Solving the mess in Iraq

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To name a few more for murtaug...

Australia
Spain
Italy
UK
Several more in Japan besides Okinawa
Greenland

 

Man, it's amazing that all these countries aren't always telling us to get our troops off of their sovereign territory. Wait, maybe we aren't quite the butchers that some try to make us out to be? Nahh, that can't be it. (Please note the preceding comment was heavy in SARCASM, just in case anybody missed that)

 

That might be the best solution. Then the US can hold each of them up for their oil by offering "protection" from the other two newly created nations. Simply tell them that if they don't "knock it off", the US will side with the enemy and topple their government just like they did to Hussein. This keeps US troops in combat ereduced roles (they'd still be hunting alleged terrorists) but it secures the oil supply and hopefully reduces the destruction and killing.

So you are not denying the problem, only disputing the scale and nature of the situation? I reminds me of a story I once read. A guy asks a woman if she'd sleep with him for a million dollars. She excitedly agreed. He then asked her if she'd sleep with him for 50k. She said "I guess I would". He then asked her if she'd sleep with him for a hundred bucks. She slapped him and asked "What kind of girl do you think I am?" He replied "That has already been determined. Now we're haggling over the price..."
There really is not that big a difference...

Wasn't that part of 9/11? To start a world war against the biggest of the Western, Christian, Capitalist infidels? Isn't that what Osama Bin Laden is calling for? The only difference in the Iraq situation is that the Americans actually succeeded. Let this be a lesson to Al Queda--Becareful what you wish for--you may not like what you get...

Why not pull out, let them kill each other off then take the oil for ourselves when they have immolated themselves...

That's why they are in this predicament. They didn't just bomb Iraq back to the stone age and let the UN clean up the mess. If the UN is not willing to police the world, then maybe they are more suited to a janitorial role.

Which is why they should have just immolated the country and left. And if they act up again, beat the crap out of them again...

 

Come on now, guys - THOSE countries WANT us there, or we would not be there. Big difference.

At one point, we did occupy some of those mentioned. And that's not logic - it's called history.

 

martaug,
what your 'clear & concise' answers reveal to me is that you don't understand much, and know very little.

as for fixing Iraq,
assuming 'doability', does that mean having to rid the plagued country of Iran's nefarious influence first? After all the Iranians provide training to elements in Iraq (the Badr Corps for instance). The question came up in recent house hearings (p.36 f of transcript):

You can read the transcript or watch the webcast here.

Having mentioned the Badr Corps that is receiving training from Iran: The Badr Corps is the military arm of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). The Organization was based in Iran for two decades during the rule of Saddam Hussein. It consisted of several thousand Iraqi exiles, refugees, and defectors who fought alongside Iran in the Iran-Iraq War. In 2006 the Badr Corps became subordinated to the Iraqi Interior Ministry. They are now part of the Iraqi police in uniform and with police powers. That means the Iranians are in fact training the Iraqi police, and support Iraq's Shia-majority Maliki government.

These people have family ties in Iran. They intermarried with the locals there while in exile. They went to the same seminaries and universities as the Iranian elites. They fought alongside them against Saddam. They speak Farsi. US calls for opposing Iran basically call on them to oppose their in-laws, cousins, nephews and friends. That is the background behind the remark by Mr. Delahunt that the Bush administration appears to have a real disagreement with the Iraqi Government in terms of the behaviour of Iran.

 

On a note unrelated to the current discussion but covered within the context of the topic, what is the US doing about refugees? During this spring there have been some hubbub about a middle sized Swedish town which has received more Iraqi refugees than the whole of the US. The chairman of this town, Södertälje, was even invited and went to speak in front of congress about this issue. How come the US basically accept no refugees whatsoever, not even from the countries they themselves invade and smash to pieces? I can actually see several reasons, many quite rational and not "evil" whatsoever but what is the opinion of you Americans on this board on that issue?

This seems to be the best link I could find, google isnt the answer to everything sadly: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/04/refugees_more.html

 

I'd have to assume the vast majority of refugees go to one of the neighboring countries. That does not explain why Sweeden has received more than the US though. The US receives a huge number of immigrants each year from around the world, however we don't get a ton from the Middle East. I do not have an explanation for this, but it seems that most Middle Easterns prefer to immigrate to Europe than the US, given the percentage they comprise of the total population. And that trend started well in advance of the current war - well in advance of the Gulf War in the 1990s in fact.

 

I would argue that the present government in Iraq has a HELL of a lot more legitimacy than the Nazi occupation government in France during WW2. They want the US there. Of course, they owe their continuing existence to the US forces, so you could say the US have a gun to their heads in one sense, but nevertheless, one interpretation of the US presence there is that it is presently valid because they are there with the permission of the Iraqi government.

As for refugees, I have a few theories:

1: Many Middle Eastern people would not want to go to the US because they know that they will probably be perceived as the enemy by many Americans.

2: Conversely, while I have no facts, I would imagine that the American Immigration service isn't too keen on having lots of Middle Eastern immigrants pouring into the country given the chances of some of them pulling another 9/11 -- I would imagine their screening process is pretty rigorous.

3: Finally, I would say that the refugees likely want to be closer to their homeland on the chance that they might be able to return to the land of their birth someday (However, Sweden is pretty far north -- I wonder if it really is geographically closer to the Middle East than the East Coast of the US.)

 

No, most of them don't.

http://www.gulfinthemedia.com/files/article_en/271345.pdf

This is large pdf. file and will take a minute to download.

89.9% Think that Iraq is worse off than before the war.
89.4% Believe that the political situation is worse.
79.3% Feel that the country is economically worse off.
95.2% Believe that the country is less secure.

 

How about using a current poll there chandos, since we have done a lot of rebuilding since 2006.

 

It takes time to crunch those kinds of numbers, Martaug!

I was referring to the government officials themselves, Chandos, NOT the population in general. Your survey polls the average citizen, and the results do not surprise me. I'm not a fool -- of course many Iraqi "men in the street" probably don't like the US and don't have a lot of confidence in the elected government. That's true even in the West! Nevertheless, the government was elected in a manner that was more democratic than Saddam's, and that government in and of itself wants the US to stay and continue to bolster it. I would hazard a guess that if the US pulled out now, the government officials would be hunted down and killed by insurgents who would label them "collaborators" or "traitors". So of course those officials want some US support so they can establish themselves and their reputations in the eyes of the common man.

 

Good points, LKD.

Martaug - November, 2006, which makes the poll about a year and a half old. We've done a lot of rebuilding? Yes, your tax dollars at work - hope they are well-spent.

 

They were, just ask any serviceman returning from the sandbox. The actual personal stories they will tell you about their experiences with the iraqi people are complete opposites of what the news would have you believe.

 

Martaug - They must be telling you different stories than the many "returning servicemen" with whom I've spoken.

 

Apparently there are, because without fail they have all had more stories of mothers & children thanking them for new schools, watersystems, powersystems & their fathers/husbands not being forced into the army/killed than stories of being yelled at as invaders.
See, chandos, unlike you i actually can see bush doing SOME good while you would rather blow a blood vessel than dare admit anything good has ever happened since your god clinton was in office.

 

Like the veteran in this interview:

The first minute includes a McCain cut, the interview starts in the second minute.

I acknowledge McCain's status as a war hero. However, I do not see why that fact means we cannot or should not question his policy on Iraq.

 

I question both his & obama's stratagies on iraq. Personally, at this phase, there doesn't seem to be a solution that isn't going to piss off a good portion of the U.S. population & the world.
While i acknowledge & salute brandon friedman for his service to our country & in helping shine the light on some of the problems at the VA, IMHO his endorsement of the Webb-Hagel GI-Bill is dishonest as several of the other GI-Bills before the house & senate are just as good or better.
The website votevets.org (which labels itself "The voice of america's 21st century patriots") looks like a non-partisan site for veterans, until you notice all of the candidates they endorse are democrats.
Sorry but comments from a democrat on chris olbermann carry as much weight as comments from carl rove on bill o'reilly

 

There's an excellent article in Harper's on the subject; unfortunately, you'll need to be a subscriber to read it (a subscription is well worth the $16/yr, if it matters). There are several reasons. The 'material support' clauses in American anti-terror legislation and the like mean that, um, if you paid ransom to, say, kidnappers, we don't want you. Because you're a threat, you see. Moreover, the narrative of 'imminent victory' requires that the US not try to resettle refugees, as that would be admitting defeat. Instead, as officials from the State Department and elsewhere have explicitly said, the American policy toward refugees is to return as many of them to Iraq as possible. Because, y'know, we're winning.

It's more complicated than that, but that's a decent summary of the primary factors.

 

That's an angle I never thought of, AMaster. Sounds sensible to me.

 

That's because you voted for GWB. On-the-other-hand, you seem to be "blowing a vessel" over Clinton. Sometimes the best advice you can take is your own...