Not yet red. If we don't take the damn kid gloves off soon, I may. Small list of things I'd like to see. 1. Pull the Marines out. They are not peace keepers. 2. Stop playing politics. Do what we say, when we say it, or else we're leaving. 3. Disarm everyone. No iraqi, outside of government, should have the right to own a weapon at this time. 4. Figure out a way for them to fund their own reconstruction. There are plenty of resources there to tap into. 5. Have I mentioned pulling the Marines out? 6. Blow the hell out of iran. If for no other reason, because they're hamstringing our efforts in iraq. 7. Blow up the mosques and blame it on the terrorist. 8. If all else fails, kill them all and repopulate.
Agreed. Too late. This would have taken the 500,000 troops that the Generals knew they needed and it would have had to have been done immediately after the fall of Baghdad. Right now, a million US troops might not be able to disarm the place. Its a guerrilla war, Salty. No front line--every house, shed, and spider hole in the whole giant bloody country can be a small armory. Good idea, but it never worked because the rags keep blowing up the pipelines and killing the oil field workers for cooperating with us. This is a problem that disappears when we do. The rags will start pumping it again when it's all they've got. US tax dollars are addictive and we need to cut them off. Pull all of the warriors out. This is a political problem and will require a political solution. Troops on the ground ain't helping here and are probably making things worse. Better to ruin their economy and foreign relations causing another internal revolution. There is a large dissident underground in Iran. Let them kill each other on our behalf. Meanwhile we privately point out that about 3,000 nuclear warheads have been retargeted from Russia to Iranian targets and if they start a nuclear war, they are going to lose it on the first day. That includes any terrorist weapons with an Iranian return address. The mosques have already been blown by the Sunnis, except for the Sunni mosqes that the Shiites already have blown. The few true terrorists among them are not blowing mosques, they are setting mines and IEDs to kill Americans. This problem disappears when we do. Easy to say, impossible to do, and ultimately futile. All else has failed already, I say let the ragheads simmer in their own stew until they become reasonable. If they establish a country that is hostile to us we can always destroy them militarily again. But trying to patrol a country that hates us with too-few troops in a Civil war that is killing 3500 civilians a month in addition to Americans is simply unwise. Trying to force a democracy down their illiterate throats is just not possible. They have to want it and they ain't ready yet. Pull the troops and keep them ready for the kind of fight at which they are invincible. Keep them the hell out of nation-building and babysitting third-world civil wars. Time to send in the diplomats and arbitrators. I would put all of our militray resources over there to defending and strengthening the Kurds who are the only Iraq faction who have supported us and are not trying to kill our troops.
don't we have some illegal immigrants that want to "do the work americans don't want to do". I'll go for the pull out of some troops but only if there is an increase in air support. Bomb each and every cave and change the terrain a little bit in the mountains to smoke them out or kill the bad guys where they stand. In any case, the US needs to get more aggressive to show we mean business and stop pussy-footing around with these guys.
If it were that simple it would have been done already, as we sucessfully did in Afghanistan. They aren't hiding in caves in Iraq. They are hiding in the civilian population, and in the Iraqi police, and the Iraqi army. It is practically impossible to defeat an determined insurgency that is on their own turf and is supported by the population, as we learned in Vietnam and the Israelis learned in Lebanon.
