by Charles
Had Iraq clearly been on the path of becoming a free, peace, non-theocratic representative republic, the GOP would have been in the majority today (in my opinion), missteps by Republicans in Congress notwithstanding. The fault for the embarrassing loss last November can be squarely laid at the feet of George W. Bush. Because of his substandard performance on Iraq for the past three-plus years, I became a Dissatisfied. What’s more, after considering the cumulative effects of all of his other un-conservative actions, I’m at a point where I’ve pretty much lost confidence in Bush as even a semi-competent commander-in-chief. This isn’t an easy conclusion to come to because I’ve carried Bush’s water on a whole range of issues over most of his six years in office. It’s also not easy because I’m a Republican and have been one for over a quarter century.
But despite my skepticism of the president, I do support Bush on the Petraeus plan to turn Iraq around, but under one condition: that al-Maliki be reasonably committed to it. I say this not because I have faith in Bush, but because I believe Petraeus is the best man for the job, and the general has literally written the book on counterinsurgency ops.
The Petraeus plan should have been in effect over two years ago, so it is encouraging to hear that the Senate approved Petraeus’ promotion to four-star general and to his new job as commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. At the same time, it is equally discouraging to see Republicans display spines of Silly Putty in supporting resolutions that would rebuke the very plans that Petraeus would execute. And that is why I put my name on the list, and I find myself in full agreement with Mark I.
Petraeus gave a frank assessment of the mistakes we’ve made in Iraq, and it was refreshing to hear it (more on him here). More importantly, Petraeus has a plan to address the mistakes. Embedding more of our soldiers with Iraqi troops and training more Iraqi troops are part of the package, and so is adopting an effective clear-hold-build strategy in the areas of conflict.
To get more of a flavor of what Petraeus will do, the new counterinsurgency (COIN) manual is an indicator, and it’s worth taking the time read (I’ve paged through it and read portions, and am in the process of going through it word-for-word). Military might is but one component of the strategy. Most of the other tactics are political, economic, intelligence and media related. Under COIN doctrine, military responses are measured and judiciously applied. Unfortunately, the media message is harsher rules of engagement and a freer hand at going after Irianian spies and militants. There are cases where harsher tactics are necessary, but in general the focus is restraint. The COIN strategy is indeed "graduate level warfare", but that is what it will take.
Al-Maliki has been more in the forefront recently about securitizing Baghdad, and there may already be signs that it’s working. His most important job is to back up his words with actions and to consistently sustain them. I hope he can do it.
Finally, since this is an Information War, the White House can do its share by better communicating the new plan. There should be less focus on "more troops" and more on what those troops will be doing. Tony Snow can challenge reporters to embed more and rely less on stringers with unknown biases. The mainstream press has faithfully catalogued the numbers of casualties by terrorist and insurgent attacks, and it wouldn’t hurt for Snow to fill in the rest of the picture with insurgent/terrorist casualties (this might trigger Vietnam memories, but this is a different war, different situation).
As embeds Michelle Malkin, Bill Roggio, Michael Yon and Bill Ardolino have pointed out in their posts, Iraq is a complex situation. There are many incidences of success, and obviously there have been setbacks. But most of the soldiers on the ground appear optimistic of success and believe in their mission. Too bad that more politicians in DC do not believe so, and do not have the stones to stick to it.
Quite frankly, it appears to me that those advocating unilateral withdrawal must also believe that Iraq is a lost cause. It is a defeatist position. I believe it’s premature to think that, but I’m closer today to thinking we’ve lost than a year ago. But if we go down, I’d rather go down after making every effort to make it work. The Petraeus plan looks to be one of the last and best tries. If we’ve made no discernible progress by this November, I may just put myself in the defeatist camp and call for a phased drawdown. But not now, and not with this plan.
(Update below the fold)
For whatever reason, I can’t post a comment from my home computer (damn that IE 7.0!), so I thought I’d put it here in the form of an update…
I’ll get to other comments later, but I wanted to address the Zogby poll mentioned in the Star & Stripes article. I have many concerns about it. First, I question Zogby’s objectivity when it comes to affairs in the Middle East, not to mention his left-leaning political biases. Second, the poll was funded by a wealthy unnamed anti-war activist, so there’s an obvious agenda and motivation. Third, the questions were developed not just by Zogby, but by faculty members at the Le Moyne Center for Peace and Global Studies. Although the center claims non-partisanship, there is ample reason to believe those who collaborated with Zogby are on the far side of the liberal/anti-war spectrum and would frame questions which would conform to their ideology (cite). Fourth, the wording of the questions and structuring of the answers is a concern (commentary here). For example, question #7 gives two options indicating understanding of the mission and four options pointing to lack of understanding. Another question put white phosphorus and napalm in the same category, which is absurd. I could go on. Fifth, the methods for selecting respondents and the locations were kept secret, and as for demographics, the interviewers didn’t ask about rank or education, so we can’t tell how representative the sample really is.
Mystery Pollster leans liberal and he well outlined his concerns here and follows up here, here and here.
The timing of the poll is also an issue. The interviews took place prior to the Golden Mosque bombing and prior to the outbreak of sectarian violence, and not long after the third election in Dec-2005. Troop drawdowns were scheduled by the U.S. military and would have been below 100,000 by year end had not the Sadrists responded the way they did. The major concern at that time was general security and Sunni insurgent/terrorist attacks. The Sadrist attacks by militants sect-terrorists came after the interviews were held.
Also, in the S&S article, experts were unsure how to interpret the poll and the percentages are highly unusual, such as the 85% who thought they were in Iraq to retaliate for Saddam’s involvement in 9/11, and the high percentage who thought that removing WMDs was not a main reason for removing Saddam. The poll may have been dead-on accurate, but there’s plenty of reason to be highly skeptical of its results. Given the players involved, I see little chance that it was objective, even though it was passed off as such.
Well said. I had to double check that I was actually on ObWi.
Anyone who has not followed the embedded bloggers would do well to read all their posts (about their embed). They are mostly to the right but I think that their reporting was very bias free – they all reported the good and the bad.
I do think that there are positive signs, and that this last push is well worth attempting. I wish it were more troops, but I do like Petraeus’s plan and he should have the chance to implement it. I’m also very happy to see us start to get serious with the Iranians found in Iraq.
Can someone explain how the Senate approves Petraeus unanimously – knowing full well what his plan is, yet many of the same Senators are willing to vote for one of these ridiculous non-binding resolutions?
It’s vital to remember that despite year after year after year of being ruthlessly branded hippie peaceniks, most of the Democrats in Congress don’t want to end the war, and aren’t going to seriously challenge Bush on it. That’s why they are futzing around with non-binding resolutions while full war with Iran looms ever closer.
Still busy as hell, but this has been simmering for awhile. I won’t be able to read comments until tonight or tomorrow.
Personally, I find it absurd to label positions as “defeatist.” It’s binary thinking at its worst and discourages cooperation, which defeats the purpose of discussion (whose very nature is to attempt to garner support; polarizing discussion seems very narcissistic to me).
That said, I think the plan on Iraq is like throwing good money after bad. I can accept that my thoughts on this could be labeled premature, but it still seems to me that this is the right strategy, done at the wrong time (three years ago would have been much better) with far too few people. With all those problems, it just seems rational to me to judge this approach as wanting (without even considering the personnel ABOVE Patraeus, who could be judged as the best possible person to execute this strategy or any other strategy put into place).
But most of the soldiers on the ground appear optimistic of success and believe in their mission.
Did you happen to see that recent poll in Stars and Stripes of troops on the ground in Iraq?
* 42% of the troops surveyed are unsure of their mission in Iraq
* 72% think U.S. military forces should get out of the country within a year
* 85% believe a major reason they were sent into war was “to retaliate for Saddam’s role in the Sept. 11 attacks.”
So, well, you may be right (though it would be nice to see which poll you’re citing) that “most of the soldiers on the ground appear optimistic of success and believe in their mission” – because most of the soldiers on the ground believe that their mission was to retaliate for September 11, and they’ve certainly been very successful in doing that…
So here I go looking for the Bizarro World version of Charles’ post (it’s here), and happen to come across a fun discussion between von and Thomas that happens to reference the ObWi comment section here (including Thomas’ obligatory mention of us all as a “hatefest” and again for some reason referring to us as “ObiWi”).
Click and scroll.
“The plan has not remained stubbornly still but has changed over the years… The administration’s recent use of the banner ‘clear, hold and build’ accurately describes the strategy as I saw it being implemented last week.” -Joe Lieberman, November 2005
“We recognized the problem, and we changed our strategy. Instead of coming in and removing the terrorists, and then moving on, the Iraqi government and the coalition adopted a new approach called clear, hold, and build.” -President Bush, March 2006
“Embedding more of our soldiers with Iraqi troops and training more Iraqi troops are part of the package, and so is adopting an effective clear-hold-build strategy in the areas of conflict.” -Charles, today
I’d love to believe that there’s a new strategy which deserves a chance to work. But this is the same “new strategy” we’ve repeatedly tried over the years, only this time we’re going to somehow make it work. Sorry, Bullwinkle, but real people are dying while you keep trying to pull a rabbit out of that hat. I don’t support it.
Charles, given the odds that you will come around to the withdrawal position in the foreseeable future, you might want to rethink your ridiculous characterization of it as ‘defeatist.’
Nell, I’m wondering how Charles Bird combines his belief that “most of the soldiers on the ground appear optimistic of success” with his knowledge that 72% of them are “defeatist”.
Actually, Charles, one of those rare posts of yours that I don’t immediately throw my hands up in the air and ask myself “what could he be thinking?”
I think the viewpoint of many in Congress and outside is that this plan is probably not going to be very succesful (except in the short term), but that if anybody has a chance to pull it off, it is Petraeus. And believe it or not, I think we all want and hope it will succeed.
And as far as those wanting unilateral withdrawal, remember many of us ere against unilateral invasion in the first place, as was a majority of the American people. And many of us believe that Iraq is a lost cause because of our presence and that maybe leaving will result in it not being a lost cause.
Personally, I think the best way to get al Qaeda out of Iraq is for us to leave. And not because then they will follow us home, which is one of the most ridiculous statements I have heard in a very long time. I do believe they know about mapquest.
Considering that Bird has been wrong about nearly everything Bush has said and done since, well, forever, I find it difficult to care what he thinks about the current situation.
But oh, how I will laugh–sardonically, though–when even he abandons Beloved Leader and becomes a defeatist (formerly “loser-defeatist”).
This time, it’ll be different. Unlike all those other times that “this time” would be different, THIS time I really mean it.
Quite frankly, it appears to me that those advocating unilateral withdrawal must also believe that Iraq is a lost cause. It is a defeatist position. I believe it’s premature to think that, but I’m closer today to thinking we’ve lost than a year ago.
Well, there two different paradigms for defining victory. Based on the war aims espoused in 2002/2003, the war is lost, and cannot be un-lost. However, a new, very meek set of war aims has been tacitly settled on. It’s possible that this very modest ambitions might be achived.
But let’s be realistic, when people talk about “winning” in Iraq now, their definition of victory, almost a grim parody of the administration’s original ambitions, is so underwhelming that in 2002 not a single rational person would have thought it worth the effort, expense and loss of life incurred.
Welcome back, Charles.
Al-Maliki has been more in the forefront recently about securitizing Baghdad, and there may already be signs that it’s working. His most important job is to back up his words with actions and to consistently sustain them. I hope he can do it.
This is the most troublesome aspect of the plan, and why I cannot support it in present form (although I would also not block it, because the cure would be worse than the disease).
For the plan to work, Maliki must be an honest broker. I see no evidence that he is. Indeed, every act and nonact that he has taken suggests that his primary purpose is to consolidate Shia power for the inevitable day that we leave. Even if the surge fails — which I hope it does not but expect that it will (I belong to the too little too late school) — it plays into his hands.
Can someone explain how the Senate approves Petraeus unanimously – knowing full well what his plan is, yet many of the same Senators are willing to vote for one of these ridiculous non-binding resolutions?
The question of whether one approves of the latest way Bush is throwing lives at Iraq is an entirely separate question from whether or not one thinks Gen. Petraeus is qualified to lead troops in Iraq. The man is probably one of the most qualified in the world to try to fix Iraq. That doesn’t mean I think it’s possible, especially not with Bush’s proposed escalation.
As for the OP… eh. More one-last-cornerism from Charles. I’m gratified to see your confidence in the General’s abilities. I share that confidence, generally speaking; I frankly can’t think of anyone else I’d rather have in charge at the moment. It’s just a shame that we’ve handed a man with such a sterling COIN resume such an impossible Charlie Foxtrot to try and untangle.
Iraq is a loss. There is no pony there. The best we can hope for out of this is a fundamentalist Shi’ite theocracy wearing the trappings of democracy, one sufficiently unfriendly to Iran that we won’t see the two countries in any kind of alliance in our lifetimes.
That’s really the best-case scenario that doesn’t involve a staggering amount of magical thinking. There are considerably more likely scenarios that are not so rosy, and none of those scenarios will be improved by us remaining in Iraq now. In terms of getting the Iraqis to take charge of domestic security we are now, at best, continuing to prop up a government that has no reason to seriously try to do so as long as better-equipped, better-trained US troops are there to do it for them.
The fact is, the notion of “as they stand up, we’ll stand down” has always been pure fantasy. It is delusional to believe that Iraqi troops–with a fraction of the training, equipment, and professionalism of their American counterparts–will simply by dint of being trained be able to have a meaningful enough effect on the violence in Iraq to replace the US troops. Their greatest advantage lies in the fact that they’re Iraqi, not foreign–and that advantage is nullified as long as they are embedded with and backed up by US troops, as long as Iraq remains an occupied country. And no amount of embedding or training is going to correct the biggest problem with the Iraqi military and police: the depth to which they’re infiltrated by and a tool of sectarian interests.
You can call it what you want, Charles. Keep ringing the “defeatism” bell, because obviously that one worked out really well for you guys in the midterms. I call it being willing to face unpleasant facts head-on, and being unwilling to throw more lives and treasure at a problem where they are profoundly unlikely to make any positive difference. And until you write something that demonstrates you’re capable of doing the former, or that you at least understand some of the fundamental social and religious factors at play in Iraq on their most basic level, I don’t see any reason to take your opinion seriously. You’re just advocating more faith-based foreign policy, and we’ve had quite enough of that. As for your closing:
But if we go down, I’d rather go down after making every effort to make it work. The Petraeus plan looks to be one of the last and best tries. If we’ve made no discernible progress by this November, I may just put myself in the defeatist camp and call for a phased drawdown.
Weasel-worded though it is, we’ll hold you to that.
I’ve carried Bush’s water on a whole range of issues over most of his six years in office.
Despite the appearance of a conciliatory attitude (undermined, yes, but the use of the term “defeatist”), you continue to carry water.
This latest plan isn’t going to work. It’s still woefully undermanned. According to Petraeus’s own doctrine, 10x the amount of troops are needed for Baghdad alone.
And I know Jes is one of your least favourite people around here, but her point about the support from the troops is worth responding to.
Actually, I am quite impressed by this post of CB’s: it is one of his few disquisitions on Iraq that makes a point, and manages to conclude without any jabs, snipes, or snarks, or ludicrous catchphrases included.
However, I think he misses (or only tangentially touches on) one major – probably the critical – issue. That is: what exactly is “the job” Gen. Petraeus (and the scores of thousands of other ranks) being tasked to do? What does “turning Iraq around” really mean in terms of the military – and political – mission? What, then is the desired end result of this latest “surge”? Or for that matter, our entire involvement in Iraq?
Like Charles, I would have vastly preferred the end result of our invasion/occupation to be a country that is truly “…a free, peace[ful], non-theocratic representative republic…” – with, needless to add, a pro-American (or at the minimum, not overtly anti-American) government. However that happy result is, or should have been, by now consigned to the trashcan of false fantasies; and the big flaw in CB’s argument (well, other than the overfacile equation of “phased withdrawal” with “defeat”) is that it (still!) doesn’t articulate an endgame; or an endphase that will cease costing American soldiers their lives and limbs on a daily basis, as now.
Regarding General Petraeus, I seem to remember reading somewhere that he was in charge of building up the Iraqi Army in 2004, an effort that was not all that sucessful.
I wonder if all this confidence in him is a bit misplaced
Petraeus wrote the book in 2006. Others have written books on the topic as well (Hammes in 2004 and Nagl in 2005). Those books were readily available and all of them should have been consulted much earlier in the conflict. But Rumsfeld wanted a chance to prove his doctrine.
I think that Petraeus has a better background for this type of conflict than his predecessors, but I am not at all convinced that our military can sustain the sort of action required for the sort of timeframe needed to succeed. We might have been able to do it 3 years ago, but the odds are much longer today with exhausted troops and worn out equipment and procurement problems.
It’s unlikely that Petraeus will ever get the timescale he needs to make this work. The steps needed to sustain it have not already been taken, and we have squandered several years on a fundamental failure at the top to differentiate between warfighting and counterinsurgency. We are being defeated by opportunity costs and the cumulative effect of all those bad decisions.
I’d love to believe that there’s a new strategy which deserves a chance to work. But this is the same “new strategy” we’ve repeatedly tried over the years, only this time we’re going to somehow make it work. Sorry, Bullwinkle, but real people are dying while you keep trying to pull a rabbit out of that hat. I don’t support it.
You’re right that we’ve done the “clear, hold, and build” strategy before. But there are crucial differences this time which make success more likely.
1. The Iraqi government has said that they won’t restrict by faction who troops go after. Meaning that we’re going after shi’ite militias and criminals. Already we have begun doing this, with Maliki’s permission. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6289891.stm So much to the point that the Mahdi Army is declaring itself “under siege.” http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070118/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_070118180930
2. One reason the previous strategy didn’t work is that we didn’t have enough troops for the “hold” part. There are two reasons for this. One, not enough American troops. Two, the Iraqi troops that were supposed to show up never did, leaving the American troops to do the holding job. This time, Maliki is showing more assertiveness in getting the Iraqi troops to do their job. Although unfortunately as this article indicates, even if the troops get there, they’re not taking responsibilties seriously. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/world/middleeast/25haifa.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=login
The Iraqi government will also be adding an additional 8,000 troops for baghdad, including the 17,000 we’re including, which will bring the total number of combined Iraqi and American troops in baghdad up to 90,000. Nearly double the troops we had the last time we tried the “Clear and hold” strategy. And while that wouldn’t be enough to “clear and hold” all of Baghdad, not all of Baghdad needs securing, just particular neighborhoods. And Petraeus believes that these troops will be enough to secure those neighboorhoods.
The rationale behind the plan is this. We secure these neighborhoods, and build up their economy, by providing jobs and building infrastructure. That way, even if the militias want to come back, the idea is that they won’t have as much support from the neighhborhood. One reason the militias have been so successful, and the country is breaking into factions, is that these neighborhoods don’t trust the Iraqi government to provide security of economic growth. And so are looking to various factions. By buidling up these neighborhoods, the hope is that this will create more public trust with the Iraqi government, which will then enable the political process, which we all agree is the only way we’re ultimately going to overcome this mess, to actually go forward. But security and economic growth needs to happen before this process can go forward.
No one is saying that we can solve this only militarily. What the administration is saying is that the political solution can only happen if security and rebuilding infrastructure is taken care of first.
Now I’m still skeptical myself, for one because of reports like the NYT article which indicates that the Iraqi troops aren’t taking their role seriously. But it seems many that criticize the plan aren’t really fully aware of all the details about it.
Jeff —
I’ve been for more troops in Iraq and a change in direction for a long, and do appreciate that this plan provides both (albeit in far lesser numbers and a far later date that I’d wish). But I’d very much appreciate if a proponent of Bush’s plan would address the underlying assumption: that al-Maliki is trustworthy.
Jeff, thanks for taking the time to walk me through all that. But I have to wonder, if it’s so evident that the whole problem with the “clear, hold, and build” strategy previously was that we didn’t have enough troops, why has virtually every commander taken the position that more American troops is not the answer?
GEN. ABIZAID: “Senator McCain, I met with every divisional commander, General Casey, the core commander, General Dempsey, we all talked together. And I said, in your professional opinion, if we were to bring in more American Troops now, does it add considerably to our ability to achieve success in Iraq? And they all said no. And the reason is because we want the Iraqis to do more. It is easy for the Iraqis to rely upon to us do this work. I believe that more American forces prevent the Iraqis from doing more, from taking more responsibility for their own future.”
Which leaves us with the same old story about “Iraqis in the lead.” I also read the NYT story you linked, and I see no reason to believe it is anything but par for the course. In this respect – the inability of the local troops to do so much as tie their shoes on their own – it truly is Vietnam over again. Whatever we accomplish in Iraq we have to do ourselves, meaning we are a long, long way from the point where we can safely leave the Iraqis in charge.
I do think going after the Shiite militias is a very important step. However, it seems Maliki and the Iraqi soldiers will only do this with a gun to their head, and even then they’re not helping much. While I think Bush did the right thing by playing hardball and telling Maliki, “Either work with us against Sadr, or you’re through,” I wouldn’t trust Maliki on this as far as I can throw him.
We secure these neighborhoods, and build up their economy, by providing jobs and building infrastructure.
If you wanted infrastructure you should have started four years ago. Not going to happen now in a year, not ever going to happen if Baghdad is done piecemeal per the plan. You can’t have an economy with no reliable power, water, or waste disposal.
We secure these neighborhoods, and build up their economy, by providing jobs and building infrastructure. That way, even if the militias want to come back, the idea is that they won’t have as much support from the neighhborhood.
i’m sorry, but that’s hopelessly hopelessly naive. do you really think that, on the ground, the prime beneficiaries of an injection of cash won’t be those that run the neighbourhoods with a monopoly on force?
these neighborhoods don’t trust the Iraqi government to provide security of economic growth. And so are looking to various factions. By buidling up these neighborhoods, the hope is that this will create more public trust with the Iraqi government,
again, sorry, but that’s missing the reality. there is now innate contradiction between the militias and the government, they simply operating at different levels in the new Iraq. The militias keep people safe, and their local legitimacy is solidly established now. This is the new Iraq. Hope to reduce the level of killing by all means (primarily by reducing the militias’ incentives to fight, not by military action) but don’t hope to magically turn it into a different country.
Let’s not all forget one quite vague and general point: we’re not really dealing with mere counterinsurgency anymore. Iraq has solidified hierarchies of power within popularly supported organizations pitted against one another. It’s not 2003. The situation is much more difficult than 2003. Would this “surge” plan have worked in 2003? Probably not. So what reason is there to believe it will work now?
And, once again, what is WORKING? What are the criteria for success here? How do we know whether we are succeeding or not?
“Securitize”?
why has virtually every commander taken the position that more American troops is not the answer?
For the reason you posted.
And the reason is because we want the Iraqis to do more. It is easy for the Iraqis to rely upon to us do this work. I believe that more American forces prevent the Iraqis from doing more, from taking more responsibility for their own future.”
What I believe may have happened is that recent signs by Maliki and the Iraqi government have indicated they are willing to do more, but want our help in doing so. And so some in the military, seeling this new willingness, now support this surge. There has been a shift in tone from previous critics. Casey believes it could work, or at least he’s saying so publically. Maybe he feels differently privately. But since the reason for why they didn’t want more troops now might not be a factor, than their decision may have changed.
Why the change? Honestly I think it’s partly due to the new democratic congress. And it’s also why I support the resolutions being passed in congress. Not because I agree with the content of the resolutions, but because I think it will have an effect in causing Maliki and the Iraqi government to realize our patience is not unlimited, and they have to step up.
As I’ve said, if this surge does work, it will partly be due to the Democratic congress.
hey Charles.
OCS Steve–
“They are mostly to the right but I think that their reporting was very bias free”
I haven’t read them, I confess. I did see Michelle Malkin’s heartwarming pictures of Iraqi children holding miniature American flags, which did not sit well with everyone.
To vote for Petraeus and against the surge seems like a no brainer to me. He’s by all accounts a great general, but that doesn’t mean that the strategy his higher-ups are imposing is a good idea. Of course he publicly supports it. Do you think that means it was his idea?
Re: “securitize” – I think by now Charles is just throwing in words like that every so often because he knows it will get a rise out of some people.
Also, that RedState thread with the “discussion” between Von and Thomas was beyond belief. Bizarroworld, indeed.
I don’t think the new initiative is going to work becasue the insurgents and the militias can just fade into the countryside and bide their time, as the iraqi army when we invaded.
But if it does work, my question is, what do we do then? Just because we have cleared held and built Bagdhad, does that mean the bad guys just give up? Does that mean they the various factions all give up thier ambitions? Does that mean the the Kurds will agree share oil? Does that mean that the Shiites will share oil and power with the sunis?
I think this is another schlock and awe type thing. There is no plan for success. None of the underlying issues are resolved. The insurgents and the militias are not grown from spores form outerspace, they are the result of history and basic human interests. Until those are delt with (and I don’t think the US CAN deal with them), nothing will change.
But really, I believe the parties in power (shiites) in Baghdad are pretending to go along with the US, but they are only going through the motions. They want the US out becasue they hold the upper hand. When the latest US initiative is defeated they are hoping the US withdraws so they can get on with their civil war, a war they think they can win. If you are the shiites now, why would you compromise with the Sunnis? The Sunnis treated the shiites like shit for a long long time. Why forgive that when you have all the power? That’s asking to much of human nature.
securitize — well, CB did say he wanted Maliki to be an honest broker. who knew that what he would be brokering are shares of Bagdad.
to non-finance types: to securitize means to take a package of assets, like car loans, bundle them into a pool, then sell securities which represent interests in the pool. It’s a way of spreading the risk of default of any one loan.
on surging:
when US troops come into your neighborhood, you put down your gun. when they leave, you pick it back up. Who’s to stop you? Your brother wearing a uniform? he’s the one sending you ammo. That Sunni b*stard wearing the uniform? He’s the target.
This time, it’ll be different. Unlike all those other times that “this time” would be different, THIS time I really mean it.
here’s what i think of, when i hear the phrase s ‘milestones’ or ‘turning the corner’.
still, since we have no choice in the matter, i hope this New Way Forward works.
Charles
He did indeed write the book. And according to that book the “surge” is most likely doomed to fail due to insufficient troop levels.
von & cw shoe the problem
I would take it further than von. If Maliki is not be trusted, who replaces him? IOW, the fundamental question for Iraq is whether there is any national leadership, leadership thatrepresnts more than, and importantly, a minority faction.
I don’t think Maliki actually well represents Hakim and SCIRI, for example, who have much closer ties to Iran than Moqtada and the Sadrists. The Shia are not monolithic. Sorry, I no longer believe a majority, consensus gov’t is possible in Iraq. And unlike Italy there are too many outside forces for coalitions to be workable.
IIRC, even Saddam mostly left Fallujah alone. The “country” is just a mess.
Hmmm. So, you think he’s lying? I don’t know how else to interpret this. If he’s not lying, he supports the surge whether it was his idea or not.
I think I gave up on Iraq about the time Sistani gave up. the bombing of the Ali Shrine. I think Sistani took many lessons from that:a)that the Arab Sunnis were intractable, b) that the Arab Sunnis had outside help (SA), and c) and most importantly, that Hakim or Sciri or Moqtada or whomever didn’t really care about areas outside their fiefdoms.
Sistani was by far in the best position jumpstart an Iraq, being about the only national figure, and tried his best and failed. There is nothing Americans can do but take a side in a multi-party civil war. Except there isn’t even a side left to take.
Iraq is a “failed state” Like Somalia, and Lebanon, and Afghanistan, and maybe Haiti, I don’t think you can fix a failed state.
This doesn’t help anybody who wants to know what to do.
Jeff above makes a considerably more impressive effort than the president in responding to the same question that Speaker Pelosi asked:
I don’t think it’s at all unreasonable to look at what people were saying about the strategy in 2005 in deciding whether to credit their views as to the prospects of success on this new plan. What was Gen. P. saying then? How well has it panned out? What were the various water carriers saying? How well has that panned out?
Of course the political situation in Iraq has to be resolved by Iraqis. It’s sad but true that there’s no faction that really wants what we want — at least no faction with much of a national following.
Nell, you left off Pelosi’s parting shot. the full convo goes like this:
Pelosi says she asked Bush why he thought this “surge” would work when two others have failed.
The president’s response: “Because I told them it had to.”
Pelosi: “Why didn’t you tell them that the other two times?”
I guess the unofficial slogans for the latest escalation are, “Third time’s the charm!” and “Because I Really, Really Mean It This Time!”
“This doesn’t help anybody who wants to know what to do.”
We screwed up the country. We need to admit that and give up our geopolitcal goals and turn our attention to mitigating the human cost of what we unleashed. I think the best thing would be to broker a partition. A partition gives the Kurds and maybe the Shiites what they want. The sunnis get no oil and get ethnically cleansed, but maybe we could form a coridor or something so they can get out at least with theirr lives. It woudl be better in terms of human life than a full on civil war. If you held a region wide conference you might be able to get the Saudis and the Syrians to help out the Sunni with aid or something. You would get Iran overtly involved with the devoloution of Iraq and that might be a good thing. Public diplomacy sometimes puts constraints on nations. Plus we might be able to deal with some of our Iranian issues at the same time. They are interrelated.
I don’t expect this to happen soon. What I expect is that we will have an improvement in Baghdad and then more crap happening in the rest of the country and then bagdahd will revert and then we have the slow motion civil war again, the violent partitioning. The we bomb Iran.
Ah. And what will we win, if the latest plan succeeds?
It seems like we’ve always wound up with exactly the right general in exactly the right place at exactly the wrong time. Abizaid was the right choice to build institutions. But by the time he got there, security was the problem. Casey was the right choice to impose security. But by the time he got there, insurgency was the problem. Petraeus is the right choice to counter insurgency. But by the time he gets there, sectarian rivalry will be the problem.
And because the perfect plans of these perfect generals might have worked perfectly if implemented at the perfect time, they doggedly persist in the face of obvious failure and succeed only in delaying the implementation of the next perfect plan far past the point at which it might do any good.
The pro-war folks are beginning to look like coke addicts.
“Please, trust me…one more line, I swear….just let me have one more line and THEN I’ll stop”
He did indeed write the book. And according to that book the “surge” is most likely doomed to fail due to insufficient troop levels.
I’m guessing your basing that on the ratio between troops and population of Baghdad. However I think there’s a flaw that many are engaging when making this analysis.
1. Some only use the amount of American troops, and don’t include Iraqi troops. The total number of troops we’re using is around 90,000. However, even that number wouldn’t be enough to satisfy the ratio Petraeus demands.
2. The other flaw is that people making this analysis are taking the whole of Baghdad as essentially what we’re trying to secure. Instead what the strategy calls for is to divide Baghdad into particular sections, areas where the security is really needed, and then send in a certain amount of troops into each of those sections.
Therefore, when doing your analysis you would first have to ascertain the level of the population for each of those sections, and how many troops are going into these sections.
Now I will admit I do not have those numbers myself, so it’s possible the troops won’t be enough. But those are the measurements that one must take to determine whether we have enough troops to satisfy his ratio. Of course if you’ve done so, then I would have to concede to your point.
I’ll respond to the other responses in a bit. I’ll admit that the arguements are ones I’m having a hard time refuting
I think Sistani took many lessons from that:a)that the Arab Sunnis were intractable, b) that the Arab Sunnis had outside help (SA), and c) and most importantly, that Hakim or Sciri or Moqtada or whomever didn’t really care about areas outside their fiefdoms.
I still wonder who was behind that bombing. In many ways, it did not display the attributes of a Sunni insurgent action. The explosives were reportedly placed with extreme precision, and the security guards were safely tied up rather than killed.
Good comments from Jeff. But re:
“But it seems many that criticize the plan aren’t really fully aware of all the details about it.”
Senator Hagel said just the other day that “There is no plan”.
“by providing jobs and building infrastructure.”
How much will this cost, and where’s the money coming from, and why should we believe it will get to the people who need it given past experience?
Good post, CB. Half looking forward to your November post, “Today I am a defeatist”.
boldaway.
First, I don’t believe that you can use a 1 to 1 ratio of troops suggested by the Coin manual and Iraqi troops. So far, we’ve seen that Iraqi troops are not only not as capable as US troops the coin manual envisioned, but are often detrimental to the effort itself.
So that 90,000 number isn’t really relative to the Coin manual wouldn’t you say?
Secondly, at some point you are going to have to hold not only all of Baghdad, but also the rest of the Sunni Triangle. It’s a safe bet the insurgents and militias aren’t going to say “hey, they seem to have the capital covered, let’s go home and try to get jobs in the oil ministry”.
So in effect, best case we have an augmentation of US forces with Iraqi forces, but we can’t begin to count each Iraqi soldier as 1 US soldier in regards to the Coin requirements, and in the worst case each Iraqi soldier detracts from the existing US levels.
Surge this!
Today In Iraq
BAGHDAD Contrary to U.S. military statements, four U.S. soldiers did not die repelling a sneak attack at the governor’s office in the Shiite holy city of Karbala last week. New information obtained by The Associated Press shows they were abducted and found dead or dying as far as 25 miles away.
The brazen assault 50 miles south of Baghdad was launched Jan. 20 by a group of nine to 12 militants. They traveled in black GMC Suburban vehicles – the type used by U.S. government convoys, had American weapons, wore new U.S. military combat fatigues and spoke English.
In a written statement, the U.S. command reported at the time that five soldiers were killed while “repelling the attack.” Two senior U.S. military officials as well as Iraqi officials now say three of them were found dead and one mortally wounded in locations as far as 25 miles east of the governor’s office.
The U.S. officials said they could not be sure if the soldiers were killed as the attackers drove them to the place where they abandoned the Suburbans or afterward. Iraqi officials said the men were killed just before the vehicles were abandoned.
It’s begining to look like the Iraqi Army is somebody’s militia, which has no qualms stabbing the US in the back, go figure.
New information obtained by The Associated Press shows they were abducted and found dead or dying as far as 25 miles away.
i demand Michelle Malkin goes back to Iraq and tracks down the source of this “information”.
Let’s face it, folks. Bush is just trying to delay the inevitable failure long enough so that he can pin blame on his successor in the White House and the Democratically-controlled Congress. At least that’s my hope. (I’m a bit freaked out by the fact that I’m hoping this, but the alternatives are much too scary to even contemplate.)
BTW, CB: I find that pledge kinda creepy and even unAmerican.
I don’t want to be associated with this.
BTW, CB: I find that pledge kinda creepy and even unAmerican.
It also reeks of desperation.
Let’s change the question: What is it that, given what we know about the nature of leadership in Iraq, people who support this surge (a means in search of an end) envision as the future Iraq? If it’s been made painfully clear that there is no responsible unity government there to prop up, what do they mean to prop up? And what good will these temporary gains do once we leave?
When article after article after article points to the fact that we simply can’t find the kind of leadership we wanted, what exactly do people imagine will happen?
New information obtained by The Associated Press shows they were abducted and found dead or dying as far as 25 miles away.
Laura Rozen speculates that Iran was behind this as a tit-for-tat for our seizing their diplomats.
No one is looking past face-saving, Ara.
Bush just wants to looks as if he’s doing something other than “losing,” just long enough to get out of town.
The Right wants troops there just long enough for the WH to change hands, at which point they can blame a Democratic President for Bush’s failures.
There might be some people out there who sincerely want to be in on rebuilding a strong, stable, democratic Iraq… but unless they have access to a time machine, they’re holding tickets to a destination that no longer exists.
“But if we go down, I’d rather go down after making every effort to make it work. ”
Then go grab a rifle and get out to the desert. How dare you call for one more round of flushing other people’s lives down the toilet in order to try to salvage your Republican party.
You still persist in carrying water for a bunch of criminals. You and your pals at Red State are as much responsible for this disaster as any other member of the Bush propaganda organ.
In ten years most of us can tell our kids we didn’t vote for this crap. You will be making up reasons why it wasn’t the GOP’s fault and propagating your own little stab in the back myth.
So, would an accurate summary here be, “If we’re going to lose, I plan to see as many of those ungrateful bastards dead as we can possibly kill?”
As for the
loyalty oathpledge, well, please don’t throw us in the briar patch, Charles.I don’t think pledging not to donate or support to candidates who oppose a policy you feel strongly about is especially unAmerican. I don’t expect it to do any good, either, but I’ve certainly promised myself not to contribute to people who crossed certain red lines. What I don’t get, Charles, is that you say you yourself would oppose the surge if you didn’t trust Maliki. Well, I don’t trust Maliki. I don’t think he has either the will or the ability to make the plan work politically. And if there’s a leader in Iraq with the will and ability, I have no idea who it would might be (and I might add, even if such a person exists, if the Americans put him into power he would quickly lose any legitimacy will, and ability.) There’s plenty of empirical support for this position–I would say more empirical support for distrusting Maliki than trusting him. (If you disagree, I would be interested in knowing exactly why). You admit you may resign yourself to it by November if things are no better. So what on earth are you taking doing pledging yourself against people who you yourself admit may be completely right? If you are honestly convinced that the surge is wrong, will get US soldiers killed and do nothing (at best), for Iraqis, why is the courageous thing to vote for it anyway so Hugh Hewitt won’t be mad at you?
I don’t think pledging not to donate or support to candidates who oppose a policy you feel strongly about is especially unAmerican.
It’s all in the execution, and in this case, the marketing. You’re right, of course. This particular pledge doesn’t seem based on principles and informed decisions than purely on faith and loyalty. Which is what gives it the creepy vibe.
although I would also not block it, because the cure would be worse than the disease).
Really, Von? I see two choices:
(1) Iraq FUBAR with n Americans dead; or
(2) Iraq FUBAR with n + p Americans dead,
where “p” is the number dead due to our continued involvement and “surge.”
Why, exactly, would anyone at ObWi prefer n + p dead Americans?
You *admit* the plan can’t work without serious Iraqi-gov’t support; you *admit* how implausible that is; but “the alternatives are worse.”
Worse for which relatives of our soldiers in Iraq?
Or am I just hopelessly Americanocentric?
I don’t really see a huge problem with The Pledge either.
It’s your right to signal in advance what you plan to do with your disposable income.
The problem is, it’s an empty threat. Even assuming 100% of a Republicans “base” sticks with the candidate, there just aren’t that many congresional congressional districts where that base is enough to get you re-elected.
Also, it would be interesting to cross reference the list of “pledgers” with a database of past contributors such as opensecrets.org.
I wonder percentage of these pledgers have never given a dime to a political campaign in their lives? 40%? 50%? Or even more?
This is a nice post and must have been painful to write — but there is no reality behind the wish to make things better, just an admirable if misguided sentiment. Unfortunately, it is also wasting American lives for no good reason — no one can morally indulge this vain wish for “one last chance.”
We are not really in a COIN situation. First, all of the locals hate us and want us gone, except for those who are dependent on our presence to maintain some degree of power. Those factions have no future (are there any anymore?). You cannot wage successful COIN in this environment — we are wasting the lives of Americans trying to do so.
This point should be re-emphasized — the presence of Americans inflames the fighting. Americans are not able to calm things down, restore order and rebuild the economic and political strucutre so that some normalcy can return. It is not possible for COIN to work.
To the extent that locals “cooperate,” it is because we are the 800 lb. gorilla that they must accommodate — we are the most powerful faction. But they know we will be gone someday, and they are holding their positions and exploiting circumstances with a view to the long term situation. It is blindly foolish to expect any Iraqi to be our partner in this endeavor. Certainly not now after they have seen us utterly botch the situation, and being identified as friendly with Americans is the kiss of death — we have zero goodwill there.
Second, this is no longer an insurgency, but a massive power struggle amongst many armed factions. Sunni v. Shiite and also major rifts amongst Shiites. We cannot solve this problem. Our presence keeps this conflict at a lower boil, but it will explode at some point (and certainly will as we ramp down our presence — hopefully it can be moderated to lessen the violence; does that meeean partition?). COIN and Gen Petraeus have no power to stop it. Which faction will they back? — that is what it comes down to, and how the Iraqis view it. Whether its a civil war or a failed state scenario (they would seem to overlap anyway), this is simply not a problem that US military force can solve.
Frankly, what do you expect to happen by November? My prediction is that the dead-enders for this war will find enough of a glimmer to insist on another 6 to 9 months “to give it a chance to work,” and some other variant of a plan will be floated that justifies more time. Its a variation on the Cheney 1% doctrine — so long as there is a slim glimmer, we must keep trying.
The Republican party is now wedded to the necessity to find someone else to blame for failure rather than solve this war. That, in my opinion, is the ultimate point of the pledge. Keep the Party together even if behind a hopeless plan rather than ever be part of a withdrawal since that means accountability and will be the political kiss of death. Charles presages this view — he still calls it “defeatist.”
I note that Charles has indicated he is a believer in the nonsense (evil nonsense) that Viet Nam was lost in 1975 because Congress would not approve new funding as South Viet Nam collapsed. I would expect the same pattern to take hold with this war as Republicans grope for a way to blame someone else rather than deal realistically with the problem; anything to avoid admitting 100% Republican culpability in the worst strategic blunder in American history. The Viet Nam failure was overcome with time and no long term harm resulted, but what is going to be the consequence of massive instability in the heart of the Middle East?
And lurking in the background for the pledge crowd is the lurking possibility of Iranian conflict.
Even though it isn’t needed (or maybe because it is not needed), there’s a meta thread at TiO
What do the Iraqis want?
Do they want us to leave, or stay?
Do they want Maliki in charge, or someone else?
Do they want to forge a single government, or do they want to separate politically along ethnic and religious lines?
If there is no consensus among the Iraqi people regarding what they want, what process can be created to let them negotiate their differences?
Who will referee that process?
Do they want us involved?
What do the Iraqis want?
Thanks –
What’s un-American is the notion that a general has declared (at the urging of Sen. Lieberman, as it happens) that expressing opposition to the current strategy would encourage our enemies, and thus we shouldn’t feel at liberty to dissent.
The underlying principle of withdrawing support from candidates you disagree with is, of course, unobjectionable.
“I don’t think pledging not to donate or support to candidates who oppose a policy you feel strongly about is especially unAmerican.”
Hmm, why do I have that reaction? Maybe it’s “pledge”. If it was a “list”, as CB put it, I think I’d have less of a problem. And this struck me as out-there:
This isn’t, “Vote my way or I’ll support a primary challenger”, it’s more like a nuclear option – over a non-binding resolution to be signed by plain everyday conservatives.
Somewhere above was the question why no commander on the ground has asked for more troops.
My answer to that can be summed up in one word: Shinseki.
If there was one thing clear in the last few years, it was that asking for more troops was assured career suicide. The same with the generals who opposed the surge plan: replaced immediately. And there are signs that Rumsfeld was fired not for botching Iraq or costing the GOP their majority in the midterms but for doubting the Endsieg.
I do agree that since it’s so poorly supported–it doesn’t make sense, in light of the rest of Charles’ post, that he would sign this–that it seems to based primarily on loyalty to our Commander in Chief rather than anything else. And it’s creepy seeing people voluntarily dedicate themselves to that, punishing party members who don’t support the Commander in Chief.
I guess I’m just used to that sort of thing by now, though.
I find it difficult not to be pretty upset by this post.
If you gave up on Iraq earlier, you were a “loser-defeatist”. If you give up now, you’re just a defeatist. If you give up next November, you’re still a defeatist, but at least CB will join you. (Whether he will retain posting privileges at RS following such a shift remains to be seen.)
Question 1: What the hell does defeatist mean in this context? A desire for the US to adopt sharia as law of the land? What’s the opposite of defeatist, a victorist?
Q2: I believe that the only possible alternative to hot civil war in Iraq is ethnic cleansing, followed by the slow collapse of the central government. Yugoslavia, essentially, with a little less fighting. I do not desire this solution.
What am I? A defeatist or a victorist?
Q3: since when did basic security become victory? Saddam had that. We were supposed to have higher goals.
Let’s remember CB’s victory criteria:
(a) unified;
(b) stable;
(c) democratic;
(d) pro-Western;
(e) non-theocratic;
(f) ally against terrorism.
Since the Shia hate al Qaeda, it looks like (f) alone is what we’re likely to achieve. If Petraeus can pull the rabbit out of the hat, we can add (b). Does going 2 for 6 justify this war?
Q4: Pointing out that the President’s (and CB’s) goals are impossible to achieve has gotten one called things much worse than loser-defeatist. Objectively pro-Saddam was one. Traitor was another.
Are there any apologies coming forth?
The only “solution” I think could technically work (though totally unacceptable of course from any moral POV):
a) Divide the country into a Kurdish region with as much oil as possible in it (and a land corridor to the West).
b) raize any revenue producing infrastructure in the rest of the country to the ground and make clear that any attempt to rebuild would be punished by bombing
c) withdraw to the Kurdish region
d) thorough ethnic cleansing of the Kurdish regions and eviction of any non-Kurds
e) (optional) encourage the neighbouring states to deport their own Kurdish minorities into Kurdish Iraq while taking in their cleansed kin from point d)
“Positive” Results:
a) residual Iraq worthless for Iran
b) the oil there would stay save until the US needs it later
c) the Northern oil secure for US
d) secure ME foothold outside Saudi Arabia (the Kurds need US protection)
Again, not even Bush (not sure about Chain-Eye) would actually consider that amount of “amoral realism”.
Too bad that more politicians in DC do not believe so, and do not have the stones to stick to it.
CB,
Careful, you almost sounded reasonable until this point. But if you feel this way, by all means go sign your little “pledge”*, it’s not like one more documented example of your wrongness will be a tipping point in causing you to rethink the thought processes that brought you to that point. The rest of us have seen enough and aren’t particularly enthused by the idea of 2 more Friedmans of stay the course.
* Of course you are fully within your rights to advocate for the surge and to pressure your representatives to do likewise. Non-loyalty oath loyalty oaths don’t seem to be the smartest way to reach an intelligent consensus on anything, however.
Tehran’s Influence Grows As Iraqis See Advantages
Washington Post Foreign Service
BAGHDAD, Jan. 25 — When Fadhil Abbas determined that his mother’s astigmatism required surgery, they did not consider treatment in his home town of Najaf, in southern Iraq. Instead they joined a four-taxi convoy of ailing Iraqis headed to Iran.
For more than two weeks last fall, Abbas, his sister and his mother were treated to free hotels, trips to the zoo and religious shrines, and his mother’s $1,300 eye surgery at a hospital in Tehran, all courtesy of the offices of Moqtada al-Sadr, Iraq’s ascendant Shiite Muslim cleric. Abbas returned to Najaf glowing over the technical prowess of Iran.
“When you look at this hospital, it is like something imaginary — you wouldn’t believe such a hospital like this exists,” said Abbas, a 22-year-old college student. “Iran wants to help the patients in Iraq. Other countries don’t want to let Iraqis in.”
The increasingly common arrangement for sick or wounded Iraqis to receive treatment in Iran is just one strand in a burgeoning relationship between these two Persian Gulf countries. Thousands of Iranian pilgrims visit the Shiite holy cities in southern Iraq each year. Iran exports electricity and refined oil products to Iraq, and Iraqi vendors sell Iranian-made cars, air coolers, plastics and the black flags, decorated with colorful script, that Shiites are flying this week to celebrate the religious holiday of Ashura. But when President Bush and top U.S. officials speak of Iran’s role in Iraq, their focus is more limited. U.S. officials accuse Iranian security forces, particularly the al-Quds Brigade of the Revolutionary Guards, of funneling sophisticated explosives to Iraqi guerrillas.
Other countries don’t want to let Iraqis in.”
The United States doesn’t trust the people it is liberating.
What do the Iraqis want?
A couple of data points:
Alaa:
Mohammed:
It has been only a little over a year since Iraq’s elections, and 8 or 9 months since Maliki took office. I don’t see a problem with giving Iraq’s government support and showing a little more patience.
Those elections were a good thing, I think. This time last year, things were looking pretty good. Then the terrorists had their biggest success when the mosque in Samarra was bombed last February, after the election and before Maliki’s cabinet was sworn in. Why not give Maliki a chance? Eight months is not a long time. I am well awarch how much the Democrats despise him, but Maliki has a tough job, and no he’s not a US puppet, hence the protest against him in congress.
Patience.
“But if we go down, I’d rather go down after making every effort to make it work.”
So where’s the demand for a draft?
A couple of data points:
Two Iraqi bloggers with established reputations for going against the grain of Iraqi public opinion do not a data point make.
Hey Charles:
Petraeus is a very good general.
Bush is a very bad President, but he happens to be Petraeus’s boss.
Even when the crappy boss is putting his star employee in an terrible situation, it’s still a good idea to vote for the employee who is competent and still oppose the boss who is not.
Bush’s policies in Iraq have already failed and the surge will not result in a great big pony, but maybe Petraeus can get us to a place where we can disengage without too much of the added chaos that Bush’s policies could still create.
Any questions?
But, oh that’s right, you’ve been right about Bush and Iraq since the very beginning so we should all be giving you the benefit of the doubt. After all, if those weak and stupid opponents of the war had been right all along, then you would surely give them the benefit of the doubt now and not question their courage or motives… or something like that.
Stop insulting us and go take a hard look in the mirror.
Cheers,
Sean
Had Iraq clearly been on the path of becoming a free, peace, non-theocratic representative republic, the GOP would have been in the majority today (in my opinion), missteps by Republicans in Congress notwithstanding.
To quote my beloved father, if my Aunt Sally had balls, she’d be my Uncle Jake.
Tony Snow can challenge reporters to embed more and rely less on stringers with unknown biases.
He can, but only in the spirit of not buying the cow when you can get the propaganda for free. What he should do, if he were interested in getting accurate reportage, is encourage them to leave the Green Zone — not embedded with a particular squad but rather as free and independent (and hopefully heavily protected) reporters in a dangerous area. It’s the only way to guarantee fair coverage.
Of course, that’s precisely what the administration doesn’t want but hey, while we’re wishing for ponies…
Quite frankly, it appears to me that those advocating unilateral withdrawal must also believe that Iraq is a lost cause. It is a defeatist position.
Alternatively, those who believe Iraq is winnable are fabulists. And some of us have outgrown fairy-tales.
As to Petraeus: I agree he’s about as good a man for the job as we’re likely to find. And I too look forward to your full-fledged embrace of “defeatism” in another Friedman or two.
“If we go down…”
Just what the heck is that supposed to mean.
Listen, we can’t go down if what you mean is be destroyed as a country. That is a defeatist’s phrase. So let’s drop the macho lingo right now.
As mentioned above, just what is the goal. Initially it was remove wmds. There weren’t any so accomplished.
Then it was regime change. Done.
Then we decided we had to take care of al Qaeda in Iraq. Of course, if we hadn’t gone in, there would have been no al Qaeda in Iraq. And I still think the best way to get rid of al Qaeda in Iraq is to leave.
Then we will have accomplished that goal.
Democracy? Not the way we want it in any of our lifetimes.
What do we lose if we leave? Maybe a little credibility, but then that is shot anyway.
Charles: “But most of the soldiers on the ground appear optimistic of success and believe in their mission. Too bad that more politicians in DC do not believe so, and do not have the stones to stick to it.”
As other people have noted, you say this without citing any evidence at all, and in the face of polls that show the opposite. This isn’t the first time you’ve had a faith-based view of what’s happening in Iraq — to pick an example more or less at random, there was this:
in which you were apparently certain that you had a better idea of what was going on in Iraq than John Murtha, based, as far as I could tell, on a lot less information.
Do you ever wonder about this ability to feel certain that you know what’s happening in Iraq — certain enough to know that reporters who have been there, a Congressman who goes every week to talk to wounded soldiers, etc., are all mistaken? Does the fact that you have consistently been wrong about what’s happening there give you pause?
And does it worry you at all that the cost of going along with the surge only to discover that this President was wrong yet again is measured in people’s lives — lives that will be cut short long before their time, kids who will have to grow up without a father or a mother, husbands and wives whose hearts will be broken, parents who will outlive their children?
This is not a game. This President’s incompetence has already broken a country apart, inflamed the Middle East, provided both a recruiting and training ground for terrorists and a new safe haven for them, distracted us from our real enemy in Afghanistan, and put us in a position where we could very well lose that war, cost hundreds of thousands of people their lives, and done immeasurable harm to our national interests and our moral standing.
On what possible basis would you want to trust him with more?
What Hil said. And it’s not about ‘stones.’
I agree with everyone on this thread, or nearly everyone. But.
I’m afraid that when we leave the Shia militias and the Iraqi army, which appears to be a Shia militia too, will surround the Sunni neighborhoods and just go door to door killing everyone. I realize that COIN, as it is actually implemented in Iraq, puts our soldiers in the postion of supporting the Iraqi army/Shia militia, but I don’t think think it will get to the level of ethnic cleansing if we are there.
I never supported this stupid awful war but, if the aftermath is the mass killing of Sunnis, I will feel responsible.
Can anyone reassure me about this?
What Hil said. And it’s not about ‘stones.’
It must therefore be about ‘sticks’.
Less snarkily, this:
in which you were apparently certain that you had a better idea of what was going on in Iraq than John Murtha, based, as far as I could tell, on a lot less information.
reminds me of one of the things I think betokens the fall of the American civilization [and I’m not exaggerating here, I really do think it’s that dangerous]: the inability to perceive or acknowledge differing levels of expertise, coupled with an odds-defying belief in the correctness of the outsider-iconoclast who “challenges the system” or “speaks truth to power” or some BS like that. In less hifalutin’ terms, we have a simultaneous crisis in our ability to process the world, namely:
1) There’s too much information out there for us to process individually
2) Many people can no longer distinguish between genuine expertise and fake expertise
3) Many people have bought into the myth that all pronouncements on fact and/or science are reducible to an arbitrary belief, and hence
3′) Many people have become convinced that there is no true distinction between genuine expertise and fake expertise; alternatively, that there are no such things as experts as all, merely differing points of view.
4) Many people have bought into the myth of a single rebel or iconoclast bringing Truth to the Establishment; and what is more, they seem to think that they personally are such people, in defiance of all the odds.*
[Note carefully that I’m not imputing these failings to any one particular group; while I believe that certain ideologies lend themselves to these flaws, I’ve seen enough to convince me that they’re rampant everywhere.]
These are utterly pernicious, insidious and devastating and I haven’t got a damn idea how to fight them except laboriously, one person — or in my case, student — at a time. It really is like watching the Enlightenment get rolled back.
* The most irritating version of this I’ve ever encountered was a friend of mine who had dropped out of college but was convinced he might have great mathematical insights because — wait for it — Ramanujan had. I kid you not.
lily: no.
The only real questions, I think, are: on what timetable will the awful aftermath take place? What other countries will get involved? And will we be in the middle of it, or, worse, overseeing it because we are unable or unwilling to stop our alleged allies from killing people?
Charles may find this “defeatist”. If “defeatism” involves some sort of wish that this happen, he could not be more wrong. One of the main reasons I opposed the war at the outset was that I thought that while some combination of skill and luck might enable us to avoid this, it was way too likely to be risked, especially given the reasons for war being presented.
If “defeatism” involves recognizing defeat when it becomes inevitable, then I think it’s a completely misleading term — like calling the doctor who gives you the bad news “pro-cancer”. But I believe we have irretrievably lost in Iraq. I also think that while losing was always way too likely to be risked, it was made much more likely by people who shouted down the kinds of criticisms that might actually have helped had they been heeded.
Those people thought they were being “loyal” and “pro-American”. But our country has always been about tolerating debate, not about providing a misleading picture of unanimity to the world. (That’s North Korea’s style, not ours.) We argue, and we are stronger for it, since in the course of hashing things out everyone’s ideas are improved; but preserving some fake silence completely precludes the kind of self-correction that is our real strength.
Even now, we could be doing a lot to mitigate this disaster. We could be trying to negotiate some sort of plan for what comes next with Iraq’s neighbors, or at least trying to prevent them from doing maximal damage. Instead, we’re wasting this time, as we have wasted those earlier moments when more troops might have made a difference, pretending that everything will be OK.
We could have done a lot in the summer and fall of 2003, if Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush had not been so invested in believing that everything was fine except for a few “dead-enders”. Recognizing that things were going badly wrong and responding accordingly might actually have done a lot of good. But we squandered that time being lectured about how we weren’t paying enough attention to all those freshly painted schools.
We could do a lot now, but instead we get to be lectured about how we need to give the President one more chance, and how we’re “defeatist” if we disagree.
I only hope this line of thought is less disastrous this time. But I’m not the least bit optimistic.
I admire, but do not for a moment envy, those of you with sufficient energy and – dare I say it? – belief in the redemptive power of reason to engage “loser-defeatist” CB in dialogue once again.
Me – well, I don’t actually have A Life, but I must have something better to do!
Shall I offer a suggestion?
dr ngo: look at the pictures in my new post!
Hilzoy: Thanks for the pretty pictures. ;}
Anarch: I already know what your suggestion might be, thank you very much. (I blame the children.)
‘we get to be lectured about how we need to give the President one more chance, and how we’re “defeatist” if we disagree.’
I took CB‘s penultimate sentence above to be an understated ironic acknowledgment that “defeatist” isn’t useful.
I think lily makes an awful, wrenching, unavoidable point here:
I never supported this stupid awful war but, if the aftermath is the mass killing of Sunnis, I will feel responsible.
Can anyone reassure me about this?
Well, lily, all I can say is this: My passport is blue and has a big, bombastic eagle on the front. Does yours? If so, then we both bear at least some of the blame for this disaster. At the very least, whether we voted for the SOB or not (as I to my undying shame did in 2000), we are citizens of the Republic which sent its Army forth to wreck Iraq without a very good idea what might happen afterward. (Oh, the Republic’s State Department had a 1200 page plan for what might happen thereafter, but the Republic’s Minister for War ordered that his paladins ignore that plan. As they said in Paris in 1941, so ist das Leben, meine Lieben!)
So there we are. Passengers in a badly-driven bus.
And that is why I put my name on the list, and I find myself in full agreement with Mark I.
Damn, and here I was thinking that you had joined my beloved Corps and then I saw that you had put your name on a list, I followed the URL hoping to see that you had pledged to join the Corps with a bunch fellow Conservatives. You have no idea how disappointed I was to see that it was a pledge not to financially support elected republicans with a solid grasp on reality.
So there we are. Passengers in a badly-driven bus
When the driver was selected, we should have realized that he was drunk, had never driven a car and could barely steer a tricycle,therefor it is not a surprise that the bus slammed into a concrete wall a seventy miles an hour.
Could you all puleeze lighten up on Chuckydoodle (sorry, Charles). Let’s understand something. Of course his post is idiotic–I would have expected more from ObWi–but to criticize him for use of “securitizing” (or whatever it was) instead of “securing” is about as dumb as criticizing others for using “medication” instead of “medicine.”
Let’s understand something. Like the universe, the english language expands. First we had “medicine.” Then we had “medicate.” Next we had “medication” (same as “medicine”). Next we’ll have “medicationate,” followed by medicationatizing.”
Chuckydoodle’s “securitizing” was in the same vein. First we had “secure”, then “security,” next “securitize,” and possibly later “securitization.” Und so weiter.
BTW, Chuckydoodle’s rant was hillarious.
BTW, the reason that Chuckydoodle’s rant was hillarious is that it evokes the message of “triumph of hope over experience.” Chuckydoodle doesn’t have the slightest inkling of the history of Iraq or what a “desirable” outcome (although the definition of “desirable” is is highly debatable) from the US’s little adventure in Iraq. Quite frankly, as it appears, Chuckydoodle’s Grand Poobah Dubya seems more interested in defeating the militia of the lesser-Iran-associated Shia Militia, the Mahdis, in favor of the more-Iran-associated Shia Militia, the Bugrs (associated with Maliki), and the Sunni-be-damned.
And the Kurds are going to be allowed to go along their whey, potentially wreaking havoc in Turkey. Need I remind Chuckydoodle that Turkey is a NATO ally of the US? On the other hand, it has become abundantly clear to the other “allies” that the American government under our popinjay president does not consider alliances worth the paper they are printed on.
I’m sorry, Chuckydoodle, but your prescription for “victory,” such as it is, and whatever it is, is stupid.
I don’t bear any responsibility for the debacle in Iraq. I thought it was a bad idea, and said so. I voted for people who thought it was a bad idea, voted against it, and have said so consistently.
I should say that I wouldn’t blame an Iraqi who thinks I share responsibility, but I certainly don’t have to listen to any American at all who says that. Especially not from people who voted for the President. The extent to which they say they didn’t know who he really was at the time, they’re saying they weren’t paying close enough attention to make a decision. Or that they didn’t want to vote for the guy who was “boring” or the guy who “invented the Internet.”
We got into this through the immaturity, and pandering to immaturity, of millions.
At a different level, I’m also not responsible if, after we leave, people of one Iraqi faction kill people of another. We’ve neither created the factions nor their rivalry. When we’re gone, they can either come together and stop or not. If Shiites start a genocide, maybe the saudis will intervene, I don’t know. I do know that we lack moral authority or legitimacy to re-intervene, or to be trying to fine tune matters there now.
(That is, the talk of a coup in Iraq — and the President’s explicit threat to Maliki that unless he does X, he “will be out” is exactly the wrong way to go. And I’m not going to take responsibility for it, either.)
Charlie, I will be quietly amused when they finally ban your ass at Redstate for not clapping loud enough.
Katherine: I haven’t read them, I confess.
But that doesn’t stop you from taking a swipe at MM? Over one picture…
At the very least, I highly recommend you take the time to read through Bill’s posts. The guy took a month long leave of absence from work and spent thousands of dollars of his own money (with some support by readers) to embed in Iraq.
This trip has briefly exposed me to personal extremes of stress, humor, camaraderie, nobility, savagery, hope, despair, fear and excitement, either as an observer or participant. I’ve arrived at a better understanding of the chaos that stalks civilization and met a lot of inspiring folks who make me want to be a better human being. I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything in the world.
His writing is very straightforward and is nowhere near cheerleading for the administration. His interviews with Iraqis are quite sobering. His interviews with the troops show a very human side to those who are there risking their lives every day. All of it is well worth reading for anyone on any side of the political spectrum.
Seriously – shelve the politics for a little bit and just read these folks. I read your posts and give them serious consideration even though I rarely agree with you. Obviously you don’t owe me a minute of your time for doing that, but you are missing some great reporting if you skip it.
BTW – Can anyone name a lefty blogger who did an embed? It is very possible it happened and I just missed it. But I think it is ironic that one of the left’s favorite slurs against righty bloggers is that of chickenhawk. Yet we have plenty of examples of these chickenhawks on the ground in Iraq, outside the green zone, bringing us some great first hand reporting. On the left?
OCS, ‘chickenhawk’ doesn’t have anything to do with whether someone will go to Iraq and be an embedded reporter.
I read embeds now and then, and appreciate the human side of the thing. But then losing sight of that has never been my problem. Or, to put it differently, it’s not my side of the argument that seems to forget about the humanity of these people: we’re not the ones playing with their lives like chess pieces.
I don’t bear any responsibility for the debacle in Iraq. I thought it was a bad idea, and said so. I voted for people who thought it was a bad idea, voted against it, and have said so consistently.
Yes, you do!
Your tax dollars are paying for this disaster, and if you think that the world does not hold you responsible for this disaster you are delusional (They may not be able to do anything about it, but that’s another story).
And when some Iraqi decides that it’s payback time, he is not going to ask you whether or not you voted for Shrub or supported the war before he puts a bullet in your head (and if you are fortunate that is all he will do), and the rest of the world will sit back and say “though shit, you had it coming”.
But, OCSteve, it seems that the reason right wing bloggers feel they need to go to Iraq is because they feel that the current narrative is wrong and they need to discover the ‘truth’. However, bloggers from the left, if they went and reported how bad things were, would be dismissed as ignoring the good things, right? Or should left bloggers, because they feel it is incredibly dangerous in Iraq, be forced to go to Iraq, in order to provide some ‘balance’, so we can have both sides voice opinions from the same set of experiences.
I’m also thinking there is a bit of hypersensitivity in defining what Katherine said about Malkin as a ‘swipe’. Sure, it was a bit of snark, but given her demogogery on almost every issue (how about that crescent shaped memorial?), she doesn’t deserve the concern.
Thanks for the link to Ardolino’s posts. However, the last line of his Examiner piece stood out for me.
In 2004, the number of police in Fallujah was zero.
We invaded in March 2003. How is it possible that there were no police in 2004? It is a revealing detail.
Spencer Ackerman.
Also, although not embedded, Christopher Allbritton was doing reader-supported on-the-ground reporting in Iraq while Roggio was still cheerleading in his bathrobe.
At a different level, I’m also not responsible if, after we leave, people of one Iraqi faction kill people of another. We’ve neither created the factions nor their rivalry. When we’re gone, they can either come together and stop or not.
As a country you are, since you created the circomstances that made this chaos possible.
I’m also thinking there is a bit of hypersensitivity in defining what Katherine said about Malkin as a ‘swipe’.
You are right. I retract and apologize. I seem to be cranky today.
Oh, that was a swipe….I told Zeyad that I was sure that if she decided he needed to be interned for national security she would make sure the troops gave him candy and miniature American flags.
I’m glad she went, it’s better than not, but I do not rely on her analysis of the situation one tiny tiny tiny bit and I think that you would shows wishful thinking or exceedingly poor judgment. I haven’t gone to Iraq, but there are plenty of excellent reporters who have, whose judgment and objectivity I trust far more than Malkin’s. The McClatchy Baghdad Bureau to give one of countless examples.
liberal japonicus: However, bloggers from the left, if they went and reported how bad things were, would be dismissed as ignoring the good things, right?
I’d like to think not, but there would be some saying that I’m sure. But again, these folks reported at least as much bad as good. In fact a lot of pessimism comes through in their posts.
Matt: Point taken.
I think that you would shows wishful thinking or exceedingly poor judgment.
I bought a Betamax in the early 80s. What can I say. Seriously though, I don’t rely on her for analysis. I just think that the reports and the experience are interesting. And I can see where she is so far away from you politically that you might have trouble reading her seriously. So forget her. But the others are still worth your time.
Dahr Jamail was unembedded.
Do bloggers count that were/are not there personally but are in direct contact with people that are/were?
http://blog.newstandardnews.net/iraqdispatches/
http://dahrjamailiraq.com/
Dahr Jamail is quite informative too
Don’t know whether he is better described as blogger or as journalist or both
OCSteve – hopefully my response didn’t come across as too snarky. ‘Tis early, and I’m caffeine-deprived.
Incidently, you may be interested in this Nir Rosen article on his experiences in Iraq as both an embed and an independent reporter.
matt – not at all. And thanks for the links.
Charles:
Quite frankly, it appears to me that those advocating unilateral withdrawal must also believe that Iraq is a lost cause. It is a defeatist position.
Very smart generals don’t think so From TPM – Congressional testimony of Gen Odom. Highly recommended read.
Charles — please note how you wrongly demonize the opposition here, instead of realizing that there are extremely sound military and political reasons why withdrawal is the right plan.
Money quote from Odom:
Several critics of the administration show an appreciation of the requirement to regain our allies and others’ support, but they do not recognize that withdrawal of US forces from Iraq is the sine qua non for achieving their cooperation. It will be forthcoming once that withdrawal begins and looks irreversible. They will then realize that they can no longer sit on the sidelines. The aftermath will be worse for them than for the United States, and they know that without US participation and leadership, they alone cannot restore regional stability. Until we understand this critical point, we cannot design a strategy that can achieve what we can legitimately call a victory.
Any new strategy that does realistically promise to achieve regional stability at a cost we can prudently bear, and does not regain the confidence and support of our allies, is doomed to failure. To date, I have seen no awareness that any political leader in this country has gone beyond tactical proposals to offer a different strategic approach to limiting the damage in a war that is turning out to be the greatest strategic disaster in our history.
The unjust, criminal Iraq Invasion and Occupation’s incompetent handling aside, Republicans would still be governing?
After the $13.5 B taxpayer subsidies to the Oil Industry?
After the Katrina fiasco?
After the Medicare Part D payoff of insurance and pharmaceutical campaign contributions?
After the $250 B “pork barrel” and massive deficit spending?
After conspiring with the banking industry to indemnify lenders from their own bilking of consumers by precluding debt relief through bankruptcy?
After ignoring the global climate changes and environmental degredations?
After such “pro-active” foreign policies with Iran and North Korea?
After repeated efforts to scandalize the Constitution with “wedge” issues?
After abandoning the 100+ years of Geneva Conventions?
After American torture of “suspects” under executive tyranny?
Are YOU serious?
If an Ocean City policeman breaks into OCS’s house and steals his silver, I’m not responsible. Sure, I pay taxes in the state, and some of my money goes towards local policing, but I’m not responsible for this.
Can anyone name a lefty blogger who did an embed?
As I believe MB has mentioned, Spackerman, who was planning on going again in December (?) but then got ‘dis-invited.’ I can only speculate that he wasn’t clapping loudly enough at the time he asked.
To the questions of The Gay Species:
I fear the answer is “Yes”.
Apart from my belief that the GOP is guilty of massive election rigging I think that the US public is apathetic enough to put up with all of this provided the base is fed with enough red meat (=wedge issues).
If you ask some, you will hear: Yes, it’s bad but the “Democrat Party” in charge would be far worse and immoral to boot.”
If an Ocean City policeman breaks into OCS’s house and steals his silver, I’m not responsible. Sure, I pay taxes in the state, and some of my money goes towards local policing, but I’m not responsible for this.
???
I have no silver BTW 🙂 Stainless all around.
And italics too?
Good grief…
Yes Petraeus “wrote the book on counterinsurgency”. But:
1. Is there any reason to believe that going “by the book” would lead to success?
2. It’s questionable that what’s going on in Iraq is actually an “insurgency”, in spite of the frequent appearance of the word “insurgent” in the media.
Modern War: Counter-Insurgency as Malpractice – Edward Luttwak critiques the counterinsurgency field manual (PDF).
If an Ocean City policeman breaks into OCS’s house and steals his silver, I’m not responsible. Sure, I pay taxes in the state, and some of my money goes towards local policing, but I’m not responsible for this.
You are if you open all his doors, resign all policemen and open all prisons in his neighbourhood.
Had Iraq clearly been on the path of becoming a free, peace, non-theocratic representative republic, the GOP would have been in the majority today (in my opinion), missteps by Republicans in Congress notwithstanding.
This is true.
The fault for the embarrassing loss last November can be squarely laid at the feet of George W. Bush.
This is partly true, and partly self-exculpatory nonsense.
Certainly, the Bush administration is filled with harebrained ideologues who destroy everything they touch. On the other hand, they could have been brought to heel – five and half years ago – had the Republican-controlled Congress been doing its job.
But, in fact, it didn’t. That might have something to do with the fact that these very same Republicans had controlled Congress for the preceding six years without actually accomplishing anything of importance. That surely contributed to the supine posture of Congress during the salad days of the Bush administration.
In the 90s one was free to assume that the Executive branch was competent, and could deal with the nation’s problems, so the congressmen were free to throw Molotov cocktails at the President. Which the Republicans did with glee, during that whole impeachment farce. They were egged on – I must say – by people like you, Charles.
So now, when the country is going broke while stuck in an unwinnable war, you would like to wash your hands of all responsibility and place the blame on Bush’s head. Sorry, that’s not going to fly.
You Republicans make a great deal of noise over being the Party of Responsibility. Your credibility is shot to on that one, in light of recent events.
You all share the blame, and the country knows it.
They were egged on – I must say – by people like you, Charles.
What a load of steaming crap, Robert, which is my opinion of comments from people like you.
The Luttwak article in Harpers (presumably the one linked to above but I don’t click on pdf links when on my crotchety home computer) had some jingoistic garbage buried in it. There was this notion that counterinsurgency warfare can achieve victory if it is carried out in a sufficiently brutal fashion, and Luttwak alludes to the Germans in WWII as an example, while saying that such behavior is impossible for us. Well, we’re not going to set up extermination camps or go as far as the Germans, but we certainly didn’t shy away from targeting civilians in Vietnam and we supported some pretty brutal counterinsurgency wars conducted by our allies in Central America. And we have tortured people, though with considerable dissent (eloquently expressed here, among many other places). So I think he gives us too much credit.
That nonsense aside, it was an interesting read, but I never know how much I can trust someone who drops little flagwaving nuggets of that sort into an article.
The model for American fascism, colonial or not, should it ever rise — and I devoutly hope it won’t — will not be Hitler, it will be either Mussolini or Franco. Which I suppose is something of a compliment, but I’m mainly saying it to counter the inevitable Godwinization.
Yeah, it’s the same one, DJ. I also had issues with the portions you alluded to. Luttwak is one of those amoral CSIS ‘realists’ who have no problem musing academically about crushing third-world skulls under first-world boot heels (freedom on the march, indeed).
But there are some valid points, especially with regards to how effective the counterinsurgency strategy is likely to be when applied in situations like Iraq.
What a load of steaming crap, Robert, which is my opinion of comments from people like you.
I am threatened with banning from von from inserting ellipses in a comment, but Charles, for this, retains front-page posting privileges. Amazing.
“People like you?” Huh.
Robert Bell:
“Had Iraq clearly been on a path of becoming a free, peaceful, representative republic the GOP would have been in the majority today (in my opinion), missteps by Republicans in Congress notwithstanding.”
‘This is true.’
Well, it bears pointing out that the big names at Red State and the conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives believe this to be a false statement of the first order. According to them, Iraq had nothing to do with the electoral defeat; a few less manhandled congressional pages, zeroing out Amtrak and NPR, privatizing the Weather Service, and outlawing abortion would have ushered in a thousand-year reign for the Republican Party.
It would seem they believe Iraq to be a free, peaceful, non-theocratic, representative Republic as we speak, if you can see it through the smoke and the blood splashed on your windshield, and if you can’t see it, well, you must be an American voter, and we know how unreliable they are, the traitors.
Then again, if I wrote: “If the continent of Africa were clearly on the path of becoming a carbon copy of the Food Channel, with its people wading through rivers of bechamel sauce, climbing mountains of jelly donuts, splashing about in hot tubs of pancetta pork renderings, and troubling themselves with little else than deciding between the seared tuna in a truffle-scented broth and the duck comfit napped in a lingonberry reduction, Emeril Lagasse would be named Supreme Leader for Life and Bobby Flay would give birth to the child of God… missteps by the Iron Chef judges not withstanding ………
….. I might wonder how I could have thought the the Food Channel would have been able to achieve such a mission in the first place when the raw materials were a bunch of pissed off folks fighting over a jar of cassava, or chickpeas, as the case might be.
That said, the situation is effing horrible, and I take no pleasure whatsoever any longer in who was right who was wrong, unless Bush goes on trial. Which ain’t gonna happen.
That said, the situation is effing horrible, and I take no pleasure whatsoever any longer in who was right who was wrong, unless Bush goes on trial. Which ain’t gonna happen.
Loser-defeatist.
Mattbastard–Agreed. If one takes into account that Luttwak is an amoral propagandist, the rest of the article is informative. (No snark intended. I’m serious.)
CharleyCarp – for my part, I’m still wondering about my (non-existent) silver. Huh?
*genuflects towards this post*
Thullenry has been taken to new heights…
“Thullenry has been taken to new heights…”
… atop mounds of lingonberries.
As other people have noted, you say this without citing any evidence at all, and in the face of polls that show the opposite.
Hil, I discussed the Zogby poll in an update, and I invite you to click on the links to the four who embedded, in particular the recountings of their experiences. Or perhaps step over to the milbloggers and check out what they have to say. But hey, what do 1,200 or so folks who’ve been there know.
I was passing along in the post what was passed along to those who embedded. I’ll grant you that it’s not scientific, but then again there are science-of-polling issues with Zogby. So what’s better, going through the Zogby filter–bought and paid for by an anonymous anti-war activist–or hearing the goings-on straight from those who are there? For me, I’d rather hear the straight sh*t from the bloggers.
Does the fact that you have consistently been wrong about what’s happening there give you pause?
I take exception to your contention that I’ve been “consistently wrong” and that I haven’t given “pause”, Hil. I’ve clearly and consistently stated the mistakes this administration has made, and not just in these friendly liberal confines, but front page in Redstate country. I called for Rumsfeld’s resignation way back in 2004 and mentioned on multiple occasions the mistakes made and have suggested ways to turn things around. Or have I been “consistently wrong” in pointing that out?
in which you were apparently certain that you had a better idea of what was going on in Iraq than John Murtha, based, as far as I could tell, on a lot less information.
No, I’m not “apparently certain”, or even certain. I suggested that there’s more to just talking to injured soldiers, and there’s more to Iraq than daily casualty reports in the MSM. I suggest that just sticking to those sources does give you a slice, which I thought was a fairly obvious point.
And does it worry you at all that the cost of going along with the surge only to discover that this President was wrong yet again is measured in people’s lives.
Of course it does, but I’m not backing the president, which I thought I made clear. I’m backing the strategy and the chief strategist. The president, in this instance, is backing me and what I’ve been urging for the last 33 months, that a proper counterinsurgency strategy be employed to this insurgency. The architect of that strategy is in place, finally. The real regret is that it took an historic thrashing at the polls for Bush to finally start listening and start taking exploring actions to fix this situation that he exacerbated.
Oh Charles, I remember reading about 12 times from you in 2004 and 2005 that things were turning the corner.
The president, in this instance, is backing me and what I’ve been urging for the last 33 months, that a proper counterinsurgency strategy be employed to this insurgency.
This is not a proper counter insurgency strategy. It’s 10% of a proper counterinsurgency strategy, according to the General who wrote the U.S. Army’s Counterinsurgency Manual.
This has been brought up multiple times in this thread, and you would be worthwhile for your to address it.
you would be worthwhile for your to address it.
“it” would be worthwhile. I type too fast.
The president, in this instance, is backing me and what I’ve been urging for the last 33 months, that a proper counterinsurgency strategy be employed to this insurgency.
Does it give you pause that you would give 33 months to this Republican president, but have never (in my memory of your writing) given a single day of grace to people on the other side of the aisle?
To answer von, I don’t have a lot of confidence in al-Maliki. He did help form an Iraqi government, but he’s been too soft since Samarra in confronting the violence perpetrated by his fellow Shiites. However, he has recently changed tack and is taking a harder line, enough to bring Sadr back from his boycott and enough for militants to form a “siege mentality”. It appears that he’s bought into the new U.S. plan, but the pivotal question is whether he can sustain it.
BTW, CB: I find that pledge kinda creepy and even unAmerican.
I take the opposite view, rilke. It is written in the constitution that Americans can appeal to elected representatives, asking them to vote and decide in certain ways. I joined an informal group in order to influence elected members of Congress. It was a quintessentially American thing to do. If what I did is un-American and creepy, then so are the everday activities of the AARP, NEA, ACLU and other groups.
“People like you?” Huh.
Offsetting penalties, Phil, but since you’ve committed more than your fair share of violations, I suppose that makes you the best judge. I do regret responding in anger. I should have said: “People like me don’t react well to posting rules violations made by people like you.” That would’ve made it all better. And while we’re talking about violations, why don’t you take raj to task, who apparently thinks it’s OK to derisively call me Chuckydoodle numerous times after apologizing for derisively calling me Chuckydoodle (BTW raj, apology not accepted). But to be fair and equitable about it, I’ll take your comments more seriously when you start to criticizing posting rules violations made by your allies on the Left. Otherwise, you’re just living the double standard.
Charles — please note how you wrongly demonize the opposition here, instead of realizing that there are extremely sound military and political reasons why withdrawal is the right plan.
dm, don’t you realize that I may possibly be demonizing myself? I must really be a self-hater. BTW, your link wasn’t from TPM but from the wacko Raimondo site.
Odom told Biden what Biden wanted to hear, and Odom has advocated immediate withdrawal for years. He has his reasons, but unfortunately he was completely silent about what the aftermath of immediate withdrawal would look like. Apparently, to him, subjecting the Iraqi people to potentially increasing and escalating chaos and terrorism and sectarian war is not in America’s interest. I fundamentally disagree with that assessment.
Charles- Bit of a freudian slip there, ” Apparently, to him, subjecting the Iraqi people to potentially increasing and escalating chaos and terrorism and sectarian war is not in America’s interest. I fundamentally disagree with that assessment.”
But I already knew you were ok with constantly escalating chaos, terrorism, and sectarian war in Iraq, as those have been the results of the people you vote for and the policies you have favored for the last 3+ years.
but he’s been too soft since Samarra in confronting the violence perpetrated by his fellow Shiites
And Gerry Adams was too soft on the Provos.
CB: “I joined an informal group in order to influence elected members of Congress.”
Sure, and I applaud you for it – but the terms under which you did so are not ones I feel comfortable with. You pledged yourself to a long-term course which you may come to disagree with – and then where will you be? You can take your name off a list, but you can’t unpledge.
If the ACLU invited me to sign such a pledge I’d send them back my membership card.
Of course you can “unpledge a pledge,” people do all the time. A pledge is hardly a formal contract. This one, particularly, was cooked up out of anger and frustration. Of all the people who’ve signed up, and who would normally contribute to a candidate, I doubt even half will abide by it in the long run.
And, I want to emphasize, that has nothing to do with it’s being a RW pledge. It’s human nature to make a gesture in the heat of emotion, and then change one’s mind, either when one cools off or when circumstances change.
Charles- I forgot to mention I strongly agree with your belief that al-Maliki’s would have to be dedicated to the plan if it were to have a possiblility of success.
The fact of the matter is that Bush has told Maliki: “No extra troops unless you start doing your part.” Now we learn that Mailiki told Bush: “But we don’t want any more of your troops!” As Joy Tomme puts it:
So, watch out Mr. Prime Minister, if you don’t obey Crazy George, he’s not going to give you something you don’t want.
‘Of course you can “unpledge a pledge,” people do all the time.’
They are said to “break their pledge”. The dictionary says a pledge is “a solemn binding promise”. It’s an oath without invoking the sacred. It’s not signing a letter urging a course of action – it’s a question of honor.
Ok, so the ACLU does invite me to sign a pledge – but it just says I pledge to support civil liberties, something I’m certain to continue to do. It makes no claims on my conscience that I can see.
Well, I haven’t read the Hewitt Pledge in its entirety, but SFAIK, that doesn’t make a claim on anyone’s conscience, either, just on their political donations.
…but have never (in my memory of your writing) given a single day of grace to people on the other side of the aisle?
I really don’t know what you’re talking about, LJ. Care to spell it out?
I remember reading about 12 times from you in 2004 and 2005 that things were turning the corner.
The last time I said that, Katherine, was before Fallujah, March or April of 2004. I suggest that your memory is faulty.
“Securitize”?
Just having a little fun, Jack. You’ll note that I’ve kept the neologisms down to a bare minimum.
Then go grab a rifle and get out to the desert.
I have a lot of hopes in this country. I hope that Petraeus can be successful. I hope that al-Maliki can stand up against fellow Shiites who are engaging in sectarian attacks. Lastly, I hope that I can be in an ObWi thread without the chickenhawk meme being thrown around. May all three come to fruition.
What I don’t get, Charles, is that you say you yourself would oppose the surge if you didn’t trust Maliki.
I didn’t say that, Katherine, but perhaps we’re talking past each other. The plan isn’t just a surge, and no plan will work unless the Iraqi government is committed to it. And let me ask you: if al-Maliki continues to take the right steps and if the Senate supports Petraeus in his new job, why would you support a group of Senators who would rescind their support of Petraeus by opposing any request he might have for additional resources?
Petraeus might be a good soldier, but he’s hardly the military genius many seem to take him for. His counter-insurgency manual doesn’t seem to amount to much more than the conventional wisdom (standard canards might be more accurate) of counter-insurgency strategy, a strategy that has failed in other places despite greater resources and better leadership. He only looks like a great innovator because the US army has been notoriously reluctant to adopt such doctrines for many years, not least because the brass has spent 30 years trying to avoid a war like the one it is in now.
“combining political with military” operations is just a sound-bite without a profound understanding of the field of operations (we’ve yet to see evidence of that from the US side), broad popular, domestic and military support for the endeavour (dubious), and the political-intellectual resources to actually make “political operations” feasible. On this last part I am particularly sceptical.
I don’t think the omens are good, even if this newest general is saying the right things.
additional resources?
Read Orwell’s essay on English.
I believe it was Alasdair Gray, in Lanark, who had a character that talked of `resources’ to mean humans. This character was a cannibal. It is a bad sign when a policy requires monstrosities like that to sound respectable.
no need to get alarmed, I mean linguistically and cultural-trained personnel, and the educational and operational structures to train, deploy and gain best advantage from them. Resources seems like an appropriate term.
Thanks for the link to the Mystery Pollster, Charles. His comments make clear that his objections to the survey are political rather than scientific: he says, fairly, that Zogby didn’t share his methodology, and acknowledges, also fairly, that there are great difficulties of polling active-duty troops on the ground in Iraq.
In effect, this Zogby poll is like the first Lancet report – which was greeted with the same storm of disbelief from those who didn’t like the conclusions. Mystery Pollster is arguing that since the locations weren’t chosen at random (in a war zone, with active duty troops, I can see how that would be difficult) and there’s no report of who chose to answer the pollsters, the answers aren’t to be trusted.
But this poll is the first attempt to get real data about how troops on the ground feel about the Iraq war. Anecdote is not the same as data, no matter much anecdote you have, and before this poll all we had was anecdote: some positive, some negative.
So what’s better, going through the Zogby filter–bought and paid for by an anonymous anti-war activist–or hearing the goings-on straight from those who are there? For me, I’d rather hear the straight sh*t from the bloggers.
You’re preferring anecdote above data – anecdotes which give you the information you prefer. Anecdotes give a different kind of information from data. For example: you can read Samuel Pepys’ diary about what it was like to be a Londoner during the years of the Great Plague of London. That’s anecdote. Or you can read the City of London records and get data about how many people died. Both are valid information, but Pepys’ diary won’t tell you how many people died, and you will have to use your imagination on City of London data to give yourself an idea of what it was like to live in the City when so many people were dying.
Similiarly: a poll – never mind who paid for it – tells us that 85% of soldiers on the ground think that the war in Iraq is about retribution for Saddam Hussein’s part in the September 11 attacks. This is an interesting addition to the data from a Harris poll carried out in the US in 2005 that discovered that “47 percent believe that Saddam Hussein helped plan and support the hijackers who attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001”.
There was this notion that counterinsurgency warfare can achieve victory if it is carried out in a sufficiently brutal fashion, and Luttwak alludes to the Germans in WWII as an example, while saying that such behavior is impossible for us.
What Luttwak obviously does not realize is that even the German methods didn’t succeed.
Hitler said it would take at least a century to stamp out the partisans after the final military victory.
Perversely he saw that as an advantage because it would keep the people and the armed forces on the alert and in shape (otherwise they’d become soft).
CharleyCarp – for my part, I’m still wondering about my (non-existent) silver. Huh?
Well, charleyC also kicked out the inspecters that could have proven you have no silver; not in the house, nor burried in the garden, nor put in deposit with your neighbours.
Raj: I agree with Charles B that the namecalling is unwarrented and a violation of the posting rules.
I really don’t know what you’re talking about, LJ. Care to spell it out?
It’s that despite your claming the mantle of ‘Dissatisfieds’, you are willing to bend over backwards to give the current administration the benefit of the doubt, which in turn requires you to label anyone who was more suspicious (i.e. realistic) as a loser-defeatist. Looking at your Dissatisfieds post, you are not holding Bush responsible, but Rumsfeld. When precisely did this shift to being dissatisfied with Bush begin? And when has it been expressed straightforwardly? I’m not one to demand that you acknowledge you were wrong, but when you brazenly try to suggest that you were right all along, it becomes a bit hard to swallow.
I’d also add that 33 months is a rather remarkable length of time. The Dissatisfieds post was from Aug 2006, which is 3 months ago, not 33. Part of my reaction is based on the notion that you were right 2 and half years ago. If this is just a math mistake, my apologies, but if you wrote 33 instead of 3, I’m wondering how you can suggest that you ‘called for’ the resignation of Rummy in 2004.
Charles Bird: The last time I said that [things were turning the corner], Katherine, was before Fallujah, March or April of 2004. I suggest that your memory is faulty.
Just for fun and misplaced drunken anger, let’s trawl through a simple Google search of Charles’ contributions to Obsidian Wings on the war in Iraq, shall we? The following shall be regrettably sparse since Charles has an unfortunate habit of, shall we say, “dumping and running” but hey, we go to war with the posts we’re given and not the posts we’d like. The following consists of damn near everything Charles said about Iraq in the first ten pages of a simple Google search [site:obsidianwings.blogs.com “charles bird” iraq]; I’m sure there are more of his opinions out there (e.g. on Redstate) but a man can swallow only so much sh** before his stomach rebels. It’s a measure of the task that I’ve quite literally sobered up while doing it.
[Links removed due to spamaliciousness]
December 31 2004, And Now For Something Completely Different
[Fair enough, I suppose… but realize that this “weaselly answer” was several months after Fallujah.]
February 27 2005, While Many Are Catching The Wave…
[I suggest reading Charles’ contributions to this thread, they’re… illuminating.]
April 4 2005, A Nomination For Most Disingenuous
[No real relevance, it’s just funny.]
Later in that same thread:
[Um…. really? Is that a corner I see before me, its democra-nami towards my hand?]
May 15th 2005, The No Party
[An odd contribution given Charles’ self-professed disdain for the President’s policies, but such is the nature of the beast.]
August 15th 2005, Bill Kristol is Right
[No, I can’t explain the contradiction either. Hell, I doubt Charles can.]
August 23th 2005, Road to Kandahar, from comments
August 31 2005, Seeing Oil Spots
[That strikes me as optimistic but legit. YMMV.]
October 15 2005, Give Me A Break
Later:
*snicker*
October 16 2005, Killing Innocent Iraqis
[There is a strategy, huh? Would this be the same strategy being executed by the man whose head you’re calling for, or the president you’ve claimed is failing to do his job?]
Same thread:
[Unambiguous approval here. Kudos.]
October 27 2005 Yes, Virginia, it’s turning around
Whoops, sorry: that wasn’t Charles at all, that was von. Hey von, how’s that going for you?
October 29 2005, The President’s Foreign Policy Speech, comments:
[Also unrelated, also funny.]
November 11 2005, Iraq and Vietnam
[I should note that the OP here is filled with such fantasy as to be almost unrecognizable.]
November 18 2005, Murtha’s Loser-Defeatist Policy
I feel vaguely queasy at quoting anything from this thread, but if one must:
November 20 2005, Failures of Will
In fairness, from the same thread:
It’s not particularly true — that bit about Bush being “ultimately accountable” is theoretical at best, viz the subsequent quotes — but hey, it’s something.
November 21 2005, American Forces Should Withdraw in Six Months
…ok, quiet, you. That’s the title. I’m not making this up, you know (tm Dave Barry).
[Anyone want to analyze that little prediction?]
Febrary 23 2006, Three Iraq Slices…
[How corner-turny this is depends on one’s read of the linked articles.]
March 22 2006, Pivotal Tests
[Not entirely sure how to parse this one, tbh.]
April 22 2006, Saturday’s All Right For Fighting, from comments:
May 23 2006, Cultural Humiliation…
[Not exactly a corner-turning moment, but close.]
[I can feel a corner approaching!]
July 6 2006, Kim Shoots Wad, comments:
August 21 2006, If Not Now, When?
[Well, we’re finally done with carrying water for Iraq… but not for Bush, it seems.]
In light of these remarks, Charles, might I suggest you suck it?
PS: So what’s better, going through the Zogby filter–bought and paid for by an anonymous anti-war activist–or hearing the goings-on straight from those who are there? For me, I’d rather hear the straight sh*t from the bloggers.
Yes, because the embeds aren’t at all saturated by a pro-American military environment, while the Zogby filters are self-evidently skewed by being “bought and paid for by an anonymous anti-war activist”. [After all, is it not the case that the report is unbalanced because the “man on the street” interviews can be easily and horribly skewed…?] Seriously, do you actually pay attention to what you type, or is it directly forwarded by your hindbrain?
PPS: And now, due either to the alcohol or because I’ve just read almost a year of Charles’ comments, I need to go vomit. Happy Saturday, y’all.
PPPS: While I’m praying to the porcelain god, I invite y’all to take a stroll through the wayback machine and marvel at how everything — and I do mean basically everything — Charles predicted about Iraq was wrong. With one major exception: he jumped on the Fire Rumsfeld bandwagon about a year before his conservative brethren and about two years after his liberal kin. Toodles!
Possibly apropos is this NYTimes article
A PAINFUL measure of just how much Iraq has changed in the four years…
But to be fair and equitable about it, I’ll take your comments more seriously when you start to criticizing posting rules violations made by your allies on the Left. Otherwise, you’re just living the double standard.
1. My criticisms in comments towards Jesurgislac alone over the years make a liar out of you here. I can find plenty of others if you so desire.
2. Neither I, nor raj, nor Jesurgislac, nor all but five people here, have front-page posting privileges. If you do not understand why that requires you to uphold a higher standard, I don’t think I can explain it to you.
3. Once again with “my allies on the Left.” As if voting for Democrats at a period in history when the entire Republican party and its ideology is almost insufferably corrupt makes me a Leftist. No lie, no smear, no distortion so unreasonable that you won’t let it leave your lips. But I bet you go to church this morning and show everyone how much you love Jesus, huh?
Anarch’s post above should — shoud, in a just world — put to rest any lingering shred of Charles’s credibility on any of these matters, but I’m sure, like a bad penny, he’ll turn up again claiming that, whatever the zeitgeist is, he supported it all along.
Anarch, I love you, in a way that does not impose on any actual or hypothetical existing relationships nor actually mean anything.
And this:
Lastly, I hope that I can be in an ObWi thread without the chickenhawk meme being thrown around. May all three come to fruition.
Oh, brother . . . you have urged more and better and faster and more in this war from day one, with nary a tear shed over the deaths (and in fact constant speculation that things weren’t really all that bad ), and when I once asked you what you were sacrificing in this war that you wanted so badly, you replied — with, I assume, an absolutely straight face — that you were sacrificing extra income, because the time you were spending
cheerleadingwater-carryingfellatingblogging could have been spent working.You, Hugh Hewitt, Mark Steyn, the whole lot of you, all cowards masquerading as heroes. So don’t come playing the wounded party now, pearls clutched and handkerchief fluttering because somebody implied that, if this surge is so necessary to fighting this existential threat — so necessary that you wanted it nearly three years ago, but
BushRumsfeldBush wouldn’t just listen to you — then perhaps you should do some surging yourself.Phil, I agree that Chas is way off in claiming that you have never called anyone out on ‘your side’ (and I recall when Chas suggested that you were lying about your past political history, so I can imagine how angry you are), but please pull back a bit.
Phil said: My criticisms in comments towards Jesurgislac alone over the years make a liar out of you here.
And I can verify that, if Charles doubts it.
Bruce Baugh: Anarch, I love you, in a way that does not impose on any actual or hypothetical existing relationships nor actually mean anything.
Seconded.
Charles: I can see why you don’t bother to post here much.
Charles: I can see why you don’t bother to post here much.
Yeah, there’s nothing like quoting from the actual record of what he actually said that shows a consistent pattern of wrongheadedness to harsh his mellow now.
Oh, wait: you’re saying it’s bad and mean to quote CB?
Anarch didn’t make up those quotes, you know.
Or are you saying that CB’s own words, over the course of 3 years, are not an indication of what CB actually thought at the time? Then what would be?
Charles — please note how you wrongly demonize the opposition here, instead of realizing that there are extremely sound military and political reasons why withdrawal is the right plan.
dm, don’t you realize that I may possibly be demonizing myself? I must really be a self-hater. BTW, your link wasn’t from TPM but from the wacko Raimondo site.
Odom told Biden what Biden wanted to hear, and Odom has advocated immediate withdrawal for years. He has his reasons, but unfortunately he was completely silent about what the aftermath of immediate withdrawal would look like. Apparently, to him, subjecting the Iraqi people to potentially increasing and escalating chaos and terrorism and sectarian war is not in America’s interest. I fundamentally disagree with that assessment.
Charles — can you please write substantive responses to efforts to engage the substance of what you say?
No — I do not see any self-hating when you constantly demonize the withdrawal position as simply loser-defeatist; the position is based on sound logic which you constantly ignore in favor of ad hominem. As for the wacky Raimondo site, what I linked was the full written submission by Odom as part of his Congressional testimony which happens to be found there, and I was sourced to it by TPM’s discussion of it (which is why I attribute it to them). The link has nothing to do with any opinion expresssed by Raimondo (which I don’t read). Naturally, the link rather than substance becomes your focus of rebuttal.
I love this device: Odom told Biden what Biden wanted to hear, as opposed to actually writing one word about the substance of what Odom’s says about the military wisdom of withdrawal.
If anything, this rhetorical game applies more to the adoption by Petraeus of Bush’s plan. Petraeus is saying what Bush wants to hear — it is obviously not his plan, although he has been tasked to implement it. As any good soldier does, once he has his marching orders, he marches forward in confidence. Good for him, but that is not an indiciation as to the alleged wisdom of something that is not Petraeus’ plan. The plan itself is so obviously flawed in ways discussed above, which you ignore. Cheerleading again, best describes your posture.
Why is Petraeus such a model of virtue, and Odom just some hack? Because its convenient for you to think that way? Was Petraeus saying what right wingers wanted to hear when he testified how criticism of the current plan gives encouragement to the enemy?
You say, [Odom] was completely silent about what the aftermath of immediate withdrawal would look like. Uh, you did not read the link, obviously. And he is not calling for “immediate withdrawal” which is the cheap trick of the right in smearing withdrawal advocates everywhere.
Finally, you say, without apparent irony, subjecting the Iraqi people to potentially increasing and escalating chaos and terrorism and sectarian war is not in America’s interest. Uh, that was the argument made in 2002-2003 as to why we should not invade since that was the predictable outcome of invasion and occupation. You would think by now that you would realize that this bad result is a byproduct of invasion which, having destabilized everything, we are now powerless to prevent.
There is certainly nothing wrong with pointing out earlier quotes. I’m saying that the tone throughout this thread is just this side of nasty. It seems more personal than normal if that makes any sense at all.
Don’t think anybody has linked to this Sadly, No post on Malkin: ouch.
OCSteve, that’s meta and where there’s meta, there TiO.
It seems more personal than normal if that makes any sense at all.
It does, and I do know what you mean, but CB posts stuff that is, how shall I say this politely, erroneous.
When he’s presenting facts, he’s presenting incomplete or erroneous facts.
When he’s presenting quotes, or referring to quotes, they’re incomplete quotes, or out of context, in ways that distort the cite’s meaning.
When he mentions his own past opinions and prognostications, he even gets that wrong.
He is a… not entirely reliable correspondent, and there’s no way of telling if he is that way consciously, or is simply incapable of grasping the distinction between what he says is true and what is actually true.
The vehemence – the “tone” – is based on thinking it’s the former, and the hope that, if presented with enough facts often enough, he’ll eventually acknowledge them. If his critics, most of them, thought it was the latter, I doubt anyone would respond to him at all, since that’s not a mindset amenable to communication.
I, for one, appreciate CB’s posts.
Well, leaving the personalities out of it for once, I’m still waiting for Charles to address the question I posed way back at the top :
“If we’ve made no discernible progress by this November, I may just put myself in the defeatist camp and call for a phased drawdown.”
Why should a “phased drawdown” – presumably the desired endgame of the whole Iraqi mission – be classed as a “defeatist” option? Unless you posit that the main end of our invasion/occupation was a permanent commitment of forces to the country (IMO, it is/was, but the Bush Administration has lied about this to the American public, as it has with most of its Iraq policy) – a “drawdown” of troops, if nothing else, out of harm’s way, should be the desired goal.
Don’t think anybody has linked to this Sadly, No post on Malkin: ouch.
A sample…
TIP: When you’re building up to your big ‘gotcha’ moment — i.e., the revelation that, like you’d said, either three or two or at least one of the four mosques that Jamil Hussein and the liberal MSM claimed were “burned” were, in fact, undamaged (or in your recent, less precise phrasing, “not destroyed”) — it’s better if you don’t go visit one and then attempt a revelatory camera pan on a firebombed mosque with a giant hole blown in it.
It’s Jamil Hussein, of course, who is still the liar and Michelle Malkin will still get to go on TV
And while I’m in my policing mode “Chuckydoodle” is disrespectful, and unnecessary besides. The main instance of the chickenhawk argument came from Don Q, who has been banned for it before and has now been banned some more.
I am not particularly happy about “What a load of steaming crap, Robert”, either: I think that people who post here should abide by the rules we set up for our commenters.
CaseyL- I enjoy Charles’ posts. I don’t argue with them because I think he’ll respond to reason though. I argue to help the readers of the thread.
Anarch- Its too bad that Tacitus’ archives got deleted. You could have debunked years more of self-serving disingenous corner turning arguements.
OCS: Yeah, getting exhaustively called on three years’ worth of BS would tend to discourage a better man from continuing to subject himself to embarassment by posting more of the same.
It’s not a function of knee-jerk leftist nastiness, much as Charles and the professional martyrs at Bizarro Worlders like to claim. It’s that he consistently produces poorly thought out, intellectually dishonest garbage.
Hello, old friends.
OCSteve, your comment prodded me into reading through this thread (I was skimming it before).
Most of what I have in mind has already been posted by others. I just want to wish Charles well. I often find his writing irritating, provoking, even infuriating, but it does seem to initiate ObWi threads that are, for the most part, worth reading.
Anarch, one thing … I first heard that line spoken by Anna Russell in the analysis of the Ring [from memory now…]
And, here is a web link to prove it! [exits left]
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2569815,00.html
Well none of that sounds very positive. Brief summary: Maliki and Sadrist commanders in league with Iran, intending to sit out the surge across the border, come back tougher (and more loyal to Iran) than ever before.
Lastly, I hope that I can be in an ObWi thread without the chickenhawk meme being thrown around. May all three come to fruition.
Considering that you and your Red State buddies are a damn near perfect specimens of “chikenhawkry”, it’s doubt that it will ever come to fruition.
If the supporters of this war actually went and fought it, I would not have to read stories like this one: Two Year Old Boy Loses Father In War; Mother Scheduled To Return To Active Duty.
Sheesh, DonQ, you are really ruining Cervantes for me…
Byrningman: Resources seems like an appropriate term.
Sorry; responding to the post above you. As far as I can tell, Charles’ `additional resources’ are young men and women.
One thing I didn’t read here sticks in my mind regarding the “new strategy.”
After the execution of Saddam Hussein I heard a brief interview, I think it was with the Iraqi Interior Minister, who was present. He was defending himself, talking about how it was just moments (the shouting) and how he had no control over who was present.
So, here is a senior Iraqi government official admitting that his government cannot exclude Sadrists from a critical event inside the Green Zone, an event that was planned and executed (if we can believe so) by the Iraqi government, at the insistence of Prime Minister al-Malaki.
These are the people we rely upon to help the new strategy succeed? There is no chance.
As spartikus and bsr and others above point out, you are still carrying water for the administration. Your message is no different from the other water carriers out there.
It’s just gotten harder to carry the water, and you have to concede more to administration critics. But this is just more of the same. I wonder where you and the other water-carriers will be 6 months from now. Talk about dead enders.
The Zogby poll may very well report innaccurately high levels of opposition to the surge, disapproval of Bush’s leadership and disaffection from the war itself, but the no one has made that case about the Military Times poll. I can’t quote the Military Times poll exactly because, when I tried to print the article so I could reference it, my printer went nuts. Anyway the results showed that the opinions expressed by the polled soldiers (mostly officers) were nearly as negative across the board as the general public. Nearly half of the soldiers did’t believe that the war was justified at all.
What this means is that opposition to the war itself ( saying that we shouldn’t have invaded in the first place)is somewhere between the Military Times poll results of 47% and the Zogby results which was up in the 70’s, I think.
Charles, that is a lot of opposition. Soldiers are trained to support the mission and to have an optimistic outlook about their assignnments. I don’t mean in a mindless jingoistic way. It’s more an esprit de corps thing. A “can do” attitude is promoted. To have nearly half, or more likely, a little over half of the soldiers in Iraq answering “No” to a polling question that asks if we should have invaded in the first place is very striking.
In other words I don’t think that people who want to keep fighting can site support from the soldiers for the war as an argument for their side.
It’s interesting that Charles was apparently in willing to come into the Agora to defend any of his wacky theses.
Typical.
“in willing” = unwilling
Jes, you are not accurately characterizing the Mystery Pollster’s concerns, which are not just political but go to methodology and process.
You’re preferring anecdote above data – anecdotes which give you the information you prefer.
No, I’m preferring anecdote to questionably obtained data, particularly since there is no assurance that the sample was representative.
In light of these remarks, Charles, might I suggest you suck it?
No, Anarch, and all the more “no” because of your incivility. You should’ve been less drunk and less angry in your research. In none of those snippets did I say that Iraq has turned the corner, which is what Katherine had mistakenly accused me of saying a dozen times over. Beyond that, I have no idea what you were trying to prove, other than that your opinion differs from mine. You can be assured that I was already well aware of that.
…you are willing to bend over backwards to give the current administration the benefit of the doubt, which in turn requires you to label anyone who was more suspicious…
Not true, LJ. If I’m giving anyone the benefit of the doubt it’s Petraeus, not the administration.
…but if you wrote 33 instead of 3, I’m wondering how you can suggest that you ‘called for’ the resignation of Rummy in 2004.
It was 33 months ago when I began calling for a proper COIN strategy, which did happen but only in fits and spurts at best. My Road to Haditha piece touches on the issue some. It was around November 2004 or not long after when I started writing that Rumsfeld should have left the same time as Powell.
…can you please write substantive responses to efforts to engage the substance of what you say?
Taking Odom to task for not addressing the aftermath of immediate withdrawal is not a substantive response, dm? C’mon.
I think that people who post here should abide by the rules we set up for our commenters.
We don’t disagree, Hil. As you may have gathered, I’m not particularly happy with what Robert wrote, so I penned a strong opinion, but it was an opinion of the comment, not the commenter, which is not a violation of the posting rules, last I checked. Yet you are willing to let pass (so far) a commenter who said that I wrote “intellectually dishonest garbage”. It seems that at the very least you would demand that the commenter either back up his “intellectually dishonest” assertion or, if not, to apologize and retract, if intellectual integrity is indeed the coin of the realm in this place. But that’s just me.
My criticisms in comments towards Jesurgislac alone over the years make a liar out of you here.
OK, Phil, I stand corrected on what I said. My mistake and my apologies. I won’t answer the rest of your comments (including you calling me a liar) because you’re basically just angrily and irrationally lashing out.
…and I recall when Chas suggested that you were lying about your past political history, so I can imagine how angry you are…
Not true, LJ. I didn’t accuse Phil of lying. I had referred to Phil as a liberal and he took umbrage. I have not called him a liberal since, although admittedly I came close when I mentioned his “liberal allies”, although he does have allies on this thread who happen to be liberal. But, to be on the safe side, I’ll take that back.
I do not see any self-hating when you constantly demonize the withdrawal position as simply loser-defeatist
I dropped the “loser” part months ago, dm, because Gary convinced me that it was redundant and unhelpful. I stand by the term “defeatist”, by its very definition. If a person concludes that Iraq is “irretrievably lost”, then a different mindset and different prescriptions will follow. Since the mission is perceived as irreparably failed, logic must dictate that the next best course is to get troops out, hopefully with an eye toward minimizing the ensuing damage as much as possible and minimizing putting more troops at risk. Sorry, but I’m not there, but I’m closer to that position today than I was a year ago.
Jes, you are not accurately characterizing the Mystery Pollster’s concerns
And then you go on to characterize them exactly as Jes did.
No, I’m preferring anecdote to questionably obtained data, particularly since there is no assurance that the sample was representative.
That they may be questionably obtained anecdotes probably hasn’t occurred to you. Why oh why won’t Michelle Malkin release her methodology!
Charles: No, I’m preferring anecdote to questionably obtained data, particularly since there is no assurance that the sample was representative.
So, as I said: you’re preferring anecdote to data. Your claim that the data was “questionably obtained” is itself questionable: and your preference for pro-war anecdote makes your protest that you don’t know if the data sample was representative almost funny, but certainly not worth paying attention to.
Jes, you are not accurately characterizing the Mystery Pollster’s concerns, which are not just political but go to methodology and process.
Mystery Pollster raises appropriate questions about methodology and process, and then assumes negative answers to those questions for political reasons.
John Bolton: “The United States has no strategic interest in the fact that there’s one Iraq, or three Iraqs,” he was quoted as saying. “We have a strategic interest in the fact of ensuring that what emerges is not a state in complete collapse, which could become a refuge for terrorists or a terrorist state.”
Taking Odom to task for not addressing the aftermath of immediate withdrawal is not a substantive response, dm? C’mon.
Repeating the false slur that Odom advocates “immediate withdrawal” as part of your defense that you are discussing substance? C’mon.
And Odom does address the effects of withdrawal. As many others have also said, major players are sitting on the sidelines doing little precisely because we are insistent on staying and not providing them any realistic means to participate. Odom expects a policy of phased withdrawal to require them to have a role in keeping things stable since so many others have a stake in not letting Iraq spiral out of control.
Our ongoing presence is a destabilizing force and will not make things better — it is not lessening the problem of what will happen when we finally withdraw. Also, it only puts off the day of reckoning — frankly, your view of how to prevent the consequences of withdrawal is to never withdraw. The view that this problem (what happens after withdrawal) will go away if we just stay longer has no basis in reality.
Gregory Djerejian:
Indeed, we appear to be edging towards creating something of a self-fulfilling prophecy here, one perilously close to flirting with open conflict with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Tick tick tick:
Vice President Cheney said the deployment this month of a second aircraft-carrier task force to the Persian Gulf delivered a “strong signal” of the United States’ commitment to confront Iran’s growing influence in the region.
CB, I think you make some reasonable points in your 11:50, but please see here for why people resist “defeatist”.
And the clock continues:
Deeply distrustful of Iran, President Bush said Monday “we will respond firmly” if Tehran escalates its military actions in Iraq and threatens American forces or Iraqi citizens.
Charles Bird: No, Anarch, and all the more “no” because of your incivility.
By all means lecture me on civility. I haven’t had a good laugh in ages.
In none of those snippets did I say that Iraq has turned the corner, which is what Katherine had mistakenly accused me of saying a dozen times over.
You didn’t use those exact words, no. You did, however, repeatedly express that sentiment. Not all the citations bear witness to that fact, of course, because — as I explicitly stated — I simply pulled up everything you had said about the future of Iraq (and a few other choice remarks too tempting to resist) from the first 10 pages of that Google search. If you have a more complete or even representative sampling of your remarks at the ready, by all means post them. I can’t imagine they’ll be much different.
Beyond that, I have no idea what you were trying to prove, other than that your opinion differs from mine.
Opinions on the shape of the earth differ, I’ve no doubt. If you need an idea of what I was trying to prove, however, let’s start with the fact that you’ve been wrong about damn near everything when it comes to Iraq. One would think that this would cause you some modicum of reflection, some reassessment of those “opinions”, some realization that this isn’t post-modern bullshit where all opinions are equally valid simply by virtue of them being opinions.
One would apparently be wrong, but one is unwilling to give up hope just yet.
Anarch: ‘One would think that this would cause you some modicum of reflection, some reassessment of those “opinions”‘
Why the scare-quotes? And hasn’t CB‘s position shown reassessment? And note that CB defends himself against “wrong about damn near everything” above here. I don’t agree with him on much, but it’s not “shape of the earth”-worthy.
Charles, I don’t want to rehash the shape of your comments past, as that is not going to be helpful. (and as a sidenote, TiO seems to be down. I’m not sure why, and I’m not sure if there is anything to do about it)
I’d just like you to point out in this post where you think there is any acknowledgement, not that you were wrong, but that some of your critics here were correct in their points over the past 33 months. It’s not that your position hasn’t, as rilkefan notes, shown reassessment, it is that it doesn’t seem to acknowledge that concerns that you dismissed or ignored were actually appropriate. I would also point out that the fact that people here engage your arguments rather than studiously ignore them (*cough* Redstate *cough*) suggests that your viewpoints have a lot more in common with people here than you care to admit.
Oh, I should note that you say ‘we don’t disagree hilzoy’, in the comments, but that only comes after hilzoy has to pen a rather long and, by hilzoyian standards, sharp response. Looking at the post itself, I do not see a reference to any notion that concerns raised by anyone affected your viewpoint.
What a load of steaming crap, Robert
What a load of steaming crap yourself, Charles.
This kind of self-serving nonsense is the reason no one takes you seriously. Choke on it.
Brookings Institute’s 140 page report, Things Fall Apart: Containing the Spillover
From an Iraqi Civil War
Sigh. IMO, RLB’s 8:42 is worthy of banning, whether temporary or otherwise.
Perhaps banning is a bit harsh, but certainly a reprimand of sorts is in order. Meh. CB sucks and is (still) ruining the site, etc [/ironic grin.]
I confess that I might have been mean to Charles.
Perhaps, he did not in fact egg on the congressional Republicans as they heaved rhetorical Molotov Cocktails at President Clinton.
Perhaps, he scolded the congressional Republicans as they disrupted Clinton’s efforts to deal with the Islamicist threat.
Well, I can not find evidence to support either of these suppositions.
What I do find is a confession that he carried water for this radical administration and its policies. That seems to me an admission of complicity.
Perhaps he will call me a steaming pile of crap again. Par for the course.
A comment to mattbastard before I get banned:
In a just world, would I be banned for echoing Charles’s words back at him?
Think about it.
Robert L. Bell: we do not ban front page commenters, at any rate not unless they drop some sort of verbal nuclear bomb. We do express our dismay, as I did above. For my part, I disagree with Charles’ response, largely because, in his place, I would not think that your response to him was just a response to his comment, and therefore I would be led to rethink my (Charles’) claim that my original comment was “an opinion of the comment, not the commenter, which is not a violation of the posting rules”.
However, since Charles does take that view, I’m letting Robert Bell off with a warning. We try to be civil here. Next time, whatever Charles’ views, and whatever his conduct, I will ban you.
On the other hand, I hope I won’t have to.
Sorry for the delay in responding.
The view that this problem (what happens after withdrawal) will go away if we just stay longer has no basis in reality.
dm, click to Roggio’s site and you’ll see how the American presence is stabilizing the situation in Fallujah. Read my Road to Haditha post and you’ll see how Marines in Haditha were putting the town on the path to stability until the chain-of-command started jacking them around. Americans and Kurds are working hand in hand. If you look at the NIE, Iraqis are killing Iraqis less when American troops have a presence, and they are a stabilizing influence. Quote: “Coalition capabilities, including force levels, resources, and operations, remain an essential stabilizing element in Iraq.”
What the NIE also made clear is that any progress is nigh impossible without al-Maliki exercising leadership, and it wouldn’t hurt if an influential Sunni leader emerged who could work with the young Iraqi government. Al-Maliki has shown a little more spine of late, and the government did pass a resolution to help in that regard. The question is whether he can sustain it.
…let’s start with the fact that you’ve been wrong about damn near everything when it comes to Iraq.
Actually, Anarch, that would be an opinion, not a fact, had you read my comment to Hil upthread.
I’d just like you to point out in this post where you think there is any acknowledgement, not that you were wrong, but that some of your critics here were correct in their points over the past 33 months.
Consider it acknowledged, LJ.