Politics: A new beginning

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally posted by bilmore
I understand all of that (and I even understand that it was BM, not AH, but felt that such a reference would go right over his head) and my whole effin' point was that post-war UE in G was sort of . . . similar to this situation, and the argument/thesis/theme/crap I'm seeing is analogous to the premise that us entering WWII was fucked up because we left G with high UE. There were some other, maybe more important, considerations.

Jesus, "subtle" just doesn't fly here, does it?

A. I never said it was the most important consideration. It's not. It was an example of how some Iraqis might be pissed off.

B. Why didn't someone tell me that Saddam had attacked all of his neighboring countries and was trying to take over the entire middle east? I would have been all for the war had I known this.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?
Why didn't someone tell me that Saddam had attacked all of his neighboring countries and was trying to take over the entire middle east? I would have been all for the war had I known this.

This was probably not your strongest point.

[Hank Chinaski]

Christy C., that evil dirty player, who has been taking cheap shots at kids, especially Howard Dean's kid's team, finally realizes her days are numbered when H. Dean shows up at the monthly meeting of the soccer Board with compelling evidence of her dirty play.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
from his original post, which said unemployment was 50%, now 70%. look, all I was doing was fighting his argument. till club comes back, I've no time for research

"The Iraqi unemployment rate hovered at 70 percent last month."

http://www.sptimes.com/2003/12/16/Fl..._of_work.shtml

Forgive me for citing the St. Petersburg Times.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally posted by bilmore
This was probably not your strongest point.

Pliff?

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
I understood the basic point you were making, but (since I did not see Coltrane's premise the same way you did) did not see its pertinence.

So I went back, to make sure that I hadn't misread his point. He said, to start, "I'm not sure if this benefit outweighs the embarrassment of an entire country. The Iraqi people right now feel humiliated. I would as well if I was being treated like a savage child. I'd be fucking irate if I had a job pre-Saddam and am now unemployed."

I take that to mean, he's not sure that the benefit of being liberated makes up for the humiliation, one factor of which is the jump in unemployment. So, I stand by my interpretation. He wasn't just saying, yay for the war, now let's fix things faster.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?
"The Iraqi unemployment rate hovered at 70 percent last month."

http://www.sptimes.com/2003/12/16/Fl..._of_work.shtml

Forgive me for citing the St. Petersburg Times.

AAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGG!
I accepted 50/70 numbers. Where I was questioning you was that equaled 3 million new people out of work. It seemed you got the number from looking at the whole population. I will explain no more.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by bilmore
So I went back, to make sure that I hadn't misread his point. He said, .......... I'd be fucking irate if I had a job pre-Saddam and am now unemployed."

I take that to mean, he's not sure that the benefit of being liberated makes up for the humiliation, one factor of which is the jump in unemployment.

guess what color pill he'd take if he were Neo?

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally posted by bilmore


I take that to mean, he's not sure that the benefit of being liberated makes up for the humiliation, one factor of which is the jump in unemployment. So, I stand by my interpretation. He wasn't just saying, yay for the war, now let's fix things faster.

I'm not sure that the benefit of being liberated makes up for the humiliation + Iraqi deaths + American et al soldier deaths + country in disarray + etc.

Although I guess the dead people aren't benefitting from the liberation.

I'm saying, even though we fucked up by going to war, we can't change that now, so let's fix things faster.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

This is an interesting article which appeared on the Stratfor site (subscription section) yesterday which they then mailed around to folks, cross-posted from the Infirmation Board.

Warning to Bilmore -- the second setnence makes it clear that the editors of Stratfor are actually partisan liberal Democrats who will probably vote for Dean and hand our sovereignity to the U.N. So, keep that in mind while reading.


THE STRATFOR WEEKLY
21 January 2004

Beyond Iraq

The Bush Administration never saw the war in Iraq as either a
stand-alone operation or as distinct from the generalized war on
the Islamist movement that al Qaeda was part of. As clumsy and,
at times, devious the public presentation of the war was, it had
a clear logic. Despite ongoing tactical problems in and around
Baghdad, the broad strategic goals of the Iraq campaign are being realized. Therefore, the question now is: What will the next
stage of the U.S.-Islamist war look like?

In order to project forward, it is important to recall the
strategic purpose of the Iraq war. This was two-fold. First, the
United States had to establish its ability to carry out extensive
military operations to the conclusion, despite casualties. The
perception in the Islamic world -- a perception that al Qaeda
attempted to systematically exploit -- was that the United States
was unwilling to undertake the level of effort and endure the
level of pain needed to impose its will on the region. The war in
Afghanistan, rather than proving American will, was seen as the
opposite -- another demonstration that the United States is
averse to casualties and unable to bring a campaign to a
definitive conclusion. [S_A_M Note: Witness the battle at Tora Bora, and the escape of bin Laden.]

The second goal was geopolitical. The United States knew it could
not defeat al Qaeda on the retail level. They were too well
dispersed, too few and too secure. Defeating al Qaeda meant
inducing several enabling countries -- particularly Saudi Arabia.
These countries had little interest in the internal destabilization that engaging al Qaeda would entail, and in some cases, they sympathized with al Qaeda. The United States had no
direct means for inducing these countries to change their
behavior. Iraq -- bordering on Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan,
Syria, Turkey and Iran -- was the single most strategic country
in the region, and a base from which to exert intense pressure
throughout the region.

The occupation of Iraq was intended to solve both problems. By
invading, occupying and pacifying Iraq, the United States would
be able to reverse the perception of American weakness. In
addition, U.S. forces based in the Iraqi pivot, would force
fundamental reconsiderations of national strategies in Saudi
Arabia, Iran and Syria -- and in other countries also.

The strategy ran into a major challenge with the discovery that
the Iraqi government had planned an extended resistance after the collapse of Iraq's conventional forces and the fall of Baghdad.
The United States miscalculated the extent and intensity of Iraqi
resistance and the extended difficulty in suppressing that
resistance. This created a situation, starting in the summer of
2003, and reaching its greatest intensity during the October-
November offensive, in which the United States appeared to have
failed to achieve either of its strategic goals. It appeared
unable to bring the conflict to closure, and its forces appeared
incapable of threatening any neighbor.

The perception had a kernel of truth to it, but only a kernel.
Most of Iraq was not involved in the guerrilla war. Neither the
Kurdish nor the Shiite regions were involved. The war was
confined to the Sunni regions and, when compared to guerrilla
wars in Vietnam or Afghanistan, was neither particularly intense
nor particularly effective. Its significance was magnified by the
Bush administration's consistent and curious inability to manage
public perception of the war's status. The loss of credibility
the administration suffered over weapons of mass destruction and its inability to express a coherent strategic sensibility made
benchmarking the war impossible for the administration.

In spite of this, the behavior of regional powers began to shift.
Saudi Arabia began shifting its behavior before the Iraq war
began, once it realized it could not longer prevent it. Iran
began shifting its behavior by the fall, when it became apparent
to it that the United States was prepared to create a Shiite-
dominated government. All of these processes accelerated in
December 2003, when the United States succeeded in penetrating the Baathist guerrillas' security system and began making headway in shutting down that segment of the insurrection. Attacks today are, in spite of headlines, a small fraction of what they were in October-November 2003.

The situation in January 2004 is startlingly different than it
was in November. The guerrilla movement is contracting, and the
core problems in Iraq have become primarily political, involving
the transfer of power. The Saudis are intensely involved in an
internal conflict with Islamists and are paying a significant
price to wage the war. The Iranians are discussing the public
price of reconciling with the Americans while privately
collaborating. The Libyan government has reversed policies
dramatically, while the Syrians have also begun to search for a
path to policy reversal, having massively miscalculated the
course of the Iraq war in the summer of 2003.

Finally -- and this may be the single most important fact --
threats that an explosion in the Islamic world would follow a
U.S. invasion of Iraq proved to be in error. The single most
important fact is that the genuine anger in the Islamic street
has not had any political repercussions. Rather than trending
away from the United States, the political behavior of Islamic
states has been toward alignment. This tendency has accelerated since the decline in guerrilla activity until it is difficult to locate an Islamic state that overtly opposes the United States.
When even Syria is asserting its desire to cooperate with the
United States, the situation is utterly different than what some
expected in February 2003, before the war began.

The situation, therefore, is much better than the administration
had any right to expect last fall and substantially better than
the general perception. It might be put this way. Even while the
tactical situation in Iraq deteriorated, the strategic situation
in the region improved. Once the tactical situation in Iraq
improved, the improvement in the strategic situation accelerated.

The United States is in the process of securing -- to the extent
anything in the Middle East can be called secure -- the Middle
East from the Nile to the western reaches of the Hindu Kush. All
of the states on this line are aligned with the United States or
in the process of aligning to the extent that they are no longer
willing to facilitate al Qaeda in any way, and are prepared to
act against the Sunni Islamist movement. That is an extraordinary
achievement, but is not in itself sufficient.

First, the situation throughout this line remains fluid and can
deteriorate. Second, the Arabian Peninsula has not stabilized and
is likely to remain a battleground in which al Qaeda will seek to
reverse its fortunes by destabilizing the Saudi regime and, if
possible, bringing it down. Third, the situation in the Hindu
Kush is, from the U.S. point of view, entirely unsatisfactory. Al
Qaeda remains embedded in that region, particularly in the
Pakistani Northwest Territories, and the war cannot be concluded
until al Qaeda loses its Pakistani sanctuaries -- as well as
whatever footholds it retains on the Afghan side of the border.
Indeed, the situation in Afghanistan itself appears to be
deteriorating.

From the U.S. point of view, therefore, the next steps are
obvious. First, having changed regime behavior in Saudi Arabia,
it is now in U.S. interests to stabilize the situation there and
prevent the fall of the Saudi government, or facilitate a shift
to a more favorable regime. Since the latter is unlikely in the
extreme, it follows that the next step must be a change in policy
that is more supportive of the current regime but still rigidly
opposed to al Qaeda. This will be difficult to achieve.

Second, the United States must, at some point, liquidate the
remnants of al Qaeda in the Afghan-Pakistani theater of
operations. Ideally, the Pakistani army will bear the burden of
moving into the tribal areas in the northwest and will do the job
for the United States. In reality, it is extremely unlikely that
the Pakistani military will have the ability or motivation to
undertake that mission. Therefore, it is likely that the United
States will try to close out the war with a final offensive into
northwestern Pakistan, preferably with the approval of a stable
Pakistani government, but if that is impossible, then on its own.

We would be very surprised if the United States launched this
offensive prior to its elections. The administration has no
appetite for another military campaign until the election is
finished. Therefore, we would expect the United States to be in a
defensive mode until November 2004. It will seek to consolidate
its position in Iraq and in the Egyptian-Iranian line. It will
work to assist the Saudi government, while carrying out covert
operations throughout the region to mop up identified remnants of al Qaeda. This could include increased operations in northeastern Africa and in Afghanistan. Until then, the task of General John Abizaid, head of Central Command, will be to focus on developing a plan for moving into al Qaeda's homeland, if you will, and terminating the war by liquidating the final command centers. Assuming that the preference is not to launch this campaign during the winter -- not necessarily a fixed principle -- the offensive would take place in spring 2005.

Al Qaeda's mission is to prevent this end game. It has three
potential strategies, all of which can be used together. The
first is to intensify its operations in Saudi Arabia to such a
degree that regime survival is in doubt and the United States is
forced to intervene. We cannot help but note that in the rotation
of forces into Iraq, an excessive amount of armor for the mission
remains there. It is excessive for Iraq, but not if U.S. forces
should be forced to move into Saudi Arabia. If al Qaeda can bog
the United States down on the Arabian Peninsula, it might by time for itself in its redoubt.

The second strategy is to completely destabilize Pakistan. It is
no accident that two attempts have been made on President Pervez Musharraf's life. There will be more. There are powerful forces within Pakistani intelligence and military that oppose Musharaf's alliance with Washington and sympathize with al Qaeda. You can add to this number those who would oppose any American intervention in Pakistan under any circumstances. Invading the northwest while Musharraf is nominally in control of the country is one thing. Invading in the face of a hostile government or total chaos is another. The United States does not have the forces to occupy and pacify Afghanistan or Pakistan. It has what it needs to execute a large-scale raid against al Qaeda.
Therefore, it is al Qaeda's strategy to protect its redoubt by intensifying operations in Afghanistan and in Pakistan.

Finally, al Qaeda might seek to break U.S. will by conducting
extreme operations in the United States, obviously focusing on
weapons of mass destruction. Al Qaeda's initial read of the
United States was that it didn't really have the stomach for this
war. It is unclear how al Qaeda reads the current political
situation in the United States. Indeed, that situation is not
altogether clear. However, if al Qaeda determines that the United
States lacks the will to prosecute the war in the face of massive
U.S. civilian casualties, it might try to carry out an extreme
attack. Certainly, Sept. 11 did not achieve what al Qaeda wanted. Therefore, another attack on the order of Sept. 11 is unlikely. It is not clear if al Qaeda can carry out a more extreme
operation, or if it views such an operation as helpful, but the
strategic possibility remains.

We would, therefore, expect that between now and the U.S.
elections, it will appear that Islamist forces have the
initiative. They will press hard in both Saudi Arabia and
Pakistan, and the United States will appear to be in a passive
and defensive mode. In fact, during the next nine months, in our
opinion, the United States will be engaged in intense
preparations, coupled with defensive actions designed to shore up the Saudi and Pakistani regimes.

The fundamental issue now is what al Qaeda and its Islamist
allies can achieve between now and November. This is their open
window and the period in which they must reverse the direction
the war has taken. If the current trend continues, and the Saudi
and Pakistani regimes survive, the United States will attack in
Pakistan; Al Qaeda, an organization that took a decade to create,
will be shattered. The Islamist movement will become a widely
held sentiment rather than an effective politico-military force.
Contrary to popular opinion, it is not really that easy to
construct a group such as al Qaeda, which is effective and
resistant to intelligence.

Therefore, the United States has had an extremely good few
months. It has recovered from its imbalance in Iraq -- and
although the resistance has not been destroyed, it is in the
process of being contained. The U.S. strategic position has
improved markedly, to the point that it is actually possible to
begin glimpsing the end game. But between the glimpse of the end game and the end, there is al Qaeda, which must move vigorously now to reverse its losses and regain the initiative.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?
I'm not sure that the benefit of being liberated makes up for the humiliation + Iraqi deaths + American et al soldier deaths + country in disarray + etc.

Although I guess the dead people aren't benefitting from the liberation.

I'm saying, even though we fucked up by going to war, we can't change that now, so let's fix things faster.

The most reliable current figures from NGOs suggest that Saddam's Baathist regime killed about 300,000 Iraqis, not counting casualties of the Iran-Iraq war, Desert Storm, or Operation Whatever in 2003.

That comes to about 10,000 Iraqis per year.

While all agree that estimates are shaky, a consensus seems to be forming around a ceiling of a bit over 10,000 Iraqis killed (military & civilian) in Operation Whatever.

So, assuming the U.S. can stabilize Iraq and produce a more-or-less democracy. The Iraqi people as a whole will be net better off in less than two years. Whether or not many see it that way in the short term, they will in the long-term. So sorry about any humilation to the national pride suffered while we crushed a totalitarian dictator and his kleptocracy.

S_A_M

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
Warning to Bilmore -- the second setnence makes it clear that the editors of Stratfor are actually partisan liberal Democrats who will probably vote for Dean and hand our sovereignity to the U.N. So, keep that in mind while reading.

This is intellectually lazy and weak. If you are disputing that the bias or leanings or undercurrent of an author or source are material to a proper analysis of a writing, say so, so we can all laugh out loud. If you are saying that I have wrongly attributed such bias to specific authors or sources, say that too, and we can hash that out. But, frankly, when I constantly see the hard-core liberal pundits being cited here as neutral sources of raw data, my reponse is going to be a constant harping on why one should probably not cosider their opinions and musings to be raw data. If I do it too often for you, consider maybe that that is a reflection on how often people here cite from crap.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
The most reliable current figures from NGOs suggest that Saddam's Baathist regime killed about 300,000 Iraqis, not counting casualties of the Iran-Iraq war, Desert Storm, or Operation Whatever in 2003.

That comes to about 10,000 Iraqis per year.

While all agree that estimates are shaky, a consensus seems to be forming around a ceiling of a bit over 10,000 Iraqis killed (military & civilian) in Operation Whatever.

So, assuming the U.S. can stabilize Iraq and produce a more-or-less democracy. The Iraqi people as a whole will be net better off in less than two years. Whether or not many see it that way in the short term, they will in the long-term. So sorry about any humilation to the national pride suffered while we crushed a totalitarian dictator and his kleptocracy.

S_A_M

I understand and hope they are better off. I just have never liked the idea of comparing lives in the aggregate. Rather than being people, they're an efficiency model. But it makes it easier for us to justify it this way because they seem less...human.

Of course, this all goes back to the fact that we didn't go there to decrease aggregate long-term deaths.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?
It doesn't surprise me that it doesn't matter to you. What the fuck do you care? You just sit in front of the computer all day in that law library in your cushy chair. No one has come around to knock the dick out YOUR mouth. Yet.

Lighten up, Francis.

[spookyfish]

Originally posted by bilmore
I always liked how Hitler made the trains run on time. Seems a shame we had to disturb that.

You could have won this argument had you accurately attibuted that to Mussolini, but since you had to invoke der Fuhrer, board rules dictate that you must move back two spaces and lose a turn.

Timmyfish

ETA: Damn S_A_M! Either there were a lot of posters in the last few minutes, or... well, nevermind.