Someone break this down for me:
Meanwhile, as usual, Limbaugh’s been busy quoting other people out of context. He listed me by name alongside other so-called traitors who are rooting for the defeat of American troops in Iraq, because I said Sheehan’s success gave war opponents “reason to be optimistic about the administration’s unraveling in Iraq.” From that he concluded I was “rooting for the administration’s unraveling in Iraq … that’s exactly what they’re doing! They are actively urging our defeat!” (Thanks to Media Matters for the transcript.)
Let me break it down for Limbaugh, and for his allies like Washington Times columnist Frank Gaffney, whom I debated Tuesday night on the “News Hour With Jim Lehrer” (you can watch it here): I’m not rooting for the defeat of our troops. When I hail the administration’s “unraveling,” as the piece made clear, I’m referring to the unraveling of public support for the war, which is tied to the unraveling of the administration’s ever-shifting stories about why we went to war — some call them lies — and now, the unraveling of its claims about what we’re fighting for. No longer are we promised a democratic Iraq — my piece linked to a Washington Post article in which unnamed administration officials confessed that the best we can expect in Iraq is some sort of Islamic republic. That’s quite an unraveling.
The way I read that, it says ‘I’m not rooting for a loss in Iraq, I am just giddy about the prospect of domestic political gain that comes with a loss in Iraq.’
Am I misreading that?
ppGaz
Tell us what you are giddy about, John. With respect to the war, I mean. Bated breath, and all that.
Apparently now even the mood of the speaker is grist for the “politics of personality” approach to everything.
Wow, that’s some serious stuff.
But, let’s talk about the war. The war, the war, the war.
Let us not be giddy. Let us not be sad. Let us not be worrying about who wins and loses political points (after all, the people RUNNING the war never worry about such things, do they?)
Let us just be plainspoken, honest, and let spades be called spades.
Sorry, I’m off the doctor to have my tongue removed from my cheek. Elevating a WAR to something above the level of the Daily Snark, I mean, what the hell was I thinking?
Geek, Esq.
I believe the person is hailing the fact that people are no longer drinking the Bush Kool-Aid on Iraq and beginning to question just what the hell we’re doing there anyways.
The Sanity Inspector
“I support the troops; I just hope they fail.” MmmYep, makes sense to me. But only because I used to be a peace creep, years ago.
Jim Caputo
I think it’s more like “I support the troops and I hope no more have to die in a war which we’re now realizing cannot end successfully in terms of establishing a real democracy.”
And that makes sense. We were fighting the “war on terror” but that’s a war that can never be won. No amount of fighting is going to eliminate terrorism. I’d argue that such a campaign is self-perpetuating in that for every terrorist you kill, you create a bigger pool (the dead person’s family and friends) from which new terrorists might spring.
Now we’re fighting to bring democracy to Iraq, but we’re starting to see that the form of democracy that’s likely to develop isn’t going to be a pro-western democracy. It’s going to be a Islamist-based democracy and will more than likely evolve into a theocracy in a short amount of time.
We’re not going to attain any of our ever-changing goals in Iraq so to allow troops to continue to die just to put off those inevitable outcomes is a waste. At this point, I think 2000 people dead for a lost cause is better than 4000, 5000, or 10,000 dead for a lost cause.
rafael
Isn’t it more like, I KNOW this war is a lost cause, I’m happy that people are finally realizing that.
Now, I think he’s right, I think we’ve lost whatever chance we had of coming out of this with anything that looks like a victory. (Yes, it’s nice we took out Saddam, but making Iran the biggest influence in Irak kind of balances that out.) But whether you agree that the war in Irak is already lost or not, I think it’s unfair to try to characterize that argument as: I’m happy our soldiers are dying. That’s not what the author is saying.
Darrell
The left uses extreme exaggeration and outright lies in their attempts to undermine US actions in Iraq. That quote from Caputo was a typical example. Lancet is another.
Bush lied people died
ppGaz
Whoop. Whoop.
This is now a (feared, despised) “Darrell Thread.”
Time to move along. Nothing useful will be said here henceforth.
Darrell
Hah, little do you know that I’m too busy cleaning my room today to have time left for posting
Nate
I’d actually rather be a peace creep than a knuckle-dragging war creep, but that’s just me. It’s the 21st century…haven’t we evolved to a place where WAR WAR WAR! isn’t our first response?
Oh, sorry, I used the word “evolved.” I know how much wingnuts don’t like to hear about *that*.
As has been oft-quoted on other sites, the Right-Wing attack dogs were certainly “peace-creeps” when Clinton was president, as in Bosnia. Clinton was goinmg tpo pay for every body bag that came home, remember. Because that was just about preventing genocide, how boring! Nothing like an exciting, fresh war of choice, run in the most stupid way imaginable.
You war jockeys keep hyping this thing. I’m just worried what you’ll all do when the whole rotten facade crashes down. Oh, right, blame the “peace creeps.” *Of course*.
Veeshir
ppGaz, were you expecting anything else considering the topic? I clicked in expecting a hilarious exchange and was only moderately disappointed considering the paucity of posts. I’ll add fuel to the fire.
I think it’s more like “I support the troops and I hope no more have to die in a war which we’re now realizing cannot end successfully in terms of establishing a real democracy.”
Intersting, but I think it’s more like, “I support the troops and I hope more die so that more people will agree with me that the war is wrong.”
kl
Yep, first response. Nothing else was tried.
Geoduck
You’re just being sarcastic. First the Administration sent Colin Powell to push a bunch of warmed-over crap on the UN. Then we went to war.
Peter T.
The letter’s author is obviously among that class of wretched humans who sat on their hands when Tinkerbell was dying.
kl
No, no, war was our first response. Nate said so.
SomeCallMeTim
This seems pretty straightforward. It reads something like:
This Administration is hurting US interests, including the troops, because its understanding of the Iraq situation blows. Its justifications for the war didn’t hold up, and its acts have been less than helpful. The sooner the American people recognize this, the sooner we can restrain the Administration and try to salvage the situation by putting it, effectively, in the hands of people who are smarter than their own shoes.
Why do the Reds hate America? (This last bit is only implied, though.)
EZSmirkzz
The second article
paraphrases Walsh’s first article;
So yeah, I think you’re misreading it. Even if the author agrees with the sentiment of “people”, it is not articulated as such in the article. The tone is one of advocacy, for sure, but it is disingenuis to leap from that to,
as Rush has done.
I wonder if the blogosphere isn’t becoming so interested in writing now, that we have forgotten how to read. Personally I don’t care what Rush and Joan think, if I did I would listen to the one and read the other.
ppGaz
No, actually.
Considering the fact that these officials are now saying exactly what opponents said 3 years ago — you are not likely to get a “democracy” in Iraq — and the thread’s original post is talking about the “giddyness” of the person relaying this information …. no.
We are in a sort of SNL skit that never ends here, a parallel reality in which everything is funny, no matter how unfunny it really is. Ha ha ha we were wrong about Iraq he he he …. HEY! IS THAT SOMEBODY SNICKERING OVER THERE?
WHY DO THE SNICKERERS HATE AMERICA? See, the SNICKERERS are why we are losing public support!
I mean this in all seriousness, the blogosphere seemed really promising a year or two ago. AFAIC, that period is now over. The blogosphere is turning into just another venue for the same tired old bullshit.
JoeTx
Guilt
I am guilty,
But not in the way you think.
I should have earlier recognized my duty;
I should have more sharply called evil evil;
I reined in my judgment too long.
I did warn,
But not enough, and clear;
And today I know what I was guilty of.
–Albrecht Haushofer
And don’t forget the words of these “patriots”
“You can support the troops but not the president.”
–Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)
“Well, I just think it’s a bad idea. What’s going to happen is they’re going to be over there for 10, 15, maybe 20 years.”
–Joe Scarborough (R-FL)
“Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?”
–Sean Hannity, Fox News,
“[The] President . . . is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation’s armed forces about how long they will be away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy.”
–Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA)
“If we are going to commit American troops, we must be certain they have a clear mission, an achievable goal and an exit strategy.”
–Karen Hughes, speaking on behalf of George W Bush
“I had doubts about the bombing campaign from the beginning . . I didn’t think we had done enough in the diplomatic area.”
–Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)
“I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning that lesson right now. The President began this mission with very vague objectives and lots of unanswered questions. A month later, these questions are still unanswered. There are no clarified rules of engagement. There is no timetable. There is no legitimate definition of victory. There is no contingency plan for mission creep. There is no clear funding program. There is no agenda to bolster our over-extended military. There is no explanation defining what vital national interests are at stake. There was no strategic plan for war when the President started this thing, and there still is no plan today”
–Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)
“Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is.”
–Governor George W. Bush (R-TX)
Patriotical comments made against the Bosnian conflict and President Clinton.
Number of American troops killed in the bloody war in Bosnia: 0
Number of American troops killed in the “conflict against global extremism”: 1800+
Where is their outrage now?
RSA
Concerning “the administration’s unraveling in Iraq,” here’s how I read it: The Bush administration has made any number of mistakes about going into Iraq. They’ve acknowledged few if any of them, and have taken responsibility for none of them. If we end up winning in Iraq, i.e., achieving democracy and so forth, that’s great, couldn’t imagine a better outcome. If this win is accompanied by the message that the administration was right all along about its approach to foreign policy, however (with implications for Iraq and North Korea, for example), this would be a disaster. By analogy, think about someone who’s done something incredibly stupid but come out okay in the end, perhaps even benefited. You want to say, “That’s great, and I’m happy about the outcome, but for God’s sake don’t think that it was a smart thing to do in the first place. And don’t do it again!” If this analogy makes the Bush administration sound like a moderately stupid teenager, well, . . .
ppGaz
History will be forced to ask …. how did this country fall for these lying, two-faced incompetant bastards?
How could such a thing happen?
How did we become a people so little respected by our own leaders, who now apparently believe — because they have evidence to support the idea — that they can say anything to this public, and get away with it. And I mean, anything.
History will ask, where was the press while this was going on?
Darrell
JoeTx, out of all those quotes you provide, although several were wrongheaded, none come remotely close to the “Bush lied people died”, “war for oil” type of hateful smears coming from the left now.
I find it curious that ppgaz has tried twice to kill this thread (“Darrell thread, let’s leave now” and “same old tired bullshit, let’s moveon”) without contributing one original thought to the conversation
Bump
Caroline
You want answers about the noble cause in Iraq? Well here it is:
So it looks like we have sent troops to depose a brutal dictator and install Islamic fundamentalist law. Is this a win?
Darrell
Caroline wrote:
This assertion is flatly denied by the US ambassador to Iraq. Since the Constitution has not been finalized, you are promoting a dishonest characterization of what it will look like. But you’re not trying to undermine our efforts in Iraq or anything, right?
capriccio
Let’s say you live in a large metropolitan area…LA, for instance. And you’re no ordinary citizen, but someone who really pays attention and participates and one of your issues is the way the majority of your fellow citizens get their chests all puffed up about their local police department which is glamorized weekly on network TV even though you know, having your ear close to the ground, that all is not right with this police department…there’s corruption and brutality sanctioned from the top and practiced freely on the street, where crime is actually getting worse because of the department. But you can’t get people too hot about the whole thing because they’ve bought into the Serve and Protect myth. Then lo and behold, one inevitable day, the lid comes off and almost every sentient citizen can see the department’s corruption and brutality for what it is and a special commission verifies it.
As a good citizen, what should be the proper civic reaction? Resistance to and outrage at the evidence that’s been gathered against your police department? Or relief…maybe even giddiness…at the prospect that at long last your view has been confirmed and that finally something is going to be done about it? Like a change in the politics that created the atmosphere for the failed policies in the first place.
Well, of course no one wants to gain politically under such circumstances. That would be sooooooo tasteless!!!!
What has freaked Bush and the Right out so much about Cindy Sheehan is that she’s blown their cover. They can no longer hide behind the Support Our Troops by supporting our policies and incompetence myth. And the price of losing that cover is political power, as it ever was and should be. Amen.
Otto Man
As opposed to the attempts to get the US into Iraq in the first place. No, there were certainly no exaggerations or outright lies there.
“Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof — the smoking gun — that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.” G. W. Bush, 7 October 2002
“Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminium tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.” G. W. Bush, 7 October 2002
“The British government has learnt that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” G. W. Bush, 7 October 2002
“We believe he [Saddam] has reconstituted nuclear weapons.” Dick Cheney, “Meet the Press,” 16 March 2003
“Iraq could decide on any given day to provide biological or chemical weapons to a terrorist group or individual terrorist.” Dick Cheney, 10 January 2003
“We know where they [the WMDs] are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.” Don Rumsfeld, 30 March 2003
“Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough agent to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets.” Colin Powell to the UN Security Council, 5 February 2003
Darrell
Otto man, lots of quotes there. But I seen none which comes close to being a lie or even unreasonable exaggeration. I mean, are you seriously arguing that Saddam, with his extensive terrorist ties, would never have provided bio or chem weapons to terrorist groups? and that somehow constitutes a “lie” on the part of the Bush administration?
Boronx
Even if you believe that pulling out isn’t a good option (I don’t believe it either), the administration’s unraveling in Iraq would be about the most beneficial thing that could happen to our war effort, our troops and the Iraqi people short of the insurgency deciding to put down weapons and head home.
Let’s be clear: The US military will never unravel in Iraq, no matter what someone says here at home, or what idiocy Bush tasks them with overseas.
Otto Man
Are you serious?
So there were WMDs around Tikrit? Why didn’t we find any?
So Iraq really did have 100 to 500 tons of chemical weapons agent? Why didn’t we find any?
So Iraq was really reconstituting its nuclear weapons program? Why didn’t we find any evidence on the ground.
You know why they don’t show the old “Hey Kool-Aid!” ads anymore? Darrell kidnapped the giant pitcher and drank him dry.
JoeTx
Let me rephrase this to make it more believable..
“
The leftThis administration uses extreme exaggeration and outright lies in their attempts to undermine the USactions in Iraq.Ok, ok, that makes alot more sense.
Its alot easier to fit that on a bumper sticker than to spell out all the lies from this administration. Americans have such a short attention span, we have to get our points down to 4 or 5 word sound bites, or it will fly over their heads!
Key word is “US” ambassador. What makes him any more believable than “Last throes” Chaney?
Darrell
Iraq had ADMITTED to UNSCOM that they still had tons of Vx nerve gas and hundreds of tons of weaponized chems.. which were NEVER accounted for
Oh, I don’t know
Otto Man
So the 500 tons of chemical agents … were hidden in a fighter jet in a sand dune?
Ok, even if I throw out all we know about physics — and replace it with “intelligent movement” — and assume that 500 tons of chemical agents could all fit inside a fighter jet, there’s no mention of that fact in the piece.
I can’t wait to see the rationale you give for this. I hope it involves unicorns.
Caroline
Good grief. I guess now reporting facts is “undermining” the war. The article reports that the US is caving to Islamicists and you are blaming me?
When did the Ambassador say that? Two months ago? Apparently the objective has changed since then.
ppGaz
Even if the 500 tons had been sitting in the palace outbuildings, and clearly labeled …. Hussein had no effective way to deploy such weapons in any effective way. Nor were they any threat beyond his borders. He had neither the equipment nor the trained personnel to get that job done.
Hussein’s stock in trade was bluster and deflection, so as to shunt away attention from his real priorities: Stealing the wealth represented by Iraq’s oil. Hussein was just a thief, and his military and weapons activities were only those which served to help him keep stealing.
Tim F
Maybe the writer has a right to gloat because he was right about fucking everything. There were no WMDs and no ties to terrorism, the occupation has become a bloody mess rife with incompetence and corruption and now we’re told that the best we can hope for is for Iraq to become another Iran. Even the most cynical of us didn’t really expect Abu Ghraib. That was basically a message that even the most cynical of us probably weren’t being cynical enough.
So those of us who were told that we hate America when we suggested that this war was a bad idea have a right to rub it in the dickheads’ faces when the American public comes around to the fact that the war was, in fact, a bad idea.
Veeshir
See, that’s just funny.
Kimmitt
I don’t hope our troops fail in Iraq; I recognize that they have already failed, and I don’t want any more of them to get killed in order to boost the Republican Party’s electoral chances in 2006. So what I hope for is widespread recognition that they have failed, so we can cut our losses.
I am giddy that I am no longer expected to believe it when Bush lies. It’s like that old joke; a guy walks in and finds his friend sitting in the corner hitting himself on the head with a hammer. “Why the hell are you doing that?” he asks. His friend replies, “Because it feels so good when I stop.”
Darrell
ppgaz wrote:
Huh? Saddam slaughtered Kurds by dropping chemical munitions from helicopters. From the globalsecurity link above:
Regarding the “no threat beyond his borders” comment, a letter size envelope of Vx can kill 10’s of thousands. As for ‘no trained personnel’ left in Iraq under Saddam to produce WMDs, I find that claim hard to believe as well. Links/evidence?? Furthermore, it’s my understanding that the know-how required to produce a number of chem weapons is no more sophisticated than what you’d find in any university lab..
But hey, don’t let these inconvenient details stop you and the rest of the dishonest left from blathering on
SteveMGalbraith
What’s puzzling for me (and admittedly it’s not a smart idea to start a post with that admission) in this controversy is that it seems to me that many (some? most?) on the anti-war cause seem to be saying that they want Bush to fail but somehow the US not to lose. Or, they wish for the Bush Administration not to succeed while at the same time not wishing for bad things to happen in Iraq.
Odd.
I don’t doubt that the overwhelming majority of anti-war types are sincerely grieved over the deaths of American soldiers. And I don’t doubt that they really don’t want the insurgents to win.
But somehow they convinced themselves (or they’ve not really thought out the implications of what they’re saying) that they can wish for a Bush failure – because the enterprise was built upon lies for the neocons or for Halliburton or for Israel or for Big Oil or for some other unjust cause – and yet they’re not wishing for the US to lose.
Very odd.
I can imagine a scenario where Bush “loses”, his policy in Iraq fails, and yet some sort of muddled perhaps splintered Iraq in name only continues. The Kurds gain independence, the Sunnis and Shia’s have a low intense civil war with parts of Iraq having a sort of quasi-independence. No central government, no trans-Iraq unity occurs; the nation just settles down in a simmering inter-sectarian “mild” war.
I think that’s far-fetched for I can’t see how an Iran or others wouldn’t fill the vacuum caused by a US withdrawal.
As Hitchens has written, whether they like it or not those in the anti-war movement who do wish for a more just order in the Middle East must realize that this can occur only if the US succeeds in Iraq. And that success can only be obtained if the Bush Administration succeeds.
For the real long-term enemy of the ideals of freedom and pluralism and secularism is not George Bush but the Islamists and Baathists in Iraq.
SMG
Nate
Like most male wingnuts, Darrell has his manhood all wrapped up in this war. That’s why it’s so essential to him. If we somehow fail, that will effect him (and others) very, very personally. And so those of us who criticize the war effort and dispute all Bush’s dubious facts are actually threatening *many* masturbatory war fantasies. We can’t have that!
B. Ross
Lots of people warned Bubble Boy that invading Iraq was a really really stupid idea.
He thought he knew better.
Bubble Boy was wrong.
This mess is his fault, all his fault. So cry about it, why don’t you.
Otto Man
Well, Bush does like to talk about the Ownership Society. This is something he owns entirely.
Jim Caputo
It’s not a lie, it’s an opinion. And my goal isn’t to undermine the government, my goal is to steer the government towards better decision making. That’s the responsibility of citizens living in a democracy. Or, we can follow your lead and learn to say “Baa-a-a.”
Andrei
And those helicopters were going to fly to NYC how?
Even if Saddam DID go for a major attack on a place like NYC, as the whole Shock and Awe thing proved, he would have committed instant suicide. Even the Japanese generals right before Pearl Harbor knew they were waking a sleeping giant with the order to bomb that naval base back then.
The point is: Where was the imminent threat FROM IRAQ? Where the frig was it? Honestly… please tell me where the frig was this IMMINENT THREAT used to wage PRE-EMPTIVE WAR.
Getting so friggin’ tired of you…
While I hate to instigate more flame wars, I can’t help but vocally agree with the sentiment and point of this comment. People like us are getting tired of people like Darrell and people like John who should know better than to side with people like Darrell.
Otto Man
No, no. It wasn’t the helicopters that would fly to New York, it was all the balsa-wood drones that could make it there in 45 minutes.
Otto Man
Agreed. And looking at the ad to the left — the one asking “Who’s the Biggest Liberal?” with the Soviet Union hammer and sickle emblem repeated twenty times in the banner — I’m inclined to rub the we-told-you-so’s in a little harder.
Darrell
Oh yeah, I remember now, making the argument about how we need to defend ourselves against the Iraqi airforce helicopters dropping nasty substances on New Yorkers.. Because short of flying helicopters from Baghdad to New York, there couldn’t be any other way for Saddam to hurt us, right? Because * everybody * knows that Bushlied(tm) about Saddam having terrorist ties and all. Can you believe all the wingnuts who still believe that Saddam had ties to terrorism? Don’t those wingnuts know that Saddam was secular and would never have anything to do with fanatical religious terrorist groups?
All that missing unaccounted for Vx and tons of missing precursors?.. Saddam was probably using all that stuff for research so that he could surprise us with a cure for nerve gas.. because that’s the kind of good hearted guy Saddam was.
ppGaz
Which elements of resistance to our invasion were influenced by these weapons? In the one circumstance in which Hussein might have made rational use of them, to what extent did we feel their sting?
Zero.
There was no fucking threat.
Darrell continues his two-stroke lead on the field of contestants who will be the last sumbitches on earth to still be propping up the nonexistent threat that drove us to this stupid and useless war.
When public support for this debacle reaches 30 percent, which is where the Bush base begins to erode — in other words, when support outside of that base reaches zero, which is not that far off — Darrell will still be here pimping this bullshit.
Eural
My attitude toward the whole Iraq thing has evolved over the last few years (as I would suspect it has for most Americans?) but lately I’ve actually had a new idea that might help explain the whole “I support the troops but want the US to lose” idea. I don’t think it matters whether or not we support the troops or the president anymore. The whole Iraq fiasco was and is built on such a heap of lies, deceptions and outright incompetence that its failure is a foregone conclusion. No matter how you look at it (strategically, morally, domestically, etc.) the only constant pattern is one of misjudgement, mismanagement and failure. Our military won the war (which is a given pretty much anywhere, anytime) but other than that not one “plot” point in the last two years has turned out as predicated or planned. This administration has created a situation so bad our support or lack of it is irrelevent. The only question now is how many more US soldiers will die before its over and done with. And to those (like Darrell) attacking the Iraq war critics – ask your target first whether or not they supported the war in Afghanistan. I suspect most (like me) did. War and military force is not the problem. Iraq and incompetence are. Thats the Bush administration in a nut-shell.
Darrell
ppgaz wrote:
Uh ppgaz, I guess you didn’t hear that in Gulf War I, we discovered thousands of tons of all sorts of nasty WMDs.. Why didn’t he use them on our troops back then? who knows
Saddam didn’t use WMDs on our troops!! That “proves”.. oh, wait
Darrell
Behold the thoughtful reflection of the left. Bush is such a liar, don’t you think?
ppGaz
That proves ….
SteveMGalbraith
I find it frankly astonishing that people still somehow believe, following the events of 9/11 in which a nation and a organization with no organized modern army, no air force, no navy yet was able to kill thousands of Americans, that Iraq posed no threat to us because they had a few aircraft or a few helicopters.
Yes, you can argue with great authority that the Bush Administration exagerrated the threat and danger (as did the Clinton Administration). But to somehow state that Iraq and her support for terrorism posed NO threat to the US and its interests is absurd.
My guess is that if on September 10, 2001 Bush had come out and stated that Afghanistan posed a threat to the lives and security of Americans, that the same critics citing the lack of threat from Iraq today would have dismissed Bush’s tocsin as a lie.
SMG
ppGaz
I find it astonishing that anyone could write such a load of nonsense with a straight face.
“No threat?” The question is whether there was a threat which justified an invasion, a prolonged war, and an impossible exercise in nation-building. And whether this stupid adventure is actually an effective measure in a so-called “war on terror.”
No, no, and no.
There was no such threat.
What did you think you were seeing, when George Bush the shameless shithead, madea video of himself looking under sofa cushions — Uyuck! Nope, bo WMDs here!! Har Har!
The man has no shame, but at least he had the balls to finally … a year after everyone else in the world had already said it …. admit that the WMD threat wasn’t there.
If the kind of crap you posted here is any indication of what this blog is attracting now, somebody ought to shut the frigging thing down.
Andrei
You state a crucial piecce of the puzzle and still for some reason miss it or chose to ignore it. (Don’t worry, so do so many other Americans these days.)
Groups that act like that are indeed a very serious problem. An extraordinary problem that does indeed require $200+ billion dollars to address, fight, hunt down, kil and or contain. Not argument from me there.
However, Iraq was NOT a group like that. Iraq was a sovereign nation, with an infrastructure and targets that we can fight in the militaristic sense.
We succeeded for that month of shock and awe PRECISELY because Iraq has a governmental infrastrucutre to attack directly. We’ll succeed if we choose to fight North Korea and Iran for the exact same reason. But that wouldbe the wrong move for the same reasons its the wrong move in Iraq.
You don’t fight terrorism with standard military tactics.
Need proof? Why are we are losing soldiers and innocent lives daily against insurgents after we won militarily? Precisely because terrorists are NOT a sovereign nation, and you dont beat them in the same way you beat a Saddam or other despot.
The tactics needed to fight terrorism are drasticaly different than what is needed to fight a war.
And that is thing the keeps pissing me off. We don’t neeed to be a fighting a group like Al Qaeda using military tactics. It simply will not work.
[sarcasm] But no one wants to have that discussion, because obviously fighting Iraq was the obvious answer to fighting terrorims. [.sarcasm]
Even if there was (or is) that threat, it did not constitute the use of our military might to fight it. It can be argued that using the wrong tactics (or at least mismanagement and incompetence in executing on a military strategy) has made the situation worse than no action at all. And that is the real issue.
John S.
I agree completely. I saw that movie Toys with Robin Williams, and they had all these little kids playing military ‘video games’.
But what they were really doing was controlling miniature weapons of mass destruction. Toy helicopters and fighter jets capable of deliverable tiny – but deadly – payloads.
So in light of that, I have always thought that a flotilla of miniature submarines and aircraft controlled by Iraqi kids on bootlegged PS2s could be making their way over here to mete out death and destruction.
Sarcasm off.
SteveMGalbraith
ppGaz:
If you re-read my post and calmly think about it, nowhere did I say that the threat posed by Iraq warranted (or didn’t warrant) military action.
My point was directed at those (and I don’t know whether you’re in this group or not) who say that Iraq posed no threat to the US because of its diminished military capabilities.
Following 9/11 we discovered that enemies of the US can use “simple” weapons to kill many Americans. That the view of the military capabilities of nations and organizations like al-Qaeda included asymmetrical warfare. That because of the wider availability of precursors to WMD that more groups could obtain them.
If you don’t like my posts – and John permits me to post them – there are lots of other blogs out there. Feel free to peruse them.
SMG
Darrell
ppgaz wrote:
Too funny. ppgaz expresses no objection over comments like these in the same thread:
Suddenly, though, ppgaz is waving his arms screaming ‘there goes the neighborhood’ because someone dares to point out how patently ridiculous it is for people to run around saying things like:
with regards to Iraq under Saddam. ppgaz’s reaction was no different than that of a roach after someone shines a light on it
ppGaz
I’m not here to editorialize about your views. I’m here to editorialize about my views.
If you don’t like it, tough shit.
John S.
Which of course you can speak to, Darrell, being the official spokesman for all roachkind.
ppGaz
It’s because you are here, Darrell. You suck. In case you hadn’t noticed, the idea that Iraq was a good idea is no longer the majority position in this country.
Three years of the same BS, and the numbers are headed south faster than your grandparents can get to their condo in Florida.
But by all means, sit here pretend that the reality in your head is the one that counts, Darrell, like you always do.
You’re going to end up with a worse situation in Iraq that you started with, Darrell. Get it?
SteveMGalbraith
ppGaz:
You’re entitled to whatever opinion you may want to express (given John’s standards of acceptable opinions; after all, it’s his blog) but you’re not entitled to mis-state my views or comments.
Can I ask a question? When you debate someone in person, do you use the same style you employ here? The foul language, the name calling?
If so, you must eat alot of your meals through a straw.
Passion is good; incivility isn’t.
SMG
John S.
Hey, lay off the lad. He’s just living up to his name.
Darrell
Wow, Mr. Galbraith’s post seems to have elicited a semi-coherent response from Andrei.. much improved from his normal “Bush lied” rants
Do you seriously believe that we are fighting Al Qaeda “only” via direct traditional military means? Seems we’ve attacked their funding, pressured the states which support them, beefed up intelligence, utilized special forces, and worked with other countries to infiltrate and capture them. Other than leaving Saddam in place, what specifically do you suggest we should be doing differently?
Vladi G
Darrell is an expert in exaggeration and outright lies.
Hey Darrell, who did Plame list as her employer on her disclosure of her donation to Gore’s campaign?
Liar.
Eural
I think our right-wing friends are missing a point here (I’m basing this on the web link Darrell kindly routed me to in response to my post) – Saddam may have been a regional threat in the 1990s but our policy of containment and embargo was working quite nicely thank you. Perhaps you would trust, I don’t know, Collin Powell who as S of S in February 2001 said that quite clearly. Or maybe the fact that in Bush’s 2000 campaign the tremedous threat of Iraq was not an issue…because it was not an issue! Those of us who are upset with the Iraq situation are upset that a working solution was ignored in favor of outright invasion and occupation when this administration had a choice in the matter. Again, Darrell, you don’t hear any complaints about Afghanistan. We invaded and occupied it because it was directly linked to a real threat that really was involved in 9/11. Iraq is not only a side-show it is undermining our efforts to bring a real solution to that real problem. And in light of all of this Bush continues with the same damaging “plan.” Thats incompetence.
ppGaz
Who the hell do you think you are, or are talking to?
I say what I think. If you think it needs correction, then you say what you think. I don’t need your permission to say anything, whether you like it or not.
John S.
Could you possibly point out what about his post wasn’t coherent? If you are saying he was merely semi-coherent, than surely something must have leapt out that wasn’t.
Or perhaps you are confused about what the meaning of coherent is. Inability to comprehend a statement doesn’t make it incoherent.
Darrell
Huh??
ppGaz
I don’t consider this a debate, and I am not debating.
If you want to have a debate with me, then we’ll need to agree, at the very least, on what the debatable topic is, and what the rules are.
Until then, I’m posting to a blog and saying what I want to say, which is the same thing you are doing.
If you are so concerned about being understood, then work harder to be understood. Don’t blame it on me.
Darrell
This is the link I used in responding to your post. Tell us Eural, which of those quotes indicate that Iraq was merely a “regional threat” as you claim.
How so?
Darrell
ppgaz, you really are whigging out over SteveG’s posts for no good reason.. acting like the jerk you are
SteveMGalbraith
Ppaz:
Actually, you’re correct. You have the “right” (per John’s rules) to editorialize in any manner you wish (again, within the rules of the site).
You have the right to make sense; and the right not to make sense. You have the right to sound like an adult with cogent, logical opinions; and you have the right to sound like a 12-year old on the playground using foul language.
Likewise, we have the right to consider an opinion worthwhile or to reject it. We may read a poster’s views as coming from a sober-minded person or to consider them the views of a crank.
My own editorializing on this, if you’re still with me, is that those who use (A) civility, logic, facts do so because they have the better half of the argument and that those who use (B) foul language, name calling, bad faith arguments and misrepresentation of the opposing views do so because they don’t have much of an argument at all.
I could be wrong; but I don’t think so.
SMG
John S.
Darrell-
Great link there to that freeper post by Tommy Franks. Of course, in that post, Franks mainly talks about Afghanistan, and offers little that would indicate that Iraq isn’t a sideshow.
Oh, and did you happen to catch the last line in that post?
I guess an article he penned a month before the election which mainly discusses Kerry vs. Bush isn’t really just a political rant, but rather, proves the point you were trying so desperately trying to make.
Sarcasm off.
John S.
Hmmm…calling someone a 12-year-old doesn’t sound entriely civil to me. Or perhaps you forgot your own diatribe?
Pardon me if I consider the views of someone as sanctimonious as you to be somewhat suspect. Often, that which seems fairer is often fouler than that which seems foul.
Darrell
Uh John, it was a reprint of a NY Times article.. a NY Times article which archived for $$.
No?
ppGaz
It’s none of your goddam business, Darrell.
ppGaz
I don’t care what rights you think I have. I don’t need a lawyer, and I don’t need any lectures from you on any subject.
John S.
Sorry, but last I checked you linked to the Free Republic website where the repost of the article from the New York Times was posted. So what about that confuses you as to my accurately calling it a freeper post?
Like I said, you might consider that this is a politically motivated article pimping for Bush. And judging from the above a disingenuous post, too.
A field of combat that averaged 10k troops is more of a focus than one that has troop levels around 130k? That’s some excellent pretzel logic, even for a military man (although ‘acceptable losses’ still wins hands down).
So, no. Your little snippets do not prove that Iraq isn’t a sideshow.
Darrell
Yes of course, because we needed those 130k troops in Afghanistan, right Mr. armchair general? you seem to really know what you’re talking about
SteveMGalbraith
JohnS:
I didn’t call him, or anyone here, a 12-year old.
I said his arguments “sounded” like those of a 12-year old.
There’s a big difference between saying someone is immature and saying their arguments are immature.
Look, I know this isn’t the Oxford Debating Club or something formal. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to present an argument or opinion.
And personal attacks using foul language against someone just isn’t kosher. Attack the arguments, not the person.
Arrogant? Perhaps. Correct? I think so.
SMG
John S.
That is some excellent nuancing.
If the difference is that one is civil and one is not, then you are correct. Otherwise, my point stands.
Arrogant? Definitely.
John S.
Okay, Darrell, stay focused.
The point is that 130k troops requires far more manpower, planning and effort than a mere 10k. Therefore it is ludicrous to say that the task you spend 93% of your resources on is less important than the one you spend 7% of your resources on.
It’s simple math.
Eural
Ok, Darrell here’s a more recent (and not pre-election) picture of our recent “progress” in Afghanistan. Oops. And yes, 130K of troops in Afghanistan might have actually brought the brains behind 9/11 to justice. (Remember Osama Been Forgotten?)In the 1980s the Soviets had 50K of troops just on the border with Pakistan and that wasn’t enough to stop the mujahadin from slipping in and out of the warzone. You are trying to turn this into a game of “gotcha” where you pick one fact or point out of a post that you can refute and remark on it. This is not a “gotcha” game for hundreds of thousands of people – the big picture is clear that this endevor is a pre-destined failure thanks to the incomptence of the Bush administration. On a related point – I am a 12 year old.
Eural
Ok – how do you tag a link so it doesn’t run for the entire message?
Darrell
Eural suggests that 130k more troops in Afghanistan would have resulted in the capture of OBL and Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of the allied forces in the Middle East at the time disagrees. Draw your own conclusions
I am not playing “gotcha” as you claim. I challenged the points you made (that Saddam was merely a “regional threat” for example) and pointed out some of your extreme(imo) characterizations of Iraq. I see you’re at it again with “this effort is a pre-destined failure” type of description. whatever
John’s buttons utilize standard html..Click the Link, paste in webpage, and you’ll see standard html. Just type in your verbage then close out with
Boronx
they want Bush to fail but somehow the US not to lose.
Bush has consistently refused to own up to the number of troops and the ammount of money needed for success.
Bush has never made the safety of the Iraqi people his primary concern.
Out of 300 billion requested for the war, 7 billion as been spent to rebuild Iraq.
Most Critically:
Bush has hurt our image and credibility in the mideast by failing to crackdown decisively on torture, by failing to safeguard against torture in the first place, by heaping lie upon lie upon the people of the world before and after the invasion.
I have no clue at all why that is so, but it’s evident that Bush’s goals don’t coincide with America’s goals, and he is leading us towards failure. If we’re to avoid failure, we need to break his stranglehold on Iraq policy.
Given the current political climate and the power of the presidency these days, I’m afraid the chances of that are pretty slim.
Darrell
whoops, the last part didn’t display. Close out with , but without the spaces before and after the / and a
Darrell
The military is aggressively investigating and prosecuting allegations of torture.
Tell us the “lies” which Bush heaped upon us
You say this based on..? Oh that’s right, you don’t bother to substantiate the claim (smear?) in the least
Lot’s of criticism being thrown out, but not any alternative plans being proposed. What do you suggest? Immediately pull out all troops?
Eural
OK – got to go for today as I have 4 9 year olds doing a sleepover and demanding spagetti not foreign policy debate! Thanks for the html help Darrell I’ll practice for next time. Oh – I’m not claiming the 130k in Afghanistan would have captured Osama, I’m just saying that the chances would have been a great deal better than they are now. We do have Saddam though and that’s a victory because he was involved in …9/11…no…maybe Al Qaeda…no…WMD distribution…no…gosh – what is the victory behind capturing Saddam? I keep forgettng. It is good that we liberated the Iraqi’s so they could experience a full fledged secular democracy…no…looks like its going to be an Islamic theocracy beholden to Iran (our best friends!) Are you sure Bush is on our side?
ppGaz
Let’s put it this way: Suppose you were convinced that these feckless potatoheads have been misleading the public for three years, and you saw that opinion seemed to be shifting toward public doubt and skepticism of the misleading message.
What exactly is the John Cole – approved reaction to that circumstance?
1. Oh no, the beloved government upon which we all depend for everything is no longer being trusted by all the people. Ooooh noooo!
2. Even though this government has been wrong at every turn in this situation, we really need to get the people behind us now because we have a tough job to do, so …. Ooooh, noooo! Don’t abandon us now, everybody! We need your help! Sure we were wrong at every turn …. until now. Now we’re right! Please believe us!
3. Praise Jesus! (That’s Jesus Garcia, the guy who owns the newsstand on the corner). The people are finally seeing that these ignorant potatoheads are just making this stuff up as they go along, and that we don’t have to wait around for the potatoheads to tell us what to think, we can actually think for ourselves and believe our lying eyes!
4. Rush is right, anybody who even thinks about contradicting Pope George is guilty of blasphemy and treason. Boy, I don’t want to hang around with any people like that.
How about you, John? Where do you come down on all this?
Will you join Darrell and be one of the last, Bush-base die hards who keep on keeping on believing the Iraq nonsense they’ve been selling for three years, as if nothing had changed?
Or will you just be one of those chickenshit bloggers who trots the threads out there and gets the readers all riled up at each other, just for the hellish fun of it, but never really takes a position on the daily shifts of public perception and even more frequent shifts in the expectation-setting puppet show in Washington, DC?
We no longer should expect a liberal democracy to be the outcome in Iraq? Who the hell is “we”? I never expected one in the first place: There are no liberal democracies in Arabia, why would anyone think that this whacked-out country would become the first one?
John S.
I conclude Osama Bin Laden is still at large, and therefore Tommy Franks failed at his task in Afghanistan.
But he did get a Medal of Freedom for it.
Peter T.
– The military is aggressively investigating and prosecuting allegations of torture.
Darell – the end of your sentence got cut off somehow – didn’t you mean ‘investigating and prosecuting allegations of torture by those ranked sergeant or lower, with little education’?
Why don’t you head to Iraq with a shovel and dig up those WMDs that are out in the sand. I’ll buy you a shovel.
David
There are many ways to look at Cindy Sheehan’s unfolding story.
1. IF YOU ARE RUNNING FOR DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION AND ARE SEEN WITH CINDY SHEEHAN YOU ARE DOOMED.
a. The polls show that Cindy Sheehan is a polarizing figure – 35% favorable and 38% unfavorable.
b. Well, Sen. John Edwards didn’t have balls and got his wife, Elizabeth Edwards to send a letter of support. Shall we call him another “castrated Democrat”? Mr. Edwards you are pathetic.
2. CINDY SHEEHAN IS THE SPOKESWOMAN FOR THE DEMOCRATIC FOREIGN POLICY.
After all, the Iraq war is THE foreign policy of our time and no Democratic leader gets so much attention as Cindy or offers an alternative plan as she does.
Sen.
“SISSY biden” – the “smartest man in the Senate” (my ass) – and the shadow Secretary of State, you seem like the perfect nominee of the Democratic Party in 08. Spare us and don’t run, you neutered kitty.
And change that ugly toupe.
3. HOW MANY DEMOCRATIC SISSY SENATORS WHO ARE ON THE SIDELINE WILL BEG FOR MONEY AND VOTES FROM CINDY’S SUPPORTERS? Sen. Biden, Sen. Edwards, Sen. Kerry, et al.
4. ITS OFFICIAL – AL GORE IS NOT RUNNING IN 08.
“AL GORE CALLS CINDY SHEEHAN TO TONE DOWN HER DRIVE”
5. HOW DID A PRIVATE GRIEF BECOME A PUBLIC POLICY?
Its clear that President Bush will not meet with her. Its also clear that Cindy will not leave “Camp Casey.” Hmmm…how long will this last? Until 06? 08?
6. IS CINDY SHEEHAN AN ANTI-SEMITE? If so, why won’t the Dems repudiate her?
“Cindy Sheehan To Assess Zionist Doctors And Pres. Bush’s Reckless Health Care Policies”
7. REMEMBER THE 60S? PUBLIC IS PRIVATE AND PRIVATE IS PUBLIC? Well, now Cindy’s divorce is the center of polemics.
You won’t believe what “box in the divorce papers” Cindy’s husband, Pat, checked.
Inquiring minds want to know.
Jim Caputo
That’s one of those Bill O’Lielly semantics games. Like when he says someone’s behavior is “bordering on treason” and then denies that he called someone treasonous. He gets the word out there so the sheep who follow him say “oh that bill, he’s being too kind. she IS committing treason.” And then if he gets called on it, he can hide behind semantics.
But as long as you keep coming at them with the truth, the wingnuts have to play those games. It’s all they have.
Jim Caputo
The link Darrell provided brings the reader to a list of actual quotes by leading democrats. The list originally went around as one of those mass email annoyances. However, he failed to mention that while the quotes are accurate, the list has been discredited because many of the statements are truncated and pulled from context that indicates the speaker’s view was the opposite of the quote provided.
I know…it’s hard to believe Darrell would do such a thing.
This is from Snopes.com Urban Legends:
All of the quotes listed above are substantially correct reproductions of statements made by various Democratic leaders regarding Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s acquisition or possession of weapons of mass destruction. However, some of the quotes are truncated, and context is provided for none of them — several of these quotes were offered in the course of statements that clearly indicated the speaker was decidedly against unilateral military intervention in Iraq by the U.S. Moreover, several of the quotes offered antedate the four nights of airstrikes unleashed against Iraq by U.S. and British forces during Operation Desert Fox in December 1998, after which Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen and Gen. Henry H. Shelton (chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) announced the action had been successful in “degrad[ing] Saddam Hussein’s ability to deliver chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.”
John S.
Oh, Darrell, say it ain’t so!
Darrell
Jim Caputo suggests the list of quotes was taken out of context. Read the snopes.com article for yourself. Even in full context, the meanings are clear in virtually every case. For example, Ted Kennedy:
The context changes what exactly about Ted Kennedy’s Sept. 2002 statement? Nothing that I can see. He clearly states that Saddam has been seeking AND developing WMDs. How about Al Gore’s statement in full context:
Again, full context changed nothing. How about John Kerry’s words in full context?
And so on and so forth.
Give us one example Jimbo, where full context changed or mitigated the meaning of the quoted statement to any significant extent.
PotVsKtl
Even without context you’re reading these how you want.
Of course a deadly arsenal of WMDs in Saddam’s hands would be a threat. Congress was led to believe that such an aresenal existed. It did not.
Nate
Look, can’t you all pick on someone your own size? The way Darrell and SteveMGalbraith argue over semantics, word choices, and hardball responses means they just want more. And that means they’ll say or do anything to perpetuate this discussion, from whence their pleasure arises. That’s why Darrell is wingnut #1 in defense of Bush in every post. Apparently, he’s doing John’s work for him.
Let’s just move the rock back.
kl
Hostile pacifists, gotta love it.
Jim Caputo
Okay, but only one. I know there’s no explanation that will satisfy an ass as pompous as yourself, so I’m not going through them all. I put the post up there for the benefit of others, not for you. They can look the quotes up and determine for themselves whether they were truncated so as to reverse the meaning, not representative of the speaker’s intended point of view, or removed from the context of events surrounding the quote. The people on this board certainly don’t need YOU telling them what to think.
Now I shouldn’t have had to explain this to you since it’s clearly spelled out in what I pasted from the Snopes site, but since you apparently didn’t understand it, here goes…
The quote from your link is this:
“If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program.” – President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998
At some point prior to February 17, 1998 (you can look up the date yourself), Saddam kicked the UN weapons inspectors out of Iraq. Despite months of diplomatic efforts, and some smaller scale military efforts, aimed at persuading Saddam to reallow weapons inspections, Saddam still refused to allow the inspectors back into the country.
By December, Clinton’s patience had reached its end with Saddam, and that’s when he gave the order to begin Operation Desert Fox which resulted in the massive bombing of military and security targets in Iraq.
Here’s what Clinton told the nation, “Earlier today I ordered America’s armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors,”
Now here’s the tricky part for you… The quote PRECEDED Operation Desert Fox and all the other military actions that Clinton ordered against Saddam that year. By the end of ODF, the Clinton administration was confident that they had achieved their objective.
Clinton said if he had to use force to diminish Saddam’s WMD capability, he would. And he did.
The reason the quote is disingenuous is because Saddam was a bigger threat in 1998 than he was in 2003. But in 1998, you and your ilk were much more concerned about a blue dress than you were about national security.
What Bush did in 2003 was akin to finding the town bully laying beat up and bloody in an alley, hitting him a few more times, then going all over town telling everyone YOU kicked his ass.
Now I know that you won’t accept the truth of what I’ve written here. As far as you’re concerned, there are no truths on the left, and ONLY truths on the right. And you have every right to have that viewpoint. The world needs balance. We have day to balance night, and we have people like you to balance intelligence. You’re smart, but you’re not wise. A difference whose subtleties, no doubt, are lost on you.
I’m done arguing with you because it’s pointless. Feel free to ignore my posts in the future, or not. It doesn’t matter to me. You’re insigificant. I’ve always thought that there was some benefit to spirited debate over any subject and that it benefitted not just the parties involved, but those who listened to it, or in this case read it. But you never recognize any truth on the other side, and when you engage in labeling opinions as lies, it becomes clear that your mission really is one of antagonization, rather than spirited discourse.
You’ve displayed yourself as something less than a whore for this administration (at least a whore gets paid). I’m fully convinced that if, on a clear day, Dumbya Bush posted the sky was brown and I posted that it was blue, you would come up with all sorts of justifications for calling the sky brown.
When someone has that mentality, as you clearly do, there’s really no point arguing with them. So from now on, I’m choosing to ignore you. I’ll give you ALL the last words.
Jim Caputo
Not all liberals are pacifists. I’m certainly not one. I fully supported the attack on Afghanistan, still do. However, I recognized the Iraq lie for what it was immediately and NEVER supported that decision. And although it took awhile, most of the country now agrees with me.
Go ahead…disagree with me and I’ll smack ya right in the teeth.
Oh I’m kidding….probably….most likely….
NOTE: the above statements are not meant to be a threat; they’re meant to be a joke….read them that way….but that doesn’t mean I’m incapable of smacking someone in the mouth.
NOTE: the NOTE above is not meant to be a threat; it’s meant to be a joke….probably….most likely….
NOTE: I’m having trouble figuring out how to get out of this loop.
rilkefan
Jim Caputo, excellent comment at 10:14.
Boronx
As a courtesy to those who don’t understand what Bush was telling the world in Spring ’03, I quote in its entirety Bush’s eve of war speech, with lies helpfully highlighted. That is, only the blatant lies are highlighted, most of the rest is fantasy bullcrap.
TallDave
See, this is where right-wing versions of jump in and say something like:
Democrats hate being called traitors, because it stings like a bitch.
And then both sides wonder how America got so divided.
TallDave
See, this is where right-wing versions of Nash jump in and say something like:
Democrats hate being called traitors, because it stings like a bitch.
And then both sides wonder how America got so divided.
TallDave
Eural suggests that 130k more troops in Afghanistan would have resulted in the capture of OBL and Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of the allied forces in the Middle East at the time disagrees. Draw your own conclusions
Maybe someone should ask the Soviets. I think they tried that tactic.
Oh wait, we can’t ask, because the Soviet Union lost tens of thousands of soldiers, was humiliated, withdrew, and shortly thereafter ceased to exist.
Jim Caputo
It’s a bad comparison for a couple of reasons…
1. The Soviet invasion force was only 30,000 and at it’s ten-year height only reached 100,000. So we don’t know if a force of 250,000-300,000 would have failed. It hadn’t been tried before.
2. The Afghani resistance received more than $2 billion in assistance from the United States to fight back. Those taking aim at our soldiers are using what basically amounts to leftovers, either that or we’re doing a very poor job of guarding against the importation of weaponry into the area. So, the Afghani resistance was armed with much more sophisticated weaponry than the fighters in Iraq.
More info here and here.
Yellow Elephant
“I got an email the other day and it said, ‘Cindy if you didn’t use so much profanity … there’s people on the fence that get offended. And you know what I said? You know what? You know what, god damn it? How in the world is anybody still sitting on that fence?”
“If you fall on the side that is pro-George and pro-war, you get your ass over to Iraq, and take the place of somebody who wants to come home. And if you fall on the side that is against this war and against George Bush, stand up and speak out.”
I like the “Yellow Elephant: Sign Up or Shut Up” part, where if you’re pro-Bubble Boy and pro-Bubble Boy’s war, you get your ass over to Iraq.
End of story.
TallDave
I hear a lot of antiwar people saying the war has “failed.” To me, that seems a bit counter to reality. I think if you’d said before the war that by this point we’d have Saddam on trial, have held an election with good participation, be preparing for another vote with every indication of even greater participation, have 175,000 Iraqi troops defending their country (and many more recruits lining up) alongside U.S. forces, and that resistance would be light and localized to only Sunni areas and be unpopular even in those areas, all with fewer than 2000 casualties…. I think we’d have called that “victory” if presented with that scenario in Jan 2003.
But I’ll issue a challenge here to the antiwar crowd: what measureable criteria would constitute victory? Let’s define some reasonable measures and see if they’re met in the next couple years.
The obvious ones first:
1) Iraq has a reasonable version of democracy. Doesn’t have to be perfect, but it should be pretty good. Certainly better than Iran, probably better than Turkey.
2) Iraq is reasonably free. Some people are going to hold to sharia, but if the national laws are reasonably fair and women have basic rights like voting and basic equality under law, I think we can put that in the plus column. Again, it should be a lot better than Iran or Saudi Arabia, probably not quite up to Western standards.
3) Iraq continues to make progress toward being able to defend itself, and eventually U.S. troops levels fall below, say, 25,000, without major problems breaking out. I think 1 – 3 years is probably a reasonable timetable to expect this.
TallDave
From Wiki,
With air support, logistics, MVD troops, and other miscellaneous troops, the total number is estimated by some observers at approximately 175,000 troops total.
I don’t know what people think our hundreds of thousands of troops were going to do, unless they think we would assign one to personally guard each and every mudhut, cave, and bush in the country. You could send 10 million troops in there and not find someone.
Nancy
Yes
John S.
It’s interesting that you posted an excerpt from Wikipedia because the site has been down for 31 minutes at time of posting:
John S.
Ok, their site seems to be back up now, so what topic were you reading on Wiki that stated this, and in what context is your assertion relative to the above excerpt?
Nate
Wow, TallDave, from your first comments I thought you were being reasonable! Phew!
First, we ALL know it’s failed or in the process of failing. Even Gingrich has admitted it, regarding the ’06 midterm elections. Such a liberal, that boy!
Second, your facts are misleading. The election wasn’t with “good participation”. Most of the Sunnis didn’t vote. Surely you know that. And Bush secretly interfered in the election, making sure candidates he wanted got the votes. Is that a democracy to you? You have remarkably low standards! Also, what POSSIBLY gives you the belief that there will be “greater participation” ahead? Your magic 8-ball? The Shiites and Kurds are getting stronger and stronger as the US and Sunnis are bled dry. Your tea leaves suck.
Third, this means you have swallowed the Kool-Aid pitcher: “have 175,000 Iraqi troops defending their country (and many more recruits lining up) alongside U.S. forces.” A fraction of those you quoted can fight on their own, many are being killed each week, and are many recruits really lining up? Perhaps. But they’re also being blown up as they line up. No, this doesn’t look good to me, but then I like my real estate in the reality-based community.
Forth, resistance is light? Really? For a war or a peace? And please tell the widows and parents that it’s “less than 2,000.” As you well know, it didn’t have to be a quarter that many. *Low* expectations.
Fifth, every indication that I see says that we are going to leave Iraq in the hands of a Shiite theocracy, or something very much like it. All your voting and purple fingers won’t mean very much then, will it? And civil war, if it hasn’t already broken out (the ethic cleansing has started), will flare up the moment we leave, if not before.
And TallDave calls this victory. I’m sure Bush will, too.
kl
Didn’t say you were.
ppGaz
Victory over what?
The victory over Hussein was fairly easy.
The problem is that getting rid of Saddam only created a new problem …. what is the dog going to do with the car after he catches it? Look at the history of Iraq. Is this the history of a country that looks like it just needs a little TLC to turn itself into Switzerland?
The Arab world has no history of liberal democracy. Zero. Democracies in Arabia are democracies in name only, repressive regimes or covers for oil-stealing oligarchies.
What made anyone think that Iraq, of all places, would become the world’s first Arab liberal democracy?
Iraq will end up in something akin to civil war and end up with some kind of theocratic, repressive regime in place, setting the stage for a realignment of alliances and power in the region. The outcome of this “process” cannot be known in advance. The adventure is, and has been from the beginning, an experiment, and not a very well managed experiment at that.
Victory? A stable, liberal democracy that is, at the least, not hostile to American and/or Western interests; a democracy that empowers its people and protects them from each other and from foreign thuggery. An economy that permits the protection and leveraging of property rights, credit, and assets. A just and humane society.
To say that this outcome is unlikely would be a kindness and a grand understatement.
And here’s the beauty part: Even if we succeed in leaving Iraq in the condition I describe, I cannot find that it would have any effect on the metastasizing worldwide network of radical religious terrorism. Even if Iraq is a success, which takes a stretch of the imagination, the so-called WOT will have advanced not an inch. People who are looking to turn themselves into bombs are not going to be moved to sanity by observing that politics in Iraq are going well. They were largely unphased by events in Iraq before we invaded the second time, and they will be unphased by them in the future.
Jim Caputo
I don’t accept, and neither will many people, that everything you’re stating there is true.
The early figures from the Bush adminstration of 70+ percent participation in the election don’t really hold up to scrutiny. From things I’ve read, the actual percentage might have been as low as 12. But either way, it’s a hard thing to know exactly.
The numbers of trained Iraqi troops has been in question for a long time. There have been reports that say it’s nowhere near what Rumsfeld has been touted in the past.
I don’t think the resistance is “light,” and 2,000 casualties is a lot of death considering that in the lead up to the war the administration was predicting hardly any resistance at all (greet us with flowers, etc.).
Capturing Saddam doesn’t really seem like a big deal to me. The bigger target was Bin Laden and he’s still out there plotting against us.
But to your question as to what would define a victory…
All of the outcomes you’ve described neglect to mention anything about terrorism. The Bush administration, in order to sell the war, constantly reminded us (and still do), that the Iraq campaign is not separate from the “war on terror.” Therefore, I don’t think you can omit the terrorism questions from the equation.
Jim Caputo
There’s an interesting parallel at play here concerning our campaign in Iraq and the Russian invasion of Afghanistan (mentioned earlier in this thread).
In hindsight, many in the intelligence community look at the defeat of the USSR in Afghanistan as one of the root causes of 9-11 because that conflict was the training ground for those that attacked us in 2001. The Islamic fundamentalists came out of that war incredibly well-trained and well-organized compared to what they had been prior to the conflict. Also, it’s though the common enemy added to the cohesion of the religious zealots in the region.
I’m not saying we made the wrong decision in helping the Afghani rebels repel the Russian invasion. For all anyone knows, 9-11 could have happened irregardless. It’s just something I read about.
Yellow Elephant
Woops. My understanding is that the US has caved on the Iraqi constitution and realizes it cannot prevent Iraq from becoming a Shi’ite theocracy.
All those Iraqi and American lives in order to create an Islamic theocracy.
Wow. Thanks a lot, Bubble Boy.
DougJ
I’m sorry but you may not like Rush but he is HONEST about calling out the America-hating portion of the extreme left.
John, I’m glad you’re finally ridding yourself of your RINO tendencies and praising RUSH as the true American hero that he is.
Stormy70
Irregardless? Heh.
I see the goal posts are moving concerning the Iraqi democracy. No matter what government is instituted by the Iraqis, it will never satisfy the anti-war crowd. Gotta feed the Bush rage machine. Hostile is right.
PP will attack in 5…4..3…
TallDave
Nate,
Well, 60% is pretty good for a first election where people are threatening to kill you if you vote, and indications are Sunnis are going to vote this time.
Next Time, Sunnis Intend to Be Heard
Many regret boycotting the parliamentary election in Iraq. They say they won’t repeat the mistake when it comes to a new constitution.
By Edmund Sanders, Times Staff Writer
BAGHDAD — Suhail Najim spent Iraq’s last election day holed up at home, watching television and joining other Sunni Arabs who boycotted the polls to protest the presence of U.S. troops in his country.
Today the former tourism official is so eager to vote that he has visited three registration sites to ensure that his name is on the rolls for the planned October referendum on a new constitution.
In stark contrast to the Jan. 30 parliamentary election, when Sunni Arab turnout was as low as 2% in some areas, Iraq’s once-ruling ethnic minority is mobilizing for a much stronger showing this time around
Yes, the 170,000 troops are not quite up to par yet. It takes time to train an army. But things are getting better
FORWARD OPERATING BASE SPEICHER, Iraq, Aug. 19, 2005 – The coalition turnover of the security mission to Iraqi forces is proceeding apace in the area around Saddam’s hometown, said the coalition commander in the area.
Army Maj. Gen. Joseph Taluto, commander of the 42nd Infantry Division and Multinational Division North Central, said that Iraqi security forces are picking up the missions in his region and they are able to take the fight to the insurgents.
Taluto spoke with reporters traveling with Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Myers is in the midst of a 10-day visit to assess troop morale. Taluto commands the coalition forces stretching from the suburbs of Baghdad to the Kurdish areas of the north.
“We have turned over or closed nine forward operating bases (to Iraqi forces),” Taluto said in an interview Aug. 17. “We will soon turn over the palace that has served as our headquarters.” The palace on the Tigris River in Tikrit has served as the headquarters for the region since the 4th Infantry Division first went in to the country in the initial liberation.
Yes, recruits are lining up. In fact, the lines even reform shortly after being atatcked by suicide bombers.
I see a common delusion here is that Iraq is going to become a “theocracy,” which I can only assume means you haven’t read the constitution, because the phrase that’s behind all that crazy specualtion is that “Islam is a source of law.” Guess what guys? Not every country believes in separation of religion and state. That doesn’t mean they’re necessarily run by religious nuts like in Iran.
Great Britain, for one, doesn’t. Is Great Britain a theocracy? Obviously not.
As long as the democratic process is respected, there is every reason to think Iraq will succeed.
TallDave
Jim Caputo,
I don’t think the resistance is “light,”
Well, the enemy controls no significant territory, runs away from almost every fight, and is pretty much reduced to digging holes in the road for bombs and hoping we drive by them. Militarily, they’re no more than a deadly nuisance. They haven’t even been able to take over so much as a police station this entire year.
But we can argue over semantics all night. That’s why I say we should define some measurable yardsticks by which progress can be judged.
Victory? A stable, liberal democracy that is, at the least, not hostile to American and/or Western interests; a democracy that empowers its people and protects them from each other and from foreign thuggery. An economy that permits the protection and leveraging of property rights, credit, and assets. A just and humane society.
Not measurable. What’s stable? What’s liberal? What’s just? What’s humane? Some would say America doesn’t meet those requirements. As stormy points out, any subjective non-measurable criteria is going to be distorted by both sides.
TallDave
Me, I’m setting the bar fairly low. What we’re doing in Iraq is a massive social engineering project more than anything else, and it’s a tough thing to do, destroying a political culture of tyranny and oppression and replacing it with a culture of freedom and democracy. I’d be happy with any Iraqi gov’t that respects the democratic process and doesn’t engage in massive state repression.
Iraq is already a huge success in a lot of areas of freedom compared to pre-war: free newspapers and TV and radio, freedom of communication, freedom to engage in political debate. I think it goes without saying if any of those are curtailed Iraq is heading down the wrong path.
As for terrorism, I think obviously the new gov’t shouldn’t support it. I think a level below the current one should be achieved, though whether any free society can prevent all of it even in the best of circumstances is debatable. Israel hasn’t been able to. Neither have we.
Economics is something that hasn’t been touched on. I think to be successful, Iraq should have economic growth exceeding 5% a year, and probably greater than 10% for the next couple years. Currently, it’s estimated at around 35% for 2005 (It was 50% in 2004).
TallDave
BTW, the good people at the (liberal) Brookings Institute have provided us with some measurables here.
Some of them are quite encouraging, esp the Iraqi troop #s. Yes, yes, I know, their effectiveness is debatable. But it is undeniable that they are far better today than they were a year ago, as well as being more numerous. They’ll be even better in another year. If that trend doesn’t continue, then I think we’d have serious concerns.
PotVsKtl
I’m sure the Iraqis are very happy to be “free” sitting in their homes with no electricity.
rilkefan
Great, there are Iraqi troops. So we have a bunch of insurgents on our payroll waiting for a good chance to do a lot of damage. Actually, most of those troops are guarding the borders, so I guess you’re happy with their performance.
Here’s The Belgravia Dispatch making fun of your argument.
Nate
Stormy,
glad you could assist TallDave in his unbelievably naive head-trip. But you take the wingnut cake for accusing the anti-war crowd of moving the goalposts! Just last week the administration admitted that they had lowered expectations about what we would finally achieve in Iraq. I’m not surprised: you screening their moving the goalposts by accusing the anti-war crowd of moving the goalposts.
How’s that water-carrying going, Gunga Din?
AlanDownunder
“even as Sheehan’s public relations victories give people reason to be optimistic about the administration’s unraveling in Iraq”
I break that down this way. The sooner the unravelling takes hold, the sooner unprepared US troops on a fool’s errand will come home. As far as US interests are concerned, that is cause for optimism (Cayman Island and Bermudan interests might be another matter). As far as non-violent Iraqis are concerned, they’re probably beyond optimism or pessimism by now and well into fatalism.
rilkefan
Frank Rich on Casey Sheehan’s death:
John S.
Yes, Dave, Iraq is certainly a similar model for comparison with the United Kingdom. I suppose in TallDave World where a country with state religion exists somewhwere on the spectrum between Britain and Iran (on a scale of secualrism/theocracy), Iraq would definitely be leaning more towards Britain than Iran.
Because Britain is Iraq’s favorite nation (no negative history between them at all), and there is nobody they would rather emulate than the British – besides Americans. And of course, Iran being Iraq’s neighbor and having already infiltrated the country with political operatives has very little influence at all.
Nate
More from TallDave World:
Ooops…the Wash Post doesn’t think things are going so well (but what do they know?):
BASRA, Iraq — Shiite and Kurdish militias, often operating as part of Iraqi government security forces, have carried out a wave of abductions, assassinations and other acts of intimidation, consolidating their control over territory across northern and southern Iraq and deepening the country’s divide along ethnic and sectarian lines, according to political leaders, families of the victims, human rights activists and Iraqi officials.
While Iraqi representatives wrangle over the drafting of a constitution in Baghdad, forces represented by the militias and the Shiite and Kurdish parties that control them are creating their own institutions of authority, unaccountable to elected governments, the activists and officials said. In Basra in the south, dominated by the Shiites, and Mosul in the north, ruled by the Kurds, as well as cities and villages around them, many residents say they are powerless before the growing sway of the militias, which instill a climate of fear that many see as redolent of the era of former president Saddam Hussein.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/20/AR2005082000940.html
What *really* gets me steamed is that all the wingnuts and warmongers view this as a (pet) project, a simple experiment in social engineering (as TallDave himself said). If it works out, great! If it doesn’t, too bad. Hundreds of thousands of people have now died in this project. And they couldn’t care less. Arrogance is too small to even be an understatement here.
Andrei
This is Darrell’s benefit, since he won’t listen to anyone but his own side of the aisle.
Sharia Comes to Iraq
Enjoy it or dread it as you see fit.
Andrei
And so the dam starts to show its cracks, just check out the LGFers go ballistic, already starting to eat their own in the comments thread of that linked story from above.
If the following is true, all hell is about to break loose.
I’ve read Bilmon’s take on it, and the comments of the LGFers… I await Mr. Cole’s insightful views on the matter, and I sure know as hell ppGaz is gonna have a field day with this one.
Jim Caputo
Here’s my favorite post from LGF…
If he was a freshman in 1979, then he was born in 1964 making him 37 years old in 2001 and still elligible to join either the Army or Navy Reserves. I’m guessing that if he had, it would have been mentioned in his post, but I’d say it’s a good bet that his definition of “I want to fight” means “I want OTHERS to fight.” Keyboard Kommandos…what a bunch of tools.
Jim Caputo
But that’s their tactic, not their liability. They’re not trying to “take over” any location. They make a stand in whatever town, inflict damage on our guys who in turn inflict damage on the town, and in the process lots of innocents get killed. This tactic is working for them because every time an innocent person gets killed, there is a potential to recruit some of the dead person’s relatives to fight against us.
Remember the game “Bop”…you had a mallet and had to bang the heads of gophers or some such thing popping out of holes? That’s what we’re playing in Iraq…Bop. We react to insurgent activity in Town A, supress it, then move those troops to react to insurgent activity in Town B, supress that and at the same time it starts up again in Town A. How many times have our troops had to reenter towns or cities that they’ve already left?
And didn’t your side make a big deal out of Kerry saying something like this…
That “nuisance” is shooting at our people every day. Nearly 2000 dead so far and no sign of slowing down despite Cheney’s blustering about “last throes.”
Jim Caputo
That same document also says this…
Last spring, only 43% of those polled saw us as occupiers rather than liberators, at the time of the poll that number had risen to 71%. Clearly, we’re losing any local support we might have had and that equates to this: we can’t trust them to have what we perceive to be their best interests at heart. I think the potential for our troops to be set up by Iraqis who appear to be friendly to us is higher now than at any other time in the war.
Another interesting item of note is that “terrorists” ranks 8th on the list of problems Iraqis feel the government needs to deal with. Ahead of terrorism are electricity, unemployment, healthcare, crime, national security, high prices and…now get this…presence of coalition forces.
My point is this: you can cherry pick things in that report to help your argument, so can I. But as long as we have inadequate troop levels in Iraq, we’re not going to be able to make improvements in one area without allowing significant slippage in other areas.
ppGaz
There is no history of liberal democracy in the Arab world.
There is no evidence that liberal democracy can be “created” by the United States, in Arabia, anywhere …. much less in Iraq, a country with one of the most volatile histories in the larger volatile history of Arabia.
The failure rate, worldwide, for the creation of liberal democracies in countries that did not previously have them, since the beginning of the twentieth century, is about 80 percent. That’s 80 percent failure, not in Arabia, but in the world. In Arabia, the failure rate is either 100 percent, or zero, depending on whether you think there has been a legitimate attempt at liberal democracy in Arabia.
Here’s a blurb from a foreign policy wonksite:
The history of American involvement in Arabia indicates that our policies have not fostered democratization, buit instead have fostered cozy relationships with repressive oligarchies (i.e., Kuwait and Saudi Arabia) … relationships which rather obviously are intended to protect western oil interests. Our previous relationship with Iraq, before 1990, was aimed at employing Saddam Hussein as a security guard against the misbehaviors of Iran; another entirely self-serving and manipulative policy adventure, in a long string of such adventures in the region. The United States has established a solid track record of supporting anti-democratic and oppressive regimes in the Arab region for its own short-term reasons; this could be one reason why we have acted so clumsily and ineffectively in taking on the problems of an Iraq suddenly separated from its previous government.
One of several problems the United States has now in the region is that US foreign policy is widely seen there as a major contributing factor to the repression of democratic movements in the Arab region. The reason for this US approach is rather simple:
Our policies have been based on what we thought our interests were, and our interests centered around oil (and still do). Arab history indicates that democratization is likely to open the door to political forces that are not seen as likely to be friendly to US and western interests, likely to lead to even more oppressive or more intractable regimes whose policies are driven by religious tenets. In short, it has been seen as easier and cheaper to keep kings and princes in power than to open the door to religious political factions and the instabilities that might erupt therefrom.
In this sense, then, Iraq cannot be viewed as if it were a standalone operation out there in Arabia. What happens there will in fact affect the Arab region, for better or worse, and most importantly, the United States will not have control over those events.
RSA
TallDave wrote,
This is a worthwhile challenge, but you’re directing it at the wrong people. Wouldn’t you think that these criteria should be provided by a functional leadership on our side? Sure, Bush is happy to talk in generalities, but if he’d get specific then there’d be no need for everyone else to argue about an exit plan. The public disagreements between the White House and the Pentagon on troop drawdown, the vagueness of military reports to Congress, the connection between planned events in Iraq and the U.S. election cycle, and so forth all suggest that measurable criteria of victory aren’t well-established even at the very top.
Darrell
Implanting liberal democracy was a necessary ‘social engineering’ project for Japan’s militaristic culture after WWII. We had to ‘social engineer’ the Nazi culture out of Germany too. You did know that, didn’t you? So then, what is your point?
News today on the likelihood of Sharia law being adopted in the Iraqi constitution is bad news, no two ways about it. Sharia law references may or may not survive final ratification, but the apparent likelihood of it is depressing. Canada seems to be going in the Sharia direction too, but still
scs
I’m all for a little social engineering experiment. What other good options do we have? If it works in Iraq that would be an undeniably powerful start for the Middle East. If it doesn’t, it can’t be that much worse than Saddam and Uday. Unfortunately, the road side bombs are effective. If we could get the casualty rate down and combat that, that would be ideal. Less traveling on the roads, more reinforced vehicles perhaps. Other than that, the Iraqi people largely seem to be excited by the new prospect of democracy. They will move forward even as more US soldiers lose their lives. In the end, history will judge whether it was worth it, but I still say it was worth the try.
Otto Man
Yes, between legalizing gay marriage and allowing marijuana use, they’re well on their way.
Mr Furious
Yeah, Mom is all over his ass…
ppGaz
Darrell must have a small room, too. He came right back with 18 posts to the thread in a relatively short time, before I stopped counting.
DougJ
They never had electricity before the war, so why should they miss it now? I’m sure they want it obviously, but to suggest they don’t have it because of our actions is deceptive to say the least.