Re: An Unanswered Question For Jerry Okamura

On Wed, 2 Apr 2008 08:10:30 -1000, "Jerry Okamura"
<okamuraj005@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


"El Castor" <No_One@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:0q15v355lkuclmnljgkvf2mrhvs0cmfe1o@xxxxxxxxxx
On Tue, 1 Apr 2008 07:43:50 -1000, "Jerry Okamura"
<okamuraj005@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


"El Castor" <No_One@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:mf63v3t5lhd7uj4jnllga0n7m1o3q1vt8k@xxxxxxxxxx
On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:46:06 -1000, "Jerry Okamura"
<okamuraj005@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


"El Castor" <No_One@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:tae2v3hhtnluh2v1hcfb8ej04sk1p8mj56@xxxxxxxxxx
On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 08:32:32 -1000, "Jerry Okamura"
<okamuraj005@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


"El Castor" <No_One@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:lgpvu3d13lp2p2rmi8or222h8lkg34pkqk@xxxxxxxxxx

It may be correct or it may not be correct. It is simply another
person
who
is making a "guess" of what will happen.... It still does not
change
the
basic question. Is success important or is it not important....not
whether
success is possible. Two different questions. While we are at it,
has
either Clinton or Obama said that success is not important or that
success
is not possible? If they have I certainly have not heard them say
that.

Then you haven't been listening. I, by the way, tend not to agree
with
liberals on the reasons we should not be in Iraq. They rant on about
US dead and money spent. No one likes to see soldiers killed and
money
wasted, but if that is the price of success against Islam, then so
be
it -- but in the case of Iraq I don't believe those lost lives and
money are buying us success. They have bought us failure. Nothing is
more important than the fight against militant Islam. We are losing
that war, and it's a fight we can't afford not to win. In my
opinion
what we are doing in Iraq is a counter productive side show. We have
only succeeded in turning the country over to Iranian Islamists -- a
worse brand of Islam than Saddam represented. First and foremost we
should be working to rid ourselves of our dependence on Middle East
oil -- including Iraqi oil. The less oil that Iraq produces, and the
fewer dollars that flow to Middle Eastern Muslims, the better. We
should be tightly restricting Islamic immigration to the United
States, and to the extent it's possible, to the whole hemisphere. We
should hunt down and deport every illegal Muslim in the United
States,
and we should do whatever is constitutionally allowed to eliminate
the
flow of Muslim money to finance US mosques and Islamic institutions.
Even though it's probably too late for Europe, we should do whatever
we can to help them with their growing Muslim problem, and encourage
them to help themselves.


I do not understand what the heck you just said. You seem to be on
the
fence, whether we should stay or leave Iraq. Can you please explain
what
your position is. Should we stay or should we leave?

That's a hard question to answer. I think we shouldn't have gone in,
and I lean towards leaving as soon as possible, since I can't see much
purpose in staying, and a lot of negatives, but now that we are there
a large degree of responsibility devolves on our shoulders to do
whatever is reasonable to minimize the mess we have created. Problem
is, I don't fully understand the situation, and neither does anyone
else who posts to this group. To make a decision about pulling out it
would be necessary to understand the role Iran is filling with all the
players, the degree of cooperation we are getting from the government,
what is really going on with the militias in the south, the current
state of al Qaeda, how the leadership of each of the big 3 ethnic
groups feels about our departure (the people want us gone) -- and each
other, what Saudi Arabia thinks, and probably many other issues of
which I am not aware. It's very complicated, and in the end someone
will have to weigh a lot of factors and make the best decision under
the circumstances. If that sounds like a cop out, I don't mean it to
be.

I can understand why you feel that way, because as you have said, there
seems to be a whole lot of cross currents at work. I guess the
difference
between your concerns and mine, is that I feel, as I have explained
before,
that we stand a good chance of not liking what may happen in the short
run
and in the long run, if we fail in Iraq and my feeling that success is
not
only important, but just may be critically important. And while we do
face
some very hard decisions, to me success is what is important.

Jerry, I would just like to get out with a few shreds of honor intact,
leave behind something that can function, even if not democratically,
and will not be totally anti-American. To me that would be close to a
miracle, and what I would call "success". Would it have been worth it?
No, but at least we wouldn't be worse off than when we went in.

Whether in the end it was worth it or not worth it, it seems to me depends
on what happens in the future. It is still possible, that if we make a
mistake in Iraq, that the situation will cost us a whole lot more in the
future, then it has cost us up to now, and will continue to cost us for a
while.

I hope that after this discussion we understand each other a little
better, and you won't be asking me that success question again. (-8

I will continue to ask the success question because I think it is the
critical question that we have to ask ourselves, when we think about what
we
should do about Iraq. My attitude about this entire debate boils down to
the point that "if" success in Iraq is not important, then we should not
be
there at all, and that we should leave IMMEDIATELY, with no preconditions,
since success is not important.

Everything is very black and white for you, isn't it Jerry. All I can
say is that success is not important because it cannot be achieved,
however there are degrees of failure, ranging from mild to
catastrophic. The catastrophic variety should be avoided and may
require that we hang around for awhile in a perhaps vain attempt to
avoid it.

No, everthing is NOT black and white. But in this case, I see it as clearly
black and white. I will once gain, for you benefit give my reasons for my
position. I await your rebuttal....

My thoughts about Iraq

I worry about my countries priorities, when we do not seem willing to
protect what is basically a vital resource (Oil) that is in Iraq.

I do not want Iraq to become another safe haven for terrorist and I am
particularly worried when that safe haven is a country with a whole lot of
money from oil revenues. And I certainly don't want us to make the same
mistake we made in Afghanistan, when we made it possible for the Taliban to
take over control of that country, who in turn provided al Qaeda a safe
haven to operate from.

I do not believe that leaving Iraq before the job is done, is sending the
right message to the current adversaries and any future adversary. It
confirms what I believe was Ho Chi Minh's belief that you can defeat a super
power like the United States, by simply inflicting enough pain for a long
enough period of time, and the United States would no longer support the
effort, and would leave. I think that every time we do leave because the
"cost is too high", we reinforce that message, and we certainly do not
distract from that message..making it that much harder for any time in the
future we do send our military men and women into harms way (it certainly
does not make it easier). Even talk of leaving cannot help but give the
insurgency hope that they might succeed, and certainly does not send the
opposite message, which translates to more of our men and women dying, not
less.

I worry when we cannot pacify a country of 25 million. I wonder what can
this country handle if we cannot pacify a country like Iraq, and how we can
hope to pacify a country with a much larger population, with an active
insurgency. I wonder what kind of message that sends to future adversaries,
especially a country with a very large population like China.

I think it is okay to withdraw from Iraq, when we are convinced that the
government of Iraq is strong enough to successful defend themselves against
the insurgency, without any military assistance from the United States
(excluding of course continued supplying the needs of the Iraqi military).
I fail to see how we can do that, when we pull out our considerable military
advantage, that the Iraqi people simply do not have.

I think the goal of creating a functioning and successful democracy in that
region of the world, is very important and can transform that region of the
world forever.

I do not think it is in our best interest to have a government in Iraq to
side with our enemies, those being Iran and Venezuela. I think adding
another oil rich nation to that duo, only makes our life harder, and it
certainly does not make it easier.

I believe that the world has a big problem when we know of countries who
are violating the very Human Rights beliefs that we supposedly have
concerned about, to allow countries to continue to abuse their own people,
and we do nothing about it. If for no other reason, removing Saddam was a
good thing not a bad thing. We are making great sacrifices to give the
people of Iraq an opportunity to live a life that we in the United States to
often take for granted. I also believe that failure in Iraq, means that we
are going to be less willing to change what is happening in other countries
like the Sudan and North Korea.

I believe that if you do not have the stomach for a fight, then you should
not start the fight in the first place. And if you do not have the stomach
for this fight, when are we going to have the stomach for a fight, is my
question. And if we do not have the stomach for this fight, then the next
question becomes, why do we need to be a Super Power?

Jerry, it all comes down to the same thing. it doesn't matter what you
want for Iraq. It doesn't matter if you think the Iraqi people should
yearn for democracy, or that the US needs their oil. To an Iraq living
in Baghdad, Basrah, Najaf, Mosul, or Karbala, what some retiree living
in Hawaii thinks, is less important than yesterday's weather report.
They only care what they want, and they are simply not on the same
page with you. They want Islam and money. They want to kick the ***
of their enemies in the Al-Dulaim tribe, and maybe they want a few
more chickens, but what some guy in Hawaii, or a human rights lawyer
in New York thinks they should want is meaningless.

We can't beat them into thinking like us. We can't reason them into
hating Moqtada al Sadr, and we sure can't erase their culture,
religion and thousands of years of history. All the helicopter gun
ships and armored humvees in the world won't make a bit of difference,
and short of killing 80% of them we will never bend them to our will.
Just the way it is.
.