I don’t really understand why it is that a sudden change in political perspective necessitates a concomitant change in the way one regards people with whom they were formerly quite cordial (and even, in some cases, chummy). But as with Andrew Northrup and Mona and Ilyka Damen before him, The Commissar—while undergoing an ideological epiphany—has lately been seeking validation from his new buddies by taking pot shots at some of their favorite “rightwing” boogey men.
Me, among them.
Here, for instance, is the Commissar’s post addressing my response to Mahablog:
Jeff Goldstein, in this classic post, “Hey, anybody feel like going over to Mahablog to engage in a constructive argument over her post alleging that the Administration didn’t plan for post-war Iraq, and that the CIA ominously warned of impending disaster?,” maintains that “yes, indeed, the Bush administration did have plans for administering postwar Iraq.†He quotes a NYTimes article from January 2003, an article which cites “Pres Bush’s national security team and [unnamed] officials.â€Â
In January 2003, Bush administration officials told the NYTimes a lot of things, which the Times dutifully reported.
But, since Jeff wants to talk about ‘pesky little facts’ and all that …
Can I see the plans themselves? The Powerpoint presentations? The pdf files? The briefing books? The actual documents?
Now, I suppose it’s possible that the Commissar is being complimentary here—and that my post truly is a “classic” in the most glowing colloquial sense—but I suspect what he means is something more along the lines of “Jeffy’s post is a heaping pile of that classic Bush-fellating Goldsteinian doublespeak warmongeringness,” which characterization undoubtedly wins him points with his new readers (one of whom calls Dan, in the comments, a “worthless chimp”), and provides the Commissar with the courage he needs to take his first few cautious steps into character assassination.
Which, If all goes well, should put him on schedule for snarling, punkass bitchiness by fall. (Of course, such plans can change—it’s hard to predict exactly how things will play out—but we’ll worry about that with the luxury of hindsight.)
At any rate, my post yesterday, as the title suggests, was meant to dispel the currently-circulating idiocy that claims that the Bushies not only didn’t put together any plans for post-war Iraq—but worse, they didn’t think they needed to, and they ignored dire warnings from the CIA that a post-Saddam Iraq could be messy.
The Commissar’s rejoinder, in his “classic” post, rests on the elliptical suggestion that simply telling the New York Times that you are taking a potential future problem seriously and planning for it in advance—all while acknowledging that conditions on the ground are likely to be such that the actual plans will flow from those conditions once they are observed and evaluated—doesn’t prove that you actually have; only that you are giving lip service to such planning (while in actuality you’re camped out in a vault, tallying up your filthy lucre from WAR PROFITEERING, or else using your SECRET UNDISCLOSED HIDEAWAY OF EVIL to plan a big hurricane that will wipe out many of those irritating black folk who simply will not vote your way).
To me, it seems absolutely crazy to maintain that a sophisticated military and intelligence establishment didn’t, in fact, plan for the eventuality of an insurgency (I mean, don’t we have existing plans for, say, invading Cameroon?); but until Maha and the Commissar and others are “shown the Powerpoints,” they seem to believe that their distrust makes them brave, independent thinkers who refuse to be taken in by the Establishment.
After all, as the Commissar darkly notes, “In January 2003, Bush administration officials told the NYTimes a lot of things, which the Times dutifully reported”— the implication being that they “misled” the Times in much the same way they “misled” Congressional Democrats (many of whom, while they were running for office, insisted that they hadn’t been misled; and of course, there’s the Rockefeller memo, but let’s just let that be) about WMDs, and declared “mission accomplished” when in fact the mission was nowhere near accomplished.
The lying liars!
The problem with the Commissar’s thinking, however, is that he seems to be pointing to the failure of some of the plans for the administration of post-war Iraq (remember Paul Bremer and the Civilian Authority?) as proof of the absence of planning. With the luxury of hindsight, he points to mistakes, and uses them to suggest that the Administration was simply winging it. And until he’s shown the “plans themselves,” the “Powerpoint presentations,” the “pdf files,” “the briefing books,” and “the actual documents,” he can continue to doubt that they existed—and maintain, with all the blistering self-righteousness of the recently converted—that the Bushies are guilty of abominable negligence.
The military? Not so much—after all, this is Memorial Day weekend, we all love the troops™, and besides, there’s no doubt that Rummy told them not to plan for administering Iraq, on orders from Dick Cheney and under penalty of having their Halliburton shares pulled. So what’re a poor bunch of war planners to do?
In the comments to Commissar’s post, however, Seixon—the blogger once threatened by ex-CIA nutjob Larry Johnson—appears just in time to provide the Commissar with some substance to chew on. In answer to the call for documentation, Seixon writes:
[…] you might want to start here. And yes, there are in fact PowerPoint presentations there.
Then you can read what the Senate Intelligence Committee released recently.
So eh… Sorry to bust your bubble, but there were in fact plans in place. Lots of them. Some better than others. Some carried out dutifully, others not. Some look dumb in retrospect. Then again, looking at reforming a dictatorship into a democracy with hindsight is a bit disingenuous, no?
I mean, a road project, a tunnel project, costing a few billion dollars, can often be delayed months or years. As you can see from the planning on Iraq, we’re currently running about 5-6 months behind schedule. We’re talking about reforming and rebuilding an entire country with a bunch of crazy religious zealots here, not building a highway. Forgive me, and other supporters of the war, if we allow for a little slack on the Iraq war planning.
It’s something called reality.
Seixon’s comment is followed up by the predictable barbs about “well, then I guess the plans were the SuX0r, then, huh?,” along with pointed observations about how “freeway projects don’t kill an average of 3 people a day” (to which I say, hey, brother, give the Big Dig some time, would you?)— none of which red herrings and non sequiturs does anything other than what Commissar and Maha (among a host of others) have already done: namely, point to failure and delay of certain aspects of the planning and pretend such things prove that there was, in fact, no planning from the outset.
Which is either completely silly or completely disingenuous.
The Congressional Democrats (and some Republicans) who are pushing this latest canard know better; the press, too, I suspect, knows better. But so long as there are those out there like Commissar and Maha willing to level the accusations, all the former need do is supply the implication.
The quasi-Truthers will take care of the rest.
Classic.
****
updated: Commissar responds. Seems I personally attacked him:
For Jeff, a personal attack, heavily laden with “Bush McChimpyHitler†constitutes a reply. Rather telling.
”Rather telling” indeed!
Conspiracies. They’re everywhere!
Of course, I could have sworn I addressed his arguments (such as they were), and I don’t recall using “Bush McChimpyHitler” anywhere, but again—pesky facts to be bracketed in the service of the larger Truthiness. Plus, his new pals will clap him on the back for pointing out how my posts tend to lack the substance of, say, “SHOW ME THE POWERPOINTS”.
Anyway, should you care to continue down this ridiculous path, you’ll note that in his follow-up, the Commissar casually backtracks, moving the goal posts in the process:
I encourage all readers and commenters to actually read these documents. This is what passes for planning in the Bush administration and in the the deni-osphere. Look at the documents. The DoD Phase IV Powerpoint that Seixon cited has been used to demonstrate how unrealistic and delusional such Phase IV planning as existed was, notably assuming only 5,000 troops would be needed by Dec. 2006. Seixon’s point is “there was too planning … unrealistic and delusional, but WE HAD PLANNING.â€Â
Now, it’s not that we didn’t have planning, just that the planning is “delusional” and “unrealistic,” according to those not charged with doing the planning—and with the benefit of hindsight. Also, the assumption here is that the documents Seixon earlier provided are the only documents extant that contain any plans.
May as well attack a dissertation abstract for lack of documentation and pretend you’ve decimated years of scholarship.
Of course, the point Commissar and Maha argued earlier was that the Bushies didn’t plan, and in fact ignored dire warnings from the CIA.
What we know to be true, however, is that they did, in fact, plan—and that the CIA’s “warnings” were qualified, and were accompanied by other more certain scenarios—including the assertion that Saddam had WMDs and was a candidate to hand them off to terrorirsts. And, as I mentioned the other day, given that the President and just about everyone else believed this assessment about WMDs, the potential problems with of an invasion, after going through the UN hoops, seemed worth the risk as part of a larger strategy to combat rogue states fighting proxy wars against the US using terrorist organizations as a method of delivery.
Then, of course, there’s the enemy’s say in how useful our pre-war plans are likely to be—something I thought I’d pointed out (three times now, in fact) that the Bushies were well aware of, and that they were careful to make clear in the 2003 NYT article I linked. And, as ajacksonian notes in the comments:
Looking at the immediate post-war problem in Iraq, there were two things that all plans depended upon: 1) something remaining of the old Iraqi Army,
2) Some governmental capability remaining.Neither of those are met, as I have looked at most recently with the John Burns interviews, and first looked at way back when with the strategy in Iraq as it has emerged. From the evidence that can be gathered and reported upon, WMDs were expected to be there by everyone, even those close to Saddam with only ‘Chemical Ali’ saying otherwise and quietly inside Iraq. Those very few who said they didn’t believe that WMDs were there, did not point to factual basis for their beliefs. In a world of mass murdering, genocidal dictators, of which Saddam Hussein was one, you do require actual, real, evidentiary proof that the things that make the basis for claims are proven. I am sure the Sudetenland saved Europe from a horrific war, didn’t it?
Saddam also had subverted a Russian Ambassador via bribery who handed him the battle formation documents of the Coalition. This was at the time Turkey refused to let the Coalition operate out of their Nation and the 4ID had to start redeploying which would take some months. Saddam didn’t believe the Russian for one simple fact: the man was untrustworthy because he could be bribed. He knew that, of course, by the bribery he had used on him… Discounting that, Saddam had expected France, Russia, Germany, Turkey and China to continue to thwart US plans and redeployed his forces into counter-insurgency capability. When the under strength Coalition attack came, it was against an unfortified and unprepared enemy.
Facing this onslaught the Iraqi Forces crumbled. I remember seeing gun cams of tanks getting bombed, and seeing men running out of the tank just before it got hit. One clever commander even had his tank under a bridge! So clever! A 500lb JDAM made of concrete came in from the side and took the tank out. The bridge was left undamaged. Saddam had expected weeks of bombing before invasion, plenty of time to redeploy during then. Didn’t happen.
The Republican Guard did try to form up an armored counter-attack, however. They were getting prepared for a fight downstream of Baghdad and forcing house to house fighting in towns and slowing everything down. They met up with a small detachment of Marines with no armored vehicles at all. The US pulled out the trump card of the CBU-105. Two of them. In less than 10 minutes the front 1/3 of the armored force was destroyed along with some trucks and rail rolling stock that had delivered them. The RG morale shattered. It was the armored backbone of the Saddamist regime. It ceased to exist as an organizational unit. Most of the Iraqi Army also evaporated after that, with Coalition forces finding vehicles abandoned and military uniforms by the side of the road. Both Mr. Burns and Michael Ware acknowledge this after spending years on the ground talking with those involved. No one can point to any large organizational unit of that old Iraqi Army actually surrendering and awaiting demobilization in its tens of thousands. No reports on that from the military. None from news accounts. None from diplomats. None from folks on the ground. Not there.
The regime, as Mr. Burns described, ran from Baghdad to the North, the exact same time Coalition forces enetered it from the South and West. The entire government, in more or less one day, disappeared as everyone above line manager upped and ran. Only a very few ministries had anyone left who could do any work. Luckily those were in the basic public utilities of electricity and water.
Without those two things, every single pre-war plan that depended upon them had exactly the same basis for being implemented: zero. That includes: Defense, State, Justice and agencies like DIA and CIA. Faced with that the next best thing was used: make it up as you go along.
Again, arguing there was no planning and that the Administration ignored CIA warnings is a different argument entirely from one that posits poor (or even “delusional”) planning, and the acceptance of one CIA assessment (WMD) that facilitated the need, in the judgment of the adminstration, to formulate a strategy for keeping WMDs out of the hands of terrorists.
Commissar, Maha, et al, are free to disagree with the strategy. But— until his walkback here (which, again, depends on our belief that Seixon unearthed the ONLY documents containing plans for post-Saddam Iraq)—Commissar wasn’t arguing strategy. He was suggesting that the documents didn’t exist, that no planning took place, and that Administration officials were simply telling the NYT what it wanted to hear.
And that, moreso than Commissar’s fantasies about my unprovoked personal attacks on him, is truly “rather telling.”
my God who reads it all.. ma head is spinning
I’ll return to paradise
I suspect a few more people than who click on your links.
But maybe I’m just too full of myself.
I just wanna know if Seixon is banging any Nordic alpine skier babes. That’s all I want out of this. He promised he’d try.
Well, I saw this coming from the Commissar a long long time ago.
The Republican party is about as mad at itself as I have ever seen, but no matter how disjointed we are or how much many of our politicians try to act like Democrats, we are, THANK GOD, not Democrats.
If we win this war and continue to keep our country safe, it won’t be just because we fought the enemy, but because we fought the left in this country as well.
Good work here Jeff, as usual.
*waves hand in air like in grade school*
“Me! I read it all!”
Not only that, but I have absolutely no problem when the sentences, at times, get extra long, and don’t understand why anyone would have a problem with it. Then again, I spend a good deal of time reading, as opposed to, say, drooling in my lap while inane teevee programming empties all thought from my head.
Not that I don’t often enjoy inane teevee programming. I just don’t let it dominate my day.
I got it.
The plans that worked were by super-genius Evil Bush, and the plans that didn’t were by stupid-dumb Evil Bush. And Super-Extra-Evil Cheney and Evil Super-Master Rove forgot to check the stupid-dumb plans before anyone tried them out…
Crap!
I liked this chewy phrase soooooo much that I said it out loud and instantly clutched my jaw in agony. A trip to the orthodontist and a diagnosis of TMJ await me.
Bastard!
Is there any chance that you are the secret love child of Ted Geisel and Sylvia Plath?
Come on, Jeff, you know that the fact that the plan didn’t work meant there was no plan. Because all plans work 100% of the time. Get with the program!
(In other words: my God, these people are stupid.)
Yup, and we all know that when you are mad at yourself and feeling down, nothing picks you up like just giving up on a major project!
A language note:
You would address a commissar as Tovarish (Comrade) Kommissar, not Herr, which is a German title.
A pop-culture note in response to the language note: I was using a line from an 80s song by Falco in the post title.
The actual line I was riffing on is “Alles klar, herr Kommissar?”
So all language concerns should be addressed to the German pop group who at one times polluted the airwaves far too regularly for my tastes.
Someone tell Falco badanov.
I said Dan Collins is a worthless chimp. His self-indulgent posting really annoys me. You don’t have to subscribe to my newsletter, though it is very compelling reading and also has a naughty fold-over on the inside cover.
The Commissar is an apostate to the GWoT. I’m becoming one myself, if I’m not already, and I’m seeing the same kind bad thinking from the start of this war, only now in reverse. In the beginning, some of the worst logic imaginable was presented in opposition to the war. Did I say logic? I mean preening, hysterical emotionalism. You could be for the war and defend yourself simply by pointing to the opposition and saying, “If they’re again’ it, I’m fer it,” and have a defensible point.
Now, there are people who are wondering where our aimless military objectives are leading us. Okay, not aimless–we’re “spreading democracy”. Huh. Anyway, once you wander off the GWoT reservation (as espoused by the Bush administration and the likes of NRO), you are immediately branded as some kind of kook by the right. Why even bring up “Trutherism”? It’s clearly an emotional ploy to smear with labels.
Rather than wonder why someone like the Commissar–who was a supporter at one time–would change his mind, the first instinct is to dismiss them as nutbars. Fine, do that. But, IMO, failing to engage in critical self-examination periodically is a bad idea. And from the big-picture perspective, supporting GWoT boosterism may get you a stable Iraq and Afghanistan, and it may not; but you get these uncertain benefits at the expense of an ever-larger, more intrusive, more expensive federal government. Oh, and amnesty for illegal aliens.
I don’t care who you are, that’s a poor trade. And for all the talk of “fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here”, we’re still fighting them here, as the foiled terror plots have demonstrated. Of course, they were foiled because our nation is alert for such things now, and our domestic intelligence is more attuned to these kinds of threats. Which is as it should be, and doesn’t require a foreign excursion such as Iraq in order to justify its existence.
Yeah, but he only went with Kommisar because he couldn’t spell Gauleiter…
Alles es klar, Herr Kommissar, aber…
In 5-years when Iraq’s national stature exceeds that of Portugal and Turkey combined, what will the Kommissar have to say?
When Iraq’s GDP dwarfs the stats of a South Korea or an Indonesia, what tune will the Big K sing?
How about when Baghdad’s 5th-graders outperform New York City’s in math and reading? Will the Kommissar even blink?
Iraq transformed from international pariah to a G8 nation in 9-years: if I were the Kommissar, I’d take a hard look at improving conditions in Iraq, and start practicing a new mantra.
It’s easy, let’s all try it together now:
but couldn’t one also argue that the reason we catch them over here is because their best and brightest are tied up overseas? It seems to me that most plots we’ve foiled have been from “not officially linked” groups of people.
So I can’t support the GWot unless I also support larger government and amnesty for illegals? That is some “compelling” logic you got working there, rho, think I will have to take a pass on your newsletter, thanks anyway.
As they say, no plan survives contact with the enemy: that is why they are called ‘the enemy’.
Looking at the immediate post-war problem in Iraq, there were two things that all plans depended upon: 1) something remaining of the old Iraqi Army,
2) Some governmental capability remaining.
Neither of those are met, as I have looked at most recently with the John Burns interviews, and first looked at way back when with the strategy in Iraq as it has emerged. From the evidence that can be gathered and reported upon, WMDs were expected to be there by everyone, even those close to Saddam with only ‘Chemical Ali’ saying otherwise and quietly inside Iraq. Those very few who said they didn’t believe that WMDs were there, did not point to factual basis for their beliefs. In a world of mass murdering, genocidal dictators, of which Saddam Hussein was one, you do require actual, real, evidentiary proof that the things that make the basis for claims are proven. I am sure the Sudetenland saved Europe from a horrific war, didn’t it?
Saddam also had subverted a Russian Ambassador via bribery who handed him the battle formation documents of the Coalition. This was at the time Turkey refused to let the Coalition operate out of their Nation and the 4ID had to start redeploying which would take some months. Saddam didn’t believe the Russian for one simple fact: the man was untrustworthy because he could be bribed. He knew that, of course, by the bribery he had used on him… Discounting that, Saddam had expected France, Russia, Germany, Turkey and China to continue to thwart US plans and redeployed his forces into counter-insurgency capability. When the under strength Coalition attack came, it was against an unfortified and unprepared enemy.
Facing this onslaught the Iraqi Forces crumbled. I remember seeing gun cams of tanks getting bombed, and seeing men running out of the tank just before it got hit. One clever commander even had his tank under a bridge! So clever! A 500lb JDAM made of concrete came in from the side and took the tank out. The bridge was left undamaged. Saddam had expected weeks of bombing before invasion, plenty of time to redeploy during then. Didn’t happen.
The Republican Guard did try to form up an armored counter-attack, however. They were getting prepared for a fight downstream of Baghdad and forcing house to house fighting in towns and slowing everything down. They met up with a small detachment of Marines with no armored vehicles at all. The US pulled out the trump card of the CBU-105. Two of them. In less than 10 minutes the front 1/3 of the armored force was destroyed along with some trucks and rail rolling stock that had delivered them. The RG morale shattered. It was the armored backbone of the Saddamist regime. It ceased to exist as an organizational unit. Most of the Iraqi Army also evaporated after that, with Coalition forces finding vehicles abandoned and military uniforms by the side of the road. Both Mr. Burns and Michael Ware acknowledge this after spending years on the ground talking with those involved. No one can point to any large organizational unit of that old Iraqi Army actually surrendering and awaiting demobilization in its tens of thousands. No reports on that from the military. None from news accounts. None from diplomats. None from folks on the ground. Not there.
The regime, as Mr. Burns described, ran from Baghdad to the North, the exact same time Coalition forces enetered it from the South and West. The entire government, in more or less one day, disappeared as everyone above line manager upped and ran. Only a very few ministries had anyone left who could do any work. Luckily those were in the basic public utilities of electricity and water.
Without those two things, every single pre-war plan that depended upon them had exactly the same basis for being implemented: zero. That includes: Defense, State, Justice and agencies like DIA and CIA. Faced with that the next best thing was used: make it up as you go along.
Given that and the false starts, missteps, idiotic attempt to get any part of the old Army back (which immediately made things worse), and onwards we can now add another part to the old saying on battle plans: No post-war scenario survives non-contact with its founding elements.
I personally expected the combat and counter-insurgency to last 8-15 years, but that is based on historical situations in the Malays, Philippines, Algeria and Haiti. Note the laste two haven’t demonstrated long-term achievements. But that is actually applying historical precedents to a situation, examining differences and trying to figure out what the outcomes will be…. politics only enters into it with the abysmal failure of the us work in Haiti 1915-34. Best we remember that and let those on the ground actually tell us what the problems are and then *help them*. The other way around has failed and badly.
“point to failure and delay of certain aspects of the planning and pretend such things prove that there was, in fact, no planning from the outset”
So what’s does this mean the Democrats had no plan to timetable a withdrawal?
If I read this right, the Kommisar and rho aren’t disputing that we have an Islamist wolf by the ears, but are of a mind that – fuck it all – we just need to let go and surely this reasonable wolf will just curl up and go to sleep for us.
I hate to say it, but nothing short of another 911 is going to wake these people up
Jeffersonian,
The problem is that we’re at a point where another 9/11 absolutely will not wake anyone up. That’s the benefit of victim culture. The left has managed to wrangle it so that they (“misled”) AND the Islamic world are the victims of Bush’s warmongering. NO attack will change that.
It’s like affirmative action. You can keep going with it until the end of time if you’d like because you can always cite some grievance, some “imbalance” to say it’s justified. They will cite the Bali bombings as evidence of the repurcussions of Iraq even though time doesn’t flow both direction. Mark my words: even if a city is nuked, the left will say it’s our fault.
ajackson: amen. The retort that a tunnel project doesn’t kill 3 people a day is actually evidence to the difficulty of the situation and the fruitlessness of planning against an insurgency. In a road project your variables are largely known. It’s trying to manage them that gets you pinched. In this case, the variables are not only not known but change their tactics in order to cause problems.
rho: What does amnesty for illegals have to do with the GWoT? I don’t think you understand the animosity some of those of us who support the GWoT have for Bush. From Medicare to campaign finance reform to his work on balkanizing America via a deliberate disrespect for cultural and physical barriers (not to mention the law), it IS actually pretty difficult not to hate the lousy runt.
But that doesn’t mean he’s wrong on this one.
How’s that for arguing about specific points instead of character assassinating?
Goldstein’s post above actually does argue the Commissar’s written points. Maybe you didn’t make it past the first two or three paragraphs. Perhaps Jeff isn’t delving deeply into his feelings or his intent or whatever it is that you think we should understand or engage with to understand why he’s left the GWoT, but I’m not certain those things can be known outside of what he’s written.
Moreover, I fail to reconcile how your annoyance at Dan’s “self-indulgent posting” makes sense in light of your own assertion of the “compelling” nature of your newsletter. Never mind “Pot, meet Kettle,” try to back off on the hubris a bit. Maybe you can throttle it a bit more when you’ve been quoted on the floor of the Senate.
Rho–
I’m not going to defend myself from allegations of self-indulgence, though I think there’s a bit more self-irony than you perhaps pick up on; and as far as irritation goes, I mean to inflict a certain amount of that, in order to challenge.
You don’t like me. Fine. But honestly, I’d rather you fisk me than simply say Chimp. And the step toward Trutherism isn’t a cheap shot. I mean it. If you have convinced yourself that there wasn’t any real attempt at advance planning for occupation, I think that you’re being absurd.
As for the rest of it, Maha doesn’t bother to answer any of the questions that I put forth to her. She simply repeats the stupid canard that the administration withheld from Congress (Republican controlled at the time) key information that would likely have caused it to vote against providing him war powers, or that would have caused it to place some kind of important restraint on them. The case of Jay Rockefeller ought to be notorious, but unfortunately it’s not really problematic, anymore, to place party before country, and to sacrifice a foreign nation to do so. Thanks to idiots who are ever so much more moral and reality-based than poor suckers such as myself.
You don’t like me? Fine. Don’t read me. If you do read me and still don’t like me, please write and tell me why. Because I am polyprismatic, imperious, gentle, acute, adamantine, ambidextrous, numinous, quixotic, divigatory, and above all, peculiarly I.
How much room for wonder is there? People change their minds all the time, and not always for good reasons. Der Kommissar’s original support was evidently subject to the condition (which I suspect was unstated at the time) that everything would go swimmingly. And he just as evidently believes– true to his name– that a plan is something the mere possession of which ensures that everything goes swimmingly; if it doesn’t, there must not have been a plan.
I can’t say I think much of the sort of “critical self-examination” that produces only a list of other people’s faults.
The “no planning” meme is obviously untrue on its face, which might lead one to wonder about those who repeat it.
I suppose a cynical, manipulative bastard–say John Edwards–might have no problem with this obvious lie.
Perhaps a hasty blogger trolling for traffic might run it up the flagpole, Kommisar, for instance. It’s curious, though, why the Kommisar did’t immediately retreat to solid ground when Seixon pointed out his absurdity. Certainly, the efficacy of post war planning is debatable, but that wasn’t the argument he put on the table. Show me plans, he says. Perhaps that was a joke?
I suppose a “no planner” might be tediously posturing. Retarded hperbole is still retarded.
That leaves, then, the seriously deranged and the seriously stupid.
Perhaps, Rho, that’s why the “truthers” get painted as nut jobs. Sure it’s a broad brush, but when one lies down with dogs, etc.
Curious. Literally just before coming on line, I was reading a novel in which the main character is talking with the book’s analogue to the medieval pope. The main character does his best to couch his criticism of the pope’s failings in terms of the failure of the pope’s advisors; not only to save his own skin, but because the pope simply won’t accept that he, himself, has failed.
Perhaps we’re seeing a similar impulse at work here? People who supported a “short, victorious war” have seen the winds of public sentiment shift (or believe they have; same thing), and so have abandoned their support. Rather than admit their support was shallow and their opinions so mercurial, they’ve saved face by declaring the administration failed them—failed to tell them it would be a long, difficult war (which it did, and which, frankly, should not have been necessary), or that it failed to plan (which it did, but plans, as I said before, are mere guesswork).
When someone denies facts that are clearly and widely documented—witnessed, reported, archived—it’s not unreasonable to question their sanity. When someone expects a war to proceed closer to plan than any wedding ever has, it’s not unreasonable to question their intelligence.
Ah yes, Comments Logging (or as I call it, Clogging) warms my heart to see it done. The internet is driven primarily by users, and in the blogosphere, users are commenters.
That really isn’t the complaint here, rho.
I got that vibe too. Nicely done, Jeff.
In related news, all is not klar mit Der Kommisar. He’s done turning around, oh, oh, oh…
Well, then I guess it’s a good thing that we actually went and found some, isn’t it?
(Oh, and that page also casually refers to Al-Qaeda backed troops based in northern Iraq as though it were an established fact, rather than the deniable talking point it has since become by the so-called majority.)
Can we PLEASE remember that ‘WMD’ includes more than nuclear weapons?
There ya go, Dan. Fixed that for ya.
Thanks, Drumwaster.
I applaud those here who are invalidating the most recent anti-war talking points, however I don’t believe the facts, or the arguments, are addressing the REAL issue.
This has nothing to do with the war and has everything to do with the progressive’s underlying motive of characterizing America as an evil empire that can do nothing good or right.
If most progressives believed in the traditional values of America, they would not be making such ridiculous assertions as to the planning of the war. The campaign of baseless accusations, conspiracy theories and character assasinations that are fed through the media on a daily basis are ultimately designed to discredit America herself, not the administration’s competency or willingness to kill its own people or what have you.
As far as progressive’s idealogy, they believe more than anything else that America DESERVES the acts of terror against her, that we are indeed an imperialist nation with the aim of expanding our evil empire outside our borders, and that we are a THREAT to the kind of world that they envision as being a just world.
Today it is Bush’s lack of planning, yesterday it was Libby, tomorrow it will be voter disenfranchisement. Progressives do not feel a need to support every accusation they make with absolute facts; they don’t understand why you would resist such accusation when the underlying truth of it all is so obvious.
If the progressive’s really believed in the potential greatness of America, and really felt like this war was an extreme departure from policies that otherwise made America a great place, they wouldn’t be defending our enemies, they wouldn’t be focusing on these ridiculous baseless theories. They would instead argue the more philisophical ideas about over-expansion, the need for diplomacy, the virtues of isolationalism or, yes, even the short-sightedness of the policies we create to protet our self-interests.
These war planning accusations are simply stupid.
For a moment I thought Dan had said he was numismatic. I was going to run over and shake him for some Loose Change.
Huh. So this is where Rho wound up when the AoS crowd laughed him off the board. Lucky Jeff.
And, a Memorial Day Sentiment
What the hell happened to that guy? I mean, I regret voting for Bush about a half-dozen times a day, but can’t our dear Tovarisch see that as bad as Iraq is, it can get much worse?
And since when did a PowerPoint ever contain details, anyway? Aren’t they generally useless?
Don’t you just love the snarky sarcastic “spreading democracy” quote?
It’s just so absurd to imagine that establishing Democracy in the Middle East would work? Right?
When in reality, it is the only hope we have a decent global future.
This is the truth, truthers. There are two things being spread in the Middle East. Terrorism and Democracy. The only question is which one will we be bring to fruition and which one will we defeat.
The choice is ours. We can make fun of Bush, we can make fun of “spreading Democracy,” we can fight each other, we can defund the troops, we can keep electing Democrats.
But if we choose to do these things, we are also making the choice, whether we mean to or not, to spread terrorism.
I stopped reading the Commissar probably about 2 years ago. Like Sullivan, he was entertaining for awhile but at some point he went nuts.
As an evil-overlord-in-training I would like to believe that, but the evidence…
Minions; good minions are so hard to find these days, and so expensive.
For me it was probably longer ago than that. He got into a feud with a guy named Paul who was one of the Wizbang gang at the time, over evolution vs. “intelligent design,” and Commissar turned his blog into all-Paul-all-the-time for at least a week.
Eventually I realized he wasn’t just playing up the feud for effect, he was actually serious about focusing all of his energy and attention on trying to rebut this one guy. He should have renamed his blog “Paulwatch.”
Commissar has responded. By moving the goal posts and accusing me of attacking him personally, as opposed (I assume) to addressing his “arguments.”
I respond in an update to the post.
I’m all shook down, Major John. I go to Mass, and there’s always some kind of humanitarian thingee that prevents me from buying another 12 pack on the way home.
Mikey–perhaps this will help your minion search.
Yeah, I saw that Jeff, but . . .
you mean that the same folks who don’t attend Iraq briefings are complaining that they didn’t think to ask for more detailed information if they weren’t getting enough?
Minor correction: Falco was not a group but a solo performer. The song “DER KOMMISSAR” was covered by a British pop group called After the Fire. This is the version US audiences are most familiar with.
Wait, is he claiming now that the plans are fakes?
I keed, I keed.
You are correct. After the Fire was the group I was thinking of, though I’ve heard both.
BTW, if he’s an East German Komissar, the usage is perfectly correct.
Someone needs replacing. Good Riddance Attention Whore.
and as RTO has mentioned time and again, how is this different than any other conflict the U.S. has been involved in? It’s never been one of our strong points.
It’s never been a strong point of any war to plan things out. Please, what we’re trying to do in Iraq is largely unprecedented, and the effort is constantly under attack by the two countries neighboring it, and people figure the rebuilding will be neat and orderly? Of course it’s slow and tough just like everyone said it would be.
Seriously was there anyone, anywhere on earth that figured Iraq would be running smoothly and well in this much time? I figured decades before the place really settled down, enough time for a new generation to grow up in liberty and have a different attitude.
And that was without a fifth column in the US constantly maintaining enemy morale and undermining our own.
Thanks, Dan. It helps weed out the obvious failures, but finding the proper go-getters with the necessary lackey skills is so difficult. I’ve been reduced to watching re-runs of ‘The Apprentice’ for the right combination of lick-spittle with nefariousness.
So hard to be an evil overlord these days – once you hire someone it is impossible to fire unless you can have them die in a foiled plot. And do you know the cost of foiled plots these days with all of the environmental forms to be followed?
They are simply smothering the small businessman, I say.
science58: Mad science is involved, yes; why do you ask?
I have a laptop and WiFi. I do both. At the same time.
If these people were around during WWII, we would all be speaking German now, as they would have demanded we give up a dozen different times in 1942 and 1943.
Robin, I doubt we’d be speaking at all as the baby boom would have never happened and the depression would have gotten worse here as international trade collapsed as England fell and Germany consolidated it’s gains or worse yet, the Soviets rolled on through to the Atlantic.
You must remember that those people were there in 1938, 1939, 1940, etc. It took Pearl Harbor for them to wake up. 9/11 wasn’t sufficient for us. You wonder what will be, and just how mighty and just how righteous our mighty, righteous anger will become then.
I would recommend this Commissar read a little re: Operation Torch. Maybe Anzio too. Move on to the beginning stages of the Korean War, then on to the Ia Drang battles in Vietnam.
We do well because when things don’t go according to plan, we adapt and overcome. A bit of persistence helps too. We don’t shriek that we had too many casualties at the Kasserine Pass, or at Chosin, or that a CH-47 crashed outside Bagram and now it is time to come home in disgrace.
We did that once – and the ghosts of a few million Southeast Asian friends and allies now haunt us for that.
Never again.
That’s about when I stopped reading also. I’d click there nearly everyday only to find “evolution, you moron!,”ID, you infidel” over and over again. I find that particular “debate” mindnumbingly boring–even when there is some actual debating going on. I even teased the Commissar about it back then.
Sorry,
âþòðрøш ÚþüøÑÂÑÂðр
All,
The word “commissar” is a Russian-German-English cognate. /annoying pendant
TW: for whatever value41 that information may have
Da Plan!
National Strategy
for Victory
in Iraq
</a>Tatoo is hollering Da Plan, Da Plan
Lots of strident voices have been raised, demanding Da Plan. Well here it is.
The full document is a 38 page pdf file.
Below is the Executive Summary. Enjoy.
It’s not Fantasy Island, it’s
The National Strategy for Victory in Iraq
Hat Tip Captain’s Quarters at Read My Lips: No New Timetables
He also released a book on the Iraq war strategy for those who just haven’t paid any attention over the past two years. Bush and the White House should have just subtitled it “FOR THOSE WHO STILL THINK THAT THE US MILITARY DEPLOYS HALFWAY AROUND THE WORLD WITHOUT A PLAN FOR SUCCESS
I remember some plans that also didn’t quite succeed. The MSM predicted thousands of American troops would be killed to remove Saddam from power. The MSM predicted millions of refugees and a humanitarian nightmare. The MSM predicted Saddaam would never be found. The MSM predicted the “insurgency” would disrupt the elections (twice!) and no one would vote. The MSM predicted the surge would not work. Well, that last prediction hasn’t failed, yet. But judging by the MSM’s record, they’ll be wrong about that one too.
I managed to get banned over there. First time for everything I guess.
Commie is dismissive of his detractors, yet he claims to believe in discourse. I don’t think he even realized I was a longtime reader/commenter.
Indeed, Charles, but during WWII, the bulk of the American population decided that someone other than their own country was the enemy.
With the exception of the Communists of course.
And let’s not forget all the warnings about The Brutal Afghan Winter™. Presumably Afghanistan was the only place left on earth that wasn’t scorching to death because of Global Warming™.
Correction: The Commies were initially opposed, but did a neck-snapping 180 when the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact imploded and Germany invaded the USSR. Now that was too, too much for them…
First, I’d say that Johnson intimidated me, rather than threatened me. I think it’s important to be accurate. It was, after all, Jason Leopold who threatened me, and Johnson who stood in the background and said, “Yeah boiiii!”
Then to the matter at hand here.
The Democrats have been chanting ever since the 2004 presidential campaign that Bush didn’t have a plan for Iraq, and it seems that the commissar wants to continue that charade because it is so effective.
Having a bad plan – you can at least try to defend it.
Having no plan – indefensible.
As much of the anti-war movement relies on the simplistic argument of “NO!” for everything, it’s much easier to rely on a strategy of painting Bush as not having planned, because then they avoid having to debate the merits of a plan. They want to avoid answering questions such as:
Why was it a bad plan?
How would you have planned it better?
What should have been done instead?
Ewww, icky questions, I don’t want to bother the cells in my brain, so I will resort to the base human function of saying: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
For a group of people who pretend they are intellectual and progressive, they display a certain skill for avoiding debate at all costs, and pretending that everything they have not seen does not exist.
I would go one step further and say that they’re mighty comfortable pretending that some things that they have seen but do not like do not exist.
Reports on the 2000 and 2004 elections that don’t jibe with the whole “CHIMPY AND KKKARL STOLE IT FROM US!!!” premise come to mind.
I like this new trend by liberals.. paint yourself into a corner and call it art! Plus, you can also play the comedy card if you’re in a pinch. : ) Classic pro-gress.
They wouldn’t agree.. [in unison]baaaaaaaaa…
They(rams-ewes-wethers-etc.)exhibit incredibly strong flocking behavior that requires accurate terminology and up-to-date think stink. Plus, obvious kÃ…Ân’dÄÂ-sÄ•n’shÉ™n is waaay too confusing for the liberal flock of today. You just end up with a bunch of riggwelters when you don’t speak with true BDS passion, or you step out of the current construct.
The up-to-date BDS bleating still sounds the same(baaaaaaa)… but the safest translation seems to be… Evil Sith Lord(s) and Evil Sith Lord Master.
Know thine enemy?
I would have agreed with you completely before I read this:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2006_09_03-2006_09_09.shtml#1157727623
And yet somehow there was a plan anyway. Go figure.
Actually, given the state of journalism in America, I doubt the quote is accurate. The original article is not available at the original source, The Daily Press.
His Frogness was right!
OK- I stand corrected. “Worthless chimp” is civil, “Cunt” is not. No need to put Jonathan Wilton in quotes, “Commissar”. It’s my name.
And Rho is still a cunt. And you are a long way up him.
Whereupon they started pushing for what would surely ahve been a disastrous attempt to invade France in 1942. But, hey, at least they had a PLAN– Cripply McCiggyholder dithered, like, forever before finally trying it.
TW: trouble89. Not a good year for the Commies, true.
I saw that, Jonathan, but I already said a last goodbye.
Sort of sad to think that I’m worth more as a chimp, though.
I saw B Moe was mixing it up.
I am but a humble Attack Chimp.
B Moe is a Nuclear Gorilla.
I’ll repost my own witticism from the comments over there, in case Herr C. gets his knickers in a twist over “non-constructive” “debate” of his “points”:
The Comissar’s positions strike me as more than a little similar to what we used to call “front-running†back in my high school days.
See, you’d have “fans†that absolutely loved the Dallas Cowboys,right up until a week before the Super Bowl ™, when some ESPN commentator would assert that The Bills were where the winning money was. Next day, said front-runners would show up in Kelly jerseys and bright orange hats emblazoned with Buffalo’s logo and then get miffed when you called their motives into question. Then, as soon as the Dallas offensive line was through demolishing the poor Bills’ D line, there they’d be, Lone Star blue jersey flapping in the wind and a “What? Nothing’s changed!†look on their face.
That’s the sad part about front-running: one day, you’re rooting for a vaunted pewter-helmeted defense ready to take over the world and the next you’re a loser in a “peachâ€Â-colored Testaverde throwback jersey. It’s just sad, man.
What does amnesty for illegals have to do with the GWoT? I don’t think you understand the animosity some of those of us who support the GWoT have for Bush.
I’ve seen it expressed here and elsewhere that all conservative positions get back-burner status when confronted with the GWoT. Look at some of the most prominent candidates of the GOP ticket: Guliani and McCain. They are not conservatives by any fair definition of the term. However they get a complete pass on that because, as has been said many times, “they are right on the issue of terrorism,” whatever that means.
I’m not presenting logic, I’m presenting what’s happening. We’re staring at amnesty for illegal aliens–I noticed that nobody is contesting the fact that we have a larger and more intrusive federal government as you all are cherry-picking nits–and by my observations the Republicans will get a complete pass by their voters because they support the Iraq war.
We saw this in 2004–vote for the big-spending, pork-barrel Republicans because they’re right on the war and they’re better than the Democrats. It didn’t work then. It may not work in 2008. Then, if the Democrats get power back in D.C., Republicans will see the benefit to a de facto policy of non-interventionism as Democrats make a hash of foreign policy.
Dan Collins: I didn’t read your reply. I generally skip over your posts altogether. Just thought I’d let you know that. But it’s really annoying to find you’ve scrolled JG’s posts off my newsreader with your antics. Just learn some damn control and don’t blurt out every thought that crosses your mind.
Wise words, Rho, and ones you would do well to reflect upon.
Why not have them engraved on a brass plaque and stick them where the sun never shines?
Again, I suspect it is the policy of the US military and intel services to have at the ready as many conceivable contingency plans as they can, well, conceive of, long before they are ever dispatched. If Scheid is correct that Rumsfeld didn’t want a Phase 4 attached to the Iraq War Plan, this doesn’t mean there wasn’t one available. And again, the enemy on the ground has a say about “plans.”
Planning for a prolonged engagement, therefore, was not high on the list of priorities—because the need to do so in detail would have to be addressed by what was happening on the ground.
So yes, there was a plan in place. But that plan was to remain fluid and open to adjustment—and to react to the situation that presents itself once that situation was properly understood.
At which point the course of action chosen (out of the many potential courses of action) could be fleshed out.
Oh. And if Commissar is now impugning my site and my commenters, he is free to bite me.
Of course, when a person names himself “Commissar,” he’s pretty much telling you up front that he’ll be setting up speech codes some day.
Rho —
Did you honestly just suggest McCain gets a pass here?
Really?
Do you read this site at all?
Giuliani, yes. But that’s because I’m not a social conservative. Giuliani is against race-based affirmative action, is tough on crime, is on record as saying he will appoint conservative justices to the bench, is strong on border security, and embraces the kind of foreign policy that tells a Saudi prince to stick his blood money right up the back of his robe.
He’ll have no effect on abortion (other than by appointing conservative justices, whose legal thinking, being conservative, often ironically prevents them, in their minds, from overturning bad, long-established law). And I suspect he’ll change his tune on gun control.
What is not “conservative” by any stretch is the idea that modern conservatives all look and act like Bill Buckley.
Jeff—Rho is fixated on Ron Paul. Anything else he says is just shit-stirring. Wait ‘til he starts in on the gold standard.
Wow–are people really still touting that crap?
I invite them to read the entire history of the end of the gold standard and then get back to me on how we square the books (in gold) on a $600 billion trade deficit.
On the original topic: Can someone clear up whether this was ALLFOROIL or ITWASABADPLAN or THEYDIDNTHAVEAPLAN?
They seem to conflict, for example, when the BADPLAN called for only 5,000 troops by the end of 2006.
Consistency. Bush haters. Somebody should at least introduce them to each other.
I just got through with the comments thread over at Commissar’s.
Jesus, what a tool he’s become.
My comment:
Anyone who argues with a straight face that I don’t provide substance on this site is a twee prick.
Just because I throw in salty language doesn’t mean the substance melts away like a slug.
Fuck that guy. Let him cite the books he’s read and pretend he’s a deep thinker rather than a guy who wants nothing more than to be seen as “one of the sensible conservatives.”
He wants approbation. I want to avoid pulling out of Iraq, which I think will cause no end to problems in the ME, will be reneging on a commitment, and will hurt US security drastically.
If Commissar wants to preach neo-isolationism, let him make the argument. I’m happy to debate him. But standing back and demanding that people show him the powerpoints is just silly.
I ran into people like him in grad school—people who would drop names of theorists and stop your argument at every turn to ask how you were defining a term (which was already clear from the context, and by the rules of standard usage and convention). It’s a ploy—a rhetorical dodge that many would-be intellectuals use to stall the actual debate while attempting, simultaneously, to make themselves look thorough, rigorous, and considered.
It’s a game—much like his current Gandelman-esque suggestion that his site is for the “thinking man,” a place for “civil” debaters interested in “substance” to come and chew over “complex” topics.
It’s an exercise in rebranding.
The only sad part is, he seems to buying his own bullshit.
Wishbone, you left out DOOMEDWITHORWITHOUTAPLAN.
I try not to quote the Senate Majority Leader without the expressed written consent of the Commissioner of Baseball, Paul.
Rumpled dolt that he is.
Bud Selig, that is.
To paraphrase the Great One: “Son, the left doesn’t take a dump without a plan.”
And, since it’s rare that such a plan goes awry without NEA funding, they assume that all plans are equally fool-proof.
(Of course, excepting the actions of incompetents and wreckers. After all, if it weren’t for counter-revolutionary elements like those, Stalin’s five-year plans would have turned the USSR into a workers paradise.)
But cut the bullshit and just come out and call me “Pasty Godlstein, ABD.â€Â
Really. If you don’t want a debate, don’t pretend you’d love to have one, but for the harsh tones of the nasty wingers. It’s childish. Stand your ground and make your point, or just revert to “Pasty” and be done with it.
Crying is not an argument.
Pointing out how a plan existed, and that military operations, on the ground, do not lend themselves to firm, rigid plans is now a “personal attack”.
Hey look, he’s calling me out by name now!
Gold star on my lapel, I tell you whut.
This is nice. Box him into his own rhetoric and it’s a PW-game, which of course Stephen is too cool to play.
He’s incredibly bored, dontcha know. And yet, still posting on the subject.
My comments look as though they’re being blackholed now. Guess he can’t stomach facts.
Zamoose’s comment was eaten by Akismet. I recovered it.
But I did get tired of Pablo, and he is blocked.
Pablo:
<*gasp*>
You used the G word!
Well, connected with “dissembling” you defied the Tsar of the blog and as such you were banished to your own purgatory!
I’m a gonna guess this isn’t your first time…
Well, thanks for coming over to announce it, gasbag. Saves me the trouble of clicking back over and composing rejoinder.
Banned, Comrade. Alles klar.
Don’t turn around, oh, oh, oh!
I’ve lost count, BJ. Some people just hate logic.
Pablo, you’re jest too dern provocative!
Your life would be so much more ordered if you would just drink the Bushstupid, bloodforoil, noplanbadplan, evilcheney/idiotrumsfeld wine spritzer.
Cast away the shackles of logic and EMBRACE THE TRUTHINESS!!!
To quote Al Finney in Miller’s Crossing: “It’s the kiss off.”
I no longer care what he thinks and shall consider the matter closed on my end. If he wants to link and troll for more traffic, he can try calling me creative names like the rest of the lefty trolls.
Somewhere I have an email from Stephen in which he doesn’t describe me in ways he’s now using. All that’s changed is his point on the political spectrum.
“Rather telling,” that.
I blame Bush.
The guy dresses up like a Russian General.
Being “too cool” is not now nor has it ever been one of his problems, I’d venture.
Try telling him that. He’s cooler than a Che T-shirt, have no doubt! In fact, he’s also approaching absolute moral authority. Like Mother Theresa, or maybe Fonzie.
BECAUSE OF THE REVELATION!!!
Fun with compare and contrast…
Commissar, 2007-05-28:
Andrew J. Bacevich, 2007-05-29:
When was “democracy” ever the best one-word descriptor of our political system?
What Andrea said. (Way up there.)
And what the fuck is with the people who switch sides–do they have to be extra nasty to gain cred with their BDS-afflicted pals? I haven’t had any run-ins with Stephen, but it pisses me off seeing someone who ought to know better going to the same tired crap that the lifer moonbats spew, and it especially pisses me off when “my side” is attacked. That’s an attack on me too. You can’t say “wingnuts are all stoopid; oh, except you, you’re not.”
I mean, OK, so you don’t agree with me any more (you’re wrong, but OK). But now we’re stupid, banal, “fundies,” Bush-bots? So what’s that say about them since they used to be in our trailer park? Not just stupid, but gullible? Lacking any real convictions? I think I’d rather be convinced of my own stupid ideas than pick up every stupid idea that’s floated my way by the loudest shrieking voice. ‘Cause yeah, P.Z. Myers sez we’re all a bunch of fucking hayseed Bible-bangin’ end-timers who want our kids praying to the God of Creation in school; therefore, we are. And Amanda Marcotte sez we’re all active enforcers (or tools) of the Patriarchy who want to force everyone to have lots of good little “Jeebus”-loving kids; therefore, we are.
Yep, they’re gullible. Pretty intellectually dishonest, as well.
See? I told them they should have double-spaced.
Makes the documents look more hefty.
I thought it was “Alles Klar”…
Or am I verklempt?
It is. But I used that title once before, so I Americanized it a bit this time.