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America Won't Defeat The Insurgency

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An AP story released today has some interesting information about the ongoing "insurgency" in Iraq. Attacks on our soldiers are up. The casualty count remains steady at around 60 per day. And now, it appears that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has finally thrown in the towel. It appears that he has given up on defeating the "insurgency."

Rumsfeld said the focus of U.S. forces has been training Iraqi security forces rather than directing counterinsurgency operations.

"The United States and the coalition forces, in my personal view, will not be the thing that will defeat the insurgency," he said. "The people that are going to defeat that insurgency are going to be the Iraqis. And the Iraqis will do it not through military means solely, but by progress on the political side and giving the Iraqi people a sense that they have a stake in that country."

In accordance with our policy of sacrificing American lives for the sake of Iraqis, we are now more concerned with training Iraqi security forces than ending the "insurgency" ourselves. (I sure hope we can keep training Iraqi police above the rate at which they are being killed off by the terrorists.)

It's a sad day in American history when we no longer believe that we can militarily subdue a pathetic country like Iraq. It's a sad day when we feel that we must put our faith in the hope that the enemy country will subdue itself.

Edited by MisterSwig
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It's a sad day in American history when we no longer believe that we can militarily subdue a pathetic country like Iraq. It's a sad day when we feel that we must put our faith in the hope that the enemy country will subdue itself.

It's a sad day when America initiates the use of an unreasonable amout of physical force against another country.

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It's a sad day when America initiates the use of an unreasonable amout of physical force against another country.

I agree. Reason tells us that we should have used more force upon them--a lot more force.

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Just out of curiosity, when is the use of force by a free country against another country morally right?

Just out of curiosity, are judging "the way in which it was decided to go to war" and judging "the morality of this particular use of force" two separate issues or the same issue? Are we going to call this use of force morally wrong because the main justification for it turned out to be dead wrong?

If you and your family lived on a deserted island with ten other independent families, a few of which have leaders who have in the past explicitly stated that your family is its enemy, and you suspect that one of these enemy leaders is building weapons that could be used against your family as well as that he has aided in one way or another your other enemies, and if you at least know for certain that the head of this family beats, rapes, enslaves, and slaughters his family, are you morally right in using force to determine if he indeed has weapons, if he indeed has helped your enemies, even though these suspicions may turn out to be false?

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It's a sad day in American history when we no longer believe that we can militarily subdue a pathetic country like Iraq. It's a sad day when we feel that we must put our faith in the hope that the enemy country will subdue itself.

Iraq as the nation is no longer "the enemy country", Iraq's new government is going to eventually become our ally and an example to the world and the Middle East as to why Tyranny is evil.

I doubt there is any member of this forum who would actually agree to raising our taxes even though doing so would mean that it would be possible to provide more funds to our military, but assuming that we all think taxes are on the whole, inherently evil, then what Rumsfeld is actually saying makes sense.

That being, Iraq should move twoards running its own security, not relying on the US.

Let me give you an example of when American attempts to dominate militarily has been a burden that has come to back to haunt us. With the formation of the NATO and the subsequent formation of the Warsaw Pact as the counter-balance, the US had become Europe's guardian angel. At the time it made sense, the USSR was threatening Europe and only America could stand up to it, but then something went wrong. The Europeans never began to start building their own miliaries, they just depended on America for defense. So while European economies grew, their militaries never did.

This meant that the Europeans found that they had a lot of extra money lying around, and rather then start to take some of burden for defending Europe from the Red Army, they decided instead to use that money to fund many many social programs, as well as susidise many many asepcts of their economies.

Fast forward to 2005. Germany and France not only have ideologically confused governments, but economic systems that are so entrenched in protectionism, with unions who stand by the right of every French worker to work for two hours a week. Even if a reformer were to be elected in either country, that he would inherit an economic system that would require more purging and strong arm tactics then the public of most European nations could tolerate. Its why the EU is going to become an armed retirement community unless it accepts Free Trade to be truly Free of Subsidies.

Let the Iraqi develop their own security, let Iraq fund for its own defense, let the Iraqi people do that and become a Democracy that will put the rest of the Arab world to shame. Let them privitize their oil economy and watch as the country takes a light speed trip to the 21st century.

Let them do it by making them earn it, not by having America subsidise its security.

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Just out of curiosity, when is the use of force by a free country against another country morally right? 

Just out of curiosity, are judging "they way in which it was decided to go to war" and judging "the morality of this particular use of force" two separate issues or the same issue?  Are we going to call this use of force morally wrong because the main justification for it turned out to be dead wrong?

If you and your family lived on a deserted island with ten other independent families, a few of which have leaders who have in the past explicitly stated that your family is its enemy, and you suspect that one of these enemy leaders is building weapons that could be used against your family as well as that he has aided in one way or another your other enemies, and if you at least know for certain that the head of this family beats, rapes, enslaves, and slaughters his family, are you morally right in using force to determine if he indeed has weapons, if he indeed has helped your enemies, even though these suspicions may turn out to be false?

You go to war and then give the Medal of Freedom to the guy who said that evidence of the weapons was a slam dunk.

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Just out of curiosity, when is the use of force by a free country against another country morally right? 

Just out of curiosity, are judging "the way in which it was decided to go to war" and judging "the morality of this particular use of force" two separate issues or the same issue?  Are we going to call this use of force morally wrong because the main justification for it turned out to be dead wrong?

If you and your family lived on a deserted island with ten other independent families, a few of which have leaders who have in the past explicitly stated that your family is its enemy, and you suspect that one of these enemy leaders is building weapons that could be used against your family as well as that he has aided in one way or another your other enemies, and if you at least know for certain that the head of this family beats, rapes, enslaves, and slaughters his family, are you morally right in using force to determine if he indeed has weapons, if he indeed has helped your enemies, even though these suspicions may turn out to be false?

Well given how confident I (and many others) was prior to the war that no WMD's were going to be found in Iraq, and how the White House has admitted now that they don't expect to find any, I can only reach the conclusion that US intelligence in fact knew none were going to be found.

The White House lied, they knew better and lied. So yes the fabricated justification makes the war morally wrong.

On top of this they believed a bunch of lying Iraqi expatriates who told them lovely little faerie tales about being greated with cheering crowds and rose-strewn streets. This makes them morons and liars, any short look at the history of the area would have caused one to doubt this was going to happen. Hey, generals were even saying so publicly. Let's see who to believe...US generals saying you need something around 300,000 troops, or Iraqis telling faerie tales....

It looks like the real reasons were things like:

1. The US wanted troops in the region, but wanted to move them out of Saudi Arabia

2. The US wanted more control of oil

Neither of these are terribly just.

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It's a sad day when people don't understand concepts to the point where they call our actions in Iraq "an unreasonable amount of force" on just "another country."

To insist that I don't "understand concepts" is childish of you. And yes, I do consider Iraq to be "another country." If you are going to disagree with me, fine, state your argument; please don't blabber in a meaningless way that simply demeans yourself.

Just out of curiosity, when is the use of force by a free country against another country morally right? 

When that country initiates the use of physical force against you. Iraq never used physical force against us. One man potentially maybe would have. One man.

If you and your family lived on a deserted island with ten other independent families, a few of which have leaders who have in the past explicitly stated that your family is its enemy, and you suspect that one of these enemy leaders is building weapons that could be used against your family as well as that he has aided in one way or another your other enemies, and if you at least know for certain that the head of this family beats, rapes, enslaves, and slaughters his family, are you morally right in using force to determine if he indeed has weapons, if he indeed has helped your enemies, even though these suspicions may turn out to be false?

I would take care of the enemy leaders. Not enslave an entire nation to perpetual American military presence and the Halliburton oil theives.

I believe Ayn Rand said that it is immoral to initiate the use of physical force. In some cases we may have to take some preemptive action, but not action on a humongous scale. If anyone would like to express their disagreement with my position, please state your case rationally.

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I will try not to violate the Wizard's 3rd rule and keep my passions in check.

I thought my point was clear enough, but let me elaborate. Your assessment of our use of force as "unreasonable" is correct but not in the way you intended it to be. You claim that we used too much or an excess of force against Iraq. This is wrong. The fact of the matter is that we used as little force as possible. We have sacrificed lives and treasure when in fact we should've been reasonable enough to use as much force so as to limit our losses to zero. Do you understand war? Do you understand that half-measures and sacrifice are sacrifices made to our enemies?

A war should be fought so as to annihilate the enemy with as little cost to us as possible. We have not done this. This is so evident I'm sorry that you can't see it. Your assessment of "unreasonable" is dead wrong.

To "just another country." You claim only one man was our enemy and that the country HE RUNS is just another country. You don't grasp concepts because Iraq is NOT just another country.

Saddam had a machinery in place composed of a hierarchy of thugs and criminals. How can you even think of getting away with calling Iraq "just another country" that just happens to be lead by a barbarian. Again, if you were to understand the concept of morality, you would know how to judge countries as moral or not. A large country such as Iraq cannot be held under control by just one man nor even a handful of them. It doesn't matter if his men do as he says out of fear, they are ultimately responsible for the actions they take. Iraq was not "just another country."

Enslave a nation? Again you have no understanding of concepts. Do you understand what it means to be a slave?

As to your understanding of Ayn Rand's views, think about this, would it be immoral to shoot down a guy coming at you with a knife before he's even struck you? After all, he hasn't initiated the use of force against you (yet).

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Thanks, this was a good answer. I apologize for calling what you said childish and demeaning, although I still don't think it's fair to say that I don't grasp concepts or that I do not understand the concept of morality. Let me explain:

IF war is justified, we should do it right. I agree with you on this. It was a mistake of us to do it half-assedly. We should do it right or not at all. Our differences in opinion lies in the fact that I think we should not have gone to war, and you think we should have.

Yes, we should shoot down somebody who is coming at us with a knife. I think Iraq was more like a person who might have a knife in their pocket. In this case, it's better to get stabbed than to kill the man and say, "Oh, I thought he had a knife and that, if so, he may have used it." Then everybody thinks you're a jerk and there is nothing you can say in your defense.

At what point are you suspicious enough of the guy who might have a knife to go ahead and shoot him without getting stabbed first? Some of us were suspicious enough and some of us weren't--that's why there is disagreement among Objectivist-type people about the war.

Some people would say we should never leave the possibility of an attack on America open. I think we should have in this case, rather than undermine our ideals of international freedom, cooperation, and the use of force only in defense. I think non-invasive military tactics would have been appropriate, but not an invasion.

Lets keep in mind that the "insurgency" happened after the war because of our presence. Right now it appears that the place is full of hostile people, and it is--but they were hostile to us only after we invaded their country and stayed.

P.S. I should not have used the word "enslaved" earlier--was just trying to make the point that we've done an injustice to the average peace-loving Iraqi. Also, I did not use the statement "just another country"--I said "another country," which has quite a different connotation. Iraq is another country, but I agree with you that it is not just another country. :)

*Edited by poster to remove accidental quoting of entire previous post

Edited by valjean
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You're welcome. Apology accepted.

I would add to the analogy that Iraq was a known thug that might have had a knife in its pocket.

Yes about "just another country," but the lack of a modifier implied an equivocation, hence I pounced on it.

A moral, selfish country would never let a threat go unchecked or unthwarted.

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Just out of curiosity....

But what exactly did the Iraqi people do to the American people?

It doesn't matter what the Iraqi people did. Iraq was a dictatorship with no right to exist whatsoever.

If we needed Iraq for some strategic purpose in the larger war on the terrorists, then it was our government's moral responsibility to take Iraq with minimal U.S. casualties.

My only problem with the war in Iraq is that we didn't conduct an actual war. We conducted a rescue operation. We went in there to rescue Iraqis from Saddam. That was a misguided mission, and we are now suffering as a result of this non-warfare.

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Iraq as the nation is no longer "the enemy country", Iraq's new government is going to eventually become our ally and an example to the world and the Middle East as to why Tyranny is evil.

Until Iraq actually becomes our ally, I'll continue to consider it the enemy.

Personally, I think you've bought into Bush's propaganda a little too much. You would do well to read about the rising hostility toward our occupation. Only a few days ago tens of thousands of Shiites poured into the streets protesting against us.

Iraq is an example to the world alright--an example of how to beat down America.

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If you and your family lived on a deserted island with ten other independent families, a few of which have leaders who have in the past explicitly stated that your family is its enemy, and you suspect that one of these enemy leaders is building weapons that could be used against your family as well as that he has aided in one way or another your other enemies, and if you at least know for certain that the head of this family beats, rapes, enslaves, and slaughters his family, are you morally right in using force to determine if he indeed has weapons, if he indeed has helped your enemies, even though these suspicions may turn out to be false?

I think that it is one big nonsense to say that America went to war because of the possibility that there are weapons of mass destruction. I think that it is just an apology to the rest of the world. Even if there were weapons, isn't it every goverment's crucial task to protect its citizens from foreign invaders? They would have the right to hold these weapons.

In any case, there is a great list of nonsense that concerns this war. Basically, when I hear someone talking about it, I can't make heads or tails of it. I've read Op-Eds on ARI about this, but even they don't reveal too much. I have too much misinformation and I've heard too much contradicting statements about it to make any valid judgement about it. And when I go about actively studying the causes and the consequences of it, things aren't much different. But one thing is certain: America is not competent enough to wage war. The evidence of that is more than obvious. You are LOSING the war even though your firepower is by far superior and even though you spend by far more cash than some Iraq or Afghanistan on making these weapons (and on the soldiers too).

I don't know what the losers who are in charge of the operations are thinking, but they are clearly not thinking about winning - and that puts YOU - the citizens of the USA - in great danger.

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Speaking of nonesense, this is a perfect example of it:

Even if there were weapons, isn't it every goverment's crucial task to protect its citizens from foreign invaders? They would have the right to hold these weapons.

Do you understand the concept of rights? Does a dictator have a right to have weapons?

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In any case, there is a great list of nonsense that concerns this war. Basically, when I hear someone talking about it, I can't make heads or tails of it. ... I have too much misinformation and I've heard too much contradicting statements about it to make any valid judgement about it. And when I go about actively studying the causes and the consequences of it, things aren't much different. But one thing is certain: America is not competent enough to wage war. The evidence of that is more than obvious. You are LOSING the war even though your firepower is by far superior and even though you spend by far more cash than some Iraq or Afghanistan on making these weapons (and on the soldiers too).

Starting to sound reminiscent of Vietnam, eh? Regardless of differences of opinion across the board (no pun intended) about whether we should or should not have gone to war, there may come a time when rational American citizens should unite in the statement that "It is time to leave." Whether that is not or not, I am not sure, but it is looming as a future possibility.

*Edited to include the following, which was posted while I was writing the above.

Speaking of nonesense, this is a perfect example of it:

Do you understand the concept of rights?  Does a dictator have a right to have weapons?

Well, the dictator does not have the right to exist in the first place. But a country does have the right to have weapons. Thus, this is a cloudy and complex problem.

Edited by valjean
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Do you understand the concept of rights?  Does a dictator have a right to have weapons?

Valjean said it. A government should protect its citizens, no matter what kind of government it is. And for that they need weapons. On the other hand, dictators are madmen who wouldn't flinch at the idea of using these weapons for the initiation of force instead of self-defense. Such criminals are, after all, the sole reason why the free countries should develop weapons.

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Your "conclusion" that they knew no weapons were going to be found needs to be backed up by evidence.  Showing that after-the-fact we know we aren't going to find any is irrelevant.

Just say it, I can feel it coarsing through your viens: Bush lied, people died.

I'll say it:

Bush *did* lie. People *did* die and continue to die in this ridiculous screw-up of a war.

A voice that comes readily to mind that was saying (prior to the war) that there were no WMD's was Scott Ritter who was part of the UN inspection team in Iraq. He even went so far as to write a book about it. I recall that before that he was the conservative poster-boy for complaining that Saddam wasn't letting them work, but when he was saying that their work was successful they had no time for him.

If I though evidence of reliable voices saying there were no WMD's even mattered to you I'd consider researching some others. I recall reading (at the time) several very damning analyses of the nonsense presentation Powell gave to the UN.

The evidence is strong that the White House leaned on intelligence analysts to get them to claim there was evidence of a reconstituted WMD program. Cheney even visited the CIA to make sure (the VP visiting the CIA is unheard of).

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Until Iraq actually becomes our ally, I'll continue to consider it the enemy.

Personally, I think you've bought into Bush's propaganda a little too much. You would do well to read about the rising hostility toward our occupation. Only a few days ago tens of thousands of Shiites poured into the streets protesting against us.

Iraq is an example to the world alright--an example of how to beat down America.

Thankfully I am a Democrat so I do try to take what I hear from Republicans with a pinch of salt.

Iraq is not World War Two Japan, its events such as Abu Ghraib, where we do break the backs of the Iraqis, that they hate us even more.

America has not been beaten down. Unlike 2004, we now have the foundations for a government from which we will build up in order to restore order, and win respect.

Things can go wrong, but once again, unless anyone on this forum wishes to advocate raising taxes in order to pay for more military equipment, we do have the right idea with moving twoards making Iraq more self-reliant.

Edited by Strangelove
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