I had a feeling this discussion would turn interesting in a hurry . First, thanks to those who have expressed appreciation for my service. Realize however I demand no automatic respect because of it. Sure I came back from the Gulf through the medevac system with a chestful of medals, but save any respect for my friends who died over there, and the servicemembers who are dying now. I don't mind saying it's hard though. Even after a dozen years I think or the Gulf war every single day at some point, and during the course of this year I've had to deliberately and constructively adjust my thinking a good deal. For instance, I know all too well how difficult it is for combat vets to reabsorb into society once the fighting stops, and over the past few months we created a whole new generation of them. In short order I'm certain to have a few of them come to me needing jobs, and I'll know for a fact my direct experience will be much needed to assist their transition back into the workforce. Meanwhile, I quietly advise those of you who are expressing hatred and disdain toward Iraqis to make damn sure you know why you feel that way. Personally (and it took more than a year before I told this to anyone) I knew as soon as I watched the lived feed of a plane hitting the WTC we'd be going into Iraq. Once another hit the Pentagon it was confirmed, even though no clear evidence has been forthcoming for our reason to be there. Backing up a moment, considering the people who masterminded 9/11 firmly believe they performed the world an enormous service in this action, come from the culture who invented algebra and are a good deal more clever than Americans generally, you don't have to make too many leaps to start reasonably conjecturing why we haven't found any WMD in Iraq yet, even though all the evidence points toward their existence. It isn't as though the Bush administration is exactly difficult to anticipate. From a purely military mentality, anyone who hasn't read it lately should brush up on "The Art Of War." Hate your enemy if it helps, pity him as required, kill him when necessary, but always, always respect him. The Iraqis attacking coalition forces even right now are patriots in their own right. Surely anyone can see this. The US has more WMD than anyone in the world. If someone invaded and occupied us because of it (and it looks like they have), what would you be doing in retaliation?
Historically we, the Civilized West, have done well when we didn't give into terrorism... we should stay in Iraq for that reason, in addition to the fact that we are still to find Saddam's Evil Weapons of Mass Destruction... our Brave Hero Soldiers should continue to pay the price of Liberty and Democracy with their lives, if so necessary... It warms my heart to think of how our forefathers did not cave in to Terrorism when we destroyed Evil and Terror across the planet... For example, those Evil Native Red Indians kept on murdering us when we came as friends... but we stood firm and we defended ourselves from their Evil Bow and Arrows... we showed them that their barbarism was unacceptable, and we punished them accordingly... now its our country, not theirs... cos they lost the war, and we defeated their Evil Terror... Another example is that of our forefathers civilizing the Evil Jungle People of Africa, who terrorized us for merely wanting to extract gold and diamonds from their continent... we showed those Evil Jungle People that we wouldn't stand for such terrorism, by making em our slaves... Oh yes, those Monstrous Aborigines of Australia terrorized us when we discovered Australia... we showed those Monsters... we wiped em out... that's what we do to terrorists... And those Yellow Skinned Barbarians of many Far Eastern countries tried to terrorize us, when all we were doing was taking their spices, silks and mineral wealth... we had no option but to defend ourselves from such Barbarian Terrorists by ruling em for a couple of centuries... And as for these Evil Iraqi Scum... we went there as friends, to liberate em from Terror... and what do we get in return, eh? These Scum Ragheads thank us by murdering their liberators... if they continue to murder us, we should reserve the right to install a puppet government in order to take proxy control of their oil... These are but a few examples. Throughout history, we and our forefathers have been terrorized by the Barbarians, Jungle Dwellers and Monstrous Terrorists of the World... but we will prevail... for we represent Good... God Bless the West... and in particular God Bless America, The Defender of the Civilized World, from the Evil Terrorists...
Now the sodomy has been legalized, if Pat Robertson were to bang Jerry Fawell and somehow impregnate him, what kind of child would result: candletrader All apologies to candletrader if he seeks to undermine the agrument he presents by taking it to its extreme.
Why should we bring them back? Why compound the mistakes we've already made: * Supported Saddam and the Bhathists (put them in power so long as they were pro-west) in order to prevent socialism from taking hold in the Mid East. * Rummie was gladhanding Saddam as he was a reliable ally back in the 80's. * When Saddam use the EVIL WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION on Iranians and on his own people, the US didn't say a word. * After defeating the EVIL EMPIRE OF SADDAM, Greorge Bush call for the Iraqis to rise up agianst the EVIL EMPIRE OF SADDAM. They did rise up and took over most of the provinces. Just as they were about to win, Bush gave the EVIL SADDAM the GREEN LIGHT to use helicopter gunnships to kill 200,000 Iraqis and to put down the rebellion. * An additional 500,000 people died due to sanctions. And now you want the troops to be withdrawn so the cycle can repeat itself? Power vacums always get filled. In this case it'll probably get filled by some silly Ayatollah.
So, by this line of reasoning, the administration can pretty much do what they like and simply say: "You should not try to assess our actions, as you don't know what would have happened if we hadn't taken he course of action we took." What??? You now defend an action because you don't know what would have happened if that action did not occur? This is akin to vigilante preemptive justice by some private redneck militia members, where the defense of the action is "you don't know what he would have done if we hadn't gone out and lynched the bastard. He could have killed a lot of people, and we just kept him from possibly doing that. So you can't pass judgment on us, because you don't know what would have happened if we didn't kill the bastard." Maybe this is what John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, or Sirhan Sirhan were thinking, that "we just didn't know what would have happened if they hadn't acted." Perhaps you have been watching the movie "Minority Report." How about just dealing in facts. Present time. Setting a time table for success or failure of a plan. Admitting when mistakes were made. How about admission of the obvious lack of proof to this point that we are accomplishing our stated goals? Man, you are getting into some serious spin dude.
US proposes world peacekeeping force Rumsfeld floats proposal to end Bush doctrine of unilateralism David Teather in New York Saturday June 28, 2003 The US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, is discussing the idea of an international peacekeeping force which could be dispatched to maintain order in the world's trouble spots. The idea is an apparent sharp reversal of the Bush administration's staunchly unilateralist stance. It also runs counter to the administration's strong opposition, on taking office, to tying up troops in peacekeeping roles. But with American forces thinly spread across the globe and the US military facing insurgency and accusations of mishandling the situation in post-war Iraq, the White House is coming under increasing political pressure to find a different means of policing unstable nations. Earlier this week, the UK's ambassador to the UN, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, urged the US to spearhead a peacekeeping force for Liberia, which is being torn apart by a civil war. At a dinner in Washington last week, Mr Rumsfeld told defence industry leaders: "I am interested in the idea of our leading, or contributing to in some way, a cadre of people in the world who would like to participate in peacekeeping or peacemaking. "I think it would be a good thing if our country was to provide some leadership for training of other countries' citizens who would like to participate in peacekeeping ... so that we have a ready cadre of people who are trained and equipped and organised and have communications [so] that they can work with each other." The US military's effort to keep the peace in Iraq after the official end of the conflict looks increasingly unstable. A rash of attacks on US and British troops has pointed to growing disaffection among Iraqis, while looting and sabotage continue to damage efforts to get the nation back on its feet. Twenty-one US soldiers, and six from Britain, have been killed in assaults since the war ended. US military officials have complained that they have received little or no training for peacekeeping. Most US military police are reservists, given just one day of instruction on dealing with civilians. Nato has taken a lead role in peacekeeping in the Balkans, but has been reluctant to get involved in Iraq. Firms looking to invest in Iraq are reportedly being warned of an "even" chance of its descending into open revolt. More than half the US army's deployable troops are currently engaged in peacekeeping and stabilisation operations around the world, including in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. The army is not only spread thinly, but the long-term absence of so many soldiers is causing political disquiet at home. Mr Rumsfeld acknowledged in reply to a question at the dinner that it would have been good to have a peacekeeping force in place before the Iraqi war. He told reporters yesterday during a brief press conference on a different matter that there had been "discussions about [a peacekeeping force] for a couple of years, but there have been no specific proposals put forward." The Pentagon is said to have approached countries in Europe and Latin America about the idea of setting up a force, although the Ministry of Defence in London said yesterday it was unaware of the proposal. It is unclear how many troops the US might be prepared to commit. A Pentagon spokeswoman confirmed that discussions had been taking place "for some time" but declined to offer further details. The US currently has 150,000 soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. A permanent US peacekeeping force was discussed during the Clinton administration. President Bush, however, promised to pull troops out of the Balkans, where the US has 5,500 soldiers stationed, and said he would review the commitment of US troops in dozens of other countries. The national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, said of the army at the time: "It is not a civilian police force. It is not a political referee. And it is most certainly not designed to build a civilian society." But September 11 changed US foreign policy radically, and stabilising overseas countries is now viewed as a matter of national security.
As so often, you have misread something whose plain meaning should be obvious: I was simply pointing out that a) fairly assessing a policy that has already been implemented means considering what might have happened if the policy hadn't been implemented, or if some other policy had been tried instead, and, b), one inevitably enters the realm of speculation at this point, making the attempt to reach a fair conclusion difficult, all the more so when the matters under consideration are highly complex. Unfortunately, it's often hard for people to agree on what actually has happened, much less on what might have happened. What- is often turns out to be in the eye of the beholder to a large extent. What-might-have-been is even more so. In addition, analysis of what-was tends to reveal interconnected factors that, unsurprisingly, appear to have led inexorably to what-actually-happened rather than to any of the imaginary alternatives. You give some examples of the supposed dangers of recognizing this "problem," but there's nothing so remarkable or unusual about it. It's not the special province of vigilantes and spin doctors. It's the province of all functionally intelligent human beings, part of the rational analysis of any human decision - even though it's also something that people continually forget, and which critics, cranks, and obstructionists often find convenient to neglect, when assessing political and military affairs.
From here on out I will simply assume candletrader is being factitious in order to generate [insert theory here] and leave it at that. Was fun while it lasted though.
Oh, and I already figured out a way to alleviate a good deal of the responsibilites for US troops and bring them home quicker: You know how public utilities etc. are being continually attacked, looted, and otherwise compromised by remaining pockets of resistance? I have a plan. Hire all the Iraqi vets into a security force to guard these places. There is already talk of reformulating the Iraqi military under US control, so this would be the natural interim step. Not only would it create an awful lot of jobs fast for people who are already trained to do exactly this, It would place local leaders in direct responsibility for the defense, while the folks who are going around continually damaging public utilities etc. will think more than twice about actions that would compromise their own countrymen. Public confidence and support will have no choice but to increase. Someone get Powell on the line .