Completely OT : Cannes, Mickael Moore and the Iraq War

[Simeron]

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
The level of restraint not to kill innocents might, in that situation, be large, but it is no more than I beleive God expects of us.

I fully agree but remember, we as a people are taking God out of the government too.

Seperation of Church and State after all.

Which I find ever so amusing. We have prayer on the steps of the Capitol. Each and every offical in Washington is sworn in on a Bible or takes an oath "under God" yet the common person can't have a "moment of silence" at a football game. (rolls eyes)

Last time I checked God was not a conveinience. You either are on His side or not. But that is a "discussion" for another thread (the Passion one I think..hehe)

But you are correct, we should be restrained and have been, which is my point. THAT is why I think the current "problems" that people have alluded to are not looked upon as problems...much like putting the Japanese Americans in interment camps but not German or Italian Americans during WWII was more due to the Japanese attack on Peral Harbor then any danger of spies.

[dogscoff]

Seperation of Church and State after all.

Which I find ever so amusing. We have prayer on the steps of the Capitol. Each and every offical in Washington is sworn in on a Bible or takes an oath "under God"

Not to mention that GwB manages to mention God in just about every other speech he makes. He seems to think he's on some kind of crusade to the holy land- if it wasn't so scary it would remind me of the Blues Brothers ("we're on a mission from God, Ma'am") and be funny.

Maybe I am out dated and out of touch

You said it, not me.

I certainly don't see the war in Iraq as a BAD thing.

How is it a GOOD thing? It has acheived nothing positive.

Sure, Saddam is out of the picture but as soon as the US hands over power to the locals they will elect some religious zealout who will turn Iraq into another Iran and the whole bloody thing will kick off once again.
You're looking at a brutal, vicious civil war between a half-dozen factions in that country within the decade and the west has made such a hash of it this time that they will be reluctant to get involved again, leaving them to their own devices... even though it's our fault.

On the other hand, the war killed tens of thousands, obliterated a country's infrastructure, tore up international law and co-operation and has generated huge amounts of anti-western sentiment in the middle east that will fuel international terrorism for decades to come. Is that not a BAD thing?

And the answer is that we are looked upon as the world's police force,

Oh are you? And who told you that? You really *are* out of touch aren't you. I for one don't look upon the US as the world's police force, I see it more as some kind of rogue cowboy who, after running the sherrif out of town and stealing his badge, is now riding around, shooting his mouth off and firing his guns at random. And I think you'll find I'm not alone in this view.

the Daily Mirror, an English newspaper that is normally rather left wing

Back in the seventies maybe. NOw it's just another reactionary right-wing, bandwagon-jumping media-conglomerate-owned rag that will print any old ****e that will sell. Your average leftie wouldn't wipe his arse on the mirror. There are no left wing tabloids in this country, and the closest we have to a left wing broadsheet is the independent or guardian.

Maybe Iraq didn't have direct ties to 9/11 and maybe they did.

Really? What about what you said earlier in your post? I quote:
"we also know for a fact that Saddam was funding Al Q and providing training bases within Iraq " and "If we had {got rid of Saddam 15 years ago} more then likely the Towers would still be standing"
Did they or didn't they? Are you sure or aren't you?

Please also read alarikf's post further down, and bear in mind his credentials. here's the relevent quote from his post: "here is a FACT that a person can choose to ignore at their peril: There was NO connection between 9/11 and Iraq. "

The FACT is, they had Al Q training camps in Northern Iraq.

The FACT is, IIRC, those al-qaeda training camps were in Kurd-controlled territory, and had nothing to do with Saddam Hussein.

Yes, he was a bastard, but he didn't bring down the twin towers. Saudi Arabians did.

[Unknown_Enemy]

Originally posted by Simeron:

We know that Saddam had WMD and used them in the past on the Kurds and the Sheites within his own country

True

Originally posted by Simeron:

when the US lacked the guts to stand up and make the monster pay back in 1991 for his crimes due to "world opinion".

False.
US feared to create a new bigger Liban. So the choice have been : better a powerless Saddam than a complete mess in the Gulf.
Nothing to do with balls.

Originally posted by Simeron:

we also know for a fact that Saddam was funding Al Q and providing training bases within Iraq so that this group could continue to attack innocents across the world like the bombing in Bali after 9/11.

False.
Saddam give money to family of Palestinian kamikaze. Which have nothing to do with Al Quada. Not a single link, even if it could now change due to actual political developpments between US/Israel/Palestinians.

Originally posted by Simeron:

providing training bases within Iraq

Lie.
Saddam never trusted Al Quada and Bin Laden hated Saddam. Only one group had some camps in northern Iraq, in the part on which Saddam had no control.


Please read the following Stratfor analysis. And keep in mind that so far, they went on target for the whole Iraq story. So far, I'll stay with my opinion : Bush is a failure and a clear danger to US security.


Please feel free to send the Stratfor Weekly to a friend or colleague.

THE STRATFOR WEEKLY
11 May 2004

The Edge of the Razor

Summary
The strategy of the United States in its war with radical Islam is in a state of crisis. The global strategic framework is in much better shape than the tactical situation in the Iraq theater of operations -- but this is of only limited comfort to Washington because massive tactical failure in Iraq could lead to strategic collapse. The situation is balanced on the razor's edge. The United States could recover from its tactical failures, or suffer a massive defeat if it fails to do so. One thing is certain: The United States cannot remain balanced on the razor's edge indefinitely.

Analysis

Most wars reach a moment of crisis, when the outcome hangs in the balance and in which weakness and errors, military or political, can shape victory or put it permanently out of reach. Sometimes these moments of crisis come suddenly and are purely military, such as the Battle of Midway. Sometimes they are a long time brewing and are primarily political in nature, like the Tet Offensive in Vietnam. These are moments when planning, judgment and luck can decide victors -- and when bad planning, lack of judgment and bad luck can undermine the best and brightest. It is the moment when history balances on the razor's edge. The U.S.-Islamist war is now, it seems to us, balanced on that edge.

There are some who argue that it is not reasonable to speak of the confrontation between the United States and al Qaeda as a war. It certainly does not, in any way, resemble World War II. It is nevertheless very much a war. It consists of two sides that are each making plans, using violence and attempting to shape the political future of a major region of the globe -- the Muslim world. One side masses large forces, the other side disperses much smaller forces throughout the globe. But the goals are the goals of any war: to shape the political future. And the means are the same as in any war: to kill sufficient numbers of the enemy in order to break his will to fight and resist. It might not look like wars the United States has fought in the past, but it is most certainly a war -- and it is a war whose outcome is in doubt.

On a strategic level, the United States has been the victor since the Sept. 11 attacks. Yet strategic victories can be undermined by massive tactical failures, and this is what the United States is facing now. Iraq is a single campaign in a much broader war. However, as frequently occurs in wars, unintended consequences dominate the battlefield. The United States intended to occupy Iraq and move on to other campaigns -- but failures in planning, underestimation of the enemy and command failures have turned strategic victory into a tactical nightmare. That tactical nightmare is now threatening to undermine not only the Iraqi theater of operations, but also the entire American war effort. It is threatening to reverse a series of al Qaeda defeats. If the current trend continues, the tactical situation will undermine U.S. strategy in Iraq, and the collapse of U.S. strategy in Iraq could unravel the entire U.S. strategy against al Qaeda and the Islamists. The question is whether the United States has the honesty to face the fact that it is a crisis, the imagination to craft a solution to the problems in Iraq and the luck that the enemy will give it the time it needs to regroup.

That is what war looks like on the razor's edge.

The Strategic Situation

In the midst of the noise over Iraq, it is essential to grasp the strategic balance and to understand that on that level, the United States has done relatively well. To be more precise, al Qaeda has done quite poorly. It is one of the paradoxes of American war-fighting that, having failed to articulate coherent goals, the Bush administration is incapable of pointing to its real successes. But this is an excruciatingly great failure on the part of the administration. It was Napoleon who said, "The moral is to the physical as 3-1," by which he meant that how a nation or army views its successes is more important than what its capabilities are. The failure to tend to the morale of the nation, to articulate a strategy and demonstrate progress, is not a marginal failure. It is the greatest possible failure of political leadership in wartime.

Nevertheless al Qaeda has failed in its most fundamental goal. There has been no mass rising in the Islamic world, nor has a single Muslim government fallen. Nor, for that matter, has a single Islamic government shifted its position in support of al Qaeda. To the contrary, a series of Muslim governments -- the most important of which is Saudi Arabia -- have shifted their positions toward active and effective opposition to al Qaeda. The current attacks by al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia are a reflection of the shift in Saudi policy that has occurred since just before the invasion of Iraq.

Saudi Arabia is far from the only country to have shifted its strategy. Iran -- for all of its bombast -- has, through complex back-channel negotiations with the United States as well as a complex re-evaluation of its strategic position, changed its behavior since January 2002. Syria, while still not fully in control, has certainly become more circumspect in its behavior. Prior to the Iraq war, these governments ranged from hostile to uncooperative; they since have shifted to a spectrum ranging from minimally cooperative to fully cooperative.

Since the United States could not hunt down al Qaeda, cell by cell and individual by individual, it devised an alternative strategy that is less effective in the short run but more effective in the long run -- and the only strategy available. Washington sought to change the behavior of enabling countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, by making the potential threat from the United States greater than the potential threat from al Qaeda. By occupying Iraq and surrounding Saudi Arabia with military forces, the United States compelled a reluctant and truculent Riyadh to comply with American wishes.

In the long run, changes in the behavior of these governments -- and of other Muslim governments, from Islamabad to Tripoli -- represent the only way to defeat al Qaeda. To the simplistic American question of, "Are we safer today than we were a year ago?" the answer is, "Probably not." To the question of whether the United States is on a path that might make it safer in five years, the answer is "Probably yes," assuming the U.S. effort doesn't collapse under the weight of its pyramiding mistakes in Iraq.

We would argue that the political shifts in the Muslim world that have helped the United States were aided significantly by the invasion of Iraq. We would certainly agree that Islamic opposition to the United States solidified -- we doubt that there was much room for intensification -- but we would also argue that opinion is significant to the extent to which it turns into war-fighting capability. The Poles despised the Germans and the Japanese were not fond of the Americans, but neither could expel the occupier simply on the strength of public opinion. It is the shifts in government policy that contained radical Islamist tendencies that should be the focal point, and the invasion of Iraq served that purpose.

Tactical Failures?

It is at that point that things started to go wrong -- not with the grand strategy of the United States, but with the Iraq strategy itself. A string of intelligence failures, errors in judgment and command failures have conspired to undermine the U.S. position in Iraq and reverse the strategic benefits. These failures included:

* A failure to detect that preparations were under way for a guerrilla war in the event that Baghdad fell.

* A failure to quickly recognize that a guerrilla war was under way in Iraq, and a delay of months before the reality was recognized and a strategy
developed for dealing with it.

* A failure to understand that the United States did not have the resources to govern Iraq if all Baathist personnel were excluded.

* A failure to understand the nature of the people the United States was installing in the Iraqi Governing Council -- and in particular, the complex loyalties of Ahmed Chalabi and his relationship to Iraq's Shia and the Iranian government. The United States became highly dependent on individuals about whom it lacked sufficient intelligence.

* A failure to recognize that the Sunni guerrillas were regrouping in February and March 2004, after their defeat in the Ramadan offensive.

* Completely underestimating the number of forces needed for the occupation of Iraq, and cavalierly dismissing accurate Army estimates in favor of lower estimates that rapidly became unsupportable.

* Failing to step up military recruiting in order to increase the total number of U.S. ground forces available on a worldwide basis. Failing to understand that the difference between defeating an army and occupying a country had to be made up with ground forces.

These are the particular failures. The general failures are a compendium of every imaginable military failing:

* Failing to focus on the objective. Rather than remembering why U.S. forces were in Iraq and focusing on that, the Bush administration wandered off into irrelevancies and impossibilities, such as building democracy and eliminating Baath party members. The administration forgot its mission.

* Underestimating the enemy and overestimating U.S. power. The enemy was intelligent, dedicated and brave. He was defending his country and his home. The United States was enormously powerful but not omnipotent. The casual dismissal of the Iraqi guerrillas led directly to the failure to anticipate and counter enemy action.

* Failure to rapidly identify errors and rectify them through changes of plans, strategies and personnel. Error is common in war. The measure of a military force is how honestly errors are addressed and rectified. When a command structure begins denying that self- evident problems are facing them, all is lost. The administration's insistence over the past year that no fundamental errors were committed in Iraq has been a cancer eating through all layers of the command structure -- from the squad to the office of the president.

* Failing to understand the political dimension of the war and permitting political support for the war in the United States to erode by failing to
express a clear, coherent war plan on the broadest level. Because of this failure, other major failures -- ranging from the failure to find weapons of mass destruction to the treatment of Iraqi prisoners -- have filled the space that strategy should have occupied. The persistent failure of the president to explain the linkage between Iraq and the broader war has been symptomatic of this systemic failure.

Remember the objective; respect the enemy; be your own worst critic; exercise leadership at all levels -- these are fundamental principles of warfare. They have all been violated during the Iraq campaign.

The strategic situation, as of March 2004, was rapidly improving for the United States. There was serious, reasonable discussion of a final push into Pakistan to liquidate al Qaeda's leadership. Al Qaeda began a global counterattack -- as in Spain -- that was neither unexpected nor as effective as it might have been. However, the counterattack in Iraq was both unexpected and destabilizing -- causing military and political processes in Iraq to separate out, and forcing the United States into negotiations with the Sunni guerrillas while simultaneously trying to manage a crisis in the Shiite areas. At the same time that the United States was struggling to stabilize its position in Iraq, the prison abuse issue emerged. It was devastating not only in its own right, but also because of the timing. It generated a sense
that U.S. operations in Iraq were out of control. From Al Fallujah to An Najaf to Abu Ghraib, the question was whether anyone had the slightest idea
what they were trying to achieve in Iraq.

Which brings us back to the razor's edge. If the United States rapidly adjusts its Iraq operations to take realities in that country into account, rather than engaging on ongoing wishful thinking, the situation in Iraq can be saved and with it the gains made in the war on al Qaeda. On the other hand, if the United States continues its unbalanced and ineffective prosecution of the war against the guerrillas and continues to allow its relations with the Shia to deteriorate, the United States will find itself in an untenable position. If it is forced to withdraw from Iraq, or to so limit its operations there as to be effectively withdrawn, the entire dynamic that the United States has worked to create since the Sept. 11 attacks will reverse itself, and the U.S. position in the Muslim world -- which was fairly strong in January 2004 -- will deteriorate, and al Qaeda's influence will increase dramatically.

The Political Crisis

It is not clear that the Bush administration understands the crisis it is facing. The prison abuse pictures are symptomatic -- not only of persistent command failure, but also of the administration's loss of credibility with the public. Since no one really knows what the administration is doing, it is not unreasonable to fill in the blanks with the least generous assumptions. The issue is this: Iraq has not gone as planned by any stretch of the imagination. If the failures of Iraq are not rectified quickly, the entire U.S. strategic position could unravel. Speed is of the essence. There is no longer time left.

The issue is one of responsibility. Who is responsible for the failures in Iraq? The president appears to have assumed that if anyone were fired, it would be admitting that something went wrong. At this point, there is no one who doesn't know that many things have gone wrong. If the president insists on retaining all of his senior staff, Cabinet members and field commanders, no one is going to draw the conclusion that everything is under control; rather they will conclude that it is the president himself who is responsible for the failures, and they will act accordingly.

The issue facing Bush is not merely the prison pictures. It is the series of failures in the Iraq campaign that have revealed serious errors of judgment and temperament among senior cabinet-level officials. We suspect that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is finished, and with him Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. Vice President Dick Cheney said over the weekend that everyone should get off of Rumsfeld's case. What Cheney doesn't seem to grasp is that there is a war on and that at this moment, it isn't going very well. If the secretary of defense doesn't bear the burden of failures and misjudgments, who does? Or does the vice president suggest a no-fault policy when it comes to war? Or does he think that things are going well?

This is not asked polemically. It is our job to identify emerging trends, and we have, frequently, been accused of everything from being owned by the Republicans to being Iraq campaign apologists. In fact, we are making a non-partisan point: The administration is painting itself into a corner that will cost Bush the presidency if it does not deal with the fact that there is no one who doesn't know that Iraq has been mismanaged. The administration's only option for survival is to start managing it effectively, if that can be done at this point.

[rextorres]

Originally posted by Simeron:
Maybe Iraq didn't have direct ties to 9/11 and maybe they did. The FACT is, they had Al Q training camps in Northern Iraq. For all we know, some of the very people that crashed those plane into our cities were trained there before coming here. But the fact is, there were more of the same kind of people in those camps.

This is a huge mistruth that you hear from conservative pundits and believed by the people who listen to them but abandoned by everyone else. Even GW has backed of the Al Qaeda/Saddam connection.

The Northern "training bases" everyone refers to were in the Kurd no fly zone and run by a group called Ansar Al-Islam - they were not in a Saddam controlled area - and this group was commited to the overthrow of Saddam and were dedicated to bringing an Islamist state to Iraq: Fanatics yes Al Qaeda no.

The ones that FoxNews et. al. reported west of Baghdad were simply Iraqi military bases (you don't hear about these much anymore) not terrorist training camps.

Anyway the more likely culprits would be the Saudis but nothing will ever happen to them because we know the connection that GW has with those people.

[ May 26, 2004, 09:42: Message edited by: rextorres ]

[AMF]

Just to clarify, I am basing everything I said in my post on unclassified sources! Holy Cow, I would NEVER make any classified claims. The FACT that there was no connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda has been widely reported, verified, and bandied about in the press. Even the administration agrees now that Saddam and Al Qaeda were not friends, ever. Heck, even after the war, captured documents reported in the media showed that Saddam *still* urged his followers to not cooperate with AQ, even when he was living in a dirt bunker and moving from safe house to safe house. Anyone who thinks that there was a connection between AQ and Saddam is engaging in wqillful ignorance and has made a conscious decision to avoid the unpleasant truth (and, I would say, the cognitive dissonance that comes with it).

EDIT: just to clarify re: "my credentials" - My work is boring. I'm an operational analyst, very boring stuff, not intel related *at all* And all my Posts have nothing to do with my work (as far as I recall). I merely stated those things about myself because in today's political environment, everyone is all about ad hominen attacks and I wanted to avoid the inevitable "we'll you're just a liberal so of course you'd say that" phenomenon.

Originally posted by dogscoff:
[QB] Please also read alarikf's post further down, and bear in mind his credentials. here's the relevent quote from his post: "here is a FACT that a person can choose to ignore at their peril: There was NO connection between 9/11 and Iraq. "

[ May 26, 2004, 12:41: Message edited by: alarikf ]

[dogscoff]

I merely stated those things about myself because in today's political environment, everyone is all about ad hominen attacks and I wanted to avoid the inevitable "we'll you're just a liberal so of course you'd say that" phenomenon.

That's kind of what I was aiming at, that and the fact that you said your opinions about being misled into war have changed. I wasn't trying to make you out to be James Bond, leaking secret information to the shrapnel forum.
Sorry if that;s how it came across.

[AMF]

Originally posted by dogscoff:
[QB] That's kind of what I was aiming at, that and the fact that you said your opinions about being misled into war have changed. I wasn't trying to make you out to be James Bond, leaking secret information to the shrapnel forum.
Sorry if that;s how it came across.

Heh. James Bond indeed. Trust me, my work right now is capital-B Boring.

But, really, people with clearances just need to be *absolutely* careful with talking about their work, what they say, etc...and for good reason. Secrets exist for a reason, even if they are seemingly unimportant to those involved. True, we sometimes classify things for no discernible reason, and sometimes its even done for the wrong reasons (cover ups, etc...) but, in general, secrets are there for a reason.

But the lack of a link between Saddam and AQ is no secret, that's for sure!

EDIT: spelling, word changes.

[ May 26, 2004, 13:26: Message edited by: alarikf ]