Iraq- Surge Successes

[Dipole]

Perhaps living in peace and decency has its attractions, even if it is western influenced democracy where he(Sadr) has a large voice.

[maidenofiron]

Originally Posted by Hippie3

i don't hear you voicing much concern for the iraqis,
just concerned with america.
you cannot document one single dollar of profit earned by bush from this war, can you ?
sure, you can make allegations about cheney and halliburton
but where's the smoking gun, the hard evidence that can stand in a court of law ?
it doesn't exist.
it's just another cheap smear tactic based on nothing but a visceral hatred for what bush stands for, i.e. the defeat of the democrats, not once, but twice- by a man they positively loathe.

I cant believe you said this. you really think that every single person who doesnt like what bush has done in office is a democrat? you think that all republicans support bush? how the heck can you reduce something like opposition to a war down to a partisan issue? and what is up with your obsession with partisan politics? i know many people who arent super fans of one or the other and will support a representative from whatever party whom they think will do a better job, and this includes myself. It seems to me like you are trying to invalidate his opinion by relating it to some childish democrat revenge theory.

Originally Posted by Hippie3

'acceptable' ?
i suppose,
unless living in denial makes you feel better.
i accept what IS,
i don't stress out by setting myself up as judge.

are you really that apathetic in your comfortable life that you just accept everything that comes your way? maybe so but that makes you a huge minority in the world. after all the ability to look into the future so that one can act accordingly to change it is one of the things that makes human beings different than all other animals. are you ignoring the fact that we have progressed as human beings because people have looked into the present and past, judged what was wrong and right and then acted upon these judgements to shape their futures? you obviously have judged things in the past as morally wrong, like slavery, the holocaust, and terrorist acts on 9/11, so why now when history doesnt jive with your particular political views do you shrug it off as oh well what happens happens. or because it happened it must have meant to be. so very hypocritical

[~Hippie3]

hmm,
why is it
that you resort to
derogatory comments
like 'childish' & 'hypocritical'?
you even insinuate that
i'm no better than an animal.

don't you know how to
express an opinion
without resorting to such
churlish tactics ?

you act like you're better
but i didn't even address you
let alone insult you.
then you get all personal,
attacking me directly.

I cant believe you said this...what is up with your obsession...you are trying to invalidate his opinion by relating it to some childish ... theory...are you really that apathetic...so very hypocritical

but you know
i've taken a lot of shit from you
and shrugged it off before
although it is getting tiresome.
rather pathetic too.

it'd be alot more fun if you
really had a well-thought out argument
instead of just personal animosity
to bring to this discussion.

[maidenofiron]

well now that you point it out it sure seems that way. probably because i was stressed out by how your comments seemed to lack critical thought of the issue , yet i know your a smart person. as far as what you quoted me saying, i dont think they are personal attacks. looking at them now, sure they have a negative tone, but youve accused me of the same tactics i was accusing you of (discrediting someones opinion). i figured if you were able to call me out on it, i could call you out on it aswell. and in the second passage i was attacking what you posted, not you personally, unless of course you feel it completely represents your views. but i know this isnt the case.

[~Hippie3]

other than
talking about ME
have any on-topic comments to offer
about iraq ?

[~Hippie3]

you really think that every single person who doesnt like what bush has done in office is a democrat? you think that all republicans support bush? how the heck can you reduce something like opposition to a war down to a partisan issue?

because that is how the government works.

one need not be a democrat
to regret their loss to bush eh ?

but if you wanted the war to end,
other than on bush's terms,
then logic says
you wanted bush to lose
and since the only candidate with a shot at beating bush
was a democrat
ipso facto you supported the dems.

all the anti-war anti-bush crowd
shared the common goal of beating bush
which in effect made them allies and tools
of the american democratic party.

[TVCasualty]

Originally Posted by Hippie3

explain for us now please
why the killing is decreasing.
and not just iraqi-on-iraqi
but iraqi-on-coalition troops.
why ?

This is an opinion, not an explanation, but I'd thought it was because it was a politically advantageous time for members of the Special Forces of the US and UK to stop being ordered to drive around dressed as arabs, shooting at Iraqi police, and presumably blowing stuff up with explosives and detonators like those found in the car of those two Brits that got busted in 2005 then broke out of jail by British tanks. Combine a change in that policy with years of bombing insurgent strongholds (presumably killing actual and potential insurgents), the troop surge to suppress the still-alive genuine (non-coalition) insurgents and you have a good recipe for a drop in violence (especially coalition casualties), optimistic news, and corresponding political gain at a very crucial time.

Instigating civil war is easy; all that's needed is something to kick-start it, like the bombing of a mosque held sacred by one sect and blamed on another (the Brits had plenty of high explosives for this). It's really difficult for me to believe those "undercover" troops and a few Blackwater guys that have also been similarly busted (one for leaving a base unescorted and well-armed) weren't doing just that in an attempt to "Balkanize" the region, since our influence there will be greater if Iraq is not unified. It wasn't unified to start with (Saddam's dictatorshp notwithstanding) but coalition troops getting caught red-handed doesn't help (shooting Iraqi police is about as 'red handed' as it gets, and they were arrested, not killed as would have been expected if the Iraqi police were really supporting the insurgents).

Cheney (and likely everyone else in the administration) knew exactly what was going to happen when we invaded Iraq, nine years before we did it. Here's the most entertaining version of the 1994 interview:

Even Dick Don't Know Dick | The Daily Show | Comedy Central

"How many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth? In our judgement it is 'not many.'" said Cheney in 1994. But that was the past, it's time to look ahead!

Now where the hell is my cheap oil?!?!?

[~Hippie3]

so we are the resistance eh ?
perfect circular logic.


your speculation
does beg the question
of why go to all that trouble
when we could 'balkanize' iraq
with the stroke of a pen
and enjoy broad support from the iraqis themselves
for doing so ?


but i think it's just as likely
that it is because of
a secret treaty brokered by the UN-
the russians are quietly dumping
massive amounts of chinese-made Prozac
upstream in iraq's rivers
as they flow south from the caucasus mtns.
thus pacifying the entire populace.

[syvel]

Originally Posted by Arp

there is no success in lessening a disaster that you've created in the first place. it's a disaster the whole way through until the end.
not repeating the same mistake, now that's success but difficult when you neglect history.

but if you see other benefits that outweigh the death count then why not be happy

we - well, more correctly, the politicians - started this mess, and now we've got to clean it up.

[aumbrellaforainydays]

Originally Posted by Hippie3

but of course that begs the next question-
how were the voters so easily duped
if they're so smart eh ?
catch-22 for dems it seems to me.

they play devils advocate, because its either this guy or that guy. we have two choices, because no one would vote for the loser of that third party. bipartisan government needs to be changed at the root, so that we arent left deciding all we think important is dependent on either republicans or democrats. they both can promise good things, so then do you vote for both of them? no you vote for the one who promises more good things and who you think is more trustworthy. obviously by the look of Bush versus his opponents, he has a down-south homeliness to him which makes people feel nice and fuzzy inside. and thats not how voting for a president should be like, but since we only got two options, how can we really know whether what one of them says is actually true and whether they'll walk the propaganda they talk or will decide once in power, that it was all a game and now that i have power, i dont have to play the election game, i can play the leader game.

"meet the new boss, same as the old boss"

bipartisanship, i believe is done, we need more than 2 political stems, because america is more diverse than that. but we're stuck with a two horse race. wheres the competition in watching only two horses going down the track? what if one slips and falls, how much of a race is it then? we need a presidential horse race with 5-10 people representing the whole spectrum of its constituents, then maybe people will care for voting, because its not just this rich white guy or that other rich white guy.

Originally Posted by Hippie3

but i think it's just as likely
that it is because of
a secret treaty brokered by the UN-
the russians are quietly dumping
massive amounts of chinese-made Prozac
upstream in iraq's rivers
as they flow south from the caucasus mtns.
thus pacifying the entire populace.

[thebaldeagle]

To all those that think Saddam did not have weapons of mass destruction, you are obviously too young to remember the '80 to '88 war he had with Iran. He gassed the Iranians. He gassed his own people, the Kurds.
He had WMD's but moved them out of the country when it became clear that we were going to invade. If he had been allowed to develop a nuclear weapon, he may have well allowed terrorist to use it against us. We are hated by many Arab countries because we support Israel.

When we removed Saddam from power, it was well planned. What wasn't planned for at all, or very poorly, was filling the power vacuum that he left. The result of this misstep was different factions all fighting for control. To further complicate things Iran and Syria allowed their special forces and guerillas to amplify the chaos. Are more soldiers the solution, I don't know, but we would have them if Clinton hadn't downsized the military. Way too much in my opinion. (U.S. military doctrine, for years, was to be able to fight two major wars simultaneously and win both. Clinton changed this to what he called a win-hold-win doctrine. This means that you can only fight and win one war while simultaneously holding another war at a stalemate until the other war has been won. then deploy the winning army and equipment to break the stalemate.)

I am not pro war, but Saddam was asking for it. If you must go to war, then you should use overwhelming force! Had Clinton not emaciated our military, we wouldnt be having near as much trouble over there. Not because we'd have more troops, but Iran would know that there would be consequences for their interference. As it stands now, there's not much we can do about their Qud forces and the IED equipment they are providing. Iran know's it.

[TVCasualty]

Originally Posted by Hippie3

but i think it's just as likely
that it is because of
a secret treaty brokered by the UN-
the russians are quietly dumping
massive amounts of chinese-made Prozac
upstream in iraq's rivers
as they flow south from the caucasus mtns.
thus pacifying the entire populace.

Well, if they find Russians dressed as Iraqis with trunks full of prozac, then I'd say you were on to something. British troops, on the other hand, have been caught dressed as Iraqis with trunks full of insurgent paraphernalia, and Blackwater mercs have been detained trying to leave bases unescorted (and well armed). There are plenty of websites that use the incident with the SAS troops as a rallying point for the insurgency or to increase anti-US/UK sentiment (many I found by accident looking for more info about it), so even if acting like insurgents was not what the Brits were up to, the response by many Iraqis is to assume they were and unlike in our press, this is not 'old news' over there. Since it would be immediately obvious that the men were not Iraqi if anyone got close enough to see them clearly, they weren't planning on being scrutinized very closely, which is an odd tactic in a country full of paranoia and checkpoints. Sure enough, they opened fire on one, which they were probably supposed to do in the first place.

And a pen can't "Balkanize" a region, only conflict can do that. Dividing Iraq into two nations or whatever allows too much stability within each to achieve the aims of Balkanization, which is foreign control of the target region via the proxy leaders of both sides being propped up by our military support (and therefore easily removable if they start thinking independently or something).

Originally Posted by thebaldeagle

What wasn't planned for at all, or very poorly, was filling the power vacuum that he left. The result of this misstep was different factions all fighting for control.

This was clearly understood by the architects of the Iraq war back in the early 90's (see the video link I attached to my previous reply). If there was a failure to plan for chaos, it must have been either on purpose to further the goals of Balkanization, on purpose because it's really a case of international-scale looting and who cares about Iraq or however many Americans get killed, or an unanticipated accident because the neo-con crew are actually becoming senile and forgot what they already knew.

Also, America lost its credibility to condemn WMD attacks a long time ago. We're the only nation to use nukes on cities, we napalmed and agent-oranged Southeast Asia (so long and thanks for all the cancer), we used a chemical weapon on Fallujah, and we are currently scattering bits of depleted uranium all over the world (the Solution to Pollution is Dilution!) which is increasingly being linked to all sorts of health problems, both among those we shot at and our own troops. Saddam has nothing on us in terms of awkward histories. After all, we were handing smallpox-infected blankets (bio-terror!) to indigenous people a century before Saddam was even born. Saddam was a quick learner, however, and does anybody need to be reminded who taught him how to play?


I want to encourage a reduction in the violence around the world, so I try to understand its background, or why situations exist such as well-armed rival groups fighting in countries with only a negligible munitions industry, if any (not Iraq, but common in South America and Africa). It's all connected, and I follow the bits and pieces of Puzzling Evidence wherever they lead, and a lot of trails lead back home. It has seemed to me over the years that if we want violence to decrease across the globe (and many of us don't), we in the USA need to do our part as much as we expect other nations to do theirs. Of course, "they" won't follow suit, so "we" have to keep arming ourselves and our allies du jour so "we" won't be killed or conquered by "them." Some of our recalcitrant "allies" switch sides almost on cue, but they keep all the weapons we give 'em, and so on. Isn't this getting old yet? Machiavellian politics are going to steer civilization right into a ditch if we don't come up with something better, and soon.

[~Hippie3]

British troops, on the other hand, have been caught dressed as Iraqis with trunks full of insurgent paraphernalia, and Blackwater mercs have been detained trying to leave bases unescorted (and well armed).

that's it ?
that's all you have built your hypothesis upon ?
come now,
occam's razor.
not unusual in COIN ops to mimic the enemy,
AQ does it, donning police uniforms in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan as suits their needs.
perhaps the british were about to hit
one faction of sadr's forces
and wanted it to appear that
a different faction was behind the attack,
thus fracturing the enemy forces.

or perhaps they merely hoped to get in closer
before being spotted
on the way to an attack.

maybe those blackwater people were just sneaking out
for a night on the town in local redlight district
but felt going unarmed would be too risky.

hell
i have much more evidence for my 'hypothesis'-
observe-

a russian tanker truck full of prozac spotted near the border

russian trucks spotted at the river dumping prozac in.

[Birdman]

Oh,some did benefit from this.The Oil companys had
record proffits and exceded record profit for the hole
country at the expence of americans.And I wonder
who is an oil guy?Maby there is more to this than meets
the eye.Not to mention the enormous burden it has placed
on the average person who has to comute.Hum

[~Hippie3]

millions of americans, europeans, arabs, chinese, japanese, etc.
own a piece of Big Oil.
they all earn profit.
so do the venezuelans , russians, nigerians and people of all oil producing / exporting nations.
then there are the bankers, lawyers, shippers, refiners, retailers.
pretty long list of suspects.

[~Hippie3]

Balkanization is a geopolitical term originally used to describe the process of fragmentation or division of a region or state into smaller regions or states that are often hostile or non-cooperative with each other

and i did use the term correctly,
tv's re-definition suits his particular need in this argument well

a pen can't "Balkanize" a region, only conflict can do that. Dividing Iraq into two nations or whatever allows too much stability within each to achieve the aims of Balkanization, which is foreign control of the target region via the proxy leaders of both sides being propped up by our military support (and therefore easily removable if they start thinking independently or something).

but is not the general accepted definition.
dividing iraq into 3 countries,
one for the kurds up north,
one for the sunni out west
and one for the shiites down south
would indeed 'balkanize' iraq
as per wiki's definition.

[TVCasualty]

Well, ok, paperwork is a part of dividing up a region, and I'm sure writing utensils are also involved, so pens are part of Balkanization too. However, paperwork is to this process as blueprints are to a house; somebody still has to go to the actual site and do the dirty work and build what the plans call for. Try splitting Germany (just for example) back into two countries with only a pen and piece of paper; they'll just laugh. But try it after blowing up Germany's infrastructure, ousting its political leaders (and executing its leader), occupying it with a large military force, and fomenting anger and violence between rival groups within the country and you just might pull it off. Then put it in writing to make it "official" and you're done!

From the wiki definition, it seems that Balkanization can happen by itself, as in the case of the actual Balkans when the USSR collapsed and old conflicts were free to flare back up, or it can happen as a result of an external force helping it along in one way or another, but in all cases conflict or hostility is central to the concept, and whether or not the process is intentional is not addressed by the definition. The only reason dividing Iraq into 3 nations is plausible is because of the long-standing violent conflicts between the 3 groups, so I'd say it is not the pen that creates the divisions but rather it's the insoluble conflicts that later necessitated a formalizing of the divisions on paper.

Also, the wiki definition you quoted wasn't the whole entry about the term, and it's apparent from reading the rest that the term is undergoing evolution and adaptation to various situations, some of which I thought were strange:

The term is also used to describe other forms of disintegration, including, for instance, the subdivision of the Internet being divided into separate enclaves, and the breakdown of cooperative arrangements due to the rise of independent competitive entities engaged in "beggar-thy-neighbor" bidding wars.
Balkanization is sometimes used to refer to the divergence over time of human languages, programming languages and data file formats (particularly XML).

The usefulness of doing this on purpose in Iraq is that it prevents the normally antagonistic sects and/or factions from uniting against a common enemy, namely us. This was looking like a possibility until the bombings of a particularly sacred mosque in Samarra. And guess what? Strange things went on just before this event, which of course exacerbated the sectarian violence nicely:

For centuries, people from the seven tribes of Samarra have guarded the shrine. These guards are called "gayaameen" in Arabic. According to gayaameen from the Darraji tribe of samarra, a few hours prior to the first bombing that occurred, ICDC troops (Iraqi Civil Defence Corps) accompanied by coalition troops, temporarily relieved the gayaameen of their duty. As a result of the bombings coinciding with the duty relief of the gayaameen just prior to the bombing, skepticism grew as to what level of involvement the ICDC or coalition troops had in the tragic event. Prior to the second bombing, the gayaameen were also relieved, except this time it was done by Internal Ministry officers (AKA: Maghaweer al-dakhiliah) accompanied by coalition troops. The gayaameen this time were instructed to move to the bridge that connects Samarra proper with the Gal'a (explanation needed) and establish a check point there. Soon after, the bombings occurred, destroying the shrine for a second time.

Hmm, seems the only common thread to the bombings was the presence of coalition troops.

A couple of pictures of two British guys caught wearing arab clothing and with a car full of explosives and weapons wasn't the only thing informing my opinion on the subject, but it was closest to an actual 'smoking gun,' since their guns were literally smoking from killing an Iraqi policeman and wounding another after they opened fire on a group of police without provocation.

Here's some quotes from an interesting article that appeared in the NY Times on 11/23/03, from Leslie Gelb of the Council on Foreign Relations:

The only viable strategy, then, may be to correct the historical defect and move in stages toward a three-state solution: Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the center and Shiites in the south.
Almost immediately, this would allow America to put most of its money and troops where they would do the most good quickly -- with the Kurds and Shiites. The United States could extricate most of its forces from the so-called Sunni Triangle, north and west of Baghdad, largely freeing American forces from fighting a costly war they might not win. American officials could then wait for the troublesome and domineering Sunnis, without oil or oil revenues, to moderate their ambitions or suffer the consequences.

and

...without power and money, the Sunnis may cause trouble.
For example, they might punish the substantial minorities left in the center, particularly the large Kurdish and Shiite populations in Baghdad. These minorities must have the time and the wherewithal to organize and make their deals, or go either north or south. This would be a messy and dangerous enterprise, but the United States would and should pay for the population movements and protect the process with force.

(The Three-State Solution - Council on Foreign Relations)

Talk about social engineering! I'd say guns would help with these goals more than paperwork. This is exactly what was done in Yugoslavia; it was divided along ethnic lines, but sizable minorities existed within each "ethnic" region and an intensely bloody civil war followed. The quote above acknowledges this reality and the need for a large forced relocation of significant numbers of people to achieve these ethnically pure States (who would want to be relocated to the central region of Iraq, the one that lacks oil? Sorry but this rifle says you gotta move!).

How well have any attempts at making an "ethnically pure" state worked out by those who have tried in the past, like the Nazi's, the Hutus in Rwanda, and Albanians, Serbs, Croats, etc (among many others)? I'd say "not very well at all." Mr. Gelb also cited Yugoslavia as a "hopeful precedent" (!) so apparently more violence is seen (by him at least) as a good thing, and that can only mean more violence serves his perceived interests (and by extension, the interests of the influential CFR, which he was the head of when he made that statement).

Why is it so hard to get the truth about what's going on over there? Is it because the Pentagon threatened to kill independent journalists? I'd guess that it might have something to do with it...

I'll stop now, before this starts getting long. There is a lot of this kind of circumstantial, physical, and historic evidence for staged events being a favored tactic to incite conflict throughout the history of civilization; in fact it's just business as usual.

[~Hippie3]

as i understand the current situation on the ground
most areas have already been 'ethnically cleansed'
either by murder
or by people voluntarily leaving dangerous areas.
damn few shiites , if any, living in falluja
damn few kurds in basra, etc.

but with ample evidence of actual attacks
of shiites on sunni and sunni on shiite
it seems rather hard to attribute
this REDUCTION IN ATTACKS
[remember the topic/question ?]
to the coalition itself.

i mean there were literally
hundreds of attacks every single day
all across iraq-
you are very far indeed from showing
any coalition dirty-doing on such a grand scale.

of course you can then counter by claiming that
we're paying both sides to attack each other, etc.


but i still do not see the motive in
bombing our own troops,
those attacks too have declined.

neither do i see our motive for making
our job even tougher,
by starting a 2nd internal civil war
prolonging a bloody resistance movement,
losing the support of congress and the masses
and the entire world-
and for what ?

you say it's so we can dominate the small states left behind
but don't we already dominate the entire region ?
what are we gaining for all the cost ?

your hypothesis only satisfies the desire to
vilify the coalition,
and it isn't even needed to explain the hostility
between the factions
as you inadvertently admitted-

The only reason dividing Iraq into 3 nations is plausible is because of the long-standing violent conflicts between the 3 groups