[ed’s note: Under the conditions of Greenwald Unified Theory of Bush Kulthood, the following bits of argument, excerpted from my post, purportedly betray my desire to hang Bill Buckley—or, at the very least, excommunicate him from the ranks of the true conservatives:
[responding to Buckley’s thesis, I write] This is, it seems to me, a well-articulated bit of traditional conservative disillusionment with an ongoing affair; and of course, the question is far from settled as to whether or not the coalition of Sunni and Shia can hold together.
Then, later, I yank the pedestal out from under the old traitor with this fiery bit of Kultish lockstepism:
Buckley’s argument, for all it’s erudition and tone of heartfelt regret, does, nevertheless, hinge on a despair that Iraqis are still too tribalistic and ethnically divided to be able to form any kind of coalition that will provide them with freedom. I disagree.
But I will say that we need to do a much better job of making the message clear that old grievances cannot be allowed to sabotage the chance for a better future for the country.
So, y’know—TAKE THAT, PALEOCON!]
****
William F. Buckley declares the War in Iraq lost.
Of course, Buckley being an unreconstructed racist who (we were reminded at length by a bevy of progressives) “greatly influenced” that notorious Hymen Monster, newly-minted SCOTUS justice Samuel Alito, anyone who agrees with him is necessarily looking to keep the brown man down and claim control over my uterus. AND I WILL NOT LET MY UTERUS GO WITHOUT A FIGHT!
But that aside, says Billy Buck:
One can’t doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed. […] Mr. Reuel Marc Gerecht backed the American intervention. He now speaks of the bombing of the especially sacred Shiite mosque in Samara and what that has precipitated in the way of revenge. He concludes that “The bombing has completely demolished†what was being attempted  to bring Sunnis into the defense and interior ministries.
Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000 Americans. The great human reserves that call for civil life haven’t proved strong enough. No doubt they are latently there, but they have not been able to contend against the ice men who move about in the shadows with bombs and grenades and pistols.
The Iraqis we hear about are first indignant, and then infuriated, that Americans aren’t on the scene to protect them and to punish the aggressors. And so they join the clothing merchant who says that everything is the fault of the Americans.
The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, elucidates on the complaint against Americans. It is not only that the invaders are American, it is that they are “Zionists.” It would not be surprising to learn from an anonymously cited American soldier that he can understand why Saddam Hussein was needed to keep the Sunnis and the Shiites from each others’ throats.
A problem for American policymakers  for President Bush, ultimately  is to cope with the postulates and decide how to proceed.
One of these postulates, from the beginning, was that the Iraqi people, whatever their tribal differences, would suspend internal divisions in order to get on with life in a political structure that guaranteed them religious freedom.
The accompanying postulate was that the invading American army would succeed in training Iraqi soldiers and policymkers to cope with insurgents bent on violence.
This last did not happen. And the administration has, now, to cope with failure. It can defend itself historically, standing by the inherent reasonableness of the postulates. After all, they govern our policies in Latin America, in Africa, and in much of Asia. The failure in Iraq does not force us to generalize that violence and antidemocratic movements always prevail. It does call on us to adjust to the question, What do we do when we see that the postulates do not prevail  in the absence of interventionist measures (we used these against Hirohito and Hitler) which we simply are not prepared to take? It is healthier for the disillusioned American to concede that in one theater in the Mideast, the postulates didn’t work. The alternative would be to abandon the postulates. To do that would be to register a kind of philosophical despair. The killer insurgents are not entitled to blow up the shrine of American idealism.
Mr. Bush has a very difficult internal problem here because to make the kind of concession that is strategically appropriate requires a mitigation of policies he has several times affirmed in high-flown pronouncements. His challenge is to persuade himself that he can submit to a historical reality without forswearing basic commitments in foreign policy.
He will certainly face the current development as military leaders are expected to do: They are called upon to acknowledge a tactical setback, but to insist on the survival of strategic policies.
Yes, but within their own counsels, different plans have to be made. And the kernel here is the acknowledgment of defeat.
[My emphases]
This is, it seems to me, a well-articulated bit of traditional conservative disillusionment with an ongoing affair; and of course, the question is far from settled as to whether or not the coalition of Sunni and Shia can hold together.
What I don’t understand—and this has to do with my naivity and inability to grasp the workings of foreign policy promotion—is why we are unable to point out what to everyone is obvious: that the attack on the Dome at Samara was CARRIED OUT BY AL QAEDA FOR THE EXPRESS PURPOSES OF FOMENTING A CIVIL WAR?
Because it seems to me that if everyone in Iraq was made aware of this, the pressure would be to fight back against such cynical tactics, rather than to turn their ire against the US.
Which, thankfully, seems to have been the message delivered by the Imams during Friday prayers. But seeing how the western press and many on the streets in Iraq reacted to the attack on the Dome—and listening to Iran’s president try to place blame on the US—will simply embolden al Qaeda to proceed with this very strategy, which until this point hasn’t been working particularly well (fighting between Sunnis and Shia was relegated to political horsetrading, which is the sign of a strong incipient democracy).
If ever we needed a propaganda campaign of our own, now is the time. Western newspapers all over the globe should be pointing out WHO IS BEHIND the attack, and WHAT THEIR AIMS ARE. Similarly, they should be pointing out that, for a free Iraq to work, sectarian differences must be put aside to join in the common cause of casting out the provocateurs who are PURPOSELY INSTIGATING THE CONDITIONS FOR A MANUFACTURED CIVIL WAR.
Buckley’s argument, for all it’s erudition and tone of heartfelt regret, does, nevertheless, hinge on a despair that Iraqis are still too tribalistic and ethnically divided to be able to form any kind of coalition that will provide them with freedom. I disagree.
But I will say that we need to do a much better job of making the message clear that old grievances cannot be allowed to sabotage the chance for a better future for the country. Unfortunately, we can’t count on our own media to push that message—and any attempts by the military or intelligence to get that message out will be vilified as unethical, un-American propaganda, and will be used, yet again, as a bludgeon with which to beat down this seminally important attempt at bringing to the Arab world the precepts of freedom that can once and for all begin to breakdown the medievalism that will stop at nothing to gain control of the region.
Why many of us seem bent on helping them to do it is entirely beyond me.
****
(h/t Allah; see also, interesting posts from Iraq here and here.)
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update: Expose the Left has additional thoughts on the civil war story here. See also, VDH (h/t Instapundit)
****
update: Truth in wine writes, “Let the swiftboating of Bill Buckley begin!” Well, sadly, Glenn Greenwald’s ”seminal” essay takes yet another beating, as I specifically noted that Buckley had written “a well-articulated bit of traditional conservative disillusionment with an ongoing affair”—but let’s not let such nitpicking stand in the way of CELEBRATING THE KULT OF BUSH!
Which famed troll Liberal Avenger sees happening anyway, despite my lengthy (and evidently coded) protestations to the contrary. In fact, so certain is Mr Liberal Avenger that I am disagreeing with Buckley not because I actually, y’know, disagree with Buckley—mine is naturally the kneejerk response of a Kultist, not an honest difference of opinion regarding foreign policy strategy—that he devotes three entire comments to “shortening” my arguments. I’ll let you be the judge as to whether any of these abbreviations do the thrust of my post any justice (or even address the thing, come to think of it):
Shorter Jeff Goldstein:
“I don’t care if GEORGE W BUSH says that we’ve lost the war – victory is ours, goddamnit!â€Â
And
More shorter Goldstein:
“The Samarra bombing was a major event, but it doesn’t count because al-Qaeda was responsible for it.â€Â
And finally
More Shorter JG:
“Aside from the foreign-run insurgency and al-Qaeda’s role in Iraq, we’ve already won!â€Â
Good stuff.
Now, my turn. Shorter “Liberal Avenger”: “Burn Iraq! Pushing for a civil war will teach us the lesson of our imperial arrogance—and so therefore, I am FOR IT! GORE IN ‘08! Oh, and DON’T YOU DARE QUESTION MY PATRIOTISM!”
****
More: Shi’ite leaders urge unity; reports of a civil war greatly exaggerated; and Powerline posts an email from Iraqi reader Haider Ajina, who writes:
Most of our news reports on the bombed shrine and all the damage sustained physically and emotionally. The news further reports on sectarian attacks and demonstrations. While this is true and accurate what is not being reported is the calling for calm and cooperation by all Sunni & Shiite religious leaders (except the young Alsadar who remains a thorn). The demonstrations of national unity. The mullahs in Sunni & Shiite mosques calling for support for injured brothers and sisters, national calm. They do not report on the Shiites standing guard outside of Sunni mosques in the south. Etc…There are two sides to this incident. The side of revenge, anger and the much larger side of unity and support. This bombing in Samarah has brought more unity amongst Iraqis than any other incident since the stampede on the Kahdumiah bridge (when Felujans [mostly Sunni] donated blood for the wounded in Kahdumiah [mostly Shiite] in Baghdad). Iraqi political parties, community leaders, religious leaders, political leaders all are strongly condemning this bombing and asking for national support and help for the people of Samarah. This outpouring of compassion, support and help is what is not being reported.
Shorter Liberal Avenger: “Haider Ajina IS NO BILL BUCKLEY! LONG LIVE NATIONAL REVIEW OLD SCHOOL!”
(h/t lawhawk; see also, Confederate Yankee, Jawa Report, and Stephen Green)
Just to be clear here (sorry, but we have trolls about, and they tend to misunderstand all that is not drawn specifically for them in big bold strokes of crayon), a civil war is of course still possible. But it is not inevitable.
And this post bemoans our inability (or, in certain cases intentional unwillingness) to do what we know to be necessary in order to avert it.
Evidently, some folks look upon a civil war in Iraq as a good thing—so long as the proper people (arrogant hyperpower hegemons presuming to install democracy in a country that was happily home to kite flying children before we got involved) get the “credit.”
I guess we all have our moments of despair. I disagree with Buckley. I think it will not be civil war in Iraq.
I don’t know if he’s unreconstructed. But we should watch out for anyone that was influenced by the anti-civil rights WFB. But never forget: Bull Connor was a democrat.
Why does it matter what ‘western newspapers’ that are ‘all over the world’ say? It would seem that its the Iraqis that need to hear this stuff, not us.
What I don’t understandâ€â€and this has to do with my naivity and inability to grasp the workings of foreign policy promotionâ€â€is why we are unable to point out what to everyone is obvious: that the attack on the Dome at Samara was CARRIED OUT BY AL QAEDA FOR THE EXPRESS PURPOSES OF FOMENTING A CIVIL WAR?
It goes back to the memes, to the terminology, I think. In this case, that universal phrase “Iraqi insurgents”. It’s been obvious for quite a while that the “Iraqi insurgency” is actually controlled and commanded by foreign fighters, al Qaeda in Iraq plus affiliated groups plus random Wahhabis eager to “go for Jihad”. When I read about Iraqis involved in attacks, it’s always as footsoldiers, victims, or involuntary bombers coerced by threats to their families. When I read about foreigners it’s always as the higher-ups, financiers, and field commanders.
In other words, the “Iraqi insurgency” is neither. It’s a foreign invasion and attack. Yet Zarqawi is still referred to straight-faced by the NYT as an “Iraqi insurgent”. By definition, the ongoing fighting in Iraq is being carried out by Iraqi insurgents, and therefore the enemy leader must be an Iraqi insurgent, despite the fact that he’s actually a Jordanian carrying out an attack on the people of another country.
The phrase does many things: It blurs that fact that these attacks are attacks on Iraq and Iraqis. It portrays the fighting, not as a war on our Iraqi allies, but as a native uprising against “occupation”. Doesn’t fit the facts, but it’s a very romantic and compelling picture, isn’t it? And those considerations trump reality. The repetitive use of the phrase also primes the reader to see the struggle against these invaders as hopeless, since it’s well-known that insurgencies are hard to fight. It also serves to morally undercut anyone fighting against these people. Crucially, this includes Iraqis.
The result is that the Iraqis, fighting to rid their country of an exceptionally cruel foreign invader, are stigmatized. While the invader, who targets children, who doesn’t hesitate to blow up religious celebrations, is celebrated as a “rebel”.
It is ugly in itself. But the worst part comes now: we no longer can see that foreigners did this to Iraq, because our language has been systematically twisted to assimilate the invaders to Iraqis: in fact, the invaders are, by means of that little phrase “Iraqi insurgents”, presented as the true, patriotic Iraqis.
How can we use this language to express the truth? We can’t. What can we say – “the Iraqi insurgents blew up the mosque”? This will be received as a statement that actual Iraqis did it. “Foreign jihadists blew up the mosque”? This will be disbelieved – what do “foreigners” hafve to do with the “Iraqi insurgency”, of which this attack is obviously a part?
It’s a trap. We’re caught in it and the Iraqis are caught in it, with coordinated attacks on them now adduced as evidence of their depravity and unfitness for democratic citizenship.
Well, WFB was never in favor of what he characterizes as adventurism in the first place. He was an agnostic from the get go. Such use of national power in Iraq was to amitious for his conservative temperment.
Contrast WFB with what VDH has to say today, after a trip to Iraq:
http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson200602240629.asp
So, what to do when your own press corps cooperates with the enemy’s propaganda machine, not just out of fear but with enthusiasm?
I, for one, am terminally sick of it. But what to do? It’s not like I can call up CNN and say “hey, put me on the air and let me give you a damned good hiding, you rotten skank!”
Well, not with any degree of success, anyway.
Even if I phrase it “Could we have a program about the use of language in the WOT and how word choices have shaped the perception of terrorists and rogue regimes (as well as the West)?” I get a muttered “damn ditto-heads” and a dial tone.
Mind you, it’s hard to be that calm and rational when the bobble-heads on TV are licking the boots of whatever terror regime is in their sights at the moment.
I can’t help but think of that line from Tom Stoppard: “generally speaking, things have gone about as far as they can possibly go, when things have gotten about as bad as they can reasonably get.” Like it or not, things in Iraq have not gotten about as bad as they can reasonably get, although destruction of the Golden Dome certainly brings us a step closer. To concede, at this juncture, seems highly premature. If for no other reason than it is not even clear how this single incident will unfold on the coming weeks, much less the coming years.
the “Iraqi insurgency†is actually controlled and commanded by foreign fighters, al Qaeda in Iraq plus affiliated groups plus random Wahhabis eager to “go for Jihadâ€Â.
If you keep saying it, maybe it will become true.
The ‘myth’ of Iraq’s foreign fighters
Let the swiftboating of Bill Buckley begin! 10 bucks to the first clueless bastard who calls him a moonbat.
Anyone following the real reportage on the counterinsurgency—Winds of Change, Iraq the Model, Bill Roggio’s The Fourth Rail—knows that last summer, Samarra was infested with terrorists and the populace was afraid even to snitch on them.
But that was not enough for the terrorists, who began brutally attacking the local tribal bosses, thus fouling their nest but good. Meanwhile, the Defense Minister was dropping little hints about how the choice between the Tal Afar model and a soft landing depended on how well Samarra would cooperate. The upshot was a surge of tips and the neutralization of a few terrorist biggies, followed by a deal for more local security responsibilty and a lower American profile.
With his Qaim and Tal Afar ratlines choked off, relentlessly growing Iraqi security forces, an evolving political system, and now his Sunni allies turning on him—what would Zarqawi do? Punish Samarra, which is exactly what he did.
The thrashings of a loser do not prove that the project “didn’t work.”
Yes. Last throes.
WFB held out for years and years before he finally admitted defeat. What do you expect if he gets most of his news about Iraq from the New York Times.
I say WFB is a right wing moonbat. Give the $10 to your local Republican Party, IVV.
What the hell does that mean, are we to start telling the truth about him?
Are you seriously suggesting that Zarqawi is an Iraqi and that Al Qaeda got its start in Iraq?
Shorter Jeff Goldstein:
“I don’t care if GEORGE W BUSH says that we’ve lost the war – victory is ours, goddamnit!”
Well what do you know, dillweed actually says two true statements on the same thread.
Yes, Vino, I’ve read the CSIS report. Have you?
The CSIS report claims, based on US and Iraqi estimates, that foreigners constitute a minority of fighters, perhaps 10%. It nowhere disputes that foreigners control, command, and finance the attacks. If collaborators provide information to an invasion force, and if the said force hires locals to toss a hand grenade or create a diversion attack, this doesn’t make the said local footsoldiers the dominant force. This is true even though there are more of them than there are foreigners.
(I personally think the coalition estimates of numbers of foreign fighters are systematically low – partly because low-level Iraqi hirelings are more likely to be captured than experienced fighters, partly because foreigners are “full-time” while Iraqis may only engage in a single operation – but whether I’m right or wrong about that doesn’t affect the main point, which has to do with control rather than numbers.)
More shorter Goldstein:
“The Samarra bombing was a major event, but it doesn’t count because al-Qaeda was responsible for it.”
More Shorter JG:
“Aside from the foreign-run insurgency and al-Qaeda’s role in Iraq, we’ve already won!”
Righto. Anyone know how many times Buckley has read Strategy Page or Winds of Change or the Third Rail or ThreatsWatch or Michael Totten or Michael Yon, or, hell, Victor Davis Hanson…? I’m not sure he even knows how to turn on his computer.
Anyone who still gets his news from the New York Times and Washington Post should be disqualified from offering opinions on the war in Iraq.
I love you, Bill. But get a grip, pal!
P.S. This story already seems so…yesterday. Brink of what, exactly?
Fortunately, I’ve known for years that Buckley is an ass, so no surprise there.
I have my own problems with the way the Iraq war is being handled, but anyone jumping on current events to declare it a failed endeavor is simply propagandizing. They had better rush their post mortems into print now, because the deceased may be up and walking around next week.
TW: It’s earlier than they think.
Yepper. He’s a dottering old idiot, but he ain’t no librul!
Oh, and the reason such a tiny percentage of those captured in Iraq are foreign fighters is that they foreign fighters are smart and the Iraqis are as dumb as a box of rocks, and hence get captured more often.
But to claim that demcracy may not work swell in Iraq is pure racism!
Have fun storming the castle kids!
Haider Ajina is “special.”
Seriously.
I don’t want to harp on the guy because he means well and he has been kind to me in the past, but to call Haider a high-functioning autistic would be to give him a great deal more credit than he deserves. He’s probably not the best person upon which to build a serious case for proving our success in The Great War.
Now I KNOW we’re winning.
Oh, and I bet the Kurds have been snickering all week.
Now, my turn. Shorter “Liberal Avengerâ€Â: “Burn Iraq! Pushing for a civil war will teach us the lesson of our imperial arroganceâ€â€and so therefore, I am FOR IT! GORE IN ‘08! Oh, and DON’T YOU DARE QUESTION MY PATRIOTISM!â€Â
Oh yes. This sounds just like me.
Jeff: Find me a conservative war critic that you and your ilk haven’t crucified and I’ll retract my caricatures of your idiocy.
Does such a person exist?
From my vantage point, a declaration that the war is lost is a career-ender for a conservative. Question the glorious war and Goldstein and friends will eviscerate you.
Because of this you lose all credibility when writing about the war, because you enter the discussion with an iron-clad commitment to the fact that the war has been won. No event – no news to the contrary – will ruin your victory laps.
Remember, Jeff: Nothing could dissuade the Kremlin circa 1988 from the notion that the great Soviet Dream was the natural order of things and that it would last forever. Learn from their hubris.
Evidently, some folks look upon a civil war in Iraq as a good thing…
Apparently FoxNews and CNN think so!
No event – no news to the contrary – will ruin your victory laps.
Let me know when the inrsurgents victoriously overrun one of our main bases. Or hell, even an armed forces post office. Maybe they could win one platoon-level battle… ever? No?
Meanwhile:
No event – no news to the contrary – will ruin your defeat laps.
I think Buckley is a kook. Has anyone seen National Review’s sales pitch in their mail box? For shits and grins I recently opened an envelope that normally goes straight in the shredder and, to my surprise, found it to be a bizarre sales pitch to subscribe to the National Review. On the envelope was a “teaser” about some conspiracy within (or about) the Catholic Church. The inside goes off of how cool it is to be intolerant. For such a supposed high brow magazine it sure does a great job of pitching itself the CINO fringe of the conservative [sic] movement.
Buckley is also wrong about Iraq.
Seriously. . .that’s a word now?
Find me a conservative war critic that you and your ilk haven’t crucified
Dude, are you serious? There are dozens of Monday-morning righty quarterbacks, saying we shouldn’t have disbanded the Iraqi army or we need more troops or we should be training Iraqis faster… in fact, it’s hard to find someone who hasn’t criticized some aspect of the war.
a declaration that the war is lost is a career-ender for a conservative.
And a declaration the Earth is flat is a career-ender for a physicist. Funny how that works.
Notice how certain sort type of person seems to crawl out from under a rock whenever anything that can possibly construed as “bad”news happens in Iraq.
Of course they then slink away when news of elections, Iraqis turning in insurgents, ten of thousands of troops and police trained etc comes down.
How many times have we supposedly lost the war already?
Hubris indeed. Tho bonus points for comparing conservatives to the Soviet old guard, when we all know which side of the political aisle was dutifully cheering on the communists right to the bitter end.
From <a href=”http://powerlineblog.com/archives/013235.php” target=”Powerline”>
And A bit of Haiders translation.
Of course it could be one of those nasty US paid propaganda rags but maybe all is not yet lost
Kevin B
Yes, it’s all part of the swiftboating of the Swift Boat Vets For Truth. See what happens when you dare question a Dem Presidnetial candidate’s account of how he spent Christmas in Cambodia?
Over at Tom Maguire’s site the other day someone posted a comment about watching the Saddam statue fall. One of the poster’s co-workers burst into tears and said “my god they can’t let Bush win like this, this is a tragedy.”
Sound familiar?
If we lose the war, whose fault will it be?
I can’t tell whether you guys are going to blame it on al-Qaeda and the Dems or al-Qaeda and the liberals.
Any thoughts?
– You’d probably do pretty well on the odds on end of the betting tables in Vagas if you went with, “40 times the Libtards declare failure in Iraq”, before it actually ends in a success. I’m keeping my own count, as we see each desperate final act of extreme asocial calamities inacted by the al Qaedists, and the perfectly predictable glee of the asshat brigade. I think very possibly at this point it would be nearly impossible to give me a convincing reason to ever vote for a Democrat for any reason ever again. Theres simply a limit to open mindedness….
TW: If LurchKerry calls tell him its ok. We found the form 180 and Ter-ray-sa’s ten straup flog in an abandoned Coke dispensing machine behind a 7/11 in Miami….
If we lose the war, whose fault will it be?
ROTFLMAO Lose it to who? Can you even remember the last time we saw an insurgent action that didn’t comprise fewer than two dozen men and involve running away afterward?
Well, lets see, we on the other hand can tell exactly who you’re gonna blame LA. And it isn’t Al Q or the Baathists, or the Syrians, or the Iranians.
Tho bonus pts for at least implicitly conceding that we haven’t lost already.
Sorry Jeff missed the update, but now that I know that Haider is a moron, (come on LA you’re with the RWDBs here. We don’t mess about with that PC ‘special’ crap), I realize we can’t rely on him to translate his local paper.
Why not just read the fucking post, LA?
BEHOLD MY CRUCIFIXION OF BUCKLEY (now written for the third time):
“This is, it seems to me, a well-articulated bit of traditional conservative disillusionment with an ongoing affair; and of course, the question is far from settled as to whether or not the coalition of Sunni and Shia can hold together.”
This, Mr Liberal Avenger, is what normal people engaging in civilized discourse call a respectful disagreement over policy. You see, we here in wingnuttia allow ourselves to hold opposing views without the kind of excommunication we’ve witnessed with Lieberman or Zell Miller or (from some) Hillary Clinton on the left.
Now, either retract your “caricatures” of my “idiocy” (which is liberal code for “made an argument a liberal doesn’t agree with, but one s/he is too lazy to refute, because the simple way is simply to sneer and posture) or else beat it.
Life is too short to deal with assholes like you.
Notice how certain sort type of person seems to crawl out from under a rock whenever anything that can possibly construed as “bad”news happens in Iraq.
What has me out from under my rock is the appearance of yet another formulaic betrayal of a conservative Christ-figure because he dares step forward to state the obvious about the Iraq disaster.
Fortunately for you folks, you don’t have to take what he says seriously because you already know for certain that victory in Iraq is assured.
Thank you, Jeff Goldstein and Pajamas Media for daring to tell THE TRUTH about Iraq!
Is that your answer?
– Well at least you admit where you’re coming from. for a Liberal thats a start….
Again, here’s what I said of Buckley’s piece (bolded this time, for those with special needs):
And yet LA keeps referring to that as a crucifixion.
Which, I guess, is how people like him come to see panties on the head as “torture.”
Anyway, we’re done here. Back to the fever swamps with you, LA. I have no more use for you. Go pen a post about how you’ve been silenced for SPEAKING THE TRUTH TO MY VICIOUS ATTACKS ON HARMLESS OLD CONSERVATIVES! But seriously, life is too short to deal with someone so filled with bile.
What if Iraq does not dissolve into civil war following the Gold Dome bombing?
Does the absence of civil war in light of such a provocation indicate meaningful progress in Iraq?
Would someone opposed to the Iraq invasion from whatever political perspective agree that the statement was true?
to state the obvious about the Iraq disaster.
It was certainly a disaster for Saddam, the removal of whose regime was the principal goal of the war.
But let me state the obvious: we have, in less than three years: overthrown a blood-soaked plice state dotted with rape rooms and mass graves, established a Constitution, held three nationwide votes, and put around a quarter million Iraqis into the ISF. We control every major city and every minor city. We have never lost a platoon-level or higher engagement.
I could go on, but I’m sure this all… obvious.
This is one of the best posts I’ve read all year.
As for your critics, well, if the ad hominem is the strongest part of their argument, you have obviously made your point- and then some.
In fact, Buckley’s argument is fair- if fatally flawed. His vision is obscured with perceived- and old- notions of what constitutes ‘wins’ and ‘losses.’ Indeed, he sees war through 20th century eyes. He also sees freedom and democracy through western eyes.
Betrayal? Rotflmao.
The media coverage is driven, I think, by the primacy of man-bites-bog. If the war were a basketball game, the headlines would read:
“Washington Generals Score Again”
Globetrotters in Disarray At Unexpected Setback, Lead Cut To 42-10
– We have unite people. Theres a “cartoon war” GAP!
Et tu, Buckley?
I mean, first Andrew Sullivan defects, and now this…
(Buckley was never more than lukewarm on liberating Iraq in the first place, was he?)
@Beginner’s Mind
I suspect ABC’s Nightline will come out with an hour long show telling us how sorry they are for broadcasting a show on how all is lost in Iraq. No doubt Buckley watched that show two nights ago.
Well, my distaste for Buckley goes back to something he published about five years before I was even born. It has nothing to do with his current position on the war, except that both are consistent with his reverence for religion and his determination to sacrifice any principle so long as that one isn’t threatened.
My personal opinion about the current situation is that destroying mosques would not now be such a big deal if we had done it a bit more in the early going when the jihadists were using them as bases for their attacks. This is the consequence of not understanding that we are at war with religious fundamantalism. Islamism is not the perversion of religion, but an uncompromising assertion of the supremacy of faith over reason. Had we recognized our ideological enemy, and been determined to destroy it, we would have looked for excuses to destroy mosques during the initial invasion rather than tip-toeing around them. Had we recognized our ideological enemy, Mugtada Sadr would have been dead a long time ago. If we had recognized our ideological enemy, we would never have handed over the reins of government to the Iraqis under a Constitution which enshrines Islam as the state religion.
I don’t suppose I need to explain why our leader could not recognize religious fundamentalism as the enemy, do I?
And yes, I voted for him too. Had I been given a real choice, I would not have.
Liberal Avenger, rather than crowing over your early pronouncements of a US defeat, why don’t you go see if you can scrounge up a Democrat who believes that the US ought to win? There has to be one out there somewhere, right?
Is there a Democrat out there with a long term foreign policy plan that acknowledges that we are at war, and doesn’t involve my daughter wearing a burka some years down the road? If not, I don’t think much of your chances in ‘08, Bush’s failings notwithstanding.
Where to begin…
Ummm, LA–please note that Bill B.’s opinion is well-reasoned, thoughtful, and non-polemic. As opposed to “Iraq disaster.” I for one completely agree with his assertion that we never had enough boots on the ground. Having said that, the performance of the American military has been MAGNIFICENT.
To this point, all the big mileposts have been met–removal of the regime, installation of an interim government, the writing of a constitution, ratification of the constitution, and general elections (the best your ideological stripe can seem to muster in the face of these accomplishments is “Yes, but…). I also hold, unlike Mr. Buckley, that a government will function because the maw of civil war is exceedingly black and fraught with outright disaster for the Sunnis. They can do math, you know.
On your “yet another formulaic betrayal” remark–I’m at a loss. If you are coming to Protein Wisdom and expecting confusion over Pat Buchanan or Pat Robertson, you’re in the wrong place, child.
Got this funny feeling “Liberal Avenger” is PIATOR in New Zealand.
Check that IP, Jeff. $10 says it’s coming from a little island of sheep humpers.
Yeah, Justin Raimondo, John Derbyshire, and Robert Novak all sure had their careers ruined. Derbyshire’s been out of work so long that I guess he’s thinking about selling a kidney to pay for his kid’s braces. Even worse, I heard that Novak’s so hard up for cash that he’s been reduced to taking $10 a turn at some honky-tonk glory hole.
Dumbass.
A question for Mr. Liberal Avenger:
How can we lose a war in which we haven’t lost a single battle above platoon size in two years?
Another question (to all):
This “notorious Hymen Monster”…
Was he on Sesame Street?
Wrong, fool. The question isn’t whether this war is winnable—militarily, intellectually, or politically—it’s why it shouldn’t be.
Which is where you and your ilk come in. Exactly why should the defeat of freedom be snatched from the jaws of victory if not the simple moonbat partisan mendacity involved in preparing the very leftist betrayal that’ll leave oppressors oppressing and killers killing.
You fucks would do anything—say anything—to destroy the lives of others. Why is that?
Sheesh, Jeff, I come walking around your blog and look at all the manure I got on my shoes from the livestock like actus and Liberal Avenger.
Give me a paper towel here, will ya?
Thats sure the way to think about winning this one. Platoon size battles!
Too Last Suppery.
Good show, Jeff.
– Many are starting to view the hard left as simply traitors to America in every sense of the word. At some point, if they keep it up, it may go beyond words. Its happened before…..
TW: Why are some people so personal issues challenged, they insist on shitting where they eat….
actus is different from your general run of troll. Insulting and infuriating as he is, he’s occasionally amusing, and there’s always the sense that there’s an actual human being there—the talking points do get slightly modified, paraphrased, before being trotted out. (And, of course, as an Old Fart I reserve the privilege of using the male as the unmarked case.)
LA is an easier (and much less enjoyable) case. As a member of the “smart party” he simplifies things by tossing out everything he doesn’t understand. Since that constitutes 90% of the matter and 99.9% of the important parts of it, the result doesn’t bear examining except as an excuse for RCOB. He (?) also doesn’t understand the concept of “disagreement”, and despite going on with sophomoric snottiness about “nuance” has no foggiest notion of what the word means. As a result, the fact that we (or anyone) do not enthusiastically join the Moonbat Serenade means that we must of necessity be in lockstep with those he identifies as enemies. It is, after all, the standard he applies to his “friends”.
What it leaves is a petulant, egotistic, bigoted fuckwad who’s happy to give the machete for chopping up babies so long as the result is a glop of shit he can throw at GWB or whoever can be identified. And brag about it. Sophomorism at the high-school level.
Regards,
Ric
– Thats too complicated Ric. The delusioned “non-elites” on the left are just assholes…..
TW: You got issues Lefturds then deal. Stop trying to change the rest of the country to be as fucked up as you are….
How do you mean?
– Go back and study your history actus. Particularly in the 30’s. You’ll see what happens when Communistic groups practice sedition, insurection, and even sabotage, in
America. Even a self-serving idiot knows tolorance only goes just so far. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail. But you never know. People can do some pretty outreageous things when they think their very way of life is being threatened.
Ah, you didn’t ban LA, did you? He was just starting to build a complete picture of his brain. It possibly would have been informative, since the Anti-Kultists are so hard to understand.
It was ambiguous when you said ‘go beyond words.’ I didn’t know if you meant the left would go beyond words (ie committing treaon), or the right (ie, punishing people for treason). Or both.
– Do you mean you don’t understand history, or the meaning of words, or just the concept of self preservation. Any or all of these conditions would go a long way in explaining the delutions of the left ideologs.
Regarding the hyperbolic Knight-Ridder report Jeff linked in the main post:
For everyone’s future reference, any K-R story bearing Tom Lasseter’s byline should be treated as having the same degree of objectivity and accuracy as Maureen Dowd or Paul Krugman. Lasseter thought a civil war was coming in December 2005, October 2005, May 2005, March 2005, December 2004, and January 2004, to name a few instances. He’s predicted it when Sunnis have been excluded from the political process, he’s predicted it when there are elections, and pretty much any time between. If there is ever a civil war in Iraq, Lasseter will still have been right fewer times than the proverbial broken clock that is right twice a day.
Win, lose(yeah, right), or draw, W’s reaction to 9/11 certainly flipped the lightswitch on the cockroaches. Not only have the islamists been exposed as a cancer on civilization, the domestic America haters have been shown to be the problem children they are.
As for WFB, I didn’t realize he was still around. So many of the once great could learn something from good old John Elway, and retire before their fans wished they would. I imagine after posting that load of rubbish, Buckley saw Davis Hansons peice and quoted Homer Simpson.(D’oh!)
Buckley’s been calling the war a failure since the first Bradley crossed the border. What else is new?
Although it was weirder’n hell listening to the MoveOnBots across the street quoting Buckley, O’Reilly and Michael Savage. I had to keep checking to make sure I was on the right corner…
WFB has ALWAYS represented the white-shoe, country club faction of the GOP which looked down it’s collective noses at anyone that expressed the belief that American lives and ‘treasure’ are worth expending to make the larger world a better place.
When JFK warned the world that the US would “pay any price, bear any burden” to spread liberty and democracy around the globe, I’ll bet old Bill chuckled into his martini glass and dismissed it as “Democrat adventurism”.
There is still a large contingent inside the GOP that wants a world “safe” for American multi-national corporations, but couldn’t care less about propagating liberty or personal freedoms amoungst the third-worlders. Part of that should be expected in a “big tent” party, but it certainly shouldn’t be the part of any party that dominates our foreign policy apparatus and it certainly doesn’t reflect the values of the modern day founder of the current GOP, Ronald Reagan.
In the name of the father and the holy ghost…and the Holy Spirit in ME!!!!!!!!!!
That voodoo that you do.
Shorter Shaun Ryder:
“Jeffy G’s all wet, LA’s drier…
“My name is Pinko Punko
“And I once fucked a friar”
Aw, that’s sweet of you. Thanks for the consideration, Jeff, on behalf of myself and all the other kids who were wee todd ed enough to think maybe this whole Iraq thing was a dumb idea in the first place.
But, ahem, you’ll forgive those of us who don’t think “[civil war] is not inevitable” is a great call to the masses. Would you mind, terribly, staking your opinion as to failure / success in Iraq? At long last, would you mind telling us what we ought to watch for to be able to say, there, there is how we know whether the Iraq invasion was a success or not?
I only ask because we’ve sat through the optimistic trotting out and eventual betrayal of each of the following purported rationales:
1) Ending Saddam’s WMD program;
2) Severing the ties between Saddam and al Qaeda;
3) Stopping the practice of torture in Iraq;
4) We must fight them there so we don’t fight them here, or in London;
5) Well, in retrospect, the process that led to us going in was a huge clusterfuck, but now that we’ve shot it up we can still manage things peacably without starting a civil war between the pro-Saddam Sunnis and the pro-Iranian Shiites… probably.
So, you know, it’s getting kind of tiring. Is there someplace you’d now be willing to agree we could mark as a clear “yes / no” on the fuckup continuum? Would you be willing, finally, to say about some benchmark that if it is not met, the entire Iraq adventure was a failure and the administration probably ought to be regretted? Is there anything, any measure at all, that you would be willing to accept as good evidence that—in retrospect, hindsight 20/20 and all that, in the fullness of time, giving you all the benefit of all those things that we liberals never needed in the first place—this whole Iraq thing wasn’t a good idea?
‘Cause, again, I’m just going through (1) through (5) up there, and it seems like if even this won’t convince you, then it seems like my side didn’t know we were playing Calvinball these years.
Everytime the al Qaedists reach for the next desperate attempt to stem the tide, the left apologists and group-think collectivists start vibrating like a motel bed in the hopes that at last America, and its hated true Democracy, has been sent off in the dust, and Socialism can rear its useless head.
– I see this as the last panicky cowardly quivers before the snake finally dies. If destroying the Mosques doesn’t work, theres nothing left. That they’re able to convince some animals that even destroying their own ancient symbols of their beloved Allah isn’t out of bounds, then so much for the so-called “intense religiosity†of the extreme Islamofascists. Its all a farce, and what most people with common sense knew it was all along.
– This isn’t a time to sag. This is the time to get even tougher. But for the Iraqui’s themselves, not for us. We’ve given them their chance at liberty. It is what it is. They either fight for their soveriegnty or they don’t. We’ve done pretty much all we can, except referee now. Saddam is toast. Old news. Iran and Syria are pretty much isolated now, and anything they do will be in a very clear fishbowl now.
– since the left view everything through a 5 minute attention span, they’ll keep yammering for a “Are we there yet” answer to something that will go on for several decades. Just as with children you pat them on the head, assure them it won’t be long now, and then go back to the responsible long term real world work.
Go back and study your history actus. Particularly in the 30’s. You’ll see what happens when Communistic groups practice sedition, insurection, and even sabotage, in
America. Even a self-serving idiot knows tolorance only goes just so far. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail. But you never know.
Wait, Mr. Big Bang Hunter. Are you suggesting that the United States saw a major anti-Communist crackdown in the 1930s? Or that said Commies were engaging in “sedition, insurection (sic), and even sabotage” in that decade?
Or was the decade correct and the place somewhere else? Because I can think of one place where they really knew how to deal with the Commies in their midst in the 1930s. Really showed ‘em what patriotism was all about, they did.
Hopefully cooler heads will prevail, indeed.
– Democracy, particlarly Representative, majority rule Republics, are the hated enemy of all forms of Totalitarinism, be it Fascism or Socialism/Communism/Marxism based regimes Mr. stickler.
– Any other questions?
Jack Roy —
Tell you what. Give us some benchmarks you’ll count as successes — be it the removal of Saddam, the elections, the Constitution, the coalition of Sunnis and Shia still holding together despite the best efforts of al Qaeda (actively) and people like you (in their hearts) to see the whole thing devolve into chaos and civil war and tribal bloodshed by those brown people you claim to care so much about—all so you can show everybody how smart you were not to think it a good idea to get involved in the freeing of 25 million people from a ruthless tyrant (then, for a follow-up, his charming sons waiting in the wings), with the hope that doing so could change the dynamic of a middle east that had already (during it’s “stable, the sanctions were working stage”) spawned the kind of anti-western terrorists who flew planes into our buildings, who Saddam was in contact with, and who we are now fighting—then we’ll talk.
Now go. Rub your chin and wryly proclaim yourself a foreign policy genius for bravely defending the pre 911 status quo. Base it on the hype people like you create. Self fulfill your prophecy, then reward yourself by rubbing one out to the thought of ol’ W weepin’ tears to Jesus.
But make sure you wear your ascot. You look so pensive and convincing in your ascot.
It continues to be sad that most who are so willing to cry doom at every corner, still can offer no alternative solutions that do not involve running away from murderous tyranny. What shall we do, build a large wall around the free bits of the world?
Are they really so dense as to not understand that running away as a course of action for the US has not served us well? That half measures more often than not will carry with them the requirement of a price to be paid later.
Buckley is really no moron, but he is missing the larger picture here. I understand his reluctance, because he is older, and because no matter what tyranny seems to just be a part of the world. For every fire we manage to stamp out, another seems to pop up.
Still, to do nothing is to give in completely to the evil that would willingly claim this world. That evil, has, and continues to be a part of this world really should not stop us from offering an alternative. Hope is eternal, but it needs often needs help. Our help.
http://www.blerings.com/TheEagle/ Just to provoke and unhinge the trolling moonbats, I give you Waylan.
TW: You want a PIECE of me?!
Jack Roy,
Fair question.
When we’re forced to nuke Mecca and/or Medina, I’ll admit the Iraqi adventure has failed. That will be done, if at all, by a Democratic Party President to appease you and the rest of the moonbats.
I’m amused by your list. It’s everything the leftards are willing to admit—basically making the point I made earlier: if something’s too complex for the Smart Party, they simplify it by eliminating anything they don’t understand, and since that’s almost the entirety of any given subject it leaves them with a very simple set of positions. They need a simple set of positions. They have simple minds.
It’s late, I have to go to bed; I’m off to Mexico on Sunday and there’s stuff to do. So, briefly: nothing on your list was a serious driver toward making war in Iraq. They were, at most, advertising slogans. You will no doubt repeat the lie that no other reasons were given. It remains a lie no matter how many times you repeat it; the fact that the New York Times and CBS News never told you anything different is a deficiency of the NYT and CBS, not of the reasons for war.
On the specific matter of WMD: find a statement, any statement, by a Democrat, Pacifist, or other leftist made prior to American boots-on-ground this time around which stated that Iraq had no WMD and described anything resembling the situation we actually have on the ground. Then list, at the risk of running Jeff’s server into the ground, all the predictions of mass American and Iraqi casualties from Saddam’s employment of WMD against the Imperialist invaders. Then, for amusement, pair each of the latter links with ones from the same people gleefully informing us that they new all along that there was no WMD in Iraq. I haven’t the time, and the list disappeared in a disk crash; do it yourself. Hint: the first search comes up very nearly empty; the second two produce a delightful set of pairings.
You won’t, of course. That’s because you’re a lying fuckwad. You aren’t opposed to war, or even war in Iraq. BJ Clinton could fling cruise missiles around at random and hand al Qaeda its first major success against the American military in Somalia, and your response was something between “Oh, how unfortunate” and “go team!” You are opposed to George W. Bush and will fight him to the last little brown baby, not out of any rational conviction but because he’s “not our sort, dear”. There’s a name for that: bigotry. Go away, bigot.
If I didn’t have to share the consequences I might wish you luck in your endeavors, but not even watching Excitable Andy being beheaded for depravity by the Sharia Court is worth any fraction of the price—part of which is that I don’t want him beheaded in the first place.
Regards,
Ric
I mean your words were ambiguous. I don’t understan what your reference to the thirties is. Then, we had increases in communist and socialist parties, and a government that moved leftward. If that’s what you want repeated, go for it!
Does this mean we can pull out?
People have been asking for measurable benchmarks for a while now. Usually its dismissed by the war party erroneously comparing benchmarks to a timetable. I would indeed like our leaders to give us some benchmarks that we can hold them accountable to.
– Its official now actus. You absolutely do have a reading comprehension problem, which makes it useless to even entertain your questions. Even in the form of patting you on the head, and assuring you it won’t be long now. Even that takes more of a viable perceptive capibility than you seem to be able to muster. Good luck.
The most annoying (and sad) aspect of the western (big L) liberal mindset is that they think that losing is an option here.
Anybody want to talk about a billion dead muslims?
Even though this war isn’t tageting Islam, the definition of the enemy is “Islamic fundamentalist”. And as time goes on, it seems that good muslims (the kind that don’t flood streets with howling mobs over cartoons) either aren’t much of a majority or they just aren’t there.
By the time we get past all our soul searching, our good intentions, our unbelievable restraint in search of a soft way to end the threat, we’ll get hit here at home again. Hugely.
The majority of people who ultimately determine who we pull the trigger on are not rabidly partisan. They also aren’t very well informed. Chances are they weight their news intake, when they bother to pay attention, to old media.
They won’t seek nuance. They will not allow surrender. They will demand an end to the threat. And we will open the big toolbox to get the job done. Hell, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi will race to be the first to vote “yes” on the declaration, too.
Let us lose in Iraq, and that will be the fallout.
No pun intended.
TW = forms. “Victory may take many forms. Defeat is always defeat.”
Isn’t that 6 of one, a half dozen of the other? [Zing! No seriously, take my wife.]
That one is for the fuckheadedness of my bestest pal, stickler.
Typical liberal simplisme.
Point of debate = wedge issue.
But they’re uniters, not dividers.
tw: It helps to do your own research
You must mean Comrade Stalin’s purge. Nasty business. Wouldn’t want to go through it. Nuh-uh.
Buckley doesn’t seem to understand that the Golden Mosque is a shrine because of its location. It will be rebuilt and be just as sacred as before.
The way things are going here, Americans don’t deserve the military we have, but one thing I know for sure, this defeatism will help assure that this thing makes things worse for us than Vietnam ever did.
Treat our allies as enemies; defend the civil liberties of our enemies. Yeah, that makes sense.
The last time they had the White House, the Dems allowed the Chinese to buy our ports and a bunch of our missile tech. And how many bases have they given us?
A John Connolly (sp?) has written a series of articles in American Spectator over the past 6 months or so (haven’t looked recently) opining from Iraq. In several of them he has mentioned that the consensus of views of ex-pats and Iraqis alike is that there would be a final burst of incredible violence before the defeat of the insurgency would be possible. I think the mosque bombing was it. We win.
A CIVIL WAR IN IRAQ ?
Yah think so..
Step right this way
I have some great beach front property for sale real cheap..
what
oh
its in this nice little undeveloped municipality ..
oh the name of the place
uhm..
err
New Orleans
why do you ask?
Well
your the one who claims civil war in Iraq
oh
now you get it..
you know kids
if civil war did not happen
3 weeks ago last year…
its not going to happen now
dont sell the Iraqi’s so sort..
Iraq is doing a hell of a lot more
as a government and a people than we did in New Orleans before during and after Hurricane Katrina
Buck-ee your up past your bed time
<objective in Iraq has failed.</i>
You know, I hate this shit when lefties do it, so I can hardly give Buckley a pass. I’m not allowed to doubt this, why? ‘Cause the sainted WFB says so? Fuck you, jack. I’ve been doubting a lot of pundit opinions on this war since the beginning. One building being demolished means we’ve lost the war? Well, shit. Guess we should have rolled over when they blew up two even bigger ones here. How did we ever recover, how did we go on? If we listen to this, WW2 ends with the Philippines and Kasserine, Korea with Task Force Smith, Vietnam with Tet. ‘Oh, horrors, the enemy attacked us! The war is lost!’
I’m late to the party so I’ll just reiterate a challege Locke gave to Jack Roy:
I’ve asked this same question hundreds of times on numerous sites and have NEVER had anyone attempt an answer.
Because there is none.
There is a way in which the war in Iraq has been a victory already. After 9/11, the one thing the American people wanted most was no more terror attacks. Everyone agreed, no more 9/11s, please. And that’s what George W. Bush has given us. The war in Iraq has been part of that strategy. That successful strategy to prevent any more terror attacks on America. So far.
I know trolls will say that doesn’t prove anything. Well, I reason that another terror attack here is inevitable. Sooner or later there will be another terror attack in America. If Bin Laden was willing to keep trying to bomb the World Trade Center then he will keep trying to blow up the other targets on his list. But, delaying the next terror attack is also a victory. Turning the next terror attack into a less damaging attack is a partial success. Even in the end if America gets nothing else from the war in Iraq we have already been able to delay the next terror attack and lessen its destruction. IMHO.
I checked the news this morning. No civil war in Iraq yet.
IVV, I want to see that receipt for your $10 gift to your local Republican Party. Scan it and email it to Jeff and ask him to post it. Or maybe you’d rather just renege.
tw: ideas
WFB may be right but if he is the mosque bombing fundamentally has nothing to do with it because if there was a will to blow that mosque up there was nothing we could do to stop it.
And anyway civil war in Iraq no longer means that Al Qaeda takes over. A civil war would most likely mean a Sunni bloodbath. The Shia are not known for their fondness of Al Qaeda.
If civil war breaks out, I think we should of course exhort them to stop, but I don’t think we should expend a lot of blood or bullets trying to stop it unless as seems unlikely that a faction aligned with Al Qaeda seemed likely to win. That may seem callous but at some point a little realpolitik has to enter our thinking. The fundamental reason for going into Iraq was NOT a humanitarian mission!!
um, i think there already is a civil war in iraq. there are different factions each fighting for control of the country. there has been for some time.
and yes, the u.s. can lose the war in iraq. there’s no such thing as a war that is unloseable. luckily, because the bush administration won’t lay out any concrete benchmarks for success, they can always claim victory no matter what happens.
forsa saida
[ed’s note: for posterity’s sake, I’m just going to start inserting these things into comments, because I am so sick of the same baseless assertions appearing again and again: National Strategy for Victory in Iraq]
upyernoz,
I guess you haven’t been paying attention. Bush has laid out a clear plan for victory and you can read it for yourself at the WH website.
Upyernoz:
Then you, like WFB, have a very strange definition of civil war, which normally involves pitched battles between opposing armies representing opposing political, institutions vying for national control.
The infantile level of the current political debate boggles the mind.
I guess you haven’t been paying attention. Bush has laid out a clear plan for victory and you can read it for yourself at the WH website.
you mean the Plan for Victory that boldly proclaimed that we will win the war in iraq when we have created “a Iraq that has defeated the terrorists”? if by “defeating terrorists” bush meant stopping all terrorism, then we will never win. as i wrote last november the plan is filled with nothing but hollow slogans. if taken seriously, it guarantees that we will lose because its language is so sweeping the goals can never realistically be achieved.
besides, less than five weeks after the Plan for Victory was announced, the bush administration abandonned it.
Then you, like WFB, have a very strange definition of civil war, which normally involves pitched battles between opposing armies representing opposing political, institutions vying for national control.
i think you’re the one with a strange definition. you don’t need “pitched battles” to have a civil war, you just need different factions fighting each other. is the term “low-level civil war” an oxymoron?
right now there are different groups using violence for political control over iraq. that is the definition of civil war. now maybe it doesn’t qualify as “all-out civil war” (wherever you draw that line), but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a civil war there at all.
The infantile level of the current political debate boggles the mind.
that one speaks for itself
upyernoz,
The link doesn’t prove anything about Bush’s plans…in any case the linchpin of what the US can do is what he laid out, ie train Iraqi security, turn over security to Iraqi’s, draw down US presence. That process is proceeding nicely.
I agree there is a lot of boilerplate BS but obviously if Iraqi sovereignty is to mean anything then it they who must shoulder the burden of avoiding large scale civil war and rebuilding their country. They clearly have the resources to do it themselves.
Sure you can define civil war a lot of different ways. Have at it. My definition would be that if a functioning national government can be formed then civil war does not exist. Time will tell.
Best scenario: turn over all of Iraq to national security forces, withdraw to desert and keep several divisions plus air force assets in Iraq for deterrence against full scale civil war and for strategic influence in the region. The costs will plummet and we will have a base in Iraq for the forseeable future. I predict that this will be the situation in Iraq within the next year.