Originally Posted by Finch

So, do you have the impression that Gates "gets it" wrt 4GW? He's quick to point out all the mistakes that Rumsfeld et al have made, but does he understand that the military's tactics are completely inappropriate for the Iraq theatre?

I really don't know yet. I have seen several press reports of a divide within the army between traditional 3GW people, who are among the most senior, and young guns who thing insurgency requires something entirely different. I don't even know enough about how effective the 'something entirely different' might be on the ground. I don't think anyone does.

But I think there will be enough political and popular pressure that there has to be a major change, while the Army is big and bureaucratic enough that such change might well be resisted.

I'm more giving a heads up of a situation worth watching than saying what is likely to happen at this point. Gut feeling, a shift ought to take place, but I'm not enough of a technical pro to have a firm opinion on the merits of any new approaches.

Originally Posted by Odin

The main problem is that the corporate media has had a tendency of ignoring or minimizing anti-war protests; being stuck in "free speech zones" in places where no one can see you doesn't help ether. Another problem is that us Millies don't have as much free time as you Boomers did because we are working our asses off to pay for obcenely high college tuition (I rember some quote somewhere that said that college students with too much free time cause rebellions, LOL! ). We need to take over the media if we want to get our message out and that's what the left-wing blogosphere is all about. We need to create a new media infrastructure in which corporate influence is minimized.

I agree with all of that completely;

the only thing I would say is that if the people power becomes big enough, it can't be ignored, because as Bob dylan said it will soon shake their windows and rattle their walls (the walls of the media moguls, government, corporations, etc.). The problem is that we don't think we can mobilize ourselves like we did in the 60s; but in other nations they got 2 and 3 million people in the streets on Feb15, 2003 and we (in the heart of the monster) only managed 200,000 or so (me being one of them).

There are now a few more liberal radio talk shows too.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

The problem is that we don't think we can mobilize ourselves like we did in the 60s; but in other nations they got 2 and 3 million people in the streets on Feb15, 2003 and we (in the heart of the monster) only managed 200,000 or so (me being one of them).

IMO this is exactly BECAUSE of the media belittling the protests and trying to portray all the protesters as mostly Marxists and anarchists, that discourages center-left people, anti-war centrists, and anti-war conservatives from joining the protests.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

The problem is that we don't think we can mobilize ourselves like we did in the 60s; but in other nations they got 2 and 3 million people in the streets on Feb15, 2003 and we (in the heart of the monster) only managed 200,000 or so (me being one of them).

In that case, Ann Arbor supplied more than its share. I recall sitting with my daughter in the COSI on State Street and watching the protesters parade on by. The procession took nearly half an hour. I was impressed.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Usual disclaimers apply.

I'll bet the citizens of the country formerly known as Iraq will savor that delicious irony for years to come. They spend the next decade killing each other - in part over who controls the oil - and in the end who controls the oil doesn't even live in the country.

I also bet those oil fields are the safest places in Iraq outside the Green Zone.

From the Washington Post. The usual disclaimers apply...

Rice, a Uniter of the Divided

Within minutes of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's arrival on Capitol Hill yesterday, it became apparent that the Bush administration had, after four divisive years, finally succeeded in uniting Congress on the war in Iraq.

Unfortunately for Rice, the lawmakers were unified in opposition to President Bush's new policy.

"I have to say, Madam Secretary," a seething Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) told Rice, "that I think this speech given last night by this president represents the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam..."

It goes on. It is amusing, that she tried to discourage use of the word 'escalation.' It seems, though, that the elections may have robbed Bush 43 of the ability to rebrand Iraq. His personal view of what the reality on the ground is has become considerably less relevant.

I'm doubtful executions are ever merited, but you'd have thought that our friends in Iraq would have learned (after the lynching of Saddam Hussein) how to conduct a hanging without unseemly sectarian connotations.

But apparently not.

Originally Posted by CNN

TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) -- Iraqi Shiites, oppressed by Saddam Hussein, welcomed the hanging of two of his aides on Monday, though some joined Sunni Arabs in expressing shock that his half-brother's head was ripped off by the noose.

Hussein's two co-defendants were hanged before dawn on Monday, the Iraqi government said.

They admitted that the head of his half-brother Barzan Hassan was torn from his body by the force of the rope during the execution. (Full story)

In Hussein and Hassan's home town of Tikrit, a Sunni Arab stronghold north of Baghdad, a black banner was raised on the main mosque, named after Hussein, saying: "The people of Tikrit mourn the two martyrs ... killed by sectarian hands."

"There is no way a head would be ripped off the body during a hanging. I'm sure they mutilated the bodies after they hanged them," said Ahmed Mustafa, a 30-year-old student in the northern city of Mosul, accusing Iraq's Shiite-led government of "sucking the blood of the people."

Whether this was a case of extreme incompetence, or grotesque intent, all it does is remind one of the tactics of the very Sunni Islamist barbarians this government is supposed to be above.

Originally Posted by Linus

Whether this was a case of extreme incompetence, or grotesque intent, all it does is remind one of the tactics of the very Sunni Islamist barbarians this government is supposed to be above.

It happens. If one does not drop the victim far enough, the death is very slow by strangulation. If one drops too far, the head comes off. Over the centuries, a table of heights and weights has been worked out that usually results in a clean quick death. It is not unheard of that the table is always correct. From what I know of Saddam's death, they are using a long drop, about 8 feet in the brother in law's case, intended to create the quick death.

In the streets of Iraq, the recent tradition is to put a power drill hole through a knee joint before shooting someone in the back of the head, then dumping the body somewhere it will be found to make a good example. Taking lives to send a political message is an ugly business. At this point, everyone's hands are bloody.

My own view is that we probably should have ass-raped them both before trying to behead them.

Originally Posted by Linus

My own view is that we probably should have ass-raped them both before trying to behead them.

Um. eww?

I suppose, if you really had wanted to do it, but I don't swing that way, personally...

Originally Posted by Linus

My own view is that we probably should have ass-raped them both before trying to behead them.

You hear stories... It seems that some over there believe chaste women automatically enter paradise. What is the point of executing someone, if you know they just go to paradise? Thus, the jailers, before executing a woman, make sure she is not chaste.

I would think that such jailers would only do such things if they are very sure they are never going to die, will never have to face Allah...

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

You hear stories... It seems that some over there believe chaste women automatically enter paradise. What is the point of executing someone, if you know they just go to paradise? Thus, the jailers, before executing a woman, make sure she is not chaste.

I would think that such jailers would only do such things if they are very sure they are never going to die, will never have to face Allah...

In the Muslim world men who do the ass-raping aren't considered queer, only men who get ass-raped. And since queers all go to hell, but non-queers don't necessarily go to hell, it follows that ass rapers may not go to hell.

This is an apparently necessary distinction in a culture where people get holes drilled in their heads for cavorting with unmarried women. Something approaching half of men in some parts of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan had had sex with another male.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Um. eww?

I suppose, if you really had wanted to do it, but I don't swing that way, personally...

You're right. Where ass rape is concerned, our friends in Iraq seem to prefer teenage boys to old men.

But surely you can agree to the importance of showing them who the man of the house is. Perhaps the more American custom of ass-raping suspects with broom handles would be more appropriate in this situation.

Or is what you're really saying is that it's just not Giuliani time?

(Of course I only mentioned Giuliani in jest. Obviously he is only responsible for all the good things that happened on his watch and none of the bad. I feel certain his magic aura is the reason that only two buildings in New York were struck on 9/11 and not twelve or fifteen.)

Originally Posted by Linus

You're right. Where ass rape is concerned, our friends in Iraq seem to prefer teenage boys to old men.

Your friends, maybe. I have a bit higher standards in the company I keep...

But surely you can agree to the importance of showing them who the man of the house is.

I suppose if you are a macaque.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Your friends, maybe. I have a bit higher standards in the company I keep...

As a lib, naturally my friends are those who behead infidel soldiers and zionist contractors. They only ass-rape teenage boys in their spare time.

You have to understand that it is morally as well as practically impossible to oppose Baathist dictators, Islamic totalitarianism, and American military crusades at the same time.

Methinks Linus has gone off the deep end!

Originally Posted by Odin

Methinks Linus has gone off the deep end!

This thread is getting crazy in labeling folks. JustPassingThrough has proposed Gingrich and Hitler as being progressive from his version of the Red perspective. I have also found my self head scratching in terms of whose side are we on in Iraq. The short version is that we want to be friends with everybody, which means we have to defend everybody from everybody else...

When we were kids, we had a somewhat related problem. Mom would quite often say things like "would somebody take out the trash?" My older sister and I decided my younger sister was 'somebody.' My older sister was 'somebody else.' I decided to claim 'nobody.'

Just so long as the Iraq problem isn't nobody's fault...

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

This thread is getting crazy in labeling folks. JustPassingThrough has proposed Gingrich and Hitler as being progressive from his version of the Red perspective. I have also found my self head scratching in terms of whose side are we on in Iraq. The short version is that we want to be friends with everybody, which means we have to defend everybody from everybody else...

When we were kids, we had a somewhat related problem. Mom would quite often say things like "would somebody take out the trash?" My older sister and I decided my younger sister was 'somebody.' My older sister was 'somebody else.' I decided to claim 'nobody.'

Just so long as the Iraq problem isn't nobody's fault...

Sure it is! Welcome to 2007!

Report warns of Iraq's collapse.

Linus warns of indigestion resulting from the consumption of rich, salty, and spicy foods.

Originally Posted by Linus

Report warns of Iraq's collapse.

Linus warns of indigestion resulting from the consumption of rich, salty, and spicy foods.

*Sarcasm* But, but, that can't be true, John X. said with 100% certainty that it was impossible for Iraq to collpase or to have a civil war! *Sarcasm*

"Kurdish rebels kill 7 at military outpost in Turkey"

Originally Posted by The AP

NKARA, Turkey -- Kurdish rebels fired rockets and grenades at a Turkish military outpost Monday, killing seven soldiers in an attack that heightened tension at a time when Ankara has threatened military action against the rebels in northern Iraq.

The Turkish army sent helicopter gunships and reinforcements to Tunceli province in southeastern Turkey after guerrillas rammed a vehicle into the military post and fired automatic weapons and rockets at troops, local media reported.

Soldiers returned fire, killing the vehicle's driver, the military said.

I wonder if those who regard the Kurds as allies in the Fight to Democratize and Westernize the Mideast would regard a decade-long guerrilla war to capture southern Turkey from a NATO ally as a noble struggle.

Originally Posted by Linus

"Kurdish rebels kill 7 at military outpost in Turkey"



I wonder if those who regard the Kurds as allies in the Fight to Democratize and Westernize the Mideast would regard a decade-long guerrilla war to capture southern Turkey from a NATO ally as a noble struggle.

This has been brewing since the beginning and has been the great unanswered question surrounding Iraqi Kurdistan. When I attended a summer program in Normandy, a Kurdish student did a little presentation about the Kurdish situation. It was certainly an issue to him in 1985.The issue spills over into Syria and Iran, as well.

See map.

Originally Posted by scott 63

This has been brewing since the beginning and has been the great unanswered question surrounding Iraqi Kurdistan. When I attended a summer program in Normandy, a Kurdish student did a little presentation about the Kurdish situation. It was certainly an issue to him in 1985.

I've written about this before: it was a big issue in 1985, with an extensive insurgent force (the PKK) battling the Turkish army. The US helped "solve" the problem they same way they usually do, by funneling billions of dollars to paramilitary death squads to massacre the indigenous base of support. In 1999, the leader of the PKK, Abdullah Ocalan, was captured and sentenced to death. With the "Kurdish problem" solved for the time being, Turkey is in 1T.

Oddly enough, the US also helped solve the "Kurdish problem" on the other side of the Iraqi border in the opposite way, by instituting the "no-fly" zone over northern Iraq after the first Gulf War. The Kurdish area of Iraq (don't call it 'Kurdistan') is a de facto independent state, with its own army (the peshmerga), its own government, and its own revenue base (oil from Kirkuk and Mosul, which are not majority-Kurd cities.)

If it is a de facto independent state with its own army and everything, the only reason not to call it Kurdistan is the same reason for telling your no-dogs landlord that Rover is a cat.

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

If it is a de facto independent state with its own army and everything, the only reason not to call it Kurdistan is the same reason for telling your no-dogs landlord that Rover is a cat.

Yes, but who is the landlord? The US, Turkey, and/or Iran (which also has a Kurdish area?)