The Calculus of Miscalculated Human Misery

An exchange abt my post #68 on another forum.

HP

Who do you see serving up this humble pie? What makes you think the president will eat it? I guess the Rumsfeld firing might be one indication that he`s prepared to change direction in some way, but I cannot believe that there will be any substantive change.

The US has no relations with Iran and Syria. Iran and Syria have absolutely no incentive to do anything but wait and watch as the US armed forces are depleted. The UN just got a fresh snub this week with the lame duck Bolton appointment.

Woodward reported that Bush was staying the course no matter what. He may well agree to claim to be undertaking yet another approach--sending Condi around the world again, say. But there is no evidence I can see that would lead me to believe that there will substantial withdrawals any time soon.

In the spirit of hope, I can make a constructive suggestion to add to your list: make sure a substantial fraction of oil revenues goes directly to citizens. This will lessen the Sunnis fear of impoverishment and will create a disincentive for interfering with production.

Posted by: Jay Ackroyd at November 14, 2006 | Permalink to this comment

My response

Jay,

As I see it, we have prepared the humble pie already and now it is up to our new reps to serve it. I doubt that the elections were an exercise in futility. However, we will surely see a lot of resistance from the administration but the public opinion at this time is not on their side. Sending the armies out on a war is relatively easy but the task of bringing them back without a victory can get nasty. Since there is no hope for a victory in Iraq, the public opinion would continue to bear down on the admin and the Congress to bring the troops home.

Your pessimism is well founded but the events on the ground and the forces of change are stronger. I doubt that there is any sane American left out there who would relish the status quo in Iraq.

Once the administration accepts the notion of change, it is everyone’s job to keep them moving in the right direction. This admin will continue to slide downwards on a slippery slope and that will give plenty of opportunities to the right-minded people to press home the advantage.

I know the admin has a huge mental block about talking with Iran and Syria and that is why I think either the UN or a focus group consisting of the countries I mentioned, would perhaps help break the ice. I am sure you are aware of some rendition flights that took some terrorists to Syria and back. So, the US does have a channel open to talk to Syria.

There is no solution in Iraq that will take less than a year. So initially, a timetable for one year would probably get the ball rolling.

“Iran and Syria have absolutely no incentive to do anything but wait and watch as the US armed forces are depleted.”

I don’t subscribe to that. The situation in Iraq also creates problems for both countries. In a civil war like the one we have in Iraq, the warring groups seek new hideouts and the fights begin to spillover in the neighboring countries. The ongoing civil war in Iraq may create refugee situation for both countries too. Lastly, no country cherishes living next to a war zone.

The US withdrawal from Iraq would establish Iran as a regional power and I think Iran would prefer that the US armies leave the area.

Posted by: HP at November 14, 2006 | Permalink to this comment

Okay Hamidm,

How much time do you need to finish them off?

Now I am not privy to the information abt the insurgents, but recently the US army concluded they are abt 30,000. Now 150,000 strong US army is trying to get to these 30 k for the 3 1/2 years. For you alone, it may take couple of hundred years. So go ahead and make their day!

Btw, where did I show any faith in arabs? All I said was, ``let all groups in Iraq start talking about the future.`` the talks could go on for years that wouldn’t bother me. I want my fellow citizens in the US army back home.

They don`t deserve to be with Arabs for an extended period of time. They might pick up bad habits and that might cause an increase in gay population in the US that is already hovering around 10%. Notice how gay population increased after the Vietnam war!

``but it will require a lot of patience on part of the american public and a gag order on the lunatic fringe of the democratic party ``

HAHAHA! They own the US now! It is time for the lunatic fringe of the republican party to hide in some sheep farm in the south and have sex there too. I hope you get an internet connection at the farm!

Let`s face it, the pullout is going to happen.

Re: # 68

hp,

.................. i admire your faith in the ayrab`s ability to solve his own problem, but i think it is wishful thinking ............ the important questions are : how many insurgents are there ? 20 thousand ? 50 thousand ? ..... and what will it take to exterminate them ? half a million troops ? a million ? ......... i think that once the militias are disarmed and half the insurgents exterminated, the iraqis will be able to put things together with supervision from a us/un force - something like bosnia ........... but it will require a lot of patience on part of the american public and a gag order on the lunatic fringe of the democratic party .........

hamidm,

The alternatives are very much predictable, and of course they are quite scary. It will get worst before it gets better.

Here is my plan that is under discussion on another forum right now.

The Baker-Hamilton group is looking for a new approach to forge a bipartisan consensus on Iraq. Bob Gates appointment is perhaps the first step in correcting the military disaster that has befallen the US due to that incompetent fool Rumsfeld, who wanted to be the military general and the civilian planner and ended up failing at both and led the US at the verge of a potentially humiliating situation. Now at least Bob Gates, a consummate bureaucrat, would let the Generals make the military decisions and his job would be to sell it to a restive and cynical US Congress and the US public.

The three ingredients needed for the new approach:

1. Make this arrogant administration eat the humble pie
2. Create a timetable for the US withdrawal
3. Negotiate with insurgents both local and foreigners and design some confidence building measures that can bring them to table to talk.

The Humble pie number 1:

Get the UN security council involved and let the security council members plus Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia find ways to:
1. a political solution.
2. Prod UN members for creating a 100,000 strong Iraq peace force that will be ready to replace the US army in phases. (The US must bear all expenses for this force.)
This administration has badmouthed the UN so many times that going to the UN would be the last thing it would accept. To soften this blow, create a focus group of the same countries above outside of the UN.

Humble pie number 2.

A) Announce a timetable for the US withdrawal. Cheney would probably resign before he allows el Presidente to sign on this but this must be shoved down the administration’s throat. Otherwise, the disaster in Iraq will continue and there is no way the US public or the new Congress will wait for two more years of inaction in Iraq.
Once the timetable is announced and the UN forces are being assembled, start talking with the insurgents through intermediaries.

Negotiations:
Drop bucket loads of money for compensation for the dead Iraqis. Give the Sunni tribal leaders the authority to distribute money as they please. Ask Saudi Arabia to announce amnesty for it citizens that are fighting in Iraq. This is a little known secret but 90% of foreign insurgents in Iraq are perhaps Saudi citizens who blend with the local Iraqis well. The Baathist would also like them to leave the country.

Start deploying the UN forces in different Iraqi Provinces and seek cooperation from the tribal and religious leaders. Once the UN deployment is complete, let all groups in Iraq start talking about the future.

I think it can work in less than three Friedman units.


#65 by hamidm2
Hamidm, You can start a tv war of your own to achieve your objectives.

Re: # 66

urstruly,

..... i am not a bania and am willing to pay whatever it takes to win this war - the alternatives are too unpredictable and scary .......... but it must be complete and total victory - none of this `phased redeployment` crap .........

Re: # 65

I think universal baniya is lot smarter than you. At 4 billion dollars a week expense any baniya would run with his dhotti on his head. White people call it `cut and run`; I call it, moula bux peer ay vigray tigriaN daa - and it is quite obvious what Arabs have done with the moula bux - they have shoved it where sun doesn`t rise.

Re: # 64


hp,

........ in case you are wondering about my position on iraq after the elections, i would like to go on record and state that i am with john mccain on this one - we must do whatever it takes to win .........and winning means disarming all the militias, killing all the jihadists and if need be, having a us general (a la macarthur) run the country for the next twenty five years .......... if it takes a million men, so be it (i am willing to forgo my tax cut).........

as douglas macarthur said, ``it is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it`` and `` in war there is no substitute for victory``

.......... or as i would say, ``laton kay bhoot, baton say nahin mantey`` - you only have to look at urstruly`s post for validation of this postulate :)

#63
I may have some answers for you in a few hours. In the meantime, enjoys this great piece from the net.

``One can almost picture Bush or Cheney as Wile E. Coyote chasing the Roadrunner. You know the Looney Tunes classic: The delusional but ever optimistic Coyote runs out of land at about the same time his jet-powered Acme roller-skates sputter and die, and with eyes wide, realizes that he`s suddenly, briefly, suspended in midair. No matter what Wile E. does at that point, he`s in for a musical descent culminating in a tiny puff of smoke at the bottom of a long fall. After repeated failures, even a toddler comes to appreciate that the Coyote isn`t exactly where a self anointed supergenius should be on the learning curve. Indeed, Bush`s many blunders would make for some quality slapstick cartoon fun -- if they hadn`t cost the lives and limbs of real, flesh and blood, human beings.

When in trouble, call Daddy: Incoming Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will inherit an ill-conceived war marked by the stunning incompetence of Don Rumsfeld. It`s really difficult to judge which is more pathetic: That George Bush has to rely on Daddy`s friends to bail him (And the entire nation) out from the consequences of his own piss-poor decisions, again, or that Baker and Gates may now have to essentially beg Iran and Syria to pitch in and save the Bush Family name. Either way, the traditional media is all a twitter with headlines like `Bush Willing to Listen to Fresh Ideas on Iraq.` This is one of the better examples:

Sun News -- Taken together, the expanding roles of Baker and Gates appears to signal the return of foreign policy ``realists`` to positions of influence. Realists stress advancing U.S. interests by working with allies and avoiding idealistic policies, such as intervention in other countries to promote democracy. Most of the hawkish group that orchestrated the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, sometimes called neoconservatives, is gone, including Rumsfeld, former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Pentagon aide Douglas Feith.
Jebus-Republican-Mega-Church-Christ, realism? Was Bush so sealed in fantasy bubble wrap, that he was unaware that everyone from Russ Feingold to Jack Murtha to Pat Buchannan to a slew of senior combat officers knew he`d gone off the cliff over two-thousand KIA`s ago?

Gates and Baker may bring a quasi-fresh perspective to George Bush, but it`s highly debatable if this President can face the humiliating fact that his hare-brained Iraq pipe-dream is DOA, and no amount of `fresh perspective` from old family confidants is going to re-animate that neocon corpus. The real question is if this egregiously overdue intervention by Bush senior will make any difference in the President`s policy, or if George W. Bush, supergenius, will doggedly drag untold thousands more, along with his own party, down with him to an all too real puff of smoke at the bottom of a long, tragic, fall.``

Iraq invasion could have been made good, despite the original reasons for it. Unfortunately circumstances and people involved have rendered the cause almost useless.

I have a few questions: If the US and UK withdraw ASAP as the jihadis and others want, what will be the result? Would the muslim-on-muslim carnage carry on? Would be there be out right civil war? Would the other local powers get involved? Are Iran and syria being called in to avoid local powers from being onvolved in the civil war in Iraq?

HP mian, Do you also suffer from the MASADI Complex?

HP mian, Do you also suffer from the MASADI Complex?

Only choutiyas would suggest that US is responsible for foisting dictators in countries like Pakistan.............that is nonsense........these dictators have come up because of the internal dynamics of these pure Islamic lands . To suggest that the coups , e.g that by Musharaff, was engineered with the help of US is like stretching our intelligence or even to suggest that US was distributing sweets on the streets of Islamabad after the coup is even more stupid suggestion................

The fact is that US has NOOOOOOOOOO control over these internal dynamics of Islamic purelands...............if that was so US would have got OBL and other terrorists hiding in Pakistan by now............this is another blame game and a favourite conspiracy theory foisted by the corrupt civilians , compradors and collaborators who have been profiting from the untramelled powers they share with the dictators.........................those who hoist this conspiracy theory want to hide THEIR OWN UNDEMOCRATIC, CRIMINAL ACTS BEHIND THIS CONSPIRACY THEORY of dictators, Criminals and Psycho Islamists coming to power because of US...............

These `educated` criminals from Pakistan are now getting exposed as the main actors and the puppetmasters behind the actions and workings of the criminal Islamists world wide..........

The fact of the matter is that getting out of Iraq is not going to be easy as US propaganda machinery is leading its people to believe once again. The first thing is that now every lallu panjoo from democrates to AlQaeda and in between would want their pound of flesh. Democrates would try their best to pin the disgrace of deafeat and retreat upon republic leadership. And it is written on the wall that republic leadership and especially bush would have to swallow their own excrement. The most arrogant fcuks like Rumsfeldt and Bolton have been thoroughly disgraced and Cheney is next. My guess is that chenney will backstab Rice and bush will outdo both.

At macro-level with the collpse of the empire, a new world order is bound to emerge. I anticipate more violence in the next 4-5 years in almost everywhere. The crumbling powers will try to salvage what they can, but unfortunately it is too late now. US may not disintegrate like USSR but I see that it is going to be crushed with its own weight. The probability of a Muslim holocaust in Europe has doubled now. The days of West propped brutal dictatorship and the annihilation of a westernized social class are now an inevitability.

#57,
You are just parroting what I wrote about a year ago on this site. Your terminology as usual is vulgar. However, Saddam was never popular in Ummah. Iraqis were punished for being Arabs but they have literally turned the tables and it is the US, which is being humiliated in Iraq and the Arab world now.

That is a bigger disaster and the ummah types would love the day the US leaves Iraq in humiliation. The incompetence of the current administration led to this situation. The invasion of Iraq was done in isolation but the retreat will have consequences.

Now leaving Iraq would not be decided in isolation but would be a part of the overall policy in the region. That will create substantially bigger problems to deal with. But there is no political problem in the world that does not have a solution.

US wanted to make an example of eyerack plain an simple. its like in a tribe of macaqe monkeys, the aplha male sometime will hump another potentially challanging male. its not about sex or procreation. its about setting up a world order. sadams regime was respected ammong the ummah as someone who challenged the alpha male. so with tacit support from other monkeys (ksa, egypt, turkey) iraqi regime was humped. while rummy`s force was planty strong for that, it was not sufficinet for taking care of the aftermath and turning water and electricity on. the humping was somewhat effective..libya gave up nukes pretty quickly.