is it a quagmire yet?

[bishop]

how long do we have to wait, how many have to die and how much do we have to spend before iraq can correctly be characterized as being a quagmire?

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/09/16/us.iraq.ap/index.html

The National Intelligence Council looked at the political, economic and security situation in the war-torn country and determined -- at best -- the situation would be tenuous in terms of stability, a U.S. official said late Wednesday, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

"We're making progress on the ground," Bush said at his Texas ranch late last month.

Senate Republicans and Democrats on Wednesday denounced the Bush administration's slow progress in rebuilding Iraq, saying the risks of failure are great if it doesn't act with greater urgency. "It's beyond pitiful, it's beyond embarrassing, it's now in the zone of dangerous," said Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska, referring to figures showing only about 6 percent of the reconstruction money approved by Congress last year has been spent.

"Our committee heard blindly optimistic people from the administration prior to the war and people outside the administration -- what I call the 'dancing in the street crowd,' that we just simply will be greeted with open arms," Lugar said. "The nonsense of all of that is apparent. The lack of planning is apparent." He said the need to shift the reconstruction funds was clear in July, but the administration was slow to make the request. "This is an extraordinary, ineffective administrative procedure. It is exasperating from anybody looking at this from any vantage point," he said.

looks like the moderate republicans are finally stepping up to the plate. thank god for that!

[tman_ndsu08]

The armed forces have no business being on any non-American soil.

Not to protect American citizens either. As soon as they leave, they defend themselves.

[RickSp]

It may be closer to quicksand that a quagmire.

I keep getting flashbacks of another president from Texas.

Flashback-Bush/LBJ

[PatrickHenry]

What's a quagmire but a trap?

Is the US trapped in Iraq? Got in and can't figure how to get out?

Why doesn't the US just pull out? What vital interests of the US are being protected by troops in Iraq today?

[Technosoul]

Look at the difference between Iraq and Afganistan, over in Af we could stay and rebuild or we could just leave, without much whooha.
But in Iraq it has become a major conflict and who are we after, Saddam is captured and fisnished, now we are just there to offer security for the new government, we say? Our bomber planes strike another target today (yesterday?) killing 60 to 100 people of which a half were women and children, because someone among them had fired at our troops. Right? Wrong? or just too darn Long?

So we will stay until the job is done? Just what kind of job, a snow job? I do not have a clue.

Technosoul.

[bishop]

Why doesn't the US just pull out? What vital interests of the US are being protected by troops in Iraq today?

i think there would be significant consequences if we were to withdraw now... iraq would most certainly become a failed state. there are multiple ways it could happen - terrorists, al-sadr, civil war... failed states and lands in conflict are breeding grounds for terrorists. of course, some see this as the inevitable outcome. personally, i tend to agree with that viewpoint (although i'd rather not). the other part of me acknowledges that this mess is our country's fault, and domestically it's solely the bush administration's fault. to just up and run would represent irresponsibility on a massive scale.

i wish i could think of a way to get additional support. frankly, i think the opportunity for that was there right after the war. but bush decided to play politics with reconstruction contracts, so he totally killed that possibility. and now, who in their right mind would want to participate in this nonsense??? (and who'd want to form a partnership with a jackass like bush?)

a while back, i posted a thread about the handover of power that happened in june/july.. with all of our soldiers on the ground, i asked when this symbolic power transfer was done - what exactly would be different in iraq? would american troops no longer patrol the streets in tanks? would they no longer act on their own, in typical heavy handed fashion? would the iraqi government be seen as remotely legitimate? in my pessimism, i didn't think the handover would have any positive result, and unfortunately, i was completely right.

right now, i'd like to see a much greater role played by the u.n... and i want to see these reconstruction contracts shredded and replaced with a legal bidding process. if companies from other countries win contracts, we might be able to work out a deal where their host countries send a complement of troops along with them. hopeful thinking obviously, but i don't think that abruptly leaving iraq will serve our national interests.


and in today's news:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/09/17/us.iraq.i...ntel/index.html

The Bush administration, however, continues to argue publicly the U.S. is making good progress in Iraq, with the President saying Thursday that "freedom is on the march" in Iraq, citing scheduled elections in January next year.

"I think that anybody that thinks that you can hold elections in the Sunni Triangle by the end of January is really smoking something," military historian Frank Fukuyama said.

maybe he is.....

[harumscarum]

"It's beyond pitiful, it's beyond embarrassing, it's now in the zone of dangerous," said Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska, referring to figures showing only about 6 percent of the reconstruction money approved by Congress last year has been spent.

At least someone will step up in say that. I fail to see anything positive coming from the Iraqi war. I am really at a loss for words.

[bishop]

well.. bush's rhetoric says that we gave them freedom/liberty. too bad reality doesn't confirm his b.s..

i posted this article once before.. dunno if anyone read it, but it's worth reading.

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20040901faes...ng-in-iraq.html

[RickSp]

i think there would be significant consequences if we were to withdraw now... iraq would most certainly become a failed state. there are multiple ways it could happen - terrorists, al-sadr, civil war... failed states and lands in conflict are breeding grounds for terrorists. of course, some see this as the inevitable outcome. personally, i tend to agree with that viewpoint (although i'd rather not). the other part of me acknowledges that this mess is our country's fault, and domestically it's solely the bush administration's fault. to just up and run would represent irresponsibility on a massive scale.

The argument is hopelessly secular. If we leave it is irresponsible. As the infidel occupiers in a highly nationalist country, we are the target and the longer we stay the worse it will get. The worse it gets the more irresponsible it would be for us to leave. And the longer we stay the worse it gets. More Americans and Iraqis die.

If Bush had announced the US withdrawal to be taken over by UN peakeepers a year ago, we would be far ahead of where we are now.

Bottom line, the longer we stay the worse it gets, until we are forced out. We have already lost control of ever larger sections of the country. If we stay and "get the job done" we may find ourselves leaving by helicopters from the roof of the embassy in the Green Zone.

[bishop]

what would be the consequences if we were to withdraw right now?

[RickSp]

I will not claim to predict the future. Would the consequences of pulling out now be worse than they would be a year from now when another thousand or two more American soliders have died? In Vietnam while Nixon negotiated a "peace with honor" 20,000 soldiers died, and in the end Nixon got no more by than he would have gotten at the beginning of the negotiations.

In Iraq I think we should set a date certain by which we will pull out. With the concurrence of our puppet regime, excuse me, with the sovereign government of Iraq, we would invite in UN peace keepers, without conditions, and assist in the transition. We would also agree to continue funding Iraqi rebuilding.

Whatever happens, we are not the solution to Iraqi violence. We are the cause. The longer we stay the worse it will get.

[bishop]

i don't disagree. however, there is a catch-22.. if we just up and leave, iraq will find itself in a massive power vaccuum. the various militias there, who hold true power, will begin to fight each other for control. there will be human catastrophe, a total loss of human rights (primarily for women), potential genocide (for vengance during the saddam years) - and, most importantly to us americans, iraq will become an even worse breeding ground for al qaeda. they'll probably begin to fund themselves by stealing and selling oil. a lot more profitable than selling drugs in afghanistan imo. is that in our interests?

there is no good solution to this shit, and we all have bush to thank for it.

[RickSp]

No outcome will be a good outcome. General William Odom, a retired four star general and a Republican who once headed the National Security Agency and also served as a deputy National Security Adviser, said of Iraq, "We have failed. The issue is how high a price we're going to pay - less, by getting out sooner, or more, by getting out later."

Peacekeepers fom other Arab countries, peacekeepers from Europe or Asia - almost anyone would be better than the US. Iraq might still slip into further into civil war, but whatever happens, the longer we, the infidel occupier, stays, the worse it will become.

Both Bush and Kerry say that we can't leave until Iraq is stable. As long as we occupy the country, Iraq will never be stable. We will be in an endless war that we cannot win. We are the cause of the problem. It isn't likely that we can also be the solution.

[Dieval]

Let's just give up now! There's no way we can possibly win!
quagmire! quagmire! Iraq! Vietnam!


Please...the going gets rough and everyone bitches and moans and wants to run away with their tail tucked firmly between their legs..

[PatrickHenry]

Well, a lot of us said don't do it beforehand.

Now, US troopers die every day defending what?

Iraqi pseudodemocracy? A CIA puppet gov in the heart of Arabic territory?

US oil supplies?

Israel, our ally who spies on us and threatens her neighbors with nukes?

[Samildanach]

Thats exactly whats going to happen, history will repeat itself, we have seen one bush lose his nerve and blood runs true.

[bishop]

notice how the bush supporter here has failed to come to terms with reality?

1,000+ american lives and $200+ billion later and what do we have to show for it?

[Sonart]

Thats exactly whats going to happen, history will repeat itself, we have seen one bush lose his nerve and blood runs true.

Bush pére didn't lose his nerve, he understood that invading Iraq would be a really bad idea.

--"Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in Ômission creep,' and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances, there was no viable "exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome." --- George H.W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (1998), pp. 489-90

Prescient, huh!

Bush the Little, on the other hand, has all sorts of nerve and everything his father predicted has come true because of it. 'A barren outcome'.

[bishop]

powell also warned him of the consequences of invading. but, as usual, bush was playing the see no evil, hear no evil game with the neocons.

and, it's ony a matter of time before other countries begin to launch their own wars under the label of "pre-emption".

[RickSp]

Hey Dieval,

Your macho rant is fine as long as someone else is doing the dying in a needless, immoral and illegal war. Just another Chicken Hawk, ready to see young Americans die in the name of empire.

250 years ago good Americans fought the madness of King Goerge. Time to start all over again.