The Iraqis want us out

[itgoesboom]

As far as I remember, the rules are usually made by the conquerers not those who have been conquered.

We will leave when we are good and ready to leave, and when we feel that Iraq won't go back to what it was.

I.G.B.

 

[jefnvk]

The day I started hearing from people in country is the day I stopped caring about what the media said.

 

[wingnutx]

If you read the details of this summit, the Sunni representatives called for a timetable for withdrawal, and the Shiite representatives called for one based on milestones in Iraqi readiness, not arbitrary dates.

Since this is a reconciliation summit and not a policy decision, they allow a lot of Sunni statements to stand that they would not tolerate in another situation, like the "Sunni right of resistance".

It all means very little unless the Sunnis can somehow elect a majority to Iraq's parliment in December, which ain't gonna happen.

BTW, it's not even Sunnis in general that are represented, it is Sunnis who are part of the old ruling tribal structure. I worked with a lot of Sunnis who were on the short end of the stick under Saddamjust like the Shiites were.

This is spinning a mountain out of a molehill.

 

[Borachon]

We are there because Iraq harbored and enabled terrorists and was the easiest place for America to at least try and get a democratic foothold in the Middle East

Easiest?

I'd have said Saudi was easiest. They have a lot of desention in their population already, and unlike Iraq before the war, the Saudis don't let women drive, they adhere to a strict Islamic code (which Iraq did not), and they have religous police to enforce all things Muslim (which Iraq did not). The royal family controls ALL aspects of political life in Saudi and stifles the population. In addition, the Saudi govt exports the idea of Wahabism...a VERY radical Islamic system...to countries around the world via mosques. We have many here in the US. Unlike Iraq...which built no mosques here and was not trying to further a radical Islamic idea.

Sounds to me like it would have been better for us to wipe Saudi off the map. After all...15 of the guys who came here and blew up the Towers were from.........that's right......Saudi! And of course we know the rest of the hijackers (all 4 of them) were secretly iraqis though. Right? I mean....right?

 

[Borachon]

From reports I've read, 90% of resistance forces are Iraqi.

Of course they are. You'll never find as many people who will fight for a country as those who live there. They fought like hell against the Iranians when they came, and they'll fight us as long as we stay.

If Russia invades here, I would hope I'd have the courage to do the same thing.

You guys gotta get over this whole idea that everybody in the world has to LOVE US because they realize "those are Americans and they always do the right thing". They don't believe that, and we shouldn't try to make 'em believe that. Ain't never gonna happen.

I personally don't think we should be there. I'd rather we invaded Afghanistan...or Syria...or maybe even Saudi. I don't think Iraq did squat to us.

 

[itgoesboom]

Easiest?

I'd have said Saudi was easiest
Sounds to me like it would have been better for us to wipe Saudi off the map. After all...15 of the guys who came here and blew up the Towers were from.........that's right......Saudi! And of course we know the rest of the hijackers (all 4 of them) were secretly iraqis though. Right? I mean....right?

It's not just about 9-11. War critics always seem to forget that. It is a war against terrorism, and terrorism started well before 9-11-2001.

Remember Saddam was paying the families of martyrs tons of money, which encouraged bombings. Saddam also had terror training camps within his country, and had sponsored the training of Islamic terrorists. Not to mention he was firing at US military planes enforcing the no-fly zone on an almost weekly basis.

Here is a list of Terrorist groups that Saddam allowed and sheltered within Iraq: Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), Palestine Liberation Front (PLF), Abu Nidal organization (ANO).

And he tried to have a United States President assasinated.

I am no fan of Saudi Arabia, but it isn't the Saudi Government that is sponsoring terrorists.

I.G.B.

 

[Biker]

itgoesboom

It may sound cold, but what suicide-bombers are doing to Israel is her problem-not mine. IMO, not a drop of my countryman's blood is worth defending Israel. We give Israel 3 billion a year up front, and a lot more under the table I would guess. That's more than enough, the way I see it. And if you do a bit of research, you'll find that SA also paid the families of suicide-bombers.
Biker

 

[gc70]

We are there because Iraq harbored and enabled terrorists and was the easiest place for America to at least try and get a democratic foothold in the Middle East

I'd have said Saudi was easiest.

For the best prospects of planting representative democracy in the Middle East, a country needs 3 things: (1) a reasonably large middle class; (2) familiarity with secular concepts and institutions; and (3) a decent economic base (i.e. oil). Iraq met all three criteria.

 

[Borachon]

It is a war against terrorism, and terrorism started well before 9-11-2001.

Yeah...it's been going on a long time. About 5,000 years...if you believe the Bible. Jewish zealots use to cut the throats of Roman soldiers who came to the market place to buy goods. Terrorism has indeed been going on a long time.

Remember Saddam was paying the families of martyrs tons of money, which encouraged bombings.

Yeah...but not against the US. He was making war on Israel. Israel is not part of the US.
All through the 1980's...those of you old enough to remember....may recollect how the US supplied tons of equipment and money to fight the Sandanistas in Nicaraqua. That's sponsoring terror in another country. What makes it different? Because it was us doing it? THAT makes it 'not state-sponsored terrorism'? Pretty thin argument, I'm thinking.

but it isn't the Saudi Government that is sponsoring terrorists.

That's about as wrong a statement as I've ever heard. Saudi sponsors terrorism..it just isn't directed against the US. The only reason the US has not gotten in twist about it is 1. oil and 2. the terrorism is directed against Israel. Saudi has been trying to spread Wahabism around the world. Iraq wasn't doing that. The American Tailiban and those guys in France...which mosques do you think these guys were going to? Mosques built with Iraq money? Not quite. Those mosques were built with SAUDI money, and the preachers in them were teaching radical Wahabism Islam...just like the Saudi government wants.

 

[bigun15]

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y295/bigun15/last_week.jpg

 

[javafiend]

It is a war against terrorism, and terrorism started well before 9-11-2001.

Terrorism is a tactic, not a foe.

Remember Saddam was paying the families of martyrs tons of money, which encouraged bombings.

Remember that the US gov pays Israel tons of money, which encourages Israeli repression and occupation.

Here is a list of Terrorist groups that Saddam allowed and sheltered within Iraq: Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), Palestine Liberation Front (PLF), Abu Nidal organization (ANO).

The US gov has sponsored terrorist groups.
To give you just one example, the most extreme act of Mideast international terrorism in the peak year of 1985 is a car-bombing in Beirut on March 8 that killed 80 people and wounded 256. The bomb was placed outside a Mosque, timed to explode when worshippers left. "About 250 girls and women in flowing black chadors, pouring out of Friday prayers at the Imam Rida Mosque, took the brunt of the blast," Nora Boustany reported. The bomb also "burned babies in their beds," killed children "as they walked home from the mosque," and "devastated the main street of the densely populated" West Beirut suburb. The target was a Shi'ite leader accused of complicity in terrorism, but he escaped. The crime was organized by the CIA and its Saudi clients with the assistance of British intelligence. Sources: Boustany, _Washington Post Weekly_, March 14, 1988; Bob Woodward, _Veil_ (Simon & Schuster, 1987, 396f.).

Saddam also had terror training camps within his country,

The US has terror training camps. One of the more notorious is the School of the Americas.

Not to mention he was firing at US military planes enforcing the no-fly zone on an almost weekly basis.

Not to mention that US military planes were violating Iraq's airspace on an almost weekly basis.

And he tried to have a United States President assasinated.

Supposedly.

A Case Not Closed
by Seymour M. Hersh
Issue of 1993-11-01
Posted 2002-09-27

The confrontation between the United States and Iraq has revived interest in a decade-old charge—that Saddam Hussein ordered the assassination of President George H. W. Bush. This alleged plot has been cited in recent days by the current President Bush as one of the U.S.'s grievances against Hussein. In this article, from 1993, Seymour M. Hersh investigates the assassination story.

"The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them." -- George Orwell

 

[Borachon]

(1) a reasonably large middle class; (2) familiarity with secular concepts and institutions; and (3) a decent economic base (i.e. oil). Iraq met all three criteria.

Well, thank goodness we destroyed them then. By ruining the middle class, making radical Islamic fighters key figureheads of power, and wrecking the infrastructure of their economic base...we've almost assured that they will become a democracy now.

So we had a country that wasn't poor....had a middle class....was not a radical hub of Islamic thought....and had a decent economy. So when Saddam passed away in a few years, the country MIGHT have moved toward becoming a democracy on its own? Was that a possibility?

Iraq is going to devolve into 3 warring factions. Some of those factions are going to be violently US. Our soldiers will have killed some family members...killed somebody's dog....destroyed a favorite monument. It's inevitable..those things happen when soldiers are around. The Islamic movement that came out of Afghanistan happened because the Russians invaded. I shudder to think how dedicated the next generation of Iraqi Jihadis is gonna be for the destruction of the US. Cause they will have PERSONAL reasons for hating the US.

We've made terrorism stronger in the Mid East by what we've done so far. Not weaker.

Like the guy in Outlaw Josey Wales said, "Hound him Senator? A man like Wales lives by the feud. Because of what you did here today, I’ve got to kill that man." And we...the US...aren't going to be able to kill them all.

The other line from Outlaw Josey Wales that I think could apply to us...with a few carefully chosen changes.....is this one:

Captain Terrill: "We got ’em now. We’ll get these two first, then we’ll get the others."

Fletcher (startled): "What others? Osama and the kid are the last ones."

Captain Terrill (dismissively): "Nahh. Iraq is full of rebels. Lot’s of work to do down in Iraq."

Fletcher (sternly): "We get Osama and it ends."

Captain Terrill (grimly and with finality): "Doin’ right aint got no end."

 

[R.H. Lee]

We've made terrorism stronger in the Mid East by what we've done so far. Not weaker.

I'm wondering if that isn't true. We've reacted to some sporadic attacks by a few hundred to a few thousand radical Islamists who happened to get real lucky when they took down the WTC on 9/11/2001. We haven't held any of our own intelligence gathering agencies responsible for their abject failures. No heads rolled after 9/11. Instead we got a huge increase in federal bureaucracy and power and a foreign 'war' costing hundreds of billions with no end in sight.

If someone breaks into your house because you left the door unlocked, do you respond by going out and killing criminals, or do you lock the doors and establish better home security?

 

[Borachon]

If someone breaks into your house because you left the door unlocked, do you respond by going out and killing criminals, or do you lock the doors and establish better home security?

Did you mean me, personally?

I'm a bad example. If I knew where the criminals hung out, I actually might go there looking for my stuff back.

I think that the US needed to do both. We had a clear target to vent our rage upon...and we could have sent a clear message to other terrorists by hanging Bin Ladin's head on a pole outside of the White House gate. But we SHOULD have bagged him. He is an absolutely KNOWN threat. Arguing about what Iraq and Saddam did or didn't do....forget all that! We KNOW what Bin Ladin did.

I wouldn't even have a problem with hunting down all of Bin Ladin's family...even the innocent ones....and hanging their heads outside. "See what we do to you....see how your families would suffer?" In the Middle East, that kinda stuff goes a long way...and we'd have ended up killing less than 50 people...not thousands.

Security in the US itself needed some changes...but not the changes that have been made. Border security was the most important. After that, enforcing visa laws. If we'd done those two things by themselves, we'd have increased US security to a good enough point...in my opinion.

 

[itgoesboom]

If someone breaks into your house because you left the door unlocked, do you respond by going out and killing criminals, or do you lock the doors and establish better home security?

That might just be the problem here.

I don't see a problem with countrys going after the "criminals". I advocate a pro-active approach to dealing with the problem.

The problem is others don't feel the same way.

Orcourse legally, I can't just go out and shoot any criminal on the street, but I have no problem with the US going after those who are or who finance or help those who terrorize us or our allies.

BTW, like it or not, Israel is our ally.

I.G.B.

 

[Old Dog]

I just knew Javafiend could work a reference to the School of the Americas into one of his Iraq threads ... Sorry, but it was not a "terrorist training school." It was a school for instructing the military arts and aimed at assisting other countries in developing cadres of professional military officers and NCOs.

Terrorism is a tactic, not a foe.

And if you really believe this, given the current state of world affairs, you know nothing about war and haven't learned anything by all your research. Terrorism, and those who use terrorism, is very much a foe.

The US gov has sponsored terrorist groups.

No, we have not consistently "sponsored" terrorist groups. You cannot prove this by citing one incident of subsequently discredited CIA officers' ill-advised cooperation in an assassination attempt.

Not to mention that US military planes were violating Iraq's airspace on an almost weekly basis.

Actually, we were doing it daily. With the concurrence, support and participation of numerous other coalition forces.

We don't stop the radical Islamist terrorist factions by sitting on our rear ends doing nothing when we represent a way of life their organizations have vowed to fight against to the death. We stop them by going after them where they eat, sleep and train. If you cannot see the logic in this, there's no point in further discussion.

 

[javafiend]

OldDog wrote:

No, we have not consistently "sponsored" terrorist groups. You cannot prove this by citing one incident of subsequently discredited CIA officers' ill-advised cooperation in an assassination attempt.

I can, and I have. There's massive well-researched scholarship on this very point. Even declassified US government documents sometimes refer to their own activities as "terrorist."

OldDog wrote:

I just knew Javafiend could work a reference to the School of the Americas into one of his Iraq threads ... Sorry, but it was not a "terrorist training school." It was a school for instructing the military arts and aimed at assisting other countries in developing cadres of professional military officers and NCOs.

U.S. Instructed Latins on Executions, Torture
Saturday, September 21st 1996
Dana Priest, Washington Post

U.S. Army intelligence manuals used to train Latin American military officers at an Army school from 1982 to 1991 advocated executions, torture, blackmail and other forms of coercion against insurgents, Pentagon documents released yesterday show.
...
Its graduates have included some of the region’s most notorious human rights abusers, among them Roberto D’Aubuisson, the leader of El Salvador’s right-wing death squads; 19 Salvadoran soldiers linked to the 1989 assassination of six Jesuit priests; Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega, the deposed Panamanian strongman; six Peruvian officers linked to killings of students and a professor; and Col. Julio Roberto Alpirez, a Guatemalan officer implicated in the death of an American innkeeper living in Guatemala and to the death of a leftist guerrilla married to an American lawyer.

You can deny the historial record all you want, Old Dog, but the truth is still the truth. The US government has trained, equipped, financed and directed some of the worst terrorists in the world.

See Killing Hope : U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II-Updated Through 2003 by William Blum.

 

[f4t9r]

Who cares what they want? They should shut up and let us finish our mission (?) there - if they won't shut up, they should leave.

We should quit playing games and finish the mission !!!!!
Go in get it done and get those kids home.

 

[Hacker15E]

Who cares what they want? They should shut up and let us finish our mission (?) there - if they won't shut up, they should leave.

YES! Let's FORCE our will on anyone, regardless of what they want! It's the democratic way!

 

[Ezekiel]

YES! Let's FORCE our will on anyone, regardless of what they want! It's the democratic way!

Since 1492, at least...

Of course, it would crass to blame Americans for stuff that occurred before there was an "America", so lets go with 1776. Even then, frankly, "blame" doesn't work as a word or definition: but to indicate that such behavior from our government is new behavior rings most hollow. Manifest Destiny is merely being played on an intercontinental field now.

That being said, an earlier post really did, for me, sum up a divergence in thought that I had failed to place my finger on.

I don't see a problem with countrys going after the "criminals". I advocate a pro-active approach to dealing with the problem.

The problem is others don't feel the same way.

My view?

1. "Criminal" is hard to identify in this case. (Do they wear signs?)
2. Pro-active implies before they become "criminals". (Seems un-American).

Following that logic, anyone with a handgun should be rounded up because they have the ABILITY (pro-active, remember?) to create harm. Bottom line? "It doesn't matter what the Iraqis want, it was never about them anyway."

We'll leave when it is no longer in our best interests to be there. (That debate is now raging in DC.) I doubt the Iraqis were consulted.

 

[R.H. Lee]

Quote:
Originally Posted by rick_reno
Who cares what they want? They should shut up and let us finish our mission (?) there - if they won't shut up, they should leave.


YES! Let's FORCE our will on anyone, regardless of what they want! It's the democratic way!

FWIW, rr's posts are

 

[Old Dog]

Note how Javafiend picks and choses which points he'll respond to. SOA is old news; the mindset, philosophy and curriculum were overhauled. It is time to move on and quit using "evidence" of past misdeeds to prove points on current events.

 

[R.H. Lee]

That's fairly typical of leftist 'argument'. Failure to engage, form over function, all sizzle and no steak.

 

[strambo]

I could maybe buy into the whole silly "freedom fighter" nonsense if they were actually fighting coalition forces exclusively or even the majority of the time. Unfortunately, (for the Iraqi people) they are killing Iraqis far more often and in greater #s than Coalition. They deliberately target Mosques, weddings, and markets, all of which only have innocent civilians at them. They kill police, politicians and extort, threaten, kidnap and murder the families of common Iraqis who are employed by the coalition. Hard to start a civil war and ethnically cleanse an opposing religious faction by targeting Americans.

I read intel reports every day when I was there...the majority of attacks and victims were/are Iraqi civilians. Oh, and there is something fundamentally wrong with refering to someone as a "freedom fighter" when their goal is to institute horrible oppression on the populace. The Freedom Fighters are the anti-Saddam forces and the now anti-terrorists forces in Iraq...fighting for the freedom of all the people.

 

[Borachon]

No, we have not consistently "sponsored" terrorist groups. You cannot prove this by citing one incident of subsequently discredited CIA officers' ill-advised cooperation in an assassination attempt.

None of this is hard to find. Do an internet search yourself. Here's just a few examples of CIA stuff...all open source by the way (ie...blown).


http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/ir/contents.htm Details on assassination plots in Congo, Cuba, and Diem in Vietnam that were CIA sponsored. Revealed during the Church hearings in Congress in the 1970s.

Assassination attempts:
• Patrice Lumumba (Congo)
• Fidel Castro (Cuba)
• Rafael Trujillo (Dominican Republic)
• Ngo Dinh Diem (Vietnam)
• Rene Schneider (Chile)



Paramilitary groups sponsored in Angola, Vietnam, Laos, and Cuba.
GUATEMALA: THE OVERTHROW OF ARBENZ
Chile: Overthrow of Allende in favor of the Pinochet government http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/42a/123.html

CIA Secret Weapons Systems: http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/CIASWS.html

It was disclosed by Senate Committees investigating the activities of the CIA in 1977 that the Agency was involved in testing drugs like LSD on "unwitting subjects in social situations".