Iraq – What do we do now? - 2006/09/03 08:53What Bush Should Have Said An alternative speech for a president seeking support on Iraq By JOE KLEIN
I am going to start by telling you I am not familiar with the author of this article. Since he writes for Time I would guess he is not a Bush backer, but can we set that aside? I think we need a new plan in Iraq. We are really not committed at the right level. I think that we need to make a choice. Are we going to win this war or are we going to leave. What we have been doing has not been working. This article presents a good plan for winning this war. Let’s do this the right way. If we want to honor our fallen troops in Iraq we need to either stop getting more of them killed or we need to leave behind our failed strategy and win this thing. Defining victory is easy in my eyes. When the violence stops in Iraq we have won."I will not withdraw, even if Laura and Barney are the only ones supporting me." --George W. Bush
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Specter
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Re:Iraq – What do we do now? - 2006/09/03 12:42micpi,
Klein is a partisan hack - has always been. At one point he supported the notion that soldiers in Iraq should shoot their officers.
That aside, the interesting news is that the plan is working. I won't debate that the plan has changed over time - as any good strategy does, tactics have to be flexible and they will change. But the facts are quite different from what you hear in the news today.
First off - still no civil war. There are insurgents (let's call them what they really are - murderers) that are attacking mostly civilians, but that has not changed ever. The country is surging economically and unemployment is approaching pre-war percentages. The worst area of the country is Baghdad and last month boasted deaths of combatantants and civilians down by 49% (see here and here and here - and these are only one of dozens of reports I can show). The training of the Iraqi army and police is moving along as scheduled. In fact, over 50% of the planned army has been trained, equipped, and has taken over most areas of the country (see here - be sure to click on the images of the maps. You may not like the site, but he did not make the graphs.). That has allowed US troops to move back into Baghdad - and you see the results - violence is being quelled.
Is there still danger? Of course there is. But, there was danger for years in Germany after the Nazis were defeated. Same in Japan. The biggest difference is that in those cases the attacks were directed against troops and not civilians. Nevertheless, the government is stabilizing - not there yet, but getting there.
As for Klein - he is still clinging to the Bush lied meme...which is now being thoroughly discredited by even the liberal newspapers (most papers are) and even some top demoncratic operatives like Bob Beckel have said that the whole Joe Wilson thing was brought on by Wilson. The SSCI called Wilson a liar.
Please don't start me on WMDs again. You should check out the work being done on Project Harmony around the web. Believe it or not, chemical weapon caches have been found in Iraq (see here and here and probably most important, here). I am not going to jump on the band-wagon that all the stuff was moved to Syria (yet), but the documents being translated by Project Harmony show that WMDs were very much a part of Hussein's planning. So was supporting terrorists - Al Quaeda and others - down to having camps that turned out thousands of trained murderers. There may have been some bad intelligence gathering, but decsions were made based on what was reported. Much of it was good intelligence though.
You should also check out the information coming from Centcom. Now I know you may not trust government sources, but not everyone in government lies. The site provides an excellent counterpoint to MSM.___________________ Talk atya L8r,
Specter
The public will believe anything, so long as it is not founded on truth. - Edith Sitwell (1887 - 1964); SHARE (2005 - )
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micpi
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Re:Iraq – What do we do now? - 2006/09/03 21:07I really was not looking to debate the history of the war. I am sure anyone that reads my posts knows how I feel about this war. I really do not want to do the whole Wilson/WMD thing again. We did that already, but clearly the old lost weapons you reference on your blog were not a threat. If Saddam had weapons that he could have used he would have used them. We went to war because Saddam was a threat, but he was not a threat to us.
What I was looking to talk about is what we do now. I guess you answered my question. You, as always, think Bush is already doing the right thing. What do others out there think? Should we stay the course or do we need to make a change? Is it time to phase out our troops or do we need to strengthen our force in Iraq or should we maintain the status quo. I simply posted this article as an interesting perspective on where we should go. I still think we should not have started this war to begin with, but now I think we need to decide if we want to win. Maybe we don’t. Maybe we can’t. Maybe it is not worth winning."I will not withdraw, even if Laura and Barney are the only ones supporting me." --George W. Bush
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Specter
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Re:Iraq – What do we do now? - 2006/09/03 21:40micpi,
Not trying to argue the point, and I am interested in discussing Iraq - and even moreso, the entire Middle East. Maybe more specifically, what has been termed Islamofacsism. Just trying to point out that there are other facts about the specific situation in Iraq that are not being bandied about. Joel Klein is so anti-Bush, that he is farther out than Rush Limbaugh on the right (and if anyone thinks Rush is not out there...well...I feel bad...LOL). That does not make him a good reference on the issue (just as Rush is not).
But the basis of your question is what should we do? My answer is why should we do anything different than we already are? The plan is working. Have there been mistakes? Obviously the answer is yes - some very large ones. But that is why tactics change. The original strategic plan From Bush 1 through Clinton and thus far in Bush 2 was, and is, regime change in Iraq. The issue of WMDs/terrorism, while I feel was somewhat central to the entire argument, was added incentive (along with the other reasons listed in the AUMF (see link in the note below). But regime change - the long term goal through the last 16 years. That has been accomplished. But the new government is still in its infancy. There is a long way to go there, but things are getting better. That was my point.
(NOTE: not sure why the link is not working. Try copying and pasting this: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=107_cong_public_laws and add this without any spaces: &docid=f: publ243.107 The colon followed by the "p" in the link wants to put an emoticon in the link....LOL)
I think the next question, especially as the insurgency continues to die out, is do we just leave or do we stay (I would argue there should be no timetable for leaving). There are arguments for both positions:
For Leaving: Try as we might, we do not see eye-to-eye, or even really understand the ME (Arab/Islam/Muslim/multiple warring factions/etc.) culture. In many ways, we do not respect it. We just plain don't fit in. And even if we could somehow engineer a change in that culture, which is highly doubtful (and would probably be morally wrong), it would take at least 2 generations to do so. Is that worth it? Probably not.
By the same token, I think that democracies can be established. Even if things happen within them that we do not like (like Hamas controlling Palestine). What we want is to see people elect who they want. And to have those elected governments behave at least by attempting to take a responsible place in the world's nations.
For Staying: This is simple. One word - Iran (could probably add Syria - but they really aren't much of a threat). We will eventually need forward basing. Iran is one of the countries not willing to be responsible. We all know that. No matter what Iran has said (like N. Korea), their main intent is to go nuclear - and not for electricity. We simply can't afford to be "over the horizon" as we take on this issue. Iraq is the perfect place.
So, what should we do? There are a lot of questions here. Quite honestly, while we have to protect ourselves, I feel that as long as Iraq requests our presence, we should stay. Even after the government becomes more stable. Once they ask us to leave, we should. And even at that, we should attempt to get basing rights.
Post edited by: Specter, at: 2006/09/03 21:46___________________ Talk atya L8r,
Specter
The public will believe anything, so long as it is not founded on truth. - Edith Sitwell (1887 - 1964); SHARE (2005 - )
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Specter (1116)
