Friday, December 29, 2006

Congratulations to the Iraqis....

...for getting that mad murderous monkey off their back.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I didn't hear that Moqtada al-Sadr got killed. When did that happen? I know it wasn't when we had him cornered in Fallujah years ago.

Anonymous said...

did the iraqis do that? i thought the americans were responsible for bringing down saddam.
when does bush hang for his crimes against humanity?

Jeffrey Hill said...

Edward,
What's the matter? Can't spare a Snoopy dance for the execution of Saddam?

By the way, Sadr wasn't in Fallujah back in 2004. Those were Sunnis. Sadr is Shia. President Bush knows the difference, you should too, especially if you are going to pass yourself off as smarter than him.

Still, I get what you tried to mean - and you're right, we should have killed him back in 2004. Would you have supported that? Or would you have whined that it would have lost the hearts and minds or Iraqis? I know that answer, if you don't.

Anonymous,
I fully understand why you wouldn't want your name associated with such idiotic comment.

Anonymous said...

You are correct -- I meant Najaf when I said Fallujah. Do I weep for Saddam? No, but that still doesn't make this whole enterprise a fiasco. Even if you supported the intial invasion, I find it difficult not to accept that this administration has committed one clusterfuck after another ever since, especially in letting al-Sadr go when they had him -- and then freeing some of his more violent lieutenant's on al-Maliki's orders. As for the hearts and minds of Iraqis, we lost those long ago and it seems pretty unlikely that we'll ever get them back in numbers to make the whole mission succeed since so many of them are dead and those with means and intellect have just abandoned the country entirely for other parts of the world.

Jeffrey Hill said...

The question isn't whether you wept for Saddam, but whether you could spare a Snoopy Dance for his execution. I mean, I doubt even Kofi Annan wept. Based on your blog, I think you are incapable of recognizing the successes in Iraq - so it's no wonder you think it's all lost.

Anonymous said...

New schools don't even come close to making up for the thousands of lost lives, the chaos, the civil war, the growing influence we've handed to Iran on a silver platter, unfinished reconstruction projects, families forced to flee their homes and in many instances their country, etc. Even the neocons who still support the war such as Bill Kristol acknowledge that this administration has made one mistake after another in its execution (no pun intended). Isn't it time you acknowledge that far more bad has come out of the way this administration has handled this than good? Why aren't you as angry as many of the war's original supporters have become?

Jeffrey Hill said...

In this instance, the success is the fair trial and execution of a tyrant, not a new school. But there are other successes as well - dead terrorist, handing over provinces to Iraqi authorities, the constant struggle to get power online, business going, etc.

Believe it or not, I don't get marching orders from the neocons. I haven't in over a year - so I was unaware that I was supposed to be angry. Anyway, I'm not like Kenneth Adelman (remember the jackass that said the war would be a "cake walk" - then recently decided he didn't want to play war anymore?) Turns out, his support was about as trustworthy and bankable as most of the Democrats that voted for it. I tend to save my distaste for folks like that.

You want to hand Iran influence on a silver platter? Leave Iraq. I happen to think we are on course for victory, barring a premature pullout. Our differences can boil down to this: you think this was a war of choice, I think it was a war of necessity.

Shelby Button said...

it used to be a war of choice and now it is a war of necessity.

8th Man said...

I'll stop my Snoopy dance for a moment to ask a question of Edward.
Bush will soon be revealing a new strategy concerning Iraq. What would you hope that new strategy be?
This would be from this point forward, not what we could've done in the past.
Thanks.

Shelby Button said...

I am not Edward, but I am at home bored on a friday night. I had also posted about Iraq earlier.

How can the US decide what to do when there isn't any particular goal?

What is the goal at this point?

If it was all about the WMD... well... they aren't there. Saddam isn't there. Mission accomplished. Game over. Pull out and let the 'warring factions' figure it out for themselves.

I am assuming this is not in our best interests. I don't know if it had been said explicitly, but it sounds like whomever it is that steps in to take saddam's place will not be US-friendly.

However, it is unseemly to just let it go to the most successful warring faction. Can we get them to get along?

If this is truly the 'mission' at this point - to bring democracy. I say the answer is to do a foreign exchange student tyoe program to swap Iraqi families with American families.

Each can learn how the others live. Iraqis can see democracy at work. Iragi political leaders should be taken on guided tours of the national mall and have certain things explained to them in their own language. They probably don't really know who Thomas Jefferson is.

If the goal is oil or land accessibility, why don't we do like in olden times and put our flag up there in Baghdad and stay? Presumably this is not the goal. Even so, why don't we just march in a put our flag wherever we want? Is land acquisition no longer a factor in twenty first century warfare?