03 Aug 05
Originally posted by Thequ1ckNo, I mean a withdrawal from ALL of Iraq. Please give SOME reason why you believe the violence would stay at the present levels or increase if the American troops left; I've explained my reason why I think it would diminish.
This is a withdrawal to other quadrants of Iraq you mean? The
violence would continue and it would be seen as a retreat by
the US if done in response to the attacks.
That decision should be made by the commanders there, not the
populace and not Bush. It's a military decision.
My question is, how much is of this is old Bush and how much
new Bush. ...[text shortened]... is aids? He's still playing
with daddy's soldiers, now it's time for him to take charge.
The US Constitution makes the President Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. Civilian control of the military is a basic necessity in a free country. The decision whether to have any troops in Iraq is a political one, not a military one. The commanders can give military advice, but their political viewpoints are entitled to no more weight than anybody else's.
03 Aug 05
Originally posted by sasquatch672You are confused; the coalition that won the January "elections" is headed by a Islamic Fundamentalist who was born in Iran and went to school with the Ayatollah Khomeni. The majority of the Shiite population (who are the majority in Iraq) want Sharia law.
My beef with shari'a law is that the people who want it are blowing up themselves, Iraqi citizens, US soldiers, and Iraqi children to achieve it.
When the colonies initiated the Civil War, they were fighting for relief from oppression, tyranny, and second-citizen treatment. The Constitution they crafted bore out their motives for fighting fo ...[text shortened]... ded men thirteen years to craft a document they could live with. Iraq's just getting started.
You are also VERY confused about the resistance. You seem to believe that the Islamic Fundamentalist Sunnis are the majority of the resistance. All the information we have is that this is not the case; the Sunni core of the resistance comes from secular Muslims, many who were members of the Baath party (which Osama Bin Laden called "communists"😉. The Islamic Fundamentalist Sunnis seem to be a small part of the resistance although they seem to do most of you want to concentrate on i.e. suicide bombings. You always ignore that the bulk of the resistance is standard guerilla-type military operations: snipers, hit and run attacks, roadside bombs, etc. etc. etc. That is because these operations cannot be called "terrorist" by any stretch of the imagination but they are what causes the vast majority of US deaths.
I'm sure most soldiers in Iraq believe they are doing the right thing, but that's of no importance. They are not in the military to question their country's policies and we both know that any soldier who openly did so would be punished. The issue is whether the troops should be there at all and the opinion of someone in the authoritarian atmosphere of the military AND in a combat zone surely cannot be expected to be non-biased.
The Framers were able to craft a Constitution without the presence of foreign troops on their soil; I'm sure the Iraqis could accomplish the same thing.
03 Aug 05
Originally posted by no1marauderSpeaking only to the part of your post quoted above - I saw a great program on the History Channel a few nights ago that showed the Battle of Fallujah. Some was re-enactment, some was real footage, lots of interviews with the US Soldiers there and transcripts from the battle.
You always ignore that the bulk of the resistance is standard guerilla-type military operations: snipers, hit and run attacks, roadside bombs, etc. etc. etc. That is because these operations cannot be called "terrorist" by any stretch of the imagination but they are what causes the vast majority of US deaths..
It was pure guerilla warfare on the part of the Iraqi resistance. They were quite good at it. The re-enactments showed the tactics of the Iraqis and talked a great deal about how they had developed counter measures to the way our military operates. There were no terroist activities mentioned in this battle.
The point of all of this? The longer we stay in Iraq the better the Iraqis seem to be at fighting us. They've found every weakness in the Army/Marines' tactics, equipment, logistics, etc and are making the most of it.
Does this remind anyone of Russia in Afghanistan?
03 Aug 05
Originally posted by sasquatch672Agreed. We're back to the Republican policy of "cut taxes and spend" versus the Dems policy of "tax and spend". Either way, you and I lose.
To get off of the military slant of this thread, the thing that drives me most crazy about Iraq (apart from the obvious - that American soldiers are dying in a poorly planned military campaign) is that how much the conflict has weakened us from an economic standpoint. Cut taxes in a time of war. Absolutely suicidal policy.
This goes all the way back to Reaganomics. The slogan of which seems to be - "To hell with tomorrow".
You know I try hard not to bash Bush, I don't envy a US President's job, but this Iraq war was one of the most ill-conceived, poorly planned, and divisive acts of any president. We're going to be footing the bill for this cluster f--- for the next 20 years.
04 Aug 05
Originally posted by no1marauderFirst of all, at the risk of being corney, how about a bit of sun Tsu?
No, I mean a withdrawal from ALL of Iraq. Please give SOME reason why you believe the violence would stay at the present levels or increase if the American troops left; I've explained my reason why I think it would diminish.
The US Constitution makes the President Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. Civilian control of the military ...[text shortened]... tary advice, but their political viewpoints are entitled to no more weight than anybody else's.
Thus we may know that there are five essentials for victory:
a) He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.
[Chang Yu says: If he can fight, he advances and takes the offensive; if he cannot fight, he retreats and remains on the defensive. He will invariably conquer who knows whether it is right to take the offensive or the defensive.]
b) He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces.
[This is not merely the general's ability to estimate numbers correctly, as Li Ch`uan and others make out. Chang Yu expounds the saying more satisfactorily: "By applying the art of war, it is possible with a lesser force to defeat a greater, and vice v ersa. The secret lies in an eye for locality, and in not letting the right moment slip. Thus Wu Tzu says: 'With a superior force, make for easy ground; with an inferior one, make for difficult ground.'"]
c) He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks.
d) He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.
e) He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign.
[Tu Yu quotes Wang Tzu as saying: "It is the sovereign's function to give broad instructions, but to decide on battle it is the function of the general." It is needless to dilate on the military disasters which have been caused by undue interference wit h operations in the field on the part of the home government. Napoleon undoubtedly owed much of his extraordinary success to the fact that he was not hampered by central authority.]
04 Aug 05
Originally posted by no1marauderThe Iraq war is perportedly about removing a dictator and establishing
No, I mean a withdrawal from ALL of Iraq. Please give SOME reason why you believe the violence would stay at the present levels or increase if the American troops left; I've explained my reason why I think it would diminish.
The US Constitution makes the President Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. Civilian control of the military ...[text shortened]... tary advice, but their political viewpoints are entitled to no more weight than anybody else's.
a democracy. Anything short of that will be classed as a failure.
Our enemies aren't Muslims, they are the people that are standing
in the way of rebuilding Iraq. If they were Muslims, I would suggest
a retreat as the only way to win would be to kill all (or most) Muslims
worldwide. This is why they played that card.
A removal of troops based on saving lives from suicide bombers will
be seen as a retreat and the resisting groups will gain strength, not
just in Iraq but other countries, resulting in more wars and more
deaths in the future.
People are having a hard time getting a handle on suicide bombers
and how to face them. If we look at Sun Tzu's texts we can draw the
analogy that they are 'inferior troops heading for difficult ground'.
He also goes on to say
'Hence, though an obstinate fight may be made by a small force, in the end it must be captured by the larger force.'
I'm no strategist as you can tell by my chess but I am willing to
accept that we are in a war and we need to treat it as such.