akhalteke

By your own definition you can't know the consequences of your actions. SO WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU INVADE THE DAMN PLACE!!!! There is so much cognitive dissonance with you conservatives: US == always good! US kills thousands of people Those people would have killed themselves QED Because the consequences of innaction far transcend the consequences of international apathy.

Condi might earn herself a VP slot if she keeps this up. Neutralizing the race card as well as hitching up some women voters... Hmm...

Looks like NATO is giving the big diplomatic fuck you to Russia. Well played hand.

lol Im 15 you hoochie

No, you don't have to admire their honesty. This sort of fucked-up apologetic reasoning is the same as saying you have to admire a thug for being upfront about wanting to cap you... Hitler was pretty honest too.

I think it is a little early to be making such statements. There do seem to be some irregularities, but I am not willing to assign such titles until I know they are rightfully earned. War is dirty; there is no doubt about it. You can't be involved in any part of it without getting your hands dirty. Again, time will tell who was wrong, right, bad or not-so-bad.

Its not humility if you realy aren't all that smart anyhow.

Well, lets not lump everyone into one pile eh? Though I joke about it. I reserve my most vile comments for uneducated people like Kevbone while I reserve a modicum of respect for those like you that have well researched and thought out positions. People will disagree, though how they respect others and how they are prepared to explain their positions marks the value of the man.

How can you possibly argue that our war "didn't cause anything?" I agree that time will tell how it turns out, but there is no denying that WE CAUSED THIS PARTICULAR MESS. Perhaps this particular instance but it was only a matter of time before it would happen again. The politics in that area are so convoluted, perhaps a militant murderous dictator is the only way to keep peace there. Who knows? Again, time will tell. I am not so brash as to say I have the concrete answers that many here claim (despite my dealings with the people). It is more complicated than any of you will ever know and no book will teach you what you need to know about how to deal with the different nuances and idiosyncracies of each micro-sect in the area.

Nope. It might prove hypocrisy of the leaders in this country (whom I have long been at odds with) but it does not implicate the average conservative voter that the post was designed for. There is a difference. Just because I am conservative, doesn't mean that I am willing to give a conservative carte blanche for any transgressions he might have committed.

We didn't cause anything. We just kept one tribe from killing all the other tribes. Whether this is a good thing in the long haul or not is debatable and something that we will have to wait a few years (likely 25) before we get the answer.

He had it under wraps by killing those that disagreed with him. There was a German man in the 40's that had racism "under wraps." I think you know as well as I do that Saddams' methods were contrary to everything tha our country believes in.

Reconstruction was always on the minds of those constructing the war-plan (though not as much as it should have been). Bullshit! The extent of planning was pretty hoping the Iraq would say "yay, The amerikan smart bombs and smart bullets and smart soldiers (not at all smart btw) only killed military targets with no collatoral damage! Woohoo, now lets vote and get on with our lives" ...and as one of your 'not at all smart' soldiers, why do you find it so hard to keep up with my pedestrian discussion?

Yes. I think that opening up diplomacy would be a good thing as far as Russia goes. They are wary of us and they also are jumpy violent bastards. Still, better to take the high road and offer some compromises and at least talk with them. If they don't bite the hook, we can always go 'Dundee fishing.'

-I really think that victory (being a autonomous government for Iraq) is possible. We are not that far off. -We didn't "torch" off any civil war. This has been going on for a damn long time. Perhaps we have opened up some old sores, perhaps we will help to heal them; Only time will tell.

Hey Scott, did Iraq have anything to do with 9/11? Nope

I agree with you Bug. We were too hasty. As I said before, it would have been wiser to have done as Sun Tzu stated and prepared for every contingency. You have no disagreements there. I don't believe we actually had a plan, but rather intention of reconsruction. There are too many variables (as we have seen) to have a plan for a reconstruction pre-war (though a general idea would have been prudent). My premise was that we had the intention of reconstructing whereas Russia makes it a point of announcing with much bravado that they have no intentions whatsoever of reconstructing.

Define "our" Your turn The United States.

Reconstruction was always on the minds of those constructing the war-plan (though not as much as it should have been). Bullshit! The extent of planning was pretty hoping the Iraq would say "yay, The amerikan smart bombs and smart bullets and smart soldiers (not at all smart btw) only killed military targets with no collatoral damage! Woohoo, now lets vote and get on with our lives" More hyperbole. Please. It really helps to bring intelligence to this discussion.

I think that this has theater wide implications for even those who are our "friends" and not democracies. Anyone who has tracked the US imports of oil from Saudi Arabia have seen them drop off the list of top oil imports to us. Our government sees that ticking time bomb which represents a huge economic power to our and the worlds economy and is looking ahead a few years. From my perspective, I thought that the early prosecution of the war, as in how we started and got into it, was one of the more horrendous things I've seen my gov't do. I carry some bitterness of the initiation of that whole thing. That you, my brothers, overwhelmingly and totally supported it then after the early success after running in there like Leroy Jenkins all akimbo, seemed crazy to me then and now (yet understandable). It shows weak minds and weak will. That the stakes are huge is undeniable, and I would hope that once we've collectively jumped off the cliff like we have, then stay tucked up till ya hit the water or your nuts will go splat. Which translates loosely to stop whining about Iraq and STFU. We MUST successfully pull this off. It's huge and we already spent the money and the lives. Somehow many of you feel that whining and complaining on public boards translates to something like intellectual discourse. It isn't and it doesn't. It marks you as pussies. It shows weak minds and weak will. So STFU and sack up - don't fuck this up for the rest of us. Thats my take. regards to all True. If we fuck this up, bad times to follow. Better not let political differences fuck up an already fucked up situation.

Give us a clue what language we're workin' with here. Not the king's english, that's for sure More like the Prince's English. Harry to be exact... pre-military times 'on the piss'.

Come back with something that requires actual critical thought and I might continue with this discourse. The world is not black and white. The only absolute is that war sucks ass, but is at times necessary. Fair enough. From my perspective everything points to an incompetent cabal of politicians (not generals), that were so arrogant and sure of themselves that they couldn't conceive of anything but a quick defeat and an early exit. They brought the term "regime change" into the lexicon as if it was something akin to an oil change (no pun intended). Drive in, 15 minutes later the regime is changed and you drive out. Yer good for a few months until the next unfortunate dictator goes after your father. I see absolutely no evidence of planning? Literally from day one that US tanks rolled on the streets of Baghdad, we failed to act on any sort of rational plan? Are you really trying to tell me that the best minds of the current administration undertook the requisite research and decided it would be a good idea to disband they Iraqi army and let them keep their weapons? Here's how I see it. Those pushing for war saw a limited window to execute and took best case scenarios as gospel. They understood the possibility of an insurgency taking a stronghold, but their desire to eradicate the regime overtook their good sense (whatever there was). They (rightfully) estimated the war to last weeks at most (and that is what happened). They underestimated the insurgency and the amount of fogeign fighters that would take part in the fighting. They did have noble goals for reconstruction (though obviosuly they had an agenda) and are trying to adhere to them. Problem is, they forgot one of the primary tennants of warfighting. Always expect the unexpected. You must prognosticate every forseeable move the enemy can make. Mr. Tzu said that a long time ago. Problem is, chickenhawks are making the plans and timelines to go to war and do not have the experience and or mindset to think in these chess-like and detail-laden processes. The military may seem like brain-washing to some because they have methods to ensure that every contingency is looked after and every piece of equipment is acounted for. This mentality is a necessity when the stakes of your livlihood are life and death. Those that sit on velvet seat cushions for a living just dont have the ability to think like this. Despite the failure in execution (and mostly in planning) the goals and the plan were at least given consideration as to the well being (short term and long term) to the Iqaqi people. This is something that cannot be said about the Russians. In fact, it must be emphatically stated that the converse is true.

Come back with something that requires actual critical thought and I might continue with this discourse. The world is not black and white. The only absolute is that war sucks ass, but is at times necessary.

Why would we have planned for reconstruction when: "my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators. . . . I think it will go relatively quickly, . . . (in) weeks rather than months" - Dick Cheney "It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months." - Rumsfeld "The Iraqi people understand what this crisis is about. Like the people of France in the 1940s, they view us as their hoped-for liberator." - Wolfowitz It was clear from the beginning that we wouldn't have to do any re-construction? Give me a break. This is obvious pre-war propaganda meant to sell the Americans on a war that was not popular. This shows nothing about the true intentions of the leaaders and those in the upper echelons of command. Please think a little.

I didn't pin the failure on hard-line democrats; but rather stated that they would have rathered we leave like we did the first time we went there; allowing the Kurds to be anihilated. There was an accepted idea that there would be a reconstruction. It was far too vague but you are missing the major point. We had committed to (at the very least, even you cannot argue against this) the fact that there would be a reconstruction. Russia unabashedly stated that the destruction was the fault and at the expense of the Georgians. This is a major difference. To walz in and destroy a town and then occupy and continue to destroy under the premise of a cease-fire and then pull-out and say "oh well," is precisely the opposite of what we did in Iraq. If you wanted us to do this in Iraq, we would have been done in 24 hours. The country would have been destroyed and we would have "won the war" in a few bloody hours. Instead of blowing everything and anything in the country up, we have decided to be more surgical and this takes more time and is more dangerous. We must assume this danger as we are not the animals that would destroy civilian structures to strenghten our point of military superiority.