A global energy (oil) shortage will be followed by a global food shortage. How many people do you want to sacrifice to starvation just so we can pull out now?

World oil supplies are razor thin. Some magical “alternative energy” is not going to swoop in and rescue us any time soon. Driving around with “war is not the answer” on the back of a Ford Expedition is living in an alternate reality that rivals that of the neo-cons. People will go bankrupt when they can’t afford to drive their guzzlers, and they won’t be able to unload them either. When the bankruptcies roll in, there goes the housing bubble.

I don’t like the idea of turning the blood of American soldiers into oil either, but a global recession or depression will result in far more loss.

Nice read. Now show me statistics that demonstrate how we’re actually winning, and maybe I won’t consider this report a waste of space. It doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know, and much of the analysis is simple subjective reasoning. Some touching examples:

-The report shows the number of Iraq police and security trained, but also says the amount of insurgent infiltration is “unknown.”

-The report was clearly written before the Aug. 15 constitution deadline was missed.

-The number of attacks is down slightly in recent months. Great. Tell that to the families of the dead servicemen and Iraqs who’ve died this month already. I’m sure it will comfort them.

-Demand for electricity seems to far exceed output.

-Oh, and I like how unemployment in Iraq has gone UP in the last year. That should quell discontent.

If you want to make a better argument, get some better evidence.

They’re bloody idiots.

Dems need leaders with better political instincts.

And now we’re back to the ‘domino theory’- let Iraq “subside into chaos” and before you know it, the mid-east will be in flames, oil prices will rise, and the world economy will collapse.

How charming it is to see so many posters talking about the ‘white man’s burden’, and how we can’t leave until the job is finished.

Say, ”Ghost Who Walks”, I think our work here is done. Time to give the horse a big sloppy kiss and mount up on Rin Tin Tin to ride off into the sunset.

Poor Rumsfeld- what he meant to say was, “They’ll give us flowers when we leave”.

Report to Congress Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq {a .pdf file}

Sorry, Oliver, JadeGold and Quaker…

Where have I suggested ‘a good place to start talking nicer about them, understand them.’?

Terrorism is a tactic. Nothing more. It is a tactic employed by various armies for probably well over a thousand years. We’ve used it. And terrorism is a tactic that’s been employed successfully (and unsuccessfully) by insurgencies.

They hate us. They hate our support for Israel. Not much more you need to know.

Are you saying we went to war in Iraq for Israel?

jadegold thinks a good place to start talking nicer about them, understand them. I call BS.

They hate us. They hate our support for Israel. Not much more you need to know.

Or to put it another, JDs whole point about withdrawal is based on the idea that if given a choice between attacking Americans and simply waiting for the Americans to leave the insurgents will choose waiting. Why? Because they are fundamentally cowards. Only cowards take potshots. But where JD is implying that potshots are a sign of the enemy’s fundamental weakness, potshots are actually the source of their strategic strength. How can we possibly win if we don’t even understand what it is we are fighting because of the language we use to describe it? I’m sure I have no idea how to beat the insurgency but I know a good place to start is to stop suggesting that potshots are a sign of their cowardice and weakness and to start trying to figure out and understand what were really up against.

Though I am no longer over there, my two younger brothers still are. The potshots that the terrorists take at our soldiers and the Iraqi civilians are just that, potshots. They do not wear a uniform, fight for a nation state, or operate under the guise of any rules of war known to man. They take potshots (there, said it again) because they know that their tactic tend to prove to be fatal when they actually engage the target.

Go wander around the streets of Basra, and let me know when you figure out what a potshot is. Better yet, put your money where your mouth is and sign up to be a human shield.

This is not a pot shot: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8797271/
The bomb flipped an amphibious assault vehicle weighing 26 tons. To refer to this kind of attack as a “potshot” is to once again refuse to face the reality of the situation. Jadegold is right. Insurgencies are like sharks, they have to keep moving or they die. Way back at the beginning of this thing it was reported that the Pentagon screened The Battle of Algiers to get a sense of what the French faced and how modern insurgencies behave. I can only imagine the brass stopped the film before the last reel. After torturing an insurgent to get the where abouts of his cell, the French bust in arrest or kill everybody and declare victory. What happens in the film’s final scenes occurs some years later, a sudden resurgence of fighting and finally a popular uprising that ultimately drives the French out. Even when the French thought they had won and all was quiet, the insurgents were moving, working, making things happen out of sight.

Insurgencies follow their own very long, very protracted timetables. That’s why modern democracies, with their high deployment overheads and weekly public opion polls, haven’t really had the best track record facing them down.

Timetable or not, the insurgents won’t stop until their defeated but how do we achieve that? Got a plan to win we haven’t heard before because the one we have now isn’t getting us anywhere near that goal. The bottom line is no American president could sustain the political or economic support for the length of time it would take to put this thing down once it got going. It was over almost from the start. All that’s left is to figure out how to get out. You don’t want to announce a timetable? Fine. But timetables, announced or otherwise, won’t matter to these guys. They’ve already killed thousands of Iraqis and US soldiers with our forces at the peak. Why would an announced withdrawal or drawdown date be incentive to stop?

Insurgencies thrive on immediate and on-going action; it’s what keeps and attracts recruits. For an insurgency leader(s) to tell his subordinates to go home and come back after a certain date is to risk having them not coming back at all.

Additionally, suicide bombers are recruited by ongoing efforts; in effect, the ’shelf life’ of a suicide bomber is very, very short. One doesn’t recruit a would-be suicide bomber to carry out an attack 18 months down the road.

Stockpiling arms is an activity which would occur regardless.

“don t have the luxury of waiting and biding their time in anticipation of an opposing force s withdrawal.”

Weak. Of course they do. Many of them live there. People fanatical enought to commit suicide attacks are also fanatical enough to wait say 18 months, stockpiling arms while we pull out.

Dugger

I thought these terrorist fanatics only wanted to blow up Americans. That we were fighting them there so we won’t have to fight them here. That they hate us for our freedom.

That would seem to suggest that announcing a pullout date would cause them to step up their terrorist activities, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t they want to try to “bring ‘em on” while they had the chance?

But maybe, the Iraqis are getting better and will be able to take over – in a year or so. I hope. Its now looming as a potential albatross in the next election on the D left and R right.

Dugger