Military History | How To Make War | Wars Around the World Rules of Use How to Behave on an Internet Forum
Iraq Discussion Board
   Return to Topic Page
Subject: So what then? ---> 6 months from now ----> June 2007
StateMachine    12/30/2006 1:13:48 PM
So Saddam is dead. And the big(little) surge is coming. So given that in June 2007 we are looking at ~4000 dead US soldiers and a deteriorated situation from today, Jan 30 2006. What then? Can the US come home? All the questions will be answered. This is the most likely scenario, like it or not. The "surge" that is not a surge of any consequence is a last desparate gasp at something. Wouldn't quite call it victory. Will the great experiment finally be over? No more milestones. No more theories. No more excuses.
 
Quote    Reply

Show Only Poster Name and Title     Newest to Oldest
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13   NEXT
FJV       12/30/2006 4:57:59 PM
We go on for another 18 years if need be and winning the damn thing. Or we chicken out and grab defeat from the jaws of victory.

Most leftists don't understand a damn single thing about even the most basic fundamentals of insurgencies. This is very strange, because their heros have written extensively about it. But then again, who expects a leftist to actually read Che Guevara and Mao's writings on guerrilla warfare let alone understand what it all means?






 
Quote    Reply

Herc the Merc    FJV   12/30/2006 5:38:07 PM
The big question is not surpressing insurgencies or fighting guerrila warfare--the Main question and the only question is which one of those groups is on our side. Not one significant one--that is what most people fail to understand--the Shias are pro-Iran and Sunnis pro Sunnis--so even if we win or prevail in imposing a single counytry democratic order or a national government of sorts all such efforts will lead to a government hostile to US interests. We have no friends but Kurds in Iraq. That is the key problem for war supporters--who are we trying to rescue--the British the French resistance?? Haha no.. Shias and Sunnis---guess what they all either hate us or are indiffernt to us--its like u sorting out a bar fight between 2 drunk ex-cons --sure u may stop the fight-but do u really want to put urself at risk there?? People just don't get it.
 
Quote    Reply

StateMachine       12/30/2006 6:04:16 PM

We go on for another 18 years if need be and winning the damn thing. Or we chicken out and grab defeat from the jaws of victory.

Most leftists don't understand a damn single thing about even the most basic fundamentals of insurgencies. This is very strange, because their heros have written extensively about it. But then again, who expects a leftist to actually read Che Guevara and Mao's writings on guerrilla warfare let alone understand what it all means?








If you're joking then bravo on the wit.
 
If you're serious, then apparently there's no quantity of blood(other people's) and treasure that keyboard warrior FJV would not spill to avoid having to admit a mistake.
 
So we have one chalked down. Keep going even is this latest brilliant strategy proves to be yet another failure.
 
Quote    Reply

sentinel28a       12/30/2006 7:57:29 PM
"If you're serious, then apparently there's no quantity of blood(other people's) and treasure that keyboard warrior FJV would not spill to avoid having to admit a mistake."
 
That is a hell of a thing to say, considering you are also a keyboard warrior, StateMachine.  To think nothing of the blood that will be spilled if we run in the next six months--which you seem to have no problem with.
 
Interesting choice of words, though.  I've always thought the left would rather lose the war than admit the mistake (Bush might actually be right about something) as well.
 
 
Quote    Reply

HYPOCENTER       12/31/2006 5:25:26 AM

We go on for another 18 years if need be and winning the damn thing. Or we chicken out and grab defeat from the jaws of victory.

Most leftists don't understand a damn single thing about even the most basic fundamentals of insurgencies. This is very strange, because their heros have written extensively about it. But then again, who expects a leftist to actually read Che Guevara and Mao's writings on guerrilla warfare let alone understand what it all means?

Bravo, sir. I couldn't have said it better myself.

We were winning Vietnam before we left, that's the truth. The war in Vietnam was lost at home, not in-country. Now look at that place today.... there's nothing free about Vietnam.

We aren't losing the war in Iraq, we're losing the war here at home. If anyone wants to criticize anyone for anything, it's that we're losing the war at home....

I think the consequences of pulling out of Iraq are unimaginable. We're transforming the middleast and it is modernizing itself overnight. Think about it. There has never been a democracy, or freedom in the middle east. That place is still living in the god damn stone age.... and all of a sudden they have a new way of thinking. Growing pains are natural.

We have to stay as long as it takes for the Iraqi government to support itself. And to also keep Iran and Syria from taking over. Those are the goals.

Also.... i can't understand why people are bitching about our casulties. I don't like casulties anymore than the next person.... but 3000 dead isn't a whole hell of alot. People who bitch about it lack perspective. We used to lose that many in an afternoon in past wars.... so please, if anything we're doing great.

That all said, my current assesment on Iraq is this: we're grinding on a treadmill. We are running in place. There's an endless stream of jihadists and supplies running over from Iran. I think adding more troops is insane... more troops aren't the answer unless they are going to lock down the Iran border. But I seriously doubt that's what they're gunna do. I don't think less troops is the answer either. I don't claim to have the answer.... but I know that neither of those two options will make much of a difference.

The only way to go... and no one wants to hear it... is to "go long". It takes time.

Two women dividing a pregnancy between them wont have the baby born half the time. 9 months is simply the nature of the beast. Nation-building takes time.... that's just the nature of the beast.
 
Quote    Reply

Plutarch       12/31/2006 2:39:24 PM



We go on for another 18 years if need be and winning the damn thing. Or we chicken out and grab defeat from the jaws of victory.

Most leftists don't understand a damn single thing about even the most basic fundamentals of insurgencies. This is very strange, because their heros have written extensively about it. But then again, who expects a leftist to actually read Che Guevara and Mao's writings on guerrilla warfare let alone understand what it all means?


Bravo, sir. I couldn't have said it better myself.

We were winning Vietnam before we left, that's the truth. The war in Vietnam was lost at home, not in-country. Now look at that place today.... there's nothing free about Vietnam.

We aren't losing the war in Iraq, we're losing the war here at home. If anyone wants to criticize anyone for anything, it's that we're losing the war at home....

I think the consequences of pulling out of Iraq are unimaginable. We're transforming the middleast and it is modernizing itself overnight. Think about it. There has never been a democracy, or freedom in the middle east. That place is still living in the god damn stone age.... and all of a sudden they have a new way of thinking. Growing pains are natural.

We have to stay as long as it takes for the Iraqi government to support itself. And to also keep Iran and Syria from taking over. Those are the goals.

Also.... i can't understand why people are bitching about our casulties. I don't like casulties anymore than the next person.... but 3000 dead isn't a whole hell of alot. People who bitch about it lack perspective. We used to lose that many in an afternoon in past wars.... so please, if anything we're doing great.

That all said, my current assesment on Iraq is this: we're grinding on a treadmill. We are running in place. There's an endless stream of jihadists and supplies running over from Iran. I think adding more troops is insane... more troops aren't the answer unless they are going to lock down the Iran border. But I seriously doubt that's what they're gunna do. I don't think less troops is the answer either. I don't claim to have the answer.... but I know that neither of those two options will make much of a difference.

The only way to go... and no one wants to hear it... is to "go long". It takes time.

Two women dividing a pregnancy between them wont have the baby born half the time. 9 months is simply the nature of the beast. Nation-building takes time.... that's just the nature of the beast.

"We were winning Vietnam before we left, that's the truth. The war in Vietnam was lost at home, not in-country. Now look at that place today.... there's nothing free about Vietnam."

Most wars are won or lost at home; read your Clauswitz.  The Germans didn't lose WWI on the front; their armies were never pushed into German territory, but the home front gave up...so it's still a loss for Germany.  Vietnam may not be free but it's stable.
"We aren't losing the war in Iraq, we're losing the war here at home. If anyone wants to criticize anyone for anything, it's that we're losing the war at home.... "
 
No one in the government (democrat or republican) had prepared the US population for such a long war, and there is still no end in sight.  That's poor policy.
 
" think the consequences of pulling out of Iraq are unimaginable."
 
I doubt that it will be much worse than it is now.
 
 "We're transforming the middleast and it is modernizing itself overnight. Think about it. There has never been a democracy, or freedom in the middle east. That place is still living in the god damn stone age.... and all of a sudden they have a new way of thinking. Growing pains are natural."
 
Inaccurate facts.  Lebanon was a democracy for many years until it devolved into civil war.  These problems in Iraq are a little more than growing pains; Shay's Rebellion was a growing pain, what is happening in Iraq is something else entirely. 
 
 
"We have to stay as long as it t
 
Quote    Reply

Nanheyangrouchuan       12/31/2006 2:48:46 PM
I was watching the "Free Speech Channel" on cable last night and they had Al-Iraq TV on, people were indeed cheering the death of Saddam, but they were also holding up pictures of Khomeini.

With Iran and Saudi Arabia threatening to go at it over Iraq, I wonder if we'll end up having a Western Iran and Northern S.A., with the Kurdish territory being all that's really left of Iraq.

 
Quote    Reply

eu4ea       12/31/2006 11:57:00 PM
Your thread may well "disappear", StateMachine.

My last one on precisely this topic did just that - but while we're still here, my prediction is that the last American to die in Iraq will be in Q3 of 2007, during the final stages of our pull-out.  It will be casualty # 4000+, maybe even 5000+.

Shortly afterwards the "government" will collapse, as quickly as Saigon did when we left. The country will probably splinter into 2-3 sections, with Iran having effective control of the largest one (the Shiite section).  Significant parts of the country (Ramadi, Falujah, Al-anbar) will remain as a failed state.  The Kurds are the only ones likely to make out all right, if they can keep the Turks and Iranians at bay.

As for the wisdom of continuing, I personally think there's none.  The basic problem is not one of implementation (though fail to implement we most certainly did, particularly the disastrous CPA under Bremer), but quite simply that this war was not winnable. 

To think we can use a military invasion to graft a parliamentary democracy into a deeply divided Arab nation awash with weapons, with no credible opposition, massive unemployment, no democratic institutions, and no civic traditions is folly of the highest order.  Such miraculous transformations simply do *not* happen, regardless of what the overheated imaginations of neo-cons would have us believe.  

I wish it werent so, particularly given what's at stake, but this is what we get for electing airhead neo-cons.  Hopefully in the wake of this disaster power within the Republican party will shift back from neo-cons to actual-cons, or the Democrats will continue to win elections, or both.

Heart,

eu4ea
 
Quote    Reply

AFA2007    Not Like Vietnam Anymore   1/1/2007 3:44:01 AM

I was watching the "Free Speech Channel" on cable last night and they had Al-Iraq TV on, people were indeed cheering the death of Saddam, but they were also holding up pictures of Khomeini.

With Iran and Saudi Arabia threatening to go at it over Iraq, I wonder if we'll end up having a Western Iran and Northern S.A., with the Kurdish territory being all that's really left of Iraq.


But other news broadcasts had Iraqi Sunnis holding up pictures of Saddam - and Sunni exiles in Jordan and Syria are vowing to return to Iraq to fight in the insurgency.  

You also have to understand that there is a big difference between Iraqi (Arab) Shiites and Iranian (Persian) Shiites.  But a Shiite controlled government in Iraq just might form an alliance with Iran to be a real threat to Saudi Arabia over who should be the "Custodians of the Holy Mosques".  The KSA military couldn't fight it's way out of a wet paper bag - see some of the postings on Saudi Arabia in this forum.

I would say GW has opened up Pandora's box with Iraq - and getting that Shiite vs. Sunni genie back in the bottle may not be within the capabilities of the U.S. military at this point.  The only way this can be compared to Vietnam now is if we had the VC, NVA, and ARVN all shooting at us at once.
 
Quote    Reply

Pseudonym       1/1/2007 12:47:09 PM
I" would say GW has opened up Pandora's box with Iraq - and getting that Shiite vs. Sunni genie back in the bottle may not be within the capabilities of the U.S. military at this point."

LOL it's all Bush's fault huh.  Nothing to do with centuries of Sunni/Shia fighting, oh no, it's all Bush's fault lol.

Anyone who wants to speak credibly on the subject of insurgencies should at the VERY LEAST research JUST A LITTLE and realize these are DECADE PLUS operations.

I freely admit to being an armchair warrior, I cannot be a real one with my back, I tried, but at the very least, WHY DON'T YOU GO SEE WHAT THE MAJORITY OF US SOLDIERS WHO ACTUALLY WENT TO IRAQ THINK...
 
Quote    Reply
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13   NEXT



 Latest
 News
 
 Most
 Read
 
 Most
 Commented
 Hot
 Topics