I wonder what gave Bush his sudden sense of urgency? For three years Iraq spiraled into chaos and as recently as this summer the only response from our government was stay the course rhetoric and bizarrely counterfactual happy talk. Now suddenly Bush has settled on a plan that he calls the “Last Big Push.” You could call the new plan a day late and a dollar short, if you define a “day” as three years and a “dollar” as 300,000 troops and $100 billion.
President George Bush has told senior advisers that the US and its allies must make “a last big push” to win the war in Iraq and that instead of beginning a troop withdrawal next year, he may increase US forces by up to 20,000 soldiers, according to sources familiar with the administration’s internal deliberations.
Mr Bush’s refusal to give ground, coming in the teeth of growing calls in the US and Britain for a radical rethink or a swift exit, is having a decisive impact on the policy review being conducted by the Iraq Study Group chaired by Bush family loyalist James Baker, the sources said.
Although the panel’s work is not complete, its recommendations are expected to be built around a four-point “victory strategy” developed by Pentagon officials advising the group. The strategy, along with other related proposals, is being circulated in draft form and has been discussed in separate closed sessions with Mr Baker and the vice-president Dick Cheney, an Iraq war hawk.
Two problems come to mind with the president’s “strategy.”
First, compared with the numbers we really need 20,000 troops is a cruel joke. Given a solid postwar strategy and competent leadership we would have needed at least severalhundred thousand to handle the occupation from the outset, before anything resembling an insurgency began. We didn’t stop the looting in Iraq simply because we didn’t have the boots to do it. Even a bizarro-world Rumsfeld who cared about ordinary Iraqis would have been able to do squat with the forces we had in theater. By now the forces needed to bring the daily bloodshed under control could be many times the estimates given by realists like Shinseki and Colin Powell.
Think about it this way. Our last big initiative, the “inkblot” strategy, redeployed thousands of troops into Baghdad. It didn’t work. Maybe we missed the number of troops needed by a little or by a lot, or maybe nothing can stop the bleeding now. Either way the idea of moving troops into Baghdad so that the current troops can redeploy elsewhere won’t do the capitol any good and won’t distribute enough forces elsewhere to matter.
Second, we don’t have the troops. Whoever the president plans to sent to Iraq won’t be properly trained and equipped regulars from the Army or Marines.
At least we all now agree that “stay the course” amounts to losing, slowly. I bet that the Republican minority feels awfully grateful to Rove for last summer’s political stay the course orgy in Congress. However, while I’m glad that even the duller knives recognize the need to fish or cut bait I guess we will wait a little longer for some to realize that the fishing pole’s gone and the pond dried up.
Keep this in mind when some pundit claims to be a “serious” foreign policy thinker. Serious thinkers recognize that a choice between the impossible and the inevitable isn’t a choice at all. Picking the impossible, or punting via a endless series of Friedman Units, is the opposite of serious. It is what the vain and the stubborn do to escape admitting failure to the world and, more importantly, to themselves.
***Update***
Also proposed: “tilting” US policy in favor of the Shiite majority. That should ease sectarian tensions.
Pb
I’ve got to say, this “Last Big Push” plan has got to be the stupidest thing I’ve heard them say in… oh, I don’t know, a week, maybe. Are *we* in our Last Throes now? Basically, the whole thing amounts to the same thing they’ve been saying for years–cross your fingers and wait another Friedman and maybe things will get better. I mean, uh, they have been getting better, we’re making progress, yeah, that’s it! Ok, I’ll take that claim at face value–is anarchy their *goal* now? Has that been the goal all along?
ThymeZone
Apparently Bush has decided to challenge Nixon’s public approval floor and wants to drive his ratings into the low 20’s. This seems as good a way as any to accomplish that.
Hey, it’s a legacy. Maybe not the one he wanted, but ….
Punchy
TDS did a great take on a Tony Snow(job) presser, where he first claims to want to consider any and all plans, especially those from the Dems, then in back-to-back clips, claims “that’s a non-starter” to both Dem plans of redeployment and partitioning. Heh indeed.
In truth, this Pres will do ANYTHING but what the Dems want. He’s still living in 5th grade, trying to give The Moe to anyone who disagrees with him. I’m convinced the Dems should advocate sending in more troops and sticking around for years, just so Bush will quickly recommend we get out and do so quickly…
Zifnab
He’ll definitely be remembered.
Honestly… after years of this shit I think that might actually work. “Dems want to stay in Iraq indefinitely and forever” and BAM! we’d be out so fast it would make your head spin. Every news pundit from NY to LA would be telling us how the Dems wanted to doggedly stay the course but the President had the balls to bring our troops home against insurmountable criticism. At least it would get us the fuck out already.
matt
Does anyone know if this is true?
RSA
In a different context, I think Bush would be described as following the “all in” strategy. Hell, everything Bush does is a crazy gamble, so I suppose it’s appropriate here, too.
Pb
Punchy,
Now that he’s cut and run from ‘stay the course’, that just might work. The speeches practically write themselves.
“The Dem plan is ‘stay the course’–that’s not an option. They would allow the terrorists free rein to pick off our men in uniform, one by one! I propose that we take the target away from the terrorists, in a plan I call, Operation Redeploy To Freedom! The mission in Iraq has been accomplished, we have set up a Democracy, and now it’s time for our brave men and women in uniform to come back to their loved ones.”
Jay
Last big push sounds like instead of Cut and Run Bush has adopted Shit and Run.
And Vietnam War chicken.
But snark aside, the whole point is for the UnDecider to come up with some plan, any plan. If it can’t be carried out because of some petty little detail like not enough soldiers or the impossiblity of getting them to the site of conflict in a timely manner or inability to give them the proper equipment it won’t be his fault.
Translation: Send the troops out with anti-Sunni death squads. Hooray, isn’t democracy grand?
OK, I think I’m gonna puke.
Tulkinghorn
I am usually full of opinions, but I can’t imagine up a well reasoned strategy for ‘winning’ in Iraq.
So when did we lose, as in, at what point did the war become unwinnable? From the beginning? When the US did not respond to the chaos in Baghdad? When we first went into Fallujah, and had to pull out prematurely for whatever reason?
The post-mortem on this is critical if we are to avoid policy snafus like this in the future.
Pb
matt,
I think so. Lots of good stats on this from Murtha and Obey.
Elvis Elvisberg
This is a depraved act.
This cannot be understood in strategic terms. It can only be understood as an indication of the psychology of George W. Bush.
I would really, really love to be wrong about this. But everything I remember seeing lately calls for 30,000 as the lowest possible number of troops to send to do the job.
I had hoped until earlier this year that we would send more troops to Iraq. But “stay the course” tested better in the Bush administration’s focus groups than “accept reality and fucking deal with the situation,” so they were content to allow things to continue to deteriorate there.
And now, after these years of failure, of indifference to the reality in Iraq, of demonizing the media for reporting facts and demonizing empiricists for taking notice of them…
a “big push” of 20,000?
Is it even plausible, has it anywhere been argued, that this is enough to tip the scales?
VidaLoca
In the context of the “last big push” today consider
this: (from yesterday’s WaPo)
He’s not going to let Daddy’s men try to put the wheels back on for him.
Tulkinghorn
If we do not have strategic reserves, then there is nobody who can be blamed for this other than W. Not even Rumsfeld is responsible for the political act of selling the necessary expansion of the armed forces at least a couple years before a war of choice like this.
I suppose an assertive and independent Congress might force another two divisions on the White House, but I can’t see how they could sell that to the public with executive support.
Perhaps the term snafu should be replaced with sWafu.
matt
What if the situation in Iraq is finally beginning to make progress? Watching the hearings yesterday with Abizaid, I got the distinct feeling that he wanted to say, “look, all those times I said things were getting better when they weren’t? yeah, sorry about that, but this time I’m serious“.
What an ironic tragedy if we pull out when we are making progress, since no one believes it because of all the other times we were (but weren’t) making progress.
Tim H.
I suppose he could send 20,000 National Guard. Put em in Baghdad as cannon fodder and pull the combat troops out. Any Bush plan just has to allow him to stall for two years.
So when did we lose, as in, at what point did the war become unwinnable? From the beginning? When the US did not respond to the chaos in Baghdad? When we first went into Fallujah, and had to pull out prematurely for whatever reason?
Probably unwinnable from the start, but IMO, definitely when the decision was made to run Iraq as a GOP profit center.
matt
Thanks for the link, Pb.
Pb
matt,
No way I’m buying *that* bullshit again. If he wants to make that argument, then he can show Congress some examples–and some hard numbers–that actually demonstrate that *this time*, it’s really getting better. You know, as opposed to the previous five or so fucking Friedmans when they said the exact same thing… and were wrong every goddamned time.
Ryan S.
When we couldn’t stop the looting.
Pb
Buck
20,000? 30,000?
Hell,
ALL the kings horses and
ALL the kings men
won’t be able to put Humpty back together again.
Zifnab
And if we’d just stuck it out a few more years in Vietnam everything would have been coming up roses. Yes, we totally heard this one before.
It sounded more to me like Abizaid was saying, “At first I said everything was getting better because I wanted you to clear out and leave me the country so I could rule it myself. But now I’m saying everything is getting better because I want you to stay so I don’t get butchered in my own office by my own ‘police’ when they decide I’m too Sunni.”
I’m confident that twenty years from now, a respected pundit sitting in a big leather chair with a pipe and a smoking jacket will explain to all of us how we really were just inches away from turning the corner on the insurgency which was actually in its last throes and if only the weak-minded liberals hadn’t cut and/or run Iraq would be a paradise today. So I’ll look forward changing the channel on that pundit or using his dissertation as toilet paper another day. For now, let’s give Bush his 20k troops so he can charge in, lose, toss up his hands, say he did his best, blame it all on the Iraqis for not loving freedom enough, and get the fuck out.
Dreggas
And I remember Bush campaigning back in ’00 about how the military was broken and wasn’t ready and needed rebuilding. Funny how that works.
Funny how it was functional even though they said it wasn’t and their remedy for the supposedly “broke” military, break it some more.
Jay
Why give Rumsfeld the boot then? Or rather, why hang onto him all of this time and give him the boot just when things start to turn the last of many corners?
rob
The “Big Push” huh; Only GWB would name it after one of the biggest slaughters in military history, Battle of the Somme, 1919 – AKA the “Big Push”
The Other Steve
I got the impression Abizaid had been smoking crack.
The question still remains. Why is this our battle?
We didn’t break Iraq. The Iraqis did. The only thing we had any reason to do was take out Hussein.
Punchy
Parallels my ass. If you think this Baker report will say anything the President doesn’t already plan to do, I’ve got some twin office buildings to sell you in Lower Manhatty.
Baker’s report will mirror precisely what Bush planned to do months ago. Nobody shows up Bush. Nobody makes him the chump.
matt
I’m definitely not prepared to make the argument that things are indeed getting better. I was just making the observation that (to me) the positive rhetoric from guys like Abizaid sounds more genuine than it has in the past.
Elvis Elvisberg
It would illustrate the principle that you shouldn’t squander your credibility.
scarshapedstar
The “last” big push? So, uh… what comes afterwards? Us getting the fuck out?
Why don’t we just cut our losses and leave tomorrow, then?
Chili
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Tsulagi
There have been some credible voices for this “last push” strategy. I don’t count MCA blow-job “maverick” McCain among them. But from ex-military, intelligent people like Zinni, Batiste, and some others.
But I gotta disagree with them. I understand no one wants to take a loss. I get that. But from Day One this admin has set the table for a civil war and failed state. People came to the table. They ate the meal. What you got now is the shit coming out from that meal and no way you’re going to be able to turn that shit back into turkey.
What the hell is going to change in two months, six months, or longer? Maliki isn’t in control of his government. Even if he was, the efforts he’s made so far run counter to our goals. Stand up more IAs? Right. As I linked to in an earlier post, one Army captain training Iraqi forces estimated at least 70% of them are aligned with militias, tribes, mullahs or whatever. So will the “last push” be to arm, train, and help pay more to take part in the civil war? Sounds like a plan.
The Iraqi Army is vapor. Their boots don’t have an enlistment contract. They can quit at any time. They have 10 days off for every 20 on the clock. Plus other leave opportunities. Given that, an Army Times article said of the typical Iraqi battalion only 30% are present at any given time. Their soldiers even get to decide which operations they take part in, plus they have the right to stay close to their home neighborhood. This ain’t no army.
Oh, in regards to your FIRST point, I believe the correct terminology is “oil spot” for the new and improved inkspot tactics in Operation Together Forward. Mustn’t mess up part of Rumsfeld’s legacy.
For the SECOND point, we do have the 20,000 troops for a “last push.” Tours of those in country can be extended, and deployment dates for those in the States and elsewhere can be moved forward. Also the NG has been bumping up against a maximum 24-month deployment policy, but it’s just a policy that can be changed with a stroke of a pen.
Iraq is done. The pony died.
Chili
Who was the lynch pin that held the whole area together….yeah I’d say we broke it. Pretty badly in fact.
Punchy
Man…seriously….please pass me what you’re smoking. More genuine? Or more like a man knowing he’s about to meet with House Dems once a week for the next 6 months?
I’m going to declare this spoof. Nobody puts “Abizaid” and “genuine” in the same sentence unless it’s spoofalicious.
capelza
Matt..I’m going real sloppy here, but was listening to the news channel and some talking head pointed out that while Abizaid testified that things were getting better, later another Pentagon general said the opposite..so the Pentagon brains aren’t even on the same page. I wish I could remember which General it was.
We broke Iraq when we disbanded their military, when we sent in Heritage Foundation whippersnappers to nationbuild, when we didn’t realise that by ripping the scab that Saddam was off , that it would fester because the numbnuts in charge didn’t even realise the differences between Sunni and Shiite. Etc, etc, etc.
Jay
I seem to recall a lot of screaming about WMD back in the days of yore. If the goal was just take out Hussein wouldn’t a tactical air strike have been better? Or even a guy named Knuckles, armed with a tire iron. But to your question: It became “our” battle when US ground forces crossed into Iraq. If you want to say: Bush blew it, it isn’t fair to keep soldiers in harms way because he’s a schmuck, get them out; that is, of course, one opinion. But don’t pretend US soldiers just happened to be in the vicinty when the Iraqis suddenly and for no reason started blowing crap up.
Pb
Tsulagi,
Well you know, I can understand why the generals want to be able to say they tried everything, they tried their best, but at this point it just couldn’t be won. And if I thought that this “Last Push Strategy” would head off the inevitable Republican Dolchstoßlegende strategy (aka McCain’s platform for 2008–you heard it here first, folks!) then I’d *almost* be willing to endorse it. But it won’t, so I say, don’t do it. Let’s cut our losses and start getting the hell out now!
Fledermaus
ALLENBY
Look, Lawrence. I’m making my big push on Damascus the sixteenth of next month and you are part of it. Can you understand that? You’re an important part of the big push.
LAWRENCE
I don’t want to be part of your big push!
ALLENBY
What about your Arab friends? What about them?
LAWRENCE
I have no Arab friends! I don’t want Arab friends!
ALLENBY
What in hell do you want, Lawrence?
LAWRENCE
I’ve told you. I just want my ration of common humanity.
matt
Ok, that’s probably right.
Zifnab
Dude. Whatever may be said about Iraq and the handling of the War, democracy, and the Middle East in general, you cannot possibly lay this all on the Iraqis.
Take the legendary Saddam Million Man Army, plus thousands of beaurocrats, appointees, and party loyalists and dump them all in prison or out on their now-unemployeed asses. Now find the most corrupt, slimey, feckless son-of-a-bitch who doesn’t have direct ties to Mr. Hussein (*cough*Maliki*cough*), and make him the Prime Minister. Give the old Sunni ruling caste the finger. Treat the new Shia ruling class like retarded children, while pushing American right-wing agendas as more important than Iraqi concerns.
Then act surprised when you’ve got a robust insurgency lead by tens of thousands of displaced radicals a few years latter.
Oh yeah. And blame it on the Iraqis. Cause, you know, we really didn’t have anything to do with this mess.
Dreggas
one large fart…
one big queaf…
take your pick…
Salty Party Snax
Georgie will do just about anything to maintain the illusion that we have not suffered a military defeat in Iraq. The biggest issue for the little knucklehead now is evading the tag “war loser.”
If he can keep this thing going for the next two years, then it will be somebody else’s fault when the whole mess collapses and the beating we took there becomes official.
Our people are dying in Iraq now so that Georgie can save face.
srv
It’s always darkest just before it goes pitch black.
The boy-king will continue his experiments with the Iraqi people, lost to any reason or experience. Perhaps we should call this the modified Tinkerbell-Inkblot theory.
Is there a physchological term denial on the scale of nation states?
VidaLoca
Perhaps we should call it Stalingrad.
srv
Transalation: Civil War Faster
I can see Krauthammer rising out of his wheelchair like Dr. Strangelove….
The sad fact is the Sunni are going to win this war, one way or another. That was true in 3/2003, and it should be obvious to everyone now.
Cyrus
Bush joked a while ago that he would stay in Iraq even if Barney and Laura were the only supporters he had left. Clearly, he’s already been abandoned by his senior advisors by now, if even they have come to their senses enough that he has to prod them into accepting one “last big push” as a strategy.
Scene from a “Family Guy” episode in late 2005/early 2006, one of the frequent tangents, in this case a response to Brian the dog saying something like “I can find anyone”:
(Brian is shown behind the White House next to a tree with a treehouse in it. George Bush is in the treehouse.)
Brian: President Bush?
George Bush: Go away!
Brian: Sir, we need you to come down!
George Bush: I’m reading “Super Fudge!”
Brian: Sir, there’s a natural disaster going on!
George Bush: Don’t make me do stuff…
Let’s have a vote: do you think some mid-level (even top-level?) White House functionary has already had to imitate that scene, or do you think it hasn’t happened yet but will some time in the next two years? Note that “never going to happen” is not one of the options.
Ryan S.
Its really sad but the mess in Iraq reminds me of what my history Prof said (this was 2 or 3 years before the war).
Paraphrasing he said, “Think about the outcome of revolutions like spinning a giant wheel of fortune. No one, not the group that starts the war, nor the people currently in charge, can predict where the wheel will stop. And, if someone tells you they are sure they know. DON’T TRUST THEM.”
Then he demonstrated with the French and Russian Revolutions.
croatoan
The First Battle of Fallujah was in April 2004. The US couldn’t capture the city. The Second Battle of Fallujah started right after the election in November 2004, and the US captured the city. (I’m sure the timing was a coincidence. It would be really cynical to think that the assault was postponed until after the election so news of casualties wouldn’t hurt President Bush politically. After all, it’d be awfully immoral to endanger our troops’ lives by giving the insurgents time to strengthen their defenses just to avoid political harm.)
April 2004 and November 2004 are the two months with the highest numbers of US killed and wounded.
Mike
Ted Koppel was on TDS last night and had some great lines:
Washington: “We know Saddam has weapons of mass destruction. We still have the receipts.”
“35 years ago George Bush enlisted in the TX Air Natl Guard to stay out of Vietnam. Now he is going to Vietnam to stay out of Washington.”
srv
It was clear they were waiting until after the election. People would have complained also if he’d done it before (whipping up the base). I’ll always be the last to give GW credit, but I think that’s why they delayed the attack.
grumpy realist
Question is–is the Republican party going to fall behind Bush and let him have what he wants?
Look, from all the commentary here no one believes that simply putting another 20,000 boots on the ground is going to work.
So what this means is when the whole thing is in even more of a mess 2 years down the road, the Republicans AREN’T going to be tagged with this disaster?
The more nutzoid may think they can pin this on the existence of the Democrats, but the more rational must be thinking very very carefully about this.
Or maybe it’s just gotten to the stage where they’re just desperately throwing spinning plates into the air, hoping that something will distract the voters enough to get re-elected.
TenguPhule
*Snark* Yes, we all know this is only the ‘birth pangs’ of a nation emerging into the wide world of freedom. */Snark*
TenguPhule
The scary thing is…he wasn’t joking.
sglover
President Cheney and his dummy, Fuckwit, need to be impeached. Then they need to be locked in a cell. Forever. That’s it. That is pretty much the only “solution” to the many disasters that they have inflicted on us, and on the Iraqis. We will be paying for their criminality for decades.
Jay
And I thought Bush was against “Partial birth” abortion.
vetiver
When we couldn’t stop the looting.
No, we wouldn’t stop the looting.
This is from Into the Abyss on the Columbia Journalism Review site, which collects interviews from reporters who covered Iraq — imbeds and others — from the beginning.
And don’t forget Rummy’s expression of concern:
I remember watching that press conference and knowing for a fact that we were fucked, and those poor bastards in Iraq were fuckeder. And I’m not even on the super-duper top-secret insider listserv, so spare me the hindsight/who’d ‘ve thunk it bullshit.
Oh, and that vase? Total outlet-store crap, I’m sure. Not like this was the cradle of civilization or anything. I bet there wasn’t a single Pottery Barn in the whole fucking country.
stickler
Where, exactly, are these 20,000 troops supposed to come from?
Joe1347
An ‘optimistic’ friend’s favorite quote was ‘always imagine the worst thing possible and reality will end up being worse’ as a rule of thumb when trying to predict what our former executives would do next. Looks like his words of wisdom also apply to the Bush Admin.
Is Bush serious about winning – whatever that is – or is this leaked last big push just a trojan horse with the explicit purpose of ensuring massive Democratic opposition? What I’m getting at – is this yet another political ploy that will be used to paint the Democrats as softies on fighting Terror that don’t have the strength of character to see this thing through and ultimately WIN.
I would think that if Bush was really serious about winning in Iraq. Why not propose sending 200,000+ US Troops immediately? Bush could argue (and the American public may buy it) that he’s not trying to finesse the amount of troops and risk failure – but instead is sending an overwhelming military force (for a short term) to insure victory.
As for the concern whether or not there actually are enough troops. What about the Navy and AirForce? Don’t they have lots of troops sitting around (or floating around) that could be re-deployed to Iraq. After all – isn’t the ‘real’ enemy all of those Foreign Terrorists running amok in Iraq. Don’t we need to ‘win’ by fighting them over there before they (the terrorists) start attacking the USA mainland. Bush keeps saying that we’re at war with the Terrorists in Iraq. So why not round up ALL of the troups and send them to Iraq and WIN now before it’s too late.
Tulkinghorn
You forgot Poland.
TenguPhule
Because if Bush were to suggest that then Airforce One would *accidently* eat a heatseeking missile..or seven.
SPIIDERWEB™
Twenty thousand troops is cannon fodder. Double the troop numbers and they might, might I say, have a small affect on the carnage. Then there’s the fact the troops there already are running out of equipment and more troops will just have it worse.
I thought humans were supposed to learn from their mistakes.
Jay
Bush felt a sudden chill when he saw Sen. McCain in the pilot’s chair. But he relaxed when he saw that as always God, was his co-pilot…
TenguPhule
Looking twice as hard for the Pony in Iraq still won’t find any.
Tulkinghorn
The air force troops are busy protecting the planes and supply systems for them. As for the Navy, we know them as Marines, and they have been there for a while now.
Then again, there might be some spare personnel in the snowmobile base in McMurdo, Antarctica. I hear the Fresno animal control unit has a couple extra people, too.
TenguPhule
Actually I believe Joe1347 was talking about the sailors, pilots and other personnel. Plucking them from their relatively safe positions to be dumped in Iraq with guns that jam, body armor that breaks, vehicles that crap out from the sand and you’ve got a lot of motivation to see the coward who wants to do that to them wind up on the wrong side of the weapons systems they operate.
TenguPhule
Append to above: Joe1347, I am referring to the chickenhawks in office with that cowardice remark, not you.
Andrew
We would have had them except that abortion was legalized and we sucked out all of the little soldiers-to-be.
Joe1347
No offense taken. As for the MEN in office. Most of them took the oath (to defend the Constitution). How about gearing up ALL the Republican staffers and their leaders and sending them over to the sandbox to SAVE US from the evildoers. I’m thinking something along the lines of recreating Teddy Roosevelts Rough Riders from the Spanish-American War. Of course, the name Rough Riders wouldn’t be the appropriate for this bunch. Maybe someone can think up an more ‘appropriate’ name?
On a more serious note – So what is the right amount of troups that we need in Iraq – TO WIN – as Bush keeps repeating? If 400,000 is too many – is 180,000 the “perfect” amount to turn the tide (i.e., send over just 20,000 more) and WIN?
Or is General Odom (former head of NSA) right in saying that zero (0) troops is the best choice in terms or achieving the outcome most favorable to the US?
srv
Somehow, I don’t think one Last Big Thrust(tm) is going to help when you shot your wad 3 years ago.
Joe1347
Actually I was being ‘semi-serious’ about rounding up all of the sailors and airmen – and sending them to Iraq. Of course this would mean ‘parking’ (returing to US ports) just about every Naval ship – including those running interdiction in the Persian Gulf – and putting our entire strategic defense forces as well as all US forces protecting Korea into Iraq. But after listening to the Bush Admin – isn’t the Terrorist threat from Iraq more dangerous than a Nuclear Armed North Korea. Shouldn’t South Korea and Taiwan (and Japan) be able to take care of themselves by now? I for one don’t want those evil Iraq terrorists hoping on a plane or boat and attacking the US Homeland if we (the US Military) pull out from Iraq!
TenguPhule
Rampaging Rump Riders comes to mind.
I figured as much, hence my sorta semi-serious response. *Grin* :P
The option of winning was taken off of the table long ago. At this point Bush is just chasing His Little Pony.
TenguPhule
So we’re in trouble because Bush had premature emasculation.
t. jasper parnell
The Somme? Hell, Ludendorff called for and got a “Big Push” when he knew the war was lost. And damn it all if it wasn’t the homefront that lost the war, according to Ludendorff, Paul von H and any number of the decent left. Laurie Anderson looks more and more like a prophet: When justice is gone there’s always force.
Pb
Kee-rist, the fix is in. This “Last Big Push” bullshit is allegedly showing up in (perhaps coming from?) the Iraq Study Group planning:
Tim F.
Already done. I’m not kidding. If you look at the guy directing traffic in Baghdad chances are he would feel much more comfortable directing artillery, repairing a F/A-18 or manning the radio desk in a Destroyer.
CaseyL
That’s the thing. There are still some folks trying to make a silk purse out of this sow’s ear, and some of them are willing to say how many troops they think it’ll take. The lowest number I’ve seen is 50K. 20K isn’t even half that, and we don’t even know where those will come from.
Focusing troop strength on pressure points might have worked at some point years ago – though I question even that, since the insurgency was never localized enough (which makes sense if the insurgents were mostly comprised of the unemployed Baathist army). Pressure point tactics assume you can isolate the insurgents and cut off their supplies, and do both long enough to capture them all or starve them out. I don’t think that was ever an option.
Throwing all our support, including our armed forces, to one side is at best a short-term solution. Whoever we support will be overthrown as soon as we’re gone. I think that’s true no matter how long we stay (cf Vietnam). More likely, it just puts our forces even more in the line of fire as they become the de facto army of one side of the civil war.
Getting popular support of whoever we throw in with might “work” (for certain minimum values of “work”) but getting that popular support depends on restoring infrastructure and establishing enough security so some semblence of normal life can resume for longer than a few days at a time. I frankly don’t see how we’re going to do that, since that would mean dispersing troops to protect the infrastructure – the streets, police stations, universities, commercial districts, utilities – in other words, spreading US forces thin.
20K more troops is an obscene joke. It’s purely cosmetic. And it’ll get our soldiers killed by the truckload.
stickler
CaseyL:
But isn’t this more or less exactly what Abizaid was calling for just yesterday? More “training teams” or whatever he called them, eleven-man teams of US soldiers attached to Iraqi Army units all over the place?
That’s a recipe for spectacular news reports when the next Tet Offensive kicks off.
rachel
Thanks for that; now I’ve got O Superman (for Massenet) going through my brain on a repeat loop. Must… Play… Some… Queen…
Chuck Butcher
20K troops, sigh…
That wouldn’t have been enough when we might have had good conditions to do something sort of positive. (lots of qualifiers)
This went wrong the second they decided they had enough and sent them across the border. I doubt that enough troops could be had now if we gutted every outpost. Keeripes, right after McCain got done being stupid I put a post up and now this. Wishful thinking is a hell of a way to run a war.
Tulkinghorn
‘And when force is gone, there is always Mom. Hi Mom!’
Egads. Laurie Anderson, the prophet of infantile fascism. No matter how much I smoked I never understood that line. Now it seems so excruciatingly clear.
Cause you know Babs is behind the 41/43 dynamic in ways we can just guess about at this point.
Newport 9
The thing to understand about the “Last Big Push” is that, like everything else Bush has done in Iraq, the purpose is political, not military. Back in 1975, when South Vietnam was going under, Ford sent a request to Congress for another umpteen million dollars in military aid for Saigon. Henry Kissinger later admitted in his memoirs that he did so for the express purpose of having it be rejected by Congress, which would allow him to blame the lost war on the Democrats. And that’s what happened. You can still find plenty of wingnuts who will tell you in all seriousness (if that’s the word I want) that the Dems were to blame for losing Vietnam because they turned down that last aid request.
Same thing here. If the Dems turn down the “Last Big Push” plan (as they damn well ought to), expect to see Big Pharma and the rest screaming like castratos about how the Dems sabotaged the war effort. If, on the other hand, the Dems go along in an attempt to avoid this “you cost us the war” bullshit, then they get to share the blame when the Last Big Push fails, as it will. “You Dems voted for the Last Big Push too, so you’re not allowed to criticize us!”
It’s all politics.
spoosmith
What the hell is the definition of “winning” in Iraq? If it is to stamp out all the terrorists/terrorism, good luck with that, given that it’s highly doubtful if any GI would know an Al Quieda from a Sunni insurgent. So what, do you just round up and/or kill anyone who looks threatening?
If “winning” means setting up a stable democracy – well – good luck with that one too. Pretty much everyone agrees that there is a full-blown civil war going on and that fighting may not stop even if you partition Iraq into Sunni, Shia and Kurd nations or city-states.
Of course there should be impeachment proceedings if for no other reason than to send a warning to future administrations/demogogs what happens when you fuck up this monumentally ON PURPOSE.
Tsulagi
Yep, fair chance that combat medic on patrol knows the words to Anchors Aweigh, and would give a finger to anyone asking him to “hooooaaahhh” for them. Or he could be private hoping like hell to survive to get back to the $120,000 tax-free signing bonus he picked up from the military.
jcricket
Who gets the feeling that the troops in Iraq are being run by the same people who kept having those troops charge up the hill in Galipoli during WWI. Anyone who’s seen the 1981 movie about this battle (with a young Mel “mo Jew-killing, less trouble” Gibson, no less) will know exactly what the people in charge are doing to our troops, and what it feels like trying to convince the powers that be that their efforts are sending ones compatriots to certain death.