36 Comments

1. Katherine:

Both sides can be blinded by wishful thinking: Omar by his desire for peaceful and prosperous Iraq, Andrew by his for war and chaos, to justify his current paranoia.

I donít know who will be right.

But most recent events lowered (even more) my opinion about reasoning and analytical powers of pundits and journos sitting in opulent comfort in the US, especially if they have an agenda to push (thank you, Dan Rather). With regard to spooks, at least those willing to talk to compliant press did not show themselves to be so sterling in their abilities and thinking either.

So, I am carefully betting on Omar. Of course, me personal desire is for peaceful and prosperous Iraq, so I may be blinded like him. One thing is sure though: if things will start falling apart over there he will know and let us know. There too much at stake for him to stay willfully blinded for too long.

Sep 16, 2004 - 9:01 am 2. mongai:

Mr. Simon,

There is a good discussion, complete with data, on this topic at http://www.belmontclub.blogspot.com (I haven’t learned how to creat a link yet, sorry). It paints a less grim picture. I am of the opinion all is going as well or better than can be expected. It certainly isn’t the same cake-walk Cyrus enjoyed many, many years back, but then again he did not have al-jazeera or the BBC to deal with. My heart goes out to the brave men and women, Iraqi and American, Japanese and so many more men and women from so many other countries standing up against the remnants of this tyranny and the other fascists moving into the theater. I feel like such a loser just sitting here and typing away compared to the lives they are leading.

Sep 16, 2004 - 9:02 am 3. Knucklehead:

We are at war. The enemy is fighting back. What a surprise.

A friend who is mildly ABB but definitely an Always Vote Dem asked, rhetorically, “…how are we going to protect our troops over there with all these terrorists?”

I have to say I’m still baffled by the question. Our troops are over there with all these terrorists to protect us. We are at war, those brave young men and women are the ones who fight it for us. Their job, as sad as that is for the ones who are wounded or killed or who have to kill the enemy, is to engage the enemy.

In all wars there will be victories and losses, battles, skirmishes, and campaigns that will long be argued as necessary or unnecessary, well led or poorly led. But we need to wait for the history books to figure all that out. After Pearl Harbor and Wake Island and the Phillipines I doubt many Americans would have described us as winning WWII. I fail to see how Falujah qualifies as some indication that we are losing this war or that it is a stalemate.

Sep 16, 2004 - 9:23 am 4. blogaddict:

I’ll tell you what this lifelong liberal Democrat NY Times reader has come to think: I now take anything I read in the NY Times with the same healthy skepticism I would regard said article if it appeared in the National Enquirer.

As far as the intelligence report goes: I am sick and tired of all these leaked intelligence documents. Anyone who would leak such a thing clearly has an agenda, and I doubt they are leaking any documents that would present a more positive picture. Furthermore, isn’t it the job of intelligence to write reports that cover ALL possible scenarios? My understanding of this report (which I have not read; I’ve only read about it) is that it says that these are the possibilities. Continuation of the status quo is a possibility, civil war is a possibility, and everything in between is a possibility. I don’t think even the most optimistic (such as Omar, whose blog I love) would say that it won’t be a long hard grind. So what? It’s worth it. I, for one, expected worse than what’s happening so far, and I’m not some highfalutin intelligence analyst. It’s just common sense that the situation would be fraught with danger and turmoil for a long time to come.

Sep 16, 2004 - 9:27 am 5. Fresh Air:

Funny how the NYT was strangely uncurious about the National Intelligence Estimate while it was busy peddling the “Bush lied” meme.

Anybody ever take a look at the Senate Intelligence Committee memo? There’s stuff in there from the 2000 NIE about chemical, biological and nuclear weapons that will curl your nose hairs.

Sep 16, 2004 - 9:35 am 6. Jim in Texas:

Blogaddict,

You’re correct in your assumption that SNIEs (Special National Intelligence Estimates) and NIEs have become “broad brush” documents and concomitantly are of little value anymore; the reason?

The authors of potentially controversial NIEs already know the documents are going to be leaked and therefore are seldom as candid as they might have once been.

Even the best analysts make blunders and in today’s politicized and PC environment, blunders can be the “kiss of death” to many promising young analysts as well as a career ending disaster for already well respected analysts.

I was in a business in the USAF that contributed raw and frequently conflicting counterintelligence to analysts in the DIA, CIA and other lesser known “analyst farms.”

I saw brilliant men who had authored brilliant deductions turn cautious and tame and I think our leaders who rely on those analysts, and by extension all of us, are being poorly served.

People who compromise classified material have selfish agendas that always run counter to the good of the United States and therefore mark themselves as traitors in spirit if not always in name.

I also think that we, as citizens of the U.S. (never Americans) should remember those selfish agendas when we see compromises of classified material and balance that selfishness against what possible “good” the compromise is supposed to achieve.

In my experience the alleged “good” seldom outweighs the obvious selfishness.

Sep 16, 2004 - 10:21 am 7. Touched_the_Obelisk:

Echoing Fresh Air’s comments, we’re now supposed to take as gospel some NIE that says things are going to get ugly in Iraq? In spite of the fact that none of the reforms suggested by the 9/11 Commission have been put into place? If we haven’t learned by now the lesson that these documents are designed to highlight the worst-case scenarios and are only as good as the intelligence that is fed into them, we’re never going to learn…

Sep 16, 2004 - 10:25 am 8. WichitaBoy:

Everyday I read on here someone’s astonishment that, yes, once again the NYT has lied or misrepresented reality. When it comes to the NYT, we seem to be taking CBS’s approach to reality: the facts don’t support our beliefs about the goodness of the NYT, but our beliefs are true in the deeper sense.

I say they’re not. The NYT has become garbage. Let’s admit it and move on.

The WaPo had the integrity to investigate the Rather claims in an honest fashion. For that they deserve great credit. As far as I’m concerned, they’re the new newspaper of record.

As for Iraq, there are two issues: 1) What must we do for our own defense?, and 2) What humanitarian obligations do we have for the people living there?

Of the two questions, the first is paramount. However much we wish to think of ourselves as nice guys, our primary duty is to our own survival. It’s clear from reading the Iraqi blogs that there are lots of nice people, lots of good people in Iraq and it would be a mega-bummer if they all had to die in a civil war, but we let millions die in Cambodia and we let millions die in Vietnam and the blood is on our hands and we don’t really care. Once the cameras leave, once Dan Rather comes back home to cover Chicago instead, it’s out of sight out of mind for the good old American citizen. People are dying by the thousands right now in Darfur, some apparently being gassed by Syria, but the cameras aren’t there and we don’t really care.

This morning I read the obituary of an American soldier killed in August in Iraq in a car bombing. He was a kid. He was an eagle scout. He was married. He had wanted to join the Army since fifth grade. He was a white Republican. I’m hoping Michael Moore can explain to me later how that was allowed to happen.

It breaks my heart for that kid to die. It breaks my heart for innocent aid workers to be abducted and have their heads sawed off. Something inside me is screaming: “Get out. Get out at any cost.” I want to cut and run. I want the cameras out of there. I want to be an isolationist. I want to put my head back in the nice warm sand, I really do.

Remind me again why being in Iraq is necessary for our national defense.

I understand Catherine’s husband’s point of view. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just pull out of that hornet’s nest and take the cameras out? Life is so safe here in Boulder. Why can’t we all just be friends?

Unfortunately my conscience is telling me something else, something I don’t really want to hear.

I think we’re being stupid in Iraq. I think we need to get hard. I think we need to clean out Fallujah and impose martial law. I think we need to clean out Sadr City and impose martial law. I think we need to tighten up the borders. Real tight.

We can’t have it both ways. We can’t just stand there letting them take pot shots at us being Mr. Nice Guy. Sooner or later that policy will lead the cut-and-runners to demand our withdrawal. Sooner or later the national narrative will become that we’re only there to hold on for a stalemate, not to win, and when that happens everyone is going to become a cut-and-runner.

We have to play to win, and that means killing the terrorists and killing the “insurgents”, or we have to cut and run. If we don’t play to win now we will cut and run later, guaranteed.

Sep 16, 2004 - 11:04 am 9. someone:

In the long run, I’m optimistic — always have been.

In the short run, I fear Bush has been taking his foot off the gas until 11/3, and we’re paying some price.

Sep 16, 2004 - 11:05 am 10. vegetius:

If anyone wants a different view try

http://www.strategypage.com//fyeo/qndguide/default.asp?target=IRAQ.HTM

Strategypage.com is unusual in that it deals with specifics rather than the blithering generalites in the Times.

I think the author’s sources are closer to ground level i.e. actual military personnel.

I have a cynical view that The President deliberately slowed the tempo of ops in the Sunni triangle especially the Fallujah operations to keep Iraq off the front pages until after the election.

Attacks on our military personnel have increaed but casualties have gone down. Go figure.

Sep 16, 2004 - 11:06 am 11. Catherine:

WichitaBoy

I understand Catherine’s husband’s point of view. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just pull out of that hornet’s nest and take the cameras out?

Glad I spotted this—-that’s not remotely his point of view.

His point of view is that Iraq is in imminent danger of turning into Lebanon or worse, which would be a bad thing.

I agree.

His point of view is also that we would not have had to be in the mess we’re in, and I do believe it’s a mess, if the Bush administration had listened to its Iraq experts & implemented the plans they made.

I’m an agnostic on the second point, but I definitely wish the Bushies had used their own experts & their own experts’ plans.

Check out Ralph Peters if you want to see a “military” version of my husband’s views.

And: PLS don’t “straw-man” my husband!

I know I’ve straw-manned him myself (& vice versa), but I’ve tried not to do so here, on this blog. If I’ve given the impression that he wants to retreat to the safety of Boulder where he can live inside a fantasy of safety, then I’m sorry, and I take it back!

And btw, he was there, in downtown Manhattan, when the first plane hit the first building. He saw it happen.

Then he was holed up in the basement of his building much of the day because a woman came screaming in from the streets saying that there was a man carrying a bomb outside.

He’s not thinking about Boulder & neither am I.

Nothing is safe here. Nothing has been safe since the day of 9-11.

Here’s the article that was the tipping point for me:

Summary: Although the early U.S. blunders in the occupation of Iraq are well known, their consequences are just now becoming clear. The Bush administration was never willing to commit the resources necessary to secure the country and did not make the most of the resources it had. U.S. officials did get a number of things right, but they never understood-or even listened to-the country they were seeking to rebuild. As a result, the democratic future of Iraq now hangs in the balance.

Larry Diamond is Co-editor of the Journal of Democracy and Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. From January to April 2004, he served as a Senior Adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad.

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20040901faessay83505/larry-diamond/what-went-wrong-in-iraq.html

Sep 16, 2004 - 11:27 am 12. Knucklehead:

Catherine:

And: PLS don’t “straw-man” my husband!

Can we dress him up in chiffon lounge pants, 13 inch stiletto Kitty Kat slippers, shoulder holster, and Napolean hat? Wait, that won’t work. If he has a Naploean hat he needs something to tuck his hand in. We’ll allow a plunging neckline waistcoat rather thatn the shoulder holster, how’s that?

Sep 16, 2004 - 11:46 am 13. Knucklehead:

Catherine:

And: PLS don’t “straw-man” my husband!

Can we dress him up in chiffon lounge pants, 13 inch stiletto Kitty Kat slippers, shoulder holster, and Napolean hat? Wait, that won’t work. If he has a Naploean hat he needs something to tuck his hand in. We’ll allow a plunging neckline waistcoat rather thatn the shoulder holster, how’s that?

Sep 16, 2004 - 11:48 am 14. Knucklehead:

Ooops, sorry for the double post.

Sep 16, 2004 - 11:55 am 15. WichitaBoy:

Catherine

I’ apologize. I’m not trying to straw-man your husband nor to make it personal. He’s become our icon on this blog for a certain mindset which I’ve evidently misunderstood.

The problem is that language alone offers too little bandwidth to fully convey all the information that needs to be conveyed.

His point of view is also that we would not have had to be in the mess we’re in, and I do believe it’s a mess, if the Bush administration had listened to its Iraq experts & implemented the plans they made.

Whether it’s his view or not, it’s a widespread belief among the Democrats that we’re in a mess that we don’t need to be in and that we should just get out. Although the argument is sometimes couched in terms of “Bush didn’t do it right” I don’t usually see a detailed analysis of what should be done to “do it right” accompanying this.

Although the early U.S. blunders in the occupation of Iraq are well known, their consequences are just now becoming clear. The Bush administration was never willing to commit the resources necessary to secure the country and did not make the most of the resources it had. U.S. officials did get a number of things right, but they never understood-or even listened to-the country they were seeking to rebuild.

To me, this sounds exactly like Vietnam, exactly like your previous criticisms of Johnson and McNamara. I know where this leads.

Are New Yorkers really scared of terrorism, or do they believe that Bush did it for big oil?

Sep 16, 2004 - 11:55 am 16. Rick Ballard:

Catherine,

The impression that I have taken of your husband from your descriptions is that of an academic with fairly strong liberal tendencies who has a very strong moral and ethical core developed through reason rather than received as an article of faith. His work environment is such that while he may be challenged and engage in spirited debate concerning his field, certain core liberal beliefs remained unchallenged until 9/11. His reliance upon reason is currently causing him to re-evaluate current events using a rational lens rather than the “received wisdom” that the fringe relies upon. In other words, he’s so far towards Paul Berman that he can’t see Michael Moore.

If my impression is incorrect then I apologize if I have in anyway made a “strawman” out of him. He’s actually my hope for the future of the Democratic party.

Sep 16, 2004 - 12:04 pm 17. Knucklehead:

Witchita,

JMO, but I don’t believe anyone, Hoover Institute or otherwise, had or has any real idea of what will or will not work in Iraq or the remainder of the ME. The border lines are in the wrong freakin’ places and there are ancient hatreds and modern weapons and there is tribalism.

I started out believing the status quo in the ME had to fall – this suggests there was some sort of underlying stability there and things could have continued as they were as bad as that may be. I was supportive of ending that status quo. It was getting nobody anywhere, blast it and try something else.

I’ve since come to believe that status quo was coming apart at the seems. There was no stability that could last for long and the changes were heading in the wrong direction (in favor of mullahocracy and the rule of islamonurderers).

Both leave me with the idea that action needed to be taken and Iraq was the right place to take it for a fairly good-sized list of reason.

I don’t expect any war to go smoothly or without major screwups. I see no evidence it has ever happened and I’ll be damned if I’ll hold a president to an impossible standard. I am coming closer to the notions expressed by (I think) Tmj above that we need to get more iron fisted with the Sunnis or whover the hell it is in Najaf and so on. I was agin that previously because I didn’t think Russian type “no two bricks left glued together” was useful.

I hear two basic criticisms of the handling of the war that seem incompatible:

- Bush isn’t letting the military fight it the way they want to

- Bush is screwing it up

Personally I think he is giving the military as much freedom of action as is possible. Politics can never be ignored. I believe it is way too early to determine if the whole thing is screwed up or not. The “didn’t commit enough resources” argument doesn’t seem to wash – where are significantly more resources supposed to come from? We don’t have an unlimited military. People are already screaming about extended terms, inactive reserves being called up, National Guard members never planning on such long deployments, etc. Where are the resources we failed to commit?

Sep 16, 2004 - 12:16 pm 18. clarice:

I was an early financial supporter of Andrew’s and found his site worth reading. But he has gone around the bend ever since the DOMA . If you are interested in watching an analyst with wild mood swings, by all means he’s your guy. If you want someone both smart and coherent, he’s not.

No one who asserted as he did the importance of the war in Iraq, could be so obviously slanted toward Kerry nor so “shocked” at the normal tragedies and difficulties of this undertaking.

Sep 16, 2004 - 2:10 pm 19. Matt Evans:

Several of you folks have wondered aloud why we’re not “getting tougher” in Fallujah and Najaf and possibly seeing this as some kind of failure on behalf of the administration. I respectfully disagree. Bush was presented with a very difficult choice- he knows we have to get tough in Fallujah and Najaf- he knows we won’t have peace in Iraq until we do so. At the same time, with 2 1/2 months until the election, it would be crazy for him to risk a massive crackdown in either area, simply due to the fact that any such crackdown carries a fairly high degree of risk for our soldiers. A significant defeat at the hands of Al Sadyr’s bullies or Al Queda’s murderous thugs would give Kerry just the edge he needs to make a strong run at it in November. Imagine the moveon ads – “President Bush recklessly led us into iraq. In a failed attempt to rectify his errors, he sent our troops into the most dangerous areas of Iraq. American troops suffered the greatest losses of the war in 1 week of house to house, street to street fighting”.

Bush is making a incredibly tough decision. Delay moving on these places until after the election at the cost of some American lives- or risk the failure of a major offensive that could be used to put Kerry in the White House. Bush is balancing American deaths in the short term vs. American deaths in the long term – in my mind, there is no doubt that an America with Kerry at the helm will ultimately result in far more American deaths then the terrorists could cause in the remaining 2 months of Bush 43’s term.

Sep 16, 2004 - 2:22 pm 20. Terrye:

Catherine and Wichita:

Be nice.

In truth I think too many Americans believe there is a book somewhere in Washington entitled ‘Ten Easy Ways to invade and Occupy an Arab Nation for Dummies”.

No such thing. There were in fact a half dozen reports on what to do and the one much touted now is one of the State Dept’s and you know what? If they had done everything that report called for people would still be dying in Iraq and people would stll be talking about how things were screwed up and the folks in charge should have known better and followed the advice in yet another report.

It is called unforseen circumstances and it always happens. So I would say that even if we had followed that particular report Iraq would still be a mess because it was a mess when we got there. We just did not hear about it. CNN and CBS and all the other liberal media outlets failed to notify us when the children were buried alive.

This will take a long time. I expected thousands of dead soldiers before we even got to Baghdad. I expected hundreds of thousands of refugees and starvation and humanitarian aid crises. I expected the fadayeen to use chemcials on their own people, again.

There are 25 million people in Iraq. Do the math. If 10% of them don’t want democracy, that is 2.5 million people. If 10% of them are armed and dangerous, that is 250,000. We have 140,000 troops in Iraq. If there were a quarter of a million armed and dangerous people in that country would we have casualties in battle of less than a thousand? Would a car bomb that kills 47 be the worse that could happen?

You want a mess? Try Okinawa. A full third of the civilian population died. That was a mess.

Sep 16, 2004 - 2:39 pm 21. Knucklehead:

Terrye,

Its difficult to look at the history of modern warfare without having a look at Okinawa. The following summary doesn’t even touch on civilian casualties (IIRC although Okinawa was considered a home island the native population was pretty badly abused by the Japanese prior to the invasion, so the cost to Okinawa’s civilian population was even more staggering than somewhere around 1/3 killed).

The price paid for Okinawa was dear. The final toll of American casualties was the highest experienced in any campaign against the Japanese. Total American battle casualties were 49,151, of which 12,520 were killed or missing and 36,631 wounded. Army losses were 4,582 killed, 93 missing, and 18,ogg wounded; Marine losses, including those of the Tactical Air Force, were 2,938 killed and missing and 13,708 wounded; Navy casualties totaled 4,907 killed and missing and 4,824 wounded. Nonbattle casualties during the campaign amounted to 15,613 for the Army and 10,598 for the Marines. The losses in ships were 36 sunk and 368 damaged, most of them as a result of air action. Losses in the air were 763 planes from 1 April to 1 July.

The high cost of the victory was due to the fact that the battle had been fought against a capably led Japanese army of greater strength than anticipated, over difficult terrain heavily and expertly fortified, and thousands of miles from home. The campaign had lasted considerably longer than was expected. But Americans had demonstrated again on Okinawa that they could, ultimately, wrest from the Japanese whatever ground they wanted.

The cost of the battle to the Japanese was even higher than to the Americans. Approximately 110,000 of the enemy lost their lives in the attempt to hold

[473]

Okinawa, and 7,400 more were taken prisoners. The enemy lost 7,800 airplanes, 16 ships sunk, and 4 ships damaged. More important, the Japanese lost 640 square miles of territory within 350 miles of Kyushu.

The military value of Okinawa exceeded all hope. It was sufficiently large to mount great numbers of troops; it provided numerous airfield sites close to the enemy’s homeland; and it furnished fleet anchorage helping the Navy to keep in action at Japan’s doors. As soon as the fighting ended, American forces on Okinawa set themselves to preparing for the battles on the main islands of Japan, their thoughts sober as they remembered the bitter bloodshed behind and also envisioned an even more desperate struggle to come.

The sequel to Okinawa, however, was contrary to all expectation. In the midst of feverish preparations on the island in August 1945, with the day for the assault on Kyushu drawing near, there came the almost unbelievable and joyous news that the war was over. The battle of Okinawa was the last of World War II

Although I recommend anyone interested read several books about the Battle of Okinawa, this provides a reasonable look at the battle.

Sep 16, 2004 - 2:57 pm 22. Terrye:

Knucklehead:

Well I guess they should have planned better. No doubt if they had done their homework and really been committed it would have been a cake walk.

I am being sarcastic of course.

My Dad was there.

Sep 16, 2004 - 3:11 pm 23. PeterUK:

Every casualty in Iraq is a tragedy to be mourned and regretted but the MSM should keep a sense of proportion.

Road accident figures make horrific reading,yet the subject never seems to concern the axe grinders of the media.Two quotes,the first from the World Health Organisation

“In the age groups of 5 to 44 years, road injuries were the second or third cause of death globally. For all ages combined, road deaths are the eleventh greatest cause of death, just below malaria and respiratory cancers”.

This from the FIA Foundation,figures for the US alone.

“A total of 42,643 people died, and 2.89 million were injured in 2003. The fatality rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled (VMT) was 1.48 in 2003, down from 1.51 in 2002. It was the first time the rate has dropped below 1.5. In 2002, 43,005 were killed and 2.93 million were injured”

I would say that the military are being very successful in keeping casualties down in a hostile environment.

Sep 16, 2004 - 4:10 pm 24. Terrye:

peter:

People just don’t think about it. I would wager that more of us know someone who has died in a car wreck than been killed in a war.

These are every day tragedies that we just accept as part of being in the world. Like cancer.

Sep 16, 2004 - 4:40 pm 25. Katherine:

I agree with Terrye.

You know how long guerrilla forces were fighting the new regime in territories of eastern Poland and Western Ukraine after the end of WWII? Full five years. And Soviet Army was not exactly known for being careful about collateral or political damage.

So, I am not terribly exercised over ìmess in Iraqî. Of course it is a mess. Iraquis are trying to build a new nation after 30 years of living under murderous, soul-destroying tyranny. We are trying to root out terrorists, while showing Iraqis how to do it themselves and how to become independent, so they will not need to remain our client forever. Any plans on this scale will not survive the first encounter with reality. If, as it seems, we are mostly improvising as we go, then we are doing pretty damn good job.

Whenever I hear about the ìmess in Iraqî and ìlack of plannigî I look for the alternatives that the critics should offer and somehow never see any. There are always generalizationsabout more resources, more troops, but, as Knuck points out, there are limits to our power, though our detractors always seem to assume that we are omnipotent. There are also demands that we should listen more to experts; well, presumably experts were in charge of ME policies throughout the nineties and this worked out great, didnít it? I put more trust in a judgment of troops on the ground who are trained to solve practical problems, than learned opinions of diplomatic scholars, who know how to elgantly present an argument in a paper or a speach, but have no idea how to react when faced with a practical dilemma.

Is everything ideal? It cannot be. Can we do better? Sure. Are we making significant progress given reality of politics and resources? I say, damn right.

Sep 16, 2004 - 4:54 pm 26. Katherine:

I am hoing tokillthat danm Perviiw une dayÖ.

Sep 16, 2004 - 5:00 pm 27. Rick Ballard:

Katherine,

Nut ef i gut tow hum frist?!

We were promised a long hard war. To me, long means more than six years. I fully expect the situation in Iraq to deteriorate substantially until the Shia decide that they have had enough. The Sunni’s have known since Saddam’s fall that old scores were going to be settled. They may as well die fighting and they are. The factor that is not being effectively reported is the number of non-Sunni casualties that the Iraqi’s are now taking. There have been numerous bombings of police stations and practically all of them have occured while lines of Iraqi’s waited outside to sign up to become policemen. The bombings haven’t stopped the signups at all and I believe that beyond a steady job quite a number of the recruits are signing up for an opportunity to take a bit of revenge without legal risk.

Iraq is going to get a lot bloodier and there is nothing to be done about it. There was and is no plan that reflect the pent up desire for revenge that comes from having a heel on your neck for thirty-five years. Putting more troops in just means that more Americans would be targets. The Iraqis are going to have to finish this – not us.

Sep 16, 2004 - 5:24 pm 28. Terrye:

In retrospect I should have married a med student and got my Masters.

But I married a young man who wanted to be a farmer and I left school to help work that farm.

Now I could say I screwed up and that I planned my life poorly. I did not read enough self help books.I used resources, namely my youth, badly. True, but if I had done all those things I might have been hit by a drunk driver on the way home from a party at the mayor’s house and died young.

You just never know. All we can do is learn from our mistakes and change what we do and the way we do it to adjust to changes around us. I imagine that is why the Bush administration is using resources allocated for reconstruction to increase security.

Iraq is like the wild west in the 21st century.

I think the Bush administration has a great deal invested in Iraq in every sense of the word. Success means a lot more to Bush than it ever could to Kerry, who will just blame any problems on Bush and move on.

But I think one thing is for sure, the terrorists want Bush to lose this election. They are not doing him any favors. Short of putting up terrorists for Kerry signs they can not make their desire any plainer. I don’t know that they would be dancing in the streets if Kerry wins, but I have the creepy feeling they might. And for that reason if none other I will not vote for the man. I am not in the least Spanish. I leave that to my Bush hating friends.

Sep 16, 2004 - 6:24 pm 29. Jay - MN:

The media has been advising the ìinsurgentsî or fascist, genocidal, terrorists for weeks now how to affect the US election. An all out offensive might persuade the weak of will that it is a hopeless war. Like the Tet offensive in Viet Nam, the increased violence in Iraq is a strategy. We have a choice put before us. To stand strong and tell them to go to hell or retreat to a world were we are no better than France.

If we fail, if we succumb to fear, we would no longer deserve to be called the land of the free and the home of the brave. The words would have no truth.

I for one will have none of it.

Right now the drudge headline says ìIraq prospects bleakî. Courage is going forward when things look bleak. No matter what the reasons for going in, giving Iraq and the ME a future other than tyranny is a noble cause and I will be happy to be let history be the judge.

I looked back at Drudge. The headline just changed. ìGALLUP SHOWS BUSH BLOWOUT: 14 POINT LEAD OVER KERRY.

The land of the free, and the home of the brave.

Sep 16, 2004 - 7:40 pm 30. Sandy P:

We all have to keep in mind 1 thing, the 4th ID wasn’t there, they were on ships because the Turkish scullery maid started flirting w/the US delivery boy and the frog prince made promises of marriage he never intended to keep.

Another reason they’re the enemy.

We do what our “allies” want us to do, multi-lateral, sensitive to culture, yada yada yada.

Vodkapundit has a recent posting about a Rasmussen(?) poll which showed 77% DISAPPROVAL for W’s performance. I and another wrote that we would be included because we don’t think he’s been hard enough.

I still say at 8:01 PM PST on 11/2, right after the polls close, I don’t think HI matters, he gives the order to slap down Fallujah. And fire a warning shot or 100 over Iran’s bow. Wouldn’t mind Syria getting a little tune-up either.

48 days to go while we sit on our hands and twirl. In a feather boa and stilettos, of course. Those Lambchop slippers just don’t cut it.

Sep 16, 2004 - 8:24 pm 31. Terrye:

Jay:

I hope the lead holds.

Yes the common assumption now is that we should have put twice as many troops in, shot the looters, put curfews in place, kicked in more doors, locked up more people and made deals with Saddam’s army. In fact there was a report done calling for some of those measures. Of course there were reports saying Saddam would use wmd and so we should limit men in the field,and there were reports saying we had to first secure the oil fields because Saddam would burn them. There were reports that said if we kept the Baathist army intact there would be a shia uprising and civil war. The reports said people would be so glad to see Saddam gone that they would help with their own security. There were reports enough enough to cover everything. But decisions had to be made and the president’s critics can say what they want now but very few of them were prepared to give him more resources to work with. Not when it counted.

Of course that would have lead to billions more in expenditures, tens of thousands of more US targets, widespread civilian casualties and charges of abuse for killing people trying to steal air conditioners and there is no way of knowing that it would have stopped the insurgency.

I do think the Bush administration needs to learn from past mistakes, but I think it is unfair and naive to think there would not be any.

Sep 16, 2004 - 8:27 pm 32. Cain:

Terrye,

It’s patently absurd that “terrorists” all think alike and are hoping Kerry wins the election. I see your underlying point: Bush has strongly prosecuted the war on terror, and so “terrorists”, fearing for their collective survival, are hoping he’s safely out of office come Jan. 2005.

There’s little evidence that the global jihadist movement has significantly weakened since the launch of our war on terror. If anything, it has strengthened. New recruits, infuriated at our war in Iraq that they view as unjust, have joined the insurgency- a movement that has at least partially conflated with al Qaeda.

I would encourage everyone here to read James Fallows’ piece in the current Atlantic that discusses how we’ve lost ground in our war against terror due to Bush’s focus on Iraq. Until I see a well-researched, thoughtful retort to Fallows’ piece (Gregg Easterbrook’s doesn’t count) I stand by my feeling that our adventures in Iraq have made our larger struggle against terror more difficult, rather than easier.

It isn’t easy to write or say such pessimistic things….I want us to succeed just as much as you do. I’m not confident that Kerry will make things better. But I’m sure that Bush isn’t the man to get us out of problems he’s created. For me, both candidates are equally bad on the war. I’m hoping Kerry wins only because I’ll take an unknown over a known failure.

Sep 16, 2004 - 8:30 pm 33. Terrye:

Cain:

Bush did not create the problem, he inherited it and I have no desire to hand power back to the people who sat there for eight long years doing nothing. They wrote papers and articles and gave speaches about the glories of multilateralism while people died. So yes, the terrorists want a return to the good old days when the Democrats were running things and the president was more interested in getting laid than in chasing down AlQaida in caves.

We have killed AlQaida leaders and sent the survivors into hiding. We have let them know they can not kill with impunity. The idea that if we fight back that will enrage them so it would be much better if we just died in silence is absurd. The idea that doing nothing while Saddam Hussein a man who killed more Muslims than the Crusaders was allowed to flaunt the law is wrong.

You know the left has come to the defence of history’s greatest murderers. They defend Saddam and his regime just like they defended the Khmer Rouge and the VC and Stalin and the Shining Path and Farc and with all the self righteous bs they come to one conclusion:

there is not problem that can’t be solved by blaming the US and removing it from the situation. US bad.

No thanks for the reading list. I gave up reading that rag years ago.

Sep 16, 2004 - 8:56 pm 34. Katherine:

As somebody who grew up under bona fide totalitarian regime I laugh a hollow laugh when somebody says that Bush is a failure. Not for 50 million people who have a chance for liberty and prosperity, he isnít!

I understand realpolitik but I hate it. Because of it people in Eastern Europe were condemned to serfdom, so that West can selfishly grow in opulence and arrogance. Because of realpolitik generation of my parents ended up with destroyed lives and the only reason I did not end up like them is because I took the first chance to hotfoot it from there, regardless of consequences. All I possessed while I arrived in the US was a backpack and parcel of books, and smattering of English.

Do you know how much better the world in general would have been if all these people were not abandoned? How much human potential would not get wasted? How much richer and more free we would be now?

As regarding security of this country, how exactly withdrawal from Iraq or summon help of the imaginary forces of Germany and France is going to improve matters? You want to fight back only after we get attacked again? And what guarantee do you have that you are not going to end up in the place that is going to be hit? Where is it better to have frontlines ñ in the ME where the terrorist are, or in every city, every school of America? Who is better prepared to fight deprived members of the Islamic Death Cult: trained and armed Marines or stockbrokers, janitors, or schoolchildren?

Oh yes, letís yak about multilateralism, appease dictatorial regimes sheltering terrorists, provide nuclear material to Iran and NK, so we can feel better for an election cycle or so Ö.before commencement of a real Apocalypse. I thought that folly of Neville Chamberlain thought people something. Apparently ìPeace in Our Timeî is a winning slogan after all.

Sep 16, 2004 - 9:39 pm 35. ricpic:

Will we never learn that half-measures, when it comes to war, are disastrous?

I trace so much of our present difficulties in Iraq back to Fallujah. If we had delivered a brutal lesson in what consequences follow the murder of Americans there — much that has happened since wouldn’t have happened.

In a war, present brutality prevents future brutalitIES.

Sep 17, 2004 - 4:30 am 36. Chinaberry Tree:

Cain — from my perspective, there are two separate (and only loosely interrelated) things we have to do to defeat terrorism (Islamist or otherwise). You’re right, we should focus substantial energy upon decreasing the nominal strength of terrorist organizations and terrorist sympathizers. Fewer would-be terrorists is better than more.

As for whether we’re doing what needs to be done to accomplish that goal in Iraq, throughout the ME, and elsewhere (Indonesia, Africa, etc.), I think the jury’s still out on that one. I prefer a “carrot AND stick” approach to the problem, and any appropriate application of either will take years or decades, not weeks or months, to bear fruit. In a culture (yes, I know I’m generalizing) where concession and compromise are often viewed as weakness, it will take a long time for the beneficiaries of largesse to “get it.” That time horizon is stretched even farther when you introduce local politics into the mix.

Similarly, a “stick” approach — hunting down terrorists and killing them — can only bear fruit over time. Immediate anger, frustration, and feelings of impotence may increase the rolls in Terrorist’s Local 151 for a time, and it’s only when (1) it becomes apparent that this particular union membership does not have much to offer in the “life expectancy” portion of the benefits package; and (2) there begins to exist some kernel of hope for a better life outside the union, that folks begin to turn in their union cards. You have to be extremely careful any time you use the “stick,” because the whole equation changes when reprisals induce growing sympathy among the general population, but there is little evidence this has happened yet in Iraq, or is likely to happen in the immediate future, opinion polls notwithstanding.

But folks who spend all their time focusing on the “numbers” of terrorists as evidence of the success or failure of the “War on Terror” miss the boat in a pretty big way. While I agree that our long-term goals must include some focus on decreasing the terrorist talent pool, our short- and medium-term emphasis must be upon limiting their ability to hurt us. By this, I mean denying terrorists’ access to the time, money, space, leisure, and Really Bad Things necessary to “kick it up a notch,” to execute the spectacular operation. In my opinion, we are doing a fairly good job on that front, and President Bush’s approach is far superior to Kerry’s likely tack.

Without time/money/space/leisure/Really Bad Things, even a temporary increase in the absolute number of terrorists/terrorist sympathizers is okay as a short-term outcome. If terrorists’ organizations are pursued and harried relentlessly, and kept away from the cabinet under the sink where folks keep the really dangerous stuff, we will suffer far less than if we pursue policies designed to make more friends by easing the pressure. If I were convinced that Kerry’s “negotiate first, ask questions later” approach stood any chance of making more friends without substantially reducing the pressure on existing terrorist organizations, I’d give him a look on Election Day. Alas.

It comes down to this: As callous as it may sound, I’m willing to accept the odd additional suicide bomber, shooting rampage, etc. over the next several years because we’ve made more enemies than we otherwise might have, as long as we are doing our best to prevent the “big score.” Bush seems to get this. Kerry doesn’t.

Sep 17, 2004 - 11:52 am

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