A disgusting vat of filth that no self-respecting intelligent person would wade into.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
More than Clinton.

We should probably wait until after she's president to start naming schools for her.

Ty, do ever think that SS is a guy we plant to plant these softballs?

Seriously, 10 years from now, what do you think people will remember about the W administration?

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I'm not particularly depressed by the ongoing squabble about whether what is going on in Iraq is a "civil war" because it seems to have more to do with defining that term in a way that minimizes what is actually happening there and emphasizes that you don't have two sides dressed in blue and grey.

But it is depressing that you and others have convinced yourself that many Americans would prefer, for partisan reasons, that we lose the war, and that you deploy that idea to close your eyes to the fact that we are losing the war because Bush and Rumsfeld and those waging it cannot figure out how to win it.

The President, the Vice President and the Secretary of Defense have gotten everything they've asked for to fight this war. They are losing it. They can't blame anyone else for that.

I think a lot of the conflict is psychological. In any war, perception is really important. So is morale. As that article pointed out, things in Iraq are really not that bad. I saw on MSNBC last night that the death toll of American soldiers has not reached 3,000 and they said 54,000 Iraqis had died. They also said that number might be inflated. If that number is correct that is 1/5 of one percent of the population. From a historical perspective, for a country to suffer an invasion, and experienced an insurgency for three years that number is a miracle. (two million Vietnames died in the Vietnam war, Maybe three million Koreans in the Korean War. In addition, the deaths are mainly concentrated in three provinces.

But since the day the invasion started there has been a constant press barage of how we are screwing up. Once no WMDs were found the gloves were off. The press just went nuts on how screwed up this war was. The Democrats just piled on also.

War is risky and war is unpredictable. We can't know if more troops would have helped the situation or aggravated it. The point is, the cause was just and we have a chance to establish a democracy in Iraq. Putting democracy right in the middle of the middle east would be a huge coup and would put huge pressure on the countries surrounding it to go Democratic.

It would be a pricelss accomplishment. But since day one of the invasion there has been a strong propaganda machine through out the world undermining the war effort and our own media and the opposition in this country has helped fuel that propaganda machine.

It would be different if 90 percent of the people complaining about the problems in Iraq werent the exact same people complaining about Iraq right when we went in or the same people who were complaining six months after we went in.

This war was a risk, but it was a good calculated risk. And it deserved and still deserves the best chance we can give it. From day one there has been a concentrated effort to make the war look bad for partisan purposes and this effort has helped undermine a noble and prudent cause.

[Hank Chinaski]

Me. the troll. The guy who quit trying to be for real here, leaving you all to banter with only Spank.

I started this morning with a topic that I thought was somewhat interesting, and certainly was unique for this board.

Hours later, other than SS touch one tangent, you all continue to expound on what the bloggers you have read tell you about the current and past states of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Do you really enjoy this?

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Spanky
1) So you don't think Saddam trying to hit a former president was enough of a reason to invade Iraq? How many American citizens would he have to have killed to justify a US invasion?

An attack on our homeland that kills a large number of Americans, coupled by a serious continuing threat to our nation, is sufficient to justify an invasion of a foreign country. We had that with Afghanistan -- we did not with Iraq.

2) So prior to 9-11 you would have supported an invasion of Afghanistan if we suspected they had WMDs? What if we didn't suspect they had WMDs and they had not pulled of 9-11. Would you have supported an invasion?

Prior to 9-11? Maybe or maybe not. The hypothetical is too incomplete to really answer, although I tend to think that something like 9-11 was required to provide the perceived moral justification for our actions -- which was actually very important both domestically and internationally.

As a practical matter, I don't think we can make it policy to invade nations where possible to stop them from developing WMD. I also think it won't produce the desired result. Look at the effect such "'deterrence"had on Iran.

3) Why do you think a screw up in Iraq would be so much worse than a screw up in Afghanistan. Couldn't have afghanistan turned into a bloody nightmare just like people claim Iraq is.

As to your first sentence: Location, location, location. Power and resources of the nations involved, their technology, etc.

As to your second sentence, you may have misunderstood me -- I suppose Afghanistan could theoreticaly have been a bloody nightmare -- but I wasn't talking about military costs, I was talking about long term costs of failed policy.

Look what happened to the Russians when they got involved in an Afghan civil war. It really turned out awful for them, but turned out pretty OK for us. The only difference is they put in more troops than we did, and they supported a sitting government where we supported rebels.

No. I think there are lots of other differences.

(a) The Russians financed and supported a Communist insurgency that knocked over a reasonably popular and stable/legitimate Afghani "monarchy" in the 1970s -- then invaded and seized power to preserve that regime.

We united a whole bunch of groups -- including existing rebels to knock over an increasingly unpopular religious authorian state. The Taliban laid the groundwork for us.

(b) The Russians invaded solely to maintain power in their "sphere of influence". They were the only foreigners in the equation, and they wanted to keep control.

We invaded because -- and this is how we sold it in Afghanistan -- "Those al Qaeda fuckers (also foreigners) attacked us, and the Taliban (who you dislike anyway) supports them, gives them sanctuary in your country and won't/can't kick them out."

"So, we're coming to get those motherfuckers, and we want your help, and here are VAST piles of money to buy your help, Mr. Chieftain/Warlord. And we are foreign infidels, but after we're done killing those bastards we'll get the hell out and leave Afghanistan to the Afghanis."

Would you disagree that the Afgahnis understand and respect revenge and power?

(c) The entire Muslim world united in support of the Afghan cause and against the Soviets in the 1980s-- calls for jihad rang out and the Saudis opened up a huge spigot of cash (and we helped out a LOT in the mid to late stages).

Because of 9-11, most of the Muslim world (at least the governments) more or less decided that Al Qaeda -- who opposed them as well -- and the Taliban had it coming So, they either shut up and stayed out of the way or provided quiet support. And nobody (except elements in Pakistan) helped the Taliban.

Just my 2 cents.

S_A_M

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Seriously, 10 years from now, what do you think people will remember about the W administration?

He will be seen as the guy who woke us up to what had been going on for a decade, and set the policy of no longer ignoring militant Islamic actions.

You will not see any President move back, anytime soon. The last election was not a mandate to move back to ignoring those threats. You may see future Presidents, with the benefit of time make better informed decisions, but you will not see any roll back on the basic approach. And the moment an "Islamic profiling is a crime act" introduced, is the moment every Dem who votes for it becomaes a lame duck. (which has nothing to do with Bush- more what the last election didn't mean).

I must say that Clinton would probably have done much the same faced with 9/11, but he wasn't.

Economically, he was there to get people over the tech bubble blowing up and the big corporate scandals. I think we're pretty well-off right now.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Too true. Though I enjoy the magazine, some of the more unreasonable lunatics who soil National Review's pages are still making wild claims that the Left sank us in Vietnam.

I don't read the National Review, but I agree the left sank us in Vietnam.

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
And believe it or not, there are a load of assholes out there trying to rehab McCarthy as a martyr who would have purified us of socialist leanings if not for the media killing him.

I don't support everything that McCarthy did, but his effect has been greatly exagerrated by the left. The witch hunt of the fifties was some what justified because it is now clear from KGB archives that the country was riddled with KGB spies and their operatives. Most of the people accused of being spies in that era were just that. In addition, the black listing in Hollywood was done by the studios. The House on Unamerican activities was founded in the 1930s to look for Nazis. No one complained about it until it went after communists. In my mind communist = Nazi.

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield The only revisionist look at appalling world figures/events worth its salt is our long look back at Nixon. He was a brilliant foreign policy president and might even be considered the earliest champion of globalization. The guy's legacy's a mess, but if you look at a lot of his policies, most of which would be considered pragmatic moderate Rockefeller Republicanism, he was a smart motherfucker.

Nixon worked out a peace deal to end the Vietnam war (Kissenger got a nobel prize for it). There was a cease fire. The bombing of Hanoi had forced the vietnames to the paris peace talks. During the Ford administration the North started to break the treaty, but the Congress would not let us do anything to punish the North. They cut of all funding to the South. This was the Democrat congress that swept in under the cloud of watergate.

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield It's funny that Bush runs to comparisons with Reagan and runs away from comparisons to Nixon. He's not worthy to wash either man's jockstrap, but he ought to recognize that, given his record, comparisons to Nixon are something he should foster. Perhaps over time, his handlers can confuse those comparisons, and get people to think they reflect his similarly wise embrace of globalization, rather than the fact that both men lied a lot.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Spanky

The Ottoman Emprire was there for a while, and then the British took over. In that whole time, in that area there has not been a civil war that I am aware of.

Everything I know about the Ottoman Empire I learned in this 90 second history of empires covering the Middle East.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter


Seriously, 10 years from now, what do you think people will remember about the W administration?

It will all come down to Iraq. If ten years from now there is a some what stable democracy in Iraq he will be seen as a hero. He will be seen as a prudent genius who saw what all the pundits didn't. He will be praised for sticking to the course through all the criticism etc. If Iraq turns into a total nightmare he will be seen as a moron who got us into a stupid war. An unsophisticated man who simplified the problem in the middle east, and jumped into something he didn't understand.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Me. the troll. The guy who quit trying to be for real here, leaving you all to banter with only Spank.

I don't know if we ever properly thanked you for this.

I started this morning with a topic that I thought was somewhat interesting, and certainly was unique for this board.

Sorry, I had nothing interesting to say. Thanks for trying.

Hours later, other than SS touch one tangent, you all continue to expound on what the bloggers you have read tell you about the current and past states of Iraq and Afghanistan.

I think you're wrong about this. Most of that information was from Wikipedia, not blogs.

Do you really enjoy this?

Hey, after all that shit the other day, I owed it to Sponky to give him a couple serious responses. But, yeh, I'm getting sick of typing "Quote" over and over.

Fi

Fi

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Me. the troll. The guy who quit trying to be for real here, leaving you all to banter with only Spank.

I started this morning with a topic that I thought was somewhat interesting, and certainly was unique for this board.

Hours later, other than SS touch one tangent, you all continue to expound on what the bloggers you have read tell you about the current and past states of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Do you really enjoy this?

(a) What topic? Maybe I missed it.

(b) I very rarely read blogs, except to see pictures of celebrity crotches.

(c) This is the best conversation we've had on this Board in a long time. In part because we're just talking about something a little interesting and mostly not crapping on each other.

S_A_M

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Just a couple quick facts to correct some misstatements made above.

There was extensive resistance to British occupation prior to 1933. And, as you might expect, the colonized fought among themselves as well as with the British; both tribal and religious differences were fought over.

Polities that have boundries similar to Iraq today have existed through the years. The provinces ruled out of Baghdad under the Ottomans generally reached up into the Tigris foothills, ran down to the gulf, ended somewhere in the desert on the way to Syria, and ran over to a constantly changing Persian border. The boundries of Iraq today may have come from colonial divisions between France and the UK, but they were essential set by the Ottomans. There is some historic rationality to them (unlike, for example, most African colonial borders).

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
the thing is most of what people are saying about Bush and Iraq (not details but the alleged crazy war mongering), people said about Reagan. the more i see/hear from back then the more apparent it is.

Bush will come out as a fairly good president in some uncertain waters.

Reagan would never have done this. Reagan's legacy was similar to Bush I's. He was a pragmatist.

Iraq was a wild bet. Reagan was a cowboy with a quick trigger finger, but he had the good sense not to invade a country the size and polymorphous nature of Iraq and try to manage it. Bush bet on the Iraqis melding. He bet wrong. He'll go down about 25 slots lower than Reagan, and frankly, I can't say he doesn't deserve it. He had a chance to be the start of a new Republican dynsaty, and the ability to roll back the worst elements of the New Deal mindset, and make this country leaner and more competitive in the world market over the next 50 years. He pissed it away on a crazy neocon bet, hoodwinked by a pack of assholes like Kristol, Wolfowitz, Perle and Cheney. At least Rumsfeld was trying to develop a quick strike military force, which is a very good idea. The dumbass neocons fucked that effort up by trying to use it as a police force, the very thing it could never be.

This shitty mess is a great lesson in mob psychology. Everybody got behind Bush after 9/11 like he could do no wrong. Maybe we'll get lucky now and Rudy will ride in to save us. God, can we elect a Rudy/Bloomberg ticket? What a perfect yin/yang.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Gattigap
Everything I know about the Ottoman Empire I learned in this 90 second history of empires covering the Middle East.

Cool.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Spanky
I don't read the National Review, but I agree the left sank us in Vietnam.



I don't support everything that McCarthy did, but his effect has been greatly exagerrated by the left. The witch hunt of the fifties was some what justified because it is now clear from KGB archives that the country was riddled with KGB spies and their operatives. Most of the people accused of being spies in that era were just that. In addition, the black listing in Hollywood was done by the studios. The House on Unamerican activities was founded in the 1930s to look for Nazis. No one complained about it until it went after communists. In my mind communist = Nazi.



Nixon worked out a peace deal to end the Vietnam war (Kissenger got a nobel prize for it). There was a cease fire. The bombing of Hanoi had forced the vietnames to the paris peace talks. During the Ford administration the North started to break the treaty, but the Congress would not let us do anything to punish the North. They cut of all funding to the South. This was the Democrat congress that swept in under the cloud of watergate.

McCarty was dim alcoholic swine. They should've flayed him with rusty razors and hung a flag of his skin in the Capitol to remind people of what happens to that kind. That his grotesque spectacles created a vigilance aginst Communism gives him no pass in my book. Cirrhosis was too kind. He stood for every abuse of power conceivable.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by ironweed
That won't stop the right from coming up with the latest iteration of the "stab in the back" story once the last neocon talking head stops trying to persuade us that victory, moral or otherwise, is still within our grasp.

Spanky and others aren't waiting that long. They're laying the groundwork now.