MISSION ACCOMPLISHED: "post war" death tolls exceed those during "major combat"

[mental invalid]

yes, you all remember the commander in theif, flying onto the deck of the aircraft, the force of american power....the karl rove media machine strategically placing the banner splashed in red white and blue as the back drop....its words blaring for all the world:


MISSION ACCOMPLISHED


last time i checked you only got to say that once the mission was finished, not when the easy part was done...

what was the mission?

1. to find WMD
2. to rid iraq of hussein and the bath party
3. to stabilize iraq

wow, based on this criteria, sounds like a smashing success thus far....

and today, the number of dead american soilders has exceeded those killed in combat before this media spin by bush....

kudos george, i only hope that you handle the economy as well as your handling the mid-east.....


roe is pissed.......

[mental invalid]

by the way the reason i put "post war" and "major combat" in quotes was precisely because those are the presidents words, and he is using linguistic malarky to try to pull the wool over...

its all just one war, its all major combat.....there is no distinction

[Rodney Trotter]

[img]http://www.news.harvard.edu/guide/students/images/yrbook/gw_bush.jpg'>

"Where's the yeyo at?"

[mental invalid]

Americans are also concerned about the economic cost of rebuilding Iraq; 66 percent say they do not support the current amount being spent, the poll shows. Sixty percent say the U.S. should reduce the amount of money it is spending to establish security in Iraq and rebuild the country. Thirty-four percent say they support the current spending level, which is estimated at $1 billion per week


53 percent of respondents say they would oppose any increase in U.S. spending for operations there, the poll shows. Just seven percent say they'd support a major increase in spending and 30 percent say they'd support a minor increase. Almost half of those polled (47%) say they're very concerned that the cost of maintaining troops in Iraq will lead to a larger budget deficit and seriously hurt the U.S. economy, according to the poll.


Despite their concerns, the majority of Americans (61%) say the U.S. did the right thing in taking military action against Iraq last March (a seven- point decrease from the July 24-25 poll); 33 percent disagree, a five-point increase from the July poll. Going forward, 72 percent say they would support turning over some of the authority for rebuilding Iraq to the United Nations since some allies say that is necessary if they are to send troops to postwar Iraq. And 52 percent say they'd support more aggressive action by U.S. forces to stop the violence, even if it means greater risk of civilian casualties. Americans polled are split almost evenly (48% yes, 47% no) on whether to withdraw U.S. military personnel from Iraq in response to the attacks on U.S. military personnel and other targets.



what does this poll tell me......that 70% percent of the country who thought going to war was justified, now dont have the fucking stomach for the hard part....maybe american laziness, who knows...

and these fucking people who thought we had a problem before and were justified in going in, are going to create an even bigger threat then the one posed orginally.......


let me remind everyone:

WE HAVE NOT EVEN BEEN THERE FOR 6 MONTHS.....

[--zeSto--]

Originally posted by mental invalid
wow, based on this criteria, sounds like a smashing success thus far....

now roe, you know that sarcasm only hurts the american
people and it also makes the jesus potato peel. behave!

[imported_Tesseract]

Man, its a fuckin joke from day1...as shit continues it just gets thicker. At that time Blair is getting fucked over in the UK over iraq. What pisses me off is that i have the impression that Bush wont get reelected not because of all those things but simply cause he fucked up the economy.
My take is that the majority of Americans are polliticaly numb.
Wake the fuck up.

[TEARZ]

wake the fuck up or get woke the fuck up
the wisdom we supply son, soak this shit up
if it were sess y'all saggins would smoke this shit up
wake the fuck up or get woke the fuck up

tears is pissed too. get those people home.

[Poop Man Bob]

Originally posted by mental invalid
kudos george, i only hope that you handle the economy as well as your handling the mid-east.....


roe is pissed.......

link. (http://www.dailykos.com/archives/003946.html#003946)

Bush to run for prez with $500 billion deficit

The CBO is predicting a $500 billion deficit in 2004, followig its prediction of the record-shattering $401 billion shortfall this year. Neither of those numbers include the $4 billion a month or so spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.

And the deficit is twice as big if the social security surplus isn't factored in.
The Budget Committee Democrats said their analysis shows that the deficit will hit $495 billion in 2004, and will never go below $300 billion in the 2004-2013 period, reaching a total over the decade of $3.7 trillion.

If money from the Social Security surpluses now being used to pay for other federal programs is not factored in, the decade-long deficit will be $6.3 trillion, they said [...]

The CBO numbers ... do not take into account the $1.2 trillion that will be lost if tax cuts scheduled to expire over the next decade are made permanent, and another $878 billion in new tax cuts over the decade being sought by the White House.

Boy, we're going to see some nice, shiny charts in this election cycle. I look forward to seeing Bush defend his borrow and spend stewardship of the budget.

[Poop Man Bob]

link. (http://www.dailykos.com/archives/003944.html#003944)

Bush to address nation on Iraq

Oh boy. According to the AP, the number of Americans killed after Bush's crotch-padding "mission accomplished" moment on the USS Lincoln has now surpassed (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030826/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq&cid=540&ncid=716) those killed before.

139.

The total of US and Brits killed in the war varies story to story, but it's at least 328.

Indeed, things are so bad, it's forcing Bush to emerge from his month-long vacation to actually defend his FUBARed war.

The president, who is in the last week of an August vacation at his Texas ranch, will travel to St. Louis to make the case for sustained involvement in Iraq despite calls to either pull out or reinforce U.S. forces, and for continued engagement in the Middle East despite new violence that has stalled the peace process.
Events have moved far out of Bush's control. The Neocons thought they could control the situation, but ultimately, the US can do nothing more than react.

Bush's speech is clearly part of a concerted effort by the administration to defend its war performance. Rice took up the theme yesterday:

Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, on Monday said, "The war on terror must be fought on the offense."

"When Americans begin a noble cause, we finish it," Rice told veterans in San Antonio, Texas. "We are 117 days from the end of major combat operations (in Iraq) -- that is simply not very long."
Except that noble wars aren't sold on lies. Noble wars are embraced by the world community. Noble wars don't lead to protracted occupations and vicious guerilla war from a hostile populace.

In other words, noble wars look nothing like Iraq.

[Poop Man Bob]

For people who are interested in this thread, I highly recommend this site: http://www.dailykos.com/

Excellent political analysis from a lefty perspective, plus comment functions for every blog update (with [usually] very intelligent conversation).

[mental invalid]

see thats just it tearz, were in this shit now....we cant pull out...

it will destroy any credibility we have left as well as plunge the region into greater dispair....

im stunned by the weak backbone of the people who were for this war, but now that shit has gotten a little hectic they wanna pull out...

for god sakes, this is gonna take time....and one thing america doesnt have is patience....blame it on consumerism, blame it on the advent of the 24/7 news, etc etc...what ever it is, it has caused us to think in terms of immediate results....

"whatta mean were going to be there 5-10 years, doesnt nation building take six months???"

no jackoff, so take your proud to be an american single, and your whopper with cheese, and shut the fuck up....you wanted to invade iraq, your believed the president, you called me unpatriotic, and now YOU wanna pull out....oh, i dont think so jack ass....mom shoulda showed you how to clean up your mess....

[mental invalid]

"Except that noble wars aren't sold on lies. Noble wars are embraced by the world community. Noble wars don't lead to protracted occupations and vicious guerilla war from a hostile populace.

In other words, noble wars look nothing like Iraq."



aint that the fucking troof.......

[TEARZ]

Originally posted by mental invalid
see thats just it tearz, were in this shit now....we cant pull out...

yes. i agree.
but, i was speaking a person who has friends over there, in those "policing" missions where dudes are getting slaughtered on the regular, and based on some of the emails i'm getting from them, i'm scared of what type of people they'll be when they come home.
there are some questions about staying in....
why try and complete a ridiculous objective?
for how long? and after how many deaths on both sides?
will reaching the objective actually create any sense of "credibility"? it may among certain nations, but it will fortify hatred from others.
i hear you, and i agree, but there's a large part of me that believes in the micro-economics principle of "cutting your losses."

[--zeSto--]

Who am I paraphrasing?

"the only good wars were the american revolution,
the second world war* and the star wars trillogy."



*I agree it was about as 'good' as a war can get
but many really heinous things were done by all sides.

[seeking]

this constantly amazes me. we gave some (already rich) asshole 30million dollars, for turning in two guys. 30 million dollars for one phone call. we could have updated every ghetto school in the country with new textbooks for the upcoming school year, but instead we payed that retarded bounty.
we're spending a billion dollars a week to rebuild a country none of us will ever go to, and that 90% of us wanted to bomb off the face of the planet on sep 12th 2001, never mind the fact that no tie has ever been found. were such 'humanitarians' meanwhile ten times as many people have been slaughtered in liberia over the last 15 years, and we're just now considering taking action. iraq may have had an evil dictator, and lived in relative squalor, but they sure as fuck didnt have to fear simply walking down the street and being murdered by an 11 year old in a marilyn monroe wig, high on glue, with a god damn human finger bone hanging out his mouth!

ugggh... i just get annoyed. america is seriously 'gay' as fuck. fuck the politicians that fuck the people, that can fuck off as well, just for being self centered fucking sheep. honestly, i hope this shit drags on for 3 more years, fuck it, ten more years. i hope it damn near destroys us financially, and leaves tens of thousands of our soldiers dead. why? because perhaps then we (americans) will finally fucking wake up, and not allow our government to endanger the lives of every living thing on the planet, human, animal and plant alike. american lives mean no more to me than iraqi or palestinian lives. if they're gonna be dying, then fuckit, we should be dying with them. its our fucking war in the first place. saddam might have been all the evil shit people claim, but without the threat of WMD (which obviously there was not) he was a humanitarian issue, not a military one.

ok, i will stop now. i went off for a full page about starbucks, image the lengths i could begin repeating myself at here.

seeks/fuck us

[seeking]

tearz, iraq isnt a quantative column on an excel spreadsheat, its a country, full of people that are now 100% dependent on us for every single thing in their lives. we cant just 'cut' our losses. we wanted their oil, we got it. we wanted to sell them hamburgers, we got it, now we've got to come through wiith water, sewage treatement, police and garbage men as well.

it's our bed, we've now got to lay in it.

then perhaps iin the future, we'll think twice about who we lay down with.

[mental invalid]

tearz i hope you get to see your friends sooner then later....


i think it all boils down to poor planning...thats it, just poor planning....


the mission was not accomplished, and to tell the american people that it was, was simply a lie....

[villain]

This war has been like a low intensity vietnam. Whether we went to vietnam to push back the communists or to take over a recently self-emancipated french colony the war eventually became self-perpetuating as this one is. We have accomplished none of our objectives, real or not, and we are too stubborn and proud to call it quits now. Maybe the blood shed is motivation enough, either way this ball is rolling.
It's rather a ridiculous situation in many aspects. But what I really hate seeing is this dragging out for these ridiculous reasons. But if we must insist on staying there we should at least fight this war as though it is a guerilla war, which in fact it is. We need popular support. We need a host country police force. They have way better HUMINT to deal with this situation than we could ever hope for. We need to put power back into the hands of iraqis. We need to give them a reason to fight for us. A show of force is getting us nowhere. This is like beating a dead horse.
This truly is a humanitarian mission. We are swatting hellbent kamikaze flies with an elephant gun. This whole situation is really bending me out of shape here and I need to maintain my composure.
However now we do control the 1st and 2nd largest oil reserves in the world. Whatever that means. As soon as I am able I'm going to make my car fueled by toxic emissions anyways.
Who says nation building couldn't happen in months? I've seen McDonalds pop up in a matter of days. We have all these combat forces over there when we would do better with more civil affairs, psyops, linguists, engineers, etc. Iraq is falling apart as we speak. I have not seen it getting better at all. Only worse. As it grows worse I can only see it becoming more hostile. As it has. We have been there since march and the most we have been able to do is schedule elections? This is ridiculous. Somebody must think I'm a fool. What's really going on here?

[villain]

Can somebody point me to a timeline of the nation-building process? pls thx

[villain]

P.S. I got a coin from a 4-star general today! Whoohooo!!!!

[Spoter]

i didn't read most of this.....but if you thought that this was ever a good idea, you probably don't have a very good perspective on world affairs.unfortunately very typical for most americans.i wish mankind learned from it's mistakes.

[poopy dog]

if all you whiney brats would listen to this simple saying "LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT" why dont you all move to france and get your protest on. crying about it and protesting in the middle of the streets blocking commerce isnt going to solve anything. Did bush listen to any of you crying fucks before durring or after this war. no. did america know about 9-11 befroe hand, according to you paranoid fucks the government was in on it. right. how about you guys acctually find someone who is smarter and who you feel would be better in the presidential office and elect him next time around instead of sitting around and complaining all day about how shitty america is. i bet you would be the same people in the 70's throwing rotten fruit at returning soldiers. bastards

[seeking]

well damn, that was dumb.

[BROWNer]

i don't know about such a thing as a noble war(not tryin' to single you
out pooby bob, just rambling around)..
wars are the absolute ugliest thing ever,
from practically every angle. perpetrating states always
frame it as 'noble' and 'just' and propagate some
dire moral imperative to justify what amounts to
basically the worst possible form of communication
ever. alot of people contend that certain
wars were necessary and that many geopolitical
circumstances were ignored when military intervention
should have been mobilized and executed..
but...i will never buy the whole 'noble' thing..:tongue:
i don't know what to say about iraq. what's even more
amazing is the job done in afghanistan. remember?
what a fuck job :spent: :spent: :spent:

[Smart]

Originally posted by poopy dog
how about you guys acctually find someone who is smarter and who you feel would be better in the presidential office and elect him next time around

They already did that, Gore 2000...

[KaBar2]

In my opinion, the combat losses in Iraq, and the losses since Bush announced the "end of hostilities" are insignificant. Three or four hundred combat-related deaths (or more) in a war to take contol of a country the size of Iraq is cheap. We lose 440,000 Americans every year to tobacco use---cancer, lung diseases, heart disease, etc. We only lost 330,000 dead in WWII, in four years of war. I don't see anybody on here wringing their hands about that.

There is no military draft any longer. Probably won't ever be a military draft again, unless the continental U.S. is attacked. We don't need it, because our "all-volunteer" (read "mercenary") armed forces is doing a great job. The Marine Corps can't handle the flood of recruits they have received since the start of the invasion of Iraq. If you don't want to risk getting killed in combat, then don't enlist.

Anybody who joins the armed forces in order to "learn a trade" or "get money for college" must be simple-minded. I joined the Marine Corps because I wanted to be a Marine rifleman. I pretty much got my wish. It was peacetime, but we trained to go to combat just like these guys in Iraq. While I was in, we lost four or five guys in my battalion to accidents, both weapons-handling accidents and traffic accidents, and also a couple of suicides. Shit happens. Nobody got all alarmed, in fact, we kind of expected it. Nobody expected duty in the Marine Corps to be risk free or discomfort free. It's a hard life. That's what I signed up for.

It's going to take a while for us to get the majority of the "guerrillas" in Iraq. This shouldn't be any big surprise. Once we get the Free Iraqi armed forces and police forces on the job, it will be a lot easier. Little by little, we will reduce the areas in which they can operate. If foreign volunteers go to Iraq to help fight us, all the better. We won't have to go looking for them.

Eventually, the average person in Iraq is going to decide that Saddam's tyranny is incapable to resurrecting itself, and the tide will turn against them, in terms of Iraqis being willing to refrain from turning them in, or in terms of their being able to move about freely. Right now Saddam's thugs still have the ability to terrorize individual Iraqis into silence, but this won't last forever. People there really hate them---they tortured and murdered thousands and thousands of innocent people. At present the average Iraqi is still scared of Saddam, but not forever.

Don't put too much importance on the bitching of troops. They bitch in peacetime, too. No matter how pissed off they are at being stuck in Iraq, they will do their job, and they will do it well.

Iraq is no Vietnam. Terrain is very important in warfare, and in Vietnam, the terrain favored individuals and small groups over large troop formations. The terrain in Iraq favors armor and air power, neither one of which do the remnants of Saddam's regime have left in any significant amounts.

Eventually, a democratic republic will exist in Iraq. As long as the average Iraqi citizen remains armed, I do not believe Saddam's thugs will ever regain control. And we will eventually depart, much to the relief of our soldiers.

[BROWNer]

i find it amusing that any dissonance in iraq is automatically
'saddam's thugs' and baath party loyalists. really? seems handy.
maybe it is. bllllaahg.

[Smart]

well that's easy enough Browner... they don't want to alarm 'the folks back home' by admiting how many more criminal organizations were operating in Iraq than they had expected... It's as bad as when the USSR broke up, there's a huge power vacuum and that gives a bunch of people a motive to keep the country destabalized...

[Smart]

Hmmm... I just turned on the news and it's a story about Iraqi gangsters...

so, I guess they are telling 'the folks back home'...

[BROWNer]

i hear ya.

[mental invalid]

"i didn't read most of this.....but if you thought that this was ever a good idea, you probably don't have a very good perspective on world affairs.unfortunately very typical for most americans.i wish mankind learned from it's mistakes."-spot


okay well since you missed the lesson in 1st grade, read before you blow your horn....besides if the title of the thread didnt give you the angle, me brow beating you is pointless...


"In my opinion, the combat losses in Iraq, and the losses since Bush announced the "end of hostilities" are insignificant."


no, actually its not kabar....the fact of the matter is, is that bush used the opportunity for grandstanding...this was not some speach in the rose garden, solem and stoic, this was the president, holding up ship an extra day from coming home, flying on a jet plane, costing the tax players 1 million dollars, unfurling a humongous backdrop banner that said "mission accomplished"....well the fact that there are now more deaths since that grandstanding, is far from insignificant...quite the opposite, it shows a lack of formal planning, and that the comment "end of hostilities" was at best pure ignorance and at worst a bold face lie in a vain attempt to push the presidents rating to astronomical levels....


as far as poopy dog, please see seekings comment.....

[mental invalid]

and by the way, two more soilders died today.....

[!@#$%]

Originally posted by KaBar2
In my opinion, the combat losses in Iraq, and the losses since Bush announced the "end of hostilities" are insignificant.
Eventually, a democratic republic will exist in Iraq. As long as the average Iraqi citizen remains armed, I do not believe Saddam's thugs will ever regain control. And we will eventually depart, much to the relief of our soldiers.

i think i just decided you are a complete moron

sure, our soldiers signed their lives away.
i don't believe it could ever make them 'insignificant'

no fucking democratic republic will exist in iraq.
can't you see that isn't what the people want?!

they want a muslim government, or one identified with an ethnic group

we will depart when we are forced to, because we can no longer sustain our arrogance, complete our commitment, rebuild a government, or force a 'regime change' on a bunch of innocents who weren't ready for it

a stage must be set for revolution and democracy

an occupying force cannot come in and set that stage.

terrorism in iraq has only just begun.

[seeking]

Originally posted by mental invalid
the comment "end of hostilities" was at best pure ignorance and at worst a bold face lie in a vain attempt to push the presidents rating to astronomical levels....
[/b]

no way, i dont believe it! just because this was the strategy he utilized for every single action he's undertaken, doesnt mean this wasnt a noble cause. i mean, we love the iraqi people, we needed to free them! never mind the fact that our sanctions killed far more of them (mostly women and children) than all of sadamm's chemical weapons and udah's boric acid nipple clamps combined.

dubya is dope, and not at all a complete fucking monkey. im amazed he hasent jerked off on any reporters, or thrown his own shit at them.

[mental invalid]

note the opening line:


The post-World War II occupation of Germany was a huge and diverse undertaking spanning almost eleven years, conducted in conjunction with three other members of the wartime alliance and involving in various degrees a number of US governmental departments and agencies.


http://www.army.mil/CMH-PG/books/wwii/Occ-GY/

[mental invalid]

again, note the opening line:


The occupation of Japan by the Allied Powers started in August 1945 and ended in April 1952. General MacArthur was its first Supreme Commander. The whole operation was mainly carried out by the United States.



http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2124.html

[mental invalid]

so you had two superpowers, not countries like iraq, and it took 11 years in germany and seven in japan....



face it gang, we are there for the long haul.......

[!@#$%]

welcome to the quagmire..

September 11th was only the beginning

[KaBar2]

I never said the soldiers themselves were insignificant. I served in the Marines, and it's part and parcel of Marine Corps tradition to never leave a single Marine on the battlefield, even a dead body. In the battle for Hue, in Vietnam, there were scores of Marines that died attempting to recover the dead bodies of their brother Marines. Even today, groups of Vietnam veterans make repeated trips to Vietnam in an attempt to locate the remains of long-deceased soldiers, on investigatory trips. Of course, the death of even one man or woman is a tragedy. But if we allowed the fear of casualties to prevent us to unseating a serious dictator and criminal like Saddam Hussein, the world would be filled with nothing but dictatorships.

The figures I saw recently on U.S. troop deployments to Iraq said we have 148,000 troops there. Considering the number of U.S. and "coalition" troops in Iraq, the numbers of soldiers killed and wounded is very small, so far. Of course, it is easy for the thugs to target our people. Our guys are driving around in clearly marked military vhicles, wearing the uniform of their country and not acting aggressively. They are attempting to secure the basic necessities of life for the Iraqi people--safety, security, water, food, medical care, reliable electric power and so on. Our people have certain advantages in the conflict, including great communications, complete control of the air, helicopter gunship air support and so forth. The people attacking them are using the advantages the situation gives to them--hiding among innocent Iraqi civilians, backshooting American soldiers, running and hiding versus standing and fighting. These are the advantages of being a guerrilla. The disadvantages come when the occupying forces identify who and where the guerrillas are, and obliterate them using superior force.

The remnants of Saddam's "government" (if you can call such a kleptocracy a government) will lose. The United States and it's allies will continue to hunt them down and kill them until such time as they eventually either leave Iraq, or are all killed. It will probably cost us several thousand casualties. The initial invasion of Iraq was estimated to likely cost us between 10,000 and 20,000 dead. So I figure we are way ahead on the casualty figures.

The U.S. troops doing the fighting are all volunteers. They are professional soldiers. They all knew, when they became soldiers, that the possibility existed that they might get killed or wounded, just as a truck driver might be injured in a highway wreck, or a high-power lineman might be electrocuted. It's a hazard associated with being a soldier, and one accepts the risk when one enlists in the armed forces. During the first Gulf War in 1990, I attempted to get back into the Marines, but they told me I was too old. At that time, I was running five miles a day after work during the week, carrying a fifty pound ALICE pack ten miles a day on weekends and working as a welder and a heavy equipment repairman all day in the Texas heat. They have their rules, as silly as they may seem to me at times.

It probably makes no sense to you guys, but my interest in trainhopping and living "on the bum" dovetails perfectly with my willingness to re-enter the Marine infantry. The two lifestyles are actually not that different--living outdoors, existing in a sometimes hostile, somewhat hazardous environment, being physically fit and overcoming adversity. Maybe you can see it, maybe you can't. It's not a life that everone can appreciate. Like the Marine Corps, "It ain't for everybody."

If anything, the U.S. is not being aggressive enough in Iraq and Afghanistan. We should double or triple the number of troops there, and seriously go after our adversaries. I anticipate we will be in Iraq at least five years, maybe more. Casualties will mount. Eventually, we will prevail.

[Spoter]

kabar man you're a funny redneck.people die regardless. you sound like there haven't been enough killed compared to other wars and that americans should be optimistic because of that?is it really a good idea to compare this war to vietnam or ww2?i honestly don't have the patience to go into big pragraphs about anything on the net or reply to mental invalid....but damn kabar everytime i read your stuff it makes me fucking puke.you get into these long arguments which is cool because it makes it seem you got a lot of knowledge....but you base your opinions on some funny material.try to see the current situation from a bigger perspective, not the american perspective.this war is supposedly about "helping'" iraq not america right?

that's it for me.

[KaBar2]

Try to see the big picture, man. Iraq is an important Middle Eastern country. Not only are they sitting on an ocean of oil, it is one of the few countries in that part of the world with a "mostly" secular society. The majority Shiites were oppressed by an evil and brutal Sunni tribal kleptocracy. We overturned it. Now our task is to help them create a modern, democratic, secular state that does not use murder and torture to rule, and one with which we can do business.

That IS helping them. They need a democratic republic, one-person/one-vote, a multi-party NON-TRIBAL, NON-RELIGIOUS political system, complete equality for men and women, and a free and fair system of law, elections and press that promotes these values.

Obviously, if some Nazi wanted to start producing a Hitlerite newspaper in Germany after WWII, we would have suppressed it. Same is true of Nazi TV, Nazi movies, Nazi radio and so on.

Iraq is OCCUPIED. We are under no obligation to permit anti-freedom, hate-filled, religious extremist messages and news media to be propagated. We have every reason to promote ideas, media, etc. that support the ideas and beliefs that we hold to be more beneficial, at least until a democratic republican government is able to take root. Plenty of Iraqis are overjoyed to see the U.S. in Iraq. If they were not, the country would be completely ungovernable, and we would be getting 350 casualties an HOUR, not 350 casualties for the entire war, invasion and occupation thus far. Do you see? I hope so.

To put this in perspective, we are losing far more people to violence here in the U.S., due to nothing but criminal activity, where there IS no war, than we are losing soldiers in Iraq as part of an occupation force in a post-war environment.

[poopy dog]

do you guys want a huge box a kleenex?

[!@#$%]

i do see the big picture.
and that picture is an imperialist society seeing somehting they need in a country that isn't run how we would like, and going in and taking over so we can get easier no-guilt access to their resources


they DO NOT NEED a different country, and a western one at that, deciding what ius right for their people.

wqe want to bring a capitalist democracy to the middle east so shit will be easier for us to buy.

bush never cared about those p[eople, otherwise you'd be seeing marines in liberia right now.(on a large scale, like the 1000s in iraq)

we only check on human rights abuses when they aren't commited by us, and when it involves a country we need something from.

i've read plenty of foreign newspapers and media, iraqis do not want the us there.

so that makes you a moron

we can't just decide what a country 'needs' and then liberate them by slaughtering THOUSANDS

[poopy dog]

oh and one more thing, how did all that American oil get under those sand dunes in the first place. Its about time we took it back.

[KaBar2]

LOL. Well, have fun protesting. Don't forget to bring your gas mask.

[Spoter]

sorry i have no trust in your back stabbing gov.look what happened to afghanistan?sure they got rid of taliban....how are we gonna know the current herb they put in is any better?who the fuck is he anyway?all i know is he knows a chain of restaurants in san francisco.not to mention that the taliban was helped to power by the us in the first place.usa has been know to get rid of gov. and setting a new one and then leaving them to rot.it's a constant cycle.trust me they(us gov.) know what they're doing.as long as a poor country has a dumb public and a hated tyrant it will keep that country from ever developing and being a threat to the states economically or politically.example:a few decades ago when south american people were revolting and gaining communist support the american gov. suppoerted their tyrants in an effort because they were afraid of the domino effect and communist invasion.people all over the world have lost all trust in your gov. that's out for nobody but themselves.it's not just the muslim world hating on the western way of life.another example:in the 50's an iranian socialist leader was gaining a lot of popularity when the us decided they didn't like him and funded the shah(who was at the time just n high ranking officer with no royal blood) to kill mossadegh(the socialist).bottom line;the u'.s. has definately done it's share with trying to "help" other gov. that turn in to regimes that become supprtive of america's economic benefit.i dont' know where you get your world affair sources from, but i hope it's not fucking cnn.people all over the world have lost their trust in the american gov. long time ago.usa should simply leave due to popular demand.it's going to make everything more controversial in that area anyway......"help" the irazqi people"...ha you're a joke kabar.

[!@#$%]

Originally posted by KaBar2
LOL. Well, have fun protesting. Don't forget to bring your gas mask.

yeah, this is the best part.

idiots in our government said the war in iraq was part of the war on terror(even though the intelligence was a blatant forgery)

those who are smart know..
this war created terrorism, extremism, anti-americanism of every variety, in many parts of the world (no longer limited to the middle east)
..people think that we are defeating terrorism by occupyin iraq??
this is the IDIOCY

we blew our chance in iraq over ten years ago, and now our energy prez wants to go in and run it ..

i didn't protest the war because i knew our steamrolling government doesn't care what the people want

i won't be surprised when the next terrorist attack happens in my backyard.


our arrogance, and the use of a bogus war on terror to justify it, is disgusting

Iraqis do not want america in iraq
fuckin wake up!

[Poop Man Bob]

Originally posted by poopy dog
crying about it and protesting in the middle of the streets blocking commerce isnt going to solve anything. Did bush listen to any of you crying fucks before durring or after this war. no.

You're right .. since it didn't work, we should never protest again.

Using your logic, we should repeal all murder laws. Hey - murder still happens, so why make a stand?

You don't do the name poop justice.

And, finally, are you not crying about our supposed "crying?" Bit of a hypocrite, aren't you.

[Poop Man Bob]

Oh, and I love how every political argument Kabar ever makes comes down to one central point - if the people own lots of guns, everything will be okay.

*edit - spelling error.

[--zeSto--]

just imagine if Bush wins the next election and is then doesn't have to worry about re-election because of term limits.

[BROWNer]

it's pretty amazing that people that seem to have some
intelligence can't see the worldwide apprehension of the promise of
american 'do good' through military brutality. the record clearly
speaks for itself.
it used to be communism was the logic for overthrowing
a countries power dynamics and bringing them glorious
democracy, now terrorism has supplanted communism
as the all encompassing logic for any/all military intervention.
democracy birthed by american intervention is a joke and
it always has been. regions/countries have a role and they
better know it. we all know what happens when they don't.

[KaBar2]

You are correct, Poop Man Bob. My philosophy does boil down to "As long as the people are armed, liberty lives." I hold the Bill of Rights in very high regard, but without the Second Amendment to insure that every single individual in the country has the right to be armed in his own defense and the defense of the Constitution, the rest of the Bill of Rights is not worth the paper it is written on.

Every government is filled with people who have a strong desire to curtail individual rights and to enslave the middle class. It's like a powerful desire to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. The people at the top own 85% of the wealth, and the people at the bottom are guaranteed a free ride at our expense. It's the hard working people in the middle who are getting screwed, and bled to death with taxes of all kinds. Neither the rich nor the truly poor pay many taxes. The bulk of taxes are paid by middle income people.

In my opinion, the socialists who dominate the U.N., and the limosine liberals at the IMF, the World Bank, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission have in mind TAXING the American middle class to fund all their hare-brained schemes. They are not happy at all that you have a right to own firearms, because it gives you the ability to resist their totalitarian asses. They would very much prefer you unarmed, docile, and ripe for the plucking.

The thing that has always amazed me is that liberals don't seem to have the good sense to own firearms. One doesn't have that problem with people that have ever been oppressed. Anybody who has ever had to deal with the REAL FACE of racism, the REAL FACE of fascism, the REAL FACE of ethnic cleansing OWNS A RIFLE. People seem to have a short memory, though. And history always provides another Hitler, another Stalin, another Idi Amin Dada, another Pol Pot, another Osama Bin Laden, another Castro, another Mussolini, another Franco, another Rwandan tribal hate-filled massacre.

All the immigrants that I know want to do three things: make a lot of money, vote, and buy guns. Good for them.

[Spoter]

i don't know of any imigrants that want to own guns.

[RiANEMeTion-]

umm..

[!@#$%]

Originally posted by >>>spot<<<
i don't know of any imigrants that want to own guns.


yeah, kabar probably has vast experience with immigrants from all over the world (as opposed to mexicans streaming into texas)

the immigrants that i know (and since i work at an international research facility, that's quite a few, from asia, africa, europe, canada, south america, central america, and australia and new zealand)
are not interested in firearms at all.

as a matter of fact, i was talking to the danish guy yesterday about the culture of violence in this country and why americans tend to be so gimmegimme, so arrogant, so devoid of respect

the foreigners that i know (who are all educated beyond undergraduate) are adamently opposed to the war and occupation of iraq, and george dubya is just a big fucking joke aorund here..

no one is interested in being anywhere near a firearm..
i guess that's the price of education, intelligence, and WISDOM

[Poop Man Bob]

Kabar - the main issue I have with your argument is that you assume, incorrectly in my view, that owning firearms will prevent the masses from experiencing tyranny. While this may have held true in the 18th and 19th century (the idea of Roman-esque militias arising to defeat evil, then returning to their farms), the military (controlled in this hypo by said tyrannical government) now has such far superior firepower that the resulting "battle" would be little more than a bloodbath. Or are you assuming that the military, made up of Joe Everyman, will rise up in revolt against the tyranny as well? If so, then you need to change your argument: as long as everyone has guns and the military is on our side, then tyranny will never prevail.

Your logic seems to jump from A (the people owning guns) to F (no tyranny) - there are essential steps in this process that are missing. Even in your explanation of your views, you do little more than make blanket statements ("My philosophy does boil down to "As long as the people are armed, liberty lives." I hold the Bill of Rights in very high regard, but without the Second Amendment to insure that every single individual in the country has the right to be armed in his own defense and the defense of the Constitution, the rest of the Bill of Rights is not worth the paper it is written on."), then proceed to rant about how the ruling elite want to destroy America's middle class. This leads to how ...

Furthermore, I'm interested in exactly how owning guns will ensure the Constitution stands strong and tyranny is averted. Will the people mount a popular uprising, armed with rifles and handguns, march on Washington, and demand the removal of whatever tyrannical entity you find threatening? Do you actually think you'd get that far?

Much like Clarence Thomas, I fear that much of your rhetoric would better serve in the 18th to early 19th century.




Oh, and please, if you respond to me, respond to the questions and points I've addressed. Don't go on about how the middle class is oppressed, etc., unless that point is somehow relevant to what I've asked.

*edit - more spelling issues.

[mental invalid]

the moral of the story, dont fuck with a kid in law school......

[Smart]

Originally posted by !@#$%
Iraqis do not want america in iraq
fuckin wake up!

look, I hate to point this out because I like you a lot but... This statement SMACKS of the exact same 'arrogance' you are using to attack KaBar... How the fuck do you know what they want? Have you been there? Neither has he, so neither of you should be speaking for the Iraqi people.

The reason !@#$%'s friends aren't pointing that out to her is because they agree, though this probably isn't entirely concious on their part. KaBar probably interacts with hundreds of foreign nationals, imigrants and racially diverse Americans everyday but he spends most of his time arguing/discussing things around here, so I assume he simply doesn't have time to interact with 'them', and instead he talks about it with 'us'...

see how I made some sweeping assumptions about both of you that may or may not be pretty on target? Did you both tell yourselfs at one point that I didn't know what I was talking about? That's the EXACT same kind of arrogance that pisses off the foreigners...

It's something we are all guilty of but it's a fucking dead horse around here and an invalid argument to boot...

[!@#$%]

well, since you brought it up...


i had the oppurtunity to travel abroad during the war
it gave me an amazing perspective of the world's vierw of the war
and due to my access to BBC and a host of foreign newspapers (and more recdently, foreign newspapoers in Indonesia) I have read a tremendous amount of news coverage as reported by anti-war countries
(so, of course, they have their own biases, and i understand the turth lies somehwhere in between)

but let's face it.
America is the Great Satan
in a muslim country in t6he middle east, there isn't really another way about it.
currently thousands of iraqis are imprisoned by america and who knows when or if they'lll face trial.
what about the thousands we killed?
(and continue to kill)
sure, i am generalizing..and yes, it is an arrogant assumption.
and surely there are iraqis who are happy with the situation, or at leats the progress so far.
but american bombs are killing thousands.

i'll cut and paste some stuff, and links...

Even the name “Gulf War” is a lie. The so-called Gulf “War” of 1991 was in fact a one-sided American/British state terror campaign, directed primarily against the entire Iraqi civilian population and infrastructure. 17.7 million pounds of bombs were dropped on the people of Iraq in the most concentrated aerial bombardment in the history of the world. In the 110,000 sorties of the six-week onslaught the cowardly American and British pilots (and to a lesser extent French and Saudi pilots) mass-murdered at least 200,000 people, using depleted uranium missiles, napalm, cluster-bombs, fuel-air bombs, cruise missiles and other so-called “smart bombs”.

The slaughter of civilian people in the Amariyah bomb shelter was a prime example of this American/British state terrorism. The large shelter was in a residential neighborhood on the west side of Baghdad. Because of the bombing the neighborhood had no electricity or water. People were living in the shelter, hoping to escape from the bombs. Most of them were women, children, elderly, and invalids from a new housing development.

On Feb. 14th, 1991, at about 4:30 am while everybody was sleeping, an American Tomahawk penetrator missile blasted through the steel-reinforced concrete ceiling of the shelter, creating a huge hole about 6 feet wide. Minutes later a second bomb came through the hole, exploded, and burned everyone inside to death. With this one strike American/British war heroes murdered over 400 helpless people.

A Human Rights Watch report says that of the estimated 24 to 30 million bomblets dropped during the Desert Storm terror campaign, the 1.2 to 1.5 million (at least) that did not immediately explode led to the bloody deaths of 1,220 Kuwaiti and 400 Iraqi people — mostly children — and over 2,500 maimed. And that was in just the first two years after the end of the “war”.

With the passage of time cluster bombs become more unstable, making deadly accidental explosions increasingly likely. American cluster bombs will butcher Iraqi children and civilian people for many years to come, as they have done to the people of Southeast Asia since the mid-1960s


In December 1998, in order to intensify the suffering of the Iraqi people, the United States and Britain began a campaign of continual low-level bombing of Iraq’s infrastructure, including strafing raids against Iraqi agricultural developments. Since that time the cowardly American/British pilots have flown over 49,000 sorties, murdering over 400 more civilian people, including many children, and injuring another 1000+ people.



and the link
http://free.freespeech.org/americanstatete...hTerrorism.html (http://free.freespeech.org/americanstateterrorism/iraqgenocide/AmericanBritishTerrorism.html)

[!@#$%]

CNN's David Turnley toured Baghdad on April 12-14, 2003 and found the city a chaotic place. While U.S. military convoys were met with cheers from some Iraqis, many people told Turnley they felt lost. While they are happy to be liberated, they said they don't want U.S. troops to be occupiers. Food and water are scarce, most homes are without electricity and security remains elusive even as looting begins to taper off.


http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/inte...imes/index.html (http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/interactive/hard.times/index.html)

let's be realistic
occupation sucks
everything is still in disarray
and the thread we are in is about soldiers dying daily.

[Smart]

Yes, of course there are abuses and mistakes and general incompetence on both sides but the base fact is that we are arguing current American politics, all of that muckraking really has no bearing on the day to day existance of our troops or Iraqi's at this point... 'The sins of the father...' and all that.

My point is as it always has been... people around here argue issues that are past. Very few people here can actually look forward to the arguments to come, instead we endless rehash decisions that have already been made.

I realize that this isn't Iraqi news but marginally related, so tell me when or where anybody here predicted this, or even acknowledged it's possiblity...

Palestinian Police Fire On Hamas Militants
VOA News
28 Aug 2003, 17:24 UTC

Palestinian police have fired at Hamas militants who shot rockets from northern Gaza toward an Israeli town.

Separately, the Palestinian Authority says it has frozen the bank accounts of several Islamic charities linked to militant groups.

It was not clear if the moves were part of an attempt by the Palestinian government to crack down on militants as demanded under the international "road map" peace plan.

One of the rockets fired by Hamas Thursday reached the Israeli coastal town of Ashkelon. There were no injuries or damage, but Israeli authorities said it was the first time a Palestinian missile has landed inside a major Israeli city.

Palestinian security sources say police shot at the militants, who sped away in a car as police tried to arrest them. Israeli troops and bulldozers later entered northern Gaza and knocked down trees the militants had used as cover.

The Palestinian freeze on the accounts of militant-linked charities was ordered Sunday, but came to light Thursday when hundreds of Palestinians tried to pick up support checks from the charities at Gaza City banks. Charities affected by the order include al-Mujma Al-Islami, which gave birth in the 1980s to the militant group Hamas.

Israel has long insisted that Palestinian leaders take action against the militant groups as a condition for moving ahead with regional peace efforts.

On Wednesday, the White House dismissed Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's call for Palestinian militant groups to reinstate their ceasefire and halt renewed attacks against Israel. A White House spokeswoman said it is more important for Palestinians to take actions to dismantle terrorist organizations and networks.

[Smart]

Originally posted by !@#$% While they are happy to be liberated, they said they don't want U.S. troops to be occupiers.

Well, we can't just walk away and leave a power vacuum... Why don't I ever hear you talking about any propsed Iraqi government? How come nobody here can talk about ANY Iraqi candidate with the fluid refernces we flip off about the California recall? BECAUSE NOBODY HERE KNOWS OR SEEMS TO BE EDUCATING THEMSELVES IN TO THAT END.

The war is a done deal, the occupation even more so... Won't SOMEBODY answer my question of last December, Who's the next leader? Why should or shouldn't he be?

[!@#$%]

what i'm getting at is america's future role.
how long will we continue with the imperialism and the domination?
sure, its current, but it is part of a disturbing trend in the country's future..
what happens when the military is overextended (it already is)
and something deadly serious warranting immediate attention happens, and our guys are harried and battle-weary??
or the war gets brought here?

this is the future i'm talking about.

what the fuck are we gonna do about all the militants we created by killing too many innocents?


fuck it.
i'm finished

[!@#$%]

Originally posted by Smart
Well, we can't just walk away and leave a power vacuum... Why don't I ever hear you talking about any propsed Iraqi government? How come nobody here can talk about ANY Iraqi candidate with the fluid refernces we flip off about the California recall? BECAUSE NOBODY HERE KNOWS OR SEEMS TO BE EDUCATING THEMSELVES IN TO THAT END.

The war is a done deal, the occupation even more so... Won't SOMEBODY answer my question of last December, Who's the next leader? Why should or shouldn't he be?

government?
why the fuck should i have an answer?
I WAS ASKING THAT BEFORE THE WAR

the only people capable of taking charge seem to be religious leaders.
is that something even worth discussing? because it seems america and britain would never endorse that.


bottom line..the UN needs to take over, with NATO and follow a bosnia style reorganization, policing, stabilization etc

all the good candidates got killed by sadaam a long time ago

ok.
now i'm really finished

[Smart]

well, let's start a thread and talk about that... we aren't the only people killing innocents. There is a belief that because we are bigger and more technologically advanced than many countries that we should act or behave in a certain manner that defies the basic political sciences laid down before the Roman Empire.

These things aren't going to change, they will only go through periods of greater and lesser popularity. It is every concerned citizen's duty to try to extend the length of whichever period he finds most palatable. Believe it or not, I'm on your side in all this but I find most of the rhetoric espoused by both sides disgusting.

There is an old saying, "Those who fail to heed the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them." I have postulated another; "We don't learn from histories lessons".

Things don't get much better or worse but remain generally the same, it's nice to think that the entire universe will someday be pacified but when I see my friend's 3 year old punch his 16mo old brother for no reason other than spite; I'm reminded that there is no changing the human condition.

These things are natural and to be expected, it's all about how we deal with it after the fact.

[Smart]

Originally posted by !@#$%
government?
why the fuck should i have an answer?
I WAS ASKING THAT BEFORE THE WAR

... and I admired you for it at the time, I asked that as well but the war was a foregone conclusion in November, yet here we sit wallowing in ignorance 10 months laterm, Neither of us possesing the answers to the questions we asked then....

[Smart]

Originally posted by !@#$%
bottom line..the UN needs to take over, with NATO and follow a bosnia style reorganization, policing, stabilization etc

I also agree with this but... NATO historically works exclusively in Europe. The UN would be a fabulous ally in the reconstruction but their rules of engagement have led to the slaughter of US troops in sevral theatres. I don't think raising our death toll is the answer either.

I'm actually more concerned about the fiscal monopoly we are exerting over the reconstruction with Bechtel and Halliburton leading the way, I would rather see a worldwide consortium to oversee that aspect than I would another organization taking over combat/police operations. Unfortunately the American plan is in place and switching that would cost time, lives and money.

[KaBar2]

The number of American who are presently armed with hunting rifles, and are licensed to hunt numbers 31 million. That is approximately 17 times as many armed civilians as members of all the American armed forces. I am not sure exactly how many police officers we have, but let's just guess, and double the total forces available to the government to 3.6 million soldiers and police officers. That lowers the odds to only about 8.6 to one. This is somewhat of a straw man argument, because obviously, not every police officer supports confiscation of firearms and One World Government, and obviously not every deer hunter is willing to defend his freedom with his rifle.

Also, there is no guarantee that only the deer hunters would defend the Constitution, since there are over 70 million American firearms owners, and they own over 270 million firearms. But the 31 million figure is good, because it is a quantifiable figure, as it comes from the tax rolls of gun owners who purchased a hunting license.

Adherents of the radical right wing, who are convinced that the government is already compromised and thoroughly infiltrated by people who support surrender of American sovereignity to the U.N. (I disagree--there are plenty of One Worlders in the government, but also plenty of patriots) often say that they fear the Marine Corps because it is the only branch of the armed forces not constitutionally prohibited from assuming Federal law enforcement duties (because the USMC is not a part of the Army, which IS prohibited from Federal law enforcement duty, but is instead a part of the Navy Department. The Navy is not prohibited from Federal law enforcement duty--one reason why, when the Federal government was trying to solve Ku Klux Klan murders in Mississippi, they used NAVY SAILORS for ground searches.)

This fear is misplaced. The Marines that I knew loathe and despise any idea that smacks of One World/ U.N. control over any part of American life. It is exceedingly unlikely that Marines would willingly participate in gun confiscation, although a test questionaire given to a unit of young Marines in 1996 (in which 32% agreed they would do it if ordered to do so) caused a huge uproar in the Corps, and the results of the questionaire were suppressed from the news media. Many of the members of the Texas militia movement that I knew are former Marines. They form one of the most adamantly patriotic groups within the militia movement, and probably are the most proficient and experienced members. They still have contacts within the Marine Corps itself, and with retired Marines and Marine Reservists. (This is true of Army veterans as well.) Of the men I knew, they are also the members of the militia who tend to have the greatest combat logistics resources. They would most definately be willing to fight if it appeared that some group or another had managed to abrogate the Constitution. I do not believe that Marines will ever let themselves be used to undermine the Second Amendment. The Navy lacks the training, and the Army (and Air Force) is constitutionally prohibited from doing so, even if they were willing, which I seriously doubt. Of course, I suppose if some nefarious political element wished to round-file the Constitution, they wouldn't be impeded by a little thing like whether or not their actions were constitutional. It's a little bit like the Right's irrational concern about whether or not American flags in Federal courtrooms have gold fringe around them or not (this allegedly means that "admiralty law" is in force in that courtroom--more hocus-pocus.) Or the assertion that if a defendant doesn't enter inside the little fence inside a courtroom that the Judge has to let him defend himself---there are some certifiably delusional people within every political and social movement. (The Right has these nutballs, the Left has people who lay down in front of tanks, and climb up into trees to "save" the environment. What can I say? GOOFY IS GOOFY. If I have to deal with a tank, I hope it will be with a fucking anti-tank rocket, LOL. But like they say in TCM, "Maybe we can't fight a Hind-D, but helicopter gunship pilots got to go get a beer sometime. And when they do, we'll be waiting for them.")

The ruling elite doesn't really wish to destroy the middle class. They want to manipulate them into further becoming the beast of burden for the elite's financial and social plans. Globalization just dovetails splendidly with their vision of themselves as "citizens of the world." Instead of just the poor drones in their own countries that are available to be entrapped, they now feel free to entrap everybody everywhere. And wouldn't it just be great if the masses were disarmed? No more worries about the peasants attacking the castle.

Every time in history that a government has disarmed the population successfully, genocide follows as sure as the night follows sunset. I do not believe that we can trust Government, any government. They ALL contain elements that could become tyrannical if not checked by the force of the People. If you believe that people will generally act in what they perceive to be their own best interests (and I do believe that) and they are armed, they will not permit tyranny to blossom. I could be wrong, of course. But I don't think so.

As for immigrants liking guns, I don't know where you live, but in Texas, immigrants love the shit out of guns. When I go down to the gun range, it looks like Take A Foreigner To The Range Day. And the two most popular rifles among Mexican immigrants are the "arre quince" (AR-15) and the "corne de chivo" (ram's horn--AK-47, from the curved AK magazine.) In pistols, they like them big: .45's, 9mm's, .38 Supers, .357 Magnums, .44 Magnums, etc. .22 rifles and pistols, and single-shot shotguns are for "export" back to poor relatives in Mexico.

[Spoter]

just a little reminder:when going to war the u.s. asked other nations to go in iraq with them for combat.during the combat a geneva convention (including several nations)was held to discuss the future of iraq and the iraqi refugees.no american representative was present at the event.

[TEARZ]

i posted a long ass reply to this and lost it all.
main issues:
looking ahead to the future iraq
democracy built on police repression foreign occupation
infrastructure built to serve foreign interests
"choosing" an iraqi leader
the problematic idea of "follow through" with this extremely flawed and ill-defined mission
the last one was perhaps the most important. like browner said, i just can't believe that intelligent people who hated the war now feel that it's imperative that we follow dubya's plan? wtf? it's time to engage "the international community" to figure some of this shit out; hopefully the next leader of this nation will understand that, that other nations will be sympathetic to our previous asshole regime and be willing to engage with us, and things will start to clean up even slightly.

[BROWNer]

smart, have you some links related to anybody that
may be being groomed for leadership???
it's possible i'm not looking in the right places or hard
enough, but...i haven't seen really much of anything
regarding this issue in main and/or independant media.
i have heard references to certain clerics and such, but
nothing solid, you?

[Smart]

well, there's Dr Adnan Pachachi, and Ahmed Chalabi, Nizar Al-Khazraji, (though I believe he's currently under indictment in Denmark for war crimes against the Kurds)...

All these guys are exiles though, I'm not too hip on who might be available from inside Iraq...

[Spoter]

whoever's gonna be the easiest puppet for georgy boy to play with.

[KaBar2]

Once again---IRAQ IS OCCUPIED. Their opinion about who should be leader matters no more than whoever the average Nazi would have preferred to govern Germany, or whatever person the average Japanese would have preferred to govern Japan during the Occupation of Japan.

What they need to do is stop causing any chaos, allow an interim government to take it's position, and then work to vote in their choice in a democratic, free, and fair election. Twenty years from now, they will be our allies and we will all be driving Iraqi Segways.

Maybe they have enough sense to see this, and maybe not. It would not surprise me to find out that we will need ten or fifteen years of education and practice a democratic republicanism before they are able to hold elections without brawls, riots and tribal warfare.

You guys think American racism is a problem, but it can't even touch tribalism and ethnic hatred in the Third World for viciousness, violence and plain old hatred. If we were smart, they would re-define nations around tribal geographical areas, so that every nation included just one tribe. European colonialism screwed things up seriously by drawing national boundaries without regard to tribal territories. It was stupid. The colonies would have been much easier to administer if they only included one tribe. But what can you do? Europeans thought they knew everything back then, and they still think that. Nothing has changed, especially irrational tribalist hatred in Africa and the Middle East.