More Troops, Less Troops, or.... Both?

What evidence, outside of Fox News inuendo, do you have that the fighting in Iraq is being waged by "international factions?" That's quite a stretch. They're in Iraq, after all: it would take some considerable evidence to conclude that they're not Iraqis. Pray, enlighten us with the intelligence to which you are so obviously privy, Dixie.

Look, it's really simple, I am sure if Prissy can follow it, so can you! Either the insurgents are a legitimate home-grown force, or they are being supplied and armed by outsiders. Either they are a legitimate internal group, fighting against the faction which runs the government, or they are an internal group being exploited by external groups to thwart the new government. They can't be both, they can only be one or the other. You can take your pick!

If the insurgents are home-grown, and internally based, their eventual demise in inevitable, they can not compete with the infrastructure of a nation, particularly, with American backing. If the insurgents are being supplied and funded from the outside, it is not a genuine civil war at all, it's an Iranian-Syrian-backed insurgency we must help the Iraqi's defeat, and we can and will, and there is absolutely no reason to abandon the Iraqi's and allow Syria and Iran to continue backing an insurgency. To suggest something so foolish, is beyond reasonable comprehension.

Your problem seems to be, you want to have it both ways. You want to claim it is a civil war, as if there were a northern and southern infrastructure, pitted against each other in war, and that simply is not the case in Iraq. If it were the case, I might be inclined to agree with getting out of the middle of it. The fact of the matter is, the insurgents have no visible means of support here, unless they are being armed and backed by outside forces, they will eventually be defeated. If they are being backed by outside forces, we owe it to the Iraqi's to stand with them against the aggressors.
 
Either the insurgents are a legitimate home-grown force, or they are being supplied and armed by outsiders. Either they are a legitimate internal group, fighting against the faction which runs the government, or they are an internal group being exploited by external groups to thwart the new government.

Ah, but what about the excluded middle. Circumstances is rarely either / or.

They can be an legitimate internal group, being supplied by the outside.

Were the Afghani Mujahadeen who fought against the Soviets illegitimate because the US supplied then with weapons?

A civil war is simply a war between two groups within a state. Where they get weapons from is irrelevant.
 
The fact of the matter is, the insurgents have no visible means of support here, unless they are being armed and backed by outside forces, they will eventually be defeated. If they are being backed by outside forces, we owe it to the Iraqi's to stand with them against the aggressors.

You don't spot the irony in your statement, Dixie?

The Iraqi government is backed by outside forces....
 
Dixie said:
More beneficial to the United States, who those soldiers swore an oath to fight for, and the cause they fought and died for. Yes, one of those soldiers may have cured cancer, it could have also been a Japanese youth who was incinerated in Hiroshima, or a German who was slaghtered by the Russians in Berlin. It might also have been one of those Cambodians who were slaughtered by Pol Pot, or a Vietnamese in the fall of Siagon. You are making a purely silly emotional appeal, which has never been a legitimate argument against any war.

Stamp that one: REFUTED!
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my ass.... what was the strategic significance of Vietnam that warranted ANY American deaths? Did Vietnam become a client state of the monolithic international communist boogeyman? Of course those of us who served took an oath to fight and die in whatever missions the suits in DC sent us into...that does not make the mission a good one nor does it make continuing to pour out the blood of brave men who did serve their country in uniform just so we can say we "won" something a good idea...especially when you cannot show the downside to having not won besides your own personal sense of pride - which makes NO fucking sense since you didn't serve in Vietnam or anywhere else for that matter.
 
Dixie said:
The Iraqi's are not in a "civil war" if one side is being supplied by outside sources. The country is under siege from outside enemies, utilizing insurgents from within. This is quite different from two political adversaries fighting for internal control of Iraq.
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so the fact that the Confederacy was being supplied by European powers means that we weren't in a civil war?

please explain
 
Cypress said:
The military victory happened long ago. It is the occupation that has gone so horribly awry...

The old "mission accomplished" thingy in May 2003, eh?

I suppose by that Standard, the Soviet Red Army "won" their Afgan war in about two weeks in December 1979, and the next eight years wasn't really a war, as all the history books tell us.
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Pretty much. That is what fourth gen warfare is all about. They know they cannot beat them militarily, so they beat them in the occupation by making it too costly.
 
Dixie said:
You're delusional if you don't think Iraq is a civil war. Its has nothing to do with "where" the waring factions get the arms.

I think it does, it can't be a civil war if it's not being waged by internal factions. Unless you just want to argue that any war is a civil war, you must have some delineation. If the insurgents are being funded, supplied, supported, and aided by outside influence, this is not a generic civil war anymore. If one side IS being supported by outside influence, then why shoud we withdraw our support for the other side?
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Almost all civil wars of the 20th century involved warring domestic factions, who recieved outside support: The Spanish civil war, the El Salvadoran civil war, the Lebanese civil war, etc.
 
If this IS A CIVIL WAR.....

Then our House of Reps and Senate MUST take another vote in Congress as to whether we should support this NEW CIVIL WAR OBJECTIVE....

Congress DID NOT VOTE to help one faction over another in their own CIVIL WAR.....

A new vote for or against continuing in Iraq MUST, BY OUR CONSITUTION, be taken.
 
Care4all said:
If this IS A CIVIL WAR.....

Then our House of Reps and Senate MUST take another vote in Congress as to whether we should support this NEW CIVIL WAR OBJECTIVE....

Congress DID NOT VOTE to help one faction over another in their own CIVIL WAR.....

A new vote for or against continuing in Iraq MUST, BY OUR CONSITUTION, be taken.
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Wishful thinking. We set up the allied government, there is no need to take a new vote as it is still continuing action from the first vote. Contained within the first vote was the "regime change" scenario. Since we voted to set them up with a new government it is simply continued action if we work to solidify the government we helped instill.
 
That is what fourth gen warfare is all about. They know they cannot beat them militarily, so they beat them in the occupation by making it too costly.

This goes back beyond Sun Tsu....

Let the enemy ride over you and attack its weak underbelly....
 
Care4all said:
If this IS A CIVIL WAR.....

Then our House of Reps and Senate MUST take another vote in Congress as to whether we should support this NEW CIVIL WAR OBJECTIVE....

Congress DID NOT VOTE to help one faction over another in their own CIVIL WAR.....

A new vote for or against continuing in Iraq MUST, BY OUR CONSITUTION, be taken.
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Henry Kissinger, one of Bush's top advisors on the Iraq fiasco, says its a civil war:


"If you mean by 'military victory' an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible," [Kissinger] told the British Broadcasting Corp.

But, he's got no solution besides leaving U.S. troops in Iraq to die:

But Kissinger, an architect of the Vietnam war who has advised President Bush about Iraq, warned against a rapid withdrawal of coalition troops, saying it could destabilize Iraq's neighbors and cause a long-lasting conflict.

"A dramatic collapse of Iraq - whatever we think about how the situation was created - would have disastrous consequences for which we would pay for many years and which would bring us back, one way or another, into the region," he said.



http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...R?SITE=1010WINS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
 
Damocles said:
Pretty much. That is what fourth gen warfare is all about. They know they cannot beat them militarily, so they beat them in the occupation by making it too costly.
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I think Soviet Red Army veterans would call the period between 1980-1988 a war, after they easily took Kabul and occupied the country in December 1979.
 
Cypress said:
Henry Kissinger, one of Bush's top advisors on the Iraq fiasco, says its a civil war:


"If you mean by 'military victory' an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible," [Kissinger] told the British Broadcasting Corp.

But, he's got no solution besides leaving U.S. troops in Iraq to die:

But Kissinger, an architect of the Vietnam war who has advised President Bush about Iraq, warned against a rapid withdrawal of coalition troops, saying it could destabilize Iraq's neighbors and cause a long-lasting conflict.

"A dramatic collapse of Iraq - whatever we think about how the situation was created - would have disastrous consequences for which we would pay for many years and which would bring us back, one way or another, into the region," he said.



http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...R?SITE=1010WINS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
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So.... we have a dilemma...Kissinger says it's a civil war, and Dixie says it's not.

Which of those two men do we think has more knowledge and intellect to bring to bear on this question?

hmmmmmm.
 
AnyOldIron said:
That is what fourth gen warfare is all about. They know they cannot beat them militarily, so they beat them in the occupation by making it too costly.

This goes back beyond Sun Tsu....

Let the enemy ride over you and attack its weak underbelly....
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Except Sun Tsu didn't have the media where a large portion of 4GW is "fought". Without the media the action becomes less than possible with the numbers that they have.
 
Damocles said:
Wishful thinking. We set up the allied government, there is no need to take a new vote as it is still continuing action from the first vote. Contained within the first vote was the "regime change" scenario. Since we voted to set them up with a new government it is simply continued action if we work to solidify the government we helped instill.
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I disagree and so do others.... a full fledge civil war is ANOTHER OBJECTIVE and NOT fighting terrorism...

Aug. 14, 2006 issue - The Bush administration insists Iraq is a long way from civil war, but the contingency planning has already begun inside the White House and the Pentagon. President Bush will move U.S. troops out of Iraq if the country descends into civil war, according to one senior Bush aide who declined to be named while talking about internal strategy. "If there's a full-blown civil war, the president isn't going to allow our forces to be caught in the crossfire," the aide said. "But institutionally, the government of Iraq isn't breaking down. It's still a unity government." Bush's position on a pullout of U.S. troops emerged in response to news-week's questions about Sen. John Warner, chairman of the Armed Services Committee. Warner warned last week that the president might require a new vote from Congress to allow troops to stay in Iraq in what he called "all-out civil war." But the senior Bush aide said the White House would need no prompting from Congress to get troops out "if the Iraqi government broke down completely along sectarian lines."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14206642/
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that article touches a little on it, but there are other articles out there that goes in to it more and specifically, if this war in iraq turns out to be a civil war a new vote for war in iraq is needed....from what I have gathered...

google it...

care
 
Care4all said:
I disagree and so do others.... a full fledge civil war is ANOTHER OBJECTIVE and NOT fighting terrorism...



that article touches a little on it, but there are other articles out there that goes in to it more and specifically, if this war in iraq turns out to be a civil war a new vote for war in iraq is needed....from what I have gathered...

google it...

care
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You can. However, calls for "Regime Change" were constant. Pretending that we didn't vote for that is pretense and nothing more. Working to solidify the government we helped install as per the original vote will not take a whole new vote.

Those who think so are practicing, as I said earlier, wishful thinking.
 
Wrong try Iran.....

OrnotBitwise said:
What evidence, outside of Fox News inuendo, do you have that the fighting in Iraq is being waged by "international factions?" That's quite a stretch. They're in Iraq, after all: it would take some considerable evidence to conclude that they're not Iraqis. Pray, enlighten us with the intelligence to which you are so obviously privy, Dixie.

Or is that you're just repeating what you've heard on the less repubtable TV channels?

Certainly some of the fighters in Iraq are not Iraqis. It's a fair bet, based simply on the geography of the region, that there are dissaftected Jordian, Egyptian and Saudi elements. It's also given that there are people in there with the support, whether explicit or tacit, of the governments of Iran and Syria, at least.

The mere presence of such individuals, however, doesn't mean that the bulk of the fighting is being waged by non-Iraqis.
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Hezbollah ring a bell...

www.ncr-iran.org/content/view/1644/70
www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1510


these for a start many more links can be found with a simple google search!
 
Hezbollah is not a major player in Iraq.....

Sadr and others are the key players amongst shi'ites in Iraq.... Hezbollah is not a significant factor.
 
Really Commander!

maineman said:
Hezbollah is not a major player in Iraq.....

Sadr and others are the key players amongst shi'ites in Iraq.... Hezbollah is not a significant factor.
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Sorry 'Charlie Tuna'..Hezbollah was founded by Iran and is in fact supporting Sadr in Iraq...no wonder ya were at the bottom of your class!
 
Battleborne said:
Hezbollah ring a bell...

www.ncr-iran.org/content/view/1644/70
www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1510


these for a start many more links can be found with a simple google search!
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Yes, links to partisan sites run by people who openly oppose the Iranian government. Did you learn nothing from Ahmed Chalabi? Ambitious ex-patriots are not reliable sources of information.

I note, too, that even these obviously biased articles are very, very weak. They cite scraps of anecdotal evidence but nothing of any real substance. Almost everything is hearsay and conjecture, not factual.

The U.K. spent weeks trying to crack down on these alleged Iranian infiltrators recently. Trouble was, they couldn't find any. The region of desert along the border that was supposed to be a veritable highway of Iranians and Iranian arms turned out to be just a barren expanse of sand after all.

As I said before, I've no doubt that there is some Iranian influence among some Shi'ite militias in Iraq. That's almost axiomatic. The question of just how significant and pivotal that influence is remains open. I believe that even our own military is now saying that the majority of the insurgent fighters in Iraq are Iraqis, not foreigners.
 
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