'The New Way Forward'

[molson_golden2002]

Looks like the plan will be to flood Baghdad with new troops, station them on street corners and then to search house to house arresting young men and hauling them off to American jails, or worse, shiite torture rooms. Here is the Iraqi PM: "We are full aware that implementing the plan will lead to some harassment to all of beloved Baghdad's residents, but we are confident that they fully understand the brutal terrorist attacks Iraq faces." Bush has appointed a new general who implemented this strategy in Mosul, a city roughly 1/7 the size of Baghdad. Wolf Blitzer on CNN said that it was successful there until our troops were pulled out for other areas and the place fell apart again. Also, Mosul is mostly Kurdish, unlike Baghdad which is largely Shiite with a lot of ethniclly cleansed Sunnis. McCain is warning of many new casualties while the strategy is implemented, but says it will work in the end because the Iraqis will feel safe to go to work, won't have to rely on the militias for protection and economic activity would flower all under the steady eye our boys in uniform.

 

One wonders why the American Enterprise Institute authors of this plan think the Iraqis will suddendly become uncorrupted administrators of a government no one trusts. And corruption is a key componet of all this. Can't have a government function with too much corruption.

 

Also, these American troops will go out into Baghdad with Iraqi troops who probably are agents of the militias. That's a disaster waiting to happen.

 

God speed

[UConn James]

Link

 

What happened in Mosul was what's happened in war since time out of mind. While you're there in large numbers, you can control a lot of what happens; when most of your forces leave, what would have happened if you were never there will happen anyway.

 

This admin thinks if they just bang their heads against the wall one more time, a door will magically appear there. They didn't get the message from the voters.

 

But as I predicted before the election, this is all posturing so all of the polticial sides can go to their comfortable corners. Repubs threw the election so they can blame the Dems for 'cutting funding and not supporting our troops' and leaving Iraq 'before the job was done,' but at the end of the day, the real power brokers charged with keeping things status quo will meet in the back rooms and clink scotch glasses. The mess is cleaned up and either side can blame the other. Nothing changes.

[SilverNRed]

Repubs threw the election so.....

No, they just really are that stupid.

[molson_golden2002]

Link

 

What happened in Mosul was what's happened in war since time out of mind. While you're there in large numbers, you can control a lot of what happens; when most of your forces leave, what would have happened if you were never there will happen anyway.

 

This admin thinks if they just bang their heads against the wall one more time, a door will magically appear there. They didn't get the message from the voters.

 

But as I predicted before the election, this is all posturing so all of the polticial sides can go to their comfortable corners. Repubs threw the election so they can blame the Dems for 'cutting funding and not supporting our troops' and leaving Iraq 'before the job was done,' but at the end of the day, the real power brokers charged with keeping things status quo will meet in the back rooms and clink scotch glasses. The mess is cleaned up and either side can blame the other. Nothing changes.

I don't think GOP threw the election, they just lost. But the 'surge' is looking like an even bigger farse every day. They are not even sending enough troops to do what General Petraeus said needs to be done to quiet an insurgency. No where even close, actually. Perhaps macho Bush just wants to play tough, using the troops, with Congress. Raise the stakes so they have to stop him, and then he can claim he had the formula for victory but the liberal stopped him from succeeding.