Letters to the Editor
-
Summer Vacation is almost over in Iraq
In previous years, fighters have gone into the mountains in the summer to escape the 115- 125 degree heat in the valley surrounding Baghdad. We will not know if the violence is really down until the weather cools off, and the fighters come back down from the moutains.
-
WT
“If the American people don't like it, let's see how they feel after another decade of this miserable shit.”
Since money seems to move many Americans more than death, we should explain how spending trillions of dollars would affect their comfortable lives. Do they want more fallen bridges, lack of money to spend on disasters, seriously depleted social security funds, no more pork barrel projects, meager help paying for higher education etc.? We still seem to blow off how much money this war is costing us. The lack of a draft to feel the pain of war could be offset by lack of money and alteration of American life style comfort.
-
@Kitt
The more they make their case while they are doing so the better but that will/would be salad dressing only. More people would get benind them. That would help, but then, more people are behind already, and that hasn't helped...much. But none of it will make any difference to the administration. The administration needs to be taken down by the power of the purse and the power of The Constitution. No amount of 'we're in the right, and here is our case', will make a dent in them.
Here's where we aren't quite in sync. The 60% of the American People are behind them, that isn't who remains to be brought on board. Of those who aren't on board, there are two types: People who aren't on board because they are lined up behind the Administration, and people who aren't on board because they believe there will be a bloodbath and don't want to be responsible for it. I would contend that the military has a lot of the latter. So does the Senate, and so does the House. And that means: no plan = we stay. Forget the administration, those are the people who need to be on board, and they aren't on board. Have you ever been in a position to make a decision, made it, and had someone say that the reason the bad outcome happened was because of your decision? They are worried about their own nightmares if they do the wrong thing. That's so much stronger than anything else. We don't win until we end that fear. It's totally backwards for the public to be convincing the government that there's nothing to fear but fear itself, but that's the way it is. Or at least, that's the way I see it.
The other path out of the bloodbath requires some contrition on the part of the U.S. We're a country that does contrition about as well as we pay debt. So it is a hard way to go. And, we require the help of a country that has been our enemy since 1979. We do enemies about as well as we do contrition.
-
Westmoreland's/Patraeus Speech
In the seven or so years between Westmoreland's [Patraeus} speech and the end of the war, over 35,000 Americans died in Vietnam...[Iraq].
http://tinyurl.com/35h32g
-
@ RMP
Oh, indeed. We're going the way of the Soviet Union, albeit at a somewhat more leisurely pace, given that we started much higher up the precipice. First the Banana Republic Militant, then the threadbare empire. Inevitably we'll all be paupers, but our generals will be wearing gold epaulets and scarlet sashes, and very much taller hats, a la Pinochet, and the President will be addressed as El Supremo.
-
Mr. T -- I agree completely -- until we promise to leave, no one can engage with us without being called "collaborator"
William said:
If we don't announce immediately that every last American will be gone from Iraq within some reasonable number of Friedman Units -- say two or three -- and announce it in a way which forecloses any speculation on our hidden motives, we aren't likely to be able to open meaningful discussions with anyone. If we do announce a date certain for our departure, the Saudis, the Iranians, the Turks, the Israelis, and most especially, the Iraqis themselves will be very eager to speak with us. We can then make our apologies, offer reparations, encourage the regional powers live up to their responsibilities, whatever you wish.
I have read in several places recently that "the Democrats" have seen the light and understand that we'll be in Iraq for the next decade or so.
Absolute Insanity.
Scott Ritter wrote recently:
There is no reason to believe that the compliant war facilitators who comprise the “anti-war” Democratic majority in Congress will do anything other than give the president what he is asking for. No one seems to want to debate, in any meaningful fashion, what is really going on in Iraq.
What is going on, among other things, is a humanitarian disaster appears to be approaching one of those "tipping points" after which things get much worse.
"WE" have to get out so that help can get in... and it really hardly matters in the bigger scheme of things whose help it is.
What's going on is "ethnic cleansing" where whole neighborhoods are cleansed of their minorities, displaced, impoverished. The better off left earlier -- now Sunnis are leaving Baghdad for Fallujah which pre-Fallujah I and II was estimated to have a population of 250,000, became a ghost town, a wreck, a shell, and now is estimated to have a population of 300,000+ because of internal displacement and Sunnis seeking shelter with family. Sunnis can now only feel relatively safe in Sunni towns. Finding numbers on Fallujah is damn near impossible ... I was unable to find out if the destroyed sewage, electrical and water delivery systems (post Fallujah II) had been miraculously been replaced (they had been deemed unfixable).
The United Nations has promised "more help" ... promising to almost double their personnel which will still, irrc, be under 100. (At the time they were bombed, irrc, they had over 300 in Iraq).
I was a "you break it, you own it" advocate ... after a year, I came be believe that WE could not fix Iraq ... we could only pay for others to do so and promise not to interfere ... that we would likely need to channel promised funds to a third-party oversight organization. Allowing Iraqi crooks to steal billions of reconstruction dollars is part of the problem.
I haven't found any group willing to take on this challenge (as Voices in the Wilderness and other took on the deprivations caused by the sanctions)... but I don't think the problems of Iraq can wait for Americans to care they're hungry, thirsty, diseased and dying.