Ex-Commander Says Iraq Effort Is ‘a Nightmare’

[Sonart]

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Quote by: Xyzer I've previously stated I was against the operation in the first place but the Congress authorized it.

Because, like the rest of us, they were misled by administration briefings, and the GOP chaired committees went along with everything the Bush League chose to dish out.

Quote by: Xyzer We had the people and did the invasion job easilyj..remember..there were elections and literally millions of Iraqicitizens voted.

LIke I said, even I predicted we'd take Baghdad with ease. That was never the problem... it was always as question of what to do after we owned it.

As to the elections, recall that Bush reluctantly agreed to move them up by a year... because things were going so badly. And with every election, major military operation, constitutional ratification or other much touted milestone, American confidence and support for Bush would rise hopefully back up, only to collapse a month later as the violence continued to get worse and worse, until the Bush League would talk up it's next big milestone.

Well, their out of milestones. The last one was Gen. Patreus' Sept. speech, and Bush apologists were once again cheered by reports that the surge was working... sorta.... maybe... a little. So now we'll all sit and watch as the violence continues. the Iraqi government flounders and insurgents and terrorists figure out new ways to deal with the surge.

Quote by: Xyzer Then the Stuff hit the fan and Iran and surrounding Islamic powers sent in the shock terrorists. Ever since the election the terroristrs have been pecking away, setting off just enough explosves to keep the world press writers humming and turn off the people.

You seem to have a selective memory. The insurgency began immediately, and continued to grow 8 months later, when Saddam was finally captured.

Remember Rumnsnamara, who in June of 2003 described the growing insurgency as just so many "pockets of dead-enders".

My favorite quote came in November of 2003, when the resistance started getting serious, and the Marines were fighting very serious battles in Fallujah. Said one Marine Lieutenant, "They're not stupid - we killed all the stupid ones".

No Xyzer, this fiasco was doomed from the start. The Bush League's idiocy just made it get much worse much more quickly.

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[The Decider]

Quote by: xyzer So what grandpa? Does this 'nightmare' exemplify what I've been saying about reporting of the campaign always being negative?

I think the word "nightmare" exemplifies the comments of General Sanchez, the US officer who recently used it this way, "a nightmare with no end in sight." It also pertains to the general's criticism of the Surge as a failure. Blame the "negative media" all you want, but the General made those points in the same speech. Is he also "negative?"

[Zeebadee]

$46,000,000,000 more requested by bush today for his war.

"With stepped-up military operations, the war is costing about $10 billion a month. "
cbs13.com - Bush Asks For $46 Billion More In War Funding


""President Bush wants us to rubber-stamp another $200 billion in war funds -- all borrowed money, none of it paid for -- for next year alone," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said.

<snip>

Reid noted that this $200 billion, like all the money before it, is not paid for in the budget and thus would have to be borrowed."

Any wonder that the dollar keeps dropping? Who's gonna pay for this madness? When is enough going to be enough?? Who in their right mind still supports this fanatic war criminal??

[xyzer]

I don't know whether this meets the antiwar definition of success?
Violence in Iraq drops sharply: Ministry | Reuters

or is this evidence of a nightmare?..But it does address my search for some definition of victory? Winning?

Violence in Iraq has dropped by 70 percent since the end of June, when U.S. forces completed their build-up of 30,000 extra troops to stabilize the war-torn country, the Interior Ministry said on Monday.

Believe it or not some here have posted nonsense about the surge failing two months or so after it started? Is that realistic, or is it a subjective bit of nonsense. While I agree in part with general Sanchez in his words about what constitutes the formula for success, I don't agree that he is in a positition, several years after retirment, to qualify as an expert on the surge or current conditions in Iraq?

Not so sonart.

Because, like the rest of us, they were misled by administration briefings, and the GOP chaired committees went along with everything the Bush League chose to dish out.

In truth I am an advocate of the Monroe Doctrine. We should stay out of military solutions to events outside our hemisphere, and respond only if directly threatened or attacked. I was against Clintons invasion and bombing in Yugoslavia and his attempts to hunt down bandits in Somalia. I was against the Bush invasion of Iraq even though Saddam had violated the terms of he Destert Storm truce and committed various acts of war against our aircraft over Iraq.! I was for the campaign in Afghanistan to directly overthrow the Taliban because they figured in terrorism against us.

I am for the establishment of a goal for troop withdrawal in Iraq. The creation of benchmarks(not exact dates) for gradual disengagement.

[Gaius]

Quote by: xyzer I don't know whether this meets the antiwar definition of success? Violence in Iraq drops sharply: Ministry | Reuters or is this evidence of a nightmare?..But it does address my search for some definition of victory? Winning? .

Nope, come on now xyzer, who are you trying to fool? stop being dishonest, why dont you finish reading the article ? afraid of whats in there?

However, in the northern province of Nineveh, where many al Qaeda and other Sunni Arab militants fled to escape the crackdown in Baghdad and surrounding region, there had been a 129 percent rise in car bombings and a corresponding 114 percent increase in the number of people killed in violence. [And] there is growing instability in southern Iraq, where rival Shi'ite factions are fighting for political dominance.

let me help you out xyzer, because youve changed a lot since your conservobot rantings for months here.
Start at this: The US has already lost. Everything else begins to fit into place

[Sonart]

The definition of Winning in Iraq

[Gaius]

Quote by: Sonart The definition of Winning in Iraq

your position on the iraq was and your position on the israeli palestinian issue is a double standard, id even say youre a hypocrit.

How do you hold two position in opposition to each other? the only people that are AGAINST the iraq war, but are also AGAINST the palestinians are zionists.

Can you tell me your political affiliation so i can see how you make sense of it?

So i can better debate against your position

[grandpa]

Quote by: xyzer So what grandpa? Does this 'nightmare' exemplify what I've been saying about reporting of the campaign always being negative?

Well, first of all, I fail to see how reporting on war can be very positive in general.

Second, if the media didn't focus on all the awful things happening, they'd be lying by omission. And, indeed, many awful things clearly are happening.

Grandpa h.

[Gaius]

Quote by: grandpa Well, first of all, I fail to see how repsorting on war can be very positive in general. Second, if the media didn't focus on all the awful things happening, they'd be lying by omission. And, indeed, many awful things clearly are happening. Grandpa h.

The warmongers want the soilders to kill en mass, in peace. Without supervision, international law, morals or anything else that will get in the way of killing brown people or non-christians. Please try to keep up gramps!

[Sonart]

Quote by: Gaius your position on the iraq was and your position on the israeli palestinian issue is a double standard, id even say youre a hypocrit.

Only in the imagining of your fevered little mind.

The Jewish diaspora lost 6 million souls in the holocaust. 6 MILLION murdered for no other reason than being Jewish. And that was merely the culmination of centuries of pogroms and institutionalized discrimination against them. If the world so clearly didn't want them in Europe, then the post-war exodus to their ancient homeland in Israel was the only logical evolution. Gawd knows the British, with the sun setting on their empire, had a tenuous enough hold on the former Ottoman backwater. And the Jewish return was certainly less violent than when Saladin took back the Holy Lands from the Christians, who had conquered it a hundred years before from the Moslems, who had conquered it from the Christians a couple hundred years before that, who had conquered it from the Jews 500 years before that.

But yes, I can certainly understand how the Pro-Nazi Arabs resented their fortunes being once again dictated by European politics and I can even understand their desire not to allow Jewish Israel to take root, but apparently when the remaining Jews said, "Never Again!", they friggin' meant it, and their subsequent struggle to exist has been, notwithstanding some over-zealous abuses, nothing short of heroic.

And the Arab's refusal to eventually make peace, and their cynical use of the Palestinians as political pawns and custom-bred martyr-fodder to wage their proxy war on Israel has been nothing short of brutally moronic.

How you compare this to a superpower's arrogant, unprovoked military invasion and occupation of a sovereign nation, for the purpose of removing an inconvenient overseas regime and exerting regional hegemony from half a world away in order to control the price of oil, is just.... silly.

Quote by: Gaius Can you tell me your political affiliation so i can see how you make sense of it?

I told you. I'm a (Bill) Clinton Democrat. Why, what are you?

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[Sonart]

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Quote by: Gaius The warmongers want the soilders to kill en mass, in peace. Without supervision, international law, morals or anything else that will get in the way of killing brown people or non-christians. Please try to keep up gramps!

Oh, Puh-leeeeze!! I'm dead against the war, but this is hysterical clap-trap. How convenient it must be to paint everyone you disagree with as one-dimensional monsters.

[grandpa]

Quote by: Gaius The warmongers want the soilders to kill en mass, in peace. Without supervision, international law, morals or anything else that will get in the way of killing brown people or non- christians.

You're right. The Bush League will use the law to protect their members and their agenda, but for precious little else other than bombing people, pushing them around and locking them up.

Grandpa h.

[grandpa]

Quote by: Sonart . Oh, Puh-leeeeze!! I'm dead against the war, but this is hysterical clap- trap.

Not by much. The government has been killing and subordinating people--especially brown people--basically since its inception.
But, apparently, the mere suggestion of this is just hyperbole of some kind.

Grandpa h.

[xyzer]

Gaius..uses a minor fact to try to detract from the overall conclusion of the article of a reduction of violence in Iraq? That is illogical and ridiculous!
May I ask, is a part as important as the sum of all the parts in putting together something. Sure there may have been an increase in violence in some areas but overall the article concluded violence is down dramatically? Get real Gaius?

Now we get the racially tinted claptrap about Bush murdering our little brown brothers. And the oppressor and his Haliburton brother are intent on killing and subordiinating people? Come on? That is about as juvenile an argument as one can dream up!
Our policy towards other nations and people of most all ethnic origins has been one of benevolence. We helped save Europe in two world wars and have showered most of the rest of the world with financial aid over the years. It is insulting and untrue to make such inane comparisons or as sonart says post such hysterical claptrap?

[Sonart]

Quote by: grandpa Not by much. The government has been killing and subordinating people--especially brown people--basically since its inception. But, apparently, the mere suggestion of this is just hyperbole of some kind.

C'mon, Grandpa... in WWII we fought against the Aryan Germans, then spent 40 years preparing for war against the white Soviet Russians. Bill Clinton successfully pursued an military intervention against the white Serbians. In the '80s we armed Afghans to fight against the white Soviets. In Desert Storm we fought Arabs on behalf of other Arabs on behalf of defending the oil producing Gulf Region, and we attacked Iraq again because of oil... not because they're brown skinned.

The simple fact is that most of the world's peoples aren't white, so it would be kind of silly to suggest that we should only make war against other white nations and allow the others free rein. Are you suggesting that we should not have fought the Japanese because they were non-white and it might appear to be racist... despite the fact that we were also fighting on behalf of the Chinese, Koreans, Phillipinos, Indo-Chinese, Indians, etc.???

You folks really prefer your issues in stark blacks and whites, don't you.

Quote by: grandpa But, apparently, the mere suggestion of this is just hyperbole of some kind.

The mere suggestion???????

"The warmongers want the soilders to kill en mass, in peace. Without supervision, international law, morals or anything else that will get in the way of killing brown people or non-christians."

If by warmongers Gaius means some of the super-hawk crackpots on this board, well maybe. I've seen some pretty cold-blooded suggestions. But even the Bush League, as lame-brained, incompetent, short-sighted, and arrogantly belligerent as they are can't be fairly accused of any of this nonsense, nor of invading Iraq simply because of their skin color. They want our soldiers to kill en masse, in peace???? Without supervision, or laws getting in the way of killing brown people or non-Christians???? Come OOOOnnn!

Tell me, should we have sat on our thumbs after 9/11, because we were attacked by brown-skinned, non-Christians?? Can't go after them, nope... that would be unseemly, might smack of racism.

Perhaps you're assuming the 9/11 attacks were justified, because, after all, they were brown-skinned non-Christians and are therefore justified in killing us white folk en masse, in peace, without laws or morals whenever they choose.

{Yes, yes, I know, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 -- I'm referring to war and race in general}

This particular bad war aside, we don't always get to pick who we're called to make war on, Grandpa.

Quote by: Xyzer Our policy towards other nations and people of most all ethnic origins has been one of benevolence.

Actually, our policy towards other nations and people has been shaped more than anything by material self-interest. The races and religions of those who aid or hinder that pursuit are irrellevent.

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[xyzer]

Here is another report of change in Iraqi attitudes towards the terrorists?
The Associated Press: Sharp Drop Seen in US Deaths in Iraq
with resultant evidence of progress?
But I still haven't seen any answers to the question, what constitutes success? Winning? Victory? in Iraq?
The subject is nebulous and depends on individuals rather than the US Government. Thats my gripe. How do we determine when that country is secured and ready to look out for itself?

[Gaius]

Quote by: Sonart Tell me, should we have sat on our thumbs after 9/11, because we were attacked by brown-skinned, non-Christians?? Can't go after them, nope... that would be unseemly, might smack of racism.

The people that attacked us on 9/11, died on 9/11

Aside from that "mastermind" we captured a year or so ago and bin laden, pretty much everyone weve killed upwards of half a million, excluding the few high ranked al qaeda, have been innocent. but whats it matter to you? They attacked us so of course we attacked them back ! Derrrr

[Gaius]

Quote by: xyzer Here is another report of change in Iraqi attitudes towards the terrorists? The Associated Press: Sharp Drop Seen in US Deaths in Iraq with resultant evidence of progress? But I still haven't seen any answers to the question, what constitutes success? Winning? Victory? in Iraq? The subject is nebulous and depends on individuals rather than the US Government. Thats my gripe. How do we determine when that country is secured and ready to look out for itself?

Dont even worry about it, because it wont ever happen. The level of "violence" in iraq dropping can be changed with a SINGLE car bomb according to the article, it looks like 8 less soilders have been killed this month

The idea that we are doing better because this month because a whole SQUAD of soilders were able to survive this month is ridiculous. I wonder if New York has been under constant attack since 9/11 and only now begins to have 1 fewer car bombs per month, xyzer would be here talking about "improvement"

but i will give credit where credit is due, its not always you see a true awakening of a conservobot. We can call it an Evolution. Anyone who knows xyzer knows what im speaking of. hes changed a lot.

[xyzer]

A few posts back w discussed reporting of the Iraq war. Its possible efects on the publics attitudes are in MNSHO vital..
An example...
More Evidence Good News From Iraq Not Getting Reported | NewsBusters.org

This from omeone who was there?

No thinking person would look at last year's weather reports to judge whether it will rain today, yet we do something similar with Iraq news. The situation in Iraq has drastically changed, but the inertia of bad news leaves many convinced that the mission has failed beyond recovery, that all Iraqis are engaged in sectarian violence, or are waiting for us to leave so they can crush their neighbors. This view allows our soldiers two possible roles: either "victim caught in the crossfire" or "referee between warring parties." Neither, rightly, is tolerable to the American or British public.

Ah the power of the press? The sins of omission and comission of facts are deadly! Or at least falsely shape our opinions. Read the article and note, early on the author refers to some journalists opinions on why good news should not be reported?

[Sonart]

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Quote by: Gaius They attacked us so of course we attacked them back ! Derrrr

You seem to accept that as a perfectly legitimate rationale for the non-stop war on Israel, right?

LIke I said, one doesn't always have the luxury of choosing who ones enemies are. And you are aware, are you not, the more moslems have died at the hands of other moslems than by the U.S. and Israel combined. Or is that ok cuz it's a brown skin on brown skin thing?

Quote by: Xyzer Ah the power of the press? The sins of omission and comission of facts are deadly! Or at least falsely shape our opinions. Read the article and note, early on the author refers to some journalists opinions on why good news should not be reported?

What did you expect? For four years the Bush League kept telling us about all the good news coming from Iraq that wasn't getting reported, so the press kept jumping on every milestone as the event that would turn the corner...

...except it never did, and no sooner would the latest trumped up milestone pass -- often with a slight reduction in violence as the insurgency stepped back to re-assess -- then the violence would return and continue getting worse and worse and worse.

Conservative pundits used to constantly talk about the schools the were being build and hospitals that were being rebuilt and the kids getting candy, accusing the press of ignoring it. Until the conservative pundits stopped talking about it when they found out our troops had to give up such efforts to focus on security.

So you'll have to forgive the media if they've learned their lesson and decide to take a wait and see attitude with anything the administration wants to promote as turning the corner. It'll be great if it lasts, but it's not like the violence hasn't temporarily subsided before.

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