tecoyah

Participants:

Billo_Really vs. Trajan Octavian Titus

Debate Monitor:

tecoyah

Topic: The war in Iraq/solutions

Coin toss: Trajan Octavian Titus goes first

Paricipants have decided on a moderated debate. tecoyah will ask the question, each will then answer and be allowed one(1) rebuttal before the next question.

tecoyah

Moderator Question:

In order to define the situation we face in Iraq, it seems important to discuss what is actually happening in the country. Please explain your opinion on the current state of success in the War.

Trajan Octavian Titus

Contrary to what you hear from the media who sits from atop mount high off their motel balconies disseminating their misinformation to the masses the situation in Iraq is far from the disaster as some would lead you to believe.

In the past three years we have removed a brutal tyrant responsible for the mass murder and brutal intimidation of the Iraqi populace from power and given the Iraqi people something they have never known . . . a chance at freedom.

In the past three years government authority was transferred from the coalition to an interim Iraqi government in 2004, the Iraqi people were then given the chance to vote for the transitional government in May 2005, the Iraqi people then voted overwhelmingly to ratify their first Constituion in October 2005 and then in December 2005 they elected their permanent government which in April 2006 despite months of deadlocke was able to come to a historical breakthrough as to the particulars of the new unity government. The accomplishment of this feet is unprecedented one needs look no further than the formation of our own Government and the hardships and toils that we had to overcome to see just how ahead of the game the Iraqi people actually are. Following the Declaration of Independence in 1776 our Constitution wasn't ratified until 1787 a full four years after we had achieved our independence from Great Britian and it wasn't until two years later that our first presidential elections were held.

According to the State Department the Iraqi security forces are growing in strength exponentially which combined with the newfound willingness of the Iraqi government to work together for the future of Iraq can only spell disaster for the insurgency:

The Iraqi infrastructure is improving on every level and as of today a total of 15 of the 18 Iraqi provinces are totally secure.

This is not to say that the situation in Iraq is perfect and that the months and years ahead will be easy but few things worthwhile ever are.

Trajan Octavian Titus

Just a reminder these are the rules that were agreed to prior to the debate:

1. The moderator asks a question alternating between the two opponents, and after each response we get only one chance to respond to the opponents statement and then we move onto the next topic.

2. No block quoting IE the responses must be to the statement as a whole and not a dissection of the statement so as to give the feel of a vocal as opposed to a textual debate.

3. No asking direct questions to the opponent. (I'm not sure if we agreed to this one but it is in line with the first rule.)

tecoyah

Rules in place and accepted

Billo_Really

The state of Iraq at present is not as rosy as some would have us believe. There is no argument that their former ruler was a tyrannical ruler. But their is nothing in International Law that allows regime change without UN SC authorization. Which is something the United States has never received. Now that we are there, building the largest embassy in the world, we have installed a puppet government that does not even interact with the people it governs. They stay behind large concrete walls in the Green Zone and rarely venture out into a typical Iraqi neighborhood. When they do, it is with an armed brigade of soldiers. I know in this country we have Secret Service accompany our elected officials, but they don't travel in armed troop carriers with 50 caliber machine guns where the sun roof would be.

This is a government [in Iraq] that was pressured by the Bush Administration to write a Constitution in a time of war. I cannot think of one instance in history where another country has had to write such an important document while armed conflict was still continuing. This is also a government that does not even have control of it's own banking system. This is a government that does not have control of it's own oil industry. In fact, their entire oil industry can now be foreign owned and there's not much they can do about it. Except borrow money! And go into debt paying high interest rates. Not as much as the United States, but it will have it's affect on a country that has a lot of trouble delivering basic services we take for granted.

They still do not have 24/7 electricity or running potable water. Garbage is building up in their streets due to little or no refuse collection. It takes some an hour and a half to go to the local store to get basic necessities due to the many checkpoints set up around the main roads. Just think how your life would be if you didn't have electricity or water most of the time. If you couldn't get basic food stuffs like rice, wheat or milk. It is the lack of these basic necessities that the average Iraqi is seeing.

They also see their democracy being forced on them at the end of a gun. How can one possibly think that they are grateful to the US when we destroyed 75% of a city [Falluja] the size of Long Beach, Ca. with 300,000 residents and put most of them in tents in the middle of the desert just so we could capture one tenth of one percent of the people that were classified as insurgents.

We have put 60,000 of their people in prison. Many of whom have not been charged with a crime. Everyone has heard of the horrors at Abu Ghraib. Which is still an issue that has not been resolved in the eyes of many (see Amnesty International link below).

And on top of all this, the country is fractured into many parts. Kurdistan is barely a part of Iraq. They are practically autonomous and have two people in custody because they voiced dissention with the government. That's not freedom of speech. Don't they have a right to address their grievances without fear of incarceration? And they are the lucky ones.

One of the things the Iraqi police and military are also reported to be doing, is going around with death squads to extract vengeance on other tribes. 80-100 bodies a day are hitting the morgues. Shiites against Sunnis, and vice-versa. This has been going on for a thousand years, what makes anyone think it will stop now. How would you feel if your child was hit with shrapnel from a US bomb and you could not take him to the hospital because you might be shot by a sniper. Or that your hospital was bombed the day before. This was a true story where a five year old in Falluja died of his wounds and was buried in his parents garden.

How can we in this country even begin to explain the situation in Iraq without being able to relate to what they are going through?

__________________

"With neocons, it just goes to show, when the
bar is low enough, you can never be too wrong!"

Billo_Really

I certainly hope I didn't break any rules.

tecoyah

Moderator Question:
Billo answers first

Given the current status of the Iraqi infrastructue, and taking into account all aspects of the situation as you see it. Please tell us what you see the Iraqi Government becoming in One year? Five years? Twenty Years?

Billo_Really

Deteriorating security conditions are making it almost impossible to continue Iraqi re-construction efforts according to Mr. Raad Saleh (the head engineer for Reconstruction and Housing Ministry). Without continuing progress in Iraqi re-construction, there are no incentives for Iraqis, that have joined the insurgent movement, to lay down their arms and take up non-violent means for dealing with the many issues they are facing. Even the ones that are not involved in armed combat are contributing to the instability of the country with all the fraud and corruption that has become almost routine, beginning with the Coalition Provisional Authority. But the biggest factor contributing to a bleak future for Iraq is the presence of 140,000 US troops riding around with virtual impunity. With every major part of their infrastructure under US control, the situation in Iraq will worsen.

Iraq is a country that never had a suicide bomber until the US showed up on it's doorstep. Now they are a magnet for every terrorist in the world wanting to make a statement. And their is no better way to show your worth to the psychotic, terrorist world, than to car bomb the Americans. America has replaced Israel as the No.1 hated country on earth to the jihadists of the ME. Fueling this hatred is the daily atrocities Iraqis are suffering as a result of our invasion. Such as people disappearing. You cannot even calculate the percentage of disappearances as families hunt for their lost love ones. A year from now, with US troops stationed at one of the many bases they are building around the country, the only thing that will change, is the level of outrage.

And with the Anbar province still mostly insurgent controlled, the country is ill-equipped to bring an end to the violence. There is no way to predict what the country will be in five years or ten years down the road with so many factors contributing to the kaos. However, if we:

• we removed our troops from Iraqi soil, thereby taking the main focus of all the hatred and outrage out of the insurgent equation,
• stopped the rape and fraud of there reconstruction efforts (when they are working) by foreign contractors such as Halliburton,
• worked more in cooperation with organizations like the United Nations, ICRC and Amnesty International to ensure the safety and protection for average Iraqi citizens,
• and we're able to come to terms with the insurgents through our ongoing, clandestine, negotiations currently taking place by Bush Administration proxies,

they might have a chance in ten years to finally see what we enjoy (and take for granted) in this country. In regards to the last condition I stated, I have been very critical of President Bush to date. But I cannot take this away from him. I commend him for allowing talks (not appeasement) to take place with our enemy's in order to end the bloodshed. This is just one positive, in a sea of negatives.

In closing, my boss is named Hussein. And he told me the other day he was in Bagdad back in the early eighties. He said he remembers "...a city green with many gardens and scents of nature." Something they obviously do not have at present. Nor will they have anytime soon.

Trajan Octavian Titus

I'm sorry but my opponents assertions bare little resemblence to the actual ground situation in Iraq. He defaults to the worst case scenario in almost every single instance and totally ignores the successes made by the Iraqi people this sends the wrong message to the people of Iraq when only their shortcomings are acknowledged and their successes are either ignored or downplayed. The fact of the matter is that things are getting better sooner rather than later. As of today the optimism of the Iraqi people is high, the insurgents do not have the backing of the Iraqi populace while the Iraqi people overwhelmingly support the Iraqi security and military forces, there have been great strides in improving basic services with more improvements yet to come, the Iraqi security forces are increasingly taking the lead and stepping up so that the Coalition forces can stand down, and the new Unity government has come to a major breakthrough regarding the future of Iraq.

Optimism is high.

In a recent polling study conducted by Oxford research international of the Iraqi populace seven in ten Iraqis say that over all things are going well for them, 56% percent say that their lives are better now than before the war compared to only 19% who say things are worse, and perhaps most remarkably of all 71% expect their lives to improve over the next year. This simply doesn't add up with the bleak picture of Iraq which has been presented by my opponent.


The Iraqi people simply do not support the insurgency and without support from the populace insurgencies are doomed to failure.

When asked "whether the use of violences (against Iraqis) towards political ends," support is only at 4% as of 2005 when questioned as to whether the Iraqis supported attacks against Iraqi security and military forces the result was only 2% in favor.

The Iraqi people on the other hand overwhelmingly support the Iraqi security and military forces.

According to a recent poll conducted by the International Republican Insitute when asked who they trusted to protect their "personal safety," 78% said either the Iraqi police or the Iraq army. Only 4% said they trusted the armed militia
with their security while only 6% said they trusted the insurgents.

Basic services are coming back on line and in most instances; such as, electricity they are at or above pre-war levels.

According to the Iraqi Electricity Minister Mohsen Shalash:

"Now electricity has reached a record after we broke 5,350 megawatts a few days ago for the first time since the war."

This is well above the pre-war levels and the USAID expects the electrical output to reach 6,000 MW within the year.

According to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) the pre-war electricty output in 2002 was only 4,400 MW. And it was only Baghdad that had continous power, because Saddam was allowing the the basic services to fall into disrepair in order to control the Iraqi populace through strict controls over even the most basic necessities of life.




The USAID along with the Iraqi people have made great successes. In the last few years they have:

Now that electrical power (to which all other parts of the infrastructure are reliant upon) has been restored the next major step is to improve the water and sanitations departments in this too great strides are being made to improve the quality life of all Iraqis.

Prior to the war the USAID reports that:


There have been numerous improvements made since the end of major hostilities the USAID reports the following on the accomplishments in the water and sanitation department of the Iraqi infrastructure as well as further improvements to come in the future:

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