Iraq today. Is winning still possible?

raid517

Newsnight the UK's premier indepth news show has an excellent indepth discussion on the state of the War in Iraq. For you guys who think we are winning - or that there is even the possibility that we can still 'win' in any conventional sense it is well worth watching:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsa/n5ctrl/tv.../newsnight.ram


You will need real player or real alternative to view the show. (Be warned, this is a 40 minute + report. People with short attention spans will not fair well)).

Limited elections, 90% of Iraq in the hands of insurgents, clear messages from the Iraqi government to the Iraqi people that they are not in control and are they are purely reading from a script supplied to them by the Americans - the whole idea of whatever it was Bush thought he was achieving in Iraq is falling about his and all our ears in the process.

How can you see all of this and still feel we can gain anything from going on with this? It almost seems better that we all just go home, close our doors, take up our guns - or prepare to defend ourselves however else best we can - and await the comming storm.

We cannot leave Iraq in any real state of order. The reason is clearly the longer we stay the more disorder there will be. But eventually we must leave. And god help us all when we do.

Even if Bush wins the next election, this will be his true legacy.

GJ

raid517

Anyway, I'm just curious, but do you guys get news shows this indepth in the US? I don't recall ever having seen any.

Maybe I'm missing something.

GJ

Dom

I think the current goals set for Iraq are unrealistic.

raid517

Well maybe - and maybe the whole Iraq project is just unrealistic. Like the guy said, the only real option either in the short or long term is simply to declare 'victory' and leave - despite whatever the realities on the ground might be and despite however limited the next elections in Iraq might eventually appear (they had 15% voting last time - and predictions are in the light of the worsening security situation that these elections will not be much of an improvement. Which essentially defeats the idea of democracy itself in Iraq). If even we could raise this to a 30% coverage (which is a vastly overoptomistic estimate by most standards) this would still leave 70% unrepresented, which is essentially a defeat for everything Bush claims to have set out to do there.

In any case I think the fact that Bush now has the Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi and is now touting him in congress and around his campaign trail like some kind of trophy is potentially very damaging - since it makes him seem like little more than an American puppet within his own country. His speech to congress almost looks like it could have been scripted by Bush's own script writers.

I'm not saying he is a puppet - but when you have the Iraqi government announce that they are releasing prisioners - and then have them told publically by the US that this isn't going to happen it quickly becomes clear who really feels they are in charge.

In the mean time all the terrorists have to do is find ever more brutal ways to capture and kill hostages and continue to make demands that they surely know are utterly unreasonable.

The more they capture and kill - the more brutal they become the more the desire by the US and others to find a way out will increase. It doesn't matter anything to them if any of the demands they make are ever fulfilled. So long as what they do continues to generate publicity. I doubt they really wish to negotiate with any of us either.

It all seems like just such a farce.

Until all this happend Iraq was just so much of another side show. Maybe it would have been better if it had stayed that way - and we could have just gotten on with fighting the real war on terror instead of this one that we made for ourselves.

We may have won a battle - but in the end it still looks like we are loosing the war.

GJ

amduser

wait until the election is over. then see what happens. those morons over there have no idea whats coming. let them run through sacred graveyards and hide in mosques all they want its not going to save them.

raid517

Is it just me? I don't think that's altogether an intelligent response. What do you think we are going to to? Go for a full scale Vietnam type overrrunning of the country? With an insurgency of this nature, just how do you imagine that would make the situation any easier? And who's election? If Bush wins the election at home, but fails to bring about credible elections in Iraq in the time frame (or close to it) that he promised, doesn't that mean that the whole Iraqi 'democratic' project has been defeated too? That essentially these so called few idiots as you imagine them to be have won?

What then is left? Revenge? Carpet bombing of Iraq? Since when was 'revenge' part of anyone's plans for the Iraqi people? This is already all going down the toilet. It seems all we can do is stand by and watch it. And I'm afraid from my perspective at least, there isn't much room for any flag waving in that.

GJ

Dom

I agree.

The_Neon_Cowboy

Yep no one will dare rush the strong holds till after the election...
After expect a massive envasion of the so called no go zones...


Actually that helps fuel the fire, it upsets people, and gives them incite to just how brutal these people are and how we can not waver.



Victory or death,...



...... 90% ? I don't think so,
thats awfull hard to belive




even if that’s a realistic number there are only so many area's with populace, i mean because they don't have the massive desert (with very very very few people in it isn't worth trying to control ) So you'd like then to deploy a few million troops to control mounds or dirt and sand and almost no people A desert type state it's easy to find the populace fallow the water....



WTF? let me watch the video....




Video notes:



#1 there were terrorists there before we went in it's called training camps..

So I guess the guys with guns, information about chemical weapons use (found in one camp), training to carry bombing etc ... the AL Qaeda links...



I guess they were all boy scouts selling cookies eh?







#2 even a limited election will comb things down... The see the current government as US puppets, and collaborators, hard to say that about some one that was elected... the people that didn't get to vote can't blame the us but the terrorists that prevented them from voting...



#3 A lot of terrorists are fueled by the media stories from bias sources...



Reality: insurgents gun down civilians



Reported: as civilians killed by us troops, or in fire fight with US troops, lets just leave out silly things like who killed them and blame the us



stuff like that happens... only 1/2 the story or twisted... which fuels hate..







also the news focuses on the negative the negatives sells news papers and gains viewers, the positive is boring and ignored by the media as a whole,





if it's going well no coverage reporters resting, a problem where? where? reporters running frantically for the story...







also the media is mostly liberal and many have an agenda which come out in their writing and stories... we didn't give terrorism fuel the media did





#4 the hum v incident mentioned ... again something us explodes lets all surround it... like a groups of insurgents, looters or tourists would do after they blew it up... What did the hum v just spontaneously blow up? with the explosive that was locally detonated by a terrorist, with a clear line of sight and near by... Civilians and innocent people don't act that way... the normal were not involved reaction is to run away... or at lest keep distance



#5 a lot of Russia coverage





#6 democracy must be a world thing, all nations eventually need to be a democracy then the would will be a better, safer , freer place



#7 funny the American got cut off

bug77

Well, I saw on TV an iraqi who had just returned from Iraq. He went there to visit his brother who was a policeman with the new iraqi police. And he said that about 80% of the iraqi population has nothing against american soldiers temporarily stationing in Iraq. Also, the same 80% are against the suicide attacks. So, if they do not see full committement from the aliied forces, yes, then the coalition may loose.

raid517

Well that is kind of besides the point. Even if 80% of them do 'support' the coalition - which may or may not be true - I am not setting about to dispute that here, the problem remains that if only 15/20% of the poplulation feel able to vote due to the realities of the security situation on the ground, then that is already a defeat right there. And that unfortunately is exactly where we appear to be heading.

I don't know what these other guys are on if they think that somehow massively increasing our commitment after the Iraqi elections, or somehow carpet bombing Iraq would in any sense lessen this, since this isn't likely to win us very many more friends, or make us any more welcome than we already are (or are not as the case may be). If we can't deliver genuine elections for the Iraqi people in the time frame we promised - then ultimately we will have been humiliated in the eyes of the world and the terrorists will have been handed a very major victory.

You can try an tip toe around that any way you want. But things so far are not looking good.

GJ

raid517

Man Neon you spelling just gets worse as the years go by. I'm not sure how much of this is aimed at you anyway. No matter what happens your tune will always be the same, even if an Iraqi fundametalist is eventually elected president and a tiny number of the Iraqi people get to vote in any election (we are not talking about 90%~ of the sand dunes in Iraq not feeling safe enough to be able to vote, we are talking about potentally as much as 90% of the people) you will still come over like some little drummer boy tapping out the same old tune. I don't think reality is something that overly troubles you.

Well no that's not strictly true. At least here the media did report the positive for the first few months after the invasion when things did briefly seem to change for the better for a lot of Iraqis. But it remains true that things aren't going so well now. It almost sounds like what you are saying is that the best thing to do is just ignore that.

Why would that be useful?

I don't know about the media in America being controlled by the 'left' - but in this country the media - particularly the BBC has traditionally been seen as being controlled by the right - so in this instance your attempts to simply tranfer the focus don't really seem quite so relevant.

They had a fair spread of people there - I didn't notice anything particularly biased in that.

Well the Yank got 'cut off''? Ha ha it happens from time to time. I think it's a tad too much to call it a conspiracy. Still if you want to play the conspiracy game you could always ask, was he cut off, or did he get cut off by some secret US government agency when the questions became to hot, or too potentially damaging to answer?

But all in all I think most people are too sensible to waste much energy to even contemplate going there.

I think the Russian report was significant - because what it is saying is that Putin's Russia may be what is in store for you next. That like Putin's his initial grab for power was fairly limited - but in his second term that grab for power may well become absolute.

How many more freedoms are you willing to sacrifice in pursuit of the so called war on terror?

My guess in someone like your case is pretty much all of them.

Because really, I don't think these things worry you too much. (Or guys like you).

We will see.

But as I said even if Bush does win the next election, any flag waving is likely to only last for a very short time.

At least if you did vote for Kerry, you could always blame him if/when the whole Iraq thing does fall apart.

GJ

bug77

There you have it. If they do see commitment, they will feel able to vote. (The part with carpet bombing has nothing to do with the subject.)

raid517

Which election? You mean this one, or the next one, or the next one? If we don't pull off this one, then that will have been two attempts already. Just how many attempts do we need exactly?

There are things you guys just do not appreciate about some of the realities if the US did massively increase its presence in Iraq. There are reasons why this has not happend already. But suffice to simplyfy it to say that if this were the case, any insurgency we see now would seem like utter small fry to the resistance we would encounter if we tried. More dead bodies, more money, more 'terrorism'. At what point do you decide that the game is no longer worth playing?

If we already can't deliver on our promises, what exactly are we doing there?

GJ

The_Neon_Cowboy

Well the people are were the the water is...
or near by alot of empty desert like I said






For scale Iraq is the size of calafornia


They focus on the negative. A lot of press in pints write one sides bias story hadn’t fair or balanced. When they omit facts, don't better getting them, or ignore them ... to use religion as a example lot of journalists could make the second coming of Christ sound like he's the antichrist

They shouldn’t be running around all ½ cocked making accusations. When they didn’t even fallow up, they didn’t bother to find out all that went on or why. That’s not important and doesn’t fit into their paticular agenda...

The news papers and what goes in print run by a mass majority, by liberals, even if the companies employees may very (somew hat) the pressures come from the top owner ship (liberals). It affects thier stories thier content etc...


News they likely read in print... unless it's all drwan from thier own reporting wich is rare. They useally research the matter...

either way he it looked like he was switched off not disconnected, the bars that came up on the screen looks like when a tv station has called it a night and broad casts a gernric bar signal.

Actually think it was a wake up call for them.

bug77

You brought elections up, so you should know which one I'm referring to.

raid517

So what's your point. If 90% of the populace still don't feel safe enough to vote, what are you saying? Were were beat by sand dunes and not by terrorists? Perhaps we should be out there carpet bombing the sand dunes instead?

A lot of press what? Pints? I'm not sure about the rest. It sounds like some half parroted objection from a republican party political manifesto or something you have half learned to say when you don't feel able to discuss the issues that are in front of you. In case you didn't notice that particular report was 40+ minutes long and went into some insane detail about pretty much every aspect of the story imaginable. So it didn't focus entirely on the positive. But this isn't a review of Mary Popins we're talking about - a lot of people in a lot of places - including increasingly within your own government (or did you miss what Donald Rumsfeld said?) are finding it ever harder to find anything positive to focus on.

As for the British 'liberal' press - like I said, you are likely to have little conception of how poorly this accusation tranfers to other countries and cultures. I doubt particularly it applies very much in the UK - where the vast majority of the press and media have always been viewed as rightward leaning. Notheless the press in this country have still in large part managed to maintain their independance and have not as so often seems the case these days in many parts of the US, succumbed to the temptation to merely act as the mouthpiece of the proaganda wing of each respective political party. The American media has become very politicised in recent years, though unlike you I see a pretty even mix of garbage being touted by either side.

The rest is just pointless tiresome quoting for quoting's sake. I'm not going to argue with you over how minor technical glitches can somehow be viewed as a bias towards some particular point of view. Shit happens. The guy had already had a whole pile of time to give a pretty good account of his point of view anyway.

I don't think anyone was in any doubt about where he was comming from.

Things weren't great, they could be better, but they still might not be as bad as everyone was making out. Being pretty much the chief advisior to the Bush administration (of some description or other) what else exactly did you expect him to say? Or wasn't that quite positive enough for you either?

What kind of good news stories do you want to hear right now anyway? I'm sure someone could dig up a few 'GI rescues kitten from tree.' type stories. To be honest I think that's possibly the only kind of 'news' you need. But it still has very little to do with the reality of what's going on on the ground for the people of Iraq right now - or what sort of impact this big bad thing called a war will have on their (and our) now undoubtedly entwined futures.

GJ

raid517

I know which I'm referring to. I'm just not certain of which you imagine you are referring to. I'm simply curious as to just how many elections you think there should be before we finally get to grip with the bad guys?

You want us to show full all out support for these next elections? In what way? If you are hoping that this means a massive all out increase in military commitment, again in case you missed it, it's already being made clear that that commitment may not be entirely forthcomming. What is being discussed now - even in the highest corners of the US government, is that if Iraq does have an election with the scheduled period it is likely - due to our inability to deal with the security situtation - to be very limited in scope. In short, it will not be the democracy that we all had hoped to build.

You can back slap your bar chums about what a nice guy Bush is all you want - but if that happens (which certainly now seems likely) he will have failed conclusively in what he set out to make his primary mission and the primary mission for the American people.

Who cares if he is a nice guy or not? All people really care about is if he can deliver.

Right now, that seems very very unlikely.

GJ

pr0digal jenius

winning requires clearly defined goals....so no..untill we get someone who can string together a coherent sentence for our nation to act upon, we can not win...period.

bug77

Well, he set out to rid Iraq of Saddam and delivered. Now the new government needs support and he is commited to support them. What exactly will fail if Bush gets reelected?
And when did I say anything about an increase in military presence?

raid517

What else will fail? Are you missing something? Isn't it clear to you already that your government has begun hinting that the Iraqi elections themselves may fail? That if they do go ahead, they may only be a mere shadow of what they were once touted to be?

Where is the success in that?

As I said, we may have won a battle. But how significant is that if utimately we still loose the war?

You may think that isn't going to happen - but going by everything that is going on, the signs do not look good.

GJ

raid517

I agree man. In a way I almost hope Bush is relected - if only saying so didn't mean such terrible potential concequences.

He has no strategy for winning. No plan - no way out.

It would reveal this government's policies finally in Iraq and with regard to the war on terror in general for the spectacular fraud they have been.

If Kerry got in and the shit did hit the fan, it would make it all too easy for these guys to blame him.

GJ

amduser

winning strategy...what do you military geniuses propose to do?