Reviewing the Situation - What's going right in Iraq

Politics International Politics
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More facts on whats going right in Iraq. Things you’re not likely to see in the MSM…(or the “indy” sites)

[quote]Reviewing the Situation - What’s going right in Iraq.
By Bill Crawford

Three months have passed since the last report on good news from Iraq — three more months of terrorists captured and killed, infrastructure built and rebuilt, weapons confiscated, services provided, and heroism on the part of our troops.

It has been said a thousand times that we can’t leave Iraq until Iraq’s security forces are willing and able to fight for themselves. And thanks to the training they are getting from U.S. forces, they are becoming ever more willing and able. There was plenty of bad news from Iraq this year, but among the best news is that Iraq’s police and army are showing marked improvement and are operating independently more frequently with each passing day. In fact, the progress they are making now warrants a separate section in this and future updates.

Reconstruction is another success story that is largely ignored. By the end of 2006, more than 2,600 projects had been completed. The supply of energy has been increased to 1.3 million homes, oil production is at 2.2 million bpd, 838 schools have been rehabilitated or constructed, 239 kilometers of road have been fixed, and 15 hospital rehabilitation projects have been completed.

None of the accomplishments presented here would make the failure to establish security and stability in Iraq any less disastrous. Yet these accomplishments are by no means rendered irrelevant because we are unsure of whether we will emerge victorious from the war. It is difficult to appreciate the good that is done by our soldiers if we are unaware of it; and it is easy to become discouraged if we ponder only the mess of the war and not the steady progress being made toward defeating our enemies and establishing a stable Iraqi society not ruled by a murderous despot. We still have a long way to go, but 2006 was the kind of year that should make us optimistic about the road forward. (what follows at link is a sourced list of things that are going right in Iraq)
Whats Going Right in Iraq[/quote]

Is it over? Of course it isn’t. Only the detractors want you to believe that anybody said this was going to be quick & easy. Patience requires maturity.

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Why a new thread? We’ve got “Progress in Iraq” and “Iraq on the right path”, what’s significantly different here?

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[quote=“Jaboney”]Why a new thread? We’ve got “Progress in Iraq” and “Iraq on the right path”, what’s significantly different here?[/quote]Took you all of this time to post without reading the article? In the bathroom?

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And only the idiots would make such statements.

  • Michael Leeden, American Enterprise Institute, research fellow, Oct 29, 2001
  • Ken Adelman, Washington Post, Feb 13, 2002
  • Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, Nov 15, 2002

— Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, to U.S. troops in Aviano, Italy, Feb 7, 2003

–Vice President Dick Cheney, “Meet the Press,” March 16, 2003

  • Richard Perle, Chairman of the Defense Policy Board, Mar 25, 2003

–President Bush, standing under a “Mission Accomplished” banner on the USS Lincoln aircraft carrier, May 2, 2003

—President George W. Bush, challenging militants attacking U.S. forces in Iraq, July 2, 2003

-Vice President Dick Cheney, on the Iraq insurgency, June 20, 2005

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Gee…a personal insult followed by a bunch of cut & paste…true to form. What a brain-trust we’re dealing with here.

MT…I’ve switched to hot tea with the cooler weather.
1/2 High Mountain and 1/2 Green tea. With just a dash of sweetener. Have that ready for me in the morning.

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Does that mean you now admit that President Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and various others in their administration DID state repeatedly that Iraq would be a cakewalk? Or do you require links to the above quotes?

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Don’t you have a new dodge, TC? [quote=“TainanCowboy”]Only the detractors want you to believe that anybody said this was going to be quick & easy. Patience requires maturity.[/quote] That’s a clear statement. So are the statements cited. They’re not being used out of context. Suck it up. Maturity requires admitting when you’re wrong.

See, this is how it works:

[quote=“Ken Adelman, Washington Post, Feb 13, 2002”]
I believe demolishing Hussein’s military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk.[/quote]

[quote=“Kenneth Adelman, Vanity Fair, January 2007”]Kenneth Adelman, a longtime neocon activist and Pentagon insider who has served on the Defense Policy Board, wrote a famous op-ed article in The Washington Post in February 2002, arguing, “I believe that demolishing Hussein’s military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk.” Now he says, “I am extremely disappointed by the outcome in Iraq, because I just presumed that what I considered to be the most competent national-security team since Truman was indeed going to be competent. They turned out to be among the most incompetent teams in the postwar era. Not only did each of them, individually, have enormous flaws, but together they were deadly, dysfunctional.”

Fearing that worse is still to come, Adelman believes that neoconservatism itself—what he defines as “the idea of a tough foreign policy on behalf of morality, the idea of using our power for moral good in the world”—is dead, at least for a generation. After Iraq, he says, “it’s not going to sell.” And if he, too, had his time over, Adelman says, "I would write an article that would be skeptical over whether there would be a performance that would be good enough to implement our policy. The policy can be absolutely right, and noble, beneficial, but if you can’t execute it, it’s useless, just useless. I guess that’s what I would have said: that Bush’s arguments are absolutely right, but you know what? You just have to put them in the drawer marked CAN’T DO. And that’s very different from LET’S GO."

[quote]Some of the neocons also claim that the Web excerpt quotes them out of context—implying, perhaps, that in other parts of their interviews they had praised the performance of Bush and his administration. That charge is untrue. Meanwhile, not all the neocons are unhappy. On Wednesday, November 8, with news of the Democratic takeover of Congress still fresh and Rumsfeld’s resignation still hours away, I receive an e-mail from Adelman. “I totally agree with you,” he writes. "Why keep Issue #1 behind closed doors until the American people have a chance to vote? That’s why I was (among the only ones) not giving any ‘rebuttal’ to the [Web] release, despite being asked and pressured to do so, since I think it’s just fine to get word out when it could make a difference to people.

“Plus I personally had no rebuttal. I thought the words I read from you were fair and right on target.”
[/quote][/quote]

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[quote=“TainanCowboy”]Gee…a personal insult followed by a bunch of cut & paste…true to form. What a brain-trust we’re dealing with here.

[/quote]

That’s rich coming from you. Without Google and an instruction manual on how to use a quote function, the veneer of sneering intellectual superiority you display would be somewhat thinner. You couldn’t have posted in an existing thread related to all the goody goody things in Iraq, could you?Was it too demanding of your tiny weeny NRA mind to merge your argument into such a thread? Oh no you had to start another one.

Can’t wait for the snappy retort gratinated with your pompous sanctimosity. :loco:

BroonArthritis

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[quote=“Jaboney”]Don’t you have a new dodge, TC?[/quote]For the 10 years prior to my moving to Taiwan I drove Cadillacs. What does this have to do with this thread?[quote=“Jaboney”][quote=“TainanCowboy”]Only the detractors want you to believe that anybody said this was going to be quick & easy. Patience requires maturity.[/quote] That’s a clear statement.[/quote]And yet you still do not have a comment on the information in the posted article. Thats weird.[quote=“Jaboney”]So are the statements cited.[/quote]And why are they cited? Do they state your position on the article posted?[quote=“Jaboney”]They’re not being used out of context.[/quote]Says you. Its just been shown that they are.[quote=“Jaboney”]Suck it up.[/quote]Beg pardon? What on earth is this about?[quote=“Jaboney”]Maturity requires admitting when you’re wrong.[/quote]Now for you, this is an ‘out of context’ statement. But admission is a positive step to rehabilitation…Good for You!

Now about the points covered in the article…?

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No, no. That’s not how it works. You ignore my every clarification, ignore questions posed re: the need for a new thread, ignore refutations offered of your foolish statement in the original post, then expect that your demands for answers will be answered? Another point on maturity: with it comes the realization that the world does not revolve around you, nor does it bow to your every whim. Oh sure, you can snap your fingers and expect tea, or a wet nurse, to appear, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.

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As to the comments above… Some comments of my own.

The vast majority of Iraqis (90 percent) welcomed the US forces and the removal of Saddam. Later, they had conflicting views about the “occupation.” Let’s be clear about that.

Also, the war in Iraq to “remove Saddam Hussein” did take about three weeks and yes it was a cakewalk.

We are now dealing with some very hard elements who have stoked the insurgency. Imagine a gang, a mafia. We are also dealing with a lot of turf battles and quite frankly we do not have the ability to police the nation. Should this have been anticipated? Perhaps. Was it? Not to the extent that it should have been BUT make no mistake. The Iraqis did support the removal of Saddam in huge proportions and we did have a cakewalk in removing Saddam.

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[quote=“Jaboney”]No, no. That’s not how it works. You ignore my every clarification, ignore questions posed re: the need for a new thread, ignore refutations offered of your foolish statement in the original post, then expect that your demands for answers will be answered? Another point on maturity: with it comes the realization that the world does not revolve around you, nor does it bow to your every whim. Oh sure, you can snap your fingers and expect tea, or a wet nurse, to appear, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.[/quote]Is that the stamping of tiny feet I hear? A muffled “hrrumph!” in the background? Would you like some cheese with that whine?

Still no comment on the items of progress listed, and sourced, in the OP?

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105%~110% of Iraqis also voted for Saddam… many marking the ballot in blood.
Not so much blood as they’re spilling now, mind you, but then “the Iraqis didn’t vote for civil war”, so I’m not sure that counts.

Imagine a gang, a mafia. One big mother mafia. Big enough to smack around all the other gangs. Hardly an ideal government, but predictable enough, in its own hideous way. Now, imagine removing that gang, and allowing all the others to sprout, divide, grow, divide, and commence beating on one another, everyone caught in between, and all those who look at them askance. A majority of Iraqis feel the move from one gang to many competing gangs was an error, and want the Americans and British to leave. Do their views count?

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Prove it. I believe that there was one poll conducted among 2,000 mostly in Baghdad. Is that the one you are referring to? You need to get out more.

Regardless of how things have happened, 80 percent MINIMUM supported Saddam’s removal and were grateful to the US for doing so. That is 60 percent to 60 percent of the country who are Shiites and 20 percent who are Kurdish. Then, assume that even some of the Sunnis were glad to be rid of him and I think that 90 percent is a realistic number that in no way compares with the 105 percent who voted er “voted” for Saddam.

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This is why I hated modding IP.

The troops are there and they’re not going away…for a long ass time.

I don’t hear any Americans bitching about US troops in Japan or Germany or Italy. Give it some time and the mindless channel flippers will forget about the guys in Iraq too.

Right or wrong? No.
Is or Is not? Yes.

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[quote=“jdsmith”]Give it some time and the mindless channel flippers will forget about the guys in Iraq too.

Right or wrong? No.
Is or Is not? Yes.[/quote]Oy! I know the returning caskets aren’t often seen in the media, but do you really think they’ll be put out of mind? That’s the difference between troops in Germany or Japan and those in Iraq, isn’t it?

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JD:

I take your point about the lack of “sincere” interest but there is a major difference in that in Iraq US forces are being killed. The costs are also higher but if people understood fully what we spent keeping our troops in other countries as well… Therefore, I welcome the interest from serious minds who understand and are willing to take responsibility for our effort and actions there or who have a genuine interest in seeing progress.

But most of what passes for debate on this forum is a bunch of tired, paranoid bitching by spoiled, underchallenged individuals who think that doing so makes them sound sophisticated and knowledgeable and that is where I have a beef. Again, everyone understands in the corridors of policy-making that none of these views is going to be taken seriously. So while these individuals congratulate themselves for their “high” mindededness (if you get my drift…), essentially what is happening is that their voices are not even “heard” at all because their positions are so precious and esoteric that they are not feasible and will never be implemented. Plain and simple.

I also take issue with the idea that the administration is trying to sugar coat anything. Over and over and over Bush has stressed how difficult this will be, what a long process it will be, how we must remain committed and over a long long time. I get that. I got that. I understood that from the beginning. I always knew that we would have a minimum of 35k to 50k troops in Iraq and that they would stay there for 60 years akin to our efforts in Germany, Japan and Korea. What I did not expect was that we would be facing the levels of gang-like violence that we are seeing. It reminds one of the crack epidemic and the police inability to fight these crime wave during the 1980s in the US. Perhaps, like Colombia today? Rio? Sao Paulo? South Africa? The point is that while the violence is reprehensible, it does not in fact shake the levers of power. THAT is my point. I see lots of violence in Iraq as in other nations but is it enough to actually displace the US and its allies? NO. Can we stop it? NO. If we remain as a sledge hammer determining the balance of power do we win? YES. AND that is why I want to stay. IF Bush thinks that sending more troops is needed then by all means do so. I find it ironic that those who squealed about too few troops are now squealing when faced with the prospect that more will be sent. Damned if we do, damned if we do not, but this inconsistent whinging again is precisely what leads me to say again and again, those that engage in this mindless muttering are removing themselves from the debate. It is that plain and simple.

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Actually, it was the enthusiastic proponents of the Iraq War that told everyone it was going to be quick and easy. Maturity perhaps requires having a memory of the malarkey foisted upon us.

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[quote=“Jaboney”][quote=“jdsmith”]Give it some time and the mindless channel flippers will forget about the guys in Iraq too.

Right or wrong? No.
Is or Is not? Yes.[/quote]Oy! I know the returning caskets aren’t often seen in the media, but do you really think they’ll be put out of mind? That’s the difference between troops in Germany or Japan and those in Iraq, isn’t it?[/quote]

Just because things aren’t like they were before doesn’t mean we should use the door.

So you think the level of interest is still that high? Really? I’m thinking sensory overload and apathy rule the day. But maybe Canadians are better able to sense how Americans in America feel. :wink:

Fred said:[quote]I always knew that we would have a minimum of 35k to 50k troops in Iraq and that they would stay there for 60 years akin to our efforts in Germany, Japan and Korea. What I did not expect was that we would be facing the levels of gang-like violence that we are seeing. It reminds one of the crack epidemic and the police inability to fight these crime wave during the 1980s in the US. Perhaps, like Colombia today? Rio? Sao Paulo? South Africa? The point is that while the violence is reprehensible, it does not in fact shake the levers of power. THAT is my point. I see lots of violence in Iraq as in other nations but is it enough to actually displace the US and its allies? NO. Can we stop it? NO. If we remain as a sledge hammer determining the balance of power do we win? YES. AND that is why I want to stay.[/quote]
Yup. I hear that. Something is unstable in the country, and it is the populace. They don’t know what to do with themselves. But the government seems to be secure; not perfect, but certainly not unstable.

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A government that might be headed by Muqtada al-Sadr before too long. At least, some people think so.

http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/21807.html