Pelosi's War

You write like a rapper.

Or did you mean a Ripper? It reads very much like something scrawled in chalk on a wall in Whitechapel.

Wow!
Seems like witchesbrew found a whole sublevel of retardation previously unkown to humanity.
Watch out for mutant albino rats, or better yet, don't.

I'm struggling to understand what the connection is between what witchesbrew wrote and the articles she linked to.

I've learned my lesson.
"Never click on the link!"

I think you have the wrong end of the horse as your avatar.

It's a largely symbolic bill that means very little to people who aren't Armenian. Living in L.A., I can tell you that it means a lot to Armenians, but it's not like this is a major goal for the Democratic party. You should be cheering our more important defeats, like expanding healthcare coverage for children.

And yeah, Reid and Pelosi are disagreeing about something. That's how this system called democracy works.

Witchesbrew's starting to grow on me. I'm getting a lump in my pants thinking about what she might look like.

Copperlocke's off her meds again.

The sad thing about this thread is that there are some interesting issues to discuss with this story. The US has acknowledged that what the Turks did to the Armenians was attempted genocide, just not officially. A US rep lost his seat over his decision to back down from pushing this non-binding resolution through a few years ago. Now his replacement is one of the people pushing what was a bi-partisan bill through committee towards a floor vote.

The Turks, who opposed the invasion of Iraq, initially refused any cooperation with the US military in moving supplies and troops across its borders. They have since changed their tune and Turkey is a vital supply route and staging ground for our troops and equipment. Now Turkey has voted to authorize military action against the Kurdish rebels in Northern Iraq, which the US doesn't want to happen. Negotiations over this are probably pretty delicate.

This resolution came at a very bad time. Turkish officials view it as a diplomatic slap in the face and could use it as a pretense to withdraw its support and actually send its troops into Northern Iraq. This would put even more strain on our troops and the Iraqi government. The US doesn't need to piss off a moderate Islamic ally over a non-binding resolution in the House on something that happed decades ago. Pelosi is rightly backing off on this now. The question is, why was it pushed in the first place? Was it done without knowledge of how Turkey would react? Was it done to deliberately piss of Turkey and remove a key ally to possibly hasten an end to the war? I would hope it was the former, rather than the latter.

If nothing else, it would be a politically bad move for Democrats. When the Republicans finally admit that Iraq is a disaster, they'll start looking for ways to blame the liberals. Why give them ammunition?

And I am speechless.

I don't understand how people are still looking at this as a "war" that we can "win" or "lose." We won the war 5 years ago when we removed Sadam. All we are doing now is providing a police force for Iraq. There's no win/lose, only stay/go.

And you believe that if we stay x amount of time, Iraq will turn out fine. Please tell me how long you think x amount of time is, and what evidence you have to support this theory. As far as I can see, the situation is this: if we stay, we lose about 1,000 American lives and a billion American dollars every year, while the country continues to fall apart around us. If we leave, maybe things get worse, maybe they stay the same, maybe the Iraqi people figure with nobody else to clean things up, they have to make it work themselves.

As far as I can tell, if we stay another 10 years the situation would be exactly the same. Unless you can SHOW SOME REASON TO BELIEVE OTHERWISE, then the cost-benefit analyses tells me we should get out.

Of course, nobody on the right wants to have this discussion. They just want to call Democrats traitors and say we want to "lose" this "war."

Way to legitimize a witchesbrew thread, jonvoight. Thanks ever so much.

I spoke with someone about a year ago who just got back from Iraq. It was a nightmare for him, an absolute nightmare. I asked him if we were doing the right thing by staying there and "cleaning it up."

His response was that if someone came into your house and shit on your coffee table, wouldn't you want them to clean up? My obvious response was "yes."

But this is different. George Bush walked into Iraq, shit on their coffee table, and said "Don't worry, I'll clean it up!" But while cleaning it up, he slipped in the poo, got it all over the carpet and stood up and fell on the couch. Now the who place is shit stained.

If someone did that to my house, I'd ask him to leave. They've done enough... quit making it worse.

Also, witchesbrew loves Rocky IV.

In the traditional sense, you are dead on. But "win" or "lose" are defined by the stated goals of the occupying force here. And these goals have never really been well-defined. As best I can tell, winning would involve leaving a stable, democratic Iraq with a government capable of maintaining order and providing basic services to its people. A lot of that has to do with internal Iraqi and sectarian politics and is beyond our control, no matter how many troops we commit. But providing the security so that an Iraqi government can succeed or fail on its own merits is a more achievable goal.

That's the only reason I believe we should continue to have a large presence there in the short term. Given the sectarian violence, an immediate US pullout would inevitably mean a collapse of the current government and eventually the entire democratic process in Iraq. Since the surge, we've seen Al Qaeda in Iraq (one of the biggest agent provocateurs of the sectarian violence) hurt to point of being crippled. That's some progress on the security front. Now we need some political progress to go along with it. If that doesn't happen relatively soon, I don't think "winning", as the Administration defines it, is possible.

Lemons, lemonade and all that. Sorry.

No, but you directly stated that Nancy Pelosi wants America to lose because she's running for office in Syria. It's the same thing--anyone with a different view on the war is a traitor.

After the torture scandals and the demand for their government to sign away their oil rights to Western conglomerates, how likely do you think it is that there will be any political progress whatsoever?

Well, I certainly don't blame you for trying to bring actual, legitimate discussion to the table -- I'm just terrified she'll see this as some sort of tacit approval of her insanity and continue to spew her "politics" here ad nauseum.

I do admit I'd like to hear her explanation as to exactly why the "libs" want America to "lose" in Iraq. Kinda like turning over a rock to see what's underneath, I suppose...

Not to butt in, but I believe the question being raised is what you would consider qualifying as a "win" and what would be a "loss"?

I'm not too optimistic about political progress in Iraq, but I don't think the torture scandals have much to do with it. As for the PSAs, that's a different story. Iraq lacks the infrastructure, expertise (a lot of engineers and execs fled), and stability right now to take full control of oil production as it did pre-2003. Foreign companies that are willing to put the cash down to build the infrastructure and provide security want a huge piece of the pie for at least the next 30 years. Probably too big of a piece. Ideally, an Iraqi government elected by the people should make the decision as to whether or not the piece is too big and negotiate a better deal (or none at all). The fragile nature of the government right now prevents that from happening. You need a strong government to get a good oil-sharing arrangement* in place. But the lack of a good oil-sharing arrangement undermines the strength of the government. Tough one here.

*By oil-sharing, I mean between the Shias, Sunnis, and Kurds, not necessarily foreign companies.

Hey, I'd love to see a stable, democratic Iraq as much as anyone.

But I don't think that stability can or should come at the cost of thousands of American lives and billions upon billions of American tax dollars. I think Iraq oil belongs to Iraq, that we don't want or need an enormous embassy there, and that we shouldn't have a permanent military presence there that will continue to foment radical resistance and be used as a recruiting tool for fundamentalist extremists.

Frankly, I don't see any good end in sight, and I certainly don't see us "winning" or "losing" any goddam thing out of this entire shitty mess. And you'll just have to pardon me if I get completely fucking pissed off at keyboard warriors who keep rah-rah-ing on the bloodshed and unneccesary deaths of our people in uniform, especially when they seem to be doing it simply to save face for their undying support of this ridiculous administration.

(edited to be clear that wasn't aimed at jonvoight...)

The concept of winning against an opponent using guerrilla tactics is more complicated than what the birdbrain who started this thread would believe.

The U.S. are losing, or already lost, because of the tactics they uses. Others managed to win, but this is not the case.

Witchesbrew never inferred you were a traitor, Z-Man. She outright stated that all liberals were traitors who want America to lose. Get it straight.

The U.S. are losing ... because of the tactics they uses?

Huh???

Yes, that's so difficult to figure out, Capitan.

Should I give you a class on how to fight and win a 4th generation war (guerrilla war)? Do a Google research on how the British handled the situation in Northern Ireland, or read that. It takes a brain to win something like that, and be adaptable, down to the level of the grunt on the field. You have to win the local population. Something the US-attitude of "bombing first and deal with the results after" tend to fuck up.

No I don't need a condescending class on what a guerrilla war is, specially coming from Central America, but thanks. No I was more perplexed by the grammar in that sentence a bit, which I guessed you missed the point. No biggie Che.

I agree as this asymmetrical warfare is bogging us down, as it did in Vietnam. The article that was linked was very fine and the idead of humiliating the enemy and treating them like dirt is one of the reasons that stability is lacking in Iraq as we disbanded the Iraqi army, sending many into the streets looking for a job and/or bitter about loss.

As to winning, some have just said that that would entail leaving a safe,democratic Iraq or that deposing saddam was our victory. That's hilarious, as saddam going was only removing a roadblock to the real victory, which would mean leaving Iraq as a willing, docile, and valuable protectorate of the U.S. The victory that witchesbrew and other neo-cons are selling seems to be in line with a friday night football game that resulted in a sweeping victory with a massive celebration afterwards that includes the deification of heroes. This kind of victory lives only in dreams, as in the current world victory does not involve smashing the enemy, but fighting in tactical, strategic, physical, menatal, and moral levels (otherwise adapting), which entail vigilance and alertness after conflict. Victory, as a result, is less pronounced and multi-layered, not to mention being more expansive time-wise

As to this bill concerning the Armenians, they can fight all they want to, but in the end, a massive bureucratic process is not what is needed for something to be considered genocide. Yes argue with me about such ramifications, but "official" status does not deny truth. I remember when the U.S. refused to acknowledge the People's Republic of China as a country and only Formosa as the real China. It is what it is, this is really apolitical and more humanistic, really.

I agree as this asymmetrical warfare is bogging us down, as it did in Vietnam.

As to winning, some have just said that that would entail leaving a safe,democratic Iraq or that deposing saddam was our victory. That's hilarious, as saddam going was only removing a roadblock to the real victory, which would mean leaving Iraq as a willing, docile, and valuable protectorate of the U.S.

As to this bill concerning the Armenians, they can fight all they want to, but in the end, a massive bureucratic process is not what is needed for something to be considered genocide. Yes argue with me about such ramifications, but "official" status does not deny truth. I remember when the U.S. refused to acknowledge the People's Republic of China as a country and only Formosa as the real China. It is what it is, this is really apolitical and more humanistic, really.

Actually, there arent a lot of armed forces in any 1st world states that would be capable of really achieving what the US forces were sent out to do.
The basic mistake lies in the premise of fighting an aggressive territorial war, but afterwards wanting the conquered territory to stabilize itself.
The main problem I see today is that the USA are too quick to throw their military at problems, when they havent got a real plan or idea thats feasible. Shoot first, ask questions later doesnt work (anymore), and while most european countries, for example, dont have much better answers either, you can see they are getting more and more cautious about getting involved into such things.

Slightly sidetracking, the last somewhat successful modern military action has been the kosovo war. I was in the german army during that time, and I can assure you it took a lot longer, and required a massive shift of tactics halfway through to adapt to the situation of elements of the populace fighting you, rather than an army.

Also, as the article about 4th generation war states explicitly (and I hereby distance myself from this school of thought. I think talking about generations of war is far too generalistic and dangerous) the western forces are usually not prepared to deal with several moral issues. Frisk muslim women for fear of suicide bombers? Lose-Lose here. Either you frisk them, and quickly have a massive uproar about violating social etiquette and culture, or you dont and get blown up.
Same with the PoW issue. The whole "Rules of Engagement" type of laws were created with the war between state armies in mind. By that law, a random partisan doesnt have the right to become PoW, which is actually a state that grants a lot more protection than just being imprisoned in Abu Ghraib.

Then, you got the problem of soldiers misbehaving, and due to the disconnect between leading echelon and the grunt, very little repercussion.
A single shootout in a population center where german soldiers misbehave and slay innocents out of spite will do more damage, and cost more lives for both sides, than most political mess-ups on TV or behind closed doors.

In the end, right now the western world isnt equipped to deal with this kind of warfare in a satisfying manner, which makes the USAs insistence on engaging in such conquests all the more tragic for the guys in the field.

"Neoconservative" is a term more properly applied based on the type of economic, political and foreign policy views you seem to be endorsing, rather than social conservativism. So yes, you do sound like a neocon.

...Ooooookay then.

I think she's coming on to you.
You should take her to see Salaam Bombay, I hear good things.