Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Looking Into the Abyss? (Part II)

Bush (still!) has us boxed in with fear of the unknown.

If tunnel vision got us into Bush's un-provoked, unnecessary, largely unilateral invasion and unplanned occupation of Iraq (UULUIUOI), I guarantee you it won't get us out.

This is an update of my Looking Into the Abyss (Part I).

With thanks to Carolyn Lochhead, of the San Francisco Chronicle 's Washington Bureau and her excellent excellent article,
Doubt Cast on Dire Exit Scenarios.
Ms. Lochhead has been the San Francisco Chronicle’s Washington corresondent since 1991.
Prior to the Chronicle, she wrote for Insight Magazine,
as well as newspapers in California and Louisiana. Lochhead holds a B.A. from UC Berkeley and a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.



Lochhead begins by making an honest and clear-eyed assessment of where the Anglo-American coalition is now and going forward.

Things are bad now.
  • Refugee flows are large and growing -- nearly 4 million Iraqis have either been internally displaced or have fled abroad.
  • Ethnic cleansing is altering the makeup of Baghdad.
  • A civil war is underway.
  • Populations have become radicalized.
  • Al Qaeda terrorists have established a base in Anbar province.
  • Iran is intervening, aiding Shiite militias.
  • Syria is allowing militants over its border.
  • American standing is damaged.
Can things get worse?
  • Sectarian war in Iraq spreads across the Middle East?
  • Neighboring regimes are destabilized, and populations radicalized?
  • A humanitarian catastrophe of refugees and ethnic cleansing follows?
  • Iranian influence rises?
  • Regional war erupts?
  • Oil supplies are disrupted?
  • Al Qaeda claims victory, gains recruits and money and is emboldened to strike again?
  • American credibility is damaged?
Regional war is the scariest of the scenarios, with the assumption that it would be accompanied by an oil shock. That assumes all the neighboring countries would look into the abyss, and jump in. Yet it is not clear why they would do so.

Retired Gen. William Nash, U.S. commander in Bosnia from 1995 to 1997:
If we get run off, there's no reason to say it would be a positive thing, OK? But just think of the dire predictions that were made in 1975 when the helicopters were leaving the embassy grounds of Saigon and everybody thinking that the dominoes would begin to fall. Lo and behold, the dominoes not only didn't fall, but a number of the regional actors started taking some responsibilities for some things.
Rand Beers, a former national security official through the last four administrations, including the current Bush administration:
When you go through the analysis -- even though I am prepared to concede that there can be dark scenarios coming out of a withdrawal from Iraq -- it's not at all clear to me that they are any worse than staying.

How do you get the violence outside of the country? Iraqis are not going to invade another country. Scenarios are that Iran might march in to protect the Shias, that Turkey might march in because the Kurds are destabilizing Turkey. The Saudis might at least be prepared to arm the Sunnis. Those are all adding fuel to the fire in Iraq -- not expanding conflict outside of Iraq.
Bruce Riedel, a former Bush national security official now at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy:
When you sit down and scrub that carefully, it's not a certainty by any means. . . . Iran has very close ties to every single Shia and Kurdish politician, militia and political group in Iraq. They're already in there. They have a huge intelligence presence inside of Iraq. It's hard for me to see why, after we left, they would need to put in ground troops. They've already got their influence there, and their side of the civil war, the Shia, is likely to prevail in the long run.

The reality is that none of them have the military capability to do anything serious. Saudi Arabia doesn't have an army that can advance into Anbar province. It just doesn't have that military capability, nor does Jordan, nor does Kuwait. These are countries that can barely defend themselves, let alone project military power.
They can provide arms, money and volunteers, but Sunni insurgents already have ample supplies of those.
That leaves the Turks. Turkey is seen as the state most likely to enter Iraq if it breaks up and a new, independent Kurdistan emerges. Turkey has for decades been battling a Kurdish resistance in its eastern provinces that border Iraq.

Turkey also wants to join the European Union. Kurdish northern Iraq also is a notoriously difficult area to control.

Edward Walker, former U.S. ambassador to Israel, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates:
If the United States is insistent, I think Turkey would stand back. I don't think the Turks are interested in breaking their links to the U.S. or to Europeans just to get themselves into the middle of a civil war.
Riedel again:
I think when Turkey looks hard at this problem, it's very unlikely that what the Turkish military is going to want to do is occupy a very difficult-to-control area and just expand the number of Kurds that are shooting at Turkish soldiers. I don't dismiss it. There is a risk of regional conflict. But I think that a skillful policy of containment and diplomatic action could minimize it after we go, and it does not become a rationale for young American men and women to give down their lives indefinitely.
John Mueller, chairman of national security studies at Ohio State University says in Iraq,
The most likely scenario, and it's still a fairly bad one, is that the other countries would contain Iraq and there would be a civil war that would gradually work its way out. The idea of it spreading throughout the Middle East and all over the world strikes me as a considerable stretch. Not that it's impossible. But the best analogy would be the long civil war in Lebanon. Other countries meddled in various ways, but they also kept it there, as much as possible.
Michael Mandelbaum, head of the foreign policy program at Johns Hopkins University's School for Advanced International Studies says a regional war would be terrible:
But as cynical, as cold-blooded as it may sound, we have to ask what interests of ours would be jeopardized. ... It seems to me it's worth taking a look at our options and not assuming that all options are worse than this one."

People might draw back from the brink or it may be that the civil war has to play itself out.

In any event, if the United States withdrew or drew back, at least our troops wouldn't be getting killed and surely the first obligation of the American government is to the people of the United States, and that includes the U.S. armed forces.
Kurt Campbell, a former national security official in the Clinton administration, now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies:
It's remarkable how little time people have spent examining the assumptions. . . . They're going to follow us home no matter what, so the idea that if we prevail in Iraq that suddenly our situation at home in the United States is going to improve dramatically, I think is a very questionable proposition. That does not mean that I don't and everyone else doesn't want to win in Iraq. But I think that the more logical consequences of failure are really not so much in potential terrorist threats at home. That's something we're going to live with for decades.
The burden of proof or persuasion is on those who would escalate and prolong our illegitimate and poorly conceived occupation: how do they convince us (or themselves) that we won't find the abyss by following Bush even deeper into his personal apocalypse?

37 comments:

  1. Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know.

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  2. Thank you for the excellent and in depth analysis. You research and writing continue to be superb.

    Much shorter, and considerably less detailed, is Ted Kopple's commentary today on NPR. But he does take a different, much more pragmatic, point of view.

    The transcript is finally on the site, in case you dislike audio: How Honest Is the Debate over Iraq?

    vigilante, you should take great comfort that the debate is no long IF we should leave Iraq. The remaining debate is how we leave and what are the consequences.

    Let's leave with our eyes wide open.

    Your contribution today helps illuminate that last remaining debate.

    the Wizard.......

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  3. Yeah, Wizard is complete right about your fantasic post. Strangely, I find some comfort thinking that WHEN we leave that things will stay at a low boil instead of spilling over. Talk about lower expectations. One dishonest, to say the least, feature of Bush's argument about us leaving to soon was that the terrorists would follow us home. Someone pointed out recently that nothing is stopping them from coming over now. The busted kidnapping plot in Britain is case in point.
    But not to be a party pooper a developing concern for me is that when the "surge" fizzles in Iraq with no real progress being made what will Bush do next? Enough has been written and said about Bush's messanic vision of himself that I completely believe his mental state is unbalanced. Messanic types do not tend to calmly fade away when their plans fall apart. Jim Jones comes to mind for me.

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  4. They are not leaving fellows.
    To much money being made. It is keeping the economy going, and the next phase, with Iran included,will go even better for the financial markets.
    At this stage to say this was unprovoked is ridiculous. It was money, as provocation.
    Your precious Congress made all this happen.
    You people really are in La La land.
    Our Price System requires this sort of thing in order to keep functioning. Until the system is changed this is just Status Quo operation.

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  5. I find it funny that you publish far out stuff like this and then complain about others and how they "drink the Kool Aid."

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  6. Great post, Vigilante! And great comments as well. I am of the school that believes whatever happens to us will happen as a result of the unbelievable administration we installed here. We will pay as a nation for Bush's insanity.

    On the other hand, it seems to me that our enemies, of which there are multitudes, are more anxious to get us out of the Middle East than to attack us here. Attacks by unforseen groups are a danger to all nations (Iraq comes to mind), but Bush made up his own recipe, mixed up the ingredients, and we will just have to deal with what comes out of the oven.

    I just hope to God he and Cheney get impeached before it explodes in our faces.

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  7. Excellent post Vigilante. Learned loads.

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  8. Bill-the-Diminutive: your comment made me think of Peter Bergen's article in the current New Republic where he makes the point that Osama bin Laden is just as inept as George Bush in making natural allies into enemies. He cites four ways al Qaeda has screwed up:

    First: it has killed a lot of Muslims. This is doubly problematic for Al Qaeda, as the Koran forbids killing both civilians and fellow Muslims . . . .

    Second, while bin Laden enjoys personal popularity in much of the Muslim world, this popularity does not translate into mass support for Al Qaeda--the kind of mass support that, say, Hezbollah enjoys in Lebanon. This is not surprising, since there are no Al Qaeda social welfare services, schools, hospitals, or clinics . . . .

    Third:Al Qaeda's leaders have constantly expanded their list of enemies, to the point where it now includes all Middle Eastern regimes; Muslims who don't share their views; most Western countries; Jews and Christians; the governments of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Russia; most news organizations; the United Nations; and international NGOs. Making a world of enemies is never a winning strategy.

    Fourth: we know what bin Laden is against; but what is he really for? If you asked him, he would say the restoration of the caliphate. For bin Laden, that doesn't mean the return of something like the Ottoman Empire, but rather the installation of Taliban-style theocracies stretching from Indonesia to Morocco. A silent majority of Muslims don't want that. A 2003 poll conducted in Saudi Arabia, perhaps the world's most conservative Muslim country, makes this abundantly clear: In that survey, 49 percent of Saudis said they admired bin Laden, but only 5 percent wanted to live in a bin Laden-run state. Many Muslims like bin Laden because he "stands up" to the West. That doesn't mean they would actually want to live under the Taliban.


    Stuff to remind ourselves the next time Bush and Cheney try to scare all of us with words like "Islamofascism".

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  9. This comment is addressed to TonyR:

    Tony, in these pages I have attempted to provide information and - hopefully - amusement, to all readers of whatever persuasion, including yours. So, I am gratified that you are amused. (Except for the fact that this particular post was meant to be informative.)

    Americans, be they civilians or military, have differing views on Iraq. Some feel that the glass in our occupation of Iraq is 3/4 empty (that's me); some feel that it's 3/4 full (that's you). The two of us may spar verbally or quietly discuss the issues. We may not find agreement today, this week, month or year. But the one thing sure is that there will be a reckoning because - opinions aside - we are not entitled to separate sets of facts. History will soon provide us with a verdict as to whose set was correct, yours or mine.

    So continue to visit my Cafe and quench your thirst with your favorite flavor of Kool-Aid™. At the same time, notice that coffee is offered on the same menu, should you waken sufficiently to smell it.

    I feel compelled to observe that we java-heads are trending upwards. James Jones cultists are on their way out.

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  10. Damn vigilante, I'm speechless. Your article is undeniably brilliant. If someone hasn't posted this yet, I believe that Bush is a sociopath and has dreams of being the "leader" to bring Armageddon. Jim Jones, indeed, Beach Bum.

    After I read the latest on ExxonMobil's greatest profit in American history (which I believe comes from war) and thought about Bush & Co., Inc.'s involvement. Hello? Can someone say war profiteering? NOW will someone start impeachment proceedings against those two horrors?

    Those 100,000 protesters in front of the White House game me hope that people getting out in the streets will generate more huge protests.

    I apologize for the ramble which arises from my sadness at the death of Molly Ivins.

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  11. 4 Malfrat, a summation from Prof. David A. Bell:

    Yet as the comparison with the Soviet experience should remind us, the war against terrorism has not yet been much of a war at all, let alone a war to end all wars. It is a messy, difficult, long-term struggle against exceptionally dangerous criminals who actually like nothing better than being put on the same level of historical importance as Hitler — can you imagine a better recruiting tool? To fight them effectively, we need coolness, resolve and stamina. But we also need to overcome long habit and remind ourselves that not every enemy is in fact a threat to our existence.

    LA Times

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  12. Is this not the way it is? The more we train the Sunni's the more the Shiia think that we're after them? The more we equip the Iraqi government, the more the Sunni's think we're adter them? How can we get anywhere? Where is the "Victory"?

    Lasseter from Baghdad

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  13. Personally, I support Resolution HR-645 introduced by introduced by Representatives David Price (D-NC) and Brad Miller (D-NC) and supported by Representative Tom Allen of Maine to End Occupation of Iraq by December 2007. Thanks to Spud1 for showing it to me.

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  14. Malfrat, as a teacher and student of the phenomeon of terrorism I agree with everything you wrote. The similarities are remarkable indeed.

    This was a good article Vigil and there are some great comments on this board. You have mentioned my less than subtle change of position on the Bushmaster Vigil and it is due in part to your passion. Although our blogs have slightly different themes there now exists that common denominator: IMPEACH BUSH!

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  15. Madmike you are joking about Vigilante`s passion right.? Here is a guy who is supporting some crooked Politicians theory of getting out of Iraq by Dec. 2007.?
    Vigilante supports the war, until Dec.of 2007.?
    You are calling that passionate.?
    I call it war-mongering. We have no business there besides making money for special interests , and supporting our crooked allys.
    Wake up Vigilante,... if you can.

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  16. Great post. I'm convinced that they are content to stay and let things drag on indefinitely. Nation building takes time, etc., etc.

    People are saying that protest in the streets is passé. I don't agree. More protests like the one on Jan. 27, with more participants, will make a huge difference. The world needs to see that America is not supportive of George W. Bush's apocalyptic freedom vision.

    The government is on auto-pilot now. We need to collectively start screaming our heads off. Boots on the ground.

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  17. Messenger, here's a quote from your new NIE:

    "The Intelligence Community judges that the term “civil war” does not adequately capture the complexity of the conflict in Iraq, which includes extensive Shia-on-Shia violence, al-Qa’ida and Sunni insurgent attacks on Coalition forces, and widespread criminally motivated violence.

    Nonetheless, the term “civil war” accurately describes key elements of the Iraqi conflict, including the hardening of ethno-sectarian identities, a sea change in the character of the violence, ethno-sectarian mobilization, and population displacements.
    "

    Now, can you (or anyone else) tell me what the fook this means?

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  18. That NIE gobbleydook is Bushspeak for bullshit!

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  19. I'm amused that your amused with my amusement, but I think that your putting some words into my mouth in that I'm not all that happy with the way Iraq worked out. I'm positive that it could have been handled better. With that being said, I'm not about to cry for "chimpeachment" yet. all the politicians in Washington got us into Iraq, including the Democrats who voted by majority to go to war in Iraq. not only that, they are not about to cut off the funding or stop this war no matter what they might say. So why not start directing your anger at them?

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  20. Many people here don`t seem to understand that point TonyR. There is a disconnect. I guess I just think of it as brainwashed behavior. Many people here want to believe so badly that Bush is the culprit. I wish these people would look in the mirror. Our system is at fault. Bush is doing his crooked job. Our economy is a war economy, and has been for many years. War is rewarded for big money to Special Interest. The people that actually run the United States.
    War expands the economy. That is why they all voted for it , and won`t even stop it now.
    Americans are dreamers.
    The average American is totally unaware of the dynamic that actually runs our society.
    Until our society is reformed with a different system , things only get worse.
    Dems and Repubs.? Both are only a bad joke. Our Price System must grow. It does not care how.

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  21. What? Tony says
    "all the politicians in Washington got us into Iraq."

    Members of the Senate who voted against H J RES 114 10-Oct-2002 were: Daniel Akaka (D-HI), Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Robert Byrd (D-WV), Lincoln Chafee (R-RI), Jon Corzine (D-NJ), Kent Conrad (D-ND), Mark Dayton (D-MN), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Bob Graham (D-FL), Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Jim Jeffords (I-VT), Ted Kennedy (D-MA), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Carl Levin (D-MI), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Patty Murray (D-WA), Jack Reed (D-RI), Paul Sarbanes (D-MD), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Paul Wellstone (D-MN), Ron Wyden (D-OR),

    And in the House: Abercrombie, Allen, Baca, Baird, Baldacci, Baldwin, Barrett, Becerra, Blumenauer, Bonior, Brady (PA), Brown (FL), Brown (OH), Capps, Capuano, Cardin, Carson (IN), Clay, Clayton, Clyburn, Condit, Conyers, Costello, Coyne, Cummings, Davis (CA), Davis (IL), DeFazio, DeGette, Delahunt, DeLauro, Dingell, Doggett, Doyle, Duncan, Eshoo, Evans, Farr, Fattah, Filner, Frank, Gonzalez, Gutierrez, Hastings (FL), Hilliard, Hinchey, Hinojosa, Holt, Honda, Hooley, Hostettler, Houghton, Inslee, Jackson (IL), Jackson-Lee (TX), Johnson, E., B. Jones (OH), Kaptur, Kildee, Kilpatrick, Kleczka, Kucinich, LaFalce, Langevin, Larsen (WA), Larson (CT), Leach, Lee, Levin, Lewis (GA), Lipinski, Lofgren, Maloney (CT), Matsui, McCarthy (MO), McCollum, McDermott, McGovern, McKinney, Meek (FL), Meeks (NY), Menendez, Millender-McDonald, George Miller, Mollohan, Moran (VA), Morella, Nadler, Napolitano, Neal, Oberstar, Obey, Olver, Owens, Pallone, Pastor, Paul, Payne, Pelosi, Price (NC), Rahall, Rangel, Reyes, Rivers, Rodriguez, Roybal-Allard, Rush, Sabo, Sanchez, Sanders, Sawyer, Schakowsky, Scott, Serrano, Slaughter, Snyder, Solis, Stark, Strickland, Stupak, Thompson (CA), Thompson (MS), Tierney, Towns, Udall (CO), Udall (NM), Velazquez, Visclosky, Waters, Watson (CA), Watt (NC), Woolsey, Wu.

    Tony is another right-wing spinster of the mythology that 'everyone was wrong about Iraq'.

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  22. "Tony is another right-wing spinster of the mythology that 'everyone was wrong about Iraq'."

    Put up the list of Dems who voted to go to Iraq. I'm sure you'll agree that the heavy hitters voted yes... most of the names you listed are all party lightweights and fringe elements.

    The Democrats voted by majority to go to war in Iraq and they now have the power to stop it but choose not to. So you can stop playing your Iraq violin anytime now.

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  23. Has anyone noticed that a single suicide bomb killed 135 people in a crowded shopping market in a Shi'ite area of Baghdad?

    Weapons of mass destruction are being used on these people while our occupation and our puppet government presides from the Green Zone.

    Is this what we want to be identified with? It can't be much worse if we leave; if we stay this will continue indefinitely.

    It is time for us to go.

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  24. Although off topic, Tony R has misconstrued me as a yellow dog democrat, and requires a response.

    A quick review of my voting in general elections (using percentages so as not to date myself) reveals that I have voted Democratic 58% of the time.

    I have said before in these pages, that I am currently registered as a Democrat as a matter of convenience rather than conviction, there being no other refuge from the idiocy of the current anti-conservative Republican party.

    I have also said elsewhere in these pages that I am an American first, and a Republican or Democrat second: Country before party. Based upon what I have seen of GOP lock-step lemmings, clinging on to their one-party hegemony for the last six years, I am convinced they do not live up to this elementary ingredient of patriotism; idiocy is their only alternative excuse.

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  25. The second thing I will say to Tony R is that my record on Iraq is clear and consistent:

    I remember clearly what I was doing the minute news of Saddam's Invasion of Kuwait was broadcast. I was driving home on an August weekend day from a sailing trip when the news came over the car radio. I immediately turned to trophy wife and told her how big this was. To my dismay, George HW Bush did not seem to realize its immensity until Margaret Thatcher flew across the pond and rammed some steel up his backside. (Hillsblogger, please confirm this recollection!)

    Bush mobilized and gave Saddam the ultimatum to get out of Kuwait by 15 January or be thrown out.

    I recall now that at the time I was quite agitated: I was hoping, if not praying that Saddam would not come to his senses: a sensible option for him would have been to withdraw dramatically right after the authorization vote on Jan 12th, three days before the 15 January deadline. That would have meant that all of George Herbert Walker Bush's coalition-building, mobilization and deployment would have gone for not. Saddam would have had his armies in tact and Bush (Sr.) would have been out all of the expense (considerable) of the mobilization. I was relieved when the deadline expired and elated when Desert Storm finally kicked off.

    While I'm at it, I'll also cop to something else. I agreed with Scowcroft policy of not invading and occupying Iraq after Saddam was expelled from Kuwait. But I was irate and outraged when Colin Powell exercised chivalric restraint in not eradicating the defeated Iraqi army, retreating on Highway 80, the so-called highway of death or the Massacre at the Mutla Ridge?. It was argued that these beaten troops were helpless as fish in a barrel or even possibly mutineering troops. But in fact, they were still carrying loot from Kuwait, and thus they were still the bad guys. They should have been obliterated.

    That was my position on Gulf War I, at polar opposites to most of the Democrats in Congress, as I recall. Saddam Hussein had invaded a non-aggressive country, smack in the middle of the New World Order's vital food (petroleum) chain, capturing an internationally recognized nation-state, and threatening additional invasion in the Gulf. His impulsive action required repudiation, reversal and punishment.

    In Gulf War II (March 20th 2003), George Bush likewise invaded a country which threatened no nation. Despite the fact that he's not a dictator and that he was elected by my fellow citizens, his violation of international law and the United Nations Charter is no less an offense than Saddam's.

    In my opinion, it is the duty of all Americans - regardless of party - to end our illegal occupation of Iraq immediately and to repudiate the Bush-Cheney administration as anti-American by impeaching and removing them from office before their term of office is concluded.

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  26. There is nothing in that gigantic response that touches on my simple question. The Democrats voted by majority to invade Iraq, and had they not done this, the invasion would never have occurred. So you have provided no answer as to why your venom is directed soley at Republicans and not at all politicians in general.

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  27. Good point TonyR. I find this site amazing myself in that it ignores so many obvious reality`s.
    The war was made by the Dems and Repubs to dump our resources into a hole. For that reason,.. the war contrary to Vigilante`s continual denial was , PROVOKED, NECCESSARY, SUPPORTED BY OUR AXIS OF EVIL PARTNERS, THE AUSTRALIANS, BRITISH, AND ISRAELI`S, AND.... THE OCCUPATION WAS PLANNED TO LAST JUST ABOUT FOREVER.~!~!~!~!
    THATS WHY WE BUILT PERMANENT BASES THERE.~!~!~!~!~!
    VIGILANTE YOU ARE IN DENIAL.
    At least I think you are , or you are just brainwashed , like most other Americans as to what the hell is going on. ~!~
    Was the war some pet project of Bush and Co.?
    No I don`t think so.
    A Pet project of the Special Interests that run the U.S.?
    Ah, now that rings a bell.

    By hook or by crook this type of system must continually expand , at any cost.
    The Dems were standing up on their tip toes to be seen saluting the war plan.
    This fact has kept our economy for the most part zinging along the last few years. That makes the Political flunky`s happy , as they feather and pad their nests that way.

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  28. Getting back to the subject of this thread, Recidivist, do you know what percentage of the 'ministers' and 'members-of-parliament' of our puppet Iraqi government are hanging out in the Green Zone, as opposed to how many are hanging out in Europe?

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  29. Interesting question, Cooper. I'll look into it.

    McClatchy Newspapers are reporting that American

    "Soldiers interviewed across east Baghdad, home to more than half the city's 8 million people, said the violence is so out of control that while a surge of 21,500 more American troops may momentarily suppress it, the notion that U.S. forces can bring lasting security to Iraq is misguided."

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  30. According to Angus Reid Global Monitor a poll by Opinion Dynamics released by Fox News asked the following question with the following responses:

    Thinking about the situation in Iraq, do you think the United States should:

    Pull out all troops immediately (12%)

    Pull out all troops gradually over the next year (40%)

    Pull out after Iraqi troops are capable of taking over (34%)

    Send more troops (9%)

    Don’t know (5%)


    This indicates 52% would rather face the abyss accompanied by unconditional withdrawal in a year as opposed to the abyss we face by staying or escalating the course.

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  31. While I don't agree with you all the time Skip, at least you don't display the intellectual dishonesty and pathology we see exhibited here.

    Iraq would never have happened without Democratic support. The big name Democrats gave Bush standing ovations during his Iraq speeches and they voted by majority to invade, but you wouldn't know that if you were born yesterday and visited a site like this one... a place where "Bushco" and neocon sorcerers are soley responsible for the invasion.

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  32. Vigilante, the present abyss is pretty damn dire.

    U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees says that 2 million Iraqis -- about 8 percent of the prewar population, have embarked on a desperate migration, mostly to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. The refugees include large numbers of doctors, academics and other professionals vital for Iraq's recovery. Another 1.7 million are in 'internal' migration, having been forced to move to safer towns and villages inside Iraq. As many as 50,000 Iraqis a month flee their homes. Shiites and Sunnis continue to flee despite the risk of being dragged from their buses and executed at random checkpoints.

    WP

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  33. PROVOKED, NECCESSARY, SUPPORTED BY OUR AXIS OF EVIL PARTNERS, THE AUSTRALIANS, BRITISH, AND ISRAELI`S, AND.... THE OCCUPATION WAS PLANNED TO LAST JUST ABOUT FOREVER.~!~!~!~!
    THATS WHY WE BUILT PERMANENT BASES THERE.~!~!~!~!~!


    Now we need an Hegelian synthesis of these two positions. 'Cause I agree with you both.

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  34. Nonpartisan, Time quotes Haydar Abdul Jabbar who witnessed Saturday's truck bombing in Baghdad:

    I wish Bush had attacked us us with a nuclear bomb and kill us all so we will rest and anybody who wants the oil — which is the core of the problem — can come and get it.

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