Since everyone is whining about my "false dilemma", I thought I'd ask a simple question, and quote myself.

Quote :

"Look, we need at least another 200,000 troops in Iraq to control populations and allow infrastructure to be rebuilt. Where are we going to get those 200,000 plus the support units for them?"

8/24/2006 11:48:42 PM

I really care about those Iraqis.

8/24/2006 11:52:00 PM

Well the first time we fought them back in '91 we had a troop strength around 600,000 (might have been more like 400,000... i forget) to just sweep through and leave. Then we decide to invade, stay, and build a democracy in a place where that is very difficult. So we send in something like 120,000 and wonder why it wasn't as easy as the first time... huh. I think, if we are going to finish this thing properly, yeah, we probably need to increase the deployment levels closer to the '91 numbers. Unfortuantly, we don't have that many troops that are freed up. So we are going to have to work with what we have there and its going to take longer. Personally I don't think the mission has failed yet. There is hope. But damn if it isn't shaky.

8/25/2006 12:00:15 AM

If we don't send more troops, conditions in Iraq are going to get worse. Keeping only 130,000 troops in Iraq longer is not going stop the slide into civil war and chaos.

8/25/2006 12:09:37 AM

^^unfortunately

Not talkin shit or sayin your stupid...just lettin you know for the future...

[Edited on August 25, 2006 at 12:13 AM. Reason : ]

8/25/2006 12:12:31 AM

nuke iraq

8/25/2006 12:16:30 AM

^ You really believe that dropping nuclear warheads on Iraq is a legitimate proposition?

8/25/2006 3:31:31 AM

if you want a draft then yes

8/25/2006 4:30:48 AM

Of course he doesn't. He's just being an asshole because he has nothing constructive to add to any discussion...ever.

8/25/2006 7:58:18 AM

Quote :

"if you want a draft then yes "

winner...both positions are stupid

8/25/2006 8:57:52 AM

It's a simple question, people.

Quote :

"Should we send more troops to Iraq?"

8/30/2006 10:51:39 AM

i thought I was going to get a free iPod clicking this link

8/30/2006 10:53:36 AM

Quote :

" winner...both positions are stupid"

So would that qualify as a "no, we don't need more troops"?

8/31/2006 12:29:49 AM

Quote :

"Well the first time we fought them back in '91 we had a troop strength around 600,000 (might have been more like 400,000... i forget) to just sweep through and leave."

they were like the 4th (or maybe 5th) largest military in the world in 1991.

8/31/2006 1:08:47 AM

^The lesson is that when you determine force size, you also need to consider the occupation, not just your opponent's numbers.

8/31/2006 1:45:10 AM

^ Why is that the lesson? It seems so primitive. I'd hope the Pentagon isn't still having to learn lessons like that in 2006.

I like how pryderi just owned about 1000 Democratic political consultants as well as most of the Soap Box.

Should we or shouldn't we send more troops to Iraq?

Actually asking the question makes the issue a shit load harder for the war's supporters to respond.

Nobody talks about this, but the actual mission objectives for Iraq are as follows:

- Iraq is at peace with its neighbors
- Iraq is an ally in the War on Terror
- Iraq has a representative government that respects the human rights of all Iraqis
- Iraq has a security force that can maintain domestic order and deny Iraq as a safe haven for terrorists

How, aside from sending more troops, can the US-led coalition meet those objectives?

8/31/2006 10:19:07 AM

*crickets*

General Shinseki was right, back in February of 2003:

Quote :

"Army chief: Force to occupy Iraq massive WASHINGTON (AP) — The Army's top general said Tuesday a military occupying force for a postwar Iraq could total several hundred thousand soldiers. Iraq is "a piece of geography that's fairly significant," Gen. Eric K. Shinseki said at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. And he said any postwar occupying force would have to be big enough to maintain safety in a country with "ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems.""

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-02-25-iraq-us_x.htm

"Several hundred thousand" would be 300,000 troops. Right?

9/5/2006 12:52:17 AM

Yeah something like that.

The other way to accomplish those goals in Iraq is to let some parts of the country go to shit for a while, train thousands of Iraqis into a military unit that will work with the US forces, and use all combined forces in Iraq to accomplish our goals while recapturing the parts of the country that were allowed to turn into temporary safe havens for counter-occupational forces.

This would probably have a higher casualty rate (for the Iraqi forces especially) and would be less effective than 600,000 highly trained US soldiers being in Iraq, but it'll also allow the general public in the US to not be drafted (or more directly affected by the war) and would make it easier for the US to cut and run and make it look like we've accomplished our objectives while all we've done is leave up a really shaky situation that could fall to shit the first time one ethnic group tells the other ethnic group that their mother looks funny (look! they've got two hundred thousand soldiers of their own patrolling their own streets, we've got military bases in-country as backup units, and we're working together to fight terrorism on their borders, we won! Who gives a shit if two hundred brown people from differing ethnic groups die in street battles each day?).

Hopefully we'll end up trying to pull off the whole Iraqis defending their own borders and city streets business, using US troops to build up strength in areas where insurgency becomes a real flare-up issue, or using US troops to carry out more complicated raids against entire towns and cities. If I'd been watching the news instead of studying and trying to sort things into some sort of regular routine in my life, I might be talking slightly less than entirely out of my ass right now.

9/5/2006 1:10:57 AM

Quote :

"conditions in Iraq are going to get worse"

waaait...oh yea, let me start caring about that

9/5/2006 6:48:49 AM

What'll it take?

Higher taxes?

---

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/449471p-378328c.html

Quote :

"Condi uses Civil War to slap Iraq critics Secretary of State Rice compared the Iraq war with the American Civil War, telling a magazine that slavery might have lasted longer in this country if the North had decided to end the fight early. "I'm sure there are people who thought it was a mistake to fight the Civil War to its end and to insist that the emancipation of slaves would hold," Rice said in the new issue of Essence magazine. "I know there were people who said, 'Why don't we get out of this now, take a peace with the South, but leave the South with slaves?'" Rice said. Rice also bristled at the notion that the Bush administration's slow response last year in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was because of the race of the majority of the victims. "I resented the notion that the President of the United States, this President of the United States, would somehow decide to let people suffer because they were black," Rice told the magazine. "I found that to be the most corrosive and outrageous claim that anybody could have made, and it was wholly and totally irresponsible." Asked if she felt personally accountable, Rice said, "The government did its best. People aren't perfect, and this response was not perfect. You know, I do foreign policy, I don't run Homeland Security. I don't run FEMA. I do foreign policy." She added, "I did what I could to coordinate the international response.""

[Edited on September 5, 2006 at 5:01 PM. Reason : ...]

9/5/2006 4:37:15 PM

Quote :

"The other way to accomplish those goals in Iraq is to let some parts of the country go to shit for a while, train thousands of Iraqis into a military unit that will work with the US forces, and use all combined forces in Iraq to accomplish our goals while recapturing the parts of the country that were allowed to turn into temporary safe havens for counter-occupational forces."

Haven't we been doing that for over a year now? Remember when Bush said, "As Iraqis stand up, we will stand down"?

How many divisions have been trained? Are we integrating the troops so that we're not training Shia divisions and Sunni divisions that will fight each other?

9/5/2006 5:18:02 PM

^^bahahahaah AWESOME

[Edited on September 5, 2006 at 5:23 PM. Reason : .]

9/5/2006 5:23:15 PM

Quote :

"Are we integrating the troops so that we're not training Shia divisions and Sunni divisions that will fight each other?"

9/5/2006 5:32:34 PM

^^^ Yeah, that's pretty much what we are doing right now. Some parts of the country are dangerous as hell, but other parts are less so (though I would never go so far as to think that anywhere in Iraq is actually safe right now). They want to hold the major political and population centers until the national Iraqi forces can defend themselves, then as this happens we will use our forces to more aggressively pursue insurgent forces located throughout the country.

We're banking on the Iraqi army not falling to pieces while we finish doing what we had intended to do in the first place, basically, is what I think we're doing.

As far as recruitment, integration, etc. I think the Iraqi national army numbers several hundred thousand now (as far as infantry goes anyway), and they're saying that most of the brigades will be ready to function independently (without significant US assistance) later on this year or early next year (I'm piecing together little tidbits that I've picked up in various news articles in my head so forgive me if this is a bit vague). As far as ethnic concerns... I have no idea. I can only assume that they had enough common sense to say that building up each ethnic center with its own armed forces based entirely upon their own local ethnicity would probably cause trouble should a civil war ever erupt.

[Edited on September 5, 2006 at 5:37 PM. Reason : clarifying]

9/5/2006 5:35:45 PM

Yes.

9/5/2006 7:40:18 PM

Yes.

9/5/2006 10:56:27 PM

Yay! Some real answers! ^ and ^^

In your opinion, how many more troops do you believe it will take to succeed in Iraq?

9/5/2006 11:35:28 PM

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/09/08/missing.marine.ap/index.html

Quote :

" Marine's disappearance staged, police say POSTED: 9:46 a.m. EDT, September 8, 2006 DENVER, Colorado (AP) -- Authorities who spent five days searching for a Marine after a friend reported him lost in a hiking accident have arrested the friend and said Thursday they believe the disappearance was staged, so the serviceman could avoid returning to duty. Steve Powers, 20, of Boulder, was arrested late Wednesday for investigation of a misdemeanor charge of false reporting, Sheriff's Cmdr. Phil West said. In a statement, he added that the Marine, Lance Cpl. Lance Hering, could face the same charge, and that the sheriff's department planned to seek restitution for the thousands of dollars spent on the search. Authorities are still trying to find Hering, 21, who returned from Iraq in July and was due back at Camp Pendleton, California, this month. Powers had reported that Hering fell August 29 while the two were hiking and injured his head, losing consciousness in the rugged Eldorado Canyon State Park west of Boulder. Powers said he went for help the next morning, but when he returned, Hering had vanished. The sheriff's department and search and rescue teams called off their search after five days, saying they were confident Hering had left the area. "Essentially (Powers) was trying to keep (Hering) from having to return to service as a Marine," West said. "That's Powers' version. Powers has lied to us repeatedly, so we take what he says with a grain of salt." West said state authorities were comparing DNA from human blood found at the scene where Hering was reported to have fallen while rock climbing to samples from Hering and Powers. Investigators have some leads into Hering's whereabouts, but West declined to elaborate. A call to Hering's parents in Boulder and messages left with officials at the Pentagon and Camp Pendleton were not immediately returned. There was no telephone listing for Powers, who was released shortly after his arrest. Nobody answered a knock on the front door of the Hering home, in a quiet south Boulder neighborhood, where two electric candles were burning in the windows. Hering's brother, Air Force Lt. Brendan Hering, was on leave in Colorado from Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, said a man who answered a call at Brendan Hering's unit. Hering's family has said they do not believe he is trying to avoid returning to the Marines. "He doesn't run from his problems," Brendan Hering told the Daily Camera in Boulder for a story Wednesday. "He doesn't have any problems with the military." Brendan Hering said that about 10 years ago, Lance Hering hit his head and temporarily lost his vision and speech. A few days later, he suffered some short-term memory loss. He said his brother could be suffering a similar injury. Marine officials have told sheriff's officials that Hering was classified as unauthorized absent because he left before official approval of his request for leave, West said. The Pentagon has said simple desertion has been decreasing in the military in recent years -- about 2,500 troops last year didn't show up for work, down from almost 5,000 in 2001. But groups that run the GI Rights Hotline, which helps service members interested in getting out of their required service, have reported receiving more than 36,000 calls in 2005 and about 19,000 in the first six months of this year, up from fewer than 1,000 in 2001."

9/8/2006 11:34:11 AM

So he's just avoiding going to Iraq.

9/8/2006 1:44:47 PM

Quote :

"In your opinion, how many more troops do you believe it will take to succeed in Iraq?"

Look, when we first went in '91 we sent like 600,000. That was just to kinda run through and force them out of Kuwait.

The we decide to go in and stay until the country is rebuilt and send like 120,000.

One of the principles of warfare is overwhelming force. Now we clearly did it the first time, but not the second.

We can succeed now given enough time, but to make things quicker and smoother (ie less casualties long run), I'd send in another 300,000 (since we already have beaten the conventional resistance). I don't know where we would get them from though.

9/9/2006 11:11:02 PM

*ahem*

It appears that military is demanding an answer America. Wake up, please.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/09/11/officer_in_iraq_calls_anbar_situation_dire/

Quote :

"Officer in Iraq calls Anbar situation dire WASHINGTON -- The chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps in Iraq recently filed an unusual secret report concluding that the prospects for securing that country's western al Anbar province are dim and that there is almost nothing the US military can do to improve the political and social situation there, said several military officers and intelligence officials familiar with its contents. The officials described Colonel Pete Devlin's classified assessment of the dire state of Anbar as the first time a senior US military officer has filed so negative a report from Iraq. One Army officer summarized it as arguing that in Anbar province, ``We haven't been defeated militarily but we have been defeated politically -- and that's where wars are won and lost." Iraqi parliament puts off federalism debate. A9 The ``very pessimistic" statement, as one Marine officer called it, was dated Aug. 16 and sent to Washington shortly after that, and has been discussed across the Pentagon and elsewhere in national security circles. ``I don't know if it is a shock wave, but it's made people uncomfortable," said a Defense Department official who has read the report. Like others interviewed about the report, he spoke on the condition that he not be identified by name because of the document's sensitivity. Devlin reports that there are no functioning Iraqi government institutions in Anbar, leaving a vacuum that has been filled by the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq, which has become the province's most significant political force, said the Army officer, who has read the report. Another person familiar with the report said it describes Anbar as beyond repair, while a third said it concludes that the United States has lost in Anbar. Devlin offers a series of reasons for the situation, including a lack of US and Iraqi troops, a problem that has dogged commanders since the fall of Baghdad over three years ago, said people who have read it. These people said he reported that not only are military operations facing a stalemate, unable to extend and sustain security beyond the perimeters of their bases, but local governments in the province have collapsed and the weak central government has almost no presence. Those conclusions are striking because, even after four years of fighting an unexpectedly difficult war in Iraq, the US military has tended to maintain an optimistic view that its mission is difficult but that some progress is being made. While CIA station chiefs in Baghdad have filed a series of negative classified reports over the past several years, military intelligence officials consistently have been more positive, both in their public statements and their internal reports. Devlin, as part of the I Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward) headquarters in Iraq, has been stationed there since February, so his report isn't being dismissed simply as the stunned assessment of a newly arrived officer. In addition, he has the reputation of being one of the Marine Corps' best intelligence officers, with a tendency to be careful and straightforward, said another Marine intelligence officer. Hence the report is being taken seriously as it is examined inside the military establishment and also by some CIA officials. Not everyone interviewed about the report agreed with its glum findings. The Defense Department official, who worked in Iraq earlier this year, said his sense is that Anbar province is going to be troubled as long as US troops are in Iraq. ``Lawlessness is a way of life there," he shrugged. As for the report, he said, ``it's one conclusion about one area. ""

Confirmed by WaPo and NPR (via their homepage: Intel Report: Anbar Province Is Lost to U.S. Military, links to: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6056134).

This question can't wait for November. Or is securing Iraq only important when it's a winning issue? Better break out the funds for the negative ads. Turnout just might kill the GOP...

9/11/2006 10:19:57 PM

haha..its going to wait till november...and its not going to kill the GOP

not that im happy about it...but its not going to happen

9/11/2006 10:22:37 PM

Quote :

"including a lack of US and Iraqi troops"

I've wondered about having enough boots on the ground since day 1.

Upper chain wants this and that done, but are unwilling to commit the time and resources to actually do it.

9/11/2006 10:28:09 PM

9/11/2006 11:44:44 PM

Happy 9/11, folks. And a happy new year.

9/11/2006 11:52:04 PM

Everyone knows that it's Clinton's fault for gimping our military during a time of peace and prosperity. No blame what-so-ever can be placed on the Bush administration for half-ass commiting itself to Afghanistan and then trying to occupy Iraq with the forces he had available to them. When will those Iraqis stand up so we can stand down? Don't they realize that we are fighting with the army that we have and not necissarily with army that we want?

Is the next catch phrase going to be "We have to fight them in [Iran/Syria/North Korea/Lebenon/etc.] so we don't have to fight them in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here"?

9/12/2006 12:01:53 AM

^ That seems to be the neoconservative objective here.

I'm very curious to see how anyone responds to that.

9/12/2006 12:34:18 AM

i wish we could get up to about half a million troops in there honestly

then i wish we'd steal all the oil and leave

9/12/2006 12:36:58 AM

To be fair, I really think the catchphrase will look like this at this point: "We have to fight them over there because after spending a few years cowboying around in Iraq, we gotta set up a reservation arbitarily and watch it descend into chaos from the outside so we can go fight a real, crazy, motherfucker who is a huge danger to geopolitical stability."

The problem, and I really think this will be it, is that nobody is going to listen. Not for a while. And that's unfortunate because this time, they're absolutely correct. In the long run, the Iraq War may ultimately be justified on the grounds that it freed us up militarily to focus more on Iran. We'll certainly see. The manufacture of consent will prove more difficult the second time around, I fear. I just wonder how long it will take to happen.

[Edited on September 12, 2006 at 12:42 AM. Reason : ...]

9/12/2006 12:42:17 AM

what if all this money going toward the war is really going up toward preparing us for the iran war?

9/12/2006 12:44:01 AM

Quote :

"real, crazy, motherfucker who is a huge danger to geopolitical stability"

[Edited on September 12, 2006 at 12:47 AM. Reason : zing]

9/12/2006 12:46:53 AM

Then we have a grand case of manufacture of consent on a scale and in a manner not seen since WWII. The difference in this case is that the plan was more formal and calculated based on the threat of non-state actors, or asymmetric warfare. We had the same resources being relabeled (it's for our values, to spread freedom, b/c of WMDs, b/c of firing on airplanes, b/c of 1980s gas attacks, to protect our way of life) as conditions on the ground changed the attitudes of people who were footing the bill.

9/12/2006 12:49:32 AM

Or improving our own country? Just a thought. Oh that's right. Federal money is best spent on the military. Let the states deal with those trivial matters such as education, infrastructure, jobs, and research because we all know the gov't can't possibly manage it all.

9/12/2006 12:52:43 AM

Not when you try to drown it in the bathtub.

Desperation: "Whatever mistakes have been made in Iraq, the worst mistake would be to think that if we pulled out, the terrorists would leave us alone." -- GWB, today

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyid=2006-09-12T044831Z_01_N11241683_RTRUKOC_0_US-SEPT11-BUSH.xml&src=rss&rpc=22

[Edited on September 12, 2006 at 1:41 AM. Reason : ...]

9/12/2006 1:15:08 AM

hell yeah.

9/12/2006 4:41:22 PM