Thomas wrote:georgeob1 wrote:You are indeed correct. I also owe some apologies to another friend, a former CENTCOM (not Zini) who told me the same thing several years ago. I then decided he had succumbed to the four star disease of assumed infallibility. It turns out it was I who was wrong.
Well, my hat is off to you for admitting this. I hope I'll be as open-minded when my next big blunder reveals itself.
Fat chance. (I keed! I keed, because I love!!)
Actually Thomas is a more objective and even-handed guy than either of us, Snood.
None better to judge than you, I'm sure.
snood wrote:Fat chance. (I keed! I keed, because I love!!)
Always glad to feel some love.
I have a quibble with you, O'George. There is a good deal of anecdotal evidence from officers who have retired since 2002 that Rumsfeld and company weren't listening to any professional advice which questioned either the mission or the (scant and unrealistic) plans for its implementation. I have no idea how Pace figured in any of that, so i'm not commenting on whether or not he could have effected any substantive change. However, Pace was sworn in two and half years after the invasion--and i rather suspect he found himself in the position of Sisyphus from the first day.
Setanta,
I agree with you. I suspect those who chose Pace for the position had previously satisfied themselves that he was generally in tune with their policies and intentions. For Pace, whatever may have been his beliefs, the mantle of office obliged him to - once he assumed it - make every effort to see the program succeed.
I also believe the essential error was not in the conduct of the military operations themselves. We defeated Saddam's army and took down his regime with remarkable economy of force, and did so very quickly. In this aspect of things Rumsfield's policies were entirely correct and beneficial.
It was the absence of any strategy to deal with the knowable political issues latent within Iraq, and the subsequent attempt to deal with them merely through military action, after we had disestablished the entire governing apparatus of the previous regime, that brought us to the present impasse (where did we find Mr Bremmer anyway?). It appears that the Administration inexplicably failed to think this aspect of things through in a sufficiently critical way.
There is also the possibility that there was no realistic way to both remove Saddam and sustain our other interests in the region - i.e. that the enterprise should not have been undertaken at all. It appears that Saddam was committed to opposition to the Shia regime in Iran under any circumstances. Despicable as he was, he was a counterweight to the equally (or more) dangerous regime in Iran. (This, of course could have been the basis for opposition to the earlier Gulf War - a prospect that did cross my mind back then.)
I suspect the Administration convinced itself that they would enjoy some favorable political momentum across the region following Saddam's defeat. Perhaps they succomed to the illusion that the restive youth of Iran would throw off the yoke of the theocracy that has ruled the country for 25 years.
I was in the grip of some of these illusions myself - in part because I strongly opposed what I believe were the motives of Schroeder and Chirac - and also because I didn't want to believe that we were making such a fundamental error. I was wrong.
You are the most honest Republican on this board, George. No doubt about it.
Quote:
It was the absence of any strategy to deal with the knowable political issues latent within Iraq, and the subsequent attempt to deal with them merely through military action, after we had disestablished the entire governing apparatus of the previous regime, that brought us to the present impasse (where did we find Mr Bremmer anyway?). It appears that the Administration inexplicably failed to think this aspect of things through in a sufficiently critical way.
I think that there is some evidence that the Admin. not only 'failed to think this aspect of things through,' but actively rejected others who tried to do the thinking for them, and ignored advice in favor of idealism. Never a positive move.
We, as a nation, should have been more cautious and more skeptical of claims that everything was going to be a cakewalk...
Cycloptichorn
Josh Marshall puts it well, w/respect to current leadership:
Quote:
The real issue here is shaking ourselves loose from the degradation of our own civic and republican collective character that the war has brought us. Some principles are clear and worth repeating: You can't have a war for democracy fought by people whose principles are authoritarian and anti-democratic. It's not a throwaway line or a barb. It's the only pivot around which to understand the Bush years.
Cycloptichorn
Cycloptichorn wrote:You are the most honest Republican on this board, George. No doubt about it.
Setanta -- that's what you taught me was a left / back-handed compliment. Correct?
You're a very naughty boy, Thomas, and i won't allow you to sucker me into joining this "insult O'George"-fest, while appearing to applaud him, no matter how well deserved.
Thomas wrote:Cycloptichorn wrote:You are the most honest Republican on this board, George. No doubt about it.
Setanta -- that's what you taught me was a left / back-handed compliment. Correct?
I didn't mean it that way.
Edit: specifically,
Quote:and also because I didn't want to believe that we were making such a fundamental error. I was wrong.
I think this is a very brave admission to make and one that practically no other war supporter has had the balls to do: admit that they didn't want to believe we would make such a mistake. I've long argued that one of the biggest problems with the Iraq war is the fact that so many of its' supporters have tied themselves to it emotionally, and to admit that the war was a 'fundamental mistake' is to admit that they personally were wrong in their projections; a difficult thing to do that practically no other poster here, or hell even across the internets, has done.
Cycloptichorn
Back on topic,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKSAJdLLwzc
Over 11 thousand troops kicked out for being gay.
A short piece on a fluent Arabic speaker who was kicked out for being gay.
Cycloptichorn
O'George, i think that the Iraq situation was "winnable," up to a point. I also sadly believe that we are long past that point, and that the situation may possibly have reached the point at which we cannot retrieve it.
In the Second World War, we have civil administration officers who went into previously occupied territory to get things running again, and to obviate trouble. Most people are not aware of it, but the only force on the ground which initially had a plan was the French Communist Party among the members of the FFI. There is a novel by Marcel Aymé entitled Uranus (sorry, don't know the title in English) which describes just such a situation in newly-liberated France in which the FFI Communists take over, and begin running local affairs, even to the point of executing potential enemies. So the Allies decided they needed to intervene to prevent this from happening. Since that time, we have always had civil affairs officers who are trained to deal with these situations. I don't recall the gentleman's name, but a career officer in the Army who retired no long after the invasion recounted that he and others approached DoD to suggest that they needed to line up civil affairs units and military police units so that they could go in right behind the invasion. They were ignored, and when they persisted, Rumsfeld basically told them to mind their own business.
I recall a piece on the news as the military combat was ending when a Marine officer was moving through the streets of Najaf toward a Sunni shrine with a platoon of jarheads, and an ugly crowd formed and began to surround them. He ordered his men to go to their knees and ground their weapons, and then he put down his pistol and advanced to speak to representative of the Shrine of Ali. The situation was not only defused, but it was turned around immediately. Previously, the crowd had been shouting and showing their shoes (to show someone the sole of your shoe is a horrible insult among the Iraqis)--now the immediately became quite and waited to learn how the meeting between the officer and the imam would turn out.
There was a time, just after the point at which Baghdad was secured, when, if there had been thousands of civil affairs and military police troops, we might have reasonably secured the country, and the Iraqis likely would have treated us with respect and adopted a "wait and see" attitude. Certainly among the Sunnis, those who had formerly been members of the Ba'ath Arab Socialist Party and who had lost everything, with nothing more to lose, would have become insurgents. But they were a small number, and without provocation, there was little reason for other Sunnis to risk their futures in a civil war. But when we couldn't keep the oil fields running, couldn't keep the water and sewage running, couldn't keep gasoline at the gas stations, couldn't even direct traffic effectively, we lost the respect and confidence of those in Iraq who were prepared to make an effort, and lost the opportunity to gain the respect of others.
I fear it is far too late to rectify these problems. It would have taken far more troops than we sent, because we'd have been obliged to protect the oil fields, the petroleum pumping and transportation facilities, the electrical generating plants, the water and sewage treatment plants. When it was apparent that we weren't prepared to do that, the insurgents made such places the early target of their efforts, and helped to assure that any capital we had with the Iraqi people would quickly evaporate.
It isn't just that we won the war and have lost the peace, we did nothing that we needed to do to "win the peace," and did a great many things which could have helped us to "win the peace" completely wrong. For that, i blame Rumsfeld most proximately, but more broadly, i blame the neo-cons who conceived of this idiotic venture, and who were too ignorant to realize the error, or simply didn't care. They were focused on the nation with the second largest proven reserves of light, sweet crude, and they were focused on building their military bases. They simply didn't realize or didn't care about what would be necessary to make the country quiet, safe and peaceful.
Could be. We will never know for sure if the right post conflict strategy would have worked.
As I reflect on the situation now I increasingly focus on the fact that Iraq as a political entity was the creation of the British, done - in typical imperial fashion - to create the maximum of internal tension and rivalry, expressedly to maximize the potential for continued British control with minimum force. In this case the political entity so created threw the British out in a civil war, and later assasinated the king they provided. After that it was ruled by military autocrats who liberally applied force and brutality to their internal foes. The Ottomans were wise enough to rule Mesopotamia in three distinct parts; the provinces of Mosul, Bagdad, and Basra respectively. Breaking the country up would not have advanced our strategic interests (nor would Turkey have willingly tolerated it). There was no historical precedent for the peaceful, non-violent rule of a united Iraq. Unhappily that is still the case today.
Cycloptichorn wrote:Thomas wrote:Cycloptichorn wrote:You are the most honest Republican on this board, George. No doubt about it.
Setanta -- that's what you taught me was a left / back-handed compliment. Correct?
I didn't mean it that way.
Edit: specifically,
Quote:and also because I didn't want to believe that we were making such a fundamental error. I was wrong.
I think this is a very brave admission to make and one that practically no other war supporter has had the balls to do...admit that the war was a 'fundamental mistake' ....
Cycloptichorn
So, in summary, any supporter of the war who doesn't state that he agrees with you is either dishonest or cowardly. I suggest that it's possible to disagree with you and be neither. The invasion of Iraq was absolutely correct based on the information available when it occurred. When the similar situations occur in the future, and they will, invasion will sometimes be the correct course after negotiation seem to have failed, depending on the specific dynamics with the country involved. I don't think that many people in positions of responsibility suggested that the invasion was likely to be easy.
No, the occupation hasn't turned out well. Yes, the situation on the ground right now is a mess. Whether that's because it was mismanaged or just because the circumstances were inherently difficult, I don't know. Most likely the administration should have studied the political and cultural situation in Iraq more closely in preparation for the invasion. Some difficult things are worth attempting. The decision to invade, though, based on what was known at that moment, was absolutely correct, and we'll need to make the same decision to invade many times over the coming decades with some of the dictators who are
in the process of acquiring WMD.
georgeob1 wrote:Could be. We will never know for sure if the right post conflict strategy would have worked.
As I reflect on the situation now I increasingly focus on the fact that Iraq as a political entity was the creation of the British, done - in typical imperial fashion - to create the maximum of internal tension and rivalry, expressedly to maximize the potential for continued British control with minimum force. In this case the political entity so created threw the British out in a civil war, and later assasinated the king they provided. After that it was ruled by military autocrats who liberally applied force and brutality to their internal foes. The Ottomans were wise enough to rule Mesopotamia in three distinct parts; the provinces of Mosul, Bagdad, and Basra respectively. Breaking the country up would not have advanced our strategic interests (nor would Turkey have willingly tolerated it). There was no historical precedent for the peaceful, non-violent rule of a united Iraq. Unhappily that is still the case today.
Yes, precisely. The Turks would likely intervene even with a stable, independent Iraq because of their obsession with eliminating the Kurds. They invaded northern Iraq just last week (you can find the details online, i'm not going to try to link anything in this short reply).
Long before the Shrub was even elected, PNAC had a plan to invade Iraq and to establish military bases. They wrote to Clinton on the subject early in 1998. After September 11th, the United States went into Afghanistan with justification, and wide international support. It was idiotic to take on the Iraq invasion when Afghanistan was still unstable, and one of the consequences was that we put the same venal, vile warlords back into power after the Taliban had driven them out, as an expedient while the administration focused on Iraq. We have very likely passed the point of no return in terms of the respect and trust of the population of Afghanistan, as well, and the Taliban is attempting to make a come-back while our attention is focused elsewhere.
Not for a moment have i ever thought that the Iraq invasion was a good idea. My speculation was only on the basis of was it "do-able." I think it might have been, but Rummy and his Too Live Crew at DoD screwed the pooch from the very beginning. And, as i said already, it is probably too late to clean up the mess now.
Quote:
So, in summary, any supporter of the war who doesn't state that he agrees with you is either dishonest or cowardly. I suggest that it's possible to disagree with you and be neither.
Well, idiot is a third option. So I agree with you there.
Cycloptichorn
Cycloptichorn wrote:Quote:
So, in summary, any supporter of the war who doesn't state that he agrees with you is either dishonest or cowardly. I suggest that it's possible to disagree with you and be neither.
Well, idiot is a third option. So I agree with you there.
Cycloptichorn
Alright, then, in summary, according to what you've said in this thread, any supporter of the war who doesn't state that he agrees with you is either, dishonest, cowardly, or idiotic. There is no category of honest disagreement.
Brandon9000 wrote:Cycloptichorn wrote:Quote:
So, in summary, any supporter of the war who doesn't state that he agrees with you is either dishonest or cowardly. I suggest that it's possible to disagree with you and be neither.
Well, idiot is a third option. So I agree with you there.
Cycloptichorn
Alright, then, in summary, according to what you've said in this thread, any supporter of the war who doesn't state that he agrees with you is either, dishonest, cowardly, or idiotic. There is no category of honest disagreement.
No, Brandon, there isn't. Not by anyone who is being intellectually honest with themselves.
You can either admit that you were duped into this thing, or you can stubbornly insist that it was the right course of action all along even though it will end in disaster. It's up to you. But you'll fit into one of those three options if you do.
I don't care what excuse you want to use; there are several good ones available such as 'it would have been a good idea with competent leadership' (perfectly acceptable), we were duped by Bush and others into believing the WMD threat was IMMINENT, whatever you want to say. There are many different reasons that people would think the war was a mistake, logical ones; but very few reasons why the war was a 'good idea.'
The 'had to be sure about Saddam's WMD' line that you've pulled oh so often is getting a little stale in the face of the fact that far more people have died in the Iraq war then the average WMD would have killed; the fact that it happens to have been Iraqis who have died doesn't change the validity of this. At least, not to me.
Cycloptichorn
Cycloptichorn wrote:Brandon9000 wrote:Cycloptichorn wrote:Quote:
So, in summary, any supporter of the war who doesn't state that he agrees with you is either dishonest or cowardly. I suggest that it's possible to disagree with you and be neither.
Well, idiot is a third option. So I agree with you there.
Cycloptichorn
Alright, then, in summary, according to what you've said in this thread, any supporter of the war who doesn't state that he agrees with you is either, dishonest, cowardly, or idiotic. There is no category of honest disagreement.
No, Brandon, there isn't. Not by anyone who is being intellectually honest with themselves.
You can either admit that you were duped into this thing, or you can stubbornly insist that it was the right course of action all along even though it will end in disaster. It's up to you. But you'll fit into one of those three options if you do....
Cycloptichorn
If you actually maintain that there exists no category of honest, intelligent disagreement with you, and that anyone who claims to disagree with you is, in actuality, either dishonest, cowardly, or an idiot, then there's really nothing more for me to say.
