My New, Simplified Plan For Iraq

[pattersb]

I suppose you deserve credit for at least attempting to find solutions, but you do more to highlight the problems than solve them. "In the current state of lawlessness, establishing security must be the first order of business." This will require 100's of thousand of additional troops. That can't even be accomplished in downtown Los Angelese for any prolonged period of time without militia on every street corner.

In the short-term (while Bush is still in office), there is no plan that would materially alter the Iraq situation from what it is; A complete and utter foreign policy cluster-fuck. Someone not directly responsible has to come in and clean-house.

Bush bet his presidency, billions and billions and billions, US credibility, etc, etc and lost, BIG TIME. I don't think much can happen before Bush slinks away in disgrace in 2008. There is a distinct possibility that a total reversal could occur, Democrats win the House, Senate & Presidency by 2008. At this point, I'd struggle to find reasons why they shouldn't.

But, of course, I'm stating the obvious ...

I think one positive, is that most people do not blame the US per-se, but hold Bush personally responsible. Can anyone come up with anything positive about this other than Bush has only two more years?

This was all so very,very predictable from day one. The one question that kept coming back to me, "If we take out Saddam, just who is going to surrender?"

A war of choice, indeed. Historians will find no end of material to write about the first 8 years of the 21st century ... "A uniter not a divider" ... That really was the biggest lie.

 

[Free Thinker]

Quote from CaptainObvious:

I couldn't agree more. Had it been sold that way from the beginning and stayed that way, we'd have been in and out already. When there were no WMD's, we should have said to the terrorists, and those that provide them safe harbor/support, OK you fooled us, and this is what happens to people that try to fool us after an event like 9/11. The message would have been clear enough...we ain't playin' anymore.
Instead, Bush switched to the whole Iraqi freedom sales pitch and it's been downhill ever since.

one of bushes closest supporters said this yesterday:
There were fresh signs of Republican doubts about the war. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, who holds a seat deemed safe for the GOP, said in a campaign debate Thursday she would have voted against the war had she known ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein possessed no weapons of mass destruction.

 

[ZZZzzzzzzz]

The USSR occupied Afghanistan, and implemented the type of right wing ideas to control the locals that you allude to...worked out real well for them, didn't it?

You are a real dope...

Quote from AAAintheBeltway:

I don't disagree, but I look at it differently. The war phase is over. We are now in the occupation phase. Clearly you are correct that we have been distracted by "winning hearts and minds" and nation-building (apparently there are major curriculum issues at our military colleges, since we seem to have an officer corps composed of confused PC-addled liberals.) A big part of the problem is that the US leadership is prepared to use harsh tactics during actual warfare, but not during occupation. So we get the spectcle of private militias, large street demonstrations, uncheclked chaos, etc.

The beauty of my plan is that we use private sector incentives to combat this. Iraqi generals commanding Iraqi forces can do whatever they need to do to suppress insurgents. The world press would go nuts if we did the same thing. The generals would be incentivized to be ruthlessly efficient because their support would be coming from us, and if they appeared weak, they would be vulnerable to being picked off, mafia style, by rival factions.

My plan also is far more culturally sensitive than the administration's. The Arab street understands, respects and responds to strong military leaders. Weak-kneed "hearts and minds " projects make us look like women to them.

 

[AAAintheBeltway]

Quote from ZZZzzzzzzz:

The USSR occupied Afghanistan, and implemented the type of right wing ideas to control the locals that you allude to...worked out real well for them, didn't it?

You are a real dope...

No, no, no. They tried to implement a typical communist top down solution. The beauty, dare I use the word genius, of my plan is that it is market based. The Iraqi generals we recruit would have enormous incentives to clamp down on unruly conduct, and if there is one thing they showed in the past they were good at, it was suppressing dissent.

This is enlisting capitalism in the war against terror. Not only does my plan provide incentives, it also introduces the concept of competition. Generals who perform poorly in comparison to their rivals will lose resources and be vulnerable to unsolicited takeovers. That should keep them on their toes.

 

[Rearden Metal]

Serious question: Why did the Marshall Plan go so well, while the 'new version' is failing?

Is it just that the people of Western Europe <b>truly wanted</b> a new era of peace, prosperity & stability... while Iraqis are not quite as interested in such a result? Could it all be that simple?

 

[CaptainObvious]

Quote from Rearden Metal:

Serious question: Why did the Marshall Plan go so well, while the 'new version' is failing?

Is it just that the people of Western Europe <b>truly wanted</b> a new era of peace, prosperity & stability... while Iraqis are not quite as interested in such a result? Could it all be that simple?

To a certain degree, yes it is that simple. We had much more in common with Western Europeans making it easier to communicate on a level that everypone understood. Our cultures had more similarities than differences. With Islam, it's like trying to mix water and oil. They don't seem to really give a damn about what we think, and if Americans are intellectually honest with themselves, we really don't give much of a fuck about them either.

 

[ZZZzzzzzzz]

Once again we see the myopic neocon thinking.

Until such time that you understand the Iraqi people, the Arab people, the Muslim people, what drives them, what they want, what they desire, what they live for and are willing to die for, your attempts to project American values on them will produce failure after failure...

Were you a real Christian, not a name only American Christian who worships Capitalism above God, you might understand that to some people there is more to life than capitalism and western values...

For once in your life try to imagine being an occupied country, occupied by force by a power who seeks their own self interest and to utilize your natural resources to keep their own military industrial complex capitalistic machine running.

If you had any pride at all, you would reject such invaders and their plans on principle alone...

Quote from AAAintheBeltway:

No, no, no. They tried to implement a typical communist top down solution. The beauty, dare I use the word genius, of my plan is that it is market based. The Iraqi generals we recruit would have enormous incentives to clamp down on unruly conduct, and if there is one thing they showed in the past they were good at, it was suppressing dissent.

This is enlisting capitalism in the war against terror. Not only does my plan provide incentives, it also introduces the concept of competition. Generals who perform poorly in comparison to their rivals will lose resources and be vulnerable to unsolicited takeovers. That should keep them on their toes.

 

[hapaboy]

It's hilarious when the moonbats try to equate pre-war Iraq as some quiet little country that minded its own business, whose people were living quiet and happy lives and cared for by a benevolent, democratically-elected head of state that co-existed peacefully with the world until the big and bad US of A entered the picture, rather than the slaughter house that was Saddam's Iraq.

Intellectual dishonesty at its finest, but then that is their stock in trade.

Thus far the electorate as a whole is still able to see through this facade, and continues to cast its vote for what many of them consider to be the lesser of two evils.

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Member of the ET Anti-Troll Brigade

Iustus ignarus troll

 

[Free Thinker]

Quote from hapaboy:

It's hilarious when the moonbats try to equate pre-war Iraq as some quiet little country that minded its own business, whose people were living quiet and happy lives and cared for by a benevolent, democratically-elected head of state that co-existed peacefully with the world until the big and bad US of A entered the picture, rather than the slaughter house that was Saddam's Iraq.

Intellectual dishonesty at its finest, but then that is their stock in trade.

Thus far the electorate as a whole is still able to see through this facade, and continues to cast its vote for what many of them consider to be the lesser of two evils.

-----------------------------------

Member of the ET Anti-Troll Brigade

Iustus ignarus troll

it was hardly a nice peaceful place. it was led by a dictator who ruled with an iron fist.
maybe when you are faced with a group of primitive people who think praying to an unseen deity that never answers back 5 times a day is their only purpose in life an iron fist is exactly what they need.
i think if the bush administration could get back to that point today they would consider it a success.

 

[hapaboy]

Quote from vhehn:

it was hardly a nice peaceful place. it was led by a dictator who ruled with an iron fist.
maybe when you are faced with a group of primitive people who think praying to an unseen deity that never answers back 5 times a day is their only purpose in life an iron fist is exactly what they need.
i think if the bush administration could get back to that point today they would consider it a success.

Ah, so the Iraqi people DESERVED Saddam?

Does a Christian nation like the US, whose citizens pray to an unseen deity that never answers back, also deserve a sadistic tyrant that rules with an "iron fist"?

Is that what you're saying?

Or are you going to go the moonbat route and, despite the fact that you enjoy umpteen freedoms Iraqis never had under Saddam, and can post what you write without fear of being dragged away in broad daylight to be fed feet-first into wood chippers, say Bush is that sadistic tyrant?

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Member of the ET Anti-Troll Brigade

Iustus ignarus troll