Libs really astound me sometimes

[Annie]

"The Iraqi People" is a bit silly - Iraq, like many nations, only exists because its borders were drawn up by Britain and the US and France


I'm beginning to think we intentionally draw the borders so there are feuding groups within the same nation. THis way everyone fights each other. Just look at Africa. The borders are drawn so that most nations have feuding groups within them.



The funny thing is - the very same reasoning used by righties to justify Reagan doing nothing while HUssein 200000 people can be used to justify not doing anything to stop him in 2003.

Hussein was an enemy of Iran. Iran was a bigger threat. THerefore, its OK to support Hussein.

Hussein was an enemy of Bin Laden and fundamentalist Islam. Bin Laden and fundamentalist Islam was a bigger threat. THerefore, its OK to support Hussein.

The borders of the Middle East and Africa for starters, were drawn by the Europeans, not by the indigenous people nor the US.

 

[Psychoblues]

Did I call you a Liar? As always, you try to entertain but you lack fact.

Psychoblues

Hey Psycho this is from the 4th post in this thread, so yes you most certianly made that statement;





Now why are you calling me a liar?

And the statement is still absurd!

 

[MtnBiker]

Did I call you a Liar? As always, you try to entertain but you lack fact.

Psychoblues

Yes you did call me a liar, this is the 8th post from this thread.

I never made such a statement, MtnBiker. You extrapolate as you please, but leave me out of your lies. You might think me absurd? I'll be polite and not tell you what I think of you.

Psychoblues

First you claim to have never made a statement that I questioned you on then question calling me a liar when when you already had.

Do not call me a liar again!

 

[Mariner]

everyone expected the troops to leave eventually. The issue in early December was Bush's double-talk: while he was saying we wouldn't be reducing troops now, because it would embolden the enemy, the Pentagon was simultaneously leaking the informaton that we would be reducing troops very soon. This ploy was likely intended to reassure the faithful that Bush was still staying the course, while helping the unfaithful feel that he did finally see the reality that keeping too many troops for too long risks feeding the insurgency. The conservative-minded Cato institute pointed this out in 2004, and many on-the-ground military folk have endorsed the notion also, which is what led to Murtha's moment.

Personally, I think Murtha was way off base, but by making his statements, he opened up the political discussion, and that's good. Now everyone is talking about eventual troop withdrawals; before, no one was.

Avatar, you wrote:

"You know its amazing. We go into Iraq. Liberate them from Saddam. Help train their troops. Help them reach the point where they have established their own constitution and have elected a new government. Which of course have been our goal from the beginning."

... and we killed 30,000 of them, and maimed tens of thousands more, which doesn't always lead to a good feeling towards one's "liberators."

You also wrote:

"Despite all that, we lost in Iraq, it was a horrible debacle and we are running now? How on earth can Libs look at this incredible victory and pretend as though we lost?!"

I don't think we've failed in Iraq. But I think we stand a decent chance of failing. The idea that we liberated them is an oversimplification. More accurately, we liberated Shi'ites and Kurds from a dictatorial secular state run by Sunnis. This dictator used to be our friend (Dick Cheney made Halliburton fat on contracts with Saddam; both he and Donald Rumsfeld once shook his hand. Most of Saddam's crimes were committed on Ronald Reagan's watch--Reagan supported Hussein against Iran. Cheney was doing business in Iraq through 1996.) So was Saddam a bad guy or our former ally whom we decided to turn against, for our own political purposes?

Sunnis did not generally see this as a liberation. They saw it as a loss of power. Hence the insurgency, and the calls for Saddam Hussein's return. Whether we lose in Iraq remains to be seen. Personally, I think the Kurds will revolt against a stable Iraq, and seek to make a new state, Kurdistan. They have no reason to go along with us--we abandoned them after encouraging them to rebel in the 1980's. Saddam gassed over 100,000 of them while Reagan stood by. Why should they cooperate with our plans for Iraq?

Who installed Sunnis in power in the first place, anyway? The West--Great Britain. I can imagine that Iraqis of all types are tired of outside interference.

It's hard for me to think of Iraq as an "incredible victory" at this point. Let's imagine there is no civil war, we leave peacefully, and Iraq becomes a democracy. Well, most Muslims are similar to evangelical Christians in their desire for a religiously-dominated government. So, the leaders they are most likely to elect in their brand-new democracy would be Islamists, who may well choose old-fashioned Islamic ideas such as not educating women, requiring them to be covered, not permitting them to drive, etc. Would an Islamist Iraq be a victory for us? Would it be worth deposing Saddam Hussein for? Or would it mean that we just have two Iran's next to each other? We hardly need another Iran, but we may have made one, via Bush's attempt at nation-building. Would you call that an "incredible victory" or a giant waste of money, lives, and credibility? I'd call it the latter.

Mariner.

 

[Gunny]

Yes you did call me a liar, this is the 8th post from this thread.


First you claim to have never made a statement that I questioned you on then question calling me a liar when when you already had.

Do not call me a liar again!

That had to hurt. Poor psychoblah .... :crutch:

 

[LuvRPgrl]

Personally, I think Murtha was way off base, but by making his statements, he opened up the political discussion, and that's good. Now everyone is talking about eventual troop withdrawals; before, no one was.


... and we killed 30,000 of them, and maimed tens of thousands more, which doesn't always lead to a good feeling towards one's "liberators."


I don't think we've failed in Iraq. But I think we stand a decent chance of failing. .

Baloney. There was plenty of discussion on the eventual troop withdrawl. All Murtha did was make your last "thought" more plausable. But even still it wont happen.

Your middle statement above is like saying, yea, food tastes good,,,so what?????

 

[Mariner]

concerning troop withdrawal, and you'll see a marked uptick after Murtha's statement. I'm hardly the first person to note that it seemed to change the mood of the country in regard to a protracted occupation. Bush's own language changed. Instead of "stay the course, stay the course, stay the course," he finally began hinting about withdrawals. Now, it's taken for granted that there's a downside to our occupation. This was not even a subject on the Republican table previously, despite the Cato Institute's report the year before. Calling my statement "baloney" doesn't make it false. Show me a poll showing there was no change in public perception or Republican thinking at that time, and your baloney will have some meat in it.

Mariner.

 

[dilloduck]

concerning troop withdrawal, and you'll see a marked uptick after Murtha's statement. I'm hardly the first person to note that it seemed to change the mood of the country in regard to a protracted occupation. Bush's own language changed. Instead of "stay the course, stay the course, stay the course," he finally began hinting about withdrawals. Now, it's taken for granted that there's a downside to our occupation. This was not even a subject on the Republican table previously, despite the Cato Institute's report the year before. Calling my statement "baloney" doesn't make it false. Show me a poll showing there was no change in public perception or Republican thinking at that time, and your baloney will have some meat in it.

Mariner.

Whatever makes you think that eventual withdrawal wasn't part of "the course" ?

 

[manu1959]

so let me see if i have this right:

iraq violates the terms of its truce

they are invaded

they are overrun in weeks

sympathetic neghboring countries send supplies and mercenaries to support the bathists

the iraqi people and the allies press on

elections are held

constitions are written

elections are held

iraqi troop and police strength increase

the allies reduce troops and turn over the country to the new government

yep total failure

 

[theHawk]

All of these liberals just want people to believe that our withdrawing the troops is TheRight giving into pressure from TheLeft and/or a result of our troops 'losing' the war. All so they can say "we we're right!" and maintain their intellectual superiority over the stupid NeoCons. That is far more important for liberals than freedom for any brown skinned Iraqi or for any conservative white boys fighting for that freedom.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

concerning troop withdrawal, and you'll see a marked uptick after Murtha's statement. I'm hardly the first person to note that it seemed to change the mood of the country in regard to a protracted occupation. Bush's own language changed. Instead of "stay the course, stay the course, stay the course," he finally began hinting about withdrawals. Now, it's taken for granted that there's a downside to our occupation. This was not even a subject on the Republican table previously, despite the Cato Institute's report the year before. Calling my statement "baloney" doesn't make it false. Show me a poll showing there was no change in public perception or Republican thinking at that time, and your baloney will have some meat in it.

Mariner.

Polls are bullsh&t. Liberal activists sit around all day repeatedly taking them, skewing the numbers. "DU this poll" is a the battle cry over at your playpen, democraticunderground.com

 

[LuvRPgrl]

concerning troop withdrawal, and you'll see a marked uptick after Murtha's statement. I'm hardly the first person to note that it seemed to change the mood of the country in regard to a protracted occupation. Bush's own language changed. Instead of "stay the course, stay the course, stay the course," he finally began hinting about withdrawals. Now, it's taken for granted that there's a downside to our occupation. This was not even a subject on the Republican table previously, despite the Cato Institute's report the year before. Calling my statement "baloney" doesn't make it false. Show me a poll showing there was no change in public perception or Republican thinking at that time, and your baloney will have some meat in it.

Mariner.

I still call it baloney. Re read your post. It says murthas statement "OPENED" up dialogue. Now you say it "increased" dialouge. They are not one and the same. Dialogue was already open on the topic.

 

[Mariner]

Mariner.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

Mariner.

No. You're just plain wrong. http://www.rif.org check it out.

 

[LuvRPgrl]

Mariner.

baloney again. Murthas statement were only hurtful. He was grandstanding for his own benefit. NOw he says people shouldnt enlist in the armed services. Too bad there werent any Murthas around when he enlisted.

hahhah RWA, just checked your link.

 

[Gunny]

All of these liberals just want people to believe that our withdrawing the troops is TheRight giving into pressure from TheLeft and/or a result of our troops 'losing' the war. All so they can say "we we're right!" and maintain their intellectual superiority over the stupid NeoCons. That is far more important for liberals than freedom for any brown skinned Iraqi or for any conservative white boys fighting for that freedom.

I totally agree. A loss justifies all the whining from the left. A win effectively pulls what few teeth they have left.

 

[Mariner]

paragraph that captures the change of tone at the time we're talking about:

"Read between the lines, said Fred Kaplan in Slate.com. In “a mind bog of sheer cynicism,” Bush is laying the groundwork to start withdrawing U.S. troops in time for the 2006 congressional elections. Just a few weeks ago, the president and his chief bomb-thrower, Vice President Dick Cheney, were depicting advocates of withdrawal as cowards and possibly even traitors. But the American public is thoroughly weary of this war, and the administration is now signaling that victory is just a few trained Iraqi battalions away. Earlier this week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that the current deployment of 160,000 troops wouldn’t be needed “that much longer.” Funny: Just a few months ago, military experts said that just one of the Iraqi battalions was combat-ready. Bush, though, wants to frame the pullout on his terms, knowing full well that “nobody in Congress is going to call for a halt, much less a reversal, of the withdrawal.” "

(From The Week, a politically neutral weekly news digest,
http://www.theweekmagazine.com/article.aspx?id=1236)

Mariner

 

[rtwngAvngr]

paragraph that captures the change of tone at the time we're talking about:

"Read between the lines, said Fred Kaplan in Slate.com. In “a mind bog of sheer cynicism,” Bush is laying the groundwork to start withdrawing U.S. troops in time for the 2006 congressional elections. Just a few weeks ago, the president and his chief bomb-thrower, Vice President Dick Cheney, were depicting advocates of withdrawal as cowards and possibly even traitors. But the American public is thoroughly weary of this war, and the administration is now signaling that victory is just a few trained Iraqi battalions away. Earlier this week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that the current deployment of 160,000 troops wouldn’t be needed “that much longer.” Funny: Just a few months ago, military experts said that just one of the Iraqi battalions was combat-ready. Bush, though, wants to frame the pullout on his terms, knowing full well that “nobody in Congress is going to call for a halt, much less a reversal, of the withdrawal.” "

(From The Week, a politically neutral weekly news digest,
http://www.theweekmagazine.com/article.aspx?id=1236)

Mariner

Maybe conditions REALLY are changing on the ground and these are based on those changes, just as Bush said.

 

[Nightwish]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051223/ap_on_re_mi_ea/rumsfeld

Looks like President Bush has decided we can cut the troops levels down after the successful Iraqi elections. This of course was the plan the entire time. Which is why Murtha and them tried to start demanding that we were failing and that we should cut and run. That way when we started cutting troop levels after the election they could claim we are losing.

That's largely conjecture. Bear in mind that the key word is "successful" Iraqi elections. Whether or not those elections were successful depends on what ultimately comes of them, and how one defines "success." If success means that the Iraqis were able to cast their votes and get away from the polls with their skins mostly intact, then yes, they were successful. If however, an election resulting in a Democratic and Secular Iraqi state is what defines success (as many hope for), then we're a long way from determing whether those elections were successful. I daresay, with the Shiites in control, there is a very good chance that the resultant government will become a totalitarian theocracy, similar to what they have in Iran, which is about as opposite a Democracy as you could hope for.

You know its amazing. We go into Iraq. Liberate them from Saddam. Help train their troops. Help them reach the point where they have established their own constitution and have elected a new government. Which of course have been our goal from the beginning.

That's an extremely understated version of the goals. Have you read the "plan for victory" that the Bush administration released a few weeks ago? The goal, so to speak, is considerably more complicated than you've indicated, and I fear it is not terribly realistic. If they truly hoped for a Democratic Iraq, with "freedom on the march" (as we define freedom), to result from an election which put the extremely radical and historically oppressive Shiite Islamic Revolution in power, then they could only have arrived at such a hope by completely ignoring the history of the Middle East.

Despite all that, we lost in Iraq, it was a horrible debacle and we are running now? How on earth can Libs look at this incredible victory and pretend as though we lost?!

We've neither won nor lost in Iraq as of yet. And it's not going to be an easy thing to determine. There are certainly a fair share of left-wing nutjobs (LWNJ's) crying that the war is already lost, but there are an equal number of right-wing nutjobs (RWNJ's) shouting as fervently that we've already won. They may be on opposite sides of the line, but they're equally nutty.