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IRAQ IS A DISASTER


TheoHuxtable

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Negative: When you have the Shiite Muslim majority of Iraq, the people who were supposed be on the U.S. side, rioting in cities all across the country and taking over various government buildings, then I think Iraq can be branded as an official disaster.

 

Positive: This disaster that was solely created by George W. Bush will reflect badly on his bid for re-election.

 

Vote John Kerry 2004!

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the problem, is that people still think that the iraqi's are happy that we're there.

somehow they manage to ignore the OVERWHELMING dissatisfaction with our occupation and the vast majority of them claiming they had a better standard of living and security when saddam was in office. apparently they should be happy with not having running water or electricity....or jobs....or medical assistance....or police....or basically any social services.... but saddam is gone, so that's good!

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Guest imported_Tesseract

Get out of there already, its more than obvious that they dont want the US nor the US made everyday life better in a year.

The iraq incident was the main reason for the terrorism big bang and now the whole world is in trouble.

You know, its funny how all us western people are terrified in the possibility of a hit in our own town, against our own people but for so many years we were comfortably laid back on our couches watching all these other peoples houses getting blown to pieces...

 

Bush losing power is granted right now, but i;m still very curious on how Kerry (or any kerry) will handle it from now on.

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Originally posted by seeking

the problem, is that people still think that the iraqi's are happy that we're there.

somehow they manage to ignore the OVERWHELMING dissatisfaction with our occupation and the vast majority of them claiming they had a better standard of living and security when saddam was in office. apparently they should be happy with not having running water or electricity....or jobs....or medical assistance....or police....or basically any social services.... but saddam is gone, so that's good!

 

 

Yeah that's true, but re-establishing a new government and putting it working order takes time. Eventually it will pay off in the long run. This time around they'll be free of sanctions and embargos and will be open to trade from nations all over the world, which will probably give them an economy on par with Saudi Arabia.

 

I think the biggest fear would be to see the foreign terrorists and Iraqi Saddam loyalists take advantage of the departure of U.S. troops and just run amuck and topple the government. Like what happened in Vietnam. Soon as American troops left, the guerillas and NVA just took advantage of the situation and overran the South Vietnamese Army. Then again back then we were dealing with a well-established guerilla army as well as conventional NVA troops. Whereas in Iraq it's just small bands of foreign terrorists and Iraqi insurgents.

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Guest imported_Tesseract
Originally posted by TheoHuxtable

 

I think the biggest fear would be to see the foreign terrorists and Iraqi Saddam loyalists take advantage of the departure of U.S. troops and just run amuck and topple the government. Like what happened in Vietnam. Soon as American troops left, the guerillas and NVA just took advantage of the situation and overran the South Vietnamese Army. Then again back then we were dealing with a well-established guerilla army as well as conventional NVA troops. Whereas in Iraq it's just small bands of foreign terrorists and Iraqi insurgents.

 

No, its not called a guerilla army when everyone is in favor of it..its called "the people of the country" The vietnamese kicked out the french and the US only because they didnt want them around and it was happening from day one...they didnt need to take advantage of anything.

Its close to impossible to keep that shit under control cause in the end the residents of a territory always have their way.

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they were faced with embargoes, because we put them in place, knowing they were doing nothing but hurting the people, not the government. iraq was still able to sell their oil to other countries, to companies that were subdisaries of american companies, so it was just funnelled right back to us anyway.

it's a joke.

and yes, i know it will take time to realize a new government, but it could have been handled a million times better.

this whole operation was the military equivelant of smashing a glass jar of pickles on the sidewalk to take the top off and get one pickle out, then glueing the pieces back together so we can screw the top back on and shove the rest back in.

 

 

seeks/analogies for all day

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Originally posted by Tesseract

No, its not called a guerilla army when everyone is in favor of it..its called "the people of the country" The vietnamese kicked out the french and the US only because they didnt want them around and it was happening from day one...they didnt need to take advantage of anything.

Its close to impossible to keep that shit under control cause in the end the residents of a territory always have their way.

 

beat me to it

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my favorite part of all this is what the american people forgot or never knew:

 

America installed Iraq's old government too: Saddam Hussein

 

how did we get so fucking pompous??

after what he did to that country.

now it's time for round two.

and i guess in 30 years, when we're dissatisfied with that government, we'll go in and destroy their infrastructure again, and pay billions to rebuild it..

 

 

AAARGGHH!!

 

Maybe we should also rename it: Itaq..

their new flag can be bloodstained.

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Originally posted by Tesseract

No, its not called a guerilla army when everyone is in favor of it..its called "the people of the country" The vietnamese kicked out the french and the US only because they didnt want them around and it was happening from day one...they didnt need to take advantage of anything.

Its close to impossible to keep that shit under control cause in the end the residents of a territory always have their way.

 

Yeah, the hearts and minds of the people were clearly not won in South Vietnam. However there were still many that did not support Ho Chi Minh, and supported the U.S. and a seperate S. Vietnamese government. Maybe you've seen that video with the helicopters taking off from the U.S. embassy in Saigon filled with Vietnamese people seeking refuge to the U.S. since they knew the NVA and Viet Cong were closing in. About 4 years ago on the 25th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, in California thousands of those very same Vietnamese refugees held a protest waving U.S. and S. Vietnamese flags in protest of the present government in their homeland.

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Guest imported_Tesseract

I know, there are always people like that. Some have ideological differences with the current state, some are just weak and ready to adopt everything that falls on the table...In any way, the biggest percentage was anti-us even if they werent pro ho chi minh...if you study just how the vietnamese defeated the french you clearly see that the military plan is totally based on the will of every single villager to help.

 

If you're interested on that tell me and i'll bump that thread for you.

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Originally posted by TheoHuxtable

Y Maybe you've seen that video with the helicopters taking off from the U.S. embassy in Saigon filled with Vietnamese people seeking refuge to the U.S. since they knew the NVA and Viet Cong were closing in..

 

maybe they weren't all seeking refuge from the vc/nva

but they knew there would be oppurtunities in america and wanted to immigrate.

just a thought.

 

i've also seen the video of one of the refugee planes, you know the one..

that crashed, killing nearly everyone [children] on board.

 

funny how life is sometimes.

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Yeah what a mess. And democracy wouldn't even work because the shi'a majority would just take control. Though I heard they have been working on making a seperate state for the kurds... The kurds are trying to get land from turkey I guess. What about the sunni? What about the different branches of shi'a? And if we did leave who's to say that Iraq wouldn't be swallowed up by it's neighbors in it's weakened condition? I highly doubt the Ba'ath party is making a comeback. But if there were elections the winner would certainly be shii'a....

 

What a quagmire we have gotten ourselves into.

 

I'm also watching this quagmire...

theeconomistpt1.jpg

 

However it's more likely we provoke a coup among their own people there. Or we have been trying to actually. That is a very real possibility since we do have special operations in some 80 some countries...

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^^^ that photo is in really poor taste.

 

 

this hole iraq thing is like a domestic abuse scene from cops.

 

People dont want the domestic dispute happening but it is very humiliating to have some jackass in uniform telling you how to keep your house in order.

 

Arabs, as with many peoples, are an extremely proud people and to have the rest of the world seeing you get scolded is really embarrassing, to say the least.

 

 

And now Ahkmed(SP) Chalabi, the US Iraqi darling is now helping to insight more problems by playing both sides of the fence (like Saddam, was very good at doing)

 

however leaving today or tomorrow is not a good idea. We, the (US, Iraq, the world) need to leave after a good solution is found. You dont start a fight then realize your loosing then back out. How does that look?

 

The US needs to:

 

Admit they were wrong, and fast and well.

 

Get support form countries that can help, as respected middle men.

 

NOT re-elect Bush or any of his staff.

 

Spend the money on improving Our collective ways of life. Starting with education and health care.

 

 

 

Will it happen prolly not. We will continue to have this jackass shoot us in the foot.

 

 

 

 

 

I also think its less about oil and more about the contract money, if this hasnt been pointed out, i submit it for your consideration.

Private contracts are milking the Gov' and the tax payers and eventually Iraqi revenure, and certainly costing them lives as we speak.

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Iraq is NOT a disaster

 

The country supports the rapid installment of an effective civil government. If you leave out the former agents of the Baath Party and Saddam's government/secret police/etc. the number of people in the country who support the insurgency is very small. We have 130,000 troops there, ALL of whom are in "the combat zone" (i.e. there is no safe "rear" area, other than one or two bases.) There are millions and millions of potentially pissed off Iraqi citizens, and the country is awash in military weapons--rifles, machine guns, RPG launchers, grenades, mines, abandoned artillery shells, etc. because the Iraqi military pretty much dropped everything and ran during the U.S. attack.

 

Our troops could be slaughtered in a matter of hours if the Iraqi people themselves were to rise up all at the same time, just as the police forces or military forces of ANY country, including the U.S., could be slaughtered if the country were to rise up against the government simultaneously.

 

This is NOT HAPPENING. Man! LOOK AT THE CASUALTY FIGURES. Less than 1,000 casualties so far, for taking over an entire country? That is unbelieveably lucky. Some of those guys were killed in accidents, in friendly fire incidents, in shoot-outs with common ordinary looters, etc. The only explanation for such small numbers of casualties in a country with virtually NO government, NO police forces, NO civil infrastructure, etc., etc. is that the people support the occupation, or at least do not oppose it.

 

When we take Fallujah and crush the resistance there, our casualty figures will go up dramatically. We may lose another thousand, maybe two, taking Fallujah. That is still LESS THAN 1% CASUALTIES, which is extremely low. Of course, any loss of life is tragic and the death of even one American soldier is not to be taken lightly, but if you compare the casualty rate in Iraq with the casualty rate in Vietnam, the numbers aren't even close. We were losing 70 or 80 soldiers killed every day in Vietnam, day after day after day after day. And even that was a very low rate. In World War II we were losing hundreds every day, and during certain key battles, we lost thousands. At the invasion of Okinawa, we lost 10,000 Marines killed in the first three days, and many more in the next two weeks. Of course, the Japanese lost 22,000, virtually the entire Japanese garrison on Okinawa.

 

Tough guys in Fallujah---you'd best wake up and smell the coffee. Your reign of terror is coming to an end very soon.

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Guest imported_Tesseract

Just notice that most of the casualties took place AFTER the war was 'won' and the statistics say that as time passes by it gets worse.

 

kill em all grandpa

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Oh, and this photograph ^^^?

 

Chalk it up to a young soldier screwing around and having fun. What do you expect? This guy was probably down the street twenty minutes before the pic was snapped, doing throw-ups on some bombed-out store. The kids don't look too terrorized, do they? It's just another "Kilroy Was Here" deal. Lighten up.

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Kabar's got a good point but again I think we are looking at the Mutually Assured Destruction ideology of the cold war. If they were to rise up en masse the air force would come through and bomb and bomb and bomb. It's not a justifiable risk. I suppose they are just putting up with our shit. It will probably remain isolated attacks.... just pecking away at our confidence and hope. It's more psychological than anything. Harrassment. It goes both ways.

 

Well the Baath party is down. Who the fuck are we fighting now? Are we just trying to aggravate the situation to radicalize the average iraqi citizen? If so this war will never end. Are we still a target for foreign terrorists and their own agendas? Yes.

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kabar, by your logic, the hundreds of slaves on each plantation must have liked the way they were being treated because they did not rise up and kill their slavemasters, right?

yes, they could pick up those guns and kill our soldiers, but after just watching us drop bombs on their villages, they know it's not the worlds smartest decision. plus, they don't hate us, they just don't trust us, which we have given them absolutely no reason to do so, considering 15 years ago, we were best friends with sadaam, bin laden, and even 3 years ago, we were giving the taliban tens of millions of dollars.... everyone but us americans have noticed that 'american aid' in 2004 is no different than small pox infested blankets.

 

no one expects the building of a country to be easy, quick or painless, but it could have been hundreds of times easier if we'd had a little more foresight, and a little less trigger happy.

 

finally, i agree that pulling out now is the biggest chicken shit thing we could ever possibly (and undoubtedly soon will) do. we need to see this through no matter what the cost. handing the country over by june? HA. fucking joke.

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comparing fatality stats with other wars is ridiculous. Vietnam had X, WWII had Z, and Iraq had Less both of the proceeding numbers. For what? The point is this was a poorly conceived, planned, and so far executed war. When the only positive reports you hear are people saying "its not so bad"; you gotta wake up and realize its REALLY bad. If there were a lot of good things going on, mile stone achievements and the like, you'd better believe Bush would trumpet them and attribute them to his/staffs brilliance.

 

Instead we are lead to believe, its okay. So, chalibi is now secretly telling the Shia they should back him, cause he has the US in his pocket and can get us out of Iraq. So it turns out most of what he lead us to believe was false. So Paul Bremmer is about as personable has a bolder on your shoulder; they says hes doing a fine job.

 

Convince me its going well. DOnt show me the one dude in the ghetto who won the lottery and say the ghettos not so bad. I dont care that the Iraqi soccer team can play ball without fear, or of the swim teams hopes to compete in the Olympics, We know saddam was a scary mutherfucker. The, "this tastes better than that, and that tasted like shit" argument is worhtless.

 

 

Chalking the photo up to a young soldiers indiscretions is fine but with 130,000 troops the vast majority of whom are 'young', that leniency gets out of control. Most of the invading force, from what ive read, was given a week or weekend course in Arab /Muslim culture, social interactions and sensitivity training. That's enough to confuse you more than do you any good, especially considering your main goal is to stay alive.

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