Quote :

"REUTERS - Baghdad is getting around six hours of electricity a day...down from 11 hours in October"

Half a trillion dollars and no power.

http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/109021
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LON853564.htm
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=baghdad+electricity&spell=1&sa=N&tab=wn

[Edited on December 29, 2005 at 5:30 AM. Reason : -]

12/29/2005 5:28:16 AM

i definitely dont see you voting for a republican like ever

12/29/2005 5:55:41 AM

I would vote for McCain

12/29/2005 6:58:10 AM

"Why do you hate freedom electricity so much?"

12/30/2005 5:37:42 AM

Looking at that article it seems to me that the insurgency is primarily to blame for the problem, not the US. If Iraqis want power, they can quit blowing up the infrastructure and allowing their neighbors to do so.

12/30/2005 1:10:12 PM

i wonder why the INSURGENCY is doing this

its almost like they're INSUGRING against something

i dunno
maybe an occuping force

12/30/2005 1:25:39 PM

If it were limiting its attacks to US and coalition military facilities and personell instead of Iraqi institutional buildings and infrastructure, many of the problems the country has (and thus, many of the causes of the insurgency) would be reduced greatly.

I'm not going to take the blame for the existence of a group that targets its own people as well as its occupier, and whose every attack only serves to keep the occupiers in longer.

The insurgents aren't just rebelling against us.

12/30/2005 1:37:09 PM

I agree with Gumpy, their problem is not the occupation but the lack of a dictatorship run by their guy.

12/30/2005 1:50:35 PM

Exactly. It wouldn't matter if we were occupying or not, whoever wasn't in charge would be insurging.

12/30/2005 2:06:27 PM

Quote :

"If it were limiting its attacks to US and coalition military facilities and personell instead of Iraqi institutional buildings and infrastructure, many of the problems the country has (and thus, many of the causes of the insurgency) would be reduced greatly. "

WE FIGHT THE WAY WE CAN WIN
THEY FIGHT THE WAY THEY CAN WIN

12/30/2005 7:27:30 PM

the insurgency wants to win, not get its ass kicked. Therefore, assymetrical warfare.

12/30/2005 7:31:29 PM

Uhh, the assymetrical warfare I see seems to end with road-side-bombs blowing up US convoys. Logically speaking, this is a form of armed resistance. Blowing up a marketplace just does not count as armed resistance.

12/30/2005 8:28:11 PM

no fair, you aren't playing my version of war.

12/30/2005 8:29:57 PM

Quote :

"the insurgency is primarily to blame for the problem"

...who would have though that there are people in the middle east who hate america...

12/30/2005 9:27:09 PM

i dont get why they just dont pay us back in oil or something

i mean all these like 80 million dollar senate bills that give them money, why dont we just use the oil and have cheaper gas, then the economy would be better too, and our deficit wouldnt be so low

12/31/2005 2:35:56 AM

you cant pump the oil out of iraq in its current state

12/31/2005 3:52:24 AM

You can't pump oil into Iraq in its current state, either.

Yesterday they had lines into the stations, and oil trucks had to pay bribes to fill up at refineries.

12/31/2005 8:23:31 AM

Is that refinery still shut down?

12/31/2005 9:38:00 PM

Quote :

"WE FIGHT THE WAY WE CAN WIN THEY FIGHT THE WAY THEY CAN WIN"

YOU FIGHT THE WAY YOU (THINK) YOU CAN WIN
IN ALL CAPS

But so the fuck what? Since when does the "whatever it takes" motto translate itself into legitimacy or acceptability?

Besides, you missed the entire point of my post, which was not that the insurgents' style of fighting is abominable (though it is). I merely said, and will continue to say, that if the Iraqis want basic services like electricity back, they can start by dismantling the insurgency -- something they are better equipped to do in many respects than are we.

Quote :

"Blowing up a marketplace just does not count as armed resistance."

But in a convoluted way it does, and that's just what I'm getting at.

You take a population that isn't the best educated in the world, doesn't have the best media in the world, and you can convince them of a lot of things. For example, you can convince them that the terrorism all over their country is the fault of the Americans, even though the Americans aren't blowing up marketplaces and buses and the people dissiminating that misinformation are.

Sooo...the insurgents get Iraqis to associate their despicable acts with the American occupation in order to bring more people into the insurgency to commit more despicable acts to bring in more people...and so on.

Quote :

"no fair, you aren't playing my version of war."

In some respects this is true. The international community, the UN, the Geneva Conventions -- all of these recognize a certain kind of warfare, and it's not the one practiced by the insurgency.

Quote :

"...who would have though that there are people in the middle east who hate america..."

Oh, we thought it, then decided to try to win those people over. Or, failing that, shoot them to death. I'm still not convinced such was a bad plan.

Quote :

"i dont get why they just dont pay us back in oil or something"

Let's say Iraq finally gets on its feet, then has to give us a bunch of oil as payment. Iraq's economy, such as it is, collapses, as does the country. Shit hits the fan. We have to go back in. Repeat.

[Edited on December 31, 2005 at 10:23 PM. Reason : ]

12/31/2005 10:22:29 PM

nah i dont mean like after they get on their feet and we leave

i'm saying if we are funding so much into this country to help let them figure shit out why dont they just pay us back in oil

1/3/2006 7:43:34 PM

Quote :

"Since when does the "whatever it takes" motto translate itself into legitimacy or acceptability?"

*cough*Sherman*cough*

1/3/2006 8:30:36 PM

They're not going to pay us back.

Not in any equivalent amount anyway. The most you'd see is cheap oil. Not free oil. And that would be years away. And that's assuming that they take control of their shit and defeat the insurgency.

1/3/2006 8:37:36 PM

they're going to pay us back by letting us keep a shit ton of soldiers over there on a base in some corner

yay imperialism!

1/3/2006 8:49:31 PM

Quote :

"Winning hearts and minds in Baghdad"

by ANY means neccesary!

1/3/2006 10:21:32 PM

"They can have their hearts and minds, so long as we have them by the balls"

1/4/2006 6:18:11 AM