More Troops???!!

[Runner]

I see our situation in Iraq as analogous to trying to rid all of the cockroaches in your house.

You can easily get rid of the first 60% of them and then each incremental cockroach gets more and more difficult to exterminate.

There comes a point where the prize isn't worth the game. Do you turn your attention to enjoying your life and learn to live peacefully with the remaining cockroaches?

Or do you ruin your life trying to exterminate every last one, because you are stubborn and stupid? You ignore your family, forsake your employment and obsess over that last cockroach.

Here is how to rid your house of cockroaches. First off you need to change out your pesticide. If you use the same one each time the roaches will gain resistance and thus the pesticide is less effective. Rotate material each time and you can defeat them and rid your home free of the pests.

If you think if we stop killing the roaches in Iraq that we will be safe I think your dreaming..

[Runner]

I bet a lot of you support our men and women deployed in Iraq, but do you really? I think not. You are sitting on the fence. What do you support? Oh you support them but you don’t support what they are doing… These guys want victory and nothing else. Do you, you, you support that? Did anyone say this was going to be easy? Did Bush say it would only last 3 months? Problem is to many want to take the easy pansy way out of things. What happens when one sees his buddy get killed? I’ll tell yaw he wants victory. He needs this. He wants to feel what he does matters. He wants to finish the fight and come home victorious. He knows he is part of history in the making. He wants the sense of completing his mission. It is ashamed that our sorry politicians tot their horns and use this war as a platform to gain popularity votes. Oh last thing here at FT Benning the vast majority of troops respect President Bush and they admire the fact that he stands for something.

[ParkTwain]

Beltway elites now speak of "catch basins" for Iraqi civil war refugees

From the Brookings Institution, "Things Fall Apart" (released 1/31/07)
(see page XIX of complete report)

http://www.brook.edu/fp/saban/analysis/jan2007iraq_civilwar.htm

//
Consider establishing safe havens or “catch
basins” along Iraq’s borders. One of the hardest
aspects of containing the spillover from an
all-out Iraqi civil war will be to limit, let alone
halt, the fl ow of refugees, terrorists, and foreign
agents (or invasion forces) across Iraq’s borders.
One potential option that deserves careful
scrutiny would be to try to create a system of
buffer zones with accompanying refugee collection
points along Iraq’s borders inside Iraqi
territory, manned by U.S. and other Coalition
personnel. The refugee collection points would
be located on major roads preferably near airstrips
near the borders and would be designed
with support facilities to house, feed, and otherwise
care for tens or even hundreds of thousands
of refugees. The Coalition (principally
the United States) would also provide military
forces to defend the refugee camps against attack
and to thoroughly pacify them (by disarming
those entering the camps and then policing
the camps). This option would require
the extensive and continued use of U.S. forces.
//

From an observer on the ground in 2006:

http://www.bostonreview.net/BR31.6/rosen.html

//
In an attempt to limit Muqtada’s power and appease Sunnis, the Americans pressured Prime Minister Ibrahim al Jaafari to step down. He was replaced in May 2006 by Nuri al Maliki, his close friend, but American and British bullying cost them the few Shia allies they had and only convinced Iraq’s Shias that Americans were playing a game of divide and conquer. The debate over Jaafari was framed as Kurds and Sunnis competing with Shias for power. It was one more sectarian battle, fought this time inside the Green Zone. But it was too late for that game because the Americans had long since lost the Sunnis and were continuing to alienate them with daily killings and their protecting with force the Shia-dominated order that they created in April 2003. This American blunder has only pushed Iraq closer to Iran and Syria.

Nuri al Maliki is ideologically at least as extreme as Jaafari, and as committed to preserving the new order. He has already threatened to use “maximum force” against “terrorists,” the code word for Sunnis. Even if Maliki was committed to a national unity government and nonsectarian security forces, and even if the Americans tried to reverse the sectarian trend in Iraq, it is too late. Muqtada’s supporters will not voluntarily relinquish control of the army or the police, and having fought the Americans in the past, many would be eager to fight them again. And who would replace them? There are no nonsectarian Iraqis left, no nonsectarian militia, and no physical space for those rejecting sectarianism. Even secular Sunnis and Shias are embracing sectarian militias because nobody else will protect them. Many even join these groups out of fear, since to refuse is to be disloyal, or perhaps a spy.

Although the Bush administration has criticized the Iraqi government for not disarming the militias—and this is certainly the most important problem facing Iraq, apart from the occupation—this is an untenable first step. The militias exist because there is no security in Iraq. And when the Bush administration criticizes the Iraqi government for being weak, they forget that they deliberately made it weak and dependant on their dictates. The American failure to provide security has led to the militias. The American sectarian approach has created the civil war. We saw Iraqis as Sunnis, Shias, Kurds. We designed a governing council based on a sectarian quota system and ignored Iraqis (not exiled politicians but real Iraqis) who warned us against it. We decided that the Sunnis were the bad guys and the Shias were the good guys. These problems were not timeless. In many ways they are new, and we are responsible for them. The tens of thousands of cleansed Iraqis, the relatives of those killed by the death squads, the sectarian supporters and militias firmly ensconced in the government and its ministries, the Shia refusal to relinquish their long-awaited control over Iraq, the Kurdish commitment to secession, the Sunni harboring of Salafi jihadists—all militate against anything but full-scale civil war.

When it comes, through the slow progression we have seen so far or through a cataclysmic incident like Sarajevo, or the 1975 Ayn ar-Rummanah bus attack, or another attack like the one on the Samarra shrine, or perhaps the assassination of an important Shia cleric or leader, Sunnis will be cleansed from Baghdad. And the Shias will go to war against Sunnis. The Kurds, having waited for this opportunity, will secede and tell the world they tried the federalist route in good faith but those crazy Arabs down south keep killing each other. Who would want to belong to a country like that?

The Arab world had always been dominated by Sunnis, who make up 85 percent of the world’s Muslims. The new Shia Iraq is overturning the Ottoman and colonialist legacies that entrenched Sunnis. Along with Hizbullah’s victory against Israel this summer, this will threaten the status quo throughout the Arab world. In Syria, already seen as dominated by the Shia-like Alawi minority that is hated by the Sunni majority, the Iranians recently built a mosque commemorating a battle that Imam Ali lost. The unpopular Sunni regimes of Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, seeing their power wane, can no longer be anti-American or anti-Israeli, having sold out on those issues by supporting the Americans and practically supporting Israel against Hizbullah in July. Instead, they are playing the sectarian card to regain the respect they lost from their population and galvanize them against a new threat, the Shias. Most recently, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak accused Shias of being fifth-columnists, loyal to Iran. Egypt does not recognize Shiism as Islam. In Lebanon, during the demonstrations that followed the publication of the Danish cartoons, Sunni clerics led demonstrations condemning Shias and supporting Zarqawi, whom one cleric called “my sheikh, my emir,” perhaps hoping they could appropriate the so-called “sheikh of the slaughterers” as their own to gain more leverage against the powerful Hizbullah. More ominously, in April 2006 Hizbullah accused nine men who were charged in an attempted assassination of Hizbullah’s general secretaries of being motivated by a desire to avenge killings of Sunnis in Iraq. In his last statement, Zarqawi specifically condemned Lebanese Hizbullah, making arguments from a Lebanese-Sunni point of view. The effects of Hizbullah’s victory remain to be seen, but they further discredit the unpopular Sunni dictatorships who criticized Hizbullah but who were always impotent to stand up to the Americans or Israelis despite their large armies and wealth. Hizbullah’s leader, Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, became the most popular leader in the Arab world. But Iraq was pulling in a different direction, for Muqtada was no Hassan Nasrallah.

If Iraq’s Sunnis are targeted on a larger scale the concept of the Iraqi nation-state will cease to be relevant. Salafi jihadis will pour in to fight the hated Shias. Shias will attempt to push Sunnis out of Iraq, for until they can control the key highways in the Anbar leading to Syria and Jordan, their economy will be threatened. Sunnis throughout the region will not tolerate the Shias killing Sunnis or a Shia Iraq. Iraq’s Sunni tribes extend into Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere. Their tribal kinsmen will come to their aid, sending reinforcements of men and materiel across the porous borders. Sunni retaliation against Shias or Alawis in Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, and even Afghanistan could provoke sectarian clashes throughout the Muslim world. Kurdish independence could provoke Turkish intervention. At minimum it will push the Turks closer to the Iranians and Syrians, who will have the same concerns of Kurdish irredentism. At some point Iran will intervene, and if it threatens the waters of the Persian Gulf the entire world’s economy will be threatened. Iraq’s civil war will become a regional war.

Rather than remaking the Middle East, the Iraq war has destabilized it. Sunnis throughout the region who already have so many reasons to hate the United States—Abu Ghraib, the Haditha massacre, the rape and murder of an Iraqi girl, Guantánamo—would now have one more, for the Americans would have handed Iraq over to the Shias. We are seeing the death throes, not the birth pangs, of a new Middle East.

The Bush administration persists in its assertions of progress and clings to the idea that something called victory is possible. What victory? By every measure, life is worse for the Iraqis (leaving aside the Kurds, who don’t want to be Iraqis anyway). They are dying by the dozens or the hundreds every day—nobody even knows how many, since the Anbar province and much of the south, and even much of Baghdad, are black holes, with no information coming out. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died violently since the war began, probably eclipsing the number of Saddam’s victims. The ministry of health was recently ordered again not to disclose the number of casualties. The United Nations’ torture expert has stated that torture in Iraq is now worse than it was under Saddam. Over 1.5 million Iraqis have fled their country, to Jordan, Syria, and Egypt, and in late 2006 one European official in Syria estimated that up to 3,000 Iraqis a day were fleeing into that country.
//

Who are the "Salafi Jihadists" mentioned in the second article above?

A:
PBS TV's "Frontline" presents "The Salafist Movement"

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/front/special/sala.html

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/intro/islam-salafi.htm

//
Salafi is a term often used to describe fundamentalist islamic thought.

The teachings of the reformer Abd Al-Wahhab are more often referred to by adherents as Salafi, that is, "following the forefathers of Islam." This branch of Islam is often referred to as "Wahhabi," a term that many adherents to this tradition do not use. Members of this form of Islam call themselves Muwahhidun ("Unitarians", or "unifiers of Islamic practice"). They use the Salafi Da'wa or Ahlul Sunna wal Jama'a. Wahhabism is a particular orientation within Salafism. Most puritanical groups in the Muslim world are Salafi in orientation, but not necessarily Wahhabi.
//

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salafi

//
Salafism or Salafīyyah (Arabic: سلفية "predecessors" or "early generations") is a puritanical fundamentalist movement within Islam. "Salafi" is an umbrella term for adherents of a particular form of Islamic revivalism who vary amongst themselves as to its definition, but share a rejection of contemporary Islamic teachings in favor of a return to the Salaf, as Islam was practiced during the first three generations of Muslims.

Salafi Muslims are often grouped together with Wahhabi Muslims, although the two movements began independently and originally held opposing views. Wahhabism rejected modern influences, while Salafism sought to reconcile Islam with modernism. Use of the word "Salafi" can be very confusing, as the term has been used by several competing Islamic groups that are known by other names. It can be used to describe a general veneration of early Muslims, or it can be used as another name for political Islamism. When Salafism is used as an actual name, it is of the modernist reorientation of Islam as defined by the Egyptian Mufti, Muhammad Abduh, early in the 20th century. There is now intense competition between groups and individual scholars over the 'true' Salafism.

Salafis idealize an uncorrupted bygone religious community that declined due to foreign innovations (bid‘ah). They seek an Islamic revival through the purging of these influences and the emulation of the early generations. Particular emphasis is given to monotheism (tawhid), condemning many traditional practices as polytheism (shirk), and encouraging struggle (jihad) of varying degrees. The sources of Salafism are said to be the Qur'an and the sunnah. ...

In the United States, Salafism has been equated by some with radicalism and terrorism in some newspaper articles, books, and public discourse. However, “Salafism” is not inherently synonymous with violence, terrorism, or radicalism. Many Salafis throughout the world are doctrinally rigid, but peaceful. ...

The Salafi jihadist movement has attracted rootless and or committed internationalist militants. They fight for the jihad, seeking to re-create the Muslim ummah and shariat to build an Islamic community. Simultaneously conservatives and radical, they form a global network that has attracted Muslims from around the world to fight jihad in Kashmir, Bosnia, Chechnya, Afghanistan, and the Philippines. The salafi-jihadist movement in Central Asia and the Caucasus is more localized -- an expression of identity in areas such as Ferghana, villages in Daghestan, and upper Gharm valley. In Central Asia, the term "Wahabi" refers to fundamentalists who come from Pakistan or Afghanistan, but they are not necessarily a political movement. For example, Wahabis in Tajikistan do not recognize themselves as a political alignment. However, most Central Asian regimes use the term Wahabi more broadly to describe Islamic religious movements outside the states' control.
//

[Adam]

This may be the first time I disgree with Ernie. The roaches need to be removed otherwise they will contaminate everything you have eventually. Although I don't agree with every Bush policy I think I is best to have a president who is strong enough to stand by his decision and in they way of those who want to run from the problem. I stand behind our troops and the countries decision to stay the course. Eventually the pests will over take you unless you employ a proper removal method ie. snakes. Pest removal is not pretty no matter what the pest is. Why are we trying to make it look so pretty? War is war and is ugly. If fightin now slows the infestation we will be better equiped when they arrive, or realize there here. for every one u see there are 10 you don't. Just imagine...if those last few cockroaches would stop at nothing to kill you....would you still leave them be???

NOT ME!

[mrmarket]

I bet a lot of you support our men and women deployed in Iraq, but do you really? I think not. You are sitting on the fence. What do you support? Oh you support them but you don’t support what they are doing… These guys want victory and nothing else. Do you, you, you support that? Did anyone say this was going to be easy? Did Bush say it would only last 3 months? Problem is to many want to take the easy pansy way out of things. What happens when one sees his buddy get killed? I’ll tell yaw he wants victory. He needs this. He wants to feel what he does matters. He wants to finish the fight and come home victorious. He knows he is part of history in the making. He wants the sense of completing his mission. It is ashamed that our sorry politicians tot their horns and use this war as a platform to gain popularity votes. Oh last thing here at FT Benning the vast majority of troops respect President Bush and they admire the fact that he stands for something.

Runner...who are they fighting?? What is the war about???

[mrmarket]

This may be the first time I disgree with Ernie. The roaches need to be removed otherwise they will contaminate everything you have eventually. Although I don't agree with every Bush policy I think I is best to have a president who is strong enough to stand by his decision and in they way of those who want to run from the problem. I stand behind our troops and the countries decision to stay the course. Eventually the pests will over take you unless you employ a proper removal method ie. snakes. Pest removal is not pretty no matter what the pest is. Why are we trying to make it look so pretty? War is war and is ugly. If fightin now slows the infestation we will be better equiped when they arrive, or realize there here. for every one u see there are 10 you don't. Just imagine...if those last few cockroaches would stop at nothing to kill you....would you still leave them be???

NOT ME!

Let the roaches have their shithole house.

[Lyehopper]

Let the roaches have their shithole house.

These roaches can get out of the hole.... and fly airplanes into skyscrapers.... and slit your freakin' mother's throat.

[studentofthemarket]

can't we just have them love us?

These roaches can get out of the hole.... and fly airplanes into skyscrapers.... and slit your freakin' mother's throat.

EXACTLY,

Just what do people think these people want? the U.S. out of the ME? for starters, they also want a world governed by Sharia<sp>.

they want the Jews, Christians, Hindus, etc. DEAD. plain and simple.

ahmadinejad<sp> keeps yacking about how the U.S. will be destroyed. Well how many people think that is just harmless rhetoric? Newsflash, it isn't rhetoric, the nutcase is threatening us. He's emboldened by past actions that the Iranians were behind, that didn't cause them any pain, our hostages, and the Marine Barracks in Lebanon. This guy is already waging a proxy war on us in Iraq, and Lebanon. He looks at these stupid resolutions, timetables, milestones and progress measures as a sign of lack of will and resolve. why else do you think they are spinning up more centrifuges?

Hussein looked at Viet Nam and decided we didn't have the guts to do anything. So he invaded Kuwait. After he got flushed out of Kuwait, he bided his time until his bribes of Russian, French and other officials, could work their magic and get the sanctions lifted. (Some place I have a complete list of all of the people and their countries of origin ensnared in the Oil-for-food scandal) However, he failed to comply with all of the requirements of the cease fire. So we went back in. That was the reason we had to go in. that WMD stuff was just theatrics, it came down to doing what we said we would do if he didn't do what he agreed to. NOT going in would have made us look weak, and invite even more trouble in the future.

Anybody care to notice how swell Iran thinks it would be if we left? they are scared having our military so close by, able to lauch jets from the dirt instead of ships. They would just love to swoop in and institute a second Islamic state in the region.

the Iranians are a huge problem, and they think we won't do anything. I think they'll be proven devastatingly wrong in the not too distant future. They are supplying weapons that are killing our soldiers, and they have to be held accountable for that activity. And I'm quite comfortable with the thought that the USMC would be most helpful in that situation. It has been shown that Marine paybacks are rather effective and painful for the recipient.

student.

[peanuts]

A safe bet?

With more troops going into the region, does this make Israeli companies a safer bet? Just wondering, because whenever there are PR's of our troops in Iraq, the Israeli markets have great days.... take today, for example. News was released that more troops are going into the region, and the Tel-Aviv Index jumped 1.37%. Is there a connection here, or what?

To follow the index, click HERE

[studentofthemarket]

more troops success Oh My!

well it is a good news bad news thing.

for example good news

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070309/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

a major scumbag nailed.

OTOH,

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070309/wl_mideast_afp/mideastconflictisraelsyria

there is nothing good about the above. Syria is still mad they got thier butts handed to them years ago. OTOH, they might prefer to have Damascus leveled. One can never tell what the motiviations of M.E. leadership is these days.

if those rockets start coming down. The Israeli economy will probably tank.

Tell you what. I'll try to get in touch with somebody I know over there this next week and get back to you.

student.

[Websman]

I haven't taken out any terrorists lately, but I did give a scumbag another 10-15 years in the pen last week. He was getting ready to go home in May, until he screwed up and I caught him...It makes me feel good to keep a thug off the street. jejejejeeeeeee

[Tatnic]

Blackwater may already have that contract. No bid of course.

Of course....and isn't that a huge part of this war? Just like this administration has been brainwashing america to support the troops (translation, support the war, frig the troops, ie look at walter read for one example), it has been very cleverly hiding the fact that its also a huge profit-making machine for dick cheney's old company Halliburton. Do you think for a second that its feasible to send halliburton into afghanistan to root out the last remaining vestiges of Al Queda leadership? NOt very cost effective, its much easier for halliburton to rape the american people on a larger scale, ie in iraq.

The problem as I see it, in a nutshell, is that we have a problem with al queda and its not being dealt with. Instead of killing off their ranks and discouraging the next brainwashed moron to strap on a bomb belt, we've managed to start a civil war in an islamic country, destabilized the entire region (which makes it harder for us in the long run) and helped al queda recruit an absolutely endless supply of whackos who care little for their lives and certainly zero for ours. Heck-of-a-job bushie.

Now, if we didn't have some drunk draft dodger running things, we'd have al queda under control already....we were almost there just a few short years ago (we had them pinned up against the wall and thinking the end was near). For those of you here who have actually fought your own fights, you know how important it is to get it over quickly and brutally and don't let your opponent get back up on his feet and get a second wind. That's exactly what this dumb shit bush/cheney bunch has done with al queda and the talliban. Of course we all know they've never, ever even remotely had to fight their own fights so why would we expect them to understand the importance of winning a fight quickly and getting the opponent to surrender mentally as well as physically? We've lost that easy chance and will never get it back...nice job dumbshits, you've just made an easy task an impossible one now.

[Peter Hansen]

Let The Dogs Of War Loose !

The problem in Iraq as I see it .......is simply political correctness putting shackles on the hands of or troops. Either we should be in there to win......or get the HELL out. We made that mistake In Vietnam and 58,000 poor souls lost thier lives for that Domino Theory Bullshit, and the generals being held back from pursuing that war the way they had wished. As in Vietnam 40 yrs form now all will be forgotten .....and once again many American lives lost for absolutely nothing!

[mrmarket]

A lot of Americans who support the war still think that we are fighting against the country of Iraq.

I've got news for you..if we bring our troops home, the war is ended and we don't lose. If he had spent the $500 billion here shoring up our homeland security we would be a lot safer and 3,000 troops wouldn't have lost their lives.

Oh..and that money wouldn't have gone to Halliburton...hmmm.

However we went over there, lost 3,000 young Americans and spent $500 billion for NOTHING!

Sure I support the troops and I wish I could support every family member who has lost a loved one or had their families turned upside down by this war. Calling it unnecessary is not being unpatriotic nor is it being disrespectful to the brave young soldiers who do what they are being told to do.

But come on....let's be reasonable, we're not going to secure Iraq. There's going to be civil war and another dictator will step in. Why spend another dime or lose another drop of American blood over this??

Yea yea yea I know...the terrorists will come here and kill us if we don't do something. Guess what, they will come here and kill us anyway. Geez I wish I had that $500 billion for homeland security now!

[billyjoe]

I heard something scary on a religious broadcast from a local church today. They prayed for church and community members in the military and those in college. They announced the names of 29 in the military and 5 in college. The town's population is under 30,000 and local unemployment is 8% with supposedly 4.5% nationwide. The young people are leaving this part of Ohio as soon as they get out of high school. Those in the military and college rarely come back. Manufacturing is gone south or to China what we have left is employment at fast food joints or water and amusement parks.

-------------billyjoe