Who would that be, the Sunnis, Shiites, or Kurds? al-Qaeda? Kidnappers?

That’s a bit more than a minor criminal element or two. There are some major destabilizing forces at work that could easily escalate and fragment the country.

As for the “liberated” bit of semantics, that remains to be seen. The current Iraqi government (such as it is) is increasingly theocratic and, I believe, has moved to restrict women’s rights and even called for the execution of homosexuals.

Liberated doesn’t always equal liberty.

BTW, the administration didn’t respond to ANY doomsday scenario. They were convinced that victory would be a cake walk and Saddam’s forces would crumble within days. On that point, they were correct. It was, and is, the failure to do any post war planning that has led to the insurgency and growing sectarian violence, not to mention opened the door to groups like al-Qaeda.

Frameone, the estimate of 24,000 dead is a lowball estimate of Iraqi civilian casualties from the war. It’s well known that the Pentagon doesn’t track civilian deaths very carefully, . Tommy Franks himself said “we don’t do body counts.” Bush guessed 30,000 and the Lancet Study estimated that 100,000 or so civilian deaths have resulted either directly or indirectly (meaning disease, malnutrition, etc. thanks to ruined infrastructure and the resultant loss of services) from the invasion. A major problem with the official body count is the lack of comprehensive efforts to gauge the damage done by wholesale assaults like the attack on Fallujah. Who knows how high the number has gone in the past year with the increased attacks by various factions on civilian targets.

Reported Iraqi casualties

I’m amazed that this “unstoppable force meets immovable object” debate is still going on, but then again, that’s what most of the debates around hear devolve into.

I don’t know where the 24 K deaths come from, but it was due to the american military…. We killed 40+K a year on our highways……

How about we describe the Iraq invasion as a the most people freed for the lowest body count in the history of the world….would that make you feel better? Are you ready to concede the point now?

Moron…..

I’d also like to point out that it’s a little absurd to claim that both Iraq is liberated but we have to stay until the job is done. Either Iraq is liberated or it isn’t. If the new government can’t defend itself without our help, a fat lot of good freedom does it, right?

At the same time, it’s equally absurd to suggest that we can pat ourselves on the back for the low civilian casualty count in the early weeks of the war when the three years of war to follow added 24,000 deaths to the tally. I mean come on.

The administration couldn’t appropriately respond to EVERY possible doomsday scenario…so coming back 3 years after the fact pulling up every crack pot with an opinion, opinion and saying “see we told you so” is ridiculous….

Incredible.

Look again, Bill.

Saddam is much weaker than we think he is. He’s weaker militarily. We know he’s got about a third of what he had in 1991. But it’s a house of cards. He rules by fear because he knows there is no underlying support. Support for Saddam, including within his military organization, will collapse at the first whiff of gunpowder.

That would be Richard Perle talking on PBS

Not good enough? How about the word of a general and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Myers?
They are much weaker than they were during Desert Storm, and their forces have generally become-been less and less…

Shorter Frank, “but Ted Kennedy said he was a threat!”

In Teddy’s defense (I’m not a fan, so don’t bother going there), he seemed to be postulating a worst case scenario, not making a statement of absolute fact. It’s also quite a leap from “can’t invade anyone thanks to a crippled military” to “may burn down his own house out of spite.”

Still, when I talk about millions of people not being fooled into buying the “imminent threat” malarky, I’m talking about millions of people OUTSIDE the beltway.

Interesting that you would put it this way given that much of Iraq is a vast empty desert.

http://www.ciaonet.org/special_section/iraq_review/pi_map/pi_map_04.html

“Not militarily crippled? We crushed him in DAYS”.
Yea, you are one brilliant tactitian…unfortunately we have quotes from before the war from your leftist collegues suggesting they didn’t get the memo…(by the way, those are the interesting quotes…the ones from before the war that didn’t come true. People were guessing about the outcomes for months, and so eventually every possible scenario was suggested. Then in hindsight, these folks cherry pick the ones that seem to be closest to the truth and say “see we told you so!”)

But how about some more hindsight quotes…

Ted Kennedy also predicted: “The U.S. could run through “battalions a day at a time” and that the fighting would look like “the last fifteen minutes of ‘Private Ryan.’”
Ted Kennedy predicted:”A war on Saddam might also cause an unprecedented humanitarian crisis with an estimated 900,000 refugees, a pandemic and an environmental disaster as Saddam lit the oilfields on fire.”
German politicians predicted: “Millions of people in Baghdad will be victims of bombs and rockets.”
What happened: The antiwar Iraqi Body Count site lists an estimated 4,000-6,000 civilians and fighters were lost in the startup months of the War in Iraq.

Then you go onto wholesale shell game semantics…
So yes, people die in war, but that doesn t excuse tactics like levelling whole cities as an example to the enemy. Your statement implied that death is an unfortunate part of war, but an ultimately unavoidable one. I countered that that has often been patently untrue, and that there have been instances where civilians were targeted en masse for what can only be seen as summary execution. For many, the Iraq invasion is and has been one extended war crime, making every soldier, mother, father, son, or daughter killed unnecessary and eminently avoidable

You make comments that can certainly be found true in past wars, Dresden and Tokyo for example, but for which no examples can be found in this war….

I have said it before and will say it again….This war set the gold standard for preservation of human life. Never before has so much land been liberated at such a small cost in human life…NEVER. Precision munitions and a superb military made that possible. We DID avoid useless civilian killing.

I could go on, but I grow weary of your ignorance….

Consider yourself smacked around…

RES IPSA LOQUITUR

When you make statements like “You said ‘hegemony’ so that means “take over the world” to me, so I get to say “You were wrong for suggesting that Hussein was going to take over the world,” something is way out of wack, and it’s not my comment. Why am I explaining this to you? Aren’t you just “smacking me around”?

I didn’t excuse any tactics of any kind — that came out of your head. Want to know how I feel about that? Ask me — don’t tell me. How can I restate my intentions more clearly, before you let me know that you didn’t understand something?

You’re right about one thing — you are “smacking me around.” You’re not proving a damn thing. You’re not even debating. You’re just wasting your time and mine. “This tired debate”, as you call it, I certainly don’t, will not be resumed tomorrow.

If you wish to continue the flamefest, that might be mildly interesting, you buffoon.

Uh, no. First, while asserting that Hussein had “hegemonic intentions” could be interpreted as merely meaning countries like Iran and Kuwait (Kuwait was originally part of Iraq while the conflict with Iran was largely religious in nature), the implication is clear, Hussein wanted to be a conqueror. Since liberals are often accused of being appeasers, and that they would have let Hitler take over the world rather than “get in the fight” back in WWII, the “hegemonic intentions” remark implies that Hussein would have been our generation’s Hitler had we not intervened. This argument has been a staple of the Right wing meme on Iraq from the start. If that’s not what you meant, then be more precise than “hegemonic intentions.” Not militarily crippled? We crushed him in DAYS. “Nearly everyone in the world believed” that Saddam had biological and chemical weapons? Besides relying on your unproven psychic powers, your assessment flys in the face of the millions who protested at the start of the war and the multitude of nations that refused to participate in the invasion. They all may have had grave doubts about Saddam’s stability and trustworthiness as a leader (no one disputes he was a tyrant), but few were willing to make the leap from “evil despot” to “imminent threat” based on the Bush administration’s word. Even fewer thought that violating international law and staging a “pre-emptive” invasion would result in anything other than the spread of Islamic fundamentalism and the destabilization of the region.

As for the WMD’s and al-Qaeda questions, they are non-issues. They have been gone over dozens of times at exhaustive length and there is little point in my dragging it all out again so you can ignore it when you resurrect this tired debate again tomorrow. I think at this point we can take it as a given that the world isn’t flat. Though, if you are so inclined, you can read this for yet more evidence that the WMDs were and are a fantasy.

Oh, and you did it again, Frank, you simply assert that I’m “wrong” without providing any actual proof. Instead you insist I’m mind reading and side step the subject. If I misread your intentions, then restate them more clearly. You said people die in war and I replied that people often die in war unnecessarily as the result of deliberate military action directed at civilian targets. So yes, people die in war, but that doesn’t excuse tactics like levelling whole cities as an example to the enemy. Your statement implied that death is an unfortunate part of war, but an ultimately unavoidable one. I countered that that has often been patently untrue, and that there have been instances where civilians were targeted en masse for what can only be seen as summary execution. For many, the Iraq invasion is and has been one extended war crime, making every soldier, mother, father, son, or daughter killed unnecessary and eminently avoidable (although maybe not now that we have destabilized the region so badly that civil war is breaking out).

Is anybody else getting sore hands smacking Frank around? He seems to have become the whipping boy in every thread around here these days. Even Dugger, DrPedro, and the rest seem to have disappeared into Frank’s shadow.

# frameone Says:
Stalk you? You are just so cute, Frank.

“I wish I could quit you!”

Either you stand up for what is right or you don t& .pick a side.

If you really want to engage in straw man BS, peedro, then let’s have at it.

Hmmm. I wonder which side the Putsch family picked during WWII? Who was it that Prescott Putsch was the international banker for again? Oh, yeah – the Nazis.

I guess we know whose side they were on during WWII…

You gotta love this. First bring up the comparison, then generously offer to let it drop. But it s really only a feint at compromise because it doesn t take long before&

How does one set a subject aside without mentioning it? I’m open to suggestions.

Second, my reference to Vietnam was neither geopolitical, nor was it in reference to Iraq, except in one regard: I was making a point about the idea that military strategists might have been surprised that thoroughly defeated soldiers would turn around and engage in guerrilla warfare, rather than “just go home, and be glad Saddam was gone.” A clear literary device. Sorry you didn’t get it. When I said we would leave Viet Nam out of the argument, I didn’t mean the name of the country would never re – appear.

“… its real purpose is to shore up Frank s credibility. As a vet (I see no reason to dispute that), Frank is arguing that he inherently has more insight into war than most and definitely more than wimpy liberals. Fighting in a war inherently passes on to the soldier an intimate understanding of the geo-political forces at work that both create and sustain hostilities. What s more, Frank establishes his humanitarian bonafides by making sure to mention that his sympathies were with the Vietnamese and not the duplicitous American government. See, he s not supporting Bush, he s supporting the oppressed Iraqis. It s all about the people and bombing the world to freedom and democracy. If a bunch of civilians die& especially their civilians, oh well. That s part of the price, and like the firebombing of Dresden, Osaka, Tokyo, and Kobe, or the nuclear devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the carpet bombing of Vietnam (and Cambodia), or the levelling of Fallujah, sometimes civilians just  get in the way, if you will.
To avoid a lot of boring detail, I will simply refer to a sentence at a time.
1. Wrong
2. Wrong — I meant no such thing (this is the part where you began to incorrectly read my mind)
3. I wasn’t saying that, because I don’t believe it’s true (incorrectly reading my mind again).
4. I wasn’t doing that, either –IRMMA — I was saying that, as much as I cared about them, I still wasn’t going to return to RVN to tilt at windmills.
5, 6, and 7. Total fiction, made up by you. I didn’t even imply or remotely comment like that.

But wait, Frank s not done&

Personally, I enjoy Frank s assertions that the things he says can t be disputed because of their overwhelming  truth.

This may be — may be — one of the few arguable points you raised — but you didn’t argue against it, did you? Calling it “rubbish” is not an argument. After all, I’m taking the time, now, to respond to your mind reading act, aren’t I?

Hussein, like Nasser, had hegemonic (Imperial) intentions. This is known, and can be documented. I will take the privelege of most liberal commenters, and treat it as a given, for you to disprove. (Good luck. It s true.)

Apparently wanting to rule the world is enough to actually make it happen, no matter how crippled you are militarily.

[I never said anything about "ruling the world" -- you made that up, too] If it were true, and nearly every one in the world believed it was, that Saddam possessed Chemical and Biological weapons, and had 250,000 trained troops at his command, he was by no means, militarily crippled. But again, you didn’t argue anything. I was just supposed to accept your instant, undocumented military assessment, even though it flew in the face of dozens of other military strategists.

Well?

{ Aside: All apologies. I can’t resist. }

All apologies. I can’t resist. It’s like watching a kitten bat at string.

Too funny. I point out that Frank, like many on the Right, takes it as a given that the truth is so fully behind him that he never has to actually support his arguments, and he counters that I’m wrong but he doesn’t have to prove it.

Awesome.

But then again, when you have the staggering power of truthiness on your side, the petty opinions of elitist liberals are little more than a “speed bump,” eh?

And on that note, I’m done contributing to the “let’s make another thread all about Frank” syndrome that’s becoming a staple around here lately.

Seriously, maybe the AP was simply savoring the victory of Bush’s brilliant “drain the swamp” strategery.