Republicans & Conservatives Archives

You’re right that likening these attacks to Tet is premature to say the least. Still, comparing today’s situation to the setbacks of a year ago isn’t fair either: a year ago we were actively fighting a war against an organized army, and we were fully expecting attacks. Today we are only a couple of months away from some kind of transition to Iraqi control, and the country is supposed to be in some semblance of order. According to the Bush administration’s original prognostications this violence wasn’t supposed to happen at all.

This is certainly not a quagmire when compared to Vietnam, but it’s certainly a quagmire when compared to the cakewalk the Bush Administration sold us and is continuing to sell us. What some people think is “willpower” and “resolve”, others see as blind wishful thinking on the part of the Bush Administration.

> there are a finite number of jihadist and
> bomb-planters

Israel has been saying this for 30 years. This statement is a perfect example of what I consider wishful thinking.

I should say that for the most part your post is full of realistic views of the dangerous situation in Iraq, and as such your views are a refreshing departure from the happy talk we hear from the administration and its surrogates.

> George Bush has demonstrated that he intends
> to be victorious in Iraq, regardless of what
> his opponents wish for, and our military has
> demonstrated that we will fight to win.

If by “opponents” you mean “John Kerry”, then your statement is unneccessary since it is without question that John Kerry also wishes for American victory in Iraq.

You sound irritated at the lack of enthusiasm and hopefulness coming from Bush’s opponents. I think it’s great to be hopeful about Iraq: I too want to do the right thing for the Iraqi people, and I want them to succeed. And I too think that America should lead that effort - it’s clearly our responsibility.

But when people on the left voice doubts and concerns about the situation in Iraq, please don’t read it as hopelessness or, as you seem to suggest, that we’re wishing for American defeat. We are only trying to point out two things:

1) Bush shouldn’t have taken us to Iraq in the first place, and he was especially irresponsible in making it sound like it was going to be easy.

2) John Kerry, through domestic and international leadership, will do a better job of securing and rebuilding Iraq.

(I mention these only briefly to point out that we’re not being anti-American in opposing the President and his leadership. I won’t defend these teo specific ideas in this post, since they are covered in detail over and over again elsewhere, but suffice to say that neither view advocates American failure in Iraq, nor the failure of Iraq’s ongoing process of liberation.)

These are two perfectly rational and patriotic points of view. I deeply resent the suggestion that we who oppose Bush’s leadership and who are critical of the war in Iraq must be rooting for an American defeat. I resent the suggestion that we lack resolve or willpower.

There are a lot of kinds of “willpower”. One kind of willpower is the will to bang your head against a wall until your brains spill out of your skull. The other is to have the will to stop banging the wall with your head and to consider another approach, like bringing a hammer or taking the wall apart brick by brick. Bush represents the first kind of willpower - the same dumb resolve that kept us in Vietnam too long.

You say, for example, that we “lost” in Vietnam due to a lack of willpower. Thirty years later, I wonder if we actually did “lose”. Does the Soviet Union or China control Southeast Asia? Is Vietnam still hostile to us - or to anyone? It seems to me that more “willpower” in Vietnam would have made no difference. Should we have sent a million more troops? Should we have used nuclear weapons? What more could we have done? Some problems cannot be solved by American military force alone, and they certainly cannot be solved through the government’s denial of reality (a quality, by the way, that was in great abundance during the Vietnam war).

-Cf

With all due respect, make-or-break points are only the visible result of a number of hidden thresholds crossed that all come together to push things past the point of no return.

Yes, Bush is going to stay the course. He is nothing if not stubborn. Also, I doubt anybody could politically survive the decision to cut and run. The question is, will Bush’s policies end up pushing us past the point where we have any other option?

Rumsfeld should just send in reinforcements now. Screw waiting for commanders to ask for them. That can result in all kinds of political hand-wringing while troops become corpses. Send in the troops.

Murdoc—

How can I put this delicately: what world are you living in? Battle, War, dying, fighting is never a good thing, never! As one who experienced live fire and witnessed its aftermath, I can attest to the unique ugliness of armed conflict. You and the Bush Administration do not get it. This is not a spur of the moment let’s get the Americans on the Anniversary of their invasion uprising; these men are in it for the long haul. This is just the beginning of what will prove to be a year—and most certainly years—of bloody struggle between U.S. forces and thousands, one might say tens of thousands of men who are not afraid to die for the great good of Allah and the cause of Jihad!

The fact that 12 Marines are dead in one night of fighting when the U.S. is supposed to “own the night” should tell you and the Bush Administration something about the tenor of this conflict. A few points of order:

Quagmire. Tet. Mogadishu. Vietnam.

Were they the right words to be using in April of 2003? Hindsight tells us clearly that they weren’t. Can we at least wait long enough to see who’s winning the battles before panicking?

It should be noted that we won almost all the major battles in Vietnam, too. We lost the war.

I am becoming increasingly concerned that the presidential election process is embolding our enemies around the world. Hesbolah (sorry abou the spelling) has stated that if they can’t drive america out, they can drive Bush from the Whitehouse.

My concern is the tone of the Democratic attacks especially Ted Kennedy are empowering our enemies. If that is true then it is pretty discusting.

When American troops are in combat overseas we need to be careful about out words.

Craig

Cf -

Thanks for the thoughtful comments.

I don’t mean to say that ALL jihadists and bomb-layers can be eliminated. I wrote “in terms of posing a serious threat to US power or Iraqi security, there are a finite number of jihadist and bomb-planters.” There will of course always be dissidents and those that take their dissent to an extreme level. We have people like that in the US, even. But they don’t pose a threat to stability or general safety. I wasn’t wishful thinking that got us here. It will take a long time to get there in Iraq, but it certainly can be accomplished.

I don’t mean to suggest that John Kerry or other opponents hope for a US military defeat. I do mean to suggest that many opponents would be willing to bug out and call it even, or would lower the standards of success we’ve set in order to get more support from the international community. While not total capitulation, lowering our sights or calling the job done when it isn’t would be a defeat of sorts, and our enemies would definitely notice.

George Bush never said it would be easy. In fact, he said repeatedly that it would be difficult.

I’m not overly optimistic about Kerry’s (or anyone’s) plan for “international leadership” to set things right in Iraq. It’s international leadership that got Iraq where it was. Granted, I’m also not trying to gloss over the problems we’ve had over the past year. I wouldn’t mind seeing UN involvement at all. But it can’t be more of the same old same old. If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.

I’m not saying that we lost in Vietnam because of lack of willpower. I’m saying we lacked the will to win. And although Russia or China don’t control Vietnam, and although Vietnam isn’t a threat to the world, I’d suggest that a lot people in Vietnam think they lost.

If this fighting is still going on in three weeks, I will have a different opinion about things. If this fighting is still going on in three months, and we haven’t changed our approach, I will agree that we’re flirting with the head-on-wall blind willpower you mention.

It’s way to early to tell, though.

V Edward Martin -

Although this is quite easy for me to say sitting here at my computer, the claim that “Battle, War, dying, fighting is never a good thing, never!” is not true.

If everyone everywhere all started singing “I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony” and bought everybody Coke, we wouldn’t need war or the threat of war.

Until that time, though, it’s a necessary evil. Sad, but true.

A lot of people are alive because of wars. A lot of people are free because of wars.

Sure, there are many wars that are unjust or unnecessary, and I can see the points of those who think that about our current campaign in Iraq. But all wars? All fighting? Not true. Not even close.

ceejayoz -

You are completely correct. My statements about the willpower to win address that. We are doing a lot more in Iraq than just winning battles. Although we’ve obviously got problems, we’re making headway. The administration, though not without error, is working to win the whole war, not just the military engagements.

Murdoc: I am startled by your tone and tenor. The Fact that you would consider changing you opinion based on condition “on the ground” is a very positive thing. The right wing military types I know just seem to have a brain freeze at this point in the conversation.
Maybe Vietnam has taught us something.

FYI:
Gulf of Tonkin Incident (The justification for major US involvement in Vietnam) 1964
TET offensive, 1968
Last American Troops Leave Vietnam, 1973

Bob J Young -

I agree that many Conservative military supporters are unrealistic. This is not a “win at all costs” situation, even though I believe it to be a key campaign in our war. If we have 2,000 dead in Iraq a year from now, something will obviously be very wrong.

If this recent round of fighting is more than a last-gasp attempt at a Bulge offensive, a lot of people are going to have to rethink their position. I’m one of them.

But I think attempts to sell this as another Tet Offensive or as Bush’s Vietnam hinder our efforts at best and could become self-fulfilling prophecies at worst.

My concern is the tone of the Democratic attacks especially Ted Kennedy are empowering our enemies. If that is true then it is pretty discusting.

When American troops are in combat overseas we need to be careful about out words.

Craig - Stifling dissent because it makes some things harder for us makes us no better than Hussein was.

If this recent round of fighting is more than a last-gasp attempt at a Bulge offensive, a lot of people are going to have to rethink their position. I’m one of them.

murdoc - A good point, thanks.

Craig, it’s not the Democrat’s fault that Iraq has become so closely associated with the war on terror. It’s Bush and their war cabinet that made the decision on going to Iraq, and they made that decision long ago.

As for whether criticism of that war emboldens the terrorist, I would respond that the understrength deployment of the army and marines to Iraq has done far more to embolden them than any hint of dissent on our side. Besides, no candidate is criticising the continuation of the occupation. The mainstream on both sides of the aisle understand that successful occupation is a must to restore stability.

Bush’s loss of reputation is deserved. He lead us into a war unjustified by the evidence, a war he and his advisors failed to prepare for right, and which now is costing us more lives and economic strength daily. The only defense for all this is we freed the Iraqi people. But even that is threatening to fall by the wayside as Bush’s lack of serious preparation for this war entails that we are once again having to fight for control of a number of Iraqi cities.

It’ll be wonderful to be able to salvage that, but it’ll be salvaged from a problem that promises to haunt this country for the next few decades.

All in all, I find very little that’s redeeming about the war in Iraq. So please don’t be shocked that so many of us really don’t see Bush as a man qualified to take a second term.

> I don’t mean to say that ALL jihadists and
> bomb-layers can be eliminated.

I heard a NYTimes reporter in Iraq on TV the other day point out that even if 80% of the Iraq public approves of the American occupation and our efforts to build a democracy, and even if only 5% are really working with the armed resistance and the newly-emerging warlords vying for power in the occupied (and eventually post-) American Iraq, it’s still going to be a bloody long term mess. Why? Because that 80% that is sympathetic to the USA is not ever going to lift a finger against the 5% who are fighting us.

In other words, it’s going to be tough.

> George Bush never said it would be easy. In fact,
> he said repeatedly that it would be difficult.

You may be right, but gosh his surrogates sure said a lot. “Cakewalk” was used. The VP said we’d be pelted with “flowers” and “parades” in Baghdad. Rumsfeld said we could do it in under a year and with less than 100,000 troops.

The truth is Bush himself never said much at all beyond empty platitudes and recycled Churchill-esque rhetoric. He used vague terms like “long and difficult”, and “determined” but not one person in the administration ever used terms like “hundreds of dead soldiers” and “hundreds of billions of dollars” and “years and years”.

I do remember Bush saying “Mission Accomplished”, however. That was 450 deaths ago.

And I remember that, a year ago, whenever anyone dared to suggest that there might be hundreds of Americans dead, or that there might be rebellious factions, regional warlords, emerging theocrats, and widespread civil unrest — or if we even suggested that we could very easily be in Iraq for years and years — we were called defeatists, unpatriotic, and much worse.

I don’t in the least bit enjoy saying “I told you so” now, and I sure as damn hell do not want to have to say it again a couple of years from now, either.

> although Vietnam isn’t a threat to the world,
> I’d suggest that a lot people in Vietnam think
> they lost.

You may be right, I don’t know. I brought it up because I simply want us all to ask ourselves “What would have happened if we had NOT invaded Iraq?” Would the world situation have been better or worse than it is now? Are we on a better course for the future, or it worse?

> If this fighting is still going on in three
> weeks, I will have a different opinion about
> things. If this fighting is still going on
> in three months, and we haven’t changed our
> approach, I will agree that we’re flirting
> with the head-on-wall blind willpower you
> mention.

This really shocks me. You go on and on about willpower and resolve, and then you say this.

I would have thought that you would have at least given it a year. Even I, who vehemently opposed the war and who thinks our current strategy is misguided, think that it’s going to take a lot longer than three weeks or even three months to quell this unrest. I’m thinking years. See, that’s why I’m mad about our strategy and that’s why I think that your side is guilty of wishful thinking.

Something tells me that in one year, it will be today’s hawks who will be saying “Screw Iraq, let’s get the hell outta there.” or “Let’s just prop up a fascist strongman and get the hell outta there”… and it will be today’s doves who are going to say “No, we’ve got to protect this emerging democracy and help them with nation building!” - and they will be ridiculed by the same people who ridiculed Clinton for Somalia, Haiti, and even Kosovo.

This is particularly likely to be the case if John Kerry wins. Because if Bush’s integrity and manhood itself is no longer on the line, I think even conservative support for the occupation will crumble into dust. It’s like it’s only fun to be a hawk if the victory seems easy.

-Cf

Cf-

This really shocks me. You go on and on about willpower and resolve, and then you say this.

I would have thought that you would have at least given it a year.I’m talking about the current fighting in Fallujah and the other hotspots that have flared up in the past few days. The fighting that is different than any of the other fighting since last April and May.

And my change of opinion doesn’t mean I’ll change it to “get out”. I think you’re trying to read too much into my statement.

When you say “years and years to quell this unrest”, do you mean this wave of fighting that’s broken out over the past few days? If you do, I’ve got so say that I disagree completely.

There will be unrest in Iraq for years and years, of course. But I really don’t expect this latest wave of fighting to go on for more than a week or so. There will be more flare-ups in the future, as well, but unless we falter (our willpower and resolve), more and more Iraqis will see the advantages of living peacefully. Many already have, and many of them have already lifted fingers to help us.

Half-measures might get us a protracted guerrilla war, but no one seems to be suggesting that we’re going to be implementing any half-measures. That’s the willpower and resolve I’m talking about.

I see your point. I didn’t mean just this particular uprising, but I did mean that uprisings like these will constantly happen in the future and they will probably even flare up worse than this one. Maybe for years.

There are some who are saying, however, that there is now emerging a crop of genuine warlords who are very well armed and who have hundreds and even thousands of well-armed and very loyal followers. As you say, we’ll have to crack down on then hard if we’re going to bring stability to the nation and the region. Are we prepared to blow up more mosques? Are we prepared to make ugly deals with some of these guys?

> Half-measures might get us a protracted
> guerrilla war

We should acknowledge that even full-measures may still get us a protracted guerilla war.

But let’s say we are very successful in quelling large-scale uprisings, militias, and warlords: Even if we don’t have a guerilla war or any military battles at all, all it will take is one major bombing or assassination per week to make democracy in Iraq nearly impossible. As little as one terrorist incident a week, even if coalition troops are not the target, would be terrible for us. We need to share that burden so that (a) we alone won’t be held acocuntable for the inevitable accidents like the incident at the mosque today, and (b) the inevitable setbacks and ordeals won’t reflect solely on the United States’ military “reputation”.

Every move we make to scale back or withdraw will almost certainly lead to more unrest as Iraqi factions seek to fill the power vacuum we leave behind. Only a slow withdrawal with a slow handover of power will work. When the last American soldier leaves, there better be a tough as hell Iraqi army in place. The other option is to just let the Iraqis battle it out themselves. I don’t know which is better.

-Cf

Cf -

I freely admit that I agree with 100% of your most recent comment. The potential rise of major warlords with serious militias is a very grave danger.

We were close to agreements with the Badr Brigade and another militia, but obviously we still have a few differences with some groups. The Marines are trying to iron out some of those points right now.

It is indeed a very fragile state that Iraq is in now, and it will remain so for years. And I wholeheartedly agree with the need for more, better, tougher Iraqi security and military forces. There’s quite a few Iraqi personnel with the Marines in Fallujah, and I really hope that they’re taking part in what’s going on. We’re going to need them as this goes on.

Slow withdrawal is right on the money. I don’t actually believe that we’ll have all US forces out of Iraq for many, many years. I think that we might be setting up permanent shop (although probably a ways away from major population centers) for at least a division and some aircraft as a forward base in the Middle East.

As for the US being the sole military power, I agree. We’ve got allies in Iraq right now, of course. Polish troops killed a major al Sadr figure in Karbala this morning, in fact, and other coalition troops are also engaged in fighting (though the Ukrainians have had a tough time of it in Kut). But more international support, EVEN VIA THE UNITED NATIONS, would be good. But I don’t think we should compromise our plan, at least too much, to get it. French or German troops, and the international respect that would come with them, would be nice, but stronger Iraqi police and military forces would be nicer.

Murdoc—

I have to stick by my original statement that War is never a good thing, though I will concede that sometimes it is a necessary evil as you pointed out. And make no mistake the undertaking is evil in its intent and prosecution.

The Civil War because of situation was unavoidable and necessary to free the nation from the smothering grip of slavery; WWI however was not necessary, WWII was. The Korea War and Vietnam were not necessary, but the first Gulf War was. Bush’s War was not necessary, and no amount of rationalizing will make me think otherwise, or change the conditions under which this dirty little war was undertaken.

Men, women, and children of a multitude of nationalities are loosing their lives, and for what? How can we, given the failure to find WMD’s, defend this War even to ourselves, let alone the world that watched in horror as we sidestepped the U.N. and made war with reason?

V. Edward Martin -

Fair enough. I don’t agree completely, to be sure, but I can understand your reasoning. It’s a different discussion, though, I think. We’re in, and now we’re wondering if this is another Tet Offensive and if we’re caught in a quagmire. It might be, and we might be.

I DON’T think this is another Tet, despite continuing efforts by many in the media and the opposing party to sell it as such. If this uprising is still hot three weeks from now, let’s talk about it.

I’m a little more open-minded about the possibility that we’re bogged down in a quagmire. I’m cautiously optimistic that we aren’t, but I need to see the provisional government take power on June 30th, and I need to see Iraqi police and security forces begin to take control of things, before I’ll begin breathing easier. I’m waiting to see, though, before I claim to know how bad things are going to be for how long.

SD -

“Besides, no candidate is criticising the continuation of the occupation.”

Not true. If you’ve watched any of the Democratic debates, you know that Dennis Kucinich answers just about any question with his 90-day plan to pull all troops out of Iraq, regardless of the situation at the time.

I hear countless people call up the local AM talk shows with the same opinion, except most of them don’t want to wait 90 days, they think the world is best served by us evacuating overnight.

Not saying you think this way, but there are many, mostly on the left, that do.

Sending in more troops is NOT the answer (at least not in the immediate future). More GIs rambling around would just be more targets—most of those killed have been by roadside bombs, after all, and I’ve never once heard that our casualties resulted from American forces being overwhelmed by a superior number of enemies. It sounds like what’s needed is to decisively put into action the forces that are already there

Thats true I agree we should just cut our loses and let them kill each other. We have too many issues to worry in this country. If you click on www.witnessreport.com , you will see what I mean.

Hank -

“Thats true I agree we should just cut our loses and let them kill each other. We have too many issues to worry in this country.”

You can’t tell me you’re actually saying that stability in the middle east is NOT one of the major issues we have to worry about in this country?