View Poll Results: Are winning or losing the Iraq War?

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  • Inevitable: we've lost.

    3 9.09%
  • We're losing, but the end remains uncertain.

    16 48.48%
  • Even so far, both sides in play.

    3 9.09%
  • We're winning, but the end remains uncertain.

    8 24.24%
  • Inevitable: we've won.

    1 3.03%
  • Cannot determine at this time.

    2 6.06%
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Thread: Vote: have we lost in Iraq?

  1. #41
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    Default Asserting that it's a government does not make it so.

    Diplomatic recognition means little. There are many instances in history of States treating with “faux” governments as equals, esp. colonial governments.

    As for the UN recognition as an indicator of legitimacy, the USSR had three seats: Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine. The last 2 were of course diplomatic illusions.

    Let’s look instead at reality. Governments have specific characteristics, the more of these they possess, the stronger. Just to hit the high points…

    · Control of armed force
    · The ability to levy and collect taxes
    · An administrative mechanism to execute its policies
    · Territory in which it is the dominant political entity.
    · Control of borders
    · Legitimacy (not love) in the eyes of its people

    The “government” of Iraq has, by most reports, none of these.

    “I am now prime minister and overall commander of the armed forces yet I cannot move a single company without Coalition approval…”
    Nuri al-Maliki, Prime Minister of Iraq, interview with Reuters on October 26, 2006

    It lives on oil revenue and US funding.

    The ministries are owned by ethnic and religious groups, parceled out as patronage.

    The only territory it controls is the Green Zone.

    Etc, etc.

  2. #42
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Fabius Maximus View Post
    What radicals?

    Iraq has ethnic divisions. Arab vs. Kurd vs. Turkman. It has religious division, obviously. But whatis the basis for assuming that the fighters are not mainstream representatives of these groups?
    Don't forget Persians. Iranians/some Shia in Iraq are not Arabs.

  3. #43
    Council Member Culpeper's Avatar
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    Default

    Fabius

    That is not true considering that that most of the violence is occurring in a 35 mile radius and the rest of the country seems to be progressing. You're taking 35 miles and making it an entire nation. You're doing exactly what a insurgency wants to hear. You're giving them more credit than they are worth. And you're giving absolutely no credit to the opposition. You seem to think that the insurgents have the Iraqi government hostage. I'm not trying to convince you otherwise but just pointing out the slant in your analysis. The only credit I give the current insurgencies in Iraq is that they are settling old scores, while not the best of plans, and the Coalition and Iraq are dealing with multiple problems that any country in the same situation would be facing and dealing with. Now, if you're micromanaging your analysis than that is fine but you should limit it to what is occurring around the "Green Zone" itself and not including the entire country. Unless you want to do a compare and contrast analysis, which you are not doing presently, and would be a contradiction. In fact, I'm afraid that any analysis could become obsolete rather quickly considering what is actually happening in-country. al-Sadr may have a strong Mahdi Army today and in a few months he may have a dead Mahdi Army. But that is up to him, isn't it? The Mahdi Army had a peaceful parade yesterday. Does that make the current Iraqi government powerless? The bottom line is that the various insurgencies, for a lack of better words, has gone beyond just having to not lose any longer. They have to win. According to counterinsurgency doctrine that is actually a win for the counterinsurgency.
    Last edited by Culpeper; 11-26-2006 at 07:54 PM. Reason: addressing

  4. #44
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    Default attributes of Government

    You might be right (I question the DoD data, but that is another issue), but you miss my point. Most of your characterizations of my argument do not reflect what I am saying. You are debating a straw man.

    There is no insurgency in the Kurd regions, but that does not mean that the central gov't rules there. It means that the Kurd insurgency has won. They control the Army (Peshmerga), run a gov't, levy taxes, etc.

    Similar, there is little presence of the Central gov't in the southern regions, as power has devolved to local entities.

    If you believe there is a "real" government, take a moment and list its attributes. If you do not like my list, you might work from the traditional list -- sovereignty, authority, and legitimacy.

  5. #45
    Council Member Culpeper's Avatar
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    Default

    You see, that is what I meant by if you made a compare and contrast it would be a contradiction.

    There is no insurgency in the Kurd regions, but that does not mean that the central gov't rules there. It means that the Kurd insurgency has won. They control the Army (Peshmerga), run a gov't, levy taxes, etc.
    There is no need for me to argue because the United Nations has accepted the current Iraqi government into the world community and further legitimizing it by overseeing its elections. You are presenting a nihilistic view of the new Iraqi government and that is fine because you only need to present an opinion or hypothesis. But total rejection of established laws and institutions doesn't make it so.

  6. #46
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    Default insurrections ends with either victory or defeat

    Thanks for catching the grammatical error! It is not a contradiction, of course.

    More formally I should have said “There is no insurgency in the Kurd regions, but that does not mean that the central gov't rules there. It means that the Kurd insurgency has won. They (the Kurds) now control an Army (Peshmerga), run a gov't, levy taxes, etc.”

  7. #47
    Council Member Culpeper's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fabius Maximus View Post
    Thanks for catching the grammatical error! It is not a contradiction, of course.

    More formally I should have said “There is no insurgency in the Kurd regions, but that does not mean that the central gov't rules there. It means that the Kurd insurgency has won. They (the Kurds) now control an Army (Peshmerga), run a gov't, levy taxes, etc.”
    No problem

    You have to be careful on this forum. All of us have already taken all the prerequisites.

  8. #48
    Council Member RTK's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fabius Maximus View Post
    As of today, is the outcome inevitable? If so, what outcome? Please explain why you believe this is so.

    I have written 20 articles on the Iraq War, going back to Summer 2003. Initially pessimistic, like Lind and Prof. van Creveld, moving to gloomy, then certain that we've lost. The only remaining questions are when we'll give up, and how much we will have lost in blood, money, and influence.

    My articles are at DNI. Here is the latest, with links to the others at the end:
    http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/fabius_iraq_sitrep_11-2006.htm

    What are your views?
    Upon further review of your posts, do you use SWJ to bolster readership on another site? If so, doesn't that violate some of the premise of SWJ? Additionally, why not fill out a little bio information to give your positioning some credibility and relevance?

    If you've written 20 articles in three years, that's about one every two months. Do you travel to and from Iraq regularly and embed with units in theater? Where do you get your info? Or are you a blogger who has no operational context to place things in?

    These are honest questions, since your history of starting posts in the last 6 months seems to suggest an intentional bias not to discuss and suggest, but to take the perverbial baseball bat to the beehive for personal gain.

    What's the deal?

  9. #49
    Council Member Uboat509's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by RTK View Post
    Upon further review of your posts, do you use SWJ to bolster readership on another site? If so, doesn't that violate some of the premise of SWJ? Additionally, why not fill out a little bio information to give your positioning some credibility and relevance?

    If you've written 20 articles in three years, that's about one every two months. Do you travel to and from Iraq regularly and embed with units in theater? Where do you get your info? Or are you a blogger who has no operational context to place things in?

    These are honest questions, since your history of starting posts in the last 6 months seems to suggest an intentional bias not to discuss and suggest, but to take the proverbial baseball bat to the beehive for personal gain.

    What's the deal?

    +1

    Many of your posts are dripping with a combination of sarcasm, condescension and arrogance. There is a great deal of knowledge and experience on this board and these guys don't respond well to anyone who talks down to them. It is one thing to have a differing opinion but quite another to state that "The number of votes for "brilliant, useful" suggests that America is doomed. I recommend that we all get dual citizenship with some refuge nation, perhaps an isolated communist State up in the hills. Like Albania, or Berkeley." That's not the way to get your point across. It is however a good way to turn people off.

    SFC W

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