Ironically, while these factions are busy contesting with each other, they're not busy establishing a powerful oil-funded totalitarian regime that supports terrorism and keeps its citizens in line through the application of brutal violence.

I figure Bush got it exactly right: break up a state sponsor of terror into several warring factions obsessed with their own internal conflicts. If possible, try to establish a liberal democracy in place of the regime, but that's not really necessary, so long as whatever arrangement results is essentially impotent in the war on terror.

This analysis is especially true if Gene seriously believes the Iraqis are incapable of living peacefully together. If they're unable or unwilling to give up violence against each other, then there really is no point at all in trying to help them out. If Gene is correct, then no reasonable person could blame Bush--and Americans in general--for not caring about the fate of Iraqis, but rather just getting what we can out of the mess while the getting is good.

The strange thing is, Russian, German, and French policy towards Iraq seems to be exactly that kind of "to hell with them" policy, whereas Bush keeps hoping for--and struggling towards--a solution that demonstrates the fundmental humanity and potential for good in the Iraqi people.

Bush may be wrong, but a positive attitude and willingness to keep working on a discouraging task certainly seems like a good quality in a world leader.

It's obvious that in the end, it's Gene that thinks that the Iraqis aren't worth the trouble, while the President feels very differently.

America Blew It In Iraq!

Pose the alternative. Let's see where Iraq would be without us. Just think about it for a minute without going off the handle and tell me how we did bad things for Iraq. Not about Bush, please share with us your feelings and noblesse oblige feelings for the people of Iraq.

It's obvious that in the end, it's Gene that thinks that the Iraqis aren't worth the trouble, while the President feels very differently.

Yep, be constructive or get off the pot.

Without our actions they might be just where they were or in time when it became known Saddam had no WMD he may have slipped from power by some other hand. The problem we have is that if Iraq does go into all out civil war, the world will blame us. In addition, an all out civil war has the possibility of impacting other countries in the region. In any event, I do not see how any of the most likely possibilities makes us safer. In addition we have spent 2,300 lives and what may be as much as a Trillion dollars on this adventure. If the Iraq War does not make us safer and costs us a Trillion Dollars, 35,000 injured and 2,300 dead, YES I do not believe it was worth it! I do not think HISTORY will either!!

occasionally words are worth a lotta pictures. what follows is a portion of a piece written borzou daragahi and published monday by the la times.

i realize how much yall enjoy piling on col gene but perhaps yall might consider reading the entire article. Link

for what it's worth, i've read several very similar reports about the rapidly expanding cemetary in najaf.

Along marshy river deltas of the country's long-repressed Shiite south, a new cultural identity is being born. More so than any other part of the country, the south has been radically transformed.

The very landscape, the sights and sounds have changed. In the shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala, home to important Shiite places of learning, the number of religious students increased tenfold, as young clerics and scholars from Iran, South Asia, Lebanon and elsewhere come to study.

Where portraits of the mustachioed dictator once hung, now are those of turbaned and bearded ayatollahs. Numerous satellite channels have sprung up. Music praising the imams rings out from the markets.

U.S. officials have hailed the Shiite resurgence as a blossoming of a religion suppressed under Hussein. Shiites practice rituals that were long banned or discouraged, and through their raucous blend of religious ceremony and activism inject vitality into an ossified political culture.

But the Shiites' rise has created other problems. Clerics have steered the region away from Baghdad's authority. Cities such as Amarah, Diwaniya, Kut and Nasiriya have become oriented toward Iran and Persian Gulf states rather than to Iraq's traditional allies.

Organized Shiite militiamen quickly took over in the security vacuum after the collapse of the Hussein's regime, and they've never really given up power.

"Many new faces appear who are worse than Saddam," said Kamil Salman, 32, who owns a publishing house in Najaf. "Saddam wanted to stay forever. The recent ones know they will go soon, which makes them worse and more greedy than Saddam."

An airport is being built in Najaf, presumably to bring pilgrims to Karbala and Najaf, but also among the first steps in the creation of a southern oil-rich federal region under the banner of Shiite Islam.

Shiites bring their dead to the ancient cemetery in Najaf, which by some estimates has grown 40% larger since the war began, pushing out two square miles into the desert, filled mostly with thousands of civilians killed by car bombs and bullets. With each death grows the desire to break away from lack of electricity, poor medical care and corruption that have taken hold under the post-Hussein government.

Kingbee,
I understand that Iraq is a splintered society. Its national lines were drawn by a colonial power who tried to "unite" the Ba'ath, Shi'ite, and Kurd within British colonial power. As Jon Stewart's "America: the Book" points out, randomly drawn lines across the mideast would be just as effective in partitioning off the region.

I also understand that if asked whether a Shi'ite is an Iraqi or a Shi'ite first he will say Shi'ite. 100 times out of 100. So, regrettably, they will align with Iran, which is an iron-fisted Shi'a society.

So you know what? Iraq may be having some problems but Saddam was by far the worst. Saddam was infinitely worse: a strongarm dictator who upset the regional status quo with his pesky overtures towards Kuwait and Iran and his WMD claims. Saddam's cojones didn't stop there: he loved to torture, to kill, to use chemical gas on any ethnic minority that got out of line, like the Kurds.

So for once, the Shi'ites can speak up on any topic they'd like, without fear of reprisal from Saddam Hussein. Does this mean that the "new Shi'ite cultural identity" needs to be subsumed for the new Iraqi identity? Maybe, but something big and meaningful needs to happen before the place is gonna settle down and get some order.

Just for the record, I "pile on" COL Gene because what he says is demonstrably wrong. It's easy to do and fun too!

"though brutal" lol

Nazis in Germany, though brutal, prevented the adoption of bolshevism as well.


It's kind of scary how easily political motives can reduce decades of crimes against humanity to the words "though brutal."

a positive attitude and willingness to keep working on a discouraging task certainly seems like a good quality in a world leader.

George's father has proven by "wimping out" that he was not only a world leader but a very wise one.

Maybe, but something big and meaningful needs to happen before the place is gonna settle down and get some order.

maybe something big and meaningful needed to be done--and done properly--in advance of the invasion. planning perhaps? some responsible leadership? strategy rather than hubris & fantasy.

25...50...100 years from now when whatever passes for the history channel of the future focuses on this war, there's notta doubt in my mind the most difficult task for those charged with dissecting it will be coming up with an answer to this question: was there any point at which they coulda done something even worse?

If GWB had headed the example of his father, he would NOT have invaded Iraq. Bush 41 and his advisors predicted the very thing that is taking place in Iraq today. Bush wants us to believe Iraq is part of the same movement that caused 9/11. The truth is that what is happening in Iraq has nothing to do with the terrorists that attacked us on 9/11. However, a fractured Iraq may in fact do just what we did not want which is another country where these terrorists can operate and plot their attacks against America and the West. That is why the Bush invasion in Iraq has not made us safer. In fact the net result is that we have squandered our young people and our money on a war that has created more security issues for America then it solved.

Oh lord, Col, you will never learn will you. I do find it funny that for once KB actually defends you.

My defense is telling it like it is.

I do find it funny that for once KB actually defends you.

col gene is more than capable of defending himself. more to the point, i agree with the jist of this article as well as many of the specifics.

i'd be pleasantly surprised to discover you took time to read the report to which i provided a link. in the event you chose not to do so, it ain't no big thing. you will be less likely to understand where i'm coming from.

the more i consider how this whole thing came to be, the more appalling it seems.

please feel free to put yourself in the place of a history channel producer in the year 2081 who is fiercely determined to provide his audience with the most thorough and accurate examination of the war in iraq. to that end, please try to compile a list of serious strategic errors and failings avoided, eliminated or significantly minimized to date. hell, you might even wind up with an article worth posting yourself.

"please feel free to put yourself in the place of a history channel producer in the year 2081 who is fiercely determined to provide his audience with the most thorough and accurate examination of the war in iraq. to that end, please try to compile a list of serious strategic errors and failings avoided, eliminated or significantly minimized to date. hell, you might even wind up with an article worth posting yourself."

That doesn't work all that well, though. Look at our view of the Civil War now. For every historian that states a given tactic or effort was a mistake, there's another that will excuse or praise it. It takes heinous, heinous mistakes for everyone to agree on.

For instance, a lot of people are angry about how we ran directly to Baghdad, leaving a lot of the troops we could have been fighting to melt into the population. I can see that perspective. On the other hand, from a military leader's point of view, the last thing you want to do is allow all the people in surrounding areas to entrench themselves in Baghdad. What is now considered a mistake might have ended up being a 21st century stalingrad had we taken our time.

In terms of Iraq, even if it takes 10 or 20 years to become a stable state, I think they'll always look back on this effort as the birth, or at least the catalyst of such. The only way it will be interpreted as an overall mistake is if the nation becomes the usual wasteland of African civil war. Whether it does or not, in my opinion, is out of our hands. You can't take a MILLION troops, if you have them, and stop a nations of tens of millions from killing each other.

If Iraq sinks into a civil war, I don't believe it is our failure. If they had overthrown Hussein themselves, the same thing would have happened. They will have just thrown away an opportunity out of hatred for each other. In terms of America's interests, we got rid of Hussein, and gambled on the Iraqi people. Maybe we'll have another Hussein to deal with someday, maybe not. Either way, it is in the hands of the Iraqi people, not us.

col gene is more than capable of defending himself.

Yea, his "repetition is the key to success" strategy works wonders with everyone on this site. At least you are willing to argue about what is said to you and prove it with different facts and maybe once in a while concede, Col won't give in if God himself came down and told him he was wrong.

i'd be pleasantly surprised to discover you took time to read the report to which i provided a link.

Actually I have so many things going on on this PC that I did open it but must have opened something else on the same window and never got to reading it, but will do so now.

you will be less likely to understand where i'm coming from.

The only thing I can understand from you is that you would be willing to agree with Col just to spite everyone else here. I have noticed you like to have opposite views on almost everything here from those of right leanings and I wonder if you do it for that simple reason or are you really speaking your mind.

please feel free to put yourself in the place of a history channel producer in the year 2081 who is fiercely determined to provide his audience with the most thorough and accurate examination of the war in iraq. to that end, please try to compile a list of serious strategic errors and failings avoided, eliminated or significantly minimized to date. hell, you might even wind up with an article worth posting yourself.

Thanx to Baker, I have no need to do so. Not that I could have done any better, chances are I could have not done anything near what he wrote.

It takes heinous, heinous mistakes for everyone to agree on.

in the not too distant future, i doubt even the most focused 'strategic thinker' Linkis gonna be able to provide a suitable excuse for refusing to develop a true coalition like the one assembled for the first gulf war.