When did you last see a Bush partisan try to claim Iraq is a success?
- Thread starter Bernie Gunther
- Start date
Barking_Mad
Non sibi sed omnibus
Course he will, he's in continual denial. Its a trait of the right that they refuse to see what's as plain as the stupid nose on their stupid faces.
Barking_Mad
Non sibi sed omnibus
pbman said:
The only reason 'Stalingrad' didnt happen was because the people now fighting the US chose not to make it so - instead they let the US take it and then 'swam like fishes in the sea'. I'll give you some of use were wrong on that it would happen straight away, but given the fact many of us were right in all of our other projections, its not a claim you should be proud of.
Barking_Mad
Non sibi sed omnibus
pbman said:
Ahh listen to the pseudo Christians compassion toward the tens of thousands of dead Iraqis, the ones he claimed he felt sorry for, the ones who he wanted to go save from the evil Saddam. Their lives are reduced to nothing more than a nine word, badly spelt sentence.
pbman said:
So fucking what? Does Christianity value human life so little, or is this just your washed up post alcoholic version of it?
Barking_Mad said:You can forgive PB his stupidity, but there is simply no excuse for his ignorance and lack of will to actually READ what's going on in Iraq. The information is there, yet his brain is too busy downloading from Pentagon message control - not wanting to see what's plainly in front of his stupid neo-con eyeballs.
I think many politicians in both the UK and US realise that Iraq is lost. For a long while they may have tried to kid themselves that it was going to be alright, but the time has come where they cannot deny the obvious any longer, or at least the majority can't. Iraq is lost in terms of what the US wanted to do politically and militarily.
Basra has turned to Sharia Law, with many shops selling alcohol closing down or being burnt down. Barbers across Iraq are attacked and killed for shaving men's beards and the new Iraqi constitution looks like it will only subscribe to human rights as long as they fit into the beliefs of Sharia Law. Iraq is cosying up nicely to the US's 'axis of evil' Iran (I doubt that was part of the plan), with many Iraqi troops being trained in Iran itself. The Kurds will continue to push for autonomy and control over northern oil fields made more likely the longer the insurgency goes on. In addition Turkey is getting increasingly concerned about Kurdish rebel groups and threatening to take matters into their own hands unless the US sorts it out themselves.
Baghdad's main mortuary alone is receiving 850 dead bodies per month with the mortician saying they cannot cope. Other reports which didnt make major headlines show that the Iraqi government says at least 8,000 Iraqis have died in the last 6 months alone and a Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies suggests 40,000 Iraqis have died since the invasion. This report came out days before the Iraq Body Count one, but unsurprisingly went 'missing' in the 'liberal media'.
Doctors are being shot and killed, many others are leaving the country in their droves. The hospital system is woefully short of drugs and equipment and academics are being targeted in the same fashion with many being killed, presumably for teaching subjects not condusive to Sharia law. Iraq's roads are unsafe to travel on fuel might be rationed for the winter, the airports are dangerous to fly in and out of, Iraqis are getting less than 4 hours electricity a day, which in 120F+ heat makes life pretty unbearable to say the least. Reconstruction is virtually non-existent due tothe lack of security and some $766m of money has been spent on security alone.
And that's before you've even talked about the under reported civil war going on between Sunni and Shia groups, or the lack of any true Sunni representation in the Government with one Sunni politicians being fired recently whilst claiming it was for speaking out about the killing of Sunni's.
Lastly its been shown that 30% of US soldiers are returning from Iraq with mental health problems and the wars in Afghanistan have cost us tax payers some (wait for it) $700bn[/URL]
Back home it seems the US public believes it is lost too, with only 43% believing the US will win in Iraq. It's here where the war will be lost first. If anyone was in any doubt that the US was not prepared for what happened after the initial invasion then a recent report sets that straight.
Still, at least PB thinks its going ok.
edit - fixed links and added a couple more
So the UN sanctions regime before the war was better?
"Combined with the reduced accessibility to nutritious food stuff by most Iraqis, the lack of good sanitary conditions have led to sudden rise in health problems, particularly among children and the elderly. “The increase in mortality reported in public hospitals for children under five years of age (an excess of some 40,000 deaths yearly compared with 1989) is mainly due to diarrhea, pneumonia and malnutrition. In those over five years of age, the increase (an excess of some 50,000 deaths yearly compared with 1989) is associated with heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, cancer, liver or kidney diseases. With the substantial increase in mortality, under-registration of deaths is a growing problem.”
http://lsinsight.org/articles/2001/UNSanctions.htm
You supported the staus quo in Iraq right? This was the results of the status quo. You people act like Iraq was a paradise before the invasion. How quickly we forget the deaths that UN sanctions caused.
I know, you were not for the UN sanctions either, you were againt the support Europe and America gave to Saddam prior to Gulf War I as well. Against it all!
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
Dandred said:After the Americans leave Iraq with their tails between their legs, like they did in Vietman, will pbman still be saying "things where fine when we left"?
The US culture industry will produce some revisionist film to claim that "we never lost and what we did, we did for democracy".
Barking_Mad
Non sibi sed omnibus
mears said:
If I've had this conversation with you once I must have had it 10 times, and each time I explain my position only for you to conveniently forget what I said until the next time the subject pops up where you go on to repeat the same accusations. So, once again........
I was against sanctions (which were illegally enforced by the US and UK) as they only served to make Iraqis more reliant on Saddam Hussein, not less so. I supported the removal of them because for as long as the Iraqis only concern was feeding themselves and trying to fix a collapsing infrastructure they were not in any position to do anything about their system of government. To say I supported the staus quo is therefore flat out wrong. There is also a vast difference between supporting the Iraqi people and supporting Saddam Hussein, it is possible to do one, without condoning the other.
Secondly your little post does it's usual trick of derailing the thread, as you so often do because you're too stupid to look at al the facts in the cold light of day and make a rational sensible decision. If you were you wouldn't have backed this war and like a sponge soaked up all the crap you were told by your beloved leader.
You stupidly thought that invading Iraq couldnt make the situation and worse than it already was - and beyond any shadow of a doubt, no matter how you try and twist it, it has. You chose to ignore the few points I picked out about Iraq and instead post up a quote about the situation before the invasion. Dont get me wrong, what you put is quite true, but your reasoning and deduction fails to consider that many of the problems you stated, exist now as they did before - in some cases they are worse. Child mortality has increased (again) since the invasion. Cancer rates have gone through the roof, medicines and services in hospitals are stretched beyond belief due to the number of dead and injured coming in each day. How do you expect they can put right the already shitty situation they find themselves in whilst each doctor has to amputate legs, treat burns and gunshot wounds as well as dealing withy all the day to day problems that any hospital has to face?
Iraq was no paradise, but you only have to listen to the Iraqi people to know that the situation has worsened since the invasion. Perhaps this is where you fall down because to familiarise yourself with the facts of the situation in Iraq means a complete re-evaluation of everything you thought to be true.............
Barking_Mad said:
End all sanctions? go back to the good old days when countries helped Saddam arm and unleash wars in Iran and Kuwait. Or is it more like the oil for food program, that was a success as well.
Is the situation really worse? I think its hard to quantify. Has it gone worse that the Bush administration predicted? I think the unfortunate answer is yes. The CIA and Pentagon didn't understand the nature of the battle that would be waged post invasion. If both parties predicted Islamist and (possible Sunni) suicide bombers would attack at markets and Mosques to provoke civil war with Shia Iraqis maybe Saddam would still be in power. But ultimately it was George W. Bush's call, and history will judge his presidency on that decision.
US deaths, though all are terrible in my opinion, are low compared to other US wars in the last 50 years like Korea and Vietnam. But this is a different war and I believe American troops will start to trickle out in 2006, otherwise Republicans might be trounced in future elections. Hopefully the Iraqis will build a semblance of security. I think it depends on getting the majority of Sunnis to cooperate in a new government and turn on foreign insurgents.
Barking_Mad
Non sibi sed omnibus
mears said:
It's entirely possiblt to support the Iraqi people through solidarity and allowing to live them to live their lives with some semblance of decency, without selling arms to Saddam Hussein. Since you are so keen on going back in history to support your argument, you shouldnt support the US by installing and supporting dictators by dubious means. The idea that you must not support a state because of its leader whilst forgoing the needs of its poeple is abhorent to me. The state is the people and any action against the state is action against the people. Did you support the UN sanctions? I wager you probably did.
It's not hard to quantify Mears, you just choose to ignore or muddy the relevant facts. Take Iraqi women as one example. Now make no mistake Saddam Hussein's treatment of women was poor by western standards, however they did have certain rights and protections which do not exist in Iraq today. There was no selling of women under Saddam into prostitution, but now women are being traded into slavery and prostitution. They were free not to cover up and to wear make-up, where as now they are facing the prospect of being shot if they do so - especially in the south of the country.
You dont have to defend Saddam Hussein to make the objective assessment that life is worse now for women in Iraq than it was before. Ultimately all Iraqis lack security as they cant walk the streets and they dare not send their children to school. They had a reasonable supply of electricity - in Baghdad they are now down to just 4 hours a day! I dont need to quantify that in any way to realise that its worse.
Iraq will either dissolve into a bloody uncontrollable mess or it will be beaten, literally, into an Islamic theocracy allied to Mr Bush's axis of evil, Iran. Alternatively it might do the first, then the latter.
Barking_Mad said:
A course we value human life, it was saddam and the european left that was happy to leave the poor people in iraq, in bondage.
Now they have a good fighting chance for freedom.
Freedom isn't easy or cheap but most people belive the struggle is worth it.
And now with the bathist gone, its not possible for them to take control agian, what is broken can't be remade.
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
What the Iraqi people think is certainly significant. Here's some fairly recent research into that very topic.
What do the Iraqis want?
What do the Iraqis want?
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
Andy the Don
Wise men say only fools..
pbman said:
For gods sake man even the pentagon have said that the a majority of the Iraq forces currently being trained are not up to the job. Bush's plan appears to be get out before the mid-terms, leaving the Iraqis to die for US interests. The UK force's have allowed the south to become Iran Mk II. Anything for a quiet life. Yes there is not the terrorist activity in the south, but at what price, a shia theoretic statelet. The architects of the Iraq invasion (Bolton & Wolfowitz) have been promoted sideways & out of the way. What did Wolfowitz say..?? that US troops would be welcome with palms. Welcome with IEDs more like. You have national guard units being decimated & taking very heavy casualties & the commander in chief goes on holiday. It s a fucking disaster & that is the candid view of UK & US forces personnel.
Andy the Don
Wise men say only fools..
patjoseph said:
Er no, people like you remind me of when De Gaulle told to the Americans to remove their troops from French soil, to which the Americans replied, even those burried under French soil.
Combustible
Well-Known Member
Whilst I don't think all Vietnam comparisons are valid this new focus of transferring control to Iraqis smacks of Vietnamisation. And no matter how many guns were given to the ARVN, it hardly did them much good did it. But no doubt this would allow them to absolve themselves of the blame if Iraq does get over run by insurgents.
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
There are some very useful papers at CSIS . For example Iraq's evolving insurgency (pdf)
These people should not be allowed to play around with human lives so irresponsibly. Letting them run around blowing shit up with the US military is like giving a tribe of purple-arsed mandrills a big pile of guns to play with and then letting them loose in a crowded public place. Stupidity we can't afford.
In other words, they made a total cock of it by believing their own propaganda instead of the evidence and not planning for anything other than their wishes coming true. That's just incompetence and much of their feeble efforts since then have been driven by US domestic considerations, such as looking and sounding tough. That's just more incompetence.
These people should not be allowed to play around with human lives so irresponsibly. Letting them run around blowing shit up with the US military is like giving a tribe of purple-arsed mandrills a big pile of guns to play with and then letting them loose in a crowded public place. Stupidity we can't afford.
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
pbman said:
Irrelevant.
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
pbman said:
You're doing that well enough by yourself.
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
Not listening to any evidence and only believing what you want to believe, is all very well for propaganda purposes perhaps, but when military leaders do that kind of stuff it's called "hopeless incompetence"
Well wretchard has been keeping his pecker up pretty consistently. Trying to find a hawk with better credentials I actually went over to Victor Davis Hanson and that pre-election January article is the last he's written on Iraq. Hanson's a right wing nut but he's also a serious and well respected historian of the Vietnam war (he eccentrically views it as a US victory) I find this surprising.
The right leaning Washington Institute presents a bleak view:
Iraq looks like a albatross round the GOP's neck at the moment. Even for Yank Iraq war advocates the long chain of strategic errors from DC has dented confidence in the administrations ability. The occupation is seen through the lense of Vietnam not just by boomer liberals but also by many on the Yank right and that's an essentially a weak defeatist view that's leading to a policy of pre-emptive retreat from a messy neo-colonial skirmish.
The plainly idiotic last throes view of the rebellion isn't helping. LBJ's and Westmorland's hollow promises that victory was just arround the corner destroyed the American's publics confidence in their ability to win. Throw into the mix Dubya's record of dogged loyalty too incompetents like Bremer and Rummie and the issue looks like slow political posion.
Bill Kristol has been gunning for Rummie for some time.
Americans are very patriotic and while slow to question DC they can't be decieved into accepting failure as triumph indefinately. Foreign Affairs suggesting the US public overwhelmingly wishes DC would favor diplomacy over war. This is not a silly people they need to start finding ways of getting the politicians they deserve instead of the C-team they've got at the moment.
The right leaning Washington Institute presents a bleak view:
Iraq looks like a albatross round the GOP's neck at the moment. Even for Yank Iraq war advocates the long chain of strategic errors from DC has dented confidence in the administrations ability. The occupation is seen through the lense of Vietnam not just by boomer liberals but also by many on the Yank right and that's an essentially a weak defeatist view that's leading to a policy of pre-emptive retreat from a messy neo-colonial skirmish.
The plainly idiotic last throes view of the rebellion isn't helping. LBJ's and Westmorland's hollow promises that victory was just arround the corner destroyed the American's publics confidence in their ability to win. Throw into the mix Dubya's record of dogged loyalty too incompetents like Bremer and Rummie and the issue looks like slow political posion.
Bill Kristol has been gunning for Rummie for some time.
If Dubya rather than bullshitting vaguely about staying the course was being the least bit honest with the public about the stuation in Iraq, leveling with them that the price of failure is catestrophically higher than in Vietnam and that sacrifices are required probably beyond the next presidency in order to avoid disaster I'd say even Kristol is starting to get real.
Americans are very patriotic and while slow to question DC they can't be decieved into accepting failure as triumph indefinately. Foreign Affairs suggesting the US public overwhelmingly wishes DC would favor diplomacy over war. This is not a silly people they need to start finding ways of getting the politicians they deserve instead of the C-team they've got at the moment.
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
Just a quick straw poll here.
Does anyone besides poor deluded pbman think what the stupid neo-cons have created in Iraq is anything other than a pitiful bloody shambles?
Or that the neo-cons have shown any trace of competence there?
Or that any of this can be shown to have been in our interests?
Does anyone besides poor deluded pbman think what the stupid neo-cons have created in Iraq is anything other than a pitiful bloody shambles?
Or that the neo-cons have shown any trace of competence there?
Or that any of this can be shown to have been in our interests?
Oww You people never think big enough.
The obvious wishful thinking of more violence and the intranchent
Hatred of the United States makes your arguments not credible.
You see what you Want to see.
you have obviously been tought to think the way you do because like a parrot you are repeating what has been thought up for you, and choose to ignor a large number of facts because those facts do not support the political opinions you have been instructed to have.
The immutable truth is that Iraq IS better than it was before.
The backward slide the Muslims have been forcing on everyone is being resisted.
Iraq will eventually be something different from what it was and hopefully that will be better.
this is progress.
all the bitching and moaning will not change that.
Saddam is gone.
we are going to give Iraq a good start but it's Their country.
like vietnam they may rollover and give up.
I hope not, Reguardless Iraq will not be as it was before
the entire region will not be like it was before.
This whole issue is rather small and does not warrent such high emotion.
Oh and
Happy Hiroshima DAY !!!!!
The obvious wishful thinking of more violence and the intranchent
Hatred of the United States makes your arguments not credible.
You see what you Want to see.
you have obviously been tought to think the way you do because like a parrot you are repeating what has been thought up for you, and choose to ignor a large number of facts because those facts do not support the political opinions you have been instructed to have.
The immutable truth is that Iraq IS better than it was before.
The backward slide the Muslims have been forcing on everyone is being resisted.
Iraq will eventually be something different from what it was and hopefully that will be better.
this is progress.
all the bitching and moaning will not change that.
Saddam is gone.
we are going to give Iraq a good start but it's Their country.
like vietnam they may rollover and give up.
I hope not, Reguardless Iraq will not be as it was before
the entire region will not be like it was before.
This whole issue is rather small and does not warrent such high emotion.
Oh and
Happy Hiroshima DAY !!!!!
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