[NeoCon Newbie]

from I have seen they have no plan they just attack Bush.

[FDRfollower]

DS, please do not come here to mindlessly repeat what the drooling morons on the radio spew.

Here, you can download the Baker Hamilton report since there were Democrats on the committee.

B/H report (http://www.usip.org/isg/iraq_study_group_report/report/1206/iraq_study_group_report.pdf)

Happy reading!

[Jane of Arc]

Speaking of a plan for Iraq ... DS, if you are so pro-Bush and his war policies ... what are you doing here? Are you old enough to enlist? If so, have the courage of conviction to enlist in the military immediately. Otherwise, you're just another hot air, armchair chickenhawk. You love to support Bush and his war as long as someone other than you is dying.

[cat's meow]

from I have seen they have no plan they just attack Bush.

Oh...Dandy...another conservative Neo Con who has an allergic reaction to reading and learning about thier own government.

There have been many plans proposed by many on the left but those are diverse and they sit in the legislative side, you numbnut (I happen to like the Joe Biden plan myself). The executive branch is the political entity that is SOLELY responsible for implementing this sort of foriegn policy and military action, that is why we call the president the COMMANDER AND CHIEF. The plan (BTW) is the Iraq Study group Report, and that is what the legislative branch can or has the power to do...they can only recommend to the Executive Branch on something like this. Go to a book store and get it knucklehead and do some f***ing reading...also while you are at it get a copy of your US Constitution and find out what the spelled out responsibilties of the three branches are and you might actually learn something.

I have got say, I am really sick of jack-asses like you who have no idea what is going on and how our government works.

[cat's meow]

DS, please do not come here to mindlessly repeat what the drooling morons on the radio spew.

Here, you can download the Baker Hamilton report since there were Democrats on the committee.

B/H report (http://www.usip.org/isg/iraq_study_group_report/report/1206/iraq_study_group_report.pdf)

Happy reading!

Yeah, I recommend this too but the idiot can't even figure out how the gov works, how the hell do you expect them to understand this? :rolleyes:

[sfdefender]

why are you guys attacking him? other than his name, the thread doesn't seem like trolling to me. he is just someone with a view opposed to yours. I actually admire bush. I have like 3 pictures of him on the wall in my office. but i don't hate people because they didn't vote the same way i did.

[Jennifer_SFBA]

Hi, sfdefender. Please read my 1/31/2007 response and see, read and evaluate the supporting material information I presented in the "End the War" thread. Yes, the screen name DS chose to use in this room is insulting and provocative.

[Jane of Arc]

Hi Jennifer ~

Good bet that sfdefender is also democrats_suck. It's very doubtful an Independent would have 'like' 3 pictures of Bush in his "office". He's just a kid wasting time and energy trolling, when he could be doing endless other positive things. :jerk:

If I am I wrong I 'like' apologize.

[Jennifer_SFBA]

Jane of Arc ... Could be so. I don't know ... Ha!

[sfdefender]

no. I am not democrats_suck and there really is 3 pictures of bush on the wall in my office

[Jane of Arc]

no. I am not democrats_suck and there really is 3 pictures of bush on the wall in my officeOkay ... let me get this straight. You are SO enamored (to be captivated, gaga) with Bush that you have his face all over the walls of your 'office' ... but ... you're an "Independent". Damn that sounds completely right wing to me. And you state that you admire Bush ... again right-wing. In fact, everything you say is right-wing.

I'm an Independent. I can see where Bush is a no-good, lying war criminal and Kerry is a creep who stabbed the people that voted for him in the back. I can also say I respect conservative Ron Paul immensely, as I do liberal Dennis Kucinich. Because they're honest statesmen. I can say positive and negative things about BOTH the left and the right because I'm an American first. I don't have blind party loyalty.

So please grace us with some of your positive, independent thoughts about Democrats ...

[sfdefender]

lol i forgot to put republican. go ahead call me a typical mongoloid republican r-tard or whatever. yes, I am right wing. I believe we need to destroy the terrorists because I believe they are evil, not misunderstood.

[Jennifer_SFBA]

Look within.

[cat's meow]

lol i forgot to put republican. go ahead call me a typical mongoloid republican r-tard or whatever. yes, I am right wing. I believe we need to destroy the terrorists because I believe they are evil, not misunderstood.

I agree with you about terrorists, you will not get and argument here.

But, look at the first post in the thread. Bottom line, the guy has not done any reading at all and does not know how the government works...bump back to what I said earlier about that. I have pictures of John Coltrane and Dizzy Gillespie on my office wall...along with the WS champion St. Louis Cardinals...hmmm, guess we all have our own heroes...

[Jane of Arc]

I believe we need to destroy the terrorists because I believe they are evil, not misunderstood.

Destroy the terrorists.

Destroy the terrorists.

Destroy the terrorists.

Damn I am so sick of this braindead propaganda!

Will you PLEASE do some homework. PLEASE.

Who financially backed and established Bin Laden to fight the Russians? The US government.

Who financially backed and provided arms to Sadam Hussein while he gassed his own people using OUR gas? The US government.

Learn something. It all comes down to money and power. And right now many people are getting extremely rich in Iraq. And as soon as the oil deals with US oil companies are finalized more people are going to get wildly richer while controlling much of the world's oil fields.

And they can get away with this because of fools who buy the propaganda ... we must destroy the evil terrorists.

IRAQ NEVER ATTACKED THE US. THE US ATTACKED IRAQ!

How many milleniums will it take for people to wake the hell up to what is going on???

Ugh. I need to go to bed. Serenity now. Geesch. :zzzzzz:

[cat's meow]

IRAQ NEVER ATTACKED THE US. THE US ATTACKED IRAQ!



And the reality is that they were not going to attack us either.

[Jennifer_SFBA]

sfdefender, please see the free internet video Joan of Arc posted elsewhere in this forum. It explains alot about terrorism.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...rnment&hl= en

[moonrise]

The reason why no democrat has put forth a solid plan for a reasonably successful conclusion to the disaster in Iraq, is because there really isn't one! No one in the entire DOD has even been able to come up with a plan for success. We don't have the troops to keep the peace. We don't have support from the rest of the world to put a large enough peace keeping force on the ground, which would likely need to be somewhere around 500,000.

The problem is we need to find a solution or risk a regional war, massive loss of civilian life and major interruption to oil supplies. Our best bet may be to redeploy our forces to the borders of Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia to close down the borders, stop the flow of foreign fighters, ied's, money, weapons and supplies and then continue Iraqi army and police training. We then could turn over security duties in the relatively stable provinces, completely to the Iraqi forces who are ready, and as they become ready and also use our special forces and marine corps on a as needed, where needed basis. No more patrols, subjecting our troops to ied's and ambush, just change the mission to secure the borders, train Iraqi forces, seek and destroy as needed and provide security to displaced civilians. Then put the political heat on hard core, to get the Iraqi politicians to share the wealth, stop the sectarian violence, resolve their differences and rebuild their own dam country before it's to dam late! I'm a democrat and there's my plan!

As far as the constant attacks on Bush and Cheney go,they deserve every bit of it! Their total incompetence is why we have this disaster. Even the man with the "brains" Dick Cheney doesn't know what he's doing and he was a secretary of defense!They didn't even have the common sense, to secure and hold or destroy the weapons and munitions facilities, spread all over Iraq, that our troops continually discovered at the very beginning of the war. Those facilities were ordered to be left unsecured as we pushed on to Baghdad, only to be raided later by insurgents, giving them rpg's, ied materials and a multitude of weapons to use against our troops!

I could go on and on about the on going incompetence, for example not enough troops, no border security and letting Muqtada al-Sadar and his militia go, just to name a few. I guess that's enough said for this post, but we better hope for a miracle with Bush and Cheney running the show for two more years! I guess the bright side is they can only spend another quarter of a TRILLION dollars, before they swagger off to enjoy their lives of luxury, leaving their messes for the next administration to clean up!

[MAGI]

Have the non Muslim oil moguls fully secured their plans yet?

That's when bushco will end the war.........................and claim victory!

[Jennifer_SFBA]

Some of the motivating elements in the internal war in Iraq I have given thought to are as follows:

1) Revenge between religious sects for past wrongs and atrocities on all sides

2) Competition for power dominance and the wealth and prestige that goes with it.

3) Severe distrust and fear of what any one religious sect gaining power might do to the others.

4) Blood lust

As I see it, for the war in Iraq to be a "civil war," there would need to be clearly defined policy objectives being fought for. Consider the American Civil War where the southern way of life was challenged first in Congress prior to a formal declaration of war, the choosing of generals, the rallying of militias, clearly defined combatants, the Blue and the Gray, etc. That element is missing in the war in Iraq.

Lional Beehner, staff writer at the Council on Foreign Relations says the following:

http://www.cfr.org/publication/12154/implications_of_civil_war_in_iraq.html


Can the violence in Iraq be termed a civil war?

Experts disagree. By definition, a civil war involves an internal conflict between warring factions for political or territorial control of a state and results in at least one thousand casualties. “By any normally accepted definition, this is a civil war and has been for over a year,” says CFR Senior Fellow Stephen Biddle. CFR Senior Fellow Max Boot agrees. “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck,” he says. “It seems like a civil war to me. I don’t understand the brouhaha over whether to call it a civil war or not.”

But others, including Phebe Marr, a Middle East scholar and author of The Modern History of Iraq, say the conflict is too “multifaceted and complex” to be labeled a civil war. There is no “lineup of one group on one side and one group on another,” Marr says, but rather “struggles for power within these groups.” Judith Yaphe of the National Defense University adds that Iraq does not have a civil war but rather “civil wars, plural—a series of wars with groups fighting one another; Shiites fighting each other as well as Sunnis.”

What are the military implications of calling the conflict a civil war?

Experts say if Iraq qualifies as a civil war, then the standard counterinsurgency playbook—win locals’ hearts and minds, usher in political and economic reforms, hand off fighting to indigenous military—is rendered ineffective. For a civil war, they say, the United States has two options: choose a side or become an honest peace broker. Because the United States is not considered an impartial interlocutor in Iraq, says Bacevich, it must pick the latter option. “If we back the Shiites militarily, unless that results in a genuine decisive outcome or the Sunni equivalent of General [Robert E.] Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, this drives the war back into its insurgent character and creates a protracted conflict,” he says. Biddle says most civil wars are resolved when one side is defeated militarily, not by negotiated power-sharing settlements (which he adds typically take between five and ten years anyway). He cautions against the United States siding with any one side because of the delicate political balance in the region. “If we side with the Shiites and they repress the Sunnis,” Biddle says, “every other Sunni state in the region will conclude we’ve aligned ourselves with resurgent Shiism.”

A civil war in Iraq does not necessitate a U.S. withdrawal, experts say. For example, the 2001 U.S.-led intervention in Afghanistan came amidst a civil war between Northern Alliance and Taliban forces. “The Korean War was [also] a civil war,” Charles Krauthammer, a syndicated columnist, told FOX. “We were right to stay and to defend one segment of Korea and create a democracy. So the idea that if it's civil war, America ought to leave, I think is a false one.” Boot agrees. “There’s an assumption on the part of the administration that if it’s a civil war that means we shouldn’t be there and it’s not winnable,” he says. “Obviously it’s a sign that things aren’t going well. But just because it’s a civil war doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be involved.”

What does a civil war mean for Iraq’s neighbors?

Bacevich says, “If we say this is a civil war, this might get [Iraq’s neighbors] more interested and involved” in positive ways. But Yaphe says “the distinction” between sectarian violence and civil war “is meaningless to them.” She adds: “What you can ask of them hopefully is that they can use their influence to tamp down the violence. Nobody’s asking them to send troops inside Iraq.” If the United States comes out militarily on the side of the Iraqi Shiites, some experts predict Arab neighbors may intervene on the side of Iraq’s Sunnis. “Saudi and Jordanian support will make this a much bloodier affair but I wouldn’t want to overdo it,” says Gerecht. On the flip side, if U.S. forces redeploy, Gerecht says, “It’s only a question of time before the Shiite community grinds the Sunni holy warriors into the dust,” the result of which would be a “wave of Iraqi Sunnis fleeing for the Jordanian border that will remind you of biblical times.”

Colonel Matthew Moten, a professor of military history at West Point, says outside powers hold enormous influence over civil wars. He hypothesizes that if the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr were to create a rump state in southern Iraq, for example, and Iran recognized it, this would give the new state a measure of legitimacy. Recalling the American Civil War, Moten points to President Abraham Lincoln’s concern that France or Britain would mediate the dispute or, worse, recognize the Confederacy.

...

I opt for the impeachment of Bush, Chaney et al and the United States becoming an honest peace broker under a new presidential administration.

[Thelonious]

from I have seen they have no plan they just attack Bush.

Unless I'm mistaken Dubya (isn't that an adorable nickname. awwww.) is the Commander in Chief. He started the war. He is responsible for finishing it. It's been 4 years now. Why has nothing that he said about it turned out to be true?!?!? Is Dubya lying or just incredibly stupid?!?!

And Mr Newbie, why should Democrats have a plan? This is the Bush-Chenney war. Bush is, and I quote "The Decider". Let him decide.

p.s. if you need a plan for withdraw, just ask the experienced Republican James Baker III, good friend of Bush's father, former Secretary of State, Special UN envoy, etc... He and the Iraq study group produced a fine plan, which Dubya said was great... then decided to ignore.

[FDRfollower]

Ah! Here's something important.

Instead of sending troops, we should have sent orchestras!

diplomacy by other means (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/849689.html) :)