Article

2007-07-09 Iraq

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Steve White 2007-07-09 00:00|| || Front Page|| [8 views ] Top
File under: Iraqi Insurgency

#1 You get some sort of award for being able to wade through that sophomoric, delusional crap, Steve. Alarmingly, the always-mediocre GOP Senate rank-and-file are showing signs of above-average cowardice and cluelessness. The administration continues with its silent, invisible act, while the military does its best with a vastly better yet still practically impossible strategy in Iraq. (impossible because the ideological fanaticism about not using violence, intimidation, and power to change facts and minds still haunts and shapes and limits things, from what I can tell - just imagine the enemy or our Iraqi allies reading Kilcullen's musings in translation and trying to comprehend the parts where magic and persuasion fill key roles).

I still think there's a better than even chance Congress won't pull the plug in the fall (cowardice will continue to exceed cluelessness for now). But it's hard to be optimistic when the boldest, most realistic leadership in 50 years has morphed into dead-end shopworn policies (Palestinians), timidity (Iran, both within Iraq and regarding nukes), cowardly and disastrous abandonment of top-rate water-carriers (Bolton, Wolfowitz, et al) to the lynch mobs of the utterly despicable global elites and domestic idiot/opponents, with a delusional domestic policy jeremiad (immigration "reform") tossed in for good measure.

Remember - this is probably the BEST crew we're likely to have in power. We'll survive, but thousands who gave all will be dishonored, moral insanity will have blossomed without effective response (barbarous mass terrorism in Iraq? yawn .... microscopic misbehavior by US troops? epochal crisis!), and many who felt engaged by 9/11 will be more alienated and cynical than they ever thought possible (count me in).

Posted by Verlaine 2007-07-09 01:04|| 2007-07-09 01:04|| Front Page Top

#2 If the President were to withdraw our troops, there is only one statement he could make that would deflect blame from him by the Dhimmicrats. That being the same statement the UN General Secretary made regarding the cuase of genocide in Africa...

Blaming "Global Warming" for losing in Iraq. OH!! DHIMMICRATS WOULD LOVE HIM for using that excuse.

Posted by Helmuth, Speaking for Chusoling1715 2007-07-09 01:29|| 2007-07-09 01:29|| Front Page Top

#3 Iraq is already a hell.

What would it go to if "we" left?

Another level of Hell?

If the Sunnis hate the Shiites and the Shiites hate the Sunnis that much then it is hopeless anyway.

Posted by Woodrow Unavique1787 2007-07-09 03:04|| 2007-07-09 03:04|| Front Page Top

#4 That conversation must be candid and focused. Americans must be clear that Iraq, and the region around it, could be even bloodier and more chaotic after Americans leave. There could be reprisals against those who worked with American forces, further ethnic cleansing, even genocide.

Interesting to note the NY Times offers "ethnic cleansing" and "genocide" as potentially acceptable effects of a US pull out. Apparently the events in the last century at places like Treblinka, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Dachau, Chelmno, Sobibor, Belzek and Majdanek have escaped the memory of the "Times." Inshallah, it would only be the peasants who would suffer (as always), most of the wealthy have already fled Iraq and become "Times" subscribers. On the one to ten rubbish scale, the times rates a solid TEN for this piece of perd kak.

Posted by Besoeker 2007-07-09 04:30|| 2007-07-09 04:30|| Front Page Top

#5 Americans must be clear that Iraq, and the region around it, could be even bloodier and more chaotic after Americans leave. There could be reprisals against those who worked with American forces, further ethnic cleansing, even genocide.

But that's nothing at all, right? These morally pretentious liberals are more concerned with pleasing deranged antiwar activists like Cindy al-Sheehan than with preventing another Cambodia circa 1975.

Posted by Glusorong the Slender4698 2007-07-09 05:27|| 2007-07-09 05:27|| Front Page Top

#6 If the Sunnis hate the Shiites and the Shiites hate the Sunnis that much then it is hopeless anyway.

Yeah, and them Rebs and Yankees ain't never gonna git over it, neither.

But we don't kill each other too much, anymore.

Steve - I'd rather read your editorial, but it is interspersed with too much rotting tripe delivered by an idiot, who apparently never read what he/she wrote.

Posted by Bobby 2007-07-09 06:06|| 2007-07-09 06:06|| Front Page Top

#7 If there was a mistake it was in thinking arabs could participate in a democracy. The jury is not - quite - back yet on that one. And if that was the mistake the answer would have been to break everything and quarantine all countries with too many moohamheads. I include England and France in that list until they face facts and deal with it.

Posted by Excalibur 2007-07-09 09:33|| 2007-07-09 09:33|| Front Page Top

#8 I'm thinking that soon, we'll see an unofficial "season" on Liberals. Maybe along the lines of .com's oft mentioned H/K teams, but NOT sanctioned by the Government, of course.

Faster, faster, the lights are turning red...
-The Eagles

Posted by Natural Law 2007-07-09 09:58|| 2007-07-09 09:58|| Front Page Top

#9 The moderate Republicans are running for cover. They don't need the full monty withdrawal, just something they can take to the folks at home to show that they are "concerned." Timetables do that trick. First there will be voluntary timetables attached to a funding bill. W will veto that bill. His veto will be overridden. That will be August/September. The next salvo will be mandatory timetables. That will be harder, but could happen. W will probably get a veto on that sustained, but not by much. That will be October/November. They will try again after the new year, hoping to squeeze real, legislated timetables in before the primary season gets in full swing. If Bush loses just one or two more "moderate" Republicans, there will be mandatory timetables, either by Thanksgiving or just after the new year. And then the only thing that will save Iraq will be a stupid move by Iran.

Like I said before: barring something unforeseen, Saigon 1975.

Posted by Jonathan">Jonathan 2007-07-09 10:29|| 2007-07-09 10:29|| Front Page Top

#10 I believe the only real control the Congress has over the war effort is the funding. They can timetable themselves into a lather, but have no power to enforce timetables. Why it's the perfect RINO talking point, like global warming is to the socialists.

Posted by wxjames 2007-07-09 11:17|| 2007-07-09 11:17|| Front Page Top

#11 Americans must be clear that Iraq, and the region around it, could be even bloodier and more chaotic after Americans leave.

So...that's why we should leave?
Makes about as much sense as the rest of this pile of NYT crap. The ignorance and naiveity in this thing is mind numbing...

Posted by tu3031 2007-07-09 11:43|| 2007-07-09 11:43|| Front Page Top

#12 I believe the only real control the Congress has over the war effort is the funding. They can timetable themselves into a lather, but have no power to enforce timetables.

If there are timetables, and W ignores them, the Dems might consider that grounds for impeachment. (Stranger things have happened.) Impeachment means legislation grinds to a halt in the House until articles of impeachment are sorted out. No legislation means no funding bills. No funding bills means defunding of the war without actually going on record as doing so. For the DemonRats, it's win/win.

Posted by Jonathan">Jonathan 2007-07-09 13:09|| 2007-07-09 13:09|| Front Page Top

#13 The donks don't want President Cheney, so ignore impeachment.

And the donks can't override a veto of a mandated deadline, so ignore that.

And the donks don't want to take responsibility for defeat by cutting off funds, so ignore that.

Which means that Bush will do pretty much what he is doing now.

And the donks will get to beat on him for it for the next 18 months. They'll get a lot of pleasure out of it and the rest of the country will become discomfitted, and ignore them.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2007-07-09 14:38|| 2007-07-09 14:38|| Front Page Top

#14 The road home goes thru IRAN, NORTH KOREA, TAIWAN, AFRICA, etc. and all sides know it. The DemoLeft-MSM like to talk to pullout and withdrawal, but as Leftists-Govtists don't mean it, becuz for one nuthin excites them like new resources for the Present and Future Global Welfare-Army State, which is what Dubya-US led entrenchment in the ME means to the Left, and why Moud can no longer rely on the anti-US, pro-OWG/Globalist US-Western Lefts. THE WAR FOR THE WORLD, WAR FOR GLOBAL DEMOCRACY = GLOBAL ANTI-DEMOCRACY, .........@ETAL. THAT BEGAN ON 9-11 WILL LIKELY HAVE TO BE BEEN SEEN TO ITS BITTER END BY ANY AND ALL SIDES, whether they like it or not. Osama and Radical Islam INTENDED FINAL GLOBAL WAR TO THE DEATH AGZ AMERICA + WEST WHEN THEY FIRST PLANNED 9-11. INTENT > The USA-West dies, or Radical islam = Islam in general dies.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2007-07-09 23:48|| 2007-07-09 23:48|| Front Page Top

23:57 Swamp Blondie
23:56 Super Hose
23:55 Swamp Blondie
23:50 Pappy
23:48 JosephMendiola
23:48 Swamp Blondie
23:39 buwaya
23:37 PlanetDan
23:36 buwaya
23:33 PlanetDan
23:33 3dc
23:28 JosephMendiola
23:17 mcsegeek1
23:13 ed
23:12 mcsegeek1
23:07 mcsegeek1
23:03 Mike N.
22:53 Super Hose
22:50 Super Hose
22:50 Helmuth, Speaking for Chusoling1715
22:36 OldSpook
22:32 OldSpook
22:26 3dc
22:24 Eric Jablow