The Iraqi Civil War - Thank You Bush!

If you think about it, we won the military aspect of this war. What we need to do is round up the various islamic terrorist groups that have violated international law and suppress them...better yet, kill them before they do the same to us.

Have we not successfully degraded al-Qaeda? Islamic terrorist groups take on the capabilities to harming us in a substantial and sustained ways ONLY if they have state sponsorhip. Now think about it...before 9/11, their were four contiguous state sponsors of islamic terror in the Middle East: Syria, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. We eliminated two of the four by 2003.

Since then. and I will be the first to admit, our performance has been less than impressive because our military is not designed to police the population. The current "mess" in Iraq is NOT because we are vulnerable to the kind of warfare jihadists wage best, but because of two flanking islamic state sponsors of islamic terrorism, Syria and Iran who are waging jihad at free will!

Face the facts...Syria and Iran have been able to act within Iraq - in terms of providing organizations, logistics, supplies, and even new jihadists for new terrorists attacks - with complete impunity! What we should have done back in 2003 was to secure Iraq's border and if we did that, Iraq would be 100 times more stable then it is today. Any indigenous insurgency could not have sustained itself without outside supplies and safe havens.

What is happening in Iraq is NOT a police problem, especially what you see going on in Lebanon. Why are other islamic terrorist groups like hellzbollah and hamas a problem, and what kind of problem is it? From where did hellzbollah obtain its 13,000 plus missles, which several thousand of which it fired into Israel? What about the military training and other weapons like sophisticated antitank rockets? The answer: From two state sponsors of islamic terrorism, Iran and Syria!

Remove the state sponsors and the problem will shrink to a true, local "police problem". First, go after Iran and Syria with political, economical and diplomatic pressures and if that doesn't work, kill them.

The islamic jihad that is happening in Iraq and Lebanon will continue to occur if you allow islamic terrorist countries like Iran and Syria to supply these jihadists without any consequences.

It is time to take the gloves off...

 

I have to agree with most of your assessment Midas. However, you did forget the recent revelation that Saudi groups are funding Sunnis in Iraq most of which take direct aim at US troops. We need to take the gloves off with them as well as Syria and Iran. Israel needs to be held accountable for it's actions as well.

Also, when you say take the gloves off, you are talking about killing a lot, and I mean a lot of civilians in the region. One thing is clear and that is these people live for revenge and retaliation and that is bound to increase 10 fold if we start killing civilians to get at the people we really want dead. This method would increase suicide attacks on the US exponentially and give them just cause to kill innocent Americans.

We would be even less safe than we are now. Bombing people that have little to lose in the first place is simply a recipe for more terrorists in the name of Allah coming over to this country. Bush and the Neocons have tried the stomping around approach and have failed miserably. Maybe it's time to approach this problem with some intelligence while containing the mess we've made in Iraq to it's own borders.

As has been pointed out all week long, there is no magic bullet or simple solution to this widening Iraqi crisis. As good as the military is it can not solve this problem alone. It's going to require diplomacy, mediation, cooperation, and a fair amount of crow eating by one current administration that has thus far be unwilling to admit it has made any mistakes. If George Bush and Dick Cheney had an ounce of courage between them, they'd resign and let new leaders with credibility and at least a shred of international respectability finish out their last two years. Like that's gonna happen.

 

And what did Israel do? Think about it...if mexican nationals were loobing missiles into El Paso, Texas, would we as Americans have the right to defend ourselves? Would we have to the right to go into northen Mexico to kill these terrorists (a la Hellzbollah) and destroy their launching sites?

That is what Israel did and the UN got its panties in a bind!

As for the civilians Israel killed...well, that is what happens to so-called "innocent" civilians when gutless terrorists like hellzbollah fires off their missiles within their civilain centers. It is what these terrorist do and if Israel kills these civilians that Hellzbollah hides behind, TOUGH...war is hell. Maybe those "civilians" better do something about the terrorists that live and hide among them!

 

I suspect that Hezbollah fighters have pretty much the same attitude towards civilians that you do. They are there to serve a greater purpose whether they like it or not.

Lets put you in a hypothetical situation and see if you fare all that well. You are a poor Mexican farmer living a meager existance along the U.S./Mexican border. Gangs of drug runners come to your farm armed to the teeth and use your land for running drugs over the border. You are unarmed with a family have no protection from the local authorities and no interest either way in supplying or keeping drugs off of U.S. streets yet your land is being used to do so.

The U.S. decides to bomg your farmhouse one day and kills your whloe family just after the bad guys who were tipped off by the local authorities left. Who do you hate more the U.S. for bombing your family or the drug runners for endangering your family? You are now homeless, your family is dead and you have to survive somehow. Is the U.S. gonna welcome you? I doubt it. Are your neighbors who are also experiencing the same plight gonna bond with you and fight when and where ever they can? Probably.

The point is civilians are just that, civilians, until they have nothing left but to fight. You want to first say that they are irrelevent and then kill them when they take up arms to defend themselves. Again and again it has been mentioned here that no easy solution or quick fix is coming any time soon. But we can make the situation worse and take longer to resolve by creating more hatred in the region. There will be NO military victory in this conflict anytime soon or in the future and several of you here will just have to get used to that idea over time.

PS Nice cartoon.

 

Lets review what's going on...

Most of the militias are comprised of shiites
The Iraqi army is mostly sunni
The Baghdad police is mostly shiite
Most of the insurgents fighting the US military are sunni
Iran is mostly shiite
Saudi Arabia is mostly sunni
The US Army is training the Iraqi army to fight the insurgency, but both of them are sunni
There seems to be an uneasy peace between the Baghdad shiite police and the Iraqi sunni army with no real cooperation because they don't trust each other
If the US makes progress killing the sunni insurgents, the Saudi's get upset because they don't want a shiite government north of them
The US wants the Iraqi government to disband the shiite militias, but this drives them closer to Iran
The shiite militias in Baghdad are supposedly being opposed by the shiite Baghdad police, who serve part time in the militias they are assigned to disband
Of course we can't heavily arm the Iraqi sunni army, because they would probably use the weapons to overrun the Baghdad shiite police
So the sunni Iraqi army can't "stand up so we can stand down," not that they would anyway
And we haven't even addressed the Kurds, who are looking for a chance to break away from this mess
But if the Kurds declare independence, then Turkey will invade Iraq
Of course Turkey and the US are allies, except in Iraq where they could end up on opposite sides of the fight
All of this is good for Iran, because the US has helped destroy a Saddam led sunni government to their west to enable the shiites to dominate the region and threaten the sunni government in Saudi Arabia to completely control oil production
So the US has accidently allied itself with Iran, and the axis of evil, and accomplished for them what they couldn't do for themselves
And this doesn't even consider Afghanistan, where the US unseated the Taliban government and made the country safe for the world heroin industry
But at the same time, the civil unrest in Afghanistan forced the cancellation of the oil pipeline planned to run through the country to connect the Caspian oil and gas fields to the sea
So this helped China who can now propose their own pipeline to China and they get the energy that was planned for the West and the US
And the problems in Afghanistan makes Pakistan more unstable which could lead eventually to a radical Islamic government with nuclear weapons

Maybe it's time to admit that we don't understand the region, can't fix it, and just leave. If we stay "until the job is done," there's no telling how much more damage we will cause.

Just a thought.

 

the best post in this forum in a LONG time

 

Yeah, I kind of miss the clear-headed cloudy perspective. Thanks for the retrospective of the Middle East disaster. It is sort of sobering when you write it all down in a few paragraphs.
Anybody still advocating more war?

 

Other than tyrants, terrorists, and elected leaders all over the Middle East, you mean?

 

...add Halliburton to that list

 

Maybe I should have clarified. Anybody still want George Bush to conduct any wars for this country? hya:
:loud: MR WAR PRESIDENT!

 

Which way do you want it? Clear-headed or Cloudy ? Don''t think you can have it both ways unless your a Democrat.

 

here is a dandy little graphic to go with your remark!!

 

I wish nobody bothered to quote him. That way, I'd never have to see anything that dripped out of his head. But, Que Sera, Sera. :whistle:

 

You shouldn't make fun of little fat girls, expecially when they can probably whip your Ask-me-no-questions.
Doing this is like taking advantage of Moen and his disability. Poor guy, can't help it!