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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ish who wrote (125168)	2/26/2004 9:50:12 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<we won, big time> Then why is the U.S. Army withdrawing from all the Iraqi cities, while the enemy is still fighting us, still setting off bombs and firing RPGs, still killing our soldiers? It would be just as accurate to say that the Marines "won, big time" in Beirut. After their barracks got car-bombed, the Marines in Beirut "re-deployed" back to the U.S., just like our soldiers in Iraq are now "re-deploying" out of the urban areas. "Re-deployed" is the modern euphemism for "left in defeat, after they killed more of us than we (belatedly) decided that ground was worth." The U.S. K.I.A. is dropping, because the U.S. is retreating from the field of battle. Now, the Iraqi patriots are concentrating their fire on the Quislings we've left behind. They are killing U.S.-trained policemen, at a rate of about 100/week. By the time we finish "re-deploying" back to New Jersey, our Quislings will be all dead, dispersed, or have re-joined the Badr Brigade. Then, the various Iraqi political groups (all organized along ethnic or religious lines), who have been busily raising militias, can fight it out. 12 months from now, Iraq will either be united by a Shiite cleric (Sistani=best case; Al-Sadr=worst case), or be a Failed State (like Afghanistan, with the ground held by a patchwork of warlord mini-states). That will be the end result of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Does this meet your definition of "victory, big-time"?

To: Ish who wrote (125168)	2/26/2004 10:16:24 PM
From: Sig	Respond to of 281500

<<<<Iraq and Kuwait will be our friendlies in the region for years to come. It's good to have bases in the region where attacks on the US will probably come from. Good to have bases where most of the world's energy comes from. Wouldn't hurt to have a second democracy in the region. >>> A good concept, and after things settle down a bit....... I can almost see it now. We convert one of The Palaces into an amusement park. Erect a 500 ft tall rotating restaurant in the middle. Reinforced concrete all the way up. covered with steel from Saddams surplused tanks. Put a Statue of Freedom on top,a 1/3 scale model of the SOL along with a cross. Disney rides, fortune telling, arms markets.Free high-speed internet access. And fireworks every night(they will love that) Sig @theworldawaits.com

To: Ish who wrote (125168)	2/26/2004 10:23:37 PM
From: GST	Respond to of 281500

<we won, big time> Providing our young men and women to serve as target practice in Iraq for the next twenty years does not translate into a "big win" -- it might however qualify us as "big idiots" for unilaterally invading Iraq.

To: Ish who wrote (125168)	2/27/2004 12:24:40 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

When will we leave? Now? 6 months? No, better plan on the US having bases there at least 20 years. How long were we in Europe and Japan... If there is one thing Americans have learned since the second world war, it's when WE DON'T remain as a stabilizing force that our national security becomes threatened.. It's going to take years to undo the political, cultural, and economic damage suffered over the past 100 years (if not longer)... The middle east has remained outside of the global economy, participating solely as a mercantilist society involved in selling one primary, and depleting, natural resource. One has to ask what will happen when the oil runs out? And what will be the repercussions to neighboring states who will be expected to provide jobs and accomodations for their burgeoning, poverty stricken, masses?? People like GST simply have no answer to those questions. They believe Arabs are incapable of being self-sustaining and peaceful societies.. Everything we're doing is in vain because all Arabs want to do, if I understand him correctly, is wage Jihad. But I'm not buying that racist perspective. I, and many others, understand that the muslims are engaged in a religious and cultural civil war. A war which the progressives will eventually win, but only at the cost of millions of lives and decades of fundamentalist rule, fueled by oil wealth (which they know will subsidize their regimes).. But once the oil is gone, we'll still be left with the same problem and it will cost FAR MORE, both in lives and money, to fix it... Anyone who spends even a minimal amount of time analyzing the situation should be able to see that.. But no... GST and people of his ilk, are too busy playing partisan politics and engaging in "bush bashing", rather than trying to understand the demographic and economic mega-trends which have driven the events of the past couple of years. He doesn't have to make hard decisions, or be responsible for long-term contingency planning.. All he has to do is maintain his short-sighted and politically vacuous criticisms. Hawk