its time)
In the shuffling madness
Of the locomotive breath,
Runs the all-time loser,
Headlong to his death.
He feels the piston scraping --
Steam breaking on his brow --
Old Charlie stole the handle and
The train won't stop going --
No way to slow down.
He sees his children jumping off
At the stations -- one by one.
His woman and his best friend --
In bed and having fun.
He's crawling down the corridor
On his hands and knees --
Old Charlie stole the handle and
The train won't stop going --
No way to slow down.
He hears the silence howling --
Catches angels as they fall.
And the all-time winner
Has got him by the balls.
He picks up Gideon's Bible --
Open at page one --
God stole the handle and
The train won't stop going --
No way to slow down.
FormerLurker
12-08-2006, 12:39 AM
WASHINGTON - U.S. military and intelligence officials have systematically underreported the violence in Iraq in order to suit the Bush administration's policy goals, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group said.
The panel pointed to one day last July when U.S. officials reported 93 attacks or significant acts of violence. "Yet a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light 1,100 acts of violence," it said.
"The standard for recording attacks acts as a filter to keep events out of reports and databases." It said, for example, that a murder of an Iraqi is not necessarily counted as an attack, and a roadside bomb or a rocket or mortar attack that doesn't hurt U.S. personnel doesn't count, either. Also, if the source of a sectarian attack is not determined, that assault is not added to the database of violence incidents.
"Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals," the report said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_iraq_violence_figures
I'm going to repeat that last part of the quote, for emphasis:
"Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals."
Or, to be less politically correct about it: It's difficult to fix the problem, when you purposely lie about how bad the problem really is.
This is truthiness at its best, and just more of the same kind of carefully selective disinformation campaign that was used to attack Iraq in the first place.
I'm going to repeat that last part of the quote, for emphasis:
"Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals."
This isn't something that has failed due to a flawed statistical analysis. This is an entire misreading of the situation: to your average Muslim, a 51% majority doesn't confer moral authority.
Questions of UN sanctions policy are plainly severable from a discussion about the Iraq war.
Too many deck chairs indeed.
No, no, no..... none of this is happening in a vacuum.
If you could sit a Jihadi like Zawahiri down, and discuss the UN, he would bend your ear on why that is not irrelevant, how the UN is an arm of the West -- that is attacking Islam -- and why it means that defensive warfare is permissible. The invasion of Iraq just took that and amplified it 1000x -- regardless of who we got rid of in the process. For many Jihadis, and probably Ahmadinejad, too, even if the 'democracy' in Iraq elected to impose Shar'ia law, it would still be illegitimate because men were involved in making it law, which is against a top-down philosophy that man has no business making any laws.
addabox
12-08-2006, 01:58 AM
No, no, no..... none of this is happening in a vacuum.
If you could sit a Jihadi like Zawahiri down, and discuss the UN, he would bend your ear on why that is not irrelevant, how the UN is an arm of the West -- that is attacking Islam -- and why it means that defensive warfare is permissible. The invasion of Iraq just took that and amplified it 1000x -- regardless of who we got rid of in the process. For many Jihadis, and probably Ahmadinejad, too, even if the 'democracy' in Iraq elected to impose Shar'ia law, it would still be illegitimate because men were involved in making it law, which is against a top-down philosophy that man has no business making any laws.
I can't even fathom what your point with all this parsing is.
But it appears to something along the lines of "now that it is no longer possible to plausibly pretend that the policies that I tirelessly backed have resulted in nothing but chaos and death, and will continue to result in chaos and death for as long as they are in play, allow me to attempt to turn the debate into a highly abstract discussion on the nature of spiritual error and the limits of secular intervention so that I can continue to be a condescending prick lecturing everyone about what's really happening and what it really means, despite my alarming track record of being wrong about everything."
Which makes you pretty run-of-the-mill among the ever growing numbers of born-again Iraqi realists seeking ever more creative ways to put some daylight between themselves and their former convictions; it's just that most of them don't manage your horrific combination of expedient indifference to the massive suffering engendered by those convictions and platitudinous devotion to specious "big picture" sermonizing that renders that suffering inconsequential, or possibly inevitable-- it's hard to tell.
Iraq didn't have to happen. Whatever insane war of cultures shit you think is going down isn't happening. We are not obliged to "do something" or face the armies of the east pouring out of their desert redoubts, scimitars in hand, to meet us on the final battlefield. Iraq is not an "example" of anything, not an object lesson, not a botched version of a finer project, not a necessary stepping stone or a means to an end or an opening volley.
It's Iraq, a country we destroyed. The dead are just the dead. The suffering is just suffering. Their isn't any fucking geopolitical crypto-religious narrative that puts this into "perspective".
When you respond to a poster by demanding to know "which one of the reasons for not invading Iraq" he's talking about, as if mutability were a failing of the opponents of the war, it shoots right past irony and into the realms of the almost unimaginably grotesque. The kind of grotesque that can only be summoned by someone who actually cares a great deal more about the sound of his voice holding forth than the lives of cyphers he can barely be troubled to imagine.
Harald
12-08-2006, 02:29 AM
to your average Muslim, a 51% majority doesn't confer moral authority.
As your 'average' Muslim doesn't see any moral or socially contractual basis to the democratic process, I wonder if you could explain the the looks on the faces of those Iraqis with ink-stained fingers?
I wonder if you could explain for us why tens of thousands of people march in Turkey in pro-secular rallies?
tonton
12-08-2006, 02:32 AM
dmz, read the lyrics again closely.
Very clearly they are about someone who has been so stubborn to "stay the course" that they have lost everything, and even after they have lost everything, they still can't stop.
"God stealing the handle" is a metaphor for stupid stubbornness.
God certainly stole someone's handle here.
Aurora
12-08-2006, 08:51 AM
Not one of these guys was against Bush's war, These guys didnt talk to one person who opposed the King's grand plan. So this study group if we can call washington insiders that is flawed from the get go. Screw this study group, King George should be talking to Bill Clinton & his Daddy.
...nothing but chaos and death, and will continue to result in chaos and death for as long as they are in play...
We are not destroying Iraq, the Jihadis are. We simply took out the death squads and handed the country over on a platter.
Pretending that we weren't killing people and breaking things in before the invasion, though, is really unbelievable.
One more time, just admit the 500,000 killed by sanctions was morally acceptable, and a guide for future foreign policy. And while you're at it, tell me that your average Muslim didn't see it as Western oppression; that it promoted good will.
jimmac
12-08-2006, 09:21 AM
Was that guy serious? ? He left? Cause of MY post?
Well, i'd like to know why at least .
The real reason he left is that things are changing. The old rhetoric that has served the conservative Bush supporters so well for 6 years doesn't work anymore. The veil is lifted on Iraq and everyone can see what a mistake it was. Even Bush supporters in the future will site Iraq as the thing that finally brought Bush down.
That has moe bothered. But like a bad penny he'll be back. I mean his name used to be moe not Grabowski and he said back then he was leaving.;)
As your 'average' Muslim doesn't see any moral or socially contractual basis to the democratic process, I wonder if you could explain the the looks on the faces of those Iraqis with ink-stained fingers?
I wonder if you could explain for us why tens of thousands of people march in Turkey in pro-secular rallies?
In Iraq, at the end of the day, when the chips were down, when all was said and done, the moral superiority of fighting what is tacitly accepted as a western crusade, won the day. The same could be said of the sectarian violence, it's trumping ('thumpin?) the idea that we all just vote and let the system sort things out.*
* <-- and yes, I'm starting to generalize a bit too much. Countries are directed by motivated minorities, not majorities.
dmz, read the lyrics again closely.
Very clearly they are about someone who has been so stubborn to "stay the course" that they have lost everything, and even after they have lost everything, they still can't stop.
"God stealing the handle" is a metaphor for stupid stubbornness.
God certainly stole someone's handle here.
Exactly. When Baker and the other old, white, men came out and suggested "cutting a deal" with Syria and Iran, I thought I was having an acid flashback. It's LBJ vs. Ho Chi Minh all over again.
jimmac
12-08-2006, 09:28 AM
It appears moe isn't the only one who's bothered about the changing times we're in.;)
MacRR
12-08-2006, 09:33 AM
DMz-
No one is going to admit that some irrelevant barely tangible subject has anything to do with Iraq and it's current situation.
Man it really must suck to be cursed to go forth in life never able to figue anything out for oneself- only to be filled with other's ideals and "morals".
MacRR
12-08-2006, 09:37 AM
Ah well- he was alright to converse with. May as well stick with the same name- it's not like a new handle is going to be a catalyst to reinvent yourself.
The real reason he left is that things are changing. The old rhetoric that has served the conservative Bush supporters so well for 6 years doesn't work anymore. The veil is lifted on Iraq and everyone can see what a mistake it was. Even Bush supporters in the future will site Iraq as the thing that finally brought Bush down.
That has moe bothered. But like a bad penny he'll be back. I mean his name used to be moe not Grabowski and he said back then he was leaving.;)
audiopollution
12-08-2006, 12:23 PM
Ah well- he was alright to converse with. May as well stick with the same name- it's not like a new handle is going to be a catalyst to reinvent yourself.
I liked Common Man/Moe From Texas/Southside Grabowski. Plenty of his posts were pure comedy genius. I think you guys had him figured all wrong.
MacRR
12-08-2006, 12:34 PM
I liked Common Man/Moe From Texas/Southside Grabowski. Plenty of his posts were pure comedy genius. I think you guys had him figured all wrong.
I agree- I liked conversing with him in my short time here so far.
Who created those conditions?
WE DID.
It's simple causation to which we are responsible for either lack of or willful ignorance of foresight.
Like hell we did -- we had nothing whatsoever to do with Saddam and his death squads, especially after international pressure was brought to bear. And yes, we did obviously create the conditions that pretty much guaranteed that the Jihadis would run amok.
And don't get me started on willing ignorance, either. That any of this was attempted stems from a purely secular view of society. The ISG report still doesn't understand this. In the eyes of the people who are the lynch pins (the Jihadis and Ahmadinejad) this is a moral struggle -- not some quest for a magical combination of constitutional verbage -- and coalition government.
Again. So the "grown-up" thing to do in winger-logic was to kill another 400,000?
You thought the mortality rate was high then...
(And for the record, around 300,000 people died over twice as long a time period with sanctions, and violence in Iraq today has already exceeded that figure with no signs of the carnage slowing.)
Two things: first, you're equivocating on the damage the UN sanctions did, and second, I have no idea about what to do.
I think it was a noble, but lost cause to try to westernize Iraq, but that region is a century away from leaving off the animus and paranoia that drives it. And if Jihadi ideology is not neutralized it will never be ready. All you would do is ending up replacing Saddam's death squads with our own, which is completely unacceptable. The alternative, however, is strarting to look like a critical mass of little Ahmadinejads running Nuke-enabled Islamic theocracies.
I don't think anyone has an answer.
MacRR
12-08-2006, 01:09 PM
No that was a last ditch after thought to spin some reason into the BS. Nothing more- and certainly nothing noble. We went in on the crusade of preemptive defense which turned out to be defense against..... pretty much nothing. Ah well- let's go with plan B- Democracy!
Anyone who bought that is tantamount to being an Eskimo buying a refrigerator.
I think it was a noble, but lost cause to try to westernize Iraq......
Aurora
12-08-2006, 02:29 PM
Sharia law will make sure Iraq and most of the MidEast will be a clusterf...ing mess for generations to come. George doesnt understand this culture of hate & revenge. These guys are still fighting over things from a thousand years ago. I wonder how many Terrorist George created when he bombed the country? He has gigantic mess that he created and we get to pay for it with our soldiers lives and our wallets. If we had a 1 man 1 vote system Al Gore would have been President and none of this would have happened.
groverat
12-11-2006, 12:12 AM
Aurora hit the nail on the head here...
Not one of these guys was against Bush's war, These guys didnt talk to one person who opposed the King's grand plan. So this study group if we can call washington insiders that is flawed from the get go.
James Baker... nothing more needs to be said.
MacRR:
No one is going to admit that some irrelevant barely tangible subject has anything to do with Iraq and it's current situation.
What dmz is looking for is this: "Jesus is awesome and Islam is for dummies. THE WEST ROOLZ & THE EAST DROOLZ! JESUS IS LORD!"
dmz:
We are not destroying Iraq, the Jihadis are.
"I am not destroying the building, the wrecking ball is!" - Crane Operator
Part of the stated rationale for this war was to use the nation of Iraq as a battleground between foreign terrorists and the US military. "Smoke 'em out" and all that loveliness. If one's stated goal is to bring the fox into the henhouse, how is that person not to blame when the fox kills the chickens?
Yes, we are destroying Iraq. Other people are also destroying Iraq, but that does not make the destruction of Iraq a game in which there can only be one player. It is the common thread in times of struggle between powers that the people are the victims while the fighting powers are unchanged (i.e. - Saddam vs. USA via UN sanctions).
Like hell we did -- we had nothing whatsoever to do with Saddam and his death squads, especially after international pressure was brought to bear.
1) We did not put Saddam in power, but we certainly were a big help in him consolidating control before the Kuwait war.
2) We completely bailed on the Iraqi people when they rebelled against him in the aftermath of the Kuwait war, purposefully allowing him to remain in power for "stability".
3) We were the main mover in the sanctions regime that weakened the people so much that Saddam could have reigned until his well-deserved death had there been no Iraq War 2.0.
I don't think anyone has an answer.
Get the hell out. Leave and go. No army, no corporations, no contracts, no semblance of US dominance. Let Iraq get a government together and then you deal with it diplomatically. If a genuine crisis arises in the immediate power vacuum work with regional neighbors and the international community to deal with it. That is the answer.
The answer is certainly not cultural condescension and self-delusion about our own nature and motives. The notion that this war was a noble effort motivated by altruistic good will and a desire to spread the good word is nothing but an indictment of a fantastical worldview fostered by a fantastical superstition set.
midwinter
12-11-2006, 01:00 AM
I think this about sums it up (http://bucket.littlemeanfish.com/game_over.mov) (1.6 MB, QT).
addabox
12-11-2006, 01:19 AM
I think this about sums it up (http://bucket.littlemeanfish.com/game_over.mov) (1.6 MB, QT).
:lol:
After I saw Aliens I used to launch into that at the least sign of adversity.
AsLan^
12-11-2006, 02:12 AM
I don't think anyone has an answer.
I think this about sums it up (http://bucket.littlemeanfish.com/game_over.mov) (1.6 MB, QT).
pwned!
here in Yurrup, we call those UN sanctions, the senctions demanded by the US. funny.
Yeah, funny if it wasn't so tragic. And the Lancet number is 600.000. 600.000 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_surveys_of_mortality_before_and_after_the_2 003_invasion_of_Iraq
midwinter
12-11-2006, 12:13 PM
Now, New, surely you're not suggesting that the US was responsible for 500K deaths after Gulf War I and now we're responsible for 600K deaths because of Gulf War II! ;)
There are some problems (http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009108) with the Lancet numbers.
The reality is bad enough, without using wildly inflated numbers, or blasting off and nuking the site from orbit.
MacRR
12-11-2006, 01:20 PM
DMZ- that brings up the question- what is your perception of the reality in Iraq? So far, you've demonstrated that you are disjoined from the reality that is Iraq. Your insistence of bringing up UN sanctions of the past clearly demonstrates your avoidance of the reality in Iraq- so outside of mentioning irrelevancies to the subject- you don't ever really acknowledge the reality on the ground, you just avoid it.
He's a political operative...
...although I don't have good enough stats knowledge to rebut his claims and kinda tired from the 3 hr long contracts final I just took. Not saying he's wrong-- just kinda suspect. Anything less prima facie suspect?
600,000 is ~550 a day for 1,100 days straight! :wow:
That sounds pretty far out.
although, with a few of the right Hyperdyne models.......
There are some problems (http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009108) with the Lancet numbers.
The reality is bad enough, without using wildly inflated numbers, or blasting off and nuking the site from orbit.
The Wikipedia article has a pretty good overview of the method and the "problems" with it.
That is there are no problems with the method, but some of the numbers used as base numbers might not be absolutely accurate. There are, however, no better studies available.
Even if this number is to high, the death toll is still in the hundreds of thousands...
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