19-08-2003 21:54									#61
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quote: Originally posted by lord of the mark there also seems to be an assumption that the Baathists and the Sunni fundamentalists are completely distinct. In fact senior Sunni clergy where appointed by Saddam and supported him in their sermons.

"senior clergy" and "fundamentalists" are two pairs of shoes.

	19-08-2003 21:55									#62
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quote: Originally posted by lord of the mark the expats claim they were in regular contact with allies on the inside. And the claim that the expats didnt have knowledge was made by State and CIA, who seem to be less well placed for knowledge of the inside than the INC. More time for planning - well yes, but the two different sides of the admin had conflicting plans, and the conflicts were never resolved. The State plan was apparently to give up control to the UN and thus use foreign troops - DoD vetoed. Dod's plan was to use the INC - State and CIA vetoed. In the absence of agreement it was hoped some conventional Iraqi army units would come over intact and act as police - but that didnt happen - then it was time to improvise.

Winging it on the occupation phase isn't very smart, especially with the WMD findings. If Saddam really was an imminent security threat, then there was no choice about timing, but the evidence is that he was not an imminent threat, just a long-term pain in the ass that needed removing at a time more of our convenience. Nothing at this point really indicates that we couldn't have picked a delayed entry (this assumes going back and delaying transport and predeployment of forces), toned down the rhetoric, and attacked at the end of summer, with the additional time used to prepare both for infrastructure issues and occupation/transition issues.

For the Bush admin and the US, it's the result at the end, not at the beginning, that determines our success or failure. Most people, left or right, agreed before this started that we needed to do an exceptional job in the occupation and transition, to have the desired effect in the middle east. Overall, our performance is a real mixed bag - we're mopping the floor with the deck of cards people, but behind schedule and underperforming on a lot of mundane issues that have a lot of collective importance and prestige.

	19-08-2003 21:57									#63
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In the later part of his regime Saddam was playing up the Islamic card as a way to dvide the popualce and seek conformity and support from the Sunni center. But to me that smells of using religion as a tool, not in being a believer for a second, and Baathist ideology does not particualrly play well with fundy Islam. as for Ansar, another exmaple of using someone who is a thorn on the side of an enemy (Kurds).

	19-08-2003 22:02									#64
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I am sorry, but as for the "deck of cards" people: I think the general expectation was that with the fall of the regime all these people would be hisotry within days. That several months later we are stil hearing about clubs of this, diamonds of that might make great news, but hardly seems like the sign of a gret successs. After all, it points to a messy, no linear ending to a quick little war.

	19-08-2003 22:05									#65
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Considering that people like Barbie, Eichmann, von dem Bach-Zelevski, Lammerding, et al took decades to run down, or never were run down, I wouldn't get too bent that we only have half and change of the deck within the first six months.

I don't know who would expect them all to be gone within days, certainly not the Pentagon or Bush admin that I heard.

	19-08-2003 22:12									#66
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quote: Originally posted by GePap In the later part of his regime Saddam was playing up the Islamic card as a way to dvide the popualce and seek conformity and support from the Sunni center. But to me that smells of using religion as a tool, not in being a believer for a second, and Baathist ideology does not particualrly play well with fundy Islam. as for Ansar, another exmaple of using someone who is a thorn on the side of an enemy (Kurds).

teh question is not whether saddam was a believer in his heart of hearts but whether there is any clear demarcation between Baathist Fedayeen and AL Ansar and other Islamist terrorists. As for Baathist ideology, its by no means obvious to me that anyone in the regime is seriously commited to Baathist ideology anyway - (not that i think that there was a clearcut end to ideology in '68 as some claim - IMHO Baathism was closer to fascism and farther from social democracy than most apologists for Michel Afleq will admit)

	19-08-2003 22:12									#67
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Iraq was not Nazi germany: it didn;t take years an hundreads of thusands of lives to win this war, and the enemy was not a significant power. Plus most of the people you name were lower, second tier scum. Hitler didn;t make it past day 0 after, people like georing and Himmler and Geobles were gone pretty much instantly, or less time afterwards. Ditto for the Speer's and Fricks and so forth. And ditto for the Japanese, so if we are going to use WW2 as a measure, no this is no success.

As for not hearing anything on the matter from Bush: this is the same admin. that epects WMD"s to be found in mass still, wouldn;t say how many troops or howmuch it would cost before hand, so really what they say is pretty much immaterial most of the time.

What matters is the perception of Iraqis. How easy is it tot hink :hmm, these guys can win a war in three weeks, but several months later they don;t have Saddam and we have spotty power..what is wrong with them?

	19-08-2003 22:14									#68
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quote: Originally posted by GePap I am sorry, but as for the "deck of cards" people: I think the general expectation was that with the fall of the regime all these people would be hisotry within days. That several months later we are stil hearing about clubs of this, diamonds of that might make great news, but hardly seems like the sign of a gret successs. After all, it points to a messy, no linear ending to a quick little war.

Im not trying to make a comparison to some predicted linear ending of a quick little war. As you have said so eloquently, theres nothing to be gained by going back and comparing predicitions. We are where we are. And I was merely pointing out an important fact.

	19-08-2003 22:15									#69
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quote: Originally posted by lord of the mark teh question is not whether saddam was a believer in his heart of hearts but whether there is any clear demarcation between Baathist Fedayeen and AL Ansar and other Islamist terrorists. As for Baathist ideology, its by no means obvious to me that anyone in the regime is seriously commited to Baathist ideology anyway -

That they two may share interest does not mean they share commands, nor tactics, nor aims. As for not being commited Baathist, fine, but you have to be commited to blow yourself up in a truck.

My guess is that we have Baathist cells and Islamist cells, and that if once in a while they cooperate, they cenrtainly don;t all follow the same pied piper.

	19-08-2003 22:18									#70
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quote: Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat Winging it on the occupation phase isn't very smart, especially with the WMD findings. If Saddam really was an imminent security threat, then there was no choice about timing, but the evidence is that he was not an imminent threat, just a long-term pain in the ass that needed removing at a time more of our convenience. Nothing at this point really indicates that we couldn't have picked a delayed entry (this assumes going back and delaying transport and predeployment of forces), toned down the rhetoric, and attacked at the end of summer, with the additional time used to prepare both for infrastructure issues and occupation/transition issues.

\
Given the deep, and profoundly ideological divisions in the administration (outlined above) I dont see how waiting any further would have resolved the division over the occupation strategy.

And at what point would you have made this change - In early March? Retreating at that point would very likely have made re-entry in a few months politically impossible, would have left the Kuwaitis and Qataris in the lurch and very vulnerable, and would have undercut the Pal-Israeli peace process and other US initiatives.

	19-08-2003 22:21									#71
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quote: Originally posted by GePap I am sorry, but as for the "deck of cards" people: I think the general expectation was that with the fall of the regime all these people would be hisotry within days. That several months later we are stil hearing about clubs of this, diamonds of that might make great news, but hardly seems like the sign of a gret successs. After all, it points to a messy, no linear ending to a quick little war.

You mean, even with Bush saying it would be a long time, some dumb bastards thought it would be a matter of days??
Who's fault is that? Bush, I suppose.

	19-08-2003 22:21									#72
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I'd put my money on US soldiers calling in an airstrike on the UN HQ after seeing a man with an apple and mistaking it for a grenade.

	19-08-2003 22:22									#73
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This admin was planning this war from the middle of 2002 onward. They had plenty of time to give these notions good thought. I am sure many in the admin. did beliee Iraq to be an imminent threat, though clearly they were wrong. Still, the entire process by which we came to going to war was a huge mess, and the most significant reason by far why I opposed this whole enterprise. And the shoddy and incomplete preparations have given us an even more murky end that this whole thing would lead to. And we aren't even yet at the hard part: which comes when it comes time to devide the spolis of politics in a more permanent way.

	19-08-2003 22:25									#74
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quote: Originally posted by SlowwHand You mean, even with Bush saying it would be a long time, some dumb bastards thought it would be a matter of days?? Who's fault is that? Bush, I suppose.

You mean the same Bush who on May 1st declared and end to "major combat"?

Of course the admin. said it would not be easy early on (though they never qualified the costs or what it would take beofre the war anyhow): they changed their tune by mid time (I remeber all those triumphal comments and cartoons that came out mid April to early may), but now we are back to "long term?" What ever happened to the occuaption being done and over in 6 months? (though the guy who made tha statement did not outlive it for long)

How quickly views on this change, no?

	19-08-2003 22:28									#75
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quote: Originally posted by GePap That they two may share interest does not mean they share commands, nor tactics, nor aims. As for not being commited Baathist, fine, but you have to be commited to blow yourself up in a truck. My guess is that we have Baathist cells and Islamist cells, and that if once in a while they cooperate, they cenrtainly don;t all follow the same pied piper.

they may not share ultimate aims, but they certainly share the short term aim of driving the coalition out of Iraq. And its not clear that the local Sunni Islamists, at any rate, have any better prospects in the long term than the return of Saddam. Unlike the foreigners, who rules in Iraq really matters to them. ANd unlike the Shiites, they have no prospect of taking power on their own. So a Saddam return is probably the best they can do.

Share tactics - I assume they will share whatever works. While suicide bombing is historically the province of Islamists, not of Arab nationalists, the Al Aqsa Martyrs brigades in Palestine is a branch of historically secular Arab nationalist Fatah, and yet has adopted suicide bombing as a tactic. So it does not seem far fetched to me that a hard core fedayeen, faced with no future, with the defeat of their lifelong goals and ambitions, both ideological and personal, and with the likelihood of death at the hands of vengeful of Iraqis at some point anyway, would be willing to commit suicide.

Share command? well i certainly dont claim to know the stucture of command of the baddies there. I suspect there are more than two chains of command - it does not seem likely that Baathists all over the country have the communications ability to maintain a single coordinated chain of command. So probably there are different organizations in different parts of the country.While there may be some places where Baathists and Islamists maintain parallel chains, its not at all unlikely that in some places Baathists work under Islamist command, and Islamists work under Baathist command - even if i accept your distinction (which i dont, entirely) between Baathists and islamists.

IIUC during WW2 partisans of very different ideological stripes worked together and even under common command against a common enemy.

	19-08-2003 22:30									#76
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quote: Originally posted by GePap Of course the admin. said it would not be easy early on (though they never qualified the costs or what it would take beofre the war anyhow): they changed their tune by mid time (I remeber all those triumphal comments and cartoons that came out mid April to early may), but now we are back to "long term?" What ever happened to the occuaption being done and over in 6 months? (though the guy who made tha statement did not outlive it for long) How quickly views on this change, no?

the triumphalism in mid april was largely a response to the quagmire talk in late March.

	19-08-2003 22:33									#77
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quote: Originally posted by GePap You mean the same Bush who on May 1st declared and end to "major combat"?

well that was probably a stupid thing to say, and flying out to the carrier was stupid to. I never said dubya was brilliant.

OTOH, its pretty clear what was meant by major combat. Conventional combat - our divisions against their divisions was over. Now maybe it was wrong to imply that this kind of guerilla and terrorist warfare isnt major combat, but its a bit disingenous to claim he was lying on that basis. I mean from that POV theres also major combat going on in Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco.

	19-08-2003 22:35									#78
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"So your "real solution" is to blurt "Yeah, let's do nothing, that worked real well!"

Did you ever hear of sarcasm, hence the little

We know we can't ignore the situation, and everybody wants to just critize, since the wars began we still haven't had a terrorist attack on this soil since 9/11, so you guys can ***** all you want about Bush policies, but so far it appears to be working.

	19-08-2003 22:36									#79
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This was no simple suicide attack. Suicidal truck rampages have only been used by islamists up to now. It is the safer bet to assume it is still only them now.

As for bands of partisans working together. The ppositoion in Iraq does not rise to that level. These guys seem to work in cells. As for partisans working together, certainly, if their aims do not differ sufficently. In some places though, partisans did not work together. The Ukraine was a rather ugly mess of Germans vs Soviet partisans vs Ukranian nationalist partisans.

As foir the distinction between Baathist and Islamist; ofr me it is clear and the distinction center on the end game: what version of Iraq one gets if the US was driven out. Neither the Baathist nor the islamists see much role for the other guy in their Iraq. I would say then tyheir incentive to work cooperatively is limited by the knowledge that if they succeed at this point, they have to kill the other guy afterwards. Thius would be more true of the Islamist, who are more liekly to be the ones seeking ideological purity more.

	19-08-2003 22:37									#80
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quote: Originally posted by Defiant We know we can't ignore the situation, and everybody wants to just critize, since the wars began we still haven't had a terrorist attack on this soil since 9/11, so you guys can ***** all you want about Bush policies, but so far it appears to be working.

We had a terroist attack against the US on US soild (and at the WTC no less) in 1993. There was no other one on US soil for 8 years. I assume you credit the Clinton's white House's anti-terror policies for that success, no?

	19-08-2003 22:40									#81
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quote: Originally posted by GePap Iraq was not Nazi germany: it didn;t take years an hundreads of thusands of lives to win this war, and the enemy was not a significant power. Plus most of the people you name were lower, second tier scum. Hitler didn;t make it past day 0 after, people like georing and Himmler and Geobles were gone pretty much instantly, or less time afterwards. Ditto for the Speer's and Fricks and so forth.

well yeah. Nazi germany was a power going for immediate world domination. to end as leader of a resistance group would be a humiliation, and with the world united in support of the occupation, probably hopeless. Whereas Saddam has turned defeat into victory simply by surviving once before, and the debate in the UN has given him and his followers the impression that if they hold on long enough, a divided world will force coalition withdrawl. To the extent the world pulls together in support of the Iraqi people and against the Baathists and terrorists, the more the violence will fade and hope will be restored to Iraq.

	19-08-2003 22:44									#82
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quote: Originally posted by GePap As foir the distinction between Baathist and Islamist; ofr me it is clear and the distinction center on the end game: what version of Iraq one gets if the US was driven out. Neither the Baathist nor the islamists see much role for the other guy in their Iraq. I would say then tyheir incentive to work cooperatively is limited by the knowledge that if they succeed at this point, they have to kill the other guy afterwards. Thius would be more true of the Islamist, who are more liekly to be the ones seeking ideological purity more.

What end state within 5 years can you look forward to if youre a SUNNI islamist in Iraq (assuming Osama hasnt established a kalifate from Indonesia to Morocco by then) You simply cant rule alone - its not possible demographically, unless all Sunni arabs were islamists, which theyre not. You have to either ally with the Baathists or with the Shiites. Both present ideological problems - and the Shiite mainly dont want to play, whereas the Baathists are eager.

	19-08-2003 22:46									#83
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GePap,
We are now engaged with the fellows that are attacking us, a bunch of your kind said all we would do by attacking Afghanistan and Iraq is stir up the hornet's nest and cause more attacks on US proper, so far, thank God it hasn't happened. I truly believer by taking the fight to them we protect our own.

In football terms, "a good defense is an excellent offense."

I'm not saying we will never be hit again, just too many bases to cover but the hits should be extremely limited.

As much as I would love to blame Clinton for 9/11, it is quite obvious, today, it has been the lack of communication between our specified offices of security, which now should be getting fixed.

	19-08-2003 22:48									#84
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quote: Originally posted by lord of the mark To the extent the world pulls together in support of the Iraqi people and against the Baathists and terrorists, the more the violence will fade and hope will be restored to Iraq.

Bush should have thought of that beforehand. It's too late now.

	19-08-2003 22:48									#85
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quote: Originally posted by GePap We had a terroist attack against the US on US soild (and at the WTC no less) in 1993. There was no other one on US soil for 8 years. I assume you credit the Clinton's white House's anti-terror policies for that success, no?

well none on US soil, but there were attacks on US forces at Kobar towers, there were very nasty attacks on the Nairobi and Dar es Salaam embassies, and there was the attack on the Cole. Granted not on US soil, but more dramatic attacks on US hard targets, as none of teh attacks since 9/11 have been.

Of course we dont know what theyve got in the works now, so youre right we cant assert success based on 2 years record. The visible things - arrests, disruptions of money flows, response from the muslim street and from muslim states, etc, looks fairly good though.

	19-08-2003 22:49									#86
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quote: Originally posted by lord of the mark well yeah. Nazi germany was a power going for immediate world domination. to end as leader of a resistance group would be a humiliation, and with the world united in support of the occupation, probably hopeless. Whereas Saddam has turned defeat into victory simply by surviving once before, and the debate in the UN has given him and his followers the impression that if they hold on long enough, a divided world will force coalition withdrawl. To the extent the world pulls together in support of the Iraqi people and against the Baathists and terrorists, the more the violence will fade and hope will be restored to Iraq.

Iraq after the first Gulf war was never even remotely the same threat to even its neighbors that Germany was, far less to the international community, so expecting international consensus on what to do with a dinky third rate power which happens to have lots of oil (though there is plnety outside of it too) is in my view far fetched.

Why should the world pull together for the Iraqi people any more than it does for any people? Sorry, but sady the world does not work that way yet. As for the nazis' they had plenty of plans for firece resistance, specially vs the Russian: all came to naught, and not due to ego. The Germans were not only soundly beaten on the battlefield, but also ideologically and in the minds of all participants. The same is not true in this war. The Iraqi people did not identify wth their rulers, and do not think of themeslves as vanquished. The regime members lost on the battlefield, but for the most part they had melted away to fight another day, and I don;t think they know themselves to be dead enders. Little has yet happened to make that clear to them. The future political structure of Iraq remains a mystery.

	19-08-2003 22:51									#87
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quote: Originally posted by HershOstropoler Bush should have thought of that beforehand. It's too late now.

he certainly thought of it, but didnt allow its absence to stop the US from acting.

And its hardly too late - the world still has a chance to pull together.

And even if it doesnt, we will still pull this out, with the assistance of the coalition of the willing, and, most importantly, the Iraqi people. But it would go faster and more like WW2 (as descirbed by GEpap) if the world was more supportive.

	19-08-2003 22:51									#88
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quote: Originally posted by lord of the mark well none on US soil, but there were attacks on US forces at Kobar towers, there were very nasty attacks on the Nairobi and Dar es Salaam embassies, and there was the attack on the Cole. Granted not on US soil, but more dramatic attacks on US hard targets, as none of teh attacks since 9/11 have been. Of course we dont know what theyve got in the works now, so youre right we cant assert success based on 2 years record. The visible things - arrests, disruptions of money flows, response from the muslim street and from muslim states, etc, looks fairly good though.

Since 9/11 we had Bali, Riyahd, attacks in Tunis, Karachi, and now Baghdad.

As for the visible successes: fine, we have had them, But none sufficient to end the organization. There is areason why we still have papers claiming 9/11 style attacks on the Us within a year. I seem them as chicken little, but someoen in the gov. does not feel as confident as you.

	19-08-2003 22:53									#89
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quote: Originally posted by GePap As for the nazis' they had plenty of plans for firece resistance, specially vs the Russian: all came to naught, and not due to ego.

they came to naught eventually. Are you sure the Baathist resistance wont come to naught eventually?

	19-08-2003 22:55									#90
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"The regime members lost on the battlefield, but for the most part they had melted away to fight another day, and I don;t think they know themselves to be dead enders. Little has yet happened to make that clear to them. The future political structure of Iraq remains a mystery."

GePap, fight for what? Their money for killing US Soldiers is vanishing, their leaders are vanishing, our forces will soon be in the background, once a strong Iraq police force is formed, I don't see the reason to continue fighting, especially if they start killing Iraqi supporters to the new gov't because Iraqi families won't stand for it too long and will turn them in. Their time is done, much more advantageous to commit themselves to the new Iraq and make something out of themselves, now.