How's that surge going? - Page 7 - PhillyBlog

Tannhauser · #61 (**permalink**) 01-16-2008, 12:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Towelie

My 4 year old has better come backs than that. Anyway, being an IT consultant, I can honestly from my profession say Al Gore is a moron because of the policies he pushed for to prepare for Y2K. The standards he established were so unneccessary and it costed this country millions of dollars and wasted a lot of my time.

But see how good it worked? Planes didn't fall out of the sky, the earth didn't spin off its axis and go flying into the sun, and toilets didn't flow backwards dampening carpets everywhere.

If we could just get someone like him to lead the panic on global warming, strangling industry, destroying productivity, and launching us back into the 15th century in the most costly way imaginable, then everything would be sweetness and light.

Tannhauser · #62 (**permalink**) 01-16-2008, 12:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swinefeld

Yeah, Tanney, the real reason why Operation Safe Streets (and the failed sequel, Safer Streets) didn't work was because they needed cooler sounding names like "Arrowhead Ripper", "Commando Eagle" and "Law and Order". WTF? Did they hire Steven Segal to conjure up these dopey names? There must be a writers strike at the Pentagon too.

Yep, it's the names Swiney. You're obviously a perceptive and contemplative individual and your accumen detecting the name was the cause of the failure is right up there with your insightful "Al Gore" response.
The fact that one plan was terrible and not designed to succeed (a typical democrat gambit) and the other Republican backed on successful and based on attainable goals, be damned.
If facts don't back you up, scramble for the delusional ignorance cape and wrap yourself in it.

seand · #63 (**permalink**) 01-16-2008, 01:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tannhauser

Are you really comparing North Philly to Iraq? What similarities do you see? An uncivilized people who's culture predisposes them to violence and general lawnessness?
Personally, I see N/P as an area that's the predictable result of 50 years of failed Democrat rule. Pretty much every city that's been subjected to the corruption, graft, and venality of Democrat politics as we know them is interchangeable with N/P, St. Louis, Detroit, Gary, Flint, Compton, Camden, Birmingham, Oakland, Baltimore, Richmond (either CA or VA), Atlanta, Washington, Cincinnati, Newark NJ, or Memphis. They're all depressed, high crime, undesireable areas.
But that's just a question of repeated bad political choices. Not a culture degraded 1,000 years by upholding a false god, allah (known to the west as Satan).
All in all a comparison that's truly insulting to the unfortunate residents of North Philadelphia in my opinion.

You might or might not be surprised to hear that I agree that big-city machine politics and petty corruption is a huge contributor to urban malaise across the US - but also that its just as bad in places like Chester PA where that corrupt machine happens to Republican.

My point about North Philly is that the success of the "surge" is mostly that we are handing out jobs willy nilly to the same Sunnis that used to be shooting at us and that its the US military - not the Iraqui national government that giving out the checks.

I was just asking for a little intellectual honesty from someone who likes to decry "the welfare state" in almost the same breath he carries water for this war. That intellectual honesty may be to much to ask from you though.

Tannhauser · #64 (**permalink**) 01-16-2008, 01:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by seand

You might or might not be surprised to hear that I agree that big-city machine politics and petty corruption is a huge contributor to urban malaise across the US - but also that its just as bad in places like Chester PA where that corrupt machine happens to Republican.

Actually, if you're talking about the city of Chester, the Republican party long ago abandoned that city and now both the Democrat as well as the "Republican" party are manned exclusively by democrats.
That's why the city doesn't attract any new businesses and it's primary income is state and federal grant money.
None the less, anytime people decide to do away with two party politics and swear blind loyalty to one party (be it D, R, C, L or whatever) the party no longer needs to serve its electorate and can get down to shocking levels of graft and corruption.

Quote:

Originally Posted by seand

My point about North Philly is that the success of the "surge" is mostly that we are handing out jobs willy nilly to the same Sunnis that used to be shooting at us and that its the US military - not the Iraqui national government that giving out the checks.

Unfortunately, your version of events is in clear contradiction to every account from on the ground I've ever read.
Those there doing the fighting talk about aQ being driven out and a level of security being maintained that allows Iraqis to colaborate with the IDF and MNF to keep aQ from any activity besides being degraded and dying.
Your suggestion that the peace in Anbar etc. was brought by putting the majority of the populace on the IG payroll is absurd.

seand · #65 (**permalink**) 01-16-2008, 01:47 PM

Quote:

"The people say security is good now, but we need jobs. It's all about jobs, and we have to create them," he said as he flew into the Salie patrol base, just south of Baghdad - where U.S. troops fund about 150 members of the tribal groups. "We are in a tenuous situation," Lynch said. "We need to give jobs to the citizens [groups], or they will go back to fighting."
Lynch, who leads the Third Infantry Division, said that he had 26,000 members of the groups in the area he controls and that they had given U.S. and Iraqi forces a key advantage in seeking to clear extremist-held pockets. They number about 70,000 countrywide and are expected to grow by 45,000 more in the coming months.
The groups, along with a surge of U.S. troops into Iraq and a decision by the firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to stand down his Mahdi Army militia for six months, have contributed to an estimated 60 percent drop in violence around Iraq since June.
The U.S. military now funds the groups, known as Awakening Councils, Concerned Citizens, and other names. But they expect to be rewarded for their efforts with jobs, either in the Iraqi security forces or elsewhere.
"They want to be recognized as legitimate members of society, and that has to happen," Lynch said as he flew over an area south of Baghdad once known as the "triangle of death."

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/world_us/12824677.html

seand · #66 (**permalink**) 01-16-2008, 08:32 PM

I just heard it again on the radio from an interview with the guy in charge of organizing these Sunni armed neighborhood patrols for the US miliatary. People in these groups are paid a small daily stipend for cooperating with the the surge. The surge to the extent it has worked is basically a massive jobs program for unemployed disenchanted Sunni youth on a massive scale.

So lets say woohoo for bringing the "welfare state" on such a huge scale at US taxpayer expense to Iraq and hiss at the Maliki for being so greedy about keeping all of its US taxpayer funded corruption and patronage jobs to itself and not sharing with the rest of the population as it should - so in essence the US taxpayer has to pay twice for massive redundant, half-assed jobs program - for Iraquis - that we will likely be paying for at least another 20 years. Good one, there W.