I just watched Dear Leader tell his fellow citizens why we will have to wait until the next President before there is any hope for extricating the country from the quicksand of the Iraq Debacle. It was not a surprise, but no less dismaying for being expected. But I've been dismayed before. Vietnam.
In 1969 our leaders were the same kind of lying bastards who did whatever they wanted. That year Pete Seeger appeared on the David Steinberg TV show and sang this song. The country was divided on the war, much more divided than today, something he acknowledges when he says no one need sing with him if they didn't want to. But he hoped many would. Today most Americans are singing from the same songbook, Pete's songbook. They're singing, "Bring Them Home":
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So the question now is what rhymes with Iraq?
Very nice video. A good find.
What rhymes with Iraq? Big Mistaq!
Revere are you saying we should just leave? It would turn IMO into a bloodbath there between the Saudis and Jordanians trying to assert some sort of control over it before the Iranians did. And surely some leader like Muqatadr would be in there very quickly. He might be worse than Saddam to boot.
Its not an answer but it is a question though. What do you think we should do now? Do you see any reasonable exit strategy that wouldnt result in a lot of people dying?
Define "bloodbath". Define "worse than Saddam". Let's put it in perspective: how many Iraqis are now dead or wounded? How many have fled? Is "bloodbath" (whatever that means) worse than the ethnic cleansing taking place now? How many Iraqis have witnessed the death of a family member since the US "liberated" them?
The damage is done and we can't fix it. We need to leave.
Well Sue its all about perspectives. I keep on hearing about 600,000 Iraqi casualties in the media? Be mighty hard to bury that many or hide them. There are about 2 million displaced Iraqi's but they count the ones that bailed from years ago and before we got there, so whats the number. Yes, you are right about the ethnic cleansing... Muslim on Muslim crime.
I can say that 450,000 now saw a family member tortured and killed under Saddam. Perspectives. We have lost 3800 troops in Iraq and almost 750 of those have been to non combat injuries. We were losing that many a month in Vietnam. 27,000 wounded with 1/2 having to be removed from theater in Iraq. We had almost 500,000 in Vietnam.
The attacks against us have dropped off considerably. But again the question to Revere is what he would have us do? We all trained since the Gulf War to take Saddam out, thats the reason the attack happened much more quickly than Desert Storm. It wasnt a Bush 1 plan, or a Clinton Plan, or even GWB plan. It was just dropping everything into place and doing it. We cant leave because if we do the Iranians likely will take the place over, destablize or take Pakistan too. Then you have Ahmadinijad with control of a third of the worlds oil and a nuke to back it up. It would force our military to move out to east of Oman to stay out of range. They would then topple Jordan and Syria would just be a good buddy in the whole deal. 100-150 dollar a barrel oil? We can stop and talk all we want about changeovers and green this and that, but its barely economical for us to do it now. Certainly not economical for any third world nation. It would devastate our economy and that of the world to have us just "pull out." And then they would also know the giant will also run when bitten by a thousand ants.
But I would like to hear something more substantive from someone. Cant use the domino effect because it did happen. Both Cambodia and Laos are effectively under the control of the Vietnamese. Myanmar (Burma) is run by such an authoritarian leftist government that they kill news people theirs and ours with regularity. It hasnt run down into the Phillipines just yet but they are working actively on it. Ever thought why we are so quick to pay the Indons off?
Even if Hilary gets in there. We arent going anywhere IMO and for a long, long time. If you disagree then hold her feet to the fire when she says, "I have just been presented with new undisclosed information that indicates that we cant leave Iraq. I blame this on the previous administration and we will just do the best we can." Or something like that. Two camps on this one. In or out. Fish/cut bait. But as the leader of the free world we are going to have to decide what we are going to do about it.
MRK.
Persia and the Ottomans (Iran & Turkey) have been using the region we call Iraq as a battlefield since before the Roman Empire. They are old civilizations that make the whole of Europe look younger in comparison than the US is to Europe. And they have grudges stretching back to a millenium BC.
IRAQ now is like Yugoslavia was after Tito. Perhaps we shouldn't have gone in? Because now we are the meat in the sandwich? Well I am not sure, but whether or not, that's spilt milk. We are there. Where do we go from here.
Oil price is not an issue. The world has lots of mineral energy, (coal, shale, natural gas, tar sands) most of it not in Arab countries. Those minerals put a cap on oil prices of somewhere around $150/barrel equivalent, although it would take a while to build the refineries, and might cause a lot of angst at the bottom of the economic heap while that is happening. (The US is the Saudi Arabia of Coal - I understand the energy in US coal reserves could supply the world's energy needs for over a century.) So which is better? Spend lives and cash on a war, or do it easy and not fight, & just do what the USA does best, which is develop a new technology, and sell it to the world.
Actually I think you would find that Iran would be just as eager to sell oil as the world is keen to buy. Iranian engineers and economists (as do the Saudi engineers and economists) know (as stated above) that too high a price will just cause substitutes to be developed. Those substitutes, once introduced might not go away so easily. One of them might even turn out to be cheaper and greener than oil.
Now consider the moral position. The US invaded Germany & Japan & Korea, and kept occupation troops in those countries for up to six decades. But in Iraq they want to pull out before a decade.
It seems that the majority of liberals want us out now. I am sure that nobody here thinks that way, but the suspicion must exist that those liberals who want us to withdraw must think that ordinary Arabs are a lot of rag heads, not really human, not worth fighting for, not at all like those nice civilized Germans and Japanese.
I am not liberal or conservative, (although I probably appear to be liberal to conservatives & vv.) I think we should stay in Iraq, because there are people in Iraq who have by an overwhelming majority attempted to elect a liberal government. I believe that they deserve a chance at peace and prosperity under a liberal regime. However if those who feel that we should leave them to the tender mercies of their traditional invaders (Turkey and Iran) are a majority, then that is the way a representative democracy works, and I do not think the USA or Australia will be much worse off, although if we are, it will be the people at the bottom of the economic heap who suffer most. (Another cause for the liberals...)
Leaving Iraq now would ensure a regional war in the Middle East that could topple Saudi Arabias government and lead to most of the worlds oil reserves in the hands of governments who are not friendly to the US. Good news certainly for China. Remember them, our strategic competitor in the quest for the last drops of oil 30 years hence. Some say a war with China over resources is inevitable. You can not fight and win wars without oil, the Pentagon today uses more oil than most countries and is the biggest US consumer of oil. Hence the oil grab in Iraq while China is still too weak to do anything, and possibly we do another grab in Iran.
We are staying in Iraq until the oil runs out. Today we seek to keep Iraqs oil production low, their oil is not yet needed, in order to keep oil prices high, which is the mechanism we use to devalue the dollar and make wages in the US competitively low relative to Europe. Since most large companies in the US are multi-nationals with significant profits derived overseas, a devaluation of the currency simply leads to inflation of their US stock prices. Once the oil is needed from Iraq, US oil companies will have the rights to pump the oil and determine who to sell it to.
Everyone knows Iran is Persian, yet it is only 51% Persian, and most of their oil is in Shia Arab population centers. Saudi Arabias oil is also in their Shia Arab population centers. Thus the fear of Shia dominance in the region, an enemy we created, starting from the 1953 CIA backed overthrow of Irans Democratically elected government that led to 25 years of rule under the Shah, a regime as brutal as Saddams was in Iraq.
In the 50's the people were told to fear Communism, who sought to dominate the world and hated our way of life (capitalism = freedom). This led to what we were told was a Cold War, and justified increased military spending, and various wars of choice like Vietnam to prevent it's spread, all feeding the Military Industrial Complex.
Today, the enemy we are told is Terrorism. The war has been renamed to the War on Terror and has replaced the Cold War to justify spending. The terrorists we are told hate our way of life so they want to attack us here and make us an Islam nation, so we need to fight them over there, so we do not have to fight them here.
All of it propaganda to get the people to support military spending to keep them safe, when the real reason was so we can dominate smaller nations in which we have a geo-strategic interest to ensure resources which feed our corporate masters. The domination of course leads to blowback and makes us less safe.
We create enemies if there are none as we did by threatening to nuke the Soviet Union in the late 40's, and today we threaten to bomb Iran today. We are told this is due to Iran is seeking nuclear weapons which they can use against us or Israel, as we were told Saddam had WMD which he might use against us through terrorists.
In this fashion we convince the people the enemy we have created are threats to our safety. The people beg for government to protect them, please spend whatever you need to spend to make us safe. The same people who were against negotiating with the Soviets and Castro in the 60's which could have ended the Cold War and prevented the Vietnam War, and led to JFK's assasination and the Nixon coup, are the same people against negotiating with Iraq under Saddam and Iran.
Sing all the songs you want. Iraq is a long term project.
Randy: Yes, just leave. It is already a bloodbath. I heard the same arguments in Vietnam. The bloodbath we were perpetrating there became another bloodbath perpertrated by others (a bloodbath in Cambodia we initiated and enabled). But now there is peace and not perpetual war and we are no longer complicit. I don't know why you are so sure you know what will happen with Iraq's neighbors, who have no interest in a destabilized region. You are merely repeating the judgments of those whose judgments have been consistently wrong. Others with much more experience than either you or I have come to other conclusions (e.g., Zbigniew Brzezinski) so this is nothing like a foregone conclusion. The long term project you envision is the one that the neocons planned: permanent US military bases in oil country. Meanwhile Americans go to Vietnam for vacation. the dominos didn't fall. They didn't exist.
As Richard Nixon would write of the subsequent American involvement in Vietnam, "Our goals were noble in Vietnam. But a just cause is not a substitute for strategy. -Maj. Michael E. Ruth USAF 1989 Strategic Loss In Indochina - U.S. Policy In Laos
Assessment for Joint Chiefs of Staff
I think thats where we are now. We can still fix it I think, but if Iran continues to destablize the region they are going down and with the blessing of the EU, China and most of SE Asia. They will rant a bit in their newspapers but ultimately the status quo will require that the majority quo do something.
Randy: Our goals were not noble in Vietnam just because RMN said they were. As for Iraq, if you think we can still fix it (after we broke it), I've got some land in Florida to sell you. Iran is part of the region. We are not. We destabilized it. They didn't. We not only destabiized it, but put them in the cat bird's seat. Thanks.
Mmnnnnnn... Blah, blah frackin' blah! Whilst I'm waiting to die a painful death from a transgenic pathogen -- all US resources are tied up with Republican oil conquests -- must get around to reading James S. Donnelly's "The Great Irish Potato Famine", Sutton Publishing (2001)...
Never really liked this type of "folk" music, must be an east coast thing as my husband is from the east coast and he likes this stuff. The closest I ever came to folk was Jefferson Airplane.
Anyway, and sincerely, with all due respect reveres, wars are a way of life, always have been and always will be. There needs to be one dominate country in all of it too and as far as I can tell the U.S. is the lesser of all the evils right now. Wouldn't want China doing it now would you?
It's not so much that we need to get out now but that the American people really need to be more involved when it comes to decision's such as war. Geez revere, the fraking Iraqi government took a month's vacation! What the heck does that tell you/me?
Bloodbath? I don't see it that way. Has anyone ever stopped to read the "other" stories of success in Iraq? Has anyone ever read the embedded reporter Michael J. Totten blog? There's many good stories that shares experiences with going into houses of Iraqi's with Army personnel. It's a different perspective.
http://michaeltotten.com/
This is not meant to piss you off reveres, honestly, as it's obvious you are passionate about war of the military type. This is just food for thought as you seem stuck in a groove, like the locomotive that follows the train tracks. Good God, get out of the 60's syndrome.
Your first paragraph is spot on Paul Todd. There is a necessity to see the big picture and trying to imagine or figure out what would happen if nothing were done to secure the region. These are the sort of things that will be in the history books none of us here will read. Then and only then will the reason's for such actions be understood.
Also agree with this statement: "ensure resources which feed our corporate masters". This is something nearly everyone conveniently ignores and it's truer than most will admit. Have to say also that the conspiracy theory sites make me want to puke. There's no solutions offered, just an overwhelming amount of hate, anger and blame casting.
Hey Jon Singleton, honey, wanted to let you know that I had a good laugh over what you wrote above. I'm not being sarcastic either, so don't take it that way please. It was really cute sweetheart, you too are spot on.
Love this blog revere and love getting to know regular poster's better. Thank you for putting up with those who refuse to believe the way you do.
Anyway, and sincerely, with all due respect reveres, wars are a way of life, always have been and always will be.
You know what I love about being human? Just giving into necessity. Thinking of England. That's the greatest thing about having free choice.
There needs to be one dominate country in all of it too
Which is precisely the way it's always been, back when the Hittites RULED. THE. WORLD.
Serious. Look it up.
Geez revere, the fraking Iraqi government took a month's vacation! What the heck does that tell you/me?
I dunno. Need more data. Was it February or January? Was it a leap year?
Has anyone ever stopped to read the "other" stories of success in Iraq? Has anyone ever read the embedded reporter Michael J. Totten blog? There's many good stories that shares experiences with going into houses of Iraqi's with Army personnel. It's a different perspective.
Paint brush POV perhaps?
This is just food for thought as you seem stuck in a groove, like the locomotive that follows the train tracks.
Okay, I have to stop here. (food...train...stuck...in...grove...just like in the 60s)
Its not an answer but it is a question though. What do you think we should do now? Do you see any reasonable exit strategy that wouldnt result in a lot of people dying?
And what's happening now?
Iraq is by far the weakest state in the region, unless you want to include Afghanistan. What does that tell you?
1) MRK provided data that fatalities have not increased significantly since the US invasion. Since nobody on this blog has challenged the numbers except in the vaguest of terms. Conclusion: there is more brigandage than before the invasion, and less government terrorism.
2) Saddam had an army/police force of around 500k for a population of 27 million, or around 20 soldiers/police per 1000 population. NSW has around 12,000 police to a population of about 6 million, or around 2 per 1000. Did the USA really expect to control a just occupied (even though reportedly friendly) country of 27 million with just 130,000 troops (That is 5 per 1000) who did not even speak the local language? Sounds to me like an economy measure that is an invitation to disaster. MRK reports that the number of US soldiers lost to hostilities to date is approximately equal to the number of civilians lost in 9/11.
3) For reasons argued above, ownership of oil is not the issue. Whoever owns it will want to sell it, and will want near the highest price they can get.
4) The USA has been involved in several invasions in the past decades, and Occam's razor suggests that there is one explanation. The common thread in Somalia, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Lebanon, Haiti and any of the others is idealistic humanism. To suggest otherwise in specific instances is opportunistic.
5) Logic suggests that Iran and Turkey are likely to invade if the USA evacuates, in an operation similar to Stalin & Hitler in Poland. It is unlikely that the Saudi regime would intervene, or be toppled. The Saudi family is modernizing the country within Sharia law, and sharing the oil wealth with the people. I do not think there would be a bloodbath in Iraq (but maybe a night of the long knives). An invasion by Iran & Turkey would bring law and order because the occupying forces would use sufficient troops.
5) For Iraquis, the downside of a US evacuation would probably be that while the people would be better off than under Saddam, they would be worse off than if the USA had used a sufficiently large force to keep order.
6) Another downside of an Iranian takeover is that a particularly repugnant regime would gain credibility, in a similar fashion to the credibility gained by Hitler in Alsace, then Austria, then Czechoslovakia. The Jews of the world are the canaries in our coal mine. The people of the Western nations during the thirties probably thought most of Hitler's rants were hype.
What would I suggest? The Roman and French empires used career mercenary soldiers under Roman or French officers.
In the same vein, the USA should put 500,000 troops into Iraq, and rapidly expand it's mercenary forces. Success breeds success, the problem would go away, and Iran would be neutralized.
The story of Androcles and the Lion teaches that the most powerful doesn't always win. Nobody in the world doubts the ability of the US in the art of warcraft, and after the recent Israeli incursion into Syria, it is clear that US military technology is unequalled.
It's just your resolution that we question.
Yep, full circle and we end up still in Iraq probably until sometime into the 2020's. But it keeps the situation fairly stable and I am not talking about the one off here and there roadside bomb. I am talking about what would be a wholesale slaughter. The Kurds will fight if Turkey invades and that would be a wholesale bloodbath. The Syrians would also fight to prevent the Turks from invading. The Iranians though are the question. I can assure you that the Chinese who are actively looking for oil sources are not missing the point here. Do they back a UN sanctioned attack on Iran for the nuke thing? Or do they sit back and watch Iran take over Iraq.
This also goes to the Pakistan/Musharraf thing. If the Iranians cant get their weapons by building one, destabilize Pakistan and have the radicals take over and then they get what they want by default. They get a missile and that by definition will cause a war. There is no way that the UN Security Council in all of their mostly inept wisdom is going to allow Pakistan to fall. It also could bring the Russians into the game as full on players because those raucous bastards suddenly become the target of those same missiles. Muslims dont like Russians anymore than they like us.
Karl makes a valid point about the similarities of Vietnam and Iraq. We can win every war if we want to, and every battle in it. But as with everything in our society of political correctness, you cant just go out and wholesale bomb an area with women and children in it. But as horrendous as it seems, it likely means that eventually and somewhere down the road that we will have to kill them all. Thats not said lightly either. I know what it means to see something like that happen but it is also within the Conventions to do it as it was in Dresden. The following is snippets from various books about the efficacies of that. For about two months in 1945 the gloves came off to bring the war to an end in Germany. Then the media got involved and the electeds started feeling the heat from the progressives and liberals about the wholesale slaughter of a people. The cities underneath the attacks were NOT military targets per se, but the people in them worked in the nearby underground factories. Thus, under the Conventions they were legitimate targets. Just as the WTC's were in a declared war. But we didnt have that.
.
http://web311.pavilion.net/2WWdresden.htm
Say what you want about GWB, he pulled an end play on the opponents and set the stage for the long term in Iraq. I dont like it, but I really dont see any way other than just leaving and the then what?
We either have that or uncertainty in the world which will cause us to intervene again, sometime later and with more resounding force than what we have going now. It wont be just the Americans clamoring for it, it will be every country with an economy thats not based on fishing. If anything approaching a takeover starts for Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia then those gloves are going to come off again and it wont be incendiaries that are used next if it comes to that.
I am loathe to admit this in a public forum, but watching desperate fools grasp at straws can be very entertaining, even if the circumstances are dire.
There arent a lot of straws to be had on this particular adventure Tyler. Thats the reason I asked if anyone had any other ideas. Semmes there are two schools of thought, leave or stay and try to bring the whole thing around full circle into a democracy. I am not touting either course other than I can pretty much see what will happen if we go.
Define acceptable losses or gains in any war and you have the political plan. .
I really enjoy the prognostications of what will happen if we leave, particularly when you stop to realize that it is HAPPENING NOW, they're just shooting through or around our troops. Violence has decreased in Baghdad. Could that be because the Sunni population was killed or driven out by the now majority Shia? Hey, don't we have a military installation of some kind in Baghdad? Could've sworn.
My point is that the "blood letting" is happening right now, arguably in slow motion, but no less real for all the contemplation of "what might happen if we leave". As a parallel point, I wonder what all those missing weapons (190,000 or so), and stacks of cash that can't be accounted for are being used for?
But we do have all that Sunni support in Anbar, don't we? Promises of organizing these militias into National Police or Army units is really just icing on the cake. And I love to talk about the successes in Iraq, like the police training facility with urine in the light fixtures, and the top notch electrical and water facilities (the ones not being disconnected from the grid by regional authorities who don't seem all that supportive of the central government), or the Iraqi forces that seem to range in number from 80 to 2 battalions. All great news, but I'm struggling with the security situation, and I remain unsure how a new coat of paint has any meaning for any Iraqis too fearful to leave their home.
You premise your argument with a mashup of contradictory concepts. It's too draconian to allow the internal conflict to run its course by leaving, but putting US troops in harms way to moderate the violence, often extending their tours to do so, is "our duty". All the while ignoring any concept of "collateral damage" inflicted BY the troops who are obligated to protect themselves from an enemy that hides in the populace. The Iraqis elected themselves a government (though skipping any mention that the purple fingers were associated with ballot symbols for which they had no chart, as the parties and individuals were to fearful of opening themselves to reprisal), but, hey, we have troops there if they can't get it done. This isn't about the oil wealth of the country, though several people were specific about oil revenue paying for the war during Wag the Dog campaign, and the Oil Minstry was secured before the nuclear power plant, and we are pushing legislation in their Parliament to grant mineral rights to foreign countries...
Oh, and we have nearly as many "career mercenary forces" in Iraq as military forces. Subject to little or no law or oversight, which doesn't seem to be working out all that well for the Iraqis, I hear.
A first pass at an alternative would be to pull back to military reservations, using rapid response forces to quell large scale conflicts and supporting local hearts and minds missions. Cease supplying the groups that provide short term political gain for pro-war ideologues, and long-term headaches for keeping Iraq secure (the militias and warlords, specifically). Build power plants and water treatment facilities and protect those to within an inch of their lives. Allow the nationalization of the Iraqi oil infrastructure, and protect it, so the Iraqis can fund the projects they want built. Which will simultaneously assure them we aren't there for their oil.
That's an initial plan, which should be subject to change as things change. Unlike the approach of the last, what, four years or so?
History keeps on repeating...
Springsteen on Conan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CROgpqIPvUk
Thanks for the link, Revere. I thought we were done with that, really I did. I thought we humans LEARNED from our experiences. Guess it's one at a time, not the species.
So I pulled out my checkbook and sent MoveOn another donation. I'll keep doing it till they bring my relative home.
i sincerely hope that some of the commenters here are not gainfully employed in the public health field.
wars are a way of life, always have been and always will be.
so are diseases, but we don't stop trying to prevent them from happening. we tend to believe they are bad for population health.
It would devastate our economy and that of the world to have us just 'pull out.'
god forbid we should have to give up our second car or our appetizers in order for someone else not to be shot at or have to leave their homeland
and how about this:
The common thread in Somalia, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Lebanon, Haiti and any of the others is idealistic humanism. To suggest otherwise in specific instances is opportunistic.
seriously? you buy into that? nothing to do with resources or economics or political muscle or penis envy? purely idealistic humanism? just a question then�
how come we don't invade these countries:
North Korea, Central African Republic, Chad, Togo, Myanmar, Turkmenistan, Libya, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Equitorial Guinea, Laos, Eritrea, and Syria
those are the 15 least democratic countries in the world, according to The Economist. maybe you noticed that our good friend Saudi Arabia is on that list. if we expanded the list, i'm sure we 'd find some of our other friends there too, like El Salvador, Turkey, and Pakistan...
for a creepy deja vu experience read Louis Perez's book "The War of 1898".
as one reads it, you can almost hear the same repetitive mantra (replace McKinley's head with that of the current leader) about a war for humanity, democracy, and freedom, because after all, to us, the three words are synonymous, right? of course, that humanistic idealism (or was it idealistic humanism?) quickly vanished after we �helped� the Cubans defeat the already defeated Spanish, upon our "realizing" that those savage Cubans were not ready to self-govern. we therefore wrote into THEIR constitution that we had the right to intervene at OUR will, and that THEY could not engage in treaties with other sovereign nations without OUR approval.
ahh humanism. good thing we were there to take care of them poor Cubans. who knows what would have happened if we had let them decide their own fate.
�perhaps there would not have been a group of 30-year-old men who swept the country in a revolution based on an anti-Gringo-ist principles�
but that�s just speculation.
and being that freedom and democracy mean the same thing to us, it should make perfect sense that our blockade against Cuba which was justified from 1962-1992 because Cuba was communist is now justified because Cuba is not democratic.
it's the same bs over and over again. Howard Zinn makes parallels with multiple wars of aggression perpetrated by the US, all with humanistic, democratic, freedom-loving lies provided as justification.
wake up.
sorry. my links didn't work:
"have to leave their homeland"
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com
The Economist: http://www.economist.com/markets/rankings/displaystory.cfm?story_id=890…
The War of 1898
http://www.amazon.com/War-1898-United-History-Historiography/dp/0807847…
"wrote into THEIR constitution"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platt_Amendment
thanks
Singing America... well start the bonfire and lets all sit around and sing. For those of you who have weak stomachs and some with weak backbones, the following is graphic. These are the people that would take over in Iraq if we leave. But its a bigger problem than that. These guys could be living just down the road and oh yeah, lets not forget that amnesty thing with the illegals.
Did you know that several THOUSAND people will Arabic names have been changed to Hispanic ones in the last few months? All perfectly legal and all perfectly embedded. Its in most of the SW states and you should pay special attention to what these guys do to their own kind, much less an American.
I dont hear America Singing. I think we are going to hear those same kinds of screams that were heard on 9/11 and well, you know we just must get out of Iraq and that will solve all of the problems.
I say again, very, very graphic.
http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=5755
The URL you cited does not appear to contain a link or other mans of accessing the video.
But the caption reads as follows ...
Sorry. Considering what our own Shiite clients (Interior Ministry ring any bells?) have done in Baghdad, all this shows is a deplorable lack of imagination.
Sigh.
(1) Link or other citation suitable for fact checking, please?
(2) Considering the present wave of anti-Muslim hysteria being whipped up by what used to be the radical right (before they captured and hollowed out the Republican Party), do you really think Muslim Americans are just going to sit back and hope that the pogrom passes them by?
(3) Uhh .. changing their names to Hispanic ones might not be a really good idea even if that's really what they're doing. They might not miss out on the wonderful Kristallnacht celebrations after all. Given that Hispanics are now also a target of right-wing nativism.
They could end up running right slap-bang into a second pogrom while trying to evade the first one.
http://www.texasinsider.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=885
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=21139
As for the very graphic link you can hit it again or copy and paste it into your browser window Charles. It worked fine for me and on two different computers.
So with your post above am I to understand you condone the televised execution of these guys for supporting the efforts of the US? How about a untelevised one. Even the Swedes are putting out hit squads onto the streets now for kidnapping their people. The Swedes?
Hispanics are not the target of right wing nativism. Illegal alliens are and the majority of Americans in both Dem and Rep polls say they have to go. Less Dems though. Maybe I am not following you in your thinking. Is your assertion that breaking our laws is a good thing? Or violating our borders is good? Maybe a movie or two of an execution?
I fail to see what you are saying here Charles. If you are saying the right wing crazies are pushing for more and more capabilities of the government to do things to those who dont toe the line then yes, you are right. I aint one of them and I am always pulling my all too well meaning religious right folks back towards the center. ESPECIALLY when the local party members who are foaming at the mouth fundamentalists who would force the Islamics in schools to remove their headresses, and their crescent symbols. That is religious racism.
I have to constantly appear before the school board about this kind of stuff and when the wind is conservative bent, you have to make sure the center is protected at all costs.
I also would like to see success in Iraq, because failure really isnt an option because of the ramifications. Our allies are starting to really pony up and if you havent noticed, GWB this morning was as tight lipped as they come about the Syrian/Iranian chemical weapons aimed at Israel. If even one of those is launched into Israel then you are going to see a nuclear poof IMO. But by all means continue defending the position of the enemy and find all fault possible with what we are doing. It guarantees a defeat.
Dont forget to sing and above all vote! I am an election official for the next one and I dont give one big crap who people vote for (tongue in cheek) but make sure you encourage others to do so. Expound your views, rant on blogs but everyone should vote. I always ask the people who are bitching the loudest if they voted. Not many Charles, not many.
Thats where we can all send a message and sing at the same time.
http://www.texasinsider.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=885
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=21139
As for the very graphic link you can hit it again or copy and paste it into your browser window Charles. It worked fine for me and on two different computers. It didnt load once though.
So with your post above am I to understand you condone the televised execution of these guys for supporting the efforts of the US? How about a untelevised one. Even the Swedes are putting out hit squads onto the streets now for kidnapping their people. The Swedes?
Sectarian violence? More like PC again. They wont let us disarm them...meaning the Iraqi government. How it all shakes out I dont know. Cleaning up this mess starts with security and they dont have it. Cant go to work if the chances of not coming back are large. I totally disagree with this PC shit. I would start combat operations on them immediately and incur the casualties necessary to do it. Then imposition of an automatic hanging in the square every Saturday morning for those who have weapons or have used them. Problem solved. They would be adjudicated under their laws of course but if the penalty is prescribed death, then they'll think twice about it. Its a self correcting problem too. No appeals, no human rights violations. Its the law. Then by attrition they systematically take Shia's and Sunni's to task under their law.
By the way, Hispanics are not the target of right wing nativism. Illegal aliens are and the majority of Americans in both Dem and Rep polls say they have to go. Less Dems though. Maybe I am not following you in your thinking. Is your assertion that breaking our laws is a good thing? Or violating our borders is good? Maybe a movie or two of an execution?
I fail to see what you are saying here Charles. If you are saying the right wing crazies are pushing for more and more capabilities of the government to do things to those who dont toe the line then yes, you are right. I aint one of them and I am always pulling my all too well meaning religious right folks back towards the center. ESPECIALLY when the local party members who are foaming at the mouth fundamentalists who would force the Islamics in schools to remove their headresses, and their crescent symbols. That is religious racism.
I have to constantly appear before the school board about this kind of stuff and when the wind is conservative bent, you have to make sure the center is protected at all costs. Even at the cost of leaning very left at times to keep the dogs from biting.
I also would like to see success in Iraq, because failure really isnt an option because of the ramifications. Our allies are starting to really pony up and if you havent noticed, GWB this morning was as tight lipped as they come about the Syrian/Iranian chemical weapons aimed at Israel. If even one of those is launched into Israel then you are going to see a nuclear poof IMO. But by all means continue defending the position of the enemy and find all fault possible with what we are doing. It guarantees a defeat. I cant condone what your article if true says. But even the newsies are getting caught trying to make news now as well. So the whole system is upside down. And no, I dont have any answers except to establish order and in a hard, furious and nasty way. You are right the Crystal Nights are about to begin over there but I do hope they are evenly applied as they round the leadership up. What the Iraqi government does with them is and will be up to them. They have laws about this already, they should just start applying them with US troops backing them up from a combat stance only.
Dont forget to sing and above all vote! I am an election official for the next one and I dont give one big crap who people vote for (tongue in cheek) but make sure you encourage others to do so. Expound your views, rant on blogs but everyone should vote. I always ask the people who are bitching the loudest if they voted. Not many Charles, not many.
Thats where we can all send a message and sing at the same time, or not.
The link for your video worked fine MRK.
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
John F. Kennedy
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