Gingerbread Man on 29/9/2006 at 02:57
The fucked up thing is that the logic is sound.
If the US withdraws from Iraq, whether the Iraqi military / police are ready to take over or not, it's going to be seen as either "oh god we can't deal with this we're out" or "well, fuck it... that's enough for now" -- either case, it's a bad move politically and strategically.
Even if the Iraqis ARE ready to take the reigns and keep things at the place they are now -- which, admittedly, is something like one car bomb every 15 minutes... not the dictionary definition of "going well" -- then it's nearly assured that mercenary jihadists (or whatever the hell you want to call them) from places like Syria, Jordan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc etc etc, are just going to pour in. Moreso than they already are. Because even if the Iraqi troops and cops can hold their ground, it's going to be seen as a challenge and a recapturing opportunity and a great way to stick your finger up the Great Satan's arse and say "see, it doesn't matter what you do... we come back like herpes, bitch"
The only way to get out of this mess with anything resembling a positive outcome is, as Dubya and his supporters say, to win the war on terror.
Now YOU know and I know and hundreds of thousands of other people know that the concept is just so hopelessly naive and flawed that it's not even worth speculating if "winning the war on terror" is possible. Unless you're planning to kill everyone who dissents, stifle all communication of ideas, and conduct an absolutely global invasion of privacy, it's simply not going to happen. It's not feasible, it's not realistic, and it certainly isn't anything anyone would even want to attempt.
But there's nothing bad about the logic. Can't leave, it'll embolden the bad guys. Got to stay until the job's done.
And the job can't be "done" because somebody didn't have a plan that went as far as exit strategies.
Aja on 29/9/2006 at 04:07
And yet throughout all of this, no one has tried, in either Afghanistan or Iraq, to open a dialogue. These missions are being treated as counter-terrorist ops, but clearly, no amount of fighting (short of levelling the mid-east) is going to solve it. Distasteful as it sounds, some sort of diplomacy might be the only real solution here. That's not to say the troops should be pulled, but can the mission not be refocused so that it's less military-based and more humanitarian? At least that way no one would be accused of giving up.
Hmm.. note to self: do not post in political threads.
Convict on 29/9/2006 at 04:54
While I (basically) want us out of Iraq I read a (presumably copied) (
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20493501-7583,00.html) opinion article which wrote:
Quote:
There is another, deeper, problem here. The NIE states: "We assess that the Iraq conflict has become the cause celebre for jihadists." Well, let's assume that's correct. My question is: And? What follows from that assessment? Israel is also a cause celebre for jihadists. Does that mean we should abandon it? If the answer is: "No, that's a ridiculous proposition", then it is logically equally ridiculous in the case of Iraq.
Thoughts?
Nicker on 29/9/2006 at 07:10
What's this "War in Iraq" bullshit? Did we all forget? It was "Mission Accomplished" in May of 2003. There hasn't been any war for 3 years, just mopping up. Fukin' lefties!
Paz on 29/9/2006 at 15:01
Quote Posted by Gingerbread Man
The fucked up thing is that the logic is sound.
Man, I hated "logic" as part of philosophy and this is probably going to become quite obvious as I waffle on; but isn't the logic of the argument only sound on the basis of its own parameters?
Regarding the statement: "Can't leave, it'll embolden the bad guys. Got to stay until the job's done."
By leaving out "Can't stay, it's emboldening the bad guys" and not implicitely acknowledging that the "job" will never be done, doesn't it render the whole statement a bit empty and pointless? Logically sound, yes. But missing some of the vital information which needs to be considered alongside the factors already being presented.
I think maybe that's partly what you were saying anyway ... but maybe not. I DON'T KNOW.
The point of having a nice, fluffy ending in Iraq passed pretty much when soldiers started stepping off boats and planes. So, hypothetically, at this point are there any other options than:
~ Leave now (bad)
~ Leave later (still bad)
~ Stay indefinitely (evidently bad)
They all look like a nightmare to me.
Which one would be best for the country? God knows. Maybe there isn't even a choice - because the last opinion isn't even remotely feasible and I strongly suspect the first two would lead to precisely the same thing, just at different times. In light of that, the question perhaps merely becomes a case of when it would be best to pull out.
The US will obviously wait until such time as it can save face in some way - but I really don't know when that would be. After a change of government?
Christ, this is such a fuck-up. Will anyone ever take any kind of responsibility for it? Probably not, hooray!
What hope is there when even our own Prime Minister won't publically accept that our meddling is really not helping anyone. The same tired view comes out over and over again - foreign policy decisions can't have increased terrorism because we weren't in Iraq in September 2001, ahhh do you see? OH THAT'S RIGHT TONY, I FORGOT THAT BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY ONLY BEGAN IN 2001. DEAR GOD MAN HOW STUPID DO YOU THINK WE ARRRRGGGHHHH.
I can already smell the stance switching to OH WELL YOU KNOW THOSE FILTHY ARABS CAN'T HANDLE DEMOCRACY AND IT SEEMS TERRORISM IS EVEN STRONGER THAN WE THOUGHT SO sajkdsakjsdjkds
STOP GETTING THE WORLD WRONG
STOP GETTING THE WORLD WRONG
STOP GETTING THE WORLD WRONGI find this quite aggravating, really.
Still it's not all bad news, Iraq-Iran relations should be pretty tight for the next decade or so.
descenterace on 29/9/2006 at 17:10
And thus we come back to the Cynic's Motto: "People are stupid."
I too hate it when people expect the world to operate in a manner totally contrary to that which it has demonstrated in the past. It no longer surprises me that they do this, but it's still very annoying.
Problem is, obliterating the idiots will leave no one behind except those who do the obliterating (because no one likes to think of themselves as an idiot). This is due to the Dilbert Principle: "Everyone is an idiot to someone under some set of circumstances."
In summary: No matter what happens, people will always fuck up badly, other people will have predicted it, and everyone will bitch about it and try to show that it was blindingly obvious from the start.
Nothing changes.
Agent Monkeysee on 29/9/2006 at 17:57
Except that's clearly not true as history contains innumerable achievements technological, cultural, social, political, and human. The current state of America and the Middle East isn't some everpresent equilibrium state of shit, it's the direct result of voting in an incompetent, corrupt, and criminal administration and being starry-eyed by their politicking long enough to let them get away with fucking everything up.
It's shitcan attitudes like yours that make it so goddamn hard to change this. It's entirely possible to maintain a skeptical, even cynical, view without turning everything into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Paz on 29/9/2006 at 18:00
(Not in before Agent Monkeysee!)
No, it's bigger than the usual internet "oh woe let's just blow up the world, I don't care about anything me" bollocks.
Cynicism should stem from true romanticism - the deeply held belief that THINGS CAN BE BETTER, not used as a lame "oh everything is rubbish" cop-out. A great many people are not stupid. A great many people would not have messed this up so catastrophically.
BEAR on 29/9/2006 at 18:49
Quote Posted by Paz
A great many people are not stupid. A great many people would not have messed this up so catastrophically.
And by a great many people he means almost anybody.
The sad thing is that we cant really hate them for doing it, I think that for the most part they probably do believe what they say and what they do, just like most religous fanatics. How can you really blame people who believe they are right as much as you believe you are right?
The problem then is that we have to be able to see shit like this for what it is, and stop irrational stupid fuckers from being in the position to fuck things up, its not just bush we should hate but what he represents.
I sincerly fucking hope this changes in november, although I do believe they will attemp to fudge the vote, fucking shameful that in "pillar of democracy" we cant even trust our own voting system, the New Scientist had a article about how shitty the electronic voting systems we used in 2000 and 2004 were and how you could fudge the vote just by knowing what to do with the buttons any person had access to.
Bush seemed very agitated last night (I guess he spoke yesterday, thats when I saw it), of course its just a liberal conspricy again, bringing out damming information about the state of the bullshit war in iraq, so un-patriotic, pre-election nonsense just like always from the democrats.
I hope its time for those "The wolves are closing in" commercials again.
Rug Burn Junky on 29/9/2006 at 18:53
Quote Posted by BEAR
Bush seemed very agitated last night (I guess he spoke yesterday, thats when I saw it), of course its just a liberal conspricy again, bringing out damming information about the state of the bullshit war in iraq, so un-patriotic, pre-election nonsense just like always from the democrats.
I hope for your sake that you're just paraphrasing Bush when you write that, because if that's honestly what you believe, then you are part of the problem.
