How the Democrats can co-opt the surge
Here’s some reasonable advice for the Democrats on Iraq. It’s from Michael O’Hanlon, one of their number who first had the temerity to write that the surge was showing some positive effects in Iraq.
The gist of it? Take credit for the surge since it probably wouldn’t have happened but for their 2006 election, their criticism of how the war had been going, their previous calls to send more troops, and the pressure all of it put on Bush—even though, by the time the surge was proposed, they were set against it. Although that position seems a bit tricky (“I was for a surge before I was against this surge before I was for it again”), it seems the only one with any chance of making sense, especially if things keep looking better in Iraq. It even has the advantage—and the rarity, in politics—of probably being true.
Whether the Democrats will take O’Hanlon’s advice or not remains to be seen. The fact that even John Murtha has now said he thinks the surge is working is a sign that it may be time for them to do so.
Yeah right, neo, now the Dems are trying to co-op the “success” of the surge–only the surge hasn’t succeeded yet–the political situation in Iraq is still unsettled. That was Patreaus’ standard for success. Please.
Also, I don’t know if you caught the news, something about an NIE report, how Bush may have misled the nation, again? Don’t know if you heard that one.
“That’s when you start going hmmm…because they (conservative bloggers) reach people who are influential…that’s what I mean about influential. Talk about a direct IV into the vein of your support. It’s a very efficient way to communicate. They regurgitate exactly and put up on their blogs exactly what you say to them.”
–Bush advisor Dan Bartlett
“Meet the regurgitation chorus. So much more reliable than the MSM.”–Andrew Sullivan
Now will come all the posts about how the libs conspired to forge the NIE report to undermine Bush. I can hardly wait. Paranoia runs deep…
jim:
How “Bush may have misled the nation again”? “Bush” is the one writing the NIE, right? The one that said in 2005 that Iran was actively working on a nuclear program?
Weeeelllll, let’s see… have a look at this:
“Thomas Fingar, one of the three principal authors of the new and controversial National Intelligence Estimate, makes my point for me — or at least he made the point in 2001.
The most difficult thing a trouble-maker has to do to make an atomic bomb, he said six and a half years ago, is obtain the highly enriched uranium (or plutonium) for the weapon.
Yet Fingar concludes in the new NIE report that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003. He reaches this conclusion despite knowing that Iran today is obtaining highly enriched uranium by producing it IN PLAIN SIGHT.”
Mr. Fingar had a slightly different take in July:
“Just four months ago, Fingar told the House Armed Services Committee:
“We assess that Tehran is determined to develop nuclear weapons — despite its international obligations and international pressure. This is a grave concern to the other countries in the region whose security would be threatened should Iran acquire nuclear weapons.”
What happened between then — July 11 — and three days ago, when the NIE declared the Iranian regime probably stopped the weapons program four years ago?”
…and you believe ANYTHING these bozos say?
You could write slogans for the DNC! *laughs* Seriously though, if they take this tack, they will be splitting with their primary base (in sound bites if not reality). I think, in the end, it might actually work for them, as that fringe is ignored except by media and seemingly in-house Democrat functions and functionaries. People in the middle of the road neither know nor care about history. They live and vote as if today and only maybe a bit of yesterday and tomorrow existed. Actually, and unfortunately, this would be a favorable thing for “The Party of the People”. They can easily write off changing their minds as proof they aren’t stuck in the rut they truly live in. Plus, they could finally come out “for the troops”, on paper if not really.
Hush woman! Get thee hie! Bah, I am not too worried, we are talking about the Democrats. They actually used to be good at this stuff, now they know (and mostly correctly) that they do not have to worry. The people who vote for them do so without a thought. Who else could a criminal (who wants to vote, gets it auto here in Iowa after parole), welfare recipients, the babyboomers who are bust because of their lifestyle choices, and anyone who wants to do things which are immoral, unethical, or just socially out (think gays, drug users, torte lawyers as a sampling)?
That last was supposed to say, who else would these people vote for but a Democrat?
I feel positively psychic.
“…into your heart it’ll creep…”
Just for you, jim:
“In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.”
Sigh,
I haven’t read the comments or commented here in a very long time: I was sick of the snarky trolls who end their vacuous comments with ellipses, suggesting that their wisdom continues beyond the comment itself. So I come by to check out the comments after a couple years and find that the first comment is from a snarky troll who end their vacuous comments with an ellipsis.
jimfocus Says:
Do you ever hurt your back moving those goalposts around?
THe cynic in me says that it’s too early for the Democrats to claim credit for the surge. Better to wait until you know for sure that the surge has succeeded before claiming credit for it.
If so, then Bob Dylan really nailed it. Maliki could sing this to Murtha:
You got a lotta nerve
To say you are my friend
When I was down
You just stood there grinning
You got a lotta nerve
To say you gota helping hand to lend
You just want to be on
The side that’s winning
Deep, Brad, very, very deep…
Stumbley,
Who exactly is coming for you?
“…it starts when you’re always afraid…”
Btw, I’ve been lamely quoting Stephen Stills (sorry again, Brad)
Ayatollah D’Souza
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070205/pollitt
If Iraq continues to go well, Dems will come around to claiming credit, just as Bill Clinton claimed credit for his administration, i.e. “WE stopped a millineum plot” when a border patrol officer used her senses to detain a potential terrorist in 1999.
Dems will claim credit over and over and over, until their claims become just as accepted as their claims that Bush lied over WMDs, and just as accepted as their claims that Clarence Thomas harassed Anita Hill, and just as accepted as their claims that higher taxes equate to more tax revenue for the government.
If Iraq continues to go well, Dems will become the heroes of Iraq. The eventual OIF War Monument will prominently credit Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi for leading us to victory – and I am not being sarcastic. It truly will – just as many of the 9/11 monuments either blame the U.S. for being attacked, or attempted to blame the U.S. before sufficient outrage prompted changes in the original designs.
Truth,
D’Souza is a friend, of sorts, very likable fellow. But, yeah, the book gets out there. He thinks American conservatives and militant muslims actually have much in common, and should join up to smash “the Left,” whoever that may be. He equates gayness with murderers,etc. Most disheartening, he doesn’t even attempt to argue on spiritual grounds, sees religion as a means of controlling people. Pretty cynical stuff, but some may think he’s just being a cold-blooded truth-teller.
Also: when Harry and Nancy write their books, we’re going to see a lot of this:
We were a tremendous help to the war effort behind the scenes. Sure, we had to do some public posturing, for political purposes. But behind the scenes, we were invaluable friends to President Bush, and to the troops, and to the Iraqi people. Behind the scenes,where there were no cameras, we went above and beyond the call – courageously and untiringly, again and again – for Pres. Bush, for the troops, and for OIF and the Iraqi people. OIF could not have succeeded without our tremendous, beyond-the-pale efforts. In fact, without us, i.e. if somebody else had been in our posts, we truly suspect OIF would have failed. We are just so grateful we could do some things for our boys and girls in uniform.
I am already sensing this story line, in current media, even before the historical rewrites come out in hardback.
“…step outta line…”
“…the man come and take you away…”
Please.
I love you, Stumbley.
“…think it’s time we stop.”
…and so interesting, jim that you would quote Stephen Stills, and “For What It’s Worth,” a song of the paranoid Left about conservatives depriving them of the right to congregate on Sunset Blvd., a paranoia about a fascist state that never materialized. Who’s petrified that their library records and phone calls are being monitored 24/7 by Bushitler? Who’s terrified that the rabid animals who populate our Armed Forces are raping, pillaging and torturing pretty much everyone they meet?
And when those of us who are concerned about actual countries who are actually threatening us, who have supplied terrorists with funds and weapons, who have taken hostages at our embassy, and are killing our soldiers in Iraq, we’re being unreasonably wary.
Who is truly paranoid, eh?
Once again wishing all a Happy Chanukkah, and reminding that tomorrow is Pearl Harbor Day. A doubly bad day for trolls.
jimfocus,
Have you ever actually read your “name” and tried it? Give it a go big guy… or tulip boy, or girl/boy, or… whatever. Well, I initially thought to give it a shot. I realize my error. Carry on jimfocus.
Stumbley,
You’re right, there’s lots of irony in the song. Stills was also admonishing the demonstrators to not overreact and get paranoid. Stills was/is a devotee of Alinsky–if you practice civil disobedience don’t be outraged when you get cracked over the head, expect it. Stills is actually fairly conservative in his views. Very underrated artist. His favorite line in the song is people carrying signs, mostly saying “hooray” for our side–an unprecedented shot at some of the demonstrators from the rockocracy of the times.
Re: Bush, it’s becoming more apparent by the hour that Bush was less than truthful at his news conference, plus Cheney and he kept up the jingoistic rhetoric on Iran when they were both told in August that the intel was showng a much different situation.
Do you neocons realize how silly you look complaining about the NIE now? Why would anyone take you seriously on this subject ever again? You guys have been wrong on everything for the past 5 years. That’s Bush-Cheney’s problem, too. They have no cred left. Is this the de facto end of the Bush Adm.?
Doom,
I prefer “Big Boy.” “Tulip Boy” second.
When neocons quickly run out of arguments they always come with the ad hominen. No game.
When trolls run out of insults, they always whine about “the ad hominem”. No brain.
Sally,
You hot temptress, you. Did you draw your eyebrows on today?
Uh, btw, you have an argument? No.
Democrats standing up for America?
I’m not sure MSM punditry would survive the experience. Their failure to make Hillary! less than agonizing in one-on-one interviews comes to mind.
But to have them attempt to coopt success in Iraq… you must realize that we’re talking cognitative dissonance on a scale to level continents here.
Neo… they can’t stand up for success. Not because success is upon us, or even a nearly sure thing – but because if they allow that U.S. involvement in Iraq to be anything short of economic exploitation or some weird flavor of patriarchal white colonialism they’ll lose their base. They would violate The Narrative ™
LOSE the base it. Not merely inspire luminaries like Mother Sheehan to jump into political races.
The Left’s opposition to Iraq was never about outcomes. It was first and always about protecting their fantasy world where America is the first evil , plus the spice of BDS.
Other peoples’ children, as my mom used to say.
You know what’s really deliciously funny in all of this? The neocons over the last week trying to “force” the dems to make remarks about the surge and how it’s working. Hello, what an idiotic approach.
Did you guys even hear what Patraeus said this week?
Please. How stupid.
Okay, jim, you seem a relatively reasonable soul. I invite you to read this: http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/ (“Sources and Methods”) and let us know what you think.
I’m pretty disappointed in the lack of a thread about the NIE and Bush knowing about the intel, yet still spinning the Iran bogeyman threats, and now getting caught with his poor little press secy having to “explain”…yes, indeed IS “is”. This time however, the lie is much more damaging that a BJ under the desk in the oval office.
My my…pretty amazing how some can get all lathered up over Clinton and at the same time slip right into the codependent children of Bush blaming the intel community and making excuse after excuse for the actions of one who has done more to damage our credibility in the world.
And you call yourselves therapists?
That explains it I guess.
Laura, same goes for you: read http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/ (“Sources and Methods”)
You should be worried.
You neocons make me laugh. Snigger. (Oops, I didn’t mean to say that.) You’re all so stupid, nobody beleives you. You don’t even have arguments, like me. Like when I say that Bush is just dumb. And a liar. When he talks. A lying liar. Like all you neocons.
Try being like me or Laura, if you can (NOT!) Like when Laura just keeps repeating over and over and over, “It’s not working, it’s not working, it’s not working,…” Sometimes you can throw in another repetition, like “you make me laugh, you make me laugh, you make me laugh,…”
See, that’s how you argue!
Heebie, jeebie. (Fatty Arbuckle)
Did I mention that I’m an undercover ATF agent? And a social worker? I did? When?
Okay, well, I also used to play concert piano! For Procul Harem! Yeah! Bet ya didn’t know that, smart guys! Oh, And I’m a physio too, just like neo!
Hey, hugga muggah! (Jean-Paul Belmondo)
Whoop de doop. (Babe)
Ho, ho! (Bugs Bunny)
Asdfhsdfg! (From some movie. I mean filum. Look it up.)
Laura,
I agree, it seems it’s change-the-subject time in high gear here in neoneoconland. Also, when they do talk about it, they zero in on the substance of the NIE, when the world and everybody else has rightfully pounced on Bush’s disengenuousness and ginning up war fears this fall when he knew there were potentially big holes in the story. His cred is gone.
Stumpley, I’m going to the link now and I will read it, promise.
“I understand the issues.”–Pres. Bush, 2 days ago
For cryin’ in a bucket! You sent me a blog? Written by who? Like I give a rat’s ass? jesus you really floor me pal. What, do you all get some daily memo sent out about what you’re supposed to push today, sort of like Nordstrom pushing a “certain fragrance”? It goes from drudge to all the sub sets and trickles down (reagonomics) to you! Fun to track back on that site you sent, story running in 2004 about the violence and trying to explain it all away.
Do you even realize that today we find out the millions more are missing in Iraq? That the Iraqis have what, about 4 weeks left to make some progress in this session and they aren’t moving the ball down the field, AT ALL? Did you hear what Patreaus has said about the “window” of opportunity?
No, you are too busy cheering for war and MORE WAR, regardless of what CAREER PROFESSIONALS
regardless of what the people who are charged with intel. And, NO DONT EVEN TRY TO SPIN THIS NIE AND LAST NIE…WON”T WORK.
You want war?
As long as it doesn’t cost you or your family anything. Bloodlust.
Hubris and ego makes a very deadly cocktail
“Do you even realize that today we find out the millions more are missing in Iraq? That the Iraqis have what, about 4 weeks left to make some progress in this session and they aren’t moving the ball down the field, AT ALL? Did you hear what Patreaus has said about the “window” of opportunity?”
You know, we could change Iraq/Iraqis to “the U.S. Congress”, and Patreus’ name to that of any historian/economist who has been sounding the warnings about our unfunded entitlements bomb, and it would fly like a bird.
Just saying.
It’s almost Christmas. Will our troops be home from Kosovo then?
Cheers.
It’s what they do.
NY Times: A CIA officer, an employee at the agency for more than 20 yrs, including several years in a clandestine unit assigned to gather intelligence related to illicit weapons, was fired in 2004. This agent says that in the spring of 2001 that Iraq had abandoned a major element of its nuclear weapons program, but the agency did not share the information w/ other agencies or w/ senior policy makers. This agent says that just like in the Plame case, he brought unwelcome information on WMD in the period prior to the Iraq invasion, and retribution followed.
Sound familiar. Gee, how many people have officially come out to debunk bush and how many remain? Hmmm
Can he fire the whole intel community? I wonder. Well, there is that little National Security Directive.
Richard Clarke
Millions and millions missing and Bush wants a blank check? That’s like giving an addict a (pick your poison) unlimited supply.
Looks like Laura is in need of another trip to the woodshed, the beneficial effects of yesterday’s trip having now worn off.
But seriously, we should defer to her when she characterizes something as “stupid,” because in that area, at least, she has extensive firsthand experience.
Laura has officially jumped the shark.
And just for you, Laura, the blog is by Richard Fernandez, who as far as I know–being a Filipino living in Australia–has no ties to any Administration or neocon folks at all; he’s simply a very talented writer with some pretty interesting insights into the world’s situation (since he’s spent a lot of time in various and sundry countries over the years, you know, unlike those of us who sit in our basements with Cheetos [and why is that such a favorite smear of bloggers, anyway?]), so to erupt in such an infantile way as you did sort of colors how any of us should respond to you n’est pas?
Now one of the neocons has to resort to a cloned troll attack on me. LOL. What, you’re tired of crapping all over Laura and her son? I wonder who would do such a thing? Man, I must really be getting to someone.
Desperate stuff. I know it’s been a bad 3 days for you, so I’ll try to understand the extreme, out of control anger of, some of you.
BTW, got any arguments? At least Stumbley’s got me thinking over several things, and he makes me laugh, too.
I was not ATF, that one really hurt.
I’m just tired of the childish interjections. It’s like having a four-year old interrupting an adult conversation to babble about Thomas the Tank Engine and Pokemon.
What’s wrong w/ pokemon?
Right, Occam, and the lame insults you cons constantly throw are so adult–give me a break–LOL
And you guys aren’t making many astute points lately.
Here’s what I said previously about the NIE:
“Wait, what was wrong with the NIE? I think it’s going to come out that we got some evidence or information about their program.
What is wrong with refining Intell based on new and current information?
Besides, it’s an Estimate. It’s not evidence in a court, it’s a best guess. The previous best guess, along with Amadinejad’s rhetoric, said that Iran was building nukes.
New info will show that he’s bluffing. That is the way the system is supposed to work.
It didn’t work with Iraq. Do you know why?”
As information reveals itself, national policy gets refined. I just don’t see the problem….
Of course we are betting our lives that the current NIE is correct.
How would you like to be in charge of betting American lives? Instead of just being poo-flinging monkeys?
Jim, the truth is a total defense.
Debunking her nonsense (see yesterday’s thread re Cheney and money) takes time, during which time she’s produced two more risible points. Rebutting that rubbish, and thereby iInterjecting a note of rationality, is like trying to cut off the head of the Hydra: two more heads appear each time.
That’s why I’m focusing on the source, with ad feminam criticisms, which in general I would not do. The arguments themselves aren’t worth the effort to debunk.
A. this blog is so funny it’s a gift, i’m serious….
B. “Do you neocons realize how silly you look complaining about the NIE now? Why would anyone take you seriously on this subject ever again?” – said jimf earlier…
C. December 7 th coming right up, something serious to ponder, have we learned anything? waterboarding isn’t very smart unless it actually is…
D. the nature of dhimmitude….
perfected democrat says: dhimmitude is a dedicated christian soldier appeasing mo and his 1.5bil hoard by intimidating the jews into coming in by the side door at annapolis, and the jews come in by it… this all makes me very sad….
Occam,
I think everybody gets frustrated with their opposition, especially someone as feisty and relentless as Laura, she’s a fighter. I was the first to post on this thread and I sorta predicted this would happen.
One thing I see here from the war supporters is a strong, sometimes intense patriotism attached to your views, which is fine. What many of you fail to acknowledge is that the opposition is just as patriotic as you–yet you guys insist it’s your province alone. From that comes an attitude that your opposition can just be dismissed. I might be overstating in an attempt to be brief, because I could go on. You go through this thread and honestly assess who’s been insulting and childish.
Another quick point, if a post so annoys you and you think so little of it, why do you respond?–just stick to your points if you feel it’s the truth. Or, why even let it get to you? If you are secure in your positions? I know my posts can be annoying, but I try not to be mean or polemic, but gently teasing and sarcastic, funny even? Sure. And I get a charge out of it when one of you gets a good one back at me.
Oh, Commme onnn! Now you’re tryng to imitate me!? Is that all you got?! You call that making “astute points”!?? You don even know what “astute” means, do you? I do. This is astute — me LOLing. Cause that’s what I do at you — I LOL. Sometimes, I ROTLMAO. And you can’t get more astute than that.
And look what you’ve done to poor Laura. You’ve got her wearing her fingers out typing in ALL CAPS, because lower case just doesn’t have the persuasive power she feels she’s been lacking up till now. But does she give a rat’s ass? Heck no! Atta girl, L! Keep typing those upper cases at em!
Now go away, or I will mock you again. Ha ha.
Why would anyone take you seriously on this subject ever again?” – said jimf earlier…
well jim, because the NIE is irrelevant, we all know the preponderant truth about the world we live in, from 14 year old thai girls beheaded on their way to school, to the wackos running iran right now, please don’t just hide behind the border and obfuscate the truth of their enthusiastic interest in wmd programs for the purpose of putting the westerners in their place, especially the jews; how dangerous the world is right now is partly because of kgb gangsters who are more smug than scared, because the russians have always been a little dumb… dumb makes a good dhimmi. mo’s hoards figure they have time and numbers on their side..
i trust john bolton a lot more than anybody left of center…. that’s why you should take me seriously jimmi dhimmi…..
Yes, of course, we’re all “attached to our views”. The difference is that our views (mine and Laura’s) are right (actually, they’re left, but you know what I mean), and yours are wrong (yes, yes, they’re right, but wrong too — it is a paradox). I don’t know why you persist, I really don’t. Why don’t my annoying stupidities —
Boo-yaa! (Henry Winkler)
— drive you away, or silence you? I don’t understand. I mean, if your secure in you’re positions? Because really, your insecure, aren’t you? But look at Laura and I — nothing shakes our rock-thick confidence, not “logic”, not “facts”, not “changed conditions”, nothing! Or, as Laura would say, NOTHING!
i hope john bolton doesn’t betray me like george bush and condi have at annapolis… next thing we’ll be drinking out of separate fountains…. i just finished reading wayne perryman’s “unfounded loyalty”…. fatah is just hamas lite… over and out for the nite….
Some people are very, very angry on here.
No game.
BTW, I’m still LOL
Perfected,
Right now I think Bush and the neocon advocates left in the adm. have blown it with the revelations of the NIE and how long they really knew about it. I agree that the accuracy is somewhat secondary, but what about their incompetence in managing the information?
Why do so many of you still support Bush, aren’t you angry at his incompetence?
cue the clone troll
jim, it’s very interesting why you seem to blame the President for “incompetence,” when it’s clear from the bizarrely conflicting NIEs that you’re so fond of citing that incompetence is rife within the “intelligence” agencies. Why would you think that agencies that got 9/11 completely wrong, were (in your estimation) “wrong” on Iraq’s WMDs, “wrong” in 2005, when the very same person who was one of the authors of this now amazingly-true NIE said that Iran was actively working on a nuclear weapons program, why oh why are they suddenly absolutely rock-solid competent?
Either they’re (1) right, (2) wrong, or (most likely) (3) pretty much useless with respect to ME WMDs. I tend to favor (3).
History has borne that out. I wouldn’t blame the President for anything other than keeping any of those bozos employed.
Hi Stumbley,
I just got through reading through the link you gave me–that site is fairly amazing, lots of issues raised re: the NIE–it has got me thinking in another direction, I’m going back to reread.
You also raise the same questions I have, in a way, about these estimates. You’re right, why should Bush trust these same people over and over. But also, why is he leaving these same people in place? He is the Chief Executive. After this latest dust-up how do you trust any of the ME intel we’re getting?
We’ve been told by Bush that he’s greatly strengthened our intel capability since 9/11. Really?
Anyway, after going to the belmont site I have to concede you some points–but I still hold to the other issue, Bush-Cheney’s mishandling of the changing intel on Iran–why in the world did they let McConnell get up there 3 days ago? He killed them.
Thanks for linking me to that site.
According to an LA Times/Bloomberg poll of military families released this morning, nearly 60% of respondents now disapprove of Bush’s handling of the Iraq War. 60% now disapprove of the decision to invade Iraq.
jimfocus,
No, I wasn’t arguing with you. I simply fail to see you with an argument. Some odd opinions, often based on the best new leftist ideas, meaning… not really interesting, correct, or in-line with being focused. I don’t care what you say, and won’t debate. It would be like debating drug use with a cocaine addict, pointless and with no points of mutual belief to cover the gaps, the results are meaningless. No, I just realized that your name was really off, then went off on a tangent. Tulip boy and big guy? Odd, but… it’s not my call… now.
Doom.
Don’t worry, I thought it was funny. BTW, the takes I’ve been posting really aren’t that far out. They’re, fairly mainstream. I try to include facts and quote informed sources. Like I’ve said over and over, when you neos & war supporters run out of argument (which is pretty fast) you often assume dismissive poses and hurl insults. Many of you make no valid points whatsoever, which your post demonstrates. And the anger and bitterness is off the charts.
Also, unfortunately, I’ve talked to a lot of addicts in my time, cocaine and otherwise. Almost all have great insight into what they’re doing, hate their addiction, but they can’t stop.
… but they can’t stop.
Just to finish that thought: — not like me, for example, or Laura. We can stop any time we want to. Well, I can anyway. I just don’t want to … yet.
So you see, I’m not like some poor, addicted troll, who hangs around blog comment threads because he’s never got over a schoolyard obsession with taunting — like you neocons who can only hurl insults, not real arguments like these. And by the way, all my ideas are normal — not like yours, which are wierd. And look what a funny, sunny guy I am — I always think what you say is funny! Always yukking! Not like you neocons with your anger and bitterness. See, that’s because I’m a normal, regular guy, right smack in the middle of the mainstream, that’s me. Normal. I’m different from you. Really.
(Please, let me have the last word….)
Jim, fair enough. It’s not frustration with the opposition per se, but with the silliness of the points. X and to some Chris White can be frustrating on the opposition basis. X strikes me as simply taking whatever position he thinks will agitate, with no attempt at consistency or fairness, and so I don’t bother reading his posts anymore.
But silly, irrational ramblings delivered in a childish style are irritating. Also, the transmogrification from earnest, concerned mom into addled leftist idealogue raises suspicions that the former persona was merely a vehicle for the latter.
About Neo’s post…
Having everyone working on the same team for the same goal, doing whatever they do best seems like a no-brainer. (Can’t win by military might alone? Why not have all those inclined to non-military solutions sit it out and preach failure… makes sense to me. We’re missing half our team.)
I don’t mind the thought of the Dems taking credit if they can, if it gets them doing something other than constantly undermining our effort for political gain.
I know people who get mad at the idea but I think it’s important to remember that the issue is more important than domestic political advantage and take the high ground. Let the other guys wallow in the mud.
But silly, irrational ramblings delivered in a childish style are irritating. Also, the transmogrification from earnest, concerned mom into addled leftist idealogue raises suspicions that the former persona was merely a vehicle for the latter.
With doublethink you don’t need such rationalizations for seemingly contradictory behavior or beliefs, Occam.
As for the Democrats co-opting the surge, I think they will have to make the same decision that the Sunnis made. Which is whether they should keep fighting and killing Americans, or whether they should join together as a team to benefit themselves. The Sunnis got hammered by Al Qaeda, so that made them change their minds about their pride and conceit.
I don’t see anything that has hammered the Democrats hard enough to make them lessen their preening pride and conceit. So while the Democrats can co-opt, they won’t decide to.
We’re missing half our team.
Better that we go it alone with our presentation with half our team missing than to have the team show up and embarass us.
Wow, the clone troll complaining about trolls, still funny, sorry Sally.
History has borne that out. I wouldn’t blame the President for anything other than keeping any of those bozos employed.
i blame Bush for keeping those bozos alive.
Bush’s problem has always been because he hasn’t killed enough people. That is why he gets all that Bush Hitler accussations. You think Hitler was called out when he was slaughtering people in the 1930s? No, cause he killed enough people. Stalin killed enough people and you didn’t hear people calling him the End of Humanity from the Left.
Laura is definitely a suspicious character. I wonder about jimfocus too. Who are these people? Why do they spend time on this blog? Maybe Bush should tap their phones and find out who they really are.
Hubris and ego makes a very deadly cocktail
Do you somehow believe, L, that just because you believe you speak for all those thousands of military families about Iraq, that you are somehow then… humble? As opposed to the military families and Americans that dont’ agree with your politics, that is.
Oh, I forgot to point out that I’m still laughing — see: ha ha. In case you missed that. Sorry everyone.
Re my comment above, I was responding to Occam, but a bunch of others posted before I hit the post button.
Why do they spend time on this blog?
It is always better to find fault in others, than to deal with your own problems that you can’t solve, Promethea.
It is why Saudi Arabia exports religious war. It is also why Europe and Hollywood exports anti-Americanism.
Maybe Bush should tap their phones and find out who they really are.
I heard that his Stasi was so tied up in Iraq with executing babies and American malcontents that they have had to strip down the wiretapping teams to skeleton numbers. Hauling and incinerating all those bodies at night is a major manpower intensive business. Even with Haliburton contracted to do the disposal of the remains.
-Lucretius
The clone troll is hilarious, I’m loving it, LOL. The anger is very entertaining. Now watch it spew some more. Oh, troll, watch the “i” before “e” business, it gave you away.
Prom.,
I am as I’ve described myself, no bull. I notice a lot of you demand extensive bio material from some, but tell little about yourselves. Why? Also, as far as my views being bizarre, I’m pretty much where 60% of military families are right now–the country is rejecting the neocon orthodoxy and the Bush’s incompetency overwhelmingly.
Swordfish.
And please, I’m begging now, please let me get in the last word on this. I mean, I know, I know, I’m loving this, really — see: LOL! ROTFPMP! (not literally PMP, that’s just a figure of speach, I mean speech) — but I’m getting tired, and I don’t want anyone to say anything that I don’t refute in my own unique way. By saying how weerd — wiird? — and funny they are. And of course how normal I am. Don’t you people read the polls, everyday? Can’t you see that the rest of the group has drifted away from you now, that you’re just going your own way!? How often do I have to tell you that! I’m busy taunting you about the polls every chance I get! How do you stand it?
Blowfish.
jimfocus:
“Don’t you people read the polls, everyday? Can’t you see that the rest of the group has drifted away from you now, that you’re just going your own way!? How often do I have to tell you that! I’m busy taunting you about the polls every chance I get!”
I think the reason people on this board demand extensive bio material on you, is because for a former federal agent, you dont sound very professional. As a matter of fact Jim, you come off like a sullen teenager. Besides the snark and snide It seem lately, your argument on why neocon policy is the wrong policy boils down to an argument from popularity. All my friends parents let them smoke dope, why shouldnt I?
“I’m busy taunting you about the polls every chance I get! How do you stand it?””
Now, I ask you; Is that anyway for an adult to conduct himself?
Your grounded, go to your room.
Uh Harry, you were quoting the clone, that wasn’t me.
Hard to tell which one’s the clone, isn’t it?
again, the left’s entire argument rests on the supposition that the status quo with saddam’s regime, and related geopolitical relationships, would have been a reliable, safer long-term environment… thinking like a simpleton, failing to recognize that saddam was one of several megalomaniac gangsters, all feeding in one way or other off of each other, becoming more and more dangerous. removing saddam from direct power, along with the taliban, may not have solved all the problems, but it has diffused the situation to a certain degree. people are looking for simple, short solutions to a grim situation of boggling proportions, significantly more complex and dangerous than world war 2; combining a totalitarian religous dogma and sheer population mass that is the hydra of mo’s hoards with the current state of wmd and high technology; in addition to their ability to coerce and manipulate the dhimmi left into various forms of acquiescence, support and direct alliance. the bush hater left has succeeded in obfuscating the most compelling issues, moving shallow public opinion and polls to a certain degree, but doesn’t solve in any way the basic problems, of which rumsfeld early on simply said, “we’ve got to do something….”
people don’t respect and appreciate how much has been accomplished… some of my posts will appear to be disjointed rambling if your perspective is incapable of connecting dots (remember the dots?). recognizing that waterboarding is not morally acceptable, but preferential to accepting mass murder in certain cases, is not a “game”. LOL all you want, you are still just the good dhimmi do nothing crowd… a little solidarity in the war against america’s real enemies would go a long way.
Now you guys are depending on a clone troll to put me down–so much for your credibility. Look, I know it’s been a bad week for the neocon cause, so I understand your grumpiness–but could you make a point sometime? The ongoing insults and name-calling just proves one thing–you guys don’t have a defensible position.
Sally’s still very, very angry.
Stumbley, I’m still plowing through the belmont post a second time, but so far he’s raising some interesting possibilities, especially why Iran stopped in 2003, if they really did. Get back to you.
Sally’s still very, very angry.
Actually not. Mildly amused, though. Looks like the “clone troll” is just making your “points” a little more obvious, and maybe a little better. No wonder you feel put down.
Keep on plowing though, Jimmy. With our “bad week” and all, we enjoy the amusement. Try a good old boogah boogah, why don’t you?
Blowfish indeed.
Stop the cloning. It is a rather ridiculous method of trying to explain other people’s faults by emulating them.
Blackfive recently gave us a open source intel analysis of Qods Force operations in Iraq
I recommend people read it if they wish to gather some intel on Iranian operations.
Uh Harry, you were quoting the clone, that wasn’t me.
You weren’t the one that said that neo-cons demaned biographical information?
Y, Harry was taking clone quotes and attributing them to me. Yes, you guys want bio information, yet never state any credentials yourselves. That tells me you only want to attack, little engagement in ideas.
I talk with authors, writers and columnists all the time, left, right and center, and I have identified some of them here–they don’t have a problem with me, I’ve known these folks for years.
And, you neocons on this site can’t make a consistent argument. All you guys ar doing is engaging in petty personal attacks (I predicted this is what you guys would do on this thread), which confirms what a terrible week it’s been for you, and how discredited the neocon orthodoxy has become. Most of the country was with you, now most of it is against you. Anyone who disagrees with you is juvenile, stupid, etc–as childish as it gets. It’s very funny to watch you guys act like, well, neocons.
Sorry Sally, you are obviously very, very angry–happy trolling.
Yeeeh Haaah! Indeed.
cue the clone troll
“60 % of military families are left-leaning liberals with a penchant for fascism and must hate America.”–neocon Rush Limbaugh, today
Most of the country was with you, now most of it is against you. Anyone who disagrees with you is juvenile, stupid, etc—as childish as it gets. It’s very funny to watch you guys act like, well, neocons.
Sorry Sally, you are obviously very, very angry—happy trolling.
Yeeeh Haaah! Indeed.
Hey, that’s more like it, Jimmy. You were sounding a little down there a while back. No goomba goombas, no yee haws. Now you’re getting back to your old, rational self.
But, yeah, I must be pretty angry — you little therapist, you. And you’re pretty sorry.
jimf: I talk with authors, writers and columnists all the time, left, right and center, and I have identified some of them here—they don’t have a problem with me, I’ve known these folks for years.
Too funny to let go: when you hear someone say that a group of people doesn’t “have a problem” with them, don’t you tend to think that maybe they do? Sounds like “they” — his mom? family members? — might tolerate jimmy at least, as long as he remembers his meds and keeps his yelps to a minimum.
And now remind us all again, jimmy — I’m really really really really angry, right?
jimfocus Says:
December 7th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
“60 % of military families are left-leaning liberals with a penchant for fascism and must hate America.”—neocon Rush Limbaugh, today
great joke, wonder what he really said in complete and correct context… laughing with you at you….
Oh … one other thing. An example of how intelligent Petraeus is: though his tactical approach is clearly working, here is what he had to say about the strategy of the war in Iraq when asked in Congressional hearings in September:
Senator John Warner (R-Virginia): Do you feel that that [the Iraq strategy] is making America safer?
General Petraeus: [pause] … I believe this is indeed the best course of action to achieve our objectives in Iraq.
Senator Warner: Does the [Iraq war] make America safer?
General Petraeus: [pause] … I don’t know, actually. I have not sat down and sorted it out in my own mind.
I supported the first Gulf War: I’m no knee-jerk pacifist or always anti-American brand of leftist. However, I think this war was a huge mistake, not because I don’t think the Islamo-fascist threat is serious, but precisely because I think the threat is serious, and I don’t think this war is a serious way of addressing the threat.
Also, I don’t think Bush can take much credit for the current turnaround in Iraq. The only reason we’re doing better now is because we have a much smarter general working with a much smarter defense secretary — both of whom are in there now as replacements to incompetent people Bush himself supported for far too many years. Furthermore, the fact that he FINALLY put competent people in these positions doesn’t validate the strategic decision to go to war in the first place — it simply means the tactics of a horribly flawed policy are now being done competently instead of incompetently.
(My second comment, above, I wrote before my previous comment, but it didn’t post because of length, I guess, so I reposted a shorter version.)
Mitsu Says:
December 8th, 2007 at 2:54 am
“I don’t think this war is a serious way of addressing the threat…..”
so what is?
it simply means the tactics of a horribly flawed policy are now being done competently instead of incompetently.
Whether a policy is right or not is based upon whether it is 1. workable and 2. working.
You admit the second while stating for the record that philosophically speaking the policy is fatally flawed. Yet the only guideline that decides whether policies are correct or mistakes is whether those policies end up doing what it was intended to do.
The philosophical assumption that says regardless of the facts on the ground, “I will still hold to the logical assumption that Bush’s policy is flawed to begin with”, is a philosophical debate. It is not a policy debate.
And that is why it is meaningless to argue whether Petraeus is working on a better tactic or strategy for Iraq. It isn’t even relate to the premise of whether Bush’s policy could ever work to begin.
Petraeus is: though his tactical approach is clearly working, here is what he had to say about the strategy of the war in Iraq when asked in Congressional hearings in September:
What you admit is that Petraeus doesn’t have anything to say on the Washington DC strategy for Iraq. He neither supports nor negates your assumptions, Mitsu. So it is neither here or there when you say “here is what Petraeus says”.
That tells me you only want to attack, little engagement in ideas.
Your premise that it is we who want to talk about people, instead of their ideas, is reversed by the evidence. It is not we who wanted to talk about ourselves, our lives, and our morality that justifies why our policies are correct. We cannot be blamed for the choices Laura and you make based upon your own interests and beliefs. Conservatives are not very closely tied to their political beliefs, since spirituality, God, and other belief systems always came first on the list of priorities. A simple belief in classical liberalism removes the need to identify oneself with a party or an ideological movement.
Do you not remember, Jim, that it was you who volunteered whatever information you chose to share? Nor are you ethically justified to label the actions of several individuals by the actions of any one individual. That is just another form of argumentum ad numerum. Just because one person does it, in your opinion, does not mean the group that you wish to vliify does it as well. Nor does it mean that just because the international group of lawyers and what not decides to condemn Bush’s actions, that this has to mean that any particular person’s position is right or wrong.
It is best to avoid mixing your identity matrix with a political position. If it was ever needed that you should change your political position, it would then be like committing (a small) suicide.
I already know it is a premise, because you assume that it (that bit about people wanting bio info instead of arguing the talking points) is true before you even start arguing it. At best, it is only good for a circular logic argument. It has no benefit to a discussion of ideas that don’t agree with each other.
I predicted this is what you guys would do on this thread),
True intellectual honesty avoids setting up proposals and then using a proposal as the justification for why the original proposal or proposals are correct.
>so what is?
Going after our enemies in Afghanistan and the Pakistan tribal areas, pressuring Pakistan to get serious with them, working harder to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in as neutral a fashion as possible (perception of neutrality wrt to Islamic populations is an absolute necessity — we aren’t anti-Islam, we’re anti-people-who-are-attacking-us, anti-Islamo-fascism, etc.), applying diplomatic pressure to Islamic countries to democratize (Afghanistan could have been one of the first showcases of this, we could also have tried to support pro-Western sentiment in Iran, we could have tried to accelerate progress in Saudi Arabia towards liberalization). Iraq, quite simply, was one of the highest cost and lowest benefit operations one could have conceived in the face of a serious terrorist threat. One can argue, in fact, that it was not only a low benefit operation but hurt our security — the very astute Petraeus himself hints at this possibility in his testimony above (I always liked him but gathered even more respect for him after his testimony, above.)
Ymarsakar,
I have no idea who you are — I just discovered this blog via Google yesterday. I am not one of the “you guys” you’re referring to, and I haven’t read your remarks above — I simply read the post and wrote a comment based on my thoughts about. I find your tone both uncalled for and insulting. If there were ever anyone interested in discussing ideas on their merits, in a reasonable and non-ideological fashion, it is me — you seem overwrought in your response. This is a serious subject and deserves serious discussion.
I’m not sure if you’re very clear on the difference between strategy and tactics. We live in a finite world with finite resources. Even if the Iraq strategy were to “work” as you put it, I would claim that it was not worth the time, money, and lives we have spent on it, in terms of the relative benefit we received from the operation in terms of increased security. Keep in mind here that we can never achieve perfect security — the question is, how can we best improve security given the resources we have available?
In addition, the Iraq war has had many negative repercussions in terms of our security — overall terrorist activity has increased since the war, and the number of terrorists has increased, according to a number of studies. Iraq has also made us look weak in ineffectual militarily — our military, which seemed invincible in the wake of Desert Storm and Kosovo, now appears to be a lot less powerful than it appeared before. I could go on.
The point here is not that the Iraq war had no security benefits but that these benefits were small, neutralizing a minor threat, and we could have spent the money and time far more effectively — and there have been many negative repercussions from the war. A poor strategy even if the tactics have improved recently — mostly because Bush finally succumbed to pressure and fired the incompetents he trusted for years.
Islam is at war with the world,, has been since 622AD.
The Europeans have been breached and their future is dismal , their future path is either they willingly become dhimmis, or a continent-wide civl war .
We’re going down the same path..
If we dont do something historical-changing in the very short-term then there isnt much hope in preserving our way of life as we know it.
Mitsu: I think this war was a huge mistake, not because I don’t think the Islamo-fascist threat is serious, but precisely because I think the threat is serious, and I don’t think this war is a serious way of addressing the threat.
There’s a simply-stated, entirely rational position on Iraq, with which I simply disagree.
The reasons for the disagreement have been stated numerous times, but are probably worth yet another summary, just as an exercise. For more detail, you should look into the archives of this blog.
– First, the islamist threat is not a national one, as previous, more familiar threats have been, but is cultural and regional. In particular, it goes far beyond Bin Laden and al Qaeda, both in time and place.
– Second, Iraq lies in the strategic heart of the oil-rich region which is the most virulent spawning ground for this vicious ideology.
– Third, the regime of Saddam Hussein, besides being one of the most tyrannical in a region of tyrannies, besides being actively hostile to its neighbors and to the West, besides having amply demonstrated its willingness to use WMDs, and to pursue nuclear weapons, also has had extensive ties to islamist terrorist groups and has actively sponsored them.
– Fourth, as is even more apparent now, the attack upon the Saddam regime led to a number of immediate improvements in the long geopolitical struggle against this very slippery and elusive enemy: “Libya disarmed. The Khan nuclear exchange programme was exposed. Syria withdrew from Lebanon” — and, of course, Iran apparently at least suspended its nuclear weapons program.
– And fifth, it is and was only ever one prong of a multi-layered strategy, that involved other theaters, like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, among others, and that includes diplomatic, intelligence, policing, and economic facets; and yes, America with its friends and allies, is fully capable of carrying out a struggle on all those dimensions; and yes, America has stalwart friends and allies, including newly strengthened ties to such as Canada, Germany, and France.
Vince P Says:
December 8th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
&
Sally Says:
December 8th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
(the last two posts i’m reading)
well put, probably true vince, we’re already taking our shoes off to check in for airline flights, and because of it the ticket prices are higher… what’s next?
and sally? all i’ve got to say is the calvary to the rescue!! i’m serious of course, you’ve distilled pretty much 90% of the real issues into one very relevant and concise post, thank-you, sincerely…
Mitsu Says:
December 8th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
blah, blah…..
grow up mitsu, there are some things you can’t talk your way out of, hindsight is truly 20-20, strategically we now have a logistically superior position, and i disagree totally for many reasons i’m too tired to need to explain to you, you need to read a lot more, like most bush hater liberals you’re full of sound bites short on substance; it partly depends on what you focus on, from my perspective saddam (a wmd all by himself) was no small potato; bush & company weren’t incompetent at the beginning, they were masterful in expediting the most difficult part of this engagement, now it’s time for the long slow grind of who prevails in the end; and when the environment transformed, bush was flexible enough to change course as needed…. i could go on and on….
again, thanks for the dynamite post sally!
I wish our government showed signs of understanding the sturuggle we’re in.. but the Democrats still act like it’s 1968 and the Republicans are around 1978.
The State Department and CIA have shown themselves to be CLUELESS.
A lot of the ex-generals from Iraq show themselves to be CLUELESS.
I’m dismayed that a lot of us normal folk did our homework…. we educated ourselves about islam, jihad, sharia, taqiya, dawa, etc… yet the people in charge still believe fantasies like the PLO wants peace.
I have no confidence.
I find your tone both uncalled for and insulting. If there were ever anyone interested in discussing ideas on their merits, in a reasonable and non-ideological fashion, it is me – you seem overwrought in your response. This is a serious subject and deserves serious discussion.
Are you under some kind of impression that I was speaking to you, Mitsu, when I quoted jimfocus?
That tells me you only want to attack, little engagement in ideas.
Last time I checked, the bolded (quocted) portion was from jim, not you. Unless you and jim share certain identity matrixes that I don’t know about. I often reply to the author of the comments I bold. Don’t you think it was kind of mysterious why I shifted the subject to something else entirely in mid stream?
What you admit is that Petraeus doesn’t have anything to say on the Washington DC strategy for Iraq. He neither supports nor negates your assumptions, Mitsu. So it is neither here or there when you say “here is what Petraeus says”.
The bolded portion is the last thing I said to you, Mitsu. You may find it overwrought if you wish, but simply know that it won’t have any relation to what’s going on. Certainly it won’t be an argument about the merits, an argument I made and you countered with irrelevant and inaccurate claims.
we aren’t anti-Islam, we’re anti-people-who-are-attacking-us, anti-Islamo-fascism, etc.
That is certainly the position held by CAIR and other people that seek to explain why Muslims are all of a sudden acting irrationally and with violence towards Western provocations. It must be because, just like Jena Six, there is some kind of institutional racism going on with the discrimination against Muslims and what not. That is what must be causing the over-reactance of Muslims in foreign lands protesting Western actions designed to incite hatreds and what not.
Such things are a nice propaganda line, but as a form of policy it was never designed to be.
There might be something to be said for the theoretical framework behind “divide and conquer”, but the actual policy application of it cannot be done by people that believe actually getting to meet Arabs in Iraq is going to sabotage the “divide and conquer” strategy they value so much.
How do people like Mitsu think that Arabs will know what Americans think, when Americans are far away in their UN air conditioned offices deciding what people across the world should do? It is far easier to hate people you have never met. It is far easier to hate people that you have never actually seen in action as the Iraqis have seen US Marines and Soldiers in action.
To ask Mitsu, it would be a good thing if Iraq had not occured. It would be a good thing if the Arabs were kept in ignorance and exposed only to credible Islamic propaganda. Yet this contradicts the stated goal of dividing the Islamic world into Islamofascists and regular more common Muslims.
That doesn’t reach the level of cognitive dissonance, but certainly it is counter-productive to subordinate your strategy to your tactics.
to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in as neutral a fashion as possible (perception of neutrality wrt to Islamic populations is an absolute necessity – we aren’t anti-Islam, we’re anti-people-who-are-attacking-us, anti-Islamo-fascism, etc.)
Arms merchants are also neutral given that they supply weapons to both sides so that both sides can continue the war. Such neutrality is of no benefit to the United States or Israel, however.
The basic idea isn’t all that bad, when you have someone like Petraeus applying it in the Sunni Triangle. The tribe of Al-Ameriki is seen as an honest broker now, able to intercede in favor of local Sunni communities against jihadists, terrorists, Shia militias, or the Iraqi central government. However, such things would not be seen as “neutrality” even though it has all the virtues of the neutrality policy you forwarded concerning I-P conflict.
Any kind of neutral position or diplomacy will always crash and burn because the people in charge of diplomacy are incompetent at best.
There would be a far higher chance of such things working if you use Petraeus’ counter-insurgency military strategy and apply it to the Jews and the Arabs. You may choose not to do so, though, if you are more loyal to a set of ideas than the people those ideas are supposed to be helping.
Afghanistan could have been one of the first showcases of this, we could also have tried to support pro-Western sentiment in Iran, we could have tried to accelerate progress in Saudi Arabia towards liberalization
Liberalization, as you mean it, is not the cure for tyranny but the precursor to it. Both the weaknesses of democracy and republics were present before the rise of Communism and National Socialism. And democracy and republics, when they start out, are definitely weak.
No diplomacy will ever stiffen the ability of locals to resist tyranny. Not even training and advising local military forces will do it. Only counter-insurgency could have a hope of creating liberty from the grassroots up. Every other kind of liberalization tries to use top down approaches. People believe that you can get a working society by simply commanding it from the top with elections or something. Or from the UN. Or because Jimmy Carter flew in to validate “elections”.
the very astute Petraeus himself hints at this possibility in his testimony above
Petraeus didn’t hint at anything. What you heard was what you wanted to hear.
One can argue, in fact, that it was not only a low benefit operation but hurt our security
As if you could simply get away with concluding that Petraeus “hinted” at a failure of US security by him saying essentially “no comment”.
Don’t confuse your beliefs with what people actually said.
Perfected democrat Says:
December 8th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
I tend to think there is a clear philosophical difference here on the emphasis of diplomacy, which doesn’t work and can’t work because the people working at it are incompetent, over the more effective methods that can actually help people. There is also the question of priority.
Diplomacy has a greater priority than actually solving the problems in the Middle East. This is since diplomacy is a low cost and non-confrontational tool by which things can be negotiated, otherwise known as haggling, whereas in war only one side comes out the victor. This obsessive need for “neutrality” so that both sides of a war “win” is bereft of the American tradition of Total War. Sherman and MacArthur has already given us the means by which both parties “win” a war. And it has nothing to do with negotiating a surrender while the war is being fought, btw. There is nothing that can change this philsophical chasm of belief. Talk before and after wars. During a war, talk is of limited use since there is nothing to talk about. If you could resolve your differences through talk, then Israel and Palestine would have been at peace for decades. People are at war because talking has already become ineffective. All these problems have been challenged and resolved by the ancestors of Americans.
Forsaking such American traditions and inheritance is pretty disgraceful all in all. Generations lived, fought, and died to give current generations the ability to throw all their work away. Forget American Total War, people think, now it is time to try neutrality, the UN, international law, and diplomacy.
It seems it ain’t broke but let’s introduce a totally untried solution to the mix anyways. Let’s see how that works out for us.
Regardless of what Bush is actually doing concerning global strategy, it will never matter given the differences in the “school of strategy” that Mitsu subscribes to, in comparison to the other schools available. One school teaches one thing, while other schools teach something completey different and probably mutually exclusive. What may be fact to one is illusion to the other. This is why war, Total War, is not seen the same way by the Left as it is by Jacksonians.
First, the islamist threat is not a national one, as previous, more familiar threats have been, but is cultural and regional. In particular, it goes far beyond Bin Laden and al Qaeda, both in time and place.
Of course, and that’s exactly the point I was trying to make. We’re facing a threat which comes from non-state actors, and Iraq was a state actor.
Third, the regime of Saddam Hussein, besides being one of the most tyrannical in a region of tyrannies, besides being actively hostile to its neighbors and to the West, besides having amply demonstrated its willingness to use WMDs, and to pursue nuclear weapons, also has had extensive ties to islamist terrorist groups and has actively sponsored them.
Because Saddam was clearly identified with a state, he was deterrable. Obviously no state can directly attack the United States without the threat of massive, and perhaps catastrophic, retaliation. He was tyrannical, evil, and he used chemical weapons against his own people — but he was not suicidal.
Saddam had already shut down his WMD programs in response to American threats … and intrusive inspections could easily have prevented him from developing nuclear weapons. Chemical weapons are only loosely called WMDs — it turns out they’re no more effective, pound for pound, than ordinary explosives when it comes to killing people in combat situations. It’s nuclear weapons we should have been concerned about, and he was nowhere near getting them and never would have gotten them given any sort of intrusive inspection program. The guy was a petty self-interested bloodthirsty dictator — far less dangerous to the United States than someone willing to kill themselves for their cause, as are our true enemies.
Fourth, as is even more apparent now, the attack upon the Saddam regime led to a number of immediate improvements in the long geopolitical struggle against this very slippery and elusive enemy: “Libya disarmed. The Khan nuclear exchange programme was exposed. Syria withdrew from Lebanon” – and, of course, Iran apparently at least suspended its nuclear weapons program.
I will grant you Libya, but Iran could have been stopped by international pressure without the invasion of Iraq. Had we focused on Libya I am sure we could have stopped them as well, though it may have taken some military action on our part — but again, Qaddafi, like Saddam, is not suicidal, and therefore is deterrable.
And fifth, it is and was only ever one prong of a multi-layered strategy, that involved other theaters, like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, among others
One “prong” into which we’ve dumped countless billions of dollars far better spent on the other prongs, in my view. I think given the amount of money and lives and prestige we’ve burned on Iraq we could have come out with far better results with a different strategy.
Ymarsakar,
The fact that General Petraeus, while heading up the current effort in Iraq, cannot bring himself to say that the strategy is making America safer — it seems to me that this at the very least indicates that he is unsure whether it is making America safer. I.e., he’s intelligent enough to recognize that it isn’t as obvious as most neocons think that the Iraq strategy was a good idea. I think it’s pretty damning when your best general can’t even publicly support the strategy.
I think it’s pretty obvious Petraeus is brilliant, I’ve thought so all along, and I still think so. I’m hardly surprised that his tactics are working — I felt a “surge” approach might work from the beginning, in fact I wrote that prior to the surge (though I thought it should be larger than we ended up actually deploying). You keep addressing me with a great deal of virulent emotion as though I were some sort of anti-Bush liberal robot — I think for myself, thank you very much (though I admit I am politically quite liberal, I am often at odds with my liberal counterparts). For example — I don’t believe that a quick withdrawal from Iraq is likely to be a good idea at this point. I DO think, and have said from the very beginning, that I thought the Iraq strategy was a big mistake. It is hardly 20/20 hindsight operating here — I have a pretty good track record of accurate predictions on this subject.
I think it’s odd that you won’t admit that Rumsfeld et al were incompetent and made big mistakes in their running of the war. I should think that Petraeus’ recent success ought to bring this point home — though I disagree with the strategy, it seems nearly beyond question that the tactics and planning of this war were done horribly badly. Again, you can accuse me of being a knee-jerk Bush “hater” but I can assure you I don’t hate Bush, nor do I “hate” the military. If anything I am sorry for Bush, and I am very sympathetic to the military. The military is an honorable profession and the men and women who serve deserve carefully considered strategy and tactics, because they’re putting their lives on the line for our country. I simply believe that we have served them very poorly indeed through this strategy, for the reasons I stated above.
You need to update your narrative.
The situation in Iraq pre-invasion was quite different than most people realize. This is uncoverd by the on-going translation of Iraq State Documents.
I suggest you read this
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=F715A709-2614-4EA5-967C-F6151F94A364
Some excerpts
Finally, there are some definitive answers to the mystery of the missing WMD. Civilian volunteers, mostly retired intelligence officers belonging to the non-partisan IntelligenceSummit.org, have been poring over the secret archives captured from Saddam Hussein. The inescapable conclusion is this: Saddam really did have WMD after all, but not in the way the Bush administration believed. A 9,000 word research paper with citations to each captured document has been posted online at LoftusReport.com, along with translations of the captured Iraqi documents, courtesy of Mr. Ryan Mauro and his friends.
….
The absolutists on either side of the WMD debate will be more than a bit chagrinned at these disclosures. The documents show a much more complex history than previously suspected. The “Bush lied, people died” chorus has insisted that Saddam had no WMD whatsoever after 1991 – and thus that WMD was no good reason for the war. The Neocon diehards insist that, as in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the treasure-trove is still out there somewhere, buried under the sand dunes of Iraq. Each side is more than a little bit wrong about Saddam’s WMD, and each side is only a little bit right about what happened to it.
The gist of the new evidence is this: roughly one quarter of Saddam’s WMD was destroyed under UN pressure during the early to mid 1990’s. Saddam sold approximately another quarter of his weapons stockpile to his Arab neighbors during the mid to late 1990’s. The Russians insisted on removing another quarter in the last few months before the war. The last remaining WMD, the contents of Saddam’s nuclear weapons labs, were still inside Iraq on the day when the coalition forces arrived in 2003. His nuclear weapons equipment was hidden in enormous underwater warehouses beneath the Euphrates River. Saddam’s entire nuclear inventory was later stolen from these warehouses right out from under the Americans’ noses. The theft of the unguarded Iraqi nuclear stockpile is perhaps, the worst scandal of the war, suggesting a level of extreme incompetence and gross dereliction of duty that makes the Hurricane Katrina debacle look like a model of efficiency.
It’s not his job to determine if America is safer.. his job is to stablize Iraq . His job to implement the policy given to him by the civilian leadership.
Regarding total war vs. diplomacy. As I stated above, I am not a pacifist. I think that war is sometimes worthwhile and needed — as a last resort. You go to war when not going to war would result in a worse disaster than the damage caused by the war itself.
I don’t subscribe to a “philosophical” position in favor of diplomacy over war. In fact, I am vehemently opposed to “schools” which are centered around tactics without context. That is why I am not and never will be a “pacifist” — nor am I a warmonger, etc.
What I believe is that diplomacy, total war, limited war, etc., are all tactics that each have their advantages and disadvantages depending on the specific situation. To me, it’s a mistake to be in favor of “war” in general, or in favor of “peace” in general — you have to make the hard choice about what strategy or tactic is appropriate, depending on the situation.
What I do believe, however, is that war is inherently political, and it is crucial that one not only go to war reluctantly but be *perceived* as having been forced into going to war. In other words, there is a diplomatic consequence to going to war, and this is perhaps the most important consequence of all. If the entire world wanted to destroy the United States, we wouldn’t be able to stop it purely through military might. We have to use a combination of military strength and careful diplomacy as well as image management (yes) to reduce our overall risk level in the world.
The great Prussian strategic thinker Bismarck used a clever strategy of never attacking first. He would, instead, maneuver his enemies into attacking first, then retaliate with great force. Because it always appeared that he was merely defending himself against an unwarranted aggression, he did not create a balance of power effect against him, and he was able to unify Germany. He often rejected the advice of some of his advisors who wanted him to attack preemptively — he knew the political consequences of such a move would be disastrous.
When you DO go to war, however, I am in favor of going to war all-out. That is to say, while I think the Iraq war was a huge waste of our limited resources, and had many negative consequences, it was also done far too tentatively. We should have gone in with much greater numbers, as we did for Desert Storm. So I not only disagree with the strategy but also with the tactics. Don’t go to war unless you are forced to — and when you go to war, go in with overwhelming force. We didn’t do that with Iraq on either count.
Regarding your link about Saddam possessing some enriched uranium, etc., all I can say is that I am very skeptical of these reports — Debkafile is hardly a reliable source of information, in particular. If we really had any hard evidence that Saddam had a functioning nuclear program, it seems pretty obvious the Bush Administration would have trumpeted this fact a thousand times over already.
However, as I’ve stated before — while I lend practically zero credence to the above link — even if Saddam had somehow acquired nuclear weapons (and even that link doesn’t indicate that he was about to do so), he would have been a deterrable state actor. He could never have used these against the United States without being wiped out of existence. He was an asshole, evil, whatever you want to call him, but he was self-interested above all. He wasn’t about to kill himself for virgins in the afterlife, he was all about what he could get in the here and now.
Futhermore, he was not about to give any such weapons to terrorists — Saddam didn’t even trust his own military, there’s no way in hell he’d trust some group not directly under his control (and Al Qaeda was a sworn enemy of Saddam).
I am not claiming, by the way, that Saddam was NO threat at all. I am saying he was a minor, containable threat. I am saying we have limited resources and cannot achieve total security: what we can achieve is the best security we can get given what resources we have. And I can’t see any combination of arguments that indicate the Iraq war was anywhere near the most cost-effective strategy we could have devised.
Of course Saddam didn’t have nuclear weapons… the whole point of the invasion was to ensure he never would.
It’s a red herring to say that his non-possession of nukes delegitimized the invasion… perhaps you forgot the discussions of the day back in 2002,2003… the fact that he was even considering restarting his program once the sanctions broke down was considered a valid provocation.
Your objection about Debka does not relate to the point I was making about the documents. The article’s inclusion of Debka is in regards to the Israeli air strike in Syria in the past month or so. It’s not what the conversion has been about up tothis point.. which is why i did’t include it in my quote.
I would kindly ask that you check out this link… it’s an indepth interview with the people involved iwth the translation of MILES of documents. I think it will be more credible than the first link which was just a summary
http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=09F9FC90-1752-4965-8D02-D2EFD4FB112B
Thanks, Vince P, for the interview, I read it. If it turns out to be true, then the situation is much closer to what I had assumed prior to the invasion: that Saddam was, in fact, still trying to acquire WMDs, but that his programs had been severely disrupted by international scrutiny. The absolute lack of evidence of WMDs after the war in fact surprised me greatly — I also wrote about this on a number of occasions. I, however, was opposed to the war *even though I thought Saddam was still trying to acquire WMDs* because I felt the political, military, monetary, blood, and other costs far outweighed the relatively meager benefits.
Nuclear programs are very difficult to conceal. I believe that there is virtually no chance Saddam would have ever been able to successfully build a nuclear weapon had we insisted on ongoing intrusive inspections. Note that the interview states that Saddam had the intention of restarting his programs after sanctions ended — I might add, that the Bush Administration, prior to 9/11, was in fact talking publicly about an end to sanctions (another move I opposed)! The United States could easily have forced the UN’s hand regarding intrusive inspections as long as Saddam remained in power. This would have been the appropriate solution, far less costly than invading, with far fewer negative repercussions to us. I would have supported an ongoing attempt to topple Saddam covertly — but an invasion I still believe was a mistake.
Again — even had Saddam somehow acquired nuclear weapons, they STILL would have been far less of a threat to us than the international Islamo-fascist terrorist threat is. That’s where we should have and still should be focusing our attention from a security standpoint, in my view.
· “Abu Mohammed,” a former colonel of Saddam Hussein’s Fedayeen fighters, told reporters long ago that Iraq was training terrorists, including al-Qaeda.
Gwynne Roberts, Sunday Times, July 14, 2002
· Iraqi soldiers, captured during the early phases of the war on Iraq in 2003, revealed that al-Qaeda terrorists were present inside Iraq fighting alongside Iraqi troops Gethin Chamberlain, The Scotsman, 10-28-03
· Hamsiraji Sali, Commander of the al-Qaeda affiliate Abu Sayyaf, admitted receiving $20,000 dollars a year from Iraq. Marc Lerner, Washington Times, 3-4-03
· Salah Suleiman, revealed that he was a former Iraqi Intelligence officer, captured on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border shuttling between Iraq and Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Janes Foreign Report, 9-19-01
· Jamal al-Qurairy, a former General in Iraq’s Mukhabarat, who defected years ago, said “that [is] ours” immediately after seeing 9/11 attacks.
David Rose, Vanity Fair, Feb. 2003, and David Rose, The Observer, 3-16-03
· Abbas al-Janabai, a personal assistant to Uday Hussein for 15 years, has repeatedly stated that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden that included training terrorists at various camps in Iraq.
CNN, 7-23-2003
Gwynne Roberts, Sunday Times, July 14,2002
Richard Miniter, TechCentralStation, 9-25-03
· Two Moroccan associates of Osama bin Laden, arrested in Rabat in Nov 98, confirmed that Col Khairallah al-Tikriti, the brother of Iraq’s top Intelligence official (Mukhabarat), was the case officer in charge of operations with al-Qaeda in Kashmir and Manila
Jacquard, Roland, In the Name of Osama Bin Laden, Duke University Press, 2002, pg.112
· Wali Khan Amin Shah, an al-Qaeda operative in custody, told the FBI that Abu
Hajer al-Iraq had good contacts with Iraq Intelligence Services (reported to Senate Intelligence Committee)
Stephen Hayes, Thomas Joscelyn, Weekly Standard, 7-18-05
· Farouk Hijazi, former #3 in Saddam Hussein’s Mukhabarat, although he denies the well documented reports of his later meetings with bin Laden, Hijazi admits that he met with Osama bin Laden to discuss antiship mines and terror training camps in Iraq during the mid-90’s.
9-11 Commission, Staff Statement 15
· Abdul Rahman al-Shamari, who served in Saddam Hussein’s Mukhabarat from 1997-2002, says that he worked to link Saddam Hussein regime with Ansar al Islam and al-Qaeda.
Preston Mendenhall, MSNBC, “War Diary”
Jonathan Schanzer, Weekly Standard, 3-1-04
· Mohamed Gharib, Ansar al Islam’s Media chief, later admitted that the group took assistance from Saddam Hussein’s regime.
Scott Peterson, Christian Science Monitor, 10-16-03
· Mohamed Mansour Shahab, aka Muhammad Jawad, is a smuggler who claims to have been hired by Iraq to bring weapons to al-Qaeda in Afghanistan
Jeffrey Goldberg, New Yorker, 3-25-02
Scott Peterson, Christian Science Monitor, 4-03-02
Richard Miniter, TechCentralStation, 9-25-03
· Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi is a senior al-Qaeda operative. Although he has changed his story, he initially told his captors that his mission was to travel to Iraq to acquire poisons and gases from Iraqi Intelligence after impressing them with al-Qaeda’s attack on the USS Cole
Stephen Hayes, Weekly Standard, 11-24-03
· An “enemy combatant” being held at Guantanamo Bay, who was also a former Iraqi Army officer, admits that he served as a liaison between Osama bin Laden and Iraqi Intelligence. He was arrested in Pakistan before completing joint IIS/al-Qaeda mission to blow up U.S. and British embassies
Associated Press, 3-30-05
Stephen Hayes, Thomas Joscelyn. Weekly Standard. 7-18-05
· Abu Hajer al-Iraqi (aka Mahmdouh Mahmud Salim) told prosecutors that he was bin Laden’s best friend and in charge of trying and procure WMD materials from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review, 6-17-04
Stephen Hayes, Weekly Standard, 11-24-03
· A “Former Senior (Iraqi) Intelligence Officer” has told U.S. officials that a flurry of activity between Saddam Hussein’s regime and al-Qaeda took place in early and late 1998, the meeting point was Baghdad’s Intelligence station in Pakistan
Stephen Hayes, Weekly Standard, 11-24-03
· Wafiq al-Sammarrai, former head of Iraq’s Military Intelligence before defecting in 1994, stated that Saddam Hussein has agents “inside” al-Qaeda
Laurie Mylroie, “Study of Revenge”
· Khidir Hamza, Saddam Hussein’s former top WMD official, says that Saddam had connections to al-Qaeda
CNN, 10-15-01
PBS Frontline “Gunning For Saddam”
· Abu Zeinab al-Qurairy , a former high-ranking officer in Iraq’s Mukhabarat, told PBS Frontline and the New York Times that the September 11 attackers were trained in Salman Pak, as were other members of al-Qaeda
PBS Frontline “Gunning For Saddam”
· Sabah Khodada, a former Captain in Iraq’s Army, told PBS Frontline and the New York Times that the terrorist training camp at Salman Pak included the training of al-Qaeda members airplane hijacking
PBS Frontline “Gunning For Saddam”
· An “Iraqi Defector,” who spent 16 years working for Iraq’s Mukhabarat, told the Iraqi National Congress that Saddam Hussein’s illegal oil revenues helped fund al-Qaeda (story later corroborated by Claudia Rosett )
Radio Free Europe 9-29-2002
· Khalil Ibrahim Abdallah, a captured senior Iraqi official, said that IIS agents had met with bin Laden until the middle of 1999
Stephen Hayes, Weekly Standard, 11-24-03
· Qassem Hussein Mohamed, who served in Iraq’s Mukhabarat for 20 years, told reporters that Saddam Hussein has been secretly aiding, arming and funding Ansar al Islam and al-Qaeda for several years
Scott Peterson, Christian Science Monitor, 4-2-02
Jeffrey Goldberg, New Yorker, 3-25-02
· Dr. Mohammed al-Masri, a known al-Qaeda spokesman, told the Sunday Times that Saddam Hussein contacted the “Arab Afghans” (al-Qaeda) in 2001. Al-Masri also said that Saddam even went so far as to fund the movement of some al-Qaeda members into Iraq and then later supplied them with arms caches and money, later to be used in insurgent attacks. Abdel Bari Atwan, Sunday Times, 2-26-06 via Thomas Joscelyn, “Saddam, the Insurgency, and the Terrorists, 3-28-06
· Hudayfa Azzam, the son of bin Laden’s former mentor, told reporters in 2004, “Saddam Hussein’s regime welcomed them with open arms and young al-Qaeda members entered Iraq in large numbers, setting up an organization to confront the occupation.” AFP, 8-30-04 Thomas Joscelyn, “What Else Did Hudayfa Azzam Have To Say About Al-Qaeda In Iraq?” 4-3-06
· Hudayfa Azzam, the son of bin Laden’s mentor Abdullah Azzam, has said Iraq’s government worked closely with al-Qaeda before the war and welcomed a number of members in after they left Afghanistan and armed and funded them Thomas Joscelyn citing AFP, 8-30-04
· Dr. Mohammed al-Masri, a known al-Qaeda spokesman, told the Sunday Times that Saddam Hussein contacted the “Arab Afghans” (al-Qaeda) in 2001. Abdel Bari Atwan, Sunday Times, 2-26-06 via Thomas Joscelyn, “Saddam, the Insurgency, and the Terrorists,” 3-28-06
· Haqi Ismail, a Mosul native with relatives at the top of Iraq’s Mukhabarat and spent time in al-Qaeda/al Ansar camps in Afghanistan and Northern Iraq before being caught by Kurdish security, indicated that he was working for Saddam Hussein’s Intelligence Service (Mukhabarat)
Jeffrey Goldberg, New Yorker, 3-25-02
· Moammar Ahmad Yussef, a captured deputy of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, told officials that Iraq provided money, weapons, fake passports, safe haven and training to al-Qaeda members
Dan Darling, Winds of Change, 11-21-03
· A “top Saddam Hussein official,” who was also a senior Intelligence official, says that Iraq made a secret pact with Ayman al-Zawahiri’s Egyptian Islamic Jihad and later al-Qaeda. Secret meetings between the two sides began in 1992.
Stephen Hayes, Weekly Standard, 11-24-03
· Abu Zubaydah, a high ranking al-Qaeda operative in U.S. custody, has said that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had good contacts with Iraqi Intelligence Services
Thomas Joscelyn, Weekly Standard, December 2, 2005
· Abu Iman al-Baghdadi, a 20-year veteran of Iraqi intelligence, told BBC news that Saddam Hussein is funding and arming Ansar al-Islam to fend off anti-Saddam Kurds
Jim Muir, BBC, July 24, 2002
I think part of that list was pasted twice somehow..dont know how that happened
Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, whom you quote above, has turned out to be a bogus source — he has since admitted that he made up his claims — and he was the CIA’s main source on the subject. The 9/11 Commission reviewed these claims and concluded they was no credible evidence of a link between Al Qaeda and Saddam. As of today, the CIA, the DIA, the NSA all have concluded there was no operational link between the two. Saddam Hussein was a proponent of a secular brand of Arab nationalism, Osama bin Laden supported a decidedly religious brand of Islamism. Osama had in the past supported anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraq. There is evidence of one meeting between Al Qaeda and Saddam’s government, but the CIA, DIA, etc., have all concluded that this contact never resulted in an operational relationship between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. This is all well-known information at this point.
Saddam was a bad guy but Osama and his allies are our real enemies. Not a single 9/11 hijacker was Iraqi. They were mostly Saudi.
No kidding.
They are all threats. Well Saddam isn’t any more.
Misu: Because Saddam was clearly identified with a state, he was deterrable. Obviously no state can directly attack the United States without the threat of massive, and perhaps catastrophic, retaliation.
Not the point. You really need to think about a larger strategic context than Iraq and the regime of Saddam Hussein. The threat emanated from the entire region, and from the culture embedded in that region. This particular regime was just a focus or an aspect of the bigger conflict, in a way somewhat (but only somewhat) analogous to the way that the Normandy invasion was an aspect of the larger campaign against nazism. Someone else said, as a criticism of this aspect, that Iraq was chosen simply because it was “convenient” — which, while I think that misstates the point, I think is largely true, and, for the purposes of the argument, will do. What was needed was a regime change, a “de-stabilization” if you will, in the heart of the infected region, and for that Iraq, as among the most rotten among a number of similar examples, was the obvious choice.
And by the way — Bismark, while no doubt a smart guy, was from another era altogether, and his lessons are more likely to mislead than help in our era of “asymmetric” war.
Although that position seems a bit tricky (”I was for a surge before I was against this surge before I was for it again”), it seems the only one with any chance of making sense, especially if things keep looking better in Iraq. It even has the advantage–and the rarity, in politics–of probably being true.
And this from someone who just wrote that there is no principled position that the Democrats can take.
Yeah, thanks but no thanks. And O’Hanlon’s domestic political advice is about as welcome as his advice on Iraqi politics, as he possess about an equal understanding of both…which is to say, little to none.
What was needed was a regime change, a “de-stabilization” if you will, in the heart of the infected region, and for that Iraq, as among the most rotten among a number of similar examples, was the obvious choice.
Except for Iraq being not at all like other Middle Eastern nations when it comes to terrorism, this little theory might be true. One would imagine that if we were interested in cutting out the “infected” parts of the Middle East, we might invade major state sponsors of terrorism…like Iran. Or, Saudi Arabia. Or, Syria.
It is sad to think that senior administration officials probably have the same understanding of conditions in the Middle East that random, third-rate commentators on a moderately successful blog do. Obviously, careers in politics and plenty of time to sit on the internet are not precursors to a nuanced understanding of foreign cultures.
What was needed was a regime change, a “de-stabilization” if you will, in the heart of the infected region, and for that Iraq, as among the most rotten among a number of similar examples, was the obvious choice.
Okay, so we’re getting to the crux of the discussion here. Though Saddam himself was a marginal and containable threat, you believe we should still have toppled him because we needed to somehow create regime change “somewhere” in the region, despite the fact that Iraq itself was not involved in the 9/11 attacks and Iraq was ideologically not aligned with our enemies (despite Saddam’s occasional Islamic pronouncements — the Baath Party was founded as a secular Arab nationalist party, women didn’t have to wear veils or burkas in Iraq, and they went to school, college, could drive, have jobs, etc. — in many ways Iraq was, despite being led by a bloodthirsty dictator, one of the least conservative countries in the region from an Islamic fundamentalist perspective)?
The only possible credible argument I have heard in favor of this operation was the idea that by turning Iraq into a pro-Western democracy, we would be creating a cultural beachhead in the region that would stand against the ideological appeal of Islamism. Saddam, in other words, was an excuse to try to spread American values in the area. The hope would be that Iraq could become like Japan or Germany after WWII — former foes turned economic competitors but strategic allies.
All I can say to this is: if this strategy had a shred of a chance of working, maybe it would have been worth it. But — Iraq is not Japan or Germany. Those were unified, advanced states. Japan already had some democratic institutions and Germany was highly organized. After the surrender of Japanese and German forces, the number of combat deaths of Americans was ZERO.
Since the “end of major combat operations” we all know how many Americans have been killed and are still being killed in Iraq. Iraq is still torn apart by sectarian divisions. “Democracy” in Iraq is still a joke. The country remains in chaos. Iraq is simply not like Germany and Japan now and may never be.
I actually knew before the war that there was no way that Saddam was the real reason for the war — it had to be something else, an attempt to remake the region in our image by force. But this attempt I believe was doomed from the start — first because it is unrealistic given the culture and politics of the pseudo-state that is Iraq, and second because it was so incompetently executed.
X: It is sad to think that senior administration officials probably have the same understanding of conditions in the Middle East that random, third-rate commentators on a moderately successful blog do.
But that’s manifestly not true — the administration officials clearly have a better understanding than you. More to the point, this kind of understanding isn’t particularly subtle or difficult except for the sort of random, third-rate (and you flatter yourself at that) “commentators” such as yourself.
Because we have an Administration that refuses to level with the public and properly communicate the threats we face and what they are doing to face them, there are a lot of unknowns about reasons and motivations.
I thnk the Iraq War involves so many variables that one can cast it in almost an infinite number of points of view.
I had my suspicions that one of the unstated goals of the invasion was to take advantage of the international political feasible of the Iraq invasion to establish a base from which to then take on Saudi Arabia and Iran (both of which are the two HQ’s of Islamic Revival), Iraq being a convenient pretext.
But with hindsight I see that was wishful thinking. I’m still not certain the State Department and CIA fully understand the scale and scope of Islamic Revival, so I have no confidence that there’s a coherent plan to handle it systematically.
That being said, I still support the initial invasion of Iraq
The region is the epitome of Kobayashi Maru… there is no easy solution.. there may not even be a solution.. acting or not acting… i think it’s a matter of what is the least worst way of dealing with this problem. The nature of Islam is such that it will continue to be a menance.. and it will continue to get worse… ignoring it like was done with afghanistan in the 1990s doesn’t work.
Mitsu: the Baath Party was founded as a secular Arab nationalist party…. etc.
Islamo-fascism comes in a variety of flavors, ranging from fairly secular to theocratic, but all are hostile to the idea of democracy, and virtually all are hostile to the West. What 9/11 finally made clear, to anyone with their head not buried in sand, was the error of a too-narrow focus in defining and combating these enemies, and the folly of allowing states in this region to support — actively or passively — islamist terrorism in any of its forms.
I actually knew before the war that there was no way that Saddam was the real reason for the war – it had to be something else,…
Good for you — I hope this will be the end of complaints about, just as one example, the irrelevant fact that the particular gang of mass murderers who perpetrated 9/11 were not Iraqis, given the very porous borders of these “pseudo-states”, as you so nicely put it.
…an attempt to remake the region in our image by force.
Let’s unpack that a little: the region needed remaking — and still does, though some progress has been made, as I’ve already indicated — and, after decades and even generations of other attempts, force was the only effective way left to do it. But “in our image” is a gratuitous swipe at the attempt to introduce a democratic government of any kind, and is neither accurate nor to the point.
But this attempt I believe was doomed from the start – first because it is unrealistic given the culture and politics of the pseudo-state that is Iraq, and second because it was so incompetently executed.
I guess the only thing to say to this, Mitsu, is that not everyone is quite so pessimistic as you, nor so easily disheartened, nor so dismissive of the Iraqi people’s capacity for democracy of some form. The attempt was certainly a risk from the start, but a calculated risk, and a necessary one given the strategic analysis of the nature and scope of the regional problem. As in all such conflicts, mistakes have been made, some very bad. And as with all risks, it might have failed — and still might, though recent developments are hopeful. If it should still fail, we would only have to undergo the same kind of risk again, at a later date, under worse conditions, with incalculably worse consequences for everyone.
OT
This is a great rant by Michael Savage regarding Islam
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMEAVK6NxFA
Islamo-fascism comes in a variety of flavors, ranging from fairly secular to theocratic, but all are hostile to the idea of democracy, and virtually all are hostile to the West. What 9/11 finally made clear, to anyone with their head not buried in sand, was the error of a too-narrow focus in defining and combating these enemies, and the folly of allowing states in this region to support – actively or passively – islamist terrorism in any of its forms.
We obviously have radically different views here, or different perceptions. You’re lumping together a relatively secular Arab nationalist movement that was associated with state actors (Iraq and Syria) with a transnational asymmetrical Islamist foe. But there’s a huge difference between Islamist terrorism and Baathist fascism — Islamists are ideologically motivated to attack us regardless of the consequences for themselves — Baathists are interested primarily in self-enrichment and their own power in the secular sphere, have little if any transnational appeal, are a fading movement from an earlier era, and are easily deterred by threats of retaliation.
From my point of view, and you perhaps differ on this — 9/11 happened because the Bush Administration was overly focused on state actors and was dragging its feet on combatting Osama bin Laden. They had spent a year “reviewing” a plan the Clinton Administration had recommended to go after bin Laden. Thankfully, they had concluded, finally, that he was a threat, but it seems the main error here wasn’t an “overly narrow focus” but a lot of wasted time focusing on old-fashioned threats and not enough focus on non-state actors.
That, to me, is the lesson of 9/11 — in what way do you support your argument? What’s your reasoning? To me, you’re just arbitrarily lumping together different groups without rhyme or reason.
I guess the only thing to say to this, Mitsu, is that not everyone is quite so pessimistic as you, nor so easily disheartened, nor so dismissive of the Iraqi people’s capacity for democracy of some form. The attempt was certainly a risk from the start, but a calculated risk, and a necessary one given the strategic analysis of the nature and scope of the regional problem.
Well, let’s just say so far nearly all my predictions have turned out to be true, and very few of the predictions of the neocons have panned out. As I noted above, I thought the surge was the best strategy we could do — something that Rumsfeld vehemently resisted every day he remained in office. I am currently still opposed to an overly swift pullout. But — I predicted this Iraq war would be a huge waste which would lead to chaos and massive blowback, and I still believe this is the case. I think the paltry benefits we will see are far outweighed by the political damage we have done — creating a huge recruiting campaign for Al Qaeda.
It’s not that I think that Iraqis could never have pulled it together — I actually think that had Bush Sr toppled Saddam in the first Gulf War it would have been possible to succeed — because in that case, the war would have happened at a time when the world and even the Iraqi people would have clearly seen the reason for the invasion in retaliation for an unjustified aggression. But I felt that by 2003 it was too late to take advantage of this political circumstance — and we’d face far more opposition on the ground.
I really believe that the views you’re expressing are based on an unrealistic take on the politics of the region. I make different predictions than you, and I certainly completely disagree with your analysis that somehow the Iraq was was “necessary” — it was not only not necessary it was a tremendous mistake (in my view).
As in all such conflicts, mistakes have been made, some very bad. And as with all risks, it might have failed – and still might, though recent developments are hopeful. If it should still fail, we would only have to undergo the same kind of risk again, at a later date, under worse conditions, with incalculably worse consequences for everyone.
(last paragraph above was a quote of Sally, above, which I neglected to edit out, just for clarification)
Mitsu: Well, let’s just say so far nearly all my predictions have turned out to be true, and very few of the predictions of the neocons have panned out.
Well, let’s also just say that while we haven’t actually seen your “predictions”, except in the usual 20-20 hindsight, we have seen the predictions of quite a number of well-known anti-war types, who asserted strenuously that the “brutal Afghan winter/summer/whatever” would doom any campaign against the Taliban, that even the initial invasion of Iraq would never succeed, and that the recent “surge” would never work (and continue to be in denial as we write). On the other hand, as I’ve said, the 2003 military action coincided with Libya swearing off nuclear weapons, Syria pulling out of Lebanon, and Iran suspending its own pursuit of nuclear WMD — paltry and trivial results in your eyes, perhaps, but not, I think, in most people’s.
From my point of view, and you perhaps differ on this – 9/11 happened because the Bush Administration was overly focused on state actors and was dragging its feet on combatting Osama bin Laden.
You’re right at least that I differ on this. States and terrorist groups — or what you call “state actors” and “non-state actors” — may diverge on many points, but like all human actors are fully capable of recognizing a common enemy when they see one, and deciding expediently to coordinate their actions. Not to understand that is just another very common form of anti-war denial and/or naivety. Particularly in this region, “state actors” have for some time now made extensive use of these vicious “non-state actors” as a means of projecting their power and enhancing their regional status, among other purposes.
I do agree, however, that such states are deterrable, though not necessarily easily. That was the point, or a point, of the forcible Iraq regime-change in the first place, after all, and, as I said, I think at least some results so far have borne that out.
>Well, let’s also just say that while we haven’t actually
>seen your “predictions”, except in the usual 20-20 hindsight
I supported the first Gulf War, I opposed this one, I thought the surge was a good idea though I felt it should be a lot bigger than what we ended up with. However, it’s silly to get into a debate over that, since I just started posting here and you have no idea who I am. I will say my current belief is that Petraeus is very competent and a huge improvement over his predecessors, and I’m also favorably impressed with the current SecDef. I think a premature withdrawal would likely lead to bad results, as I’ve said above, which I presume you would agree with.
>like all human actors are fully capable of recognizing a >common enemy when they see one, and deciding >expediently to coordinate their actions. Not to understand >that is just another very common form of anti-war denial >and/or naivety.
Yes, at times, of course, this may be the case, but my point is that Baathist leaders are driven almost entirely by self-interest, rather than ideology. To me, this makes all the difference, and makes them radically different in terms of their threat level to the United States, for the simple reason that every self-interested actor is going to know that we have the means to wipe them off the surface of the earth if we felt driven to do so. This has nothing to do with “naivety” and everything to do with a cold hard calculation of self-interest on their part.
Saddam Hussein would never have willingly been a suicide bomber, for example. That makes the nature of the Baathist threat almost entirely regional. He was also a paranoid asshole, who didn’t trust his own officers and appointed an inner circle of mostly relatives and others from his home town. For both these reasons he was a very limited threat indeed, and I believe not worth the cost of the war so far.
>I do agree, however, that such states are deterrable, though
>not necessarily easily
Saddam knew we could wipe him out whenever we wanted: especially after the Gulf War this was pretty evident. Since he was not suicidal he was never going to do anything that would risk him getting killed, which is to say that his ambitions were, by simple dint of self-preservation, going to remain always local and regional. Sure — he might have helped terrorists — but only if he could be absolutely sure he’d never get caught, because if he got caught he’d know what would happen to him: destruction. This was a huge deterrent.
As I’ve said — I’m not saying he was no threat, but he was a minor threat, not worth the cost of the war, in my opinion.
The fact that General Petraeus, while heading up the current effort in Iraq, cannot bring himself to say that the strategy is making America safer – it seems to me that this at the very least indicates that he is unsure whether it is making America safer.
For someone that already assumes the strategy isn’t making America safe, that seems to be the most obvious conclusion to arrive at. While it may be logically fallacious, since Petraeus is in charge of strategy for Iraq, not the political strategy behind the war, it would certainly be the most obvious conclusion to draw. Another conclusion would be that Petraeus needs more information and analysis time to come up with a view that he would be willing to push out in public.
The first conclusion uses the ideological assumptions made about Iraq and Bush’s actions. The other conclusion uses the character of the man in question as the basic foundation.
I.e., he’s intelligent enough to recognize that it isn’t as obvious as most neocons think that the Iraq strategy was a good idea.
The people supporting the war effort are in the business of making it a good idea. Do not mischaracterize it as “cheer leading”, which is making bad things look good.
I think it’s pretty damning when your best general can’t even publicly support the strategy.
You may see a need to have generals support your political views, (Sanchez comes to mind) but that is not a component of our strategy, for Iraq or America.
You keep addressing me with a great deal of virulent emotion as though I were some sort of anti-Bush liberal robot
Whatever quotes you are using to form such opinions are only in your mind. You can’t actually produce any evidence for such an opinion. So why should it be worth anything?
I think it’s odd that you won’t admit that Rumsfeld et al were incompetent and made big mistakes in their running of the war.
That is because you are playing a blame game, which has nothing to do with winning a war. Or not at least winning the war for American interests. Certainly McClellan thought he was for winning the war, just not for America.
You have a philosophical investment in the assumption that Iraq was/is a bad strategy, whatever that means. Why should I or we for that matter, waste energy trying to convince people invested in defeat that victory is better?
You don’t believe victory is better for you don’t believe there is anything valuable to be won in Iraq, only conserved and recovered due to the disasters.
I should think that Petraeus’ recent success ought to bring this point home – though I disagree with the strategy
The strategy of Counter-Insurgency operations may not be to your liking, but then why do you think Petraeus knows what he is doing? His COIN manual requires combat forces to be in country and in control of the situation. Not as peacekeepers but as troops with actual decision making power for local interests, even if the central government disagrees.
How do you think you are going to be able to move US forces into such a position for Iraq and Afghanistan, if the regimes in power do not agree? I don’t think you could have convinced Saddam and the Taliban to allow in US forces so that US forces could win the loyalty of Sunnis, Shia, Kurds, and Afghanis.
it seems nearly beyond question that the tactics and planning of this war were done horribly badly.
It is beyond question that you devote most of your energies to finding problems in the present or the past. Why should we favor such a strategy for winning a war? Has such a strategy ever won a war?
Again, you can accuse me of being a knee-jerk Bush “hater” but I can assure you I don’t hate Bush,
The only one that has used the word “hater” on this thread was Perfected Democrat, excluding you that is.
You have a history and a record of making erroneous attributions and declarations here. Why should your analysis on Iraq and the Bush administration be any better?
I simply believe that we have served them very poorly indeed through this strategy, for the reasons I stated above.
You are welcome to such an opinion if you wish. I am more concerned with helping the military win great victories and solve problems whether current or in the future.
I don’t know why you would prefer to talk about problems over solutions and then say you wish to help the military. supported by stating that they have problems in your opinion.
You can always start with the explanation of why you don’t find it a problem that you have the same politics as MoveOn over Iraqi policies. They support the international solution set just as you do, even though they support withdrawal now and you don’t. Is there a solution for why the international set is favored so much by people that are at odds with one another yet have the exact same philosophical beliefs?
You never believed that Iraq could be of any benefit to the United States war on terror, Mitsu. It will always fail in your predictions because the international world wasn’t on board. So why do you ignore the fact that the international world wasn’t onboard for toppling Saddam in Gulf War 1 either? Your predictions are only as good as your philosophy, which is looped in circles around itself.
Such things are always present in war. This war is nothing new. The victors will write the history books because the victors will have been proven right. If both the victors and the defeated wrote the history books, we would get endless arguments over what actually occured and what will occur, just like we have in this thread here.
Your predictions have not come true, MItsu, for the war has not yet been won or lost. You forget this fact about historical conditions.
I supported the first Gulf War
Supporting the first Gulf War and supporting the removal of Saddam in the Gulf War are two mutually exclusive beliefs.
To me, this makes all the difference, and makes them radically different in terms of their threat level to the United States, for the simple reason that every self-interested actor is going to know that we have the means to wipe them off the surface of the earth if we felt driven to do so. This has nothing to do with “naivety” and everything to do with a cold hard calculation of self-interest on their part.
Even Americans know that America is weak at heart. More ruthless people already know that America cannot stomach casualties or have the will to do the required killing.
With such things, they would calculate their self-interest as being that which would not antagonize the Americans? Unlikely.
Israel is the same way, which is why Saddam knew that Israel wouldn’t obliterate Saddam with nukes if Saddam gave financial support for suicide bombing in Israel.
America is mighty and powerful with bombs in conventional wars. That is why the international world always wishes an assurance from America that America will not act unless the international world agrees that they should act.
Yet such a relationship is not one that empowers America. America would have to be weak to have such a relationship. That factors into the calculations of people’s self-interest as well.
America doesn’t have the stomach to wipe anybody off the surface of the earth, even if Americans saw a need for it. That’s a fact, Mitsu, one that cannot be ignored in any “cold hard calculations”.
Mitsu: Sure – he [Saddam] might have helped terrorists – but only if he could be absolutely sure he’d never get caught, because if he got caught he’d know what would happen to him: destruction. This was a huge deterrent.
Well, he obviously miscalculated, didn’t he? And seeing the results of that miscalculation had an immediate, if not prolonged, sobering effect on several of the region’s numerous despotisms, as I’ve indicated. So, yes, these regimes can be deterred, at least for a while, but from time to time deterrents have to be acted upon or they cease to be effective. And that’s at least a partial explanation for the invasion of Iraq.
In general, I think you make the mistake that a lot of the more anti-war factions do, which is to place undue emphasis upon what are only parts, pieces, or segments of the total picture — e.g., Saddam, Bin Laden, Iraq itself. These are certainly important factors, but the problem in its real historical and geographical extent is much larger. So, saying that Saddam was just a “minor threat”, for example, so why pick on Iraq? is a bit like saying (to use my earlier analogy) that the Germans in Normandy were just a minor threat to the allies, so why pick on that peninsula? The answer, in both cases, is simply that you have to start somewhere.
But we’re reaching the point where we’re just repeating ourselves, and that’s the point when reasonable people should agree to disagree. I will say that I appreciate your reasonable and reasonably respectful approach to the debate, and I hope my approach was similar. Thanks.
I think that war is sometimes worthwhile and needed – as a last resort. You go to war when not going to war would result in a worse disaster than the damage caused by the war itself.-Mitsu
Going to war is not often a choice. The entire philosophy assumes that America will have a choice because America will always be stronger than her opponents. Such an assumption is flawed.
If people knew that their inaction would create a worse disaster than the action of going to war, people would be called gods, Mitsu. But they are not gods. No matter how much people wish to put America on a pedestal of power and imperialism, America is neither an expansionist Empire nor an all powerful nation that can do as it as wishes.
I don’t subscribe to a “philosophical” position in favor of diplomacy over war.
Of course it is a philosophical position to favor doing everything you can, including diplomacy, to avoid war. Just as such a position is the best thing you can do to create a war that will be a worse disaster than any attempt at peace via diplomacy.
Favoring diplomacy with an enemy that you are already at war with, is not a philosophical position? Of course it is.
What I believe is that diplomacy, total war, limited war, etc., are all tactics that each have their advantages and disadvantages depending on the specific situation
You separate fighting and winning into three different things. It is an inefficient way to go about fighting for one’s life and values. You don’t really have much of a choice in deciding what to do in war. Much of what you can do is already decided by the decisions and actions of others. Certainly the three you list all have disadvantages and advantages, but the specific situation you speak of is decided primarily by other people. Not by a single individual, you, or me.
If the entire world wanted to destroy the United States, we wouldn’t be able to stop it purely through military might.
If people wanted to destroy you, the only way you could stop it would be through military might.
Maybe you could convince them to let you be slaves if you pay them a high enough tax, but I doubt that will work for long.
We have to use a combination of military strength and careful diplomacy as well as image management (yes) to reduce our overall risk level in the world.
Does image management really prevent an attacker from destroying you if he could? Does illusion really stop a death on the real plane?
How do you reduce the risk level of people wanting to destroy you?
If you ask me, it would be to destroy them first.
He would, instead, maneuver his enemies into attacking first, then retaliate with great force. Because it always appeared that he was merely defending himself against an unwarranted aggression, he did not create a balance of power effect against him, and he was able to unify Germany.
Bismarck had geographical problems. France on one side and Russia on the other.
Why should America, in a totally different time, place, and geography, adopt his actions? His specific situation is not our specific situation.
He often rejected the advice of some of his advisors who wanted him to attack preemptively – he knew the political consequences of such a move would be disastrous.
For a nation that couldn’t conquer France or Russia, it certainly would be disastrous. Why does this apply to American power?
Don’t go to war unless you are forced to – and when you go to war, go in with overwhelming force. We didn’t do that with Iraq on either count.
That might sound nice to a conservative, but I doubt that numbers equal “overwhelming force”. Nor did the coalition Powell and Bush senior created in Gulf War 1 constitute an “overwhelming force”. Certainly not when it came down to removing a threat, Saddam, permanently so that Bush junior didn’t have to correct his father’s problems.
I really don’t know how you will reconcile the diplomatic problems you will incur, diastrous diplomatic problems, by going in with the necessary force. Such things as leveling cities with naval and land artillery, including EMP and nuclear detonations, will be frowned upon by the international world. Certainly if America does it.
You will have to sacrifice one for the other, which I don’t really see you doing.
the Baath Party was founded as a secular Arab nationalist party, women didn’t have to wear veils or burkas in Iraq, and they went to school, college, could drive, have jobs, etc. – in many ways Iraq was, despite being led by a bloodthirsty dictator, one of the least conservative countries in the region from an Islamic fundamentalist perspective)?-Mitsu
You’re actually making the case for why Iraq would be better under American guidance and military protection. Why would this trait be of any use to human progress under Saddam? It had zero use. Under Americans and locally elected Iraqi leaders and sheiks, this trait will finally begin to show its promise.
That is, of course, if you are in favor of promoting human progress. If you aren’t, then obviously you wouldn’t see this trait as being a reason why America should have invaded and occupied Iraq.
Those were unified, advanced states.
Japan and Germany are proof that military might, American military might that is, helps human progress along. If you aren’t for human progress, then obviously you will see no need for the American military to help it along in Iraq or anywhere else.
What does being unified or being advanced states have to do with whether humanity should progress from cruelty and suffering to liberty and prosperity?
“Democracy” in Iraq is still a joke.
Security, prosperity, liberty, and human progress has never been a joke to classical liberals or military personnel that believe in the cause.
I am sad to say that it is a joke to you because that is just how it is.
But this attempt I believe was doomed from the start
Indeed. The attempt by Americans and the West to remake Germany and Japan in their own image was indeed doomed from the start. If you held to your philosophical beliefs.
I suppose your idea of a competent action would be to leave the causes that started the war in place, for Germany and Japan.
Remaking Iraq into our own image was doomed to failure? The tribes didn’t like America precisely because America wanted the tribes to rule themselves, which the tribles never could do without a strongman in the first place. The only way Iraq would ever succede, same as with Germany and Japan, would be if they adopt our philosophy and politics, including the disadvantages.
Sally,
I appreciate the debate. We disagree, I believe, primarily because you see Saddam, the Baath Party, etc., as of a piece with the threat from Al Qaeda and the Islamo-fascists, and I do not. Because of that, to me, the cost of the war far exceeded the security benefits, and you think it was worth it — we shall see, I suppose.
>I suppose your idea of a competent action would be to
>leave the causes that started the war in place, for
>Germany and Japan.
Ymarsakar,
It’s difficult to debate you because you’re not even addressing the actual points I am making. You’re saying that because I opposed the Iraq war, that I would also have opposed war with Germany and Japan? That’s precisely the opposite of what I’ve been saying. My whole point is that I believe you choose war or diplomacy depending on the specifics of the situation, and that the case of Germany and Japan were quite different from the situation with Iraq. Thus: different situations, different strategies. Go to war with Iraq: big mistake. Go to war with Germany and Japan: necessary. Why? They’re not the same situation.
As I keep saying, war is risky and has massive repercussions and costs: political consequences, monetary cost, and of course in lives. The reasons you shouldn’t go to war unless forced into it are purely pragmatic, in my view: it is usually a mistake, because the costs far exceed the benefits. That’s why Bismarck avoided attacking first.
In your other comments you’re making the argument that we should have gone into Iraq in order to prevent future attacks against the United States — the so-called “preventive war” justification. I certainly agree that we should do the best we can to protect the United States from future attack — I simply think the Iraq war does not do this well, at all, and may in fact have harmed our security, and it has diverted precious resources away from strategies which I feel would have had a much greater impact on increasing our security. I clearly don’t have a problem with going to war when necessary, in self-defense — I just think we could have been a lot smarter and a lot more effective in defending this country than going to war with Iraq.
In general, going to war to prevent some vague possibility of future attack, I believe is usually a very bad idea (for the reasons I state above), and by “bad idea” I mean I think it doesn’t actually end up securing the state in the long run.
You may not be aware that the very ideas you’re proposing are the same ones offered by the Nazis — they justified many of their aggressions as “preventive wars”. Even if one were to ignore the moral implications of being overly eager to go to war, the practical fact is: their strategy did not work for them in the long run. Instead of eliminating threats they succeeded in bringing the rest of the world around to defeat them. I would think twice before enthusiastically adopting a strategy that has such a poor track record, even if one were to think of war purely in pragmatic terms.
America doesn’t have the stomach to wipe anybody off the surface of the earth, even if Americans saw a need for it.
I missed this comment. I think this is obviously absurd. We can and do have the “stomach” to wipe someone else off the surface of the earth — that’s what our nuclear deterrent is all about. Any nuclear attack against the United States would be met by a nuclear response — that is the official policy of the United States under any President, Democrat or Republican, and that is, of course, as it should be. Any other policy would be lunacy in a nuclear age.
Saddam Hussein and any other petty dictator with nuclear ambitions would know this as well as the USSR knew it during the Cold War. That’s the whole POINT of having nuclear weapons — so you never have to use them. This only works if the world knows that you WILL use them if attacked by nuclear arms.
This is why state actors are relatively impotent against the United States, but terrorists are a significantly greater threat. If a non-state-actor attacks us, who do we retaliate against? It’s not clear, and that’s why our nuclear deterrent is much less effective against Al Qaeda than against Iraq or any other country.
It’s difficult to debate you because you’re not even addressing the actual points I am making.
I am not addressing your policy differences in detail due to the fact that matters is belief, specifically philosophical premises that power your political policies. Besides, Sally can deal with the political policies while I deal with the ideology behind it. It cuts down on redundancy and wasting people’s time reading the same things written by different people.
You have to actually backwards engineer your opinions to what they are based upon, if you have an interest in discussing those views with me. That, indeed, is harder than simple political argumentation.
You’re saying that because I opposed the Iraq war, that I would also have opposed war with Germany and Japan?
I am speaking of the philosophical position you hold that is inconsistent with your policy proposals. If you believe that America had a problem with Iraq due to trying to remake them into our own image, then logical consistency would only demand that you see the effort to remake Germany and Japan into our images as well as being doomed to failure. You don’t, of course. Perhaps this is because you believe that Japan and Germany aren’t like Iraq, yet I say it is.
So thus is the philosophical conflict that is present, which has little to nothing to do with whether your opinion of Iraq means you don’t support Japanese democracy.
You have said that nationalism plays a large part in why you view Iraq as futile, but nationalism is not some kind of inborn trait, so I don’t see what that has to do with whether a strategy of remaking foreign countries into something that is similar to the United States, becomes a policy doomed to failure.
People don’t start off on earth as being part of a nation. So obviously if you believe Iraq is doomed to failure, then the logic demands that the same would be true of all other people trying to become a nation. Yet this is patently false. Such are the logic problems with your arguments, to begin with.
and that the case of Germany and Japan were quite different from the situation with Iraq.
Every situation is different from another situation. It would be meaningless to state that one is different from another.
There is no strategic standard by which you can judge what is appropriate for a situation simply by stating that this situation is different. What matters is what is in common, and Germany with Japan has many things in common with Iraq.
Solutions come from drawing parallels between the past and the present, in order to figure out what can solve the problems of the now. If all you do is to focus on the differences, which you do with Japan and Iraq, then you aren’t going to get anywhere. You believe you will get somewhere, yes, but that’s a philosophical assumption that must be challenged first before it is accepted.
I simply think the Iraq war does not do this well, at all, and may in fact have harmed our security, and it has diverted precious resources away from strategies which I feel would have had a much greater impact on increasing our security
Obviously you would prefer your own policy to have priority on resource allocation. That is why humans still have turf wars after all. But it doesn’t mean you should get priority allocation, though.
I clearly don’t have a problem with going to war when necessary, in self-defense – I just think we could have been a lot smarter and a lot more effective in defending this country than going to war with Iraq.
You still think war is a choice. What do you think there is a point to arguing should have would have when you still hold to the belief that the US chose to go to war? You have no problem with going to war when you believe it is necessary, but that is independent of whether it is truly necessary or not. So you don’t know how to tell, really, whether it is really necessary or not. Given that necessity only comes after the fact, not during it.
Preventive wars inevitably make things unnecessary, because it has been prevented. Instead of such an idea, you wish to allow things to become a bigger problem so that we can then be forced into doing something that will now be necessary.
Either way, war will occur. Your way would simply delay it and turn Limited War into Total War. I am not sure why that is something to be favored by America. Certainly American Total War is effective, but as you said, even small wars have resource repercussions.
In general, going to war to prevent some vague possibility of future attack, I believe is usually a very bad idea (for the reasons I state above), and by “bad idea” I mean I think it doesn’t actually end up securing the state in the long run.
The US military will be fighting terrorists for a long time. It would be of benefit to the long term security of the United States for its military to be able to learn from fighting terrorists and our enemies. I don’t know how you think they will learn here in the United States, except as a response to attacks on the United States, which isn’t the same thing as fighting terrorists in Fallujah and Afghanistan.
The enemy always gets a vote. Since it is easier to fight Americans in Iraq, AQ has devoted resources there that they cannot redistribute and reallocate to the United States. That reduces the number of attacks and helps the FBI get their system straight. This should be a good thing.
The idea of a passive strategy, which is to allow the enemy to choose their time and place of attack, is inevitably a losing strategy.
If you recall, Bismarck’s strategy inevitably failed because France and Russia was still around when he was gone. He couldn’t, not wouldn’t, get rid of such threats so the Kaisers that came after, messed things up.
You may not be aware that the very ideas you’re proposing are the same ones offered by the Nazis – they justified many of their aggressions as “preventive wars”.
You have little interest in ideas, Mitsu. All you are interested in are the policies you believe in and advocate for and your preference for a passive defense.
You wish to wait and react to what other people do. While you may be willing to do such a thing, I am not. Thus your priority for resource allocation will always be mutually exclusive with mine.
The Nazis don’t even come into this picture, because you do not have a fundamental grasp of philosophy. And without such a grasp, you have no means of applying the lessons of National Socialism to the current problems of Iraq.
Even if one were to ignore the moral implications of being overly eager to go to war, the practical fact is: their strategy did not work for them in the long run
As you have been fond of saying, the situation of the Nazis is not the same as the situation of the Americans. If only because America beat the Germans. More than once even.
I think this is obviously absurd.
Given that you believe America would only be able to wipe people off the face of the Earth by first taking a brutal attack, then yes it would be obviously absurd to you. After all, this is why you prefer a passive defense, isn’t it. You think that America will be able to strike back adequately so long as America gets hit hard first. That is ethically very questionable, Mitsu. Americans have a responsibility to the nation to protect it, not to let it get attacked so that your personal pet theories of annihilating enemies can then be implemented.
We can and do have the “stomach” to wipe someone else off the surface of the earth – that’s what our nuclear deterrent is all about.
This coming from someone that ties himself up into knots over the resource allocation of invading Iraq? There is a certain inconsistency in your beliefs, Mitsu.
Any nuclear attack against the United States would be met by a nuclear response
You may be willing to use a passive defense and wait for a nuclear attack, Mitsu, but I’m not sure I would be willing to do the same thing just so I could see America use nukes on somebody.
Is any other justification that you would see for America using nukes to wipe our enemies off the map?
That’s the whole POINT of having nuclear weapons – so you never have to use them.
And yet you believe America has the guts to wipe any enemy off the surface of the earth. Rather inconsistent with the belief that America gets nukes only so they don’t have to use them, don’t you think?
This only works if the world knows that you WILL use them if attacked by nuclear arms.
Which is why Sadddam and Iran wants nukes so they can do anything to America and know that America won’t have the guts to reply by wiping Saddam and Iran off the face of the earth. Who would you nuke if terrorists used a nuke on a US city? You have to wait to be attacked, and Saddam and Iran didn’t attack you. Their proxies did. Can you justify wiping an enemy off the face of the earth when they only supported the actions of your attacker?
Why would anyone have to attack you with nuclear arms to kill you, Mitsu? You have just openly admitted that America will not attack a nation with nuclear weapons, even if that nation is an enemy of Americans and has killed many Americans. This means that America will not wipe their enemies off the face of the earth. Not unless American cities are being wiped off the face of the earth, but then again anybody in that situation would be desperate enough to show some guts.
That is certainly passivity developed to its full, right there. But I doubt its efficacy in the 21st century against unconventional warfare fighters.
This is why state actors are relatively impotent against the United States, but terrorists are a significantly greater threat. If a non-state-actor attacks us, who do we retaliate against? It’s not clear, and that’s why our nuclear deterrent is much less effective against Al Qaeda than against Iraq or any other country.
You can’t deter Iran or Saddam because of the terrorists. Saddam and Iran have their unconventional forces that fight as proxies for Saddam’s and Iranian interests. This means that state actors are not relatively impotent against the United States. The United States are relatively impotent against state actors when they have nuclear weapons, due to the fact that the United States doesn’t have the guts to engage in guerrilla warfare against their enemies and also won’t use conventional weapons like nukes against nuclear armed nations.
The US can only strike with armies, bombs, and nukes. Saddam can strike at you with a lot more things than that. Course, he can’t now, cause he is dead. Hard to need deterence against dead people.
our nuclear deterrent is much less effective against Al Qaeda than against Iraq or any other country.
That is just the logical inconsistency there. You said deterence was backed up by the belief that America will use nuclear weapons on you if you do certain things. However, Iraq didn’t have nuclear weapons, so how can you say that Saddam was “detered” by the US having nukes? People that don’t have nukes aren’t detered by the US having nukes because they know the US doesn’t have the guts to use a nuke against a nation that isn’t armed with nukes.
They also know that the US also doesn’t have the guts to use a nuke on a nation that IS armed with nukes.
So either way, how does deterence work when the nation-state can safely calculate that the US will never have the will to use their nuclear armament?
What makes Saddam stop killing Americans when he knew that America wouldn’t use nukes against him? What makes Iran stop killing Americans in Iraq, when they know that all Americans are willing to do is to adopt a passive defense like the one you adovcated, Mitsu?
I think it needs to be said that MAD won’t work on a nation like the Islamic Republic of Iran.
IRI is run by Twelver Shia. They believe in the imminent manifestation of the 12th Imam Mahdi.
Their eschatology says that he will not emerge until the world is already in a condition of great chaos and destruction.
The Shias have been longing for his return for a long time now and they are very anxious for the time to come.
They believe they could use nuclear weapons as a catalyst for the chaos that must precede the Mahdi’s arrival.
They have no qualms with the nation of Iran being nuked as their death would be due to thier striving in the way of Jihad for the sake of Allah and they would all go to Paradise.
That is why Iran must never get nuclear weapons, although since they’re working with North Korea, it’s probably already too late.
Perhaps this is because you believe that Japan and Germany aren’t like Iraq, yet I say it is.
But I say it isn’t, which is why there’s nothing inconsistent in what I am saying. The fact that what I’m saying is inconsistent with what YOU are saying is hardly news.
Japan and Germany were unified states that had evolved over a very long time prior to the war, they had already solved their internal conflicts long before. They were states that had evolved on their own, and had advanced civil societies and disciplined militaries. After the end of the war in either country, there were ZERO additional American combat deaths. No suicide bombings, no civilian terror — the war was just over, that’s it.
Iraq, by contrast, is an artificial construct of the British comprised of Kurdish, Sunni, and Shiite regions. It never developed naturally, and was held together only by the iron fist of a strongman. They had no tradition of civil society, and had obviously not worked out their internal divisions prior to the war. Compounding this greatly was the fact that when we went it, neither the world at large nor the Iraqi people felt our military action was justified — as a result, there was a huge amount of resistance from all groups. The combination of these factors led to what I believe was a radically untenable situation.
The two situations could not be more different, and the results speak for themselves, in my view.
This coming from someone that ties himself up into knots over the resource allocation of invading Iraq? There is a certain inconsistency in your beliefs, Mitsu.
If you can’t understand that it is possible to:
1) believe that a specific war is a mistake
2) believe that the policy of responding to a nuclear attack with a nuclear retaliation is necessary
at the same time, then I’m not sure what the point is of having a discussion. There’s obviously no contradiction whatsoever between those two viewpoints. I have said before and I’ll say it again: I am not opposed to “war in general”, even using nuclear weapons in retaliation for a nuclear strike. I am opposed to war when it hurts our national interest, as I believe this war does.
>MAD won’t work on … Iran
Actually here I (somewhat) agree. That is to say, while MAD clearly would have worked against Saddam, it’s a little less clear it would work against a suicidal fanatical leader of a foreign state. Thus I do agree that both North Korea and Iran are more dangerous than Iraq was, because they’re more ideologically driven.
Having said that, all the evidence shows that Iran, at least, does respond to external pressure, to some degree. North Korea may as well, though it’s harder to tell for sure. The most recent intelligence reports suggest that international pressure on nuclear weapons did weaken Ahmadinejad’s position considerably in Iran.
But I do agree that the fact that North Korea got nuclear weapons and Iran may someday are both very serious threats. I happen to believe that the Iraq war may have helped slow down Iran, but it probably accelerated North Korea’s nuclear progress.
Iran is playing a very careful and shrewd game.
It is not “responding” because it has decided to be less hostile for the sake of harmony.
Any backing down on their part is a tactic.
I think they are doing everythign they can to avoid direct military action until such time they can be assured that they can hurt us badly.
Until then , they’re sticking to their long-term plan .. they test the waters occasionaly (like when they kidnapped the UK sailors) and continiously find the West has no will or resolve.
But I say it isn’t, which is why there’s nothing inconsistent in what I am saying. The fact that what I’m saying is inconsistent with what YOU are saying is hardly news.
How is saying that Iraq is doomed because people wanted to remake it in our image consistent with the position of believing Japan went okay due to MacArthur remaking them into our own image. He, after all, did write their Constitution for the japanese, something Bush didn’t even think of doing for Iraq.
I know you don’t believe that MacArthur remade Japan into our image, but that is just it. That is the inconsistency. You say one thing and it is inconsistent with your other beliefs.
You don’t believe so, but that doesn’t change your positions or why your positions are out of phase with each other.
Japan and Germany were unified states that had evolved over a very long time prior to the war, they had already solved their internal conflicts long before.
Does that mean the war with them was easier or harder? And if their nationalism meant that they fought harder in the beginning, doesn’t this mean that the occupation became easier? We have the reverse situation with Iraq.
The total effort is the same and the final conclusion would be the same, if you were willing to put in the time and effort, of course. You may not be willing, of course, to support putting in the required resources. You didn’t in 2003, for example. And you are only supporting the surge right now because you think it is keeping things from getting worse, not that it is truly achieving the goal of strategy advantage for America in Iraq.
You keep saying Japan and Germany were unified states, as if that matters. It doesn’t. You have a problem that requires a solution. So solve it. Why do you continue to talk about red tape and conditions that don’t really matter to the solution?
If you can’t understand that it is possible to:
What I understand is that Saddam wasn’t enough of an enemy for you to favor eliminating. This simply supports my claim that America does not have the guts to wipe out their enemies. When you get into situations where you have to debate with yourself over whether an enemy is dangerous enough to require taking out, you have already lost your deterence ability. Enemies are enemies, in my view. In your view, there are enemies that are impotent and enemies that are harder to deter. Such a view saps the will to eliminate such enemies, naturally.
I’ll say it again: I am not opposed to “war in general”, even using nuclear weapons in retaliation for a nuclear strike.
As I have described, that is not really the problem. We were talking about whether America has the will and fortitude to eliminate enemies. I say no because people do what you do with Saddam and Iran and terrorists. You say America does have the will because you favor strategic defense and tactical offense. Subordinating your strategy to your tactics, which I do not prefer, is in your view, a way to win in the long term.
I find such a method and a plan to be ethically questionable. That is simply a restatement.
You think the US has proven that it has the will and ability to deter Iran and people like Saddam. I don’t. You are the proof of why I think America doesn’t have the demonstratable will and proven capability to deter anyone except the Soviets and Russians.
Yes, you say America will launch a nuke in return for a nuke, but you also admit that such things don’t work with terrorists. So why should it work for Saddam and Iran, who has terrorists to do their work for them? How do you think you are going to deter such people by promising that you will only use nukes if they use nukes? They are not going to use nukes. Their friends will be the ones that used nukes. You are not detering Iran and Saddam from working with terrorists with such methods as you have described.
The reason why is simple. It is due to your philosophy. You have a certain belief set, which includes strategic defense and tactical offense, which you use to formulate policy, strategy, and analysis.
I won’t leave such assumptions unchallenged.
But I do agree that the fact that North Korea got nuclear weapons and Iran may someday are both very serious threats. I happen to believe that the Iraq war may have helped slow down Iran, but it probably accelerated North Korea’s nuclear progress.
That too is not really the problem. meaning your analysis of the situation. It could be right or wrong, but it really doesn’t matter. What matters is what you choose to do on this information. Your strategy will be based upon what you think will secure the long term interests of the United States.
Your strategy will not include pre-emption, getting inside an opponent’s OODA loop, or most other unconventional warfare method or principle. If you ask me, I think such a strategic perspective is too limiting, regardless of whether you get Iran or Saddam’s threat capability correct. Not everything depends upon if you get things right in the beginning. A lot of things depend on the little details that occur as you implement your plans.
Having read your last comment, it is clear that you recognize the asymmetrical nature of Iran’s options, which aren’t affected by American bombs or missiles.
Yet I suspect your favored action would be to wait for things to evolve and become clearer. You favor long term security, yet I don’t see any hint that your methods will produce such long term security.
Using Iraq as a logistics base, both politically, militarily, culturally, and ideologically, I can see how a long term security interest for the US may develop. But with your stated options and methods, Mitsu, I don’t see any long term plan to win. Not just disagree with it, but I don’t even see it.
I’ve heard you mention Bismarck as being a winning strategy, but such things subordinate long term goals to short term tactical actions such as attacking your attacker. That isn’t really long term based, it is more based upon the short term benefits of being able to claim that you are not the aggressor, that someone else was. Yet even if you do claim such status, your are not guaranteed to win the war. A long term strategy should give good odds, if not a guarantee, that you win after certain traits, aspects, bases, objectives, etc have been acquired and accomplished.
How is saying that Iraq is doomed because people wanted to remake it in our image consistent with the position of believing Japan went okay due to MacArthur remaking them into our own image
What I am saying is that the idea that we could remake Iraq in our image, particularly under the circumstances of the invasion, which was seen by most people in the world to be unjustified, was politically naive, because the situation in Iraq at the time of the invasion was radicallly different from the situation in Japan under Macarthur, for the reasons I stated already. You obviously disagree, but I think you’re wrong.
You have a problem that requires a solution. So solve it.
All I can say to this is: not only do I not think that Iraq was a “problem that requires a solution” I think our attempt to solve it will turn out to have caused us many more problems than we solved. Frankly, I think you were taken in by a Hollywood image of Saddam as this big evil bugaboo, because of the Gulf War. But the fact is, prior to his invasion of Kuwait, we saw Saddam as an ally, particularly against Iran. If he hadn’t invaded Kuwait we would never have given him a second look. I really think your idea about the relative threat posed by Saddam is based on a really unrealistic assessment.
We can’t solve every problem in the world. We can’t go to war against every single dictator, or every leader who dislikes us. We don’t have the resources. We need to choose our battles wisely, and I believe this was a terrible mistake for all the reasons I’ve stated.
Yes, I believe that in almost every case, preventive war is a mistake, because it creates blowback — a counter-reaction much worse than the security benefit you achieve. I’m not going to say preventive war can NEVER be worthwhile, but certainly in this case, I think it was not a good security gamble.
I think our attempt to solve it will turn out to have caused us many more problems than we solved.
Fair enough. I don’t think there will ever be any crossover of these two different philosophies.
I really think your idea about the relative threat posed by Saddam is based on a really unrealistic assessment.
The whole idea of pre-emption is that you take out the small threats before they get large.
Even if you believe Saddam wasn’t a threat, it doesn’t really do anything against the philosophy of first strike.
Even after 50 years, people still don’t know exactly what could have happened if Britain and France had attacked Germany when they were still militarily weak and not a threat to anybody but themselves. It may have brought in a grand alliance of Japan-Germany-Russia, ending with 10 Hiroshima sized detonations before the end, in 1980s. Or maybe not.
You want to wait until the threat manifests itself (or strikes at us) because it gives us greater power to strike back, like Roosevelt did after Pearl Harbor. I, of course, find too many problems with such a strategy.
We can’t solve every problem in the world
Rome couldn’t solve every problem in the world either. How do you think Rome maintained the military presence for a thousand years based upon the population of the Italian peninsula? They didn’t. They used local allies, auxiliaries, and local allied client states to supplement the legions of Rome.
They couldn’t do that simply by waiting in Italy until somebody attacked them. In fact, they did that one time in the 2nd Punic Wars and they didn’t much like it. Nor do Americans like the carnage in the Revolution, the US Civil War, or the race riots of the 20th century. Americans are sick of fighting on their own country.
Some of that does translate as “being sick of fighting anywhere”, yes, but such things are ephemeral.
Yes, I believe that in almost every case, preventive war is a mistake, because it creates blowback – a counter-reaction much worse than the security benefit you achieve.
Looking at it from your view, a view that states that holding the defensive brings greater advantages, I can see why you would think so. However, purposefully going and remaining on the defensive gives up your initiative advantage. No war has been won on the defensive, either. While I admit that tactical defense has its advantages, I still believe that it is not a long term strategy for victory.
A nice analogy would be the Maginot Line and Germany’s maneuver blitzkrieg style of warfare.
No defense is perfect. An attacker that strikes first and hits a critical spot, no longer worries about “blowback”. I agree, nations do come back if you attack them and don’t annihilate them with your first strike. However, while people may come back for vengeance after minor unjuries, they cannot do the same when fatally and majorly injured.
I think your views on what would cripple our enemies are different from mine, on a fundamental level.
Yes, I believe that in almost every case, preventive war is a mistake, because it creates blowback – a counter-reaction much worse than the security benefit you achieve.
Things become clearer when such beliefs are out in the open. So now we can see what it is that constitutes the reason why we both hold the views that we do.
If I believed, as you do, that blowback would (almost) always occur after an attack, then I would not strike first. But I don’t believe as you do, of course.