End of "The Surge?" End of McCain?

[ritehook]

With the Mahdi army again shooting up the streets, and engaging the Iraqi govt, the so-called Surge is in danger of collapse. If US troops get involved, it will collapse.

McCain has made the supposed success of the the Surge a key point in his campaign.

[ritehook]

The fighting in and around Basra seems very much like the wars between rival factions of the Mafia.

Basra is the oil export center of the country. Since the Brits washed their hands of it, it has been controlled by Shia street gangs, the militias. Smuggling of oil and other commodities is a huge billion bucks biz there.

The govt wants to control it. Sort of like the Sicilian maria going after the Irish mafia.

And US soldiers may die for this conflict of greedy interests.

[durito]

It was always a bit of a myth that the surge was all that successful. Yes the numbers showed it too be, but it was successful because they convinced certain groups to stop fighting, not because they inserted a few extra US soldiers in the area.

How many more billions can we spend?

[Cee]

It was always a bit of a myth that the surge was all that successful. Yes the numbers showed it too be, but it was successful because they convinced certain groups to stop fighting, not because they inserted a few extra US soldiers in the area.

How many more billions can we spend?

The US convinced these certain groups to "stop" fighting b/c the US sends em money

[AgainstAllOdds]

If mccain says he will withdrawl throops and end the war, he would be the next president...

[daggerkobe]

i would never vote for him anyways. not only is he a racist but wants to ban betting on college sports.

[ritehook]

What durito and cee stated.

The Surge was to a certain extent a public relations ploy to help the GoP nominee.

It rested on 3 fundamentals: (1) That the Mahdi army army of El Sadr would stay quiet, keep the unspoken truce. That's now history,

(2) The fact that "ethnic cleansing" has been bloodily successful in Iraq, in separating Shia and Sunni. That alone sidelined much of the violence,no one in the neighborhood left to kill

(Before Bush invaded Iraq was a near secular state, with very little religious bias. Shia and Sunni intermarried, women wore Western dress and had high prorfessional positions, and a
Christian was the second or third most important man in the Iraq govt. You won't see that again.)

(3) The so-called Sunni Awakening was bought and paid for by US taxpayers. Each of the roughly 80,000 Sunni fighters who turned agains AlQuieda are paid $300 a month.

But they want the central govt out of their towns, and the govt doesn't trust the Sunni to organize life in their own aress. Very fragile situation.

Back to the wars that I prefer, by young athletes on the basketball courts.

[ritehook]

If mccain says he will withdrawl throops and end the war, he would be the next president...

Probably true, as both the lady and the black guy wll meet silent resistance among a sizable block of voiters.

But McCain is now locked into the Surge. What may happen here is that Bush and Co could blame it all on Iran, get us into another war, and tout John as the guy to win it.

[OLGC_Slayer]

Should have never been there in the first place.

[ritehook]

Should have never been there in the first place.

Put me in the "Amen Corner" on that one.

[Scorpion]

It was always a bit of a myth that the surge was all that successful. Yes the numbers showed it too be, but it was successful because they convinced certain groups to stop fighting, not because they inserted a few extra US soldiers in the area.

How many more billions can we spend?

They were paying the insurgents $300 per month

[Cee]

They were paying the insurgents $300 per month

instead of using our tax dollars to fix the economy we pay gangsters

[purecarnagge]

300 a month is like 30,000 over there... 15,000 is like 250,000 US.

[ShamsWoof10]

War is a must!!!

We need wars... We need them for many reasons but depopulation and global restructuring are probably the two most important reasons....

Today the United States is a major piece to the global puzzle but IMO 10 years from now the United States will simply be... just another piece...

IMO if you don't like war then DON'T GO! I am very tired of hearing how "FREE" the United States is.... VERY TIRED OF IT!!! If you don't agree with something then don't contribute to it...

[Helmut]

We need wars... We need them for many reasons but depopulation and global restructuring are probably the two most important reasons....

Today the United States is a major piece to the global puzzle but IMO 10 years from now the United States will simply be... just another piece...

IMO if you don't like war then DON'T GO! I am very tired of hearing how "FREE" the United States is.... VERY TIRED OF IT!!! If you don't agree with something then don't contribute to it...

I thinking about with holding my tax dollars, that will show them!

[ShamsWoof10]

I thinking about with holding my tax dollars, that will show them!

You ain't showing no one sh*t... They can print those...

They do every night..

[thegreatdiatchi]

If mccain says he will withdrawl throops and end the war, he would be the next president...

But when is the end of this "war"? McCain said that him getting elected would depend on whether he could convince the public that staying in Iraq is the right thing to do. He took back that statement but the bottom line is that Americans want this thing in Iraq to be over with.

[ShamsWoof10]

the bottom line is that Americans want this thing in Iraq to be over with.

That's not a lie but it's not true either... They don't care unless they are directly effected... I don't hear anything about the war by the average person in society... They are much more concerned with the economy (their own pockets) then the war (their citizens)

The average person only cares about themselves... The usual reaction is "oh well we can't do anything about it anyway.."

[Thor4140]

This sums it up for me.

No Money in Peace

by Charley Reese

I don't see the point of further discussion of the Republican War in Iraq. The president is stubborn and only repeats himself. The war will go on. The country will bleed blood and treasure. In the end, Iraq will end up with a dictator of one sort or another, which is what it had before the war.

Hopefully, a new president will end it, though I would wait a few months before placing any bets. War, as it is being fought in Iraq, is a highly profitable operation for the war service industry, which Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld created. They called it "outsourcing." I call it "mercenaries," and there are now almost as many of them in Iraq as there are uniformed soldiers. As always in war, it is highly unprofitable to the young men and women who have to fight it on military pay.

Unlike the military-industrial complex, which likes to build weapons whether they are ever used or not, the war service industry requires an on-going war and occupation to keep the cash flowing. The biggest mouth swallowing all of this government cash belongs to Cheney's old outfit, Halliburton, and its subsidiaries. It has a lot of influence.

Unfortunately, nobody seems to have figured out how to make a dime out of peace. I easily predict that until somebody does, there will always be more war than peace.

There is a new book out that delves into this privatization of war. It's called Betraying Our Troops: The Destructive Results of Privatizing War. The authors are Robert Bauman and Dina Rasor. What they uncovered is enough to make you throw up.

We should all pause from time to time to give thanks for nuclear weapons. The military-industrial complex made a big mistake when it came up with those. They are so destructive that nobody knows how to survive a nuclear war, much less profit from one. Hence, we've never had one and probably never will.

Limited wars with conventional weapons, however, hit the spot. They keep the money flowing while the profiteers and their assets remain safe and sound, far from the sound of the guns. Only the paid peons and innocent civilians die. There are always the flap jaws who will stand up, wave the flag and scream, "These boys are dying for freedom," when they are really dying for Halliburton or some other corporation.

An old Marine, Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler, called it right decades ago when he said war is a racket. The racketeers get rich on war while the poor boys die in them.

If we look at war in its proper perspective, as the common defense of the country, then we can plainly see that when it becomes necessary, it becomes the common duty of all citizens. Therefore, no one should profit from it. There is no reason except corporate greed and political corruption why weapons and other materials of war should not be supplied at cost. There is no sane reason why some should become millionaires while others become corpses or mutilated wrecks.

If all we are interested in is freedom for the Iraqi people, then why are we insisting that they pass an oil law that meets our approval? It isn't our country. It isn't our oil. Why should we care how they dispose of their oil in their country? If, of course, our mission is merely freedom.

What a laugh that is. It's sad to say it, but we've become a nation that boasts some of the best liars in the world. They work full time duping the American people into supporting policies and actions that are not in the interests of this country. Maybe one day we will all wise up. It takes time. Nobody likes to admit he's been scammed.

[ritehook]

Charley Reese - longtime editor and columnist in Orlando - is almost always worth reading. His stuff appears regularly in antiwar.com.

Always did like the old verse:

The young men die in battle.
The old men scheme in bed.
The tortured earth of mankind]
Is furrowed deep in red.

The old men sit conferring
With smile and scheme and lie.
And so the old men blunder,
And so the young men die.