I have heard that "redepoyment" is dangerous and all that.

[Joe for Clark]

Somebody needs to call Bullshit on this soon.

Redeployment - where?? That is the key question you have to ask when you consider the difficulty.

The Kurds have invited us north. A move there is a few hundred miles for our kids. I do believe we may have an interest in checking the Iranians and the Syrians. We have NO interest in participating in the civil war to the south. And if we did go north, I am equally sure Turkey will breath a sigh of relief.

I have not been there - I do depend on my kids recollections. But you know, the kurds are both Sunni and Shia - they have no problems with that. Where they live it is green - they wear bluejeans and listen to music on the street.

Right now the US is the odd man out - we are the foreign agressor. But when we leave, the Al Queda groups that came in to foment agaist us will assume that role. They will become the foreigners.

It is wierd you know - but we may just be able to win by pulling back - in a yin/yang kind of way.

Joe

[MethuenProgressive]

1. Redeployment isn't the problem - it's going back in if needed.

The cost would be enormous to vacate, deploy elsewhere, and then go back into Iraq. I say cut 'em loose. Saddam's gone, now you're on your own. Send 100,000 troops to Afghanistan, where they should've been all along.

[razors edge]

2. What if we

just pull back to Kuwait and protect the slant drilling operations there?

[Joe for Clark]

4. That is funny -

Not so helpful, but funny.

Joe

[Buck Rabbit]

11. Heh! Good one.

[durrrty libby]

3. It is impossible for me to believe that there is any good

way to get out of this boosh calamity

Is there even one mid-east expert on this Baker panel?

Of course not, because it is all about trying to save georgie boy's ass.


Our next pres needs to be intelligent and someone with strong diplomatic skills.

This cowboy-up crap has ruined us

[QuestionAll...]

6. the monkey has smeared his feces

and now it's Time for Someone Else To Clean It Up.
If it's not done in so-and-so time frame, it was the lazy maids fault. ;(

[NNN0LHI]

5. There are different factions of Kurds who hate each other more than they hated Saddam

It is not going to be all puppies and rainbows for us in northern Iraq.

Don

[Joe for Clark]

7. That is not a religious war going on now.

I understand what CNN et al has said - but it is BS.

The Kurds are both Sunni and Shite. If it were really a war of religion, why aren't they fighting??

This war going on is no different than any other war - it is about power and presence. And I am tired to death that CNN et al put such simplistic labels on it.

Maybe no puppies and rainbows - but they want american dollars.

And everything I said has almost certainly been war gamed months ago. I do not want to see the 3rd battle for Baghdad live on my TV set -and that is most certainly the option here.

Joe

[Igel]

13. Because their Sunnis aren't

Salafists and their Shi'a aren't beholden to Qom--having the folk in Qom do nasty things to your ethnicity will do that. They've missed Khomeini's politicization of Islam. Moreover, they have a common enemy, or, rather, enemies.

Salafists = takfiri, to a large extent. I remember when they were reporting on the 14-year-old girl's rape/murder; they interviewed a neighbor, who said she couldn't believe it when the US military said that the family were Shi'ites. She knew they were lying because the family were "good monotheists." Implication: Shi'ites are polytheists.

Anbar, Persian name notwithstanding, is Salafist central, and Salafi thought is still increasing in popularity. Kurdish Islam has a bit of Sufism in it, and is usually more tolerant.

[Joe for Clark]

14. Do you really know what it is going on there - do you??

My kid did two tours in Mosul and is in Baghdad now - Here is what they do -

They kill you and then they mutilate you and leave your body on a busy street corner. Because they watch who picks up the body and then they do the same to the family - It is a sick progression.

This is NOT religous. If it was, why doesn't it happen in the north??? And it doesn't.

This has nothing at all to do with religion - and the sooner that is more widlely known the better.

I know a lot of muslims - they don't do this - they are pretty decent people.

Joe

[NNN0LHI]

17. Maybe the reason it hasn't happened in the north is we haven't released death squads there yet?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1433353,00.html

El Salvador-style 'death squads' to be deployed by US against Iraq militants

January 10, 2005

THE Pentagon is considering forming hit squads of Kurdish and Shia fighters to target leaders of the Iraqi insurgency in a strategic shift borrowed from the American struggle against left-wing guerrillas in Central America 20 years ago.

Under the so-called “El Salvador option”, Iraqi and American forces would be sent to kill or kidnap insurgency leaders, even in Syria, where some are thought to shelter.

The plans are reported in this week’s Newsweek magazine as part of Pentagon efforts to get US forces in Iraq on to the front foot against an enemy that is apparently getting the better of them.

Iyad Allawi, the interim Iraqi Prime Minister, was said to be one of the most vigorous supporters of the plan.

The Pentagon declined to comment, but one insider told Newsweek: “What everyone agrees is that we can’t just go on as we are. We have to find a way to take the offensive against the insurgents. Right now, we are playing defence. And we are losing.”

[Joe for Clark]

18. Maybe you just don't get it - also possible, right??

I hope to make my last plea here at DU shortly.

Dude, I like the people here, I really do.

But my parents and uncles were military officers - I understand both sides of this - I truly do.

Man, my mom and dad and many of my uncles commanded at battles that mean so much to us today. At the Bulge, at Normandy, at so many places we would be challenged to pronounced -

But I'll tell you something - my brothers were just GI's and they fought at places we should know- at Ka son - at Qwe son - so many little places we really should know - they were not any less brave.
(you guys - I apologize for my lack of typing skills).

I have gone to so many grad classes - and I looked into those young eyes - they don't deserve this.


Joe

[Igel]

19. You're right, of course.

I mean, here we only acknowledge ethnic and racial problems. And, as DUers, we can't imagine how somebody could possibly think another's set of beliefs or values are so wrong they shouldn't govern--we're not like knuckledragging neandertal freepers, dehumanizing our foes.

The problem is that Salafist thought has strong political consequences. It says that Sunnis should rule; Shi'ites and other apostates shouldn't. Sufism doesn't allow this kind of thinking, by and large. Since we're alien to religious warfare, we recast it in terms that we find suitable. No religion could countenance murder like that, or torture: the fact that Protestantism and Catholicism *did* is a bit of a problem, and the fact that some Muslims find it in keeping with their faith is also a problem. You define "religion", I think, a bit too 20th-century American. No *real* religion could countenance human sacrifice ... but more than a couple did. Religion's no less a tool thana ideology for dehumanizing the enemy and making it acceptable to do them great wrong.

Part of the problem is that Shi'ites hate having been ruled over for so long, and constantly oppressed in one way or another, sometimes trivially and sometimes harshly. This breeds resentment among Shi'a, mirrored by Salafists' thinking this was proper and the Sunnis' right. Resentment breeds hate; rejection breed hate. In Kurdistan this didn't happen: the oppression was from outsiders, so no faction among the Kurds hates the other that much.

I'm assuming that Kurdistan has the same kinds of honor traditions that the Arabs do, but don't dare to assume they think as communally as many Arabs do. Much of what's going on in Iraq is communal in nature and driven by a very non-20th-century-American conception of honor. Sometimes the community in question is a tribe; sometimes an ethnicity; more frequently it's religious. Americans don't do communal thinking well (except when it comes to immediate family or when some racial issues are involved--then both the left and the extreme loony right go communal).

You say it's not religious because they hate each other. But that doesn't address why they hate each other. Honor, history, and religion are deep wellsprings for hate and justifications for revenge. All three are in play (and they overlap in horrible ways). Many Western cultures chucked that idea of honor, don't allow history to dictate our present, and have minimized the influence of others. Europe was very much like this a thousand years ago, however.

[goodhue]

8. "we may just be able to win"

I'm still mystified by this concept of "winning" and what that might entail.
As to where to "redeploy", Kuwait seems pretty obvious, but I say bring them home.

[Joe for Clark]

10. You are right to say that.

What does winning mean??

We "win" if we end up protecting our national interests. We have no interest in Iraq winning anything. We have an interest in stability, we have an interest in countering forces that would cause an instability.

We have an interest in killing the people who really are extreme with an intention to carry out operations against us. The problem with Bush is he mixed truth and BS - we do as a country have an interest in stopping operations against our country - and our interest stops right there.

It is the tragedy of Iraq, in a nutshell.

Joe

[Karenina]

16. "Winning" means

getting rid of all the people living on top of the resources America so craves. 100-250 a day DEAD? Who knows how many weakened, sick and dying slow painful deaths... Get the "job" done.

[QuestionAll...]

15. never forget there are two 'we's'. Makes thing a bit clearer.

the halliburton/bush thingie or the peasant family/worry thing.

[Squatch]

9. Redeployment is a military euphemism for

going back to your home station, not deploying someplace else.

[Joe for Clark]

12. It is not Squatch -

It can be the smartest thing to do.

I was published for a book I wrote on the 2nd WW. The truth is, my strength as a history student is based on my understanding of 19th century american war - I am good, if I don't say so myself.

In 1864 and 1865 Joe Johnson was engaging Sherman's army in Gerogia and as they moved. The truth is, that reb out fought Sherman nearly the whole way - not by fighting, but by calculated redepolyments -The guy was brilliant. If the south had won, Joe would be their hero.

I say this because we need to understand - an asymetrical fight can be made symetrical - we cannot win fights where an enemy can spend $ 500 and wipe out a $5 million dollar asset. Not for very long, anyway.

And we need to understand - our commanders in the field today - they are mad as hell and they will try and retake their honor - They will fight it out to try and and undo the damage caused by a label of loser - and that is where the mindset is right now.

It is a problem. Sick to say, I even understand it.

Joe

[Toots]

20. The whole purpose we are there is to protect the oil

We will not redeploy anywhere there is not oil to abscond with. :shrug: At least not with Bush* in charge...