BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Kent Davis
Date: 02 Aug 08 - 05:53 PM

Jack the Sailor,

If you don't think a decrease in Iraqi deaths from 3,014 in a February, '07 to 409 in July is a success, may God have mercy on your soul.

Kent

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 02 Aug 08 - 06:13 PM

A success is usually defined as accomplishing what you set out to do. A surge, while clearly not lending itself to precise definition, is usually a short-term increase in something or other. Unless you're a Republican.

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 02 Aug 08 - 06:28 PM

If you think that 409 people killed is a success then may God have mercy on yours.

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 02 Aug 08 - 06:29 PM

Those deaths are all on Bush's hand and yours too if you voted for him.

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Kent Davis
Date: 02 Aug 08 - 08:03 PM

Thank you, Jack the Sailor, for your concern for my soul. I assure that I too pray every day for God's mercy, and I'm sure I need it every bit as much as you do, though perhaps for different reasons. I apologize for the way I wrote. It was too abrupt, and I hope you'll forgive my abruptness. Please allow me to try again.

Success is defined as doing what you set out to do.

The absence of perfection is not evidence of failure. We would not adopt such a standard in any other endeavor. A police force, for example, is considered successful if it reduces crime. Yet no police force has eliminated crime. Would you say that police forces are failures, with the blood of crime victims on their hands?

Medicine has not eliminated sickness or death. Is medicine therefore a failure, with the blood of those who die on its hands?

Do you think that the invasion of Normandy was a failure? The Allies lost 10,264 men and the war still went on. Did that make it a failure?   

It is possible, this far into the discussion, to have forgotten that we are discussing the success or failure of the surge, not the morality of the entire war. It is also possible to have forgotten the purpose of the surge. The purpose of the surge was to reduce sectarian violence. 409 is less than 3,014.

Success is defined as doing what you set out to do. I trust we can all agree upon this

Kent

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Bobert
Date: 02 Aug 08 - 08:38 PM

Ahhhhh, let me ask you a question, Kent...

If I came into your business, or to your home, and demanded that you pay me not to mess you or your family up and you agreed to do so, would you consider that an success???

Well, I quess that you will have succeeded, thru your prompt payments, in protecting yourself and your family but I don't see the success in this... Paying Sunni's not to kill US is no more opf a success than you paying the Mob not to mess you up...

This is what has happened...

Lets get real here for one minute... "The Surge" didn't represent the highest troop levels in Iraq since the invasion???

Hmmmmmmm??? What does that mean??? Maybe that it wasn;t the troop levels at all that has created less violence but a combination of Iraqi politics, protection money, the Sunnis havin' has ebough of al-qeada and alot ofother things that we may not know for years... But one thing is for sure, inreased troop levels didn't work before "The Surge" so "The Surge" of troops can't be given credit for the decrease in violence on the ground...

"The Surge" of my tax dollars going to Sunnis??? Maybe...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 02 Aug 08 - 08:45 PM

I have no idea what Bush set out to do. He lied so much about the war and changed the target so many times, there was and is no clear goal. But I certainly don't remember him saying that the target was 13 Americans and 400 Iraqis killed per month.

McCain is taking credit for "success" but he is also apparently taking credit for other factors which had little to do with the surge and he is not giving any credit to the 2006 mid term elections and the growing resolve of the US people to pull out if things quieted down over there.

I think that is more than possible, maybe even likely that things would have calmed more if the President had simply made the promise that the Democrats were in effect making to the Iraqi people. That if they stop killing each other we would leave.

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: SharonA
Date: 03 Aug 08 - 11:15 AM

I skimmed this thread quickly but did not see the following aspect of the surge story discussed:

MNBC: CBS Edits McCain's Whopper Out of Broadcast (w/original video)

Follow-up on MSNBC: McCain gives history (his story) of surge in the cheese aisle of a Bethlehem PA supermarket

Follow-up part 2: McCain says media not fair to him

Postscript, just for fun: Applesauce counterinsurgency (same supermarket, I think!) (Not shown here, but on the local news' video McCain's reaction was to say "That wasn't me, that wasn't me" over and over again!)

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Teribus
Date: 03 Aug 08 - 02:06 PM

GUEST Jack the Sailor (02 Aug 08 - 08:45 PM)

"I have no idea what Bush set out to do. He lied so much about the war and changed the target so many times, there was and is no clear goal."

JTS states this but cannot provide any examples.

JTS states this attempting to convince us that there was and could only be one single reason to justify the actions taken when in actual fact there were many.

JTS states this attempting to convince us all that there must be a single objective that must be accomplished, when in actual fact there were lots, many of which have been achieved.

By the bye Jack The Sailor here are a few questions you conveniently forgot to respond to:

"Iraq was being contained." - JTS

Was it?? In what way?? Exactly how was it being contained?? Again I ask you what would Saddam's reaction have been to Iran's nuclear programme??

"Al Qaeda was the real enemy" - JTS

Al-Qaeda was, and still is one "real enemy" amongst a number of others, but it was not adjudged, via evaluation and analysis, to be the greatest threat. Could you explain to us Jack The Sailor, exactly what the security benefit would have been to the USA in single-mindedly pursuing one of your enemies, while completely ignoring the greatest threat to your country? List for us Jack The Sailor the things we would not have a clue about if the US had not called the UN to take action against Iraq in 2002 and had not gone into Iraq in March 2003 when it became patently obvious that the UN was going to do nothing to enforce compliance on Resolution 1441?

"Afghanistan was and is the central front in the war on terrorism." - JTS.

Is it?? Care to tell us how and why?? Bin Laden, his second in command and Mullah Omar get captured tomorrow, the Taleban throw in the towel immediately on hearing the news, do you think that that would be the end of it?? Are you really that naive??

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Kent Davis
Date: 03 Aug 08 - 02:22 PM

Thanks, guys! I get it now! How silly of me not to have seen it before! It's so obvious once y'all pointed it out. From what I've read in this and related threads, it's like this:

Saddam Hussein gases his own people - Bush the elder's fault
Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait       - Bush the elder's fault
The Gulf War                            - Bush the elder's fault
Israel attacked                         - Bush the elder's fault
Kuwait is liberated                     - no thanks to Bush
casualties lighter than expected    - no thanks to Bush
nevertheless many killed            - Bush is a murderer
Iraqi infrastructure mostly saved   - no thanks to Bush
but some destroyed                  - Bush is a Nazi
inspections mandated                - no thanks to Bush
Baathist regime resists inspections - Bush the elder's fault
First World Trade Center bombing    - not Clinton's fault
deadlines pass                      - Bushes bad; Clinton good
9/11 attacks                        - Bush asleep at the wheel
Taliban driven from power          - no thanks to Bush
but not entirely destroyed          - Bush is a failure
casualities lower than predicted    - no thanks to GWB
Afghan Constitution enacted         - no thanks to you-know-who
Afghan elections fairly smooth      - ditto
but not perfect                     - Bush is a monster
Iraqi sanctions still in place      - Bush is killing Iraqi children
Hussein still resisting inspections - Bush's fault
Bush says sanctions didn't work    - Bush loves war and hates people
U.K. intelligence supports U.S.    - Bush lied
War begins                         - people died - GWB's fault
initial casualities light          - no thanks to Bush
but not zero                        - Bush murdered American soldiers
Baathists soundly defeated          - no thanks to Bush
a democratic constitution for Iraq - no thanks to Bush
Iraqi elections                     - no credit to GWB
factional violence                  - entirely Bush's fault
many coalition soldiers killed      - blood on Bush's hands
Hearts & Minds campaign to Sunnis   - no thanks to Bush
Iraqi Security Forces trained       - not due to Bush
Kurdistan mostly secure             - not because of Bush
violence halved                     - no thanks to GWB
violence halved again               - not due to anything Bush did
many Iraqi provinces fairly stable - dumb luck; not credit to GWB
Iraq still not Switzerland          - Bush is Satan
whatever bad thing happens next    - Bush's fault
whatever good thing happens next    - no thanks to the Evil One

Did I miss anything?

Kent

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 03 Aug 08 - 03:31 PM

Teribus.

I'm not interested in playing your straw man games. If you want to try to refute what I have said go ahead. But I don't accept homework from you.

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Teribus
Date: 03 Aug 08 - 05:51 PM

So Jack The Sailor, just like Amos, you can make any statement you wish, regardless of how idiotic, illogical, or incorrect, and everybody reading this thread has to accept it as the gospel truth.

Well I thought this was a discussion forum Jack, and that does not seem to be much of a premise for a discussion.

You still cannot give one example of Bush ever having knowingly lied to the people of America, now why is that Jack? If you cannot furnish any examples of the current President of the United States of America lying to the people of America why are you stating clearly that he has, sorta makes a bit of a liar out of you doesn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 03 Aug 08 - 06:09 PM

Teribus,

If you don't think that Bush lied. Good. Just say so. I feel no need to prove the obvious. I feel no need to try to argue a position to you that you refuse to be open minded about.

No one who is open minded cares whether I go through that old tired ground with you once again. It doesn't amuse me to do it so I am not going to do so just to please you.

I say this in kindness. You are not a credible judge in what is logical. You bring so many unexpressed assumptions to any argument that it is very difficult to follow your points.

Certainly the assumption that anything I say or Amos says, must be vetted by you and explained during your cross examinations fits in that category.

Where have I ever asked people to accept everything I say as "the gospel truth"? I say what I say. You can believe it or not. But I will not abide by you appointing yourself the schoolmaster in Pink Floyd's "The Wall" and trying to run me through your meat grinder. Squawk all you like. Beat your ruler on the desk if you must. I don't care. I don't answer to your confused notions of logic and I don't have the time or energy to disabuse you of your cherished misconceptions.

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Teribus
Date: 03 Aug 08 - 09:02 PM

My word Jack The Sailor that is terribly decent of you:

I get to say, "That I don't think that Bush lied" - i.e. expression of a personal opinion.

While you get to broadcast, "He lied so much about the war.." - statement of fact. Shouldn't that be, "I believe (or I think) he lied so much about the war..."

And of course you are not going to go into detail to defend your statements and beliefs, because they have no substance. When pinned down to inconvenient detail it becomes obvious that you have no arguement at all.

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: pdq
Date: 03 Aug 08 - 10:07 PM

Kent Davis,

Your 02:22 PM post show both intelligence and humor. Also a fair amount of work. Don't expect too many here to appreciate that, but some do. Hope that is enough.

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 03 Aug 08 - 11:00 PM

Keep clinging to your fantasies Teribus. They are sure to keep you warm at night.

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 03 Aug 08 - 11:08 PM

>>>Kent Davis,   Your 02:22 PM post show both intelligence and humor. Also a fair amount of work. Don't expect too many here to appreciate that, but some do. Hope that is enough. ... Pdq<<<

Actually it make one feels like Charlie Brown's teacher, when constantly presented with solid evidence of conspiracy and malfeasance all he hears is "Wah wah wah Bush wah Wah Bush Wah wah Bush."

On the other hand giving Bush credit for a lot of things is taking credit from the troops, leaving the obvious question. Why does Kent Davis hate America?

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Teribus
Date: 04 Aug 08 - 02:01 AM

Ah Jack The Sailor, at least the likes of myself, pdq and Kent Davis can stand our corner in a discussion by backing up what we say with salient facts and examples, hardly fantasies, they (fantasies) would appear to be more your line.

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 04 Aug 08 - 04:55 AM

You may have the last word.

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Teribus
Date: 04 Aug 08 - 11:00 AM

Aw Shucks Jack, not even one teeny, weeny lie??? Not even the merest indication of one? God knows you and your fellow believers have been hammerin' on about this for the best part of 6 years now and none of you can come up with an example of the lies the current President is supposed to have told.

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: katlaughing
Date: 28 Oct 08 - 12:08 PM

Wasn't sure where to post this quote. Somehow this thread seems a good place for it...note, it is the 2,0008th day since "Mission Accomplished:"

War: first, one hopes to win;
then one expects the enemy to lose;
then one is satisfied that he too is suffering;
in the end, one is surprised that everyone has lost.
--Karl Kraus

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Sawzaw
Date: 06 Mar 10 - 10:16 AM

Americans are rightly proud to watch millions of Iraqis go to the polls to cast their ballots for anyone they choose
Iraq: An example for the region
AlJazeera March 06, 2010

The Iraqi people have voted in free and fair elections locally, nationally and provincially since Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi president, was ousted by the US military in 2003. It has been a bloody and deadly example the entire Middle East, but this week, Iraqis will show the Arab World once again that their hard-fought freedom and painful sacrifices are an example for all people struggling under oppressive regimes.

On January 10, 2007, George W Bush, the then US president, defied critics and ignored popular opinion and political polls in the US by committing more than 20,000 additional American troops to the war in Iraq. "The Surge," as it is commonly called, has since been credited with bringing the Iraqi people more security, less violence and greater freedoms. By July 2008, the surge was heralded as a success from Baghdad to Boston.

"Democrats loudly disagreed"

In originally announcing the highly controversial surge, Bush made a nationally televised gamble to dramatically change the most important US foreign policy of his presidency. While Bush confidently said that the surge was for a "unified, democratic federal Iraq that can govern itself, defend itself, and sustain itself, and is an ally in the War on Terror," Democrats in Washington, DC, loudly disagreed.

Bush went on to make clear that more than 20,000 American men and women would be placed throughout Baghdad and the Anbar Province "to help Iraqis clear and secure neighbourhoods, to help them protect the local population, and to help ensure that the Iraqi forces left behind are capable of providing the security." The president's bold gambit was belittled and roundly mocked among liberals in the US and Europe - as well as by the future leader of the free world.

Moments after the surge was announced, Barack Obama, the then-US senator announced, "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq are going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse." The future president was emphatic that Washington should not only not add troops but that American men and women should also exit Iraq as soon as possible.

In announcing his candidacy for president a month later, Obama said: "It's time to start bringing our troops home ... That's why I have a plan that will bring our combat troops home by March of 2008." Within months of entering the race for the White House in 2007, Obama started voting against Congressional funding for the troops and campaigning strongly for bringing the troops home.

Obama's plan

It is fair to say that if Obama would have been president a year earlier than he was, a very different Iraq would have emerged than the one developing today. In June 2006 and September of 2007, Obama voted to bring US troops home from Iraq. If implemented, Obama's wish would have left the untrained Iraqi military force to deal with the sectarian violence alone.

Iran, Syria and al-Qaeda would have been left unchallenged in their efforts to destabilise Iraq and surely would have successfully fomented a civil war by moving their secret campaign to arm and entice violent factions out into the open. The deaths of more than 4,300 US soldiers who died defending freedom in Iraq and the tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis killed by the extremists' violence would have been in vain. But thankfully, for Iraqis who believe in democracy and crave freedom, Bush ignored popular opinion and worked closely with military experts to surge Iraq forward and help put it on the path it is today.

Monumental change

Although Iraq still sees sectarian violence and terrorist bombings all too much, there is no question that the country has made monumental change to its political system and in a relatively short time. This week's free and fair elections are yet another example of a young democracy taking hold in a country where just a few years ago real elections and campaigning were unthinkable.

No country in the Middle East gives its people more freedoms than Iraq does today. NGO's are being created weekly; a civil society has emerged to challenge the government's decisions, demand transparency, represent minorities and bring attention to people and issues that were ignored in the past. Iraq has a free press that is unrivalled in the Arab world, unobstructed access to the Internet and a military that is becoming a force to be reckoned with in the heart of the world's most unstable territory.

While Iraq's very young democracy is messy, incomplete and imperfect, it is currently the envy of the Arab world.

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Mar 10 - 10:26 AM

Oh, yeah... ;-) I'm sure the rest of the Arab world desperately envies not having been invaded by the USA, smashed to hell by bombs and cruise missiles, wrecked, decimated, and then rebuilt and occupied by the hated invaders with a whole bunch of permanent military bases and an ongoing presence of American troops, mercenaries, and corporate contractors.

Hell, they must be green with envy, right? Why couldn't THEY be so lucky, like Iraq has been? Why???? ;-D

Yes, the whole world yearns to be invaded by America, beat to hell, occupied, and "saved". I know we here in Canuckistan think wistfully of being saved, for example, from our quaint form of democracy and our national health insurance...and given the more "progressive" American corporate approach.

Come on, attack us. Please. Invade and occupy. We WANT to be just like you.

I mean, who wouldn't?

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Sawzaw
Date: 06 Mar 10 - 10:41 AM

You mean the US should invade Canada and convert it from socialism to a real Democracy?

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Mar 10 - 11:19 AM

"Real Democracy"???

Hahahahahahaha...

I mean, what would you know about real democracy, Sawz??? Me thinks it wouldn't hurt you at all to revisit some of Thomas Jefferson's writings if you think what we have is real democracy... It's far from that...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Mar 10 - 11:20 AM

Yeah....(Ha! Ha!)...that's what I'm saying. Save us from our free health coverage and other horrible stuff like that. I'd much rather be presently owing the medical people here $800,000 for my Dad's fatal liver illness than being out of debt, because they treated him at no charge. How dare they not charge me the full fee!???

I'd also love to see our cities bombed and wrecked, and American tanks and troops all over the place here, shooting down those socialist fools who would resist and showing us a better way to live.

What's holding you back? Don't you like us as much as you do those lucky, lucky people in Iraq?

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Royston
Date: 06 Mar 10 - 01:56 PM

Bobert: I mean, what would you know about real democracy, Sawz??? Me thinks it wouldn't hurt you at all to revisit some of Thomas Jefferson's writings if you think what we have is real democracy... It's far from that...

Quoted for the truth: and to think what potential the declaration of independence had.

As a great thinker once said "The last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams".

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: CarolC
Date: 06 Mar 10 - 02:07 PM

So when can we get all of our people (including private contractors) out of there? If Iraq is such a smashing success, we are no longer needed there.

I'd like to hear a response from the average Iraqi in the street to what is said in Sawzaw's article.

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Mar 10 - 05:40 PM

Word on the street is that Dick Cheney is down to his last $19.5M so maybe we should just invade Canada for him??? I mean, he will clean up with the stock options he has with Halliburton and, of course, Halliburton is the only corpoartion in the universe that knows how to drive trucks, build new schools and cook meals so they will get a fat no-bid contract and we won't have to worry about poor ol' Dick in the bread lines...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: GUEST,Stringsinger
Date: 06 Mar 10 - 05:41 PM

"
"Amos, can you explain to us exactly how today Al-Qaeda and the Taleban in Afghanistan and Pakistan are a threat to the United States of America? It is also abundantly clear that Iraq has posed no threat to the United States of America since March 2003."

I don't believe it! Something Teribus and I can agree on.

None of these organizations and religious groups are a threat to the U.S. Iraq has
never posed a threat to the US even before March of 2003. Al-Qaeda is another name
for "communist" which was the key that Joe McCarthy turned in the U.S. Fifties.
The Taleban and Al Qaeda are not the same.

What poses a real threat to the U.S. is the hysteria and warmongering that is going on
with crazy Tea Partiers and members of the U.S. Senate and Congress who are making political capital out of war. Also, the corporations such as Blackwater and so many others who thrive on bloodshed and bullying.

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Royston
Date: 06 Mar 10 - 07:35 PM

"Word on the street is that Dick Cheney is down to his last $19.5M so maybe we should just invade Canada for him???"

You'd better do it for him - with his aim he would probably sink commercial traffic on the great lakes before conquering Minnesota!

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Mar 10 - 09:08 PM

Yeah, Royston, we don't want no trigger-happy-blind-Dick fightin' no wars fir US... Bad enough that he bullied George into invadin' Iraq... Might of fact, I think blind-Dick oughtta just be wheeled into a nursing home where he can't hurt anyone else...

(He might stab a nurse with a dinner fork, Boberdz...)

Oh yeah... Be sure that he gets ***THE*** pink pill (wink, wink...)

Bye, Dick...

BTW, ya' all... All that "The Surge" was was a "surge" of our tax dollars flyin' outta the treasury to pay Sunnis not to shoot at US??? Go figure??? And so the Tea Party folks think it was like, what??? I million GIs comin' over the hill with M-16's a'blazin' like from some 50s war movie??? Hmmmmm??? Me thinks there is merit to the theory that our forefathers did have sex with buffalo...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Sawzaw
Date: 07 Mar 10 - 01:44 AM

"real democracy" That's when Thomas Jefferson owned slaves.

Bobert is just upset cause the terrorists didn't win.

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Sawzaw
Date: 07 Mar 10 - 11:56 PM

Iraqis may prove war was a mistake worth making
March 8, 2010

An Iraqi man places his votes in the ballot box at a polling site in Tikrit, Iraq on Sunday, March 7, 2010 during the country's much-anticipated parliamentary elections. (AP Photo/ Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Justin Merriman)

The Iraqi people have proven to be a tenacious bunch.

Our forefathers had to wait 12 years after the Declaration of Independence to have their first direct congressional elections. The Iraqis have now completed their second legislative elections in just seven years.

It would not have been possible without the unstinting sacrifices of the American military and the support of the citizens of the United States. But neither would it have been possible without the sheer cussedness of the Iraqis.

Iranian meddlers and al Qaeda terrorists tried to delegitimize the 2005 elections by suppressing participation through threats and violence, but almost 80 percent of the electorate turned out. By the time this year's elections came around, Iranian-backed opposition leader Muqtada al-Sadr told his Shiite followers to go vote and not get left out of the new government.

There were more than two dozen Iraqis killed in Election Day attacks, but after the past seven years, it takes a lot to rattle these people.

Turnout estimates will take time and the ruling parliamentary coalition is still shaping up, but the signs are that Iraqis voted in large numbers and that the new government will have a broader political base than the current one -- maybe no big deal by American standards, but quite a feat for the first Arab democracy.

America's founders fought an eight-year war that killed 25,000 of their countrymen -- 1 percent of the total population of our fledgling republic -- in order to be free.

Iraq has seen 9,400 men in uniform killed since the U.S. toppled Saddam Hussein's regime. That's not even half of a 10th of a percent of the nation's population of almost 24 million.

That's because 4,379 American troops were killed and 31,693 more were wounded trying to rescue Iraq.

But it's also because the civilian population of Iraq has absorbed so much of the blow. Estimating the number of Iraqi civilians killed by terrorists is difficult, but there is broad consensus that more than 100,000 Iraqis have been killed during the post-invasion insurgency.

American history has no parallel to that kind of civilian sacrifice.

Baghdad alone lost almost 30,000 of its 6.5 million civilian residents in the first three years of the allied occupation. Losing so many people so fast in a city the same size as the Dallas metro area means that every family paid part of the human price.

As for the financial price, we've footed the tab.

We have spent $700 billion on our Iraq democracy project -- as much as the Bush-Obama bailout package.

We fought the entire Second World War and funded the Marshall Plan at a cost, in 2010 dollars, of about $3 trillion. So at least on a per-person-liberated basis, Iraq has been our most expensive nation-building project ever: about $30,000 per Iraqi.

We have spent more than $257 billion blowing up and rebuilding Afghanistan -- about $22,000 per Afghan -- and the administration will have to spend at least an additional $100 billion on the second Obama surge.

There are half as many Afghans as Iraqis, but they are spread out over a country that is 50 percent larger and has neither a middle class nor a history of central government. President Obama may yet take the title of most ambitious nation builder away from George W. Bush.....

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 12:41 PM

Of course the Iraqis are tenacious people. They have no choice. Any populace becomes tenacious under those kind of circumstances that Iraqis have faced. People tend to rise to the challenge offered.

This can be seen in war or any other extreme situation.

Multi-party elections do not a democracy make...although they do make the outer appearance of a democracy.

You don't have a real democracy until a government actually represents and responds to the genuine interests of its general populace.

Sadly, I know of no place where there is a real democracy right now. No place anywhere in the world. There are just a whole bunch of places maintaining the superficial appearance of a real democracy, but in every case what they really are is: rule by an elite and wealthy few, for the benefit of an elite and wealthy few, over the many who voted them in because they were offered no one else to cast a vote for!!!!

View this video:

Mouseland

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 05:37 PM

The terrorist ain't thrown in the towel yet, Sawz... Might of fact, they are doing quite nicely with their newest chapter, the Tea Party... You are a little quick to rush to judgement... No "Mission Accomplished" banners needed yet...

And let's keep in mind that the terrorists aren't exactly lefties... They are righties.... So I don't see why you think I want the righties to win... If anyone would want them to win I would think it would be you...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Sawzaw
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 11:44 PM

And you are telling us we need to buy guns to blow away the tebaggers before they blow us away, right Bobert?

Them Al Quaeda guys and Taliban guys are against the US war just like you Bobert. They ain't thrown in the towel and neither have you. You root for them to kill Americans and hope they win so you can egotistically say you were right.

Iraq War Drama 'The Hurt Locker' wins six Oscars, including history making best picture and best director for director Kathryn Bigelow

Kathryn Bigelow dedicated her Best Director award to "the women and men in the military who risk their lives on a daily basis in Iraq and Afghanistan and around the world." When she came back to receive a second Oscar statuette for co-producing the year's Best Picture winner she once again made a dedication "to men and women all over the world who wear a uniform, but even not just the military HazMat, emergency, firemen. They're there for us and we're there for them."

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Mar 10 - 12:01 AM

They (the soldiers in the war zones) are not there for you.

They're there for a bunch of banks and big oil companies and military contractors. They're being used, they don't realize they're being used, and they are dying for nothing.

And that is the case in most wars, so it's really nothing new. The only soldier who fights for something worthwhile in a war is the one who defends his own home ground and the land he was born on against an occupying foreign invader.

Avatar should have won best picture this year. The reason it didn't was because the fascists who run the military-industrial system you cheerlead for simply couldn't bear to have a movie win which is directly opposed philosophically to the fascist empire building your terrorist armed forces do around the world...so they pulled some strings here and there to make sure.

No, they had to have a film win that glorifies your terrorist armed forces...and that was "The Hurt Locker". They desperately want you to keep believing the myths they have told you all your life.

You don't get it. I don't expect you to.

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Amos
Date: 09 Mar 10 - 12:23 AM

So, Sawz--you're fully behind the glorification of war? Let's go in there blazing and take them bastids out, eh?

'Course, there will always be a little collateral damage, but, hey, you can't make an omelette...ya know what I mean, man?

Seems pretty clear you're all for it, and know deep in your heart that it--the great bloodbath of man's mutual destruction--will always be there for you.

A

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Sawzaw
Date: 09 Mar 10 - 12:52 AM

I can see LH and Amos are heartbroken because the terrorist they have been rooting for didn't win. Sorry guys.

Iraq vote a setback for Al-Qaeda
Mar 9, 2010 AFP
BAGHDAD - AL-QAEDA in Iraq suffered a major blow after Sunni voters largely ignored its death threats and turned out in force to cast their ballots in a crucial weekend general election, observers said.

Electoral authorities have put the final turnout in Sunday's vote at 62.4 per cent, and Sunni participation was seen as a defining aspect of the ballot, especially in traditional Al-Qaeda strongholds.

In the run-up to the vote, the Islamic state of Iraq (ISI), the Qaeda front in the country, threatened on a jihadist website to kill all Iraqis, and especially Sunnis, who went to the polls.

'The Islamic state declares... a curfew on election day... throughout Iraq and especially in Sunni areas,' US monitors Site quoted ISI as saying in an Internet posting.

The Qaeda front warned that anyone who defies the curfew will 'unfortunately expose himself to the anger of Allah and then to all kinds of weapons of the mujahedeen.' As polling centres opened in Baghdad early on Sunday morning, the capital came under a hail of bomb, mortar and rocket attacks that killed 38 people.

But Sunni Arabs, who had massively boycotted the last polls in 2005, were undeterred, with 70 per cent of the electorate voting in Diyala and Salaheddin provinces, 61 per cent in Anbar and 67 per cent in Nineveh. -- AFP

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Mar 10 - 01:03 AM

You're quite right that your jarhead terrorists aren't winning. But they haven't realized it yet. That's why they are still occupying Afghanistan and Iraq. They can't win, because final victory there is impossible. They can win many individual battles, though, and I expect they'll win a great many...just like they did back in Vietnam.

You can do that when you have the world's largest military machine at your disposal.

One day you may get to work for them yourself, Sawzaw, turn me and Amos and various others here in as "subversives", and get yourself a nice medal to show the grandkids.

Hail to the Chief, old chap.

Al Qaeda is nothing. They barely even exist. Your enemies are the people who are fighting to get foreign troops out of their country, and you will never see the end of them.

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Mar 10 - 01:14 AM

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/world/8-weeks-on-Nato-admits.6102256.jp

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Sawzaw
Date: 10 Mar 10 - 03:25 PM

So WTF does all that mean LH? Jar head Canadians are terrorists?

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Mar 10 - 07:51 PM

The last war that was actually won was WW II... Since then, even the '67 June War, have been winnerless wars... They have just conusmed alot of the world's human and natural resources...

And as for the term "terrorist"??? This ain't nuthin' but a PR term that plays well before a control group... Not much different than selling toothpaste ot soap powder...

I mean, let's get real... If it's 2003 and yer living in Baghdad and there are bombs falling all arounf you who is "the terrorist"???

No, I'm not for any terrorists, be they ours, theirs, or whomevers... War is terribly fucked up and those who order it up are always the ones who refuse to fight in them... Always!!! Goes back to Biblical times... Jesus talks about it in Mathew... Calls the folks who order up the wars hypocrits... Right here in the Bible...

No matter... No I'm not for the Taliban and LH ain't for the Taliban and Amos ain't for the Taliban... What I have pointed out isd tyhe the Taliban is alot closer in philosophy to the Christain Right than it is folks on the left, be they Christain or not... The Taliban wants to impose its conservative avlues on everyone... Sound familiar... They would be the first to assisinate an abortion doctor... Heck, they have been known to kill women for very minor things that the men think is offensive... These folks are alot like our Tea Baggers... Very intolerant and very ignorant... Just liike the Tea Baggers... Like the right wing... Not too enlightened, thse folks... Purdy danged backwards... Sound familiar???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Mar 10 - 09:03 PM

WOW!!!

I'm not sure how this occured but I go off to to a few things and comne back here and there is a new "window" open at the bottom of my computer screen entitled "Mudcat Cafe' messa..." and it is has nuthin but Sawz 3:25 post asking what LH meant by his "jarhead Canadians"...

Never had anything like that happen and maybe someone more familiar with in the ins and outs knows but no matter...

What LH is talking about is excatly what I just posted about... I mean, it's like one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter... So what LH is sayin' is that to folks who are being shot at by a Canadian "jarhead" (slang for marine) that the jarhead is the percieved terrorist... Everything is relative dependin' on who happens to be the shooter and the shootee...

Still not too sure how that thing happened with a seperate window with just that post... Maybe soemthin' new, I donno... Don't have time to figure the ins & outs of computers...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Sawzaw
Date: 11 Mar 10 - 12:55 AM

Elections signal progress in Iraq

The results of Sunday's parliamentary elections in Iraq are important. As the votes are being tallied, at stake is what kind of character the country's fledgling democracy will assume or, indeed, whether that democracy will endure or give way to a new religious and sectarian dictatorship.

Just as important as the election results is the fact that, once again, Iraqis voted in large numbers, defying threats and acts of violence to participate in their nation's open and competitive electoral process. At least 38 people were killed in Baghdad, the New York Times reported.

Even so, voter turnout was heavy. Fewer ballots were cast Sunday than in the first post-Saddam parliamentary elections held in 2005. Still, a healthy 62 percent of eligible voters went to the polls. This time, there was intense politicking for votes of the majority Shiite population. And, critically, members of the Sunni minority that largely boycotted the 2005 elections were active participants in this round of balloting.

That's a positive sign for the future of Iraq. The more people who are committed to resolving ethnic and religious conflicts through the political process, the less acceptable violence and intimidation will become.

A secure and stable Iraq is still far from being a certainty. What security and stability that does exist was purchased at great price by the United States, which has lost more than 4,300 military personnel over the course of the seven-year conflict.

Sunday's election was a milestone of progress for Iraq. It represents another sign that democracy is taking root in the country.

It also suggests that the ongoing drawdown of American forces, with the departure of combat troops scheduled for the end of August, is on course and that the future of Iraq is increasingly in Iraqi hands — as it should be.

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Sawzaw
Date: 11 Mar 10 - 01:02 AM

"it wouldn't hurt you at all to revisit some of Thomas Jefferson's writings if you think what we have is real democracy"

Well I took your advice Bobert and I learned something:

Thomas Jefferson on the Af****n Race

To our reproach it must be said, that though for a century and a half we have had under our eyes the races of black and of red men, they have never yet been viewed by us as subjects of natural history. I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind. It is not against experience to suppose, that different species of the same genus, or varieties of the same species, may possess different qualifications.

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Mar 10 - 07:32 AM

Good work, Sawz... You got an stick a *gold start* on yer "I-learnt-up-somthin'-new" chart, however...

...we weren't excatly talkin' about Tom's views on black folks or slavery but his views on, ahhhhhhhh, democracy...

So, while ya' get some credit for trying to do yer homework, ya done the wrong assignment??? I just don't know what we are gonna do with you, son???

B;~)

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Sawzaw
Date: 16 Mar 10 - 12:14 PM

"Jefferson made clear that he believed that blacks were inferior to whites."

I did what you asked and according to his writings, your hero Jefferson was a racist and a bigot.

Subject: RE: BS: War is over. The surge has succeeded!
From: Amos
Date: 16 Mar 10 - 12:20 PM

Sawz:

This is relevant to his influence in founding a democratic republic...how?


A