All-purpose Iraq Mess post of the day

I think a worthwhile question would be, is there anything within the power of the US or its allies to avert Iraq disintergrating?

I suspect the reason no one is talking about solutions is because they don't believe there is one that is morally acceptable or politically viable.

More troops isn't really possible. A 3-state solution wouldn't stop the Sunni violence and probably make it worse. No other countries want to be involved, so we can't leverage an untainted (in the region) moral authority. What does that leave apart from the insane ideas like nuking everything?

It may come down to just dealing with the aftermath as best we can.>

The Democrats do not control any branch of government. What they "can" do, for the time being, I think, is fairly limited in a Republican-controlled Washington. However, Kevin Drum has highlighted the Dems thoughts on Iraq and national security. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_08/009331.php

What the congressional Republicans "can" do is limited, though not by their power, but by the fact that President Bush is still their primary fund-raising golden boy. So, if he ain't moving on Iraq, they ain't moving...that much.

As a Democrat, do I take pleasure in Bush's misery? No. In fact, the idea of his "misery" makes me laugh. At the end of his term, he gets a cush consulting job or goes on the lecture circuit (God help us all) or has someone ghost-write a book defending his record. Wish we could all be that miserable in life. The real misery is the next president (and a few that follow him/her) who has to clean up this mess.

Thanks to President Bush, we are winning the war in Iraq. Winning it for Iran, of course, but at least we have an outside shot banning abortion. Only cost $1.25 trillion dollars; 3,000+ dead soldiers; reinvigorating Afghanistan as the world largest supplier of opium; and the rest of the world to either hate us or shake their heads in frustration.>

Yep, there's not anything out there on the internet this week to link to that might make anything in Iraq look anything but hopeless. No intercepted letters from Al Qaeda stressing (yet again) their weakness. No National Intelligence Estimates that give both positive & negative assesments of the state of things (many months ago).

Instead, the only reliable sources are the New York Times quoting "a senior coalition intelligence official", a Washington Post article quoting "a senior U.S. military official who spoke on condition of anonymity", another Washington Post article quoting "US investigators" (Oh wait! This article actually names a source! Awesome!), and a Washington Post columnist.

Forgive me if I don't find place too much confidence in these articles as anything even vaguely approximating an accurate picture of the situation in Iraq.>

Saddam, however, is gone now; is that not correct?>

Gee, salvage, I guess it's personal for *you* that Kazakhstan "engages in many of the same crimes"? Show me evidence that the Kazakh leaders are putting people into shredders or having their sons rape women at will?

There s this thing called Google you should give it a try, may I also suggest Amnesty International? I think you re a big boy, you can do your own research.

I bring up the point because many of those who criticize the Iraq invasion are forgetting -- deliberately, I might add -- the kind of animal Saddam is.

When did he start being an animal cuz there s this pic of Donald Rumsfeld shaking Saddam s claw

Savage, did you know that Saddam's government was the only one in the world that officially praised the 9/11 attacks?

So that s the justification for the war? That s the reason to invade? Saddam liked 9/11? Are you insane?

Did you know that Saddam sponsored an attempt to assassinate the first Pres. Bush?

Did you know about Operation Desert Fox?

Did you know that Saddam gave sanctuary to Abu Nidal, one of the most sordid of Palestinian terrorists, whose organization was involved in taking over the cruise ship Achille Lauro some 20 years ago and murdered an elderly, wheelchair-bound American Jew?

Yes and Saddam had Abu killed, that s the bit you re not talking about, huh wonder why? And the wheelchair thing, is murdering someone in a wheelchair worse than murdering someone able-bodied?

And here s the kicker none of that makes for a legal war!

Say Sparky what about them WMD, I bet you were all in favor of the invasion because of mushroom clouds or have you always been this keen on human rights and dealing with terrorist states?

Here s the thing Saudi Arabia supports terrorists far more than Iraq ever did and they certainly torture and abuse their people yet you re not howling to invade them. Why is that?>

salvage, if it were up to me, I would have broken off relations with Saudi Arabia a long time ago, oil or no oil. We should expand drilling in Alaska and offshore; we should also engage in the kind of campaign to create alternative energy sources in which JFK engaged with respect to beating the Soviets to the moon.

The fact that Saudis fund Wahabbist schools intended to sabotage the fundamental values of this nation is more than enough cause to break relations with them. It's also more than enough cause to invade, overthrow their government and execute all of the Saudi royals.

Now to your other comments:

When did he start being an animal cuz there s this pic of Donald Rumsfeld shaking Saddam s claw

Speaking of Google, why don't you use it yourself? Put in the search terms "shredder," "Iraq," "Saddam," "Uday Hussein," "Qusay Hussein" and "rape," for starters.

As far as Rumsfeld shaking Saddam's hand goes, the rationale was to form a united front against Iran -- which, if you know anything about the 1980s and 1990s, was more a threat than Iraq at the time. Sometimes, nations make alliances of convennience with other nations that have radially different values.

Or would you have opposed Churchill and Roosevelt making an alliance with Stalin to defeat Hitler? That seemed to accomplish its immediate goal, didn't it?

So that s the justification for the war? That s the reason to invade? Saddam liked 9/11? Are you insane?

Say Sparky what about them WMD, I bet you were all in favor of the invasion because of mushroom clouds or have you always been this keen on human rights and dealing with terrorist states?

salvage, do you remember the atmosphere in this nation after 9/11? Do you remember the fact that the Clinton Administration and intelligence agencies from Russia, France, Israel and Germany (among others) all believed that Saddam had WMD? Do you know that Saddam was trying to evade UN inspections designed to stifle his WMD program? Do you know that Clinton himself made a speech to Congress saying that Saddam must be overthrown? No president, Republican or Democratic, would have been acting responsibly if he had ignored such a potential threat.

Now, here's a question for you, Sparky: At what mosque do you worship?>

Joel, the French and Germans opposed the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq for several reasons. First, they were trying to appease the huge Muslim populations in their own nations (remember the riots in France earlier this year). Second, many geopolitical experts viewed the Franco-German position as an attempt to hijack and dominate the European Union (remember, the Eastern European members supported the invasion).

As far as "apologising" to the French and Germans, why should we? Were they right? If it were up to them, Saddam would have stayed in power. These are moral giants?

As far as the incompetence of the occupation, I can't justify it. The only think I can say is that incompetence, unfortunately, is becoming more and more rife in American life, in and out of government. Nobody cares about standards or excellence anymore. But that's a different issue than whether the U.S. and UK should have invaded Iraq.

As far as "wasting (Iraqi) lives" is concerned, what about the imams' responsibility in all of this? Why do they continue either to preach or to remain silent in the wake of Sunnis killing Shi'ites and vice versa? When will anybody hold Islam accountable for the violence it tolerates, let alone encourages?

Or would you have preferred that we nuke the entire country?>

The gain of keeping Saddam in power is that fewer Iraqis would be dying...

Joel, what figures do you have that compare the deaths under Saddam to the deaths under U.S. occupation? And even if the former were less, does that outweigh the danger that Saddam would pose to other through his support of terrorism, WMD or no WMD?

...there were more suicide bombings in Iraq last week than at any time since we invaded - and that that isn't even the worst problem in Iraq. Murders and executions are the leading cause of death in Iraq, with suicide bombings coming in second.

Do you know why? First, Sunnis are trying to subjugate Shia into the former's vision of "true" Islam and vice versa. The closest Christian equivalent I can come up with is the Catholic-Protestant battles under Bloody Mary, Elizabeth I and Cromwell. Second, imams, Islamic theologians and other allegedly responsible parties in that religion have made no attempt to stop the situation. Indeed, they have encouraged it. As I said earlier. Islamic authorities must be held accountable for this violence. Their hatred for Americans, Jews and the West supercedes even their respect for fellow Muslims! If that's not a sign of a religion in moral chaos, then I don't know what is.

Republican have wrecked the car, and they are blaming Democrats for not knowing how to fix it.

Joel, let's be honest. The Democrats not only don't know how to fix the car, they don't want to fix it! And when one of their number shows an inclination to try, like Lieberman, he is savaged by the Left.

None of this excuses any misfeasance on the Bush Administration's part. But this isn't a battle between Republicans and Democrats in the long run. It's a battle between the West and Islam, and Islamic fanatics don't really care whether they murder Republicans or Democrats. Why should they, when they don't care about murdering fellow Muslims?>