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"The media never reports the good things in Iraq!" Does anyone in their right mind think Ahmed Al-Iraqi gives a shit that a school got painted, if he's too scared to send his kid there? When you have to worry about getting kidnapped and tortured to death with power tools, it's kind of hard to feel happy that your mangled corpse will get taken to a freshly refurbished hospital. For fuck's sake, do people even understand the concept of empathy? I don't mean sympathy, I mean the ability common to non-autistic human beings, that allows them to extrapolate the emotional reactions of others by comparing it to what their own reactions would be in a similar circumstance. Seriously, how can any intelligent person claim that, if roles were reversed, they'd be grateful?
"The troops were sent off without the proper equipment!" Well, that's annoying on two counts. For one, we were perfectly well equipped for the war that we _thought_ we were fighting, using the move-fast-hit-hard-and-don't-stick-around-for-return-fire doctrine that's been standard for decades. For that sort of fight, you don't want heavily armored humvees, because they're slower, need more fuel, and break down more often, all of which is more likely to get soldiers killed than the lack of protection would. For the first few weeks, this worked great, as witnessed by how quickly we won and how few of our guys were killed. The actual "War" part of the war was a model campaign. Which brings us to annoying part 2: If we'd had enough feet on the ground to effectively police Iraq in the aftermath, the insurgency wouldn't have been able to establish itself, and we wouldn't have needed up-armored vehicles at all. For that matter, we'd probably have been able to draw down our forces quicker. Hell, we'd _have_ to, as we couldn't sustain that sort of deployment for any great length of time.
"No one could have anticipated how things deteriorated!" Oh, bullshit. Plenty of people did, and Shrubya ignored them. For my sins, I ignored them too. What can I say, I bought into the whole "This is a heroic struggle, we'll be remembered by history as the good guys!" vibe. Oh, cruel disillusionment. :-P
"If you support the troops you can't criticize the president!"/"Support the troops, bring them home" are both equally retarded. 'Nuff said.
Also annoying is how certain (mostly Democrat) politicians who previously demanded more troops in Iraq are now opposing Shrubya's Surge. A little consistency might be nice. Personally, I think it's 3 years too late and a hundred thousand or so too few to do any good, but if we're to salvage any credibility, we have to make the effort. Not doing our utmost to fix the china we broke would be a craven abdication of responsibility. And speaking of craven abdications:
"Responsibility for the deteriorating situation in Iraq lies with the Iraqis, we done our part!" is just... stunning. Ya know, if I were an Iraqi, I would wish bloody murder on anyone who said that phrase. If we hadn't invaded, the situation that currently exists wouldn't. Period. That makes it _our_fault_ if bad things happen to people. You want credit when things go well, you gotta take the blame when they don't.
We should never have invaded. Come to think of it, we shouldn't have waged the first Gulf War either, we'd probably invade a neighboring country that was poaching our oil fields and refused to forgive a debt that they'd previously agreed to, wouldn't we? Of course, those war debts would never have existed if Iraq hadn't attacked Iran, which we sorta encouraged them to do...
That's it, I've lost all hope for humanity's future. We're doomed to an end both tragic and farcical, and we deserve every last bit of it. The intelligent squid who will some day colonize the scorched lands we leave in our wake will writhe their tentacles in befuddlement and assume they must be misinterpreting the archaeological evidence, rather than believe the truth.
Update - Another petty annoyance: "Experts" who pick up a random word in a language, think they know what it means, and then propagate that mistaken meaning. For instance, the word "Madrassa" is arabic for "School". The word has _no_ religious connotation. EVERYONE in the arab world has attended a "Madrassa", as have most people in south asia, or anywhere where that word entered the local language. For that matter, since Israel is officially a bilingual country, all the wee tykes there attend "madrassas" too. God, Faux News 'analysts' are a bunch of morons.
"The troops were sent off without the proper equipment!" Well, that's annoying on two counts. For one, we were perfectly well equipped for the war that we _thought_ we were fighting, using the move-fast-hit-hard-and-don't-stick-around-for-return-fire doctrine that's been standard for decades. For that sort of fight, you don't want heavily armored humvees, because they're slower, need more fuel, and break down more often, all of which is more likely to get soldiers killed than the lack of protection would. For the first few weeks, this worked great, as witnessed by how quickly we won and how few of our guys were killed. The actual "War" part of the war was a model campaign. Which brings us to annoying part 2: If we'd had enough feet on the ground to effectively police Iraq in the aftermath, the insurgency wouldn't have been able to establish itself, and we wouldn't have needed up-armored vehicles at all. For that matter, we'd probably have been able to draw down our forces quicker. Hell, we'd _have_ to, as we couldn't sustain that sort of deployment for any great length of time.
"No one could have anticipated how things deteriorated!" Oh, bullshit. Plenty of people did, and Shrubya ignored them. For my sins, I ignored them too. What can I say, I bought into the whole "This is a heroic struggle, we'll be remembered by history as the good guys!" vibe. Oh, cruel disillusionment. :-P
"If you support the troops you can't criticize the president!"/"Support the troops, bring them home" are both equally retarded. 'Nuff said.
Also annoying is how certain (mostly Democrat) politicians who previously demanded more troops in Iraq are now opposing Shrubya's Surge. A little consistency might be nice. Personally, I think it's 3 years too late and a hundred thousand or so too few to do any good, but if we're to salvage any credibility, we have to make the effort. Not doing our utmost to fix the china we broke would be a craven abdication of responsibility. And speaking of craven abdications:
"Responsibility for the deteriorating situation in Iraq lies with the Iraqis, we done our part!" is just... stunning. Ya know, if I were an Iraqi, I would wish bloody murder on anyone who said that phrase. If we hadn't invaded, the situation that currently exists wouldn't. Period. That makes it _our_fault_ if bad things happen to people. You want credit when things go well, you gotta take the blame when they don't.
We should never have invaded. Come to think of it, we shouldn't have waged the first Gulf War either, we'd probably invade a neighboring country that was poaching our oil fields and refused to forgive a debt that they'd previously agreed to, wouldn't we? Of course, those war debts would never have existed if Iraq hadn't attacked Iran, which we sorta encouraged them to do...
That's it, I've lost all hope for humanity's future. We're doomed to an end both tragic and farcical, and we deserve every last bit of it. The intelligent squid who will some day colonize the scorched lands we leave in our wake will writhe their tentacles in befuddlement and assume they must be misinterpreting the archaeological evidence, rather than believe the truth.
Update - Another petty annoyance: "Experts" who pick up a random word in a language, think they know what it means, and then propagate that mistaken meaning. For instance, the word "Madrassa" is arabic for "School". The word has _no_ religious connotation. EVERYONE in the arab world has attended a "Madrassa", as have most people in south asia, or anywhere where that word entered the local language. For that matter, since Israel is officially a bilingual country, all the wee tykes there attend "madrassas" too. God, Faux News 'analysts' are a bunch of morons.
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