This is just rich. First he tells the UN to shove it since they won't back him on a war against Iraq,and now he wants their help to rebuild a country from a war they didn't want any part of? You gotta be kidding me.

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Originally posted by Sand Leaper This is just rich. First he tells the UN to shove it since they won't back him on a war against Iraq,and now he wants their help to rebuild a country from a war they didn't want any part of? You gotta be kidding me.

You didn't think that he actually thought this through and through did you? Also I love how rumsfeld continues to state that more troops are not needed. If I had a deep set desire to oust the regime ************ of its immediate threat (and I kind of did) then I would have immediately expanded the scope of the responsibilties and power to the UN after the dirty deed was done. There was no real point in maintaining SOLE power in the region following the war. What would have been the benefits? I think the only reason Bush wants to avoid power sharing is because he's in some kind of pissing contest.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle....storyID=3383146

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Retro ...

The kind of help Bush has to seek is the psychological kind...

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It has to start somewhere,
It has to start sometime,
What better place then here?
What better time than now?
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oh boy, i bet some of those "patriotic" americans who bashed france, germany, the UN, and renamed french * to freedom *, must feel goofy now that we are asking for their help

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Originally posted by Vesa His role is to arbitrate in the US Administration between the incompatible visions of his advisors (Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz vs Powell/Bush Sr/Scowcroft). So Bush is living from hand to mouth, choosing the most appropriate advice for each day, instead of planning for the long term.

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Just see how Bush used Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith and Perle in the early planning. Then Bush gave their worst rival Powell the task of getting a UN Resolution that Neocons didn't want.

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Then Bush gave Franks the task of detailed military planning with a complete revision of Neocons' military vision.

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So the US went to war with plans largely distorted from the original reasoning.

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Bush lost his trust in Neocons, and replaced Garner with Bremer, leading to questionable decisions like disbanding the Iraqi army and sidelining INC which was supposed to hold the mess together.

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Neocons never wanted many US troops in Iraq, Instead, Rumsfeld wanted temporary application of superior firepower, and also US Spec-Ops to play a central role like in Afghanistan where few US troops were needed. Franks insisted on more troops.

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Not pissing off ordinary Iraqis was a central premise for the Neocons' war plan to work at all. Neocons estimated that INC's dominant presence would stop this cycle at the very start.

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Neocons wanted to change the US foreign policy. The majority of American and foreign politicians resisted.

i'm not trying to put words into your mouth but from what i understand you're saying that if the Neo-Cons had their way, we wouldnt be in this mess.

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If God is the answer, it must have been a very stupid question.

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Originally posted by Izzy i'm not trying to put words into your mouth but from what i understand you're saying that if the Neo-Cons had their way, we wouldnt be in this mess.

ya thats sort of what i understood too.. sort of makes me an even bigger neocon fan

Well, we certainly wouldn't be in this mess, but that doesn't mean we wouldn't be in a mess at all.

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1+1=10

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Originally posted by Galapidate Bush should be impeached.

yep, yes sir i agree. I never voted for him, never supported him.

I guess that is a summary of options, but me as a neocon-fan have always told my friends way before any action of Iraq was on the 'official' table that the US should act in option 1 and this was their best chance of success...

I also believe the neo-cons themseleves were for option 1 (especially if you listen to what Rummy said before the war).

I think you are mixing the neo-cons with the old-cons. The old-cons wanted option 2, and they got it.. they went the old conservative route -> Powell Doctorine, not Bush or Rumsefeld Doctorine.

Powell doctorine calls for an amassment of forces before attack and overwhelm the enemy to create a quick victory. Strategy in Gulf War II reflect Gulf War I (old-cons) much more then Afghanistan (neocons). I believe it was Neocons behind option 1, oldcons behind option 2, and liberals, or multinationalists behind option 3.

In reality they did chose option two.. as it was the centeral agreeable strategy between the two others on the fringes.

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Originally posted by Vesa I think the situation is much more complex than Neocons. To put it shortly, the Iraq War and the current wider Middle-Eastern mess is IMO just instability resulting from the end of the Cold War. The Soviet Union left a big power vacuum, and exposed all the dubious temporary solutions of both superpowers.

I completely agree you are wrong - all these problems are not the result of the end of the Cold War. At least not how I understand it, infact the majority of the world's problems -> Iraq, Yugoslavia, Africa, Israel-Palestinian, India-Pakistan.. and the list go on are the results actually from the collapse of colonialisim.

You see colonialism collapsed very early in the last century, if I wrre to be a historian, I would define the end of WWI the end of colonialism. During that time you would see the glimmers that were to begin to rip the world into this chaos once again. By WWII colonialisim was on a down hill, after WWII the colonial powers were bankrupt after fighting their wars on the mainland they had lose the power to control their former colonies.

The Cold War brought a stasis to these crisis. Under the threat of mutual destruction, the two super-powers created an uneasy stability where these crises were unable to arupt for the most part (of course there are exceptions, as the Arab-Israeli conflict, and many African colonial revolts...).

It is only now, that the cold war has collapsed and the threat of mutual destruction has arisen that the effects of the end of colonialisim are really being felt. Now self-determination is in action -> you can see it work everywhere in the world, its results are usually bloody, violent, and savage revolutions that have no point to them ... but the people are self-determining this, so it must be good?!

We are entering a new world the era of post-colonialsim.. and it is radically scary imagining it without a super-power or empire.

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Originally posted by Yoepus I guess that is a summary of options, but me as a neocon-fan have always told my friends way before any action of Iraq was on the 'official' table that the US should act in option 1 and this was their best chance of success... I also believe the neo-cons themseleves were for option 1 (especially if you listen to what Rummy said before the war). I think you are mixing the neo-cons with the old-cons. The old-cons wanted option 2, and they got it.. they went the old conservative route -> Powell Doctorine, not Bush or Rumsefeld Doctorine. Powell doctorine calls for an amassment of forces before attack and overwhelm the enemy to create a quick victory. Strategy in Gulf War II reflect Gulf War I (old-cons) much more then Afghanistan (neocons). I believe it was Neocons behind option 1, oldcons behind option 2, and liberals, or multinationalists behind option 3. In reality they did chose option two.. as it was the centeral agreeable strategy between the two others on the fringes.

The current invasion of Iraq did create a quick "victory" yes. But it was far from what the Powell doctrine would consider an overwhelming force.

The tactics used were a lot closer kin to the German Blitkreig invasions of WWII. Hit hard, fast, and deep into enemy territory and shock your opponent into submission. But even the Wehrmacht had sufficient troops to mop up any left-over resistance after the first wave went through.

The US did not have enough troops amassed on the entry-point to protect vital supply lines from ambushes, much less to do any real mopping up behind them. This is part of the cause of the problems there today. Much of the lighter resistance was bypassed or even ignored in the thrust to Baghdad. An "overwhelming" force would have subdued ALL resistance, not just that in armored vehicles or along the supply routes.

My opinion is that had Saddam and his cohorts not bailed out of Baghdad so quickly and dug in a bit, we would be in a "better" situation today. The battle for the city would have taken longer, and unfortuanately harmed more civilians. But it would have allowed the US and British forces to do some better mopping up. It would also have allowed the groups repairing infrastructure to get into the swing of things.

Declaring an "end to major combat operations" was premature at best. It was an outright lie for the sake of a few sound bytes and photo ops at worst. At the very least it was an idea pushed by political, not military advisors.

MrS

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