Bush Cheney wanted to invade Iraq before 9/11 - Page 3

They could also be made to not look weak and defeated if they were allowed to finish their job and then come home with a victory, not a defeat. Doesn't surrender embody weakness?

They could also be made to look a lot more dead if they are allowed to "finish their job, which remains completely, utterly, undefined." And let me tell you: being dead looks really, really weak.

And I'm not sure how we "surrender" in this instance. To whom are we surrendering?

Cool! Victory! How does that work, again?

EDIT: Damn you, Midwinter, and your speediness.

Finals week is not a time to try to compete with the frequency of my PO postings. I'm so desperately looking for ways to avoid grading that I'm rebuilding the engine on a 25 year old scooter, and, while I'm waiting on parts for it, making patio furniture out of spare lumber. I'm also posting like a fiend here.

5 essays left in the current section I'm grading. Then I can get to the—gulp—50 page MA papers.

Speaking of which, how's that petcock valve? Uh..... nudge nudge wink wink?

Well...turns out it was compression. Tore the engine down and watched the cock, er, piston rings shatter when I pulled them off.

Ordered a new set of rings. Wait 4 days for them.

They don't fit.

Stupid Ye Olde Honda Shoppe ordered rings for an '86, not an '85.

And you know, when Honda orders the wrong rings, it makes the troops look weak.

This post brought to you by the lovely band, Guggenheim Grotto, who are currently fueling my grading.

My goodness, the dire topic aside, "being dead looks really really weak" has got to be one of the best posts I have seen here in awhile. Props for that.

I want their job to be defined. I want a plan from someone which is not "stay there forever, or pull out and give up." Surely there is some middle ground there, where most of the American people are. We need a non-public timetable and goals negotiated with the Iraqi government to handle its own shit.

If we were to surrender and leave, we'd be letting the insurgents have the run of the country, free to exterminate all that had been associates of the American Infidels.

I hate failure and defeat, especially for our armed forces. It is not something I take lightly that politicians are making the boots on the ground into a political football of blame and credit.

That's bullshit. Bush was wrong for going. The democrats are wrong in how they want us to finish. The net result is that people that wear our flag on their arm are pawns in an electoral game. That's my beef, folks. We need to bring them home, but not before we have fulfilled our duty to the people of Iraq and secure their ability to take care of themselves. Why can't we all get behind that plan?

I try.


Which "most" of the American people are you talking about? The one that wants the troops to come home? Or some other majority that just didn't get polled?


The "shit" is arguably worse because we are there.


To whom?


Um. Have you been watching the news for the past few years? Here's a question you could ask every single day for the foreseeable future: how many people were killed in Iraq today?


Unlike Democrats! They love it when the military loses!


It's worse than a political football. It was a grand experiment cooked up by lunatics, and supporting this lunacy became political football.


Good.


Are you caught in some Clash song or something? We poked Iraq with a stick and screwed it up even worse than it was. We have troops there for what, precisely? Why are they there? What is the mission? What is the objectiveand I swear to God, you'd better not say "victory," because that dog won't huntfor them? How could bringing them home possibly make things worse? How? Iraq is already effectively lawless. It is already the site of seemingly endless numbers of roving bands of killers. Even in the green zone, which I would imagine is the closest to "safe" that Iraq gets, had a friggin' suicide bomber get in!


So wait. The plan now is to "secure their ability to take care of themselves"? What, precisely, does this goal look like? Take care of themselves how? From alien invasion? From pterodactyl attack? From, *shudder*, NAZI gargoyles?

So as not to be considered intellectually lost, per your sig, I'll just say.... VICTORY and Pterodactyls.

The problem is, right now the general population in Iraq is more interested in killing each other than 'take care of themselves'. In other words, we're involved in somebody else's civil war...how did that work out the last time?


Hmm, let's see...we can't take any land...no political solution in sight...an objective? Body counts, perhaps?

That's so weird. Just yesterday I was explaining to some young 'uns the importance of knowing your Scanners. And that's the very image I used to bolster my case. They were suitably impressed.

I take your static gif and raise you...

we will not be victorious until xom & cvx [et al] can secure some multi-year contracts on those sweet, sweet oil fields.

A plan from someone? Anyone?
Are you that desperate?
Negotiate with the Iraqi government?, when they come back from their holiday?

Everyone hates failure and defeat, but put the blame where it belongs.
Going into Iraq based on lies, that are coming out now, has profited who?
No one blames the troops, they take their orders and trust their leaders to know what they are doing.

I used to post at MacnetV, a bastion of right wing and Libertarian views.
I got so pissed that I once said, F*ck the Iraqis, if they can't stand up then leave.
These right wing, libertarians, agreed with me.
Why should Americans die when they aren't willing to.
That was 2 and a half years ago. Has anything changed?
John Manzione has since closed the site and is opening under a faux new name and only allowing users that think like him to post.
Edit. I registered and now opens on a blank page. Figures.

Americans should get out of the hell that is Iraq.
Most of the good that has been done is overshadowed by corruption, wasted resources, hatred, loss of goodwill and American influence aroud the world has been downgraded.

This is the legacy Americans elected twice.
Are the supporters of this administration proud?
I would hope not, Ann Coulter and ilk aside.

On a simpler note, Isreal is about to oust their leader for a bad war.
And yet you are willing to go along with an administration, led by a few, to dictate how the future of a "bad" war is being run.
Something is wrong here.

Well, hell. I looked for one and didn't see it immediately!

It's too bad out expression for ultimate frustration is the exploding head. I mean, if we still thought the seat of reason was in the spleen, we might then be able to use that bit from Videodrome with the VCR stomach.

Operation Enduring Occupation?


Thanks, that reminded me I still haven't seen Scanners yet! Better put it in my Netflix queue!

Your just talking about doing it in way that would make you feel good to be an American. God bless America and all that tat. The reality is quite different. And how you feel about it is irrelevant apart from the crappy US internal politics going on at the moment.

I wonder, your a big fan of self defense with deadly force. Do you dispute the rights of Iraqis to fight US occupation troops? The people will never be pacified fully by the US army.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story...src=rss&feed=1

THAT is the essence of your argument. Don't make a plan to fix it, CRUCIFY those responsible because THAT is what is politically expedient. We all agree that Bush is a fuckup, he went to war for the wrong reasons, that we've.... blah blah blah blah... You are looking less like an objector, and more and more like someone who is looking for an electoral advantage.

Are you wanting a way out, or just a club to beat lame-duck Bush over the head with? Why waste your time? He's not up for re-election, his party hates him mostly, and so does the country. So great. We get it. Hell, we even mostly agree with you.

Now, get on with the business at hand... a path to ending all of this in the best possible way.

It must take some remarkable gymnastics to disagree with the war, think Bush was wrong to go in, and generally agree that things are all fucked up and THEN turn around and say that the plan should be more of the same.

And I swear to God, I'm sick and tired of that "Well ok, retreatocrat! So we withdraw? WHAT'S YOUR PLAN?" "counterargument."

Dude. If I'm being punched in the face every day and I don't like it, I don't need to find a substitute for being punched in the face. I just move out of the friggin' way. CEASING to continue in a failed effort IS a plan.

And you should keep in mind that, at this point, folks don't give much of a shit about the commander guy.

More of the same? I'm not for that. Too many bodies. Too little progress. Too little a lotta stuff.

The reality is that it is not enough to say "well fuck his leadership" unless you are going to show a workable way to do something else. I have not seen that from the Democrats. Not at all. All I keep hearing is "time to quit. Come home with apologies to everyone." That is indistinguishable from the bullshit "cut and run" crap we heard up until November from the right. There IS A MIDDLE GROUND that does not involve staying indefinitely nor leaving the whole thing to collapse. Some say I'm a dreamer... but I'm not the only one...

Quitting is not a plan for success. It is just, well "quitting." Surely someone in Washington has a plan besides the Republican "stay until we are all dead" and the Democrat "give up and go home." I buh-leeeeve, sir midwinter, I do!

Why don't we ask all the gung-ho gunowners if they want to really putt their training to the test, then let them go over and save the day for us; they are so good at protecting everyone here in the US that we have a crime rate close to zero. They could do the same in Iraq. We'd have an army several millon strong and they already have weapons, which would save taxpayer money. They could go to Iraq with their weapons, win the war there and rid the US of guns at the same time.

Of course, when they come home they have to leave their guns behind.

There is a middle ground between Bush's policy and your caricature of the Democrats' proposal. It's the actual Democratic proposal: A set of benchmarks and a phased withdrawal over a period of 18 months depending on whether the benchmarks are met by the Iraqis.

How often do they have to meet benchmarks.
The ones that could, the elite, have left.
F*ck the rest, collateral damage and all that.

I do not support a public timetable. That is a strategic loser.

What strategy do you suggest, throw more bodies into the fray?
Get out and let them handle the repercusions.
It's their freaking country, they don't want you there.
You didn't get it when you went in and you refuse to get it now.
How dumb are you people.

Is this supposed to be poetry.
I am at a loss to be sure.
One line thoughts in a stream.
No rhyming and no form.
To die. In the rain.

14 permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq.

This is the 3000 ton bleating elephant in the room that no politician acknowledges.

Here are the bases...



Here are the oil fields and refineries in Iraq...



We aren't leaving. Unless...

Pinhead.

Not poetry, reality.
You can't win if the populace is against you.
Let them handle the strife, it's their problem.

The US never understood the Iraqis and still don't get it.
Hell, the US doesn't understand anyone that doesn't think the way they do.

There is no winning, arrogance is the downfall of civilization.

Chowderhead.