The AP reports that Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has ordered his militiamen to stop attacking Iraqis and to increase their efforts to get rid of American soldiers. In Najaf thousands of Iraqis protested on the fourth anniversary of the US invasion of Baghdad.
US government officials keep saying they are waiting for the Iraqis to stand up and take care of their own country. Will they finally do so by turning on the US?
This is why a US surge is such a BAD idea...
14 comments:
"Standing up and taking care of their own country" = fighting the US troops that gave them this chance in the first place? I reject that view. Sadr is a self-proclaimed anti-democrat who opposes personal liberties and rights; he and his forces fight not for freedom of Iraqis, but for the imposition of a new dictatorship.
What a disgusting nation Iraq will be if Sadr and his army of tyrants win.
Nadir, you have faulted Bush for sending too few troops, now you fault him for sending additional ones. In your view, everything he does is wrong, simply by because he did it, it seems to me.
"Nadir, you have faulted Bush for sending too few troops, now you fault him for sending additional ones. In your view, everything he does is wrong, simply by because he did it, it seems to me."
You're out of your mind. This completely misstates my position and you know it. Not only that, this statement counters the advice of military experts as well. You and John McCain don't know what you're talking about.
1. Bush should not have sent any troops at all. This invasion was a foolish imperial exercise that was doomed from the beginning.
2. If Bush was going to invade and occupy a nation the size of Texas, he didn't send enough soldiers to do the job. A much larger occupation force would be needed to successfully take over a sovereign nation. The generals who told him this in the beginning or who opposed the invasion outright were fired.
3. After the botched invasion turned into a quagmire and it became apparent that the US was losing, Bush's decision to add more troops is too little too late. Most military deaths in Iraq are occurring because of IEDs and roadside bombs. Adding more soldiers only adds to the potential number of US deaths because there are only a two ways more soldiers can stop IEDs. They can step up attacks on civilians in an effort to sniff out "insurgents" which will only anger the Iraqis more thereby creating more "insurgents" or they have to find a way to watch every corner of the nation 24 hours a day, and they don't have the manpower for that either.
I've been hoping Bush would do something right in Iraq. It hasn't happened yet.
Nadir: Are you accusing me of deliberately misrepresenting your position? Well, I didn't; I accurately articulated my understanding of your view, which you repeated above, and I still think I accurately described it: Bush should have sent zero, but he sent too few, and once having sent too few he should not respond to your claim of sending too few by sending extra.
You seem to think that every military expert who disagrees with Bush is correct, and are the only military experts who exists. On TV and in the papers I encounter the views of military experts who have advocated sending more troops and support this "surge"; John McCain is the most famous of these military experts.
Experts exists on both sides of this issue; you, Bush, and me must all decide which we will believe.
I am not certain that you are correct about Bush dismissing or ignoring those who disagree with him, but I suspect that you are correct. This is another area where he would have done well to follow the example of Abe Lincoln.
I wonder how terrified these protesters are that US troops will brutalize them in retaliation for their protests. Answer: zero. Were it not for these US troops, what chance would there be for such a protest in the first place? Answer: zero.
I label this protest, and the 100% reliable absence of a US retaliation, a tribute to the US troops.
Perish the thought of what will happen to Iraqi citizens who have Nadir and Tom's religious views and lifestyle practices if these protesters get their way.
"You seem to think that every military expert who disagrees with Bush is correct, and are the only military experts who exists. On TV and in the papers I encounter the views of military experts who have advocated sending more troops and support this "surge"; John McCain is the most famous of these military experts."
However, the results in Iraq prove one set of experts have been right and another set have been wrong. There were experts who, for centuries said the Earth was flat. Does that mean they were right and are now just unpopular?
"I am not certain that you are correct about Bush dismissing or ignoring those who disagree with him, but I suspect that you are correct. This is another area where he would have done well to follow the example of Abe Lincoln."
Oh, you think he should have locked them up for sedition instead of just firing them?
"Perish the thought of what will happen to Iraqi citizens who have Nadir and Tom's religious views and lifestyle practices if these protesters get their way."
You don't know a damn thing about the religious views of any of those protestors. All you know is that they want the US out.
Were they Sunni, Shiite or Kurd? Were they secular or devout Muslims? Iraq has a lot of people and is not monolithic. They could be any combination of any of the above labels and more. You don't know what you're talking about.
Nadir: Lincoln filled his cabinet with people who disagreed with him. In one famous example, the asked his cabinet to vote on emancipation. They all voted against. He said, "I vote aye, the ayes have it." He did not fire these people.
Oh, I don't know a "damn"?
"Thousands of Iraqis streamed to the holy southern city of Najaf on Sunday in response to a call by fiery Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr for a big anti-American protest on Monday."
I know damn well what the lead of the article claimed, that the protesters were followers of an anti-democratic religious tyrant.
"fiery Shi'ite cleric" = "anti-democratic religious tyrant"?
I thought you knew a damn.
Tom Cruise and the folks in Scientology could be called "anti-democratic religious tyrants" but not "fiery Shiite clerics". Hell, Adolf Hitler could be called "anti-democratic religious tyrant" or the leaders of the Spanish Inquisition, but that doesn't make them Shiites.
Many of those people could have joined that march because they want the Americans out. Sunnis, Shiites, Chaldeans (who are mostly Catholic), Kurds, Europeans and Americans have all expressed a desire for the Americans to leave Iraq. Is Don Imus a Shiite?
Lincoln also suspended habeas corpus, jailed dissidents and shut down newspapers. Bush isn't that far from Honest Abe after all, right?
Does Tom Cruise advocate turning the government over to some religious book, and forcing all humans in the US to practice his superstition?
I do not declare that Shiite leader an anti-democratic religious tyrant because the newspaper article called him a "fiery shiite leader"; I judge him as stated due to his own declared intentions for Iraq. And I do share your linkage with him with Hitler, though I think Hitler's tyranny was more like Hussein's, where the leader serves as the god role. And of course I also share you linkage between this Shiite nut and the nuts who ran the Spanish inquisition.
The people at the protests may have included pro-democrats advocating a US-free Iraq in which the government is of, for, and by the people, and in which all people have rights to practice any religion, no religion, or even to ridicule any religion. However, the article as written gave no indication of that; the article portrayed the protest as comprising supporters of a religious tyrant who wants the US to leave so that he can kill non-followers and turn the government over to a religious textbook.
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