A Second Hand Conjecture

War Is Lost says Reid-Updated with video

Keith_Indy on Apr 19 2007 at 6:57 pm | Filed under: Domestic Politics, Foreign affairs, Keith's Page, Notes on the war

23 Responses to “War Is Lost says Reid-Updated with video”

1. on 19 Apr 2007 at 7:12 pm 1James E. Fish

   Since they gained control of Congress the Democratic party has been acting as though they are a second American Government. The seem to be more interested in sliming Bush and the Republicans, than doing what is best for the country. Harry Reid joins Nancy Pelosi in the running for the Neville Chamberlain Peace Prize.

2. on 19 Apr 2007 at 8:51 pm 2Panhandle Poet

   Reid is about as defeatist as they come.  Wait, maybe clueless is the correct word.  Wait, maybe he’s secretly communist….  Wait, I’m beginning to sound like them — wishy washy!

3. on 20 Apr 2007 at 12:09 am 3markg8

   I wouldn’t suggest Shiite for you if you’re pro life. Ayatollah Al Sistani says abortion is allowed in cases where the woman’s life may be in danger, say by her male relatives if they find out she’s pregnant.  In case you haven’t noticed 170,000 US troops can’t stop 25 million people form killing each other more effectively than 130,000. What they can and are doing is provide more targets for the insurgents. That ain’t no way to win a war.

4. on 20 Apr 2007 at 12:28 am 4James E. Fish

   Twenty-five million Iraqis don’t want to kill each other. A few tens of thousands do. Most Iraqis just want to be left alone to enjoy their lives. They deserve out support and protection. We are stuck to this ‘tar baby’ and obsessing about Bush and how we got here is irrelevant. We have an obligation to Iraq and must fulfil it.
   If you look at history since World War Two you could come to the conclusion, it’s better to have The United States as an enemy than an ally. We are resolute in opposition to our enemies. You can count on that. We dump out allies when it becomes politically expedient. You can count on that also. Senator Reid just proved it.

5. on 20 Apr 2007 at 3:52 pm 5markg8

   97% of Sunnis oppose the occupation, 83% of Shiites. I’d say Iraqis just want to be left alone by foreign occupiers to piece their miserable lives back together. There is no joy in Iraq. 53% say they have a friend or relative who has been killed or wounded by the violence. Only 26% feel secure in their own neighborhoods. We’re not doing the Iraqis any favors by remaining in Iraq. As the 26% above shows we can’t protect them. Even Gates says Dem pressure on Bush is forcing Maliki’s government to live up to the promises  they’ve made to the Suunis in order to end the insurgency. Left to their own devices the stooges in the Iraqi government wil continue to skim our government aid for years and Bush wants to let them. Why? Because he knows there’s going to be dancing in the streets of Iraq when US troops leave. They’ll be celebrating their "victory" over the occupiers. As soon as the aid runs out Maliki and his ilk will either make public anti American pronouncements, tear up the onesided oil contracts or simply take the money and run to Tehren or London. Bush knows that and wants to run out the clock on his presidency with our Army still in Iraq so the ignominous end will come under a different president whom he hopes will take the blame for losing his war. Why would Iraqis be so ungrateful? Besides the fact that they’re mostly Arabs and the USA has been getting bad press in the mdidle east for decades, it’s because we left them hanging in 1991 when Bush 1 told them to overthrow Saddam. Then we sanctioned them into the poorhouse for Saddam’s sins. Then we invaded, occupied and destroyed their country. Thanks to that invasion probably a million have died. 2.7 million are homeless. Other millions have fled the country. James with friends like Bush, who needs enemies.     

6. on 20 Apr 2007 at 3:59 pm 6Lance

   Mark,

   I am sure they do oppose the occupation, if you mean they wish it were over. However, polls show the majority don’t want us to leave either.  

7. on 20 Apr 2007 at 4:00 pm 7Keith_Indy

   What "one sided oil contracts"????

   Seems to me the Iraqis are the ones signing the contracts and seeking bids.

   Nicosia, Apr 19 (ANI): The Iraqi Oil Ministry has invited fifteen Arab,
   Iranian and Chinese firms to submit their bids for contracts to drill
   100 wells in oilfields in southern Iraq.

   … 

    

   He said the contracts would be in line with the new Energy Law prepared
   by the Ministry of Oil, which is still awaiting the approval of the
   Iraqi Parliament. He made it clear that the firms invited to bid for
   the drilling will not invest in the wells, but they will just drill the
   wells and give the South Oil Company the key.

    

8. on 20 Apr 2007 at 4:24 pm 8James E. Fish

    [James with friends like Bush, who needs enemies]
   
   It seems to me most of the times we have given our friends the royal barbed shaft, it was forced by the Democrats. We have been shafting our allies since Bush was a babe in his mother arms. You can’t blame America’s perfidy on Bush.

9. on 20 Apr 2007 at 5:23 pm 9markg8

   James, last I heard Key owned a Holiday Inn in San Diego and Thieu lived in London, probably off part of the billions in US aid to South Vietnam that disappeared. Those are the kind of people Bush cares about and they did quite well for themselves. I imagine Maliki and most of his ministers have tidy little retirement funds set up in Swiss or Cayman Island accounts for the day they escape too. Keith:

   http://money.cnn.com/2007/04/05/news/international/iraq_oil/index.htmDespite claims by some critics that the Bush administration invaded Iraq to take control of its oil, the first contracts with major oil firms from Iraq’s new government are likely to go not to U.S. companies, but rather to companies from China, India, Vietnam, and Indonesia.

   …

   The contracts under consideration are small.

   Aljibury said the Chinese agreement is to produce about 70,000 barrels of oil a day, while the Vietnamese one is for about 60,000.

   …

   But the barrel amount is tiny even by Iraq’s depressed post-war production of around 2 million barrels a day.

   …

   But none of this suggests Western firms like ExxonMobil (Charts), Chevron (Charts), BP (Charts) and Royal Dutch Shell (Charts) will be completely cut out of the action.

   …

   Second, Iraq’s oil contract game has just begun.

   According to a letter supplied by John S. Herold’s Ruppel, memorandums of understanding have been signed with all the oil majors for several years. And Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani has said the country plans to tender for major oil projects in the second half of 2007.

   Steve Kretzmann, executive director of Oil Change International, an industry watchdog group, criticized the draft oil law for allowing long-term oil contracts to be awarded to foreign oil firms, a practice he said was unique in the Middle East.

   "Giving out a few crumbs to the Chinese and Indians is one thing," said Kretzmann, who noted the draft law was seen by both the Bush administration and the International Monetary Fund before it was given to Iraq’s parliament. "But the real prize are the contracts that award long-term rights. I think the [Western oil companies] are biding their time."It’s a con on a par with declaring in February you think the budget deficit is going to be $423 billion and then celebrating because it came in under $400 billion in October.   Lance: That says a lot for their faith in their own security forces doesn’t it? You’ll notice that with the surge "standing Iraqis up so we can stand down" has gone by the wayside. No wonder when the Mahdi army and Sunni  insurgents are being trained by us in their army and in the prisons. If you had a choice of having your house ransacked by American troops or Iraqi goonsyou’d probably pick the Americans too. At least Americans aren’t likely to loot your whole CD collection.   

10. on 20 Apr 2007 at 6:20 pm 10James E. Fish

    [Those are the kind of people Bush cares about] [Those are the kind of people Bush cares about]

    I believe it was Democrat Lyndon Baines Johnson who brought Key and Thiu to power. Opinions are like an anal orifice, everybody has one. You have a right to your own opinion. You don’t have a rights to your own facts. You live in an alternate universe, with an alternative history. I can’t compete with you assertions when they are at odds with established history. You can’t debate a Chimaera.

11. on 20 Apr 2007 at 7:11 pm 11markg8

    "I believe it was Democrat Lyndon Baines Johnson who brought Key and Thiu to power."He also lied us into the Vietnam war. That does not excuse this president from making the same boneheaded mistakes. It’s not only Harry Reid who thinks this war is lost. A great many other Americans agree including retired general Tony McPeak, who served on the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War.  

    Here’s what McPeak had to say in the March 22 issue of Rolling Stone:

    The war in Iraq isn’t over yet, but — surge or no surge — the United States has already lost. That’s the grim consensus of a panel of experts assembled by Rolling Stone to assess the future of Iraq. "Even if we had a million men to go in, it’s too late now," says retired four-star Gen. Tony McPeak, who served on the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War. "Humpty Dumpty can’t be put back together again."You’re apparently living in the same bubble as Bush James. After what he’s done to Iraq they’re never going to be our allies. Get over it. We’ll leave Iraq. They’ll celebrate. We’ll deploy more troops to Afghanistan or we’ll lose that war too. Maybe we’ll finally get Bin Laden. We’ll send some to Kuwait and the rest home. Arabs will go on selling oil. The insurgency in Iraq will eventually die out without an enemy. The few Al Qaeda fighters in Iraq will be exterminated or expelled. We’ll go back to trying to form a more perfect union. Life will go on. If that doesn’t sound good to you then print your zip code and I’ll look up a recruiting office for you to go enlist. The US Army is taking pretty much anybody these days. Even lunatics.

12. on 20 Apr 2007 at 7:24 pm 12James E. Fish

    Our officer corps is just transforming to a new form of warfare. Light vehicles, small units, individual initiative, are the keys now. This is the kind of warfare retired officers have little or no experience with. Their opinions just add to the hot air produced by politicians, pundits and activists.

13. on 20 Apr 2007 at 8:17 pm 13markg8

    We’ve been at this war longer than it took to reach Tokyo in the face of kamakazi suicide bombers in planes and crazed suicide banzai charges after Pearl Harbor. The tactics do not matter when the strategy is flawed. If we had as many troops at the start as Petraeus himself says we’d need in the counter insurgency manual he helped write that was published last summer we might have had a chance at a happy ending. We didn’t and in any case we had morons like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Bremer in charge. We’re entering the 5th year of this war and you think a change of tactics written by Fred Kagan at AEI is going to save the day? You 30% deadenders better start reading the news. We’ve escalated before and all it did was increase the violence. It’ll be interesting to see what your brilliant strategy is this summer as the surge fails.   

14. on 20 Apr 2007 at 10:31 pm 14James E. Fish

    [We’ve been at this war longer than it took to reach Tokyo in the face of kamakazi suicide bombers in planes and crazed suicide banzai charges after Pearl Harbor]
    First a serious answer. WW2 was a conventual war with front lines, battle fleets and regular armies. That kind of war is easily won by one side or the other. Since Napoleonic times conventicle wars have rarely lasted more than a few years. This is an occupation facing resistance from a small part of the population. This takes a long time.
    When Nazi Germany fell, a group of die-hard Nazi’s formed the Vampyre resistance movement. They attacked trains, convoys and those who worked for or collaborated with the Allied occupation force. In a country that had been flattened by a massive air campaign and fighting in it’s streets, it took seven years before the Vampyres were defeated. That in a country occupied by around two million Allied troops.
    This correspondence is like we are in two different time lines. Similar, but facts in your universe don’t fit with facts in my Universe. That which, in your world are true, in my world are either false or conjecture. I could take the time to explain the facts of my Universe, but that would be futile. In your universe they would not be true. So from my Universe, I wish you well in your Universe.

15. on 23 Apr 2007 at 1:18 pm 15markg8

    WW2 was a conventual war with front lines, battle fleets and regular armies.

    Tell it to the French resistance.

    That kind of war is easily won by one side or the other.

    Easily? Something like 70 million people died in WW2. How easy was that?

    When Nazi Germany fell, a group of die-hard Nazi’s formed the Vampyre resistance movement. They attacked trains, convoys and those who worked for or collaborated with the Allied occupation force.

    That’s ridiculous. There was no resistance by Germans after the war. Not one American soldier died a the hands of any supposed insurgent. You’re a lunatic.

16. on 23 Apr 2007 at 1:31 pm 16Keith_Indy

    Someone better correct the history books then…

    http://www.thehistorychannel.co.uk/site/tv_guide/full_details/World_history/programme_2412.php

    In the months and years following the end of the World War Two, Allied forces faced a series of bombings and attacks in occupied Germany.

    Nazi loyalists attempted to derail the rebuilding process by killing any Germans collaborating with the enemy. And the mysterious SS-Werewolves underground organization boasted of the coming rebirth of the Party.

    Today, little is known about the activities of the Werewolves and other groups who opposed the Allied forces during this postwar period. And while the Nazi resistance effort did eventually fail, many of its methods and the harsh Allied response to them have real world implications for the present situation in Iraq.

    “The Last Nazis” will explore how the SS-Werewolves terrorized military and civilian targets behind enemy lines such as industrial plants, fuel depots, supply lines, and stray soldiers.

    We’ll hear from a former Werewolf as he describes his motivation and role in the guerilla movement. In addition we’ll travel to Aachen, where Werewolves assassinated the pro-Allied mayor, and Penzberg, the site of the “Night of Murder” - a senseless rampage aimed at preventing any German collaboration in which more than a dozen German civilians were killed.

    We’ll also explore the Allied attempt to purge Germany’s Nazi past through denazification tribunals - an increasingly unpopular set of trials that was hit by a wave of bombings.

17. on 23 Apr 2007 at 3:49 pm 17markg8

    You saw something on the teevee and base your knowledge on that? This is the first link I brought up on Yahoo.

    http://hnn.us/articles/1655.html

    Mr. Herf is Professor of History at the University of Maryland. He is the author of Zweielerei Erinnerung: Die NS Vergangenheit im geteilten Deutschland (Berlin: Ullstein/Propylaen, 1998).

    Four of the sixty million people killed in the Second World War around the globe were Germans. The German economy had collapsed. Millions of refugees flooded in from the East. Germany’s cities and transportation networks were in ruins. Much of the political opposition was dead or in exile.

    Before the end of the war, there had been rumors of possible guerilla war by diehard elements of the Nazi regime after the formal end of hostilities. Yet of all the many problems facing the occupying powers, a guerilla war was not one of them. The “Werewolves” had a scary name but no presence and did not become a serious security issue for the occupation. Instead of any heroic last stands, many Nazi leaders became the butt of bitter jokes as their promises of enduring heroism culminated instead in hundreds of suicides. The length and severity of the Second World War itself combined with the severity of Allied occupation made postwar guerilla resistance a fantasy.

    In these difficult times, it is important to remember that the occupation of Germany, which was far more familiar culturally and socially to the Allies than Iraq, was also very difficult, lasted a long time, suffered setbacks and left much to be desired.

    The victors found a sullen, defeated, demoralized and disillusioned population. Visions of revenge that had flourished after World War I were largely absent. In May 1945, the seven million members of the Nazi Party–and their families and friends–had much to hide and many networks and political skills with which to oppose de-Nazification. But after six years of terrible war followed by the full revelations of mass murder in summer 1945, there simply was no will among the Germans to continue fighting the Allies.

    After defeat, and then revelations of the genocide in summer 1945, Nazism and fascism were ideologically exhausted in Europe. No one outside a small lunatic fringe saw Nazism as carrying the torch of history’s forward march.

    Condi Rice tried to compare the Iraqi resistance to the “werewolves” in late summer 2003. It was dumb then and it’s no better now.

18. on 23 Apr 2007 at 7:10 pm 18James E. Fish

    The Werewolves killed 85 U.S. Soldiers, and a number of other Allied troops and German ‘collaborators’ and were a ‘problem’ during the first two years of the occupation. They lost almost all their influence after assassination the popular Mayor or Cologne. The Germans stages peace marches, but it took seven years before the last were rounded up.

    That the Werewolves were a threat at all in a country devastated by war and occupied by more that a million Allied troops is a lesson that can be applied to Iraq.

19. on 23 Apr 2007 at 7:18 pm 19James E. Fish

    Easily? Something like 70 million people died in WW2. How easy was that?

    Easy in the sense conventual wars are easier to fight then guerilla wars. No war is easy, but in conventual war a ratio of three to one is considered necessary for success, while in a guerilla war the ratio is ten to one.

20. on 23 Apr 2007 at 8:30 pm 20markg8

    The murder of the mayor in Aachen (Franz Oppenhoff) took place on March 25, 1945.
    The Penzberg “Night of Murder” happened on April 28/9, 1945. The war ended on May 8, 1945.

    Petraeus’s own counter insurgency manual says we’d need a 20 to 1 ratio for an insurgency like Iraq. But using your 10 to 1 ratio we’d still need millions more troops than we have in the whole US military let alone in Iraq.

    I can’t find any evidence at all for 85 US soldiers dying in occupied Germany by Nazi hands after the war. You have link for that?

21. on 24 Apr 2007 at 3:01 pm 21markg8

    I was wrong about the 20 to 1 ratio for an insurgent war. That’s just for peacekeeping and he may be low on that. There’s a 30 to 1 ratio in Bosnia and Kosovo I believe. There is no peace to keep in Iraq.

    And another thing, Bush’s stupid surge policy, written by Fred Kagan (AEI chickenhawk) and Jack Keane (a retired general), with “small units” deployed with Iraqi troops makes it easier to kill US troops. Just ask the 9 dead and 20 wounded 82nd airborne paratroopers in Diyala province. Suicide bombings are up 60% in the last 6 weeks in the ring around Baghdad. It’s just more whackamole.

22. on 27 Apr 2007 at 9:45 pm 22Kees

    The discussion of the German Werewolves was remarkable. Initially, Mr. Fish portrayed them as a deadly, seven year resistance movement that attacked trains, convoys and those who worked for or collaborated with the Allied occupation force. Forced by uncooperative facts, we take a step back and learn Werewolves killed 85 U.S. Soldiers, and a number of other Allied troops and German ‘collaborators’ and were a ‘problem’ during the first two years of the occupation. Our sadly neutered seven year resistance movement has scaled down to a two year problem. Then some more pesky facts get involved and it’s clear that the smoke that comprised Mr. Fish’ history lesson has cleared. How can these types of arguments be taken seriously?

23. on 27 Apr 2007 at 11:00 pm 23James E. Fish

    Mr. Fish portrayed them as a deadly, seven year resistance movement that attacked trains, convoys and those who worked for or collaborated with the Allied occupation force.

    Let’s not misrepresent what I said. The Werewolves were a problem for the first two years, but it took seven years before they were eliminated. The face they were able to operate at all in a country devastated by war is what is important. For what it’s worth the 85 Americans killed was a quote from post war military documents in a History channel on the Werewolves.

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