So, how would you stop the War?

[deedee]

How would I stop the war?

I would hone in on the fact that regardless of religious views, we all come from the same seed. The seed of Adam and Eve and hopefully that would bring some sort of resolve since most wars are about power and land and belief systems.

Once people grasp the concept albeit Christians, Muslims or Jewish........perhaps this might decrease tension?

[rmnunez]

Sure DD, but we need some tangible and objectifiable steps. Peace and love are abstract concepts, nice to have and emote, but we need specific actions on the ground to stop the war.

I figure an immediate and complete pullout it out of the question, this would make things worse, insurgent and terrorist factions vying for power with anxious Iranians and Saudis helping out. Iraq isn't that well held together with rival ethnic groups. Saddam kept the country in one piece repressing Kurd, Shia, Marsh Arab and any other non Tikritian Sunni -each of these in turn has an ax to grind and vengance is much more important among the people who gave us The Golden Rule.

Withdrawal from Iraq will be accomplished in years (decades I think). A partial pullout will ensue within the next year and we will see Coalitioneers reduced to around 50 thousand within 12 months. This should help by reducing targets.

A lot depends on the successful re-equiping and training of the reconstituted Iraqi military forces. Heretofore they seem to succumb to fear in the heat of battle and are prone to insurgent/terrorist attack, particularly at recruitment/enlistment points. The US needs to train about 40 thousand of these right away, and they need to deploy with enough firepower to suppress insurgency/terrorism as well as the US now does. EUers were supposed to turn-out thousands of law enforcement by now, but the best laid plans of mice and men...

The reconstruction effort is stalled, Brown & Root won't send its subcontractors money for their own security (the whole international mercenary private security industry is on hold) and the Coalitioneers can't cover all of the sites where work is to be done -much of it beyond the confines of Baghdad. US planning didn't anticipate their delay is capturing Saddam and then in assuming control of governmental institutions delivering those vital services (schools, hospitals, water and electricity).

Reconstruction needs to be accelerated and large US contractors need to do much more local subcontracting. The US military and Iraqi regulars need to quickly integrate an identification system, document the applicants and somehow screen them. Deploy lots of reconstituted Iraqi regulars to protect the laborers and installations, they can expand and receive proportionate additional funding, equipment and manpower, to the degree they can maintain safety.

Reconstituted Iraqi regulars with adequate firepower need to be generated in numbers sufficient to cover the reconstruction sites. Given the benefits of reconstruction employment, the Iraqi government ought to appreciate their own interest in fostering the transfer of security responsibilities to their own, particularly as this entails reducing foreign military occupation.

I advocate a structured transfer of power from the Coalitioneers to locals based exclusively on their successful assumption of responsibilities. If a mayor can deploy sufficient police to host a thriving market, I'd build him a bigger one and give him money for more cops. If the health minister can run more hospitals give him the money for it. Appointed puppets capable of delivering jobs and security to their constituents will gain political support and should prevail in democratic processes. This way the US can handicap the race by funding favorites and deal more directly with the people spending those tax dollars.

Retaining the territorial integrity of Iraq is a more troublesome problem. The Kurds are held in check by Turkey, but they apparently are satisfied with the 'gains' they appreciate from the autonomy the US provided them and their current national political positions. On their own they are oil-producing, so they could make a dash for it, but I suspect they anticipate the US would blast them to smithereens so they won't.

The Shia are another matter. These are >60% of the Iraqis and they've endured repression at the hand of the Sunni for centuries, but Saddam was worse than ever. The insurgency/terrorism (some say maybe even Iranian intelligence) attacked a lot of Shia shrines, often at localized peak attendance dates. The crowded markets and large congregations repeatedly slaughtered each time one of those car-bombs goes off suggest to many of them the Sunni are trying to hold them down, they don't want these Baathist Saddamites in the saddle again. Intervention released the Shia from repression and they won't go under again. They now have proportional representation and have proven political savvy accomodating Sunnis who boycotted the elections. They are working on a new constitution due out any moment (said to repress females). The Shia have ethnic brethren in Iran which has a keen interest in the developments next door, but the Iraqi Shia are not fundamentalist theocrats like the Iranians, they are accustomed to strong church/state separations and not prone to 'ayatollaism'. However, if Iran had influence the US would suffer a serious setback, this is to be avoided.

I expect 20 to 50 thousand members of the US armed forces will be long-term stationed in Iraq for decades. They will be garrisoned at 4 major bases in separate geographic regions of Iraq and are anticipated to make the world safer deploying from these to interdict Islamic fundamentalist terrorism.

[Rainbow]

Quote by: righthand Is this a case of double negative or some word game? Are you saying "You can prove God's existance". If so then belief in God is out. Is like Delay proves GOD does NOT exist that I had so fun with. "How would you stop the War?" SOLUTION: PH #25; RH #30 ALL WHITE CHRISTAN TROOPS OUT. ALL MUSLIN TROOPS IN. RH #30 Its Indians, Pakistani, Indonesia, Central Asians Stans, UK Muslims, North African, Central African, anywhere that is NOT white nor Christan.

#3
Have you developed that formula on your own ? :-)))
#2
A political agreement needs to be reached between interested parties, that would provide an assurance for all the interested bodies. If that point is accomplished, then Iraqi governing body supported by well-trained-and-equipped Iraqi military and interior personnel should handle the political scene in that state.
#1
Off Topic
I submitted the answer to the data you had posted.
The subject is well beyond this thread's topic, then I limited my reply (to you) as the outcome of expressed (by yourself) assumptions and/or statements.

Quote by: righthand If you believe in God and I say God does not exist, is that a lie? To you it's a lie to me its not. You cannot prove God exists and all the mega-shouting will not change that. Yet if 99.99999% believed there was a God, then I'd be very stupid - and I'm not - to continue saying there was no God. So what? Well my proof that BUSH IS A LIER is the same as the above God thing.

Since there is an equality sign in that comparison (Bush lies = God is dead), then it indicates a syllogism, for the following reasons :
1. science and technology can not provide any data on God's existance
2. science and technology can not deny God's existance
3. both points provide no sufficient data
4. a comparison to an unsufficient data is a syllogism, since it carries unspecified value
Although, it can be taken as an assumption and/or you blend the logics (as a faculty) wtih
the theology (as a faculty).

[GodBlessAmerica]

It will all stop when it is finished.

I for one will not kill myself to the satisfaction of terrorists who want us all dead, so we have to hunt terrorist and get them.

I read the Islamic terrorists blew up some 100 bombs today in a far off land.

I believe personally that this is going to end up a war of the modern world agaisnt Islam because Islam tends to be incompatible with peaceful human living.
They also treat their women very badly.
No culture that does that is going to do well.

[Matt W]

Islam tends to be incompatible with peaceful human living.

Not so long ago, Christianity seemed to be incompatible with peace too....those who view the Iraq invasion as a 'crusade' would probably say exactly the same thing about modern Christianity! Tell me, do you like discriminating and stereotyping based on religion?

[GodBlessAmerica]

True Matt, a thousand years or so ago, other religions were more brutal and a reflection of the whole world of that time. Many were living and dying by the sword.

The problem is that Islam hasn't stayed with the rest of the world in growing up. The very nature of Islam retards such growth IMO.

Women IMO often bring civility in culture. The treatment of their women can at best be described as brutal in Islamic countries. There has been no opportunity for women to have an impact on that culture to civilize it.

If there is terror, or something blowing up in this world based on a religion, it always seems to be Islam these days.

We also have a big problem in not being able to debate with "Wanting Us All Dead".

We have to find a way to change their culture or kill those that would kill us first.

The way this is going, I see this eventually being the modern world against Islam in WW3.
The reason I say the whole modern world is that Islam radicals have been bombing the whole world.

I'd like a peaceful alternative, but I can't live with their mantra of us converting to Islam or dying.

[RickSp]

Quote by: GodBlessAmerica I'd like a peaceful alternative, but I can't live with their mantra of us converting to Islam or dying.

Excuse me? We brutally invaded and occupied a country that never attacked us and was no threat to us. The Iraqis have never demanded that we convert to anything. Of course, our invasion has fostered and materially supported the radical Islamists you rant about.

I am sure that the conservatives no doubt lack a sufficient sense of irony to appreciate that King George's war may yet result in a second Shiite Islamic Republic. Ironic in that the US, including the likes of Rumsfeld, Bush and Cheney, supported Saddam in order to oppose the Iranian Shiite Republic. Now King George has helped create a second.

And every day more good Americans die in a war justified entirely by lies. The body count is 1858 as of this morning.

[righthand]

Quote by: Matt W Not so long ago, Christianity seemed to be incompatible with peace too....those who view the Iraq invasion as a 'crusade' would probably say exactly the same thing about modern Christianity! Tell me, do you like discriminating and stereotyping based on religion?

Matt on 08-14-05, 05:43 am on Bush gets first look at anti-war protest near ranch #34, I posted a spoof press release. A day or so later, I posted it to an Irish Forum Boards.ie as BUSH and Cindy Sheehan. I then went to post my memories to Mo Mowlam. By the time I'd finished, the first posting had disappeared. No explanation, no PM. That evening, I got a notification, the general daily notice. It was in the recycling bin, which I didn't know existed. The reason: They believed my spoof was a REAL PRESS RELEASE and as such was banned. I'm was both ashamed of my compatriots and amused but mostly amused. Explaining it was a spoof and that it all my work, I re-posted it as "Only a Spoof, Honest". It's also in the bin. Puppetry, whatever that is. I was ashamed for their naivety and lack of sense of humour.

Why all this dribble. Well all the explanations that you may give will never get through on your very good point on Christianity via Islam. The radio may be turned on but the volume is zero.

Consider doing a post of a genuine story on Christianity and Islam. We both know there is little difference between fundamental Christianity and fundamental Islam. Both want state interference in a whole range of moral issues that would be an abhorrence to a European. If Christianity and Islam were interchanged in the spoof, I believe you may have a better hope of being understood.

I did similar to indicate how Venezuelans view NED spending foreign money to influence foreign elections. I suggested the Chinese were spending huge amounts of money buying votes for the impeachment of bush. They appeared to understand better without long explanation.

Would it be worth the effort?

.

[GodBlessAmerica]

Go read some newspapers.

Not only was Saddam in defiance of the world for 11 years and getting worse, but he was jailing children, running rape and torture rooms, had hundreds of thousands dying in mass graves, had attempted to assassinate an ex American President and was currently funding almost all suicide bombing against Israel paying $25k a bombing to the families.
We also weren't in the Middle East when they bombed the Trade center the first or second time, or when they were attacking our embassies and kidnapping people everywhere.

These radical Islamic have been around a long time and were hitting American targets all during a prior Presidential administration without a reply from the President at that time.

This link below also brings up that there were folks here before even 9/11.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor.../2005815issues

Our soldiers and this President has freed over 50 million people and prevented the deaths of over 200,000 people that would have additionally died under Saddam by now if he was still there to butcher.

[RickSp]

Quote by: GodBlessAmerica Our soldiers and this President has freed over 50 million people and prevented the deaths of over 200,000 people that would have additionally died under Saddam by now if he was still there to butcher.

Yah right. Sure. And don't forget all the WMD and ties to Al Queda. Don't forget those. Your numbers and your conclusions are completely disconnected from reality. Just like our mad king.

[GodBlessAmerica]

Rick,
There was no doubt of terrorist training camps in Iraq with Saddam, I don't even think that has ever been questioned.
His funding of terror in Israel alone would have been reason to attack him.
His shooting all year at our planes doing UN missions was another reason to get him.

I think with over a year of debate at the UN, it would have been easy to remove quite a bit of stuff/weapons to Syria and elsewhere.
(If you have an illegal gun and the cops are coming, do you A...let them catch you with it, or B...remove it before they get there?)

Very likely over a million in mass graves. Are you going to tell us you are fond of mass graves now ?

[RickSp]

Quote by: GodBlessAmerica Rick, There was no doubt of terrorist training camps in Iraq with Saddam, I don't even think that has ever been questioned. His funding of terror in Israel alone would have been reason to attack him. His shooting all year at our planes doing UN missions was another reason to get him. I think with over a year of debate at the UN, it would have been easy to remove quite a bit of stuff/weapons to Syria and elsewhere. (If you have an illegal gun and the cops are coming, do you A...let them catch you with it, or B...remove it before they get there?) Very likely over a million in mass graves. Are you going to tell us you are fond of mass graves now ?

You are so absurdly misinformed I doubt whether you are worth responding to.

The only terrorist training camps under Saddam was run by Ansar al-Islam in northern Iraq on the border with Iran. Ansar al-Islam was openly hostile to Saddam a secularist.

Saddam never "funded terror in Israel." He paid the families of suicide bombers in what amounted to a publicity stunt. Saddam the secularist was not particlarly friednly to Islamists of any stripe.

The no fly zones were arguably illegal. The firing at US planes with completely ineffective. You justify a war on this?

Your commenst about moving weapons to Syria are fantasy. That's what Bush's teams said after spending billions of dollars looking for WMD. Of course, conservatives do cling to silly fantasies.

The best estimate of the total number of the 'disappeared' under Saddam is around 290,000 according to Human Rights Watch. So your "over a million in mass graves" is absurd. You also seem unconcerned that some of Saddam's worst crimes were committed while he was a US ally and being armed by Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush. Yes, Saddam was a monster, but he had help.

[Sonart]

Quote by: GodBlessAmerica There was no doubt of terrorist training camps in Iraq with Saddam, I don't even think that has ever been questioned.

You're referring to Ansar al-Islam, fundamentalist Islamic Kurds who maintained training camps on the Iranian border in northern Iraq, ostensibly protected by the U.S. patrolled no-fly zone that's kept the Kurdish region generally autonomous since Desert Storm. They were no friends of Saddam Hussein, and this stale nonsense has been debunked for two years now.

Quote by: GodBlessAmerica His shooting all year at our planes doing UN missions was another reason to get him.

Yeah, so? He was shooting at warplanes flying over his territory and as far as I'm aware, he hasn't hit any. In fact, it could be argued that he was only harming himself, since any anti-aircraft battery foolish enough to fire on U.S. warplanes only made themselves vulnerable to destruction. Saddam was sticking his tongue out at us, for all the harm it did.

Quote by: GodBlessAmerica I think with over a year of debate at the UN, it would have been easy to remove quite a bit of stuff/weapons to Syria and elsewhere.

{{YAWN}} We've owned Iraq for over two years now. Half the former government is in custody and the other half now works for us. And yet not a scrap of evidence or eye-witness accounts of a massive exodus of 'stuff/weapons to Syria and elsewhere'.

Quote by: GodBlessAmerica Very likely over a million in mass graves. Are you going to tell us you are fond of mass graves now ?

Sure, right after you tell us you'll be cheering when we reach 2,000 American war dead in Iraq.

.

[monty of ll]

GBA said: "His shooting all year at our planes doing UN missions was another reason to get him."

He really 'is' seriously misinformed if he thinks the nofly zones had anything to do with U.N. missions!

[Logjam]

Quote by: Sonart No, righthand, it's not an academic excercise and it sure as hell isn't an academic excercise to the citizens of Iraq. So.. what you're suggesting is the best way to save American lives and to let our sweet, dear American mothers stop crying. Well, if they didn't want tears, the majority of them shouldn't have voted for LBDubya. [CENTER][/CENTER] As it stands, I submit that if we pull out of Iraq right now it's a guaranteed civil war and you're going to be seeing crying mothers by the tens of thousands. We did that, we Americans, by supporting Dear Leader and his idiot war. So we have to take some responsibility and at least try to put that country back together again, at least to the point where they have some sort of government in place. And as I've also said, impeaching Dear Leader for Gross Criminal Negligence in starting and mishandling this war would be another way of showing the world we take full responsibility for our actions. . .

This War started when the terrorists bombed our embassies, the US Cole, the Marine Barracks and the WTC. Bush just decided that we've had enough and he decided to get Congress to vote a resolution to fight back. Which is what we are doing.

We are also winning.

You, for some idiotic reason want us to lose. Why is that? Do you think that the US will be a safer place if we lose?

While I suppose one can debate why we got into this war; I do not see how one can debate that we would somehow benefit if we lose.

You want to end this war fast? Here's what you do. Join the forces of victory. Demand tha the enemy give up. Tell them that they cannot win. Demand that our government fight the enemy at every turn. Then the terrorists might lose heart and give up and we'd have a free and independent Iraq and a deepening feeling in the people of Iran to overthrow their despotic, tyranical government.

That's the ticket to success, not an American surrender.

[Logjam]

Quote by: Sonart {{YAWN}} We've owned Iraq for over two years now. Half the former government is in custody and the other half now works for us. And yet not a scrap of evidence or eye-witness accounts of a massive exodus of 'stuff/weapons to Syria and elsewhere'. .

The government in Iraq is Iraqi. It's been instituted for Iraq and free Iraqis.

Now get some sleep.

[Logjam]

The no fly zones were arguably illegal. The firing at US planes with completely ineffective. You justify a war on this?

[/quote]

Wrong again.

The no fly zone was established in the treaty that we signed with Iraq. It was radified by our Congress and signed by representatives of the Iraqi government. Therefore it was legal and defying it was reason enough for us to go to war.

Trouble is, Clintcock was in office and therefore we did nada.

[PatrickHenry]

Quote by: Logjam Demand tha the enemy give up. Tell them that they cannot win.

The US government has made itself my enemy. I demand that it give up...

[RickSp]

Quote by: Logjam This War started when the terrorists bombed our embassies, the US Cole, the Marine Barracks and the WTC. Bush just decided that we've had enough and he decided to get Congress to vote a resolution to fight back. Which is what we are doing. We are also winning.

Wrong on all counts. You either bought into the Bush lie that Iraq had something to do with AL Queda, which it did not, or are just so closed minded so that all Arabs look alike to you.

Even the Bush administration has given up on military victory.

Administration officials have all but given up any hope of militarily defeating the insurgents with U.S. forces, instead aiming only to train and equip enough Iraqi security forces to take over the fight themselves.

In Iraq, No Clear Finish Line

As it ithe best we can probably hope for is an Islamic Republic, though civil war is ever more likely.

The Bush administration is "significantly" lowering expectations about what it can achieve in Iraq, finally admitting that its prewar plans were "unrealistic," the Washington Post reported on Sunday. The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry, or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, US officials say.

Reality check for Bush administration in Iraq

The question is not if we are losing but how fast.

[Sonart]

Quote by: Logjam This War started when the terrorists bombed our embassies, the US Cole, the Marine Barracks and the WTC. Bush just decided that we've had enough and he decided to get Congress to vote a resolution to fight back.

Not a single one of which had anything whatsoever to do with Iraq.

Quote by: Logjam We are also winning.

In Iraq? No, we're not and simply telling ourselves we are doesn't change that.

Quote by: Logjam While I suppose one can debate why we got into this war; I do not see how one can debate that we would somehow benefit if we lose.

Agreed... however, I submitted on day one that the act of starting this war was also the very act that guaranteed our losing it. To quote myself -- pinning down our troops in a hostile nation the size of Texas, surrounded on three sides by even more hostile Muslim populations, in a part of the world where terrorism is an artform and young men live for nothing but to die killing Americans, was a BAD IDEA, and Bush's intelligence and senior military TOLD him it was.

LBDubya and Rumsnamara failed to learn the lessons of Vietnam, the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, Beirut Airport and Somalia, so now we're doomed to repeat them. We lost the war in Iraq the moment we occupied the damn place.

Quote by: Logjam You want to end this war fast? Here's what you do. Join the forces of victory. Demand tha the enemy give up. Tell them that they cannot win. Demand that our government fight the enemy at every turn. Then the terrorists might lose heart and give up and we'd have a free and independent Iraq and a deepening feeling in the people of Iran to overthrow their despotic, tyranical government.

LOL!! Yeah, that'll do it. You are aware, aren't you, Logjam, that the Mujahadeen fought the Soviets of 10 years in Afghanistan, and lost over a million casualties to the Soviets 15,000. Same in Vietnam. The Somalies lost close to a 1,000 people just to kill 17 Americans in Mogadishu, yet they saw it as a great victory.

LBDubya and Rumsnamara never understood for a second what they were getting us into, nor did the American people. We can kill insurgents by the thousands, we can win every battle we fight with them... but we're not going to win this war because all they have to do is not go away, and no amount of cheerleading and positive waves is going to change that.

Quote by: Logjam The government in Iraq is Iraqi. It's been instituted for Iraq and free Iraqis.

Yeah, right... keep telling yourself that. So we're now fighting a war for an Iraqi government what won't tell us where the previous regime hid their vast stores of WMD?? Well, that certainly makes it all worthwhile, doesn't it.

Quote by: Logjam Therefore it was legal and defying it was reason enough for us to go to war. Trouble is, Clintcock was in office and therefore we did nada.

No, defying it was reason enough to get one's missile batteries blown to smithereens... over and over again. Additionally, Desert Fox also put a complete end to any possible WMD programs, or at least according to David Kay's report.

Going to war only guaranteed the fine mess we're in today. Our military overextended, pinned down in an occupation against insurgents and terrorists we can't defeat, against a movement well supported by outside sources (think Vietnam, Soviet Afghanistan, etc.) that only has to not lose in order to win, with 1,800 Americans dead and counting, 18,000 maimed or injured and counting, $9 billion a month and counting, and our coalition disintegrating as we speak.

.