Can the US and UK win in Iraq?

[Accounting Troll]

Three years after the invasion of Iraq and the US and UK are still struggling to deal with a well organised resistance which effectively controls much of the country. According to michaelmoore.com, the US has suffered 1,993 fatalities and 15,220 wounded. This is in addition to the soldiers who end up with massive psychological problems because of what they experience in Iraq.

 

Iraqi civilian deaths are at least 26,661, and some people estimate that the invasion and occupation of Iraq has caused 100,000 civilian fatalities.

 

This does not look like the swift campaign that the American and British military planners expected.

 

Are we able to defeat the insurgency or should we just pull out now? Are there any policy changes that could bring about victory (ie a stable, democratic and pro-American Iraq)?

[Gungadin]

You need to define "Win" more accurately before you can get any real answers to it. When would you say the US has "Won"?

[Accounting Troll]

I would define a US victory in Iraq as creating a stable pro-American democracy that doesn't need tens of thousands of American soldiers to provide some semblance of security.

[Gungadin]

In that case: Yes, but it will take a LONG time to establish, longer than anybody in the American public are willing to wait. Iraq is presently the wellfare baby of Uncle Sam and will topple instantly should the US withdraw. I think it can be done, but it'll take a minimum of 10 years of heavy US troop presence, with a lot of people getting killed from bombings, shootouts and friendly fire in the process. Of course, even after REALLY handing over control of Iraq to the locals, there's the threat of a charismatic fundie starting a religious rebellion, or of the Shia, Sunni and Kurds going at each other's throats. I do not think the US has the political power or brainpower to prevent such a situation.

 

The US cannot pull out now. It simply cannot afford the loss of international prestige, the loss of a HUGE oil-supplying ally and foothold in the middle east and the possible creation of a hostile fundamentalist government in the region to be buddy-buddy with Iran.

 

GWB is also concerned with his legacy in the matter. Half of the American public and 95% of the world already view him as a gigantic fuckup, and withdrawing from Iraq would cement this. (Although the GOP would of course blame John "Communist" Kerry and Hanoi Jane for the loss of the war. )

 

I am most of all concerned with the Kurds. EVERYBODY hates Kurds, and if they decide to break away and create a Kurdish state, the middle east will explode in war with everybody joining in.

[Accounting Troll]

Good answer. I think that an American pullout in Iraq would cause the fundamentalists to transfer their attention to Saudi Arabia. They will not be appeased by driving the Americans out of Iraq.

 

I think one of the problems is that the Iraqi people don't think that Britain and the US have the political will to stay in Iraq for much longer. This means they aren't going to help us even if they are privately symathetic towards us for fear of retribution.

[Gungadin]

Real ugly development: Apparently, 45% of the Iraqi population currently sympathizes with the rebels. I read it on the Text-TV, so I can't give any source or any verification of the numbers, but if it's true, it's a really, really ugly development.

 

Here are some gallup numbers for Iraq though: https://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/20...aq-findings.htm

 

Interestingly enough, the common tendency of opinon is that the kurds are overjoyed with the invasion and everything about it while the shiites are lukewarm at best and often directly unsatisfied. Make of it what you will.

[Bomb Bloke]

Most of the news reports I have read seem to indicate that the current Iraqi population doesn't trust the occupiers much at all. I know I wouldn't.

 

For example, recently a couple of dozen people were bombed from the air. They were 'allegedly' planting a bomb on a American humvee.

 

Now, I don't need a nick like 'Bomb Bloke' to tell you that it doesn't take twenty people to plant a bomb.

 

But, then what were they doing crowded around the vehicle in the first place, and why did the Americans have no qualms in bombing their own humvee? Well, that's quite simple. The people were checking out the humvee because it had already been bombed.

 

Yup, the Americans bombed people because they thought they were going to plant a bomb on something that had already been destroyed.

 

Sure, there is some logic to planting a bomb on the humvee (as someone would have to come clean it up), but even so, I don't see the logic in bombing the group. Soldiers are killing on the basis of suspicion alone. You can SEE why rebels start cropping up attacking Americans (and anyone else who happens to be around) after stuff like this happens, and so the cycle continues. Over and over and over and over.

 

Now, I reckon it won't be too much longer before a 'pro-American' goverment is in place. But as far as ending the rebelions, and winning the 'hearts and minds' of the Iraqi people goes, I'm not sure a start has even been made.

 

It will be a long time before the troops can be removed if the countries occupying Iraq at the moment want to maintain control over it.

 

As for whether Iraq itself would prosper without the troop presense, I don't think I'm well informed enough to offer an opinion there.

[Pete]

The US and UK will never win in the minds of their own people. So many were opposed to the war in the first place, but so many more will be appalled if troops are ordered to pull out. Blair and Bush know they're in a no-win scenario of thir own creation.

 

Even if a democratic government prevails in the long run in Iraq and the fighting stops (which seems unlikely), both leaders will still be picked apart by their public for embarking upon this venture in the first place.

 

Either way, both countries have badly damaged diplomatic ties with other countries by arrogantly doing their own thing.

[Strong Bob]

*Pops in from limbo*

 

Hey guys. ^^

 

Heh, my two cents on Iraq...

 

If we're bringing a "democracy" to Iraq, then essentially that means we will be conquering them. Now, seeing as how conquest works, Iraq will not change easily because we are forcing democracy onto them. To me... This is disregarding the entire concept of "democracy" to begin with. (As a "democracy" is supposed to be a government design designed for the individual, we are hereby enforcing a government of our own making upon the individuals of Iraq. Is this truly freeing them?)

 

I once talked to DragonHawk one night in regards to the concept of "conquest". Originally it was about XCAS, where one species was essentially taking over another. After some discussion, it was mutually agreed that conquest doesn't take just a few years... Not even 10 or 20. You will need to go entire generations to change the mindset away from the current Government. When you grow up under the ruling of one government, usually the case is such that you would support it over anything else. (As evidenced by Nationalists all over the world. Although the US seems to have them in much more abundance.) So what do you do to change the mindset of an entire people? You really can't. Not without either slow and convincing presentation or forceful might. In either case, you truly have not conquered the people until they've grown into your order.

 

The Native Americans are the perfect example... In all the years, they were not truly conquered until within the last century. Who knows how long it would take to convert a people located so far from the mainland and dead set against us?

[Bomb Bloke]

I'm not so sure that the people of Iraq were ever the issue, at least as far as the invading goverments were concerned.

 

The issues were oil, Saddam, and the 'safety' of the home countries. That, and to make it look like they were 'taking action' (as they couldn't catch Osama).

 

I really don't think there was a plan for the people of Iraq.

[Gungadin]

On a somewhat related note, I just began reading the Koran and are comparing the writings in it to anti-Islamic websites such as www.prophetofdoom.net and the quotes don't match up. This puzzles me. Either it's a case of my edition of the Koran is misinterpredted (from Arabic to Danish) to make it seem more socially acceptable or it's a case of the prophetofdoom people bending words and taking things out of context to illustrate their belief that "Islam is a religion of Terror." I don't know which it is, although the PoD people certainly DO take several things out of context.

[Accounting Troll]

You could try comparing it with an English language version of the Koran, although I suspect that it is the Prophet of Doom people who have misinterpreted Islam.

 

Their article on the terrorist attacks on Russia is particularly revealing. They argue that because some Muslims have committed terrorist acts, Islam is therefore evil. By that argument, Christianity is evil because of the atrocities that some Christians have committed, such as the Spanish Inquisition and the Albigensian Crusade.

 

The author also doesn't seem to understand the role of the Chechen seperatist struggle over the last decade in the Chechen terrorist attacks against Russia. There have also been rumours of Russian soldiers committing atrocities against Chechen civilians.

 

It seems to me that the site author is one of the people who has become paranoid about Islam, just like the people who were paranoid about the Soviets back in the 1950s.

[Gungadin]

I get that same impression. Now that the Iron Curtain is down and all, everybody needs new enemies to be afraid of and despise, and the Muslims happen to be close at hand as well as conveniently different, with a lot of troublemaking in Europe to boost hostile sentiments towards them. Religion isn't helping either, Christian zealots advocating new crusades, Islamic militants calling for Jihad to free the Islamic world of heathen invaders. Both seem to forget that their holy books either stating outright that killing is wrong or that war and hostility saddens Allah and should only be used in self-defense. And the amusing bit is that Allah, God, Jahwe and Jah are the same deity being worshipped differently.

 

I think it's the PoD people who misinterpret it actually or take it out of context, or at face value. Religion can rarely be taken at face value. Their version of sura 9:5:

 

Qur'an 9:5 "Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war."

 

My version says the same thing, but the context as described in my version is that war was to be waged against those infidels who themselves had broken their pacts with Muslims back in the early days of the religion, and that agressive warfare in itself is not condoned by Allah, only defensive warfare.

 

Reading the verses, I can see both sides of the argument, that it can be interpreted as a call for both offensive and defensive warfare. It obviously depends on who's doing the interpretation, be they a foaming-at-the-mouth Jihad instructor, wanting to incite against the Great Satan, or an Evangelical Christian, preaching the neccesity of bombing Mecca. (which some people actually do.)

 

I wish the religious texts were more specific, to avoid such misunderstandings and the exploitation of holy texts for war justification. If I'd written the bible, I'd have said: "Thou shalt not kill under ANY circumstances, including if somebody annoys you, cuts you off at the freeway, takes your wife, badmouths your religion, refuses to follow your God (me) or just plain deserves it in your opinion."

 

Let's see Al-Zarqawi and Pat Robertson make something genocidal out of THAT.

 

Enough religious ranting: Back to the war.

 

Edit: Jesus, that PoD website sucks. They must get all their ideas from Robert Spencer. They criticize the Koran for "Including Numerous Foreign Words."

 

Yeah, those damn a-rabs, they coulda just written it in English like civilized people....

[Matri]

The thing I find disturbing is that ol' "aQ" have been quoting PoD's misquotes too.

[Gungadin]

As stated, the bitch is in the interpretation. If you live your life by a piece of literature penned more than a thousand years ago, God knows you have to interpret the writings in it to get them to make any sense in the modern world. Of course, there are people who take the writings literally or interpret them so that it gives them carte blanche from God to commit whatever atrocities they feel like, despite one of the most basic tenets of both Christianity and Islam being peaceful behaviour.

 

BTW, check out www.evilbible.com which is pretty much the anti-biblical counterpiece to PoD. Gotta love that "bears sent to kill brats" quote.

[Bomb Bloke]

Qur'an 9:5 "Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war."

 

My version says the same thing, but the context as described in my version is that war was to be waged against those infidels who themselves had broken their pacts with Muslims back in the early days of the religion, and that agressive warfare in itself is not condoned by Allah, only defensive warfare.

 

Putting asside the matter of who the target of these words was, the tactics discribed there certainly sound like offensive warfare... And that "using every stratagem of war" bit doesn't really condemn offensive tactics either.

 

Edit: Jesus, that PoD website sucks. They must get all their ideas from Robert Spencer. They criticize the Koran for "Including Numerous Foreign Words."

 

Yeah, those damn a-rabs, they coulda just written it in English like civilized people....

 

Foreign to english speakers, or foreign to Arabs (or... whoever wrote it)?

[Gungadin]

I meant "Offensive warfare" as in "invading somebody elses land without them first initiating hostilities against Islam," which the Koran prohibits. And of course they'd use whatever tactics they'd need to win. Those were the days before the Geneva convention, playing nice would get you nowhere. And even then, the verses immediately after the one quoted tells you how you must be merciful towards your captives and those who surrender to Islam and must cease all hostilities towards those who agree to convert. (albeit they did it at swordpoint, but hey, people didn't mess abut back then.) But it cannot be emphasized enough that it merely condones warfare against heathen agressors. (and by extension their women, children and cattle, but again, it was barbarous times.) The verse before the one quoted states how it is imperative to honour the pacts you've made with heathens "until they expire", meaning until they expire by breach of treaty on their part.

 

Again, it depends on who's preaching and what verses they choose to omit. Iraqi rebels cutting the heads off foreign contractors and filming it certainly doesn't sound like a very merciful, peaceful or righteous thing to do if you ask me, but I'm sure they have some preachy dude who can pull some verses out of his ass to justify it. Same with Rev. Fred Phelps, who uses scripture to justify him praising God for dead American GIs, because the US army is a FAG army! His personal site: www.godhatesamerica.com

 

As for the Koran being a jumbled mess: It's a jumbled mess with a lot of badly translated words because there are a lot of words in Arabic that have dual meanings or no equivalent word in English, making the translators job hell, and thus making him decide to let the original word stand. Words like Hajj, Zakat and Shahadah should need no translation anyway, since they're three of the fundamental pillars of the faith.

 

YOU try translating "Schadenfreüde" into English. See how difficult it can be.

 

The PoD site basically caters to redneck baptists, as far as I can see, for it is slanted as hell and about as scholarly as a Teletubbies show. It's a favourite over at Stormfront.org too, which should tell you something of its impartiality.

[Accounting Troll]

Those links make rather depressing reading.

 

That www.godhatesamerica.org was particularly appalling, especially the claim that the 2,000 plus American troops killed in Iraq deserved it because the US Army doesn't hate gays as much as the author thinks they should. In fact, in classical times a man was expected to marry and have lots of sons so that his nation would have lots of recruits for the army. At the same time, some nations such as the Greek city states encouraged homosexual relationships in the army because a soldier in battle would not wish to shame himself through cowardice in front of his lover. These are the same Greeks who crushed the powerful Persian Empire in a series of wars...

 

As for evilbible.com, the author claims that all Christians are intolerant while at the same time he makes it abundantly clear that he is intolerant towards them! As his rant about the ten commandments, well if he had bothered to read the bible he was running down, he would have noticed that Jesus got into a lot of trouble with the corrupt religious authorities for preaching that a strict observation of the fourth commandment was absurd.

 

I'm not even going to comment on the "Hitler was a Christian" article Or how the love your neighbour teaching seems to have been overlooked by the authors at BOTH sites.

 

After looking at those websites, I have concluded that if humanity was created by a supreme deity then that deity had a seriously warped sense of humour

[Bomb Bloke]

I wasn't referring to the translated versions. I was suspecting that the original version uses words foreign to the native country. Schadenfreüde seems to mean enjoyment of others pain...

 

The catch is not really what is written in the Holy books, but rather that most people don't know what is written in them, whether they claim to follow them or not.

 

For example, people consider Catholics to be the classic Christian image... But after doing quite a bit of research into the matter, I've found that they pay little attention to what's in the Bible, and a lot of their teachings contradict it. In fact, they've gone so far as to release a teaching document ('The Gift of Scripture') which points out some bits they believe are wrong...

 

There's only one referance that I can think of which 'forbids' gay behaviour, and thats where it says it's 'an abomination', right along with bestiality. It's really a case of hate the crime, not the sinner... But back then, there was no way to curb the disease it spread.

 

At least we got the pork and shellfish cleaned up.

[Matri]

I dunno about you, but I rather like pork and shellfish.

[DeepOne]

On a somewhat related note' date=' I just began reading the Koran and are comparing the writings in it to anti-Islamic websites such as www.prophetofdoom.net and the quotes don't match up. This puzzles me. [/quote']

The author of Prophet of Doom states quite clearly and up front (in his Letter to the Reader) that he uses a "blended" translation from five different translations. I think you will find that the quotes will rarely ever "match up" when viewing different translations. I have confirmed that for myself by finding different translations on the internet via Google.

 

Qur'an 9:5 "Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war."

 

My version says the same thing, but the context as described in my version is that war was to be waged against those infidels who themselves had broken their pacts with Muslims back in the early days of the religion, and that agressive warfare in itself is not condoned by Allah, only defensive warfare.

Muhammad was all about aggressive warfare. But you can't learn much about Muhammad (or even Islam) by reading the Qur'an. You need to read the Sunnah as well.

 

Edit: Jesus, that PoD website sucks. They must get all their ideas from Robert Spencer. They criticize the Koran for "Including Numerous Foreign Words."

You're apparently pulling things out of context (although it was more than a year ago, I read the entire PoD book). There is good reason for that criticism. If I remember correctly, Islam claims that Arabic is Allah's language and that the Qur'an is quite literally Allah's exact words. In that light, foreign words appearing in the Qur'an seem quite odd.

 

And even then, the verses immediately after the one quoted tells you how you must be merciful towards your captives and those who surrender to Islam and must cease all hostilities towards those who agree to convert.

How about this?

 

5:33-34: "The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter; Except for those who repent before they fall into your power: in that case, know that Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful."

 

That isn't exactly merciful toward captives. They must surrender in advance to get any "mercy". And surrendering means becoming a Muslim and paying the obligatory zakat tax (Islam has some things in common with the mafia).

 

As for the Koran being a jumbled mess: It's a jumbled mess with a lot of badly translated words because there are a lot of words in Arabic that have dual meanings or no equivalent word in English, making the translators job hell, and thus making him decide to let the original word stand. Words like Hajj, Zakat and Shahadah should need no translation anyway, since they're three of the fundamental pillars of the faith.

It is a jumbled mess in large part because it has no chronology or context. The great value of Prophet of Doom is that it presents the Qur'an in chronological order (this is very important due to the doctrine of abrogation) and that it includes many Sunnah passages which allow you to understand what the Qur'an is referring to (without this, the Qur'an is full of meaningless references). By the way, the five pillars of Islam are not really defined in the Qur'an; I think they rely on the Sunnah for that.

 

The PoD site basically caters to redneck baptists, as far as I can see, for it is slanted as hell and about as scholarly as a Teletubbies show.

I'm not very familiar with the site, but I did read the book. Most of the book is Islamic scripture. The author intersperses his commentary on it. While I didn't always agree with his commentary, the scripture itself supports the idea that Islam is a bad thing for anyone but an Islamic leader. The author, after having thoroughly informed himself on the subject of Islam, wrote the book to share what he learned along with his opinions about it. So, of course it's slanted. The only way for it to not be slanted would be for him to be completely ignorant about it (as most people are) in which case it would have made no sense to write a book about it. The question is, "Is his slant true or false?" You won't know that until you become familiar enough with the Qur'an and Sunnah, but if you've been following world events in recent decades, you should already have reason enough to suspect it could be true.

[Bomb Bloke]

Is the Qur'an you refer to, the Koran everyone else refers to? I'm not really well versed in Islamic teachings myself...

[DeepOne]

Yes, Qur'an and Koran refer to the same book. Qur'an seems to be the proper (or preferred) spelling. Koran may be a westernized way of spelling it.

[JellyfishGreen]

Referring to the original topic: Can the US and UK win in Iraq?

 

Historically, if the people don't want you there, you haven't a hope of ruling for long (peaceably or otherwise).

 

"We're coming to vote because we weren't allowed to do so before. We're coming to vote because we want the Americans to leave."

 

The result of the Iraq election was split along ethic lines: Kurds won in Kurdish areas, Shiite in Shiite, a few Sunni in Sunni districts

 

On the good side: At least they're practising their voting.

 

On the bad side: If the US pulled out, the best-case scenario would be the quick dissolution into 3 countries, assuming the Kurds could hold their own.

[Accounting Troll]

I don't think it helps our cause when British and American troops keep mistreating the Iraqi civilians.

 

Story.

 

I wonder if those idiots were proud of themselves after they beat up some Iraqi teenagers and kicked a dead Iraqi in the face.

 

I know that the News of the World is hardly the most reputable British newspaper, and there was that incident when the Mirror published photographs of British troops beating up Iraqis that turned out to be forgeries, but even if the latest accusations are baseless, they will serve to make the coalition troops even less popular among the Iraqi people.