[Amerworma]

How many US troops are there now?

[eCw56dzY]

It wouldn't be so bad if our presents was just attracting terrorists. Our presents is actually creating them.

[StethyEntinic]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
It wouldn't be so bad if our presents was just attracting terrorists. Our presents is actually creating them.
Generally, I don't make note of spelling errors; but this one is funny.

"What? You object to this Barbie doll made in China that I bought for you?"

[Master_B]

The report is much more pessimistic about Baghdad's police units. It describes these units as fragile, ill-equipped and infiltrated by militia forces. And they are led by the Ministry of Interior, which is "a ministry in name only" that is "widely regarded as being dysfunctional and sectarian, and suffers from ineffective leadership."

Accordingly, the study recommends disbanding the national police and starting over.

This is pretty bad actually. Iraq will be left with the army in charge instead of a civil authority

[Siuchingach]

Saddam has weapons of mass destruction.

We'll be welcomed as liberators.

Iraqi oil revenue will pay for the war.

Iraqi security forces will take over for US troops.

Remind me again what we got right about the war...

[Sowsunese]

We screwed up, we should have worked behind the scenes to locate OBL and his crew in Afghanistan. They ran and we weren't prepared to get them. Should have laid low, deal with Afghans who dont have any love for AQ and then hit em with a massive airborne drop ringing their camps and light em up with a hefty load of smart bombs. Hell, I dont know why we weren't doing that when they set up shop in Afghanistan.

Then again, if my plan was to surround Iran I wouldn't want to be too successful at getting AQ It dont look good if we hang around years after the funeral of the enemy.

[Michaelnewerb]

Yes, while the invasion went much better than expected
it seemed like the expectations for the post war era were just based on plain fantasies of some members of the US government

Well, there is a saying,
that the US is good at waging war but sucks at rebuilding afterwards.

[masterboyz]

The implication is that the Iraqi army is not sectarian.

Which, if true, amazes me.

I wonder how on earth that has been achieved?

The more practical question is to whom does it owe allegiance?

For now, I guess, the answer must be to whomsoever it is among the US occupiers that direct it.

[Espacamlisa]

- I have nothing to offer you but blood, sweat, oil and tears. This is the beginning of the beginning.

[tigoCeree]

Army units will always be less sectarian because they are by their very nature seperated from the ties that forment sectarian loyalty. Then chances of you operating in an area you have any connection to in the Army is small. Police forces are by their nature local operations.

[streMunford]

It's pretty simple. We invade an Arab country and occupy it. That alone provides all sorts of propoganda opportunities to organizations like A-Q. It helps them recruit.

That doesn't, in and of itself, mean that we shouldn't have gone in. There were several other much better reasons to avoid this mess.

Some predicted 100,000 coalition deaths and even defeat at the hands of the world's 4th largest army. The invasion went great. Yeah, and you were cheerleading the invasion and posting "dancing in the streets!" threads and spitting venom at anyone who cautioned that the real challenge was the aftermath. So your prediction skills are roughly the same as those 100k casaulty folks.

-Arrian

[pBiRXp8u]

Originally posted by Shrapnel12


Please explain this. I have heard this statement a lot, but don't understand it. To me this is like saying we should just let people get away with whatever they want because if we fight them they'll fight back. Most Americans don't consider inaction an option.

[GrolmangHat27]

Originally posted by East Street Trader
Subsequently twenty to thirty years of Baath party rule has exacerbated sectarian and tribal divisions rather than bringing people together. And yet the Baath Party itself was non-sectarian, as was Saddam's military; that was really my only point. Non-sectarian doesn't necessarily mean unifying.

My sense right now is that Iraq is a scramble for power first, a game of tribal loyaties second. Tribal loyalty serves the struggle for power, since the tribe is a base from which to seek power. But the military is an even better base from which to seek power, making tribal loyalty irrelevent. And that, I suspect, is what non-sectarian means in this context.

My sense remains that the restoration of order is Iraq is going to happen under a dictator who greatly resembles Saddam -- in world view, in tactics, and in ruthlessness. And, since he'll be sitting on a boatload of oil as well as on Iran's border, we'll eventually be the ones to arm him.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

[Sowsunese]

And yet the Baath Party itself was non-sectarian, as was Saddam's military; that was really my only point. Non-sectarian doesn't necessarily mean unifying. The Republican Guard, that bastion of equal oportunity

[vesiasmepay]

It's pretty simple. We invade an Arab country and occupy it. That alone provides all sorts of propoganda opportunities to organizations like A-Q. It helps them recruit. See that's my problem with the previously made statement. People think that the terrorists wouldn't hate us if we didn't invade Iraq. They're full of it. Al-Queda doesn't really need to use propaganda to get other radicals to want to kill us. And to clarify, we are talking terrorists, not just people rising up because we invaded their country. That's not terrorism unless they are kidnapping citizens and lopping their heads off, or killing their own people in markets and such (I'd like to believe that not all insurgents do that but I could be wrong).

[foonlesse]

Originally posted by Shrapnel12


See that's my problem with the previously made statement. People think that the terrorists wouldn't hate us if we didn't invade Iraq. They're full of it. Al-Queda doesn't really need to use propaganda to get other radicals to want to kill us. And to clarify, we are talking terrorists, not just people rising up because we invaded their country. That's not terrorism unless they are kidnapping citizens and lopping their heads off, or killing their own people in markets and such (I'd like to believe that not all insurgents do that but I could be wrong). That is not what I said.

I said that it helps A-Q, not that it is why A-Q exists or that A-Q wouldn't have the ability to recruit anyone if we had left Iraq alone. Furthermore, I noted that the anger caused in that part of the world by our invasion was not, in and of itself, reason to call off the invasion.

It helps if you read what I type. Or not, since you seem to enjoy attacking the strawmen you create.

-Arrian

[moopogyOvenny]

Originally posted by Proteus_MST


Your invasion of Iraq doesn´t create terrorists per se, I agree.
It just provides them with more recruits and more territory where they find sympathisants and resources (Iraq for example, probably wasn´t a good place for islamist terrorirst while Saddam was in power, but now is an excellent territory, which also provides material like weapons, from caches which were left behind by the former army but weren´t discovered in time by the US troops). I think those recruits and resources were already there. I definitely believe the sympathy was already there. I think its debatable as to how good a place Iraq was for terrorists. The only thing I will agree with is that everything is probably easier and more readily accessable however. The Iraq War probably just cut through a lot of the red tape of having to deal with the Iraqi government.

[Dwnijzhd]

But this is no different then if we invaded any other state that sponsers terrorism and is no reason to not invade. If anything this just brings the bastards out in the open so we can kill them.

People use this arguement to say that we made things worse by invading Iraq, but no more so then we made things worse by attacking Japan after they bombed Pearl Harbor.

[itititit]

Originally posted by Lancer
Imagine if the Brits burned Washington again, wouldn't that be upsetting. With only 30% support for the current admin, I predict they would be greeted as liberators.

[PetraCromlich]

Originally posted by Shrapnel12
But this is no different then if we invaded any other state that sponsers terrorism and is no reason to not invade. If anything this just brings the bastards out in the open so we can kill them. Wrong. If we invaded North Korea Arbs Muslim fundamentalists wouldn't give a ****. As for the second bit, well, someone seems not to have moved beyond the body bag metirc, which was so helpful to us in Vietnam.....

People use this arguement to say that we made things worse by invading Iraq, but no more so then we made things worse by attacking Japan after they bombed Pearl Harbor. Sorry, but how can you use a BLANTANTLY FALSE analogy? Even in your own statement you point out that JAPAN attacked the US first, ergo making your comparison worthless.