Islamic Caliphate

We either had an obligation or we didn't, Maine. You admit we did, and you will admit that we are capable of doing whatever we need to do, in order to prevail in Iraq, but you simply don't want to. For whatever reason, you think it would be better for the US to abandon our obligations, renege on our word to the Iraqi's, and just bug out now. Somehow, this is supposed to foster good will among other Arab countries in the region, and make our task less difficult in the future, but you've not really explained how. I don't see how this works, and I wish you could explain it, but I don't believe you can, I think you just don't give a shit about keeping our word or fulfilling obligations, you just want us to tuck our tail between our legs, and beat a trail out of Iraq as fast as we can. You're such a "brave" mofo!
 
we had a moral obligation to PREVENT sectarian violence from ever starting. We failed at that.

And I clearly said that we should not merely "bug out", but redeploy our forces along the borders to interdict the flow of munitions and reinforcements to the insurgency. Can you read?
 
maineman said:
we had a moral obligation to PREVENT sectarian violence from ever starting. We failed at that.

And I clearly said that we should not merely "bug out", but redeploy our forces along the borders to interdict the flow of munitions and reinforcements to the insurgency. Can you read?
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So, when we fail at an obligation, we are off the hook? We have no more responsibility? If you were obligated to pick your boss up at the airport at 1:00, and you didn't make it on time, would you just turn around and go home? Hey... you failed your obligation, right?

We have always had the obligation to make sure Iraq is able to defend itself against aggressors and insurgents, and it is the obligation we are currently meeting in Iraq, we have not yet failed in this obligation, it is ongoing.

I know a little bit more about the border than you do, and I can tell you, it's virtually impossible to seal Iraq's borders completely. Believe me, we have tried. Redeploying our forces along the borders is an idea, but you have to realize there is a great risk in doing this. For instance, what would prevent warlords from across the border from taking pot shots at our patrolling troops? It's not like we can chase them into Iran or Syria, they are on safe ground.

I think "bug out" is as good a term as any for what you've advocated. I am sorry you don't like the way it sounds, but that's what you've suggested. You think it's time to leave, to abandon the people of Iraq, to admit defeat and come home. You've said it over and over, in every way known to man.
 
If I had an obligation to keep my boss from falling off the roof, if he fell off the roof, I would have failed. I do not automatically take on the obligation to provide for his widow and children for life.

And I am sure you think that "bug out" is a good term for what I advocate. I happen to disagree. I think it is time to let the people of Iraq who are fighting amongst themselves, and clearly WANT to fight amongst themselves, to do that without our meddling in the midst of the carnage. If we can assist by limiting the flow of men and munitions to the fight, we should, by all means, do so.

Could you imagine France of England sending a massive army to the United States in 1863 and using that army to attempt to get the north and the south to stop killing one another?
 
The main thing is we never had justification for invasion and occupation of Iraq.
This is the root of the whole problem. But it seems everyone just wants to trim the branches...
 
If I had an obligation to keep my boss from falling off the roof, if he fell off the roof, I would have failed. I do not automatically take on the obligation to provide for his widow and children for life.


No, but you might try calling 911 or getting him to the hospital! You wouldn't just say... OH WELL! and go home! You had an obligation and failed, that doesn't absolve you from any further responsibility! If we had the obligation to prevent sectarian violence, as you said, then we still have the responsibility to do what we can to help the Iraqis defend against sectarian extremists. Our responsibility did not end with our failure of the original obligation.
 
I suggested stationing our troops on the borders to interdict shipments of men and munitions.... not exactly ignoring the situation..... just getting US out of the way so that folks who really WANT to kill one another can do so without killing so many of US in the process.
 
it used to be foreign fighters - Al Qaeda types who were the boogie men.... then it was disgruntled baathists.... now that everybody and their brother -except koolaid soaked Dixie, of course - admits that this is a sectarian civil war....now the new boogie man is "sectarian extremists". Back in our civil war, would that have been EXTREMIST YANKEES and EXTREMIST REBELS?
 
maineman said:
it used to be foreign fighters - Al Qaeda types who were the boogie men.... then it was disgruntled baathists.... now that everybody and their brother -except koolaid soaked Dixie, of course - admits that this is a sectarian civil war....now the new boogie man is "sectarian extremists". Back in our civil war, would that have been EXTREMIST YANKEES and EXTREMIST REBELS?
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I understand that simple-minded sheep will see this parallel you are attempting to draw with the American Civil War, but the war in Iraq is nothing like it. To put it in perspective, it's like the Greens and the Mexicans/Latino's fighting each other in the United States.... like if the Tree-huggers and nature freaks, declared war on illegal aliens... It is a relatively small percentage of the total population of Iraq, and it is largely isolated to major urban areas in the Sunni triangle. It's dangerous, it's causing people to die, it's not a good thing to be happening, but it's not the end of the fucking world, and it's not something out of our ability to control.

Sectarians are always going to exist in Iraq, we can be honest enough to admit that, so it's not going to be something that is ever completely eradicated. Sectarians are in the minority, and they will become more in the minority, as the Unity government begins to take root. It's the basic foundational premise and purpose of a constitutional democracy. This takes some time, especially for people who are completely NEW to the idea of democracy.

I know you all think I am soaking up koolaid with what I believe, but I think outside the box all the time, it's what I do most of the time, actually. From wayyyy back, before we ever toppled Saddam, I had looked at the Iraqi Liberation Act of 1998, and the arguments surrounding the instituting of democracy in Iraq. I considered the fact, that there were three main political groups in Iraq, Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds, and when you have three-way splits of power, democracy becomes very conducive. It becomes a way in which, three parties can act as one, even when they might disagree ideologically or in principle. So, I have put a great deal of thought into this, before Bush was even president.

I am not alone in this thinking, many Iraqi's share my viewpoint. You intentionally ignore them here, you refuse to listen to what they have to say, and you completely tune out the voices of those who don't spew your anti-democratic rhetoric... but they are there.... in BIG numbers.
 
"sectarians are always going to exist in Iraq."

Dixie at his most profound. Sectarians are always going to exist???? really??? do you mean to tell me that after a few decades living under a multicultural jeffersonian democracy that all the sunnis won't intermarry with all the shiites and there will be no more sectarian division in the country? How disappointing!

If you look at the percentage of the entire American population during the civil war that actually served in either the union or confederate armies, it was about 5%. the rest were "peace-loving folks" like the kind that are getting slaughtered every day in Iraq. Everyone in Iraq has a side.... virtually everyone in Iraq is either a sunni a shiite or a kurd... they are ALL "sectarians". Some of them " have enlisted" so to speak, and are fighting one another, just like the boys from Maine signed up to whip your cowardly rebel asses on Little Round Top... but EVERYONE in the State of Maine was a yankee and wanted the union army to win...which they did. Everytone in Iraq wants their side to win.... it's a fucking civil war, for crissakes!
 
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DIXIE: "I considered the fact, that there were three main political groups in Iraq, Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds, and when you have three-way splits of power, democracy becomes very conducive. It becomes a way in which, three parties can act as one, even when they might disagree ideologically or in principle."


Can you possibly be anymore simple-minded? This is almost child-like in its simplicity and logic, and demonstrates a complete lack of knowledge of geopolitics and the middle east.

What the hell does "when you have three-way splits of power, democracy becomes very conducive" even fucking mean?

What empirical evidence supports the judgement that having three oppossing groups, is conducive to democracy?

Lebanon has a "three-way split" between shia, sunni, and christian - and they have been either in civil war, or on the verge of collapse for three decades.
 
If you look at the percentage of the entire American population during the civil war that actually served in either the union or confederate armies, it was about 5%.

This is incorrect, it was much higher. Virtually every Southern family had a father or son, or BOTH, in the war. It involved nearly every man and boy in America, there were borders, seperate governments, a Confederate capital, president, and standing army. There is virtually NO similarity to a sectarian insurgency in Iraq, where about 20% of the population is involved in sporadic violence.
 
What the hell does "when you have three-way splits of power, democracy becomes very conducive" even fucking mean?


....One potato, two potato, three potato, four....

I'm sure you've played it before. It is one of the most elementary things about democracy that we ever learned, majority rules. When you have three somewhat equal entities, you have a natural democratic condition, two-of-three prevails. We essentially have the same thing in American politics today, with left, right, and moderate.

Democracy can also work with only two sides, but there is always the gridlock factor, when two sides become polarized. A third entity actually helps to break this gridlock between polarized sides, and causes the democratic process to prevail.
 
Dixie said:
If you look at the percentage of the entire American population during the civil war that actually served in either the union or confederate armies, it was about 5%.

This is incorrect, it was much higher. Virtually every Southern family had a father or son, or BOTH, in the war. It involved nearly every man and boy in America, there were borders, seperate governments, a Confederate capital, president, and standing army. There is virtually NO similarity to a sectarian insurgency in Iraq, where about 20% of the population is involved in sporadic violence.
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no..it IS correct. go look at the size of the confererate army... add that number to the size of the union army, and divide that number by the 1860 census. Right about 5%. The point being.... even during OUR horrific civil war, the vast vast majority of the population were peaceful folks just trying to stay out of the way of the combat.
 
maineman said:
no..it IS correct. go look at the size of the confererate army... add that number to the size of the union army, and divide that number by the 1860 census. Right about 5%. The point being.... even during OUR horrific civil war, the vast vast majority of the population were peaceful folks just trying to stay out of the way of the combat.
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Not only is it an inaccurate assessment, it is an inaccurate premise. You are trying to claim that only recruited soldiers were involved in the Civil War, and everyone else was oblivious to it, and that wasn't the case at all.

Nevertheless...

31,443,321 -1860 Census total

1,406,180 Total Confederate troops to serve during the Civil War.
1,700,000 Total Union troops to serve during the Civil War.

3.1 million ...10% of the population.

There are the figures, and in the South, it was a much higher percentage of the total population. If we subtract the women and children, and only factor the men of fighting age, it was around 90% in the South, and 85% in the North.

The Civil War involved virtually everyone in this country, with maybe the exception of Missouri, Nebraska and Kansas. The "Civil War" in Iraq, involves less than 20% of the population... (this doesn't mean 20% of the population is enlisted and fighting the Civil War.) To put it in perspective, it would have been like South Carolina vs. Virginia in the Civil War.

And I wonder what England and France thought of their involvement? Did they pontificate on how their support sparked the Civil War? Did they contemplate abandoning their obligations because of the Civil War they caused? I doubt it! Our Civil War was not the direct result of any action by France or England, though they were certainly involved, and the war would have been completely different without them.

You are making a lot of assumptions here, and most of them are without merit. The most ridiculous, is the premise that Iraq's Civil War is ANYTHING LIKE the American Civil War, or that outside influence has much, if anything, to do with a Civil War.

Additionally, I look at the American Civil War, I see a Confederate infrastructure, a capital, a government, a president.... generals... an army, etc. When I look at Iraq's Civil War, I see the Iraq Unity Government, and radical insurgent groups fighting each other. There is no opposing infrastructure, no opposing capital, no opposition president, no standing army or generals, just a loose coalition of thugs and misfits, trying to thwart democracy and disrupt the legitimate government of Iraq. In the classic sense of a Civil War, it is anything BUT.
 
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At least you finally admit that Iraq is in the midst of a Civil War.

Tell me again how Americans would have reacted if Spain or France or England would have landed a large army on our shores and attempted to get US from solving our issues on the battlefield.
 
maineman said:
At least you finally admit that Iraq is in the midst of a Civil War.

Tell me again how Americans would have reacted if Spain or France or England would have landed a large army on our shores and attempted to get US from solving our issues on the battlefield.
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I don't know Maine, that never happened... I suppose, if they came with enough force and kicked our ass hard enough, we would have had no choice other than listen to them and do as they say. That's generally how that works! What IS your point?
 
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