liberal think tank says: surge is working

[caspian_x]

Farkline: (Some Guy) [SPIFFY] Liberal thinktank visits Iraq and says that despite Democratic conventional wisdom, morale is high and the US has a good chance of winning. The negative media coverage is, of course, all Bush's fault though

Once I get over the initial shock that the article was A) written by members of a liberal thinktank and 2) this

Comments

[ubersaurus]

Oh no, I don't forget the other reasons. Every few weeks the administration would trot out a new one, have it shot down, and bring up another.

I recall at one point he declared "Bin Laden and Hussein are working together, and there's training camps in Iraq" and shit like that. Which anyone with a bit of knowledge could point out that Hussein and Bin Laden hated each other and had wildly different ideologies and visions for the perfect middle east. Hell, the idea that Hussein had anything to do with the attack on New York is laughable.

The problem with that "quick, efficient military action" is that it left us without the numbers to secure the ground. You seem to LOVE trotting out WW2 history, but when we occupied Germany, we did it with large numbers of allied troops. Iraq had a handful of soldiers with limited knowledge of middle eastern society. It wasn't even enough to secure the Iraqi army's large weapon caches until after they had been cleaned out. THAT was the biggest failing of the invasion, because if you can't stabilize the place immediately, it just gets harder. And saying that Saddam was the reason it's so shitty now shows that you're exceedingly ignorant of Iraq history. It's never been stable. It was a warzone when the British created the state, until Hussein came along and crushed resistance until they had a sort of enforced peace. Prior to even that, the land was always a powder keg...there's reason the word Assassin is Iraqi in origin.

The sectarian violence should have been anticipated given the history of the land, and the existence of Al-Qaeda. But the bunglers in charge decided to look at things with a best case scenario vision, and you can't do that.

[caspian_x]

Can you find me a reference from this administration that Hussein was directly involved in 9/11? Because most conservatives that I listen to and read will readily admit that the two are not directly involved. However, fighting a war on terrorism in the middle east while allowing Saddam's regime to stand would have been asinine and altogether futile.

So while there was no direct link there, toppling Saddam's regime in Iraq furthered the general war an terror (and, although no one will admit it directly, plant the seeds for future revolutions that are so desperately needed in the Muslim world).

[ubersaurus]

I'll see if I can find any of the articles from the time frame when I'm not so dead tired. I do recall seeing it mentioned on the television.

I disagree on the futility of fighting the terrorists while Hussein's regime was around. Although it was opressive(as is much of the middle east) you could count on him to not let any extremist islam groups into his country, by the simple fact that he was staunchly secular. It would have left us one less battlefield to fight on until we were finished setting up the new Afghan state. The only real way to fighting the militant rise would be supporting the moderate governments out there, while ostracizing the worst of the regimes...which we didn't do, because of the economic interests we hold. Hence why the populace at large is wary of the US government in that region, and hence why moderate governments tend to be weak ones over there, like say, Lebanon, or Iran prior to the current presidency. Hell, I seem to recall after we invaded Iraq, their moderate government was so worried that they'd be attacked next that they offered to stop funding militants, help the US track down these groups, and assist in securing the Iraq/Iran and Afghan/Iran borders in exchange for being taken off the "axis of evil" list and hence not be a target for attack. The Bush administration refused, and what do we get? A new government over there that is decidedly less pleasant to deal with.

Although we'd have to deal with Iraq eventually, this was most definitely not the time to do it.

I don't think it's a problem that can be solved solely militarily, but we've made very, very little progress on making any changes to our policy beyond that.

[caspian_x]

With all the world thinking that he was stockpiling weapons (he HAD WMDs, just not as many stockpiles as we thought), with the repeated defiance of the UN, and with the attempts he was making to obtain Uranium from Niger, I don't think we can say with certainty that waiting would have been better. And do you really think his regime would have simply stood by while we waged war in his backyard? I doubt it. It's quite easy to say what should have happened looking back now. Not so easy back then. May I remind you this was not only Bush's idea. Half the Democrats in Congress voted to go to war as well.

Well, perhaps it can't be solved solely militarily, but - at least in dealing with al-Qaeda and the militant insurgents - I can't see diplomacy working too well either. With the Iraqi government? Yes. With the nutjobs who think it's their duty to kill us and/or each other? Not so much.

[ubersaurus]

Actually, the whole Niger thing was debunked like a week after the single source who claimed it was true said it. No one bought it. Working off my memory again, shortly before the war, he let in UN inspectors again to prove he had nothing...which wasn't good enough for the US administration, who after some 4 or 5 months of posturing, gave me(and apparently, most other people worldwide) the impression that this was a vendetta, and that they were going to war no matter what. I honestly don't think he would have interfered, because the Gulf War proved that he couldn't stand up to the US military. Even if he never said it, he knew it. He may have been a psychopath, but he wasn't stupid.

The Democrats in Congress didn't want to look weak. It's a political thing, and we all know it. They had a bad rep as being weak in national defense after the 1970s, and getting blasted on the news by pundits, speeches by their opposition, and so forth, they made the decision they thought would be politically expedient. Not that it mattered at that point anyway, as the Republicans had enough support to push it through no matter what in both houses.

In my eyes, the best way to deal with insurgents is to convince them that violent actions are counterintuitive before they ever join up. If the populace is against the US, those terror groups will have a much, much easier time recruiting, and more support in villages and cities. Much of that has to do with personal freedoms, and especially security. There's been much reporting on the NPR about how US and Coalition support of warlords in Afghanistan is making things worse for the general populace, as these warlords are little better than the Taliban they're fighting...and others are turning to the Taliban for protection from said warlords. The same story occurs in Iraq, with those militant groups we're arming and supporting against Al-Qaeda. Don't think for a moment just because we have a common foe right now that they're on our side. We made that mistake with Hussein, we made it with Bin Laden, and if we make it again, it'll cost us like it did in the 80s.

That's the diplomacy I mean. The "war on terror" can't be won by squelching extremists alone. You have to convince people that extremism is not an answer to any problem, and you have to do that by convincing them we do care about more than just their government's oil.