I attened a forum with Joe Klein as speaker tonight...

[1monster]

He paints a very serious picture of the Iraq situation.

According to Mr. Klein, Iraq is the worst problem this country has faced since Vietnam, and there is no option for an easy out as there was in Vietnam, thus it is a worse problem...

According to Mr. Klein, uniformed military sources (not civilian Pentagon sources) agree that 500,000 soldiers were needed in Iraq to control all aspects of Iraq. Right now, there is no border control, and no one guarding the pipelines in Iraq which has allowed sabotage and the inability to produce as much electricity in Iraq as was produced in June.

Mr. Klein discussed our options in Iraq.

One was to pull out. This option is not tenable, he says, because it would leave anarchy and chaos behind making a very bad situation even worse for the breeding of terrorism and a disaster for our national security.

A second option would be for us to add more troops. However, we our military troop strength is already stretched very thin. With North Korea threatening to use its nukes, we cannot afford to pull soldiers from there. Nor from anywhere else we have them stationed.

Another option would be to turn the whole situation over to the United Nations. The problem here is that the United Nations does not have enough soldiers for Iraq's needs. Europe's troops are already stretched thin due to the Bosnia/Kosovo/etc. situation. Best estimates for the number of soldiers that Europe could send is 20,000.

India could send soldiers, however, Hindu soldiers are not likely to be welcomed by Muslim Iraqis. The idea of Turkish troops in Iraq are an anathema to the Kurds. (Talk about making a bad problem worse!)

A final option would be to call up the Iraqi military that we are currently paying and have them begin to take control of Iraq.

Mr. Klein's solution would be to use a combination of the second, third, and fourth options listed.

Mr. Klein touched on a number of other issues/problems, but most of his prepared talk was on the Iraq war. He did say that he thought the first thing that needs to be done is to fire Donald Rumsfeld and all of those who pushed the lies about Iraq's WMD et als on to us.

I didn't agree with everything Mr. Klein said, but I left that forum knowing that there are some journalists out there who do get it and who are seriously concerned about the direction our country and our world is moving in. Here's hoping that many more of those who have influence through the media follow Mr. Klein's example.

[Jacobin]

1. Without meaning to be rude

His assessment is idiotic.

Our "out" in Vietnam was being run out on our asses. It wasn't an "option"....it was a fucking defeat.

He's afraid if we leave Iraq there will be "chaos and anarchy"....um, don't look up Joe, but that's what we have now.

We won't win. We have already lost. The longer we are there, the worse it will get. No one is gonna come save old FuckUpGeorge this time.

There ain't enough oil in Iraq to pay 500,000 soldiers to occupy and repress Iraq. The cost per bbl would be above market price. This was a failure to find WMD, a failure to "stabilize the M.E." a failure to steal oil, and the biggest laughable failure is to "give them democracy". Hell, they want ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM, which is why we installed Saddam as dictator 35 fucking years ago.

This Klein garbage is pure apologist pablum crap.

He has screwed the pooch royally.

[1monster]

2. Gee... Somehow, I must have messed up in the way I reported his

position.

He did not support the invasion of Iraq. (Didn't I state that?) But having invaded a poweder keg nation, which he stated may never have been a nation in the first place except in Great Britain's dreams in 1918 - 1922, we could not just opt out without doing something to stablize the situation for the Iraqi people.

Can you come up with a plan on how to do that???

As for the Vietnam reference, he was speaking of the pre Richard Nixon "secret plan" to get us out. I did fail to make that clear.

I was impressed by Klein's knowledge of the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular. I certainly don't have a clue as to how to solve the problems WE caused Iraq, but as a mother, I get really ticked at certain members of my family who create nasty messes and then walk off leaving me to clean up. As a citizen of this country, I feel we have an obligation to clean up the mess WE made in Iraq. But I also feel that it might not be a bad idea to have the United Nations put into the supervisor's chair on hte cleanup. Sometimes those who mess up are not the best people to supervise the clean up.

And Iraq is smack dab in the middle of a extremely volatile situation.

[Pastiche423]

3. "Iraq is smack dab in the middle of a extremely volatile situation. "

And who made it volatile?

[1monster]

5. Who made the Middle East volatile?

There have been many many players on that stage. The US played a huge role in the Mid East, but we were not the only ones.

As for Iraq, wasn't that my point? We made a terrible mess and we need to clean it up before we leave.

However, being the culprits who made the mess in the first place, I don't particularly believe that we are the ones who should supervise the clean up.

There is no getting around the fact that we are not doing a good job of it right now.

[Jacobin]

7. Vietnam seems to have "cleaned" itself up quite nicely

without any help from us whatsoever. In fact, as soon as we stopped bombing them (after 20 years of it), they began to come back to life and re-build.

It's a natural reaction of good-hearted americans to think they can/must "clean up" (translate: shape into their own image) other countries. This good-hearted and noble inclination is now being used by Smirk to convince congress to give him another 87 billion to further repress iraq. The pink tu tu dems in congress will fall all over themselves to do it...."can't leave this in a mess"......"must not fail"......"have to fix it"....."light at the end of the tunnel".....how many body bags and trillions will it take before we KNOW for certain that we failed. How about NONE????

They are as nationalistic as any other country. They will fight us to the death until we are gone. We are invading infidel conquerers there to steal their oil. They are not stupid. We are not there to improve their lives. We are their to steal their oil.

Staying is a continuation of the Bush* nightmare of killing and thievery. As bad as it is now, it will get worse until we leave.

Ask anyone in Vietnam.

[1monster]

8. Somehow, I don't think you quite understood the Vietnam reference...

It was that Vietnam was in a situation where it could clean itself up once we left. There was structure there, even if it wan't the structure that those in power in the US wanted.

What structure is there now in Iraq? If there is any, I haven't heard of it. Have you?

[Jacobin]

19. Of course.

It's been there for hundreds of years. It's islamic fundamentalism.

They want it as the basis for their government. They look to their religious leaders to lead them in their secular lives. It's what will arise from the ashes, given a chance.

They have a highly educated population full of engineers, doctors and technicians. They have gazillions of barrels of oil which they can sell to re-build. (which we will never get out trying to steal since they will sabotage our theft)

Will it be good for the U.S.? Hell no. But, keep in mind, that the United States of America installed Saddam Hussein as a secular dictator to keep the muslims in line and the oil flowing. It worked, geopolitically.

Serves us right as they will now get what they want which will be awful for us.

[Wwagsthedog]

11. You have given words to my thoughts about Iraq

There is simply no better solution than to leave Iraq ASAP. It is simply delusional for us to see any alternative because of the mess that we made before, during and after the invasion. There will not be enough oil in whole Middle East to pay for our stupidity. History is a mystery to our misadministration. The only way we get any other governments into the "coalition" is that they are ideologically as stupid as the PNAC (Spain), want to earn US dollars (Poland) or have become as challenged by the truth (UK) as we are.

[AP]

18. Vietnam wasn't nothing in the first place. Iraq has third largest oil...

...reserves in the world and what happens there will affect the price of oil (and, therefore, the power of certain conservative Texans) for decades to come.

[Jacobin]

20. Which is another reason that we shouldn't have invaded

They sold us oil and it cost only what the oil cost.

Now we won't be able to get it out. It'll be sabotaged and our guys will be killed and hundreds of billions will be spent trying to steal it.

[Eloriel]

15. You reported it just fine for me.

And for the record, I think you got jumped on unnecessarily.

I am also one of those who, like you and Klein I guess, don't think just pulling all troops out is a viable option -- at least not yet. I'm on the fence about this, though. I too actually think we have a moral obligation to fix Iraq to the extent we can. Unfortunately, Bush is not the guy to do that. Unfortunately, people (Americans and Iraqis) keep dying in the meantime. Unfortunately, it's bleeding our empty Treasury even drier in the meantime. Etc.

All of which brings us back to the awful non-options Klein outlined.

As we were getting ready to go to war and I was reading what so many others on DU were about the different factions in Iraq and how unreconcileable they are, and how the majority are fundamentalist Islamics, it dawned on me that, horror of horrors, a dictatorship probably IS the best way to run Iraq. Hate to say it, but it was working for quite a while. A GOOD solution? Probably not, but again, it worked. Democracy will not -- at least I never ran across anyone who actually had more than 2 brain cells to rub together who thought so.

Another option, possibly, is breaking the country up into its more or less "natural" constituencies, one of which WOULD be a fundamentalist state.

What got to me recently, and made me wonder if "declaring victory and bringing our troops home" NOW might not be the best thing to do was a chilling column saying "We have lost the war," (that was the first sentence) and we're NOT going to win it, it's only going to get worse because the more troops you throw in, the more insurgency you're going to get, etc., etc. I don't seem to have that link, which is a real shame because I thought it was a superb though terribly sad article. Does anyone remember seeing this?

So, that article has me thinking, but I still don't see how we can just turn our backs and say "Oh, well. That didn't work. Too bad." Nor could I see Bush doing anything like that.

'Tis a quandary.

Eloriel

[poskonig]

4. Turks are fine, just put them in the south.

Also, I'm not clear on what the problem is with Indian troops.

[never cry wolf]

6. They're kinda fighting their own

civil was against muslims in Kashimir.

[hang a left]

14. well I think another reason would

be their recent alliance with Israel.

[burr]

9. Klein shows that reality is uglier than pretty pictures being painted...

Our primary candidates seek to convince us that everything will be fine if we support them, shrub controls the gateways allowing information into and out of Iraq so that he can shape our perception of reality in that country.

If Klein says the situation is bad, then it is probably a disaster. He is right about European forces having their hands full in Bosnia, another reason they have for not participating. But shrub wishes to portray this as a hatred they have against our country, when in reality they have their own security problems to worry about!

We will never have the options we had when rebuilding Germany. Our nation's economy was just beginning it's largest boom in history, more money for these objectives was available with less interest to pay on the debt, and with many willing allies ready to participate.

Today we lack the manpower, our credit is being destroyed with decades of deficits, and we have burned our bridges with potential allies in Asia and in Europe. So what can we do now?

[1monster]

13. Thank you for getting the point!

And that was one of Klein's points, that those candidates who tell us that supporting them is all that is necessary are being politicians, not honest.

And I did come away with the feeling that the whole world was on the brink of disaster and how Iraq is handled will have a lot to do with whether or not we pull back from the edge in time, if at all.

[Tinoire]

16. We need to take the road we've less travelled by...

I see no other option than a FULL apology, FULL reparations, the US military AND corporations out of Iraq with no say in how the Iraqis, under UN guidance, want to rebuild their country and the establishment of the Department of Peace.

Anglo-American imperialism MUST end now. It has caused much too much harm in this world. Our next leader needs to be not simply better than Bush, but 180 degrees different so that our country can embark on the path of rebuilding its destroyed image. Same old, same old capitalistic exploitation is no longer morally acceptable to the rest of the world- or to most semi-informed Americans.

The time really is now for a man like Dennis Kucinich- a man with the vision, the courage, and the track record to do things differently.

[Octafish]

10. Thanks for an interesting report!

The press has been filling American minds with pabulum for so long, it takes a speech or lecture to discover some things we don't get to consider. The Middle East is a real powder keg — much of our own making — but also the result of generations of oppression from the Ottoman Empire to the British Empire to the American PNAC gallery. Klein's a brave guy for sending up a flare saying we need to consider what's in America's best long term interest.

BTW: Did he mention anything about the old Soviet nukes reportedly now on the black market? There are terrorists who really are angry with the US — despite what those raised on Clinton or Bush-Reagan would have us believe. From what I can see, Bush, like his Poppy, has done zero to protect us there, either.

[1monster]

12. No, the discussion did not get that far along...

he touched on a lot of material, including Bill Clinton's almost but not quite reaction to PRIMARY COLORS to the questions most asked by the students today at the college which hosted the forum to the debacle of the California recall election.

There was way too much to cover in the hour and a half he had to speak.

[AP]

17. I hate how these journalists talk the anti-Bush talk to secure their

intellectual bona fides only when the audience is less than 100, but when the money's on the line, and they have an audience of millions they sound moderate.

Shortly after Nina Totenberg had that awful interview with Alan Dershowitz and the awful Fed Ct judge in Chicago in which she wouldn't let Dershowitz make his points about the idiocy of Bush v. Gore, some saw Totenberg at a live event and said don't criticize her, she's actually quite liberal in person.

I thought, man, she's a bigger media whore if she goes around criticizing Bush v. Gore in small groups assembled in church basements but won't let Dershowitz criticize it in front of an audience of 11 million.