The Bush Victory Plan: Who Knew? [Updated]
Who knew?
Much like Dick Nixon in the days of Vietnam, George W. Bush has apparently also had a Secret Plan to win the war. We just didn’t know about it. In preparing the public for Bush’s Annapolis address today on how we are going to win, the inimitable Scott McClellan told the press yesterday that the President’s blueprint for victory is actually "an unclassified version of the plan that we have had in place and the plan that we’ve been pursuing."
Whew! What a relief. I wouldn’t want to think the President was so cynical to just making this stuff up on the spur of the moment to get himself out of a political pickle. He’s been implementing this plan the whole time while we’ve been wringing our hands.
Because of time zone differences I write this a few hours before the President actually speaks. I will be getting up shortly after he finishes – meaning I will sleep through the actual address.
But it will be a sound, serene sleep cradled in the conviction that I will be missing little. Not only has this plan, as McClellan assures us, already been secretly in place for some time, I already know what it is. All I need do is go back a few years in the newspaper archives and read this piece on Nixon’s plan from recently retired veteran D.C. columnist Godfrey Sperling. Talk about déjà vu all over again. The old Nixon game plan seems tailor-cut for Bush. No wonder he’s adopting it. Sperling wrote back in 1997:
…It was at a private session with a half-dozen surprised and skeptical editors in the spring of his campaign that Nixon unveiled his get-out-of-the-war plan. Among these Midwest editors were those who had watched Mr. Nixon closely during the cold-war years. They viewed him as a basically hard-line communist-hater who, as president, could be counted on to take a "you can’t trust the communists" line.They could hardly believe their ears, therefore, when Nixon said that, upon becoming president, he would (1) arrange a summit meeting with the Soviet leaders to gain their help in ending the Vietnam War, and (2) seek to "de-Americanize" the Vietnam conflict. About the latter, an editor told me that Nixon clearly was indicating he had a plan to phase out US troop involvement in the war.We know now, of course, that there never was a summit with the Soviets. Nor was any plan to "de-Americanize" the war a visible part of Nixon’s approach to that conflict after he became president. Indeed, in speeches and statements, Nixon continued to give the "hawks" in this country reason to believe he would carry on the war – perhaps even, as they hoped, stepping up our involvement. Not surprisingly, they fully backed him. And yet here was Nixon, appearing to share with these Midwest editors a plan to get out of the war……My memory of this was jogged recently at a Monitor lunch, where Nixon’s defense adviser in the ’68 campaign, Melvin Laird, said flatly of a Nixon pre-election intention to gradually pull US troops out of the war: "He had no such plan." Mr. Laird, who was chairman of the House Armed Services Committee back then and later was Nixon’s secretary of defense, told us that the only Vietnam phase-down plan he knew about was one that was "being developed in the Pentagon…"
November 30th, 2005 at 4:35 am
Another element of what eventually turned into the Nixon plan was the substitution of U.S. ground troops with Vietnamese forces (known as ‘Vietnamization’) accompaned by stepped-up air attacks. Recall that the carpet bombing of Cambodia and the notorious Christmas bombings of North Vietnam occurred under the Nixon-Kissinger regime as part of the disengagement strategy. While these celebrations of destruction ultimately had no effect on the outcome, they did provide red meat for the jughead caucus while causing enormous human suffering to others. But as the U.S. troop levels were slowly diminishing, the political costs for Nixon were reduced. This fits entirely with what you wrote yesterday, Marc, citing Seymour Hersch, about the new plan to substitute ground action with aerial bombardment. I modestly predict that this will usher in a new — and worse — stage of devastation for the Iraqi people while simultaneously blunting the unhappiness about the war here in the United States since there will be fewer American casualties.
November 30th, 2005 at 4:39 am
The basic difference between Nixon and Bush is that Nixon brought am accute intelligence and a lifetime of thinking about foreign affairs to the task of being Commander in Chief. His “Secret Plan” may have been l
November 30th, 2005 at 4:58 am
Don’t know what happened. I argue that Nixon may not have had a plan but he knew where he wanted to go based on a lifetime of thinking about foreign affairs. For example – going to China and playing that card vis a vis the USSR. He told us that he would do that in a 1966 article in FOREIGN AFFAIRS. You can disagree but it was a coherent vision.
There is no evidence of that intelligence in George W Bush. Believing yourself to be God’s Instrament is not a vision. Bush lied anout Iraq because he believed the nonsense that the neocons were peddling. In language you’ll understand Marc,, he went all in. Nixon would never have bet everything on such a proposition.
November 30th, 2005 at 5:19 am
Fred Kaplan had it right: “Brace yourself for a mind-bog of sheer cynicism.â€
Mark must have given him a draft of this post.
Kaplan says: “…withdrawal … whether it’s the right course to take. I think it is…â€
And there you have it. Kaplan says if Bush announces the beginning of withdrawals, he is right. Or don’t you trust your eyes?
May I quote from a comment that I made on this site prior to the announcement of the Annapolis speech?
“No self-respecting liberal pundit will admit that Bush has had an exit strategy all along; one which has been
openly discussed outside the cocoon [see my comment there] and really is beyond question. Because that exit strategy did not require any decisions to be made until conditions in Iraq had progressed enough to allow the withdrawal of troops, the DNC was free to snort that it was not a strategy at all and they got away with doing that.â€
Mark really has no choice, having painted himself into a corner by cynically taking up and living the DNC lie that Bush had no exit strategy. Well, that really isn’t true. He could admit that he was wrong…ugh…Mark really has no choice. He now must cynically reach for a rationale that makes him right. It’s tough. Going back to Nixon is a liberal’s last resort. Man, if they don’t line up against Nixon…. and I see from the initial comments that the boys are falling in line and getting behind the meme.
Yes, in the cocoon Bush had no plan, so maybe the “secret plan†meme will stand up – in the cocoon. If one can sell “Bush liedâ€, anything is possible.
Go ahead, cover your eyes and deny it.
Here I am openly informing marc of the “secret†plan and you all saw him ignore it. Drink the Kool-aid to wipe that terrible paragraph from your mind! Who you gonna believe, marc or your own lying eyes?
November 30th, 2005 at 9:15 am
I didn’t detect a source. Who is saying these things other than you babbling about he had a plan? Where’s the evidence he did before being pushed into grtting one ad hoc. The whole effort was ad hoc. Cocoon? Spit the silk out of your mouth.
November 30th, 2005 at 10:51 am
I guess this strategy paper… http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/04/20040414-5.html
and this strategy paper… http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/05/20040524-4.html
Both published in 2004, don’t count as a strategy for victory….
November 30th, 2005 at 11:05 am
I like those strategy papers, Keith. They speak of the “common enemy” as including not just terrorists and Saddamists, but “illegal militias” as well. One of those “illegal militias” is explicitly identified: Moqtada’s. Guess who they work for now?
Also nice that they refer to the need to build a modern, torture-free prison system. I guess dispensing with that goal is in the *classified* part of the New Plan.
Any plan that requires the meeting of “conditions” would, one would think, also require some plan somewhere for actually meeting the conditions, not simply dropping the ones that proved unrealistic. notherbob2, I wonder if you would be so kind as to point out this other plan? It must be around somewhere …. perhaps tucked down inside your cocoon?
November 30th, 2005 at 11:14 am
As has been noted by others including Atrios, I think you’re right Keith. It’s Groundhog Day so far as victory plans are concerned. Now the question of victory based on this plan is, as James Fallows warns us, another matter altogether. These guys have come up with a bunch of plans – rather bizarrely after the fact, of course, and after long stretches of denying the obvious realities on the ground (the litany is long and nauseating, starting with “Mission Accomplished!” on through the denials that there was a guerrilla war on the ground, denials of civil war, denials of damn near every grim actuality that has been problematic to maintaining their glib pre-war rationales). My question is, what credibility could this incompetent, dishonest, cloistered clown have left with any thinking person ???
November 30th, 2005 at 11:16 am
I want to hear nutterbob2 use “cocoon” and “Kool-aid” a couple more times in reference to war critics. The irony is…well…delicious.
November 30th, 2005 at 11:16 am
As I see it Bush’s exit strategy is:
1. Pull the ground troops out before the mid-term elections;
2. Escalate the number of bombing missions so as to increase the number of casualties (mostly civilian but probably some insurgent as well), these airstrikes being called down by the reliable Iraqi forces we will have trained;
3. Pray for divine intervention;
4. Convince the public that only positive thoughts will get us out of this train wreck.
November 30th, 2005 at 11:48 am
Just in case anyone clicks on Corn and fails to read to the end, his last paragraph sums up the problem with these clowns.
DAVID CORN: …the Bush administration did much before the war to underplay the potential (and, to some, obvious) problems and challenges that would emerge after the invasion. And patience does tend to wear thin if you believe you were bamboozled. So assertions from the fellow who many Americans see as the bamboozler in chief are not likely to resonate positively across the land. The value of Bush’s word is at its lowest point in his presidency. This speech, like his previous speeches on Iraq, will have no echoes; it will fade quickly. But his mess in Iraq will remain.
November 30th, 2005 at 12:53 pm
I just watched. Ra ra sis boom ba. Same old same old.
November 30th, 2005 at 1:02 pm
Yeah, I agree with marc, the speech was underwhelming. Either Kaplan got a bum steer or the Bushies changed course after the horse got out of the barn. Based on Kaplan’s article, I expected something much, much stronger. Frankly, I am not as good at interpreting leftist sources as I am the right. I give him a big Chicken Little Award for his error.
And while we are on the subject, boy do I get tired of writers like Corn repeating over and over again the talking points of the Big Lie [“…supposed immediate threat (Saddam Hussein harboring stockpiles of WMDs, building nuclear weapons, and plotting with al Qaeda) that did not exist…â€] like a mantra so that they get drilled into the base. However, the question of the existence of a conditional exit strategy is still before us.
Democratic leaders know that their constituents are like small children on a long trip, crying “when will we get thereâ€. Very likely the Bushies know that even if they did risk informing the enemy and disclosed details of their conditional exit strategy, the keening would continue unabated. This isn’t about an exit strategy or even about Iraq; it’s about getting Democrats elected so that liberals can feel safe again. Responding to the emotional needs of liberals by whining about details of the exit strategy may satisfy the emotional needs of the base, but what does it offer to the independent who is actively seeking a reason to vote for Democrats? What does it add to our ability to win in Iraq? They are being one of the worst out-of-power parties in my political memory. They know damned well that Bush cannot provide the details they presumably are seeking. Too bad he can’t put it to a vote and expose their hypocricy as happened in the House vote. If anyone is interested in evidence of a conditional exit strategy:
US general sees significant withdrawal in Iraq
“The US is expected to pull significant numbers of troops out of Iraq in the next 12 months in spite of the continuing violence, according to the general responsible for near-term planning in the country.
Maj Gen Douglas Lute, director of operations at US Central Command, yesterday said the reductions were part of a push by Gen John Abizaid, commander of all US troops in the region, to put the burden of defending Iraq on Iraqi forces.â€
A National Review article is quoted here.
http://www.dailydraftdispatch.org/05_02/06_longtime.html
Here is an AP article:
“Iraq will need time to build up forces sufficient to handle a potential threat from its neighbors specifically Iran even after Baghdad proves capable of overcoming the insurgency at home, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Sunday…. Rumsfeld said he doesn’t believe President Bush’s State of the Union declaration that U.S. troops will leave Iraq when the country ”is democratic, representative of all its people, at peace with its neighbors, and able to defend itself” means American forces will be there for years to come.â€
Rumsfeld says Iraq needs time to develop forces to thwart attack by neighbors
By Douglass K. Daniel | Associated Press | 2/6/2005 15:44 | via Boston Globe
WASHINGTON (AP) Iraq will need time to build up forces sufficient to handle a potential threat from its neighbors specifically Iran even after Baghdad proves capable of overcoming the insurgency at home, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Sunday.
Both Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney, in comments during Sunday talk shows, brushed off concern that Islam could guide Iraq’s new government. Cheney said Iraq will shape its own government, and Rumsfeld predicted that choosing a system mirroring that of Iran would be ”a terrible mistake.”
Rumsfeld said he doesn’t believe President Bush’s State of the Union declaration that U.S. troops will leave Iraq when the country ”is democratic, representative of all its people, at peace with its neighbors, and able to defend itself” means American forces will be there for years to come.
”What he meant was that the Iraqis’ internal security forces would be capable of managing the security situation inside the country,” Rumsfeld told ABC’s ”This Week.”
”It will take some time after that before they would have the kind of capability to dissuade Iran, for example, if Iran decided to try to conduct a war with them again,” Rumsfeld said.
Some religious leaders in Iraq say they want Islam to be a guiding principle of the Iraqi constitution to be written. Cheney urged caution in forecasting what a future Iraqi government might do. He said Iraqis will determine the role of religion in their government as well as its others tenets.
”This is going to be Iraqi, whatever it is. It’s not going to be American,” Cheney told ”Fox News Sunday.”
”I don’t think, at this stage, that there’s anything like justification for hand-wringing or concern on the part of Americans that somehow they’re going to produce a result we won’t like,” the vice president said.
Cheney said the Iranian government was ”a religious theocracy that has been a dismal failure, from the standpoint of the rights of individuals.” Rumsfeld added that he doubts Iraq will model its government after Iran’s Shiite theocracy.
”I think it would just be an enormous mistake for that country to think that it could succeed with all of its opportunity with its oil, its water, its intelligent population to deny half of their population, women, to participate fully, I think just would be a terrible mistake,” Rumsfeld said on NBC’s ”Meet the Press.”
Rumsfeld said no one can know how long it will take to train various forces to secure Iraq internally, dismissing analysts’ predictions of at least two years. One of several factors, he told ABC, is the behavior of Iran and Syria and ”the extent to which they’re going to be unhelpful or helpful.”
Syria has not done all it can to ease the insurgency in Iraq, Rumsfeld said, nor has it released millions of dollars in Iraqi assets. ”There is no doubt that the Baathists are located in Syria, from Iraq,” the secretary told ”Late Edition” on CNN.
”Syria has not been helpful” nor, he added on CBS’s ”Face the Nation,” has been Iran.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy questioned why Iraqi forces take longer than American troops to train for security duties.
”Why can’t they defend their own country?” Kennedy, D-Mass. ”How long do we have to have Americans fighting and dying? How long do we have to ask the taxpayers to continue to pay out?”
Kennedy said the administration should set a goal with Iraq for bringing home U.S. troops by 2006.
On issues, Rumsfeld:
ruled out the possibility of reviving the military draft. ”We don’t need one. We have the ability to attract and retain the people we need in the military.”
discussing the two resignation letters he wrote Bush at the height of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal last year, said he believed he still could be an effective Pentagon chief but wanted the president to make that call. ”I told him I really thought he ought to carefully consider it. But he made a conscious decision, and life goes on, and here we are.”
with speculation heating up about a possible U.S. attack against Iran to derail its nuclear capability, Rumsfeld was asked if there were U.S. military operations going on in the country now. ”Not to my knowledge,” he replied. Problems with Iran are being handled diplomatically and not through the Defense Department, Rumsfeld said. Asked if the United States can accept a nuclear weapon in Iran, Rumsfeld said, ”Those are issues that are for the president. We don’t want to get into that.”
Cheney, meanwhile, said the United States has done ”enormous damage” to al-Qaida but that ”the threat’s still out there” from the terrorist network responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.
As for finding Osama bin Laden, the vice president said, ”We’re doing our level best and I think eventually we will. But he’s very good on his operational security, obviously. He’s found good places to hide.”
November 30th, 2005 at 1:17 pm
Fill in the blank: ________________ claims that our large military presence in Iraq “feeds the notion of occupation†and “extends the amount of time that it will take for Iraqi security forces to become self-reliant.â€
November 30th, 2005 at 1:19 pm
Fill in the blank: _____________ stated on his nationally syndicated radio show that he’s worried that a hasty withdrawal from Iraq will leave things worse than we found them.
November 30th, 2005 at 1:27 pm
Yeah, let’s mock people who claim to have secret plans for winning in Iraq!
Kerry accused President Bush of misleading the country before the war in Iraq, burning bridges with U.S. allies and having no plan to win peace. But when questioned about saying Thursday in his acceptance speech, “I know what we have to do in Iraq,” he would not tip his hand.
“I’ve been involved in this for a long time, longer than George Bush,” he said. “I’ve spent 20 years negotiating, working, fighting for different kinds of treaties and different relationships around the world. I know that as president there’s huge leverage that will be available to me, enormous cards to play, and I’m not going to play them in public. I’m not going to play them before I’m president.” –Washinton Post, 8/1/04
Okay, I’m not defending Bush’s equally vacuous fuzziness here. The point is, there ain’t no secret plan from anybody. There’s what the Army in Iraq is doing and will continue to do, and there’s the spin that will be put on it back in Washington by either side. And any relationship between the two is just about accidental at best.
November 30th, 2005 at 1:50 pm
This is actually one of the least laughable “victory plans” I’ve read recently, not that anybody short of a magician could come up with a neat way out of the mess that’s been made. This one’s for you, Freddy, from a guy who actually has reason to comprehend the difference between “what the Army does” and bullshit spun in the Beltway. I don’t expect him to get any respect from certain quarters, of course, because they’ve got a vested interest in trashing veterans who criticize chickenhawks. Desperate men engage in desperate measures.
http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=1117
November 30th, 2005 at 2:07 pm
Anyone note the quote from Bush, something along the lines of –We’ll let circumstances and readiness dictate when we leave, not a bunch of politicians in Washington?
Does anyone else find the subtle jab at civilian control of the military a tad disturbing? I know it’s rhetoric, and he’s trying to play to a certain audience, but he could choose another kind of rhetoric. He could choose to emphasize other priorities, but he doesn’t.
I worry when our political leaders make insidious comments about civilian control of the military, poking around the topic as if the “politicians in Washington” were too weak or corrupt or uninformed or whatever to exercise this control. But if not them, then who? I sometimes think these guys would be a lot happier if they could just run the place like a militray junta, dole out contracts to their pals, run the defense and CIA budgets off the books, set up a nice system of secret prisons, dispense with pesky lawyers…Hang on a sec….
Notherbob, the cocoon charge is becoming as boring as the “wingnut” charge often made by some contributors here. And you seem to be living proof that it’s not just elements of the left that can’t hold two thoughs at once as Marc sometimes points out. How does Kaplan’s view that withdrawal is the right thing to do in any way mitigate the idea that Bush’s whole strategy now is entirely cynical? Doesn’t the Murtha bashing last week seem like it came from another era all of a sudden? And furthermore the oft repeated claim that the strategy is to win, need I point out is no god damned strategy at all. Try that strategy out with a football team. “Ok boys. Let’s hit the field and win. Good luck!” That’s a pep talk. They’re different.
November 30th, 2005 at 2:30 pm
Well you can hold two thoughts but it’s degree of signifcance of those that’s the key. We see a whole lot of false comparison’s meant to skew or dilute a particular result unpleasant for some to see at its face value. The “cocoon,” like media bias negates thought.
November 30th, 2005 at 2:40 pm
Liberal’s “Wish” Plan for Iraq.
I wish he was still stealing millions from his people through the Oil-for-Food program.
I wish he was still firing on American & British jets enforcing the No-Fly Zone.
I wish he was still torturing those who spoke against him
I wish his thugs were raping Iraqi women and children
I wish there were news stories coming out every day, criticizing Bush for “ignoring the threat of Saddam in a post 9/11 world.”
I wish the Iraq Kurds were treated as second-class citizens in their own country, instead of running TV commercials thanking us for their freedom.
I wish we we were living our lives wondering if Saddam was going to provide ANY kind of weapon to terrorists and use them against us.
I wish we would leave now, so Saddam could regain power and 2,000 American lives could be wasted after fighting a war those same Americans believed in.
I wish we would leave now, so our brave troops can be denied the victory they deserve; so those 2,000 will have died in vain. I will be able to use those numbers forever to fight my political battles, which are most important to me.
I wish the Middle East and the Islamic world would stay the same, without democracy, without rights for women, and continue to develop hatred for the West.
I wish all these things just because I despise George W. Bush, and those like him, more than I love the USA. I wish these things because I would rather use the war on Islamofacism for political gain than for the unification of my country, even after 3,000 innocent Americans died in one single day.
I wish all these things because my political cause, and my religion of Liberalism, is more important than the success of our president, our troops, and our country.
November 30th, 2005 at 2:49 pm
I haven’t seen the speech, but when is this guy going to have the courage to speak before some group that isn’t in military uniform, just out of one, or married to someone who is? And I bet he was surrounded in the head-on shots by a rainbow aura of colors and genders, as always.
By the way, I hear that planes are banned from flying over Cheney’s Maryland (?) manse, even when he is not present.
November 30th, 2005 at 5:25 pm
Schilling this just proves the either or fallacy people like you fall for.
November 30th, 2005 at 6:15 pm
Actually, as a bonafide “Liberal” I wish bush would defer to the military. We know their position – John Murtha stated it last week.
November 30th, 2005 at 6:36 pm
Ahhh….the Liberal’s have a “Wish Plan” for Iraq. Add that to the war’s critics living in a “cocoon” and drinking “Kool-Aid” to my list of delicious rhetorical ironies from the “We’ve been wrong about everything from Day One of our selling this war” crowd (except the blatantly obvious fact that Saddam was a bloody tyrant, which most of us knew back when The Don was kissing his evil ass for The Gipper).
November 30th, 2005 at 6:48 pm
Incidentally, my “fill in the blanks” above, in the unlikely event that anyone gives a shit, were #1 – General Casey and #2 – Al Franken.
November 30th, 2005 at 8:03 pm
[...] Marc Cooper took the wayback machine and found that the “old Nixon game plan seems tailor-cut for Bush.” Seems text of the speech may have been leaked to Cooper as vowed to sleep through the half-hour announcement. [...]
November 30th, 2005 at 9:52 pm
Ahh…about the Plan…
One needed worry about whether President Bush would be taking a beating on this lovely outpost of opine.
Exceptional clarity of thought tonight must be credited to Mr. REG (sorry, I just had to put it caps). reg would skewer Mr. Schilling’s wish list as rhetorically ironic, yet, between the vim and vigor of reg’s post[ings], I’d wager he misses his own ironic snare. Anti-war reg (and others) can posit the “blatantly obvious fact that Saddam was a bloody tyrant, which most of us knew back when The Don was kissing his evil ass for the The Gripper” and will never be able to say, or admit that we should have sacked Saddam. Nope, just could not say that. At least Cooper hints that it might have been necessary, just not an “immediate” action. So, we can know of Saddam’s evilness–much of which our nation pitifully helped along–but the U.S. can never do anything about. We can’t ever right a wrong can we, reg? “Somaza is a sonofabitch,” FDR once said, “but at least he’s our sonofabitch.” I suppose there was somehow going to be a FSLN-like uprising in Iraq SOMEDAY that would sweep ol’Saddam along.
Sadly, Mr. Schilling, as a Liberal Democrat myself, I’d have to agree with a lot of your remarks. In the Feb 2002 edition of Mother Jones (a rapid hot-bed of Ann Coulter readers, right reg?) George Packer wrote an eye-rubbingly sober portrait of how utterly void and irrelevant the Democratic Party had become on foreign policy. The Democrats, my sad-ass party, could not (and still does not) put together a coherent policy position on Iraq after 8 years of Clinton. Not even after a 1998 98-0 vote in the Senate for regime change of Saddam — an entrance strategy if you will — could they put two and two together. No war. Very, very evil man– but no war. War bad. Especially if Bush gets to promote it.
So, yep, we’re at a far, far, disdant place from peace and troops coming home. I know that, thank you very much. It’s apparent that the Bush Administration has committed some seriously assine mistakes in this war’s prosecution. By far the biggest failure is not explaining to the American people that this could not, can not, be a short war. reg, you can lambaste the President as furosiously as anyone on this point. But to have left Saddam in power? No way. It’s better to have attempted something good, than to have perfected something bad. Something to chew on as everyone takes a bite out of George Bush’s ass.
November 30th, 2005 at 10:27 pm
“and will never be able to say, or admit that we should have sacked Saddam.”
You really don’t have a clue, do you ?
I thought that it was idiotic in 1991 not to give air cover to the Shiites and Kurds who rose against Saddam. Just as blatantly idiotic as the half-baked policy you’ve supported so glibly these last few. So get off your hjigh horse. And “mistakes” doesn’t even begin to describe the incompetence of this administration. Early on, as much as I was certain the arguments used to sway the public to support the war were bullshit (as we all now know) , I had a pretty benign attitude toward it the war once it was a fait accompli. I had no idea the guys in charge were as full of shit and irresponsible (criminally negligent in CPA advisor Larry Diamond’s view) as they’ve turned out to be. As for Packer…truly stupid for you to bring him up, unless you’ve not read Assassin’s Gate. Probably not. Packer’s too honest and well informed for your ilk. As for the Democrats being irrelevant in foreign policy, well to the degree that was ever true, BushCo has changed that equation rather remarkably. No one will trust this crowd ever again, and given the problems we still face, even i have to admit that’s a goddam shame.
Frankly, Rob, only an idiot would persist with your lame protestations at this point.
November 30th, 2005 at 10:34 pm
“I suppose there was somehow going to be a FSLN-like uprising in Iraq SOMEDAY that would sweep ol’Saddam along.”
Happened after the first Gulf war and we didn’t offer the support we should have (although the no-fly zones in Kurdistan were a success).
As for speculative preemption, it’s a completely counterproductive approach. And what little triumphalism your ilk ( and I use that pejorativve because I recall the kind of crap you guys were leveling at us before your fantasies began to fade) can still muster, be prepared for a great victory in Iraq – for the Iranians when their Shiite brothers ultimately control the country. Anybody who couldn’t see that one coming isn’t a competent observer of the regional politics and if you don’t think Iran is far better positioned to pick up the pieces after this slow-motion civil war than the Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight, you’ve been drinking the same stuff as Hitchens.
November 30th, 2005 at 10:35 pm
God I’m bored with this perpetual stream of lame shit from the pro-war dead-enders.
November 30th, 2005 at 10:56 pm
God I’m bored with this perpetual stream of lame shit from the pro-war dead-enders
Yeah, I mean, how many times can they have free elections in Iraq? What is this, the third one in a year? That’s so yesterday.
And I love your I-was-for-overthrowing-Saddam-in-1991-before-I-was-against-it-in-2003 stance. Somehow, if there’d been an Internet then (no, don’t write and “correct” me), I doubt we’d find that you were gung ho as John Wayne to throw the bastard out.
Look, I’m not entirely happy about how we got to this point but you know, I wasn’t so deluded as to think that the situation before Bush upset the Middle East apple cart was anything to be happy about either. We have the party of hubris and the party of useless carping from the sidelines. At least the first has some prospect of making things better for us, as it has already made things substantially better, however imperfect, for 25 million Iraqis.
November 30th, 2005 at 10:59 pm
“War bad.”
I have to admit, Rob, you got one thing right. It’s also “bad” that you think it’s a fucking joke.
December 1st, 2005 at 5:37 am
“And I love your I-was-for-overthrowing-Saddam-in-1991-before-I-was-against-it-in-2003 stance. Somehow, if there’d been an Internet then (no, don’t write and “correct†me), I doubt we’d find that you were gung ho as John Wayne to throw the bastard out.”
Screw you…you’re exactly the kind of carping, increasingly irrelevant moron I’m sick of. You’ve got no arguments that don’t boil down to stale rhetoric. Meanwhile, serious people like James Fallows and George Packer have long passed you by. If you’re such a gung ho bastard, go over there and do something don’t sit at your keyboard like Rob and make idiotic comments like “Shoot straight my comrades in arms.” Your comrades in arms are Jonah Goldberg, Little Billy Kristol and Byron York. Don’t “John Wayne” me, asshole.
December 1st, 2005 at 5:40 am
“I wasn’t so deluded as to think that the situation before Bush upset the Middle East apple cart was anything to be happy about either.”
You’ve just reiterated the nature of your particular delusion. Again, the kind of nonsensical rhetorical garbage I’m sick of…
December 1st, 2005 at 7:10 am
Whats your plan Reg? Be serious as if you had the responsibility of a President to the American people for its likely long term results.
December 1st, 2005 at 8:00 am
Jim, I think Reg has just admitted he’s clapped out here. Name calling, obscenity, calling me a chicken hawk (how does he know where I may or may not have been the last couple of years? He doesn’t, of course) and this little non-sequitur that’s quite staggering in its implications:
You’ve just reiterated the nature of your particular delusion.
To the extent I can figure out what he’s saying, yes, he does appear to be saying that to think that the Middle East was anything other than paradise on earth before evil Bush messed it up is delusional.
Another sad case, and more reason for why the hope that the Democrats might eventually construct a logical and effective foreign policy paradigm for Bush’s World is still years away.
December 1st, 2005 at 9:08 am
Keep it up, even though it’s a treadmilll…
If I’m “clapped out”, you’re in a coma.
December 1st, 2005 at 9:21 am
Incidentally, not a single one of you seem capable of dealing with any of the REAL issues that have been raised regarding this war, so your bull about “where’s your plan” is smoke and hot air. Is James Fallows full of shit about the situation with the Iraqi army? If so, Bush is blowing it out of his but. No mention of the civil war and what that means. Counter my point about Iran coming out as regional top dog for starters. (I don’t think that’s a disaster, but it’s an outcome that will prove once again that the morons who’ve “strategized” this thing are some combination of incompetent and dishonest.) I’ve got some thoughts on the bigger picture, but you guys are so lacking in seriousness, you’re not worth any more time.
Freddy…if you’ve been in Iraq, I apologize. I have a funny feeling none is in order. You, however, were the arrogant asshole who was telling me what you thought I really thought in 1991 – so you’re protestations about what I don’t know about you, making assumptions, etc. are a bit disingenuous. But if you’re in the military, I do indeed apologize. If you’re just another Keyboard Kommando, you know where to stuff it.
December 1st, 2005 at 10:15 am
This is for Jim Russell and JR only:
I’ve got to get out of here, but here’s my plan. I’d get the best military minds together who’ve been pointing out the problems with BushCo’s Blindered Blunder since about Day One – Gens. Zinni, Clark & Shinseki for starters along with men from the current command who seem to have been least tainted by the politics and RummyBuffing, along with men in Congress who aren’t partisan hacks and have strong links to the military, like Congressman Murtha and, yes, John Warner and McCain, and State Department people who have strong credibility and expertise in the diplomacy arena. Then I’d hear them all out, pick an advisory team based on those seemed to have had the most consistently credible grasp and foresight as things proceeded and come up with a forward plan based on their experience and judgement. That’s the best I can do and I’m not sure what it would be precisely. Suffice to say that this war has been run according to the Wish Lists of some very dubious civilians and if the people in the military and State and Congress who’s earliest doubts have been proven right many times over had been listened to, we would be in – at worst – far less of a mess. I’m not a Keyboard Kommando, so I don’t come up with Plans or claim to know how to Rule The World or Transform The Middle East. People who do are mostly nutcases (see above). Unfortunately, I’m also not as much of a moron as a President who trusted Dick Cheney and Doug Feith’s fever dreams, thought Paul Wolfowitz knew what he was talking about when he made statements like “there’ll be no problem of ethnic strife”, let Rummy fire General Shinseki for telling the truth and roll the State Department people who did the occupation planning he was contemptuous of, etc. (Read Larry Diamond’s book and Packers, as well as Hirsch’ reporting.) Frankly, if I’d been a war supporter I’d be more pissed at these geeks than I already am.
When I say “unfortunately I’m not as much of a moron as the President”, I mean it. I really and truly wish he’d been smarter about his job, less reckless, wiser and more responsible than some marginal sideline carper such as myself. Our country is truly in terrible shape for that fact.
December 1st, 2005 at 12:46 pm
Paula Zahn hit Biden with the lame “Dems have no plan” meme. He rattled off five points the administration refuses to follow so that’s a tired line that has no merit. Kerry outlined a similar set to no avail. There isn’t a plan if no one listens I suppose, but ignoring doesn’t make it go way either.
December 3rd, 2005 at 11:56 pm
Well reg, I’m sorry a cross country trip prevented me from responding to your remarks in a more timely way.
I’ll give you credit for having some spunk in your posts, but you do go a bit overboard. It is rather poor form on your part to go into all the near-personal and outright personal attacks, but hey, if that’s the way you argue, believe me my friend, I’ve got skin plenty thick enough to handle your insults. Just don’t give me any crap about how pro-war types have demeaned war-opponents…I have never ridiculed you.
My original point still stands: You claimed to have known how evil Saddam really was, but I, nor I doubt anyone else, can see how you’d have dealt with Saddam in any successful way short of war.
My second paragraph was a nod to Mr. Schilling. But if you want to jump in on that part, fine. Please start by explaining that 98-0 vote of the Senate. Was that not an entrance strategy? And Mr. reg, do not tell me that I — as a long registered Democrat — did not clearly read with my own eyes the essay Mr. Packer wrote in early 2002 in Mother Jones. From your comments, I’m not so sure you’d like to bother reading it. But on one part I’ll actually agree with you. That’s about Mr. Packer. He is one of the most astute writers in the U.S. But I disagree with you that my “ilk” should not reference him. Yes I do own a copy of his latest book — I’m about half way through with it. And I’ve got Sy Hersh’s book on Abu Ghraib, and have read Fallows’ Atlantic column…(I actually laughed when you said I’m drinking the same stuff as Hitchens. Coming from you, I’ll register that as a compliment. One could do a lot worse than Hitchens). Your name-dropping these writers — oh, by the way, you forget to accuse me of being a Paul Berman fan — doesn’t mean you’ve successfully used them to bolster your own agrument.
Fallow’s insights about the war and the U.S. military’s troubles in building up an Iraqi army are quite sobering. I especially noted how Fallows mentioned severly times the huge misunderstanding(s) that frequently result from a lack of translators and Arabic-speaking troops. (Slate’s Kaplan as been exceptional on this area) I’ve been bitching about this for a long time — at least once on this board and many others. But as dire and urgent a picture that Fallows paints (and he’s mostly right about this), his essay gives the impression that building up the Iraqi army and grading it by U.S. standards is the end-all of the matter. Fallows tips his hand early on in claiming its all part of the U.S. exit strategy. Really? Where exactly are we exiting to and why? Drawing down troops? Yes. But I’ve news for you. We’re not really leaving anytime soon. And I think you might know this as well. You’re partially on to something when you mention the Iranians. Which itself is a strong reason to stick around, no? So why should we vacate then, and also, especially when it looks like Syria is getting ready to buckle? We should have a strong military presence in the region if that should happen. Fallow’s essay almost only tells us about the state of Iraq’s new army. But he mentions preciously little about the Iraqi’s themselves. Sure, they’re pissed about being occupied. But where is there any acknowledgement about institution-building and albeit slow, but steady progress of civil society, despite the hellish murderers and mayhem by the ex-Baathists and jihadists?
“Frankly, if I had been a war supporter I’d be more pissed at these geeks than I already am.” Well that’s a nifty way to absolve yourself of responsibilty on this whole subject, but it’s necessary to state this, because it’s needed in order for you to make by far your weakest claim. And that is where you demean a number of commentors, myself included as “Keyboard Kommandos.” Or where you have to give some space to “Freddy the Pig” just in case he’s in the military, and in Iraq. Nevermind that you couldn’t possibly know how many hundreds of dollars money I’ve already donated to Iraqi democrats and other groups in that country. Or how many letters I written to my elected representatives. Or how many forums, debates, and the like I’ve attended and tried to participate in. This notion of “join up or shut up” is the most idiotic babble that anyone can make. And sadly I’ve read is line from more than a couple people I thought should know better, including on this board. Reg, should I demand that you subordinate your own views of foreign policy to those of mine, since I’m a holder of a DD 214 and you are not? No, not in this country. It has never been that way. Nor should it start. This nation is run by civilians and it’s civilian leaders who tell the military what it’s orders are and not the other way around. Therefore, anyone, is entitled to their say per their own fact of citizenship.
Until we argue again, have nice day reg.
December 5th, 2005 at 8:59 pm
Rather than respond directly to a hodge podge of angles that strike me as muddled and unconvincing, I’ll direct you to the recent comments by Kevin Drum at “Political Animal” on Packer’s book. Particularly the latest that references Henry Farrell’s views.
Inicentally, while service in the military isn’t a ticket to righteousness when it comes to the issues at hand, Jack Murtha’s contacts in the Pentagon and his consistency in speaking out strongly as an advocate for the “defense” community count for a hell of a lot and suggest a rather dramatic subtext and context for his declarations. Cheney on the other hand is just a fucking idiot. Lowest credibility of any administration figure with name recognition – a ranking he’s rather righteously earned. (Which means that Doug Feith still retains the “stupidest fucking guy on the planet” award that Tommy Franks and Lawrence Wilkerson have awarded him.)
July 20th, 2006 at 4:19 am
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July 20th, 2006 at 2:57 pm
Descriptions of poker pubs their atmospheresnam
January 24th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
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March 15th, 2009 at 12:24 am
Does anyone else have any experience with this?