Comments | jrittenhouse: The answers, part 2:

jrittenhouse

The answers, part 2:

Jul 31, 2007 02:47

More on the answers to a commenter:

COMMENT: Saddam was destabilizing the region and his success was encouraging the other countries to do the same.

JIM’S RESPONSE: Iraq was an invention of the West from the ruins of the Ottoman Sultanate; jamming in three not-sympatico ethnic and religious groups together and calling it a country. A far smarter ( Read more... )

oil, iran, terrorism, sep_reality, bush, russia, rumsfeld, iraq

Comments 12

shelleybear July 31 2007, 11:39:04 UTC

Bless you Jim!

swseat July 31 2007, 13:51:09 UTC

Better, much better. By George he's got it! No easy answers. You did have to admire Clinton in his little war. Doing it all by air and staying away from all of the car bombs and boobie traps. Seemed to do about the same thing. Probably more foreign civilian's died, but then he stayed out of the crap storm too. If he would have only said "yeah, I did it. Look at her, she's gorgous. Hillary is not very happy with me right now but we are working it out and all of this has nothing to do with how I run the country." I would have given him my vote again.

jrittenhouse July 31 2007, 15:13:11 UTC

I never thought much of the idea of 'lets drop some cruise missiles on them and see what happens' as a military standard. My belief is that if you're going to do it, do it right.

Of course, I agree(d) with General Shinseki that you'd need a heck of a lot more troops to do Iraq right, and there was patently only one way to do that - massively increase the military. You can draft 'em, whatever, but you have to have more men on the ground.

The problems with that are:
(1) the amount of time it takes to train up that many men
(2) the expense of the increase (training, equipment, logistics, etc.)
(3) the amount of stink from the public (especially if you're drafting people). More on that in my next response.

astro_not1 July 31 2007, 15:24:44 UTC

A very good overview, but I do have one minor quibble ( ... )

jrittenhouse July 31 2007, 15:31:14 UTC

(1) You're referring to the infamous talk Saddam had with April Glaspie. She said something like 'the US doesn't want to get in the middle of your dispute with Kuwait', and he took that as 'go ahead, be our guest.'
(2) Bush senior wasn't that interested in Kuwait per se. Thatcher and the UK were, historically and financially, and she booted his butt to Do Something, Dammit.
(3) I don't believe that we sold him WMDs way back when. Lots of other stuff, though.

astro_not1 July 31 2007, 15:50:01 UTC

Regarding your #3, since when has 'shading the truth' (at best) ever stopped this administration from saying a particular thing in a particular way? And no, I'm not really disagreeing with you, just pointing out that truth seems to be one of the first things jettisoned in this series of idiocies. And I believe that, if they had found some of those weapons we DID sell them that they would have touted them as the fabled WMDs, much as they are insisting that some munitions they've been showing off (that bear U.S. and British ID markings) are Iranian, assuming that no one will know the difference.

(The comment has been removed)

astro_not1 July 31 2007, 16:02:46 UTC

I like your optimism, but I believe it to be misplaced. There is nothing that will get Bush out of Iraq, and he will do everything he can to make sure the next 2 Presidents are unable to extricate us from it, as well.
As for Iraq ceasing to exist as a nation, if that happens the next action will be an invasion of Kurdistan by Turkey (they fear the Kurds more than they do NATO, the European Union, and us combined). I wonder if Bush would rush to the aid of the Kurds, if there is any political reason he would help them if Turkey invaded?

shelleybear July 31 2007, 23:48:29 UTC

If they are running the idea of a "Korean Solution" up the flagpole we know how bad things are going to get.
We also know that the Taliban (you remember the Taliban, don't you, Dubya said we beat 'em) are now killing Korean missionaries.
I think you're right.
We need to get out.
Period.
When you've got housewives saying they will accept the consequences of our departure, that tells us an awful lot.

robin_june August 1 2007, 02:35:06 UTC

When I heard the newsitem about the new sale of US armaments to Saudia Arabia (as well as some neighbors), I flashed on that photo of Rummy and Saddam shaking hands in friendship, and I shuddered at the thought that history might repeat itself.

Any speculations on how long it could take for us to go to war against Arabia, (Saudi or not), now that we're selling them our weapons systems?

jrittenhouse August 1 2007, 02:56:47 UTC

No. I don't see it.

For one thing, Saudi is actually pretty weak militarily. For another, a war would be disastrous to the oil situation. For another, take out the Saudi royals, and you'd have screaming chaos.

jrittenhouse August 1 2007, 05:05:55 UTC

See also this stuff on the Saudi arms sales,

astro_not1 August 1 2007, 18:01:13 UTC

I have to basically agree with Jim on this one, but for different reasons than you might think. Bush has been tip-toeing around the Saudis like an insane parody of Barishnakov from the beginning of his first term (bin Laden is Saudi, and most of his family are good friends of Poppy since they are part of the Carlisle Group), since if they get upset with him, they could take part of it out on us with higher oil prices (not that what is reported in the news bears any resemblence to what the oil conglomerate really pays) or getting OPEC to authorize a production cut. He is doing his best to keep his daddy happy by keeping his daddy's friends happy, like he always has in this arena. It would take some major incident that pissed Poppy off for junior to go after the Saudis.
That having been said, however, it isn't impossible for such to happen, since Saddam was a friend of convenience at one time, and our governments have had a lot of trouble leaving well enough alone in the middle east.