Miami

swirlundergrounder · 01-11-2007, 05:45 PM

..What are your thoughts as he calls for more than 22,000 more troops in Iraq over the next sevral months and announcing other plans to secure Bagadad including Iraq becoming more self reliant with regards to their own security.

Any of you see this last night.

I thought the speech was decent.

The plan seems to make sense. Although I do not know why this sort of plan (embedding the troops in the neighborhoods after removing the insurgence) was not carried out a year ago.

It seems a little bit to late.

This is it though. If this plan doesn't work along with the diplomatic efforts during this next year, I get the feeling from the urgency in his tone last night that nothing will work and Iraq may just decend into chaos..

Bling · 01-11-2007, 05:47 PM

please refer to my thread here

http://www.cooljunkie.com/forums/ind...threadid=35869

swirlundergrounder · 01-11-2007, 05:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bling

please refer to my thread here

http://www.cooljunkie.com/forums/ind...threadid=35869

Just have POD delete your thread...

obby · 01-11-2007, 06:01 PM

This is how I took my Prez's speach:

We have no obligation to fix the social ills of other countries. We can give them the tools. We can give them the opportunity. We can give them their lives back. Ultimately however, it is up to individual citizens to take the reins and direct the plow.

Defending ourselves and others is the point. Obviously President Bush has read Alexander Hamilton's definitive words from Washington's farewell address. (Right, Washington's) Beware of foreign entanglements. Kick your enemy's butt, then give him the means to become our friend.

Bling....you're a flip flopper

obby · 01-11-2007, 06:04 PM

Good read IMO

January 6, 2007
The Sense of Good
American confidence necessary to succeed in a war for freedom.
by Bruce Thornton
Private Papers

The execution of Saddam Hussein should be a moment of celebration for Americans. Because of the blood and treasure of United States citizens, one of the worst dictators in recent history — a psychopathic thug with the blood of millions on his hands, a torturer and sadist eager to magnify the scope of his evil by acquiring weapons of mass destruction — has paid the just price for his crimes. We have shown the world that justice awaits such tyranny and inhumane brutality, that crimes against humanity have consequences. We should be proud.

But, of course, such satisfaction is not the national mood. The fatal failure of nerve afflicting the West — the disbelief in the rightness and superiority of our own way of life, of the values that will not tolerate monsters like Hussein — has left us discontented with the brutal costs of enforcing our beliefs. Spoiled by affluence and comfort, we chafe at the tragic constants of violent action: the unforeseen consequences, the mistakes in planning and execution, the inadvertent deaths, the brutality unleashed even in the good when placed in violent and fearful circumstances. These characterize every war, including what we now idealize as the “good war,” World War II.

But we were a different people sixty-five years ago, more spiritual, more mature, more confident in the rightness of our beliefs, and thus more accepting of the grim truth that sometimes the good must kill some people now so that the evil don’t kill more people later. No more. We are the therapeutic generation that wants to eat its cake and have it, to achieve all goods without risk or cost or hard trade-offs. We loudly profess our love of freedom, rule by law, human rights, and prosperity as goods all people deserve; we weep for the victims of tyranny and oppression and all who lack such goods; and we chastise our leaders for allowing such misery to flourish. But we don’t want actually to pay the nasty, bloody price of acting on those beliefs and destroying those who don’t respect them.

Rather than acknowledging our own achievements in Iraq, then, and pressing grimly forward to complete the task we began, we whine and snipe and complain about our “failure,” basing our judgments on impossible standards of perfection that imperfect humans will never meet. Much of this criticism is driven by ideology, of course. The Democrats and the media have opposed this war from the start, and thus have found partisan advantage in casting its progress as in fact a descent into some Vietnam-like “quagmire,” the pre-selected mythic paradigm that instead of the facts has shaped the judgments of most critics.

But even supporters of the war engage in the same sort of criticism. “More troops,” they cry, yet the point is not the number of troops but what you have them do, and those actions are limited by political constraints, namely our refusal to accept the tragic costs of war. In early 2004 we had enough troops to annihilate Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi militia, but we didn’t, leaving both to grow in power and influence. But consider the outcry that would have attended the necessarily bloody cost of that annihilation — the footage on CNN, the photos on the front page of the New York Times, the speeches decrying American brutality. Had that happened, there’s a good chance John Kerry would be president today, and Congress would be entering its third year under Democratic control.

But worse is the constant assertion that the U.S. has “failed” in Iraq. No one has “failed” yet, and it is a sign of our collective failure of nerve that we want to quit in the middle of the game. But it is not we who are “failing.” Hussein and his WMD capacity are gone, and a lethal threat has been removed. If worst comes to worst and Iraq doesn’t stabilize, a fractured Iraq that looks like Lebanon will still be preferable to a regime controlled by a psychotic Saddam Hussein flush with oil money and ultimately freed, as he likely would have been, from U.N. sanctions and weapons inspectors.

obby · 01-11-2007, 06:05 PM

The fact is, it is the Iraqi people who are failing, the Arabs who are failing, and Muslims who are failing. The same cultural pathologies that keep Palestinian Arabs sullen welfare clients, that keep Lebanon a political basket-case, that keep millions of Middle-Eastern Muslims mired in poverty and oppression and ignorance and gender apartheid, are the same forces that are keeping Iraqis in some Road Warrior dystopia — not our blunders, cultural insensitivity, arrogance, or whatever other excuse concocted by self-loathing Americans.

No, Iraq is failing because too many Muslims love sectarian hatred, love resentment and envy of a successful infidel West, and love their belief in their own God-sanctioned superiority and righteousness more than they love freedom, prosperity and human rights. We have spent American lives and money to give Muslim Arabs a chance to create a better life, and they are blowing it, all the while neighboring Muslim nations either sit on their hands or actively support the forces destroying that opportunity.

But a willingness to acknowledge and assert our superiority, despite our flaws, to a culture and religion that validate blowing up and torturing one’s fellows, is sorely lacking even among those who should know better. And that is what emboldens the enemy. He sees our impossible expectations and our utopian standards of action, but to him these are not the signs of the sophisticated, sensitive, “nuanced” sensibility that we fancy we are displaying. Rather, they are the symptoms of cultural weakness and spiritual corruption. So he fights on, confident that more explosions, more grisly footage, more exploitation of false guilt and moral exhaustion will help him prevail.

And if we don’t recover that ardent belief in the superiority of freedom and individual rights — the same faith that conquered fascist and communist tyranny — he just may be right.

coach · 01-11-2007, 06:15 PM

I didn't hear the speech, but I have heard plenty about the troop surge. I have mixed feelings about this. It would be insane to just dump the place, obviously. It would almost certainly devolve into chaos, and the *best* result would be another despot emerging like Hussein who hates America. Otherwise, it would just be a mass of infighting which would likely slop over into other countries in the region.

I was not a big fan of going in for the war, but once there, we have to finish the job if we want to *really* be in the business of National Security.

I always thought we had way too FEW troups. Bush's overoptomistic lies/misinformation/cluelessness or whatever you want to call it that he used to coerce the American public into supporting the war, I knew were totally unrealistic.

I cannot see any way out of this without more troops. I mean, it hasn't gone very well so far. Insurgents keep attacking our people and we haven't seemed to be able to reduce the violence. We need *something* to be able to deal with the issue.

However, maybe if we pulled out, the Iraqi's would get it together. Maybe the insurgents really *are* just pissed at America, but would be willing to work with their own elected government. I don't see it, but then, I don't have all the information.

Of course, our opinions are basically irrelevant because we don't have a significant amount of the information. So, who cares what the uninformed American public thinks? I mean, how many Americans are Sociologists specializing in the Middle East? How many are military scholars that have spent weeks studying the strategic situation? And even for people who *try* to stay informed, the gov't only releases a small percentage of the military and sociological information that they have.

Seb · 01-11-2007, 06:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by coach

I didn't hear the speech, but I have heard plenty about the troop surge. I have mixed feelings about this. It would be insane to just dump the place, obviously. It would almost certainly devolve into chaos, and the *best* result would be another despot emerging like Hussein who hates America. Otherwise, it would just be a mass of infighting which would likely slop over into other countries in the region.

doesn't really matter what we do at this point, this is the inevitible result regardless.

Mattivi · 01-11-2007, 06:26 PM

ive longed believed that Democracy is not a viable form of gov't in the mid-east. the people there are just too theocratic. my response to all the people that say we just need to pull out and let the iraqi's take over is it would be irresponisble. we started this mess, to just pull out now would make us look like complete ass-wads to rest of the world. but systematically pulling out troops while implenting a newer more effective strategy would be ideal.

when you cut thru all the window dressing of GW's speach last nite its pretty much the same plan with 20,000 more troops with an ambiguous timeline, little more. i agree with what TP(he makes a good points at times) that this should be an intelligence and special forces war. this is not a conventional war, it is very much like vietnam, and we all know what a disastor that was. anyways, its going to be an interesting two years....

V. Barbarino · 01-11-2007, 06:43 PM

I also have mixed feelings, I think this is the only plan viable I don't think the Dems have any plan except a plan that would keep us their longer. I think one last push is all we got but by the summer we must be talking tough to the Iraqi people explaining they have a choice, their kids can grow up in a war torn country or they can step up and provide a great place for their kids to grow up.

01-11-2007, 05:45 PM	#1 (permalink)
swirlundergrounder MegaJunkie Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 11,566	George Bush's speech to the nation last night... Registered members do not see ads. Register or logon for a better view. ..What are your thoughts as he calls for more than 22,000 more troops in Iraq over the next sevral months and announcing other plans to secure Bagadad including Iraq becoming more self reliant with regards to their own security. Any of you see this last night. I thought the speech was decent. The plan seems to make sense. Although I do not know why this sort of plan (embedding the troops in the neighborhoods after removing the insurgence) was not carried out a year ago. It seems a little bit to late. This is it though. If this plan doesn't work along with the diplomatic efforts during this next year, I get the feeling from the urgency in his tone last night that nothing will work and Iraq may just decend into chaos.. __________________ I'M AN ACID TRIP IN AN EGG ROLL....

01-11-2007, 05:47 PM	#2 (permalink)
Bling MegaJunkie Join Date: Jun 2003 Posts: 20,391	Re:George Bush's speech to the nation last night... please refer to my thread here http://www.cooljunkie.com/forums/ind...threadid=35869 __________________ the system is down....the system is down

01-11-2007, 06:01 PM	#4 (permalink)
obby CoolJunkie Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 1,753	Re:George Bush's speech to the nation last night... This is how I took my Prez's speach: We have no obligation to fix the social ills of other countries. We can give them the tools. We can give them the opportunity. We can give them their lives back. Ultimately however, it is up to individual citizens to take the reins and direct the plow. Defending ourselves and others is the point. Obviously President Bush has read Alexander Hamilton's definitive words from Washington's farewell address. (Right, Washington's) Beware of foreign entanglements. Kick your enemy's butt, then give him the means to become our friend. Bling....you're a flip flopper __________________ OBBY Sounds Of The Underground http://www.SOTUrecords.com

01-11-2007, 06:04 PM	#5 (permalink)
obby CoolJunkie Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 1,753	Re:George Bush's speech to the nation last night... Good read IMO January 6, 2007 The Sense of Good American confidence necessary to succeed in a war for freedom. by Bruce Thornton Private Papers The execution of Saddam Hussein should be a moment of celebration for Americans. Because of the blood and treasure of United States citizens, one of the worst dictators in recent history — a psychopathic thug with the blood of millions on his hands, a torturer and sadist eager to magnify the scope of his evil by acquiring weapons of mass destruction — has paid the just price for his crimes. We have shown the world that justice awaits such tyranny and inhumane brutality, that crimes against humanity have consequences. We should be proud. But, of course, such satisfaction is not the national mood. The fatal failure of nerve afflicting the West — the disbelief in the rightness and superiority of our own way of life, of the values that will not tolerate monsters like Hussein — has left us discontented with the brutal costs of enforcing our beliefs. Spoiled by affluence and comfort, we chafe at the tragic constants of violent action: the unforeseen consequences, the mistakes in planning and execution, the inadvertent deaths, the brutality unleashed even in the good when placed in violent and fearful circumstances. These characterize every war, including what we now idealize as the “good war,” World War II. But we were a different people sixty-five years ago, more spiritual, more mature, more confident in the rightness of our beliefs, and thus more accepting of the grim truth that sometimes the good must kill some people now so that the evil don’t kill more people later. No more. We are the therapeutic generation that wants to eat its cake and have it, to achieve all goods without risk or cost or hard trade-offs. We loudly profess our love of freedom, rule by law, human rights, and prosperity as goods all people deserve; we weep for the victims of tyranny and oppression and all who lack such goods; and we chastise our leaders for allowing such misery to flourish. But we don’t want actually to pay the nasty, bloody price of acting on those beliefs and destroying those who don’t respect them. Rather than acknowledging our own achievements in Iraq, then, and pressing grimly forward to complete the task we began, we whine and snipe and complain about our “failure,” basing our judgments on impossible standards of perfection that imperfect humans will never meet. Much of this criticism is driven by ideology, of course. The Democrats and the media have opposed this war from the start, and thus have found partisan advantage in casting its progress as in fact a descent into some Vietnam-like “quagmire,” the pre-selected mythic paradigm that instead of the facts has shaped the judgments of most critics. But even supporters of the war engage in the same sort of criticism. “More troops,” they cry, yet the point is not the number of troops but what you have them do, and those actions are limited by political constraints, namely our refusal to accept the tragic costs of war. In early 2004 we had enough troops to annihilate Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi militia, but we didn’t, leaving both to grow in power and influence. But consider the outcry that would have attended the necessarily bloody cost of that annihilation — the footage on CNN, the photos on the front page of the New York Times, the speeches decrying American brutality. Had that happened, there’s a good chance John Kerry would be president today, and Congress would be entering its third year under Democratic control. But worse is the constant assertion that the U.S. has “failed” in Iraq. No one has “failed” yet, and it is a sign of our collective failure of nerve that we want to quit in the middle of the game. But it is not we who are “failing.” Hussein and his WMD capacity are gone, and a lethal threat has been removed. If worst comes to worst and Iraq doesn’t stabilize, a fractured Iraq that looks like Lebanon will still be preferable to a regime controlled by a psychotic Saddam Hussein flush with oil money and ultimately freed, as he likely would have been, from U.N. sanctions and weapons inspectors. __________________ OBBY Sounds Of The Underground http://www.SOTUrecords.com

01-11-2007, 06:05 PM	#6 (permalink)
obby CoolJunkie Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 1,753	Re:George Bush's speech to the nation last night... The fact is, it is the Iraqi people who are failing, the Arabs who are failing, and Muslims who are failing. The same cultural pathologies that keep Palestinian Arabs sullen welfare clients, that keep Lebanon a political basket-case, that keep millions of Middle-Eastern Muslims mired in poverty and oppression and ignorance and gender apartheid, are the same forces that are keeping Iraqis in some Road Warrior dystopia — not our blunders, cultural insensitivity, arrogance, or whatever other excuse concocted by self-loathing Americans. No, Iraq is failing because too many Muslims love sectarian hatred, love resentment and envy of a successful infidel West, and love their belief in their own God-sanctioned superiority and righteousness more than they love freedom, prosperity and human rights. We have spent American lives and money to give Muslim Arabs a chance to create a better life, and they are blowing it, all the while neighboring Muslim nations either sit on their hands or actively support the forces destroying that opportunity. But a willingness to acknowledge and assert our superiority, despite our flaws, to a culture and religion that validate blowing up and torturing one’s fellows, is sorely lacking even among those who should know better. And that is what emboldens the enemy. He sees our impossible expectations and our utopian standards of action, but to him these are not the signs of the sophisticated, sensitive, “nuanced” sensibility that we fancy we are displaying. Rather, they are the symptoms of cultural weakness and spiritual corruption. So he fights on, confident that more explosions, more grisly footage, more exploitation of false guilt and moral exhaustion will help him prevail. And if we don’t recover that ardent belief in the superiority of freedom and individual rights — the same faith that conquered fascist and communist tyranny — he just may be right. __________________ OBBY Sounds Of The Underground http://www.SOTUrecords.com

01-11-2007, 06:15 PM	#7 (permalink)
coach CoolJunkie Join Date: Feb 2003 Posts: 9,372	Re:George Bush's speech to the nation last night... I didn't hear the speech, but I have heard plenty about the troop surge. I have mixed feelings about this. It would be insane to just dump the place, obviously. It would almost certainly devolve into chaos, and the best result would be another despot emerging like Hussein who hates America. Otherwise, it would just be a mass of infighting which would likely slop over into other countries in the region. I was not a big fan of going in for the war, but once there, we have to finish the job if we want to really be in the business of National Security. I always thought we had way too FEW troups. Bush's overoptomistic lies/misinformation/cluelessness or whatever you want to call it that he used to coerce the American public into supporting the war, I knew were totally unrealistic. I cannot see any way out of this without more troops. I mean, it hasn't gone very well so far. Insurgents keep attacking our people and we haven't seemed to be able to reduce the violence. We need something to be able to deal with the issue. However, maybe if we pulled out, the Iraqi's would get it together. Maybe the insurgents really are just pissed at America, but would be willing to work with their own elected government. I don't see it, but then, I don't have all the information. Of course, our opinions are basically irrelevant because we don't have a significant amount of the information. So, who cares what the uninformed American public thinks? I mean, how many Americans are Sociologists specializing in the Middle East? How many are military scholars that have spent weeks studying the strategic situation? And even for people who try to stay informed, the gov't only releases a small percentage of the military and sociological information that they have. __________________ hmmm... what to do?

01-11-2007, 06:26 PM	#9 (permalink)
Mattivi CoolJunkie Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 1,180	Re:George Bush's speech to the nation last night... ive longed believed that Democracy is not a viable form of gov't in the mid-east. the people there are just too theocratic. my response to all the people that say we just need to pull out and let the iraqi's take over is it would be irresponisble. we started this mess, to just pull out now would make us look like complete ass-wads to rest of the world. but systematically pulling out troops while implenting a newer more effective strategy would be ideal. when you cut thru all the window dressing of GW's speach last nite its pretty much the same plan with 20,000 more troops with an ambiguous timeline, little more. i agree with what TP(he makes a good points at times) that this should be an intelligence and special forces war. this is not a conventional war, it is very much like vietnam, and we all know what a disastor that was. anyways, its going to be an interesting two years.... __________________ "Show me a person without an ego and I will show you a loser.&quo

01-11-2007, 06:43 PM	#10 (permalink)
V. Barbarino MegaJunkie Join Date: Feb 2003 Posts: 11,845	Re:George Bush's speech to the nation last night... I also have mixed feelings, I think this is the only plan viable I don't think the Dems have any plan except a plan that would keep us their longer. I think one last push is all we got but by the summer we must be talking tough to the Iraqi people explaining they have a choice, their kids can grow up in a war torn country or they can step up and provide a great place for their kids to grow up.

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