Comments on: Play Guess-the-Histogram

By: Farhat

Farhat — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 01:54:37 +0000

Its a news poll. It doesn’t say anything about Americans perceptions, it only indicates something about the perceptions of the people who voted in it and how many times. The exact same poll on Fox News site may give a completely different picture.

By: spyder

spyder — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 18:39:10 +0000

Hey, as soon as the Iraqi government signs over all the oil rights to the US and our corporations, as per the pending piece of legislation written by Bremer under the CPA, then our troops can leave. It’s no big deal. Just give us your oil and we will de-occupy your nation. What’s a little extortion among nations????

By: John Sidles

John Sidles — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 14:23:33 +0000

For folks who prefer the scholarly literature, a good source document is the Army’s FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency, which is available from the Federation of American Scientists (click here).

My wife and I have a son serving with the Marines, as a sergeant, in Anbar Province. He confirms the accuracy of FM 3-24 and of the recent Congressional testimony Gen. Petraeus and Amb. Croker.

Broadly speaking, a USMC sergeant in Anbar has roughly the same responsibilities and resources as the president of a major university.

This assumes the faculty are hostile, paranoid, divided among themselves, suspicious of democracy, deeply ignorant of the outside world, wholly unaware of their ignorance, and heavily armed.

In other words—except for part about “heavily armed”—being a USMC sergeant is pretty much exactly like being a university president.

By: Friday Posts « blueollie

Friday Posts « blueollie — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 12:18:24 +0000

[…] interesting graphs on opinion polls as to whether our presence in Iraq is making things better or not. Read the text (it is brief) and […]

By: eric gisse

eric gisse — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 08:47:43 +0000

What, are we playing by pottery barn rules now?

By: David Carlton

David Carlton — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 04:29:33 +0000

Yeah, that’s my take as well on why we should leave Iraq. I see people talking about how the war was a mistake, but we should clean up our mess; the problem is that that comes down to a “you break it, you bought” it philosophy, which only works if the thing in question is for sale in the first place. And I don’t think Iraqis consider its country to be for sale… (More here.) By the same token, if Iraqis have some milestone that they’d like us to stay around to reach, then by all means we should stay there until we’ve done that.

By: Ross

Ross — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 20:32:29 +0000

“The best argument for leaving Iraq is that the Iraqis don’t want us there.”

That’s Ron Paul’s big argument… it would be much more talked about if the mainstream media weren’t so corrupt.

By: Count Iblis

Count Iblis — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 19:25:51 +0000

Something went wrong when I tried to give the link to the documentary,

here it is

By: Count Iblis

Count Iblis — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 19:05:21 +0000

This is an interesting documentary

See here for the transcript

This fragment is especially funny:

RICK BARTLE, Instructor: My name is Rick.

TRANSLATOR: [subtitles] My name is Rick. Not my name, his.

RICK BARTLE: I am not here to impose my American will upon you.

MARTIN SMITH: These recruits were filmed on their first day of class.

RICK BARTLE: Repeat this after me.

MARTIN SMITH: Rick Bartle is a private contractor

RICK BARTLE: Freedom.

MARTIN SMITH: and an instructor at the Jordan Police Academy.

RICK BARTLE: Freedom.

MARTIN SMITH: He’s also a self-described motivational speaker.

RICK BARTLE: Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!

Maj. Gen. JOSEPH PETERSON, Cmdr., Police Training,: When we enlist somebody into the police forces of Iraq, they swear an oath to serve the people of Iraq. They swear an oath to serve the constitution of Iraq and to be loyal to this effort.

RICK BARTLE: I want everybody to stand up. Stand up.

Brg. Gen. KARL HORST, 3rd Infantry Division, 2004-06: We spent a lot of time talking about the Iraqi flag.

RICK BARTLE: I want you to look at your flag. Look at your flag.

Brg. Gen. KARL HORST: We said the national interest is what is most important here because in their culture, what religious sect they’re from, what tribe and family they are from very much defines who they are.

RICK BARTLE: I want you to pledge allegiance to your flag. Repeat after me. I pray Allah to give me the courage to protect my country of Iraq.

Brg. Gen. KARL HORST: And so the challenge was establishing this nationalist feeling in themÐ

RICK BARTLE: And I pray Allah

Brg. Gen. KARL HORST: Ðto move to the greater good of Iraq

RICK BARTLE: for the souls of all my brothers that have gone before me.

Brg. Gen. KARL HORST: not to the greater good of Shia Islam or Sunni Islam. I mean, it was a challenge. It was a cultural difference.

RICK BARTLE: Long live Iraq!

RECRUITS: Long live Iraq!

RICK BARTLE: Long live Iraq! Yeah!

Billions of dollars are wasted on this sort of nonsense.

By: argumenter

argumenter — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 18:22:43 +0000

somehow a [sarcasm] was left out, my apologies.