“I think that the surge has succeeded.........

[hoosier]

the change in strategy really worked, the approach they took was just as important as the increase in troops.

but the news the past couple months has been bad. The fall elections were cancelled over the Kirkuk dispute. The Shitte gov seems intent on breaking-up the Sunni "Awakening" movement that the U.S. helped build, which could lead to a renewed insurgency.

I think we need the next president to be committed to seeing-through the situation, it's far from a done deal. An attitude of defining success as withdrawin troops is not going to cut it. The argument that Afghanistan counts and Iraq doesn't is patently bullshit, even if it might have been debatable 5 years ago.

Your generosity to the neocons has no ends. Debatable? The position that Aghan matters and Iraq doesn't was absolutely correct, as anyone who's not living in fantasy land would IMO now admit. I will concede the point that US intelligence was ambiguous about the existence of WMDs in Iraq and that a reasonable person might have been convinced of their existence. So one COULD have been mistaken--but in good faith--about WMDs. But I have a hard time believing that anyone could assume that the possibility of WMDs legitimated the war. WMDs were CLEARLY being used by the administration as a pretext (the fact that Cheney-Bush had eleven pretexts shows that none of the was the real reason for invading), and the situation in Iraq was nothing like other contexts where the US has led a human-rights motivated intervention (Bosnia/Kosovo).

[mraynrand]

so you edited my post and inserted a crack?

How low will you go? You've set an all-new standard for pettiness now.

I don't understand.

[Harlan Huckleby]

Your generosity to the neocons has no ends. Debatable? The position that Aghan matters and Iraq doesn't was absolutely correct, as anyone who's not living in fantasy land would IMO now admit.

Ich bin ein neocon. The "neocons" have been demonized to such an extent that the word now is synonymous with right-wing fascists. Neocons are idealists who believe in freedom and human rights, they are internationalists, opposed to the old-school conservative isolationists. I consider John McCain and Joe Biden to be neocons. But enough about my people.

All I can say is you might very well be right about Iraq being a big mistake. But I'm not prepared to admit that it had to go so badly.

[Harlan Huckleby]

so you edited my post and inserted a crack?

How low will you go? You've set an all-new standard for pettiness now.

I don't understand.

Actually, I noticed the mispelling and edited the post myself. And the timing was such that my change went through before your wise crack, lending credibility to my claim that you did a petty dirty trick.

It was a perfect storm, which ended in your humiliation. In your face!

[Harlan Huckleby]

i see, you really did edit it this time.

you think you're so clever. but its too late.

[mraynrand]

and the situation in Iraq was nothing like other contexts where the US has led a human-rights motivated intervention (Bosnia/Kosovo).

Really? What about the 5k children/year starved to death under the U.N. "Oil for food" scandal? What about Iraqis firing on U.S. planes? What about Iraq housing Zarqawi as a guest after he fled Afghanistan? What about Saddam paying off terrorist families as a gift, after their kids slaughter Jews with suicide belts? What about Saddam welcoming the bomb chemist from the 1993 WTC bombing as a personal guest ('ONLY' 6 killed, 1000 wounded from that terrorist plot). Yes, it was 'all about WMDs' - at least that's all the press told you to believe. What about the Oil? I thought the war was about Oil? Is there more Oil in Iraq or in Afghanistan? Whcih country is more important for Oil production? Haven't we secured the oil in one of the richest oil fields in the world?

Did it ever occur to you that some of the terrorists that gave up in Iraq have returned to Afghanistan, just like Zarqawi fled to Iraq after we routed al Quaeda in Afghanistan in 2001? It's a bit like whack a mole, but with each whack, there are less and less murderous, sick twisted islamic fascists. After Iraq, we'll go kick the shit out of them with greater ferocity in Afghanistan, hopefully until they can't even crawl away.

But from your post I see you prefer slaughtering civilians by remote control in Kosovo. got it.

[SkinBasket]

the fact that Cheney-Bush had eleven pretexts shows that none of the was the real reason for invading

I have eleven pretexts for butt raping Harlan. Does that make 4) He's a lovely pianist any less legitimate?

[HowardRoark]

2 points:

1) Barack’s logic is frightenly flawed. He says he was against the war (which is debatable), therefore we should leave. That is not good leadership.

2) Who decides at what level of humanitarian atrocities is worth going to war. Vanity Fair’s pugnacious writer, Christopher Hitchens sure thought it was bad enough. And anyway, we invaded because of lack of compliance with UN Resolutions.

[hoosier]

Really? What about the 5k children/year starved to death under the U.N. "Oil for food" scandal? What about Iraqis firing on U.S. planes? What about Iraq housing Zarqawi as a guest after he fled Afghanistan? What about Saddam paying off terrorist families as a gift, after their kids slaughter Jews with suicide belts? What about Saddam welcoming the bomb chemist from the 1993 WTC bombing as a personal guest ('ONLY' 6 killed, 1000 wounded from that terrorist plot). Yes, it was 'all about WMDs' - at least that's all the press told you to believe. What about the Oil? I thought the war was about Oil? Is there more Oil in Iraq or in Afghanistan? Whcih country is more important for Oil production? Haven't we secured the oil in one of the richest oil fields in the world?

Did it ever occur to you that some of the terrorists that gave up in Iraq have returned to Afghanistan, just like Zarqawi fled to Iraq after we routed al Quaeda in Afghanistan in 2001? It's a bit like whack a mole, but with each whack, there are less and less murderous, sick twisted islamic fascists. After Iraq, we'll go kick the shit out of them with greater ferocity in Afghanistan, hopefully until they can't even crawl away.

But from your post I see you prefer slaughtering civilians by remote control in Kosovo. got it.

The "reasons" you list (oil for food scandal, shooting down planes, gifts to terrorist, playing host to terrorists) might make Saddam a bad guy, but they don't exactly distinguish him from many other leaders in the Middle East and around the world. Some of those leaders have been supported or even propped up by the US when their presence is deemed to be favorable to US economic interests. So these "reasons" alone are clearly not sufficient cause for the US to invade, and they would be conveniently overlooked in other contexts. So don't play the moral card and pretend the Iraq invasion was about helping Iraqis or building democracy or any of that crap. "Democracy" abroad only matters to the necons when it serves as a palliative for US interests. If you're an imperialist at heart--and by imperialist I mean someone whose foreign policy decisions are motivated by self-interest--then come out and say so. If not, if morality plays a role in foreign policy, then the "humanitiarian-democratic" excuses, as well as the "whack-a-mole" theory, don't hold water. How do you justify taking a country to the brink of self-destruction, with all the suffering that implies, just because that enabled you to create a concentrated kill zone for insurgents? Not to mention that the war in fact made becoming an insurgent all that much more attractive for a certain sector of the Islamic world...

[mraynrand]

Really? What about the 5k children/year starved to death under the U.N. "Oil for food" scandal? What about Iraqis firing on U.S. planes? What about Iraq housing Zarqawi as a guest after he fled Afghanistan? What about Saddam paying off terrorist families as a gift, after their kids slaughter Jews with suicide belts? What about Saddam welcoming the bomb chemist from the 1993 WTC bombing as a personal guest ('ONLY' 6 killed, 1000 wounded from that terrorist plot). Yes, it was 'all about WMDs' - at least that's all the press told you to believe. What about the Oil? I thought the war was about Oil? Is there more Oil in Iraq or in Afghanistan? Whcih country is more important for Oil production? Haven't we secured the oil in one of the richest oil fields in the world?

Did it ever occur to you that some of the terrorists that gave up in Iraq have returned to Afghanistan, just like Zarqawi fled to Iraq after we routed al Quaeda in Afghanistan in 2001? It's a bit like whack a mole, but with each whack, there are less and less murderous, sick twisted islamic fascists. After Iraq, we'll go kick the shit out of them with greater ferocity in Afghanistan, hopefully until they can't even crawl away.

But from your post I see you prefer slaughtering civilians by remote control in Kosovo. got it.

The "reasons" you list (oil for food scandal, shooting down planes, gifts to terrorist, playing host to terrorists) might make Saddam a bad guy, but they don't exactly distinguish him from many other leaders in the Middle East and around the world. Some of those leaders have been supported or even propped up by the US when their presence is deemed to be favorable to US economic interests. So these "reasons" alone are clearly not sufficient cause for the US to invade, and they would be conveniently overlooked in other contexts. So don't play the moral card and pretend the Iraq invasion was about helping Iraqis or building democracy or any of that crap. "Democracy" abroad only matters to the necons when it serves as a palliative for US interests. If you're an imperialist at heart--and by imperialist I mean someone whose foreign policy decisions are motivated by self-interest--then come out and say so. If not, if morality plays a role in foreign policy, then the "humanitiarian-democratic" excuses, as well as the "whack-a-mole" theory, don't hold water. How do you justify taking a country to the brink of self-destruction, with all the suffering that implies, just because that enabled you to create a concentrated kill zone for insurgents? Not to mention that the war in fact made becoming an insurgent all that much more attractive for a certain sector of the Islamic world...

It was in the U.S. interest to overthrow Saddam and turn Iraq into a pro U.S. ally in an oil rich region of the Mideast. That's the only reason for the U.S. government to get involved in any foreign affairs - U.S. interest. There were plenty of reasons to think overthrowing Saddam was a compelling U.S. interest. You don't agree. I have no problem with that - there were reasonable arguments against overthrowing Saddam . What was the compelling U.S. interest in Kosovo?

[hoosier]

It was in the U.S. interest to overthrow Saddam and turn Iraq into a pro U.S. ally in an oil rich region of the Mideast. That's the only reason for the U.S. government to get involved in any foreign affairs - U.S. interest. There were plenty of reasons to think overthrowing Saddam was a compelling U.S. interest. You don't agree. I have no problem with that - there were reasonable arguments against overthrowing Saddam . What was the compelling U.S. interest in Kosovo?

There are also different definitions of what "US interest" is. One example is when "US interest" is invoked to give more political weight to certain corporate interests. That's what happened with the US and Chile in 1973: ITT wanted Allende out, and its interests suddenly became synonymous with "US interests." In Kosovo, on the other hand, it's true that nobody tried to justify intervention by appealing to "US interests." But the overriding sentiment of the prointerventionists was that it was in the US's interest to prevent genocide--not ONLY in the US's interest but in everyone's. Even if you don't accept the idea that the US should care about humanistic principles, there is still the argument that it's in the US's interest to be seen globally as a beacon of democracy and justice, and that intervening in Kosovo promoted that goal, whereas invading Iraq didn't.

[SkinBasket]

And anyway, we invaded because of lack of compliance with UN Resolutions.

No one ever likes to talk about that.

[mraynrand]

Even if you don't accept the idea that the US should care about humanistic principles, there is still the argument that it's in the US's interest to be seen globally as a beacon of democracy and justice, and that intervening in Kosovo promoted that goal, whereas invading Iraq didn't.

It's always startling to me to see someone try to wrap themselves in knots to justify one intervention as being for democracy and justice, but somehow, deposing a brutal dictator and his sadistic family, establishing the most advanced democracy in the Mideast outside Israel, with religious pluralism, in the interest of reducing terrorism, while securing one of the largest oilfields on the planet, is somehow not even in the same category. Do you even read what you write? Do you even think about it?

[retailguy]

And anyway, we invaded because of lack of compliance with UN Resolutions.

No one ever likes to talk about that.

It is kind of like they'll think we'll forget if they just keep talking about WMD's. Notice how they've all forgotten that he violated over 20 UN resolutions? Bush was wrong, that's the REALLY important thing. I still want to know what was in those trucks. They never have told us. If they did, then I missed it.

[hoosier]

It's always startling to me to see someone try to wrap themselves in knots to justify one intervention as being for democracy and justice, but somehow, deposing a brutal dictator and his sadistic family, establishing the most advanced democracy in the Mideast outside Israel, with religious pluralism, in the interest of reducing terrorism, while securing one of the largest oilfields on the planet, is somehow not even in the same category. Do you even read what you write? Do you even think about it?

One could ask the same of you: You speak of people "wrapping themselves in knots" to justify A and not B, and this is exactly what the necons do with Iraq. How does "deposing a brutal dictator" possibly factor in when, in other situations, the US has gone far out of its way to help brutal dictators assume power? Deposing a brutal dictator is a line that you throw out because it suits your purposes, whereas the true motives lie elsewhere. But if those real motives are so noble, why the constant need to find moral narratives (deposing the evil one)?

I won't even touch the "establishing the most advanced democracy" line. That remains to be seen, but judging from Cheney-Bush's performace to date I would say that, if it happens, it's gonna happen despite them and not because of them. Same for reducing terrorism: Iraq did nothing of the sort, it greatly increased the number of terrorist acts and has proved a breeding ground for the next generation of terrorists. That wouldn't have been part of the strategy, now, would it?