CIA says Iraq is now a terrorist training ground

They are just throwing that shit hoping it sticks, so that they can justify being there. Especially with all the shit coming out about Bush going there regardless.
 
People nowadys lack the honor and integrity to admit mistakes. It is sadly a de-evolution of societel standards, this administration just exemplifies this, and in fact it is probably the only thing that this administration has in common with the populace of this country, at least the majority of it.

It is apparent celebration of ineptitude and remedial accomplishments of this administration and all things are persons associated with it. The whole giving of the medals is just the icing on the cake.. A cake made by remedial bakers mind you. I mean really it is kind of like throwing a party for a kid that got a d-average on his report card. And giving him a car for it. And it is just continual in this administration, from Rummy keeping his job, Rice being promoted, Gonzales given a job, to Bolton. None of these people have the stones to admit they fucked up, let alone have the integrity or intelligence to even try to fix the problem.
 
Kal,

Except they truly believe they were and are correct, as do I, as do most Americans. He was fucking reelected. Get over it. Geez.

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Actually, approval for the war has dipped below 50% and the number of people who feel it was a mistake in the first place has steadily increased every month since last summer. Bush also only reprsents about half of America, at least of the half that voted, so it's more along the lines of 25%. That's not exactly a plurality of American opinon - why would that make anything they do necessarily the best move anyways? Sometimes the best moves are unpopular, and sometimes the most widely supported actions are the most stupid. Public approval is no indicator of right or wrong in my book. I appreciate everybody's perspective on this, but people don't just get over feeling that their president and his majority party are failing the nation and doing serious damage on several fronts. If you love your country you take it seriously when you think that it's headed in the wrong direction.
 
I think you may have mistaken that for support for the war Bib. CNN and all the major news agencies, even Fox, have reported that the number of Americans that agree with Bush's Iraq policy dipped to an all time low just recently - Bush held a national address conference just yesterday to attempt to regain some public faith.

This poll is about a month old, but the numbers have changed little, which I encourage you to check out for yourself if so inclined: http://edition.cnn.com/2005/US/05/03/iraq.poll/index.html

Though I was against the war and feel it was a huge tactical, I am of course in favor of remaining in Iraq until it is truly stable - which will be, in the words of Donald Rumsfield, "A long hard slog." I also support John McCain's view that we need about 100,000 more troops over there to get the job done properly. Unfortunately our commander in chief is too afraid of the popularity backlash that such a move would cause, and so he ruthlessly extends the service time of reservists and keeps quietly attempting to fund the war without drawing much attention to the huge price tag.

One thing that I find rather hilarious is that some of Bush's advisors orginally came up with a tab of an estimated 300 billions dollars - this was not what the adminstration wanted to hear, so they cut those guys loose and found somebody else that would give them some good news - or essentially less than 100 billion (far mor palitable for the American public when trying to sell the war effort!). Interestingly, the total bill to date is estimated at 300 billion dollars. Hmm. Well I at least get a kick out of it.
 
Originally posted by Swank:
Though I was against the war and feel it was a huge tactical, I am of course in favor of remaining in Iraq until it is truly stable - which will be, in the words of Donald Rumsfield, "A long hard slog." I also support John McCain's view that we need about 100,000 more troops over there to get the job done properly. Unfortunately our commander in chief is too afraid of the popularity backlash that such a move would cause, and so he ruthlessly extends the service time of reservists and keeps quietly attempting to fund the war without drawing much attention to the huge price tag.
Click to expand...

I totally disagree with this and any war, even though some are justified, I think none benefit humanity's progress. But on Iraq, I agree with Senator Joseph Biden when he said that if you are fighting a counter insurgency, and most of the fighters are composed of people from foreign countries, we need more boots (more help from our allies) to seal the borders effectively.
 
Indeed, as Colin Powell advised before the war, "You break it, you buy it." Regardless of my feelings about the war, it is our duty to now fully restore order and legitimacy to a stable Iraq. I am somewhat horrified by the about-face pulled by so many former Iraq invasion supporters now that they are finally starting to realize the amount of casualties and expense involved - our guys keep getting killed and it's "get the us the hell out of there!" But I heard realtively little call for pullout when thousands of Iraqis were killded by our invasion efforts, or much to do about the 8,000+ Iraqis killed by insurgent attacks in the last six months.

That's close to three times the death toll of 9/11, and their deaths are more or less entirely our fault as we created the insurgency with invasion - but nobody seems too concerned about that. Just another strong example of the fact that Americans generally can't be bothered with the lives of foreigners - especially brown-skinned or arab foreigners. This whole situation is casting a spotlight on some very ugly American biases and attitudes, and it embarasses the hell out of me.
 
Swank,

Oh, I get it now. You think we should stay and finish the job, but that the original reasons for the job were wrong. As long as we were wrong, let's be wrong all the way?

Same thing with the polls. If going in was wrong, then lets set things right, reinstate Saddam, make reparations, and go home. If going in was right, then let's finish the job. Hindsight, history, is great to prevent future problems. But it is shit in helping current problems.

Fortunately, Bush does not go by the poll numbers. In fact, the only poll that has mattered in recent history is when he was re-elected. You can do the research and find that there was little support to fight Germany in WWII. But that was also worth it. How about Italy in WWII?

If the majority of folks want the job finished before we come home, then there is no problem. They have the right idea. But even if the polls were to change, it was STILL the right idea. At least Bush stands on his ideals without waver.

Getting rid of Saddam was right. His punisHydromaxent will be right. Finishing the job is right.

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Kal,

>Check this link out, according to this, 55% of the insurgents are from Saudi Arabia.<

That is correct, and no surprise, since SA is the home of Wahabism, and their current call for Jihad, and which also spawned Al Queda. Let them come into the light of day.

That one fact places the Iraq situation in a bright light, and shows the fight is against terrorists, and not the Iraqis.

Good to note that the Iraqi people are against these infiltrators, and are providing great intel on their locations.

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I know its a little off-topic, but I figure'd I'd point it out:

Today is day #842

Today is day 842 in operation "Iraqi Freedom". And where are we? No one seems to know. On day 842 of WWII, the US forces were attacking Monte Casino. Before this Iraq war began, Rummsfeld doubted that the insurgency would even last 6 months.
 
Bib,

Usually your posts are quite good, but I find your reasoning on this to be slightly garbled, though I assume you just misunderstood the nature of my comments.

"Oh, I get it now. You think we should stay and finish the job, but that the original reasons for the job were wrong. As long as we were wrong, let's be wrong all the way?"

I'm not entirely sure what this means, but let me explain what I mean. I do believe that since we invaded and made certain promises, that it is our duty to fulfill our obligation there and to leave Iraq better than we left it. We made many committments, both formally from the White House, and indirectly by simply invading the nation, and we must honor those. It's important for out international reputation and security-wise. Iraq is now a destabalized and far more vulnerable place as a result of our actions. It could easily slide into extremist control without our continued intervention.

I don't see the problem with believing we shouldn't have gone there in the first place, but believing that since we did anyways that it would now be a mistake to prematurely remove ourselves. Perhaps you can explain to me why this is a contradiction?

"Same thing with the polls. If going in was wrong, then lets set things right, reinstate Saddam, make reparations, and go home. If going in was right, then let's finish the job. Hindsight, history, is great to prevent future problems. But it is shit in helping current problems."

I've heard you pose this same question before, and will return the same comment. I've never heard anybody suggest reinstating Saddam, the proposition is ridiculous and a false dichotomy. Being against the grounds for war does not equal supporting the previous regime.

As I also explained before, it's an impossible scenario and a uselss rhetorical trap, the kind favored by Limbaugh, Hannity, and those other jokers. No person in their right mind would say they were in favor of such a thing - but by stating as much they seem to contradict their own dislike of the US's regime change. To take the only other avenue and say 'yes' suggests that the person is insane and also is a fan of Hussein. Clearly, there is no right answer. It's a loaded question and means nothing, and as I mentioned before, such things aren't even allowed in high school debates. I'm sure we can hold ourselves to that sort of standard from now on.

"Fortunately, Bush does not go by the poll numbers. In fact, the only poll that has mattered in recent history is when he was re-elected. You can do the research and find that there was little support to fight Germany in WWII. But that was also worth it. How about Italy in WWII?"

Again, I'm not positive that I understand where you're going with this. If you are suggesting that Bush doesn't worry about public opinion and that it doesn't influence his decisions, well quite frankly I'd say you're very wrong, but the machinations of his presidential politics is something entire books have already been written about, so I guess you'll have to be content that I strongly assert he is indeed weighed upon by public support. Perhaps less so in his second term, but the GOP's long term strategy looks far beyond that, by their own admission.

So far as WWII, I don't see how our motives and actions in that war are in any way related to the reasons for war in Iraq. Perhaps the scope with which I percieve history is limited, but I fail to see where there is much valid comparison of the two situations and our reasons for getting into war in each case.

"If the majority of folks want the job finished before we come home, then there is no problem. They have the right idea. But even if the polls were to change, it was STILL the right idea. At least Bush stands on his ideals without waver."

I apologize for repeating myself, but I am also slightly vexed by this. I take it to mean that public opinion doesn't matter and that we should stay there until Iraq is a 100% legitimate and solid democracy. If that's the case, then we agree completely. As I said before, I find it sadly telling that the American public shifted against the was in the polls only after the costs, both human and fiscal, as well as our poor strategy and planning, have been widely reported. I find it funny that many of us have said that the currently bleak situation over there was going to be how it went down before the war even began, but only now has a real majority started to clue in. Every poll I've seen for the last two weeks has showed all time lows in war support, but alas, too little, too late.

"Getting rid of Saddam was right. His punisHydromaxent will be right. Finishing the job is right."

We'll see. My test personal test will be to see if the death toll created by our deposing of the regime was higher than a projection of Saddam's possible remaining reign. I have my own feelings on this, but basically there have been many tyrants and psychos over the years that we ignored or even supported (Saddam, Pinochet), and so I find the moral reasoning on this weak.

His punisHydromaxent doesn't interest me much either. He's out of there, now we have a new situation to deal with. He'll be locked up for the rest of his natural life most likely. He's a criminal-minded monster of a human, not the first or last, certainly an interesting figure. Many of his generals and hencHydromaxen carried out just as much havoc and slaughter as old Saddam did, probably somewhat autonomously as well, so in a sense I think he's getting a little extra credit on the pyscho scale (this is tounge in cheek, just so we understand).

Finishing the job is right, which I believe has always been my position and has been repeated many times on these forums. We most definately should do what we said we would. I believe the consequences for not doing so would be awful. Bush should get with the program and stop worrying about a public backlash and send over another 100,000 troops and be honest with us about how much this is really going to cost - so we can finish the job. Not piecemeal, not a prolonged bloodbath, but sending over the full forces (and fully funding them) the army leadership asked for in the first place to get this thing done.
 
Swank,

>I'm not entirely sure what this means, but let me explain what I mean. I do believe that since we invaded and made certain promises, that it is our duty to fulfill our obligation there and to leave Iraq better than we left it. We made many committments, both formally from the White House, and indirectly by simply invading the nation, and we must honor those. It's important for out international reputation and security-wise. Iraq is now a destabalized and far more vulnerable place as a result of our actions. It could easily slide into extremist control without our continued intervention.<

But that is the point. What do you mean by "vulnerable". Was not everyone, in and out of Iraq vulnerable because of Iraqi leadership? Do you deny that Iraq was in "extremist control" when we invaded? Your last couple paragraphs lead me to believe that this is your thought. So what is the difference? If it was wrong to invade, then simply return control to the extremists, as it was before, provide reparations, and leave. This is absolutely logical.

>I don't see the problem with believing we shouldn't have gone there in the first place, but believing that since we did anyways that it would now be a mistake to prematurely remove ourselves. Perhaps you can explain to me why this is a contradiction?<

First, the term "job" would need to be defined. For Bush, the term would refer to removing Saddam, and all associated, and therefore removing a threat to the proliferation of terrorism, in money, weapons, logistics, etc.

To believe in staying and finishing the "job" would mean that you believed there was a "job" to do in the first place! The only point that could be raised in defense of your statements, is that you believe the "job" could be done by other means. However, over ten years, and many ideas, the "job" was no closer to being performed, mainly due to the stature and strength of Saddam. Military action was obviously the only thing that would do the "job".

You have provided nothing to contradict the logic. Either going in was right or wrong. And staying is either right or wrong.

>I've heard you pose this same question before, and will return the same comment. I've never heard anybody suggest reinstating Saddam, the proposition is ridiculous and a false dichotomy. Being against the grounds for war does not equal supporting the previous regime.<

I surely did not say it was, other than my tongue in cheek comments. But the logic still stands. If it is worth staying, securing Iraq, creating a democracy NOW, then it was worth invading to begin with. No other solution would reach the goal.

>It's a loaded question and means nothing, and as I mentioned before, such things aren't even allowed in high school debates. I'm sure we can hold ourselves to that sort of standard from now on.<

You have no way of supporting your position, and living with the answers to these questions. That is your only problem. It is a loaded question, only because you yourself provide the ammunition. The situation will not go away.

>Again, I'm not positive that I understand where you're going with this. If you are suggesting that Bush doesn't worry about public opinion and that it doesn't influence his decisions, well quite frankly I'd say you're very wrong, but the machinations of his presidential politics is something entire books have already been written about, so I guess you'll have to be content that I strongly assert he is indeed weighed upon by public support. Perhaps less so in his second term, but the GOP's long term strategy looks far beyond that, by their own admission.<

You can look at the decisions he has made, and determine for yourself whether public opinion weighed on his mind. The vast majority of analysis I have read say he does not consider the polls.

>So far as WWII, I don't see how our motives and actions in that war are in any way related to the reasons for war in Iraq. Perhaps the scope with which I percieve history is limited, but I fail to see where there is much valid comparison of the two situations and our reasons for getting into war in each case.<

The point is this, we elect our government leaders to make decisions based on much greater knowledge than what is available to the common man. In fact, few if any of us have the time to educate ourselves on exactly what a situation entails. Plus, much of the information is classified for obvious reasons. Therefore, a leader must make decisions which may be unpopular, but that he knows is correct. These situations can be found throughout history. My examples were from WWII.

In the Iraq situation, Bush has made unpopular decisions. I believe they were and are correct. History will be the final judge. But once again, we will never know how bad it could have been, if Saddam were to have been left in power.

>I apologize for repeating myself, but I am also slightly vexed by this. I take it to mean that public opinion doesn't matter and that we should stay there until Iraq is a 100% legitimate and solid democracy. If that's the case, then we agree completely.<

Well, popular opinion says that we should stay till the job is finished. I think everyone agrees.

>As I said before, I find it sadly telling that the American public shifted against the was in the polls only after the costs, both human and fiscal, as well as our poor strategy and planning, have been widely reported. I find it funny that many of us have said that the currently bleak situation over there was going to be how it went down before the war even began, but only now has a real majority started to clue in. Every poll I've seen for the last two weeks has showed all time lows in war support, but alas, too little, too late.<

I am disappointed in the lack of a solid perspective, or changing of perspective in going into the war. The left got a good bit of distance out of no WMDs. But again I ask, what is the difference between stockpiles of WMD, vs the capacity and intent to produce WMD within a short time?

In the context of history, even considering an insurgent response far greater than the current response, this has been a success of unprecedented preportions. Far fewer casualties, on all sides than expected, less damage, and on and on. But so far, thankfully, it appears that the constant negative media harangue is not enough to deter the effort, and hopefully, it will be a success.

>We'll see. My test personal test will be to see if the death toll created by our deposing of the regime was higher than a projection of Saddam's possible remaining reign. I have my own feelings on this, but basically there have been many tyrants and psychos over the years that we ignored or even supported (Saddam, Pinochet), and so I find the moral reasoning on this weak.<

Then sadly, you are blinded to, or do not care to see the threat posed by Saddam. Not just to his own people, but what he could have done with continued oil wealth. He did not need any more palaces. He did not spend it on his people. It was going for weapons. And again, ask his own people how they felt about him, and how they ranked their futures under Saddam.

>Finishing the job is right, which I believe has always been my position and has been repeated many times on these forums. We most definately should do what we said we would. I believe the consequences for not doing so would be awful.<

And that truly is all that matters.

>Bush should get with the program and stop worrying about a public backlash and send over another 100,000 troops and be honest with us about how much this is really going to cost - so we can finish the job. Not piecemeal, not a prolonged bloodbath, but sending over the full forces (and fully funding them) the army leadership asked for in the first place to get this thing done.<

Only minor military leaders suggested more troops. Quite obviously, they were not needed for the invasion. And now, they consistantly say they do not need them. It appears from recent operations, they are correct as far as offensive operations go. The Iraqi troops are becoming more effective since the elections. They have their own country and government to fight for. And more American troops now, would only serve to give the impression that we may not leave, and would give more targets to the terrorists. Let the experts deal with the nuts and bolts.

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