Interesting thoughts. Will is my personal canary in the coal mine. When he turns, the worm is not far behind. ____________________________ A Victorian View of Iraq By George F. Will Friday, August 22, 2003; Page A21 At the beginning of her military campaign to reverse Argentina's 1982 seizure of the Falklands, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said, "Failure? The possibilities do not exist." She was paraphrasing Queen Victoria: "We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat; they do not exist." Victoria said that in 1899, during "Black Week" in the Boer War, when things were going badly. The United States has just endured 12 particularly difficult days in Iraq -- the bombings of the Jordanian Embassy, the oil and water pipelines and the United Nations offices. This has been "terrorism plus," terrorism with this difference: Most terrorism is random violence. This is tactical, carefully targeted to serve a cunning strategy. It is not just a "Mogadishu strategy" intended to induce "occupation fatigue" in America by sporadic attrition of U.S. military personnel, leading to precipitous withdrawal. The purpose of attacking "soft" targets is much easier to achieve. It is to prevent America from making material conditions better. It was considered marvelous that there was no disorder in New York when the power recently went off for 29 hours. In Iraq, water and electricity have been unreliable for months. Until conditions become much better, Iraq will be a newly created example of a danger newly perceived since 9/11 -- a "failed state." Hence it will be a vacuum into which political evil rushes. Days after Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, Thatcher, who by serendipity was in Colorado with the first President Bush, exhorted him not to "go wobbly." There was no danger of that, and no danger that this President Bush will do so. Rather, the danger is that he might think that being the reverse of wobbly -- obdurate -- is a sufficient response to the Iraq challenge. Perhaps the administration should recognize that something other than its intelligence reports concerning weapons of mass destruction was wrong. Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defense, was wrong in congressional testimony before the war. Although he said "we have no idea what we will need until we get there on the ground," he insisted that Gen. Eric Shinseki, a veteran of peacekeeping in the Balkans, was "wildly off the mark" in estimating that several hundred thousand troops would be needed in occupied Iraq. Currently, 139,000 U.S. troops and about 22,000 from other nations do not seem sufficient. And there may not be enough U.S. troops to do the job. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Texas Republican, writing in the Washington Times, says that to keep 370,000 deployed in more than 100 countries, "we have called to active duty an unprecedented 136,000 members of the Reserve and National Guard." Today's tempo of operations threatens the services' retention and recruitment. To those who say that further internationalization of the occupation of Iraq would lessen U.S. "control," the response is: Control -- such as it is -- should not be the grandiose U.S. objective. Neutralization of Iraq as a source of terror will be sufficient. Grandiosity is an American inclination because there is an engineering gene in this nation's DNA. Like engineers, Americans assume that the existence of something designated a problem entails the existence of a solution -- a fix waiting to be discovered and implemented. The problem of the vast arid land west of Missouri? Put railroads across it, then irrigate it. The Golden Gate? Throw a bridge across it. But some conditions -- the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Ulster are two -- have been shown to be less problems to be tidily and decisively solved than messes to be slowly and partially ameliorated. The failure to distinguish between solvable problems and durable messes is a facet of a larger political failing. Much political folly and almost all political calamities (e.g., the French and Russian revolutions, Mao's Cultural Revolution, the murder of perhaps a quarter of Cambodians by Khmer Rouge "re-educators") have flowed from the belief that things -- societies, human nature -- are more malleable than they are. Some very good people thought like this when expecting that Saddam Hussein's defeat would trigger a benign domino effect, emboldening Arab moderates and prompting nasty regimes to mend their ways. But inertia rules, as usual. Regarding the reconstruction of Iraq (when did the Reconstruction of the American South end? The 1870s? The 1970s?), the United States must resolve, as Victoria and Thatcher did, that the possibilities of defeat are unthinkable. This is necessary not because a happy Iraq, or a welcome cascade of political dominos, is or ever was likely in the near term. It is necessary because U.S. national security, meaning the war on terrorism and rogue regimes, must move on.
Damn liberal media. George Will obviously isn't privvy to the intelligence that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are. They say we have plenty of troops there. Disagreement is treason.
Yes, that is why Honduran troops just joined up with a group of Spaniards. That is why Powell is negotiating with the UN for new UN involvement this week. This administration knows full well that more troops are needed. These and other things are obvious- such as Rimrocker's and Batman Jones' deep desire for things to go badly for our troops so they can claim cheap political victory on a BBS. As TJ would say- disgusting.
I don't think BJ wants things to go badly, but he is pointing out that they aren't going well, just like George Will did. Of course Spain also encouraged the U.S. to give other nations more decision making power when it comes to Iraq, and Kofi Anan said that without other countries taking a bigger role in the decision making in Iraq that it would be hard to get members to vote on a resolution.
Will is suggesting that more troops are needed, but to say that the Bush administration doesn't realize this is just wrong, as their recent actions clearly show. Batman Jones and his ilk want things to go badly for Bush so much you can smell the vitriol oozing from his pores through the internet. He is a drunken, hateful little man.
I think that Bush refused to say what kind of post invasion commitment was needed prior to the invasion. Now Bush is refusing to submit any budget matters involving Iraq except in supplementary requests. Republicand and Democrats alike have repeatedly asked for those requests and suggested ways for the administration to come up with the figures to estimate the cost required. Those who were opposed to the war warned all along of the kind of commitment and problems that might be present in post invasion Iraq. It's obvious that the administration didn't listen and wasn't prepared. Now Bush is realizing what others realized before we ever stepped foot in Iraq, and he's asking foreign troops to risk their lives with out offering any say in how things are run over there. His diplomacy is lacking. I don't have any clue if BJ is mad that Bush didn't heed the warnings that were offered to him, and now things are in the condition that they are in, in Iraq, but I could understand it if he was. I am. But that doesn't mean anybody wants anything bad to happen to the soldiers over there. I think the point of the warnings early on was to prevent anything bad from happening to those soldiers.
Bush has refused to make any projections for two reasons. 1. As he has said countless times, nobody knows how long, how painful, or how challenging Operation Iraqi Freedom will be. Making predictions is a waste of time because they mean nothing. Also, these predictions can serve as a dangerous political trap, and Bush's team is far too savvy to fall in. 2. Another idea Bush has tried to convey is that this operation shouldn't have a price tag. The benefits of removing the threat of Saddam, leaving Saudi Arabia, and establishing a real presence in the most culturally backward region on this planet far outweigh the costs involved. Bush never said this operation would end quickly, and he never said this operation wouldn't be painful. He did say that we will prevail no matter what the cost.
Oh, they realized it all right, earlier this week. Of course, others realized it months, if not years, ago, but the conservative agenda to piss off the UN and most of its member nations by itreating them like crap and act like jackasses has made the effort to get roops from other countries far more difficult, if not impossilbe. Maybe you're right though and we'll get more token contributions from countries like Honduras, Bulgaria, and Albania if we promise enough economic aid. That'll turn things around.
Really? Go ahead and justify your assertion that "the conservative agenda (is) to piss off the UN and most of its member nations by itreating them like crap". Also, please document the "lies" that I have contributed. Good luck.
Just popping in briefly to say that I've finally recognized the folly of certain exchanges. There are a few people on the board I'll no longer be baited by, no matter what they write. I don't use the ignore list, but I won't argue politics or trade insults with them. Finally, finally staying above the fray. Carry on.
Good luck Jason. Somehow though, I doubt your alcohol abuse will allow you to "stay above the fray" for long.
It is truthful though. I have endured COUNTLESS insults and personal attacks, most of them lies, when he comes on this BBS posting while drunk. He is the one who proudly flaunts his NIGHTLY alcohol abuse by writing extensively about his binge drinking that usually occurs at Rudyards. Sometimes, the truth hurts, but it is still the truth.
"A very wise man once said some people rob you with a fountain pen. It don't take too long to find out just who he was talking about. Some people don't have too much food on their tables. But they got a lot of forks and knives. And they gotta cut something."
Instead of quoting Dylan without thinking, perhaps you should seek to comprehend what he was trying to say.
