Peace and Calm Returns to Iraq

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Prakosh

Senior Member
A new still-secret Pentagon report says that Iraq could soon devolve into a civil war. In one of its most dire Iraq reports yet, the Pentagon revealed that the number of Iraqi casualties soared by more than 50 percent in the last few months. And civilians are increasingly becoming the targets of the attacks. The Los Angeles Times reports that at least 334 people died last week in Baghdad. Another 400 people were killed elsewhere in Iraq. On Monday 33 bodies were found in Baghdad. The men were mutilated, handcuffed, many were blindfolded, and shot in the head. On Friday, a well-known Iraqi soccer player was kidnapped from his home in Baghdad. The athlete, Ghanim Khudayer, was about to sign a contract with a Syrian soccer team in an attempt to escape the violence in Iraq. Despite the Pentagon report on the potential for a civil war, President Bush is attempting to paint a rosier picture of the situation. He spoke about Iraq during his weekly radio address.

* President Bush: "Our commanders and diplomats on the ground believe that Iraq has not descended into a civil war. They report that only a small number of Iraqis are engaged in sectarian violence."

Question: Is Bush on Exstacy???? Eleanor???
 
Sounds like a hell hole.

But the liberal media never report the good news -- for example, they never report about all the cars that don't explode.
 
Damocles said:
Or the innocents that we haven't killed.
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After killing or capturing no less than 39 no. 2s in al Qaeda, Bush can't afford not to be painting a rosey picture in Iraq. Bush has turned more corners in Iraq than a New York cab driver trying to find the quickest distance to a restaurant ten blocks up 5th Avenue. Getting Al Zarqawi made a BIG difference didn't it? He was key to the insurgency. Once we got him things quieted right down...
 
I believe it created the power vacuum that gave rise to the warring internal factions...
 
Prakosh said:
Are you serious?
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I am. I believe that the power vacuum from removing Saddam then dismissing the Army created room for Iran and Syria to set up, by pay, groups that would attack the US. I believe that removing the head where the pay was coming from/going to it created a power vacuum, mostly from paycheck need, that could be filled with more local factions. When people are desperate for pay they will do much that may be outside their normal action.
 
Damocles said:
I am. I believe that the power vacuum from removing Saddam then dismissing the Army created room for Iran and Syria to set up, by pay, groups that would attack the US. I believe that removing the head where the pay was coming from/going to it created a power vacuum, mostly from paycheck need, that could be filled with more local factions. When people are desperate for pay they will do much that may be outside their normal action.
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I agree and so do some Iraqis:

http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/
 
Damocles said:
Wow. And mine was just a former intel guy's opinion from reports read and information from friends!
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The most powerful stuff I'm reading is from Iraqis. Granted, they have the education and $$ for internet, but they are much more positive than the administration. I feel we are going to leave them hanging. I hope I'm wrong, so do they.
 
Damocles said:
I am. I believe that the power vacuum from removing Saddam then dismissing the Army created room for Iran and Syria to set up, by pay, groups that would attack the US. I believe that removing the head where the pay was coming from/going to it created a power vacuum, mostly from paycheck need, that could be filled with more local factions. When people are desperate for pay they will do much that may be outside their normal action.
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Was not this PREDICTABLE....?

Why didn't they plan for this...it is part of routine planning for war and occupation of a country?

This vacume was foreseeable and preventable imo.
 
Care4all said:
Was not this PREDICTABLE....?

Why didn't they plan for this...it is part of routine planning for war and occupation of a country?

This vacume was foreseeable and preventable imo.
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Because they didn't listen to the people with a plan to handle this. They fired them.
 
there is a place in Hell for Bush and his minions.... they have done WAY more harm than good to that region of the world...and don't get me wrong...if in so doing, they had actually made America much safer, I would not be all that concerned. But, in fact, they have messed up the middle east and not improved our security one iota in the process...it has been a lose-lose-lose situation and it is not going to get any better until we take the keys away from these inept corrupt incompetent assholes.
 
Damocles said:
Because they didn't listen to the people with a plan to handle this. They fired them.
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Honestly, I don't believe that even the plan that the state department had in place would have prevented the power vacuum from imploding Iraq. It would have forstalled the collapse but not prevented it. Look at what's happening even now in Afghanistan. The Taliban was even more hated and feared by their own people than Saddam Hussein's regime was, yet the Afghan people haven't really united behind a viable government.

Unless there's a powerful, popular native resistence movement ready to step up and form a new government, any forced removal of a regime is likely to produce chaos and Balkanization.
 
OrnotBitwise said:
Honestly, I don't believe that even the plan that the state department had in place would have prevented the power vacuum from imploding Iraq. It would have forstalled the collapse but not prevented it. Look at what's happening even now in Afghanistan. The Taliban was even more hated and feared by their own people than Saddam Hussein's regime was, yet the Afghan people haven't really united behind a viable government.

Unless there's a powerful, popular native resistence movement ready to step up and form a new government, any forced removal of a regime is likely to produce chaos and Balkanization.
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The Powell Doctrine calls for overwhelming force, which would have filled that vacuum.
 
Damocles said:
The Powell Doctrine calls for overwhelming force, which would have filled that vacuum.
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No, it wouldn't. Or only temporarily, which isn't sufficient. It would fill the vacuum for only so long as the occupying troops remain deployed.

It's possible that the period of artificially imposed stability would allow a new regime to take control peacefully. That's the theory. I don't believe it will work in practice, however. Too much resentment is caused by the occupation itself.
 
OrnotBitwise said:
No, it wouldn't. Or only temporarily, which isn't sufficient. It would fill the vacuum for only so long as the occupying troops remain deployed.

It's possible that the period of artificially imposed stability would allow a new regime to take control peacefully. That's the theory. I don't believe it will work in practice, however. Too much resentment is caused by the occupation itself.
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Except you don't leave until the doctrine is once again fulfilled. Overwhelming force could be replaced with trained forces who also have overwhelming force... The point is to have peace while training them so you can turn it over quickly.
 
Changes required for a stable govt in Iraq will not come quickly. differences have simmered for hundreds of years.....
 
Damocles said:
Except you don't leave until the doctrine is once again fulfilled. Overwhelming force could be replaced with trained forces who also have overwhelming force... The point is to have peace while training them so you can turn it over quickly.
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I understand the theory. I'm saying that I don't believe it can work.

All the training in the world won't create a stable, deomcratic -- in the vernacular sense -- government. If it doesn't have the support of the governed, the best that it can be is an enlightened dictatorship. And enlightened dictatorships tend to become unenlightened with depressing predictability.

That's why I insist that a popular native resistence movement is a necessary precondition for useful regime change. There was no such popular movement in Iraq and so I don't believe that even the Powell Doctrine would have resulted in the kind of government Bush keeps flogging. In fact, I don't believe it would have resulted in a stable government at all.
 
uscitizen said:
Changes required for a stable govt in Iraq will not come quickly. differences have simmered for hundreds of years.....
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Replacing overwhelming power with overwhelming power ensures that power vacuum to be non-existent throughout. Ignoring such predictions to keep a plan with limited power so you can fight on the "cheap" ensures the opposite.

That the government may not be what people wish won't change that if they have the same overwhelming power as the one they replace they can "keep the peace"....
 
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