A question for the pro-Iraq-war people.

[rehmwa 2]

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>I believe their primary motivation is fear of democracy taking hold.

I think this avenue of thinking - "the terrorists hate freedom!" - is dangerously naive, because it:

Can I read this to mean that in your world "fear" = hate? I'd read Dave's comment that "fear of democracy" is more a caution or fear of change, particularly from those that used to have all the power. But your read is much easier to get bent out of shape on and is much more entertaining a read.

But calling Dave naive when you incorrectly rewrote his statement is not that courteous no matter how much passion you have on this subject.

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[Guest]

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The problem is our presence there is the motivation for the insurgency itself. ...they'll continue to provide the reason for the insurgency.

That's only part of the story. A lot of what is going is is Saddam's cronies wanting back into power. That would go on whether we were there or not.

Since we're the ones who created the power vacuum, it's unfortunately up to us to stay until the situation improves.

But will it improve? Who knows?

mh

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[billvon 3,118]

> The insurgency is a terror group, though probably a non-homogenous
> one as you've described. Considering them terrorists marginalizes them
> not at all.

Of course it does. "Terrorist" has the same meaning that "communist" did in the 50's. Once someone is defined as a terrorist, you no longer listen to them, consider their opinions, or even bother to know what it is they are talking about. They're the enemy; all you do is arrest or kill them. That's how you marginalize someone.

>Your point is interesting but ignores one thing: free elections are coming.
> The patriots of whom you speak will participate in these elections. I can't
> really fathom such a group being a large portion of the insurgents . . .

You wouldn't fight for your country if it was invaded? I suspect most people here would, even if the invaders had "good intentions" (i.e. they see Bush as a threat to world peace and they came in to 'liberate' us.) Again, arabs aren't so different from us.

>I think the democratic process will prove an impediment to their recruiting
> efforts. Hard to say 'we've been taken over and have no control of our
> own land' when the public has just elected a government of their own.

And what if 75% of the country refuses to participate in the election because they feel it's rigged?

We've heard this story before. "A sovereign Iraq will be a huge blow to the recruiting efforts of the insurgents. It will be hard to say 'we've been invaded and are under control of the US' when Iraq isn't under control of the US!" Yet after sovereignty was declared, violence escalated. I have no reason to believe that elections will have any more effect on Iraq than sovereginty did.

Once the new government is in place, they'll have some tough decisions to make. They may even decide to take that fourth group of insurgents more seriously; indeed, the 'heros' who fought off the occupation may well be their new civil leaders. They will no doubt have "get the US out!" as their #1 agenda, and the new government may find it beneficial to heed that. That's the day we will find out whether the lip service we've been paying to freedom and sovereignty has any meaning.

[billvon 3,118]

>Can I read this to mean that in your world "fear" = hate? I'd read
>Dave's comment that "fear of democracy" is more a caution or fear of
>change, particularly from those that used to have all the power.

No, I'm referring to a more general avenue of thinking that can be summed up by statement "the terrorists hate freedom!" It's an easy thing to say, and does the best possible job of marginalizing them. Who hates freedom? Obviously insane lunatics bent on violence and oppression. "The terrorists hate freedom" has been a fairly constant theme of this war, and you can see the various things that fall out of it i.e. why negotiate with them if they hate freedom, freedom is the best weapon we have, they will fail once there are free elections etc. That can be a deadly assumption if they are in fact fighting for their country (in their minds.) If our assumptions about our enemies' motivations are dead wrong, then we will pay the price in dead US troops, unstable governments and a decades-long war we can't win. Given that, it might behoove us to not make such facile blanket statements.

Another idea that may fall out of the "terrorists hate freedom" angle is that they will fear democracy taking hold. There may be other reasons for believing this (like they fear change, which may well be true) but I fear that it may be rooted in the "terrorists hate freedom" idea, which as I mentioned above, can be a deadly assumption.

[kallend 2,148]

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>Can I read this to mean that in your world "fear" = hate? I'd read
>Dave's comment that "fear of democracy" is more a caution or fear of
>change, particularly from those that used to have all the power.

No, I'm referring to a more general avenue of thinking that can be summed up by statement "the terrorists hate freedom!" It's an easy thing to say, and does the best possible job of marginalizing them. Who hates freedom? Obviously insane lunatics bent on violence and oppression. "The terrorists hate freedom" has been a fairly constant theme of this war, and you can see the various things that fall out of it i.e. why negotiate with them if they hate freedom, freedom is the best weapon we have, they will fail once there are free elections etc. That can be a deadly assumption if they are in fact fighting for their country (in their minds.) If our assumptions about our enemies' motivations are dead wrong, then we will pay the price in dead US troops, unstable governments and a decades-long war we can't win. Given that, it might behoove us to not make such facile blanket statements.

Another idea that may fall out of the "terrorists hate freedom" angle is that they will fear democracy taking hold. There may be other reasons for believing this (like they fear change, which may well be true) but I fear that it may be rooted in the "terrorists hate freedom" idea, which as I mentioned above, can be a deadly assumption.

I am reminded that during WWII we gave a lot of support to freedom loving "partisans" in Greece and Yugoslavia who were fighting the Nazi occupation of their homelands. After 1945 these exact same folks became freedom hating Commies. To a lesser extent the same thing happened in Italy and France.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[Guest]

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You wouldn't fight for your country if it was invaded? I suspect most people here would, even if the invaders had "good intentions" (i.e. they see Bush as a threat to world peace and they came in to 'liberate' us.) Again, arabs aren't so different from us.

The lion's share of the RIFWs getting whacked in Iraq are from other countries.

They also want the Sunnis back in power, either the Baathists, or the Theocratists. They figure they'll drive us out, re-subdue the majority population, and then settle the rest among themselves.

There are also a lot of RIFW freelancers looking for cash from Saddam's thugs. Plenty of them in dirt-poor countries nearby, and rides easy to get.

mh

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[billvon 3,118]

>The lion's share of the RIFWs getting whacked in Iraq are from other countries.

Most US military leaders disagree with you.

-------------------------------------------------------
No U.S. commanders have dismissed outright involvement by Al Qaeda activists, but most U.S. commanders appear to lean toward the view that Iraqi nationals are the driving force behind the resistance campaign.

. . . .

There are differences among U.S. commanders on the likely numbers of non-Iraqi fighters participating in the insurgency. Some U.S. officials place the overall size of the Iraqi insurgency at about 5,000 guerrillas, of which, according to the highest estimates, as many as 3,000 might be non-Iraqi. Other U.S officials have told journalists that their assessment is that there are far fewer non-Iraqi fighters in Iraq than that. In November 2003, Gen. Swannack said that only a small number of the 500 - 600 insurgents his forces had captured were non-Iraqi. In the interview noted above, Gen. Abizaid said on January 29, 2004 that the number of foreign fighters in Iraq was “low” and “in the hundreds.”

. . . .

One senior U.S. commander in Iraq (Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division) said in November 2003, “I want to underscore that most of the attacks on our forces are by former regime loyalists and other Iraqis, not foreign forces.” Swannack’s comment does not rule out the possibility that foreign fighters could be providing technical, financial, or logistical support for attacks conducted by Iraqi insurgents.


http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/34715.pdf

[freethefly 6]

I wonder if they have any numbers concerning how many loyalists have entered into the new Iraqi army as sleeper cells. I do not think that this is far fetch as I have read reports of new Iraqi soldiers turning on their American counterparts during firefights with insurgents. Any thought on this, Billvon?

"...And once you're gone, you can't come back
When you're out of the blue and into the black."
Neil Young

[billvon 3,118]

> I do not think that this is far fetch as I have read reports of new
>Iraqi soldiers turning on their American counterparts during firefights
>with insurgents.

I tend to go with Occam on things like this, so I would suspect that some Iraqis are initially lured by the promise of steady employment, but then realize that:

1) Iraqi police officers and soldiers don't live very long,

2) often they find themselves turning their weapons against other Iraqis; and

3) there's not a lot of popular support for them; there have been mass public protests against the occupation.

So they leave. I've heard _far_ more accounts of troops just disappearing than actually turning on US troops.

[jumpoften 0]

Hand it over to Israel, then pay them $100 billion a year to deal with it.

Spaceland Directe

[TheAnvil 0]

Call them whatever you like - they are carrying out terrorist activities. How about 'patriots (who carry out terrorist activities)'. You are correct - those who have carried out terrorist attacks against anyone - Americans, Iraqi's, or citizen of Togo for that matter -will be either killed or arrested. I've got no problem with that. By taking that road they have marginalized themselves.

I would like to think 100% of Americans would defend their homeland were it invaded - you're correct there. I doubt those who have been killing Iraqi's will be overwhelmingly in the upcoming elections, but we'll see what they hold in store. I don't think the effect of the elections will be immediate, but a positive effect I believe they will have over the course of the next year. We're sure as hell not pulling out before then, so we'll definitely have the opportunity to see.

Vinny the Anvil
Post Traumatic Didn't Make The Lakers Syndrome is REAL
JACKASS POWER!!!!!!

[billvon 3,118]

>You are correct - those who have carried out terrorist attacks against
> anyone - Americans, Iraqi's, or citizen of Togo for that matter -will be
> either killed or arrested.

That's the plan now - but we must accept that there will come a time when iraqis, not americans, will make those decisions, and the iraqis may decide they are closer to the "hero" end of the scale than we do. And we will have to accept that. (at least, if we ever want to leave Iraq.)

>By taking that road they have marginalized themselves.

To us, perhaps - but we will not always be calling the shots.

>I would like to think 100% of Americans would defend their homeland
>were it invaded - you're correct there.

Should we all therefore be arrested or shot, and only the compliant americans allowed to run the 'new' government? I could forsee an american who defends himself with whatever he can - improvised explosives, machetes - and is called a hero rather than a terrorist for doing so.

[TheAnvil 0]

Given that insurgents are killing more and more Iraqis, I find it hard to believe any new gov't would consider them on the 'hero' end of any spectrum.

Your invasion scenario is a bit far fetched for me to comment. Interesting, but far fetched.

Vinny the Anvil
Post Traumatic Didn't Make The Lakers Syndrome is REAL
JACKASS POWER!!!!!!

[billvon 3,118]

>Given that insurgents are killing more and more Iraqis . . .

Again, you are considering that all insurgents are the same. Even though an ever-increasing number of our soldiers have been implicated in the Abu Ghraib scandal, not all soldiers are like them. We should not make that mistake in the other direction. There are no doubt a great many insurgents who want nothing more than to kill as many people as possible, but there are also no doubt some who consider themselves as defenders of Iraq.

>I find it hard to believe any new gov't would consider them on
>the 'hero' end of any spectrum.

Do you think any americans consider Ulysses S Grant a hero, a man who masterminded the killing of tens of thousands of americans? Why, I'll bet you can even find americans who consider Robert E Lee a hero. Iraqis are not so different from us.

[TheAnvil 0]

Ever increasing # with Abu Ghraib? Prisoner abuse perhaps with the publication of those photos of SEALs perhaps, but not Abu Ghraib unless I've missed something - which is entirely possible given my sked this week.

Not all insurgents are the same, but the ones killing Iraqis are doing nothing to distinguishing themselves from the ones who aren't - at least to all outward appearances.

I would think the Vietnamese considering Ho Chi Minh a hero a more appropriate analogy than Lee/Grant, but though I see your point I don't believe anyone claiming to be an insurgent who didn't kill Iraqis able to have any credibility in the areas where Iraqis were slaughtered by insurgents.

Vinny the Anvil
Post Traumatic Didn't Make The Lakers Syndrome is REAL
JACKASS POWER!!!!!!

[Tonto 1]

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At this point..there is no plan.

Of course there's a plan. The US doesn't commit troops without an exit strategy.

Maybe it's flying everyone out in helicopters and then bulldozing them off the carriers to make room for the others coming in. Oh. Sorry. That was Vietnam.

t

It's the year of the Pig.

[mr2mk1g 10]

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Maybe it's flying everyone out in helicopters and then bulldozing them off the carriers to make room for the others comming in. Oh. Sorry. That was Vietnam.

Copycat

[Tonto 1]

Sorry!

(That's what I get for not reading the whole thread before replying.)

It would work though. It worked so well the last time. I mean - it was a pretty permanent exit, right? Until Rambo went back to get all the people they left behind out...

t

It's the year of the Pig.

[billvon 3,118]

>Not all insurgents are the same, but the ones killing Iraqis are doing
> nothing to distinguishing themselves from the ones who aren't - at
> least to all outward appearances.

Last I checked, US troops who tortured Iraqis are wearing the same uniforms as the ones who don't. Still doesn't make em all torturers.

>I don't believe anyone claiming to be an insurgent who didn't kill
> Iraqis able to have any credibility in the areas where Iraqis were
> slaughtered by insurgents.

No insurgents have any credibility with us period. The important issue is that they may well have credibility with Iraqis. We can kill thousands of insurgents; we can't kill millions of insurgent supporters (if we turn them into supporters, that is.)