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Im-Just-A-Soldier wrote:

sturner wrote:

As posted in "Some Thoughts For Those of You Against The War"

1. Instead of having Haliburton and its ilk making millions of dollars doing not much with Jordanians, Eqyptians, Saudis, and Kuwatis, how about them doing the job we really want done. Rebuliding the infrastructure of Iraq. Hire Iraqis. Lots of Iraqis, Pay them good money to dig those ditches, teach them to run the heavy equipment, build roads, water treatment plants, electrical plants and substations. Not just in Baghdad,  but all over the country.

2. Restrict the access of faith-based persons to be in Iraq. That is not the place for them. Especially in government or support functions.

3. Build up our military to fully support the effort in Iraq. Provide adequate security so that the training can take place.

4. Train and fully equip the police and the army.

I believe I said in another thread, that it takes about a year to train a soldier in his basics and integrate him into a unit. That still stands. I'm very pleased to see that Soldier agrees with that. It is paramount to ensure that we follow through on that training with operations where U.S. and Iraqi forces clear and secure areas together. Both for our assurances, and the Iraqi's.

As units become operational, not just filled out, but fully field operational, they should be put into the operation plans for security, and as they do, our forces should be withdrawn.

I had wanted to reply to this when it was frist posted but time was limited for me.  But now that Im back home (YAY) I finaly get a little more.

Well at first glance this seems like a viable plan.  To be honest your not the first to think of most of it either.  Some people who make a whole lot more money than me have had similar ideas.  The problem is taking this from the blackboard to implimentation.  So lets go into some problems that arise when these things are tried.

1.  Your first idea is pretty much the one that the military has tried and is still pushing forward on.  The major problem that we run into here is the fact that the Iraqi people that we try to hire are scared.  You see whenever a local works with the US they become a very high value target for the enemy.  Now without giving to much detail, I was involved in a work project to construct a building in baghdad.  The day that the work started we moved with the workers to provide security as they dropped off materials and men.  The first few hours of the day went very smoothly.  But later in the day we were caught in a complex ambush.  The enemy never even fired at our vehichles, instead they went for the civilians.  We fought them off and escorted the convoy to safety, but the damamge was done.  The entire crew quit, and no matter how much moeny we offered they refused to come back.  Thats just one example but things like this happen allt he time.

2.  Now as for your restricting faith based people from Iraq.  This idea kinda puzzles me.  I have a feeling Im probably misreading the first part of it so Ill go on to the second part.  Which as I read it was to not allow them into goverment or any other position of power.  Now that would probably solve a good portion of the problems.  The only problem with that is who's left?  Iraq isnt like America.  Religion isnt a part of life it is life.  It would be like saying in America no one could be in politics that had a left foot.  Sure there are a few people here and there but not enough to staff every position.  Basicaly its not possible.

3.  Now as for us providing security so that training can take place.  Well thats what were trying to do.  Granted our success varies, but were fighting an insurgency.  Now the three tools of our enemies are snipers, roadside bombs (called IED's) and quick ambushes.  So lets go into this. 

Snipers:  In an urban enviroment a sniper will be able to get a shot off from a hidden position and we will have no idea where it came from.  The smart ones just take one shot.  Hit or miss thats it.  Most times they arent even that far (150 - 200) meters.  Normaly we can figure a direction, and maybe narrow it down to three or four houses.  It used to be we would just assault those houses and flush him out.  Now were not allowed to go in them so we just drive on. 

IED's:  ehh what are ya gonna do.  These things are incredibly hard to spot.  Your basicaly looking for an odd pile of trash or dirt pile, among all the other piles of trash and dirt piles.  Realisticly your not gonna find them.  Doesnt mean we ever stop trying.  This is why we have all the new armor, and this stuff saves lives.  I got hit by quite a few this year (somewhere around 13, but I stopped counting)  and none ever managed to give me anything more than a stiff neck. 
Instead of trying to find them in use we try to find the makers and the caches.  We cant find em like we used to because as Ive said before were pretty limited on where we can go and what we can do.

Ambushes:  We fare pretty well in these instances, hence why they are becoming so rare.  They try to hit us hard with small arms and rpg's and then run away.  We normaly get about half of them before they can get away.  But the rest do get away.  They run through houses and were not allowed to go into these places anymore without clearance from way up the chain.

All in all this isnt an easy fight for us.  One becuase an insurgency is just so complicated to fight without killing tons of civilians.  And secondly because the tools are limited more and more.  Ehh what ya gonna do though right.

4.  Train the army and police.  This idea is currently veiwed by the military as our way out.  Were throwing lots of money and lots of our soldiers out there to trian them and get them going.  But these people are so damned corrupt that its screwing it up every time.  Early in the war (right after the invasion was over) we started putting together the ISF (I think that was its name) which basicaly was soldiers from Saddams Army and police organizations so we could start getting them operational and taking over.   It fell apart in about a year because of all the corruption and scandals from within that we disbaned the whole thing and started from scratch.  This time we formed multiple agencies.  Army, Iraqi police (local cops), and national police (kinda like our FBI) and a few other smaller agencies to limit power. 


Now I hate to come and pick at someones post without having ideas of my own, but honestly Im burnt out on trying to think of ways to save Iraq.

I'm sure no one blames you for that. Hell, maybe there is no winning solution.

Oh, and welcome home, my man!

Here's my solution: GET THE smurf OUT.

I agree fully with what Colin Powell told the prez before the invasion -- you break it, you bought it. America has a moral and ethical obligation to make sure Iraq gets on its feet and turns out okay. However staying there and swatting at flies just isn't cutting it. So short of some highly unlikely humble diplomacy (breaking the ice, sitting down wih all the players in Iraq not to mention some clever maneuvering with its neighbors), the only option is to leave.

Zetetic Apparatchik wrote:

So basically, practical surrender to whoever wants the forsaken hole of three countries than negotiated effective handover to Iran?
It's so depressing that you're probably right. Hey, we've already started in large parts of Afghanistan.

Yeah, to borrow a phrase from TPM.com, where is the "Afghanistan Survey Group" ??

Rozzlapeed wrote:

I've put a lot of thought into a workable solution, so hear me out.

First, we need to get the guys from Pimp My Ride to hook up some Humvees with massive 52" monitors and sick sound systems, which we will then load into the nearest C-5 and take them to Iraq. Then, we harvest the marijuana crop in Afghanistan and airdrop it into the Anbar Province, with notes tied to the stems that say, "Sorry we smurfed up your country. Please accept our apologies along with this quality herb." After the insurgents, sectarian militias, and terrorists are good and stoned (because terrorists use drugs), we roll in with the Hummers, blasting the movie, Pink Floyd's The Wall, to blitz-philosophize them into a submissive and borderline paranoid mood. Then we send in the Rangers to come up behind each and every one of them and slit their throats.

It's a can't-miss strategy. I got the idea from that movie, Troy.

Maybe add in some Vegas-style 4am weddings while they're stoned, to bridge the gaps between Shiite and Sunni ?

And build a Disneyland, too.

"preemptive" invasion of iraq == the most lame brained, ill timed, stupid smurf of all times, by any ruling american party.
not like anyone could scornfully say, "i told you so!"  ... oh wait!

power mongering pork, anyone? smurfing eat your bloody and damned humble pie you feeble asinine corporate tool hawks.


end game == credibility, sympathy, support, high ground, diplomatic capital, democracy, many thousands of lives, and tons of money lost == loser dorks that people made fun of in high school, but didn't recognize on the ballot.


i could probably go on, with minutes upon minutes of abusive, obscene, expletive ridden descriptions of my low regard for the neo"con" political right, but that would probably fall on ever increasingly deaf ears, to no good effect.


idiots

First, you have to consider that the real reason we are in in Iraq is to protect the interests of gasoline companies and the US economy they control.

Obviously, we aren't going to get that much gas from this debacle so the best we can do is leave about 25 percent of our military in the area to carefully monitor the government and train its military after the model of Turkey (a relatively incorrupt and successful democratic country that is primarilly Muslim).

Then we would need to displace another 25 percent of the military currently there to areas surrounding Iraq to gather intelligence, remain alert for any problems in Iraq, and improve relations with Muslim countries by assisting in the development of improved living conditions.

At home we would need to improve our own energy infrastructure by:
1) Passing a federal mandate forcing car manufacturers to seriously develop ZEV vehicles (at least 1 percent of their entire production) and so that American consumers can actually purchase them instead of merely leasing them. Auto manufacturers would need to be intermittantly compensated for cooperating and severely punished for obstructing the development of these technologies both covertly and overtly.

2) Develop several modern nuclear power plants at various major cities. These would be based on proven technologies which are safer than older ones, such as Pebble-Bed nuclear reactors via carefully regulated and supervised tax increases.

3) Pass federal mandate requiring cities with populations of over 650,000 to develop energy effectient public transportation systems linking major areas via carefully regulated and supervised tax increases.

This isn't off topic.  Terrorism does require the US to become involved in the middle east in a military fashion, but the reason we are so directly involved is because of the United States' private interest groups' dependence on controlling fossil fuels to some degree. If our economy didn't so greatly depend on fossil fuels these private interests would not have such great influence over our government's foreign policies.

Despite popular opinion those privat interests do not truly control the country. Its time people in the nation proved it and uprooted them.

Last edited by Majestic_Lizard (2006-12-12 6:44 pm)