Bush Bull
Oh my. There was Incurious George, once again using a military audience as a cheap TV prop, once again relying on stone-cold fear for transparent, partisan political manipulation.
Apply just a lick of common sense to what we're hearing now from the White House and you reach a rather obvious conclusion: The President has surrendered any notion of galvanizing any real majority for his policies. Two months out from the mid-terms, with nearly 50 House races suddenly competitive, he's now merely trying to hold the GOP hard-core base together and stave off a Democratic landslide.
For who else, at least at this juncture, has the patience to sit through one more historically ignorant fear-mongering session from Mr. Bush? Once again I will refuse to pick apart his Tuesday speech defending his war policies because -- by now-- it doesn't as much deserve a rebuttal. Suffice it to say that a clear majority of Americans are now hip to his rant and no longer buy the bull that the war in Iraq was somehow central to the war on terror.
It certainly wasn't when Bush invaded three years ago. And to the degree that anything in his speech makes any sense whatsoever, then the greater the political indictment of Bush himself. If Iraq has become a staging area or battleground for Al Qaeda it is because our invasion had made it such. If Iran is suddenly an ally of Al Qaeda (even though they are former blood rivals) then understand it as a marriage of convenience born out of circumstances defined in great part by Bush.
(I recommend a reading of Tom Ricks' stunning new book Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq in order to fully glimpse the staggering incompetence, political tone-deafness, ideological blindness and cavalier bungling of this administration in Iraq. Peopled with a cast of mediocrities -- from Wolfowitz to Tommy Franks to General Sanchez to Paul Bremer to George W. Bush himself-- the book reads like a grotesque horror script. I honestly do not understand how any American can get through Ricks' account and not come away sick to the stomach and trembling with fear and rage).
If you heard what Bush had to say yesterday, it seems there are a few questions that he should be answering. If, indeed, as he says, we are now facing a global threat comparable to Lenin's Communism or Hitler's fascism then:
-- Why did this administration invade Iraq with 1/2 or less the number of troops that many of our own experts and generals said we needed?
-- Why was there absolutely no plan for post-invasion occupation?
-- Why were so few American troops deployed to Afghanistan where the Taliban insurgency is now flourishing?
-- Why has civilian reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan been so paltry?
-- Why is there no draft, nor any civilian mobilization to confront this global enemy?
-- Why are there no war bonds? No Victory Gardens? No blood banks? No sacrifice whatsoever?
-- Why is there no war tax to fund this life and death struggle? Why, on the contrary, has the national treasury been bled dry by waging war while rebating taxes to the wealthiest?
-- Who does this President think he's still kidding?
September 6th, 2006 at 3:28 am
Great post, Marc, and excellent questions. I am on the last 30 pages of Ricks as I type, and totally agree that it is essential reading and gets the blood boiling at the needless sacrifices that have been made and the incredible bungling of Bush and company. The dwindling number of remaining Bush defenders (including those who blog here) should be tied down and forced to read it before they pontificate further.
September 6th, 2006 at 4:38 am
I supported the war at the start, on a 55%-45% basis, because I thought Saddam was so horrible and it was a reasonable gamble to try to give power to the many educated and decent Iraqis, and start something new in the Middle East.
I still support the war, if not its conduct, in the sense that I believe withdrawal would be a disaster in many ways.
The questions Marc asks are, however, fair ones. I got the sense something was wrong when no curfew was imposed on Baghdad, when no “looters will be shot on sight” orders were issued, when they didn’t go in and get Muqtada as-Sadr.
Is this just a story about incompetence, or are the Islamists right? We love life and prosperity too much. We’ll pretend to convert to Islam to save our lives. We may believe that some things are worth fighting for–but is it only for easy victories such as Grenada and Panama?
Perhaps so. There was always a case for isolationism. Have the war opponents thought through the implications of their position? Should we withdraw from Korea, Europe, Qatar, Diego Garcia, and let Kofi Annan pretend to preserve the peace? We can absorb a million Iraqi allies and 5 million Israelis.
The opponents need to think through the implications of their position. I haven’t heard much on that score.
September 6th, 2006 at 6:17 am
These are unusually thoughtful thoughts from Grumpy. And opponents of the Iraq war do indeed need to be clear about what it is exactly they are against. But such opposition does not necessarily lead to isolationism as Grumpy suggests. It may just lead to the conclusion that invading a country on false pretenses is a bad idea for all concerned, and that democracy cannot be magically installed simply by invading and taking out the bad guy with no knowledge whatsoever of the culture, politics, and social structure. This is what the Ricks book and George Packers The Assassins Gate prove beyond a shadow of a doubt.
September 6th, 2006 at 6:30 am
Marc asks some questions that–for reasons I can’t begin to understand–still seem to require answers at this late date. Nevertheless, I’m happy to supply them. (Actually not. I weary of you fools.)
“Why did this administration invade Iraq with 1/2 or less the number of troops that many of our own experts and generals said we needed?”
You go to war with the army you have, not the army you’d like to have. Goodness gracious.
“Why was there absolutely no plan for post-invasion occupation?”
We came as liberators, not as conquerors. Gosh, everybody knows that.
“Why were so few American troops deployed to Afghanistan where the Taliban insurgency is now flourishing?”
I forget exactly how it went back then, but even before going into the Stan, somebody around here was already planning to invade some other country with a name starting with “I” and continuing, I think, with “r”, then maybe … uh … “a”? … and, um, oh, hey, I dunno, like I say, it was a while back, I forget now. Just one of those bureaucratic things, y’know.
“Why has civilian reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan been so paltry?”
You go to war with the civilian contractors you have, not the ones you’d like to have. Why, if I were still on their boards of directors …. well, that’s a known unknown, isn’t it?
“Why is there no draft, nor any civilian mobilization to confront this global enemy?”
Because any sane person would simply do whatever was necessary to evade service. Take it from me. I work with a lot of sane people.
“Why are there no war bonds? No Victory Gardens? No blood banks? No sacrifice whatsoever?”
Look, we pay a lot of taxes to support Hallib–uh, I mean, these wars. And there’s nothing worse than taxes. Not even death.
Taxes are the *real* ultimate sacrifice.
“Why is there no war tax to fund this life and death struggle? Why, on the contrary, has the national treasury been bled dry by waging war while rebating taxes to the wealthiest?”
What part of “taxes are bad” didn’t you understand, Marc?
“Who does this President think he’s still kidding?”
Sorry, I’m at the end of my patience now. So I’ll give you my “no more Mr. Nice Guy” answer to this one:
Marc, why do you hate America?
September 6th, 2006 at 7:00 am
Again, Marc asks the wrong questions, reading pro-occupation “Critic” Ricks. The questions are not why the population do or don’t have a draft, or why there was no plan, etc. - anyone who thinks America has ever been competent or moral in warfare doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
The real question is, what is the new international agenda of capital? Is US hegemony on the decline? How will the bursting of the real estate bubble affect US ability to pursue its high standard of living and international imperialism? Will Iraqis control their own oil?
September 6th, 2006 at 7:03 am
Packer too is a drainpipe sucker, writing before the war disgusting rhetoric comparing the “decent left” a phrase he and Walzer pushed, such as Kanan “Chalabi’s Pal” Makiya, Gitlin, berman, hitchens to such unhinged people who actually and correctly predicted a huge mistakei nthe Iraq war. Packer’s trajectory is about as disgusting as any journalist.
September 6th, 2006 at 7:14 am
Grumpy is still lumpy. His use of “isolationist” is only applicable if you buy the hard right’s take on diplomacy and the U.N., which we have every reason to believe was as spot on as the hard right’s take on Iraq; which pushed the old geezer into 55sville.
First of all, we could start insisting right winger’s phrase it accurately ever time: What are we going to do with the horrible mess Bush has made? Yes, withdrawl may be a disaster in many ways; just like staying. The first thing to do about the latter set of disasters is to chase the reactionary right out of the seats of power.
I’m glad Marc has figured out Republicans are not interested in building coalitions; Clinton’s Impeachment might have been a nice little hint; but we are a little slow on this curve. If the Salon piece on Kansas is right, there does seem some heartland rebellion to this madness.
In addition to “Fiasco”, Peter W Galbraith’s “The End of Iraq” is essential.
September 6th, 2006 at 7:25 am
Bin Laden Gets a Pass from Pakistan
September 05, 2006 5:41 PM
Brian Ross and Gretchen Peters Report:
Osama bin Laden, America’s most wanted man, will not face capture in Pakistan if he agrees to lead a “peaceful life,” Pakistani officials tell ABC News.
The surprising announcement comes as Pakistani army officials announced they were pulling their troops out of the North Waziristan region as part of a “peace deal” with the Taliban.
If he is in Pakistan, bin Laden “would not be taken into custody,” Major General Shaukat Sultan Khan told ABC News in a telephone interview, “as long as one is being like a peaceful citizen.”
Bin Laden is believed to be hiding somewhere in the tribal areas of Pakistan, near the Afghanistan border, but U.S. officials say his precise location is unknown.
In addition to the pullout of Pakistani troops, the “peace agreement” between Pakistan and the Taliban also provides for the Pakistani army to return captured Taliban weapons and prisoners.
“What this means is that the Taliban and al Qaeda leadership have effectively carved out a sanctuary inside Pakistan,” said ABC News consultant Richard Clarke, the former White House counter-terrorism director.
The agreement was signed on the same day President Bush said the United States was working with its allies “to deny terrorists the enclaves they seek to establish in ungoverned areas across the world.”
———————————————
Truces fueling resurgence of Taliban, critics say
By Jonathan S. Landay
McClatchy Newspapers
KABUL, Afghanistan - The Pakistani military is striking truces with Islamic separatists along the country’s border with Afghanistan, freeing Pakistani militants and al-Qaida fighters to join Taliban insurgents battling U.S.-led troops and government forces in Afghanistan.
Western and Afghan officials said the new infiltration came as the United States, its NATO allies and the Afghan government were struggling to stem a resurgence of the Taliban across large swaths of southern and eastern Afghanistan.
The fighting in Afghanistan is the bloodiest since U.S. forces drove the Taliban from power after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Many of the movement’s top leaders, along with Osama bin Laden and many of his followers, escaped to Pakistan and have never been caught.
The Pakistani regime of Gen. Pervez Musharraf has been negotiating truces - with the Bush administration’s encouragement - with Islamic separatists in North Waziristan and South Waziristan, mountainous tribal areas along the Afghan border where U.S. officials think bin Laden may be hiding.
In return, Pakistani officials are promising to restrict the country’s troops in the area to major bases and towns and to pour huge amounts of aid - much of it from the United States and other nations - into the destitute region, according to American officials.
But as the truces take hold, separatists have been crossing into Afghanistan to fight alongside Taliban and al-Qaida fighters, according to Western and Afghan officials.
Diplomats who discussed the issue requested anonymity because the problem is the subject of highly sensitive discussions among Pakistan, Afghanistan, the United States and major contributing countries to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.
The separatists and the Taliban are Pashtuns, the ethnic group that dominates Afghanistan and Pakistan’s tribal region. It’s unclear whether the flow is an unintended consequence of the truces or is being ignored - or encouraged - by Musharraf’s regime as part of the price for peace with the separatists.
Pakistan, which backed the Taliban before Sept. 11, says it’s doing its best to seal the frontier of towering mountains and isolated valleys and denies that it’s resumed support for its former clients.
Musharraf deployed 80,000 troops in mid-2003 to seal the Afghan-Pakistani border, subdue the separatists and track down bin Laden and his followers. But the military’s heavy artillery and helicopter gunships failed to conquer the separatists and establish government control over the border region, a tribal area where the government has never established its dominance.
…………………………….
More seriously, some experts said, discontent with Musharraf is growing within Pakistan’s officer corps because of the army’s humiliating setbacks in Waziristan.
Musharraf is a key ally in the Bush administration’s war on al-Qaida. He’s refused to relinquish the post of army chief of staff since he seized power in a military coup in 1999.
From:
http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/2006/09/mate-mr-bush.html
September 6th, 2006 at 7:26 am
Bush amd America’s right-wing are not just wimps…their stupid.
(how’s that for analysis)
September 6th, 2006 at 7:37 am
“Is this just a story about incompetence, or are the Islamists right? We love life and prosperity too much. We’ll pretend to convert to Islam to save our lives. We may believe that some things are worth fighting for–but is it only for easy victories such as Grenada and Panama?”
Who exactly are you impugning here? Our soldiers were more than willing to engage, had plenty of morale, moxie etc. and were put into an untenable situation. The civilian population may well have been ready to make all sorts of sacrifices but were never asked to do anything but shop. Who’s to say America wasn’t ready for something more compelling than the incoherent mix of evangelical militancy and free-market libertarianism which made this incompetence inevitable? As for the newsmen who refused to burn at the stake — are you sure that playing the kidnappers’ game, tacitly accepting their simplistic and bloothirsty worldview should count as a sign of societal health?
September 6th, 2006 at 8:08 am
“…their stupid.”
ahhhhh, irony.
September 6th, 2006 at 8:30 am
“it was a reasonable gamble to try to give power to the many educated and decent Iraqis, and start something new in the Middle East.”
No it wasn’t. But anyone who supports a war based on a “reasonable gamble” needs to look long and deep inside themselves. Also, the idea that the U.S. - particularly given our history and continuum of alliances in the region - could singlehandedly “start something new in the Middle East” via a military invasion is pretty fucking insane. How can anyone spout such cavalier bullshit ? Really. Just how fucking stupid are the pro-war types ? It really rankles. Morally. Intellectually. Politically. As long as we’re hooked on their oil, there’ll not be anything “new in the Middle East” coming from our direction. And the notion that we could reshape the region by fiat is, in any event, nuts. Completely nuts. I can’t believe adults can indulge themselves in this stupidity.
As for the obvious dig at the FOX reporters - “We’ll pretend to convert to Islam to save our life” - go fuck yourself. That’s a meme on a lot of right wing blogs written by fatmouth cowards keyboarding the globe with their brains tucked in their butts. They’re giving chickenhawks a bad name.
I’ve said forthrightly here that a quick withdrawal will spell disaster. But so will “staying the course”. And a phased withdrawal - keeping a force in Kurdistan, as Galbraith suggests - will probably not avert the disaster either. What pro-war twits need to recognize is that the disaster is happening and has been happening. It’s called the Iraq war, from it’s phony rationale to BushCo’s studied ignorance of Iraq to the reckless, shameless assurances that it would all be over in weeks or months to the phony war plan to the hubristic assumption we could install Chalabi or some such in Saddam’s Castle to this month’s casualty reports, crap speeches, sliming of critics and refusal to tell the truth or take responsibility for a disaster that’s already happened and from which there’s no exit. The damage has been done - we’re not being told that the Iraqi secular middle-class, or what’s left of it, is fleeing the country in huge numbers. Sistani, the moderate crackpot, has washed his hands of the politics because he can’t control shit anymore. This man was our “ace in the hole” - even though George Bush had never heard of him before he decided to “roll the dice” and attempt to remake Iraq in his image - and he’s folded. Meanwhile, Bush gives us a speech in which he tells us that extremist Sunni Islamists are the problem in our “War on Terror”. Well that’s good news, because there aren’t any Sunnis Islamists running Iran or poised to take over most of Iraq. This little shit is so incredibly incoherent it’s reached the realm of the bizarre. I was a vocal supporter of the war against the Taliban and was disappointed by the “screw-up” at Tora Bora (a by-product of the plan to move troops to the Iraqi theater). The point is that after 9/11 I made my peace with BushCo because it was the only leadership I had and my country needed leadership. But as soon as I heard that Loonytoons Axis of Evil speech, I was afraid we were in trouble. It’s been a downhill slide ever since. I’m actually amazed at just how dishonest, hubristic and incompetent these guys are. “Bush hatred” doesn’t even begin to describe my contempt. It’s a feeling of betrayal that goes beyond anything I’ve felt before - Nixon and Watergate, or whatever - because of the damage it’s done to the country when it can least afford it. We’ve gone from near-total unity after 9/11 to deep, deep division. I would say “for nothing” but it’s far worse than nothing.
I’m just sick to death of this shit. And when people who’ve either been spoonfeeding this crap or lapping it up turn to someone like me - a critic of the rationale and conduct of this war from day one - and ask, “What are you going to do to avert diaster ?”, my impulse is to reach for a pistol.
Diasaster ? You’ve already provided plenty of disaster. How to avert more ? I’m not sure. But let’s be clear about what the disaster has been and who’s responsible. Bin Laden didn’t get the quagmire in Afghanistan that he wanted. He got it, probably beyond his wildest dreams, in Iraq, which is totally vulnerable to the kind of assymetric warfare that al Qaeda is capable of. The U.S. presence increases the ability of foreign elements to play a role. But it’s past any point where withdrawal will erase the problems that have risen out of the chaos that was deliberately created. That doesn’t mean we don’t need a plan to withdraw.
September 6th, 2006 at 8:41 am
I also want to second Evets point about our troops in Iraq and the willingness of Americans to sacrifice and “do the right thing” no matter what the price, even if “the right thing” in this case was, through no fault of our young fighting men and women, a fools errand that was ill-concieved, bungled and botched by the reckless, clueless fucks of BushC0 (a gang that really deserves to be lined up and shot, if the world were simply run on rough justice.) The attitude of Grumpy is an ugly insult. The fault isn’t that we don’t have the troops who’ve sacrificed. And it’s not the American people’s. It’s a failure of leadership. An absolute failure. Really. Calls to mind that chestnut of the kneejerk right - “Why do you hate America?” If you’re looking for someone to blame for this or for “our” weakness, look in the goddam mirror.
September 6th, 2006 at 9:32 am
I think Reg gives “leadership” too much credit. I am not so determinist as to proclaim that the war was inevitable in terms of US interests, but something had to be done militarily to offset the loss of US financial hegemony. Something has been done. through that lens, the US has already won.
September 6th, 2006 at 9:40 am
jcummings, you are right that Packer supported the war initially, but wrong that Ricks just wanted a better occupation–Ricks’ book specifically criticizes the US presence in Iraq on the grounds that it was an occupation rather than a facilitation of Iraqi democracy. And you are wrong that Packer is a drainpipe sucker, his book shows more insight into what has gone wrong in Iraq than most left wing screed I have read including your comments here. And Ricks and Packer and people like them have done much more to raise awareness of the debacle in Iraq than the basically nonexistent antiwar movement has. One reason is that they represent news outfits that have the resources to report what is happening. To paraphrase Marc and Rumsfeld, perhaps we need to go with the Iraq critics we have rather than the ones we might wish to have if the entire world was made of righteous lefties like your good self. To put it differently, purity and sectarianism have never gotten the left anywhere and all the righteous rhetoric in the world wont change that.
September 6th, 2006 at 9:42 am
One more thing - Rumsfeld makes a great punching bag, but let’s not forget that he was being portrayed as the coolest guy in the BushCo ranks not that long ago - the press loved him, he was the UberAdult in an Adult Administration - clever, seasoned, enigmatic - “sexy” even. Matt Yglesias has a good piece on the Dump Rummy fever. In some ways it’s an evasion of full accounting for a Beltway Elite that swallowed damn near everything Bush-Cheney-Rummy were putting out there when it actually still mattered and disaster could have been averted. Most of the folks who now want to dump Rummy were worshipping the guy when this business started. Unless and until they’ve ‘fessed up - in the manner of a Jack Murtha - their credibility can’t be salvaged simply by pointing a finger at The Don and it’s arguably a distraction from the depth and breadth of the real problems, certainly of BushCo and the GOPers, but also of the media elite and the Democrats who either let themselves be intimidated by these assholes or essentially, as in the case of Joe Lieberman and certain others, have been no different.
http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2006/09/rumsfeld_again/
September 6th, 2006 at 9:56 am
jc - I don’t get your point at all, from a purely materialist perspective. The U.S. has dug a deeper debt hole to pursue this war, created an internal crisis of confidence and deep division within the population at large and the “ruling class” (to coin a phrase), hobbled it’s ability to maneuver or threaten anyone militarily, crippled any effective diplomacy, and alienated “middle forces” in the region and elsewhere. It’s also given Iran a newly empowered ally in the Iraqi Shiites and eliminated Tehran’s worst enemy. Sometimes I’m amazed - pairing your comments with Grumpy’s - at how omnipotent and strategically masterful the far-left believes the U.S. invariably is and how weak and morally bankrupt “conservatives” see it. Weird.
September 6th, 2006 at 10:19 am
Balter -
I’m talking about what Packer WROTE - not that he supported the war. He wrote hit pieces i
September 6th, 2006 at 10:21 am
Alex Cutter Says:
September 6th, 2006 at 8:08 am
“…their stupid.â€
ahhhhh, irony.
————————
And you used the word “irony” appropriately.
But if you are a right-winger, you are still a stupid…thanks for the war brave soldier.
September 6th, 2006 at 10:25 am
Balter -
I’m talking about what Packer WROTE - not that he supported the war. He wrote hit pieces in the Times magazine against anyone opposing the war. Anyone idiotic enough to do so gets a purge in my pantheon. I will admit to admiring some of his more nuanced coverage in the New Yorker and don’t doubt his book is above average…. - yet to me what “went wrong” with a doomed project is politically less important than stopping that project - Packer’s performance pre-war - which I wrote about here…http://www.counterpunch.org/cummings1213.html
was disgusting.
Ricks as well said to Jon Stewart that he was for a better occupation, not in so many words. Probably a great journalist who doesn’t want to offend Foggy Bottom. To call the antiwar movement - which isn’t just street protests but counter-recruitment, online organizing etc. nonexistant is willfully dishonest. I’m not talking ANSWER. I’m talking about Iraqi Veterans against the War, organizing soldiers, the “underground railroad” here in Canada for war resisters, etc.
There is nothing pure or sectarian in opposing the war and not allowing one’s rivals to set the pretext of the debate.
The US has bases now through a lot of the middle east and Central Asia. I believe that was their longterm goal. Whether or not this is the case, as per Reg’s comment, is debatable. I would suggest reading Immanuel Wallerstien’s recent essays on this topic.
September 6th, 2006 at 10:26 am
I won’t answer all of Marc’s questions but I will note that President Bush, when asked by Brian Williams what sacrifices the American people were making, answered that, well, they paid a lot of tax and had to wait in line at airports! And I do believe that this is the only war in recorded history that saw the country pursuing it engage in tax cuts.
I have a problem with Peter Galbraith’s book. Right now THE END OF IRAQ is the flavor of the month with people like Al Franken and Lawrence O’Donnell gushing over it as the possible solution. But does dividing the country really get us anywhere? Would Turkey really be sanguine about an independent Kurdistan? Would the Sunni states really like to see a Shiite entity that they would perceive as a Iranian satelite? Everything I’ve read suggests otherwise.
It is fun to watch the “liberal” hawks fall all over themselves trying to worm out of this war. The consensus seems to be that the Bushies blew it with stunning incompetent management of the occupation. No argument there but when you start with a flawed policy to begin with I’m not sure that this war would look better if the “Best and the Brightest” were handling it. Vietnam had some pretty smart people running things but the effort was doomed from the start.
(Sorry apologists.We would still be fighting there today with our “allies” sucking their thumbs and stuffing their bank accounts while planning villas on the cote’d'azure)
The true believers in the Iraq mess are becoming more and more pathethic. Did you see Fouad Ajami on Bill Maher? He was so incoherent that Mary Francis Berry (there’s a blast from the Pacifica past for you Marc) ridiculed his logical non sequiters. And poor Chris Hitchens has become a figure of such derision that no one here even bothers to refute his latest nonsense. No, like Dean Rusk and Walt Rostow before them, this war has been the graveyard of once sterling reputations.
September 6th, 2006 at 10:26 am
Oh and one more thing to Balter - not to get into a tiff here but do you really believe Tom Ricks and George Packer have reached more of the masses than Michaell Moore or Cindy Sheehan?
September 6th, 2006 at 10:33 am
“do you really believe Tom Ricks and George Packer have reached more of the masses than Michaell Moore or Cindy Sheehan?”
You’re right, I went overboard on that comment.
September 6th, 2006 at 10:53 am
rlc - I saw Ajami on Maher and it was pathetic. Here’s an academic born in the region, a Lehrer Newshour regular, one of the most “respected” and allegedly knowledgable proponents of the war drawn from the “intelligentsia” and he sounded about as analytically competent as Roger Simon or…I dunno…maybe even Woody. Thank God that Richard Armitage was “revealed” (as in Who Knew?) to be one layer of the Plame onion or these folks would actually have to talk about their dirty war. As for the question of Kurdistan, isn’t it already a fait accompli. Nobody thinks it’s part of a unified Iraq. The question as I see it isn’t about the Kurds who’ve had de facto independence since long before the current war under the “no fly zones”, but is there any chance that the Sunnis - who have an ugly history as a minority who tyrannized a majority - can evade either the designs of their own neo-Baathist elements or a reckoning with their Shiite victims. I hate to think that there’s no way out from the past, but I have a nasty feeling that partition is the most practical solution. I’ve said before that consolidation of a Sunni state focused on stabilizing itself rather than battling Shiites and occupation troops, run in the fine mobster fashion which seems to suit their dominant elements, would be the “foreign fighters” worst nightmare. I have to admit it makes me more than a bit queazy to be pontificating on places I know virtually nothing about. But I guess in order to be “responsible” critics of BushCo’s hubris and incompetence, we have to make wild second-guess calls regarding desirable power arrangements in far-away places based on our own near-total ignorance, notg to mention helplessness. Far be it from me to act irresponsibly in the course of pointing out that we’ve been led down a very nasty path by a gang of frauds and fools.
September 6th, 2006 at 10:57 am
“Thank God that Richard Armitage was “revealed†(as in Who Knew?) to be one layer of the Plame onion or these folks would actually have to talk about their dirty war.”
That wasn’t a reference to Ajami, but to the current trend among Hitchens and other Keyboard Kommandos like Pajamas to avoid discussion of the real war on the ground in favor of damned near anything else remotely related that’s easier to spin.
September 6th, 2006 at 11:01 am
Someone just told me that Hitchens was the model for the Fallow character in Wolfe’s only good novel Bonfire of the Vanities. Is this true?
September 6th, 2006 at 11:37 am
I never intended any gibe at our troops. They are mostly better and certainly braver people than I, and have been asked (and sometimes compelled) to bear a disproportionate share of the sacrifices.
My point was to question whether our country today, with its heedless consumerism, its feckless media, its addled professoriat and its pampered executives, can sustain anything but a short military conflict. In any but the briefest conflict, many people will whine very soon. Perhaps a more effective leader could stem the collapse of morale, on the right occasion and for the right cause.
Even if one believes the war was a mistake (perhaps) and mismanaged (it was, to a larger extent than is inevitable in any war), anyone who supports an alternative poltical leadership in this country has to do better then “What do you mean “we,” White Man?”
As between (a) the doubled or trebled force and the 5-10 years required to defeat the insurgency with at best wavering public support in this country; (b) immediate withdrawal with its attendant refugee influx and dire strategic consequences; and (c)Â some set of Kissingerian maneuvers to make the best of the situation, which is the least bad?
September 6th, 2006 at 12:04 pm
“My point was to question whether our country today, with its heedless consumerism, its feckless media, its addled professoriat and its pampered executives, can sustain anything but a short military conflict. ”
I think your point was clear from the beginning, but the answer is unknowable based on the current Iraq war. It simply never had the black and white clarity of a WW2 and never made anything like the same demands. Its incompetent execution was connected to the deception involved in selling it. Over time this combination would turn off any population, no matter how Spartan. If anything, the country proved pretty damn willing to mobilize, asked few questions and wasn’t that quick to jump ship — that in itself may show fecklessness.
September 6th, 2006 at 12:23 pm
Since the Bushies don’t have the guts to propose A, which they would at least attempt to do if they actually believed what they try to pawn off on the rest of us and which - while it might, with deft diplomatic and political strategy in an extremely difficult terrain have succeeded in holding some Iraqi center together a few years ago - isn’t really a coherent plan at this point on the road since there is no single coordinated “insurgency” to defeat in Iraq, but more like three), and since nobody in the real political world I’ve heard of is proposing immediate withdrawal (Murtha’s plan is probably the closest, but he’s making a point about what he sees as the tendency of U.S. troops to make matters worse rather than better, more than putting in place a blueprint he thinks will actually be adopted as “immediate withdrawal), the answer is C.
Which White Man is going to actually attempt that. Not our current White Man. The best candidate would have been a John Kerry cornered into it in Jan of 2005. I don’t think he could have pulled it off either, but he was the last, best hope of the pro-war crowd. A guilt-tripped intimidated Democrat terrified of “losing Iraq” and working extra hard to try to “correct” the course. Personally, for that reason alone, I’m glad he lost rather than give the GOPers an easy out and scapegoat for their failure. Sometimes damage is done that can’t just be given a simple fix.
Incidentally, on a scale of 1 to 10, where do you place the power of the “addled professoriat” versus the “pampered executives” as regards any given set of problems the country faces. “Addled professoriat”, say, 1.1 and “pampered executives”, maybe 9.3? And what is “heedless consumerism” other than the soul of capitialism ? As for “feckless media”, my assumption is that on a scale of “fecklessness”, again, one would put NPR or Lehrer Newshour at about .7 with FOX’s fecklessness headed off the chart during at least some of it’s “news” shows. (The Rivera and O’Reilly duets would be hard to top, certainly.) Who’s more “feckless” in the print world ? Pajamas Media, Little
Green Footballs or The New York Times ? Tell me you’re not rolling on the floor. And where do the pols fit into this litany of American perfidy and hollowness ? George Bush is a serious, thoughtful man and by comparison, say, Noam Chomsky is a scatterbrained ideologue ? Unfortunately, no. I’m no fan of Chomsky - not even close - and admittedly I pulled the name of someone routinely characterized as a leftwing nut out of my ass but when you begin to think about how far you have to go to find someone in public discourse as driven by self-inflicted dogma as Bush, it scares the shit out of me.
Frankly, Grumpy, unless I’m wildly misreading you, you sound like you’re not far from the far left in some of your estimates of just how screwed we all are. I’m not particularly optimistic, but I don’t like to paint things in our country with as quite a broad brush as some. I’ll take my main shots at the serious villians who’ve proven themselves worthy, like BushCo, and leave generalized contempt for the country to the far right and the far left. I guess that’s my own version of “What do you mean ‘we’, White Man.”
September 6th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
“Its incompetent execution was connected to the deception involved in selling it.”
Again, I second Evets. War on the cheap and victory promised on the cheap was a direct result of a phony rationale that was constructed on the cheap. IMHO this amounts to criminal behavior.
September 6th, 2006 at 1:53 pm
I sort of agree Reg that Kurdistan may be a fait accompli but what I’m saying is Galbraith’s seeing this as a solution is tenuous at best. Look there are no good outcomes here but a general Mideast War is not a solution and, given the surrounding states fear of Iran who knows how bad things could really get?
Also Galbraith would remove US forces to Kurdistan. Great. Now what if the PKK continues activity in Turkish Kurdistan and the Turks decide, like the Israelis in Lebanon, that enough is enough and send their quarter million troops into Northern Kurdistan to seal off such raids. Then we have them face to face with US troops in a confrontational mode. You know it used to be said that NATO helped keep the Greeks and Turks from tearing each other apart. But who knew the Turks and US could clash? Has Galbraith considered this?
September 6th, 2006 at 2:00 pm
And we now know, thanks to David Corn, that Valerie Plame Wilson was a key player at the anti-proliferation desk of the CIA and was involved in the question of Iraqi nukes. So we now know why Chaney was so concerned. She had the evidence that the claims on Saddam’s WMDs were BS and, Chaney had to think, her husband knew it as well. And we know what Wolfowitz said about coming up with a causis Belli that would work. Boy am I looking foward to the depositions in their lawsuit and we can thank the Late Chief Justice Rheinquist for ruling, in the Jones v. Clinton case, that a sitting President could be sued. Isn’t it great when the decisions you wish for come back to bite you?
September 6th, 2006 at 6:11 pm
I keep hearing that a U.S. withdrawal in Iraq would precipitate a catastrophe.
Since this is coming from the same neo-cons and liberal dupes like Marc, I think we need to hear how this catastrophe plays out.
Surely, there will be reprisals against Iraqis who supported the invasion, but those are already taking place on a daily basis.
A withdrawal, which would surely include U.S. asylum offers for Iraqis who formally supported the U.S. may actually reduce the level of conflict.
There can be no doubt that a withdrawal may indeed widen the Iraq war and draw neighboring countries into the conflict. But that is only a possibility.
Day by day Bush is making it clear to any who doubted that “staying the course” in Iraq now means threatening Iran using the same rhetoric and media campaign that led to the invasion of Iraq. Cheney-Bush is without question a “war” administration and knows it has no political prospect outside of waging perpetual war.
Pulling out of Iraq is the essential first step in stopping the war administration.
September 6th, 2006 at 6:32 pm
“Pulling out of Iraq is the essential first step in stopping the war administration.”
There’s a cart/horse problem in that thought…
September 6th, 2006 at 6:42 pm
rlc - I’m going to retreat into reality on the strategic questions of Iraq’s future. Reality is that I don’t have a goddam clue. It’s so far above my pay grade, it’s not even funny. The fact that my raw, admittedly impressionistic ability - or yours - to follow this particular bouncing ball as it rolled toward the cliff over the past several years has been superior to most of the folks charged with the serious responsibilities, not to mention most journalistic “professionals”, is cause for serious alarm. At minimum, a drastic situation and arguably a reason for anyone with their head screwed on and the material wherewithal to pack it in, gather up the kids and depart for some small island in the Pacific.
September 6th, 2006 at 8:19 pm
“But if you are a right-winger, you are still a stupid…thanks for the war brave soldier.”
Nope. Just someone who appreciates irony.
September 6th, 2006 at 8:29 pm
” I honestly do not understand how any American can get through Ricks’ account and not come away sick to the stomach and trembling with fear and rage”
I honestly cannot understand why Marc Cooper ever believed that there was a ‘right way’ for the US to occupy Iraq or that the US ever had the intent of doing ‘good’ in order to preserve Iraqi sovereignty? Astounding naivete really…
September 6th, 2006 at 8:32 pm
“Ricks as well said to Jon Stewart that he was for a better occupation, not in so many words. Probably a great journalist who doesn’t want to offend Foggy Bottom. ”
The naivete of liberals like Ricks is astounding to put it mildly, criminal perhaps? I mean come on, how to get an illegal occuaption right! What an amazing moral sense about the man!
September 6th, 2006 at 8:44 pm
GOM writes:
“My point was to question whether our country today, with its heedless consumerism, its feckless media, its addled professoriat and its pampered executives, can sustain anything but a short military conflict. In any but the briefest conflict, many people will whine very soon. Perhaps a more effective leader could stem the collapse of morale, on the right occasion and for the right cause.”
Can any country? George Washington was of the opinion that war was not sustainable on patriotism alone, it must be in the national interest.
lo cicero writes:
“Now what if the PKK continues activity in Turkish Kurdistan and the Turks decide, like the Israelis in Lebanon, that enough is enough and send their quarter million troops into Northern Kurdistan to seal off such raids. Then we have them face to face with US troops in a confrontational mode. You know it used to be said that NATO helped keep the Greeks and Turks from tearing each other apart. But who knew the Turks and US could clash? Has Galbraith considered this?”
He doesn’t have to. Turkey isn’t going to send a quarter of a million troops into Kurdistan to go after a mere 5,000 (max) PKK fighters.
Richard, you seem to be fond of repeating that Turkey has 250,000 troops on the border with Kurdistan, poised to jump in. Could you substantiate this figure?
As I’ve pointed out several times already, Turkey has increased its (routine) troop commitment on that border, and it is annoyed that both the Kurdish regional government and the U.S. (which classifies the PKK as a terrorist group) have left the PKK relatively unmolested even as the PKK’s activities in Turkey seem to be on the increase. But Turkey isn’t poised to do anything but clean out a small enclave, and then only if something isn’t done about it eventually. In that event, you can expect Kurdish leaders to praise Turkey with faint damns.
September 6th, 2006 at 9:46 pm
“stem the collapse of morale, on the right occasion and for the right cause”
Well, HELLO !!!!!
September 7th, 2006 at 9:49 am
Reg nails it: “anyone who supports a war based on a “reasonable gamble†needs to look long and deep inside themselves”
If I were emperor (why just be king) I would force every pro-war pundit and blogger to read that phrase every day: please digest once before breakfast, once before lunch, and six hundred times before beginning to write.
September 7th, 2006 at 10:24 am
Michael do you really want to gamble over what Turkey would do? All I am saying is that Galbraith’s idea is not the panacea that a lot of people say it is. And, yes, I understand that partition may be the de facto option now. Just chalk it up to another fine mess from these clowns in Washington.
As to whether or not Ricks wants a “good” occupation. Remember when Tallyrand said of an action that it was worse than crime, it was a blunder? Nations are amoral and blunders can be a lot more deadly than mere crimes. And that is where we are today. Trying to sort this out and get out with the least harm. And that gets harder every day as solutions that a year ago would work are rendered inoperable by new facts on the ground.
September 7th, 2006 at 10:47 am
There’s an easy way for the US to deal with its crime without abandoning its responsibilities. Withdraw and pay massive reparations to the country for the crime of illegal inavsion and occupation. What’s the big problem with that?
September 7th, 2006 at 10:52 am
I’m wondering who, exactly, we would write those checks out to.
I’ve got an idea - why don’t we just subcontract Halliburton to handle all of the reparations.
September 7th, 2006 at 11:04 am
Breaking news. Sen Lugar pulled the Bolton nomination. Seems Chafee won’t say “Yes”.
September 7th, 2006 at 2:58 pm
Why not just write the checks and get it underway. Real reparations, not token projects. It’s not that hard to pull off, it’s a question of lack of will. But the risk, which the US doesn’t want, whether Republican or Democratic party, is that a sovereign government of Iraq might end up not pursuing domestic and foreign policies that befit US corporate interests regionally and globally.
September 7th, 2006 at 7:03 pm
Well I just started reading Ricks’ book and its impressive so far. As to the question of his support for the war I think the fact that he is as critical has more credibility coming from someone who thought there might be a chance that it would work out. I never did but if I wrote the book people might say, “There he goes again - never believed in it in the first place!” I think people should remember that David Halberstam and Neil Sheehan both were supporters of the Vietnam War when they started out as young reporters there in the early sixties. Sheehan, in particular in A BRIGHT SHINING LIE makes it clear that his main source while reporting the war was John Paul Vann, a true believer who thought that the higher-ups at MACV were screwing up. But never doubted the mission. It was only later that Sheehan and Halberstam (Whose BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST is a lot like FIASCO) turned against the whole enterprise. So should we ignore them?
September 9th, 2006 at 10:41 pm
Sorry, but taking “reasonable gambles” is what governments do. It’s unavoidable, in war and in peace.
Deposing Saddam was a just goal, in a different way from the ordinary Arab strong man, because he was so horrible. Where the weighing comes in is in predicting the costs and the likely outcome. Those are the calculations every government makes when it comes to war, even when attacked. In some such situations, governments make their calculation and decide to surrender.
In the case of Iraq, I thought it was a close case, but on balance the risk seemed worth taking. Perhaps I reached the wrong conclusion, but the act of making the evaluation wasn’t.
Leaving Saddam, the no-fly zone, and the corrupt oil-for-food program in place and relying on the UN to police the WMD that had existed and were still thought to exist–that was also a gamble, involving considerable costs and risks, including risks to human life.
The withdrawal, phased or otherwise, that some advocate, is a gamble. It could result in huge adverse consequences, not least a refugee flood of those who allied themselves with us.
What I didn’t anticipate in the case of Iraq in the days before the invasion, was the lack of foresight and planning for the time after the invasion succeeded.
September 10th, 2006 at 8:30 am
I think it’s a “reasonable gamble†to assume Grumpy Old Man is a fascist.
September 10th, 2006 at 4:33 pm
Only when I’m under the bed.
June 30th, 2007 at 1:52 am
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