Iraqis Begin Duty With Refusal

[rmnunez]

Samil, would you endorse a policy that tolerated more terrorist attacks as long as oil prices were kept low?

[Samildanach]

No. I wouldn't. However I don't think that going to war with Iraq did anything except stir up a hornets nest...ie increasing terrorism and terrorist activity and oil prices....both negative effects.
In the long term the US will suffer more terrorism attacks because they invaded Iraq, not less. Its not in the nature of this particular enemy to lie down and stay down when hes been hit.

[RickSp]

Folks, why get upset about a provision that lets the Iraqi soldier only be deployed where he wants? If he doesn't like it, he can quit anyway.

From the Army Times, in April 2006.

U.S. and Iraqi commanders are increasingly critical of a policy that allows Iraqi soldiers to leave their units virtually at will — essentially deserting with no punishment. They blame the lax rule for draining the Iraqi ranks to confront the insurgency — in some cases by 30 percent or even half. Iraqi officials, however, say they have no choice but to allow the policy, or they may gain virtually no volunteers at all. Most armies threaten imprisonment or fines for soldiers who abruptly leave their units, but the Iraqi army does not require its soldiers to sign contracts. That allows them to quit anytime and casually treat enlistments as temporary jobs. Soldiers can even pick up their belongings and leave during missions — and often do without facing punishment.

Anyone care to comment on the irony that our soldiers are prevented from going home at the end of their terms by "stop-loss" orders while the Iraqi soldiers can quit at any time? Or perhaps get trained by the US, then quit to join the insurgency.

The only way to "support the troops" is to bring them home now.

[bishop]

our soldiers have become nothing more than sacrificial lambs, exploited every step of the way. they weren't given sufficient numbers before invading/occupying iraq, they weren't given sufficient armor and equipment, they aren't given any real leadership, and now they're forced to fight for iraq even though iraqis themselves are not...

also, many of these soldiers are un/undereducated and have little tools to survive in our economy. ever the opportunist, our military politicians seek to exploit these people (as if suckering them into enlistment for empire wasn't bad enough).. even military recruiters know that a "career" in a military leaves people ill-equipped for life in the private sector..

http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily...rld-nation.htm

Last year, the Army paid half a billion dollars in re-enlistment bonuses; nearly three-quarters of all soldiers who renew their contracts receive one. The average is $11,000. The longer the commitment, the higher the bonus. Career counselors and officers monitor soldiers who become eligible, pointing out the challenges of leaving the military's cosseted universe that provides everything from first-run movies for $1 to free prescription drugs. "We ask them, 'Where are you going to live when you get out? Do you know how much it costs to set up a kitchen? Did you save any money?,' " explained Best. "The bottom line is, what are they going to do five years from now to put food on the table?" As a result of those efforts, re-enlistments are running well ahead of the Army's goal. The Army had aimed to retain 40,446 soldiers by this point in the year and instead has signed up 48,666 — or 120 percent of its mark. That exceeds re-enlistment levels that were 108 percent of the Army's target last year and 107 percent in 2004.

i pity those sacrificial lambs, even though they willingly enlisted.. and the thought that they are now being used as iraq's mercenary defense force (since iraqis themselves don't have to fight) is completely deplorable. whoever created that policy ought to be fed to hungry lions.

[Samildanach]

Yes your government is quite sickening and I mean that literally. It betrays the people it is supposed to be protecting. Sooner or later your people are going to realise it and when they do they are going to be very pissed off about it.

[Avixious]

I think this can all be summed up in one sentence; Bush and his administration are f**kers of the first order.

[bishop]

i'd like to hope you're right.. especially since i'm a lover, not a fighter. i'd fight with my votes and my wallet though, using the means that i have. i'll save the face-painting rambo antics to guys like osborn.

[rmnunez]

don't think that going to war with Iraq did anything except stir up a hornets nest...ie increasing terrorism and terrorist activity and oil prices....both negative effects.

Yes, but if we conceived of terrorism as a 'background' element (some form of exacerbated expressive conduct, if you like) incidence of which reached some 'high' on 911, couldn't it be that united statian intolerance of terrorism and efforts to stop it are reasonable? Or is anyone going to argue demolishing skyscrappers full of people now and then are things the world, and particularly united statians, need to learn to live with? Maybe its a problem that does need to be addressed, post haste.

Too much haste in Iraq? Not enough in Afghanistan? The wrong sort in both cases? Should terrorism be tackled more ponderously, or is this more urgent? What level of certitude is required in prosecuting it?

Any evidence of these "stop loss" orders the US military allegedly applies?

[Zeebadee]

"Last year, the Army paid half a billion dollars in re-enlistment bonuses; nearly three-quarters of all soldiers who renew their contracts receive one. The average is $11,000."

Might as well get paid to reenlist. With stoploss, you're not getting out anyway.

[RickSp]

It is interesting that the US can train a soldier in 18 months yet our military says that it will take 5 years to train the Iraqis.

Of course we trained the South Vietnamese for over a decade. That didn't work out too well either. I guess we'll never learn.

There is something almost surreal about the initial contention that the Iraqis were such a threat that we needed to invade, yet now they cannot defend themselves. Hell, they can't even get their soldiers to show up for work. Guess they prefer the US soldiers to do the dying. Seems to be Bush's preference as well.

[rmnunez]

The rodent simplifies things too much, the magnitude of the Iraqi threat had more to do with their purported WMD pursuits. Estimates of Iraqi military strength would at least in part be based on armament and equipment deployed by the well-established martialized Saddam dictatorship over 30 years.

[Zeebadee]

Quote by: rmnunez The rodent simplifies things too much, the magnitude of the Iraqi threat had more to do with their purported WMD pursuits. Estimates of Iraqi military strength would at least in part be based on armament and equipment deployed by the well-established martialized Saddam dictatorship over 30 years.

Yeah, right. 98% of his "armament and equipment" was littering the desert between Kuwait and Baghdad after Desert Storm I. I won't even say anything about his "purported" WMD's. I think one of the reasons bush decided to invade was because Iraq was so weak, he fully expected a cakewalk.

[RickSp]

Quote by: rmnunez The rodent simplifies things too much, the magnitude of the Iraqi threat had more to do with their purported WMD pursuits. Estimates of Iraqi military strength would at least in part be based on armament and equipment deployed by the well-established martialized Saddam dictatorship over 30 years.

The war apologists will never give up. There were no WMD so "the magnitude of the Iraqi threat had more to do with their purported WMD pursuits." Simple lunacy. The invasion was unnecessary and illegal.

[rmnunez]

The invasion was apparently unnecessary, but this wasn't known at the time the decision to do was made.

[bishop]

if the public had all the information that was learned after the invasion, we would've been much more inclined to view the war as being unnecessary.. (of course, there are always mindless war mongers in any society.)

the administration hid all sorts of information from the public, in order to protect their lies about wmd's. knowing all they knew in the administration, the core decision makers knew this war was necessary because they installed people to provide them with "intelligence" to support their preconceived war plans. the decision to go to war was made long before the "intelligence" was created to justify it.

[RickSp]

Quote by: rmnunez The invasion was apparently unnecessary, but this wasn't known at the time the decision to do was made.

Not known by whom? With the exception of Bush's puppy Blair, most Europeans knew that it was not necessary and would not support it. The Bush coalition of the "bribed and bullied" showed how few nations believed the war as necessary. Even in countries like Italy and Spain, the populace always opposed the invasion even if the polticians were bought off.

Increasingly it is becoming clear that the Bush administration knew their claims were lies.

The War They Wanted, The Lies They Needed

The Bush administration invaded Iraq claiming Saddam Hussein had tried to buy yellowcake uranium in Niger. As much of Washington knew, and the world soon learned, the charge was false. Worse, it appears to have been the cornerstone of a highly successful "black propaganda" campaign with links to the White House. For more than two years it has been widely reported that the U.S. invaded Iraq because of intelligence failures. But in fact it is far more likely that the Iraq war started because of an extraordinary intelligence success—specifically, an astoundingly effective campaign of disinformation, or black propaganda, which led the White House, the Pentagon, Britain's M.I.6 intelligence service, and thousands of outlets in the American media to promote the falsehood that Saddam Hussein's nuclear-weapons program posed a grave risk to the United States. The Bush administration made other false charges about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (W.M.D.)—that Iraq had acquired aluminum tubes suitable for centrifuges, that Saddam was in league with al-Qaeda, that he had mobile weapons labs, and so forth. But the Niger claim, unlike other allegations, can't be dismissed as an innocent error or blamed on ambiguous data. "This wasn't an accident," says Milt Bearden, a 30-year C.I.A. veteran who was a station chief in Pakistan, Sudan, Nigeria, and Germany, and the head of the Soviet–East European division. "This wasn't 15 monkeys in a room with typewriters."

[ise]

06-06-06, 12:32 pm #22

Samildanach ...However I don't think that going to war with Iraq did anything except stir up a hornets nest...ie increasing terrorism and terrorist activity and oil prices....both negative effects. In the long term the US will suffer more terrorism attacks because they invaded Iraq, not less. Its not in the nature of this particular enemy to lie down and stay down when hes been hit.

True. And for all the reasons that Bush Sr did not invade Bagdad in Gulf War 1. What changed. No brainer - Junior.

[ise]

Yesterday, 01:57 pm #35

bishop if the public had all the information that was learned after the invasion, we would've been much more inclined to view the war as being unnecessary.. (of course, there are always mindless war mongers in any society.) The administration hid all sorts of information from the public, in order to protect their lies about WMD's. Knowing all they knew in the administration, the core decision makers knew this war was necessary because they installed people to provide them with "intelligence" to support their preconceived war plans. The decision to go to war was made long before the "intelligence" was created to justify it.

Is that not the truth of it.

Was the war not ON for months before SHOCK & AWE
.

[rmnunez]

most Europeans knew that it was not necessary and would not support it.

Lots of critical lefties, and not just in Europe, opposed intervention, but this doesn't mean they knew the war was unnecessary.