Cutting off funding is not a plan

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Ronald Cherrycoke

What Stoker doesn't grasp, or at least address, is insurgents are fellow country men with different political ideals. Not true in Iraq. Iraq has a holy civil war going on, which is a whole different animal than political dissidents.


Not exactly true...I believe most of the insurgents are Iranian or Syrians with a direct outside political viewpoint...with Iraq being a threat to their to their balance in the middle east.

If you look at the distribution of Muslim sects, Saddam's Sunni minority in Iraq are the majority in Iran. But that's it, the rest of the World is primarily Shia. I can see where the Iranians would have an interest in helping their Bros. But that said, I haven't seen any evidence of more than bomb building trainers and organizers....you know, scoutmasters, coming over. There's plenty of locals in Iraq, with nothing to do and nothing to lose.

You know that no one is going anywhere until we secure that oil... it is the reason we went there to begin with.

[yesman065]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

I can see where the Iranians would have an interest in helping their Bros. But that said, I haven't seen any evidence of more than bomb building trainers and organizers....you know, scoutmasters, coming over. There's plenty of locals in Iraq, with nothing to do and nothing to lose.

I don't know either, but I suspect that Iran is doing a lot more than we know of. I have no proof or anything, just suspicions. :shrug:

[JayMcGee]

Originally Posted by Ronald Cherrycoke

.......

Not exactly true...I believe most of the insurgents are Iranian or Syrians with a direct outside political viewpoint...with Iraq being a threat to their to their balance in the middle east.

I just love the US Constitution. You can say what you believe.
Even though it's crap of the first order.

Originally Posted by yesman065

I don't know either, but I suspect that Iran is doing a lot more than we know of. I have no proof or anything, just suspicions. :shrug:

Of course, everyone is always doing more than we know of...

[Urbane Guerrilla]

As I expected, and as I called it elsewhere: the Dem Party will behave either stupidly or treasonably -- but not well.

Bastards.

[deadbeater]

Not as treasonous as the Bush administration.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Db, you know I'd tell you that's utter nonsense, and I figure that for reasons that are better than yours. First, and for information you won't ever understand (I know, you see, the rabid anti-Bushies) but which is just for you anyway, having difficulties with a war is simply not treason. You could read your Constitution if you think I'm full of it. I'm only going to speak truth.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

If you look at the distribution of Muslim sects, Saddam's Sunni minority in Iraq are the majority in Iran. But that's it, the rest of the World is primarily Shia. I can see where the Iranians would have an interest in helping their Bros. But that said, I haven't seen any evidence of more than bomb building trainers and organizers....you know, scoutmasters, coming over. There's plenty of locals in Iraq, with nothing to do and nothing to lose.

I think you've mixed things a bit.

Shias Today
Iran is overwhelmingly Shia - 89%. Shias also form a majority of the population in Yemen and Azerbaijan, Bahrain and 60% of the population of Iraq. There are also sizeable Shia communities along the east coast of Saudi Arabia and in the Lebanon. The well known guerilla organization Hizbollah, which forced the Israelis out of southern Lebanon in 2000, is Shia. Worldwide, Shias constitute ten to fifteen percent of the overall Muslim population.

[tw]

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

You know that no one is going anywhere until we secure that oil... it is the reason we went there to begin with.

Considering instabilities that now exist, low oil prices are rather surprising. Russia cuts off oil (and gas) to Europe, et al sometimes unexpectedly and even unilaterally forces renegotiation on Sakhalin Island operations. Nigeria maybe headed for civil war. Venezuela clearly wants socialism and an adversarial US. Iraq will not be stable for how many decades? Iran on a list of countries to be unilaterally attacked. The world's most busy oil bottleneck - Strait of Hormuz - centered about numerous wars and adversarial nations thereby threatening supplies from both Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Supplies from both the Alaska North shore and North Sea diminishing at faster than expected rates. Caspian region always unstable.

What does that leave to maintain supply? American Caribbean Sea operations. Libya. A large number of much smaller producers.

Also little discussed is what maybe a major source of oil – Cuba’s west coast. Relevant because Castro may be dying.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Griff

I think you've mixed things a bit.~snip

Um...well....er.... ...ah...I was testing ya...yeah, that's it testing.

Doh, seems I got that exactly backward, din'I. heh heh heh. Would you believe I changed the names to protect the innocent? Din't think so.

[Ronald Cherrycoke]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

If you look at the distribution of Muslim sects, Saddam's Sunni minority in Iraq are the majority in Iran. But that's it, the rest of the World is primarily Shia. I can see where the Iranians would have an interest in helping their Bros. But that said, I haven't seen any evidence of more than bomb building trainers and organizers....you know, scoutmasters, coming over. There's plenty of locals in Iraq, with nothing to do and nothing to lose.

Yeah right... they just want to teach the "Kiddies" how to meet Allah in style! How do the MSM determine who exactly plants the bombs and do they interview the suicide bombers afterwards?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Just wind them all up and see who volunteers. Rebellious, sullen, Muslim teens don't have the option of going Goth or Emo, but they can go boom.

[deadbeater]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Db, you know I'd tell you that's utter nonsense, and I figure that for reasons that are better than yours. First, and for information you won't ever understand (I know, you see, the rabid anti-Bushies) but which is just for you anyway, having difficulties with a war is simply not treason. You could read your Constitution if you think I'm full of it. I'm only going to speak truth.

Nonsense? I tell you what is nonsense: not only starting a war based on a pack of lies, then having your cheerleaders calling those who dissent, those who say that the invasion will cause more problems than it is worth, 'Traitors'. Well, I guess that the truth is traitorous, isn't it, urbane?

[deadbeater]

By the way I favor the invasion, for one simple reason: Saddam was doing his best to foster terrorism. Not with al-Qaida, but with Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian terrorists by paying the families of suicide bombers. I thought that Bush was serious when he had the US troops topple Sadaam as an example of what befalls those who support terrorists. I was disillusioned when Bush did all he could to wreak havoc on ordinary Iraqis' lives, fostering the insurgency that rages into a civil War, and in the process brought Iraq back to the warring period pre-Sadaam.

With his handling of iraq and saying that he doesn't care where bin Laden is, Bush demonstrates that he isn't really serious about his War on Terror, but instead falling into some Neo-con brand of imperialism.

The real plan is to cut off funding in Iraq, reallocating it to Afghanistan, Somalia and the Phillipines, and whatever hot spots develop. In other words, to fight a real War on Terror, and not creating hostile countries in the process. Fight it like a real war. Don't lie to us Bush, don't lie to us.