This all reminds me of middle-of-nowhere-Honduras, A.K.A. my grandpa's town. No power half the time, any running water is dirty and it gets cut off half the time. One paved road. Garbage thrown in the streets. Stray, flea-infested dogs everywhere. Clubs, gangs, and shootings going on in areas where clubs are not allowed and two blocks away from the police station. But of course, the police officers join in the fun sometimes. The town's government employees are always at the clubs. Nothing ever improves because people don't want change. They like living that way.
Perhaps because I'm associating nothing but the term itself to its qualifications - being a democracy isn't about having a 'feel-good nature' to it, for intelligent people anyway. But then, that's the point isn't it - because it has some 'feel good' connotation to you, you can't accept the term being used regardless of its accuracy because that would say that you in some way condone it. Or worse yet, the people do, and we can't have that, now can we? I'd certainly say that the Iraqi government is significantly troubled with sectaranian factionalism and corruption, in some cases it IS the problem and not the solution, and that they have a long way to go before they look at their government in the same manner as the West does (though our aspirations and ideals there generally fail sadly compared to reality as well). It certainly isn't a Western Democracy, with capitals. But then it doesn't have to be to be a democracy, now does it? Are the elected leaders having their decisions subborned by an outside process? Nothing I've read indicates that, even if they don't always have the capability to enforce their decisions. The security situation may cause the democracy to fall if the people don't believe they can effectively govern - that's certainly happened before. Or worse, if the al-Maliki government can't purge itself of the executive offices that protect sectarian groups, it could also fall, and likely more quickly. But neither event has happened yet.
It's amazing how many people cling to political fantasies even in the face of opinion from people who have actually been there.
Somehow I don't think Anc was rubbing shoulders with policy makers. His opposition to the term seemed to be based on how effective the government was, which as I pointed out isn't how the term is defined. There are effective and ineffective democracies - I'm certainly not arguing that the Iraqi government is the former. However, all the 'It's not a democracy, it's not a democracy, darn' it' folks don't seem to be putting forth much as to why it isn't. Just that's how the feel about it, because they have the term charged with certain emotional connotations.
Anc IS rubbing shoulders with some critical policy makers - the Iraqis themselves. And I'd bet three to one that Tex or Anc knows what's going on in Iraq better than the President himself.
It's also amazing how selective people can be about what they hear. Every day I hear from people who've been there and say we ARE making a difference. For that matter, I wasn't there for very long, but when I was there, people were happy to see Americans. They were happy we got rid of Saddam. It's amusing that, while there have been indications that the "surge" is working, that Falluja and other former insurgent strongholds are becoming safer, and casualties are dropping, the Harry Reids and the NYTs (and the Liets and PGTs) are so eager to create a self-fulfilling prophesy of defeat. This is what happened in Vietnam too. We essentially crushed the Viet Cong after the Tet Offensive. And we rolled back and defeated the NVA after the 1972 Easter Offensive. But then we declared defeat and when the NVA broke the treaty in 1975, we just LET them.
Uh huh. Well, I'm sure your appeal to populism there will work on all the teeny boppers who post on the board. They always know better than everyone else. As far as the specifics, privates in the armed forces generally aren't the most well informed individuals in their respective governments is putting it mildly. Love ya Anc, but no, somehow I don't think you get more information on what's going on in Iraq than the President and his staff does. Doesn't mean you don't know your deployment area like the back of your hand, but that isn't the same thing. Again, arguing that the Iraq government is ineffective and even compromised isn't at issue, but that doesn't mean by definition it isn't a democracy. I don't think anyone would bet that it won't be in five years if the US pulls its troops out now - no one is a big enough sucker to take that bet. They just don't care - hell, lots of them will gain in political capital if the US and Iraqi governments fail in that regard. But oh, doesn't it make it so much easier to sell to your constituents at home if you can say 'well, they weren't a democracy anyway when we sold them down the river.' Doesn't make it true, but it makes it easier, doesn't it?
Well, that's easy: For the WMDs, the US said you couldn't wait till the end of 2003, which is why they couldn't follow their obligations towards the UN inspectors. For the other two projects, we have Rumsfeld at the beginning of the war saying "weeks, I doubt months".
I've said before that when doing night raids when knocking on the door "Jundi Emerikee" is the quickest way to calm people down. The Surge is working. Murders and kidnappings are less than half than what they were before. And we haven't even got most of our added troops here yet. 4th Brigade just arrived and haven't even got settled in yet. Come fall when everyone is here, we'll really start seeing results. Anyone that wants us to pull out needs to see the look of fear on people's faces when they ask us if really are leaving. I'm dead serious. I wish I had a camera everytime we're asked that so I could capture it. Don't worry. Every household has it's allowed AK. Not that they ever use it. It's so fucking frustrating when someone tells you that three guys in masks came and dragged their neighbor out and shot him in the street. "Why didn't you stop it?!?! "You and the ten other guys in next 100m all have your AKs and your 30 rounds. I know you know how to use it, b/c while it's rusty as fuck on the outside the guts are immaculate and lubed up. You all served in the Army" "We are not soldiers, you are the soldiers." "Then why do you have an AK." "For protection." I guess it comes from a lifetime of being subjugated but damn it gets fucking old.
So I guess that'd be "Incomplete". How do you claim we accomplished our (any of them) goals in Iraq? Edit: if you consider them complete, assume the "due date" is today.
Seems like Shadow already said he's willing to grade on a curve. Finding the WMDs and eliminating them? We get an A, because we've eliminated any threat from WMDs in Iraq. Of course, it doesn't matter if the WMDs either never existed in the first place or if they currently are in the hands of other nations or terrorist groups. We've eliminated the threat from Iraq. We've also eliminated the threat of Saddam Hussein going crazy and threatening the U.S. Not that he immediately had the means to do that. Not that there were better, less costly ways of eliminating the Saddam threat in terms of both blood and money. But we still deserve an A because Saddam will never threaten anyone again. Installing a democracy? A again. There's a constitution, an assembly and lots of pictures of voters with purple on their fingertips. It doesn't matter if the U.S. is occupying Iraq and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future regardless of what the people or their representatives want.
Are you saying you need to be over there to literally see money being flushed down the drain? To literally see contractors lining their pockets while shoddy construction is given a "success" rating? Given how completely boggled Katrina/reconstruction efforts have been in our own damned country, I can't imagine how anyone can think our construction projects in a foreign land thousands of miles away will come out as resounding successes...
How did you get this information? Did you logically deduce it, learn it from the news or come across it as a matter of course in your job? I will always give more credence to the opinion of a "ground floor observer" than I will to the opinion of armchair pundits.
People don't necessarily vote for things because they are for them anymore...they just as often are voting against something perceived to be even less undesireable. Isn't that a large part of why George W Bush and Tony Blair are still in power? It's 21st century politics
That last part is the part I don't get. 80% of the last poll that I saw had Iraqis wanting the US leaving in the next five years. 66% of them said they don't want us to leave now - the majority want us to get their government working for them and help provide protection. If the majority of them don't want us to leave yet, how can you say that's wha the people or their representatives want? It's defining the argument by terms that aren't bound by reality. It certainly isn't what Anc is reporting, nor the majority of what I've heard from other people in theatre. A US presence in the region at this point is all to likely for the indefinite future - however, that presence could easily be 1/10th of what it currently is if the Iraqi government manages to fight through the sectarianism and establish a goverment for all Iraqis. Not a given, certainly, either way, but we should do everythin we can at this point in order to give them the best chance to succeed. Ultimately it's up to them.
Show me the poll you're quoting. Here are a few for you: http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cach...llnew.pdf iraqi poll&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=8&gl=us 78 percent of Iraqis polled either somewhat oppose or strongly oppose the presence of coalition troops there. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-04-28-poll-cover_x.htm http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/26/AR2006092601721.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/19/AR2007031900421.html So this one has a number of people wishing for an indefinite stay. But I think that's more a question of how the question was asked. No way to prove it, but I'd bet if you if you put a figure on how long it might take for the Iraqi government to be stronger or for Iraqi troops to operate on their own, the numbers would shift even further to withdrawal. I also think that if there had been an option of "leave within a year" that would have been a popular option. Basically a variety of polls from as early as 2004 have all said that a majority Iraqis wanted us out of there.
Why? Not to dismiss the power of first-hand observation overall, but I don't see how it's obviously and inherently better than, for example, someone who has synthesized large amounts of partial first-hands accounts from a number of people, statistics, news reports and other sources. Ground-floor observers have their biases and limitations and flat-out errors, just like armchair pundits do. They can only take in so much of what's going on, just like armchair pundits. And eyewitnesses commonly forget important things or disagree about major details, just like armchair pundits. If not more so. This article talks about a study where eyewitnesses identified the wrong guy 50 percent of the time.
There's no fucking way I'm going through this entire thread. Is this another one of those 'I hope to God everything we do in Iraq is a failure so George W. Bush gets slammed for all eternity' threads?
It can be a Bush-bash thread, it can have sex with you, and aaaaanything in between. It's wiiiide open.
That's really interesting. But just by that very account, don't you think our being over there is making the Iraqis reliant on us to defend them? That they won't stand up for themselves if they think the Americans will make everything better? I'm not saying that we should pull out now, but if that is the prevailing mindset over there, there is something to be said about independence. Also, from that statement, it probably was one of the worst decisions (if not THE worst) of the war to dissolve the army. I think they need to stand it back up again and draft every able bodied person for service. With things in such disarray and neighbors not willing to aid neighbors in distress, you need to turn things around on a great scale somehow. This may be the best way to do it, especially since so many people are jobless over there...time for Iraq's New Deal? My main problem now is just the constant and consistent mismanagement of things over there. That's the only thing that HAS been consistent about the war. I don't want to leave the country in shambles. I want reconstruction efforts to really produce results. I just don't see it happening with this administration. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm not optimistic.
