Iraq: Time for exit strategy? (BBC)

[KansDem]

"Unless Iraq can be stabilised soon, policy planners in both the US and UK may well have to start thinking about an exit strategy".

By Paul Reynolds
BBC News Online world affairs correspondent
Wednesday, 12 May, 2004, 12:50 GMT

(excerpt)

US officers speak openly

The coalition is bowing to a new reality over security. It cannot impose its will and this is accepted by senior soldiers with experience on the ground.

In a remarkable series of interviews in the Washington Post, senior American army officers have openly expressed doubts about whether the United States will win.

Major General Charles Swannack, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division which was in western Iraq for much of the past year, said that tactically the US was winning but when asked if overall it was losing, replied: "I think strategically we are."

Colonel Paul Hughes, the first director of strategic planning in Iraq after the war, whose brother died in Vietnam said: "Here I am, 30 years later, thinking we will win every fight and lose the war, because we don't understand the war we are in."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3707499.stm

I wonder if Bush will try the Nixonian “Peace with Honor” bullshit to prolong US involvement in Iraq…

[turiya]

1. Kerry says it is a failure

pull out of Iraq now!

[Malva Zebrina]

2. an exit strategy--not a; sugar coated occupation under NATO or the UN?

Gee--is that not what Kucinich has been saying all along?

Dean did not approve of this invasion either. Many Americans, as well as many religious did not approve of this catastrophic slaughter. They seemed to have a vision.

So many knew and only a few spoke out.

Kerry voted for the slaughter and to give the stupid Bush a blank check. Many in our congress did.

This is so depressing.

I am ready to not vote at all.

[eleonora]

3. then don't vote

let someone else vote for Bush in your place.

[Malva Zebrina]

5. I will vote or not vote as I see fit

I do not like the feeling that I am being forced to vote for someone who voted to give Bush a blank check to kill people by the tens of thousands and who obviously wants to retain the power in Iraq. The power of course lies in the oil fields and the lucrative opportunites for American coroporations to establish themselves there, in the new American empire.

Both seem to want the same thing in and out of Iraq. Both seem to want to justify the invasion. Kerry does because he voted for it, and if he picks Edwards, we can be sure they both approved of this slaughter because they also want the spoils. Edwards was amongst the first to approve of the invasion and the subsequent slaughter.

I am simply fed up with these politics and being jerked around by Republicans and Democrats alike.

It is a shameful situation.

[pinto]

6. how about UN oversight to our exit, oil production in the hands of Iraqi

companies and a verifiable electoral process. Would you support that?

I hear your anger, as they say, and I really would like to hear option ideas from folks for where we are right now, not two years ago, not a year ago... Know what I mean?

and, as an aside, who is forcing you to vote? that comment caught me.
Thks, pinto

[Mountainman]

11. I think Eleanor Roosevelt said that you can't be jerked around

unless you let people jerk you around.

No that's not what she said but it was similar.

[eleonora]

15. nobody is forcing you to vote

You may find this interview transcript interesting.

Rolling Stones: It seems that the fact that you voted in support of the president's war resolution has caused you a lot of trouble in your campaign. Do you regret supporting the president?

John Kerry: What I regret most of all is the way the administration dealt with it -- the extraordinary failure of the administration to keep its promises, to be mature and thoughtful about how you take a nation to war. They misled us; they presented false intelligence to us. The president made a series of promises to us -- number one, that he was gonna make every effort possible to build a legitimate coalition. He did not -- he built a fraudulent coalition. Second, he was gonna exhaust the remedies of the United Nations and the inspection process. He did not. And third, that he would go to war as a last resort. He did not.

I voted to protect the security of our country, based on the notion that the only way to get inspectors back in was to have a legitimate threat of force and the potential of using it. They took that legitimacy and bastardized it. If I were president, we would not be in Iraq today -- we would not be at war. This president abused the process.

[Malva Zebrina]

28. Oh please

stop spinning. It is the thing that has totally destructive to our country.

Kerry voted for the invasion and now he is saying he can do a better job of raking in the spoils than Bush.

That is the truth and I refuse to accept that this veteran beltway operator did not know of it. If I could know of the lies, certainly this very rich, better advised than me, knew it.

No, I am convinced his vote as well as others who are playing a political game, including Hillary Clinton, wanted the invasion.

I admit, saying I am forced to vote for Kerry, is not exactly correct.

I am not forced to vote for anyone.

I may not vote at all.

[oldcoot]

4. Kerry may not be perfect but he really is better than Bush

While I agree that the war in Iraq is a very important issue, we should not forget the other very important issues in this election. Please do not forget that Kerry has a stronger record on the environment, women's issues, and civil rights than Bush does. Indeed, if Bush gets elected, he may end up getting to appoint at least one Supreme Court Justice as well as many new federal judges. Think about that fact before you decide not to vote.

[Nancy Waterman]

12. Kerry has no interest in retaining power in Iraq

That is the neocon strategy. Kerry and the other Dems gave Bush what he asked for: the muscular support of Congress to help Bush persuade the UN that we meant business. It was working. We got more intensive inspections. And then Bush just cut and ran to war on his own, deciding with no proof that Saddam was lying. It is very misleading to say that the Dems voted "for the war". They voted to empower Bush at the UN which is what he said he wanted. He took them all to the cleaners. You can argue they shouldn't have trusted him. Obviously, most of us didn't and some senators also could see through the bullsh*t. But they didn't "vote for war". That is a Republican misrepresentation to make Kerry sound like a flip flopper. He has always and consistently stood for working with the UN and for war beig a very last resort, only if it is proven we are threatened.

[mulethree]

10. the congressmen

will tell you that they didn't sign the check. That Bush was supposed to come back to them with good proof so they could sign it before he cashed it.

They seem to be technically correct.
But claiming stupidity or gullibility doesn't cut it when you're a national elected official.

<
<warning this post turned into a rant - might want to skip it >
<

Unfortunately my senators and congressman (NYC) are all in the 'whatever Israel wants' camp when it comes to the mideast.

Kucinich was saying hand it over to U.N. peacekeepers and give U.N. control over the oil and contracts. But the peacekeepers keep peace, they don't make it and the U.N. would have a hard time providing 60,000 of them even if we got it peaceful enough for them to come in.

As far as the government, contracts and oil goes - thats the wealth of Iraq and future puppet-strings and has much more bearing on whether the regime-change was a 'success' or not than any death toll. There are few if any senators who aren't drooling over having an economic client, puppet-state in the middle east for western (with UK and US getting first dibs) businesses to exploit.

If we succeed overtly then we scare the world and then make 'friends' by selling them weapons to defend themselves from us. If we fail (this can be a real failure or a covert failure with puppet-emplacements, or a face-saving graceful exit by Bush's replacement likely with puppet-strings intact) then we blame it on BUSH43 and fix it by replacing him with someone less nasty and maybe throw some nice 'clean' little humanitarian war with lots of fanfare - maybe like 'rescuing' some Nigerian muslims from a genocide. Our new less-nasty administration will emphasize some other policy from the 'Cheap Labor & Other Peoples Money' book and play nice on the foreign relations side for a term or two. maybe actually negotiate with the North Korean, that's about ripe for a big 'global stability' win with just a few summits and maybe $25 billion in aid and a few 'proliferation resistant' reactors.

In any case we get some more sympathy and fear generating terror attacks so we can beef up 'homeland security' enough to head off any attempted revolutions, but not enough to keep illegal aliens out. Ensured against civil war we can drive down liberties and quality of life even further and people will be happy with the new $10/hour jobs.

Anyway, the current problem is deciding whether we're going to fail or not in time to arrange the appropriate election results. But maybe they've already decided, they didn't play up the de-proliferation of Libya as much as they should have and they timed the prison abuse scandal for a slow-news period where they can give it tons of press.

[killbotfactory]

7. Maybe they should have thought of this before invasion?

Who put these goddamn idiots in charge?

[Jacobin]

8. The Five Traitorous Bastards/Bastardettes on SCOTUS

IMHO

[truthisfreedom]

9. the only thing that makes any sense is for us to provide the money to

reconstruct Iraq, and the materials and know-how if necessary, and to pull out our troops completely and allow a neutral force to take over, if that's still possible.

[Terran]

13. Too late for peace with "honor," unfortunately. (n/t)

[0rganism]

14. Gee, isn't that what we were supposed to have BEFORE we invaded?

What a bunch of crap. Morons. The people in charge, the people who voted for them, hell, the whole lot of us. Morons and frightened fools.

[DLC]

16. This is not the time to pull out

Getting democracy in Iraq will be difficult, but it's better than tyranny.

[htuttle]

17. Hey, you sound like someone who can see the light at the end of the tunnel

Exactly how 'difficult' do you imagine it will be to get democracy in Iraq? In years and dollars, for example.

Also, why doesn't the US administration want democratic elections now? Al Sistani has been demanding nationwide elections for months. When several Iraqi cities had their own local elections to get things going again last year, Bremer cancelled them. Is this all part of that 'Peace with Honor' plan I just don't understand?

In any case, just make sure you don't miss the helicopter off the roof when the time comes!

[DLC]

18. It is difficult and not certain

but withdrawl would likely mean a return to another brutal dictator.

[htuttle]

19. Better us than one of them, eh?

How about an Islamic Republic of some kind incorporating Sharia law, for example? Would that be okay? If they get to vote, this form of government could turn out to be very popular.

Will they be allowed to be Socialist, like they used to be? They really did enjoy the free education and health care part, you know.

[DLC]

21. There is a chance for Iraqi democracy

after decades of oppression. It may take time, but our presence is not permanent.

[htuttle]

23. What the heck does that mean in the real world?

Quack, quack.

[leQ]

20. i'd sure like to know where you get the info from that makes you say that

what dictator did you have in mind?

[arcane1]

22. better their own dictator, than a foreign one

IMHO

at least under Saddam, Iraq kept its wealth and revenue... we have sold everything, down to the water, over to western corporations... they are not going to let go of that, and there will NEVER be peace there as long as they own it all

[DLC]

24. America's presence is not permanent

and the object is not to be another dictator. The goal is democracy. What is your alternative?

[Desperadoe]

25. No, Your goal is democracy

The only thing that is really important is what is the goal of the Iraqi people. Has it ever occurred to you that they may not want a democracy? Has anyone ever really asked them just what the hell they want?

I know damn well that no one bothered to ask the Iraqi people if they wanted liberated from SH. Amerika TOLD them they wanted liberated.

[arcane1]

26. the goal is privatization

and the corporations have NO plans to leave

they changed Iraqi law to make it legal for foreign, private entities to won Iraq's infrastucture... and you say that's only temporary?

when will we leave? Will we allow a new, FULLY democratic government to nullify all those contracts, fobid Halliburton from doing business there, and cut off ties with the U.S.?

the "goal" of democracy was a lie, to fool the American people

it seems some are still believing the lie, long after it has been proven to be one

[scottxyz]

27. No let's stay there forever

Let's stay till we round up the last Iraqi grandmother and ride her in a harness and anally rape the last Iraqi boy and get every one of the 1.3 billion Muslims in the world to join Al Qaeda so DC and New York can become the new Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Those Weapons of Mass Destruction have to be here SOMEWHERE!

(HA-HA-HA-HA-HA - You're so FUNNY George...)

[TrogL]

29. Call in a UN peacekeeping force

headed by a Canadian contingent.

They're probably the only outfit that would be respected after all the latest fiascos.