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-- The Unfinished War

The Unfinished War

I'm doing this article for my journalism class where we're supposed to read a newspaper/magazine article about a big issue and write about it with our opinions as well as pros/cons about it. Aside from the article I used, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to get your views on this situation. More and more soldiers are dying overseas almost each day it seems, and it looks as if Bush prematurely declared the war to be over. What are your views on this?

well its the price to pay to occupy a country.

its an easy subject, how about you talk about those infamous quote weapons of mass destruction unquote

days and days of fun and research

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Originally posted by ahlamalek well its the price to pay to occupy a country. its an easy subject, how about you talk about those infamous quote weapons of mass destruction unquote days and days of fun and research

What I am planning to do though is to show reasons why people think this is an unfinished war (WMDs, guerrilla tactics killing soldiers, etc.) The thing is I want your opinions on those individual issues as well.

there reason i think bush called the iraq war over was that the main objective of regime change had taken place. as soon as all military resistance ceased to be coming from government sources that indicates the government has lost all control.

the said however i would distinguish what is happening now as the continual war on terror, one which has not been declared as over yet. The factions left that are resisting american forces, both iraqis and foreign nationals, are doing so for a different purpose. not so much the defense of the old regime but for the removal of american forces from arab land, thus giving it a different scope and different agenda for american troops

But wasn't the main objective of the war to seek out Iraq's WMDS as well? We haven't accomplished that yet, if they even had any in the first place.

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Originally posted by Galapidate But wasn't the main objective of the war to seek out Iraq's WMDS as well? We haven't accomplished that yet, if they even had any in the first place.

right... to find WMD or WMD programs. obviously right now there is nothing stopping us from finding them (well maybe that they dont exsist). regardless the fact that american troops have free reign in the iraqi territory, and access to all the government files about programs is an indication that the war allowing us to do so is over.

There is a difference between having all the resources and having all the right resources....just because we can search all we want throughout Iraq doesn't mean we have found the WMDs yet. Bush should have thought twice about declaring major combat over and, if he was so focused on finding those weapons, he should have waited until they found something.

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Originally posted by Izzy the said however i would distinguish what is happening now as the continual war on terror, one which has not been declared as over yet. The factions left that are resisting american forces, both iraqis and foreign nationals, are doing so for a different purpose. not so much the defense of the old regime but for the removal of american forces from arab land, thus giving it a different scope and different agenda for american troops

i don't really understand what you mean here, are you saying that the war on terror is whats going on in iraq right now? because people are resisting american occupation??

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Originally posted by ahlamalek i don't really understand what you mean here, are you saying that the war on terror is whats going on in iraq right now? because people are resisting american occupation??

it's one way to look at it. if the forces leading this resistance were able to succeed and implement a government by their model, i wouldnt doubt that terror would be a result or at least an extrimist government. obviously america would like to see itself as a benign occupier, it is not actively and purposely going out to make iraqi life miserable but help them recover from the war and see to it that they can become full functional and independent. so in my eyes i see the resistance movement not revolting for the betterment of the iraqi people but for implementation of their model of government

- I'll throw in my little piece of Oreo cookire here.

The main reason for Mr. Bush and allies to go to war, was the " War On Terror", but the main reason and OBJECTIVE of the war was to, in someway, get rid of the WMD's that Iraq was " supposedly" harboring in the country, accompained by lots of evidence presented to both UN and the State of the UNion adress ( all the evidenced are starting to look more like BS!!!!!). Yes, Bush declared it over a long time ago.. and now, more soldiers are dying.. there was even an interview and poll where soldiers are strongly discontent, scared and stressed, but will remain there in orde to server their duty ( but not agreen with many of the things happening ).. Now theres some huge chunk of money, which no one knows if its the first payment, second, or who knows ..non of the things US was looking for in Iraq has yet to be found, more soldiers are dying.. the Iraquis hate us.. more outsiders hate us, more terrorism.. was it worth it? justified??.. blaah..

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Originally posted by Izzy so in my eyes i see the resistance movement not revolting for the betterment of the iraqi people but for implementation of their model of government

yes and whats wrong with that, the majority of Iraqis are for a religious-led state right now, who can blame them? After years of economic sanctions led by the UK and USA, years of suffering by a dictatorship, these people became less than poor, starving to death, they don't trust anyone now, they turn back to god. And guess who's gaining "political capital" right now? The only ones that are helping them with money and food, the clergy...

I am not saying that religious govt are the way to go, i'm actually frankly opposed to them. But deciding for Iraqis is wrong. Let them be.

Later, when they'll think not with their tummy but with their brains, people will want another form of govt (look at Iran).

I want to add that, an imposed govt (eventually led by chalabi) will only fail in the coming years. It will be attecked coup after coup till it falls. This will bring the people back to what they want right now.

You can't rush a society from one form of govt to another.

Bush didn't call the war over, he called the part of "main combat operations" of the war over... or something of that phrasing. Meaning the big battle - and gurrellia warfare compared to "ops. shock and awe" is small.

Its just as always, the media will take your quote out of context and meaing.

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Originally posted by LiquidX - I'll throw in my little piece of Oreo cookire here. The main reason for Mr. Bush and allies to go to war, was the " War On Terror", but the main reason and OBJECTIVE of the war was to, in someway, get rid of the WMD's that Iraq was " supposedly" harboring in the country, accompained by lots of evidence presented to both UN and the State of the UNion adress ( all the evidenced are starting to look more like BS!!!!!). Yes, Bush declared it over a long time ago.. and now, more soldiers are dying.. there was even an interview and poll where soldiers are strongly discontent, scared and stressed, but will remain there in orde to server their duty ( but not agreen with many of the things happening ).. Now theres some huge chunk of money, which no one knows if its the first payment, second, or who knows ..non of the things US was looking for in Iraq has yet to be found, more soldiers are dying.. the Iraquis hate us.. more outsiders hate us, more terrorism.. was it worth it? justified??.. blaah..

In your semi-comprehensive post, that brought up a lot of great points!

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Originally posted by ahlamalek yes and whats wrong with that, the majority of Iraqis are for a religious-led state right now, who can blame them? After years of economic sanctions led by the UK and USA, years of suffering by a dictatorship, these people became less than poor, starving to death, they don't trust anyone now, they turn back to god. And guess who's gaining "political capital" right now? The only ones that are helping them with money and food, the clergy... I am not saying that religious govt are the way to go, i'm actually frankly opposed to them. But deciding for Iraqis is wrong. Let them be. Later, when they'll think not with their tummy but with their brains, people will want another form of govt (look at Iran). I want to add that, an imposed govt (eventually led by chalabi) will only fail in the coming years. It will be attecked coup after coup till it falls. This will bring the people back to what they want right now.

In all actuallity chalabi is not the one that makes the final constitution but that it is rather made by the council at large and then voted in by the all the memebers. from the looks of it they will declare iraq a muslim state but that it will not impose Islamic Shariah law (as like the recently published draft of the afghanistan constitution).

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You can't rush a society from one form of govt to another.

i agree. and that is why setting up the government should take its time to make sure it is done correctly and effiently and not by some mob using current day emotions. thus the occupying force should take their time to make sure that the society makes a smooth transistion from government to government

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Originally posted by Izzy In all actuallity chalabi is not the one that makes the final constitution but that it is rather made by the council at large and then voted in by the all the memebers. from the looks of it they will declare iraq a muslim state but that it will not impose Islamic Shariah law (as like the recently published draft of the afghanistan constitution). i agree. and that is why setting up the government should take its time to make sure it is done correctly and effiently and not by some mob using current day emotions. thus the occupying force should take their time to make sure that the society makes a smooth transistion from government to government

With respect to the issue of the Iraqi constitution, despite the fact that the US has been trying to push it through in the 6 month time frame, the Iraqi governing council has been the body that has been hesistant in constructing a constitution in such a short time frame. I more or less think that it is a prudent decision to take the time necessary to make an all-enveloping constitution that will have the most benefit to Iraqi society.

Personally I think it is a finished war but an unfinished fight to secure the peace. Matters such as this take a lot of time. Thankfully it appears that there is no widespread support to abandon Iraq under Bush or any of the contending democrats. Hopefully, we'll stick with it until the end. Although the US wants to hand over authority to the Iraqis, right now that is an unfeasible scenario with the governing Iraqis themselves being reluctant to saddle themselves with that huge responsibility. Like it or not, we took on the risks of reconstructing Iraq, and now we have to see it through to the very end.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3153732.stm

wow you really always have a BBC link for everything, don't you!

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Originally posted by Yoepus wow you really always have a BBC link for everything, don't you!

BBC is seriously one of my FAVORITE comprehensive news networks. I really think it is top notch among most other news agencies. It's closest competitors are cnn and reuters in my opinion and as of late I was very upset with Reuters when it did that article on the DOHA meetings in Cancun! However, I can never abandon reuters because it does comprehensive economic analyses of the latest indicators. My daily news search: Reuters(moderate/pro-EU) --> BBC(Mostly Neutral/minor bias) --> CNN International (Mostly Neutral) --> Economist (conservative) -- > Business Week (Moderate)--> Economy.com (daily economic indicator data!!!) Now when I say biased or neutral I'm speaking with respect to American vs. European bias which makes sense since I'm american. I don't know about any other bias since I'm not exposed to any other facts in depth.

Also the reason why I use BBC a lot is because it has THE BEST search tool for articles I have ever seen.

look, I don't care how convicing you make it sound, I'm still not buying a subscription to the BBC from you!

Damn... then I probably couldn't convince you to get an Alaska Airlines Visa card with 5,000 bonus miles, 2 free first class upgrades, board room passes, and a $50 round trip companion pass....either huh? Not to mention the fact that I have to remember that half the people on here aren't old enough for a credit card...let alone this one...ROFL


The only interesting thing that came to mind to me on this issue is when you titled it "unfinished war" I thought you were talking about The Korean Conflict. Until reading into it, I see you are not...but it's funny how some views are so short term...when we always seem to forget that this "war" hasn't "ended" either, some 40 years later.

I guess I'm not a person that thought this would be completely over for quick, clean and easy...major ops yes...and in fact I thought our operation was impressively fast, but I knew very well this whole thing would take forever to get through...people that use gorilla tactics never seem to disappear...plus it is the way these people have acted for ...well...quite possibly thousands of years.

bahh i can't think tonight...13 hours of flying did me in today.

Ok, my journalism teacher told me that I should narrow it down to one particular aspect of this war, so I decided to focus is on the unnecessary spending of the $87 billion Bush wanted to get from Congress. What are your opinions on it? When I mean unnecessary I mean that for example $1 million will be used to build a Saddam Hussein museum to show his atrocities and another $2.1 billion will be used to IMPORT petroleum products (wtf?)

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Originally posted by Galapidate $2.1 billion will be used to IMPORT petroleum products (wtf?)

it's no secret that iraqi's oil producing infrastructure is a disaster needing major over haul.

btw where'd you get the allocation of money for the $87bil?
is there a report that says where each mil is going to be invested in? that would definitely be interesting to see.

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Originally posted by Izzy it's no secret that iraqi's oil producing infrastructure is a disaster needing major over haul. btw where'd you get the allocation of money for the $87bil? is there a report that says where each mil is going to be invested in? that would definitely be interesting to see.

Actually yes, there's an article in this week (October 6) TIME Magazine about the miscalculations of the war and where the U.S. went wrong, etc. On the second page I believe there is a side bar that shows the ways some of the $87 are being allocated.

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Originally posted by PhloTron Damn... then I probably couldn't convince you to get an Alaska Airlines Visa card with 5,000 bonus miles, 2 free first class upgrades, board room passes, and a $50 round trip companion pass....either huh?

Nah that actually sounds good... hook me up

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