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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jun 17, 2008 - 12:44am PT
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Al Sadr isn't actually boycotting the elections
from
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/15/AR2008061501868.html
"BAGHDAD, June 15 -- Aides to anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said Sunday that although his movement will not field an official slate of Sadrist candidates in upcoming elections, it could support individual Sadrists running for office.
The strategy could be a way for Sadr to influence the provincial elections this fall despite moves by the Iraqi government to ban his movement from participating.
Sadrist leaders sought to modify statements made a day earlier that the movement would not take part in the local contests. They had previously said only that the movement would support slates of "technocrats and independent politicians," but on Sunday they said those candidates could well be Sadrists.
"If any Sadrist wants to participate in any one of those lists of the technocrats, we give him the permission to do it," said Salah al-Obaidi, Sadr's chief spokesman. "But we will not participate in the elections by putting our people on a list with a Sadrist title."....
FYI
Since the troops are there, we can support them by asking that we bring em back asap. This is a hell and it's not getting better. We've been hearing the "progress is rapid and the insurgency is on it's last legs" for years. They'll never accept our foreign presence and bases.
Perhaps we should just get honest and say we're friggin imperialists and they can do what they want as long as we control what we need to of the oil. That was the deal with Saddam anyway.
Peace
Karl
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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Jun 17, 2008 - 12:46am PT
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Hey Skip, I had baby gray squirrels running all over my property today. They are fun to watch.
"Defeating Al Qaeda now, no matter when they got there, has allowed us to show that they are nothing less than straight up thugs and killers. Even though many here at the taco stand try to say we are the same, the rest of the world just doesn't see it this way. "
I guess I see things differently. Yes, Al Qaeda is a bunch of thugs, but I don't think we have helped change anyones mind about them. In fact I think we have helped them recruit. We have killed many many innocent people. This will not be forgotten. Revenge is something that is accepted in the middle east. They may not be able to do much about their anger right now because they are weak, but all it takes is another Osama Bin Laben to come along to tell them he can show them how to get revenge, and then another crop of terrorist will arise.
And then we will be wondering why they are angry with us.
We wonder why the people of Iran are angry with us and some say it is because they are jealous of us. This is incorrect. They are angry with us because we helped overthrow a duly elected official and put in his place the Shah of Iran who turned out to be very brutal. We have a history of doing this. We did it in Iraq when we helped put into power Saddam Hussein.
"The change in the last year has allowed us to turn the corner in Iraq and fulfill that which so many (me included) had been saying for so long."
Any change in Iraq is a result of the fact that most people want to be peaceful but don't know how or don't have the power to create it. I think what this statement ignores is that terrorism is NOT done by the masses. It is done by the few. The few who are disenfranchised enough and angry enough to act.
So saying that attacking Iraq is helpful in defeating terrorism is lacking in foresight. Even if we manage to put in place a democratic society, which is highly unlikely in my opinion because the people did not work for it and so eventually it will devolve back into a feudal leadership, ...... even if we manage to do this, we still have to deal with all of the angry people we have created. People who are then susceptible to the leadership of someone like Osama Bin Laden. The Bin Ladens of the world never actually fight, they talk others into fighting. By attacking Iraq as we did, we helped create a larger pool for the Bin Ladens of the world to draw from.
The thing to understand is that these groups have never been all that powerful. Al Qaeda was a loosely knit group of radicals. They flew some planes into some buildings and killed a bunch of people. If you look at their history, most of their attacks have been small and done by only a few.
We can not defeat this with a military response. It will require better politics, politics that respect other nations and do not treat them as though we can take whatever we want, often times leaving them with big messes to clean up. Plus it will take more coordinated police work to ferret the worst offenders out. This may be backed up by military forces, but cruise missles just create more terrorist.
That takes time, but it will happen. You reap what you sow.
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Dogtown Climber
Trad climber
The Idyllwild City dump
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Jun 17, 2008 - 12:51am PT
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So Skip;Should we stay and win this thing or get out?
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Matt
Trad climber
primordial soup
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Jun 17, 2008 - 03:02am PT
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You guys are clueless.
well, i AM clueless about just how 130k+/- US troops are going to manage the turmoil when al the ethnic-cleansing victims/refugees are kicked out of the neighboring countries and 3-5 million homes and angry people are returned to iraq.
think they are going to want their homes back?
think they are just going to let bygones be bygones, or are they going to want to settle some scores?
(note: how you answer the above questions says much about whether or not you know anything about their culture, and whether or not you are just totally full of crap)
so let's see, who was kicked out of bagdad?
mostly sunis?
wonder if any of them will be turned into AQ or otherwise radicalized...
and about the plague of veteran suicides, having a clue is just a matter of being able to google it...
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5219
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/34718.html
http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=39958
ug
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Michelle
Trad climber
Fort Sam
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Jun 17, 2008 - 09:02pm PT
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Riley, they teach us here to return fire first and then render aid. Is that part of your curriculum or do you find yourself reviewing scenarios that start with, "The lead vehicle in your convoy is hit by an IED.." or "You come upon a soldier who is bleeding profusely and is apneic, what do you do?"
edit: and you better be a good shot since you have to treat the enemy.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Jun 17, 2008 - 09:14pm PT
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"and about the plague of veteran suicides, having a clue is just a matter of being able to google it..."
I wonder how many of those have to do with media/idiots that claim our soldiers are worthless civilian killers and puppets. They do a job, they take orders and perform. Even if you're against the decision to go to war, F_KING SUPPORT OUR TROOPS AND TELL THEM YOUR PROUD OF THEM!!!
go and look at my 'reports from Iraq' thread.
Our soldiers didn't decide to do this, they were sent, SUPPORT THEM.
Edit: people like Michele might appreciate it. And my buddy's wife who's entering the same program.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jun 17, 2008 - 09:30pm PT
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There are all kinds of ways to support the troops Bluering, including asking the politicians to bring them home, give them better medical treatment and stop polluting them with depleted uranium. If you think cheerleading the war and agreeing to keep them there for decades, enduring countless deployments in high temps and among hostile populations is supporting them, then be careful not to support me, cause I don't need that kind of support!
I think you last post is pretty much a strawman because I can't recall any new reports calling the soldiers baby-killers and murderers. There may be stats out there that say innocent people are being killed but that's the kind of data the public needs in order to start calling BS to the politicians.
Peace
karl
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Jun 17, 2008 - 09:43pm PT
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Karl, NO, NO, NO!!!
You either support our troops in their mission or you dont. Period. They didn't ask to go there, ther're doing what their gov't, Bush, ask them to do. Either you support them and pray for them or you don't.
Nothing to do with Bush and Republicans.
Can't you see that? Our troops are doing their best. Pray for them.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jun 18, 2008 - 01:02am PT
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Bluering wrote
"You either support our troops in their mission or you dont. Period. They didn't ask to go there, ther're doing what their gov't, Bush, ask them to do. Either you support them and pray for them or you don't.
Nothing to do with Bush and Republicans.
Can't you see that? Our troops are doing their best. Pray for them"
Nothing either of us has been saying prevents us from praying for the troops. Stopping there is a cop-out. Address my individual points about health care, Du, and the rest. If you really want to support the troops, what do you DO on the physical plane? What IS the mission of the troops and who decides that mission? Is it bad for the troops if Bush puts them somewhere where they wind up killing civilians and people who never attacked the US? A lot of Nam vets have been troubled upon return by what our Gov made them do. Fool us once...
It has EVERYTHING to do with Bush and the GOP because they pushed the button to send the troops to die. If it's a good mission, let em stay and die of the cause. We can pray for em while they bleed and are crippled. If it's a bad mission, what's our responsibility then?
Peace
karl
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Doug Buchanan
Mountain climber
Fairbanks Alaska
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Jun 18, 2008 - 01:09am PT
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My good friend Blue Ring......
Keep a copy of your posts. In the future, if you stumble out of your very narrow tunnel, you will be as embarrassed and amused by your statements as I am of many of mine, similar to yours, back when I was an idiot distinguished military graduate Army infantry officer airborne ranger aviator Vietnam veteran.
If more dope smoking liberal San Francisco hipnoids would have stopped supporting the troops in Vietnam sooner and louder, we would have been out of that typical presidential ego gratification war sooner, with less troops killed and maimed, less Vietnamese slaughtered, less international hatred for the malicious Americans, and the fundamentally flawed communist dictatorship system would have collapsed sooner.
All a Hitler, Bush or any other malicious mental midget national leader needs for all the ego gratification wars they want, is for gullible citizens to "support the troops". The rest is inconsequential process and quibbling that keeps wars going. That is why Bush's gullible supporters parrot the "support the troops" line, and wave the flag, to replace thinking among the dumbed-down Americans.
Now let me show you how to "support the troops". Anyone can email this post to every American soldier in Iraq, Afghanistan and soon Iran. And if you object to it, that is why we Vietnam veterans were betrayed and attacked the same way you will betray and attack the Iraq war veterans who belatedly figure out the wars and their sacrifices were based on lies of no value to them, this nation or any humans.
You US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, if you have the courage your government claims you have, walk up to your lieutenant, captain or major, and hand him the following harmless words, in writing:
For my services fighting in the Iraq (Afghanistan) war, and our oath to defend the US Constitution, do you (your CO's name, rank and unit) certify, under penalty of fraud, perjury to oath of office, evasion of a known legal duty and civil liability, that I (your name), my family and colleagues in the US shall be accorded every right described in plain English in the US Constitution, verbatim, fully, by all government entities in the US? Yes. No. Notarized signature block.
If your CO (Commanding Officer) refuses to support the US Constitutional rights for their troops expressly fighting to defend those itemized rights, on accountable record, you therefore recognize that you and your family are being repugnantly betrayed by your CO, the US military and the US government, right from the get-go.
At that moment you and your CO are going to recognize that you are both being used as fools for the ego gratification and raw power of personalities in the US DemocanRepublicrat War Regime.
Every US soldier who died in every war after WWII died for the sole purpose of methodically destroying the citizen rights described in the US Constitution, replacing them with privileges, grantable and deniable by corrupted lawyers appointed to judge jobs by the DemocanRepublicrats they politically supported.
If the government suggests that you are too illiterate or too ignorant to understand the dictionary meanings used by the writers of the plain words in the US Constitution, and that only the DemocanRepublicrat appointed judges can tell you what those words mean, then you are too ignorant to be in any military, and the government was negligent in recruiting you.
You are not that ignorant. The writers of the US Constitution wrote it in plain English so that every literate American could understand it and hold the government to those exact words.
That the excuses for the wars are also lies is inconsequential to the fact that the effect was the negation of the US Constitution, as proven by your CO's refusal to sign the above referenced certification of the rights for which you are supposedly fighting.
Now my good friend Blue Ring, all military active duty personnel, fellow war veterans, and everyone else except the repugnant DemocanRepublicrat Regime and its court judges, we are in complete agreement if your oath or intent to support the US Constitution was not a lie. Is that not so? What is your answer, if you hold the courage you claim.
Carry on...
DougBuchanan.com
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paganmonkeyboy
climber
mars...it's near nevada...
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Jun 18, 2008 - 01:20am PT
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sorry blue - i gotta disagree with you too (yeah, shocker there, eh ? ;-) )
supporting the troops means asking the questions that might keep them alive. intact. sane. safe.
imho, and in the opinion of others, our country is currently being run by criminal thugs that are pouring our men and women through the shredder as part of a complicated heist under the pretense of national security. billions are missing - no response. undercover cia operative outed - nothing...prisoners Hid From The Red Cross - sweet...Senate report even states that the pretenses for the war were cherry picked and presented falsely...
So - we sent them to fight and die under false pretenses, are ripping them off, and not adequately caring for them when they do come back.
Tell me what "Support" means to you again please...
Sorry Bro - I Gotta Take Umbrage on this one.
-Tom
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Jun 18, 2008 - 08:22am PT
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Mr. Doug
An awesome post. You are 200% right on target.
The only way to support our troops is to bring them back
home so they can arrest and imprison criminals like shrub
and cheney. Oh, I forgot, the rest of the neocons who've slunk
away from their posts, now that their grand plan is down the
toilet. . . .
Keep up the enlightened posts.
Thanks!
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Jun 18, 2008 - 11:28am PT
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Doug, I'm speechless. I completely disagree with everything in your post.
God help us.
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Jun 18, 2008 - 11:38am PT
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So Bluering, when does your detachment leave for Iraq?
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Jun 18, 2008 - 11:59am PT
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When Iraq becomes the South Korea of the middle east, what will you say then?
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dirtbag
climber
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Jun 18, 2008 - 12:09pm PT
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"When Iraq becomes the South Korea of the middle east, what will you say then? "
I'd say, "Wake up TGT, you just ejaculated all over yourself."
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howlostami
Trad climber
Southern Tier, NY
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Jun 18, 2008 - 12:26pm PT
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"In Iraq it was the lack of foresight as to the need for more boots on the ground and control of borders. Many tactical mistakes, much like the first years of the Civil War."
Thanks for finally admitting the core of the Liberal beef. Unlike the civil war the mistakes were made when the executive branch ignored all of the intelligence reports and the MILITARY PLANNERS who said we needed more boots on the ground. It's not that we didn't know what we needed, it's that the executive branch chose to ignore the people who knew what the f*ck they were doing and went and made a total mess of it. They knew better and went and screwed up anyways. Doesn't that fall under the category of gross negligence or something?
And yes, support the troops, they are dying to serve out country and our people, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't question the people who put them there. The decider isn't beyond question or responsibility.
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Matt
Trad climber
primordial soup
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Jun 18, 2008 - 12:52pm PT
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re: blueguy's post:
"and about the plague of veteran suicides, having a clue is just a matter of being able to google it..."
I wonder how many of those have to do with media/idiots that claim our soldiers are worthless civilian killers and puppets. They do a job, they take orders and perform. Even if you're against the decision to go to war, F_KING SUPPORT OUR TROOPS AND TELL THEM YOUR PROUD OF THEM!!!
(edited to add, for clarity)
...
and from another post:
Karl, NO, NO, NO!!!
You either support our troops in their mission or you dont. Period. They didn't ask to go there, ther're doing what their gov't, Bush, ask them to do. Either you support them and pray for them or you don't.
Nothing to do with Bush and Republicans
(/edit)
sorry friend, that's hogwash.
honestly, you seem way too smart to believe that, but maybe you really do(?), in which case i don't even know where to start.
if all a leader had to do was successfully begin a war or send our troops in somewhere, and then all americans automatically supported the troops AND THEIR MISSION, wouldn't that blunt the very nature of a democracy? do we become the type of society we have vilified for generations, just as soon as we have troops abroad? i don't think so- no, 1)the troops and 2)their mission are distinct and separate. it's possible to support the former and oppose the latter, in fact most people i know do just that, and do both with a great passion at that.
the troops are not only a tool of policy, they are humans, they are fellow americans, they are fathers and brothers and mothers and daughters, and they are lovers and friends and members of families and communities.
their ongoing sacrifice (and that of their families and communities) is one of the primary reasons why so many of us are so furious about this BS "war" (really an occupation or a nation building/ policing exercise, as their is no identifiable enemy in iraq, which is why they have spoon-fed us the AQ in Iraq myth).
in fact, we "liberals" believe strongly that you "conservatives" (generalizing here, obviously) are the ones who have a weak commitment to the troops. we want the wealthy to pay higher taxes and for all americans to contribute and sacrifice at least something, we want the VA medical care to be top notch, we want PTSD to be studied and understood and treated, we want veterans to have a new GI bill and get a free education, we want the troops to have time between deployments and not face stop-loss call ups after the time they chose to sign up in the service is over...
we say that blindly supporting a flawed invasion and its flawed aftermath is an insult to the families of these brave americans.
rather than support the bushco administration, who have failed at nearly everything wrt this fiasco in iraq, we want to hold them accountable!
we blame the administration for their failed approach to all of this- for blowing off the world, unlike the way bush sr. included them.
do you remember the rush to war? do you remember the you're either with us or you're against us?
do you remember the "old europe" rhetoric?
do you remember them telling us it would be either 6 weeks or 6 months, but not nearly 6 years?do you remember when gW told the rest of the world to take a hike?
do you remember when he said that reconstruction contracts were going to be limited to countries that had been willing to participate in the invasion, and that we didn't need or want the help of the rest of the world- imagine if we had some help now! you can bet our troops would be able to stay home for a full year before being redeployed...
for the abu graib incidents we blame the officers who put untrained soldiers in charge of prisons and allowed the CIA to tell them to "soften them up". we blame the justice department officials and the decision makers who determined they were going to use the same illegal interrogation techniques that they'd been using at gitmo in the afgans they'd captured, because they were so unprepared for the violence they were encountering in iraq at the time and they wanted some way of getting intel on the "insurgents".
for the IEDs that kill and injure so many, we blame the war-on-the-cheap approach, which relied on best case scenarios, which didn't guard ammo dumps or storage facilities, which knew we lacked the armoured up vehicles but chose to "go to war with the army we had, not the army we wished we had", which dismissed the entire iraqi army, which included too few boots on the ground from the get go (and which told tommy franks to re-write his original war plan with half as many troops and dismissed, demoted, or retired all the generals who told the war planners point blank they needed 400k or 500k men.
for all those reasons, we voted against putting these failures of "leaders" back in office in 2004, and we'd have been successful at changing the course of this war (and possibly including more international partners), if it weren't for the many gay marriage issues on so many ballots and the voter registration irregularities and machine availability issues in poor neighborhoods in ohio.
now you want to sit there and tell us that we are equal to the protesters who spit on returning veterans in the 70s? you insult or intelligence with BS like that. we want to see you do something, anything, other than support a "more of the same" republican in the name of supporting the troops, and we call BS on YOUR support. go out and talk your friends into sending their kids! force the congress to send their family members! initiate a draft so the public is equally represented across the socio-economic spectrum!
as far as i can tell, you don't do sh#t for the troops, aside from wishing them well and kissing their collective asses goodbye, and you have the nerve to tell us that our lack of willingness to kiss their asses goodbye and promise them another 4 or 8 or 12 or 100 years of the same as the thanks for their service and their sacrifice is evidence that we are not concerned about their collective welfare, now or in the future?
f*#k that
if you are stupid enough to see it that way, you can keep listening to hannity and limbaugh and coulter, despite that fact that they also have been wrong about everything to do w/ iraq from day 1, and we will simply wait until next year when the criminals now in office will at the very least be kicked to the curb (but hopefully led away in chains).
TGT- south korea?
are you channelling mcsame here now?
this analogy only proves to the rest of us how little you actually grasp about iraq- perhaps it's all the propaganda you glean from the "independent" blog repots you post from time to time?
let me fill you in on a few things pal:
1) north and south korea are separate, so having troops in south korea is more like having troops in kuwait or saudi arabia than it is to keeping troops in iraq.
2) in that part of the world, collective memory and grudges among communities are well known to last generations, centuries. that is a cultural reality, unlike anything we can point to in our own sound-bite conciousness in america.
3) 5 million people in iraq have been driven from their homes, and are suffering in refugee status near the borders of iraq's neighbors
4) we are paying 90K+ individuals a monthly stipend for nothing more that NOT actively engaging in violence on a regular basis, meanwhile we have allowed the ethnic cleansing of vast areas of iraq
5) someday (someday soon?) iraq's nerighbors will insist that the refugees leave their countries and return to iraq. they will have nowhere to go, other than the same homes and neighborhoods they were violently driven away from.
6) you and your fellow supporters of the war and the continued policy, as embodied by the concept of "the surge" and the assertions of john mccain that we will stay in iraq 'as long as it takes', measure the status there in terms of one month's death's vs. the last month's, which completely ignores the major issues.
7) for the vast majority of iraqis, american forces being in iraq for a long and undetermined time period is unacceptable- yet we don't seem to discuss that fact, or at least our media does not discuss that fact with any regularity.
8) nowhere in our history, or in that of the middle east in general, can anyone point to a successful intervention from an outside interest such as our own, which resulted in any lasting or stable improvement, so there is no reasonable expectation that our jaunt into iraq will somehow prevent what seems inevitable to so many observers.
9) nothing in the above is in any way similar to what has happened in korea since (or before) the korean war- so you would do well to put some mental effort into contemplating john mccain's "foreign policy" analogies before you promote them as your own...
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