[twowords]

Some responses this time please.

BluffTHIS:

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You are making an artificial distinction here regarding terrorists and insurgents. There are not two different types of enemy here, but only one which uses different tactics in different situations against their enemies. Al-Queada makes this clear since its operatives both carried out the 9/11 attacks, and also carry out guerilla actions in Afghanistan. Same thing with various palestinian groups that have both carried out homocide bombings in Israel, and also fought small pitched battles/ambushes with small Israeli military units.



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MMMMMM:

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Wrong, Cyrus. Nearly all of the attacks now in Iraq are the work of foreign jihadists and foreign terrorists.


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BluffTHIS seems to want to go to war against every group in the entire world which engages in the despicable war tactic called "terrorism." When you fight a war that you can't win conventionally, terorrism and guerilla tactic become your main tactics. Of course, attacks on civilians are despicable, but most peoples consider the highest virtue in war is to win it as we have seen throughout history. Thats not to say that these tactics are not employed by states too, they've been employed in almost every modern war including WWI, WWII, Vietnam, etc (Hiroshima, Tokoyo fire bombing, "Christmas bombing" in Vietnam). Our war today is not (or shouldn't be!) against a freaking war tactic, it is against an actual group of people who use such a tactic, their name is Al-Queda and they attacked us. Obviously we hate non-conventional war in general since conventionally we are utterly dominant, but to declare war on anyone who uses the tactic of terrorism is ludicrious and only serve to link various groups you don't like with our enemy, when in reality it is simply a dirty tactic in war. I repeat, this is not a war against anyone who uses this tactic, it is agaisnt Al-Queda. Palestinians and Insurgents ARE NOT AL-QUEDA, they are people fighting various wars using terrorist and guerilla tactics.

And MMMMMM, Bush says we are fighting the terrorists in Iraq and we must defeat these terrorists. Pehaps this or other rhetoric has convinced you of your quote above. However, foreign fighters constitute 5-10% of the insurgency by all accounts regardless of no matter how active that small percentage is, so stop suggesting otherwise. We are NOT fighting the war versus Al-Queda in Iraq in any direct way.

Indirectly, in the long run the war in Iraq may help the war on Al-Queda via democratisation. But for our lifetimes, it has hurt the war with Al-Queda badly. Iraq is currently a new recruitment tool for OBL (to add to the old 3 from his announced jihad), a clear setback in the battle for hearts and minds of moderate muslims. When all US troops leave, he should be denied this tool if a democracy is left behind and the lives of Iraqis improve. Of course this does nothing for the relatives of the 30,000+ dead, many of them may become recruits anyway. However, this means we do have to leave completely so the government cannot credibly be called a collaborationist regime. All this assumes the Iraqi government survives in one piece, which is certainly not assured.

1) If the nationalism is not there, we cannot create it, we can only hold the place together with troops which would be deterimental to our "other" war.
2) If the nationalsim is there to keep Iraq together, then we can leave fairly soon and then see how our gamble plays out.

I truly hope situation 2 previals, but remember we cannot create nationalism. Tom Friedman said it well, "Iraq is either the Arab Germany or its the Arab Yugoslavia." It's hard to say when we will know for sure.