Article

2008-11-13 Iraq

'Clearly in the End Game in Iraq' Gen. McCaffrey

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Posted by GolfBravoUSMC 2008-11-13 10:56|| || Front Page|| [11129 views ] Top

#1 "The glue that holds Iraq together is the U.S. Armed Forces,the U.S. Embassy team, tribal leadership, and the Iraqi Army."

Notice that the Iraqi civil government is significantly missing from the list. That is why the January elections are so important. If Iraq ends up with a true representative government, this war is over.

Posted by Frozen Al 2008-11-13 11:13|| 2008-11-13 11:13|| Front Page Top

#2 Looks like the territory has settled down enough to turn things over to the sod busters and the ~~usual corrupt and self serving~~ territorial government ~~and hacks~~ and move on to the next duty station in another god forsaken place to deal with the restless natives. [circa 1865-1890 or today].

Posted by Procopius2k 2008-11-13 11:28|| 2008-11-13 11:28|| Front Page Top

#3 I have never understood why, when we go to set up a government, we always wind up with an inherently unstable / dictatorial parlimentary system; rather than copying our own federalist system of separated powers, coequal branches and limited central authority.

The founding principal of a parlimentary system is that one party, or coalition, controls everything. Ideally if you separate the legislative election from the executive election you get legislators who are not beholden to the party cum executive in the same way.

They are then freer to be concerned with their constituencies and to criticize the executive.

(yes, I know, State dept. wonks)

Posted by AlanC 2008-11-13 13:09|| 2008-11-13 13:09|| Front Page Top

#4 We are talking about taking a tribal country based on kinship, shieks, etc and turning it into a nation, where people are supposed to identify themselves as Iraqis. Anthro 101.

We are projecting our values on them and that will not necessarily work. Japan and Germany were similar industrialized societies, and we had full authority to mold them to our means.

This kind of a project takes years and huge resources to do successfully. Our short attention span politicians and public cant grasp it.

What were and are our main goals in Iraq, in Afghanistan? Got to clearly define what they are so we and objectively measure if we met those goals.

Posted by Alaska Paul 2008-11-13 13:25|| 2008-11-13 13:25|| Front Page Top

#5 This from the general who predicted 5000 US killed in the Battle for Baghdad.

Posted by WilliamMarcyTweed 2008-11-13 17:52|| 2008-11-13 17:52|| Front Page Top

#6 IMO its more correct to say A "LULL/BREAK" IN THE FIGHTING = BATTLE FOR IRAQ. The thing to watch is PAN-ISLAMIST NUCLEARIZATION + whether IRAN successfully conducts its own indigenous nucweaps tests before 2010, NLT 2012 maxima.

US-RADICAL ISLAM > ARE LOCKED IN A WAR FOR CONTROL OF ASIAN MAINLAND [large parts of RUSSIA, CHINA, INDIA, littorals] GOING INTO JAN 2009 + NEW OBAMA ADMIN = "BAMELOT".

The COLD WAR GEOPOL MAP OF ASIA = PAN-ASIAN ORDER IS AT DE FACTO RISK OF BEING OVERWHELMED + CHANGED.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2008-11-13 23:43|| 2008-11-13 23:43|| Front Page Top

#7 MUSLIM/ISLAMIC MIL HISTORY + IRAN NUKES + SAVING THE JIHAD > IMO means the ISLAMIST MILITANTS WILL EVENTUALLY RETURN TO IRAQ, like MACARTHUR TO THE PHILIPPINES, to refight the Battle for Iraq and regain "lost honor" agz the US-IGA-Allies.

Jan 2009- 2012 [2016] POST-DUBYA PERIOD > NEITHER THE HIDDEN IMMAM-MAHDI NOR IRANIAN/ISLAMIST NUCLEARIZATION AGENDISTS CAN ASK FOR BETTER OR MORE OPPORTUNE LOCAL-GEOPOL CONDITIONS.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2008-11-13 23:51|| 2008-11-13 23:51|| Front Page Top

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