posted
I gave the wrong impression. The polls I know about are still firmly in favour of us leaving. The most "pro-staying" poll that I know about was about a third saying leave now; a little more than that saying stay until a goverment is elected; and somewhat less than a third leaving it open-ended. That one, in February of 2004 (I think) also had a majority that opposed the coalition presence. All the other ones I know of were even more in favour of us getting out.
Iraqi opinion is by no means the only reason I oppose our occupation. Nor the most significant. That, as I understand it, the Iraqis don't want us there either is additional information that supports my opposition. If it is not correct then I should know that.
As I said, I would appreciate the information to further my own understanding and correct misinformation that I might have. If you or Rakeesh don't feel like sharing, you aren't under any obligation. It was a request for a favour, feel free to tell me to do my own darn research.
edit: though you have other sources that I don't seem to be able to find.
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Dag, I don't think you understand. I was replying to your post, not to the meta-content in your post. Could you explain why a blood test to determine a person's level of prejudice would be relevant to the preceding?
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edit: Also, I don't read your statement as making any implications about what I did or did not say. It raises the idea of a blood test as being relevent, but says nothing about what I said.
When Rakeesh brought in the earlier situation, despite it not being brought up by the putative people he was talking about, I didn't assume that he was implying that they mentioned it. I did assume that he thought it was relevant and addressed my response to that.
When boots brought up the pre-invasion polls, if you didn't think or understand why she thought it was connected, you could have asked her why she thought that. Then she could explain her reasons for bringing it up and you could have a conversation about that. I think this would have been a better and more respectful choice than what you did do.
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Only one poll in 2004 shows a clear majority for leave immediately:
quote:February 2004: 33 percent want withdrawal within a year; 40 percent, withdrawal once an Iraqi government is in place; 27 percent, a longer or more open-ended stay. (Oxford Research International)
June 2004: 41 percent, "immediate withdrawal"; 45 percent, withdrawal after election of a permanent government; 10 percent, 2 years or longer. (Independent Institute for Administration and Civil Society/CPA).
June 2004: 30 percent desire immediate withdrawal, 51 percent want withdrawal after a government is elected, 13 percent said that Coalition forces should remain until stability was achieved. (Iraq Centre for Research & Strategic Studies)
June 2004: 53 percent say leave now or "within a few months" or "until an Interim Government is in place" or "in six months to a year"; 33.5 percent allow "more than one year" or "until permanent government is in place"; 13.6 percent, even longer if necessary. (Oxford Research International)
quote:I don't think you understand.
It's you who does not understand. What you have deemed "meta-content" was the only content in the post.
quote:I was replying to your post, not to the meta-content in your post. Could you explain why a blood test to determine a person's level of prejudice would be relevant to the preceding?
I was posting an example of what I consider to be a similar form of unfair behavior.
However, if the contention is that prejudice can be scientifically measured, then it would be relevant.
Unless, of course, it didn't actually exist and the person making the contention about scientifically measuring "prejudice" hadn't claimed it existed.
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quote:When Rakeesh brought in the earlier situation, despite it not being brought up by the putative people he was talking about, I didn't assume that he was implying that they mentioned it. I did assume that he thought it was relevant and addressed my response to that.
There's a difference between bringing something up and asking someone to provide data - in an unconditional way - about something immediately after a sentence indicating that a new revelation had been made.
There's more than just bringing up a new topic in play here. There's the manner in which it was done.
quote:When boots brought up the pre-invasion polls, if you didn't think or understand why she thought it was connected, you could have asked her why she thought that. Then she could explain her reasons for bringing it up and you could have a conversation about that. I think this would have been a better and more respectful choice than what you did do.
Wait a minute. Either what boots did was respectful or it was not respectful. If it was respectful, then so was my post.* If it wasn't, then why are you only calling me out on it?
(Note that I am not saying that if boots's post was not respectful then mine was also not respectful - there are differences - but anything in mine that might make it disrespectful was also present in hers.)
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No, I understand you perfectly. I'm trying to get you to actually address what I'm saying though.
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In the context of you asking about a blood test for preudice, without any of the wider context in this thread, let's say in the thread like you are postulating where I talked about the scientific studies of prejudice, my response to someone I considered likely asking in good faith about blood tests would to ask them why they thought it was relevant, as I am not arrogant enough to assume I know absolutely everything about the topic or that there is no value in addressing a misconception about the field or what I was saying. Then we could talk about this.
To me, this is advancing discussion. What you generally do feels to me like playing games. It looked to me like you weren't interested in what boots was thinking.
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quote: but anything in mine that might make it disrespectful was also present in hers.
I don't believe that this is true.
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See, those are the polls that I have already seen. None of them indicate that we should still be there after government was elected (which it has been for some time now). And the most favorable - the Oxford poll - also said that a majority opposed the coalition presence. And "strongly oppose to strongly support was better than 2:1 opposed. And if you had quoted the last one as well as the others
quote: January 2005: 82 percent of Sunni Arabs and 69 percent of Shiites favor US withdrawal ãeither immediately or after an elected government is in place.ä (Zogby)
there was an overwheming majority - over two years ago. None of this seems to contradict what I have been saying.
edit: hey, my post (as I have tried to make clear) was a request for information. To Rakeesh. Who seemed to indicate that he had information that I didn't. And to which he hasn't responded.
You have responded (eventually) with information that I already had and had already mentioned. But I appreciate the effort.
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I've thought about this for about a half an hour, and I continue to think that it's pretty darn clear that I wasn't talking about polls from before the invasion expressing favoritism for an invasion. Obviously that's a ridiculous notion-how could I think there were?
That leads me to view your claim that you actually thought I was implying there were such polls with extreme skepticism, to say the least.
quote:actually, if there were polls, taken after the invasion, indicating that the Iraqis wanted us to be still there now I would be interested in in seeing those as well.
This is also not what I said or implied.
Frankly, after the last discussions you and I had concerning the Iraq war or the Bush Administration, I'm wary of getting into this with you again at all. The last time, if I wasn't explicitly condemning something, then I must approve of it.
Can we just skip that BS this time around, please?
Thanks.
-------------------
Mr. Squicky,
Haven't forgotten about our discussion. It's getting kind of swept away, but I'll try to address the points you made.
quote:If we're talking about construction, then I don't think your criticism works. A novice screwing around with very powerful tools is very much at risk to damage the site that they are working on. If we're talking about Iraq, then it actually happened, just as people, like myself and others on this site, said it would. I don't see how you can fault people for making thoughtful predictions that came true.
Unless the novice were to take a triphammer to the foundation itself (in actual construction), then no, he's not really at much risk of damaging the site he's working on. He may build a really crummy house on that nice foundation, but the structure could be leveled.
As for Iraq, I dispute that things have happened "just" as you and others have said it would. That implies a degree of prognostication that hasn't been met, I think. Generally though, those predictions have been correct.
I'm not faulting anyone for making predictions. Where have I said or implied otherwise? I will say this, though: ceaseless criticism before and during the effort that, "This is not going to work!" might in fact be harmful.
quote:That's what you seem to me to be faulting people for saying in the past, that even though we had their support, our outcome was likely going to be bad.
This isn't actually what I was saying. What I was faulting was the emphasis on polling data now, but a lack of emphasis on polling data back when it was favorable. That's all. I brought it up because bringing up polls isn't done solely as a utilitarian thing. People who bring up polling data, in general, do so to demonstrate that "This thing is what The People want". That carries a heavy weight all on its own, particularly in a representative society like ours.
Unless someone brings up polling data solely as a reference towards the likely outcome of our continued presence in Iraq (and you're welcome to show me a statement from someone who does), then I think they're cherry-picking.
I do think it's very clear that boots's post suggested I was relying on such polls.
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quote: What I was faulting was the emphasis on polling data now, but a lack of emphasis on polling data back when it was favorable.
What I am asking is when was it ever "favorable"? None of the polls that I have seen, indicate the it was. Your post seem to say that there were polls that say that it was. This would be new information for me.
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quote:What I was faulting was the emphasis on polling data now, but a lack of emphasis on polling data back when it was favorable. That's all. I brought it up because bringing up polls isn't done solely as a utilitarian thing. People who bring up polling data, in general, do so to demonstrate that "This thing is what The People want". That carries a heavy weight all on its own, particularly in a representative society like ours.
I think you seem to be saying that people should make both sides of the case when they are arguing something. I don't believe that this is true.
If an advocate of the war brings up something that, after a long time of trying and a history of failures, finally succeeds, should we fault them for when, in their earlier support, they refrained from mentioning this problem with their position?
If not, why is it fair to apply this standard to the anti-war side? Do you think people are resting their opposition on the war solely or even mainly on the Iraqi polls? That is not my experience at all.
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posted
It appears to me that, upon boots clarification, I misunderstood her. Thus, a lot of what I said isn't really relevant. Sorry about that.
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What I'm saying is: there have been polls, linked to in this thread, pointing to times when the 'leave now' notion was rejected by a majority of Iraqis in the past.
For some reason, you insist that since those polls said "within a year", or some such, that they're invalid. That doesn't wash, given that I'm not suggesting they should carry weight now.
I've been very clear about this. Even Mr. Squicky, with whom I've had many disagreements or misunderstandings, gets the point I'm making-he just disagrees with it.
I'm saying that more and more, when the polling information is favorable to their cause, we hear more and more about polling from anti-war folks. We sure didn't hear much reference to polling back when it wasn't favorable to their cause, now did we? Additionally I go on to point out what I feel is a contradiction in doing things that way.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: As for Iraq, I dispute that things have happened "just" as you and others have said it would. That implies a degree of prognostication that hasn't been met, I think. Generally though, those predictions have been correct.
I'm not faulting anyone for making predictions. Where have I said or implied otherwise? I will say this, though: ceaseless criticism before and during the effort that, "This is not going to work!" might in fact be harmful.
I think at least some of us had the hope that if we spoke up then, it could be avoided, or at least the damage mitigated. And continuing to speak up now is something I hope will help prevent this from happening again.
I think many people also see themselves as having a moral duty to register not just disapproval, but specific critique of particulars, in order to force corrections to reality. (Rightly or wrongly -- I think rightly, but we may differ on that -- I do think that is a strong motivation.) Given that this is a conflict entered into and engaged in the name of the American public, that doesn't seem beyond the pale to me.
quote:I do think it's very clear that boots's post suggested I was relying on such polls.
I read kmboots as having interpreted your logic as requiring such evidence to be asserted, whether you had done so directly or not (as an initial assumption, as it were). I understood her and actually agreed with her, although I wasn't surprised that it was a request that people took umbrage at. Such a request can't be seen as other than a challege by its very nature, and it is natural to respond to that.
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The whole tenor of this thread is so painful. I might just be particularly sensitive and maudlin right now (I have hormonal, sleep-deprivation-related, and personal reasons to be a whiney weeper today, alas! ), but it feels unlike a meeting of friends.
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quote:No, I understand you perfectly. I'm trying to get you to actually address what I'm saying though.
And I've been trying to get you to address what I've been saying, although I'm done with that now.
I quite honestly don't believe you about what you would have done, and I don't believe that you are interested in advancing discussion:
1) You decided to respond to the second of two nearly identical posts. 2) You ignored the first post. 3) You did not engage in this discussion-advancing behavior you are now advocating.
If what I did was games-playing, then so was what you did. You apparently think that you had a sufficient reason to engage in this non-discussion-advancing behavior. I don't agree with your assessment of the behavior as non-discussion-advancing, but I do think I had sufficient reason to post as I did.
You've labeled my actions game-playing. I think you are engaging in a inconsistent - bordering on hypocritical - commentary regarding posting behavior.
quote:See, those are the polls that I have already seen. None of them indicate that we should still be there after government was elected (which it has been for some time now). And the most favorable - the Oxford poll - also said that a majority opposed the coalition presence. And "strongly oppose to strongly support was better than 2:1 opposed. And if you had quoted the last one as well as the others
quote: January 2005: 82 percent of Sunni Arabs and 69 percent of Shiites favor US withdrawal ãeither immediately or after an elected government is in place.ä (Zogby)
there was an overwheming majority - over two years ago. None of this seems to contradict what I have been saying.
2005 is not 2004 - it's almost a full year after the first of those polls. The only thing that needs to be true for Rakeesh's factual predicate (and not his conclusion) to be true is for there to be a time when anti-war advocates demanded immediate withdrawal AND Iraqis favored some extension to our presence there. There was such a time - most of 2004 (although there is one outlier poll in March).
In other words, nothing you have been saying in any way contradicts Rakeesh's assertion that some people adovocated immediate withdrawal at the same time as a majority of Iraqis favored some - even if brief - continued presence.
****
Back to Squicky:
There is now clear evidence that boots's original post to which I responded was based on the premise that Rakeesh had indicated that pre-invasion polls of Iraqis supported the invasion: "edit: hey, my post (as I have tried to make clear) was a request for information. To Rakeesh. Who seemed to indicate that he had information that I didn't." The information she asked for was information about those pre-invasion polls. This is the information she thought Rakeesh had indicated that he had.
In other words, MY READING OF HER POST WAS CORRECT and it implied - deliberately - that Rakeesh had somehow indicated the existence of such polls.
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posted
To be honest, in some respects just simply having a shoot out about a disagreement seems more attractive then this endless semantical bickering.
"No what I said is that what she said clearly indicates that he said that my opinions were thus."
"I disagree, and I do not think you can agree with me when you consider that his grasp of her opinions was flawed in the first place."
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quote:I think you seem to be saying that people should make both sides of the case when they are arguing something. I don't believe that this is true.
If you're (general 'you') only waiting to bring it up later when conditions change, then yes, I do think you should at least mention both sides.
quote:If an advocate of the war brings up something that, after a long time of trying and a history of failures, finally succeeds, should we fault them for when, in their earlier support, they refrained from mentioning this problem with their position?
Yes! Because in such a case, the 'success' would arguably have more to do with chance and luck than with the correctness of the approach.
quote:If not, why is it fair to apply this standard to the anti-war side? Do you think people are resting their opposition on the war solely or even mainly on the Iraqi polls? That is not my experience at all.
Certainly not, it's not my experience either. My point is that people bring up polling information when it suits them, and 'neglect' to mention it when it doesn't...and if you're going to bring it up at all, in my opinion it should be brought up favorably or unfavorably-and then in the unfavorable case, should be argued as to why something should be done in spite of that.
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quote:I read kmboots as having interpreted your logic as requiring such evidence to be asserted, whether you had done so directly or not (as an initial assumption, as it were). I understood her and actually agreed with her, although I wasn't surprised that it was a request that people took umbrage at. Such a request can't be seen as other than a challege by its very nature, and it is natural to respond to that.
I don't understand how what Rakeesh said requires pre-invasion polls when Rakeesh was speaking only of continued presence. Especially in a climate where there were quite a few people who opposed the invasion but supported continued presence once the invasion had happened.
I also have a hard time understanding how anyone would come to the conclusion that Rakeesh would believe that such polls were conducted while a brutal dictator was in power.
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posted
I very much dislike playing the games too, but with Dag it seems that the option is to play the games or let him get his way and his way often seesm unfair and very disruptive of conversation to me.
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posted
For the purposes of opposition to the war and given the practicalities of the political process and moving an army, "leave immediately", "leave soon", "leave within a year" etc. are all pretty much the same. All of the polls listed support leaving. They are in favour of us getting out. And all of them were known and reported at the time.
The opposite of my position would be "stay indefinitely" or "stay until things are secure". None of the polls I have seen, say that. If there were such a poll that would be interesting information.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: I very much dislike playing the games too, but with Dag it seems that the option is to play the games or let him get his way and his way often seesm unfair and very disruptive of conversation to me.
I was not playing a game. I was asking a specific question about from where kmboots had derived her implied conclusion that Rakeesh was asserting the existence of pre-invasion polls.
Since the alleged unfairness of my post depends on whether my reading of boots's post was correct, wouldn't it have made more sense to ask before doing something you claim to dislike very much?
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Rakeesh, Do you really think that you've applied that standard to the Bush administration or the war supporters in your posting at Hatrack?
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My intial request for pre-invasion polls was an automatic response to the connection to opposition to the war - which for me started before the invasion. When that was clarified, I amended my request to polls from any time.
I had hoped to learn something new.
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posted
The second the Iraqi Parliment votes for us to leave, we will leave.
I think there are members of the Bush admisitration that stay up at night praying this will happen. It would relieve us of a ton of culability in the aftermath, and save us a ton of money.
However, just as much of the American congress publically denounces the war but won't vote to defund it, because they know that would be insane, much of the Iraqi congress gives lip service to the idea in public but stay up late at night praying we don't leave.
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quote:Do you really think that you've applied that standard to the Bush administration or the war supporters in your posting at Hatrack?
I do actually, Mr. Squicky. Your tone of surprise notwithstanding. While remain in favor of our continued presence in Iraq, I have numerous times expressed frustration and antagonism to certain decisions Dubya has made with regards to his foreign policy, and his domestic policy as it affects foreign. Not always, not everytime, but many times nonetheless.
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posted
I have never, that I can recall, seen you make a criticism on the Bush administrations announcement of success in an area after remaining silent about the failures they were having in that area, something that they do often. It may be that I just have missed those posts or that my recollection is faulty, however.
Would you agree that the Bush administration is very much in the wrong because they are not keeping people abreast of the failures that are going on in Iraq?
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quote: Would you agree that the Bush administration is vey much at fault because they are not keeping people abrest of the failures that are going on in Iraq?
I think they are at fault for not keeping people abreast of many things, both good and bad. The American people need to know exactly what the administrations goals in Iraq were, and if any new ones have been set. They need to know what is preventing those goals from being realized, and what the nature of those obstacles are.
Same goes for our accomplishments, as well as when our enemies are defeated.
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posted
BB, That sounds like a major problem. Do you express your issues with this problem so that the Bush administration are aware of it?
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: BB, That sounds like a major problem. Do you express your issues with this problem so that the Bush administration are aware of it?
1: I am sure they are aware of this problem already, and the current state of affairs reflects how they have decided to respond to that problem.
2: I have no faith in writing letters to the government, they do not take them seriously, and do not respond to them in an appropriate fashion, though I cannot really blame them, 300 million Americans is alot of letters.
3: I vote for candidates that I believe will represent my political agenda as best as possible.
edit: You are welcome to suggest an alternative way of getting my own ideas heard, besides running for political office.
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If I were guessing, I'd say that you strike me as someone who would not have answered that they were disatisfied with the way that the Bush administration is running this war, especially if we were talking about a timeframe 2 or 3 years ago. Are you saying that this is an incorrect impression?
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I would suggest that, if you do agree that this is a major problem, that the least you do is write letters to your representatives. I would suggest further that you encourage other people in your area to do the same. With the upcoming showdown over this, I think it is very important that the people involved realize that their constituents have strong opinions that they take seriously and that will be strongly informing their votes come next election.
(edit:)The Republicans that are going against the President here are doing so in large part because they are feeling the pressure from their constituents and are afraid for their own jobs. If you yourself and the people you convince make your reps aware that supporting President Bush in this is going to lose your vote, I'm pretty sure it will have an effect.(/edit)
There are also protest groups that you could get involved that whose engagement and time or resources required can be pretty minimal.
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edit: On a purely selfish note, there have been multiple times on Hatrack I've picked up the banner of accountability in the government in regards to this war. I've been pushing the idea of a timetable (of the sort of "We expect to accomplish X in this timeframe." etc.) for a cuople of years now over multiple threads. I wouldn't mind your support.
I honestly had no idea that this view on this as a problem was so widespread here.
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If I were guessing, I'd say that you strike me as someone who would not have answered that they were disatisfied with the way that the Bush administration is running this war, especially if we were talking about a timeframe 2 or 3 years ago. Are you saying that this is an incorrect impression?
3 years ago I did not think I knew enough about our war in Iraq to have a solid opinion on the matter. I was a missionary from Sept 12th 2001 until August of 2003, and so the events that led up to the invasion were mostly a mystery to me. Chinese people failed to explain to me that we though Sadam had WMDs not Nuclear weapons, and so I ignored the whole affair until I got home.
Upon being back home it was hard for me to get an unbiased report of the Iraqi conflict. Sadaam had Al Qaeda connections and then he didn't. We found WMD's and then we didn't. We were there to remove terrorism and its sponsor Sadaam, and then we weren't. That coupled with my need to catch up with everything else that happened in the news left me with an undecided view on Iraq until as late as 2005.
I support the reasons we went to Iraq, I support our stated goals there, and I do not support unilaterally leaving any time soon.
I do oppose my perceived media black out of this affair. I want to know what Shiite militia's are in the way, ditto on Sunni's. Where they are located, and what has been done to stop them. I want to know about propaganda campaigns we are using to win the ideological battle, if we arn't, why not.
I'd like to know what facilities we are building there. How we are improving infrastructure.
I'm sick of reading purely casulty reports.
But I understand why I cannot be privy to this information right off the get go, but when its reasonably to declassify any of it, I'd like to know.
So that I can avail myself of any responsibility to the current administrations mistakes in Iraq that I believe are on going, I will commit to writing every congressman and senator from Utah. I already voice my opinions to other Utahns when the appropriate situation arises.
But I still find most anti war advocates do not persue the goals I myself wish to see fulfilled, and so I do not attend protests.
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quote:Originally posted by docmagik: The second the Iraqi Parliment votes for us to leave, we will leave.
I think there are members of the Bush admisitration that stay up at night praying this will happen. It would relieve us of a ton of culability in the aftermath, and save us a ton of money.
However, just as much of the American congress publically denounces the war but won't vote to defund it, because they know that would be insane, much of the Iraqi congress gives lip service to the idea in public but stay up late at night praying we don't leave.
Doc, that's an interesting way to look at it, but an unanswerable question. I wonder how many Iraqi MPs truly do want us to leave?
With American congresspeople I can guess at their hidden motivations from various clues, thanks to a shared culture and my interest in politics. Iraqi politicians are more of a "black box": only the outputs can be analyzed, their internal thought processes are a mystery to me.
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quote:Didn't hear much chatter about what the Iraqi government (or the Iraqi people, or the US people, or the American government for that matter) wanted when they were in favor of a continued American presence.
"A continued American presence" could easily be inferred to mean either the established presence that is there, post-invasion, or the establishment of a presence there brought about by an invasion.
So it would appear the useful step to further discussion is to clarify that point- which seems to have been achieved- and not to continue to fuss over semantics in ways that make everything five times as long and far more bitter and hostile than necessary.
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posted
I suppose that depends on whether it encourages people to seek clarification rather than continue to attack what people think other people have said, and then attack people for thinking that, and then attacking people for thinking that people are thinking that, and then...
Personally, I'm not of the opinion that anyone has said or done anything to warrant being caught in that kind of spiral death trap.
-
Personally, I'm rather hoping a concensus can be achieved in the U.S. on the matter of firm but non-date related benchmarks. It seems like the best hope of spurring Iraq to act on it's own behalf, the Bush administration to consider alternative strategies, and moving forward on the matter of Iraq in general.
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: So, Sterling and Lyrhawn, how useful were your posts to furthering discussion?
Fussing over people fussing over semantics seems even more meta.
If ya'll are allowed to do it for a page and a half without pause, I really don't think you'd have a problem with a three word post expressing agreement with someone else over it. But hey, you're fussing over my fussing over your fussing, so I'd say we're even .
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posted
In my defense, there's two and a half million Google hits for "ya'll." Granted there are over six million for "y'all," it means there are millions of more people who feel the same way I do .
Thank you for the correction though, I didn't know that. It's rarely something I spell, generally something I say.
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posted
Well, "officially" (according to Wikipedia, anyway) it can be either. I just use "y'all" since it's supposed to be "you all" with the o and u removed. A discussion about the number of semantic arguments on Hatrack was the perfect place to insert the correction.
-j_k
[ May 11, 2007, 10:36 PM: Message edited by: James Tiberius Kirk ]
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quote: The second the Iraqi Parliment votes for us to leave, we will leave.
I'm skeptical that Parliament can vote for us to leave, actually. As I understand it, the way the government is set up, any proposed law has to be screened by legal counsel first -- and we've picked the legal counsel.
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And what exactly is the legal counsel checking against? The Iraqi Constitution? If there isn't anything in their constitution that says they can't do it, shouldn't it go through?
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Well, working with the assumption that Bush will more or less tell him what to say (if not, then it's really a moot point, as it'd just be a matter of law, and being a US chosen counsel or not wouldn't matter), then I think the question would become this: If our handpicked counsel vetoes this and the motion fails, it'll probably be played in the Iraqi press as US meddling in their internal politics and like we're trying to fix their parliament so we won't have to leave. So, is it worth the media backlash that will come with it? And really, what about the moral question there? Stifling their democratic decision is the same thing as ignoring them once they've made a decision, it's just a matter of semantics at this point.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I take the fact that so many Americans see the political situation Iraq as such a "black box" to be a big failure in this war.
For a long time, I was tempted to blame Bush for this. I still kind of do--I think Bush should go to greater efforts to bypass the media and take the explanations directly to the American people, utilizing people who are more eloquent than himself, like Tony Snow--but when the media is as stubbornly set on misrepresenting you, it's hard not to leave a big chunk of blame squarely in their laps.
It's not just the mainstream media, though, but also the blogs on both side of the aisle. For example, alternet mentions that Nassar Al-Rubaie, the guy they get this petition from is al Sadr, but they fail to mention what the movement has done in the past or why they might have less-than patriotic reasons for wanting the US out.
It all goes back to an underlying desire on everybody's part to have their agenda believed, facts notwithstanding.
The only way to get the full story on any part of this is to read yourself, ask lots of questions, doubt, doubt, and doubt some more, regardless of your political party.
Don't be afraid to open the black box.
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And Tom, I stand by my statement. Neither this admistration or anybody associated with it will make any but the most superficial of attempts to go against a vote by the Iraqi parliment for our withdrawl.
But nobody should hold their breath waiting for that. The majority of Iraqis, in and out of parliment, want us there.
Okay, let me revise that. The majority of Iraqis, in and out of parliment, hate the idea of us being there less than they hate the idea of what will happen right now if we leave.
Instead of votes for us to leave, expect to see a lot of petitons and votes for things like the changes in the security agreement al-Hakim is calling for today, with more power shifting back and forth between the US forces and the Iraqis, with the power gradually drifting towards the Iraqis.
Unfortunately, it will be a "climb three inches, slide back two" type situation.
The compromise of power used to be that US forces were partially answerable to the Iraqi government, as an effort to show support for those leaders. However, this resulted in some difficult situations. For example, Iraqi officials would order the release of select extremists of their own parties, and according to the former terms of the agreement, we had no way to counter that. As part of the so-called "Surge" (Which was really a revision of large portions of our strategy) the line between their authority and our athority became greater.
So now that our forces are less answerable to Iraqi officials, it's got Iraqi officials wanting more power in the hands of Iraqi forces who are answerable to them.
That will happen, slowly, and it will be a good thing.
Posts: 1894 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Did anyone else come into this thread thinking that most of the members of the Iraqi parliament wanted to retire?
Posts: 1466 | Registered: Jan 2003
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Doc, I know a little about the Sadr movement, and they are surely no friends to the US. However, Kurds, Sunnis and Shia all signed the legislative petion. They all have a variety of reasons for wanting us to set a date for withdrawal.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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