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Okay, I looked through the links provided, and I never found anything about us arming Sunnis. I know I didn't mention it. The Sunnis have their own arms-- that's why they were/are often part of the insurgency.
Um, the US arming the Sunni insurgents has been in the news rather a lot, lately.
Now, I'm no military strategist, but this sounds like a pretty stupid idea, to me.
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RE: Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing.
Out spending the Russians is another valid point but I suspect that there were many other factors to the collapse of the Russian economy -you know, all that stuff about the dead hand of socialism and the benefits of the invisible hand of free markets.
Yeah, that's why out-spending them worked. My larger point was the massive military build-up sans a hot war, with no end in sight didn't bankrupt us. Also, some of us think the Cold War Reagan-era military build up was because Reagan knew what the hell he was doing, but I can see how some people would want to denigrate the accomplishments of the best president of the last half of the 20th century.
Is it not reasonable to ask questions about how much the out spending tactic will hurt ordinary Americans?
Except we aren't trying to out-spend anyone this time around. We're fighting two-- count'em -- two counter-insurgency wars using highly trained, technologically-savvy personnel (which costs more than just grabbing conscripts off the street, like in China). It costs money. How will the spending hurt ordinary Americans? Odds are, it won't. Like most things about this war, it won't affect the vast majority of Americans (probably, again, I'm no economist, but I am a thinker.) Which, in the opinion of someone who was affected by the war, tends to make the bitching of people who have never sacrificed a damn thing or likely ever will ring a little hollow, but I try not to think like that, as it skews too close to the stupid "chicken-hawk" non-argument.
I am afraid that the rest of your response was the usual off target emotional and personal personal rant - quite unworthy of omnes nerdi. I did not say we should pull out of Iraq this time. I gave an opinion that our presence was sustaining terrorists. I know you don't agree with that because we have discussed it before. It is relevant in this discussion because we are discussing a drain on the American economy as a possible strategy of the terrorists.
Let me see, I gave examples of how the Anbar tribes are uniting against terrorism, mentioned rebuilding infrastructure, and addressed the economic angle. Yup, entirely off- target, you got me. As for the personal... you do realize the opening paragraph was a joke, right? I mean, I even said it was. I also never said anything about a pull out (since you didn't.) It is possible that the enemy has an economic strategy (I believe that one was called 9/11) but the main strategy of the terrorists is to keep US body-counts in the news (since they know our media tend to not report things like enemy casualties or any sort of operational context in which American casualties occurred) because they know that if the American people are fed a steady diet of bad news, the opportunistic politicians will start blathering on about timetables and troop withdrawals, and all the terrorists have to do is wait us out and make sure to step up attacks right before any important dates, and then declare victory when we leave. But you knew that.
Our arming of the Sunnis to fight the insurgents is about the dumbest piece of policy that any US Government has come up with since the Little Big Horn.
Okay, I looked through the links provided, and I never found anything about us arming Sunnis. I know I didn't mention it. The Sunnis have their own arms-- that's why they were/are often part of the insurgency.
The impact of the war on the economy of Iraq is irrelevant.
Maybe to this discussion, but the more Iraqis that can find work and earn some money, the less likely some poor schlub will be out planting IEDs because Al Qaeda or Al Sadr is paying him to. Economic prosperity tends to encourage stability.
I think we are mature enough to handle that without personal abuse.
No abuse on my part, just a healthy dose of snark. Impervious Integument Implied.
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