From today’s WSJ:
[…]Many Democrats believe an American defeat in Iraq is etched in granite. They would not be the first to lose heart and will in war. Yet it is one thing to give up on a cause; it is quite another to advocate legislation (17 different proposals in all, according to Sen. Mitch McConnell) that would guarantee failure even before a new strategy is given time to work. This is especially the case when the preliminary trajectory of events is encouraging.
There will continue to be ebbs and flows in this war, as in all wars. But virtually everyone agrees that a loss in Iraq would be catastrophic for American national interests. We are facing among the most sadistic enemies we have ever encountered. There is much we do not understand about them and their worldview–but one thing is clear: They probe for weakness; they interpret retreat as a supreme sign of weakness; and when they find weakness, they strike.
If we retreat from Iraq, Islamic jihadists will not go gently into the good night.
We are now engaged in a pivotal war, which is itself part of an epic struggle. Gen. Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq who was confirmed by the Senate without a single vote in opposition, is one of America’s great military minds and one of America’s great military commanders. Why oh why, then, are so many Democrats spending so much of their time and creative energy in an effort to undermine Gen. Petraeus’s new strategy instead of supporting it? Even granting the partisan politics of this city, the effort by Democrats is a remarkably revealing thing to witness. “Come home, America” and McGovernism are back with a vengeance—and like Round One, in 1972, it will leave a lasting imprint on the minds of Americans, for years to come.
Certain probative questions tend to get lost in all the partisan fingerpointing, so they are worth rehearsing again and again. First, do Democrats believe the nature of the terrorist threat as described? If not, they should be clear about just how serious they gauge the threat from Islamists; if so, how can they possibly justify the legislative action they’ve been taking to hamstring the fighting of the war?
Of course, this set of questions presupposes other pivotal questions—namely, what do the Democrats believe will happen should the US “lose” the war? That is, how married are they to the Vietnam template they’ve been working from for the last several years? Do not congressional Democrats (and a handful of Republicans) owe us a clear and concrete explanation of how they think things will play out should they succeed in their legislative aims?
After all, it is one thing to enlist emotional appeals to gin up support for an “end of violence” and for “bringing our boys and girls home”; but it is another thing entirely to conspicuously ignore the likely effects of such an action—or to at least describe, to the American public, what they believe will happen should they get their way legislatively.
None of which they seem particularly eager to do. And for good reason: the aftermath of Vietnam is one part of the template that the Democrats don’t like to focus on, save domestically, where they recognize that it was responsible for kneejerk legislation that weakened the US military and, in so doing, launched us into the era of ennui and Carter governance. Both of which, it seems to me, are preconditions for the popular embrace of transnational progressivism—something we narrowly avoided thanks to the idealism and muscularity of Reaganism. As a matter of foreign policy, though, Vietnam showed how we could be beaten, if not militarily, than through propaganda and our own bumpersticker moralism.
Vietnam emboldened every enemy we’ve had since. Carter made matter worse—projecting an American face to the world that showed worry lines, riddled by its own supposed historical guilt and wanting nothing more than to be unexceptional.
The return of this ethos—this “new” fear and loathing—is nothing more than the resurfacing of a radical aesthetic seeking to influence culture through the venue of politics.
Such a worldview was dangerous during the Cold War; but now, with an implacable enemy unconstrained by worries over borders, it is downright suicidal.
And so again I ask: what is the liberal Democratic plan? How do they see the world and our place in it?
We deserve answers. Instead, we get bromides and vitriol—and a constant stream of political maneuvers whose sole purpose, it seems at first blush, is to weaken our ability to defend ourselves against enemies both foreign and domestic.
(h/t Terry Hastings)
This is something that has puzzled me from the beginning.
I understand the principal objection to the war seems to be that it is “Just Too Hard.” But do they seriously believe if we withdraw from Iraq that there will be no consequences? That we will somehow magically return to the halcyon days when nobody had ever heard of jihad?
The liberal Democratic plan? Same as it ever was. Kneecap the US in the pursuit of the defeat of capitalism. Sad but true.
This is the single biggest question I have for the democrats and fearful libertarians. Until we can agree on that (the nature and potential of the threat), the endless noise of partisanism will rear its ugly head and stifle REAL solutions. But, I am not sure I even know what they think the threat may be or even if there is a threat at all. I tend to think that they don’t “feel” there is a threat from islamists at all. I get this from all the moral equivalency they engage in. “The fundamentalist Christians are just as bad as the fundamentalist Muslims” bullshit. I realize that Rosie is a complete psycho, but too many other democrats share her “view”. And that frightens me more than any islamofascist muhammedan. Because if they are that freaking ignorant of the initial, thus TRUE, teachings of the two religions, then there may be no hope for them to recognize the present threat.
As to how this pertains to the battle in Iraq, I understand, because I seem to share to a certain extent, the case against resuming the battle. However, that is done. Dan, I believe, has already shown that to go back in time is NOT possible, so they must deal with the reality that is, not the one that they wish. We are killing far more of them, than we ever have. Is this a bad thing? To the idiots (and the special idiots), I guess it is. We cannot leave too soon. It’s as simple as that.
Jeff,
Don’t expect any answers, it seems to the majority of the anti-war crowd there is no war going on, only the foreign policy of the Bush Administration. The majority of these legislative maneuvers are calculated political moves either to appease their base or show up the Bush Administration – since the majority of the actors realize that they will never pass anything or that if they do, the bill will get Vetoed in the process. None of them addresses any further concerns regarding terrorism, other then to strengthen ports & travel security – w/ union based work forces – & do nothing about the border. They can’t even be bothered to offer a good defensive strategy, other than repealing the Patriot Act, for fear of offending the Hispanic Vote which they’ll need to re-gain the executive Branch.
So much like their views regarding terrorism during the 1990’s & pre 9/11, Democrats think further terrorist attacks are something that will never happen, again, or are treating it like it’s a law-enforcement issue to be addresses solely economically, since their political capital is being spent to taint any military responses as impotent, ineffective or the product of corporate interests.
The politicalization of the war has forced them into the position where it must always be treated politically & never as a stand-alone, foreign policy agenda. Since any bi-partisanship on their sides only legitimizes their political opponents position’s & jeopardizes possible political gain. I think that the majority realize that success is the only acceptable outcome for the American people & thus they are playing the game of appearing like they do not support the war, are in favor of ending it, but are in essence dragging their heels long enough for any real, long term success to hopefully be attributed to their side after the 20008 Presidential Election.
Don’t worry.
The press will dig deep into the bottom of this and vociferously demand answers from this crowd of timorous lawmakers. Our very proud, patriotic, flag-waving, troop-supporting, CinC-respecting, fourth estate will NOT let this stand.
I fully expect Sixty Minutes to run an in-depth expose on the dreadful ramifications of a full troop withdrawal from Iraq. This hard hitting news piece will forcefully remind us of the bloodshed left in the aftermath of our short-sighted and opportunistic withdrawal from SE Asia. Replete with historical footage of the Cambodian killing fields and a blistering overview of the Khmer Rouge’s atrocities. Further footage of millions of Vietnamese boat people will rend the heart of every viewer. ABC’s Nightline will send hard bitten correspndents into Iraq and interview everyday Iraqis about the consequences of a US troop pullout. NBC’s David Gregory will accost an startled John Kerry on the steps of the Capitol and demand answers as to why we would just leave Iraq without stabilizing it first. NPR will devote an hour long segment on the bloody chaos that will ensue if the US withdraws prematurely from Iraq…
The Democrats seem not to think the threat serious. Their leadership thinks that the war in Iraq (specifically) and the greater War on Terror are simply chips to be bet for the political pot of power. To me it seems they actually believe it worth the risk because in their minds they can and will ride in and save the day. Once they have the power.
In a 2006 paper for the liberal Brookings Institution, Daniel L. Byman and Kenneth M. Pollack predicted that a sudden US pull-out would result in “a humanitarian nightmare” in which we should expect “hundreds of thousands (conceivably even millions) of people to die.”
This is consistent with what US intelligence agencies have concluded as well.
In the face of this remarkable consensus Senator Murtha simply stood up, looked into the television cameras, and intoned that we need to pull out of Iraq in order to reduce the violence there.
So, no, they don’t think that they owe us any explanations. Are they ”lying about the intelligence” now?
* Just a reminder Jeff, according to progressive orthodoxy we have no domestic enemies. Confused? Let me explain. Anyone who is able to penetrate the borders of this country (illegal aliens, terrorists etc) becomes while not in a legal sense but as far as progressives are concerned a citizen of this country. Progressive orthodoxy also tells us that anyone occupying US territory is automatically a “patriot” irrespective of any contrary actions they may have taken. Therefore, it is impossible for this country to have domestic enemies. We only have friends we haven’t been killed by yet.
Oh and before someone jumps my ass, yes there is a special category for Reichwingers and paste eaters like yourselves. You are friends who haven’t been sent to the work farm for re-education yet.
Answers to those questions will come after Democrats are in charge of all branches of government and not a moment before, thank you. And those questions won’t even be asked because the MSM has no interest in holding a leftist to account…until all branches of government are in the hands of leftists.
BTW, where’s alpo’s “contribution” to the discussion? I’ve been waiting for the little munchkin to explain this to us with one of his patented non sequiturs.
Alpo?
Alpo?
Bueller?
Well then I have a question for you, Jeff.
Who has time to answer grave, life and death questions about a war “. . .we were tricked into supporting!â„¢ ” when faced with the daunting specter of drafting subpoenas that will FINALLY bring down the earth’s only true evil?
Hello? November 2006? Mandate! So, you know … WE’LL be the ones asking the questions, pal.
Obviously many of the people who want an immediate US pull-out from Iraq are bat-shit crazy, but some of them are not, and I have been trying to understand the reasoning of this latter group.
It seems to me that they are proceeding from the premise that all of the violence and instability in Iraq is triggered by, or in reaction to, the American presence there.
I have yet to see anyone offer any support for this basic assumption, and to me it doesn’t seem right. It seems to me that most of the instability is the result of different interest groups competing to fill the power vacuum that was created by the fall of the Baathist regime.
Since the US is the only broker between these groups, it seems to me that the best hope for a solution is for the US to remain engaged in trying to reach a political accomodation between them, while helping to maintain security. If the US were to simply pull out and go home the result is not likely to be the peace and stability that the neo-McGovernites are promising.
Of course there are some elements in Iraq who see their primary mission as fighting the US. These are mostly the radical jihadists who want to war against America anytwhere they can. It seems to me that Iraq is a better battlefield than, say, Manhattan, for engaging this particular enemy..
Plan for what, slack?
The best counters to paranoia are therapy and medication.
Slack: Hat’s off. You called it, dude.
Wait no longer:
I think that posturing aside and discounting the senile fools like Murtha, most democrat lawmakers do see the national threat when they listen to their consciences. It’s just that they see offending the nutroots as a more personal threat. If we’re lucky the distinctions between those vulnerable to worrisome progressive demographics and the Blue Dog democrats vulnerable to worrisome conservative demographics will become clear enough to tilt the democrats with less reelection strictures the way of conscience.
“Plan for what, slack?”
-alphie
Aldo,
Here’s a report by the U.S. Army that says 70% of the attacks in Iraq are against U.S. military personnel.
So, we pull out and violence drops 70% in Iraq.
So, of course, we send even more troops to Iraq.
Usually you send an Army into a country to increase the level of violence there.
Iraq has proven this rule.
I have yet to here an argument to the contrary.
I’m sure Greenwald (PBUH) could explain this all to us if we would just refrain from questioning his masculinity.
alphie,
http://www.quickstopentertainment.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/fredhembeck2007-03-09.jpg
Fuck off, jihadi boy.
I betcha we could stop a lot of forest fires if we cut down all the trees, too.
Sorry all, should have been
alphie
Fuck off, jihadi boy
Alphie,
I pulled up the link and didn’t find that 70% stat, but don’t bother looking for another source, because it is meaningless.
The Sunnis and Shiites (and others) are locked in a struggle for power, and the US is currently standing between them, so obviously our troops are taking the fire.
Your assumption seems to be that if the US troops pull out the attacks will stop, and rainbows and unicorns will appear. My assumption is that if the US troops pull out the situation will devolve into all-out civil war, and the liberal Brookings Institution agrees.
It would be a lot easier to discount Murtha if he wasn’t one of the most powerful United States Senators.
Alphie,
Obstinacy and ignorance really aren’t charming personality traits. Nor is imperviousness to facts, reasoning and logic. Nor is obtuseness. In fact, they are all quite annoying and infantile.
But I expect you know this. It’s rather pathetic.
Now, if I can get everyone else to ignore you–as I will after this post–maybe you’ll just go away. Your mewling for attention is getting really, really old.
The sad thing is it’s not just the democrats who don’t have a plan. The GOP members who are hedging their electoral chances by flaking on the war are just as guilty.
The most annoying whining I hear from the defeatists is the “war is lost” mantra.
Look you fucking morons, The war in Iraq is over, and has been since around April of 2004. Since then we have been providing security for the new administration while they make it to their feet.
We did the same thing in Germany, Japan, South Korea, etc. We are STILL in all of these places.
Oh, I almost forgot- I took a dump today and names it alphie.
Murtha is a member of the House, not a powerful senator.
It just takes a little math, Aldo.
Attacks in Iraq, January:
Against Iraqi security forces: 930
Against civilians: 1550
Against U.S. military personnel: 5580
…but don’t bother looking for another source, because it is meaningless.
There is no counter to magical thinking?
Assuming an unknown future supports your position isn’t reason, it’s actually the opposite of reason.
Plenty of people, including most Iraqis, think the level of violence will drop in Iraq after a U.S. pullout.
The above numbers show why.
Willfully obtuse, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, alpo.
Now that I’ve got that out of my system, can we reinstitute the “IGNORE THE RETARDED TELEPHONE POLE!” rule?
Wait . . . Increase troop numbers, revise the ROE to enhance enemy-killing opportunities >> the bad guys don’t like it, escalate attacks against us.
What are the odds? Reasonable folks would look at a trend like that and figure we must be looking at a very small time frame in a much longer war against an enemy who have convinced people like Alphie that retreat is victory.
Still, it would have been way cheaper and faster just to nuke the place, right Alph?
Alphie,
Why on earth are you citing numbers, linking articles, and pasting – all from different sources?
None of the data you’ve claimed, or links you have provided have anything to do with each other, except in the most general sense.
Could you at least make sure that your evidence points to your evidence?
Thanks!
BRD
Two warnings, Aldo:
1. Alphie gets sexually excited every time the jihadis discover a new atrocity to commit.
2. Alphie is not an intellectually honest person. He will interpret your words any way he wants, and when you try to clarify, he will ignore you. He will cite “sources” that do not support his claims, or even that contradict him. He will make wild claims, and when corrected, he will ignore the correction or change the subject.
He’s a poo-flinging monkey. Debate him if you want, but you should be warned about what you’re getting into.
Plenty of people, including most Iraqis, think the level of violence will drop in Iraq after a U.S. pullout.
So you contend that the people committing those attacks will go home to peaceful lives after the pullout?
You don’t think they will focus on another target, like the new Iraqi government?
Knowing the allegience of those 5580 attackers would be helpful here. I think if they mostly wound up being shia you could make a reasonable case for a lot of them laying down thier arms after we left. If they are sunni, perhaps not so many.
By the way, anyone figure out why there have been 1500 attacks on civilians if the Iraqis are upset that we’re there?
Well, after Vietnam, they could say “we didn’t know that was going to happen” with a straight face. I hope Frank Church died knowing he had enabled mass murder on a scale not seen since the Holocaust.
Now, we have no excuse.
Representative, as someone pointed out, but more to the point, he is far from being one of the most powerful congressman. He’s served with little distinction as chairman on committees, but seniority plays more into chairing a committee than individual power/clout.
Historically, when the majority shifts congressmen are often moved off one committee and reappointed to another less critical committee or to one with someone more senior already on board. It clear’s the way for someone with real power to take the chair. This actually happened to Mutha under Pelosi if I’m not mistaken (would have to check to make sure my memory is correct.
Murtha was a local rather than national figure until his pitiable state of confusion made him a colorful media staple and from there to the stalking horse darling of the nutroots. You have to be taken seriously by your colleagues in the legislature to have any real power and by all accounts, the real leaders on both sides consider him useful on occasion, but more often simply embarrassing.
BRD: DUH! That’s OUR guys attacking the civilians. Please. Can’t you keep the memes straight?
I should have said insider accounts, not all accounts.
Alphie,
You know, honestly, if your intent is to be contrarian, being a little less obtuse, a little less predictable, and occasionally giving credit where due would do wonders. As it is, you’re just not getting any traction, and doing more to dissuade people reading your arguments than anything else.
BRD
@ All,
This is really a post that I had rather hoped some of the folks who oppose the war would have piped up about. I would hate to think that the sole response is going to be avoidance.
BRD
BRD,
I would bet the farm that they are vigorously piping up somewhere. But since the post here is a link, I imagine the usual suspects aren’t connecting it tightly to this site. Like the response pattern to your essays trying to promote some thought on the immediate aftermath of a catastrophic native strike, I suspect the opposition inclined to gainsay this theme is again be gathering in favorable venues. Unlike that response pattern, since this site isn’t the natal forum for the theme, they aren’t turning their collective thoughts here.
BRD,
I am not sure what it is you are looking for. Iraq was invaded in 2003 & I have yet heard a reasoned argument from those that do not support it w/o resorting to unqualified arguments or conspiracy theories.
The list I believe goes: No WMDs, illegal war, Bush lied, Saddam wasn’t involved in 9/11, coalition wasn’t big or broad enough, took resources from catching Osama, it was a pre-9/11 NEOCON plot, it’s all for the oil, innocent civilians being purposely targeted & killed, etc.
Their arguments for leaving once there are: it’s un-winnable, too many American causalities, the cost & Bush lied.
None can hold their own weight & generally take about 2 questions to see that the person giving these reasons have no understanding of the 1st Gulf War, Vietnam, politics, the law, history or any understanding of the military or the government in general.
You want a reasoned response, they haven’t managed to offer a reasoned economic plan since Johnson’s War on Poverty. Hell, we’re in our 6th year, post 9/11, & they still haven’t managed to produce a “reasonable†plan to deal w/ terrorists or prevent another attack, much less are able to provide a rational response in why the war isn’t worth winning or cannot be won. The majority are unable to look beyond their hatred for Bush, that anything perceived as aiding him, such as success in Iraq or Afghanistan is immediately & vehemently eviscerated & questioned.
For a while, I tried to construct some good reasons not to go into Iraq – reasons I could be compelled to buy in to. It was principally a thought exercise to give some of the more rabid folks a point of entry into debate. Still haven’t heard a lot of compelling discussions, and none in particular have tackled the most glaring and obvious problem: at what point do we want to establish the precedent that blowing up cars at shopping malls cannot be trumped by half the global defense budget and 20% of global GDP? That particular scenario has no good outcome.
Murtha on Late Edition, in response to a letter by former Sen. Santorum imploring him to let the troops fight:
No, I can’t figure it out either. Then he goes on to, apparently, base his position that all will be hunky dory there as soon as we run, because Bush said it would go to hell:
Scary stuff.
BRD,
I’m not sure what you mean by obtuse in this case. I show you stats from the army that show a vast majority of the attacks in Iraq are directed at our forces.
It’s reasonable to conclude that these attacks would stop if we pulled our troops out of Iraq. Indeed, I can’t see how they’d continue if we weren’t there.
Obtuse is not admitting that people just don’t like foreign troops occupying their country and tend to fight those troops.
And there it is.
“I am incapable of independent thought. If Bush says it, I must swerve into the other lane.”
That’s their plan, Jeff: Willful intellectual dishonesty.
Amoeba rectum, having never read a history book of any kind believes the Lebanese/Chinese/Greek/American/Russian/Spanish Civil Wars were all about foreign troops. Because when they left all attacks stopped, right?
Right?
I mean the North Vietnamese behaved themselves after 1973. Right?
Willful intellectual dishonesty.
That’s his name.
Talk about willful dishonesty.
The Vietnam War started because we refused to allow a vote because we were (rightly) afraid the commies would win it.
The Vietnam War ended in an invasion of the south because…we refused to allow a vote because we were (rightly) afraid the commies would win it.
Mindless belligerency isn’t a policy, it’s a disease.
Even worse, Rob, he’s armed with a poo flinging atlatl.
I mean something like
is absolute world record poo-chucking.
As well as comedy gold.
Exactly. I don’t see why you guys don’t understand this. If we get attacked, we turn and run and the fighting stops, like in Somalia.
And so the Alphie STILL refuses to answer any of Jeff’s questions. His entire plan is:
1. Surrender
2. The Bad guys will all go home and not botther us again.
So I’ll repeat Jeff’s questions directly to him:
1. Do YOU Alphie believe the nature of the terrorist threat as described?
If not, please be clear about just how serious you gauge the threat from Islamists. If so, how do you possibly justify the legislative action Democrats have been taking to hamstring the fighting of the war?
2. What do YOU Alphie believe will happen should the US “lose†the war?
3. What is YOUR Plan Alphie? How do you see the world and our place in it?
I am afraid at this point I am going to have to adopt A fine Scotch’s return of the do-not-engage-the-typing-telephone-pole policy.
Said the pussy-boy who would never defend his country against any foreign occupier.
Much like Mike Dukakis alphie wouldn’t even defend his wife against a rapist….
The Muslims are a peace-loving people. They don’t hate us, they hate the imperialistic Bushbots. When we’re in power and pull the troops out of Iraq they won’t have any further reason to fight! /sarcasm
Did I get that about right?
I see the nature of the threat, SGT.
I don’t think anything the U.S. military is doing currently is reducing that threat. I believe the U.S. military is actually increasing the terrorist threat to America while pissing away hundreds of billions of dollars a year that would be better spent elsewhere.
I believe when we pull out of Iraq, the people will pick a government they can all live with and start repairing all the damage we’ve done to their country.
My plan, as always, is to let the people of Afghanistan and Iraq vote on whether our troops should remain in their countries or not.
Alphie,
Suppose I told you that 70% of would-be armored car robbers attacked armored car guards, and only 30% attacked innocent bystanders.
Would you infer that the way to reduce armored car robberies would be to remove the guards?
The people who are attacking our troops in Iraq are not doing so out of anger at Bush over Plame-gate. They are attacking our troops because the troops are preventing them from violently taking power in Iraq.
BTW, Are you Al Gore? Wasn’t it Gore who tried unsuccessfully to be an Alpha male on the advice of his consultants?
Actually, Major, the thread scans a lot better if you just bypass the tpoles comments.
He is committing the sin of becoming tedious. Is this the best they’ve got?
And I think the earth rests on the breasts of a giant Shannon Elizabeth floating in an sea of bubblegum-colored ether.
At least my willful intellectual dishonesty can serve another purpose.
Resolved: I have to ignore this guy. Really. This time I mean it.
Oh, Shannon, dear….
Dick Cheney?
Of course you don’t….
‘CUZ OF THE CYCLE OF VIOLENCE!
Because that is how they get more money to gove to Dick Cheney.
‘Elsewhere’ meaning better spent on alphie’s wife so she wouldn’t nag him so much about being a feckless deadbeat who would eat at the same hamburger stand every day….
And all the My Little Ponies would learn that they are really Princesses!
TW: Me’h… I’m done57 trying to engage this idiot in useful debate and will follow the ‘poo-flinging telephone pole’ doctrine….
I saw her just today in a nitrous oxide dentist induced fog, it was red delicious apple colored Hubba Bubba though…
TW: good34; hmm coulda sworn great36
So I guess that means all those millions of boat people were just sore losers.
Is this the same Alphie?
You and I are both assuming an unknown future. I am relying on the judgment of the Brookings Institution (hardly a hotbed of neoconservatism) and the intelligence agencies that an immediate US pullout would result in a terrible bloodbath.
You are relying on bad logic and your gut feeling.
As disgusted and dispirited as I am with the Iraqi people’s will to try to coalesce into at least a secure confederation, one thing is clear. Demanding that the citizens of a supposedly sovereign nation vote on their occupier seems, ironic at best, and asinine at worst.
There is some evidence that the surge might make a positive difference. G. Bush went ahead with it despite good advice to the contrary. Fait accompli, so we need to give all the support needed. Petraeus could pull this out of the abyss; I can only hope.
Like in Somalia, huh, alphie?
B Moe, you know who else like Somalia as an example? Osama bin laden. I’m just sayin.
It also ignores that we remain in Iraq at the fervent invitation of the democratically elected government of Iraq.
If there’s a sense of the Iraqi people it’s clearly: “Yes, we want them out! But not yet.”
Actually you have the answer you are looking for if you interpret alpo’s answers correctly. WE are the problem. If we stop our evil-doing, everything will go well.
Re-read alpos’ comments and you will find that I have summarized his thought perfectly. And make no mistake; he is the voice of the democrat party.
You see alpo does not believe that Jesus loves you; Allah wants you dead.
Who the fuck are you, alphie, to call anyone around here by half their moniker? You’re not one of the boys. You’re a fucking disgrace. Go out and drink on the stoop, idiot.
The last time somebody pranced around here without their pants on thinking it was cute they called it actus. Don’t think it’s any less obvious this time around.
You’re being rightfully patronized twenty times a thread. A man would walk away.
My point was that telling supposedly independent people that they must vote about anything doesn’t obtain. Independent people with a sovereign nation don’t take orders from anybodoy. We need to shit or get off the pot.
No, this is not like VietNam at all, where we faced a fierce enemy who was ideologically oppoosed to us, but who was remote. Now in America we have an enemy who is culturally and ideologically opposed to us, and is infiltrating our society.
But nascent Irag faces those same challenges with none of the cultural and (even breif, though unifying) historical understucture to buttress it.
That’s why we’re there, I think. This idiotic administration didn’t do a shit bit of due diligence to prep for the aftermath.
Goddamn I am getting tired of hearing this shit. We have a bunch of little BDS lefty college students working for us, most of them can’t get out of the office in the morning without falling over their own shoelaces and can barely figure out how a shovel works with a fucking months training, but ask them about Iraq and they could quell a fanatic insurgency, completely build a government and infrastructure, and be hosting Dave Mathews concerts over there in a matter of weeks.
You want to talk due diligence, go take some courses in construction engineering and logistics, military planning and logistices, public utilities and logistics, political propoganda and rhetoric and logistics and logistics and some fucking more logistics then you might be ready to hold an intelligent conversation.
I don’t think we had any idea we’d win the war so quickly, but the screwup was in the run up to the war. We were forced to wait too long by the UN, fair weather allies, countries benefiting from the oil for food scams and so on. None of those factors might have slowed us on their own merits, but they were handy tools for alphie’s fellow travelers in the US which made the difference.
The weapons and ordnance salted away while we dithered enabled the Baathists and AlQ in place to do the dirty deeds until Syria and Iran set up to support. That may not have been the plan, but it is the way it worked out. Had the Baathists and jihadi boys not had that initial cache, things would have developed very differently.
B Moe: Fair enough. I will equate due diligence with logistics planning. Happy? Either way, didn’t happen here.
It is happening there everyday, cynn. Just because you and alphie don’t think so has little bearing on the reality of the situation.
I would like you to try an experiment this weekend. See how much planning, preperation and practice it takes for you to cook a 3 minute egg in a minute and a half.
Just Passing Through:
That always seemed to me a fairly obvious point that has been studiously ignored.
In a similar light, imagine how much more effective “The Surge” might have been had we not been required by domestic politics to laboriously and publicly debate the tactic.
B Moe— You are comparing pacifying / subduing Iraq with cooking a godammed egg? What’s more relevant in this case: How long the egg takes to incubate, and how long it takes the chick to reach maturity, and how long it takes the hen to lay an egg, and then how long it takes to cook it?
You make it sound like TV. Get over yourselves.
cynn, I really wish I could respond to your sweeping, and incorrect, generalization without resorting to dreadful insults. I cannot, so I will not reply beyond saying that your sweeping generalizations don’t hold up well when you look at what has been done, and why.
Try setting expectations at something less than the Justice League and the Superfriends go fix Iraq in a 30 minute episode. The reason people like B Moe, myself and other get frustrated and angry at you is that you bitch alot, and offer no solutions, offer noevidence other than an outstretched finger saying “lo, error! Recoil and let it implode”. Some of us (ie. Real JeffS) have alot of training and experience in what it takes to get things going again.
If you’d like we could adopt the Russian plan for insurgency fighting and reconstruction. Carpet bomb cities (ie. Grozny) kill everyone we can and leave the ruins behind. If you want neo-Chechnya, fine. I don’t.
Fuck you and your filthy metaphor, neocon! Damn you straight to hell…along with the general population of Iraq.
Because, you know, I don’t have 3 minutes.
Well,
Maybe one of the “experts” at nation building here could give us a rough guesstimate as to how long it will take to quell the insurgency in Iraq?
No need to be precise, the nearest year will do.
Yeah, let’s all repeat the same things over and over as if alpo has never heard then before and as if this time they’ll sink in!
Then again, my toenails could use a clipping. How about yours?
most definitely, flip-flop season just started here.
I figure, Pablo, clipping one toenail a year, and maybe the opposing thumbs and index fingers as well, would give a rough estimate to our time spent, and to come, in Iraq and clippings well spent at that:
From Belmont Club:
Here’s the deal. I gladly pay my taxes, and I assume I’ve got the best military in the world. And that’s true.
If I have offended anyone, pleae forgive. I’m not sure who I’m angry at now, but it sure isn’t the folks who risk their lives every day.
… and yes, I am pathologically angry. Must be the lack of Tums at the Paki store.
Every time I find myself angry at decisions/mistakes made early on, I remind myself that we have no idea of how things would have played out otherwise. Things could be even worse.
Cynn,
It’s a wee bit past my bedtime, so I’ll have to forgo most of the discussion until tomorrow, but I’ll try to give the best explanation that I can in this bit.
A) We won the War against Saddam right quick—about half the time at maybe 1/10 the casualties, as far as I can tell.
B) We expected facts on the ground to justify the invasion across the board. This, obviously, didn’t happen.
C) We expected this to be a relatively straight-up fight, rather than turning into a proxy war with Iran and Syria.
Obviously you can see that the administration’s crystal ball wasn’t working properly.
However, being where we’re at, we are at, essentially in the same ugly, Godawful headspace that most wars turn in to. Fortunately, this time around, we have something on the order of 10% of the casualties that we have any right to expect.
The downside is that there are those who would have us lose, simply to assuage their own opposition from the outset. As it happens, I don’t actually include yourself, Dour Steve, or even Alphie in that group, yet they exist. Nonetheless, those who do counsel failure, destruction, and loss pave the way of defeat. And to be explicit, the path of defeat is when we as a country and people decide that those who cut the heads off of civilians and carbomb kids getting candy are able to control the debate, have the last word, and remain in control of the ground, then we’ve not only lost Iraq, we’ve lost anything and everything worth fighting for.
Please accept my apologies for any rant-like screed, and take the commentary in the best spirit in which it is intended.
BRD
Jeff,
I take strong issue with the title of the article. “McGovernism Returns” implies that it at some time t (where t is a time between 1972 and the present, McGovernism departed. The McGovern wing has always been around – fighting the good fight against Reagan’s defense buildup in the ‘80s, burying its’ colective head in the sand re: Radical Islam in the ‘90s. Cozy to dictators (Chavez, Mugabe, Saddam et al are this generation’s Castro, Pol Pot, and Stalin).
Another Bob,
Yes it is, And yes it has been. And it’s one of the more important reasons why things are not as they should be at this point. We had Islamofascisim down and nearly out after Afghanistan. In the time between then and rolling across the border in Iraq, we let them up. There are people in this country who enabled that for no better reason than political angst over losing an election to the other party.
BRD,
You’re wrong about Alphie and his fellow travelers. There was a very critical speech in 2001 that boils down to you stand against terrorism or you stand with it. There’d be no middle ground. That applies to the individual as well as countries. There are plenty of principled liberals in this country who can and do argue against the way the WoT is executed without conning themselves or others that the need to fight it isn’t real. I can accept that. I’m not sure they aren’t right in many particulars. I even agree with them in some particulars. Alphie represents the unprincipled progressive. The sneering elitists who think this is a game and the vapid arguments and sophomoric attitudes found at 3am in some college dorm bull session are unassailable and would protect us all from the long knives if only the hoi poiloi would listen. Alphie thinks he’s the reasonable man, the voice of moderation. He isn’t. He the man on middle ground. He and the useful fools like him stand with the other side because they enable the other side and the other side is counting on them to continue doing so. I’ve called him jihadi boy as a way to express my feelings about him succinctly, but in actual fact, he no more has their resolution than he does mine. He’d just rather you and I be dead than he be wrong.
Jeff, would you put this as the first comment on every political thread? It’s the most succinct explanation of alp*ie I’ve seen.
It was the simplest metaphor for my point I could come up with. If you are to dense for metaphors maybe I am wasting my time.
All of them, the time frame of none of these things could be significantly altered by more preperation. They all take as long as they take. I have a friend who does carpentry, primarily restoration/renovation on old houses. When asked to give estimates all you ever get out of him are “the cost of the materials and $XX/hr. labor, because once you start taking out walls, etc, you can never anticipate what the job is actually going to entail and how long it is going to take.
No, I make it sound like how it really is, you make it sound like TV, every program fitting into a neat little time slot.
To the experts here:
Has there ever been a guerilla war/insurgency that survived without outside help?
The baby’s crib is on fire and you’re going to cook an egg over it?
Baby-crib-fire is the single most important issue that faces our nation today!!!!
The planet has a FEEEVAH!!!!!
Feel it’s forehead. It’s burning up!!!! We need to load a rocket full of Tylenol and shoot it into the mouth of the Nile. The thermometer that we stuck into the Grand Canyon is about to explode!!!
SEND MONEY!!!!
“Daddy, do terrorists want to kill us?”
“Ha Ha…..no honey, they want to kill each other. Now hold still while I put this SPF 80 on your eyelids. Don’t blink today, this stuff really burns. If you don’t catch fire at recess, I’ll see you when you get home. Have a great day!”
“Nine women cannot have a baby in one month.”
Alphie,
As noted in an article cited elsewhere, an insurgency, on average, takes 8-10 years to run down. Granted, the US portion of that may not be nearly that long, depending on the speed with which the local forces can be stood up. However, I tend to think of reliance on early standup to be something of uncertain value, and have just been thinking in the 8-10 timeframe myself.
BRD
N O’Brain,
I’m still uncoffeed so don’t take my word as gospel, but the ‘insurgency’-type things I can think of off-hand that have survived without outside support tend to be either very coup-like or ongoing regional instabilities that bear a lot more resemblance to lawless areas run by warlords, rather than proper insurgencies.
In the sense of an insurgency that’s operated on a large, even national scale, acted as a military force, and proved a legitimate ongoing threat to the central government, there aren’t a whole lot coming to mind right this instant.
BRD
Posted by Bravo Romeo Delta | permalink
on 03/22 at 05:39 AM
The “Spanish Ulcer” ran on English gold sovereigns.
The IRA used American dollars and Soviet supplied weapons.
The French resistance during WWII was supported by the OSS and SOE.
The Vietnamese NLF was a puppet front for tne NVA.
Interesting.
cynn,
I appreciate the fact that you are one of the few people generally to the left of most of the commenters here. I appreciate that generally you try to engage points, rather than obfuscating (cf. alphie, actus) or just generally being nasty to commenters (cf. retardo, mona). However, incredible stupidity such as “This idiotic administration didn’t do a shit bit of due diligence to prep for the aftermath” is just B(D)S.
Do you know who’s in charge of “war gaming”? Do you know what the assumptions underlying their war games were? Do you understand that if their assumptions were wrong (as time has proven), the situation on the ground will be much different than what they expected?
Honestly, you remind me of this leftie classic:
N O’Brain,
Ok, I’ve sort of got one – FARC in Colombia, although anymore, they’re really just another group of narcoterrorists with delusions of ideology.
You’ve also got the regionals like the ongoing Mindanao hubub, and the Phillipine Communists, but again, over time they’ve become something closer to quasi-political party/organized crime folks.
Then there are the much more strongly political movements, of which there are many, but that’s not really what I think you’re driving at with the question.
I guess some terrorist groups, like the Basque Separatists and Sendero Luminoso have been relatively autonomous, but again, not really full blown insurgencies.
Still coming up blank – but then again, I won’t be awake for several more hours.
BRD