What Comes After the Retreat??????

[Bonnie]

We never had any real influence in Iraq, many who had power and money that fled Iraq propped us up as the great freer of the society. We achieved that pretty easy. Maybe hind sight and this could of happened with the beloved Al Gore or John Kerry was President and don't forget that either is after we nailed Saddam we should have throttled back and made the new Iraqi government stand up and be strong. No matter what Saddam was a threat either today or 10 years from now it is a fact and he needed out of power. But with doing that pandoras box opened to, it was gonna happen.

The only real mistake we made in Iraq was not hitting the terrorists hard enough soon enough. Half measures do not work in war. Al Sadr should have been killed years ago, but now he wields too much influence over Maliki.

 

[Romeo]

And why are there terror cells there in the first place? Hint: because we invaded and occupied a sovereign nation and threw it into chaos and gave them a huge training ground.

We didn't start this fire, jillian. Islam teaches jihad against non muslims to spread the faith by violence. Only mass conversion of the US to islam and shariah law will satisfy them. SHould we just do it to get along? I mean, it's all "fake" anyway, right?

 

[jillian]

We never had any real influence in Iraq, many who had power and money that fled Iraq propped us up as the great freer of the society. We achieved that pretty easy. Maybe hind sight and this could of happened with the beloved Al Gore or John Kerry was President and don't forget that either is after we nailed Saddam we should have throttled back and made the new Iraqi government stand up and be strong. No matter what Saddam was a threat either today or 10 years from now it is a fact and he needed out of power. But with doing that pandoras box opened to, it was gonna happen.

I see where you're coming from. But for years we used Iraq as our surrogate against Iran. We had huge influence then. Did that change after the first Gulf War? Yes. Was Saddam a horrific guy? Yes. But he also hated the fundies and kept the loonies out of his country. As awful as he was, he wasn't a threat to us. The guy was commissioning cross-bows as weapons, for pete's sake.

 

[Bonnie]

And why are there terror cells there in the first place? Hint: because we invaded and occupied a sovereign nation and threw it into chaos and gave them a huge training ground.

As opposed to fighting them where?? Iraq didn't breed terrorists.. it just drew them into Iraq. If we were more aggressive from the onset we would have killed many more.

 

[90K]

The only real mistake we made in Iraq was not hitting the terrorists hard enough soon enough. Half measures do not work in war. Al Sadr should have been killed years ago, but now he wields too much influence over Maliki.

You have my vote on that post alone and al sadr the shit bag. Nailing him would have changed a lot of things and the mouth of the jihadist would have had to find a new leader

 

[Gunny]

As Golda Meir said "who should I negotiate with... my friends???".

Seriously, much as they're distasteful, what we've done in the mideast has emboldened and empowered both Iran and Syria. We destabilized Iraq and, by default, gave Iran huge power in the region. Lebanon's nascient democratic government is also now destabilized and the whole enchilada is going to be out of control if we don't start remembring how to engage in diplomacy. Does diplomacy work better if there's a gun in the background? Absolutely. But let's not forget what our real interests are here.

Negotiating with terrorists is STUPID. Simple as that. Their demands will never end, nor will giving in to them if appeasement is pursued. Look how well it worked out Europe in the 1930s. Look how well it worked with Clinton giving Kim jong il what he wanted. He's back wanting more.

Appeasement is a spiral right down the toilet.

 

[Gunny]

I see where you're coming from. But for years we used Iraq as our surrogate against Iran. We had huge influence then. Did that change after the first Gulf War? Yes. Was Saddam a horrific guy? Yes. But he also hated the fundies and kept the loonies out of his country. As awful as he was, he wasn't a threat to us. The guy was commissioning cross-bows as weapons, for pete's sake.

Exaggeration. We did not use Iraq as a surrogate against Iran. In the big scheme of things, we gave Iraq very little. Iraq was armed by France and Russia, who until he was deposed, had much bigger interests in exploiting Iraq for its oil than the US ever had.

Saddam was a threat to our allies. By treaty definition, that equals a threat to the US. You favor not honoring treaties with other Nations?

 

[manu1959]

And why are there terror cells there in the first place? Hint: because we invaded and occupied a sovereign nation and threw it into chaos and gave them a huge training ground.

are you telling me all the librarians, hair dressers and manicurists suddenly took up arms when we invaded and there were no terror cells in the middle east?

 

[Gunny]

are you telling me all the librarians, hair dressers and manicurists suddenly took up arms when we invaded and there were no terror cells in the middle east?

Allow me, because THIS is one of my pet peeves.

1. Islamofascist terrorists existed before we ever set boot one on Middle Eastern soil.

2. The fundamentalist sects in Iraq were isolated in the No-Fly Zone, under our protection. Saddam would have obliterated them had they not been.

I consider it very politically correct and very tactfully unsound that we did not, upon military invasion, cordon them off and keep them isolated where they were. Especially since I know for a fact that sectarian violence was considered a REAL possibility as far back as the early 90s.

We should also have run the Republican Guard to ground, disarmed and isolated it. Let the Iraqi government deal with them later when it was able.

However, the same lefties that bitch about tactics now would have been so up in arms about using such tactics it wouldn't have been funny. Their reaction to Abu Ghraib comes to mind.

 

[Annie]

Allow me, because THIS is one of my pet peeves.

1. Islamofascist terrorists existed before we ever set boot one on Middle Eastern soil.

2. The fundamentalist sects in Iraq were isolated in the No-Fly Zone, under our protection. Saddam would have obliterated them had they not been.

I consider it very politically correct and very tactfully unsound that we did not, upon military invasion, cordon them off and keep them isolated where they were. Especially since I know for a fact that sectarian violence was considered a REAL possibility as far back as the early 90s.

We should also have run the Republican Guard to ground, disarmed and isolated it. Let the Iraqi government deal with them later when it was able.

However, the same lefties that bitch about tactics now would have been so up in arms about using such tactics it wouldn't have been funny. Their reaction to Abu Ghraib comes to mind.

Yeah, wish I could rep you! How nice that she forgets the Carter years. :zip:

 

[Bonnie]

are you telling me all the librarians, hair dressers and manicurists suddenly took up arms when we invaded and there were no terror cells in the middle east?

Weren't they all beheaded by Hussein's henchmen?

 

[Adam's Apple]

What comes after the retreat??? Wonder why Jim Baker didn't tell us that????

 

[SpidermanTuba]

Look its Bonnie, who has never once in her life started a threat with a thought that was her own.


Here's what happens after we retreat - we hold the idiots that got us into this mess accoutable.

 

[manu1959]

Look its Bonnie, who has never once in her life started a threat with a thought that was her own.

Here's what happens after we retreat - we hold the idiots that got us into this mess accoutable.

good idea....do you think richard clarke madeline albright and bill and al will go to jail?

 

[Gunny]

Look its Bonnie, who has never once in her life started a threat with a thought that was her own.


Here's what happens after we retreat - we hold the idiots that got us into this mess accoutable.

Look, it's that treasonous, lying piece of trash Spiderman Tuba and his anti-anything good rhetoric.

Better idea -- Screw retreat. Crush the morons that stand in the way of advancing FORWARD; whether or not they be over there, or in own yard, and tell those individuals who always feel the need to point fingers and look for scapegoats to STFU and piss up a rope.

Whether or not you fall into the former category or the latter means little to me.

 

[Doug]

We have been defeated in Iraq, and our defeat will have consequences which are now unpredictable in detail, but which will be very grave.

One of the smaller bad consequences will be -- has already been -- the strengthening of the anti-American Left, both in America and abroad. They will naturally experience a surge of confidence, matched by a parallel demoralization of the conservative forces. The recent Democratic victory was only a foretaste of what to expect.

Before the invasion of Iraq, conservatives looked like becoming the natural majority in American politics. All that is gone now. We have a long fight before us, and will probably be in a minority in the Congress for many years.

What we must do now is to consider how to make an orderly retreat, and to minimize our losses. For one thing, we must try to take care of our friends in Iraq, and not leave them to the tender mercies of the jihadis (who will, of course, be enormously strengthened by our defeat, both in getting a huge boost in prestige and morale, and in gaining new territories, at the heart of the Middle East, from which to operate freely).

It also seems to me to that Israel faces a very bleak future. We should begin working towards granting automatic American citizenship, on a humanitarian basis, to any Jewish citizen of Israel who wants to get out before the Second Holocaust.

In any serious struggle both sides must expect victories and defeats. Grown-ups know that real life is not like a Hollywood movie. We have to be able to absorb defeats, and think rationally about how to turn the tide in the future. We survived Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Kasserine Pass, and went on to win.

We have to study what went wrong in Iraq, and learn from our mistakes. We still have a strong economy and an enormously powerful military, and the American people, although disillusioned with conservatives in respect of Iraq, are not yet -- will never be -- enthusiastic liberals.

 

[red states rule]

There is one job many people want on Iraq

The hangman for Saddam. Of course the NY Times calls Saddam a "victim".


Iraqis Line Up to Put Hussein in the Noose
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By KIRK SEMPLE
Published: December 9, 2006
BAGHDAD, Dec. 8 — One of the most coveted jobs in Iraq does not yet exist: the executioner for Saddam Hussein. The death sentence against Mr. Hussein is still under review by an appeals court, but hundreds of people have already started lobbying the prime minister’s office for the position.

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Pool photo by David Furst
Saddam Hussein yelled in court on Nov. 5 after he was found guilty in his first trial for war crimes. He was sentenced to death by hanging.

The Reach of War
Go to Complete Coverage » They have sent messages through cabinet officials and their assistants, and by way of government guards and clerical workers. One candidate, an Iraqi Shiite living in London whose brother was killed by Mr. Hussein, telephoned an aide to the prime minister to say he was prepared to drop everything and fly to Baghdad to execute the former ruler.

“One of the hardest tasks will be to determine who gets to be the hangman because so many people want revenge for the loss of their loved ones,” said Basam Ridha, an adviser to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

Mr. Hussein and two of his top associates, Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and Awad al-Bandar, were sentenced to “death by hanging” on Nov. 5 for their involvement in the arrest and killings of 148 men and boys after an assassination attempt against him in the town of Dujail in 1982. The nine-judge appeals bench has no time limit to issue its ruling, but if it upholds the death sentence, Mr. Hussein’s execution must be carried out within 30 days.

Iraqi judicial officials said they expected that the appeals process would be completed in a matter of weeks and, if the sentence is upheld, that Mr. Hussein’s hanging would take place between mid-January and mid-March.

The Shiite-led government has argued for a swift execution, saying that as long as Mr. Hussein is alive, he remains a powerful source of motivation for elements of the Sunni Arab insurgency fighting to restore him to power.

There are other critical issues the government will need to decide should the appeals court uphold the death sentence against Mr. Hussein, including where he will be executed.

Officials have considered staging a public hanging in Baghdad’s largest sports arena, Shaab Stadium, and filling the place with tens of thousands of spectators, according to a high-ranking government official involved in the executions process, who agreed to discuss the subject on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about it on the record.

But while such a spectacle might satisfy a communal need for closure, the authorities have rejected the idea for security reasons. A target that big, they say, would be highly vulnerable to attack by Sunni insurgents who might try to lob a few mortar shells into the crowd or ambush spectators on their way to and from the event.

Government hangings are now conducted in a prison complex in eastern Baghdad. Mr. Hussein, who is being held at Camp Cropper, an American military prison near Baghdad International Airport, could be transported to those gallows by helicopter. But officials worry that the trip would present an unnecessary opportunity for a rescue attempt by his sympathizers.

Most likely, officials say, Mr. Hussein will be hanged at gallows specially built for him at Camp Cropper.

The death penalty in Iraq, which applies to a range of crimes including terrorism and certain categories of murder, was suspended in 2003 by the American occupation authorities but reinstated in August 2004. Since then, 51 people — men and several women — have been hanged and about 170 are currently on death row awaiting execution or the outcome of their appeal, according to Hashim al-Shibli, Iraq’s justice minister.

Those are the official numbers. The high-ranking government official involved in the executions process said the actual number of hangings was far higher, though fewer than 100, because of three sets of hangings that took place between December 2005 and March 2006 and were never publicized.

Human rights groups have questioned the transparency of the criminal justice system in Iraq and the ability of defendants to get a fair trial. And the United Nations has requested that the Iraqi government commute the sentences of all the prisoners on Iraq’s death row. But Iraqi leaders have rebuffed calls for the abolishment of the death penalty, arguing that it serves as a deterrent to crimes.

“Maliki wants to show decisiveness that people should be punished,” said Mr. Ridha, Mr. Maliki’s adviser. “He is very anxious that these executions take place in a timely manner.” He added, “The number of executions that have taken place is not a great number compared to the number of insurgents in the country.”

The gallows are in a concrete building within a heavily guarded prison complex in eastern Baghdad, near the headquarters of the Interior Ministry. Two scaffolds made of steel sit side by side in an otherwise unadorned room, according to the high-ranking government official, who has attended hangings there. (The Justice Ministry and the Maliki administration denied requests to visit the prison and, citing security concerns, refused to give the precise location of the site.)

The government prefers to conduct several hangings in a day for the sake of efficiency. Men condemned to death are held on Iraq’s death row — a wing of rudimentary cells, separated from other inmates in the prison compound. Condemned women are held at a women’s prison in Khadamiya, a neighborhood in northern Baghdad.

The prisoners are told they will be hanged on the morning of their executions, officials said. They are led out of their cells in single file, dressed in orange jumpsuits, their ankles and wrists manacled, and taken to a room off the gallows chambers, where they are allowed to sit on floor cushions. There, they are permitted to pray. They can eat a last meal if they request it, or smoke a cigarette. They are given an opportunity to compose a last will and testament. Then, two by two and hooded, they are taken to the gallows.

The victims are led up a set of steel stairs to a platform, about 15 feet above the ground, and nooses fashioned from one-and-a-quarter-inch-thick hemp ropes are slipped over their necks. The executioners are different each time, drawn from among employees of the Justice Ministry who volunteer for the job. Many have lost relatives or friends in insurgent attacks, officials said.

With a tug of two large levers, the steel trapdoors drop open and the victims fall through. The doors make a loud clanging sound as they slam against the apparatus, according to people who have witnessed hangings. The jarring noise echoes off the cold, unadorned concrete walls.

Death is supposed to come instantly — a doctor is on hand to certify it — and the bodies are removed to a cooler where they are held before being handed over to the victims’ families. The entire process is recorded by a photographer and a video cameraman and the images are stored in a government archive.

But the hangings have not always gone smoothly.

Until the new gallows were built, the Iraqi government used an apparatus and an old rope left over from Mr. Hussein’s government, said the high-ranking government official. The rope had become so elastic that it would sometimes take as much as eight minutes to kill the convicted person.

On Sept. 6, the Iraqi authorities planned to hang 27 people. On the 13th hanging, according to an official who was there, the rope snapped and the convicted man plummeted 15 feet through the trap door onto the concrete floor. “God saved me!” the man cried. “God is great! I did not deserve this!” For an hour, he lay on the ground praying and shouting while prison guards and the executioner debated whether this constituted divine intervention and, if so, whether the man’s life should be spared. Once a new rope was rigged, however, the man was forced up the stairs once again and successfully hanged. The incident was first reported in Time magazine of Nov. 20.

The executions are conducted in secrecy to avert insurgent attacks. On March 9, a government convoy carrying a representative from the administration of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari was ambushed on its way to the gallows. It was an unsuccessful effort to stop the representative from observing the day’s hangings, including the execution of Shukair Farid, a murderous former police officer whom the government had nicknamed “the butcher of Mosul.”

On another execution day, word leaked out and insurgents pelted the prison facility with mortar shells. The Iraqi subcontractors who built the new gallows, under the auspices of an American contractor, were forced to interrupt work several times because of threats by insurgents, officials said.

The current hanging procedures are an improvement over the methods used by Mr. Hussein, who conducted mass executions in a hangarlike building at Abu Ghraib prison. According to human rights groups, hundreds of prisoners were executed in a span of a few weeks in the 1990s to address prison overcrowding.

Mr. Hussein himself asked the court to execute him by firing squad, the method used for soldiers sentenced to death. He said it was his right because he was commander in chief of Iraq’s armed forces at the time of the events in Dujail. His request was denied.

The protocols for his hanging have not yet been determined, including who will get to attend, Maliki administration officials said. In a standard Iraqi hanging, the attendance is limited to representatives from the Justice Ministry, the Interior Ministry and the prime minister’s office, and a doctor. Mr. Shibli, the justice minister, said the convict’s lawyer was allowed to attend, as well as a member of the clergy of the victim’s choice, though in practice they rarely do.

The usual videographer and photographer will probably be on hand, as well, to record the hanging, officials said, and excerpts of the event may be shown later on national television. Mr. Ridha says the Iraqi people will want to see it.


Abdul Razzaq al-Saeidi contributed reporting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/09/w...00&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

 

[Gunny]

We have been defeated in Iraq, and our defeat will have consequences which are now unpredictable in detail, but which will be very grave.

One of the smaller bad consequences will be -- has already been -- the strengthening of the anti-American Left, both in America and abroad. They will naturally experience a surge of confidence, matched by a parallel demoralization of the conservative forces. The recent Democratic victory was only a foretaste of what to expect.

Before the invasion of Iraq, conservatives looked like becoming the natural majority in American politics. All that is gone now. We have a long fight before us, and will probably be in a minority in the Congress for many years.

What we must do now is to consider how to make an orderly retreat, and to minimize our losses. For one thing, we must try to take care of our friends in Iraq, and not leave them to the tender mercies of the jihadis (who will, of course, be enormously strengthened by our defeat, both in getting a huge boost in prestige and morale, and in gaining new territories, at the heart of the Middle East, from which to operate freely).

It also seems to me to that Israel faces a very bleak future. We should begin working towards granting automatic American citizenship, on a humanitarian basis, to any Jewish citizen of Israel who wants to get out before the Second Holocaust.

In any serious struggle both sides must expect victories and defeats. Grown-ups know that real life is not like a Hollywood movie. We have to be able to absorb defeats, and think rationally about how to turn the tide in the future. We survived Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Kasserine Pass, and went on to win.

We have to study what went wrong in Iraq, and learn from our mistakes. We still have a strong economy and an enormously powerful military, and the American people, although disillusioned with conservatives in respect of Iraq, are not yet -- will never be -- enthusiastic liberals.

Defeatist loser.

 

[trobinett]

Defeatist loser.

I second that GunnyL.

Not only do I second your feelings, but I'm sickened by how these losers craw out from under their slimy rocks,spout their vile lies, then slide back under the rock, so as to miss the scorn, and disagreement, their venomous, vile, and totally untrue statements begets.

 

[red states rule]

Marine to Matthews: Surge This!
Posted by Mark Finkelstein on December 19, 2006 - 17:49.
On this afternoon's Hardball, the old lawyer's adage rose up and bit Chris Matthews hard: never ask a witness a question to which you don't know the answer. Matthews's guest was retired Marine Corps Major General Arnold Punaro, Chairman of the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves. Matthews's substance and tone left no doubt that he wanted his questions as to the availability of sufficient troops to pacify Baghdad, and the advisability of using Guard and Reserve troops as part of such a "surge," answered in the negative.

Matthews, archly: "Do we have the troops to dramatically increase our complement of troops in Iraq, sir?"

Punaro: "Absolutely. Between our active military and the number of troops we have in the Guard and Reserve, should the Commander-in-Chief, on the advice of the combatant commanders in the field and with the concurrence of the Congress make the decision that we want to increase the size of the force in Iraq, we certainly have the ability to surge those forces."

Whoops! Matthews tried a tactical retreat, thinking he might achieve his goal by denigrating the abilities of the non-active military: "What about the National Guard people and the Reservists, are they the kind of people it's appropriate to send into house-to-house combat in the middle of that huge city of Baghdad, where they'll be getting shot at every moment and where they'll be killing Arabs. Is that the right place for them?"

Again, the Major General wouldn't sing Matthews's song: "First of all, over 550,000 Guard and Reserve personnel have been mobilized since 9-11. Many of them have served extensive tours in Iraq and Aghanistan. They've been side-by-side with their active components. They've been in the thick of the combat. The Marine Corps and Army ground forces are trained the same as their active duty counterparts. They're every bit as capable of closing with and destroying the enemy as their active counterparts."

Matthews gave it one last try: "And you believe that's an appropriate use of Guardspeople to put them into house-to-house like we're talking about? We're talking about going in and cleaning out Baghdad, something that the Iraqi forces haven't been able to do, that the 17,000 regular Army and Marine forces haven't been able to do. You're saying throw in the National Guard to do it?"

Punaro: "Well the question you first asked was are they capable of carrying out those kind of missions, and the answer is 'yes'."

Surge that, Chris.

http://newsbusters.org/node/9753