The Effect Of War

[pbleighton]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6102701487.html

[mike777]

It does seem if we withdrawal we will have another million bodies in the streets of Iraq is that better? It seems the answer for many is yes. Are we just going to turn around and go back in when Taliban like cells set up in Iraq? Or we are just going to do nothing? It seems the answer for many is Yes we are going to do nothing.

[sceptic]

it appears that since the removal of one set of murderous thugs has been removed, it would appear thet the underdog was no better than the master

 

so much for civilisation or should that be democracy

[pbleighton]

"It does seem if we withdrawal we will have another million bodies in the streets of Iraq is that better? It seems the answer for many is yes. Are we just going to turn around and go back in when Taliban like cells set up in Iraq? Or we are just going to do nothing? It seems the answer for many is Yes we are going to do nothing."

 

1. I hear an unspoken implication that things will be worse (not just immediately but over time) if we leave than if we stay. Is my hearing OK? If so, why do you think this? For the record, I think things will get worse whether we go or stay, and that overall they will be less bad the sooner we leave. I base this on the fact that the longer we stay there, the worse things have gotten.

 

2. You don't like doing "nothing", what is the "something" you would do instead? Bush is now claiming that he never said we should "stay the course" (a proven lie, BTW). Is your strategy to stay his course, or do you have something else in mind? Are we going to stop a civil war by force?

 

Peter

[hrothgar]

Part of the reason that some of us are so bitter about the whole Iraq invasion is that we don't have any good choices left.

 

If we leave, its very likely that the coutry will explode. I wouldn't be surprised to see hundreds of thousands of people killed.

 

If we stay, we know that thousands of people will be killed every month. Moreover, there is a very real chance that we're simple adding more fuel to the fire. When we do pull out, the explosion will be even bigger...

 

Trapped betwe Scylla and Charybdis. What a nice place to be...

 

For what its worth, if I were in charge there are a few concrete things that I'd like to experiment with. For example, I often found myself wondering whether it would be possible to set up voluntary population exchages between Northern Iraq and Turkey.

 

Its looking increasingly likely that Iraq is going to fracture into three independent states. Personally, I'm worried about the impact that the emergence of a Kurdish state might have on the political stability inside Turkey. There's a large number of ethnic Turks living in Iraq, just as there are a large number of ethnic Kurds living in Southern Turkey. In the best of all worlds, it would be great if everyone could just get along. However, given all the ethnic cleansing that it taking place in that part of

the world, I'm not going to hold my breath. Pity there's no way to convince Kurdish nationalists currently living in Turkey that they'd be happier moving off to Kurdistan.

 

Turkey and Greece had massive population exchanges back in the early 20th century. Said exchanges were involuntary and involved significant expropriate of property by both sides. It would be interesting to consider a more equitable system modeled after the house exchange programs that my parents used to take part in during the halcyon days of my youth. Kurds and Turks interested in migrating could list their properties and – hopefully - agree to equitable swaps. A Kurdish family in Iraw would receive the house and property of a Turkish famility in Kurdish and vice-versa. You'd need to get some kind of NGO involved to appraise the houses and make sure no one was trading down. Potentially, you might even want to subsidize the whole system. Assume that the Turkish house was worth $60,000 and the Kurdish house was worth $65,000. The NGO would provide $5,000 to the Turkish family to sweeten the deal.

 

Unfortunately, you probably can't run this sort of operation without some political stability. I suspect that this type of system would be useful in staving off violence on the Turkish Iraqi border. I doubt that it would be possible to implement any like this in Baghdad where its desperately needed.

[pbleighton]

An interesting idea, Richard, peaceful ethnic cleansing. I share your doubts. Some form of partition seems to be what will happen, but it could involve decades of war, particularly if the Shiiites and Kurds try to screw the Sunnis out of the oil money.

 

Peter

[mike777]

Kurdistan, the northern part of Iraq seems to be working pretty well. The rest is a hell hole or worse I guess.

 

 

Interestingly in Woodward's new book he mentioned right after 9-11 a Kitchen cabinet was set up by Bush, call it a bunch of neocons maybe, who said they expected the war on terror to last 40-60 years with many setbacks along the way.

[pbleighton]

"Interestingly in Woodward's new book he mentioned right after 9-11 a Kitchen cabinet was set up by Bush, call it a bunch of neocons maybe, who said they expected the war on terror to last 40-60 years with many setbacks along the way."

 

But not Iraq... that shocked the hell out of them.

 

Peter

[Winstonm]

An American-made holocaust brought on by Bush/Rumsfeld lies.

 

Interestingly in Woodward's new book he mentioned right after 9-11 a Kitchen cabinet was set up by Bush, call it a bunch of neocons maybe, who said they expected the war on terror to last 40-60 years with many setbacks along the way.

 

Maybe they were simply hoping for 40-60 years so a continual state of war would allow Presidential war powers to last almost indefinately.

 

It does seem if we withdrawal we will have another million bodies in the streets of Iraq is that better? It seems the answer for many is yes. Are we just going to turn around and go back in when Taliban like cells set up in Iraq

 

I've made this comment before, but this has an eerily similar ring to the Domino Theory used to justify non-withdrawal from Vietnam.

 

The British Medical Journal Lancet, using the best available methods, estimated over 600,000 Iraqi civilians so far have been killed due to the war. President Bush claimed the information flawed - what a joke - if the information fits their agenda, it is gospel, but if it goes against their agenda it is somehow flawed, no matter who makes the claim.

 

Don't confuse me with contradictory information - my mind is made up.

 

There is only one blame for Iraq - U.S. aggression. There is only one answer - for the U.S. to get out and let those people try to rebuild the country that the U.S. coalition destroyed. A million more bodies now is better than 40 million more over the next 40 years.

[mike777]

Well that lancet article by Hopkins Univ has been discredited. Shame on them for publishing it without better review.

 

You sound like Leslie Gelb(sp?) he was wrong on Vietnam and now seems to think pulling out will result in the best result possible. It seems like reading a fairy wish tale when he writes but Democrats worship his writings. :).

 

Of course who was it that said "slam dunk" hmmm....and almost everyone except for poor Bob Novak and a few others who kept saying..maybe it is but show us....so far you show us nothing....:).

[hrothgar]

Well that lancet article by Hopkins Univ has been discredited. Shame on theme for publishing it without better review.

A bunch of idiots saying that they don't believe the results in no way discredits the Lancet report.

 

I've looked at a lot of so-called critiques of this report. Most have little to no technical merit. I saw a grand total of one comment that I thought had any validity. (I'm happy to post this at the end of the discussion)

 

I'd be very interested to see whatever flaws with the methodology or the analysis that you've managed to uncover...

[mike777]

I do not have any of the details anymore but several articles really tore into this study. The number of clusters was one and another was the demographics or lack of them.

[pbleighton]

"You sound like Leslie Gelb(sp?) he was wrong on Vietnam and now seems to think pulling out will result in the best result possible."

 

Ah, but I was right on Vietnam... :)

 

Mike, what strategy do you think will result in "the best result possible"?

 

And why?

 

Peter

[mike777]

Having had close family members fight in both Iraq wars I have no wish to see them shipped back.

 

Training the Iraqs seems to be taking forever. As some point they are going to have to rely on themselves with what little they have. I just ask people if they want to win in Iraq? Is winning possible by any reasonable definition? I get the impression sometimes that for many the answer is no to both these questions.

 

Geez look how many do not want us to win in Afganistan or think we are committing genocide there?

[Winstonm]

Well that lancet article by Hopkins Univ has been discredited. Shame on theme for publishing it without better review.

 

Killing the messenger does not change the facts.

 

The results speak for themselves. There was a sample of 12,801 individuals in 1,849 households, in 47 geographical locations. That is a big sample, not a small one.  In the 18 months before the invasion, the sample reported 82 deaths, two of them from violence. In the 39 months since the invasion, the sample households had seen 547 deaths, 300 of them from violence. The death rate expressed as deaths per 1,000 per year had gone up from 5.5 to 13.3.

 

If a Mori poll puts the Labour party on 40% support, then we know that there is some inaccuracy in the poll, but we also know that there is basically zero chance that the true level of support is 2% or 96%, and for the Lancet survey to have delivered the results it did if the true body count is 60,000 would be about as improbable as this. Anyone who wants to dispute the important conclusion of the study has to be prepared to accuse the authors of fraud, and presumably to accept the legal consequences of doing so.

 

So is Lancet being fraudulent? Or is it more likely the ones who have a stake in the war (like not being tried for war crimes) have something to hide?

[pbleighton]

"I just ask people if they want to win in Iraq? Is winning possible by any reasonable definition? I get the impression sometimes that for many the answer is no to both these questions."

 

Well, having asked twice and not received an answer, I give up, and accept that you don't have a strategy for "winning" :)

 

Now I ask, do you have a definition of "winning"?

 

If you give me your definition, I will tell you if I think it's possible, how, and by when.

 

Peter

[Winstonm]

Having had close family members fight in both Iraq wars I have no wish to see them shipped back.

 

Training the Iraqs seems to be taking forever.  As some point they are going to have to rely on themselves with what little they have. I just ask people if they want to win in Iraq?  Is winning possible by any reasonable definition? I get the impression sometimes that for many the answer is no to both these questions.

 

Geez look how many do not want us to win in Afganistan or think we are committing genocide there?

I challenge anyone interested to do some basic research on causes and draw their own conclusions about what the U.S. (Bush/Rumsfeld) reasons were for the attacks on Afghanistan/Iraq.

 

Point 1: The Taliban asked for proof of Osama bin Laden's participation in the 9-11 attacks before turning him over to the U.S. Was this unreasonable?

 

Discussion: Since the F.B.I. has since stated there is no concrete evidence to link bin Laden to 9-11 it seems the Taliban's request was reasonable - if you were in France would you want the French government to turn you over to Syria if Syria claimed you were a terrorist?

 

Point 2: The Taliban, for religious reasons, outlawed the planting of opium poppy fields and had all the poppy fields plowed under.

 

Discussion: Since the Taliban has been overturned, the opium poppy fields have once again become the main cash crop and produced bumper crops. It is estimated that over 300 billion dollars of drug money is laundered annually through the U.S. stock exchanges. And from the "bet you didn't know this one" department: although cash transactions of $10,000.00 and above must be reported by banks, this law exempts corporations traded on the NYSE, NASDAQ, and AMEX exchanges. The Dow has recently set an all-time high despite slumping economic news, and even credible market analysts are wondering what the heck is going on, some even speculating U.S. government involvement in supporting the prices.

 

Point 3: The U.S. (Bush) claimed the reason to overthrow the Taliban was because they were harboring bin Laden.

 

Discussion: After the Taliban had been overthrown, Bush declared the U.S. "wasn't interested in bin Laden." So, then, Bush is saying the real reason was simply to overthrow the Taliban???? To what end? Oh, yeah...the world's largest supplier of opium....hmmm. Guess the war on drugs takes a back seat to the war on terror.

 

Point 4: The reason for the invasion of Iraq was because Iraq supported Al-Quada and had weapons of mass destruction. (Bush/Rumsfeld/Powell).

 

Discussion: It is now known Iraq considered Al-Quada an enemy and no weapons of mass destruction were found. So the reason changed. Again. Then again. Then again.

 

And now it is claimed that Iran is building nuclear capabilities - excuse me for doubting, but this time I want to see 100% proof, verified by about 100 other countries (exlucing Brittain, so sorry) before I buy the Bush/Rumsfeld hype.

 

Now, Mike, to your points:

1) Do I want to win in Iraq?

 

Answer: I thought we already did. Suddam is gone. The WMDs evaporated in the desert sun. There is no longer (as if there ever was) a reason to be in Iraq. Get our troops out of harm's way.

 

Real Answer: This was a war of aggression. The U.S. has no business attacking independent countries in a first-strike preemptive campaign. This is but imperialism masqeurading as a war on terror. Get our troops out and out of harm's way.

 

Question 2) Do I want to win in Afghanistan?

 

Answer: See answers to questions 1 above.

 

Are these actions a war on terror or war crimes? There are 600,000 dead Iraqi civilians who should answer that one.

[Winstonm]

You sound like Leslie Gelb(sp?) he was wrong on Vietnam and now seems to think pulling out will result in the best result possible. It seems like a reading a fairy wish tale when he writes but Democrats worship his writings. .

 

Well, I am neither Republican nor Democrat - I view them as two sides of the same body.

 

As for Vietnam, what harm has come to the U.S. due to the conversion of that country to communism? What vital U.S. interest was sacrificed?

 

As for pulling out of Iraq, I am in favor of that for only one reason: the invasion of Iraq was a criminal act of which the U.S. is guilty. I am for the U.S. pulling out of Iraq as I would have been for Germany pulling out of Poland or the U.S.S.R. pulling out of Afghanistan or Iraq pulling out of Kuwait.

 

What a concept - when Iraq invades Kuwait for Kuwait's oil it is criminal; when the U.S. invades Iraq for Iraq's oil it is legal. There is proof the might makes right.

 

When one commits a crime, the best recourse is to admit it and make amends - the first amend for the U.S. is to get out of Iraq and let the U.N. take over peacekeeping within the borders.

 

I think Richard's concept to help prevent slaughter well thought out and a possible real solution - once the U.S. onslaught is eliminated.

 

As for the rest, one has to accept the original premise to assume the U.S. should be trying to win in Afghanistan and Iraq. The original premise was a "war on terror". The ones who proclaimed this "war" have been proven over and over to be total liers. I no longer believe anything from the Bush/Rumsfeld camp. Having proved themselves liers, I no longer accept the first lie and do not accept the premise. I do not believe there is an immense threat from terrorists.

 

Without this threat, there is no need for war. Without war, we would have no "war president." No Patriot Act. No Department of Homeland Security. No Military Commissions Act. Posse Commitatus would still have meaning. (Perhaps you didn't know that the same day the MCA act was signed a rider accompanied another bill that gave the president the power without each governnor's approval of calling out the national guard for insurrection - or military law as it is commonly known. Doesn't that warm your heart that an honest fellow like George Bush can call out the Texas National Guard to put down a insurrection of Quakers in Pennsylvania? Yes, the F.B.I. has been monitoring those known terrorists, the Quaker peace rallies.)

 

I do not fear Al-Quada - I do not believe it even exists formally - not close to the extent of what the IRA was at one time. It is the "war on terror" that is the fairy tale.

 

What I fear most is this administration, it's disdain for the truth, and it's extreme secrecy. The terrorists can only kill me - the government can declare me "an enemy combattant" and do to me much worse - while no one would ever know what happened.

[mike777]

I recommend The Looming Tower. Just finished it.

[Winstonm]

The Looming Tower ... A fine instance of a contemporary historical fiction

 

I read quite enough historical fiction in the 9-11 Commission report.

 

I accept the idea that there is most likely a loosely formed Islamic terrorist organization of which Osama bin Laden may be a part or even the head - it would most likely be against the U.S. due to the strong ties of the U.S. with Israel - but I no longer accept the claim that it is anywhere near as organized or as dangerous to the U.S. as the IRA was to Brittain.

 

Until such time that the U.S. can show conclusive evidence of such a threat, I have to rely solely on the word of a known liar (WMDs) and I am no longer willing to do so. I have reached the point where I no longer blindly accept the government's claims of what occured on 9-11, but at the same time I do not blindly accept the claims of those who say the government did it in a black flag operation. I am at the point where I feel the nation is entitled to know exactly what did happen, who was to blame, and all the proof of those claims.

 

The past 5 years has seen the U.S. go to war twice and have measures signed into law that undermine the sanctity of our own freedoms - I would like more than the words of the executive branch to gladly support those wars and give up those freedoms. It is time to put the cards on the table and see who wins.

 

And if you don't remember, in the days following 9-11 Osama bin Laden denied having any part - in fact stating it was a violation of Islam faith to kill innocents.

 

Was his denial more historical fiction? Or did Bush create his own version of historical fiction?

[sceptic]

can someone explain what winning in Iraq is, I could have sworn we only went in to depose Saddam and elect a democracy in a country that does not want a democracy nor do its neighbours, seesm to, me we should pull out and let them get on with it, hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, they got on with it before we invaded and they had a leader, he may have beeen perceived as a lunatic by us, but at the end of the day, maybe all he did , was to treat the opposite factions in exactly the same way they would have treated him and his faction.

 

I think we should stop interfering in these affairs and let them remain as they are, is a democracy where, we are in danger of raping and pillaging our planet of its natural resources really what we should be encouraging, we should get our own houses in order before we decide we have a God given right to interfere in everyones elses way if life.

 

For those that think no man should suffer at the hands of another, I think all that idealogical way of thinking is not relevant, has there ever been a time when man does not fight man ? I think the answer is no, do get out of Iraq and give it back to Saddam Hussain, I doubt the next leader of Iraq will be any more noble than Saddam

 

How about sorry we screwed up, here is your country back, by the way we have taken loads of your oil (cos that is what this is all about, otherwise we would be in Dakhur) to finance our jolly little jaunt, I could have swore our armies were to defend us

[cherdano]

Part of the reason that some of us are so bitter about the whole Iraq invasion is that we don't have any good choices left.

Plus the fact that the current developments were not exactly unpredictable. Even in the US media there were realistic pre-war articles anticipating terrorism and ethnic/confessional fighting within Iraq.

[EricK]

"I just ask people if they want to win in Iraq? Is winning possible by any reasonable definition? I get the impression sometimes that for many the answer is no to both these questions."

 

Well, having asked twice and not received an answer, I give up, and accept that you don't have a strategy for "winning" :)

 

Now I ask, do you have a definition of "winning"?

 

If you give me your definition, I will tell you if I think it's possible, how, and by when.

 

Peter

Maybe this quote from War Games is apt:

 

Joshua: A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?

[helene_t]

I discussed Richard's population exchange with a Turkish friend of mine (maybe I should say that she's rather nationalistic in her views).

 

She got quite upset about it. For her, Turkey is the geographical entity of Anatolia+Trakia, and the people who live there, whether they are Turkish moslems, Turkish christians, Kurds, Armenians, Greeks, Arabs, Azeras etc. She sees no conflict between Kurdish and Turkish people, just some political intrigues of a few idiots.

 

That conversation made me wonder what the attitude of Turkey (the Turkish politicial, as well as the Turkish people) would be towards such a project. Also, what (if anything) are the bonds between Turkish-speaking minorities in Iraq and Turks in Turkey? Are they a threatened minority that would have any specials reason to leave Iraq (other than the obvious fact that everybody would like to leave Iraq)?

 

Turkey's Iraq policy has been about two themes:

1) Showing solidarity with the West, probably hoping for some rewards in the form of better prospects for Turkey's integration in EU.

2) Trying to avoind the establishment of a Kurdish state in northern Iraq.

 

The latter is undersstandable. Iraqi Kurdistan has oil, which means money to finance terrorism in Turkey.

 

I think a population exchange program between Iraq and the U.S. would be far better. An Iraqi diaspora in the U.S. will soon get integrated and feel American, so their ties with Iraq will improve the relation between the two countries. And maybe an American diaspora in Iraq would be able to establish a nucleus of modernity in the middle east, that could have a positive impact in the rest of Iraq and beyond. Something like 100 clones of the American university in Beyrout.

 

Na, I'm dreaming. Just pull out and use a small fraction of the money you save to give every Iraqi an I-Pod.

[hrothgar]

I discussed Richard's population exchange with a Turkish friend of mine (maybe I should say that she's rather nationalistic in her views).

 

She got quite upset about it. For her, Turkey is the geographical entity of Anatolia+Trakia, and the people who live there, whether they are Turkish moslems, Turkish christians, Kurds, Armenians, Greeks, Arabs, Azeras etc. She sees no conflict between Kurdish and Turkish people, just some political intrigues of a few idiots.

Talking politics with Turks can be tricky...

 

1. Insulting "Turkishness" or Attaturk is a criminal offense.

2. You can't have any kind of reason discussion about the Armenians.

3. Parts of Turkish government refuses to admit that Kurds exist as a separate ethnic group. (Traditionally, Kurds were classified as "Mountain Turks" or, more recently as "Eastern Turks)

 

However, despite some skepticism on the part of the Turkish government, it seems pretty clear that the Kurds do consider themselves a separate and distinct people.

 

I'd be quite interested if you asked your friend a followup question: How does she feel about the formation of an independent Kurdish nation state in Northern Iraq? (My guess is that she would be equally upset about this). Personally, I'd argue that you can't have it both ways:

 

If the ethnic Kurds in Turkey are all happily integrated into Turkish society, than the emergence of Kurdistan should not pose any significant threat to Turkey. (Personally, I think that the Iraqi Kurds will have far too much to worry about without worrying about provoking the Turkish military)

 

If, on the other hand, she believes that the emergence of Kurdistan will stir up the PKK or other terrorist groups, this certainly suggests that there are some Kurds living in Turkey who would prefer to live in "Kurdistan". I argue that a voluntary population exchange is a much better way to address this problem than bombings.

 

I will also note that the founding years of the Turkish Republic were marked with massive involuntary populations exchanges between Turkey and Greece. Turkey and Greece have had a rough relationship ever since, but at least this put an end to the open warfare that took place during the 1920s.