posted
In a few hours President Bush will make explicit his plans for a new strategy for Iraq. Already many organizations are assuming they know what he will say.
Here are my predicitions.
35% Chance that he will command a "Surge" in troop strength in Iraq, but that he will put a flexible time limit on it. It will appear to be limited in duration, but be open ended enough that he can stretch it out to the multi-year surge that the creators of the stratagy suggest.
25% Chance that he will command a "Surge" that will be of short duration--3-6 Months. This is, of course, the worse option available. The creators of the surge say it will only work if its done in years, not months. However, it is the most likely to get the approval of Congress and the People.
15% President Bush will bite the bullet and command a "Surge" of several years as the strategists suggest. This is the policy the Surge backers believe is most likely to succeed, but its also the policy that is most likely to get slapped down by members of congress.
10% Chance that President Bush will not mention the Surge, but will push exclusively for a build of in Trainers of the Iraqi Army/police, while allowing the rest of our troops to begin coming home.
5% Chance that President Bush will say that militarily we must "Stay the Course" while politically he gathers allies to do the Surge thing.
3% Will be very vague and not say much useful.
2% Chance that the President will say that the Iraq Commision was completely right, and follow its suggestions.
2% Chance that the President will say the new direction in Iraq is straight through Iran.
2% Chance that the President will say the new direction on the War on Terror will be the detainment as an enemy combatant of any politician who opposes/questions the war.
1% Chance the the President will not show up.
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On an ordinary day the chance that I will clean my bathroom approaches zero. There is something about presidential speeches these days, that makes me want to clean my bathroom. I try to take advantage of that.
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posted
I do not understand the "the only way to lose is to quit" concept. It is as if I could stand here and flap my arms, stating that the only way to not fly is to stop flapping. Except I would just look silly instead of killing people.
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posted
I don't understand that concept either, but then it's not a concept I hear bandied about much either.
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posted
There is more than one way to read those statements. "Defeat is not an option," for instance, usually does not mean, "Among the possibilities of things that could really happen, losing does not appear." It means, "The option of losing is unacceptable to us, so we're taking it off the table of resolutions we'll accept and work towards."
"We'll succeed unless we quit," does not mean, "All we have to do is not quit and we win," it means, "The only enemy who can defeat us here is ourselves." It's really not analagous at all to someone standing in a field doing something impossible and saying the only way he'll fail to do the impossible is to quit trying to do the impossible. I think you're aware of that, and I think you're probably also aware that those phrases have more than one interpretation...and that your interpretation (which I can guess at, due to your comparison to arm-flapping) isn't the one people mean when they say them.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
But as it has often meant in this context, "if we keep doing what we are doing we won't lose" - even though that has had no basis in reality. It has taken almost four years of this for the Adminstration to acknowleddge that what they are doing isn't working.
Saying we won't accept something doesn't have any bearing on whether it is true or not. The failure to accept that losing is indeed possible and is, in fact, what is happening keeps us from making good decisions.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
We have become such sissies when its comes to war. How long have we been in Iraq? Since 03? 3 years or so? The French and Indian war was a "short" war and its called The Seven Years war in Europe. Thats over twice as long as we have been there. 30 years war? Makes Iraq look like a weekend skirmish. The 100 years war? I believe at its onset it was called "Operation: Speedy Resolution"
I am all for this very critical approach to war, but geez I certainly hope the American public is not stupid enough to think, "If we were going to win we'd do it in 3 years." and then make a losing war a bitter defeat.
But hey Ill stop debating strategy and just say, I really think we need the surge + concerted training of Iraqi security forces. And we need to give the army at least 2-3 more years to work this all out.
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posted
How is the Army supposed to solve the generations-old conflicts in Iraq? How are they supposed to teach democracy?
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posted
"The only one who can beat us here (Iraq) is us." and we have been doing a darn good job of it too.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: How is the Army supposed to solve the generations-old conflicts in Iraq? How are they supposed to teach democracy?
Neither of those can happen until there is a lot more stability in the country.
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posted
Given the voting turnout in the Iraqi elections, I don't see that the Army *needs* to teach them democracy. They got this voting thing down pat.
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posted
I used to believe that Muslims were as willing to be free as anyone else (the whole Democracy and everything). What Iraq taught me is that before we can solve the problems in the Middle East, Islam must be crushed to a point of political irrelavancy.
My own solution to the problems is send in an army of secular atheists.
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posted
I think "the only way to lose is to quit" means that we have such extreme military power that we can't lose by military defeat. It's not as if our enemies can seize DC and ship us all off to re-education camps.
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posted
Kmb, I am currently working that out in my mind right now as to what exactly "crush" means. It is the closest word I could come up with to what I think needs to be done.
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posted
Will, it seems that you and I have different concepts of "lose" when it comes to this conflict.
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posted
"It's not as if our enemies can seize DC and ship us all off to re-education camps"
See, for me that is exactly what CAN happen if we lose this conflict. That doesn't mean overnight, but it does mean in the long run. Ever heard of Nukes? If we lose this then our enemies would be that less reluctant to use them against an enemy they see as spineless and, well, a bunch of pansy losers.
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posted
And its exactly what is more likely to happen if we bully and abuse the Islamic culture.
or
Korea could Nuke the US, while our troops are over-extended and exhausted in Iraq
or
As we spend our future, monetarily and militarilly, fighting a civil war in Iraq, the real terrorists are freer to plot more destructive acts of terrorism in the US, bringing down the food supply, or power supply next.
or
Iraq remains a recruiting theme for the Islamic Terrorists. Three or four more major acts of terrorism and a backlash sweeps this country leaving a petrified, re-education camp filled shadow of once was the Greatest country in the world.
or
More acts of terror, more deaths of our soldiers, and a Chrsitian America ermerges from the ashes just as fanatical, dangerous, and deadly as Iraq today.
Yeah, having a good imagination, there are lots of ways to loose this war.
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posted
Well we've already taught them that they had better get nukes if they want us to negotiate with them.
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quote:Originally posted by Occasional: I used to believe that Muslims were as willing to be free as anyone else (the whole Democracy and everything). What Iraq taught me is that before we can solve the problems in the Middle East, Islam must be crushed to a point of political irrelavancy.
My own solution to the problems is send in an army of secular atheists.
I've considered this option but I really don't think its the, "only way."
I mean look at Malaysia. Islam dominates their political systems and yet they have managed to secure a very stable democracy as well as a very pluralistic society. Not only that they used to be a colony of Great Britain! Take any country that blames colonialism for its woes and Malaysia just does not make any sense.
Iraq was never meant to be a country and I can understand why its hell to get the Sunni's/Shiites/and Kurds to live together. But they are no different, at least to me, then the legions of different religions and cultures that all exist in the US. The Protestants and Catholics did TERRIBLE things to each other, and both of them did worse to the Jews, and yet we all live in an acceptable peace, here in the US.
I think the chief enemies of Iraqi anarchy are education, financial stability, and effective law enforcement.
If we can get enough of all three, the ultimate result in Iraq will be favorable. I hate the fact that most of the insurgents doing the fighting are not even from Iraq. Its the exact same reason the Union realized it had to win the civil war before Great Britain sided with the confederacy. There is no shortage of men willing to walk into a war and add to the chaos.
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posted
BB: there are definitely many woes caused by colonialism (and in particular, how GB ended colonialism). One country that's not beset by colonialism woes does not a refutation make.
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posted
Where do you get that most of the insurgents aren't from Iraq? A study last year by the CSIS (I'll try to find a link) estimated that only about 4 - 10% were foreign.
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posted
I'm skeptical of this troop surge being spread out over multiple years. Bush is also supposed to announce tonight that he wants Iraqi security forces to take over by the end of 2007. I don't see how he can surge troops into a country while claiming the Iraqis are the lead in security matters and not look like an utter fool.
I bet the 20,000 troops will be sent en masse to Baghdad and Anbar province in an attempt to break Al Sadr and restore total order to the city. Blanket them with manpower. The Democrats will approve it, but they'll scrutinize it good and plenty before they sign off, if for no other reason than to LOOK like they are scrutinizing it. They're already well into their 100 Hours agenda, or at least the House is, I doubt they'll pass this up entirely, and unless Bush says something monumentally stupid, Teddy Kennedy's bill will either fail or become moot.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
I didn't watch the speech, I'll read the transcript when it becomes available, but I'll tell you what I'd like to see.
If we're sending twenty some odd thousand troops mostly to Baghdad they need a specific mission. Just sending them there is as useless as the Sunni scholars are saying, it'll just antagonize people and cause more gun fights. They need a purpose. The purpose I'd give them is to confiscate the gun of everyone in Baghdad. The only people with guns should be cops and soldiers, and their weapons should be numbered so we know who shot who with what (to help root out plants in the government security agencies).
Disarm al-Sadr, disarm the militias, disarm EVERYONE. Likely this will cause them all to go utterly crazy themselves and violence will ensue, but guess what, violence is already there! There's zero sign of calm ensuing any time soon. 101 bodies were discovered in and around Baghdad in the last two days, this after a 10 hour gun battle in the streets. It's already a bad situation, and it might have to get worse before it gets better, but it will never get better while Baghdad is an open arms bazaar. At some future date, maybe even a proscribed date, they can get their guns back, when they can be registered, but for now the city needs to be empty of non-government weapons.
First offer a turn in program, guns for money. Then start kicking in doors and taking them by force. It's either that, or we suffer through a few more years of this gritty fighting. If not this, then what are those 20,000 men and women going over there for? More target practice for insurgents?
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posted
Well, the speech... Coulda been worse, I guess. I only occasionally winced. I kind of appreciated that he took some vague responsibility for things that have gone wrong in the current effort, and that he mentioned some sort of time by which he expected Iraq to be leading its own security.
I don't know if anyone will be able to hold him to that. And "losing the support of the American people" is plenty vague; one could make a case that the Iraqi government has already lost a good part of the support of the American people. Without some sort of firm benchmarks describing success, there's a ton of wiggle room, and having been told to expect more violence and more casualties leaves a far too ready ability to feed us the same nonsense about how well were doing in Iraq that we've been hearing for years now.
The real bottom line is that I don't think the Iraqi government has the will or the ability to truly root out sectarian violence originating from within. And a measely 15% troop increase isn't remotely sufficient to make up for that basic lack. For the sake of everyone involved, I'd love to be wrong.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
I think my concept of "lose" is the same as both our government's *and* our enemies': the enemies' goal is to make us give up. Of course, that's not to say that's the best definition, but their goal is surely worth knowing.
I don't find any evidence that being nice and conciliatory to Islamic terrorists makes them less likely to nuke us -- but I would agree, we should continue to make nice with Islamic culture, as Dan proposed. It won't prevent us from getting nuked, but it's worth doing.
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If the goal of our enemies is to make us give up, then we should give up. If the goal of our enemies is to destroy us, then we shouldn't.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
The problem is not a lack of a definition of losing, to my mind, but a lack of definition of winning.
If we're still in Iraq in ten years "not losing"? All this incredibly macho rhetoric about flexing our muscles and showing the world our will is going to sound really, really stupid. To put it mildly.
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If the goal of our enemies is to make us give up, then we should give up.
That doesn't make sense. If they are enemies of ours, why should we follow their desires, unless they make the price of not doing so unbearably high? I don't think that's happened, and I don't think any such power exists among the insurgents.
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posted
Could Sterling (or someone) give a source for incredibly macho rhetoric about flexing our muscles and showing the world our will? I haven't heard it. I would agree that in this context rhetoric about flexing muscles would sound pretty stupid.
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quote:If they are enemies of ours, why should we follow their desires...
Why shouldn't we? If it costs us to frustrate their desires, and their only desire is that we not frustrate their desires, why pay the cost?
If they have other desires that are more crucial to our own projects, we should address those. But if we're only staying because they don't want us to, it's rather silly.
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quote:Why shouldn't we? If it costs us to frustrate their desires, and their only desire is that we not frustrate their desires, why pay the cost?
Well, that's why I said "If they are enemies of ours". I take that to mean that their desires are by definition inimical to us. If we can live together without friction just by the US pulling out of Iraq, and the pullout doesn't hurt us in any other way, then that's fine, we should by all means pull out. But I don't think either statement is true.
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posted
Defeat is not an option, especially when Victory has yet to be defined.
Three men run a race. No one looses. One man beats the others and declares victory. The second man beats his own previous best time, and declares victory. The third stumbles, falls, breaks his leg, goes to the hospital where he gets a kiss from a cute nurse. He too declares victory.
It is hard to defeat all of our enemies when they too are not defined. If you define "Enemy" as some one actively trying to destroy the US, then there are very few enemies in Iraq. The Sunni Insurgents want us to leave so they can take control of their country and wade in the luxury of the oil billions. The Shi'ite majority want us to stop interfering in their cleansing of Sunni enemies. The Iranians want us to leave so they can have a safe, weak, eternaly internaly self destuctive neighbor who is no threat. Only a few islamicists want to destroy the US, a vast minority of the people in Iraq who are presently actively trying to blow up US troops.
Its amazing that in a country with so few enemies, so many people are trying to kill our soldiers.
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quote:I mean look at Malaysia. Islam dominates their political systems and yet they have managed to secure a very stable democracy as well as a very pluralistic society. Not only that they used to be a colony of Great Britain! Take any country that blames colonialism for its woes and Malaysia just does not make any sense.
Iraq was never meant to be a country and I can understand why its hell to get the Sunni's/Shiites/and Kurds to live together. But they are no different, at least to me, then the legions of different religions and cultures that all exist in the US. The Protestants and Catholics did TERRIBLE things to each other, and both of them did worse to the Jews, and yet we all live in an acceptable peace, here in the US.
Sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes the bar eats you.
Posts: 4600 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
In my opinion, Bush is doing the only thing he CAN do. If putting more troops into Iraq makes a difference and helps out the instability and "fixes" the problem, then it is not only a win in Iraq, but a win for the republicans that want to hang onto the White House in 2008.
If he does nothing and things keep going the way they are, he will continue to get attacked for not having a plan, and more soldiers will die. Easy win for the Democrats in 2008.
If he took the advice of Democrats in Congress and pulled out, and then everything collapses there or there is another terrorist attack here on United States soil, the Democrats will place the blame completely on Bush for making the decision and escape virtually unscathed. Again, easy win for the Democrats in 2008 or 2012.
He is doing the only thing he feels he CAN do, and is hoping it works. And he isnt doing it just for himself, he is doing it for his political party.
Posts: 1937 | Registered: Nov 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_raven: Defeat is not an option, especially when Victory has yet to be defined.
Three men run a race. No one looses. One man beats the others and declares victory. The second man beats his own previous best time, and declares victory. The third stumbles, falls, breaks his leg, goes to the hospital where he gets a kiss from a cute nurse. He too declares victory.
It is hard to defeat all of our enemies when they too are not defined. If you define "Enemy" as some one actively trying to destroy the US, then there are very few enemies in Iraq. The Sunni Insurgents want us to leave so they can take control of their country and wade in the luxury of the oil billions. The Shi'ite majority want us to stop interfering in their cleansing of Sunni enemies. The Iranians want us to leave so they can have a safe, weak, eternaly internaly self destuctive neighbor who is no threat. Only a few islamicists want to destroy the US, a vast minority of the people in Iraq who are presently actively trying to blow up US troops.
Its amazing that in a country with so few enemies, so many people are trying to kill our soldiers.
I agree with you for the most part, but the oil is another reason why we need a stable government in Iraq. If the Sunni insurgents take control of the oil, what do you think will happen to oil prices here in the US? I dont agree with those who believe that this is the ONLY reason why we are there, but it does play a part.
This is why we need alternate forms of energy. Or as an alternative the reason we need more refineries, and an increase domestic oil drilling.
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quote:He is doing the only thing he feels he CAN do, and is hoping it works. And he isnt doing it just for himself, he is doing it for his political party.
Quite possibly. But that sounds like an awfully bad reason to put 20,000 more lives at risk.
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posted
True, it does sound like a bad reason to put 20,000 more lives at risk.
One life lost is a tragedy. I suppose only history will decide.
And kmbboots, I respect your opinion. I hope your feeling about me change. I only express my beliefs and my opinion, and as blunt as I sound, I mean no disrespect to anyone else for their beliefs. If I have offended you in any way, I apologize.
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