November 14, 2005
BANG ON THE PEGS HARD ENOUGH AND LONG ENOUGH AND THEY FIT INTO THE HOLES:
Wrestling With History: Sometimes you have to fight the war you have, not the war you wish you had (David Von Drehle, November 13, 2005, Washington Post)
[T]here is broad agreement now that if the United States salvages a victory in Iraq, it will come in spite of the initial war planning, not because of it. Rumsfeld's own advisory think tank, the Defense Science Board, took a long look at this issue last year and concluded that the architects of the Iraq war -- led by Rumsfeld -- lacked necessary knowledge of Iraq and its people, and that they failed to factor in well-known lessons of history."It is clear that Americans who waged the war and who have attempted to mold the aftermath have had no clear idea of the framework that has molded the personalities and attitudes of Iraqis," the board declared in a report bearing the official seal of the Department of Defense. "It might help if Americans and their leaders were to show less arrogance and more understanding of themselves and their place in history. Perhaps more than any other people, Americans display a consistent amnesia concerning their own past, as well as the history of those around them."
Maybe Rumsfeld's memo was written not just for its moment, but also for the future, as proof that he remained sober even in an atmosphere of neoconservative enthusiasm for the war. Although classified, the memo keeps surfacing in this context, always putting a little distance between Rumsfeld and the audacious gamble in Iraq. Five weeks before the invasion, as others were promising a cakewalk, Rumsfeld and his memo surfaced in the New York Times. It surfaced again with Woodward. And now here it is again.
This subtle distancing explains why the memo has joined other actions and inactions, statements and omissions as evidence, for some of the Iraq war's strongest supporters, that the man atop the Pentagon, despite his bravura, may not have had his whole heart in this war.
The idea may not be immediately obvious to Americans at their dinner tables -- that Donald Rumsfeld, the chesty, confident, competent "Rumstud" of the Iraq invasion briefing room, has held something back from the war effort. He was, after all, the public face of "shock and awe." He seemed to thrive on the glare, the pressure, the workload of war, at his desk daily by 6:30 a.m. and dictating his notorious "snowflake" memos -- the waves of questions and orders and ruminations that swirl through Rumsfeld's Pentagon like a blizzard -- long into the night. He dominated news briefings and congressional hearings like a tank rolling through small-arms fire, and he gloried in the hand-wringing of weaker souls. Behind the scenes, Rumsfeld and his civilian staff bulldozed skeptical generals and smashed rival bureaucracies in the planning and execution of the invasion.
So when William Kristol, editor of the neoconservative magazine the Weekly Standard and a leading proponent of the Iraq war, charged Rumsfeld with insufficient commitment in August, Rumsfeld's assistant fired back with confidence. "Kristol thinks that he senses the 'inescapable whiff of weakness and defeatism' in the leadership of the Pentagon," DiRita wrote. "This is nonsense."
But Kristol remains unpersuaded. "I don't think he ever really had his heart in it," he says. And this is interesting, because one of the main reasons why antiwar critics have included Rumsfeld among the fervent forces behind the war is that he signed a letter in 1998 calling for the ouster of Saddam Hussein -- a letter written by Kristol. "He had nothing to do with making it happen," Kristol says of Rumsfeld. "We just faxed it to him, as one of the usual suspects, and a few days later they faxed back his signature."
The crux of the complaint against the secretary is this: Whenever Rumsfeld has faced a choice between doing more in Iraq or doing less, he has done less. When, during the pre-invasion planning, the State Department sent a team of Iraq experts to the Pentagon to help prepare a major reconstruction effort for the aftermath, Rumsfeld turned some of them away. As a result, "there was simply no plan, other than humanitarian assistance and a few other things like protection of oil and so forth, with regard to postwar Iraq. There was no plan," retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to former secretary of state Colin Powell, explained in a recent speech.
When Army generals called for more troops to occupy the soon-to-be-leaderless country, Rumsfeld pushed for fewer. He cut the time for training National Guard units, including the ones that wound up photographing themselves with naked prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison. (He twice offered his resignation when the prison scandal broke. Bush declined.) He blessed plans to begin pulling the invasion force out of Iraq almost as quickly as it went in.
The thread running through all these decisions is Rumsfeld's steady resistance to a long, troop-intensive effort in Iraq. A big part of his job, he explained that day in his office, is to "balance" the resources being poured into Iraq against necessary investments in a transformed, high-tech military force of the future. When senators tell Rumsfeld, as they did again in September, that the United States should have enough troops on the border between Iraq and Syria to cut off the flow of money and manpower to the anti-U.S. insurgency, one can imagine the secretary running through the math. Today's highly skilled volunteer troops don't come as cheaply as the draft-age cannon fodder of wars gone by. With pay, training and benefits, each soldier or Marine sent to secure that border would mean an annual debit of up to $100,000 in defense budgets for years to come. Ten thousand soldiers equals $1 billion. Not counting their guns, ammo, food, uniforms, armor, vehicles.
Which may be why Rumsfeld's military, as of late September, had assigned just 1,000 Marines to cover the western half of the 376-mile border with Syria. Picture five major college marching bands stretched over the distance between Washington and Trenton, N.J.
Two important points here: the most obvious one is that 9-11 was in fact just a distraction from the Pentagon's more important job of transforming and downsizing the military for a unipolar world; and, second, the Defense Science Board misses its own point--we keep making the same mistakes over and over again because they end up working in the long run. Posted by Orrin Judd at November 14, 2005 3:36 PM
The mistakes that were made seem to be almost entirely due to the assumption that WWII was the model that should be followed--a long, long occupation in which the Iraqis only very slowly were allowed to govern themselves. For all sorts of reasons this model was utterly inapplicable. The report mentioned in the story does finger the right culprit--the American ignorance (or at least misunderstanding) of history. We learned none of the correct lessons from the Vietnam conflict...
Posted by: b at November 14, 2005 3:57 PM--"It might help if Americans and their leaders were to show less arrogance and more understanding of themselves and their place in history. Perhaps more than any other people, Americans display a consistent amnesia concerning their own past, as well as the history of those around them."--
What, they want the European model?????
I really wished they fleshed this out, I really want to understandy myself and my country's place in history. What did I forget or not learn about our past?
Sandy:
That it was impossible to turn aboriginals, blacks, Japs, Krauts, Slavs, Orientals, etc. into democrats.
Posted by: oj at November 14, 2005 4:20 PM"...[T]here is broad agreement now that if the United States salvages a victory in Iraq, it will come in spite of the initial war planning, not because of it. ..."
What the heck is victory in Iraq? The reason for the pre-emptive invasion has changed soooo.. often, how are we to know when there is a victory or what its supposed to look like?
Posted by: oldkayaker at November 14, 2005 4:35 PMok:
No it hasn't. Read W's speech to the UN on 9/11/02:
http://www.iraqwatch.org/government/US/WH/wh-bush-091202.htm
Twelve years ago, Iraq invaded Kuwait without provocation. And the regime's forces were poised to continue their march to seize other countries and their resources. Had Saddam Hussein been appeased instead of stopped, he would have endangered the peace and stability of the world. Yet this aggression was stopped -- by the might of coalition forces and the will of the United Nations.
To suspend hostilities, to spare himself, Iraq's dictator accepted a series of commitments. The terms were clear, to him and to all. And he agreed to prove he is complying with every one of those obligations.
He has proven instead only his contempt for the United Nations, and for all his pledges. By breaking every pledge -- by his deceptions, and by his cruelties -- Saddam Hussein has made the case against himself.
In 1991, Security Council Resolution 688 demanded that the Iraqi regime cease at once the repression of its own people, including the systematic repression of minorities -- which the Council said, threatened international peace and security in the region. This demand goes ignored.
Last year, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights found that Iraq continues to commit extremely grave violations of human rights, and that the regime's repression is all pervasive. Tens of thousands of political opponents and ordinary citizens have been subjected to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, summary execution, and torture by beating and burning, electric shock, starvation, mutilation, and rape. Wives are tortured in front of their husbands, children in the presence of their parents -- and all of these horrors concealed from the world by the apparatus of a totalitarian state.
In 1991, the U.N. Security Council, through Resolutions 686 and 687, demanded that Iraq return all prisoners from Kuwait and other lands. Iraq's regime agreed. It broke its promise. Last year the Secretary General's high-level coordinator for this issue reported that Kuwait, Saudi, Indian, Syrian, Lebanese, Iranian, Egyptian, Bahraini, and Omani nationals remain unaccounted for -- more than 600 people. One American pilot is among them.
In 1991, the U.N. Security Council, through Resolution 687, demanded that Iraq renounce all involvement with terrorism, and permit no terrorist organizations to operate in Iraq. Iraq's regime agreed. It broke this promise. In violation of Security Council Resolution 1373, Iraq continues to shelter and support terrorist organizations that direct violence against Iran, Israel, and Western governments. Iraqi dissidents abroad are targeted for murder. In 1993, Iraq attempted to assassinate the Emir of Kuwait and a former American President. Iraq's government openly praised the attacks of September the 11th. And al Qaeda terrorists escaped from Afghanistan and are known to be in Iraq.
In 1991, the Iraqi regime agreed to destroy and stop developing all weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles, and to prove to the world it has done so by complying with rigorous inspections. Iraq has broken every aspect of this fundamental pledge.
From 1991 to 1995, the Iraqi regime said it had no biological weapons. After a senior official in its weapons program defected and exposed this lie, the regime admitted to producing tens of thousands of liters of anthrax and other deadly biological agents for use with Scud warheads, aerial bombs, and aircraft spray tanks. U.N. inspectors believe Iraq has produced two to four times the amount of biological agents it declared, and has failed to account for more than three metric tons of material that could be used to produce biological weapons. Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.
United Nations' inspections also revealed that Iraq likely maintains stockpiles of VX, mustard and other chemical agents, and that the regime is rebuilding and expanding facilities capable of producing chemical weapons.
And in 1995, after four years of deception, Iraq finally admitted it had a crash nuclear weapons program prior to the Gulf War. We know now, were it not for that war, the regime in Iraq would likely have possessed a nuclear weapon no later than 1993.
Today, Iraq continues to withhold important information about its nuclear program -- weapons design, procurement logs, experiment data, an accounting of nuclear materials and documentation of foreign assistance. Iraq employs capable nuclear scientists and technicians. It retains physical infrastructure needed to build a nuclear weapon. Iraq has made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon. Should Iraq acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year. And Iraq's state-controlled media has reported numerous meetings between Saddam Hussein and his nuclear scientists, leaving little doubt about his continued appetite for these weapons.
Iraq also possesses a force of Scud-type missiles with ranges beyond the 150 kilometers permitted by the U.N. Work at testing and production facilities shows that Iraq is building more long-range missiles that it can inflict mass death throughout the region.
In 1990, after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the world imposed economic sanctions on Iraq. Those sanctions were maintained after the war to compel the regime's compliance with Security Council resolutions. In time, Iraq was allowed to use oil revenues to buy food. Saddam Hussein has subverted this program, working around the sanctions to buy missile technology and military materials. He blames the suffering of Iraq's people on the United Nations, even as he uses his oil wealth to build lavish palaces for himself, and to buy arms for his country. By refusing to comply with his own agreements, he bears full guilt for the hunger and misery of innocent Iraqi citizens.
In 1991, Iraq promised U.N. inspectors immediate and unrestricted access to verify Iraq's commitment to rid itself of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles. Iraq broke this promise, spending seven years deceiving, evading, and harassing U.N. inspectors before ceasing cooperation entirely. Just months after the 1991 cease-fire, the Security Council twice renewed its demand that the Iraqi regime cooperate fully with inspectors, condemning Iraq's serious violations of its obligations. The Security Council again renewed that demand in 1994, and twice more in 1996, deploring Iraq's clear violations of its obligations. The Security Council renewed its demand three more times in 1997, citing flagrant violations; and three more times in 1998, calling Iraq's behavior totally unacceptable. And in 1999, the demand was renewed yet again.
As we meet today, it's been almost four years since the last U.N. inspectors set foot in Iraq, four years for the Iraqi regime to plan, and to build, and to test behind the cloak of secrecy.
We know that Saddam Hussein pursued weapons of mass murder even when inspectors were in his country. Are we to assume that he stopped when they left? The history, the logic, and the facts lead to one conclusion: Saddam Hussein's regime is a grave and gathering danger. To suggest otherwise is to hope against the evidence. To assume this regime's good faith is to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble. And this is a risk we must not take.
Delegates to the General Assembly, we have been more than patient. We've tried sanctions. We've tried the carrot of oil for food, and the stick of coalition military strikes. But Saddam Hussein has defied all these efforts and continues to develop weapons of mass destruction. The first time we may be completely certain he has a -- nuclear weapons is when, God forbids, he uses one. We owe it to all our citizens to do everything in our power to prevent that day from coming.
The conduct of the Iraqi regime is a threat to the authority of the United Nations, and a threat to peace. Iraq has answered a decade of U.N. demands with a decade of defiance. All the world now faces a test, and the United Nations a difficult and defining moment. Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced, or cast aside without consequence? Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding, or will it be irrelevant?
Posted by: oj at November 14, 2005 4:44 PM"...Which may be why Rumsfeld's military, as of late September, had assigned just 1,000 Marines to cover the western half of the 376-mile border with Syria. Picture five major college marching bands stretched over the distance between Washington and Trenton, N.J...."
Ha, ha, ha, thats quite an image! And Rummy thinks those brave troops should be positioned on the Iraq/Syria border, does he? Geeesh, maybe he has some insight that the US Border patrol has been missing all these years. We can't stop the flow, flood, deluge of illegals on our own borders and Rummy has it all figured out how to seal up the Iraq border? Wow, what gall! What hutspah?
Hey OJ... we have all read that message before. The same old story that has been refuted and proven wrong and full of misinformation and lies.
Thanks for your rehash! But, no thanks!
Posted by: oldkayaker at November 14, 2005 4:56 PMoldkayaker:
So, you trust in Joe Wilson. Good luck.
Posted by: jim hamlen at November 14, 2005 5:07 PMSo in other words, oldkayaker, for you the word lie more or less means anything I don't want to hear.
Posted by: joe shropshire at November 14, 2005 5:09 PMIn a nutshell.
Our place in history is at the pinnacle of human development; the best country the world has ever seen.
Still don't understand our place. Okay then, there isn't even a close second. We're numbers one through one hundred.
Still don't get it? Go live somewhere, anywhere, for a couple of years. Then come back and tell us what you've learned.
b. We did learn the right lesson from Vietnam. Don't trust the media because they don't tell the truth and are rooting for our enemies to defeat us.
oj. … was impossible to turn aboriginals, blacks, Japs, Krauts, Slavs, Orientals, etc. into democrats. Maybe so, but we turned the ones who came here into Americans.
OldK. Don't know what victory will look like? Why that'll be when we all holds hands and sing Kumbaya in Swahili.
Posted by: erp at November 14, 2005 6:07 PMerp:
No, those are the mistakes we made in the past, just as we should know now that you can't make Arabs democrats. But we will.
Posted by: oj at November 14, 2005 6:13 PMSo you were the guy in the kayak with the sign out in front of GW's. Thought I recognized you. Good to know you've learned to read.
Posted by: Genecis at November 14, 2005 6:14 PMOK: What statement in W's speech to the UN is untrue, let alone a lie?
Posted by: David Cohen at November 14, 2005 6:59 PMMore to the point, what statement in there was news to you? The striking thing about that speech is the extent to which it simply reminded us of what we already knew but preferred not to think about.
Posted by: joe shropshire at November 14, 2005 7:11 PMoldkayaker: Bush's speech may have been full of lies and half-truths (actually it wasn't, but let's play along for a sec...), but it still lists all the reasons we invaded.
Posted by: b at November 14, 2005 7:22 PMWow.. lots of you want to believe there were legitimate reasons for Bush's Iraq War... and so do I.
But, the truth is that there were no real justifications for the war that Bush used to start his war in Iraq. You folks that blindly follow Bush know it and you are afraid to admit it.
Bush told you what you wanted to hear and you bought it. Now you want to turn the present mess into something that can be justified.
Well, good luck. Lying to yourself may be comforting but ask yourselves, is it real, is it?
Was a big budget military action necessary when Saddam was fully contained?
Posted by: oldkayaker at November 14, 2005 9:40 PMo.k. -
"the present mess" - a slander by someone who takes his news from AP and Wolf Blitzer, no doubt. What is real are the testimonies of the men and women over there, and the witness of the Iraqi electorate.
The road to peace in the Middle East ran right through Baghdad - we tried it the other way for about 30 years, and it didn't work. So now, we have tried something different. Presto - all sorts of things are new. And the ossified will fall first.
Question: if North Korea and Iran are not 'fully contained' (as stated by every Democrat from Hillary on down, and many Republicans, too), does that mean we should attack at once?
Posted by: jim hamlen at November 14, 2005 10:02 PMOK -- Once you get through conceding that there were legitimate reasons for the war, I have no idea what you're saying. Iraq was a threat to us, a threat to our allies, promoted terrorism, wanted WMD's, reneged on the deal ending the Gulf War, was using oil money to subvert the UN and the west and, by the way, tried to assasinate GHWB, was shooting at the planes enforcing the no-fly zone, was killing its own people wholesale. Plus, there's a lot to be said for invading a middle-eastern country, any middle-eastern country, simply pour encourger les autres. There was no bad reason to invade Iraq and I would be happy with my support going in even if it hadn't turned out to be a stunning victory.
Posted by: David Cohen at November 14, 2005 10:42 PMThe sanctions were falling apart, Britain wanted out cos it was costing them $1 billion a year, and Saddam was fully contained?????
Would his sons have been?
Posted by: Sandy P at November 15, 2005 1:31 AMoldkayaker:
The moral burden lies with those who opposed the war. If you're going to oppose the removal of a genocidal dictator and the establishment of a democracy, you'd better have some good reasons.
Antebellum, I didn't hear many good reasons from the anti-war camp. I heard an awful lot of stuff about oil and an awful lot of stuff about Bush's style of public speaking.
Posted by: Brit at November 15, 2005 7:01 AMoldkayaker:
Please provide a short rundown of the status quo ante.
Then provide an alternate course of action.
Caution: posters here are uncommonly well informed (Mr. Cohen and OJ in particular), so leaving anything noteworthy out of your description of the status quo ante will not go unnoted.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 15, 2005 7:38 AM"Was a big budget military action necessary when Saddam was fully contained?"
God, the muderous nature of the modern Liberal makes me nauseous. I'm glad I skipped breakfast.
Who cares how many people Saddam killed, right oldkayaker? Just like you probably used to not care about how many people Mao killed back when you were a young kayaker. I don't know who's less ethical - old Liberals who ignore their own history or young Liberals who don't know their own history.
David: Excellent. Exactly correct. Iraq was the bellum quibus necessarium that halloweth any cause.
Posted by: Lou Gots at November 15, 2005 8:32 AMThe problems with the occupation is owed to a handful of key points:
1) The US should not have allowed the lawlessness associated with looting in the areas under our control.
2) We should have secured the borders of Iraq, especially the Iranian border. Here is where more troops would have been effective.
3) We should have moved much quicker to coopt indigenous leaders like Sistani with an Iraqi home government.
4) After Baghdad fell, we should have had a show of force in Baathist strongholds, like Tikrit, to provoke a final battle and annihilate the Saddamist sympathizers.
These seem to be the key mistakes that should have been anticipated. Any other mistakes I'd chalk up to the usual FUBAR of war.
Posted by: Chris Durnell at November 15, 2005 11:35 AMChris Durnell.. seems to have some valid ideas... A lot of the rest smacks of GWBush love.
But, what happened to the relatively successful Afghanistan format of making tight internal coalitions such as was done with the Northern alliance and US special ops? Then using effective air strikes and Northern alliance troops to complete the job.
What happened to that workable Afghan plan being used in Iraq... assuming an Iraq invasion was justified?
And of course, the usual response, provided usually by Bush lovers, is that the Afghan format wouldn't work in Iraq mainly because the anti-Saddam forces were not strong enough. Well, thats not a valid reason to launch the full scale big budget military action now is it? If the internal opposition isn't worthy of our support, or wanting of our support... then why are we trying to help them?
Posted by: oldkayaker at November 15, 2005 12:23 PMOldkyaker:
Why is it so wrong for us to love "GWBush" but it's perfectly fine for you to love Saddam Hussein?
oldkayaker;
Because the invasion was about the security interests of the USA, not the worthiness of the Iraqis.
As for the Afghanistan parallel, that option was lost in 1991 in southern Iraq.
As for the "GWBush love", I am completely failing to understand your position. OJ quoted a speech laying out the reasons for invading Iraq (although, as an aside, it's not a complete list). Do you consider those valid reasons or not? Keep in mind, whether President Bush himself believes any of them is irrelevant. As far as I can tell, you resort to "Bush Lied!" precisely to avoid addressing this point.
Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at November 15, 2005 1:17 PMok:
Likewise, the weakness of Jewish resistance to Hitler would require that we not act, no?
Posted by: oj at November 15, 2005 1:37 PMAOG:
What security interest? Saddam was totally boxed in and was "only" a threat to Iraqis, who he was killing, with the help of sanctions, by the hundreds of thousands.
Posted by: oj at November 15, 2005 1:48 PMoldkayaker:
Please provide a rundown of the status quo ante.
Then provide, and justify, an alternate course of action.
Hint: a null hypothesis does not count as a course of action.
Maybe I have missed it, but so far as I know, no one on the anti-war left has ever provided an answer to that question.
Other than the null hypothesis, that is.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 15, 2005 2:58 PMExcept Saddam was boxed in with wet cardboard. Our choices came down to letting him pick the time to "unbox" himself, pretending the box never existed, putting him in a real box, or tossing him on the trash heap of history along with the box. We were well on our way to picking one of the first two, which the Left still wishes we'd chosen, until that klutz bin-Ladin gave us a taste of what "unboxing" was going to mean.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at November 15, 2005 3:04 PMFirst of all, I am not in anyone's left or right pocket, OK? Being non-partisan, I vote for what I hope is the best person and when someone is elected, I expect that person to fill the position, not be a party person. (Taking an oath of office not oath of party.) OK, we straight on that?
Now, as we know, many Presidents have been allowed by whatever authority to exercise some of the executive power in the form of military actions. No need to list all of them but you folks probably can recall some of them, i.e., Bosnia/Serbia Action, Grenada, Carter's Iran fiasco, LBJ's Vietnam, Nixon's Vietnam, Somalia, etc, etc. Then along comes 9/11, US is attacked. The best intelligence leads us to Taliban controlled Afghanistan where we believe OBL was hiding and if GWB didn't launch those special ops we would have impeached him, right? That effort to get OBL has been diminished as a result of GWB diverting all attention to his views of a Saddam threat.
Short of continuing the containment of Saddam, you believe that an ignorant outsider should somehow devise an alternate course of action instead of the mistake ridden action we are witnessing? Why? I am not impowered with the greatest military force on earth. I am not elected to take the best course of action for our country's protection. But having already put my life on the line for this country, I have every right and responsibility to question the actions for which I pay taxes for which I expect my elected officers to be accountable.
Posted by: oldkayaker at November 15, 2005 5:04 PMBut you jump between two different criticisms to avoid counterpoints, and when cornered you simply dismiss any defense of the President as "Bushlove." Personally, I think the record better supports the idea that W suffers from Cohenlove, as he keeps doing what I want.
Should we have gone into Iraq? I say yes. What do you say?
Were the reasons given for going into Iraq real and sufficient reasons for the invasion? I say yes. What do you say?
Were there other, also sufficient reasons, that the administration downplayed? I say yes. So what?
Was the administration wrong about the state of Iraq's WMD programs at the time of the invasion? I say yes but, again, so what? After acquired evidence can't effect the decision to invade, which could only have been made on what was known at the time. Even if WMD's had not been part of the reason for the invasion, there still would have been more than sufficient justification for invading. Finally, the fact that intelligence can be so wrong even about a country with limited sovereignty and constant international surveillance can only lower the threshold for invasion, as we can as easily be wrong the other way.
Has the war been perfect? No, but I didn't expect it to be. Did you? Invading, defeating, occupying and then allying with a Muslim nation of 25 million half-way around the world with less than 2000 combat deaths strikes me as little short of miraculous. On the other hand, for people who didn't want to invade in the first place, even one death would be one too many.
Posted by: David Cohen at November 15, 2005 6:56 PMolkayaker:
So are you making a tax-dollars case against the war, or a moral case against the war?
Either way, why not just make your best case instead of wasting time on 'Bushlove'?
Posted by: Brit at November 16, 2005 4:20 AMoldkayaker:
Please provide, and justify, an alternate course of action.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 16, 2005 7:14 AM"...Should we have gone into Iraq? I say yes. What do you say?.." Answer: Not the way GWB did!
"...Were the reasons given for going into Iraq real and sufficient reasons for the invasion? I say yes. What do you say?..."
Answer: You mean because Bush didn't like Saddam? Those reasons could have been applied to Qaddafi, Mugabe, Milosevic and many others. Sure, I say get rid of all tyrants. But, HOW is the point. Getting Milosevic the way we did was much better use of US power don't you agree? Diminishing Qaddafi is an ongoing action supported by numerous administrations and it is working also. Patience, and effective use of power works.
"...Were there other, also sufficient reasons, that the administration downplayed? I say yes. So what?..."
Which ones were downplayed?
Cohen's world seems to be... do it first... justify it later!
So you have nothing intelligent to say at all? That's a little sad.
Posted by: David Cohen at November 16, 2005 2:11 PMNot the way GWB did!
Actually strikes me as quite decent and sensible--it gets us to mere bickering over style while conceding the moral case.
Posted by: oj at November 16, 2005 3:44 PMOJ:
His reply might be sensible, but it is not decent. He cannot answer Jeff Guinn's question, because like lonbud, KB, Bill, and the other condescending anti-war commenters, he is in a moral coffin of his own making.
"Bush is a liar, and Saddam was(is) an oppressive, murderous dictator. I want peace, but I don't know what that means, and if it makes Bush and Republicans look good, then forget it. Finally, I know that history tells me Saddam used chemical weapons throughout the 1980s, including against civilians. But I choose not to believe it."
Not a good place to be. And that coffin is getting smaller every day, what with Joe Wilson shrinking and shrinking and shrinking. The Democrats in Congress will rue the day they attached their lips to his dirty behind.
Posted by: jim hamlen at November 16, 2005 4:18 PMOJ: He's not saying he would have gone in, he's just saying that Bush did it wrong. He keeps cycling between carping about methods to avoid talking about the decision to invade and then switching to carping about the decision to invade to avoid talking about methods.
Look down at the paragraph in which he talks about (but shows his fundamental misunderstanding) of Kosovo, Libya, etc. His theory that Libya had nothing to do with Iraq, and that it was the result of "numerous administrations" just shows how far from planet Earth he is.
His Earth is one in which Saddam is still in power, but is a man we can do business with. At best, AK is a realist.
Posted by: David Cohen at November 16, 2005 4:38 PM"...Should we have gone into Iraq? I say yes. What do you say?.." Answer: Not the way GWB did!
Take "yes" for an answer.
Posted by: oj at November 16, 2005 5:01 PMMr. Cohen... your technique of speaking for me is cute but well, your technique.
I provided the scenario for getting rid of Saddam and that is using a method that works in the most efficient, low casualty, low profile manner, i.e., the Milsovic Serbia game plan for one suggestion.
Bush's Iraq invasion used high profile, high cost, high casualty, big budget, wasteful strategy. You know it, I know it. We all know it!
Posted by: oldkayaker at November 16, 2005 6:01 PMok:
Yes, so your quarrel is just over technique, right? The Milosevic option having failed from '91 to '03, the bloodless invasion was a reasonable next step.
Posted by: oj at November 16, 2005 6:06 PMAK: Except that the invasion was almost bloodless and incredibly cheap. The occupation was bloodier than we would have liked, but still incredibly cheap. The alliance period is still bloodier than in a perfect world, and still incredibly cheap. All told, fewer than 2000 battle deaths for an invasion, occupation and alliance against an insurgency is a much better result than anyone would have expected.
Doing it with a high profile was half the point.
Posted by: David Cohen at November 16, 2005 6:47 PMFailed...? Milosevic's in prison and on trial for human rights violations. Serbia is better behaved and heading in a better direction.
Sounds like a win - win strategy to me.
Posted by: oldkayaker at November 16, 2005 9:39 PMok:
Yes, worked in Serbia--failed in Iraq. So we went and got Saddam.
Posted by: oj at November 16, 2005 9:49 PMok: we flew missions over Iraq every day for twelve years, enforcing the no-fly zones and plinking at targets of opportunity. Milosevic folded after eleven weeks of that. Saddam was made of sterner stuff.
Posted by: joe shropshire at November 16, 2005 11:31 PMAlso, this potted history of Yugoslavia elides over some details. Milosevic was not removed from office by Allied bombing -- at least, not directly. He left office as a result of elections and then, when he started to fool around with the results, massive demonstrations. Thinking that the same process would work requires a suspension of disbelief great enough to accomodate relatively transparent elections in Iraq, massive demonstrations not met with state violence and Saddam's bowing to the popular will. It is, in a word, nuts.
Posted by: David Cohen at November 16, 2005 11:58 PMIf anything, the lesson to draw from Kosovo is that the sooner you act against a baby tyrant the better. The main difference between Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein was that the former had not had twenty-odd years to consolidate his grip and purge potential opponents.
Posted by: joe shropshire at November 17, 2005 12:15 AMHey.. no agrument here, glad Saddam is out of action!
The point remains, Saddam's removal should and could have been done better and without the current mess.
You say the Milosevic strategy would not have worked as a prototype in Iraq but of course we will never know since it was never tried.
The proportional amount of strategic bombing was not used in Iraq comparable to the scale used in Serbia.
There was no longterm effort to develop internal coalitions, as in the Afghan strategy.
There was however, an unnecessary hurry up rush to use the big military, big budget, high profile, on ground attack when patience and a long term strategy could have been just as effective.
Posted by: oldkayaker at November 17, 2005 1:43 PMYes. We did the right thing but sloppily, as always.
Posted by: oj at November 17, 2005 1:55 PMAh, yes, the needless rush to war. Gets 'em every time.
Posted by: joe shropshire at November 17, 2005 2:57 PMThis guy says a lot of what I am trying to say and does a much better job at it:
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?bid=3&pid=1388
ok:
That's not what you were trying to say--you say Saddam needed to be removed, just as the President said. The rest is just details.
Posted by: oj at November 17, 2005 4:46 PMwell oj as Reagan was want to say: "...there you go again..." telling me what I meant to say.
Thanks, but no thanks!
I say again, emphaticly, that blog says most of what I wanted to say and better.
Posted by: oldkayaker at November 17, 2005 5:39 PMSorry, but no, you said it well:
Hey.. no agrument here, glad Saddam is out of action!
the rest is just meaningless details.
Posted by: oj at November 17, 2005 6:06 PMHear ya oj and how does that disagree with the referenced blog?
Make no mistake, a bully pushes me and I push back harder... always have; but, the 9/11 bully was not from Iraq, not connected to Iraq, not trained or financed in Iraq. OK?
Bush decided on his own to go after Saddam, I say so be it, but I would have voted against it had I been asked, and would have not done it the way he did it. Lying to us, conducting an operation that is inefficent, wasteful of lives and money... thats what that blog meant to me. How you interpret it is your business.
Posted by: oldkayaker at November 17, 2005 9:02 PMRight, but we're agreed that it was good to remove Saddam, which is all that matters in the long run. David Corn wishes we hadn't.
Posted by: oj at November 17, 2005 9:06 PMAK: Except that Bush didn't lie to us and, by any rational measure, the entire war has been conducted with less loss of life and at far less expense than could be expected. Frankly, "I like the result but as it wasn't perfect I get to eschew any moral responsiblity" is contemptible.
Posted by: David Cohen at November 18, 2005 12:50 AMAs is the complete inability to offer an alternative.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 18, 2005 6:42 AMHey Cohen... I don't take any comfort in the loss of 2000+ Americans who died carrying out an illadvised, wasteful military operation and who continue to be targets in what is essentially a civil war.
NO COHEN... I take no comfort in this tragedy!
Posted by: oldkayaker at November 18, 2005 4:25 PMok:
tragedy? They died fighting for our values. There's no tragedy in that.
Posted by: oj at November 18, 2005 5:13 PMAK: I'm glad to hear that, because you had been giving the impression that you were happy that their deaths were giving you a temporary domestic political advantage.
But I'm still left thinking that you think one life too much to pay to give 25 million people a chance at freedom, rid the middle east of a brutal tyrant, make us safer and show the world that there's a price for defying us.
I honor the men and women who have chosen to serve, those who have died and those who have been wounded. They are serving and dying in a noble cause and they have won a great victory. I'd prefer that you'd stop spitting on their victory because you think it helps undercut the President.
Posted by: David Cohen at November 18, 2005 9:13 PMCohen... I take no pleasure personal, political or any other way in the deaths of US military especially when the its due to illadvised and based on misrepresented reasons.
Whether 25 million middle eastern people are better off then they were... well, we don't know yet; but, are WE safer? Hmmm... None of those 25 million have been connected in any way to our 1993 or 2001 WTC attacks so there is no assurance that we are any safer from those attackers or their accomplices now, are we?
And Cohen... when you have put your life on the line for your country as I did.... you will still never, ever be able to smear me. And you are a punk for trying. I have earned the right to question our leaders including the military leaders and making sure that soldiers are not being MISLED is my responsibility, I earned that right! Did you?
Posted by: oldkayaker at November 19, 2005 12:27 AMok:
It's not about us. It's about them. Ending the Holocaust made us less safe too. So what?
Posted by: oj at November 19, 2005 8:16 AMOJ...
Oh please! What a self-serving comment comparing the Holocaust to Bush's adventures in Iraq. What a load of crap! There is no valid comparison there and you know it!
Posted by: oldkayaker at November 19, 2005 12:36 PMok:
Of course, killing Jews is out of style these days, but y'all don't mind genocide against Kurds & Shi'a.
Posted by: oj at November 19, 2005 12:40 PMOJ... Bush spiced up his reasons, twisted facts, threw in lies.... if saving Kurds and Shia was the real reason.. why did he have to add in the lies?
If saving Kurds and Shia was the only valid reason why didn't we use the Afghan format, build a strong internal coalition of Kurds and Shia? Use their skills to carry out the bulk of ground fighting. Why not?
Posted by: oldkayaker at November 19, 2005 2:53 PMok:
Because Blair and Powell wanted allies and only America, Britain & Australia--and only the religious conservatives in all three--would fight a war for purely humanitarian reasons. Bush explained whjy America was going to war on 9/12/02 to the UN and WMD was an afterthought.
His old man and Powell had betrayed the Shi'a in such dastardlty fashion in '91 that they didn't trust us enough to rise again, so we had to vgo clean up our own mess.
Posted by: oj at November 19, 2005 2:58 PMWell OJ you ignored my questions nicely and then threw in some more nonsense about religious conservatives (whatever that means) having some exclusive hold on humanitarianism.. wow, why not also say that nebulous group has the hold on patriotism too and cover the whole nonsensical ball? You want to don't you?
But, I have to agree with you that Bush I betrayed the anti-Sadam forces and maybe thats why the Afghan format wouldn't work soon enough for Bush II and therefore that format was abandoned.
Posted by: oldkayaker at November 19, 2005 8:58 PMok:
Of course we do. That's why conservatives support Democratic war presidents but the Left opposes Republican war presidents.
Not liking answers isn't the same as not getting them.
OK a draw.
You folks want to insist on this left/right nonsense and I just want to avoid getting lies from my elected officials.
Right now, I have been lied too and its costing lives and money. Maybe some folks like to be lied too; but, I don't.
Posted by: oldkayaker at November 19, 2005 9:11 PMHow much money is ending a holocaust worth to you?
In what sense is the honest truth that it isn't worth anything to you preferable to the lies that help end one?
Posted by: oj at November 19, 2005 9:14 PMI say again!
Oh please! What a self-serving comment comparing the Holocaust to Bush's adventures in Iraq. What a load of crap! There is no valid comparison there and you know it!
ok:
Of course you can't compare the Holocaust to ending Saddam's genocide. You'd compare ending the Holocaust to it or compare leaving Saddam in power to the Holocaust.
Posted by: oj at November 19, 2005 9:42 PMIts all a matter of why did Bush 2 really, really want to invade Iraq in such a hurry, with a big budget, high profile, big military spending operation?
Self-serve all you want about how Saddam was a bad guy, he was contained and under control... there was no need for the rush to war... we had the upper hand, we could have planned better for all contingencies, made better use of covert ops, done a better job worthy of the best military in the world without the embarassing mess we got.
We elect our people, we pay them well, we deserve the best.
Posted by: oldkayaker at November 19, 2005 9:57 PMHurry? He was ready to go in 2001, but was talked out of it.
The only point that matters is the sanctions regime you favored keeping in place killed 500,000 Iraqis and Saddam killed at least 600,000. It didn't effect you at all or cost you any money though....and besides, they're just Arabs....
Posted by: oj at November 19, 2005 10:00 PMOJ... Now you resort to throwing self-serving insults at me. I have tried to be civil but you insist on snide remarks implying that loss of innocent lives doesn't affect me "...and besides, they're just Arabs..."
I'll remember your comments and how you meant them.
But, of course, if you can't stand the truth, smear the messenger, eh OJ?
The truth is, Saddam was not a threat to the USA. Lies were told, information was manipulated, a rush to war was implemented and a big mistake was started costing innocent lives, long term loss of US credibility and continuing unnecessary death and wounding of US lives. Smear the messengers of these truths as much as you like; but, those truths will remain.
Posted by: oldkayaker at November 20, 2005 1:25 PM