Who Created ISIS?

1robin · Dec 7, 2016

Augustus said:
It was in context. You are advocating social reform through government action, even though you hate it in your own country and find it ineffective/harmful.

That was the context yes. Specious though, not terrible.

You are wrong about the conquests btw. You seem to be swallowing the anachronistic Muslim narrative a bit too easily.

I understand your point, I just find it very naive.

Obviously the nation state. Iraq the nation state is very different from Iraq the geographic area.

It worked in Japan for the same reason Britain could rule India with a few thousand soldiers, you had local cooperation. You ruled through the Japanese, using Japanese instruments of state and giving directives to Japanese bureaucrats and politicians who enforced them.

Japanese governance was very effective and Japanese society was disciplined and hierarchical with a figurehead in the Emperor who could bestow legitimacy on the whole operation.

Can you explain who you were going to rule through in Iraq? Who were the locals that you were going to rely on to turn your ideas into realities? Remember your government actually made it a policy to destroy all vestiges of Baathist power.

See above

It didn't require a crystal ball to see it coming to be fair. A competent, efficient and clean bureaucracy wasn't going to appear out of thin air.

Jihadis attack, you destroy mostly civilian neighborhood. Jihadis attack, you destroy mostly civilian neighborhood. How's this going to move a country towards stability?

A decade??? To reshape an entire culture, to cultivate a rule of law and respect for government institutions, to create an honest and effictive bureaucracy, to create a sense of national unity beyond narrow tribal and ethno-religious lines, to create a democracy from thin air where nothing even remotely resembling one has really ever existed in 3000+ years of history? Very naive.

40 years would be wildly optimistic, a decade is pie in the sky dreaming.

No matter their 'moral fortitude' US presidents serve a term at a time. The Iraqis know you can't make any guarantees long term and that pretty soon you'll be gone. They'll take what they can in the short term, and position themselves for the inevitable withdrawal.

Best play the long game, and if you are Shia then the long game is control of the country. The country that was designed to sideline their interests and in which they've been sucking it up ever since. A few more years of waiting for America to go home is nothing.

Why do you assume someone else has all the answers, perhaps nobody knows how to magic up a liberal democracy in Iraq because it's just not possible in a decade or so.

You don't trust progressive government in America, why do you trust it whole heartedly in Iraq?

Since 9/11, the jihadis have played your government like a drum and sucked them into a doomed and counterproductive war that was everything they ever dreamed of. A long term, brutal occupation of Iraq, followed by probable civil war once you left isn't harming their cause.

At best you would be delaying problems. Artificial stability doesn't mitigate problems, it simply stores them up longer and makes their explosion worse.

Augustus, let me first apologize for what I am going to do. You put a lot of work into your posts and so I hate to cut you short but this is getting out of hand and I want to focus in on few points so we can get to stuff that is more important. You finally made some points that I think were very relevant and I think I finally know how I wish to state my own position so forgive me but I am going to switch gears here. I want to concentrate on two things from here on.

1. I want you to respond in depth to my overly brief summary of what I am arguing should have been done in Iraq and then I will get more exhaustive and detailed.

2. Once that has run it's course I want you to provide more details and evidence on the subject of the cultural reasons you say prevented us from succeeding in Iraq.

Ok so first things first, I am going to copy and paste my brief initial summary. The reason I want to do that first is that if you agree than my plan would have probably worked then your points do not really come into play. So please respond to the following.

1. You finally mentioned some actual reasons why you think our efforts in Iraq went south. Even if all of your reasons and examples were perfectly true they do not impact my contentions. The reasons these should not apply is that the following actions if taken would have negated the fallout from the failures you mentioned, but I do want to discuss the issues you raised once we evaluate the following points.
2. My view on the Iraq war has nothing to do with how or why the nation building effort went off track. If my views were followed our mistakes would not have failed even if mistakes were made.
3. I have no stated anything about how the nation building succeeded or failed, your missing what I am saying.
4. My views are about how the military should have been used. In a very general sense we should have maintained our military efforts far longer than we did. Instead of politicians ruining everything the military gained through blood, sweat, and tears the military should have imposed martial law until Iraq's political infrastructure was well established and entrenched. For example General Macarthur pacified post war Japan instead of the politicians doing so in Iraq.
5. Now I am not arrogant enough to suggest I was aware of the terrible Iraqi ineptitude and corruption that would come into play after major operations ceased, but I was sufficient skeptical of them that I would not have secured from marshal law until things there met my satisfaction.
6. I would have carried out this policy by establishing QRFs across the country of several thousand specialized personal in each, I would have left two battle groups in the region, I would have threatened Iran with devastation if we found they were interfering with Iraq, I would have kept air wings throughout the region equipped with lantern pods, E2C Hawkeyes, BFTs, tactical, and strategic WSs, etc... and among a thousand other things I would have confiscated Iraq's oil until we paid our selves back and then directed every penny into rebuilding Iraq until the job was done as well as . So that every eruption in violence would be met with a virtually apocalyptic response. I could type pages containing military capabilities I would have kept in place and used in Iraq for far longer than it actually was.
7. I would have kept the entire region under an iron fist while we were already deployed. This would have ensured our absolute control over all political events in the area. While we retained absolute control over everything there I would have slowly turned over control of operations to the Iraqis. In this overly brief scenario we could have had all kinds of political failures but with far less disastrous results.
8. I am not qualified to evaluate or suggest how the nation building should have gone, but I am qualified to say how the military situation should have gone. With my full plan in place Iraq could have taken a decade to get their political and theological house in order. I do not know how to run a country but I do know how to hold a country militarily until others can figure out how to run it. Obama seems to have failed on both accounts.

Augustus · Dec 7, 2016

1robin said:
1. I want you to respond in depth to my overly brief summary of what I am arguing should have been done in Iraq and then I will get more exhaustive and detailed.

It's in the previous post. Take it or leave it

1robin · Dec 8, 2016

Augustus said:
It's in the previous post. Take it or leave it

Ok, I will go back and reply to every reply of yours given in response to that list of actions I would have taken differently in Iraq. Or at least I will try but if you respond back please keep in mind I am trying to shrink the number of issues down to enable a more detailed and specific discussion. However my request was for you to respond IN DEPTH to those points which I do not think you did.

1robin · Dec 8, 2016

faroukfarouk said:
Peace to all.
My friend 1robin.
You make it sound as if the Americans have won the war in Afghanistan but the reality is its in your imagination.My friend the war has only started.The Americans troops had to run away with their tails chopped off.Presently the Americans are paying their puppets to continue the fight to save their humiliation.The only reason why you did not see the enemy in combat was because they were paid not to kill.You do remember the French paid the Taliban not to kill there troops.
Now let me ask you a simple question.
The word "Al-Qaida" means foundation or base.
When was the first time you heard of this word "Al-Qaida"?
Peace

Mr. faroukfarouk you are going to have to respond to me by properly quoting me in the correct format or I will not get an alert when I am to reply to you. I was simply lucky that I accidentally saw you posted something to me. If you do not know how to quote another then please let me know if you need some help.

1. We did not go into Afghanistan with the intention of colonizing it and keeping it. we could very easily do so but we have no motivation to waste the money and lives necessary to rule that cesspool of a nation.
2. We went in there with the intention of pushing back against the Taliban and / or al Qaeda enough to retard their efforts for a while. No one excepted that we would kill every terrorist there is.
3. We did not even devote too many resources to punishing the terrorists (I believe we should have but we didn't) in Afghanistan.
4. Our mission was to severely damage the terrorists based there and we in fact achieved that purpose.
5. You can not call a military operation a failure because it did not achieve some purpose you invented out of thin air, especially since it did accomplish most of the goals for which it was intended to.
6. Since we killed thousands upon thousands of terrorists in Afghanistan then apparently they were not paid enough. Most of those who hid did so because they do not have any honor, they are cowards, or because they knew they could not hope to win. That is something I do not get about terrorist. They will never achieve any militaristic goal by dying in the process of killing innocent people. What is it you think the US, France, or Britain are going to do as the result of terrorist flee bites? Terrorism so far has merely incurred greater wrath and death upon the terrorist.

I cannot remember the first time I heard of Al-Qaida, but words are very very often applied to more than one thing. Words do not matter, facts do. Whatever you call them, they still died by the tens of thousands in Afghanistan and other places.

1robin · Dec 8, 2016

Augustus said:
.

I went back and tried to find the post where you quoted and responded to the points I made in my summary. I could not find it, can you give me the post #?

Augustus · Dec 8, 2016

1robin said:
I went back and tried to find the post where you quoted and responded to the points I made in my summary. I could not find it, can you give me the post #?

#80

1robin · Dec 9, 2016

Augustus said:
#80

I went back and looked. I did not check to see if you addressed every point I made in my summary, but every one I did check was missing. I will throw you a bone in this case because I felt bad about not responding to al of your posts. Whether or not you responded to any of the points in my summary I will go back and respond to post #80. However after that I want to focus on the points in my summary because only by doing so can you properly evaluate my personal plan for Iraq (and why it would have been far better than what Obama and to a lesser extent what Bush did).

1robin · Dec 9, 2016

Augustus said:
It was in context. You are advocating social reform through government action, even though you hate it in your own country and find it ineffective/harmful.

We need little reform because our country was originally founded on the morality of Israel, the democracy of Athens, and the organization and militarism of Rome and was about the best foundation any nation has ever possessed. Most of the social reform in this country has been to screw up our founding principles. There's was founded on tyranny and Islam and that created a cesspool.

BTW, if I was you I would read the second post below before you respond.

That was the context yes. Specious though, not terrible.

Fine

You are wrong about the conquests btw. You seem to be swallowing the anachronistic Muslim narrative a bit too easily.

Since you did not bother to explain what I was wrong about I cannot evaluate your statement other than to say I have a secular historical view of the first Islamic caliphate not an Islamic historical view of it.

I understand your point, I just find it very naive.

Since you are intelligent enough to know that if you do not explain what it is that is wrong with what I say I can not consider what you say, I can't figure out why you bother to post stuff like this.

Obviously the nation state. Iraq the nation state is very different from Iraq the geographic area.

There have been many iterations concerning the Iraqi nation through out history, but I will admit that I probably should have known what you meant.

It worked in Japan for the same reason Britain could rule India with a few thousand soldiers, you had local cooperation. You ruled through the Japanese, using Japanese instruments of state and giving directives to Japanese bureaucrats and politicians who enforced them.

That is my exact point, what we did in WW2 and what Britain did in India was more along the lines of what I suggested about Iraq and less along the lines of what you propose or defend. My way worked, your way didn't. The details you keep mentioning are derivative to the earlier military events having taken place or not having taken place.

Japanese governance was very effective and Japanese society was disciplined and hierarchical with a figurehead in the Emperor who could bestow legitimacy on the whole operation.

In the terminal phase of that war the Japanese hierarchy was terribly fragmented. You had a peace faction, you had a group that had a foot in both camps, and then you had an unimaginably committed militaristic faction which controlled a large part of the government. You are just simply wrong about Japan. I will give you one example, after the atomic bombs were dropped the Japanese high command gathered in a bunker to decide on whether to surrender. The militarists argued that they should die to the last man, the Emperor who rarely spoke said that he was going to surrender. While they were yelling at each other and some stormed out, a third group attacked the bunker in an attempt to start a civil war. That is just one event among hundreds I could show contradict your assessment. I do not know of another culture in al of history that was more likely to fight to the last man even if a doomed cause. Can you point to another culture which did anything similar to the mass bonsai charges and kamikaze attacks Japan carried out even when their was no chance of victory. On many island there were tens of thousands of Japanese who fought us but there were only a few dozen prisoners taken. Our estimate as to losses if we had to invade was 500,000 and the Japanese causalities were estimated in the millions. However unlike Iraq we let the military pacify Japan, the first thing they did was round up every major militarist still alive and hung them all. If you can not admit that Japan was more committed to fighting us after the war proper was over than Iraq ever was then evidence has no effect on you. I will no longer bother showing you the countless ways that Japan is a good analogy of Iraq.

Can you explain who you were going to rule through in Iraq? Who were the locals that you were going to rely on to turn your ideas into realities? Remember your government actually made it a policy to destroy all vestiges of Baathist power.

I have already told you that I was making a military proposal, I am not qualified to also do the nation building. My version of military events does not rule out mistakes others would make in the nation building effort but it would have made the fallout from those mistakes a mere fraction of what has actually occurred. You should critique my military suggestions instead of making points about things I have no opinion about.

This discussion has become way to large. I will break it up. Continued below:

1robin · Dec 9, 2016

See above

You have yet to show any problems with my military suggestions, either above or anywhere else. You literally have not shown any reason to think you have even read my military proposal. No matter how many times I post my military suggestions you mention something about Iraq politics or religion. Bullets can prevail against any Surah or party label.

It didn't require a crystal ball to see it coming to be fair. A competent, efficient and clean bureaucracy wasn't going to appear out of thin air.

I specifically said that while no one could have predicted the ineptness of our bureaucrats nor the Iraqi's I was sufficiently skeptical about them to make military policies that would have limited to problems associated with their failures.

Jihadis attack, you destroy mostly civilian neighborhood. Jihadis attack, you destroy mostly civilian neighborhood. How's this going to move a country towards stability?

A decade??? To reshape an entire culture, to cultivate a rule of law and respect for government institutions, to create an honest and effictive bureaucracy, to create a sense of national unity beyond narrow tribal and ethno-religious lines, to create a democracy from thin air where nothing even remotely resembling one has really ever existed in 3000+ years of history? Very naive.

We spend more money and spill more of our own blood to limit collateral damage than any nation in teh history of mankind. You cannot arm chair quarterback military operations that did not occur. The actual operations that did occur after Iraq's pitiful army was destroyed were in general our waiting for the moronic insurgents to attack us in entrenched locations. Regardless you have so far not shown in depth knowledge of military affairs. I would have acquired far more and better intelligence than we normally acquired and I would have used more specialized units like delta, seals, and snipers to carry out precise attacks on key individuals. This type of action has proven very effective in countless wars.

40 years would be wildly optimistic, a decade is pie in the sky dreaming.

You do not have the slightest idea of what the plans I would have instituted would have done in any given amount of time. What I suggested has worked in many places far worse than Iraq and worked in much less than a decade.

No matter their 'moral fortitude' US presidents serve a term at a time. The Iraqis know you can't make any guarantees long term and that pretty soon you'll be gone. They'll take what they can in the short term, and position themselves for the inevitable withdrawal.

Yes, one that was at least willing to act was replaced by a scumbag who acted for political expediency and failed miserably. I do not care about terms of office, I care about the effectiveness of the policies I have presented. Why are you so desperate to save Obama that you would use arguments like this?

Best play the long game, and if you are Shia then the long game is control of the country. The country that was designed to sideline their interests and in which they've been sucking it up ever since. A few more years of waiting for America to go home is nothing.

And there you have it, my policy is a military long game. Obama's was not. I do not care whether it took 1 year or 50 years, I would have left a sufficient amount of military units in place to ensure success. No matter how long it will take (and it may never occur) it would have been shorter if we had used my plan instead of Obama's.

Why do you assume someone else has all the answers, perhaps nobody knows how to magic up a liberal democracy in Iraq because it's just not possible in a decade or so.

I didn't. I simply pointed out I do not have all the answers to rebuild Iraq politically. I specifically said that I expect who ever rebuilds Iraq to make mistakes.

You don't trust progressive government in America, why do you trust it whole heartedly in Iraq?

You already said this, and I have never claimed I trusted progressivism any where. I am for a conservative based effort in rebuilding Iraq. I do not want progressives rebuilding anything.

Since 9/11, the jihadis have played your government like a drum and sucked them into a doomed and counterproductive war that was everything they ever dreamed of. A long term, brutal occupation of Iraq, followed by probable civil war once you left isn't harming their cause.

It was my government (Obama specifically) that I have condemned. Please keep up.

At best you would be delaying problems. Artificial stability doesn't mitigate problems, it simply stores them up longer and makes their explosion worse.

At best I could have pacified Iraq militarily as well as we did in Iraq even if political mistakes occurred.

I see very little evidence you addressed the points I made in my summary. You do not seem to even understand my position or claims. I responded to this to be generous. I will not do so again.

I am going to post my summary one last time. You can line out the points you think you responded to, but I hope you get to the rest so you actually address my actual position.

1. You finally mentioned some actual reasons why you think our efforts in Iraq went south. Even if all of your reasons and examples were perfectly true they do not impact my contentions.
2. My view on the Iraq war has nothing to do with how or why the nation building effort went off track. If my views were followed our mistakes would not have failed even if mistakes were made.
3. I have no stated anything about how the nation building succeeded or failed, your missing what I am saying.
4. My views are about how the military should have been used. In a very general sense we should have maintained our military efforts far longer than we did. Instead of politicians ruining everything the military gained through blood, sweat, and tears the military should have imposed martial law until Iraq's political infrastructure was well established and entrenched. For example General Macarthur pacified post war Japan instead of the politicians doing so in Iraq.
5. Now I am not arrogant enough to suggest I was aware of the terrible Iraqi ineptitude and corruption that would come into play after major operations ceased, but I was sufficient skeptical of them that I would not have secured from marshal law until things there met my satisfaction.
6. I would have carried out this policy by establishing QRFs across the country of several thousand specialized personal in each, I would have left two battle groups in the region, I would have threatened Iran with devastation if we found they were interfering with Iraq, I would have kept air wings throughout the region equipped with lantern pods, E2C Hawkeyes, BFTs, tactical, and strategic WSs, etc... and among a thousand other things I would have confiscated Iraq's oil until we paid our selves back and then directed every penny into rebuilding Iraq until the job was done as well as . So that every eruption in violence would be met with a virtually apocalyptic response. I could type pages containing military capabilities I would have kept in place and used in Iraq for far longer than it actually was.
7. I would have kept the entire region under an iron fist while we were already deployed. This would have ensured our absolute control over all political events in the area. While we retained absolute control over everything there I would have slowly turned over control of operations to the Iraqis. In this overly brief scenario we could have had all kinds of political failures but with far less disastrous results.
8. I am not qualified to evaluate or suggest how the nation building should have gone, but I am qualified to say how the military situation should have gone. With my full plan in place Iraq could have taken a decade to get their political and theological house in order. I do not know how to run a country but I do know how to hold a country militarily until others can figure out how to run it. Obama seems to have failed on both accounts.

I considered and probably should have only responded with a more comprehensive summary similar to that above because you do not seem to understand what it is I am arguing for. The problems you mentioned would not have produced the horrific results in my plan even if they were all encountered again and again. There would have been mistakes even with my plan but there would not have been an ISIS.

OurCreed · Dec 9, 2016

Did you know that ISIS kills Muslims more than any other people? If anyone considers ISIS to be based off of Islamic doctrine, they have no clue about the Islamic philosophy.

Augustus · Dec 11, 2016

1robin said:
I have already told you that I was making a military proposal, I am not qualified to also do the nation building. My version of military events does not rule out mistakes others would make in the nation building effort but it would have made the fallout from those mistakes a mere fraction of what has actually occurred. You should critique my military suggestions instead of making points about things I have no opinion about.

This is the main problem and why we are getting nowhere. We are talking about 2 different things.

You want to discuss military operations to reduce violence and asserting US dominance throughout the country.

I'm talking about what you would actually need to do to create a stable and democratic state that would not collapse into anarchy whenever you withdrew. To some extent these overlap, like in your Japan analogy, but the reasons why I think this is flawed relate to the things you keep on complaining about if I bring up.

I agree that America made many mistakes since the occupation started and in the short term there are many things that America could have done to assert their dominance and kill insurgents if they had wanted to. What I disagree with you about is that this would have laid the groundwork for a transition to a democratic and stable Iraq, or would have furthered America's long term security.

Given little prospect of success following a US takeover in 2008, doubling down would have been foolish. Not to mention the Iraqis wanted you to leave, and so they made their bed and have to lie in it.

Seeing as we are discussing 2 different things, then you might not like my reply. Feel free to ignore any or all of it if it doesn't fit in with what you want to discuss as it won't be very productive otherwise.

If there is anything you want to discuss though, might be easiest just to choose whatever you think best overlaps with what you want to discuss and ignore the rest.

1robin said:
That is my exact point, what we did in WW2 and what Britain did in India was more along the lines of what I suggested about Iraq and less along the lines of what you propose or defend. My way worked, your way didn't. The details you keep mentioning are derivative to the earlier military events having taken place or not having taken place.

Once again, I'll bold it this time so you can focus on it. As a democracy that deals in 4 year terms of office it is not possible to make long term guarantees, no matter how much you want to.

Britain and America in Japan relied on the assumption of a long term presence in order to govern through proxies. This option was not open to you due to the nature of your political system. America also has a history of reneging on promises made to all groups in Iraqi society.

You also repeatedly fail to answer who you would use as proxies to rule Iraq, and why their loyalty would be to the USA rather than their own best interests when the withdrawal eventually happens (which would be expected by them sooner rather than later).

1robin said:
If you can not admit that Japan was more committed to fighting us after the war proper was over than Iraq ever was then evidence has no effect on you. I will no longer bother showing you the countless ways that Japan is a good analogy of Iraq.

If Japan hadn't surrendered then yes it would have been a bigger problem. However, when you gained powerful proxies with large scale popular legitimcy then this problem was vastly reduced.

In Japan after the surrender you had to defeat dissident elements of the military and were assisted by the Japanese to prevent such dissidents gaining further power. There was no insurgency from the general population who were war weary, starving and demoralised, and had been bombed remorselessly

The head of state and all organs of government, which were highly capable and non-corrupt, were aligned with you and working according to your direction. The occupation was coupled with massive economic assistance resulting in tangible benefits and an almost rapid improvement in quality of life. Along with the soldiers, there were also countless civilians involved in improving the infrastructure and other aspects of society who were able to go about their operations without being targets for insurgents.

In Iraq, you disrupted a stable but oppressive dictatorship with underlying social tensions. You destroyed a lot of infrastructure, the civil service, police, and all remnants of power associated with the former regime. All of these had to be recreated from the ground up which was only possible with the help of corrupt and self-serving local acolytes.

The invasion resulted in a massive decrease in the quality of life for most people, your local helpers were corrupt and self-serving, and civilians assisting in the rebuilding effort were targeted as much as the military.

Further dismantling of government institutions, mass repression, and destruction to pacify the country moves you further away from the Japanese solution, not closer towards it.

1robin said:
Yes, one that was at least willing to act was replaced by a scumbag who acted for political expediency and failed miserably. I do not care about terms of office, I care about the effectiveness of the policies I have presented. Why are you so desperate to save Obama that you would use arguments like this?

The one who was willing to act would also have withdrawn in exactly the same manner and had started the withdrawal process.

I don't care about Obama, you are the one so obviously motivated by ideological hatred. I just think your arguments are naive and based on flawed analogies.

Your term limits are a fact. You might not care about them, but the people you are dealing with in Iraq certainly do.

If you think it is 'desperate' to refer to incontrovertible and highly relevant facts then it's hard to have a reasonable discussion.

1robin said:
And there you have it, my policy is a military long game. Obama's was not. I do not care whether it took 1 year or 50 years, I would have left a sufficient amount of military units in place to ensure success. No matter how long it will take (and it may never occur) it would have been shorter if we had used my plan instead of Obama's.

As I said, your long game is unfortunately at the mercy of your democratic system of government.

How would you give long term guarantees to someone who knows that in a few years time a different person will be making all of the decisions?

1robin said:
You already said this, and I have never claimed I trusted progressivism any where. I am for a conservative based effort in rebuilding Iraq. I do not want progressives rebuilding anything.

Don't you see the irony in describing a radical restructuring of society carried out by a centralised government bureaucracy as being 'conservative'? Whether it is run by civilians or the military, then what you are proposing is still this.

You seem to think it means 'anything done by Republicans' or 'militarily forceful'.

Like it or not, the end game of your plan relies on a very progressive policy of nationbuildung in Iraq.

1robin said:
It was my government (Obama specifically) that I have condemned. Please keep up.

Bush was the one who started to do exactly what they wanted. Their dream was to draw you into a long and oppressive military engagement in the Middle East. This is what Jihadi theorists wanted more than anything.

America being in Iraq, utilising massive force, oppressing citizens and causing destruction was exactly what they wanted.

1robin said:
I considered and probably should have only responded with a more comprehensive summary similar to that above because you do not seem to understand what it is I am arguing for. The problems you mentioned would not have produced the horrific results in my plan even if they were all encountered again and again. There would have been mistakes even with my plan but there would not have been an ISIS.

You also don't seem to understand what I am arguing for. It seems we are discussing 2 different things. This is why the discussion isn't getting anywhere.

You see pacifying Iraq as an end in itself. Whether or not this would have worked is pretty much irrelevant to my argument though.

In 2008, if Obama had decided to revoke the sovereignty of the Iraqi government and expand the occupation of Iraq in the manner that you explained then you are still no closer to having an exit strategy that involves a democratic and stable Iraq. Even if the jihadis decided to hold back for a while and the Shia decided against a mass popular uprising (or if you managed to brutally suppress one), what is the next step?

You would have no trust from any significant Sunni or Shia factions, and very few willing collaborators capable of acting as meaningful proxies. Even if you found some they would still be corrupt and working to establish their own power which would be used for their own ends eventually, rather than in the best interests of the entire population of Iraq. Such a sense of civic virtue which overrides existing tribal and religious loyalties cannot be magicked out of thin air just because it would be useful.

You would also find it very difficult to manufacture your own proxies because you can't give them any guarantees of longer than a few years. Without these I'm unsure of how you intend to govern.

Your enemies are still scheming and utilising their greater influenced and understanding to work against your aims, probably killing as many collaborators as possible.

Jihadis would still be bombing Shia markets and mosques continuing their strategy of making peace between the factions impossible to achieve.

Other countries in the region would still be meddling, or at least positioning themselves to influence the country when you left. What they know is that you will be gone in a few years whether that be 4, 8 or 10.

Iraq would still gravitate towards Iran when you left, Sunni state would still be hostile to this, Turkey would still be closely monitoring the situation of the Kurds.

Staying longer would simply delay the problems that were caused by withdrawal, in addition to creating new ones caused by a unilateral 'reinvasion'. While Iraq is a mess now, at the time the decision was made to withdraw there as no reason to believe your 'reinvasion' strategy would be preferable in the long term.

1robin · Dec 11, 2016

Augustus said:
This is the main problem and why we are getting nowhere. We are talking about 2 different things.

You want to discuss military operations to reduce violence and asserting US dominance throughout the country.

I'm talking about what you would actually need to do to create a stable and democratic state that would not collapse into anarchy whenever you withdrew. To some extent these overlap, like in your Japan analogy, but the reasons why I think this is flawed relate to the things you keep on complaining about if I bring up.

I have got to bring this discussion to a stopping point soon for reasons that do not have to do with you. To be respectful I will respond to what you have posted but I am going to post a brief summary at the end. Only your response to that brief summary will be discussed by me after this point.

Look, I am not Jesus Christ. I do not know how to do every job that anyone anywhere might need done. I am qualified to put forward a military strategy that would have facilitated even an imperfect nation building program. I do not understand why you keep suggesting that I must know how to politically pacify Iraq.

I agree that America made many mistakes since the occupation started and in the short term there are many things that America could have done to assert their dominance and kill insurgents if they had wanted to. What I disagree with you about is that this would have laid the groundwork for a transition to a democratic and stable Iraq, or would have furthered America's long term security.

If a nation has the technical capability, personnel, and economy to enforce its will in general over another nation then the only variable is how long it would take to achieve it's goals.

Given little prospect of success following a US takeover in 2008, doubling down would have been foolish. Not to mention the Iraqis wanted you to leave, and so they made their bed and have to lie in it.

You keep ignoring the fact that the only plan we know would fail is the one we implemented, you cannot condemn plans that were never put in place.

Seeing as we are discussing 2 different things, then you might not like my reply. Feel free to ignore any or all of it if it doesn't fit in with what you want to discuss as it won't be very productive otherwise.

If there is anything you want to discuss though, might be easiest just to choose whatever you think best overlaps with what you want to discuss and ignore the rest.

My brief summary at the end would accomplish this.

Once again, I'll bold it this time so you can focus on it. As a democracy that deals in 4 year terms of office it is not possible to make long term guarantees, no matter how much you want to.

We are not discussing our political organizations, we are discussing what actions would have worked in Iraq instead of the actions we know did not work. I do not care who was president, I am arguing for a course of action that who ever the president was at the time should have implemented.

Britain and America in Japan relied on the assumption of a long term presence in order to govern through proxies. This option was not open to you due to the nature of your political system. America also has a history of reneging on promises made to all groups in Iraqi society.

Other than the fact that Britain had little to do with Japan I have no idea what your driving at. Your statements seem to be equivalent to a premise but you did not give a conclusion.

You also repeatedly fail to answer who you would use as proxies to rule Iraq, and why their loyalty would be to the USA rather than their own best interests when the withdrawal eventually happens (which would be expected by them sooner rather than later).

And you repeatedly fail to understand that I am unqualified to lay out how every single event in Iraq should have occurred. I am not omniscient, I am competent in military matters alone.

If Japan hadn't surrendered then yes it would have been a bigger problem. However, when you gained powerful proxies with large scale popular legitimcy then this problem was vastly reduced.

The reason we had cooperation in post war Japan and not in Iraq is because we practiced total war and complete marshal law in Japan but not in Iraq.

In Japan after the surrender you had to defeat dissident elements of the military and were assisted by the Japanese to prevent such dissidents gaining further power. There was no insurgency from the general population who were war weary, starving and demoralised, and had been bombed remorselessly

That is because we initially devastated Japan's will to resist and then we rounded up potential trouble makers and hung them. The exact same problems we faced in Iraq were faced in Japan, the difference is what we ourselves did. If Obama instead of Truman had been in power what occurred in Iraq would have been far worse in Japan.

The head of state and all organs of government, which were highly capable and non-corrupt, were aligned with you and working according to your direction. The occupation was coupled with massive economic assistance resulting in tangible benefits and an almost rapid improvement in quality of life. Along with the soldiers, there were also countless civilians involved in improving the infrastructure and other aspects of society who were able to go about their operations without being targets for insurgents.

The same answer applies in all these instances. The reason why whatever factor you mention was different in Japan compared to Iraq had little to do with them and a lot to do with what we did differently.

In Iraq, you disrupted a stable but oppressive dictatorship with underlying social tensions. You destroyed a lot of infrastructure, the civil service, police, and all remnants of power associated with the former regime. All of these had to be recreated from the ground up which was only possible with the help of corrupt and self-serving local acolytes.

In Iraq what happened was not what "I" am suggesting so please stop saying "you" did X in Iraq. This is a very weird habit you have. Also we have not been discussing whether we should have invaded Iraq, we are discussing how the war should have been waged once it was begun. "I" would have probably not invaded Iraq to begin with.

The invasion resulted in a massive decrease in the quality of life for most people, your local helpers were corrupt and self-serving, and civilians assisting in the rebuilding effort were targeted as much as the military.

You keep mentioning the mistakes the Iraqi's made because they were corrupt, my plan would have made the fallout from their corruption to a minimum. You have never really argued against what I say should have been done. You incessantly condemn what actually took place and suggest that I must account for it when I am the one that is condemning what actually happened.

Further dismantling of government institutions, mass repression, and destruction to pacify the country moves you further away from the Japanese solution, not closer towards it.

No, absolute military control results in even those who would rebel inline. The only variable in my plan is how long it would take for others to figure out how to pacify Iraq. In my plan it is inevitable given enough time.

Look at the wars of Rome. Hundreds of conquests over hundreds of tribes, in hundreds of places, in hundreds of different situations and with few exceptions Rome mastered them all until internal problems gutted their military effectiveness.

The one who was willing to act would also have withdrawn in exactly the same manner and had started the withdrawal process.

I don't care about Obama, you are the one so obviously motivated by ideological hatred. I just think your arguments are naive and based on flawed analogies.

Your term limits are a fact. You might not care about them, but the people you are dealing with in Iraq certainly do.

If you think it is 'desperate' to refer to incontrovertible and highly relevant facts then it's hard to have a reasonable discussion.

You keep arguing about hypotheticals which you can not possibly know. You do not know what a Churchill or Lincoln would have done. Both did things immeasurably harder than pacify Iraq and brilliantly succeeded.

As I said, your long game is unfortunately at the mercy of your democratic system of government.

We are not having a debate about our political process. We are arguing about the policies that whoever might be in office should have enacted. My goodness we have spent a lot of time on discussing things that are irrelevant to my claims.

How would you give long term guarantees to someone who knows that in a few years time a different person will be making all of the decisions?

Do you understand the difference between having a plan and implementing a plan? I am merely suggesting a course of action, to add to that the implementation of that plan is to make this discussion prohibitive. I have a plan and criticism of another plan. I do not care about who would have implemented the plan. That is a separate issue.

Don't you see the irony in describing a radical restructuring of society carried out by a centralised government bureaucracy as being 'conservative'? Whether it is run by civilians or the military, then what you are proposing is still this.

No, I see it as a non-partisan necessity. How it is carried out may be partisan but not the need for it.

You seem to think it means 'anything done by Republicans' or 'militarily forceful'.

Like it or not, the end game of your plan relies on a very progressive policy of nationbuildung in Iraq.

It would be more accurate to use the term liberal instead of progressive in this context.

This has grown too large again. Continued below:

1robin · Dec 11, 2016

Bush was the one who started to do exactly what they wanted. Their dream was to draw you into a long and oppressive military engagement in the Middle East. This is what Jihadi theorists wanted more than anything.

I did not claim that Bush did not make mistakes. I just said he did a better job than Obama.

America being in Iraq, utilising massive force, oppressing citizens and causing destruction was exactly what they wanted.

Who wanted that?

You also don't seem to understand what I am arguing for. It seems we are discussing 2 different things. This is why the discussion isn't getting anywhere.

Exactly.

1. I am arguing for primarily a military stance which would have meant that mistakes made in Iraq's pacification would have had minimal impact, and which would have made our eventual goals a given in time.
2. You for some reason throw out my suggestions entirely and instead keep asking me to solve the nation building problems that Obama's and to a lesser extent Bush's actions produced.

You see pacifying Iraq as an end in itself. Whether or not this would have worked is pretty much irrelevant to my argument though.

In 2008, if Obama had decided to revoke the sovereignty of the Iraqi government and expand the occupation of Iraq in the manner that you explained then you are still no closer to having an exit strategy that involves a democratic and stable Iraq. Even if the jihadis decided to hold back for a while and the Shia decided against a mass popular uprising (or if you managed to brutally suppress one), what is the next step?

For the hundredth time, I do not know how to rebuild a nation. I know how to devastate a nation then keep it in a grip of iron and steel while those that are qualified to rebuild it try and learn from their mistakes until they succeed. I will make one stab at this for the heck of it. Lets say nothing else we tried worked, we could always have governed Iraq ourselves and have administered it's resources until Iraq was in much better shape than before the war. Then ever so slowly have transitioned control back to the Iraqis at whatever pace necessary to limit corruption.

You would have no trust from any significant Sunni or Shia factions, and very few willing collaborators capable of acting as meaningful proxies. Even if you found some they would still be corrupt and working to establish their own power which would be used for their own ends eventually, rather than in the best interests of the entire population of Iraq. Such a sense of civic virtue which overrides existing tribal and religious loyalties cannot be magicked out of thin air just because it would be useful.

I would not expect trust for quite a while after the war, what I would expect is an adequate level of obedience acquired through fear if necessary.

You would also find it very difficult to manufacture your own proxies because you can't give them any guarantees of longer than a few years. Without these I'm unsure of how you intend to govern.

I am more unsure as to why you keep thinking I should propose a detailed plan about how to govern. My plan is how to control while others learn how to rule. This is exactly why your discussing something I am not.

Your enemies are still scheming and utilising their greater influenced and understanding to work against your aims, probably killing as many collaborators as possible.

Are you suggesting that only nations who's populations are 100% obedient may be invaded?

Jihadis would still be bombing Shia markets and mosques continuing their strategy of making peace between the factions impossible to achieve.

Other countries in the region would still be meddling, or at least positioning themselves to influence the country when you left. What they know is that you will be gone in a few years whether that be 4, 8 or 10.

Iraq would still gravitate towards Iran when you left, Sunni state would still be hostile to this, Turkey would still be closely monitoring the situation of the Kurds.

Staying longer would simply delay the problems that were caused by withdrawal, in addition to creating new ones caused by a unilateral 'reinvasion'. While Iraq is a mess now, at the time the decision was made to withdraw there as no reason to believe your 'reinvasion' strategy would be preferable in the long term.

Ok, here is my brief summary. For personal reasons I can not devote the time to respond to posts this long. My summary is all I have time to debate.

1. The original argument I made was that Obama's strategy failed.
2. I said that I have a military strategy which almost certainly would have facilitated eventual success in Iraq.
3. That plan in general terms was to leave in Iraq the types and more than the amount of military units to impose our will through force in general over Iraq.
4. While the military enforced martial law and while we confiscated the revenue from Iraq's oil others more qualified than I could go about rebuilding Iraq.
5. This would mean the mistakes we made would have minimal impact and we would have the ability to learn from our mistakes and perfect our methods.

There is little that is unique to Iraq. Over the 5000 years of recorded history there have been 300 without a major war. Every component that made governing Iraq hard was worse in every way in conflicts waged on every continent. There were so successes so absolute that there exists no reason (other than our own mistakes) that Iraq could not have been one its self.

Now, fair warning please only rely to this last summary because I do not have much time and because we keep arguing past each other. I think you are wrong but your intelligent and civil and hopefully you can become more focused.

P.S. I may not know what it is, but you are desperate to defend something. What or who is it? I hope your not saying that the job in Iraq could not have been done better.

Sonofason · Dec 11, 2016

faroukfarouk said:
ISIS with a Islamic title has been killing many innocent civilians including Christians in the name of Islam.
They ISIS definitely do not represent the Islamic religion.They do have the hall marks of a beast with blood dripping from their hands.
The question is who created this monster?

Probably one of the Popes.

faroukfarouk · Dec 12, 2016

Peace to all.
Interesting.......
Craig Murray former UK ambassador speaks on UK Corruption ...

▶ 3:29

May 11, 2016 - Uploaded by Trill V
Craig Murray former UK ambassador speaks on UK Corruption. Trill V ... Craig Murray Dance Party - UK ...

dust1n · Dec 12, 2016

YmirGF said:
Directly? The opportunists who saw a vacuum form in Iraq when the Obama Administration pulled the plug on operations long before it was time due to political promises. Indirectly, it was perhaps the failed policies of both local Muslim nations and Western foreign policy that was placed in the hands of children.

Just as a note; the time table in which the US withdrew from Iraq was actually written in agreement between Bush and the Iraqi government we installed (who also wanted us to withdraw). Obama followed this time table. Having not done anything would not have only risked perpetuating the conflict further, but also involved the government we helped to set up also turning against us.

Kilgore Trout · Dec 13, 2016

faroukfarouk said:
ISIS with a Islamic title has been killing many innocent civilians including Christians in the name of Islam.
They ISIS definitely do not represent the Islamic religion.They do have the hall marks of a beast with blood dripping from their hands.
The question is who created this monster?

Nobody. It's more akin to an emergent phenomenon.

Augustus · Dec 13, 2016

1robin said:
Who wanted that?

If you are interested The Management of Savagery

1robin said:
1. The original argument I made was that Obama's strategy failed.

There was always a high possibility they would, but they were not guaranteed to fail as spectacularly as they did.

The alternatives didn't offer a greater chance of success though, imo the opposite.

1robin said:
2. I said that I have a military strategy which almost certainly would have facilitated eventual success in Iraq.

Your faith is based on the idea that 'someone' would have been able to fix the situation in some unknown way 10 or 20 years down the line.

I considered it pretty certain that the invasion would end in disaster which it did. Given the situation was much worse in 2008, I see no reason to change my mind on the issue.

Hubris was always considered the worst of human failings, modern people often forget this as they are enamored with their own illusions of power and control.

1robin said:
3. That plan in general terms was to leave in Iraq the types and more than the amount of military units to impose our will through force in general over Iraq.

As I've said short term military domination doesn't start to solve the long term political issues that must be resolved.

You advocate the US Japan or British colonial model but fail to see the fundamental difference that you are dealing in short term periods against an adversary who believes you will be leaving soon.

Your potential allies also understand that too. You keep on denying this as relevant and asserting that 'whoever is in charge, this is what we should do'. Unfortunately, real people playing a game of life and death prefer tangible reality to hypothetical scenarios.

1robin said:
4. While the military enforced martial law and while we confiscated the revenue from Iraq's oil others more qualified than I could go about rebuilding Iraq.

Oil infrastructure is very vulnerable to disruption and much was severely damaged by 2008. Even if full operational capacity was reached, the oil price would have plummeted like it has now due to overproduction. With security and restoration costs making Iraqi oil very inefficient, this is not the goldmine it might appear to be.

Even if it was, distributing the money requires local networks and we know how well that worked out last time. Money in your pocket doesn't fix broken societies, only money put to effective use does. How was this to be achieved?

Another point to remember is that those 'more qualified' messed everything up so badly that by 2008 a sizable chink of the population preferred ISIS to their own 'democratic' government.

The Bush handpicked INC people lined up to run the country were useless, overstated their support and then turned against you. Basically your government was conned by a load of charlatans.

I see no evidence that anyone had the slightest idea of how to fix up what they had broken down.

1robin said:
5. This would mean the mistakes we made would have minimal impact and we would have the ability to learn from our mistakes and perfect our methods.

In complex environment there is no way of knowing what long term effects your mistakes would have. No one predicted that assisting the Afghan mujahadeen would lead to the rise of global jihadism.

Blowback/unintended consequences have been a marked feature of US military adventures.

Why should I believe that 'this time it will be different'?

1robin said:
The reason why whatever factor you mention was different in Japan compared to Iraq had little to do with them and a lot to do with what we did differently.

1robin said:
In Iraq what happened was not what "I" am suggesting so please stop saying "you" did X in Iraq.

You consistently refer to America as 'we' yet consider it 'a very weird habit' if I use the exact analogue 'you'? That's a bit weird isn't it?

1robin · Dec 14, 2016

Augustus said:
If you are interested The Management of Savagery

Ok, I wanted you to slim down what we discuss, because if I do it might make you think you were cheated. However, since you haven't I will have to. I have way too many debates going and am in the process of ending some and downsizing others so I will only respond to the statements you made that are the most meaningful. I can not justify reading every link I am provided. If you want me to read the stuff you link to then first I need to know what it is I am supposed to learn from the link, what it is that you think the link will show, and preferably a copy and paste of the main idea at the link.

There was always a high possibility they would, but they were not guaranteed to fail as spectacularly as they did.

The alternatives didn't offer a greater chance of success though, imo the opposite.

My alternative holds great promise and I am sure there were many who had plans that did.

Your faith is based on the idea that 'someone' would have been able to fix the situation in some unknown way 10 or 20 years down the line.

My faith was the countless times peace was achieved in a far shorter time and against greater odds.

I considered it pretty certain that the invasion would end in disaster which it did. Given the situation was much worse in 2008, I see no reason to change my mind on the issue.

The invasion was one of the most successful in human history, it was post invasion everything went south.

Hubris was always considered the worst of human failings, modern people often forget this as they are enamored with their own illusions of power and control.

Hubris has been the same problem for all of human history. It is a component of mankind, not of any time frame.

As I've said short term military domination doesn't start to solve the long term political issues that must be resolved.

You advocate the US Japan or British colonial model but fail to see the fundamental difference that you are dealing in short term periods against an adversary who believes you will be leaving soon.

Your potential allies also understand that too. You keep on denying this as relevant and asserting that 'whoever is in charge, this is what we should do'. Unfortunately, real people playing a game of life and death prefer tangible reality to hypothetical scenarios.

It most certainly does but it was the length of military domination that is the most central to my plan. More power for a longer duration very seldom fails.

Oil infrastructure is very vulnerable to disruption and much was severely damaged by 2008. Even if full operational capacity was reached, the oil price would have plummeted like it has now due to overproduction. With security and restoration costs making Iraqi oil very inefficient, this is not the goldmine it might appear to be.

Not with us protecting it, probably the greatest oil sabotage in history was overcome in mere months and never occurred again after we took control.

Even if it was, distributing the money requires local networks and we know how well that worked out last time. Money in your pocket doesn't fix broken societies, only money put to effective use does. How was this to be achieved?

It seems your plan consists of either praising the one plan we know failed catastrophically, condemning my military plans which were not carried out, or claiming no plan could have possibly worked. You need to work at the UN.

Another point to remember is that those 'more qualified' messed everything up so badly that by 2008 a sizable chink of the population preferred ISIS to their own 'democratic' government.

The Bush handpicked INC people lined up to run the country were useless, overstated their support and then turned against you. Basically your government was conned by a load of charlatans.

I see no evidence that anyone had the slightest idea of how to fix up what they had broken down.

You just can't seem present my plan in it's entirety. I said that even if all the political mistakes that were actually made were made in the plan that I have mentioned there would have only been a fraction of the costs with the iron fist of the military on the job in full force.

Islamic societies as in Iraq are pure evil and play by simple rules. We follow the laws and reasonable moral principles, they do not. They are bullies and only fear can compel them to get in line. My plans deal with those issues, Obama's did not. Heck he only rarely would allow anyone to call Islamic violence an act of terrorism. You can't accomplish anything until you first face the truth.

In complex environment there is no way of knowing what long term effects your mistakes would have. No one predicted that assisting the Afghan mujahadeen would lead to the rise of global jihadism.

Blowback/unintended consequences have been a marked feature of US military adventures.

Why should I believe that 'this time it will be different'?

Of course a hypothetical plan does not have any certainty about it. However most decisions in life are based on probability and in most cases fail a few times before finally gotten right. The probability that we could have held that country under marshal law is all but certain, that would have allowed mistakes to be made on the political side without major meltdowns until the point others finally get it right. The two things necessary to keep evil people or evil systems in line are power and fear. Look I can't keep posting my basic plan and keep having you argue against another plan and claim your challenging my own. It seems no matter what you say it does not take into account anything I have said.

You consistently refer to America as 'we' yet consider it 'a very weird habit' if I use the exact analogue 'you'? That's a bit weird isn't it?

I am an American, so the set of people which are Americans include me. What your doing is mention some specific aspect or some specific plan or mindset and link me to it even though I usually do not hold to the views your referring to.

Ok, with every post I am going to shrink the size of our debate because even when you type this much stuff you do not make anything any clearer or show you are increasing your understanding of my position.

Again the following summary is all I want to discuss until you understand my position enough that you can actually apply it correctly.

So my plan in a brief summary is:

1. To have conducted the major operations of the war pretty much the way we did.
2. However once that is done I would not rush to draw down the military or give over control to the Iraq's.
3. Once I had busted up all the attempts by insurgents and corrupt Iraq's to impede the nation building effort, I would start to slowly draw down our troops but to always retain plenty of striking power.
4. The additional time and expenses of this effort and the infrastructure investment would have been paid by seizing their oil until such time as these missions were completed.
5. I would not have started drawing down the QRFs until all our political and security goals had been in place for quite some time.

Until you can accurately internalize and account for all those points I do not want to be more detailed.

faroukfarouk · Dec 28, 2016

Peace to all.
The Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he has uncovered evidence that US-led coalition forces have helped support terrorists in Syria – including Isis.

I know the truth hurts but we have to learn to accept the fact that the US of A has blood of innocent women and children on its hands.
Peace
faroukfarouk

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