Top Ten Ways we know We have Lost in Iraq
Top Ten Ways you can tell we have have lost in Iraq:
10. When your daily news frequently includes an item like this: Reuters reports that
'Police found 56 bodies and a severed head in different parts of Baghdad over the last 24 hours, an Interior Ministry source said. The bodies showed signs of torture and bullet wounds.
Then you know you have lost in Iraq.
9. When 7 US GIs are announced dead on an ordinary day in Iraq, then you know you are not exactly winning.
8. When the Shiites, the primary beneficiaries of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, think the US is too pro-Sunni, you know you have lost in Iraq.
7. When the US military is so clueless that it planned to send a notorious Abu Ghraib figure, Sgt. Santo Cardona back to Iraq to train police then you know that you have lost in Iraq.
6. When 3,000 Iraqis a day are fleeing to Syria and Jordan and United Nations High Commission on Refugees is being overwhelmed, then you know we have lost Iraq. (That is a million a year! Iraq's population is 27 million).
5. When you start having teach-ins in Ann Arbor (shades of 1965) then you know it is all over with.
4. When even cities the US has destroyed like Fallujah are again becoming centers of insurgency, then you know you have lost in Iraq.
3. When finding Saddam guilty is so controversial that it may provoke waves of violence among Sunni Arabs, you know you have lost in Iraq.
2. When the Neoconservatives are suddenly against having invaded Iraq, then you know the Iraq War is lost. Talk about rats and a sinking ship! [Vanity Fair link here.]
1. When the Bush administration freely gives out to terrorists Iraq's old 1980s blueprints for building an atomic bomb, then you know we are just screwed as long as these people are in power. And they say they are better at protecting our security!
posted by Juan Cole @ 11/04/2006 06:30:00 AM
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20 Comments:
Dios Mio!
Mr. Cole, as aside may I ask you, what leads you to believe that the situation in Iraq will improve if US troops leave, rather than stay the same or get worse?
Egad, Cheney Agrees With Me!
The Bush administration is determined to continue "full speed ahead" with its policy in Iraq, regardless of Tuesday's midterm elections, Vice President Cheney said Friday.
Cheney said in an interview with ABC News that the administration is convinced that it is pursuing the right path in Iraq.
"It may not be popular with the public. It doesn't matter, in the sense that we have to continue what we think is right," Cheney said. "That's exactly what we're doing. We're not running for office. We're doing what we think is right."
RBC and I both that is what will happen. He's the only one who thinks it's a good idea, though.
Happy days.
When the Army Times, the Navy Times, the Marine Corps Times, and the Air Force Times all print an editorial calling for Rumsfeld to resign, you know you've lost the war.
Perhaps this should be No. 11 Juan
Nancy Youssef reports from Baghdad that she can't find anyone who thinks the US fighting for him or her.
As Daily Show Baghdad Bureau Chief Aasif Mandvi suggested last August, it may be time for a little
The major thrust of the recent Neocon "Neo Culpa" in Vanity Fair is not that the invasion was a mistake but that the Right Arabist opposition won control of the war and sabatoged their political project (hence, from their perspective, the perception in Iraq that the US is now too pro-Sunni).
They are not accepting defeat in Iraq. They are acknowledging defeat in Washington.
Can it be a coincidence that their white flag in Washington is waived on the eve of mid-term elections that will result in victory for the Democrats? The neocons are paving the way for Democrats to adopt the original Neocon, Right Zionist plan.
As I noted in a recent post, Robert Kagan has recently published a WaPo essay all about how cooperative the Democrats will be for the Neocon project.
Two ways you know US political strategy in Iraq is taking a 180-degree turn:
(1) Sunni resistance readying a common front for negotiations with the Americans (yesterdays Al-Hayat), angering Maliki.
(2) Negroponte proposes a new Iraqi intelligence agency to include Saddam-era agents (today's Azzaman), upsetting the Shiite coalition.
It's a little different from "knowing you've lost", its more like "understanding what's going to be coming next".
Prof. Cole
When you read something like this in the LA Times (online edition)
"He said "huge mistakes" had been made in the management of the war, and he blamed disloyalty among top Bush administration officials for a failure to get the policy correct.
"The decisions did not get made that should have been," he said.
He continued: "At the end of the day, you have to hold the president responsible…. "
Of course, Perle stop hailing Caesar, because instead of conquering Birtania he merely collected some seashells at the shore. As Borat would say "Empire, Nice!, Nice! Bush sort off...."
Professor Cole:
"1. When the Bush administration freely gives out to terrorists Iraq's old 1980s bluprints for building an atomic bomb, then you know we are just screwed as long as these people are in power. And they say they are better at protecting our security!"
It's numero uno on MY laugh list too, but for other reasons...
I do believe, and I have absolutely no evidence of this, that many of those papers had never exchanged DNA with an Iraqi national, had never had dust molecules from Iraqi soil on them... had never even been in Iraqi airspace.
I think that if those documents were kept online, some weapons proliferation expert somewhere would have figured that out.
Therefore:
John Negroponte, who was "pressured" by certain Republican elements to create the nuclear material website made a quick un-announced trip to Iraq... was it yesterday? As this story was breaking?
Hmmm. maybe there ARE Iraqi dust molecules on those documents after all.
Cynically yours,
The Buffalo In Da Midst...
"1. When the Bush administration freely gives out to terrorists Iraq's old 1980s bluprints for building an atomic bomb, then you know we are just screwed as long as these people are in power. And they say they are better at protecting our security!"
Delivering nuclear weapons technology to the enemy, in this case Al Qaeda via the Internet, is treason. I am waiting for President Bush to arrest all who participated in this disaster.
Running this weekend....
The Virtues of Cutting and Running
McLaughlin One-on-One
Lt. Gen William Odom
Odom shares his thoughts on withdrawal from Iraq and geopolitical stabilization of the region from Cairo to Kabul, Baghdad to Bombay.
He's bold. He's a curmudgeon, and I love him.
On PBS
The only item the General missed - McLaughlin claimed that polls show that the Iraqis love us. Odom "had no empircal data" to counter the false assertion.
91% don't like us. 61% wanna kill us
i have the same suspicions as Cutler; as the buzz moves away from "Stay the course", the Neo-cons slips into the "Internationalists" of Dems/Hillary & Bill. The focus is still on a successful occupation of Iraq. The Imperialist are simply shopping the deal...under the cover of an midterm election and later a presidential election..
Becthel is leaving Iraq with most if not all of their no bid projects unfinished while GI Joe is left and now simply fighting not to finish his life in Iraq...
If Iraq was seamlessly transformed, after the US invasion, to a Starbucks hot-spot and river frontage on the Tigris River was the new land rush.....Would you think it was OK to win in Iraq?
Tsky
Tim, you're joking, right ? You know that those are all editions of the same paper, right ?
John McCutcheon,
thanks for linking to the Odom interview. But note that it is not running this weekend, it ran a year ago.
The more things change, ...
An Exit Plan that is not "Cut and Run."
American political conversation lacks nuance. Everything is framed by everyone in black-and-white, concrete, this-or-that terms. The Nation either "stays the course" or "cuts and runs." Both parties participate. I offer the Dems a suggestion for a reasonable exit plan.
The Democrats announce that if they succeed in takinig control of Congress they will promote convocation of a Middle East Peace Conference with every country and faction invited, including Hamas, Hezbollah, Israel, Syria, et al. All offensive or retaliatory operations by all participants are to cease for the duration of the Conference. The goal of the Conference will be to arrange a stable peace in Iraq so the U.S. can withdraw its forces and close its bases.
The real blow to GOP hopes for holding the senior vote is hinged on general dissatisfaction on his performance from the faith community, to which many of the elderly belong, and most important of all, for many on Medicare, they are currently "in the hole" of the doughnut of Plan D. Back in early 2006, many cheered as they got their medications for less but now the "gotcha" of the amount they have to pay out of pocket suddenly bites them in the pocketbook. It really takes a political genius to arrange a drug plan for seniors where their greatest out of pocket payments are tracking election day.
More depressing than losing a war: the lack of proposals to exit the situation that don't stretch out years and years or entail solving ancient feuds and regional jealousies. Bush and the Neocons may be right to complain that criticism does not constitute a plan. Pleas for a more competent occupation, phased withdrawal, or multilateral negotiations don't seem destined to affect what is actually happening in Iraq. The reluctance to endorse the 1-YR ASAP exit proposed by Menéndez or Odom translates, de facto, to indulgence of failure, a lot of futile 2nd guessing, and the prospect of facing an even uglier situtation by 2008.
If we leave iraq things will get bad and if we stay in iraq things will get bad. It is up to the iraqi people to fight their own civil war and up to the US not to be caught in the middle as an occupying power and an easy target!
I offer the Dems a suggestion for a reasonable exit plan....promote convocation of a Middle East Peace Conference with every country and faction invited, including Hamas, Hezbollah, Israel, Syria, et al. All offensive or retaliatory operations by all participants are to cease ...The goal of the Conference will be to arrange a stable peace in Iraq so the U.S. can withdraw its forces and close its bases.
We tried something like that before...it was called "peace with honor"...in other words, you cut and run, while trying to retain your dignity in doing so.
An earlier poster questioned whether the situation in Iraq would improve if we were gone. I think we're long beyond that question. Every day we're there we make things worse, both for them and for us. It's time for all parties in the Middle East to step up to the plate and solve their own problems, and it's time for the US to get out of the way and let other nations manage their own affairs.
I find the "let's have them solve their own problems" talk a little offensive. We (the USA) have through this immoral war, created an incredible humanitarian and ecological disaster. In addition, we are participating in the genocide of innocent people through our proxy - Israel. We have done everything in our power to perpetuate these kinds of problems for years. We owe it to the world to not only stop doing damage, but to also use our unprecedented wealth and power to help these people.
Although I voted on the assumption that Democratic control of Congress will throw some kind of monkey wrench into the neocon war machine (I'm especially watching Senator-elect Jim Webb from Virginia), I fully realize it won't happen if we simply exchange PNAC-pedigreed neocon "Republicans" for DLC-certified neoliberal "Democrats". And part of the problem is the prevalence of language like this on the left:
>I find the "let's have them solve their own problems" talk a little offensive. . . . We owe it to the world to not only stop doing damage, but to also use our unprecedented wealth and power to help these people.
Aside from the obvious failure to learn the lesson that we *cannot* improve the world against its will, there's a hidden blank check for the War Party in the "we're there now, we have to stay" argument: all Bush has to do in the next two years is launch an unauthorized attack on Iran or Syria, then say: "Oops! Well, now we're there, we have to stay and clean up the mess we made." We *cannot* clean it up, and our every effort to do so is making things worse. We need to swallow our national pride, admit our mistakes, and stop digging the hole deeper. That is not the least we can do; it is *all* we can do.
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