You have been on the mark so far...

I think in the US redeploying the forces to Baghdad we are thinking we have to get control of the urban centers which strategically are more important then the more sparsely populated areas.  Politically and strategically they don't have new forces to put in the theater so they are robbing from Peter to pay Paul.

As much as I hate to say it because I am so opposed to this war the only way to "end it" is to finally go in with overwhelming force, which we refused to do at first.  We should get control of the larger cities first and once they are under control fan out and deal with the western province.  We need, and the Iraqi government needs to operate, is civil order in the large cities especially Baghdad.

We need to either do this with the proper amount of forces or get out completely because "stay the course" will screw it up even worse then it already is...as hard as that is to imagine.

Larry,

You have been on target all along. In a comment to your post in Feb, 2006, I said this.

I hope to hell the "strategic withdrawal" is started soon enough to keep my vision from coming true.

Alphonse ( Al ) Kada

Doesn't the US forces move into Baghdad account, in part, for the increase in casualties we are now seeing? I must imagine that an active presence in a built-up urban environment will almost guarantee a heightened casualty count. This runs counter to the intention that the military had expressed for its plans for Iraq in 2006 and into 2007 and must condemn their previously expressed plans to the scrap heap. Everything which Washington and Baghdad have said previously is now non-operable and they should be held to account for the new conditions confronting our troops in Iraq.

I understand the desire to win, but we simply don't have the resources. Not only troop strength but equipment is already overstretched. We simply don't have the forces or resources to do anything there any more.

If we stay in Iraq any longer, we will degrade our readiness state so badly that we won't be able to effectively deter Iran or North Korea, to name a couple of examples. As cruel and heartless as it sounds, we should abandon Iraq to shore up Afghanistan, where the chances of success are a lot better. That way we could at least move that threat off of the table. We also need to refit the entire military, give the units time to repair and replenish their TOS.

Once refreshed, then the US could be able to intervene again in Iraq if the Iraqis request it. But right now the occupation isn't serving the interests of the Iraqis, nor the interests of the Americans or the rest of the world. It is only still there because the current US adminstration is too cowardly to admit any errors.

Suppose what you say is perfectly and exactly true. Then that would have been a mistake, right? You might say he spoke incorrectly at that point.
If I had a stock market indicator that was wrong once and right twenty times, I'd pay attention to it.
Not being able to adjust to reality as it presents it self is what reveals a loser.
dc

Bush is a man looking out a window and seeing a driving monsoon and telling the public of the "progress in Iraq" as being represented by the dry spaces between the raindops. One almost expects to see Ethel Merman dancing across the stage behind Bush
and singing "Everythings coming up roses."

My plan for Iraq is pull the troops out tomorrow and the only thing that will change is we will stop getting our troops killed, wounded, maimed for life; we will stop throwing $8 billion per month down a rat hole and we'll stop the corruption of tax dollars there. My plan is more justifiable than the Bush gang's because it hasn't been tried yet, while the Bush predictions on IRAQ have been wrong every time.

The way to get out with Iraq intact is to say to the insurgents "you win". You don't want the US to stay in your country and the US will not stay in your country.

They will brag that they went into Afghanistan after the Soviets invaded, and the result was that the Soviets had to withdraw, then the USSR collapsed.

Next America invaded Iraq and the jihadists went there to fight them. America then had to withdraw from Iraq because of the Jihadists. If the Democrats take Congress and the Presidency by 2008 the jihadists will also take credit for changing the government of the invader. [Considering what the Republicans are doing to the Constitution and the rule of law, then may also take credit for the complete destruction of the American system of government - something the equivalent of the collapse of the USSR.]

The propaganda boost to the jihadists of taking on both superpowers and defeating them is going to be fantastic. That's why bin Laden wants the Iraq War to continue and why he worked to get Bush reelected in 2004.

Frankly I don't see an alternative to us getting the flock out of Iraq. We'll have to put up with the propaganda losses. But terrorism still has to be fought, and that will be intelligence, special ops, and police work, and using some of that to support the moderate Iraqis (if they can be identified) as Larry suggests above will put pressure on the jihadists.

Here is the problem in America. Pulling out is admitting defeat. That's why Bush won't do it. We have been defeated, but Bush wants to push the admission of that defeat onto the next administration so that he can say it didn't happen on his watch.

To restate what John Kerry once said, it isn't a question now of who the last person to die for a failed policy is. It is now a question of how many and who will be killed or crippled so that Bush doesn't have to face his defeat.

However, that will give the jihadists a real boost. They will brag that they went into Afghanistan after the Soviets invaded, and the result was that the Soviets had to withdraw, then the USSR collapsed.

It's hard to say whether the propaganda value of the jihadist "victory" in Iraq is greater than the value of Iraq as a training ground. I personally think that following a US withdrawal the foreign jihadists will be very unpopular there.

IAC, it's pretty clear that this a failed venture. At some point, you have to cut your losses. If there were some path to some positive outcome, the US should take it. But there's no such path visible.

And I do think it's true that the primary motivation of the administration at this point is to have some other president in charge when the occupants of the green zone are airlifted out. It'll be interesting to see whether the Warners and the Bakers can do something to change that point of view. But it's appalling that their current tactic on the global war on terror is to expand the number of terrorists, because it would hurt them politically, in the short run, to recognize failure in Iraq.

It just points up in bright yellow highlighter just how cynical and dishonest these claims about protecting the nation have been.

Now we hear talk of 650,000 excess deaths in Iraq!

I am curious who will take up that item on TPM Cafe.

Bush says it's a crock. Cordesman says the same. Ditto the generals. None of them point to any scientific flaw in the study. Just doesn't "feel right."

Right, the thought that Americans have caused deaths in excess of Darfur doesn't "feel right."

I predict we Americans are too cowardly to fess up. We're good. We don't kill hundreds of thousands of people. I bet many Germans felt the same in the 30s.

Libertine,

I don't understand how more troops - even double or triple the amount we have there now - are supposed to restore order. This is a war of bombs, brutalization and bullets to the back of the head. The combattants in the war are everywhere. They do not have special identifying marks, and are not limited to members of "the insurgency". The military supply lines - such as they are - consist only of the unpoliceable passing around of things that go boom, and can take place in any alley or shop. To identify "insurgents", you need informants. But the informants are really fighters too, helping to carry out vendettas. Or they are just hustlers in the black information market, selling crap information for a price when they are not kidnapping people and ransoming them.

What are these increased numbers of troops supposed to do? Restrict all freedom of movement in the country, and all communications, and deliver food from door to door as we keep Iraqis prisoners in their homes for years? Use giant magnets to suck up all the guns and bullets? Kill the first born males in every family (or the second, third and fourth born as well)? This would take ten times ther manpower. And in the end we would still be in a world of shit.

Where is this "overwhelming force" supposed to be brought to bear? What does it attack? Who are the bad guys? If 40 Sunni Arabs come floating down the river with holes in their heads, or their bodies are dumped in front of a morgue, who do we go after? Do we just fight all of the "sides" at once? Do we just imprison the whole country?

Do we also imprison the "government" of Iraq - or the various governments - in their homes as well? Because they are part of the problem, along with the numerous militias and gangs they represent.

We already have experimental evidence of the futility of these approaches. US troops have been redeployed in Iraq to various trouble areas, such as Baghdad, and the redeployments have often dramatically increased troop concentrations in those areas. The carnage has gone on as before.

I'm really worried about the growing theme in some corners of the Democratic camp that the problem with Iraq is not enough soldiers, weapons and commitment. Already these nuts are talking about various techniques for roping yet more American young people into hitching up in our already preposterously huge military. Hell, why don't we just become like Sparta or Israel, and draft the whole country and turn it into a permanent boot camp dedicated to martial readiness?

These folks just don't get it. The moral they draw from Iraq is that if we have failed, it is simply because we held back on our mighty awesomeness. I shudder to think what these people will do with actual power in their hands. Of course, returning to the specific case of Iraq, we could just nuke the whole blasted country - that would pacify it. Or we could go door to door, ransack each house, and if we find even a single gun or grenade kill everybody in the house. That would "pacify" Iraq too. Maybe we can just keep pacifying Iraqis until there is nobody left to pacify. Maybe we just need to exterminate the brutes. This is the kind of psychopathic extremism toward which the frustrated logic of the "more force" crowd leads.

Arnold,

Some random comments on your comments:

A US withdrawal will end the current US death rate in Iraq.

Obviously true.

It will put the Kurds in a position that they have to accept that, unless the rest of Iraq agrees, they cannot have an independent or defacto independent state.

Very doubtful. Kurdish independence is already a fact. The Kurds will be able to attract foreign investors and sell oil, and with that wealth will come the ability to buy more weapons and the security that comes with it. The move toward autonomy, and eventual independence, for the Kurds is past the point of no return. The only question is how long they will continue to have to fight Sunni Arab and other ethnic resistors, and which foreign powers will be their chief patrons and trading partners.

It will put the Sunnis and Shiites into a context where they are negotiating a post-US order.

Or they might just continue to go on killing each other, since their current lusty rates of killing have little to do with whether the US is there or not. And which Sunnis and which Shiites will do this negotiating? Particularly on the Sunni side, there is no leadership with the power deliver their community to a negotiated settlement. They are two divided. The Shiites, though more organized, are also divided into several rival blocs with markedly different conceptions of the optimal outcome.

Third, leaving would not increase the violence. So the argument that leaving would not completely end the violence misses the point.

No one can say for sure, but my best guess is that the levels of violence will indeed increase if the US leaves, if only because now the combattants have to sneak around at night or dodge US patrols in order to slaughter each other. Without the US there, the people of Baghdad will be free to empty into the streets and buthcher each other with fewer roadblocks.

I also suspect weapons and operatives, and ultimately rival armies, will flood into Iraq to fill the vaccuum left by the wake of a US departure. The region is too strategically important for its neighbors simply to sit tight, wait several decades for the chaos to diew down, and hope it doesn't spread to their regions. And we all know that regional war with an Iraqi epicenter is one that the US, and most of the world's other great powers for that matter, could not stay out of. My concern is doing whatever need to be done to make sure our kids don't have to go back to that hellhole, and that the people who live their can escape a future of rampant mass murder.

Again, I think you are seeing what is happening through US eyes. You seem to see it as primarilly a war of national liberation which will begin to move in a better direction once the US is gone. I see it as a broad-based shit storm in which the US is just one of the flying turds. The US pulled the pin out of the celestial latch which released the storm, but what is going on now is moving along quite independently of the US.

Second, now the violence is aligned with the US policy goal. That is a bad look because the US does have the means and the opportunity to instigate violence in Iraq covertly. There is a genuine question of who benefits from this violence. All of the political leaders cannot speak against it enough but somebody keeps paying to fuel it.

I think this is bull. You seem to think there is some conspiracy to foment chaos and violence in order to further US policy goals, and that the chaos would die down if these dark agents stopped paying to fuel it. You don't honestly believe those political leaders do you? The political leaders speaking against the violence also support it, as long as it is violence carried out by their favorites. In any civil war there are all manner of pious declamations on each side against the violence. It's a sideshow.

And violence is cheap. We don't have to look for who is "funding" it to expalin why it happens. We're just taliking about bullets and explosives here. Do you think Rwanda and darfur only happened because foreign powers poured money into those countries to buy machetes or purchase oats for the horses?

If the answer is yes, then stay the course. Moving troops from one part of Iraq to another, putting the desire to break up the country in writing, all that is just staying the course. If you're not leaving you're staying the course.

This just seems false to me, and a false dichotomy to boot. There are many relatively stable places in Iraq to which US troops could move where they would be at minimal risk of attack. That is not staying the course - it is a radical change of course and shift of priorities. The question is whether these troops would be playing any constructive role once they move. I think they could play a modest though important role in deterring further foreign intervention and limiting arms trafficking.

As for a US-friendly government, forget it.

Randi Rhodes just broadcast that the American forces in Iraq have expended 200 million rounds of sidearm ammunition. If we were to assume that all of those 650K excess Iraqi deaths were due to sidearm ammunition alone, that would work out to 400 rounds for each and every death. Does anyone doubt that our forces aren't getting at least one kill when they've expended 400 rounds during their patrols. Throw in deaths due to artillery and other support weapons and the 650K excess deaths number suddenly begins to become believable.

You're thinking in too small a geographic scope. I agree that US forces couldn't be defeated during the set piece battle around a specific base or urban area - until their supplies ran out. US logistics could be stretched beyond the snapping point if the insurgency accelerated, leaving the US troops in the central part of Iraq suddenly trying to operate with no fuel, no ammunition and no water. They could be supported by air power, but the inability to manuever our forces or to respond to insurgent attacks would result in a steady attrition of American forces. Withdrawal of the troops might be possible via a vertical extraction, but it would likely result in abandonment of the heavy equipment - kind of like an airborne Dunkirk. In the desert, fuel is often more important than ammunition but fuel is one of the more difficult items to transport.

One thing we should have learned by now is that a sufficiently brutal, despotic ruler can keep Iraq under control.  The corrollary to that is that an insufficiently brutal, despotic ruler cannot keep Iraq under control.  So, my question is, just who is this despotic ruler that we are to turn over Iraq to?  The best candidate is the man we have in prison, hoping to execute as soon as possible.  Are we going to seek out his philosophical twin?

We lost in Vietnam, and we have survived the experience very well.  We will also survive the experience of losing in Iraq.  There really never was any other choice. 

Hoppy in Sacramento

"Their strategies of exploiting nationalism and religion for domestic purposes preclude victory in Iraq and are the real reason we have lost this war."

 We lost the war in Iraq when we first invaded Iraq.  There was never a chance that we could, in any real sense, win that conflict.  To win a war, you have to defeat the opponent's government, get them to surrender unconditionally, and, most importantly, have the citizens of that country thankful that the war is over and their unpopular government is out of power for good.  That last situation was never in the cards for Iraq.  Those of us who were perceptive enough to realize this before the invasion said so, but were attacked as being "with the terrorists", treasonous, anti-American, haters of America, etc.  So, now of course, none of us can be trusted, and we need to support those who were wrong from the get-go in Iraq.  Thus, we lost that war twice.

Hoppy in Sacramento

Last I heard, the ratio of ammo expended to enemy soldiers killed was around 17,000:1, although I can't say if that was WW II or a more recent action.

Sidearms are a small fraction of that total, as the term does not include the main weapon, rifle or machine gun.

Those numbers are more subtle than Randi was saying. When I checked into it the number I saw was 80% of that total as caused by violence. It does not distinguish between indigenous and occupier action.

But surely, regardless of the exact numbers, a crapload of people are dead now that would not have been, without invasion.

I just caught the segment with Randi interviewing the epidemiologist. A very interesting data point is that he said the death rate was increasing.

I conclude this is because of the civil war heating up. Extrapolating the trend implies the sooner we leave, the better, for all.

Bush said today of the study that
"The methodology is pretty well discredited."

Holy! How can that bumbling idiot talk like that?

Say anything you want about the study but be aware that its methodology is not only rock-solid; it's state-of-the-art!

Let him put up a competing study and let's compare its merits! Until then, his words, Casey's words, and that bigmouth of Cordesman's words are worse than worthless.

I read the study. It's far and away the most important document anyone should be reading at the moment.

I certainly hope one of the regular contributors will post something about it.

Main highlights:

1. With 95% confidence, over 420,000 excess deaths during the war. The likely figure is over 650K.

2. 31% of deaths caused by coalition forces.

3. In 92% of cases, a death certificate was provided to confirm a claimed death.

4. The worst violence is not in Baghdad but in the western provinces of Iraq.

5. Deaths this year are almost 3 times what they were last year and more than 5 times the year before that.

Is that progress Mr Bush? Are these the "last throes of the insurgency," Mr Cheney?

I don't see the stockpiles getting that low without it going public. If the situation got that critical, the logical course would be a reversal of 1991 -- US forces falling back onto Kuwait, and, depending on the attitudes of Iran and Turkey, to Basra in the south and, less likely, to Kurdistan and out through Turkey.

The insurgents can take the cities. They can't take the major bases, or a substantial convoy moving out of them. If it comes to it, and there were the motivation, IIRC 98% of the equipment in an armored division can lift in a C-5 or C-17. That exception, IIRC, is the armored bridge launcher, and I believe it's been replaced with a more mobile version.

I cannot picture an insurgent operation that could take Balad/ANACONDA, again assuming logistical competence on the part of the US Army -- something that's always been a strength. Balad is big enough that there are no present insurgent weapons with the range to reach the center of the base.

One key would be whether Iran attempts to block the Shatt al Arab to Basra and Umm Qasr, and if Turkey would allow a movement through Mosul. Jordan might also allow a route, although western movement isn't the most desirable.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

How long do you think the Kurds could hold off the Turks and Iranians without the US?  I stand by less than 24 hours. Most powerful army in Iraq or not.

So if the US was to leave, the Kurds would have to make a deal with the Sunnis and Shiites where they give up enough independence to satisfy the neighbors.  The Kurds making a deal like that would vastly increase the likelihood that Iraq remains intact and thereby vastly decreases the likelihood that Iraq's dissolution leads to conflict between the parts.

Now the US is not going to leave willingly for the forseeable future.  I know this. I'm saying that one of the problems with the US not leaving is that the Kurds get independence from Iraq when a lot of people in the region, inside and outside of Iraq, would vastly prefer Iraq remain intact.

The US does have some freedom to choose which fucked up situation it gets.  Announcing a complete withdrawal would give Al-Qaeda a temporary propaganda victory but it would dry up the anger at the US that AQ needs to function.  It would also leave Iraq close to Iran and hostile to the US.  Maybe the Iraqis and their neighbors, none of whom want a civil war, would be powerless to prevent a civil war, but maybe they would not.  They certainly cannot prevent a civil war when all the armed parties have a legitimate reason to remain armed.  And the US presence gives them a legitimate reason to remain armed.

The US, choosing between a much greater chance of a civil war, or a much a greater chance of Iraq being an intact hostile state is choosing the much greater chance of civil war.  Not perfect from the US point of view, but clearly preferable, because right now we are watching the US choose it.

You don't have to say I sound like someone else.  I make my own arguments.  Don't show me the failure of the argument of some poor middle east lad you made up.  Show me where my argument fails. 

Of course, how bright did one have to be to realize the colonial era was over before Iraq.

Tom

Well in my thinking if overwhelming force is used at this point of time it can only be used for a VERY finite period of time...enough time to allow us to get out of Dodge.  Anything longer than that we would become even more despotic rulers of Iraq, albeit it not very good ones, than we already are. ;-)

I agree with you that we probably never had a chance.  But losing is one thing...having Bush make us look completely incompetent and embarass us is another matter.  That is why I hope we can make our way out in some kind of orderly fashion if possible.

How long do you think the Kurds could hold off the Turks and Iranians without the US? I stand by less than 24 hours. Most powerful army in Iraq or not.

So if the US was to leave, the Kurds would have to make a deal with the Sunnis and Shiites where they give up enough independence to satisfy the neighbors. The Kurds making a deal like that would vastly increase the likelihood that Iraq remains intact and thereby vastly decreases the likelihood that Iraq's dissolution leads to conflict between the parts.

What makes you think that either the Trurks or the Iranians have the slightest intention of stepping into a snakepit in Kurdish Iraq? The Kurds already have de facto autonomy. The Turks may not like it much, but there is not much they can do about it, especially so long as the Kurds are US clients and Israeli friends. And those latter relationships are bound to continue, even after the US leaves. So long as there is no insurrection by the Turkish Kurds, the Turks will just grumble and stay out of it.

Anyway, if the Turks invaded northern Iraq, they would face the same sort of quagmire the US is facing. 24 hours? You're kidding. The Kurds didn't crumble when Saddam was gassing them. Why would they start now?

The Iranians also have little reason to attack Iraqi Kurdistan. They have a good working relationship with the Kurdish leadership going back to the Iran-Iraq war, and they benefit from the pressure the Kurds put on the Sunni groups that are their main concern: the Iranians already fought a war against the Sunni Baathists who used to run Iraq, and the Sunni jihadists are fanatics who despise Iran's Shiites and regard them as apostates. A strong Kurdish entity in northern Iraq serves Iranian interests.

By the way, the Iranians apparently want the US to stay - for a variety of selfish reasons no doubt. That's what Khatami told us on his US tour.

The US does have some freedom to choose which fucked up situation it gets. Announcing a complete withdrawal would give Al-Qaeda a temporary propaganda victory but it would dry up the anger at the US that AQ needs to function. It would also leave Iraq close to Iran and hostile to the US.

Al Qaeda - who cares? Last I heard, fewer than 5% of insurgent fighters in Iraq were foreign fighters. And "Al Qaeda in Iraq" is just one tiny group of jihadists in the country. I don't buy Bush's "main front in the war on terror" propaganda. Frankly, Al Qaeda and its ilk no longer appear to be our biggest problem. It is true that the continued US presence in the Middle East is a source of resentment and a provocation to terrorism.

We do have to figure out how to get ourselves out that benighted region, and leave it to the people who live there to work out their own solutions. But the problem is that with our stupid invasion, we just punched a massive hole in Middle East stability and unleashed a shit storm. We have to manage our exist in such a way as to minimize the risk of cascading, accelerating violence in the Middle East. Your view is that that goal is best accomplished by just getting out. I'm not so sure. My sense is that the sudden disappearance of US troops only creates a vaccuum that leads to intensified fighting in Iraq, and ultimately invites the intervention of a variety of foreign powers, and brings those powers into direct conflict. And not only would such an eventuality kill lots of people in the Middle East, it would almost certainly lead to the reintroduction of US forces, and the concerned involvement of all the other oil-consuming states in the world.

So I lean toward the view that, for now, the best move for the US is to redepoly its forces away from the most intense fighting, provide some backup security for those emerging pockets of stability where many people actually want us to stay, and deter other countires from pulling another America, and butting into the mess between the Tigris and Euphrates.

Iraq is already close to Iran - it's "government" is mostly run by various Iranian affiliated parties determined to seize complete control of the country. But you may be correct that with the US out of the picture, the ascendant Shiite powers in Iraq would have a much freer hand to slaughter Sunnis - with with Iranian aid.

Maybe the Iraqis and their neighbors, none of whom want a civil war, would be powerless to prevent a civil war, but maybe they would not. They certainly cannot prevent a civil war when all the armed parties have a legitimate reason to remain armed. And the US presence gives them a legitimate reason to remain armed.

There already is a civil war going on in Iraq. Some of the parties in Iraq are taking up arms to challenge the US, but they have also taken up those arms to kill other Iraqis. There is no reason to think that when the US either leaves or redeploys, these people will stop doing what they are doing - fighting for power against their ethnic and sectarian enemies in a chaotic land where the future is totally up for grabs. The various armed parties will have no less reason to remain armed once the US goes. If I lived in a place where death squads roamed the streets at night, and took people away for torture and execution, I would remain armed. Wouldn't you?

The US, choosing between a much greater chance of a civil war, or a much a greater chance of Iraq being an intact hostile state is choosing the much greater chance of civil war. Not perfect from the US point of view, but clearly preferable, because right now we are watching the US choose it.

I don't see that Iraq has any greater chance of remaining an intact state one way or the other: if the US leaves or if it stays. Nor do I believe the ongoing civil war is any more likely to come to a quick end following a US withdrawal. Since it is a civil war, the goals of those fighting it are by definition unrelated the matter of foreign powers.

Again, it seems to me that you believe the bulk of the violence and fighting in Iraq is driven by the effort to expel the US. That's not the picture I get from what I have been reading. The great bulk of the daily casualties are from Iraqis killing Iraqis.

I can't help but wonder if the Bush administration ever had any intention of winning in Iraq. It appears that every decision they make is not geared toward victory. Most of their choices in Iraq have been motivated either politically or ideologically.

Politically they are keeping the number of U.S. troops purposely less than needed to pacify a nation of 30 million people. This decision has the added benefit of keeping the number of casualties to appear low.

Ideologically, the Bush administration has used Iraq as their personal playground for neo-conservative policies that are not possible, or difficult to implement in the U.S. For instance, their attempt to privatize everything including Iraq's oil. Rather than hiring Iraqis to rebuild their country, they hire Bechtel and Halliburton. The free market is the answer to all the woes in Iraq, from Bush's perspective.

Interestingly enough, the idea of a free market was a liberal idea that was opposed by conservatives. They would have preferred to control the market themselves. Now they weild the concept of the free market like a sledgehammer against liberals. For some reason liberals are incapable of hitting back.

But as for Iraq, I don't think Team Bush has, or had, a plan to win this war. I don't think they care if they win. Staying the course keeps the tax dollars flowing through Iraq and onto the bottom-line of Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, Halliburton. Billions of dollars can be a great motivator.

Halliburton stock (HAL) was selling for $10 a share back in March 2003. Today it's selling for $27.

Putting aside the stock incentive, one should consider the greater goal of neo-cons - the dismantling of the federal government. One way to do that is to bankrupt the government, making it impossible to function. The transfer of hundreds of billions of dollars through Iraq could be seen as part of that agenda.

The US has taken the position that "extremists", for example the Iraqi parliamentarians who both have the most votes and who organized the biggest pro-Hezbollah rally in the world outside of Lebanon, cannot be allowed to control Iraq's oil.

That is a radical agenda.  If that is the US position, and the President of the US says it is the US position, then it is much more difficult for the US to prevent civil war.

I don't know if you are saying that position does not make preventing civil war more difficult or if you are saying that position is not by itself entirely responsible for the US failure in Iraq.

If you are saying that this radical agenda has no impact on the US mission, I don't know what to say.  The US has to support Kurdish independence - because of its radical agenda - and US support for Kurdish independence is a major contributor - I'd say a sufficient contributor by itself to the break up of Iraq that will nearly inevitably be violent.

Turkey and Iran both give me the slightest idea that they would intervene in Kurdistan by massing on Kurdistan's borders, operating in Kurdistan right now and by Turkey's public statements that it will intervene, for example to prevent Kurds from getting Kirkuk.  The US may talk them out of it, but the idea that those countries would not overwhelm the Peshmerga in order to leave Kurdistan under Sadr's control if not for the US does not make sense.

I don't have to believe that the bulk of the armed forces are driven by the effort to expel the US.  I said that disarming these armed forces is structurally easier if the US is out or leaving than if the US is not leaving, but staying to impose a radical and unpopular agenda on the country.  I don't see how you can disagree with that.

To sum up: The US has a radical agenda for Iraq, that is thoroughly unpopular with Iraqis.  This agenda motivates the US to help separate Kurdistan from the rest of the country - otherwise the US could not have bases to advance its agenda.  Separating Kurdistan vastly increases the chance of Iraq splitting in a violent civil war.

This agenda also puts the US in a position where civil war actually helps the US meet what the US publicly says is an important goal: preventing extremists from controlling Iraq's oil. You say the US is not devious enough for that.  Nonsense.  The US invaded Iraq with the knowledge that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis would die so the US could advance that agenda. 

Maybe the US really did get lucky.  If it had not, there is no question that love for the Iraqi people would not have stood in the way of instigating a civil war if one had not sprung spontaneously.

If the US had not had this agenda, preventing Iraq's oil from being controlled by "extremists" then it would not have invaded Iraq in the first place.  If it had dropped this agenda in 2003, most likely an intact though anti-US Iraq could have formed.  If it drops the agenda today, I think it will be substantially easier to wind down the violence.  I have not seen your argument that it would not be easier.

If the US never drops this agenda, then the US is staying the course.  You think the US can move to different parts of Iraq and lower its death rates that way, while still advancing its agenda.  I doubt that there will be a substantial reduction in the death rate.

If the US never drops this agenda, then the US is staying the course. You think the US can move to different parts of Iraq and lower its death rates that way, while still advancing its agenda. I doubt that there will be a substantial reduction in the death rate.

I have no interest in any redeployments designed to accomplish the US "agenda", such as you understand it. (Personally, I don't think the US administration even has a clear agenda anymore - but that's a separate matter.) None of the various shifting US agendas that have characterized this stupid intervention have panned out. We're now just in a position of having to decide what are the least awful remaining options.

My concern now is what I take to be the global agenda for Iraq, and the agenda of all sensible and humane people. That is (i) to prevent the obscene violence and unsettled political situation in Iraq from spilling over into other countries in the region, (ii) to prevent the political instability in Iraq from sparking a broader regional war; (iii) to prevent further foreign interventions in Iraq that will bring the intervening states into conflict; and (iv) to minimize the killing in Iraq, and help it move in the direction of pacification.

The question in my mind is whether some or all of these goals can be aided by detaching US forces from their engagement with the insurgency, and moving them to other locations in the country; or whether they would be aided most by a total US withdrawl from the region. I tend to believe that, for the time being, it is the first option which offers the best hope. Obviously you disagree. But it should be clear to you that I'm not interested in pursuing any "agendas" other than peace and stability in the Middle East.

You keep talking about "preventing a civil war," as though a civil war was not already raging in Iraq. There is a war taking place in Iraq right now, that is moving forward independently of the fact that US happens to be a sometime participant in it. This war will continue whether the US continues to participate in it, or extracts its soldiers from the main areas of conflict. Personally, I don't think the US participation in the war is contributing to the war's resolution. It's time for the US to move to the sidelines.

But what I do think the US can do is help deter further foreign intervention and help limit weapons-running into Iraq. It can also continue to offer an extra guarantee of security to those parts of the country in the South and North that are not facing the sort of violence taking place in Baghdad and other contested cities.

I don't know why you are skeptical about redeployment bringing down the US death rate. If you look at any map of where the various fatal attacks on US forces are occurring, you will see that they are concentrated in a few highly contested regions, but that in many other parts of the country there is much less violence, and US troops who are stationed in those regions face far fewer attacks.

I don't have to believe that the bulk of the armed forces are driven by the effort to expel the US. I said that disarming these armed forces is structurally easier if the US is out or leaving than if the US is not leaving, but staying to impose a radical and unpopular agenda on the country. I don't see how you can disagree with that.

I perhaps don't understand quite what you are asserting. But I don't see any reason to believe that the various Sunni fighters who are engaged in fighting the US, and who are attempting to ethnically cleanse Shiites from Sunni strongholds, and also fight the Shiite death squads and militias who have the backing of factions within the "government", have any interest in or motive for laying down their arms following a US withdrawal. Nor do I think that their enemies in Iraq have the capacity to disarm them, or to subdue the regions in which they are strongest.

Similarly, I can't imagine any situation in which Iraqi Kurdistan ends up under Sadr's control. Saddam was never able to subdue Iraqi Kurdistan, and he had a lot more weaponry at his disposal than Sadr does. It sounds to me like you think Sadr & Co. are poised to take control of the country, by virtue of the fact of the prominance of the Sadr faction in Iraq's parliament, if only the US would get out of the way. I hardly think this is true. Sadr is a potent warlord and militia leader, but his support is confined to just a few regions - areas of Baghdad, and parts of southern Iraq with Shiite majorities that are already under firm Shiite control.

Hoppy,

We lost in Vietnam, and we have survived the experience very well.

You are right. But one thing that is often overlooked about that is that Vietnam survived the experience very well also. They didn't go communist (which was our reason for the war in the first place), and their economy is thriving. We have diplomatic relations with them. They kept China out by themselves!

The difference between Vietnam's history and the expectation of what will happend in Iraq is the religious element. Throw religious extremism into the brew and there will always be trouble. Look at what it is doing to our own country!

As long as one group viscerally disrespects the way of life or beliefs of another group they cannot act with unity; they don't want it. That is part of why our country has become so divisive, and it is a major part of why the Middle East is a festering boil on the butt of the world.

PS -- I know many disagree with me on this, but I would welcome any proof that I am wrong.

Jan Knaus

I'd say Baker is a lawyer first and last.

Re:nukes. It's illuminating to consider the history of their possession and use. As you point out, we used them. Only one country has ever used them, and then only against a non-nuclear state. No opposing nuclear states have used them on each other. No nuclear state has achieved a dominant position from their possession; that has always been due to economic power ond projected conventional force.

Never underestimate the power of human incompetence. Over and over again, history shows us the biggest baddest who should have been on top forever, cutting their own throats.

Thanks. Very interesting. When I think that 55,000+ young Americans and untold hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese died to prevent something that didn't even happen after we lost...

Well, I just wonder if we'll ever learn from our mistakes. Probably not. If the Vietnamese system has some elements of communism, so what? So does Japan and France, for that matter. Who are we to say that they are wrong. We are far too capitalistic in my opinion, and I think, with Bush's help it will be our undoing.

So, remind me--why is it that we are in Iraq? I keep forgetting.

Jan Knaus

And the U.S. is actually using special artillery, or something like that, in Iraq that are nuclear, or at least radioactive.

If hcberkowitz could chime in here, he probably knows what I'm talking about and can ellaborate.

I'm confused. W48 tactical nuclear artillery shells for the 155mm howitzer, the only cannon now used by the US, were taken out of service years ago. A variety of reasons were involved in decommissioning them, a balance of the difficulty of securing them as far forward as they would need to be, and their obsolescence as weapons. They were seen as ways to respond to massive Soviet tank attacks, but they put too much force in too small an area. Today, we would use intelligent antitank cluster bomblets to attack tanks, which, incidentally, do not pose the danger of antipersonnel cluster munitions.

Other applications included hitting targets such as bridges, but, again, we now have bombs and rockets that are so much more precise than nuclear artillery shells that the huge explosive force is not needed.

There aren't any targets in Iraq that would be appropriate for the old nuclear artillery shells. You may be thinking of depleted uranium, which is not significantly radioactive, although it can be significantly toxic.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

You are correct. I was thinking of depleted uranium.

Here's a story on the first war in Iraq: http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0114-01.htm

And here's this story: http://observer.bard.edu/articles/news/35

Or this one here: http://currents.ucsc.edu/05-06/10-24/journalist.asp

Probably nothing to worry about, just toxic but not a nuke.

Only if that means that the Civil War would calm down.

What if it turns out the other way around, that rape, torture and killing of local minorities increase when the fighters are no longer distracted by American troops?

The destruction of the Iraqi state may well have caused the internal oppression and displacement, as described by BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6049174.stm, but is there reason to believe that an American exodus will stop it?

The war wasn't lost until the U.S. decided to use it for other means, as for instance making the United Nations' Security Council obsolete and divide and rule among the Europeans.

With international support; i.e. with conditions for the war agreed by world powers such as Russia and China (and even France!), a sufficient force could have occupied the country, and ensured both security and reconstruction.

An American unwillingness to listen to advices from others, let alone to adjust to the interests of others, was the ultimate cause of this defeat. That unwillingness is not peculiar for this president or for the Republican party. That unwillingness was on clear display in U.S. mass media and on the streets in America, as a general mood, for instance in the autumn of 2002 when I visited the country.

What is the alternative? Only a mandated partition, which has a messy history (see India/Pakistan).

Yes it may, probably will, get worse, but it won't be our fault (except starting it).

Any external forces should be from neighboring nations. We should stay far away and pay a major share for the intervention.

Well, of course this is among the reasons I strongly opposed this war--the expectation of permanent involvement.

In order to effectively enforce security we would need 500,000 soldiers. This is not going to happen, unfortunately.

I did not vote for the administration; I did not support the invasion. I admit I did not lay down in front of a tank. I will vote (again) against these fools. That's all I can do, or am expected to do.

Since you point out Denmark supported the US, could you be more generous and say "Our fault" instead of "Your fault"?

BTW, I don't care if Iraq is carved, partitioned, dominated, etc. I was content to leave Saddam in place and bottled up.

Although the question of responsibility for what has occurred is relevant, peace and stability has not become something we have to give up on since we have invaded and occupied Iraq. It's like when making up a bonfire in a dry forest. You don't leave before you've extinguished the fire. You know that if the fire spreads from the fireplace, the consequences will be pretty nasty.

...and if your friends leave the scene arguing that they don't want to waste their nice shoes, letting you put out the fire wasting your shoes and coat, they are hardly your friends any longer.

Since you point out Denmark supported the US, could you be more generous and say "Our fault" instead of "Your fault"?

In fact, I often am when I refer to The West.

If we were to discuss the dire state of the European Union, I would most certainly write about we and our shared guilt, signified by The Letter of the Eight.

But it has to be noted that the contributions from other countries than UK/U.S. never summed up to more than a few percents of the Coalition of the Willing, and their (our) influence was, in accordance with this, extremely limited.

(By the way; Denmark still supports the U.S..)

I did not vote for the administration; I did not support the invasion. I admit I did not lay down in front of a tank. I will vote (again) against these fools. That's all I can do, or am expected to do.

You take your responsibility as a citizen by voting. I take my by engaging in debate before the elections. ...although I admit that one may question to what degree I seriously try to convince other people and to what degree I just probe opinions to help myself understand the dynamics in concerned democracies.

Sorry. Our presence is fueling the fire. The Iraqis don't want us there. We are perceived as occupiers. Only a force that is seen as more neutral can have a chance to extinguish anything in Iraq.

Tom

If you don't want the US to be supremacist in our "leadership", then start leading yourselves. I'm more that sick of funding a military bigger than the next 10 nations combined. With the exception of the UK, Europe isn't carrying its weight and it won't be taken seriously until it does.

I'm actually saying something stronger than that. The US is the only country that has publicly committed to first use of nuclear weapons in response to a conventional attack. The Soviets never had a first use doctrine, nor the French, the British nor the Chinese.

I'd argue, even, that your misreading of what I was saying is evidence of the cognitive dissonance I was talking about. The US started the nuclear arms race, escalated it and still has not significantly disarmed, despite the absence of any potential enemy that even arguably requires a warhead level higher than France's.

A militarized, imperial, nuclear-armed state imposing its will on the rest of the world is simply out of keeping with the American mythology. Yet that is what the situation has been in the post-war era.

thanks for the details about theatre nukes.

I was talking, of course, about the Cold War, where the US was deterring Soviet conventional attacks in Germany with a nuclear response.

The theatre nukes further affirm this point, weapons I actually thought were a good idea at the time, especially the neuton bomb.

I don't see how else you can interpret the various client wars during the Cold War, nor the "management" of Latin America during the same period as anything other than imperialist. There's an argument that successful implementation of containment required an imperial strategy--the USSR was much more overtly and aggressively imperialist. That is, until the end of the Afghan-Russian war, that the US was engaged in "defensive imperialism," but it is hard to understand why the US has not substantially reduced its strategic arsenal.

Thought I was saying pretty much the same as you. What did I misread?

I recall the clash of US and Soviet doctrines as, among other things, our "first use" and their "first strike". We reserved the right to initiate, they reserved the right to a massive counterforce strike.

Most of the serious studies I've seen of deflecting a comet or asteroid postulate trying to put some sort of reaction drive on it, to put it on a near-miss trajectory. Orion, indeed, has been considered there. The consensus about blowing it up, without changing the orbit, would be that the Earth just gets hit by a bunch of radioactive chunks.

Orion, I suppose, could be compared to divine flatulence.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*