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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: combjelly who wrote (213913)	12/27/2004 1:14:21 PM
From: RetiredNow	Respond to of 1572545

More evidence that Iran needs to be dealt with militarily... ------------------------ Iraq to Air Footage of Iranian Meddling December 24, 2004 Iran Focus iranfocus.com Baghdad -- The Iraqi Defence Minister stated that Iraq would soon display footage of Iranian meddling throughout the country. Hazem Shaalan said that Iraqi security forces were able to obtain foreign satellite footage of 50 suicide vehicles entering the country from Iran. In an interview with the Saudi daily, al-Watan, Shaalan also added that 14 of the 50 vehicles had explosives installed and were ready for suicide missions while the remainder were caught whilst they were being fitted with the explosives. The defence chief said that the footage along with other documents and evidence of Iranian meddling would be aired on Iraqi TV stations, before Iraq's upcoming elections, as soon as Iraq’s interim-Prime Minster, Ayad Allawi, gave the final approval. The minister apparently made the remarks in reply to recent Iranian officials’ demands for further proof of their alleged meddling in Iraqi affairs. “Diplomatic negotiations with Iran serves no purpose”, he said, adding that he believed that all diplomatic channels with Iran had been exhausted with no concrete results. Iraqi interim-government officials have arrested a large number of Iranian agents who had been rounded up in Iraqi cities whilst planning or attempting to carry out terrorist operations. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hamid-Reza Asefi, recently announced that some “1,500 Iranians were currently in Iraqi prisons”, accused of being terrorists. Asked about his recent comments on Iran, Shaalan said that he stood by what he said and would not retract his comments until Iran fundamentally changed its behaviour. Last week Shaalan said: “We discovered that the key to terrorism is in Iran, which is the number one enemy for Iraq”.

To: combjelly who wrote (213913)	12/27/2004 3:59:06 PM
From: Taro	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572545

Combelly, some of you guys from the "right" camp (In the meaning of "ultimate truth" and not that side where your thumb sits to the left, got it?) got things seriously screwed up IMO. I admit to being a good old conservative with (such) values and proud of it! And please don't even try to add that prefix neo- to any of that... At the same time, however, among other things I happen to be convinced that terminal punishment is a sick thing of the worst kind. Now, how about that one for a change?? Taro

To: combjelly who wrote (213913)	12/27/2004 11:43:18 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1572545

For what ever reason, the situation in Iraq has gotten to the point where there isn't an easy solution. It might be that things will progress quickly and people will stop dying there needlessly, but history is against it. It looks to be one of those situations where a long term military presence, on the order of generations, will be required to keep stability. That has not long term win scenarios, it is just a struggle to maintain the status quo. I once thought that some sort of victory was achievable in Iraq, I don't think that any more. The fact that the armoring of trucks is even an issue is an indication that things are in a bad way. Trucks generally aren't armored for a reason. One reason, of course, is that it is too expensive. Trucks are intended to travel in areas that are controlled. True, they can still be subject to mortar fire and possibly mines, but that is about it. However, we have been reduced to the firebase concept that we had in Vietnam. To top it off, we can't even guarantee safety in the firebases as we saw in Mosul. This is bad... Good post! For the life of me, I can not understand why we don't learn from our past mistakes. Worse.......we delude ourselves into thinking we are this peace loving nation when in reality we are in some war almost every ten years. During the past 4 years, I have had considerable difficulty reconciling the image of America as I was taught with the current reality. And it seems to get worse by the day......all concern about our global image has evaporated. We know what's best and that's the way it is.....period.

To: combjelly who wrote (213913)	12/28/2004 12:58:03 AM
From: Elroy	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1572545

For what ever reason, the situation in Iraq has gotten to the point where there isn't an easy solution. There is a very easy solution. 1- Hold the elections as best as possible in a month. 2- After February 15th or so limit coalition activity to training of Iraqi security forces. Significantly reduce the coalition involvement in anything that Iraqis should be doing themselves. No coalition raids, counterstrikes, sweeps, etc. There shouldn't even be bases inside the cities. Put the training facilities in remote locations. 3- Do not release the funds allocated for rebuilding in a region until that region is deemed relatively safe. 4- Let them settle for themselves how they want to govern and live, as long as their decision includes future elections (so that if they head down an unpopular path as is going on in Iran, the people have the ability to vote the leaders out in 2-4 years. If the Sunnis can't handle being #2 political group in Iraq, separate the country into Sunnistan, Shiastan and Kurdistan. The Sunnis will get the areas without oil, and screw 'em. If they aren't happy with that result, they have only themselves to blame. They can even call the new Sunni country Osamistan if they want. The main thing is to hold elections, no matter how flawed they may be, then make the coalition's role nothing more than training of the new government's security forces. At that point, its the new Iraq versus a bunch of criminals. That's not a complicated exit strategy at all.