Comments on Codytalks.com: The war in Iraq.

wow. I just checked into the blog for the first ti...

2008-05-08T20:43:00.000-05:00

wow. I just checked into the blog for the first time in awhile, and am sorry that I missed out on the action. Had I gotten here on time, I would have spent my time talking mostly about oil, which I find at the heart of all our actions in the middle east. Start a post about oil and I'm there.

William D.

Hmmm I want to take a side, I just can't decides w...

2008-05-06T19:43:00.000-05:00

Hmmm I want to take a side, I just can't decides which of the 47 different points to start with!?!?

First I agree with the reason Cody started this post and don't be upset about anything anyone says - if we all agreed we would be a cult and drinking Kool-Aid.

Actually, I have pretty strong opinions about this, but don't have the power to fix it so I'll mostly pass. But I do wonder how do we accomplish success in Iraq (or any "fill in the blank" situation). We can stay there forever and shoot at people everyday without fail. We could leave today and within minutes there will be good guys and bad guys fighting. We could leave in a set amount of time and I think the bad guys will return. We, the best equipped, best trained, most motivated and toughest MFers in the world, have been there five years and still can't get it done. It may not be us, maybe it is them. I SAY THIS VERY SERIOUSLY, CAN WE REALLY EVER LEAVE AND BE CONFIDENT THAT THAT IS THE LAST WE WILL HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT OUR GOOD FRIENDS FROM IRAQ!?

I make this comment with the true love for the greatest county in the world...I don't feel safer because of our actions. This is a chilling thought I often have to put this in perspective for me...at any given minute of any given day, a small group of obsessed extremists, that may or may not look different then any of us, could go into any small town grade school and do the unthinkable to my two little ones. Talk about terror. We are not safe as long as someone doesn't want us to be. It doesn't take billions of dollars, five years and thousands of lives to justify how we think we need to act in today's world. Things are different today and always will be in the future. President Bush has the worst job in the world. And that is a comliment.

Now, as I step back in happy land, I want to thank Mitchell for bringing a genuine smile to my face when I saw he so eloquently used the word "dicklick." Brilliant! And I'm not sure where he is from, but Mitchell, if you are a carpetbagging Northener, I would refrain from calling out Kate at this time!

Pray for our soldiers and our President...that can't hurt!

History is the propaganda of the victors.

E...

2008-05-06T17:25:00.000-05:00

History is the propaganda of the victors.

Ernst Toller

Wait, is this not the quote contest? Sorry

As a true-blue Southerner from the Dixieland I hav...

2008-05-06T16:13:00.000-05:00

As a true-blue Southerner from the Dixieland I have to take exception to Mr. Heitschmidt's comment about the War of Northern Agression (known to y'all as the Civil War.) Those Yankee carpetbaggers went way beyond winning at all costs and destroyed a region of the country that is still feeling effects of Reconstruction. We've all heard of the law of unintended consequences.... They even stole my grandma's silver!

Disclaimer: This is posted in a tongue in cheek manner.

I agree that this has been a wonderful set of comm...

2008-05-06T15:47:00.000-05:00

I agree that this has been a wonderful set of comments. I thought I had been challenged to talk about very personal and passionate issues in a more clear headed and less visarole way than most people do.

Cody, I hope that you do not shy away from such great topics in the future. To be able to talk (or post) with others who disagree with me in an articualte, passionate yet open manner is a rare thing today. I have looked to this blog as pathway to to those conversations.

I want to be clear that I wasn't advocating deadlines in my comments. I was advocating clear language on what we mean by "finish the job." Just in the community work I have done over the last 10 years, I know that deadlines don't apply to community building work - sometimes that work moves a lot faster than you expect and more often much slowewr than you hoped. You have to know what you hope to achieve either way.

So, I won't give you a deadline on when Kate's Challenge will be completed - I don't control all of those factors. I can tell you that when we have bike racks downtown and on the RCAT buses and when we have a critical mass ride the challenge will be completed.

Ok,

I've scanned through here. Didn't reall...

2008-05-06T14:47:00.000-05:00

Ok,

I've scanned through here. Didn't really get a chance to read all of everything, because my boss is a real jerk and would yell at me if he caught me on here. So if I cover anything that's already been touched on, please forgive me.

I completely agree that we need to continue to occupy until the job is done. Not necessarily "stay the course," because a lot of the aspects of the "course" initially laid out were pretty f'ed up.

I don't think it should remain a question of "What should the United States do?" anymore. I think what needs to happen. I think what we need to do is get some fresh people in office, and that person needs to go before the United Nations and say "Guys, we really fucked up. Please help us make this right," and pray to God that we get a little help. We need to fix this, but if we could make it a little bit less costly, that would be fantastic.

I also believe that, while we're over there doing what we're doing, perhaps our president and the candidates for future president should shut their mouths about how sorry we're going to make Iran. This whole "You're next, dicklick." attitude is going to do nothing but cause more trouble.

fair enough...and in my original response, I playe...

2008-05-06T14:38:00.000-05:00

fair enough...and in my original response, I played by the rules and steered clear from the "Why we went in" argument.

The Human right reference was brought up to explai...

2008-05-06T14:16:00.000-05:00

The Human right reference was brought up to explain the different reactions that the citizen populations would have here in comparison to the celebrations that were in the streets when we invade Iraq. Really I thought that was obvious, I also thought it was blatantly obvious that I was completely steering everything away from "Why we went in" cause I believe that argument is what keeps anyone, on either side, from actually putting one foot in front of the other and making actual better progress on the issue.

Jessica again comes with a good comment that doesn...

2008-05-06T14:00:00.000-05:00

Jessica again comes with a good comment that doesn't have a one sided political agenda behind it.

Thanks.

FYI for everyone else Jessica and I could really buck heads and argue over some things if we weren't both conscious of staying focused and getting things done.

I am not talk about her and I fixing Iraq.

I posted earlier and just now came back to see 14 ...

2008-05-06T13:55:00.000-05:00

I posted earlier and just now came back to see 14 comments ... and enjoyed reading every single one of them.

What struck me most of all, however, was the heat I could feel emanating from cody's posts. I felt the discussion was a good exchange and one of the more meaningful we've had on this blog.

However, as soon as I start thinking that, I'm reading Cody saying he regrets the post.

I'll attribute this to passion. He obviously feels strongly about the issue (and I know others do). The idea of compromise and meeting in the middle is great - but the fact is - passionate feelings and strong beliefs by both sides (or multiple sides) often makes it hard for people to agree to meet in the middle.

Our own American leadership - heck, even our Kansas leaders - are examples of this. We're a long way from working together on anything - coal plants, immigration, Iraq, whatever.

Stay the course, pull out today, gradually get out - making any of these an effective solution won't happen anytime soon. The people who are supposed to be having these conversations are too engaged in political power plays and back door deals.

Karen,

I agree with the not one persons fa...

2008-05-06T13:46:00.000-05:00

Karen,

I agree with the not one persons fault, not the point here but I agree.

Nora,

No chance on the draft...

2008-05-06T13:44:00.000-05:00

Nora,

No chance on the draft...

We can bash anyone all we want. War is not caused ...

2008-05-06T13:41:00.000-05:00

We can bash anyone all we want. War is not caused by the actions of one. Maybe after the 911 attacks we were scared, unsure of what direction to go and PISSED. I might have uneducated views of how thigs are and I am no expert on war or goverment but I know this--No one person has the power to start all of this unless we give it to them. We can repeat what we have heard from experts on war or human suffering or any number of things but simply put Bush did not make this decision alone.

Kate,

you turn in history to the conflicts...

2008-05-06T13:39:00.000-05:00

Kate,

you turn in history to the conflicts that have turned out the best possible scenario. Not turned out good, best possible scenarios.

WWII - most horrible event that ever happened in history, but, it had to be done and we had to finish what we started. And we had to band together as a country and then question all the mistakes and atrocities later and hopefully learn from them.

Civil War - we had to kill our neighbors. Should there have ever been a war? Maybe not, but once it launched the North had to win at all costs.

Somalia - say what you want, my opinion is we didn't finish what we started and we, in some form or another will be back over there. Might be with light blue hats on but we will have more American blood spilled there because we didn't accomplish goals in 1992 and we just gave up when the going got tougher than we wanted to deal with.

Wanna look forward?...

Darfur, Sudan. Americans lives will be lost, Billions spent, and we will be there too long. But we gotta do something don't we?

Please whomever is in charge do it hard and fast and get it over with and get out, right after you get it done.

In all fairness, you brought up a comparison of hu...

2008-05-06T13:36:00.000-05:00

In all fairness, you brought up a comparison of human rights violations in response to Jessica's point about US reactions to an occupying force (both comparing Saddam to Bush and implying that as a justifiable reason or at least a difference justifying invasion).

You know what I hate about Main street, all the empty stores…and of course the fact that there is no place to park my bike.

This is why I should have avoided this and I knew ...

2008-05-06T13:22:00.000-05:00

This is why I should have avoided this and I knew better.

Dave, reference anywhere in my post or comments, where I used human rights as a reason to invade Iraq. I never did, you just created a stupid bipartisan thing that I never wanted. I did use human rights violations to present a case for not comparing George Bush and Saddam Hussein. You brought the Humans Rights = Invade argument, not me.

How the hell did you 2 turn this into a bash Bush?? I never said anything about setting a bar for our President either. I talked about the dumbass things he has done, I talked about all the mistakes, I even hinted that we seriously need to revisit and analyze how he got us into this war, just not right now and you 2 turn that into I am setting the bar for a President at him being better than Saddam. This crap of twisting words and making it a Bush Slam is why I will from here on out just talk about bike racks and empty stores at the mall.

We can all listen to Air America or Rush if we just want to scream our opinions regardless of what the other person just said.

Jessica made a great comment to my post. It was completely contrary to my opinions but she debated me on the points I made and I appreciated it. Karen did great as well stay on topic and discuss. and then we went President bashing and personal attacking based I shit I didn't even say.

This is why it doesn't work. Because our political process doesn't allow us to say,

"Ok we jacked this up bad, let's fix it and then kick the crap out of the guy who broke it after we fix it"

We have to jab and lay blame and make it on our sides terms how it gets fixed.

Issac - great comment. I see point on internal turmoil, I think with Iraq we have turmoil that has no purpose other than pointing fingers about the cause of the problem. I also 100% agree with you about the relevance of should we be there at all, I worded that poorly. My point was in this blog post and the comments field. I didn't want this to turn into that debate, I should have known better.

I had this theory once that if we hired the UPS whiteboard guy to draw out what our goals were in Iraq and then we put a webcam on it so people could check in on it when they thought of it, it might get rid of some of the dissent and get more people behind the cause. My wife is instant messaging me to throw that out in the comments as well but really I just want this to be over. Lesson learned!!

Cody-
Leave it to me to completely change your ...

2008-05-06T13:12:00.000-05:00

Cody-
Leave it to me to completely change your topic (great one might I add--never second guess your attempt to get people talking about the issues!)

Immigration is a complex issue. As a country I believe that our early leaders wanted the US to be a safehaven for those seeking a 'free' way of life. By free I do not mean, here come to our country and we will support you and your family while you don't pay taxes. By free I mean you can pray to who you want, when you want and we won't send government soldiers to kill you. I have no problem when someone comes here legally. I don't, however like the fact that my tax dollars are going to people who come here under the radar and are given a life for free. I am a single mom, SRS was there for me while I needed it to get back on my feet after a divorce, I took that opertunity to better myself and find a job that now completely supports my daughter and I. I think that illegal aliens should be told--you have a year--get legal or get out.

As far as the war goes, who can say what will be the magical number of months or years we need to be there. The fact remains that we are there and it scares me to think what may happen during a change in governments. Terriost attacks will happen again on American soil if we just leave.

Well, now that we're in there, major league F up o...

2008-05-06T12:58:00.000-05:00

Well, now that we're in there, major league F up or not, we're in there. There's no question what the larger interest is in the region, but even if it weren't for the oil, I think a quick exit at this point would set the stage for another Afghanistan post Soviet occupation. Ugly with a capitol F.

Now that we're there, we've got to finish the job. The trouble with that is, our idea of improving any other country is trying to make it like ours. We can't undo centuries of deep, entrenched cultural hegemony in a few years. So, I don't really know what kind of exit strategy the government has in mind. I'm betting not much of one.

Then let's get into the military industrial complex. Can't really have that kind of system without wars, can you? While I think the soliders are doing their best, their bosses, our government, have specific and totally un-altruistic goals in mind for sticking around. And the work is cut out for us. By us, ha, I mean the work is cut out for people who have the balls to join the military.

Hey, Cody--what do you think are the chances of us seeing a draft before 2020?

I agree with Kate in setting a low bar for our pre...

2008-05-06T12:54:00.000-05:00

I agree with Kate in setting a low bar for our president. And no offense Cody, but using Sadaam's human rights record as some sort of pretext for invasion and occupation rings hollow from someone who in an earlier speed blog opposed boycotting the Olympic opening ceremonies to protest China's similar human rights record. Invasion and occupation is ok, boycotting a dance ceremony and parade is bad.

Kate,

You are the one letting passionate f...

2008-05-06T12:52:00.000-05:00

Kate,

You are the one letting passionate feelings get in the way.

When do we stop giving money to good cause. When do we stop giving money and time fix the problem with cancer that we created by inventing a selling and smoking cigarettes? We quit when have solved the problem and beat cancer, right? When will that be, I don't know, but we human beings, created a gigantic worldwide problem that we have to keep fighting to fix it, we will fix it tomorrow? probably not, will we ever fix it? Hell, I don't know, but I won't quite giving and praying just because the American cancer society hasn't given me a time frame for when I can quit giving.

We have to get Iraq to a point that the Iraqi's can handle it. Continuing to demand a time line is gigantically distracting from the task at hand. Congress insisting that the Military leaders over there devote hundreds of hours of time to preparing official documents and coming over here to report on troop withdrawals is completely counter productive. Congress demanding timelines and troop withdrawls is fed by constituents demanding the same.

Congress should be demanding public progress reports and holding people accountable is the don't seem sufficient. Not demanding time lines.

Kate,

Who should help you with Kate's Challenge? I am demanding an exacy deadline, I want to know when all of the bikeracks will be installed. Do you think if Nathan Meyer came out publicly against our decision to go after bikeracks because it was a wasted time and effort it wouldn't hurt our cause.

Don't take that last paragraph seriously just a stupid attempt at making a point.

This DC lawyer will take the bait. I don't even kn...

2008-05-06T12:47:00.000-05:00

This DC lawyer will take the bait. I don't even know where to start, and I generally refuse to engage in discussions that are prefaced with the condition that any opinion that the writer disagrees with strengthens the insurgents cause.

I am a supporter of a gradual withdrawal where we set a date certain or a series of troop withdrawal with dates certain to warn the Iraqis that after those dates, they'll be on their own. They can either step up and take some sort of control and work together (which Cody I guess thinks will happen if we stay there indefinately), which would be great, or they can hold back and wait for us to leave so that they can unleash upon each other.

I am willing to be honest that the likely aftermath of pulling out will be an intensified civil war that will take the lives of tens of thousands and likely result in an Iran-friendly theocracy or military dictatorship or break up of Iraq into three separate countries. The alternative is, using American troops and money, to babysit or even join one side (as was done last month) the ongoing slow burn/simmer civil waar, spilling American blood, losing international respect due to an ongoing violent occupation, without truly creating a peaceful/stable Iraq by any substantial measure and simply pushing the ultimate result off into the future.

We have been in Iraq five years, with constantly shifting parameters and benchmarks for success… just wait until we catch Saddam, wait until they vote, wait until they form a government, wait until they write a constitution, wait until they train an Army, wait until the surge lowers violence levels in Baghdad, etc. etc. And where has that gotten us?

We aren’t simply leaving the Country broken after an invasion, our troops have tried to establish security and political success while there, with some short term successes sure, but not any widespread, tangible, deep, or long term political or security successes. I do not believe that continuing this occupation will result in anything too different in the long run than the scenario I envision under a more immediate withdrawal.

I think Cody should elaborate on exactly what he means when he states that “we cannot pull out of Iraq until we have gotten it to a point that the Iraqi's can handle.” What exactly does that entail? An American style republic, a military dictatorship like Saddam, no more guns on the street? What?

I too believe in a united front, and will welcome Cody to such a united front opposing fure invasions the next time our Country debates whether or not to invade and occupy another Country, and look forward to engaging in a retrospective look at the failed reasons, rationales and methods for the invasion and occupation of this current quagmire, to avoid another one in the future.

Ok Cody, I won't bash the president if you won't d...

2008-05-06T12:44:00.000-05:00

Ok Cody, I won't bash the president if you won't defend him so quickly.

According to you, Bush hasn't done some of the things Sadam Hussein did - I think that is a pretty low standard to set for our president. He did invade and occupy a country without broad international support and lied to incite a majority of our leaders to support him. That said, I agree with you that this tit-for-tat is a waste of time and we have much larger issues we should be focusing on with all these intelligent readers of your blog.

I don't know enough to present a complete solution to the current problem. If I did, we all know I'd be somewhere else rolling out the solution.

I tend towards the thoughts that we need to stay and we need more than the military in there. I also think we need to roll out some detailed plans for what progress looks like.

We aren't going to fix this situation by using the military to kill all of the insurgents - that just won't work. Some of our military have done some great things - like building schools and restoring water and electricity to some places (other areas are worse than before the occupation.) Our military isn't and shouldn't be able to provide all the nation building activities required for success.

We are in the process of nation building while also engaging in urban warfare. That is a really difficult situation to be in.

I do not know where we turn to in history to learn how we should move forward. I think that is why we are hearing only sound bite policy statements from our candidates. No one really knows what to do next.

Going back to your General Patton quote, I don't know who is coming up with the “good plan to execute violently.”

Ok, I 100% agree that we can't just leave, and now...

2008-05-06T12:42:00.000-05:00

Ok, I 100% agree that we can't just leave, and now that we're there we have to finish, and get the country to a self-sustainable state.

The following are strictly opinions:

"Should we be in Iraq at all? That has ZERO relevance, Right Now" This I completely disagree with.

This question is what learning from history is all about. If we can't answer this, or rather "Should we have gone to Iraq?" (Like I said, I agree that we need to be there until it's finished) If we can't answer that, then we have learned nothing.

"Our internal turmoil over the issue is feeding the insurgent cause, if we had a united front and banded together to get the job done and then argued about it and learned from it afterward, we would already be done." -- Being done is not as important as us having, and giving them the ability to have internal turmoil.

While I empathize with the emotion expressed in th...

2008-05-06T12:21:00.000-05:00

While I empathize with the emotion expressed in this post, I find little real information being presented.

Staying in Iraq? Who stays? How many? For how long? To what end? Who else besides the military needs to be there?

“Finish what we started”? Cody, what does that mean? What did we start? Part of the problem the US public and our leaders are wrestling is that we do not know what we started, why we occupied Iraq. If we don’t know what we started, it is terribly difficult to know when we’ve ended and even more difficult to define success. All the while, we have been creating new problems, or making tense and complex situations worse.

I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t know how to value the tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians and the thousands of Americans who have already given their lives against the potential lives lost if we stay or if we go. Those values are to be determined by people wiser than I.

I agree that your sentence beginning, “Our inner turmoil over the issue is feeding the insurgent cause…” is just to insight a reaction from some of your friends. There is no way that the turmoil of US public opinion is feeding insurgents. Those people are fighting their cause for much more passionate and personal reasons than the latest stump speech or CNN poll.

You are on point in your closing of the post about our leaders’ inabilities to learn from the past. I believe this is why people argue about the reasons for occupying Iraq - why some people feel quite passionately about assigning blame to leaders and opinion makers and why they can’t move away from “we told you so.” Some people do learn from the past and predicted this future. It is heartbreaking how easily all of this could have been avoided.

Karen,

I really like the immigration compa...

2008-05-06T12:09:00.000-05:00

Karen,

I really like the immigration comparison, it is screwed up!! Bad!! So do we just peel out, do we just abandon all those human beings and load them up in military vehicles and force them back to their country? Do we arrest them all and build more prisons? No we stick it out for the long haul and no shit, actually fix it. It's gonna be a bitch and it's gonna suck and really we will never completely fix it, but we can't just ignore it cause it's hard and gonna cost us a damn fortune.

I promise you, the easy route would be packing them all up in prison buses and shipping them back and then completely fortifying the border, Guaranteed, that's the easy way out.

Not the right way though!!

Comments on Codytalks.com: The war in Iraq.

wow. I just checked into the blog for the first ti...

Hmmm I want to take a side, I just can't decides w...

History is the propaganda of the victors.E...

As a true-blue Southerner from the Dixieland I hav...

I agree that this has been a wonderful set of comm...

Ok,I've scanned through here. Didn't reall...

fair enough...and in my original response, I playe...

The Human right reference was brought up to explai...

Jessica again comes with a good comment that doesn...

I posted earlier and just now came back to see 14 ...

Karen, I agree with the not one persons fa...

Nora, No chance on the draft...

We can bash anyone all we want. War is not caused ...

Kate, you turn in history to the conflicts...

In all fairness, you brought up a comparison of hu...

This is why I should have avoided this and I knew ...

Cody-Leave it to me to completely change your ...

Well, now that we're in there, major league F up o...

I agree with Kate in setting a low bar for our pre...

Kate, You are the one letting passionate f...

This DC lawyer will take the bait. I don't even kn...

Ok Cody, I won't bash the president if you won't d...

Ok, I 100% agree that we can't just leave, and now...

While I empathize with the emotion expressed in th...

Karen, I really like the immigration compa...

History is the propaganda of the victors.

E...

Ok,

I've scanned through here. Didn't reall...

Karen,

I agree with the not one persons fa...

Nora,

No chance on the draft...

Kate,

you turn in history to the conflicts...

Cody-
Leave it to me to completely change your ...

Kate,

You are the one letting passionate f...

Karen,

I really like the immigration compa...