Iraqi PM Learns the Art of Hyperbole
It appears that the Iraqi Prime Minister is learning the gentle art of political outrage.
BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 1 — Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki lashed out at the American military on Thursday, denouncing what he characterized as habitual attacks by troops against Iraqi civilians.
As outrage over reports that American marines killed 24 Iraqis in the town of Haditha last year continued to shake the new government, the country’s senior leaders said that they would demand that American officials turn over their investigative files on the killings and that the Iraqi government would conduct its own inquiry.
In his comments, Mr. Maliki said violence against civilians had become a “daily phenomenon” by many troops in the American-led coalition who “do not respect the Iraqi people.”
“They crush them with their vehicles and kill them just on suspicion,” he said. “This is completely unacceptable.” Attacks on civilians will play a role in future decisions on how long to ask American forces to remain in Iraq, the prime minister added.
The reason I say this is politically-based outrage is that there is a very easy solution to the supposed problem: simply ask the US military to leave. If, in fact, the situation has become a daily problem (something I very much doubt), all Maliki has to do is say the word and we’ll pack up and leave. We’ll be happy to do it.
Unfortunately, that’s not the situation. Maliki has problems and he’s using the age-old political tactic of blaming the other guy to try to earn some unity inside the Iraqi government. It is the same tactic the Democratic Party has been using for the past six years, with little to no success, to regain control of our nation as well. What Maliki hasn’t figured out is that when you make and unsupportable statement about America, the American people tend to take it personally and you lose a lot of goodwill. Maliki desperately needs the goodwill of the American people, not only for right now but also for a decade or three into the future. He’s not very wise to burning it up today when it could save his nation down the road.
But he’s new at this, so we ought to cut him a little bit of slack, but only a little bit. We can’t afford to have the leader of Iraq sounding like Michael Moore, Jimmy Carter, and John Murtha.
UPDATE: Welcome visitors from the Daou Report! Remember the rules of civility in the comment section and, please, at least take off the tin-foil hats if you’re going to stay long enough to comment.
UPDATE 2: Okay, folks. Time to (ahem) move on and read something else. I’ve spent the whole weekend dealing with comments and not posting and, quite honestly, I’m tired of rehasing arguments and reintroducing facts I’ve hashed out and introduced repeatedly in other posts here. Talk amongst yourselves.
No related posts.
Category: Alliances and Allies, Fighting the Islamists
Bush upset with Iraq killings reports
President Bush promised on Wednesday that any Marines involved in the alleged murders of Iraqi civil
> all Maliki has to do is say the word and we’ll pack up and leave.
Actually, we won’t.
President Bush attacked Iraq, and is occupying it today so that we can have permanent army bases there. When the oil starts to run out in 50 years time, those bases will secure oil for the US.
It costs us $9 Billion each month, but that’s what we are paying for. If prime minister Maliki gets too uppity, he will be replaced by the US, just as the last guy was.
The only problem is the 15- 20 US soldiers that are killed each month by Iraqis who object to our permanent army of occupation.
Bill – It’s a nice theory you have except for having not a single shred of evidence to support it.
On the replacement of Nouri al-Maliki – that’s exactly what happened to his predecessor, Ibrahim al-Jaafari: when George II decided that he wasn’t the right guy for the job, he detailed his proconsul in Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, to have al-Jaafari replaced.
On ‘enduring bases’ in Iraq, see http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0930/p17s02-cogn.html
and note that the Iraqi armed forces as now configured – as entirely internal security forces – could not survive in that area without American intervention.
Sorry Jimmie — which part don’t you believe ?
President Bush attacked Iraq? I assume you don’t need my help to understand that.
We’re building permanent army bases there? Check the link:
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060601/OPINION02/606010312
So what don’t you understand?
The $9 BILLION we pay each month for the failed occupation of Iraq?
Read this:
http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-05-02-voa67.cfm
(That’s a source funded by the Bush Administration, by the way. Though I wouldn’t blame you for rejecting it on those grounds).
The number of US soldiers killed each month? Is that what you don’t believe?
Jimmie, jimmie, jimmie – please tell me your faith is stronger than that.
No kidding, Scott? Military forces that are less than three years old can’t survive on their own? Will wonders never cease! Next you’ll be telling me that a brand-new Constitutional government that’s not even two years old is shaking down its leadership to see which works best for it (almost like, say when Congress had to face the fact that George Washington didn’t quite want to be President for Life).
Man, the things you learn from the left, huh?
Bill, your facts are not incorrect. Everything else is.
Yes, we are building bases in Iraq (since, after all, the Iraqi government has asked us to stay for some period of time and I’ sure our soldiers would be better off living in actual buildings as opposed to shanties or tents) but you said that the President invaded Iraq specifically to build bases there. Nonsense. It’s also nonsense that the President will replace Maliki, considering that he is the duly-elected representative of the Iraqi people. See, we still do democracy here in America, despite the best efforts of the left to do otherwise.
By the way, you call our presence in Iraq a “failed operation”. Yet we are still there and the government, elected in the most free and open election that nation has ever known, still wishes us to remain. That is not failure by any measure of the word. Now I’m sure you’ll do some major-league goalpost-shifting to create your own measures of success but that doesn’t change the point that our military has done everything it set out to do and that Iraq has known three successful, open, inclusive elections.
How long do you want to go on paying for the American army of occupation in Iraq, Jimmie?
Because I’ve had enough. We were told it would be a cakewalk. We were told it would be paid for by the oil.
It turns out that was just more lies.
So you go on paying Jimmie, as long as you want. Me? I’m supporting the troops. They are in an unwinnable mission, bring them home. Why wait till the November elections, bring them home now.
Essentially no artillery. Almost no tanks. No air support. Systematically underdeveloped logistics system. No plans for the expansion of any of these elements. Take a look at the Iraqi Order of Battle at some point. The Iraqi Army as now conceived – not just as it exists in 2006 – will not be able to survive in the region without American intervention, as I stated.
Bill, again, you’re wrong.
We were not told that our standing up a brand-new democracy where none has ever been would be a “cakewalk”. In fact, there are dozens of statements from the President, Vice President, and Secretary of Defense that said just the opposite – that we would be involved in this for a long time, that it would be a difficult process, and that it would cost us both in blood and treasure.
I would say that anyone who believed that setting up a fully-functioning democracy with a fully-functioning military in any less time than we did in Germany and Japan after World War II is just ignorant of history and quite ill-informed.
Jimmie alleges:
> you said that the President invaded Iraq specifically to build bases there.
Why are we there, Jimmie? Why are we keeping an army of occupation in Iraq at the cost of $9 – 10 BILLION each month, and with the loss of a dozen or more soldiers each month? Why Jimmie? This isn’t the cakewalk that the President promised.
Bill, as I previously stated, standing up this government was never advertised as a cakewalk by the President. I think you’re confusing what we’re doing now with the advertised ease with which we defeated Saddam Hussein’s army.
So why are we there? Do you really not understand the value of helping to create the first-ever free Arab democracy? Can you not see the intrinsic value of freeing 25 million people or so from tyranny and enabling them to choose their own destinies?
Mostly, I find it amazing that you discard every single reason the President has given us for why we are there to choose one he has never used. Why would you do this?
Great post!!
Hey Iraqis – If you don’t like our soldiers invading your country and slaughtering innocent civilians from time to time, just tell us to leave!
Welcome to the discussion Bern. Anything of substance you want to add, or are you just here to snark?
Jimmie pretends
> We were not told that our standing up a brand-new democracy where
> none has ever been would be a “cakewalk”.
Actually we were. Ken Adelman, an assistant to Sec of Defense Don Rumsfeld in the Washington Post in Feb 2003 used that exact phrase. He said “I believe liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk”
See http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1996-2002Feb12
We were told the oil would pay for it; that the troops would be greeted as liberators and with flowers; that we would’t need several hundred thousand troops.
It was only after the dismal truth became evident to the incompents in the Bush administration that the President slowly started admitting some of the truth: that we would be in Iraq for a very long time; that it was a problem for future presidents; that things are getting worse right now.
Do you know Jimmie, we are not winning in Iraq – we are having our asses handed to us in a hat. Far from “drawing down” troops, we had to send in 3500 reinforcements from Kuwait this week.
Why? What is the strategic mission of the US army there? Why should we pay for one form of government for Iraqis, versus another? Why Jimmie?
> I find it amazing that you discard every
> single reason the President has given us for
> why we are there to choose one he has never used.
> Why would you do this?
You are right.
It is because the series of reasons he has given in the past have proven to be false. Some of them were known to be false at the time the President uttered them (like “Saddam sought uranium from Africa” and “Weapons of Mass Destruction” – the original rationale).
I don’t understand why the US taxpayer has to subsidize government in Iraq, and not say in North Korea or Zimbabwe. I suspect it is related to oil.
But the President cannot honestly declare: I have sent an army to die in the middle east so that Exxon can make global-record-breaking profits, and pay its CEO $400M in salary and benefits. The American people would rise up in a mob and sweep the President from power.
So instead we try to guess what his real reasons are.
I see your mistake, Bill. You’ve confused the liberation of Iraq with the standing up of a brand new democracy in Iraq. The two are not the same. I’m not quite sure how you could confuse the two, since they are completely different in both mission and outcome.
We are “having our hat handed to us”? Really? See, I read a couple reports not long ago where Zarqawi contends that he is losing. I’ve read repeated reports where the insurgents and mercenaries hired by Iran and Syria are dying in far greater numbers than our solders ever have. Our casualties in Iraq are fewer by comparison than any other war we’ve ever waged. We’ve managed to help a nation that had never had a popularly-elected Constitution ratify one in almost a quarter of the time it took us. Iraq now has a permanent government that includes elements of all three major religious and ethnic factions. If that’s losing, you need an entirely new dictionary.
Why, Bill? Goodness, if you’re incapable of even comprehending the reasons (even if you don’t agree with them) then I can’t possibly help you understand them now. It’s not like they haven’t been out there for years. It’s not like the President hasn’t given major speeches on national television not only giving the reasons but detailing the reasoning behind the reasons.
Bill, here’s the deal. I don’t mind at all discussing this issue in good faith. Right now, you’re not showing good faith. You say that “some of them have proven to be false at the time the President uttered them” which is an extremely disingenuous statement.
Hmmm . . .let’s see . . . .
You post something along the lines of — “if you don’t like our soldiers killing innocent people, kick us out!”
I’m not so sure a post as ridiculous as that deserves anything more than a snark.
How about this – you post something of substance and I’ll do what I can to add to the debate.
Jimmie says:
> You’ve confused the liberation of Iraq with the standing up of a brand new democracy in Iraq. The two are not the same.
Evidently not. But we were NEVER told about the costly, deadly “standing up” when the war was being discussed. In fact we were told it would be easy. When one general said it would take several hundred thousand troops, he was very quickly dead-ended.
It was only after troops were on the ground that the real costs started to come out. And that is dishonest. We were NOT greeted as liberators. We were greeted as an army of occupation – and resisted in every way by all except turncoat iraqis.
Look, if Hungary suddenly invaded and occupied the US, wouldn’t you be out there every day and night trying to drive the foreigners away? I sure would, with bombs, guns, bullets. What kind of patriot are you?
That’s exactly what’s happening in Iraq. Only we are the invaders and occupiers.
> You say that “some of them have proven to be false at the time the
> President uttered them” which is an extremely disingenuous statement.
In what way? The President said in the 2003 State of the Union address “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”
The statement “should never have been included in the text written for the President,” CIA Director George J. Tenet said in a July 11, 2003 press release (on-line here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/07/20030712-11.html )
I think everyone can see who is being disengenuous here.
In late 2002 and early 2003 that the Bush Administration was lying to American citizens and to the world when it claimed that Saddam Hussein possessed WMDs, that he has conspired with al-Qaeda, that Iraq had connections with the 9/11 attacks, and that Saddam had sought nuclear weapons materials from Africa.
None of those things were true when the president said them.
Watch out for this website operator.
If he can’t win a debate with you, he’ll give himself the last word by preventing you from posting.
Now watch how quickly this truth gets deleted.
Bill Again – My commenting policy is pretty clear. If you don’t like the rules, don’t comment. Notice, though, that your ridiculous accusation remains, mostly because I enjoy the irony.
Bern – “Something along the lines” is not the same as “something”. I suggest you stop reading into my posts what is not there.
You say that “some of them have proven to be false at the time the President uttered them” which is an extremely disingenuous statement.
That is not a disingenuous statement, but completely verifiable. Here’s one example:
Bush and Blair had a press conference on September 7, 2002 where they made false claims. Between them, the two politicians cited a “new” report from the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency that allegedly stated that Iraq was “six months away” from building a nuclear weapon. “Don’t know what more evidence we need,” declared the president.
Turns out, no such report from the IAEA existed. A few days later, NBC busted them on this “minor detail,” and BushCo were forced to retract their claim. However, they wouldn’t quite let go of their claim entirely. Instead, they said that the report from the IAEA was not in fact new, but dated by to 1998. But even that wasn’t right. In fact, the 1998 report said that Iraq had been six to 24 months away from such capability BEFORE THE 1991 PERSIAN GULF WAR and the U.N.-monitored weapons inspections that followed. In a summary of its 1998 report, the IAEA said that “based on all credible information available to date … the IAEA has found no indication of Iraq having achieved its programme goal of producing nuclear weapons or of Iraq having retained a physical capability for the production of weapon-useable nuclear material or having clandestinely obtained such material.”
So here we’ve got 2 examples of BushCo misstating the facts, first in referring to a new report, and second in misrepresenting the findings of an old report. You might want to believe that this was just a simple, innocent mistake. But is that a reasonable conclusion? First, to mistake the date of a report, thinking that one that was 4 years old was in fact new, is hard to imagine. A report’s date is often the single piece of data to which the report is referred, and would be impossible to mistake. Second, in referring to the 1998 report, the findings quoted by Bush were in fact the exact opposite of the findings in the report. The summary of that report states this in the clearest terms. For this to be misunderstood by the administration assumes that the administration lacks reading comprehension skills on the most basic level. That is not a reasonable assumption.
The most reasonable assumption here is that BushCo lied twice with the intention of portraying Iraq as a far greater threat than it was.
http://www.cjr.org/issues/2003/3/lies-macarthur.asp
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020907-2.html
We are “having our hat handed to us”? Really?
Yes, really.
I grant you, we tend to prevail militarily. But as every expert on the subject has opined, including those in the Pentagon, there is no military solution to the problems in Iraq.
http://www.pastpeak.com/archives/2005/06/commanders_no_m.htm
Any effective solution will be a political one, achieved by winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqis. Sound familiar? It was the same situation that existed in Vietnam, and we know how that turned out. We lost the hearts and minds, and eventually the war, even though we prevailed militarily in a majority of the conflicts, even the Tet Offensive.
The article you’re commenting on in this thread documents how America is quickly losing (or has already lost) the battle for hearts and minds. A majority of Iraqis think they were better off under Saddam and want the Americans out. Doesn’t that tell you anything?
In the post which Jimmie deleted, there were additional examples of President Bush making an important statement which was later shown to false at the time he said it.
Unfortunately, Jimmie doesn’t want you to see that post, because he has no answer for it.
C’mon, Bill Again, how do you expect to sustain support for this illegal war unless its supporters stifle open debate about it?
Paul – You assume we are there to “win the hearts and minds” and that’s not necessarily true. We are there to take the shots the Iraqi government and military can not take until such time as it is strong enough to take them. It would certainly be very nice if the Iraqi people loved us while we did it, and I’d certainly welcome more of the happy greetings we got when we toppled Hussein, but it’s not a requirement.
Consider, though, Paul, that one of the reasons we are said to be “losing” in Iraq despite that no empirical measure shows that to be true, is because many people are sitting over here saying that we have lost. As in Vietnam, we “lost” because we decided that we had lost, not because we actually did.
As for the “lies”, let me remind you (as I have said on this site for what seems like a million times) that what the President was saying about Iraq was not the minority opinion. It was the same opinion held by the consensus of our intelligence organs, the intelligence communities of nations like Britain, Germany, France, Russia, Jordan, Australia, Canada, and Egypt, the opinion of UNSCOM and the IAEA, and the opnions of both President Clinton and Vice-President Gore. Further, it was the unanimous opinion of the United Nations Security Council, as specified as a matter of fact in Resolution 1441. It was also the official policy of the United States as expressed by an overwhelmingly-approved Congressional resolution. That’s an awful lot of lying. I prefer to believe the simplest solution, that tens of thousands of highly-trained professionals all around the world were correct and that you are not.
Bill Again (and Paul) – Again, I refer you to my commenting policy. This is my site. I pay the bills here. I am under no obligation whatsoever to allow any comment at all to remain if I do not wish it. I am not asking you to approve the policy, just to abide by it. This is not a matter for negotiation.
You assume we are there to “win the hearts and minds” and that’s not necessarily true.
I am not alone in that assumption, but am joined by the Bush Admin and the Pentagon. There is no military solution. Yes, we’re there to kill insurgents until the Iraqis can do it themselves. But why are there insurgents? Could it be that Iraq is not really a sustainable country, that it was artificially created by the Brits who combined 3 countries into one, and required a tyrant like Saddam to keep it together?
In order to keep Iraq from spiraling a more active civil war than is already occuring, we need either 1) another tyrant who will rule the country with an iron fist, like Saddam; or 2) to convince an overwhelming majoirty of Iraqis to support the coalition and the government it supports. Without one of those two, the mission you speak of (building a democracy) will fail.
However, the good news is that the true mission in Iraq, setting up several perrmanent bases next to where the oil comes out, is proceeding apace.
Jimmie -
I’m afraid you have your head buried deeply in the sand if you think we are doing well in Iraq. Years since the invasion, there are:
- More bombs going off per month than ever,
- More people dying than ever, (even if US deaths are SLIGHTLY down this month, civilian deaths are off the chart)
- The country is too dangerous even for our own government propoganda arm, Voice of America, to keep it’s offices open.
- Unemployment, oil production, industrial activity and just about any measure you want to examine has not been restored to pre-war levels (and yes, Germany which was effectively leveled recovered faster).
- The middle class is beginning to abandon Iraq
- The country is beginning to split on sectarian lines as people spontaneously resettle themselves to avoid being killed
- The country’s own prime minister (arguably “our boy”) is turning on us
- Swaths of the country that have been in turbulence from the start remain in chaos despite repeated Marine and Army sweeps
- The chaos is spreading so that previously calm Basra is slipping away
- Militias rule Baghdad (and much of the country) and none of our own vaunted assistance can go anywhere without cover
I actually believe there were some very sincere and good intentions that drove our intervention in this country. Spreading freedom certainly sounds noble. That doesn’t mean the intervention wasn’t a horrible, horrible mistake that was promptly compounded by one strategic error after another. Iraq is FUBARed, we broke Humpty, and we aren’t putting him back again. Our troops are basically holed up, trying not to get killed, and watching a country spin out of control. What is happening politically in that country is, indeed, heart-warming. It is also apparently completely irrelevant. Nothing affects the chaos – the chaos only worsens. And there is no comparing this to germany or japan. Not a single US occupation troop was killed ther by marauding gangs, and the economies and politics of those countries revived in a spectacular and fast fashion.
You can keep on whistling past the graveyard, my friend. But the graveyard expands every day and hope receded further. Iraq is lost, and it is all ALL our fault. The world knows it. Many Americans know it. Maybe in a few years you’ll realize it too. It’s tragic beyond words.
Peter
As in Vietnam, we “lost” because we decided that we had lost, not because we actually did.
You’re wrong. I’ve spent time in Vietnam and know many Vietnamese, scattered up and down the country. The Vietnam War (or the American War as they know it) was an extension of their war of independence, and as such enjoyed popular support. The Americans were in a losing battle from the beginning. This is not just propaganda from government spokespeople. If you went to Vietnam, you would understand that this is the grass-roots reality. Sure, there are some on the south that wished the communists had not taken over. However, like in China, capitalism has overtaken Vietnam, and free enterprise reigns. Kinda makes you wonder why those 50,000 Americans and 500,000 Vietnamese had to die.
What was it Kerry said? How can you ask a person to die for a mistake? There are lessons in the Vietnam experience that are directly applicable to our Iraq experience. However, those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it, and here we are.
As for the “lies”, let me remind you (as I have said on this site for what seems like a million times) that what the President was saying about Iraq was not the minority opinion.
Let’s stop right there. What Bush said in the example I gave above was not an opinion. It was a lie stated as a fact. Try and understand the difference.
Yes, many believed Iraq probably had WMDs, including myself. But nobody was certain. We needed the inspectors back in there to determine the validity of such claim. And, with a huge military waiting at its borders, Saddam allowed the inspectors back in, and they were discovering what we now know to be true, that there were no WMDs.
When you commit troops to a conflict that may kill hundreds of thousands, cost $2 trillion (a conservative estimate), and bog down our defenses and other resources that could be used elsewhere, you better make sure you’ve got your facts straight. But Bush pulled out the inspectors before this could be achieved, and invaded anyway. This will be regarded in history as a monumentally tragic decision. To engage in lying and deceit to fool the public into supporting this decision is a horrible crime for which Bush needs another accountability moment.
We don’t want an Iraqi Leader sounding like a mixture of Moore, Carter, and Murtha? Let’s see, a social activist, a christian ex-president who has devoted his post-public service life to humanitarian causes, and a decorated veteran who is genuinely concerned about the health and image of the American Soldier. I can think of worse examples. Perhaps you would prefer a mixture of Coulter, O’reilly, and Limbaugh. Now that would make for an interesting news conference (actually sounds a bit like the Iranian president).
Jimmie suggests:
> Iraq now has a permanent government
> that includes elements of all three major religious and ethnic factions.
> If that’s losing, you need an entirely new dictionary.
But government of what exactly? Members of this government are unable to travel outside the heavily fortified Green Zone without convoys of bodyguards. They have neither the support nor the consent of the population. Voting has just been an exercise in declaring which tribe or sect you belong to,
The Prime Minister is unable to nominate people to head the key ministries of the Interior and Defense. The reason is that those positions control private armies (the police and the armed forces) and none of the government trusts each other enough to put that power in their hands.
There is no easy solution to this. After several months, George Bush fired the last PM when he could not solve it. It will be a very difficult task for the current incumbent too.
The real power in Iraq is held by the mullahs with their own private militias. The major result of President Bush’s ill-advised attack on and occupation of Iraq has been a vast increase in Iranian influence in Iraq.
And even worse, the US is a lot less safe; we now have no good options against Iran acquiring a nuclear bomb (and they know it); Bin Laden is not in captivity; we are paying literally HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS of dollars a year to fund all this; and worst of all we have lost thousands of brave and loyal servicemen.
And you still think it is worth continuing with a failed strategy? The only good news is that if things continue to go downhill at the present rate, the President will be forced to completely withdraw the Army to the permanent bases and keep them in garrisons. President Bush will then be unable to avoid facing his failures.
Wow! There’s a lot more traffic with a Daou Report link! And a lot more abuse, it seems. Hang in there Jimmie. That said, I have to second Paul’s comments about Vietnam. I must say a single trip to Vietnam will really open your eyes about how wars are fought and won. I came back with a belief that military operations are probably the most insignificant part any war. The “hearts and minds” part is really where wars are won and lost. We could not gain popular support in Vietnam because we misunderstood the nature of the conflict and failed to understand the desires of the Vietnamese people. Our only concern seemed to be the spread of communism and we were willing to support anyone who was anti-communist, no matter how evil he was. The Vietnamese largely wanted to end colonialism and the feudalistic economic structure that went with it. So when we installed Ngo Dinh Diem in power, we forever lost the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people. Not only did he insist on continung feudalism as the dominant economic structure, he tried to ban Buddhism, the majority religion. That’s a sure recipe for disaster. We have done a much better job of picking leaders in Iraq, and we understand Iraqis’ desires much better. So, it would seem that we have a better chance of success in Iraq. But there is a huge problem just over the horizon and it is Kurdish independence. The problem is that the Kurds want nothing less than full autonomy and the Turks and Iranians won’t let them have it. This issue has been stewing for some time now, but it’s about to get much worse. The reason is that, at some point, the Iraqi government will have to address the issue with legislation. Once there is a plan on paper, there will be something real to fight about. And it will be one hell of a fight. Turkey now has between 40,000 and 300,000 troops on the Iraq border and are already conducting incursions into Iraq to battle PKK terrorists (our allies, by the way). But it’s not just the Turks, the peshmerga have been reinforcing the city of Kirkuk in expectation of a major battle there. They have also been conducting a fair amount of ethnic cleansing in the city as well. So far, Turkey has been surprisingly patient about the developments in Iraq, but that will not continue forever. They will simply not accept a Kurdish state. And the Kurds will accept nothing less. Something’s gotta give there. And it won’t be the Turks, that’s for sure. They will fight the Kurds even if they have to fight the US just to get to the Kurds. At least that was the unanimous opinion that I got from the Turkish people on my visit there last summer. And this is why I opposed the Iraq war from the start. I didn’t see much positive happening in Iraq, but I saw the potential of losing Turkey as an ally. Now it all is playing out just as I expected and the Turk-Kurd conflict is shaping up to be the major hurdle. We can still succeed in Iraq, but we will have to ditch the Kurds to do it. Sadly, they are the only Iraqis that still show us overwhelming support. But, if we have to choose between allies, the Turks are much more valuble to us than the Kurds. Hopefully, we will do the right thing. But I’m not holding my breath.
jimmie,
Please provide the links to these dozens of quotes from the President, Vice President and Secretary of Defense stating that it would take along time and cost us much in blood and treasure to liberate Iraq.
Also, make sure the quotes are from BEFORE March of 2003.
Thanks,
Robert
As Tom notes,
> Once there is a plan on paper, there will be something real to fight about.
> And it will be one hell of a fight. Turkey now has between 40,000 and 300,000
> troops on the Iraq border and are already conducting incursions into Iraq to
> battle PKK terrorists (our allies, by the way).
At that point we have the possibility of open warfare between NATO allies. And the ripples keep widening. A bill is now being introduced in the Senate, Senate Joint Resolution 36, to bring our combat troops home in 2006.
We will leave behind a horrible and bloody mess, a greatly strengthened Iran, a generation of new people who hate America, unimaginable amounts of money, and the lives of several thousand of our soldiers. But, “a horrible end is better than horrors without end.”
But, “a horrible end is better than horrors without end.”
Sad to say, those look to be our only 2 options.
Uh-oh. It looks like Jimmie is operating behind the scenes, deleteing posts he doesn’t like. He’s just deleted all of mine (which I posted under the name Paul).
Seriously, Jimmie, if the only way to defend your point of view is to erase comments that oppose it, doesn’t that make you stop and consider that maybe your point of view isn’t worth defending?
Uh-oh. While Jimmie may be too cowardly to address these points directly, it looks like he’s is operating behind the scenes, deleteing posts he doesn’t like. He’s just deleted all of mine (which I posted under the name Paul).
Seriously, Jimmie, if the only way to defend your point of view is to erase comments that oppose it, doesn’t that make you stop and consider that maybe your point of view isn’t worth defending?
The Waiting Game
If you’re in the media, you can’t wait for a story to unfold, especially one as potentially explosive as the Haditha incident. You’ve got to scoop your competition, work your contacts, and hope for leaks that will produce copy… Or making up the ne…
Pablo, I’ve deleted no posts in this thread. Not one.
You can clearly see that I took the time to respond to one of your posts, something I would certianly not do if I was deleting them out of hand.
I have reviewed my comment logs and found that my SpamKarma plugin retroactively blacklisted your comments for a reason I do not understand. I have manually restored your comments and I’m sorry tht it happened. I have taken steps that I hope will remedy the situation in the future.
I’d appreciate an apology.
The only reason I assumed disagreement earns deletion is because it is an unspoken policy on a multitude of right wing blogs. (Haven’t heard of it happening on left-wing ones.) Combine that with the comment from the other user about one of his posts being deleted, and you can see where my assumption came from. I’m glad to see I was mistaken.
Mea culpa.
(Your system is stilll blacklisting me. If I want to post, i have to get a new IP address from my ISP.)
The only reason I assumed disagreement earns deletion is because it is an unspoken policy on a multitude of right wing blogs. (Haven’t heard of it happening on left-wing ones.) Combine that with the comment from the other user about one of his posts being deleted, and you can see where my assumption came from. I’m glad to see I was mistaken.
Mea culpa.
Actually, Paul, that’s not true. I visit no right-wing blog that has such a policy, unspoken or otherwise. I know of a few whose owners reserve the right, as I do, to delete comments as they wish, though they do have a code of conduct for commenting.
Why, though, would you assume the worst about me?
Actually, Paul, that’s not true. I visit no right-wing blog that has such a policy, unspoken or otherwise.
With views like yours, you wouldn’t ever encounter such a policy. I’ve encountered it many times, for posting as civilly as I am here. In fact, many times I have found that the single criteria for being banned from a site is being able to articulate a point of view that makes Bush and his policies look really bad, and then support that point of view in a way that makes it impossible (at least for the site’s visitors) to refute.
Why, though, would you assume the worst about me?
When someone supports things as dangerous and disastrous as Bush and the Iraq War, it’s clear that you have an adversarial relationship to the truth. It’s also likely that you believe “might makes right,” which in the realm of debate usually means stifling opposing points of view as the only means to see your own prevail. (See O’Reily, Bill.)
I’m sorry if I lumped you in with a bad crew, but you do share their worldview.
I’m capable, Paul, of reading comments and of noticing when comments get deleted. You’re going to have to back up your allegation with something approximating evidence. Again.
Your arrogance truly astounds me. Repeatedly you have come here and made assumptions about me that are wholly unsupported and here you have done it again. I have seen the way your ideological brothes support the free exchange of ideas and it disgusts me. The only adversarial relationship I have is to those who want to kill every last one of us. See, I remember verly clearly who has declared open war on us and who has not. I remember still that Americans like you, who are right now well beyond the point of parody, are not my enemies nor my adversaries. I do not believe in the power of “power” but in the power that open and honest debate brings in revealing truth unvarnished by any ideology or agenda.
I do not believe that you are sorry at all. If you were you would not continue to assault my character as you have.
For goodness sake, Jimmie – make up your mind if you want the discussion to be about you and your opinions, or about American politics.
You can’t have it both ways – to have a hissy fit when people calmly and coolly challenge you, and at the same time insist that you can censor whatever you like whenever you like.
I give you credit for engaging in a dialog (unlike most ultra right sites) but your most recent post is uncharacteristic and shrill.
Jimmie mentions
> The only adversarial relationship I have is to those who want to kill
> every last one of us. See, I remember verly clearly who has declared
> open war on us and who has not.
I do too. Why are we in Iraq again? That country posed NO threat to us; had NO links to Al Qaeda; WASN’T involved with 9/11; and had NO weapons of mass destruction – a fact which the UN weapons inspectors would have been able to confirm if the UN had not withdrawn them at George Bush’s request prior to his March 2003 attack.
At most there are only a few thousand radical terrorists. Attacking Iraq has taken our focus and resources away from the job of hunting down those guys. President Bush even let Bin Laden go when we had him holed up at Tora Bora.
Even worse, the bipartisan 9/11 comission gave the Bush administration failing grades in domestic security. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/05/AR2005120500097.html
The situation in Iraq is getting worse with time, not better. The sooner we get out of there, let them partition the country into three and have their civil war and possibly Turko-Kurdish war, the better.
No links to Al-Qaeda?
Well, if you completely discount the presense of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who was running the al-Qaeda linked group Anrs al-Islam. You might recall that Jordan had been trying to get hold of him for years, but Hussein refused to relenquish him. We have learned since then that Hussein was actively helping Zarqawi’s efforts and that he received medical treatment and refuge from Hussein after being wounded in Afghanistan. He is also the man who was beind the murder of Laurence Foley in Jordan, a murder he pulled off with al-Qaeda help.
However, to believe that international terrorist organizations have no links to each other is simply naive. It is the nature of such organizations to share personnel, material, money, and other support. They have been doing it for decades and there’s not a single reason to believe that they would stop simply to prove your point correct.
And your point about the UN weapons inspectors is laughable. If they hadn’t been able to inspect the critical areas in Iraq for the decade prior to 2003, because Hussein constantly interfered with those inspections, what in the world makes you think they would have done so at any point later. Fact is, the inspection process was critically flawed thanks to the direct and not so covert efforts of Hussein to disrupt them.
Nevertheless, it is true without a shadow of a doubt that Hussein violated the unanimous Resolution 1441 in every single was and that he violated the 1991 cease-fire in every detail as well. Either was was more than ample justification for resuming hostilities and freeing Iraq from tyranny. Everything else, including the stipulation in Res 1441 that Husein possessed WMDs (Bush lied? Well, so did Britain and China and Russia and Syria and every other member of that group), was merely additional, but unnecessary, confrmation.
OK, you make three points in your most recent post Jimmie, each of which is demonstrably wrong. Your three points are (paraphrased):
1. Saddam Hussein was actively helping (al-Qaeda member) Zarqawi.
No, that’s completely false. The Sept. 11 commission reported that it found no “collaborative relationship” between Iraq and al Qaeda.
See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47812-2004Jun16.html
But you don’t have to believe the 9/11 commission. President Bush confirmed that too. When asked in Jan 2003, if he believed that there is a link between Saddam Hussein, a direct link, and the men who attacked on September the 11th, the President replied: “I can’t make that claim.”
See the transcript at the White House site (near the middle):
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030131-23.html
It’s possible you are confusing the presence of an Al Qaeda member with *support* for him. If you are running those two different things together, then the US is the biggest supporter of Al Qaeda today, because of the presence of many, many, many more Al Qaeda members in US controlled territory in Iraq, than there ever were when Saddam ruled there.
2. UN Inspectors weren’t effective.
No, that’s completely false too. The point at which I (and I am sure many others) stopped believing the claims from the Bush adminstration was when administration officials like Donald Rumsfeld said things like “we know exactly where the WMD are”. The obvious question was “why don’t you immediately give that information to the UN inspectors?” That question never was answered satisfactorily, to this day.
In any event, I am sure you recognize the logical fallacy of claiming the inspectors were ineffective because they did not find the WMD. There were not any there to find, remember?
3. Hussein violated the unanimous Resolution 1441
No, you are again completely wrong. This answer doesn’t admit of a soundbite reply though. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 was passed unanimously on November 8, 2002, offering Iraq “a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations” that had been set out in several previous resolutions (Resolution 660, Resolution 661, Resolution 678, Resolution 686, Resolution 687, Resolution 688, Resolution 707, Resolution 715, Resolution 986, and Resolution 1284), notably to provide “an accurate full, final, and complete disclosure, as required by Resolution 687 (1991), of all aspects of its programmes to develop weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles”. Resolution 1441 threatens “serious consequences” if these are not met. It reasserted demands that UN weapons inspectors should have “immediate, unconditional, and unrestricted access” to sites of their choosing, in order to ascertain compliance.
Iraq accepted the resolution in mid-November, before the deadline, and UN inspectors returned to Iraq. Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei presented several reports to the UN detailing Iraq’s level of compliance with Resolution 1441. The reports became increasingly more favorable for Iraq.
By mid-March, Resolution 1441 had become crucial in the Iraq disarmament crisis. Under furious debate was whether a further Security Council resolution (the so-called “second resolution”) was necessary to authorize war, or whether 1441 and preceding resolutions sufficed to legitimize military enforcement of the UN’s disarmament aims. UK prime minister Tony Blair had for several weeks been under significant domestic pressure to obtain the “second resolution”, and he led efforts for a unanimous resolution authorizing force.
Of the permanent, veto-holding members of the Security Council, France, Russia, and the People’s Republic of China wished the inspection period to be extended, and for no military action to go ahead without a further UN resolution. On the other hand, the USA and Britain, while admitting that such a resolution was diplomatically desirable, insisted that Iraq had now been given enough time to disarm or provide evidence thereof, and that war was legitimized by 1441 and previous UN resolutions.
On March 10, French president Jacques Chirac declared that France would veto any resolution which would automatically lead to war. This caused open displays of dismay by the US and British governments. The drive by Britain for unanimity and a “second resolution” was effectively abandoned at that point.
President Bush informed the UN Secretary General that he planned to attack Iraq very shortly. The Secretary General immediately withdrew the weapons inspectors. The inspectors protested vigorously and asked that they be given more time to complete their mission. President Bush launched his disasterous attack on Iraq immediately.
Jimmie — I have to say – my policy is to change my mind when I learn new facts. I actively try to understand what is going on in foreign policy, particularly where something as important as a war is concerned. I certainly don’t look only for evidence that supports my pre-existing opinion. I would urge you to look at the great weight of evidence here: President Bush *wanted* war with Iraq, and he carefully set the scene until he got it. Now he is in way over his head; the middle east is more dangerous; America is not safer; there are no good ways out; it’s costing us all a fortune, and our brave servicemen are dying by the thousand.
What will it take for you to change your mind about Iraq? I also recommend this excellent foreign policy analysis (it’s a serious academic paper).
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060301faessay85202/paul-r-pillar/intelligence-policy-and-the-war-in-iraq.html