1-2 Year Prediction--IRAQ

[redhouse]

[Schuster]

[iceman5]

[Schuster]

[redhouse]

[Johnny Hughes]

Since this thread started, President Bush has acknowledged that Iraq is like Vietnam. He has also asknowledged that a new strategy is needed. This weekend, there is a meeting of the President, Vice President, Secretaries of State and Defense, and all the major Generals. Please note that they are not inviting the "little" countries like England.

[NorthView]

Ice, your arguments are so full of holes.

"Savages" is a very strong and quite abhorrent word to use when describing other poeple. If you're going to use this word, you'd better be clear that you're not part of a "savage" culture youself.

In addition to he astute remalrks Shuster made:

"Some people may think the word "savage" is a bit harsh, but they have you seen any of the beheadings? "
Yes thanks, and they're revolting, but are they any worse objectively than the death sentences carried out on American citizens, as condemned by human rights groups or the shootings of hundreds of thousnads of Iraqis?

Open your eyes, please.

[iceman5]

You guys are making me pull my hair out

1) Comparing a beheading to lethal injection is utterly ridiculous
2) Sneaker comment.....yeah we have some ruthless savages here also. Many more than the avg person would believe. But these are criminals. Ive been told its legal to kill your neighbor over certain animal type disputes over there. Thats not civilized by our standards.
3) We have people committing suicide, but that cant be compared to someone strapping exposives to thier body and blowing up themselves and as many others as possible ibn the name of a religious jihad. These peoples concept of religion is laughable.
4) There has been continual hate and war in the middle east for 1000 years. Way before the US got involved. When did we start trying to impose out culture on them? As far as I know, we're still not doing it. We're trying to resore order and Ive agreed many times already that we should leave.
5) What does segregation have to do with being a savage?
6) The Chinese are still brainwashed commies. Whether they are crazy or not, I dont know
7) Yes a beheading of a prisoner of war is much worse than a soldier (on either side) or a civilian getting killed during a war. If you cant see that, then I dont know what to say to you.
8) Our reilgious community probably IS against gambling. In my opinion, the bible thumping religious portion of this country are some of the most hyocritical people around. I have a lot of dislike for these "holyier than thou" type people, but they arent out killing people in the name of religion.

I think alot of you guys need to get out into the real world. You get too many of your opinions from reading what other people want you to read.

Im getting most of my opinions from either first hand knowledge or from talking to friends of mine as they come back from Iraq. Iraq is one of the most backwards ass, uncivilized countries in the world. There is literally oil bubbling up from the ground all over the place but people are starving. You can literally get a bucket, dip it down to the ground, pick up a bucket of oil and take it to the refinery and sell it. Well, if you dont get killed by your neighbor because his bucket has a hole in it.

Everytime, I post in one of these political threads, I feel like Im coming back from the war and getting blasted by all of you college age guys who disagree with war in general. I cant believe how many poker players are such liberals.

[k3nt]

Ice, why on earth should playing poker correlate at all with political persuasion?

Anyway, I have to say that I find your arguments very ... offensive. Racist. Just nasty.

Let's put it this way. It's amazing how every country the US fights against turns out to be filled with sub-humans. Everybody who isn't white, for sure.

World War II: the "Japs" were bloodthirsty, militaristic, subhumans who obeyed the Emperor and had no concept of civilization. They couldn't even pronounce their Ls correctly -- how bright could they be? Oh, wait. Once the war was over, it turns out they're pretty damn smart. Kicked our asses in technology. Still are.

Korea, the Koreans were "slants" "gooks" and a hundred other names. They were too stupid to know what was best for them. They lived in mud huts (huh, sound familiar?). And now the Koreans too are making a run at kicking our butts technologically too. Weird how that happened.

We called the Vietnamese all the same names, and worse.

And now it turns out the Iraqis, too, are subhuman animals. Savages, irrational mud hut dwellers, people whose "concept of religion is laughable." What a surprise.

It's a constant in the history of American attitudes toward the world. We are always the good guys, trying to bring civilization to the world. The rest of the world, especially if it's full of nonwhite people, is always backwards, foolish, savage. Subhuman, in a word. It's our job to civilize them. And if millions of them end up dead (see: history of American Indians; Mexican-American war; war in the Phillippines; etc., etc.), well, that's just too bad for them.

It's a sick, sick narrative.

edit: probably should make clear I'm not saying I think you believe the whole narrative personally. It's more that it's part of our national character: whoever the bad guys are, they're subhuman and we're the good guys. I'm very, very, very suspicious when I see this narrative espoused again and again and again. And whenever I hear this kind of talk about people who live in a country with whom we are at war, I need to see lots of evidence that it's really true this time. Because it's such a convenient narrative, so easy to believe and so common, and it's been false (and horribly destructive) so many times before.

[redhouse]

[excession]

The claim that other cultures or racial groups are somehow 'worse' than us because they don't have our level of wealth was pretty compehensively destroyed by Jared Diamond's seminal work 'Guns Germs and Steel' over a decade ago.

As for claims that people we are fighting with (or want to pick a fight with) are 'savage' or 'sub-human' alarm bells really need to start ringing in your head when you hear yourself or anyone else saying that:

Think of the Spanish and the South Americans, the treatment of Indians and Blacks by the USA, the treatment of the Jews and Slavs by the Nazis, the treatment of the Aborigines by the British and Australians, the Armenians by the Turks , just above everyone else towards Africa, the Japanese towards the Chinese, the Romans towards the Gauls, the Normans towards the Saxons, the English to the Scots,Irish and Welsh (at different times), the Spanish toward the Basques, and the followers of just about every single religion (at various times in history) to followers of other religions..

I suppose once in human history, when we wiped the Neanderthals out in Europe the sub-human claim was literally true.. otherwise it's pretty much always a figleaf for slaughtering folks of another culture, with 'savages' often being the variation used if we are clearly the stronger.

As for Muslim history over the past 1000 years, I'm no expert, but I thought that the Muslims (and China) kept culture alive during the Dark Ages and whilst I don't know the detailed histories of the various Muslim empires (I think there was an early Persian one, an Indian one and the huge Ottoman empire (which lasted 200 years longer than the Roman Empire) I have no reason to think that they were any more bloodthirsty or intolerant than their equivalents in the West.

[Johnny Hughes]

I think we should get out of Iraq right away. I don't agree that they are savages but I do agree with Ice in general. What do we owe them? We have spent billions already. Iraq has about half as much oil reserves as Saudi Arabia. If they get their act together, they will be a very rich country in no time. Polls in Iraq show an overwhelming majority of all factions want us to leave. Polls also show that the majority of Iraqis support attacks on coalition troops. If they believe that, what do we owe them?

The only reason we are in Iraq now is that we went in there no knowing it was a huge blunder. Saddam was looking for a way to flee the country. He was finished either way.

We should call a giant peace council, inviting every faction except Al Qaeda. We should announce that we will be leaving "very soon." We should also tell them we are still very sensitive about that last chopper out of Saigon business. As a superpower with aircraft carriers, we will punish the whole place if our troops are harrassed as they leave for Kuwait. We will call a unilatereal cease fire and whoa be to the group that violates it in relation to attacks on coalition troops. Explain to one and all about the precision of our guided missles. Explain to one and all that we will target the leadership of any group that attacks us after we declare a cease fire. Remember that scene in the Godfather when Don Corleone (Marlin Brando) is talking to the whole commission about the revenge he will take if anything happens to another one of his sons ? He spoke of his memory. America will have a vengeful memory against all who attack us.

The Shiites and the Sunis have been enemies since long before there was a United States. The Kurds are against both these groups and Turkey. Iran supports the Shiiites. Al Qaeda is mostly aligned with some Sunis. Shiite groups are fighting other Shiite groups over the oil rich areas. Syria and Iran have become partners because of our accidental long term occupation of Iraq. Our reason for attacking Iraq is that on 9/11, eighteen guys from Saudi Arabia who trained in Afghanistan under Saudi and Egypts leadership attacked the United States. To complicate all this, everyone mentioned above hates Israel except the United States. Having troops in the middle of all this is insane.

George Bush is not a bad man. He is a dumb man who listens to more worldly very dumb men. We are on our way out of Iraq because we have an election for President coming up.

I wish our troops would suddenly withdraw from one of the areas that have the most insurgents. We should inform our Iraqi so-called friends and then we should use our smart missles to let 'em know who we are.

All these slogans about "Stay the course" "Victory in Iraq" "Don't cut and run" are totally Orwellian in their monumental meaninglessness.

Annouce we consider it a victory, and leave. We have no strategy for victory because we don't favor the Shiites or the Sunis. Support our troops. Bring them home. How many Iraqis fought in our civil war???

[WildBillHickok]

[T-Rod]

[Allstar7]