Iraq: Cosmically fucked

[Jason McCullough]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/29/international/middleeast/29province.html?hp

It's like Vietnam on fast-forward at this point.


American-aligned foreigner politicians, officials, and agents assassinated by insurgents in a disturbingly effective manner.
A vicious circle between killing those that oppose us/civilian damage in the process/creating even more enemies with the civilian damage.
Domestic armchair warriors convinced that somehow liberals are losing the war even though they're not involved at all in running it.
Same warriors asserting through their incredible knowledge of military tactics acquired from Panzer General and the History Channel that things would clear up if only we'd burn entire cities to the ground, religious buildings included.
Enormous political missteps by the chain-of-command turning ever-larger segments of the populace against us.
Inability by the leadership to distinguish between pipe-dream aspirations and policies.
Supression of free elections in favor of hand-picked US officials with no in-country legitimacy who promise "stability", betraying the noble aspirations of the policymakers.


What the fuck is going to happen next? An Iraqi Tet Offensive? A conservative stab-in-the-back theory that MoveOn lost the war?

[Idar Thorvaldsen]

It's not even like Vietnam, because there isn't even a regular army or a superpower or two to back the insurgents.

[Jason McCullough]

Well, hypothetically Iran could be behind some of it. But we lost Vietnam before the Soviets or China ever really got involved, according to what I've been reading.

[TomChick]

BTW, anyone who thinks the invasion is anything other than a huge fucking goat-rope of a mess should read that NY Times article. I know some of you dismess the Old Gray Lady as a hardcore left-wing partisan publication, but they do a great job with their foreign correspondents. There's some sobering information in that article that makes it clear that inconsistent water and electricity are the least of our problems in Iraq.

In an odd twisted way, I hope Bush wins the re-election so he has to deal with the aftermath of his batshit insane foriegn policy adventures.

But then I hold out a little hope that Kerry can somehow repair our international standing and make Iraq a burden shared with other nations. As a single-issue voter this election (I'm a conservative -- a registered Republican, to boot -- who's aghast at how Bush has scuttled the US position in the world), I'm content with Kerry not talking too much about Iraq. He doesn't have to admit it's a mistake, he doesn't have to defend his vote in the Senate to support the Administration's use of force as a viable threat, and he doesn't have to offer a detailed plan for how he's going to fix it. The fact of the matter is, it probably can't be fixed.

But what Kerry offers is a different approach and a change of thinking from the neoconservative doctrine that got us into this mess.

-Tom

[Zarathustra]

BTW, anyone who thinks the invasion is anything other than a huge fucking goat-rope of a mess should read that NY Times article. I know some of you dismess the Old Gray Lady as a hardcore left-wing partisan publication, but they do a great job with their foreign correspondents. There's some sobering information in that article that makes it clear that inconsistent water and electricity are the least of our problems in Iraq.
-Tom

Yeah, when their foreign correspondants aren't phoning in the story :wink:

[Zarathustra]

You know, I wish I had more time to discuss these things here. I often find myself disagreeing with many of the points of view here, but, economics aside, I do give much of what's posted here consideration. Whether Bush should have invaded Iraq/he should not have; whether his administration should have worked through the UN, waited for France and Germany to approve taking out Hussein, whether Iraq was more serious than North Korea and what the hell is he doing about that?.... I'm not 100% fixed in support of his actions. I generally approve removing dictators but as the article suggests, if we are falling back on the same type of American interventionist practices as we used in the past, I agree, it's pretty stupid.

I also am not sure how much stock to put into "doomsday scenarios" such as the one in the NY Times. Hell, before we went into Afghanistan, the conventional wisdom was that we would suffer the same fate as the British and Russians (and who knows, we yet may), but that campaign worked out.

The troubling news stories sell papers. How many front page stories has NY Times given the work being done in areas of Iraq (Kurds) where things are progressing nicely?

Well, if Kerry wins the election, it will be interesting to see how he handles it.

[Charles Stevenson]

... In an odd twisted way, I hope Bush wins the re-election so he has to deal with the aftermath of his batshit insane foriegn policy adventures... -Tom
But then he may decide that his winning the election is a mandate by America for support of his actions and he may target another country. Who would he pick? Iran? North Korea? The war on terror could eventually end up in Saudi Arabia and/or Pakistan. Would you want to see the Draft reinstated? The first to go would be between the ages of 18-26.

By the time he finally leaves office we could be tens' if not hundreds' of trillions of dollars in debt, be hated by 99% of the world and be headed straight into a major depression.

[chumpface]

Yeah, when their foreign correspondants aren't phoning in the story :wink:

John Burns, who wrote the piece Tom references, is a top notch reporter. If you get a chance listen to the interview with him on fresh air about the middle east.

(go to http://freshair.npr.org and go to ARCHIVED SHOWS and then do a search for John Burns. There are three interviews with him there). Because of these, i intend to take what he says rather seriously. He's also discussed fairly in depth in Anne Gerrel's book "naked in bagdhad" and was constantly on the run from the iraqis while they tried to arrest him during the build-up to the war. He's pretty hard-core, spending several weeks hiding in plain sight in Bagdhad continuing to report while Saddam's men searched for him. (also see http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0304/29/ltm.07.html)

[chumpface]

The troubling news stories sell papers. How many front page stories has NY Times given the work being done in areas of Iraq (Kurds) where things are progressing nicely?


Things have been going nicely in the Kurdish areas since the no-fly zone was established in the early 90s. I think the relevant concern here is that we've started to withdraw/retreat and claim victory. I have serious doubts about our ability to win this war, and we certainly don't win it by abandoning city after city to chaos.

The hard truth is we can't win. We don't have the political will to take these cities by force. Even if we did, we'd just infuriate the people we're trying to befriend. I wouldn't know what to advise Bush to do know. Would have been nice if he had listened a little more before getting us into this mess.

[Woolen Horde]

I also am not sure how much stock to put into "doomsday scenarios" such as the one in the NY Times. Hell, before we went into Afghanistan, the conventional wisdom was that we would suffer the same fate as the British and Russians (and who knows, we yet may), but that campaign worked out.


Afghanistan proved that we can apply overwhelming firepower with precision that was unheard of even 10 years ago. But it still hasn't proved that we can win the peace, given the festering problems over there. Case in point, another bunch of Americans got blown up today. The countryside is under control of warlords, and the Taliban regroups while the NATO force basically protects Kabul and a few other cities, and nothing else.

But the insurgency that's mired us in Iraq and cost us more than 800 American lives after the end of "major combat operations" was exactly what the experts predicted would happen if we did this half-assed, which we did.

I wish The Atlantic would make Fallow's "Blind into Baghdad" cover story readable for free as a public service, because it's a damning indictment of how Rummy and Wolfowitz blew off CENTCOM, the State Department's Iraq Project, NGO's, and other experts who warned exactly what would happen. And where was Shrub's leadership? The most damning quote comes from when one of the NGO's pleads with the White House for some time with President Bush. "The President has already spent an hour on the humanitarian aspects..." (Disclaimer: quote is a paraphrase from memory, empahsis mine.) Wow, a friggin' hour on one of the most crucial aspects of any major military operation, and that's winning the peace afterwards? I'm so fuckin' amazed by W's leadership abilities.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200401/fallows

[Toddy]

But then I hold out a little hope that Kerry can somehow repair our international standing and make Iraq a burden shared with other nations. As a single-issue voter this election (I'm a conservative -- a registered Republican, to boot -- who's aghast at how Bush has scuttled the US position in the world), I'm content with Kerry not talking too much about Iraq. He doesn't have to admit it's a mistake, he doesn't have to defend his vote in the Senate to support the Administration's use of force as a viable threat, and he doesn't have to offer a detailed plan for how he's going to fix it. The fact of the matter is, it probably can't be fixed.

Yeah, but Iraq *has* to be fixed. Either the country gets turned into the dreamland democracy that Bush wanted in the first place (which we all know ain't gonna happen), or the US has to install Saddam II to get control of the Islamists. Let the situation go, or simply repeat 1975 and bail out, and you essentially give the country if not the entire region outside of the Gulf States to Iran and its terrorist clients. It would be much, much worse than what happened in Afghanistan when the Soviets left.

I'm wondering when somebody's going to propose a partition plan. Really, it's the only way that a non-dictatorial Iraq could ever work. This isn't a nation. It never was. The US should just give the north to the Kurds and tell Turkey to fuck off, give the central part of the country to the Sunnis, and the south/southwest to the Shiites (along with control over the shrines). Set up serious, Israeli wall-style borders, too, and you could slow down or stop a lot of the anarchy. And you'd at least get some form of democracy in the north. Perhaps the Sunni region as well, as there is a history of secularism there.

[Anders Hallin]

If the US bails on Iraq, I'm going to be angry.
Grrr.

[Ben Sones]

BTW, anyone who thinks the invasion is anything other than a huge fucking goat-rope of a mess should read that NY Times article.

Just out of curiosity, what in the hell is a "goat-rope?" Is that some sort of party game?

[chumpface]

I don't think a partition plan would work because Kirkuk will become the new Kashmir. And the US would be very nervous about a partition plan because of Iranian influence in the south, which is already pretty infiltrated.

[Toddy]

Better to limit them than turn over the whole country. This way, the Kurds would be able to control the north properly, too, and the government there would be very Western-friendly. It's not perfect, but it would provide a regional counterbalance to the Sunni and Shiite states that would likely spring into being in the south. Right now, it's like cats in a sack. Separation could only help.

[Jakub]

BTW, anyone who thinks the invasion is anything other than a huge fucking goat-rope of a mess should read that NY Times article.
Just out of curiosity, what in the hell is a "goat-rope?" Is that some sort of party game?
It's a SAG initiation.

[shift6]

BTW, anyone who thinks the invasion is anything other than a huge fucking goat-rope of a mess should read that NY Times article.
But surely, Tom, you can agree that anyone who compares Iraq with Vietnam is almost completely divorced from historical reality. No matter what the person's view is on either side of either conflict, the comparison is ludicrous.

[Jason McCullough]

Because-until-there's-50,000-dead-troops-that-every-other-fucking-thing-is-the-same-doesnt'-matter-at-all.

[shift6]

Because-until-there's-50,000-dead-troops-that-every-other-fucking-thing-is-the-same-doesnt'-matter-at-all.
Significant reasons why the conflict in Iraq is different fron the conflict in Vietnam:

1. Enemies: In Iraq, there are just the insurgents since the main military was gone a long time ago; whereas in Vietnam there were both insurgents (VC) as well as an actual funded and trained organized army with recognized national leadership and areas "behind the lines" (NVA) and both existed and fought together all the way until the end.

2. Alliances: In Iraq, neighboring territories aren't really ponying up to aid the enemy in the form of sending supplies, harboring units, etc.; whereas in Vietnam the enemy clearly had the nation-sponsored assistance of foreign countries, such as Laos, Cambodia, and China.

3. Territory: In Iraq, we entered from one end, fought our way to the capital, and are now engaging in small combats everywhere; whereas in Vietnam we stayed in combat in various areas, and gradually lost territory.

4. Entrance: In Iraq, we went in of our own accord achieving our own objectives at full bore; whereas in Vietnam we were ASKED in by an existing South Vietnamese government to play a supporting role which gradually escalated into what it did.

5. Reason: In Iraq, we went in to remove a dictator who we had fought before for invading another country (it was personal); whereas in Vietnam we were fighting for the last vestiges of a failed French colony in terms of a 20+ year old foreign policy (Monroe Doctrine vs. Communism).

6. Troop support: In Iraq, the American public is clearly sympathetic to and supporting the troops even though the CAUSE is eschewed; whereas in Vietnam the troops themselves, personally, received neither support nor enthusiasm from the general public on the whole.

7. Objectives: In Iraq, the administration is doing the whole "we don't know when it will be done" blah blah shit; whereas in Vietnam there was a clear goal to defeat the communist threat.

8. Strategy: In Iraq, we are on the offense; whereas in Vietnam we were on the defense.

Now to be clear, I am not agreeing or disagreeing with the merits of these points in either direction for either conflict, but only espousing that they exist. My topics were pretty high level and may have been mislabelled or slightly off the mark, and (in bold) there are many ways in which the conflicts in Iraq and in Vietnam are very similar, including Tom's aforementioned goat-rape.

But goddamnit Jason, you're an intelligent, well read, educated person who has a reasonable knowledge of history. Saying that these two conflicts are the same thing and then pulling out the death toll like it's the only thing that matters is so goddamn ignorant it makes me want to fucking spit.

[Jason McCullough]

Hmm. Point by point:

1. Enemies: apparently the insurgency is getting significant support from ex-Iraqi military. And a near-infinite supply of outsider insurgents come to kill Americans, depending on who you believe. You're mostly right, though.
2. Alliances: I can't really tell how much involvement Iran has in things, but it does look like something's going on. You're mostly right, though.
3. Territory: In Vietnam, we would "take control" of an area by running off the occupying forces. We would then withdraw, and they'd take control of it all over again due to plants everywhere. Our "friendly" local governments regularly collaborated with the insurgency. Sound familiar?
4. Entrance: In Vietnam, we went in based on faulty intelligence about the capabilities and motives of the current government, both North and South. We thought Ho was part of the "world communist plan" - he wasn't; we thought he had regional designs; he didn't. We thought it'd be just the next step in a regional domino effect; it wasn't. In Iraq, we had faulty intelligence about the capabilities (WMD, military) and motives (regional designs) of the current government. And I totally disagree that "we went into Vietnam because they asked us to play a supporting role that gradually grew"; LBJ was totally clear on what we were doing - fighting their war for them temporarily (at first), but for our reasons (stopping regional communist expansion). I don't follow.

5. Reason: We totally didn't go into Iraq because "we had fought him before for invading another country"; we went into Iraq to a) establish a regional power base, b) remove a WMD threat, or c) prevent Iraq from establishing a regional power base, depending on who you talk to.

Why did we go into Vietnam? To prevent communism from establishing a regional power base. We took over for the French because we were trying to stop the communists; our reasons had nothing to do with the French reasons.

6. Troop support: Good point here.

7. Objectives: Are you kidding? The Bush administration has no idea when they'll pacify the country; our end goals (democratic Iraq that lets us use military bases there for cultural and military reform of the region) are clear, but we have no plan to get there, and no plausible end to our committment there because of that. In Vietnam, our end goals were clear - democratic Vietnam that isn't communist. But we had no real plan to get there, and no plausible end to our committment because of that.

8. I guess if you define the Iraq war as "the invasion" we were on the offense. But from the day we took Baghdad we've been on a defense against a decentralized insurgency, just like in Vietnam.

Saying that these two conflicts are the same thing and then pulling out the death toll like it's the only thing that matters is so goddamn ignorant it makes me want to fucking spit.

I was specifically taunting the Rywill line that you shouldn't dare compare Iraq to Vietnam because Vietnam had a lot more people die; it's offensive for some reason apparently.

In factual terms, sure, there's plenty of significant differences. But in terms of war timeline, policy options, and bad decisions made, the framework for analysis just has a different coat of paint.

I have a feeling that in 20 years the Gulf of Tonkin incident is going to be mentioned in the same breath as Powell's UN presentation.

[shift6]

1. Enemies: apparently the insurgency is getting significant support from ex-Iraqi military. And a near-infinite supply of outsider insurgents come to kill Americans, depending on who you believe.
I fail to see how this "disputes" my point our fighting against an organized, nation-state sponsored, well funded, standing army as the NVA in Nam. Oh, wait, because some of the insurgents in Iraq are ex-military?

2. Alliances: I can't really tell how much involvement Iran has in things, but it does look like something's going on.
I give in: your personal suspicions about "something going on" with one potential ally = exactly like China and Laos and Cambodia helping North Vietnam financially, politically, and logistically. :roll:

3. Territory: In Vietnam, we would "take control" of an area by running off the occupying forces. We would then withdraw, and they'd take control of it all over again due to plants everywhere. Our "friendly" local governments regularly collaborated with the insurgency. Sound familiar?
This has almost nothing to do with my point 3, wherein I mentioned the over-arching territorial strategy. The infantry "sorties" we ran in Vietnam were a supplement to the general strategy, not the strategy itself. This doesn't compare to the overall strategy in Iraq (although there are some similarities)

4. Entrance: In Vietnam, we went in based on faulty intelligence about the capabilities and motives of the current government, both North and South. We thought Ho was part of the "world communist plan" - he wasn't; we thought he had regional designs; he didn't. We thought it'd be just the next step in a regional domino effect; it wasn't.

In Iraq, we had faulty intelligence about the capabilities (WMD, military) and motives (regional designs) of the current government.
A smiliarity. As I stated, some of them do exist. I even said so in bold lettering.

And I totoally disagree that "we went into Vietnam because they asked us to play a supporting role that gradually grew"; LBJ was totally clear on what we were doing - fighting their war for them temporarily (at first), but for our reasons (stopping regional communist expansion). I don't follow.
You don't follow? Dude, seriously? Here let me quote what you said, in sets. You disagree that "we went into Vietnam because they asked us" is similar to "fighting their war for them temporarily", and that "temporarily (at first)" is similar to "a supporting role that gradually grew"? I'm truly beside myself.

5. Reason: We totally didn't go into Iraq because "we had fought him before for invading another country"; we went into Iraq to a) establish a regional power base, b) remove a WMD threat, or c) prevent Iraq from establishing a regional power base, depending on who you talk to.
Whoa whoa whoa, now horsie. Hold the fuck up. Just about every hard-core anti-Bushite on the PLANET says he went in there because Iraq threatened his daddy and had been obsessed with it since taking presidency for that very reason. YOU have personally stated as much. Are you now saying that isn't the case? Fuck "political spin" BTW, I'm talking about actualities here.

Why did we go into Vietnam? To prevent communism from establishing a regional power base. We took over for the French because we were trying to stop the communists; our reasons had nothing to do with the French reasons.
True that, since the French had been gone for years.

6. Troop support: Good point here.
Thanks. :)

7. Objectives: Are you kidding? The Bush administration has no idea when they'll pacify the country; our end goals (democratic Iraq that lets us use military bases there for cultural and military reform of the region) are clear, but we have no plan to get there, and no plausible end to our committment there because of that. In Vietnam, our end goals were clear - democratic Vietnam that isn't communist. But we had no real plan to get there, and no plausible end to our committment because of that.
Those weren't the goals we stated for Nam. When we went in to Nam, the stated goal was to advise the South Vietnamese and help fund and train them to do the work themselves. We gradually got sucked in. In Iraq, the exact opposite was the stated goal: go in, wipe them all the fuck out, then advise and train a totally new army so we can leave. Furthermore, in Nam we were willing to bide our time because we wanted to let South Vietnam do it themselves, whereas in Iraq the stated goal (such as it is) was to have this done by this date and this done by this date, new government by June 30, elections by January, etc. Deadlines. Huge difference.

8. I guess if you define the Iraq war as "the invasion" we were on the offense. But from the day we took Baghdad we've been on a defense against a decentralized insurgency, just like in Vietnam.
I'm defining the conflict in Iraq as the sum total of the plan (such as it is). The plan was to offensively and pre-emptively go in, whack those fuckers out, and setup a new government. That is, on the whole, an offensive plan (dual meaning of "offensive" not intended, hehehe). The plan in Nam was to go in and SIT somewhere for months and years and assist South Vietnam until the ARVN was able to fight back the commies. That is, on the whole, a defensive plan.

And in fact, I'll now build on that with the point that in Iraq, we went in pre-emptively with the barest threads of justification whereas in Vietnam we went into a country which had already been invaded. Hell I'd call Desert Storm more similar to Vietnam in this one small aspect.

In factual terms, sure, there's plenty of significant differences. But in terms of war timeline, policy options, and bad decisions made, the framework for analysis just has a different coat of paint.
OK there are plenty of factual differences, so why do you defend the notion that Vietnam and Iraq are the same damn thing? Dude seriously half the trouble people have with your posts on this forum is understanding what you "really mean" to say. Shit.

[Doug Erickson]

Just about every hard-core anti-Bushite on the PLANET says he went in there because Iraq threatened his daddy and had been obsessed with it since taking presidency for that very reason.

No, only a select minority of idiotic anti-Bushites say that. MOST of us believe it was because the Federalist Society and a bunch of neocons that hang out with Rummy and Co have been obsessed with invading Iraq under any pretense whatsoever as a forward base "for democracy" in the region. Hell, the same folks pretty much sold Clinton on the same idea. Bush is just doing what he's told; I sorely doubt he has the grasp of international politics to even the same tunnel-vision level the average neocon "strategerist" has. The whacked-out but disturbingly popular Fundamentalist Christian idea that Israel MUST be protected for the prophecy in Revelations to be fulfulled probably had more influence on him than avenging Daddy's brush with assassination.

Besides, if The Gathering Storm can sell smarty folks like Daniel Morris, and (for awhile), our own Mister McCullough on an Iraq invasion, it musta blown Junior's mind.

[Jason McCullough]

The infantry "sorties" we ran in Vietnam were a supplement to the general strategy, not the strategy itself. This doesn't compare to the overall strategy in Iraq (although there are some similarities)

We're not using the same strategy - the Iraq one appears to be "repeatedly take and let go of cities pointlessly", while the Vietnam one was more or less "do that, plus mass slaughter." My point was that neither worked, and no one is willing to admit that neither is working.


You don't follow? Dude, seriously? Here let me quote what you said, in sets. You disagree that "we went into Vietnam because they asked us" is similar to "fighting their war for them temporarily", and that "temporarily (at first)" is similar to "a supporting role that gradually grew"? I'm truly beside myself.

The subtext of your statement was that our escalating involvement in Vietnam was a surprise that snuck up on us. It wasn't; LBJ knew exactly what he was doing.

Just about every hard-core anti-Bushite on the PLANET says he went in there because Iraq threatened his daddy and had been obsessed with it since taking presidency for that very reason. YOU have personally stated as much.

And I'm almost certain I've said this is a childish interpretation. Good luck finding a quote of me saying otherwise.

Those weren't the goals we stated for Nam.

You're right: we lied about the stated goals. But when LBJ sent in those troops, there's quotes of him saying we're taknig over the damn war.

I concede on the offense/defense thing.

So why do you defend the notion that Vietnam and Iraq are the same damn thing?

* The stupid decisions that got us into it are remarkably simliar in effects ignored, the decision-making process that made them, and the compounding of bad decisions with even more decisions.
* Our options for reaching our goals are totally iimplausible in both cases.
* We can't leave, but we can't win, either.

In summary: the answer to the question "what went wrong and what the hell do we do about it" sounds pretty much the same in both cases.

[Doug Erickson]

I agree with Jason's overall assessment that, like Vietnam, we're trying to occupy a region without a single fucking clue how to do it, exacerbated by the fact that we shouldn't even have been there in the first place and the locals really don't appreciate it. However, it's pretty obvious that beyond the fact that it's an administrative clusterfuck of deadly proportions, there isn't a lot of similarity in the specific military deployment details.

[shift6]

In summary: the answer to the question "what went wrong and what the hell do we do about it" sounds pretty much the same in both cases.
Fair enough. But this highly qualified and explained sentence is far different than "Iraq and Vietnam conflicts are basically the same". That, itself, is ludicrous.

I agree with Jason's overall assessment that, like Vietnam, we're trying to occupy a region without a single fucking clue how to do it, exacerbated by the fact that we shouldn't even have been there in the first place and the locals really don't appreciate it. However, it's pretty obvious that beyond the fact that it's an administrative clusterfuck of deadly proportions, there isn't a lot of similarity in the specific military deployment details.
I agree that the administrations over each acted similarly in many ways. If Jason or you or anyone wants to say that the handling of Iraq and Vietnam are the same, sign me up because I agree with that. But the military aspects, how we became involved in each, the pre- and post-war effects on the regions (including neighboring countries), and the public's reaction to each are quite different. And saying (or strongly implying) "the only difference is the bodycount" as he did above is patently ignorant.

[Jason McCullough]

Ah, ok; what I've always meant is "from a policy perspective, the clusterfuck handling of Iraq and Vietnam" are remarkably simliar. Board consensus!

[Andrew Mayer]

As of today it looks as if the green zone is no longer safe (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=1&u=/ap/20040912/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq)...

[Anaxagoras]

As of today it looks as if the green zone is no longer safe (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=1&u=/ap/20040912/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq)...

Another example of the Liberal Media. You'll notice how the article mentions 57 dead people in Baghdad, but doesn't bother to mention the thousands still alive. Reading that article, you'd think that Iraq is unsafe and unstable. Which is complete poppycock, of course. Bush says things are going well in Iraq. What more do you naysayers want???

[bago]

Well, there's now the fallujah clusterfuck with politics over-riding generals in the day to day operations.

[bago]

For Jason:

http://www.reason.com/rauch/091504.shtml

[Andrew Mayer]

Another example of the Liberal Media. You'll notice how the article mentions 57 dead people in Baghdad, but doesn't bother to mention the thousands still alive.

It actually does. They're called "insurgents".

[TomChick]

They're called "insurgents".

Andrew, you misspelled "terrorists and foreigh jihadists".

-Tom

[Zarathustra]

Well, in my book, anyone who sets off a car bomb in a public place to intentionally kill civilians is a terrorist, eh?

They are insurgents when they motar a Humvee convoy.

[Jason McCullough]

I agree with Rauch's basic assessment of the current situation - the solutions are political and nature. But I have no flippin' idea how we're going to get the country under control politically with anything short of Saddam II - the very act of us supporting them pretty much makes any government there illegitimate.

Maybe if we stopped trying to force the Year Zero plan on them, but I think it's too far gone anyway.

[TomChick]

Z, that's fair enough. But even still, there are distinctions worth making. Most of the violence in Iraq is an insurgency against an occupying power. For instance, they're not lobbing shells into marketplaces. Instead, they're trying to discourage collaboration by bombing and shelling police stations and recruitment centers. That makes it no less reprehensible, of course, but it's worth noting the distinction from groups like Hamas, al Qaeda, and the Chechens who favor softer strictly civilian targets.

For instance, and I hope this analogy isn't too inflammatory, would you call the resistance in France during WWII terrorists? Probably not. But the German occupiers certainly would. It's a subtle distinction, but unless you're just jerking your knee around, it's worth making.

-Tom

[antlers]

Z, that's fair enough. But even still, there are distinctions worth making. Most of the violence in Iraq is an insurgency against an occupying power. For instance, they're not lobbing shells into marketplaces. Instead, they're trying to discourage collaboration by bombing and shelling police stations and recruitment centers. That makes it no less reprehensible, of course, but it's worth noting the distinction from groups like Hamas, al Qaeda, and the Chechens who favor softer strictly civilian targets.

For instance, and I hope this analogy isn't too inflammatory, would you call the resistance in France during WWII terrorists? Probably not. But the German occupiers certainly would. It's a subtle distinction, but unless you're just jerking your knee around, it's worth making.

-Tom

I agree with most of your post, but elements of the insurgency clearly are terrorists of the most nasty sort. If the French resistance had kidnapped Poles that the Germans had brought to France for labor and beheaded them for newsreel cameras, I would've called them terrorists as well. Unfortunately in Iraq, the al Qaeda type terrorists have a chaotic situation with an ongoing nationalist insurgency in which to hide.

Although the insurgency started as anti-U.S., it is so entrenched now I imagine it would continue or worsen into a Lebanon-type civil war if the U.S. pulled up stakes.

[TomChick]

I agree with most of your post, but elements of the insurgency clearly are terrorists of the most nasty sort.

Which is why I wrote "Most of the violence in Iraq is an insurgency against an occupying power." But I completely agree about the beheadings and kidnappings. Horrible stuff that hopefully alienates moderate Arabs and Muslims.

-Tom

[Brian Rucker]

Meanwhile our quest to find allies and investors in the Shining Iraqi Democracy of Tomorrowland hits a snag.

Iraq war illegal, says Annan

The United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has told the BBC the US-led invasion of Iraq was an illegal act that contravened the UN charter.
He said the decision to take action in Iraq should have been made by the Security Council, not unilaterally.

And he feared elections planned for January would not go ahead in Iraq unless security considerably improved.

The UK government responded by saying the attorney-general made the "legal basis... clear at the time".

Mr Annan said that "painful lessons" had been learnt since the war in Iraq.

"Lessons for the US, the UN and other member states. I think in the end everybody's concluded it's best to work together with our allies and through the UN," he said in an interview with the BBC World Service.

"I hope we do not see another Iraq-type operation for a long time - without UN approval and much broader support from the international community."

"From our point of view and the [UN] charter point of view it was illegal," he added.

Mr Annan said the UN would give advice and assistance in the run-up to the elections, but it was up to the Iraqi interim government to decide whether such a vote should go ahead.

He warned there could not be "credible elections if the security conditions continue as they are now".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3661134.stm

[Gordon Cameron]

Everybody did nasty stuff in WWII... we incinerated women and children by the thousand and nobody called Harry Truman a terrorist...

[Brian Rucker]

The "war is lost"
Military experts say they see no exit from the Iraq debacle -- and that the war is helping al-Qaida

Sept. 16, 2004 | "Bring them on!" President Bush challenged the early Iraqi insurgency in July of last year. Since then 812 American soldiers have been killed and 6,290 wounded, according to the Pentagon. Almost every day in campaign speeches, Bush speaks with bravado about how we are "winning" in Iraq. "Our strategy is succeeding," he boasted to the National Guard convention on Tuesday.

But according to the U.S. military's leading strategists and prominent retired generals, Bush's war is already lost.

Retired Gen. William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency, told me: "Bush hasn't found the WMD. Al-Qaida, it's worse -- he's lost on that front. That he's going to achieve a democracy there? That goal is lost, too. It's lost." He added: "Right now, the course we're on, we're achieving [Osama] bin Laden's ends."

Retired Gen. Joseph Hoare, the former Marine commandant and head of the U.S. Central Command, told me: "The idea that this is going to go the way these guys planned is ludicrous. There are no good options. We're conducting a campaign as though it were being conducted in Iowa, no sense of the realities on the ground. It's so unrealistic for anyone who knows that part of the world. The priorities are just all wrong."

"I see no ray of light on the horizon at all," said Jeffrey Record, professor of strategy at the Air War College. "The worst case has become true. There's no analogy whatsoever between the situation in Iraq and the advantages we had after World War II in Germany and Japan."

"I don't think that you can kill the insurgency," said W. Andrew Terrill, professor at the Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute, the top expert on Iraq there. According to Terrill, the anti-U.S. insurgency, centered in the Sunni triangle, and holding several key cities and towns, including Fallujah, is expanding and becoming more capable as a direct consequence of U.S. policy. "We have a growing, maturing insurgency group," he told me. "We see larger and more coordinated military attacks. They are getting better and they can self-regenerate. The idea there are X number of insurgents and when they're all dead we can get out is wrong. The insurgency has shown an ability to regenerate itself because there are people willing to fill the ranks of those who are killed. The political culture is more hostile to the U.S. presence. The longer we stay, the more they are confirmed in that view."
Gen. Hoare believes from the information he has received that "a decision has been made" to attack Fallujah "after the first Tuesday in November. That's the cynical part of it -- after the election. The signs are all there." He compares any such planned attack with late Syrian dictator Hafez al-Assad's razing of the rebel city of Hama. "You could flatten it," said Hoare. "U.S. military forces would prevail, casualties would be high, there would be inconclusive results with respect to the bad guys, their leadership would escape, and civilians would be caught in the middle. I hate that phrase 'collateral damage.' And they talked about dancing in the street, a beacon for democracy."

Gen. Odom remarked that the tension between the Bush administration and senior military officers over Iraq is worse than any he has ever seen with any previous U.S. government, including during Vietnam. "I've never seen it so bad between the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the military. There's a significant majority believing this is a disaster. The two parties whose interests have been advanced have been the Iranians and al-Qaida. Bin Laden could argue with some cogency that our going into Iraq was the equivalent of the Germans in Stalingrad. They defeated themselves by pouring more in there. Tragic."

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2004/09/16/iraq_war/index.html

Turning point
A journalist who was embedded with the U.S. Marines in Fallujah explains how the Bush White House lost the key battle of the Iraq war.
Reflecting on the course of the White House-ordered campaign on Sunday, Conway indicated that he had had serious misgivings about the Fallujah operation from the get-go, "We felt that we probably ought to let the situation settle before we appeared to be attacking out of revenge," he told reporters gathered on the sprawling Marine base just east of the embattled town. "I think we certainly increased the level of animosity that existed."

The mainstream press has largely overlooked the fact that in the case of Fallujah, the White House unnecessarily injected itself into the military's tactical decision-making process in Iraq, ignored the informed opinions of ground commanders, and in effect micromanaged the battle. According to many observers, the seemingly contradictory U.S. military actions over the course of the siege were largely the result of the wishy-washy directives being issued by the Bush administration and its failure to appreciate the implications of sending in a large Marine force to seize a notoriously hostile town.

To both outside observers and former high-placed officials, including former U.S. Central Command chief Anthony Zinni and historian Robert Kaplan, it appeared as if the Bush administration had ordered the punitive campaign out of anger and then lost nerve when Arab outrage over civilian casualties rose to a fever pitch. Says Kaplan, who was embedded with the Marines during the opening stages of the battle and who later wrote about it for the Atlantic Monthly, "It's fine to send in the Marines. It's fine to have a cease-fire, but you can't do both. What this amounts to is ... foreign policy incoherence."

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/16/fallujah/index.html

[Tim Partlett]

"We see larger and more coordinated military attacks. They are getting better and they can self-regenerate. The idea there are X number of insurgents and when they're all dead we can get out is wrong. The insurgency has shown an ability to regenerate itself because there are people willing to fill the ranks of those who are killed. The political culture is more hostile to the U.S. presence. The longer we stay, the more they are confirmed in that view."

And therein lies the flaw in the current policy of dealing with terrorism through war.

[Brian Rucker]

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/e0214956-074f-11d9-9672-00000e2511c8,ft_acl=.html?uuid=e0214956-074f-11d9-9672-00000e2511c8&ft_acl=

Green Zone is ‘no longer totally secure’
By James Drummond and Steve Negus in Baghdad
Published: September 15 2004 22:03 | Last updated: September 15 2004 22:03

US military officers in Baghdad have warned they cannot guarantee the security of the perimeter around the Green Zone, the headquarters of the Iraqi government and home to the US and British embassies, according to security company employees.

At a briefing earlier this month, a high-ranking US officer in charge of the zone's perimeter said he had insufficient soldiers to prevent intruders penetrating the compound's defences.

The US major said it was possible weapons or explosives had already been stashed in the zone, and warned people to move in pairs for their own safety. The Green Zone, in Baghdad's centre, is one of the most fortified US installations in Iraq. Until now, militants have not been able to penetrate it.

But insurgency has escalated this week, spreading to the centre of Baghdad. The zone is home to several thousand Iraqis, and on Sunday it came under the heaviest attack since it was established. Up to 60 unexploded rockets were found inside its perimeters after a five-hour barrage.

On Tuesday, a car bomb outside a Baghdad police station killed 47 people, and 12 members of the police and their driver were shot dead in Baquba. The attack was the worst in the city for several months.

The violence in Iraq continued on Wednesday when 10 Iraqis were killed in clashes with US troops using artillery in Ramadi, west of Baghdad. The decapitated bodies of three men, believed to be Arab kidnap victims, were separately found on a highway north of Baghdad.

The US military defended the actions of its helicopter gunship pilots, who killed at least a dozen Iraqi civilians who were surrounding a disabled Bradley armoured fighting vehicle in Baghdad's Haifa street on Sunday. US military officials said the Kiowa helicopters, which fired into a crowd, were shooting in self-defence and had not violated US rules of engagement.

The helicopters saw tracer bullets coming at them from the ground and fired rockets in response, officers of the First Cavalry division in Baghdad said. The pilots "did not see a large crowd of innocent civilians around the [vehicle]", said Colonel Jim McConville, commander of the unit's helicopter forces. The helicopters were called in to prevent insurgents from stealing radios, weapons, and other sensitive equipment from the Bradley, which had been knocked out by a car bomb. The helicopters could have fired rockets from a distance, the officers said, which would have been safer for the crews but more dangerous for civilians.

"If we were not concerned about collateral damage we would have used [this] engagement technique," Major General Peter Chiarelli, the unit's commanding officer, said.

[Brian Rucker]

Citing a new classified intelligence report predicting serious troubles ahead for Iraq, John F. Kerry yesterday accused President Bush of living in a "fantasy world of spin" and refusing to speak honestly about mounting casualties, indiscriminate killings and chaos in Iraq. "Stability and security seem further and further away," Kerry said.

The White House, which had planned a vigorous election-season defense of its Iraq strategy next week, was forced into the debate yesterday. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the intelligence assessment "states the obvious," and he dismissed skeptics of the Iraq policy as "pessimists and naysayers." Bush, at a campaign stop, repeated his generally upbeat assessment of Iraq: "Freedom is on the march."

The National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, representing the consensus view of the U.S. intelligence community and written in July, said Iraq's prospects for stability and self-governance over the next 18 months were, at best, "tenuous," according to U.S. government officials who have read it.

The 60-page document produced by the National Intelligence Council set out three possible scenarios for the next year and a half in Iraq, the worst of which portrayed the country as descending into civil war. The assessment, which analyzed political, economic and security trends, blamed the mounting problems on Iraq's having no institutions and traditions upon which to build representative government and on resilient opponents, including Shiite militias, Sunni insurgents, foreign terrorists and common criminals.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27270-2004Sep16.html?referrer=email

[Brian Rucker]

Last week, Salon documented the "opportunity costs" of the administration's decision to invade Iraq -- what the country could have done instead with all the resources we've committed to the war so far. Depressingly, the list of underfunded projects includes many vital domestic security programs that would seem to be far more effective in contributing to the safety of the United States than the toppling of Saddam Hussein -- for instance, bolstering the security of seaports and airports, and fully funding police and fire departments.

In "Bush's Lost Year," a masterful piece of journalism in the October issue of The Atlantic Monthly, James Fallows takes a deeper look at these opportunity costs of war -- and after speaking at length to experts "at the working level of America's anti-terrorism efforts," Fallows concludes that by choosing to invade Iraq, the administration more or less consciously decided to ignore the war on terrorism. The greatest opportunity cost of the war in Iraq, Fallows writes, is the failure to prosecute the war against al- Qaida: "Step by step through 2002 America's war on terror became little more than its preparation for war in Iraq."

And among national security professionals who aren't directly affiliated with either presidential campaign, Bush's decision to respond to the 9/11 attacks by attacking Saddam Hussein is universally regarded as "a catastrophe," Fallows writes. In two years of reporting, "I have sat through arguments among soldiers and scholars about whether the invasion of Iraq should be considered the worst strategic error in American history -- or only the worst since Vietnam ... About the conduct and effect of the war in Iraq one view prevails: it has increased the threats America faces, and has reduced the military, financial, and diplomatic tools with which we can respond."

An anonymous, "senior figure at one of America's military-sponsored think tanks" tells Fallows, "If I can be blunt, the Administration is full of shit. In my view we are much, much worse off now than when we went into Iraq. That is not a partisan position. I voted for these guys. But I think they are incompetent, and I have had a very close perspective on what is happening. Certainly in the long run we have harmed ourselves. We are playing to the enemy's political advantage. Whatever tactical victories we may gain along the way, this will prove to be a strategic blunder."

But the truly "startling part," Fallows writes, is that before deciding to fight in Iraq, the administration never once discussed the costs and benefits of such a plan to the larger war on terrorism. What would a war in Iraq cost in lives and in money that might better be spent for homeland security? How would the decision to invade Iraq affect the future of Afghanistan? Would a war in Iraq be more likely to improve or damage the U.S.'s standing in the Middle East? "There is no evidence that the president and those closest to him ever talked systematically about the 'opportunity costs' and tradeoffs in their decision to invade Iraq. No one has pointed to a meeting, a memo, a full set of discussions, about what America would gain and lose."

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room//index.html

I would have linked directly to the article in The Atlantic but it requires a subscription. This set of excerpts is more useful if you don't have one.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200410/fallows

[Brian Rucker]

Growing Pessimism on Iraq
Doubts Increase Within U.S. Security Agencies

By Dana Priest and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, September 29, 2004; Page A01

A growing number of career professionals within national security agencies believe that the situation in Iraq is much worse, and the path to success much more tenuous, than is being expressed in public by top Bush administration officials, according to former and current government officials and assessments over the past year by intelligence officials at the CIA and the departments of State and Defense.

While President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others have delivered optimistic public appraisals, officials who fight the Iraqi insurgency and study it at the CIA and the State Department and within the Army officer corps believe the rebellion is deeper and more widespread than is being publicly acknowledged, officials say.

People at the CIA "are mad at the policy in Iraq because it's a disaster, and they're digging the hole deeper and deeper and deeper," said one former intelligence officer who maintains contact with CIA officials. "There's no obvious way to fix it. The best we can hope for is a semi-failed state hobbling along with terrorists and a succession of weak governments."

"Things are definitely not improving," said one U.S. government official who reads the intelligence analyses on Iraq.

"It is getting worse," agreed an Army staff officer who served in Iraq and stays in touch with comrades in Baghdad through e-mail. "It just seems there is a lot of pessimism flowing out of theater now. There are things going on that are unbelievable to me. They have infiltrators conducting attacks in the Green Zone. That was not the case a year ago."

This weekend, in a rare departure from the positive talking points used by administration spokesmen, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell acknowledged that the insurgency is strengthening and that anti-Americanism in the Middle East is increasing. "Yes, it's getting worse," he said of the insurgency on ABC's "This Week." At the same time, the U.S. commander for the Middle East, Gen. John P. Abizaid, told NBC's "Meet the Press" that "we will fight our way through the elections." Abizaid said he believes Iraq is still winnable once a new political order and the Iraqi security force is in place.

Powell's admission and Abizaid's sobering warning came days after the public disclosure of a National Intelligence Council (NIC) assessment, completed in July, that gave a dramatically different outlook than the administration's and represented a consensus at the CIA and the State and Defense departments.

In the best-case scenario, the NIC said, Iraq could be expected to achieve a "tenuous stability" over the next 18 months. In the worst case, it could dissolve into civil war.

The July assessment was similar to one produced before the war and another in late 2003 that also were more pessimistic in tone than the administration's portrayal of the resistance to the U.S. occupation, according to senior administration officials. "All say they expect things to get worse," one former official said.

One official involved in evaluating the July document said the NIC, which advises the director of central intelligence, decided not to include a more rosy scenario "because it looked so unreal."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58183-2004Sep28.html

[Daniel Morris]

And therein lies the flaw in the current policy of dealing with terrorism through war.

I think you mean "dealing with insurgency through war." After all, you've always been so quick to distinguish between Iraqi insurgency and Islamist terrorism.

Or maybe you mean to say that insurgency and terror are one and the same, in which case we ought to abandon a military response to both. (I suspect you will agree with this sentiment, and would agree to whatever logical leaps were necessary to produce the rhetorical effect.)

[Jason McCullough]

Well, in my book, anyone who sets off a car bomb in a public place to intentionally kill civilians is a terrorist, eh?

They are insurgents when they motar a Humvee convoy.

Were the Stern Gang terrorists?


Daniel, I'm not following how botched invasions of Arab countries is going to stop terrorism.

[Daniel Morris]

I just finished reading Imperial Hubris by Anonymous, and I highly recommend it to everyone. I guarantee that you have never read a more informed or vitriolic rant against the wisdom of the Iraq war. I also guarantee that you have never read a more forceful advocacy for large-scale military action against terrorist states and enclaves -- he uses the phrase "piles of dead" to describe the carnage he anticipates, and repeatedly compares the struggle to both WWII and the American Civil War.

To paraphrase the author -- a long-time officer on the CIA's Bin Laden unit -- we face a global Islamist insurgency that is being patly mistaken for "terrorism" by observers like Tim Partlett. The semantic difference matters a great deal to Anonymous. "Terrorism" is a falsely reassuring word -- on the one hand, filling us with relief that we are up against only a band of hardcore crazies, while on the other hand, allowing critics of military intervention to deride any U.S. military effort as being a shotgun directed at a wasp.

To further paraphrase the book's argument, both of these reassurances are utterly misleading. In noting that the Afghan training camps probably produced only a couple of hundred "terrorists" of the Mohammed Atta mold, Anonymous begs us to remember that the same camps produced tens of thousands of what we might consider run-of-the-mill guerrillas. These same guerrillas have brought Bin Laden's insurgency to the point of a shooting war in a half-dozen countries.

The "root cause" of the global Islamist insurgency is an ideological desire to tear down existing Arab governments and replace them with a theocratic neo-caliphate. This ideology is the fuel of the insurgency, motivating many thousands of willing soldiers. Until this fact is faced, and until this ideology is forcibly shattered by some means, we will continue to face danger from it.

So says the author of the most passionate jeremiad you'll ever read about the Iraq folly (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1574888498/qid=1096490302/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/103-5874417-8467828?v=glance&s=books&n=507846), anyway.

[Tim Partlett]

You just can't get me out of your head. I guess I should be flattered.

[Brian Koontz]

To paraphrase the author -- a long-time officer on the CIA's Bin Laden unit -- we face a global Islamist insurgency that is being patly mistaken for "terrorism" by observers like Tim Partlett.

Al Qaeda and the Neocons want there to be a global Islamist insurgency. Noone else does. If Al Qaeda and the Neocons can singlehandedly create a West vs. Islam war the world will have failed to stop them and will have to live with the heinous repercussions.

Two enemies exist. Al Qaeda and the Neocons. Both should be destroyed. My current preferred methodology is American political domination by anti-neocons and negotiations and understanding of Muslim nations (probably including lessening funding to Israel) to gain their support in anti-Al Qaeda activities. Since Al Qaeda is used as a proxy for Anti-American sentiment in the Arab World, the solution is to destroy their power base by destroying the Anti-American sentiment.

Brian Koontz, on Dec. 27, 2003:

"Actually, the idea that the Iraqi war is about Islam vs. Christianity versus about oil, human rights violations, global power, and an unstable (and unfriendly) aggressive leader is what's insane."

On Mar. 21, 2004:

"When a quick solution need be reached, the Neocons can argue "The US knows best", or "A Global Government is needed to cope with today's wide-ranging and communal threats". Today's politics is setting this up. The War on Terrorism... what better war to unite the "peaceloving" nations of the world? The War against Islam by Christianity... what better war to leave the road free for secular Neocon to take over?"

"As I said, its a long-term plan. Getting the world to *together* fight the war on terrorism. Getting the world to accept American democracy. Pushing the anti-Islamic envelope which naturally will turn into Christianity vs. Islam."

On Apr. 12, 2004:

I think the Neocons should have taken a much more subtle, low-key, long-term approach. But they didn't ask my advice. Maybe they couldn't pass up the opportunity provided by Dial 911 day. Maybe they were just impatient, or hubris-driven, or naive. Anyway, the ball is now rolling. Americans now expect Anti-Islamic activity, and will support it in some cases. Hostility against Americans will create a Nationalism that will feed the Neocon agenda. Wars are now in the American Consciousness. The "War on Terror" is supported by the majority of Americans.

Next time, will the cry be "For those who died in Iraq!", "For those who died on 9/11!", "Against Terror!", "Against the haters of America!", or "Against Islam!"?

On July 17, 2004:

"Now, despite the fun fact that Al Qaeda is the problem (not Arabs as a whole or even fundamentalist Islam as a whole), and that Al Qaeda and the Neocons INTRODUCED the idea of an Islam/Christianity war,..."

[Tim Partlett]

I don't know about Brian's conspiracy theories, but I do fear that Daniel's predictions may come true, not because there necessarily is a global Islamic insurgency, but because there will be one if people like Daniel get their way. Going into the middle east to fight a global Islamic insurgency will in itself be a self-fulfilling prophecy, because if it doesn't already exist, it sure as hell will once you put troops on the ground to fight it. Firstly the "global Islamic insurgency" is a symbol, like communism, that the belligerent can rally behind as a cause for war. Once you start fighting it, it starts to exist, because people will start to define everything in terms of it. Just as the evil of global Communism was just a patchwork of barely related groups believing in sometimes very different ideologies, and not always getting on or aiming for the same goals, the evil of the global Islamic insurgency will be likewise. Secondly, once you put troops on the ground, or get directly involved in fighting whatever it is you have created, then it will come to exist, because you will have created not only a rallying point for the militants on the side of "freedom", but also on the side of the "global Islamic insurgency".

The book that Daniel references, "Imperial Hubris", articulates correctly the reasons behind growing resentment in the Muslim world, i.e. the perceived negative influence of America upon their lives. The book explains how it is America's support of Israel and local tyrants, as well as its meddling in local political affairs, that raise their ire, and it is not as a result of jealousy among arabs for America's wealth or freedoms. Strangely, however, it doesn't suggest as a solution a strategy of altering this perception, by not supporting Israel blindly, by not propping up evil governments, and by not manipulating local events. No, the author of "Imperial Hubris" suggests that we tell the ingrates to go fuck themselves, because they are going to get what they are going to get, whether they like it or not. It instead recommends that the West "proceed with relentless, brutal, and, yes, blood-soaked offensive military actions until we have annihilated the Islamists who threaten us."

Well, if that is what Daniel supports, then he shall surely get his wish of a global Islamic insurgency, because jihad begets jihad.

[Brian Koontz]

Whenever there are two opposing sides who want a war, there will be a war, unless a THIRD side stops them. This third side can call themselves anything they want. For now I'll call them the Anti-Neocons. My current sadness is that the people who would be "Anti-Neocons" don't understand the global situation well enough to know that there will be a West vs. Islam war unless it is stopped, and that they are the ones who should stop it. Balls and Brains are necessary, and right now I'm not convinced either is present.

Just like the Neocon movement itself, the ignorance of the populace (and the leadership) may allow for an unfortunate result. After the West/Islam war gets underway, the press will be shocked: "Wow, where did *this* come from? I thought this was about *terrorism*!"

Somehow, this time, my saying "Gotta love humans" won't be enough consolation.

There is no way to convince the Neocons to not undertake a West/Islam war. That is what will become of their Plan B, which is military aggression against powerful (relatively speaking) non-Western nations. Plan A is non-warlike political control. Since they are not particularly patient however, any non-success in Plan A leads right into Plan B. Somehow I doubt the Islamic world is going to go for Plan A.

There is no way to convince Al-Qaeda to cease aggression in the current global political situation. I doubt any solutions can be reached with them (they are too much of a global symbol, at least for now). Which means their support must be undercut (by negotiation) and they can then be integrated into the culture or destroyed.

Obviously, there is no way to destroy Al Qaeda without destroying the Neocons. If I was a Muslim, I would support Al Qaeda by reason of defense AGAINST the Neocons. Without the Neocon threat and no other comparative threat (including the implied Neocon funding of Israel), there is no *reason* for Al Qaeda. If Al Qaeda persists in aggression without a threat against them, the *international* community can form to destroy them. That will be as pleasurable a destruction as the Neocon one.

[Jason McCullough]

Getting off whatever the hell, a WSJ reporter's email to his friends detailing how we're fucked, in what orificies, and for how long:

http://poynter.org/forum/?id=misc

Being a foreign correspondent in Baghdad these days is like being under virtual house arrest.

Little by little, day-by-day, being based in Iraq has defied all those reasons. I am house bound. I leave when I have a very good reason to and a scheduled interview. I avoid going to people's homes and never walk in the streets. I can't go grocery shopping any more, can't eat in restaurants, can't strike a conversation with strangers, can't look for stories, can't drive in any thing but a full armored car, can't go to scenes of breaking news stories, can't be stuck in traffic, can't speak English outside, can't take a road trip, can't say I'm an American, can't linger at checkpoints, can't be curious about what people are saying, doing, feeling. And can't and can't. There has been one too many close calls, including a car bomb so near our house that it blew out all the windows. So now my most pressing concern every day is not to write a kick-ass story but to stay alive and make sure our Iraqi employees stay alive. In Baghdad I am a security personnel first, a reporter second.

It's hard to pinpoint when the 'turning point' exactly began. Was it April
when the Fallujah fell out of the grasp of the Americans? Was it when Moqtada and Jish Mahdi declared war on the U.S. military? Was it when
Sadr City, home to ten percent of Iraq's population, became a nightly battlefield for the Americans? Or was it when the insurgency began
spreading from isolated pockets in the Sunni triangle to include most of Iraq? Despite President Bush's rosy assessments, Iraq remains a disaster. If under Saddam it was a 'potential' threat, under the Americans it has been transformed to 'imminent and active threat,' a
foreign policy failure bound to haunt the United States for decades to come

We are so fucking screwed.

What they mean by situation is this: the Iraqi government doesn't control most Iraqi cities, there are several car bombs going off each day around the country killing and injuring scores of innocent people, the
country's roads are becoming impassable and littered by hundreds of
landmines and explosive devices aimed to kill American soldiers, there are assassinations, kidnappings and beheadings. The situation, basically, means a raging barbaric guerilla war. In four days, 110 people died and over 300 got injured in Baghdad alone. The numbers are so shocking that the ministry of health -- which was attempting an exercise of public transparency by releasing the numbers -- has now stopped disclosing them.

Insurgents now attack Americans 87 times a day.

[Jason McCullough]

Said journalist gets sent on "long vacation outside of Iraq" by the WSJ editors until after the election: http://gadflyer.com/warandpiece/index.php?Week=200441#901

[Brian Rucker]

Dealing with dark reality in Iraq

With the exception of a few exuberant Washington war hawks, virtually nobody believed building a post-Saddam Iraq would be easy. But while President Bush sticks to sunny refrains such as "We're making progress" and "Freedom is on the march," evidence to the contrary keeps exploding in the administration's face.

The latest less-than-shocking bombshell is today's New York Times report on the CIA's assessment of Iraq as recently as mid-November.

"A classified cable sent by the Central Intelligence Agency's station chief in Baghdad has warned that the situation in Iraq is deteriorating and may not rebound any time soon, according to government officials. The cable, sent late last month as the officer ended a yearlong tour, presented a bleak assessment on matters of politics, economics and security, the officials said. They said its basic conclusions had been echoed in briefings presented by a senior C.I.A. official who recently visited Iraq.

"The officials described the two assessments as having been 'mixed,' saying that they did describe Iraq as having made important progress, particularly in terms of its political process, and credited Iraqis with being resilient. But over all, the officials described the station chief's cable in particular as an unvarnished assessment of the difficulties ahead in Iraq. They said it warned that the security situation was likely to get worse, including more violence and sectarian clashes, unless there were marked improvements soon on the part of the Iraqi government, in terms of its ability to assert authority and to build the economy."

With Washington's partisan war raging on over a bitterly politicized CIA, a steady flood of intelligence leaks, and the castrated political orphan that the congressional intelligence reform bill has become, administration supporters will no doubt argue that the CIA cable made public Tuesday is just the latest salvo fired by disgruntled spooks who want to put holes in the president and his new DCI and clean-up man, Porter Goss. The truth of the matter, they will say, is that things in Iraq are looking up.

They will, of course, also dismiss or skip over ominous reports from the "liberal" media showing that they couldn't be more wrong. Say, for example, Edward Wong's New York Times report from Baghdad on Sunday, "Mayhem in Iraq Is Starting to Look Like a Civil War":

"In recent weeks, at least one new Shiite militia has formed -- not in opposition to the Americans, but to exact revenge against the Sunnis.

"Assaults by Iraqis on other Iraqis have taken grisly and audacious turns lately. In October, insurgents dressed as policemen waylaid three minibuses carrying 49 freshly trained Iraqi Army soldiers -- most or all of them Shiites traveling south on leave -- and executed them. Pilgrims going south to the Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala have also been gunned down. In response, Shiite leaders in the southern city of Basra began telling young men last month that it was time for revenge. They organized hundreds of Shiites into the Anger Brigades, the latest of many armed groups that have announced their formation in the anarchy of the new Iraq. The stated goal of the brigades is to kill extremist Sunni Arabs in the north Babil area, widely known as the 'Triangle of Death,' where many Shiite security officers and pilgrims have been killed.

"'The Wahhabis and Salafis have come together to harm fellow Muslims and have begun killing anyone affiliated with the Shiite sect,' Dhia al-Mahdi, the leader of the Anger Brigades, said in a written statement. 'The Anger Brigades will be dispatched to those areas where these germs are, and there will be battles.'"

The Bush White House itself has consistently shot down critics of its Iraq policy as pessimists who are out of touch. Few would realistically expect a wartime administration -- especially this one -- to be publicly self-critical, let alone admit the need for a dramatic change of course. But it is growing more and more obvious that the U.S.'s hopes for Iraq may have to be drastically scaled back. At what point will the Bush administration be forced to accept reality?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room//index.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/07/international/middleeast/07intell.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/05/weekinreview/05wong.htm

Just as an aside. I still can't quite wrap my head around the election results so I'm not here as often. What's the point? It's not even that fun anymore.

[russellmz00]

Just as an aside. I still can't quite wrap my head around the election results so I'm not here as often. What's the point? It's not even that fun anymore.

if you stop debating, the assho- uh, the administration wins.

[VegasRobb]

Seems like the factions aren't waiting for the government to protect them and instead are taking matters into their own hands. Of course, once (if) the government pulls itself together and wants to protect it's people, those same people will resist giving up their weapons and the sense of security.

Is that overly simplistic?