From the New York Sun (I know, may as well have been written by Bill Kristol on a sheet of two-ply toilet paper and edited by the ghost of Jeanne Kirkpatrick) comes this rather lengthy op-ed from Nibras Kazimi, ominously titled (if you happen to be, say, Barack Obama) “Turnaround in Baghdad”. Allow me to excerpt at length:
There has been a flurry of press reports recently about insurgents battling American and Iraqi security forces on Haifa Street in Baghdad, and around the rural town of Buhruz in Diyala Province. These same insurgents also claimed to have shot down a Black Hawk helicopter near Buhruz. At the same time, the Americans and Iraqis are declaring a major victory as evidenced by the increased number of dead or captured militants, and the uncovering of massive weapons caches. So, what is going on?
What needs to be understood is the central role that Al Qaeda  or more accurately its successor organization, a group called the Islamic State of Iraq  is playing on these fronts and the diminishing role of all the other insurgent groups.
The wider Sunni insurgency  the groups beyond Al Qaeda  is being slowly, and surely, defeated. The average insurgent today feels demoralized, disillusioned, and hunted. Those who have not been captured yet are opting for a quieter life outside of Iraq. Al Qaeda continues to grow for the time being as it cannibalizes the other insurgent groups and absorbs their most radical and hardcore fringes into its fold. The Baathists, who had been critical in spurring the initial insurgency, are becoming less and less relevant, and are drifting without a clear purpose following the hanging of their idol, Saddam Hussein. Rounding out this changing landscape is that Al Qaeda itself is getting a serious beating as the Americans improve in intelligence gathering and partner with more reliable Iraqi forces.
In other words, battling the insurgency now essentially means battling Al Qaeda. This is a major accomplishment.
Of course, run those paragraphs through the anti-war Democrat’s filter and you come away with something like this: “There is not now, nor has there ever been, any connection between Iraq and Islamic terrorism. Oh, and QUAGMIRE!”
Of course, this is not to argue that Iraq is once again a paradise filled with frolicking children and their omnipresent kites. Iraq is still a war zone—hardly surprising, given that the country has been playing host to a war, though it seems more than a few Congresspeople, on both sides of the aisle, are indignant that a war can create such a prolonged state of untidyness.
Nor is this to suggest that there haven’t been strategic missteps along the way, as Kazimi himself is careful to point out. In fact, if Kazimi is to be believed, the “turnaround,” as he calls it, is the result, simply, of doing what the President has called for all along: staying the course. Writes Kazimi:
In many ways, the timing of this turnaround was inadvertent, coming at the height of political and bureaucratic mismanagement in Washington and Baghdad. A number of factors contributed to this turnaround, but most important was sustained, stay-the-course counterinsurgency pressure. At the end of the day, more insurgents were ending up dead or behind bars, which generated among them a sense of despair and a feeling that the insurgency was a dead end.
The Washington-initiated “surge” will speed-up the ongoing process of defeating the insurgency. But one should not consider the surge responsible for the turnaround. The lesson to be learned is to keep killing the killers until they realize their fate.
Many folks here an in other venues supportive of the Iraq campaign have pointed out that the “surge”—as well as the move to hand the reins over to General Petraeus—were (though both will doubtless help to speed things along at a time when American domestic patience is wearing thin and Democratic policymakers are looking to cash in politically on their ability to frame the Iraq campaign as a terrible blunder doomed to failure) largely cosmetic, and that progress, though slow, was nevertheless steady.
But as we no longer seem to have the will, as a nation, to come together politically in a time of war, the parties jockeying for power are forced to play partisan chess matches, while behind the scenes the soldiers just hope they are allowed to do their jobs.
Argues Kazimi:
The best way to use the extra troops would be to protect the Sunni neighborhoods of Baghdad from Shiite death squads. This will give an added incentive for Sunnis to turn against the militants operating in their midst. For most Sunnis, the insurgency has come to be about communal survival, rather than communal revival. They no longer harbor fantasies of recapturing power. They are on the run and are losing the turf war with the Shiites for Baghdad.
Sunni sectarian attacks, usually conducted by jihadists, finally provoked the Shiites to turn to their most brazen militias  the ones who would not heed Ayatollah Sistani’s call for pacifism  to conduct painful reprisals against Sunnis, usually while wearing official military fatigues and carrying government issued weapons. The Sunnis came to realize that they were no longer facing ragtag fighters, but rather they were confronting a state with resources and with a monopoly on lethal force. The Sunnis realized that by harboring insurgents they were inviting retaliation that they could do little to defend against.
Sadly, it took many thousands of young Sunnis getting abducted by death squads for the Sunnis to understand that in a full-fledged civil war, they would likely lose badly and be evicted from Baghdad. I believe that the Sunnis and insurgents are now war weary, and that this is a turnaround point in the campaign to stabilize Iraq.
Still, major bombings will continue for many years, for Al Qaeda will remain oblivious to all evidence of the insurgency’s eventual defeat. The Baathists, and jihadist groups like Ansar al-Sunna, the Islamic Army of Iraq, and the 1920 Revolution Brigades, may be collapsing due to aimlessness and despair, but Al Qaeda still enjoys the clarity of zealotry and fantasy. Right now, they are arm-twisting other jihadist groups to submit to them and are also taking credit for the large-scale fighting that continues in Iraq.
Al Qaeda will continue the fight long after the Iraqi battlefield becomes inhospitable to their cause, and they will only realize the futility of their endeavor after they are defeated on the wider Middle East battlefield and elsewhere in the world.
As the wider insurgency recedes, the Iraqi state will gain some breathing space to implement the rule of law and dissolve the death squads. A society that sets about rebuilding itself can endure the type of attacks mounted by Al Qaeda, although they are painful.
Counterinsurgency strategists will argue about the precise moment when this turnabout occurred and will try to replicate the victory elsewhere. Pundits will argue about who or what policy was responsible for it, a matter eventually to be settled by historians. Victory has a way of making everyone associated with it golden, and many will claim right of place. Defeat has a way of turning everyone associated with it to ash, and many will disclaim responsibility for it.
Let me state the lesson of this turnabout clearly lest it be obscured amidst the euphoria: Never mind who takes credit, kill or capture more of the killers to ensure victory.
Seems fairly commonsensical—though I suspect a few of our less trusting commenters will show up here soon to accuse Kazimi of calling for mass slaughter and indiscriminate carpet bombing.
As I argued in an earlier post, the reason why I believe (along with Ric and a few others) that the US could not afford to “take out” al-Sadr is that al-Sadr and his militia were the inevitable product of an insurgency backed by foreign fighters trying to pit Sunnis against the Shi’ah. The Shia, after years of oppression—and after a failure on the part of the US after the Gulf War to protect them in the aftermath (ah, foreign policy realism! It’s so very liberal!) from Saddam’s reprisals—had to be careful, and so they looked to ethnic militias for protection once Sunni attacks became fairly widespread. Had the US stepped in to stop the al-Sadr militia, it would appear, to the Shia majority, that the US was backing the Sunnis—a perception that would have alienated the majority of the country and undercut the mission. Instead, it was left for the US to pressure the Maliki government to crack down, or at the very least, rein in those Shia militias, something he has hinted he’d do—the hope being that if the Iraqi Shia-led government is seen as reining in Shia militias, both the Sunnis and the vast majority of the Shia who are interested in a unified country, will relax their defensive postures enough to allow for continued progress.
Meanwhile, if Nazimi is right, the national insurgency is dying in Iraq—or rather, it is being defeated by the coalition and the Iraqi army—meaning that the fight in Iraq now is against al Qaeda, the very enemy we’ve been told by the Democrats we should be going after (and who war supporters have been saying all along were inextricably entwined with the Iraq campaign, if only, at times, as instigators and enablers).
It is ironic, then, that now that we have reached the point where the enemy is being clarified—and it is indeed al Qaeda and a few dead-enders who are left on the battlefields of Iraq—the Dems are making noise about the need to redeploy troops and are fighting the idea of the surge.
Which is to say, if Kazimi is right, the Democrats are once again, when asked to support what it is they claim they wanted all along, in the process of walking back their earlier martial bluster—and in trying to do so without appearing craven, are trying desperately to frame the Iraq battlefield as a raging civil war that the US cannot afford to get caught up in.
(h/t Gary Schamburg, CJ Burch, IP)
****
update: RTO Trainer provides background on Kazimi here. Others remain dubious about Kazimi’s motives. And still others express admiration for the abilities of the insurgents, who they say are able handily to defeat a better equipped, much more heavily financed coalition force.
****
update 2: Much more from Black Five—as well as Hot Air’s video of Shia soldiers putting paid to Sunni insurgents. Make sure to read Allah’s commentary—and for background, read Bill Ardolino’s piece, “Recruiting Day”.
It has worked everytime it was tried.
So, will the dems be able to draw glory to themselves by saying:
“Well, it was a non-binding resolution to give-up that led us to victory!”
Iraq insurgency in ‘last throes,’ Cheney says
Monday, June 20, 2005
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/30/cheney.iraq/
Chickens, eggs, counting, hatched, etc.
Dear Quagmire Guy–
I bought this great Betsey Johnson dress–$250 on sale! The first night I wore it, my clutzy boyfriend bumped my arm and I spilled some red wine on it. My gf Cindy says that I can treat the stain with soda water and it will come right out in the wash. Is it true?
RG in Vermont
Dear RG,
I’m afraid that your $250 is down the drain. It’s just too hard to get a stain like that out. I wish I had better news for you. Just take your lumps and moveon.org.
TQG
ZOMG!!!
alphie: 1, Cheney: 0
FACE!!
ROFLCOPTER!!!!11
Dear Quagmire Guy–
I have asthma, and sometimes it becomes very hard to breathe. What should I do?
Alarmed in Atlanta
I seem to remember some analysts last year saying that al-Qaeda was on its ass, and it was the insurgency that remained to be extinguished. Now we’re back to the reverse scenario…?
I support this war–obviously all of our futures depend on our winning it–and I remember how proggs were “war weary” before the clock struck noon on 9/11. But until I see a positive development that doesn’t include three dozen people being blown to bits every day, I’m not tossing my confetti yet.
You can’t retrofit spineless Democrats with a backbone at the point of a gun!
Dear Alarmed,
It’s not worth it, breathing in this vale of tears, where all of the choices are between worse and even worse. The air’s full of gunk, and we’re beyond the tipping point toward climocaust.
You could help future generations, if not of humans, of something better and less parasitic, by planting some trees and then blowing your brains out. Please do so somewhere that will be easy for HAZMAT to clean, in case you’re infected with AIDs.
Yours,
TQG
I’m not tossing confetti either. And I think the point of the piece was to say that al Qaeda is now taking over the remaining hardliners from all the insurgent groups, which only makes them stronger than they were inasmuch as they are picking up the scraps of all the groups that have fallen by the wayside.
And of course, if you’re waiting for the end to indiscriminate bombings in a guerilla war before you’re willing to acknowledge that the insurgency could be dying, well, then you could be waiting a long time. After all, that is the STRATEGY the insurgents use to make it appear as if the war cannot be won.
P.S.
I envy you.
Well, hey, they’ve convinced the entire Democrat party, a smattering of RINOs, and deep thinkers like Timmah and Alphie so…kudos.
About Nibras Kazimi: Nibras Kazimi is a visiting scholar at the Hudson Institute. He also writes a weekly column on the Middle East for the New York Sun. Previously, he directed the Research Bureau of the Iraqi National Congress in Washington DC and Baghdad, and was a pro-bono advisor for the Higher National Commission for De-Ba’athification, which he helped establish and staff.
Mr. Kazimi’s research focuses on the growing threat of jihadism in the Middle East, as well as prospects for democracy in the region. His primary interest is the national security of Iraq, and how threats to the nascent democracy there are enabled and coordinated by regional Middle Eastern actors and factors. He has traveled widely, and recently has been to Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan.
Mr. Kazimi is a graduate of Brandeis University, and he speaks Arabic and English fluently.
He’s also got a blog: Talisman Gate
In all, he seems more credible than the Baghdad Sheraton crowd.
I agree Jeff. Which is why I have always felt that success or failure in Iraq should not use civilian targeted bombings as a metric for victory. Horrific as they are, there only tactical aim is too inflict terror and, as you say, give the appearance that the war cannot be won.
Alphie
Was there a point you were trying to make?
It’s amazing to hear the Dems spout out the “the surge won’t work! Vietnam! Quagmire! BoooooSH!” while the new guy Gen. Petraeus stands directly in front of them and says something like this- “With all due respect senators, you aren’t the one who recently helped clear and hold multiple towns in Iraq to the point where they are now stable, so if it wouldn’t be too much to ask, please sit down and shut the fuck up for a while so we can get our job done and come home.”
Instead the dems are just making things worse. It’s almost like they want us to lose or something. I know that deep down that they want to succeed in this war like everyone else, it’s just that their petty politics is enabling the worst kind of behavior from these idiots, and even a standing General can’t remove the smug pretentious smirks from their faces.
You do realize the author was formerly the head of research for Chalabis Iraqi National Congress right?
It’s like Homer Simpson sticking his finger in the light socket..
Over and over again.
Oh, boy, Davebo came over from QandO to enlighten us.
It’s our lucky day. TSI break out the confetti: Davebo’s HERE!
Not only that, but he can tell from Washington what’s happening in Baghdad! He’s omniscient!
I hope he’s right. I will not that 2 weeks ago the US cleared Haifa Street and they were doing it again yesterday. Maybe that’s progress…
Davebo
You better order that extra roll of tin foil, I fear the Rovian mind melding machine is ramping up…
As president, wouldn’t you assume he has intelligence assets and y’know, like, reports and things?
But really, what is it with you libs and micromanaging wars from the oval office? I understand that Clinton was such a tactical and strategic genius that he review asset target lists in Bosnia.
As far as clearing Haifa street and clearing it again–thus the “Clear, hold and build” strategy that entails the surge.
Since you wanted them to hold it and begin building, I assume you are in agreement with the calls for a Troop Surge?
Or are you just another hopelessly logically inconsistent lefty flinging poo?
Dear Alarmed in Atlanta,
Move to Athens, the air is cleaner and I need some back-up.
The real problem is & has always been that Iraq & most of the Middle East has been in a quasi civil/ religious war since the prophet mohammad died – thus the Sunni/Shia split. This is what helped Saddam to rise to power – well that & some timely assassinations & strong-arm tactics. Remove Saddam & 35 years of oppression & you get what we have now. No one could have predicted how the Iraqis would have responded; which doesn’t necessarily forgive the mistakes that the Bush Administration has made.
It seems to me that we were so concerned about winning the immediate PR battle, restraining the troops by limiting their responses & tying their hands w/ the too restrictive ROE, that we have actually lost the long-term PR battle & allowed true progress to begin. Progress that would have equated in innocent, civilian deaths either way, unless someone can show me any real fundamental changes made in that portion of the world without innocent blood being spilled in the process… I sure can’t recall any.
Either way, the left would cry atrocities no matter how much blood was spilled or how careful the troops were, because they could & never will allow any Republican President to have an actual victory against our enemies & maintain their political philosophies. This was totally re-enforced by the falling of the Berlin Wall & collapse of the former Soviet Union – something the left predicted would never happen within our lifetimes.
It seems to me given the change in military leadership in Iraq, re-enforced by the latest SOTU address by President Bush that they may have finally figured that out. Unfortunately this all translates into it taking a lot more time, resources & possibly causalities before the real progress shows. Or maybe I’m just an optimist.
Gray, I was referring to Nibras Kazimi, who is a fellow at a Washington think tank.
As far as clear, build, hold goes, my observation would they didn’t build or hold Haifa Street if they had to return 2 weeks later.
Let’s hope Kazimi is right. Don’t forget, Gray, just because you think the left is full of hippy, stoned retards who like to do sit ins, I am not one of those people and I root for our guys.
Pmain
The Democratic srtrategy is to “Fuck Bush” at any cost to our nation. I think that’s why they are all intellectually naked.
Nancy Pelosi? I would have assassins at my door if I were to print the word that describes her best.
\ Harry Reid? Please. Give me a fucking break. Cockroaches, right? Ha! Talk about turning on your own kind…
“Fuck Bush”
“Fuck Bush”
“Fuck Bush”\
…At any cost…
I don’t know, Jeff. Kazimi seems to have little evidence to back up his opinion of the current situation. I would love for this to be true, but it sounds like wishfull thinking. Did I miss something in the link? What are his street credits?
kelly,
I don’t think the insurgents have broken a sweat yet. They are operating on 1/1000th the budget America’s military is operating on. They can easily match anything we do in Baghdad or the rest of Iraq.
They managed to bring down a helicopter with three U.S. Army colonels on board this week:
http://www.defenselink.mil/Releases/Release.aspx?ReleaseID=10435
Quite a blow to our command structure.
If we’d killed three insurgent “colonels” in one shot…Bush would hold a press conference to trumpet it, and the MSM would print the story with banner headlines…
We all need to keep up with people who are actually in Iraq. The AP lives on Mars as far as I’m concerned. It’s so cool to sit in a bar in the green zone and say “We’re losing”.
Well, except for that little overthrow the existing government and put in one of your own thing, they are having a few problems with that.
Last I checked, the Hudson Institute isn’t in Iraq.
Kazimi notes that the bombings will probably go on for years.
I thing he is right about that. The rest of what Kazimi says sounds good… maybe too good, but no matter what his background he is at least as credible as the phantom Iraqi police captain AP source that sees burnt and crispy bodies at every mosque.
There is no doubt that Bush and Cheney have really gotten way out ahead of themselves. with “mission accomplished” and “death throes”. Cheney reminded me of Baghdad Bob a little bit there.
Uh, no they can’t. That’s why they run from the US forces when they arrve, and then when we leave they come back.
I checked out your blog btw, and you my friend do not appear to have even the slightest understanding of what our military is capable of.
Nice little wet dream, son. Go fetch yourself a pudding cup.
What forgives some of the mistakes is that no one could have predicted how the fucking democratic party would have responded.
The 2000 democratic presidential candidate screamed. “THIS PRESIDENT CONCOCTED A WAR FOR OIL”.
Then the whole pack of them went downhill from there.
If the propaganda arm of the democrats (the MSM) had reported the mistakes, rather than use them as a blundgeon to hammer the public into satisfactory
poll results, and restrained themselves when offered classified information vital to the security of the nation, who knows where we would be now?
I have no respect left for anyone that identifies themselves as members of the democraric party. None.
hmmm…good local analysis, but what about the Saud/Iran proxy war? Some arabic trivia for you, in my new translation of the Arabian Nights, Baghdad is “the City of Peace”. Not right now, i guess.
What we are doing in Iraq is called “grinding”. Gamers do it in the World[ofwarcraft] all the time. Just kill one monster at a time until you lvl up.
This is a three dimensional war; politico-fighting, info-fighting, and mil-fighting.
and, a good example of a 3D war is the Summer War, between hizb’ and Israel. The Israelis lost in all three dimensions; didn’t realize their milgoals (getting the soldiers back and destroying hizb’ capacity to lauch rockets into Israel), lost the info-fight–hizb’ is more popular than before, and the warhawks like Olmert are getting their asses handed to them in Israeli politics.
i wonder……maybe the Left has got an awesome strategy for Iraq hidden up its sleeve, but wont disclose it so that they can continue to count political coup on GW.
OK, alphie. Then let’s just leave.
And watch your reaction in two years when we have to shoot our way back in, in the middle of a general regional war, which we have no way of even predicting the shape of because you and your kind are hypocritical when it comes to holding people accountable for actions.
We have to live with the Iraq we have, not the one that exists in magic fairy land.
Hubris, wishbone?
Only Almighty America can bring peace to Iraq?
Not with only one soldier per square mile…
Sicily (and Italy) is the soft underbelly of Europe.
sometime before 10 July 1943
Wiki Link
Chickens, eggs, counting, hatched, etc… oh, wait, we won that one didn’t we?
1. American hubris is usually a Euro-lefty synonym for “reality”, alphie.
2. And your plan for peace would be? Iran? Syria? The Saudis? Dig up Saddam? The French? I know, let’s try an oil for food program run by the UN.
3. By my count no one on PW has ever claimed we had enough troops. Having said that:
Alphie,
This. takes. my. breath. away.
Really, I am just speechless at your stupidity.
Actually, wishbone, alphie is partially correct.
Removing the silly sarcastic “Almighty”, he is correct: only America can bring peace to Iraq. Who the eff else will? And if the answer is the UN, Al Quaeda or The Next Saddam Hussein, it isn’t even worth the bother to respond.
Atta boy, alphie, let’s see that patriotism on display!
What the hell does that have to do with anything?
I’m coherent, by comparison.
Hell, I’m Einstein.
jdm,
Your strained attempt to compare Iraq to WWII made me remember this great exchange in Catch-22:
Nately gaped at him in undisguised befuddlement. “Now I really don’t understand what you’re saying. You talk like a madman.”
“But I live like a sane one. I was a fascist when Mussolini was on top, and I am an an anti-fascist now that he has been deposed.
I was fanatically pro-German when the Germans were here to protect us against the Americans.
And now that the Americans are here to protect us against the Germans I am fanatically pro-American. I can assure you, my outraged young friend” – the old man’s knowing, disdainful eyes shone even more effervescently as Nately’s stuttering dismay increased – “that you and your country will have a no more loyal partisan in Italy than me – but only as long as you remain in Italy.”
Thanks…
Goddamn, alphie! They sound like the winning side! How come your not joining your victorious brother mujahideen?
You obviously admire them, you share their goals, you have nothing but contempt and disdain for the US or any of our works.
Chickenhadeen.
I’m not a big fan of the bad guys, Gray.
I just think there are better things America could be doing the $100+ billion we’re spending on Iraq every year.
Even if we manage to pacify Iraq before we leave (and that’s a pretty big if), we have no guarantee it won’t devolve into anarchy again once we’re gone…
Gotta give you cretdi, alphie–that Catch-22 moment was an Olympic quality non-sequitur. Perhaps you should consider trying out for Beijing in 2008.
We continue to await your ideas for Iraq. Beyond calling America arrogant, that is.
timmyb:
Really, how can an Iraqi in Washington know more about Iraq than some dopey white liberal Senators in Washington?
Nope. It takes more troops to “clear, hold and build” Thus the need for the Surge.
It indisputably is.
I believe you.
You’ve argued in good faith hoping for a positive American outcome. You’re not one of the chickenhadeen we have here who identify with the terrorists philosophically.
When I want to find out what’s happening in Iraq, of course I’m going to go to unbiasesd “analysis” from the Hudson Institute’s Scholars, particularly if they also write a column for the New York Sun. Guys who say unbiased things like
There would be no reason to even question such an assertion. I mean, he’s probably writing all of this stuff for free, just because he cares so much about Iraq.
alphie! that was such a good retort – I especially liked the “strained” adjective modifying “attempt”. I mean, like, what *was* I up to? And the quote? I am so nodding my head and chuckling how well you did. Good job, alphie!
PS, you do know Catch-22 is fiction, yes?
What a moron. Have you seen the video of your heroes trying to attack a US outpost? In the middle of the day? Riding in the back of pickup trucks while wearing black ski masks? And driving into the crossfire from two positions? If you don’t know how that ended, then you should STFU and never comment on anything military ever again.
They can’t hold territory unless we back off. They can slaughter lots of civilians, and occasionally kill some soldiers, but they certainly can’t “match anything we do”.
You know your comparison between WWII and Iraq is fiction, too, jdm, yes?
Yet when done in reverse it equates to “stifling dissent”, stevie. You intellecutually crippled hypocrite.
Read up on your nuclear physics yet?
In this regard, I propose we use the same strategy we employed in Germany.
And Japan.
Korea.
Kuwait.
Bosnia.
What? Do you mean , alphie, we should just disappear to a man, like we were never even there?
What a great idea!
Wonder why it hasn’t been tried before?
I still think we’re going to need to deal with Al Sadr on a per Diem basis. Sin loi, your reverence…
Of course not, because we are the dickheads of the Earth, unlike the people who will kill anybody for their fascist cause. And the best part is that they want to kill you, and you won’t even take their word for it. Un-fucking-believeable!
I think I’m going to puke. If you are over twelve years old, you have a real problem with logic. And if you aren’t over 12 years old, go to bed.
What the fuck is the problem with these people? Someone threatens their lives and families, and they say “No, they don’t really mean that. Let’s just wait until they wipe out LA or Nyc and then we can do something about it”.
Am I that stupid? I hope not.
HUH?
Well, alphie tried to be clever and posted a link to an article where Vice President Cheney said the insurgency was in it’s last throes. Guess he didn’t expect people to actually read the article:
Quote:
Sounds like the timetable guestimate is a bit broader than alphie was trying to imply.
Yet you consistently overestimate their power, influence and capabilities.
Yet you consistently denigrate American motives and competence.
Yet you reflexively identify with them because they are underdogs.
And that’s why you root for American defeat!? ‘Cuz you hope that maybe Uncle Sugar will give you some freebies!?
How about not getting killed by radical muslims? Isn’t that good enough for you, alphie?
How about keeping your hermetically sealed little world of ignorance safe for freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of pork products and freedom of booze?
Sounds like an argument for a good pro-american puppet strongman supported by American arms and money.
It worked in the good ol’ days….
Pardon me for interrupting, but does anyone have a program they could spare?
I don’t visit PW as often as I used to, and lately it’s been getting hard to separate the real trolls from the chickenfauxkers.
Thanks….
Here’s one of Kazimi’s greatest hits from 2 years ago:
The thing with propagandists is that they can just keep saying the same silly things over and over again and apparently get paid handsomely for it.
Lost Dog,
Nobody outside a few thousand loyal Fox News viewers still believe that the people we’re fighting in Iraq had anything to do with 9/11.
Collective punishment by any other name is…war crimes.
There you go—reading minds again. How do you know his motives?
I think you want Iraq to fail because you hate Arabs. I admit I’m not as proficient at mind-reading as you, but, hey, my statement has just as much basis as yours.
Yeah, it’s not like he’s an Iraqi or anything!
How can he pretend to care about anything when he’s not a sensitive California liberal who’s so tolerant he doesn’t even like his own country!?
BTW, Steve xx–got an AK-47 and ticket to Iraq yet? You could really put the lie to his words and American ambitions by adding another Freedom Fighter to the insurgency.
How much do you get paid to post here?
Jeffy, when you take on these military/political issues, well, you fall short.
I’ll try to summarize. If the Iraqis feel (you know that gut thang) that the U.S. is not going to spring them yet again—that they ought to do something, and then they do something, well, doesn’t that tell you that redeployment is the best course?
I wattched again tonight all of the faces, names and locations of the men and women who have died for you, Jeffy, and Dan, and Pablo, and Maggie, and Darleen, and yes, for me.
You and yours want to see more dead and you will copy and paste your way to having been a part of their sacrifice. In the end, you won’t have been. They will not remember you or Dan or Pablo or Darleen.
TW: purpose—need I say more?
Ah, the post-modernist response to an analogy. Sure, alphie, aren’t they all?
Oh and nice to see alphie confer massive power upon the insurgency because they got lucky and shot down a Blackhawk. Alphie must’ve nearly tripped rushing to exploit the carnage.
How much are they paying you, Steve?
Nice little air-tight schtick you got going here, Jeff. Things in Iraq are changing for the better–the insurgency is really, really on it’s last legs–but we won’t be able to tell for, what, a few more years because, da da da dum, the Islamic Army of Iraq is stepping in seamlessly to take over for the dead-enders. Still, we’ve only got them to beat down now, so just keep doing what we’re doing, and ignore any of the objective measurements of victory, like, say, peace.
Do we still get to take out al Sadr, and bomb Iran? Or do we focus on the terrorists this time?
alphie:
Odd, I don’t recall anyone in the Bush Administration saying Iraq had anything to do with 9/11.
Try another lie.
One of the problems is that the way the war is framed there isn’t any clear-cut definition of “victory”.
The traditional definition is, of course, being able to pillage, burn, and rape (in that order, to maximize profit). For a number of reasons we’ve foresworn that approach. Our enemies have not, which complicates things a bit.
Later there was doubleyoudoubleyoutoo. At the end of a fairly difficult but, in retrospect, remarkably short period of extreme effort, we had the Germans and Japanese at the “PBR” point… and refrained from exercising the hard-won privilege. Instead we went through a long effort to modify the defeated societies into something we could live with. The exercise bore fruit beyond the wildest dreams of all but a very few—we have made a much larger profit (though it came in small increments over a long time) off that tactic than we would have by carrying away everything from Deutschland and Nihon except a few absolutely immovable features of the landscape. In part that’s a result of the fundamental conditions of war in modern industrial and post-industrial societies, in which the very thing an invader wants to steal is what gives the defenders the wherewithal to resist; in order to overcome the defense it’s necessary to destroy the prospective plunder. “Gold will not always get you good soldiers, but good soldiers can always get you gold,” said the Prince. The second clause of that is sadly out of date.
In Iraq we chose not to do the “flatten everything” phase first, for a number of reasons. Primary among the reasons were two: One, in modernizing and developing our militaries to be more precise and less indiscriminate we lost the ability to do so; and Two, the planners of today are still responding to the revulsion felt by everyone (admitted or not) at the incredible wreckage left, particularly in Europe, by the war effort. We don’t want to do that again, so we tried to do the “rebuilding” phase without carpet bombing first.
Short cuts are very often the long way ‘round. If we had somehow gained the upper hand in Germany in the early Forties without squashing Hitler and the Nazis first, then tried to crank up the Marshall Plan, Nurenburg trials, etc. etc. anyway, the result would probably have made Iraq, today, look like the proverbial cakewalk. Imagine a European “insurgency” led from the shadows by the likes of Rommel and von Steuben, not to mention that Croatian dude Turtledove is so admiring of, with Hitler and Goebbels in a British jail awaiting trial, and Heinrich Himmler issuing manifestoes. ::shudder::
The result is that we’ve denied ourselves a clear-cut victory and have to settle for long, drawn-out, push-pull, two steps back at every turn and all we can do is try hard for three forward on average. The trouble with that is the Press. If it were all happening on Betelgeuse IX, with the only way to get news back being ships, it would be an order of magnitude easier. It’s not so much that the Press is biased, though it is—as has been noted before, if George Bush walked on water the Times would report that he couldn’t swim, and alphie would snark about it—as it is that the “news” has become titillation rather than information. “If it bleeds it leads.” The Press has come to the conclusion that the only way to attract eyeballs to the ads that pay its bills is to startle, to amaze, to titillate, and the inevitable drip drip drip of minor reverses inherent in the “pacify without flattening” strategy is thereby turned into a litany of defeats because the incidents are scary and bloody—titillating—and thus “newsworthy”. If your only source of information about the highways was your local TV station, you’d be scared stiff to start your car—nothing but wrecks and people bleeding. Same thing in Iraq.
But I do have a strategy for winning, infallible if you’ll carry it through: disband the Republican Party. Yes, I’m serious; wipe it out, eliminate it. Close the headquarters, cancel the convention, return all the money in the bank to contributors pro rata, burn the flag and all the elephant pictures. Everybody’s a Democrat.
From Instapundit:
Says it all, really, especially if you add that as far as the Press is concerned it’s non-negotiable. They will not report favorable or even neutral “news” if George Bush might get any fraction of the credit, or even fail to be blamed. Might as well go with the flow.
Regards,
Ric
Define “peace”. Was Iraq at peace under Saddam?
Fuck. You.
Clear enough, michelle? And before you assign motives to us again, I suggest you check how many folks on PW have been, are, or will be in Iraq.
“Redeployment” means “leave.” Call it what it is. And then when the catastrophe ensues–you will still blame Bush instead of yourself and your cut and run comrades.
Geez, sorry we aren’t killing ‘ragheads’ fast enough to bring ‘peace’ for you.
That’s a summary?! That makes no goddamned sense at all….
I’m in the Army and I fully support our goals and the so-called ‘Surge’. How do you explain that? I don’t want to see more of me dead….
michelle blurted:
…and yet, you and yours are the ones who rush to exploit the bloodshed so eagerly. Ghoulishly counting every death, celebrating every “grim milestone” with utter glee.
Maybe you shouldn’t project so much.
Did you even read what Jeff wrote alphie.
The bad guys you aren’t a fan of are now in Iraq.
Try to keep up, would you?
At what point do you say that the surge didn’t work? Is there ever a time when you can admit that the war in Iraq is a lost cause? Can we have some criteria in advance?
We’re allowed to fight Al-Qaeda anywhere but Iraq ‘cuz that would make Bush look good.
I no longer trust anyone who runs with the tre tre Pundit set. But assuming that Kazimi is correct about Al Quaeda’s operations in Iraq—and what he claims makes some sense—they’d better start making real progress before Al Quaeda consolidates these slapdash insurgency ragtags into a full-on insurrection.
Here’s my grand plan for success in Iraq: It’s called Do Your Goddamned Job. If you were elected to Parliament, show up and advance the government, instead of cowering in your villa in Dubai. You have what, a 40 person security force, and Iraq is still to scary for your lily ass? What does that say to the average civilian, who has to deal with this crap daily? If I had a do-nothing, corrupt, sniveling government, I know I would be pissed. I elected these morons, and they can’t get anything done? You either want a country or you don’t.
And yes, I have a spectacular case of BDS.
Give Michelle a break, Patrick. She interacts with international students every day and learns from them. It’s part of her way of changing the world. As an ESL teacher.
Of course, were she to interact with an Iraqi, that student would likely tell her to take her condescension and cram it up her progressive tailpipe.
Which would mean she’d probably have to assume he was a CIA plant.
wishbone, sorry I left you out on the list of those who have not served. Could you let me know if Jeffy, Dan, Pablo, Maggie, Darleen, and well you, wishboone, all of age, unless you aren’t wishbone, to volunteer to man/woman the *surge*?
But of course, you are a commenter here on protein wisdom, so you don’t by definition get the point. Being that if the Iraqis think the U.S. (I’d say we but I don’t think you count me) will pull back—a fair military move—then they have to act and meet their own country’s challenge. . . well you just don’t get it.
Therefore I will add you to the list.
TW:while you dither, others think and move to action.
At what point should we have declared WWII lost? When we lost the bulk of the Pacific fleet? When U-boats were having a field-day off the east coast? When the Japanese occupied US soil? The fall of Corregidor? The loss of the Burma Road?
Should the British have surrendered after Dunkirk? Or the fall of Singapore? Or the bombing of London?
It’s a war. You fight until you win.
B. Moe and Rob,
I take it as a compliment that you would even consider the possibility that I would be paid by anyone for the meandering crap that I write. If you know anyone that is paying for stuff like mine, please let me know so I can quit my job.
Thanks.
Of course, were she to interact with an Iraqi, that student would likely tell her to take her condescension and cram it up her progressive tailpipe.
Actually, none of them have, Jeffy.
TW: Change your mind now?
New TW: days and chains and locks
steve bleated:
A Coalition forces-run FOB or three overrun and burned to the ground might be a hint that things are worse.
Oh, you were hoping for “gosh, it still isn’t perfect, let’s give up” sort of criteria?
Might also want to wait until all the forces involved in the surge, um, arrive in the area.
[url=”http://www.defenselink.mil/Releases/Release.aspx?ReleaseID=10387″ target=”_blank”]
Details on deployments.[/url]
Rob,
This war has already lasted longer than our involvement in World War II. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. This one was lost from the outset.
Does the http:// button actually work? Or should I have manually put in the html tags?
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Guess again, michelle. Jeff knows who I am and what I do. And I do serve. And I have been and will be in Iraq.
So take your “plan” and stuff it.
Objective measurements would be dead insurgents, a decline in the motivation of insurgents, and an increase in cooperation from Iraqis. According to Kazimi, all these things are happening. Whether you choose to believe him or not is up to you.
And really—do you think re-stating the reasons for doing what we’re doing with a smirk makes it any less necessary? Or that calling it “a nice little air-tight schtick” mitigates its effectiveness?
Try looking at it this way, as a kind of though experiment: what if we are doing precisely the right thing—that this is the long hard slog of a counterinsurgency, and that the only thing we can do is to keep killing the insurgents until they lose their will to fight?
Would you then be for such a strategy—if, hypothetically, you were interested in a victory for the coalition and a fledgling democracy?
Would you change your mind because somebody pointed out to you that because it hasn’t happened yet, it likely never will?
Did you read my post?
What did I say about taking out al Sadr? And what doesn bombing Iran have to do with this post?
Of course, you are aware that Achmanininininwhatever said again recenty that the US will be destroyed, yes?
But why worry. He’s just one of them silly Persians—brown as a birch beer and equally as dangerous. No, when the Iranians become a threat, we’ll tell them so. Until then, it’s best just to ignore the bluster as a “cultural” thing.
As with the Islamists. Who, we were told just prior to 911, we not really a threat—but were instead being used by the government to frighten us.
Michelle, you stupid twat,
I can recall at least twice that it’s been pointed out to you that I am a veteran. Now you’re making me wish I was back in so that I could show you what a three round burst looks like.
Now take your silly chickenhawk argument and go sell it to some of your fellow stupid people. I think you’ll do well here.
So then, the war can just go on indefinitely, and unless the Green Zone is overrun or we run out of troops, there is no point at which you would concede defeat?
I think that this kind of stubbornness and inability to admit a mistake is not worth the lives of even one more soldier.
I’m guessing someone from idiotland pointed to this entry, cuz they’re out in droves again.
Uh huh. So they were all Ba’athists then? Or did they just like Saddam’s mustache.
Well, I have your email. I’ll just pass it along to a few Iraq expats.
After all, you’re eager to learn from international students, yes? Maybe a few conversations with them (I had some when I was teaching—and my experience, evidently, was far different from yours) would help knock that smirk off your face.
And my name is Jeff. If you can’t get it right, don’t comment here. Or rather, go ahead, but then I’m going to start comment at the University of Houston-Downtown.
They don’t have to because there are plenty of women and men like me who do.
It’s a volunteer Army.
I think this is a persona problem you have. Did you have a bad experienc dating soft liberal men? I gotta look up your profile on e-harmony….
I can only imagine how you would look at your soft, pale date and compare him unfavorably to those hot-blooded young arabs with the smoldering eyes and brown skin.
Oh, how you want them to take you in their sweetly-felafel scented arms and make jihad on you!
No American could ever be a match for them–with the heavy-lidded eyes and proud moustaches. Why America doesn’t have a chance in the world against those taut buttocks you could just make out under their dishdasha!
So if you are going to accuse others, why don’t you put on a burkha and a suicide belt and do a part for your cause?
I’m sure you could at least be a comfort woman for the jihad….
TW: Go east89 young lady!
well, not really young… Hmmm, not much of a lady…. and more like ‘69’…)
Really? We no longer have troops in Germany? When did they pull out? No bases in Britain?
Huh. Go figure.
When the enemy cannot stand against you, you lose only by stopping the fight.
BS. Your wishing for our defeat doesn’t make it so.
Admit it, though—you want the US to lose in Iraq because you hate Arabs. I know the same way you’re always declaring the motives of other people.
In the context of Jeff’s post, peace would come when the Sunni insurgents (because they’re licked) and the Shia militia (because they’re satisfied that the Sunnis are licked) stop shooting at us and at each other, or at least give some objective indication that they are perhaps considering this, for example, by causing much fewer daily casualties than they do presently. You know, something along the lines of a genuine truce and a demonstrated willingness to negotiate the future of the country.
If you agree with the fellow from the Sun that it’s Iraqi Islamic Army (or whatever it is Al Qaeda’s calling itself these days) keeping things stirred up (and they will continue to do so for years, despite their numbering only 5% of combatants), well, there’s nothing to debate. And I think that was kind of the point of Jeff’s post.
Oh, and yes, we agree: Saddam was a bad man.
steve-xx
It hasn’t lasted anywhere near the time of our involvement in Europe, postwar. How many times does this stuff need to be pointed out to you?
Lost to whom? For someone to lose, someone has to win. Who?
I see no reason to believe Kazimi, who has an obvious agenda as anyone who googles him would quickly see. Nonetheless, “Dead insurgents” as an objective measure is eerily similar to Vietnam body counts. A decline in the motivation of insurgents or an increase in cooperation from Iraqis both sound far more subjective than objective.