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According to the latest news, they are now in Tikrit:
Any predictions? Could this be a further step towards an Iraq separated into different entities for Shias, Sunnis and Kurds? Will borders be redrawn now that there's open war in both Syria and Iraq? Or will there be an international military intervention?Quote:
Officials say militants are now in control of some parts of Tikrit - Saddam Hussein's hometown which lies just 150km (95 miles) north of Baghdad.
In my opinion, the two most likely conclusions are:
Option #1 A strongman will establish dictatorial rule over Iraq after a short but bloody civil war. This leader would take pains to NOT work with the Islamists and studiously avoid WMDs, thus undercutting support to oust the new ruler a la Saddam.
Option #2 Iraq will continue as it is on a macro level, but the three principal ethnic groups will end up in largely autonomous sub-states with their own armed militias. There will be a central government for UN interaction and certain civic projects, but it be left with only a token military and will function largely as a way to skim money off the top for the office holders. There will be constant "incidents" between the sectors, but nothing prolonged. Bagdad will be "neutral" territory for all and the most corrupt portion of the whole country.
Not at all sure which is more likely.
I think that ends up yielding Option #1 by a different route, but you may very well be correct.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube
Bold move, after their drug smuggling and gun-running went awry. While their stock of nerve gas should be enough to keep the US on the sidelines, an offensive while their best agent is on maternity leave might not be the best course of action.
Who would this guy be? Politician? Cleric? General (or Gods forbid: a colonel)?Quote:
Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh
I suppose another options that the Iraqi army launches a successful counterattack and reverse the recent gains of ISIS. Though, if I interpret things correctly, they've already held other cities in Iraq for some time; making this option seem slightly less likely (from link in OP):
Quote:
It has already taken over Ramadi and Falluja, but taking over Mosul is a far greater feat than anything the movement has achieved so far, and will send shockwaves throughout the region
From problematic Regional Power to ethnically and religiously divided cluster:quiet:
Is this what Bush meant by "Mission Accomplished"?
How would Option #1 help the ruler? It clearly didn't work out for Saddam.
Where was his WMDs?
Saddam was on the Al Qaeda hit list. The Islamicists hated him including the Saudis.
The bogus torturous reasons to go into Iraq make no sense. AQ 911 operators were majority Saudi and funded as such. But who gets attacked? The enemy of the enemy.
I wrote it in the spirit of "by loudly and believably proclaiming no islamist/wmd ties or aspirations" that such a strongman would undercut any vestiges of support that might linger to create a Gulf War 3. My purpose was NOT to act as an apologist for Gulf 2. That would be a separate thread.Quote:
Originally Posted by Papewaio
People learn from experience. And experience teaches us that only WMD stops Western intervention ie North Korea (China), Iran (itself), Syria (Itself/Russia) etc
Supporting hardline Islamic beliefs hasn't hindered Saudi Arabia either.
I didn’t follow closely Iraq so I was surprised by the news: fall of Mosul and now Tikrit, and the complete failure of Iraqis’ Army to even stand the ground. If BBC is to be believed, these forces just vanished…
Side remark, it is not good news for Afghanistan Forces and prospect of holding the lines there as they were trained by the same armies on the same frame and methods.
However, the “insurgents” appear to come from Syria (if news is right, they crossed Turkey’s territory where they were training against Assad with the good will of the Turkish Government).
So, they changed their goal and attacked a softer target, but, ignored the Kurdish zone where a sense of belonging (nationality) is stronger than the religious belonging.
It looks to me more like a razzia, as Bedouins used to do, than a real war of conquest. It could be just to spread chaos and disruption operation and wait to see what happened after the dust settles than a power conquest.
They will have to administrate the conquered territory, and if it is a quiet easy to push unwilling to fight armies, it is something else to provide electricity, water, and markets place to population as US and UK learned it few years ago, and that is the key to control and keep population. Failing to do this will create the same reaction experienced by the Coalition of Willing and Islamic Fighters will have to face Tribal Fighters much more motivated than Iraqis Troopers (not really difficult mind you).
Seems to be ineed their plan.
And not only according to the BBC the Iraqi army fails.
I think Option 1 is the most likely, because I can not see a basis upon which a strongman could erect his rule. The tribal militias seem to work however. Note how Al Sadr already demands the creation of sectarian militias in one of the articles. The split would probably be in between Kurdistan (which is already only loosely connected to Baghdad), Shiites and Sunnis. I dont know too much, about the Iraqi population, though. Do the Sunni and Shiite groups live in the same areas or is there a clearly Sunni and a clearly Shia part of Iraq?
This is supposed to be a CIA map from 2003:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
According to this, there is a clear divide between Sunnis in the west and northwest , Kurds in the north and Shias in the east and northeast. As one would expect, there are also sizeable mixed areas.
Why wasn't that evacuated? Or destroyed?Quote:
Originally Posted by Fisherking
This requires immediate intervention, or it becomes another Syria.
There will be no intervention.
So, more war, more destroyed cities, more suffering.
:wall:
So that's Syria, Ukraine, and now Iraq, where you want intervention. What was that post where you complained about the UK paying excessive amounts to the EU's central funds? I can see the point of building up a European economy, which will in turn bolster our position as a trading bloc. What do we gain from intervening in Iraq and Syria? A sense of well being and brownie points in our next incarnation?Quote:
Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla
That will make Cyril happy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fisherking
Is there no end to the nightmare for the ordinary Iraqi citizins. I feel sooooo stupid for being totally in favour of attacking Iraq, I was so wrong. It wasn't me who did that of course, but I would have made the exact same mistakes when in charge.
If the outcome is that is Iraq split into more sustainable entities, that could be very good news in the long run. Iraq in its current state has been a violent and bloody mess.Quote:
Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla
That's why we don't put people like you in charge of the worlds grandest army. Instead we put level headed professionals who... Oh who am I kidding?Quote:
Originally Posted by Fragony
Jobs, and repeat orders?Quote:
Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube
Seriously, though: air strikes won't play well, at all. All it will do is reinforce the notion that you can always count on the USA to make a bad situation still worse somehow. At least, that is more or less the sentiment among Iraqi expats I know: basically, Saddam was bad but at least your extended family wasn't murdered left right and center by any random upjumped nutter with a gun and inflated ego.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard to the rescue?
What kind of intelligence assets did we have in the area that no one saw this coming? The best time to stop ISIS was before they started capturing major cities. Now, it's a mess.Quote:
Two battalions of the Quds Forces have been sent to the advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an al Qaeda offshoot that took control of Iraq’s second-largest city Mosul and Tikrit in recent days.
I'll play.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xiahou
My guess would be: The exact same kind of intelligence assets that had proof of WMDs.
it will be more of a challenge to to take it from them next timeQuote:
Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube
The USA -- reacting to a combination of war weariness, financial distress, and a veritable barrage of (often justifiable) criticism of the tenor or its actions -- has more or less quit being the de facto "world policeman." Since many (most?) cultures do not inherently respect the rule of law as something worthwhile of itself, and absent a policemen to encourage order, the result is all sorts of parties pursuing their agenda without much regard for the opinions of others. And why shouldn't they? It is logical to do so when you know that you can get away with it and that someone might change the policy back later on -- get while the getting is good.
Im loving this. I'm not even going to begin to attack the hasty withdrawal from Iraq by this admin for political reasons, because it will just go in a cycle blaming Bush and the neocons for destabilizing the nation 10 years ago through invasion.
What can be blamed is US isolationism and the overt cowardice of the Admin when faced with the humanitarian crisis in Syria. We couldn't even enforce our own prohibition on chemical weapons use as pretext to exterminate ISIL and Assad's forces while propping up the FSA and Kurdish forces. Inaction and cowardice is responsible for this. I hope that everyone who was against intervention in Syria is happy with the outcome that you have chosen.
I'm pretty sure that they were perfectly aware of the fact that the Saddam regime did not have any weapons of mass destruction.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kadagar_AV
On the other hand, manipulating the people in order to accept an offensive war, by making them believe that it will save them from a direct threat is an excellent way to start one gentleman's way.
Finally, a bit of "searching", to convince them that we were honestly preoccupied about the weapons, with the inevitable admittance of our "mistake".
Slopping agencies sounds much better than lying authorities.
I think now would be the perfect time for US to cooperate with Iran to get this mess sorted out. Otherwise we might soon be having an country run by extremist covering both Syria and Iraq.
What I've learned is that situations like Syria, Bosnia, Libya are ideal for us to get involved in, while countries who are irksome but not spiralling out of control should just be undermined. This is what happens when you ignore a catastrophe on the level of Syria - it spreads.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube
If I could go back, I still would have supported Afghanistan, but would have tried to find other ways of undermining Saddam.
Since this offensive started, I've quietly rooted for the insurgents. Not ISIS, mind you. I both think and hope that ISIS would be defeated by local militias once the national Iraqi army does not seem like a threat anymore. Reading this increases my faith in this scenario:
I am not sure what an autonmous Eastern Iraq would want to do, whether to join Syria, be independent or be one of 2-3 federal states within Iraq. Their current goal seems to be to topple Maliki's government, which I can't see much good coming out of. I wish them bad luck on that point.Quote:
The MCIR [Military Councils of Iraqi Revolutionaries] claims that overall, its fighters are the most significant element in the revolt, with tribal militants in second place, and ISIS only third despite the media attention they command.
When Sunni rebels took over the city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, in January, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki asked the Kurds to send peshmerga forces to help drive them out, sources say.
But the request was turned down. The Kurdish leadership's message to the MCIR conversely was that Irbil would not be against the Sunnis taking the road of establishing their own autonomous area, following the lead of Kurdistan itself.
That would clearly not apply if ISIS emerged as the dominant force in self-administering Sunni areas. Its philosophy and practices are so extreme that it has even been disavowed by its parent leadership, the international al-Qaeda movement headed by Osama Bin Laden's successor Ayman al-Zawahiri.
A future scenario where the Kurdish forces helped "moderate" elements such as the MCIR to oust ISIS is not hard to envisage.
You mean stable countries should be undermined to get them to a level of instability where you think an intervention is feasible?Quote:
Originally Posted by ICantSpellDawg
Meantime another SNAFU.
http://mobile.wnd.com/2014/06/200-u-...fLuq3XwBbZW.01
Poor bastards. I hope they are good.
And what is with Iraq to the rescue? This mess does not bode well on any front.
The US is either caught flat footed on intel or involved in it. It is beyond belief or comprehension.
When will we see the picture of Iraqi refugees surrounding the last chopper out of Baghdad?
Yes Iran.
Iraq has been asking for help for quite some time so this is something we let happen for sure.
What ever is going down is for strictly political reasons on the part of the US.
I am not for troops on the ground but I can still see it as a betrayal.
Your dignity or your security. It was their choice of course, but the options were ones we decided upon.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube
And I maintain the same argument that I made in 2003, that Iraq was a problem that should have been left to Saddam rather than taking it on ourselves, and that the biggest problem with the whole affair wasn't that it was ethically wrong or founded on lies, but that it was so plainly stupid and unnecessary. I'm not so bothered by my country's decisionmakers being liars and cheats, but I do expect more of them than that they should be idiots who waste our money for a lack of gain that was obvious from the beginning.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube
I disagree. :shrug:Quote:
Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube
My mistake for misinterpreting you. I don't think any amount of time would have had Iraq become what we imagined it to be. I am just mad that we destabilized an entire country and worked against our own efforts for literally nothing. Nothing that can be done at this point but let Iraq fragment and see if we can work with the Kurds and Shia's.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube
That sums it up perfectly. What a waste. Is it any wonder why millennial's are apathetic when the US started the 21st century under the policies of Bush?Quote:
Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube
We do not have what it takes to be a Great Power.
We need to vacate the field for the real contestants: China and Russia.
Go back to the Monroe Doctrine and spend a couple of decades building real relationships with the rest of the New World.
The Old World will get along just fine without our boorish efforts.
It only gets worse.
The US arms sent to Syria that helped arm these guys and this http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...years-ago.html
We are Imperialistic. It is all about the money of course and making a safe business environment for the banks and corporations funding our politicians and directing policy.
A decent take from today:Quote:
Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh
I’d say eight years of blood and treasure and failure in Iraq is enough. Unless, like Wieseltier, you see the entire planet as a patient and America as the only nurse. [...]
So let me put this as kindly as I can. We lost 5,000 young Americans trying to keep this centrifugal country in one piece. After eight years, and huge expenses in training and equipping the Iraqi army, we bear no blame and never have for the pathological sectarianism of so many Arab countries, culturally or politically. And it’s time to have enough self-respect to say so. The sanest, wisest way to wriggle out of this trap is precisely to do nothing – again and again – until the pathology of dependence is finished.
Hey, you guys won 2 elections. Let's try it your way for a while, see how it goes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemur
This. You understand how to supplant a culture/nation, you just don't have the will.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube
Extermination of the existing population and declaring the land open for settlement worked well in the past; selling such a policy to your citizens is much tougher.
Translation: Filthy WOGs.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemur
Let's be clear, America, along with the UK and France, is directly responsible for every stage of this mess. The partitioning after WWI, the establishment of Israel after WWII, the toppling of the relatively progressive monarchs in favour of Tyrants during the Cold War, and then the post-Cold War invasions, along with the Soviet-Afghan War which has created not one but two generations of Jihadist fighters, and the failure to support Israel even when it tries it's best to emulate Nazi Germany.
Before you disagree with the last, remember the Israelis state was sterilising "Black Jews" to keep the race pure.
Now, let me quote the bit right before the bit you quoted:
I love this formulation: hegemony means inaction is action, so there’s no difference between the two!
Yes, that is what it means. If you have the power to act and choose not to, then you have chosen and becomes responsible. What the writer is saying is that Iraq is not worth dead Americans, implicit in this is that Americans are, as individuals, worth more than Iraqis. If he had said, "intervening will not help" then that would be one thing, but what he said was "we have already expended enough blood."
Oh, and Vietnam was winnable, had the NVA been crushed in the North.
Unconfirmed pictures appearing of ISIS massacring captured government soldiers. Link via journalist Jenan Moussa. Nasty stuff.
On another note, a highly accurate cartoon of what happened in Mosul; I suppose:
https://i.imgur.com/LBCPIs5.jpg
Friends like these:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...ding-isis.html
Pretty much comfirmed that about 1700 executions took place, these guys aren't kidding.Quote:
Originally Posted by Viking
For the sake of discussion, let's all accept that. Everything happening in Iraq can and must be laid at our door. Cool.Quote:
Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla
By that logic, are we (the U.S., U.K., and France) obliged to make a generational commitment of unlimited treasure and blood? Even if the Iraqis themselves do not want to be our colony? Do we stand over them, protecting them, shouldering the white man's burden indefinitely, in the hopes that they will grow into something that more resembles our ideals? How long can we sustain that? How long will the Iraqis tolerate it?
Infinite occupation of a place that doesn't really want you there has not worked out well for: the U.K., Russia, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and many other would-be colonial powers. Why do we imagine indefinite occupation of Iraq would be different?
To Americans, yes, Americans are more valuable than Iraqis. I don't sere how that's amoral or wicked; every society values its own a bit more. You'd be more shocked by a guy down the street getting run over than you would be by 300 people dying in a ferry accident in Bangladesh. That's not some horrible racist thing; that's a perfectly normal response. I'm sure Iraqis value Iraqi lives more than they would American lives. And why on Earth not?Quote:
Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla
Holy hell, that was a bloody fast advance. When did this thing start again, on Monday? And they reached the cities to the north of Baghdad? Didn't the US use a 3-week bombing campaign until they got that far?
How on earth did they manage that?
And no, Frags, 1700 is not "pretty much confirmed". Isis has reported 1700, the Iraqi government has confirmed some 50-ish people, with guesses going anywhere in between. They've obviously executed pow's, but how many is a wide open question.
No, not an indefinite commitment, but a "generational" commitment was required, that being roughly 25 years - and America in particular does not spend blood if it can spend bombs instead - this is a flaw in the American doctrine of occupation from at least Vietnam onwards.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemur
What is required to persuade the Iraqis that America are the "Good Guys" are lots of dead Americans, considerably more than five thousand, in particular what is required are dead American soldiers instead of dead Iraqi Civilians.
The requisite narrative you need Iraqi mothers to tell their sons is, "The Islamists came and killed your father, but then the Americans came and fought them off."
What Iraqi mothers actually tell their sons is probably more like, "The Americans found some Islamists here, so they dropped some bombs and one killed your father."
Maybe you'd find that more shocking - I find the fact that we think using unmanned drones to drop bombs to be an effective form of assassination pretty shocking, and I find it even more shocking that we use air power in occupied areas rather than infantry.Quote:
To Americans, yes, Americans are more valuable than Iraqis. I don't sere how that's amoral or wicked; every society values its own a bit more. You'd be more shocked by a guy down the street getting run over than you would be by 300 people dying in a ferry accident in Bangladesh. That's not some horrible racist thing; that's a perfectly normal response. I'm sure Iraqis value Iraqi lives more than they would American lives. And why on Earth not?
It's stupid - it shows that we aren't willing to die for our principles, we'd rather risk collateral damage than the lives of our own men. It's no wonder they hate us.
As a general metric, I would say that the Iraqi civilian, or any civilian, is worth roughly two American soldiers at least. So, if your bombing strike kills 10 Iraqi's you would need to show that going in and finding those guys on foot would cost 20 American lives before you could reasonably say that was the best choice, operationally.
This isn't a moral question so much as a practical one - there's no point occupying somewhere at all if it's not going to have a net positive affect on the occupied. 5,000 dead Americans and a few hundred dead Brits is nothing compared to the thousands of Iraqi's who died and continue to die.
In this day and age, no one will ever commit to a 25 year occupation, especially one that requires deaths of soldiers as you describe. To be honest, I don't quite understand why you seem to paint modern conflicts as "war without the war". Just because it looks bad that we are able to replace human deaths with drones and bombs doesn't mean we should switch gears and start throwing young men into the meat grinder.Quote:
Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla
That's all fine but then maybe you should not go in and expect them to love you after ten years. I think that is what PVC is trying to say indirectly. It's easy to blame them for not understanding you, but maybe it's because you're not really communicating it right.
Or in other words, if there is a left way and a right way and you go down the middle, you may end up on rough ground.
And I'm not claiming that any of this is universally true/applicable.
If the US, or any other nations, wants an occupied country to love them after 10 years, they have no choice but to do it as if they were occupying Washington DC.Quote:
Originally Posted by Husar
Anything less is going to make people hate your guts. And the US occupation of Iraq has definitely not been done the same way as if they were occupying parts of the US.
Either change strategy, or suck it up and accept being hated(with reason).
No, I get that the US wasn't killing Iraqi's, and I get that you guys had a horrid time of it, I really do. However, what the Iraqi's did not see was Americans dying FOR them, and that's why you lacked the "grass roots" support you needed, and that was why it was a waste of your time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube
From Vietnam onwards US military actions have been characterised by a lack of genuine operational commitment, this has led to quite a few dead Americans, lots wasted money and no successes other than Desert Storm.Quote:
Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name
One can only conclude that when the world's only Super Power cannot win even a minor war that something it wrong at the strategic level.
Alternatively, do it the WW2 way and obliterate the enemy country in alliance with an infinitely worse partner, then occupy the obliterated enemy with you and your partner as direct comparisons of how life could be. You'll also need to wait for your enemy to invade someone first. So for PVC's plan to work, we should have bombed Iraq to the Stone Age after GW1, then occupied Iraq with Iran and Turkey having their own zones.Quote:
Originally Posted by HoreTore
Doesn't that scenario also require that the USA wait until the other side declares war? And that the USA have no real air force to speak of.
that is a moral position.Quote:
Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla
it is also a position i broadly agree with, and i say this as someone who supported the iraq war in 2003.
hague would probably call it "the enlightened national interest".
i made two mistakes:
1. in underestimating the colossal mess the occupation would make in not occupying iraq. disbanding the army and de-baath'ing the government was idiocy. rumsfelds light-weight invasion was brilliant, his light-weight occupation was stupid. when castigating the coalitions disgraceful lack of post-war planning, how do we assess the wilful intransigience of Clare Short in preventing her DfID department from contributing to post-war planning?
2. in overestimating the capability to the british army to take part in 2003 while continuing afghan. arguably, in joining in with iraq we prolonged the bloodshed in Afghanistan by five years through neglecting the country at a time when it needed our political and military attention.
i'm not one of those getting my knickers in a twist over illegal wars. as far i am concerned there was legitimate motive for doing so, and parliament said yes, end of. that does not mean however that we should have done it, because it fails your test above, and in so failing likewise failed to make the act in our national interest, let alone enlightened.
I don't know that it does us much good at this late date, but you are 100% correct. Those two moves were probably the most damning things out of a large mess of bad choices—worse than the decision to invade in the first place. The importance of the army disbandment and gov't sunni purge cannot be overstated.Quote:
Originally Posted by Furunculus
On the bright side, maybe this crisis will push Iran and the U.S. into being the allies/frenemies we were always meant to be?
[T]he Obama administration said it is preparing to open direct talks with Iran on how the two longtime foes can counter the insurgents.
The U.S.-Iran dialogue, which is expected to begin this week, will mark the latest in a rapid move toward rapprochement between Washington and Tehran over the past year. [...]
The U.S. and Iran have publicly committed in recent days to provide military support if requested to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and help his government repel an offensive the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, has launched against Baghdad and other major Iraqi cities over the past week.
Legal or not, it doesn't make the Iraq war any less stupid, which is the barometer I use for judging a government's decision to go to war in this day and age. Back in 2003, I predicted that the country would fall apart due to contesting interests, and our lack of stomach for taking the measures necessary to suppress these interests. As such, I wanted us to stay out and leave it to Saddam to deal with that mess of a country. It's hard to argue that I was wrong in any way.Quote:
Originally Posted by Furunculus
I don't know about the rest of you, but I find it hard to think that the outcome is other than intended.
Militias allowed to arm, army all but disbanded
Allies of US, Brit and France funding the "insurgents"
Devolving Iraq from regional power to splintered cluster:daisy:
Mission Accomplished indeed.
Guess the figured it was time to raise oil prices.
It's easy to believe that Bilderberger or Illuminati is behind US foreign politics, merely because it's unfathomable to believe the US acted in their self interest, heck, even world or human interest at large.
But you know, never believe conspiracy theories, if it can be explained simply by people being absolutely retarded.
“Allies of US, Brit and France funding the "insurgents"” Worse than that, providing volunteers to go to fight for the Jihad…
This is the result of Assad the Bad against the nice insurgents, all democratic as err… I don’t know.
We had a French President who was ready to in war just like this, so it was ok to fight against Assad and his chemical weapons, indeed. So they went. Of course, they were supporting a totalitarian Islamic utopia, but were compare the International Brigades when they should have been seen as the Waffen-SS.
Media choose to ignore who were the “freedom” fighters and the ideology they serve, all against the tyrant (not the Dune’s one)… There you have the result. F:daisy: it...
Cultures accept the rule of law as paramount to the rule of power or of the individual or they do not.
Invading and winning where the rule of law is accepted can yield a relatively brief occupation followed by the formation of a working state (e.g. Post ww2 West Germany; Post ww2 Italy).
Invading and winning where the rule of law is not accepted likely yields nothing but a delay in the return to violence and warlordism unless you are willing to have the occupation last 35 years and create a new generation with a new culture.
I am still awed by MacArthur's success with Japan following ww2....though it is fairer to think of it as Japanese success with a dash of help from Dugout Doug.
Another way of doing it is to do as the British did after the Indian Mutiny, taking exceptionally harsh measures against the active perpetrators (eg. blowing ringleaders from cannon), before re-adjusting to old pre-British power structures with the British on top, and visibly on top. Imperialism, in other words.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh
I thought Japan was very traditional/honour-based which is compatible with rule-of-law, or am I mistaken?Quote:
Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh
Isn't the Iraq "war" won?
My oh my, I seem to recall some half-moronic president stating so.
Question to anyone still believing Iraq is a just "war": Explain how the war could be won, or how you have had steps towards an actuall win?
A variation on my second choice. You stayed long enough to change the culture substantially. Caste system largely broken; significant respect for rule of law developed; some belief in democratic institutions. Still too much graft, but not a bad culture shift for roughly one century.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kadagar_AV
Why do you still fall for the media-fueled all U.S. conservatives are morons all U.S. liberals are intelligent crap? You are fully aware of morons on both sides of Sweden's political spectrum. You don't succumb to Sweden's media view that all anti-immigration reactionaries must be morons. Why do you presume a U.S. President saying things is anything OTHER than political posturing. You can excoriate EVERY U.S. President of the last half century....or more....for statements they made that were subsequently proved wrong/innacurate/short-sighted. I daresay you could do so with virtually any executive branch the world over.
Try this radical thought on for size....NONE of our world leaders are stupid. NONE of them are omniscient either. Almost all of them grandstand a bit. Put it in perspective please.
BS.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh
It wasn't the caste system who started WWII, nor developed atomic bombs. Heck, they don't even do international terrorism.
If that doesn't sell the argument: They have had nothing to do with bank structures nor the IMF.
It seems like a VERY ************************************* cultural shift comparing to that, no?
Or do I read something wrong here?
Invasion and conquest more or less as conducted.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kadagar_AV
Presume 1-2% of Iraqi population will go active insurgent.
a. Commit troops sufficient to generate a 7.5-1 ratio of garrison forces to insurgents so as to suppress the insurgency.
1. Efforts must be made to minimize collateral damage among civilians, but human shields cannot be allowed to deter counterstrikes.
2. Insurgents captured should be screened and categorized: low levels/redeemables to be put in reeducation camps, interrogated using interviews of a benign nature; leaders/hardliners & foreign volunteers shot.
b. Commit Army Corps of Engineers, Medical services, etc. to start hearts and minds efforts.
c. Rebuild and enhance the infrastructure of the area
d. Train all youth in schools to begin changing framework of thinking.
Steps a-d must continue for 10-40 years, with a draw-down of troops as insurgency withers.
The USA does not have enough of a dark side to do those steps very well.
Pan was commenting on the policies and efforts of the British raj, post-mutiny. My comment referred to that. While far from flawless, modern India is a state that emphasizes the rule of law, gives some scope for self determination, etc. India had nothing to do with starting WW2 save as a member of the Empire. Their atomic weapons were developed as a means to counter potential Chinese and Pakistani aggression. I don't think the IMF comes into play addressing India at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kadagar_AV
I think you went off on a tangent here.
Pre WW2 it was a military junta wrapped around a cult of the Emperor.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiaexz
Their military used beatings as normal discipline and an officer could kill a private soldier for a mistake....and risk a reprimand for leaving the regiment short a soldier til the replacement came.
Imperial Japan had the trappings of parliamentarianism, but not the substance.
I could pick your whole post apart... But it's to stupid to waste my time on.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh
In short (as it doesnt really deserve much time).
1. India as part of the British empire and on, is part of the politics. They are thus blamable when it comes to international politics.
2. Atomic weapons are atomic weapons. Heck, I have citizenship in two countries actively NOT going for nuclear weapons, this with Russia/formerly Soviet as neighbor.
3. If you don't think the IMF comes into play addressing India, you are not only ill schooled, you seem to fail at internet.
I keep thinking about the western heritage, things like the Thirty Years War, which was a bloodbath of Rwandan proportions. We went through this. We did this to ourselves, long before cable news and cell phones. Then I stumbled across this depressing nugget of wisdom:
It took the Thirty Years war to finally purge the enthusiasm of sectarianism from the cultural DNA of Europeans (and even then, religious minorities were second class citizens for centuries). There will be no calm reasoning with Iraqis of any stripe because the march of history continues, and only sadness can convince all parties that moderation is necessary for the existence of modern nation-states. Intervention in some fashion may be inevitable in the world, but our goal should be to prevent hell, not to create heaven on earth. The former is possible, the latter is not.
Remember, the Enlightenment, which was the essential component of the birth of the USA, was a direct result of exhaustion from the Religious Wars. If Europe hadn't shredded itself like an emo self-cutting girl on meth, there would never have been modern liberalism, ecumenicalism, rationalism, all of that enlightenment stuff.
We could have stayed longer still, but for that at least one Indian cottoned on to the fact that they no longer had cause to fear us. The Japanese then highlighted this fact, and the Americans left us no choice whatsoever, but our empire was still based on fear of us. Once we lost our stomach for enforcing that fear, it was only a matter of time before the colonies started challenging us. It's not such a bad thing to lose that, but it's a matter of political fact. No-one fears the Americans, as everyone knows that they'll never have the political will or the desire to be a country feared by others. For the kind of nation-building envisaged by PVC, you need to have that basis of fear. For all the cotton candy nicey-nicey nation-building in Germany and Japan that the history books like to talk about, that was after you'd destroyed them as nations and left them with no identity but whatever you saw fit to impose.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh
When do you think Susan Rice and her panel of advisors will resign is disgrace for failing to react to the situation in Syria which has directly led to a new police action in Iraq?
As soon as the entire Bush admin resigns for passing the patriot act.Quote:
Originally Posted by ICantSpellDawg
I don't even see how that was a failure? Why would someone resign because the country is "forced" into a police action (which it isn't) because it did not perform a police action earlier? That's like saying you're angry at her for her not having sent your soldiers to theirs deaths sooner.