Democrats still have no plan (other than talk) to deal...Follow

Of course not. It's completely naive to think that when the US forces leave, everything will be rosy.

But the snag is that most people don't give a Shit. They want to get the hell out of Iraq, and que sera, sera.



The civil war will continue for a while, Islamists wil try turn Iraq into the old Taliban-Afghanistan, while government forces try to kill them. Most ordinary Iraqis will turn to their own militias for protection, as they are doing now. It won't be pretty, and it's a strong possibility that Iraq will be come a "failed state".

A lot depends on what the interntional community dose after the US has left.

Under the Good scenario, they won't just leave and wash their hands. They'll keep on offering aid to the government, both financial and military. With that, there is a slight chance that Iraq will turn into some loose federation with some strong population movment, and it might become a bit like Pakistan, or India, where people of very different religion live side-by-side pretty much peacefully.

Under the bad scenario, Iraq will split up into three warring countries, Turkey and Iran will get involved, Israel will seize up this opportunity to bomb one of Iran's nuclear plants, and the Middle-East will be more unstable than it has ever been.

I'm not optimistic, to be honest. Iraq needs a lot of help and support from the interntional community, financial, military, techonlogical, expertise, if it to rebuild itself. But even then, this country is filled of foreign Islamists that want Iraq to turn into a failed state. A lot depends on the Iraqi army and police, but they are torn by sectarian and religious divides. Uniting them under a "nationalistic" unity will not be easy, since this was the Baathist card. It's hard to see what identity Iraqis will take, other than the "Muslim" one. Which would not bode well for the future.



Of course they will. But it's even worse than that. These "terrorists" have just spend four years training against the best and most advanced army in the world. Their experience in armed fighting is not limited to blowing up a few Soviet tanks in the mountains, they have just received the greatest and most compehensive training any terrorist organisation can wish for.

Not only that, but their list of grieviances, and the number of people with a grievance towards the US, has increased exponentially since the Iraq War.

So now, there are more, better trained, and even moer pissed-off "terrorists" than before. The consequences of this disastreous war will be with us for a generation at least, and when I read people like Varrus who think that "nuking Baghdad" would somehow solve anything, it's hard to be optimistic.



The really important fight is not between "us" and Muslims. It's between moderate Muslims and extremists. That's where this stupid "war on terror" will be won or lost. And this fight is happening every single day, in many countries around the world. It's a propaganda war, it's a war for the hearts and minds, its a war of education. It's not a "military war" anymore. We need to completely change this perception amongst the Muslim world that it's "us" against "them". The perception that the US is an imperialistic power with an axe to grind against the Muslim world. This is what Al-Jazeera is saying, this is what the "Arab Street" is saying, this is preceisely what the 9/11 terrorists wanted to achieve, and all this is heavily supported by the War in Iraq.

So how do we change those perceptions?

The first place to start is obviously in Israel-Palestine. Nothing will change until Palestinians have a proper, continuous, and viable state. And, I'm sorry to say, there is only one country in the world with the influence to make this happen, and it the US. It's going to have to engange in heavy diplomacy with the Arab world to force a solution on that issue. Until then, we're just trying to empty an ocean with a straw.

Other things we need to do: Accept Turkey into the EU, isolate Iran into accepting unconditional inspections from the IAEA, nudge Egypt and Saudi Arabia into having fair and free elections, turn out attention to Pakistan since so much is going on over there, promote moderate Muslims from around the world, like Tariq Ramadan, so that their voices can be heard much louder, and most important, cut our dependence on Oil.

That's the "soft" measures, but they are incredibly important.

For the "heavy" measures, we need better intelligence cooperation between the EU, the US, and the rest of the world, and of course better spies. More Arabic/Persians/Pashtun speakers in the intelligence services would not harm anyone. Intelligence and propaganda will win this war, not tanks and bombs dropped from the sky. Those wil only reinforce the "Great Satan" image.

Please, run for president. Seriously, great plan! It'll take a while to pull off, but I like it, and it's better than my plan of drawing combat troops down to protection units working with reconstruction efforts, and not policing patrols.

On a side note, I heard an idea that would involve supplying the Sunnis directly with military equipment, and arms, and then letting them take on Iran directly in Iraq. While I'm not up for repeating mistakes of the past (supplying OBL, Saddam, and countless others), parts of the plan had merit, such as removing our military from the conflict zones, and empowering the local militias, national army, and Sunni groups, so that they may face the ****** directly. I like this because it's cheaper, however, it will make things far worse, and trigger a hatred and conflict greater than we know today, and I'm rather certain that no one really wants more hatred and violence in a land that has known far too much of it over the last couple thousand years.

Can I be head of the CIA?

If so, I'll push for a change in the Constitution.

I'll move, if you set me up with a nice job, that pays well, so that I may buy a nice car every few months and take great care of my kids (you know, good education, great food, lots of time to vist historical sites).

Edit: Heck, I'll even figure out how to rig the election to make 100% certain that you win.

Edited, Apr 11th 2007 11:42am by Metastophicleas

I'm thinking that I'll need at least 100k(US) per year, for a minimum of 10 years.

Varus


wow! Varus..You sure pwned rimesumes @$$ with that one...Leet!

So, My buddy is in the 173rd. They were in Afghanistan and are the troop in that country song $th of November or what ever...

I asked him what he and his fellows are thinking...

His reponce was, we can win but not without taking the proverbial gloves off. He pointed out that his Brigade has the most enemy kills, which I will get to in a moment. Essentially, he said if you people want to win these wars then there is only one real choice. Total Occupation and a lifting of the acts which prevent soldiers from firing on potential civilians. In other words, declaring the war that Americans dont have a real stomach for and commiting the same attrocities we so readily accuse others of.

Now, don't get me wrong, I dont advocate this and neither was my friend. He is a combat medic and really cares more about preventing the loss of life than body counts. He told me maybe the most disturbing piece of info I have ever heard...I even asked him to repeat it since I couldn't believe my ears.

The military keeps track of "Kills" in tonage. Thats right, 28000 tons of human. That is about 5000-6000 average adults. And that was just his Brigade. That I found frieghtening.

So anyway, you want to win the war(s)...Try carpet bombing and allowing our soldiers to do what they were trained to do...make the bodies hit the floor! Otherwise, we need to pull our troops and support the UN in building a police force of local Arab states to salvage our ***** up.

Here is my "Democratic" proposal:

1. Pay UN dues and offer finacial assistance to help build a coalition of Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran and others to create an all Arab force cabable of patroling the ethnic areas which corospond to those countries. We can even use this as leverage to help bring Iran into compliance on the nuke issue.

2. As those troops become ready, begin to withdraw our troops in an orderly fashion.

3. Accept that we are not going to be able to get out of this without a big bill. However, we can get out without a lot more loss of life and we can start to repair our international image by making obvious and politically open minded choices going forward.

4. Get ready to pay the real cost for Oil. I've seen the 8 dollar gallons in Europe. We need to prepair for that here. A major part of this plan requires immediate investment in modern energy making infrastructure such as that being created in Spain (Solar Power Plant).

Utimately, Iraq might cease to exist and it's ethnic areas would probably just fold into the respective states I mentioned. That's why the price of Oil would rise. The cause of ALL the violence and war is poverty. We are responsible for our fair share of this poverty and paying the fair and REAL price of oil is a begining to getting that fixed. There is a lot of work needed to be sure those countries pass the new income on to their peoples. However, that is the UN's job.