I am utterly overwhelmed with work lately, sick with some sort of neverending low-grade flu, and managing the fallout from an unexpected indoor rain shower in the proximity of an exceedingly expensive microscope (nothing was irretrievably lost, thank god). Someday in the near future I hope to get back blogging, but for now free time is mostly a quaint memory.
In the meantime Hilzoy has the post I wish I could write about about the Pentagon’s post-invasion plans. They really did expect a cakewalk, and laid exactly zero plans in case they were wrong. Also note via Drum that the declassified doc unambiguously shows that preparations for Iraq hurt our hunt for al Qaeda.
The narrative by now ought to be perfectly clear. Our brain trust left the crucial post 9/11 job, hunting down those who attacked us, unfinished so they could run off on an second, poorly thought out campaign. Campaign #2, doomed from the start by irresponsible planning and an ostrich-like refusal to adapt to reality, exceeded the expectations of its worst critics. Now the same geniuses want to leave campaigns #1 and #2 unfinished while they provoke a third. It brings to mind a gang of eleven year olds playing Risk. It’s attention-deficit adventurism. Why anybody, even people who broadly agree with their politics, would support these people is beyond me.
Also read Steve Benen on the North Korea agreement. Thanks to our inspired leadership we have essentially returned to the Clintonian Agreed Framework, except that North Korea has several kilograms of processed plutonium and (probably) functioning warheads. If the president’s erstwhile fans don’t like it we can always go back to empty threats. That seemed to work.
Maybe you have something other than Norks and war on your mind. Chat about whatever.