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If we didn’t want to show softness, we shouldn’t have tried to occupy a country with so few troops. If we don’t have the troops to patrol, the troops to send out on missions of pacification, or the troops to simply give the average Iraqi dissident second thoughts about taking up arms, or descending into lawlessness, then chaos is bound to erupt.

there’s a difference between talking tough, and being tough. Bush and his people talk tough, but when it comes to policy they’ve got too many soft-headed notions of how their opposition is going to react to things. Quite often, they underestimate the preparation, supplies, manpower and force they need to successfuly carry on a campaign of this sort.

I guess this is what you get for putting the chickenhawks in charge.

Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at April 7, 2004 03:03 PM

Bush and his people talk tough, but when it comes to policy they’ve got too many soft-headed notions of how their opposition is going to react to things. Quite often, they underestimate the preparation, supplies, manpower and force they need to successfully carry on a campaign of this sort.

Granted. There have certainly been some “misunderestimations” made in this campaign. But to think those types of mistakes wouldn’t be made by others isn’t realistic. Those are exactly the same mistakes that nearly everyone has always made. It isn’t confined to Bush and his team.

Plans don’t survive contact with the enemy, and to blame “chickenhawks” for all the shortcomings isn’t objective at all.

However, I do think we’re trying to fight an 18 division world war with 10 divisions. That doesn’t mean you don’t have to fight the war, though. And what would happen if someone tried to get those eight divisions back?

Posted by: murdoc at April 7, 2004 03:21 PM

Plans don’t survive contact with the enemy, and to blame “chickenhawks” for all the shortcomings isn’t objective at all.

Plans don’t survive contact with the enemy, but you’re supposed to plan for that.

Posted by: ceejayoz at April 7, 2004 03:27 PM

there’s a difference between talking tough, and being tough. Bush and his people talk tough, but when it comes to policy they’ve got too many soft-headed notions

During the run-up to the war, Bush’s critics were saying he was trying to be too tough, and that this was all just a big neo-con conspiracy. Now you’re saying he’s not tough enough??

Heads I win, tails you lose, huh? ;-)

Posted by: Vivek at April 7, 2004 03:32 PM

“But to think those types of mistakes wouldn’t be made by others isn’t realistic.”

Do a little research on Shinseki, or however you spell his name. Or on the State Department plans for a post Saddam Iraq. Or the Army War College reports on the same topic. Over and over, these “chickenhawks” simply ignored the planning advice that turned out to be right!

With a little work, I drudged up this story, which has it all in black and white.

Posted by: Gaelen Burns at April 7, 2004 03:40 PM

Vivek : That’s all very wonderful but even before the current insurrection we had the weekly roadside bombings. Let’s ignore what is happening on the ground in Iraq right now and look at the long term picture. It took years for Vietnam to sink in before most Americans realized we were fighting a never-ending war of conquest against a country that just wanted us to leave. How high a body count and how much money would it take to get you to admit this is a never-ending quagmire (seriously give me some numbers)?

What is the end game strategy? Do we just keep killing each other till one side gets bored and goes home? The army is going to fight this war the same way it fought Vietnam. After all that’s what armies do. They kill people and blow things up. And every time we shot the wrong guy or burned the wrong village in Vietnam we made more Vietcong.

Posted by: Bob J Young at April 7, 2004 03:41 PM

Plans don’t survive contact with the enemy, but you’re supposed to plan for that.

Now you’re talking unknown knowns and also known unknowns.

Over and over, these “chickenhawks” simply ignored the planning advice that turned out to be right!

Of course there are going to be a lot of people able to say “See, I told you so.” And I’m not apologizing for the mistakes of the Bush administration. I’m just pointing out that it isn’t only the Bush administration that would have made these types of mistakes.

A lot of people who think Shinseki is a genius for knowing how many troops it would really take in Iraq also think he’s an idiot for pushing the Stryker brigades. Those people are right about the troops and wrong about the Strykers. So far.

There are few hard and fast known knowns. Until after the fact.

Posted by: murdoc at April 7, 2004 03:57 PM

All this is mildly interesting, but going back to Vivek’s most important (IMHO) question:
“Do the apostles of retreat realize how their defeatism, magnified by Arab media, bolsters the morale of the insurgents and increases the nervousness of the waverers?”

I doubt it very much, and I doubt they really care. It is amazing how often people will fight to improve their status WITHIN a group even when doing so DECREASES the status of their group.

And I have a question for Vivek: how do we counterattack decisively and when do we know we are done?

Posted by: Oscar at April 7, 2004 04:59 PM

> “Do the apostles of retreat realize how their
> defeatism, magnified by Arab media, bolsters the
> morale of the insurgents and increases the
> nervousness of the waverers?”

Besides the prime minister-elect of Spain, what mainstream American Democrat is an “apostle of retreat”?

-Cf

Posted by: Christopher Fahey at April 7, 2004 06:16 PM

Interestingly I would bet we could find on file from the supporters for our misadventure in Vietnam many articles about how that war was going to establish freedom and Democracy there. I know because I read them then. The level of violence can always be escalated in any war where you are trying to subdue the indigenous population but that tactic seldom works for long. It never works to change their government unless the new govt is supported by the invader’s troops, a long and bloody prospect.

The reluctance of Shiite leaders to send their followers into combat with our forces does not imply their acceptance of our occupation or our goals for their nation. The argument that those of us who oppose the Bush Strategy of unilateralism should shut up because we are giving aid to the insurgents is as specious now as it was in Vietnam.

Our loss there was based on the falseness of the doctrine that impelled us into that war which was the domino theory of Communization in SE Asia. When you fight for a lie your people seldom support you the way they do when you fight for the truth. The truth here is we invaded Iraq under false pretences based on their WMD threatening us. Now we are fighting a war to support the domino theory of Democratization of the Middle East. That theory is equally false and even stupider as a basis for international policy than its predecessor in Vietnam. When you add in the lies told to get this war accepted here and in the rest of the world we are in an indefensible position in the minds of most of the followers of Islam and the majority of our own people today.

My position in our national debate is to advise those who read my writing of the world that exists in stark reality to any extent possible. Crushing all of the Islamic opponents of our misadventure in Iraq might even be possible but it will not have a desirable result. I am clear on the fact that we have to sort the terrorists out from the rest of the people there and elsewhere or we face a war that cannot be won by either side. The victory at all costs crowd is who you speak for evidently, and no matter who you quote as an authority those who support victory at any cost are wrong here and in every other nation on earth. In the Middle East they are represented by the Terrorists and here they are represented by the Chicken Hawks. Guess who knows the most about war and getting civilian populations to support them?

I hate being asked to support another crowd of losers and fools because they have stuck our troops in another untenable position in a place where we did not need to go unless we believed the losers’ lies. I cannot do that now any more than John Kerry could do that then. He and the rest of us who opposed that war in Vietnam after serving in the military during that time had much to do with getting our troops home. I am no more ashamed of that than I will be when they come home after this disaster is over. I hope for democracy in Iraq but the people there are not as concerned about that as they are about getting our tanks and weapons out of their nation as soon as they can. The only difference between those who oppose us with arms and those who oppose us with words is the vehemence of their opposition. The situation there is moving with its own momentum now and our words will not change much until a lot more blood is shed, that is the saddest part of this debate. Of course it seems clear that the Neocons who never fought anything tougher than a free press will keep the blood flowing for a while. Even Kerry would not pull back immediately without trying to salvage this mess with a multinational force under the auspices of either NATO or the UN or hopefully both. I think that in any case we are stuck there but I do not have to accept that it was a brilliant idea to lie to our own people and the world in the first place. Nor do I have to accept the misconstruction of the imperialist goals of the neocons as democracy for all. Their Imperialistic words and documents are brazenly posted and printed for all who care to examine how hollow their devotion to democracy really is in the hollow little world inside their minds.
Henri

Posted by: Henri Reynard at April 7, 2004 06:22 PM

I was watching the News Hour on PBS tonight. My experience has been that it is a neutral source of news. It looks like the insurrection has spread to 14 cities. Evidently both Sunni and Shiite want to be able to say they were the ones who kicked out the Americans. Four retired military guys on the show seemed to agree that there is no solution to our present dilemma. An attack will greatly increase the enemies recruiting ability. A withdraw signal we are weak and encourage more insurrection.

I was talking to a reservist today about Iraq. I was hoping to get the perspective of a trained military officer. When I asked him if he could foresee any circumstance that would dictate withdraw. He quite literarily could not focus on the question. He just started talking adamantly about how Iraq is all about 9/11. I tried ask him again two more times but just couldn’t address the question. About the only think I could cull from his answer is that we should kill everyone in Iraq. I think he has “Vietnam Issues”.

Posted by: Bob J Young at April 7, 2004 08:43 PM

I’m not that easy Vivek. It’s not the force he’s using that concerns me. When you hit an enemy half-heartedly, of course, it rarely benefits you. Either follow through with the force necessary to get the job done, or don’t do anything in the first place.

What concerns me is hitting and becoming involved with the wrong enemies, the ones that aren’t really the kind of threats you need to worry about. I mean, with few exceptions, the Democrats on this board support a war on terror. They just think Bush missed that right turn at Albequerque as far as having put troops in Iraq. And to this point, we haven’t been proved wrong. No major terrorist presence pre-invasion, no stockpile-size finds of Chemical or Biological weapons. Bush can hand me all the hypotheticals he wants to, but until evidence comes up of these things, The war was unsupportable on its basic premises.

Of course, he’s saying nothing about that. No give, no apologies, just doubletalk and goal post moving as this war has consumed more lives than any since Vietnam.

Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at April 7, 2004 09:27 PM

Vietnam.

Sure, let’s fight this war over again. I think the specter of Vietnam is being channeled through the left without a doubt. Everything is Vietnam. I get the sense that the left does not believe the US military is moral.

The recent statements by Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd and echoed by Kerry are telling. Even the arguments used against the war in Iraq, before during and after, all revolve around one idea: That the US cannot win, and it should not win. It shouldn’t even be used because it is by it’s very nature immoral. As war is immoral.

That’s mostly what I hear day after day, time after time. And not just about Iraq. It’s deeper than that. Putting aside the Bush administration and whether it did or didn’t plan or wait long enough or get enough support… Pretend Iraq didn’t happen for a second.

Was the invasion of Afghanistan legal? or moral? Operation Enduring Freedom began on Oct. 7, 2001. I cannot find any information on Bush going to the UN to get authorization to invade Afghanistan. Maybe someone can help me out on that. The UN Authorized an International Security Force for Afghanistan on Dec. 20.

The left can only focus on one enemy at a time: George W. Bush. What did he do wrong? How has he failed? Can a democrat tell me what, if anything, he’s done right? No. Nothing.

Of course, he’s saying nothing about that. No give, no apologies, just doubletalk and goal post moving as this war has consumed more lives than any since Vietnam.

I get the impression that if GW were to make a prime time speech saying he was sorry for lying to the nation and getting us into an illegal war that was completely unnecessary, entirely too costly, and completely unplanned… that he was warned about 9/11 but just didn’t think it was important, …you know, to say he was wrong about everything as President, that Democrats would finally be able to declare victory in the war on terror. Because I get the impression that the left defines ‘Terror,’ as Bush being in the White House.

Posted by: Eric Simonson at April 8, 2004 01:22 AM

> I get the sense that the left does not
> believe the US military is moral.

You are wrong.

> the arguments used against the war in Iraq,
> before during and after, all revolve around one
> idea: That the US cannot win, and it should
> not win.

Wrong again. You made that up. Who has ever said “the US cannot win”? And who the hell ever said “the US should not win”? Who?

> I cannot find any information on Bush
> going to the UN to get authorization
> to invade Afghanistan.

Of course not. Nobody, left or right, ever thought we needed any “authorization”. Even under UN policies, nations have the right to wage wars against those who attack them, even without UN authorization.

> Can a democrat tell me what, if anything,
> he’s done right? No. Nothing.

Yes. Two things. First, he started a war against terrorists hiding out in Afghanistan. Second, he used his power to cause the Iraq weapons inspections to resume with unprecedented vigor — and with success. These are two things he did right. I mean, at least at first he did them right.

> Because I get the impression that the left
> defines ‘Terror,’ as Bush being in the
> White House.

I think you are confusing the term “Democrat” with “Doctor Doom” or some other kind of imaginary comic book villian.

Over and over again in these forums you use your posts to build a straw man of the Evil Democrat, then you proceed to tear it apart. Your caricature of liberals and Democrats as America-haters and terrorist-lovers is tiresome, insulting, and utterly ludicrous.

Democrat: “I think Bush’s leadership in Iraq is bad.”
Eric: “That’s because you hate America.”

See, that’s not a discussion, that’s playground bullying.

-Cf

Posted by: Christopher Fahey at April 8, 2004 01:59 AM

The left, (it is a generalization I’ll give you that), has a history of believing the military is immoral. You’d never find an elected official actually saying that soldiers are immoral, or would you? You don’t agree that the left was successful in ending the Vietnam war through it’s protests and painting our troops and the war as immoral and wrong, babykillers and ‘destroying the village to save it’?

Should I have said far left?

John Kerry’s testimony to congress, back in those days, comes as close as you can get.

…had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires… to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randonly shot at civilians, razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Gengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam… -this pdf

Just reading all of the posts on this blog one easily comes to the conclusion that the left believes that we will lose in Iraq. ie. the US cannot win. I don’t know, it seems logical to me.

Wrong again. You made that up. Who has ever said “the US cannot win”? And who the hell ever said “the US should not win”? Who?

Which elected democratic official? Besides Kucinich I suppose? Basically it is the inference I am talking about from all of the progressives and politically left that constantly predicted dire consequences from the beginning. Even about Afghanistan. I did say, “I get the impression…” It’s a logical conclusion. Especiallu when you go over the arguments against every military action. The protests started when we went into Afghanistan, Christopher. I can read signs you know. What about the millions of people worldwide who protested the Iraq war? I think, “The US can’t win, the US shouldn’t win.” pretty much sums up the signs I read.

The far right at least is patriotic, if not overly-possessively so. But on the far left, America is evil. Perhaps you fall somewhere in between. Try taking a sociology class or indiginous peoples/minority/multicultural studies college class sometime.

I could be wrong, maybe not all leftist are marxist.

Posted by: Eric Simonson at April 8, 2004 03:59 AM

If you are going to win a war you need men, recourses, strategy, tactics, logistics, a country that is 100% behind the fight and a clear mission. What you don’t need is a lot of super-patriot rhetoric.

What we got was an over stretched military, an unfinished job in Afghanistan, offended allies who wouldn’t support us, fantasy WMD, a hostile population and a Iraq – al-Qaida connection that had not previously existed. If Bush wanted to win in Iraq he should have gotten his ducks in a row before the invasion. Don’t blame the rest of the world because your hero is a screw up.

Posted by: Bob J Young at April 8, 2004 09:12 AM

Eric
Dispense with the straw men manufactured by the right wing’s commentators on radio and TV and get out and talk to some real people. Real people who have fought in every war our nation has ever fought whether or not they thought the leadership was perfect are on both sides of the political spectrum. They are troubled by the lack of forethought apparent in this war as they were about Vietnam by the end. I am a lifelong Democrat and Democrats started us on the path to our war in Vietnam. It took a Republican to get us out but it took the people to show him the way.

Marx is dead, so is Hitler our enemy today is a freedom fighter to those who support him and a terrorist to us. If your worldview does not expand to understand both views then you will become irrelevant to this war on terrorism that we need to be fighting. Iraq is probably no longer a viable place to start a Democracy if it was when we attacked them. The people of this nation are likely to see that fact soon and demand that we bring the troops home and leave Iraq to welter in its own civil war. We made a mistake and now the Iraqi people will suffer more for it than we are likely to if we withdraw. Those points and more need to be discussed and argued if we are to resolve our own internal dispute about this war.

Put down the toy soldiers and the straw men and pick up the real bloody bodies of the Iraqi people and your compatriots dying there not because we can offer them freedom and democracy but because they are unwilling to fight for it them selves. They will fight for their religion or their ethnic group but not for freedom and democracy. They will join together and kill us but they will not continue to work together to build a nation.

Our one hope of success there is the immediate internationalization of this mess but there is no international community ready to step in because of our conduct before the war. What should we do Eric, and don’t give me a platitude like “stay the course” lets hear a real suggestion about a course that will possibly resolve this mess.
Henri

Posted by: Henri Reynard at April 8, 2004 09:32 AM

Eric, the John Kerry quote you and others have been repeatedly citing is a quote of him telling Congress what he heard other Veterans tell him at a highly charged and emotional meeting he had just attended in Detroit. It’s highly disingenuous of you, and everyone who has been using this quote to smear Kerry, to sink to such a third-rate journalistic tactic as ascribing views to a person who is merely telling what he heard another person say. (But this is par for the course for right-wing reporting, I suppose)

I went to the PDF you linked to (sincere thanks for providing the source, by the way) and I was surprised to learn that this quote, so widely reported in the media, is only the opening statement of 30+ more pages of insightful and highly patriotic testimony about the war in Vietnam. We all should read it.

You are apparently unable to distinguish between patriotic opposition to a dumb war and unpatriotic hatred for America.

Let’s first look at your suggestion that the left thinks that the US “should not” win. My guess is that you are confusing “should not invade” with “should not win”. But to people like myself and certainly John Kerry, the invasion itself is a moot point - now we simply must win, regardless of whether or not invading in the first place was a good idea. Nobody on the mainstream left thinks otherwise. I mean, come on. Even Kucinich would never say that we “should not win”.

Reminding America that the war was a bad idea in the first place doesn’t mean that we dont want to win it now that we’re in it. We patriotic liberals obviously think that Bush is making America less safe and less prosperous, and we think that reminding America about the hamfisted lame-brained nature of Bush’s foreign policies is an integral part of our patriotic plan to replace this President who is diminishing America’s future with one who will make America stronger.

You are apparently also unable to distinguish between realistic practical foreign policy and unpatriotic hatred for America. Why do you automatically think that “predicting dire consequences” equates to “Hatred of America”?

Imagine, for example, if we had a President who advocated invading North Korea right away. North Korea probably deserves liberation, right? Would such an invasion be a dumb idea? You bet it would! Would opposing such an invasion be unpatriotic? Hell no.

Let’s look at your other accusation, where you suggest that the left says that America “can’t” win:

To answer that question, it really depends on what you mean by “win”. If by “win” you mean that we should have been able to bring the bulk of our troops home by the summer of 2003, which is what Rumsfeld and Cheney and Wolfowitz so confidently and semingly patriotically predicted before the invasion, then you can see that the left-wing traitors who dared to question our infallable leadership turned out, in fact, to have been correct. If by “win” you mean that we will be able to restore Iraq to peace and stability by as late as 2005 even without international support and without much further cost in American lives or dollars, then yes, I and most others on the left are still quite skeptical. Does that make us unpatriotic? Hell no.

> Should I have said far left?

Damn right, you absolutely should have said “far left” to refer to the often insane and radical views you were describing.

For perspective, let’s reverse things for a second: In my wholly unscientific guess, I would imagine that there are a lot of people on the far right who regularly and loudly advocate that we should nuke Iraq, or for that matter nuke all of the Arab world. This group is probably as numerous (if not more numerous) as the people on the far left who actually wish for America to be defeated in Iraq. Would it be fair, however, for me to characterize the right as people who support a nuclear holocaust in Iraq? No it would not.

See, debating against an imaginary villianous “Liberal America-Hating Traitorous Marxist Straw Man” or a “Conservative Bloodthirsty Hatemonger Fascist Straw Man” doesn’t lift the debate above name-calling.

As a rule of thumb to help you avoid making straw man arguments, you might wish to target your debate at particular political figures, identifying them by name and contesting their specific words and views. You should say “I disagree with Kerry because… ” or “I disagree with Kucinich’s view because…” or “I disagree with Chomsky’s view that…” or even “I disagree with Chris Fahey…” But simply saying “I disagree with liberals because they…” is unfair because it paints half the country with whatever you personally want them to be for your particular argument. That’s a straw man. It’s time to step up and start fighting real men and women. (I mean that metaphorically, by the way.)

-Cf

Posted by: Christopher Fahey at April 8, 2004 01:02 PM

Remember, Baghdad Bob? The Iraqi information minister, Al Sahaf, has been replaced by the liberal left. And it’s not just in the US. The left around the world are united in their opposition to our President and to this war.

…our enemy today is a freedom fighter to those who support him and a terrorist to us. If your worldview does not expand to understand both views then you will become irrelevant to this war on terrorism that we need to be fighting.

How well I understand that, but democrats seem not to. You think that treating Osama Bin Laden as a suspect in a criminal investigation is going to make those who support him as a freedom fighter think he is a criminal. Merely attempting to arresting such ‘freedom fighter’ will have the same effect as going in with troops. In for a penny, in for a pound! When will democrats expand their worldview to include that?

It is democrats and progressives who seem to have their head in the sand. The approach of treating the war on terror as only a criminal matter does nothing to change the nature of the war or the enemy. It serves only to prolong the battle.

Iraq is probably no longer a viable place to start a Democracy if it was when we attacked them. The people of this nation are likely to see that fact soon and demand that we bring the troops home and leave Iraq to welter in its own civil war. We made a mistake and now the Iraqi people will suffer more for it than we are likely to if we withdraw. Those points and more need to be discussed and argued if we are to resolve our own internal dispute about this war.

This is not realism. Or hard truth. It’s condescending at it’s core. “Of course the Iraqi people don’t deserve democracy, they’re not as civilized as us.” Not a viable place to start a democracy? Because of regime holdovers, and a small radical faction of Shi’ites are being drawn out into open battle, you think we can’t ever win this, so let’s go home? You prove my previous point. ‘The US can’t win, and it shouldn’t win.’

Posted by: Eric Simonson at April 8, 2004 07:51 PM

We patriotic liberals obviously think that Bush is making America less safe and less prosperous, and we think that reminding America about the hamfisted lame-brained nature of Bush’s foreign policies is an integral part of our patriotic plan to replace this President who is diminishing America’s future with one who will make America stronger.

Then why do you have to resort to name calling? Of course, what you mean is that we ‘should win’ but only if the right occupant is in the White House.

So of course you hate Bush and love America. What if Bush is America? What if all us lame brains favor Bush’s policies and think that your policies are the ones which will make us more vulnerable?

…troops home by the summer of 2003, which is what Rumsfeld and Cheney and Wolfowitz so confidently and semingly patriotically predicted before the invasion…

I’d like to see the quote on that one. What’s your source for this? From what I can remember the Bush Adminsitration never said it was going to be a walk in the park, nor that all our troops would be home that quickly.

As for straw men, I hardly think it’s a false target if it correctly characterizes liberal ideology. Is it fair to use the term neo-con or lame brain to characterize the administration or elements of its foreign policy?

I happen to believe that the far left isn’t that far from the rest of the left. Take Ted Kennedy for example. Is he left or far left? Ever listen to Democracy Now? Is that far left? Noam Chomsky, sure he’s far left. But who’s buying all his books? Gore Vidal. Al Gore. Are all these people far left?

Where are the far right people you think are fringe?

Look, when 9/11 happened, who stood up and said we need to find out why they hate us? But then had answers at the ready? It almost doesn’t matter where you go, every liberal website hammers the same drum, the US is arrogant, the US deserves what it gets, the US is the real cause of terror.

You say that because we’re in Iraq that we are more at risk. How? Prove that we would not be hated by the same people for all the same reasons anyway. You can’t. It’s just an unsubstantiated assertion. A straw man if you will. We’re converting more terrorists to the cause of killing US citizens? How? By liberating a country, deposing a dictator? Of course, now we’re occupiers. We’ve angered the jihadists.

Posted by: Eric Simonson at April 8, 2004 08:37 PM

Well my take on the recent fighting is to wait and see. I remember the first Iraqi war, and the war in Kosavo, and Afghanistan and now Iraq. In each war the reports from the press were

“How come this isn’t happening faster”, and “is something wrong”.

Each time the military used the same disciplined strategy.

Imagine the target is a house of cards. The military takes one card out and then another. Finally the house of cards falls in on itself.

My assumption is that the Marines are using the same strategy now. They illiminate water, electricity etc. Make sure the enemy is extremely uncomforable. Bomb them all night for many nights to make sure they do not sleep at all. Send in leaflets to let them know how to surrender, isolate them from the rest of the country. In otherwards, make them weak first. Make them so weak they can hardly walk. Then the the enemy starts to have desertion problems. Then attack.

Since this is the way the US military seems to work at least in the past, my assumption is that, that is what is going on right now. Eventually they will move in when the resistance falls appart. It saves american lives and it is very effective.

So, I give them through the weekend. That should be long enough.

Craig

Posted by: Craig Holmes at April 8, 2004 11:17 PM

Craig

> So, I give them through the weekend. That
> should be long enough.

That seems a little impatient, don’t you think? Don’t you think we should show a little more confidence in our troops, and shouldn’t we steel ourselves for a longer haul? I mean, if the weekend passes and they have not succeeded in routing all of these uprisings, what will you think? Or am I misreading you?

-Cf

Posted by: Christopher Fahey at April 9, 2004 12:08 PM

Craig, imagining your opponent as a house of cards is foolhardy. It’s what’s created these unrealistic expectations both in the public’s eyes, and in the policies of our military leaders. We must imagine our opponents as buildings, buildings whose very weight with their people, properly distributed, allows them to stand. Saddam Hussein had a government infrastructure on his side which allowed him to rule without much worry of overthrow.

The NeoCon’s took on a house of cards idea of things, and that was their policy’s undoing, because Saddam’s power did not immediately dry up and blow away, leaving a ready infrastructure in place. Instead, we had to basically annihilate huge portions of his armies in order to knock him from power. The Neo-Cons had predicted immediate uprisings and dissolving of Baathist authority. Instead, we got muted public response, and the entrenchment of that authority.

Also, owing to that idea of things, we failed to put an occupation sized force into play, which meant we had lawlessness in the aftermath of our invasion, and Saddam’s fall, lawlessness which emboldened those who would write their own law, and who could commit terrorist and criminal acts with impunity in those days.

We failed to be enough of a presence, and create enough in the way of the continuity of law and order to give people second thoughts about defying our authority, and killing our men. And why? Because we wanted to prove what badasses we were, and went in understrength.

Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at April 11, 2004 01:04 PM