American forces losing control in Iraq

[Neo]

The 9/11 commission wrote that they didn't have any evidence of a cooperative, or a collaborative relationship between Saddam Hussein's government and the Al Qaeda operatives with regard to attacks on the United States. The terrorists were not being sheltered in Iraq by Saddam. Whether or not the war going badly is ultimately a subjective opinion. One of my best friends served a year and a half over there and has serious concerns about the lack of planning involved.

It's hard to strike a balance between protesting policy and actually undermining efforts. We certainly can't directly impede the war effort but the idea that we should shut up once the war starts is ludicrous. We can't simply roll over and give an administration a green light to do whatever they want.

On a related note, just how are we going to pay for all this? Bush is spending unprecedented amounts overseas and has limited funds coming in because of his tax cuts. He's turned Clinton's trillion dollar surplus into a 445 billion dollar budget deficit. He even dipped into the social security funds. Credit will only take us so far. Yeah it's nice to have these tax breaks but it's ultimately destroying the economy and we will soon be hurting badly.

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by Neo

Though what's done is done and arguing about what should have happened won't change that. We have no choice but to finish what Bush started. I just don't trust that he's the one to do it.

You would trust Kerry to finish what Bush started over Bush? If there is one thing that Bush has shown is that he is almost single minded in his quest to instill democracy in Iraq, so you are going to trust someone who has a record of being anti-military and has come out against the war and has changed his stance on the war 3 times since the election began?

Please explain...

EDIT: And Neo, if you've seen the video you know that you are manipulating that screen cap in your sig to mean something that it never did. Perhaps we should start calling you Neo Moore?

[Neo]

Originally Posted by The Strangler

You would trust Kerry to finish what Bush started over Bush? If there is one thing that Bush has shown is that he is almost single minded in his quest to instill democracy in Iraq, so you are going to trust someone who has a record of being anti-military and has come out against the war and has changed his stance on the war 3 times since the election began?

He hasn't truly changed his stance, he just doesn't agree with the way the war is being handled. Changing position doesn't indicate weakness anyway, it indicates a conscientious thinker who won't blindly follow a path once he's realized he's made a mistake. I don't believe Kerry will be weak on terror, and I don't see how he can muck up things more than Bush has.

EDIT: And Neo, if you've seen the video you know that you are manipulating that screen cap in your sig to mean something that it never did. Perhaps we should start calling you Neo Moore?

Ah yes, much like Bush manipulates the information coming out of Afghanistan to make it seem all nice and rosy, when international experts say the country is still under control by the drug warlords, our forces are insufficient, and women are more scared than ever.

I'm changing it soon anyway to something much better.

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by Neo

He hasn't truly changed his stance, he just doesn't agree with the way the war is being handled. Changing position doesn't indicate weakness anyway, it indicates a conscientious thinker who won't blindly follow a path once he's realized he's made a mistake. I don't believe Kerry will be weak on terror, and I don't see how he can muck up things more than Bush has.

Uh, how can you say he hasn't changed his stance? First he voted for the war and supported Bush 100%, then when politics came into play he said that Bush did everything wrong, then he says that he'll have troops out of Iraq within 6 months of his presidency, and then changes it to 4 years 2 months before the election. You might say he's a conscious thinker, I say he doesn't have a clue what he's going to do and anything he says now will not be what he does once elected.

Ah yes, much like Bush manipulates the information coming out of Afghanistan to make it seem all nice and rosy, when international experts say the country is still under control by the drug warlords, our forces are insufficient, and women are more scared than ever.

1) Sources please

2) Does Bush own the media? No, in fact most of the news media are pretty blatantly against him, so how is Bush manipulating it considering the media is where we get our information?

3) Afghanistan just had the first ever democratic elections in the history of the middle east, in which the interem president won with a massive majority. Women are voting, which they never have before and there was little violence before or during the elections. But you're right, Afghanistan is failing...

I highly recommend you watch the movie Khandahar. It might open your eyes on why we should be over there a bit more.

[Neo]

He voted for the war because he thought it was the right thing to do. He assumed Bush had a plan to win the peace which it turns out isn't entirely accurate. Also the cost of the war has gone what they promised it would. That shows a severe lack of planning. I believe he said we could reduce our presence by half in six months by replacing with UN troops.

Three years after the US-led invasion, Afghanistan is flooding the world with heroin, warlords reign in the provinces, women are scared and the new security forces are underarmed and undersized, analysts say.

"Bush has painted a rosier picture than exists on the ground... and expressed success prematurely," said Vikram Parekh, Afghan affairs analyst for the International Crisis Group.

"When Bush presents Afghanistan as a country which has made great strides towards democracy, those claims lack credibility," Riffat Hussein, head of strategic studies at Pakistan's Quaid-e-Azam University, told AFP.

Hussein and others cite three yardsticks for improvement in the war-torn central Asian land in the last three years: the creation of a national security force; eradicating opium poppies; and disarming warlords' militias.

"If we take these three or four areas to measure success, you will get a very mixed result," Hussein said.

"Militarily the country is under the control of the warlords and Karzai's government does not run beyond Kabul. Right now it's virtual warlord rule whether you look east, west, north or south of Kabul.

"One litmus test is Afghanistan's progress in setting up its own army. Initial goals were for 90,000 and they've not been able to raise beyond 15,000.
"This lack of a national army is directly related to the failure of the government to reign in opium poppies."

Poppy cultivation is set to jump 40 percent this year, the CIA predicts, after a bumper crop last year supplied 90 percent of Europe's heroin and three quarters of the worldwide supply.

It brought in 2.3 billion dollars to Afghanistan last year, 35 percent of gross domestic product, making it the crippled economy's biggest source of revenue.

Parekh points out last weekend's peaceful and well-attended election was "only half an election". Parliamentary elections are on hold until April, because of insecurity and logistical problems.


"That's still going to be a formidable task to administer," Parekh told AFP. "By postponing it, we haven't addressed the obligations that we the

Post-election claims by the US military that the Taliban are a spent force after failing to sabotage the elections, were "very much a premature conclusion," Parekh said.

Bush capitalised on the first vote on October 9 being cast by a refugee woman in Pakistan, to underscore women's emancipation from Taliban-imposed repression.

Outside Kabul however most are still in all-enclosing burqas, and women are scared to speak out.

Human Rights Watch said a "pervasive atmosphere of fear" persists for women involved in politics. "Many Afghan women risk their safety if they participate in public life," it said in a report this month.

Most Afghans told Human Rights Watch they were more afraid of local military commanders than the Taliban.

The crucial disarmament drive in one year has stripped just over 10,000 militiamen of weapons, but at least 30,000 are yet to surrender them.

Kerry accuses Bush of making "a colossal error of judgment" in diverting resources from the hunt for bin Laden to the war in Iraq

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...1503&ncid=2043

[Blackmane]

Originally Posted by Neo

He voted for the war because he thought it was the right thing to do. He assumed Bush had a plan to win the peace which it turns out isn't entirely accurate. Also the cost of the war has gone what they promised it would. That shows a severe lack of planning. I believe he said we could reduce our presence by half in six months by replacing with UN troops.

And yet, Kerry is going out this week, after saying that he would reduce troops in Iraq, now saying that Iraq is more dangerous than ever. How does he intend on removing troops from Iraq without more greatly endangering the troops that are still there. Remember, that France and Germany have already said they will not come to Kerry's aid to replemish troops, and his constant alienation of our allies might end up making them uncommit their troops to the war effort, which would mean we would actually need MORE troops down there longer. Also, remember that Bush has training of the Iraqies moving along well, which is the best way to take care of security down there. The answer is, Kerry does not have a better plan. His only answer in the debate was bringing more allies into it, and we have all seen how good he is at doing that.

Face it, if you look at Kerry's voting record in the Senate, he has been on the wrong side of almost every national security issue that has come up. That is the best indicator of where he will stand on Iraq. My gut tells me that he will do what is takes to RETREAT and be defeated there because he is so strongly against war. It is fairly obvious comparing his speeches to his voting that he is willing to say anything to get the votes he needs.

[Neo]

I read somewhere that we're supposed to have trained 100,000 Iraqies by now but the real figure is closer to 20,000. I'll try to find the source.

From Kerry's own website:

Last February, Secretary Rumsfeld claimed that more than 210,000 Iraqis were in uniform. Two weeks ago, he admitted that claim was off by more than 50 percent. Iraq, he said, now has 95,000 trained security forces. Neither number bears any relationship to the facts. By the administration's own minimal standards, just 5,000 soldiers have been fully trained. And of the 32,000 police now in uniform, not one has completed a 24-week field-training program.

[Blackmane]

I still don't see how you think Kerry will ramp up training while still minimizing troops in Iraq.

See, people can point out lots of problems with Bush's policies, but they can't explain how Kerry can improve on the situation.

[Xantar]

Originally Posted by Blackmane

I still don't see how you think Kerry will ramp up training while still minimizing troops in Iraq.

See, people can point out lots of problems with Bush's policies, but they can't explain how Kerry can improve on the situation.

They can believe that Kerry won't continue to make more blunders as Bush will if he remains in office.

As to how this all could have been handled differently, I direct you to the post I made in that other Iraq thread oh so long ago. And I also want to make an observation: in the wake af Pearl Harbor, Americans were asked to step up, and they did. In the wake of 9/11, Americans were asked to step aside and let the professionals handle it. And they did. And this is the result.

At the very least, if Bush had managed to build up real support for the war in Iraq at home, he wouldn't have to deal with everybody always trying to "undermine" the effort.

[Blackmane]

Originally Posted by Xantar

They can believe that Kerry won't continue to make more blunders as Bush will if he remains in office.

As to how this all could have been handled differently, I direct you to the post I made in that other Iraq thread oh so long ago. And I also want to make an observation: in the wake af Pearl Harbor, Americans were asked to step up, and they did. In the wake of 9/11, Americans were asked to step aside and let the professionals handle it. And they did. And this is the result.

At the very least, if Bush had managed to build up real support for the war in Iraq at home, he wouldn't have to deal with everybody always trying to "undermine" the effort.

You can almost bet that he will not put focus into this war and will actually move to pull out, victory or not, instead of fighting and finishing this war in Iraq. That will simply show a message of weakness to these people, and thats something that is dangerous and can't be allowed to happen. If you don't believe me, take the time to look into Kerry's voting record and his anti-war feelings after Vietnam as proof of this.

Also, I'm not asking how things could have been done differently, because almost everyone who has a brain knows that the war could have been done differently. Hindsight is 20/20.

I'm asking what Kerry would do different from this point on. I have already made my case as to what I believe he will do. If you want to make a case based on his promises, which have no backing in reality, then go ahead.

Also, I believe there was support for the war in Iraq in the beginning. I don't know the % support, but I believe it was in the 70's or 80's. When things got messy and elections came up, dissent started rising in order to generate bad feelings towards Bush.