50 Comments

1. John Norris Brown:

I personally have no idea what to do about Iran. I guess the best thing we can do is try to secure the Iraq/Iran border. But that will be a tall order, given we can’t even do that with our own border.

Feb 13, 2007 - 10:35 am 2. jedrury:

Last night’s NBC News featured Andrea Mitchell commenting about the Iranian report as reported by the US Army in Iraq and then shifting gears to question its accuracy because the Army spokesperson did not identify himself. She then showed an Iranian spokesperson before a battery of mikes denying the accusation. The press justifies that they do this because they were lied to at the run-up post 9/11. First of all, its premise is false and the reporting is skewered against the administration. They give more vigorous analysis and reporting heft to the death of that misfit Anna Nicole than to the death of GIs.

I fault the administration for not coming out and forcefully challenging the reporting, naming names of those reporters/news anchors slanting the news, face to face encounters and making a big issue of it in live interviews. They don’t as if there is some unwritten rule of polite conduct. The administration is so afraid of being branded Nixonian, the ultimate slap down.

Feb 13, 2007 - 11:40 am 3. Buddy Larsen:

I agree with Jedrury–the psychotics have won, Bush & Co walk the asylum halls in slippers, whispering.

Feb 13, 2007 - 12:31 pm 4. mrbones:

Roger, could you please provide a link to support the claim that “a large part of the American public doesn’t seem to care what Iran does”?

Thanks!

Feb 13, 2007 - 12:35 pm 5. Roger:

When you provide a link to your real name, mrbones. Until then, you’re just another tiny little internet troll. Bye.

Feb 13, 2007 - 1:08 pm 6. David Thomson:

“They don’t as if there is some unwritten rule of polite conduct. The administration is so afraid of being branded Nixonian, the ultimate slap down.”

Amen. I have long contended that George W. Bush believes it is inappropriate to take his vicious detractors to task. He is suppose to suck it up and act like a man. Sadly, the President fails to understand that his enemies hurt not only him—but the entire country. We would all be far better off if Bush possessed something of a Machiavellian nasty streak.

Feb 13, 2007 - 1:52 pm 7. Buddy Larsen:

Roger, will you broil me a nice sirloin? And my truck needs an oil change.

Feb 13, 2007 - 1:55 pm 8. Roger:

Sure thing, Buddy. Medium-rare? And how do you like you martinis?

Feb 13, 2007 - 2:13 pm 9. Terrye:

What is Bush supposed to say? It is not as if these people give a damn if Bush takes them to task, if he did they would just say he was agressive and defensive and obnoxious and God knows what else. The idea that all Bush has to do is “get tough” and the press will ease up on him is naive. Everyone knows what Iran is. They just don’t give a damn.

The thing I find the most annoying is that the press and the UN and most of the government of Europe were saying the same thing about Saddam and his regime. The Democrats, including the former president were certainly out there saying Saddam had stockpiles of weapons. The truth is they were not entirely wrong either, not about the terrorists or the weapons, but somehow Bush is the only one that has to carry the load for that. Not the press, or the Democrats or the Europeans or anyone else.

I guess he could have come into office and called Clinton a liar and a fool because of his Iraqi Liberation Act. And of course the CIA has been wrong so many times in the last 20 years who cares what they say? Ever notice how it is ok to use anonymous sources when divulging national security secrets?…but when it comes to something like this, even when the evidence is right there to see…well they want names.

Fine, but if Bush is lying..so is the military and Gates and somehow I don’t think the Democrats want to go on record calling all these people liars, just Bush.

Feb 13, 2007 - 3:02 pm 10. promoguy:

I have always believed that the best response to these MSM hacks is a frontal attack, loud and clear. Unfortunately, that is not what the Republican Party is all about. I love D. Prager’s idea that the Democrats are the party of the dangerous and that the Republicans are the party of the stupid. Think I’ve got that right.

By the by, we have that weapon poised here in Van Nuys, CA as our way of thwarting gang violence.

Feb 13, 2007 - 5:12 pm 11. Terrye:

I think people are underestimating the desire of people to believe the media and to believe that this is all a bad dream we will wake up from when Bush is gone.

Feb 13, 2007 - 7:11 pm 12. Luther McLeod:

I don’t think it’s desire Terrye. I think it is the only thing they are exposed too. Most are not on the net/blogs, their daily mind full is the ‘media.’ The fourth column has its way with the great middle. The great middle who just wish for a honorable end and peace, as usual for this country. That end is, unfortunately, not allowed us by the extremist forces we face.

Feb 13, 2007 - 8:05 pm 13. Terrye:

Luther:

Yes, that is true.

BTW, Sadr ran for the hills of Iran. plucka plucka plucka….this is great, the reporters are trying to act as if there is a perfectly logical explanation for how those weapons ended up in Iraq where they were used to kill our soldiers and how can we be sure that fibber Bush is not just picking on the poor Iranians…and then the next thing you know we hear that Sadr is in Iran somewhere hiding under a bed.

Feb 13, 2007 - 8:49 pm 14. Coisty:

Why are you worried about jihadis in Iraq/Iran when they are shooting dead American civilians in Utah shopping malls?

http://tinyurl.com/27lmf5

It doesn’t matter how many thousands of Americans die for nothing in Iraq if you allow Muslims to move to the US. I now await the idiots who supported bombing Christian Serbia to say “but…but…we helped the Bosnian Muslims. Why are they doing this?”

Feb 13, 2007 - 9:41 pm 15. Terrye:

Coisty:

That was one of the most offensive remarks I have ever seen on this blog.

For one thing I don’t think those soldiers are dying for nothing in Iraq, I know you are a somewhere to the right of Pat Buchanan and believe this is all about the Jews or some such rubbish, but I am not really in the mood to go through the whole history of US/Iraq relations with you.

Suffice to say, you do not know for sure that the young man you mentioned is even a Muslim..add to that the fact that we have plenty of home grown nonMuslims doing the same kind of thing on a regular basis and it might also be worth mentioning that not all Muslims in this country are immigrants, a lot of them are born and raised here.

I tell you what, you are Canadian aren’t you?…when Canada stops putting terrorists on welfare in your country then it might be ok for you to lecture us on how we run ours.

BTW, does Canada allow Muslims to immigrate?

Feb 13, 2007 - 9:51 pm 16. Buddy Larsen:

maybe some day someplace far away, coisty, way past trail’s end and beyond the great beyond, we will get to ask those soldiers if they died for nothing. Only they know.

Feb 13, 2007 - 9:59 pm 17. Buddy Larsen:

All over the world, all through antiquity and on up to now, grateful peoples have built and written and dreamed their best memorials to honor those who have sacrificed for their common good. Nowhere to be found are the like remembrances of the scoffers, cynics, and appeasers. Whether the cause was right or wrong, or something or nothing, is a separate issue, another question, a debate for the living.

Feb 13, 2007 - 10:14 pm 18. Terrye:

Buddy:

Those soldiers don’t count to a guy like Coisty, they are just brainwashed Bushbots dying for nothing. Either that or they are rapists and murderers and torturers. Coisty and I have talked about American soldiers before. He did not give me the impression that he is a fan.

For all of his complaining about leftists he says pretty much the same kind of thing we might hear from Michael Moore or Cindy Sheehan.

Ever notice how time and again the far left and the far right manage merge into something ugly and unappealing?

Feb 13, 2007 - 10:17 pm 19. Coisty:

That was one of the most offensive remarks I have ever seen on this blog.

Huh? I didn’t condemn the soldiers. They go where they are sent. And I’m sure the vast majority have behaved honorably. But that doesn’t mean they are fighting and dying for anything worthwhile.

Remember “we’re fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them at home”? Yet add the Utah massacre by a Bosnian Muslim to the Seattle synogogue attack (a Pakistani I think), the Afghan who deliberatly knocked down ten people in a Jewish area of San Francisco, and the Iranian who crashed his vehicle into students at UNC. It seems to me no matter what happens in Iraq you’ll be having to deal with them in the US as long as you let them in.

Those soldiers don’t count to a guy like Coisty, they are just brainwashed Bushbots dying for nothing

What have they died for? Iranian domination of the ME? I consider that a waste.

Feb 13, 2007 - 10:38 pm 20. Word Guy:

“What if Iran is at war with us?”

Er, not to be flip, but they’ve been at war with us since 1979. We just haven’t chosen to recognize it as such. They’ve always known they can’t beat us in the field, so they conduct war by other means.

Unpleasant, but true.

Feb 13, 2007 - 10:39 pm 21. Buddy Larsen:

everyone realizes that flesh-and-blood is not to be paid for glory and monuments. But not so long ago, most everyone wanted to change the mess of the mideast, to try for an end to this three decades of jihad.

So it has turned out to be a long hard cruel endeavor. So many have turned around and changed their minds about whether it should have been, or should be, fought at all.

But some things will always be at face value, not subject to revision. The dead can never have died for nothing–they will have at the very least died because the republic–and I use that word technically–asked them to. That old Greek poet tasked with a writing an epitath to the Thermopylae 300 had to say it, that in the end the message had to be

Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by,
that here, obedient to their laws, we lie.

Feb 13, 2007 - 10:43 pm 22. Buddy Larsen:

Terrye, disrespecting the protectors would be a self-curing affliction if the whole country felt like its left side. Simply, there wouldn’t be any protectors, and soon enough there wouldn’t be any country either.

But maybe that’s ok.

Be hell if it wasn’t, tho. “Hey, whaddaya mean, we don’t get a do-over?”

Feb 13, 2007 - 10:53 pm 23. Coisty:

I tell you what, you are Canadian aren’t you?…when Canada stops putting terrorists on welfare in your country then it might be ok for you to lecture us on how we run ours.

You don’t mind hundreds of thousands of illegal Mexicans making demands but get all upset about a lone Canadian making a comment about a foreigner killing your fellow citizens in a shopping mall!

It’s funny how so many here complain about the MSM on Iraq but don’t seem to mind when they (mostly) fail to mention the Muslim background of a mass murderer in Utah.

you do not know for sure that the young man you mentioned is even a Muslim

A Bosnian named “Sulejmen”? I would be shocked if any Serbian or Croatian Christians named their children after Suleiman the Magnificent! Wouldn’t you find that astonishing?

All over the world, all through antiquity and on up to now, grateful peoples have built and written and dreamed their best memorials to honor those who have sacrificed for their common good.

For the most part they built memorials to people who died for nation, soil, and religion, not abstract ideology. Though the Soviets built many in the name of ideology. Most have been taken down though.

Feb 13, 2007 - 10:54 pm 24. Buddy Larsen:

Oh, I see. The two decades of attack led up to 911, but 911 itself was slated to be the last attack of the jihad–and you have that on good enough authority to assert that the ensuing war is only about an abstract ideology–and our abstract ideology, to boot.

Well, excuse me, but, how were we to know? You should have told us. Now that I’m in the know, I agree, the troops really are fighting for some abstract ideology.

Feb 13, 2007 - 11:07 pm 25. Coisty:

Oh, I see. The two decades of attack led up to 911, but 911 itself was slated to be the last attack of the jihad

Did I say that? No. (BTW how many jihadi attacks were launched by Iraqis in all those years?)

The most obvious thing about your responses is complete lack of interest in a Muslim killing Americans in the US. (Except of course on 9/11 but apparently that had nothing to do with border control!) Such is the religious attachment of liberals to the wonders of diversity and multiculturalism that they’ve actually convinced themselves that what happens in Iraq is more important than what happens in their own country.

Feb 13, 2007 - 11:16 pm 26. Buddy Larsen:

They died for us, so if they “died for nothing”, then we are nothing.

On that count, you, Coisty, are truly correct.

Feb 13, 2007 - 11:16 pm 27. Buddy Larsen:

Who has minimized the Utah killing? I missed that.

Feb 13, 2007 - 11:18 pm 28. Buddy Larsen:

“BTW how many jihadi attacks were launched by Iraqis in all those years?”

Feb 13, 2007 - 11:23 pm 29. Coisty:

No. They died for politicians who, like virtually all politicians everywhere, don’t care about the country they govern. It’s extremely unlikely that the American people will benefit from the sacrifices of US soldiers. But don’t convince me. Try convincing your fellow citizens who now seem to agree with most of the rest of the world.

You minimised the Utah slaughter by posting only about the soldiers remark. It’s quite indicative of your priorities.

Feb 13, 2007 - 11:26 pm 30. Buddy Larsen:

I just came to read–I was headed for the sack. Your “died for nothing” is what set me off. Of course the Utah killing is a horror. It’ll probably turn out to have been a Muz kid brain-rotted by jihadi websites. I don’t get your beef at all. If the killer is a jihadi, does that mean we shouldn’t be fighting the jihad? Honestly–I do not get your point at all.

Feb 13, 2007 - 11:30 pm 31. Buddy Larsen:

“No. They died for politicians who, like virtually all politicians everywhere, don’t care about the country they govern”

Ok, so since politicians fill ‘all’ the legal positions of authority by which we are governed, what are we gonna do about ‘all’ the positions of government, starting with 20,000 municipal & county dogcatchers, on up thru ‘all’ local & state and federal legislative, executive, and judicial offices, who “don’t care about the country they govern”?

Lexington Green? If you’re right, then let’s go, it’s time.

Feb 13, 2007 - 11:41 pm 32. Buddy Larsen:

Anyway, you can’t know what anyone died for, without asking the person who did the dying.

That’s why you ought to steer your political arguing wide-around that whole place, imho.

Well, ‘night.

Feb 13, 2007 - 11:51 pm 33. Henry Bowman:

The Steyr 0.50-cal rifle is not armor-piercing, of course, but it will fire armor-piercing ammunition. It is not very different from the Barrett Arms 0.50-cal rifle that virtually anyone in the U.S. [except for those in, say, the Peoples Republic of California] can go purchase, provided sufficient funds. Tne U.S. military uses such rifles in many situations; it should come as no surprise that the enemy wants something similar.

The real mystery to me is why the know-nothings in the Bush Administration did not attempt to close the borders with Syria and Iran shortly after the invasion. It has been painfully obvious for years that the real problem characters are coming in from outside Iraq. We have the technology to close those borders, but we lack the will.

Feb 14, 2007 - 5:18 am 34. Terrye:

Coisty:

You dragged that kid into this. Never mind the fact that on the same day some guy on the east coast killed himself and three other people in a freaking board meeting. But, since the guy was not a Muslim, I guess they don’t count.

Coisty, we had been messing with the Iraqi regime for years. Our first military conflict as a country 200 years ago was with the jihadi pirates. Why? Because they were messing with our trade. This is not just about politics and you know it. On one hand you complain that we even let Muslims into the country and then you say when our people go fight a war against Muslim extremists they are dying for nothing.

Hey, I meant what I said, you need to deal with your own problems up there in Canada in regards to dangerous people running around…before you start passing judgment on the rest of us. BTW, I bet you have a few Bosnians up there doncha? Well, maybe you ought to go do something about that Coisty. Go get um buddy.

Feb 14, 2007 - 5:21 am 35. Terrye:

BTW Coisty, surely you do know there is a difference between a Mexican agricultural laborer or roofer and and a Muslim terrrorist or terrorist sympathizer living off the state. I got the impression from your response that you did not.

Feb 14, 2007 - 5:30 am 36. Terrye:

Henry:

The odd thing is the Iraqi government closed the border, not the Bush administration. I am sure that the Bush administration wanted it done, but I noticed the reports all stressed it was the Iraqis calling for the borders to be closed.

I don’t think it was a question of knowing nothing, but perhaps a lack of people. In any event, I agree, it should have been done before now. I also think martial law should have been declared in Baghdad.

Feb 14, 2007 - 5:33 am 37. Cynic:

“The real mystery to me is why the know-nothings in the Bush Administration did not attempt to close the borders with Syria and Iran shortly after the invasion.”

Could I suggest State Department?
Going by previous behaviour like the 80s when they stopped short of hitting Hezbollah and Syrian contingents in the Bekaa valley after the massacre of all those marines in Beirut to not inflame the “Arab Street”, covering up Arafat’s involvement in the murder of American diplomats in the Sudan and so on, I also wonder.
Rice, an Ed Djerejian (Baker Botts Associate and Syrian lobbyist since the early 90s) protege I believe and NSA to Bush could have influenced things.
Remember how the Israelis were also “advised” not to hurt the Syrians for Hezbollah provocations at the time at the time?

Feb 14, 2007 - 5:59 am 38. Andy Freeman:

> The idea that all Bush has to do is “get tough” and the press will ease up on him is naive.

And it’s also not the idea. The idea is that when Bush actually does something tough, he gets support. He used to get a bounce from talking tough, but he failed to follow through so many times that no one believes him now.

Feb 14, 2007 - 9:06 am 39. Steven Mitchell:

I’m fine with calls for the administration to do more, as long as they aren’t from the same people that complain voraciously everytime the administration does anything. See the (mythical) looting of the museum because the available troops were doing something more important–securing people and property. That’s exhibit A in a long, long list.

Fighting terrorists (no matter where done) means killing them, wounding, them, capturing them, and sometimes locking them up and even trying them. Worse, it means sometimes cutting deals with bad guys A and B to have a chance to get worse guys C and D. At the volume of jihadist we have to deal with, that *inevitably* means something like Guantanamo (will hundreds of alleged abuses, most of which never happened, and the rest of which are trivial to anyone with their head out of their butt), and the real risk of Abu Gharib (with real abuses).

People avoid the reality of Iran for a variety of reasons. Most of them aren’t very flattering to the avoider, and thus people get really good at changing the topic to someone else having a problem. Bush is a convenient target.

Feb 14, 2007 - 9:09 am 40. Steven Mitchell:

Cynic, yes the State Department is another great example of my point. Anyone that says they want success but refuses to support State Department reform is either ignorant (which could be fixed with effort), and idiot (not fixable), or lying (your call).

Feb 14, 2007 - 9:11 am 41. Dan Panorama:

“What if Iran is really and truly at war with us? What do we do?” Roger writes. I have no doubt that Iranian weapons are showing up in Iraq, but it’s important to take a step back and consider what this means. It does not mean that Iran is at war – Bush and General Pace have made it abundantly clear that we have literally no evidence that the Iranian government is supplying these weapons as part of a state sponsored mission to destabilize Iraq. That a country bordering Iraq in a time of borderline anarchy is a place of major smuggling options should surprise no one and the best solution is to seal the border, which if we had enough troops in the first place would have been a possibility. But using this as a pretext for “war” as Roger Simon puts it is both unproductive – since bombing or undermining the Iranian government’s forces doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with smuggling operations – and likely counterproductive – because now they have no reason not to pull out the stops and devote themselves to nothing but trouble for us in Iraq. As an example of how smuggling does not equal government involvement consider this – a bunch of US weapons and equipment have shown up in the hands of the insurgents. But no one in their right mind would say there’s a deliberate campaign at the “highest level of government” in the US to arm the people shooting at us.

Feb 15, 2007 - 10:07 am 42. Bostonian:

Dan: “But no one in their right mind would say there’s a deliberate campaign at the “highest level of government” in the US to arm the people shooting at us.”

Seems to me that nobody in their right mind would deny that Iran has fighting a proxy war with us since 1979.

Feb 15, 2007 - 3:41 pm 43. dclydew:

I’m sure that I’ll get poked for this, but I think it may be a great example of the Boy who Cried Wolf. The American People (or at least the loud ones) seemed pretty supportive of Bush post-9/11 (not the rabid left, but the majority of somewhat sane Americans). I supported the invasion of Afganistan because Bin Laden needs to be captured or killed and state sponsored terrorism against America cannot go unpunished. Rooting out the Taleban was simply a bonus.

However, instead of finishing the job, there was the big cry for Iraq and its WMD’s. There was the preaching of the Gospel according to Rumsfeld, about a short war with lots of flowers and oil money to pay for it all. And many (notably less than before) seemed pretty supportive of Bush. Any talk of insurgency was laughed off or decried as unpatriotic (hell, even by some who frequented blog forums…) Yet, here we are, years later with no stability, no WMD’s, no Oil money to pay for it all and we still haven’t succeeded in Afghanistan, nor have we caught or killed Bin Laden (that we know of).

Now, Bush finally gets around to pointing a finger at Iran, a real wolf, a country that’s actively perusing Nuclear tech, a country that was used as a key travel point for 9/11 hijackers, a nation that has pulled underhanded stabs at America for most of my lifetime. And the American people hear only “Wolf!!”. We haven’t cleaned up our mess in Afghanistan, we haven’t cleaned up our mess in Iraq… the information we got from our government, be it through faulty intel, or rose-tinted sunglasses, or lies, or stupidity, or whatever excuse there may be… was incorrect in some very real sense. Is it any wonder that those loud, proud Americans that backed the justifiable invasion of a rouge state and the invasion of an immediate percieved threat, now keeps silent?

War should always be the final and last resort. War costs lots of not easily renewed resources; money, weapons, armor, vehicles, bullets and most importantly the lives of our soldiers. War should be an option only when we’re sure that the investment is necessary and unavoidable and then implemented with a plan that makes the investment worthwhile. Currently, our investments in Afghanistan and Iraq are deep in the red (both metaphorically and literally). We’ve spent far more than we expected to, lost far more good Americans than we expected to, have yet to see real evidence that any of this is working and, honestly, we still haven’t avenged the deaths of 3000 of our fellow citizens… their murderer is still at large.

Despite what some may think, most of us in this country aren’t bloodthirsty Rambos. Distaste for war seems a feature of Democracy and of a strong free market. Most Americans would prefer not to be at War, if it can be avoided. Is it not understandable that their taste for war has faltered in the face of poor leadership? Be Bush right or wrong about any or all of the past 6 years… he appears as a poor leader and no one wants to follow a poor leader into a war, when he hasn’t finished the first or second one he started.

So there it is… we face a real enemy and the government that leads us has lost its credibility, its potency and people no longer feel comfortable playing the Light Brigade.

I would rather see Saddam still in power and a united United States willing to stand against Iran, than the mess we now find ourselves in.

He was a madman, but Ahmadinejad is a madman who can hurt us.

Feb 16, 2007 - 7:43 am 44. Bostonian:

“However, instead of finishing the job, there was the big cry for Iraq and its WMD’s. ”

Sigh. This is so tiresome.

In other words, you think that the war against terrorist jihadis who hate the US can be won by military means alone.

This is certainly what you imply by your “finishing the job” comment.

Why not start from your premise? Why not argue your premise instead of assuming it?

Feb 16, 2007 - 9:03 am 45. Steven Mitchell:

I’m sure there were plans for Iran, including a certain amount of isolation that could be accompished with troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. If you want to blame Bush for being naive about the level of patriotism and good sense in his political opposition, then I won’t argue with you.

If someone supported going into Afghanistan without a firm understanding that this was the first in a long line of steps–and that we can’t afford to “finish” one step before starting the next–then the problem is in a weak understanding of how wide-ranging conflicts are fought.

I knew what we were getting into from the beginning. I didn’t know specifically where we would run into trouble or where troops would die, but I knew that this kind of effort inevitably involves setbacks. (I really expected the Iraq invasion–not the occupation, the invasion–to lead to somewhere around 2,000 to 3,000 serious casualties (death or amputation or other life-long injuries). So when I support the particular conflicts, it is part of this bigger whole.

If people bothered to listen to Bush, and bothered to educate themselves minimally on the military, they’d know these things as well. If you supported something else going into Afghanistan, then you needed to understand that the USA wasn’t implementing your plan then, and support or not support accordingly.

dclydew,

I don’t want to tar and feather you, but that last particular post is merely a weaker form of cut and run. It’s a form of, “should have done it my way, and it would have worked out better”–and it’s on shaky ground, even with hindsight. There was no more support for tangling with Iran in 2001 than there is now, and a weaker strategic position then as well. Logistics matter in Iran.

As for WMD, that horse has been beat near half to death. I agree that we’d be in a lot better shape diplomatically if certain people hadn’t put so much effort into pretending that Bush lied about WMD.

Feb 16, 2007 - 9:39 am 46. dclydew:

I don’t want to tar and feather you, but that last particular post is merely a weaker form of cut and run. It’s a form of, “should have done it my way, and it would have worked out better”–and it’s on shaky ground, even with hindsight. There was no more support for tangling with Iran in 2001 than there is now, and a weaker strategic position then as well. Logistics matter in Iran.

As for WMD, that horse has been beat near half to death. I agree that we’d be in a lot better shape diplomatically if certain people hadn’t put so much effort into pretending that Bush lied about WMD.

1. Weaker form of Cut n Run?

I didn’t say anywhere that we should cut and run. I personally think it would probably be a disaster if we left Iraq now, a disaster that would probably include the genocide of many Sunni and for which the US would be blamed, further inflaming the Sunni Madmen like Bin Laden.

2. It’s a form of, “should have done it my way, and it would have worked out better”

Argh! How about a form of assessing the situation now and trying to learn from what’s happened and how that has affected the American people and their support for the President. I don’t know that not invading Iraq would have meant winning in Afghanistan.

The biggest problem, I think, may be credibility (which often has nothing to do with facts). The administration didn’t say “We’re going to invade Iraq, it may be a bad mess, it will cost lots, it will take a lot of people and time and in the end we may have to leave with a Civil War brewing.” Instead, they apparently believed that it would be quick, painless and done by now. This, in the face of many ME experts warning that the occupation, not the invasion would be the problem. Now, four years, billions of dollars and thousands of dead soldiers later, the administrations credibility is blown. Those who advised Bush and planned the invasion apparently did so in some reality where positive think = positive outcome. None of the publicly available information about our strategy assumed the worst, not even close.

The American people tend to “trust but verify” when it comes to the government. What the hell can they verify from this administrations war in Afghanistan and Iraq, when compared to what they were told ahead of time?

Precious little.

Little enough that they are not likely to trust this administration with yet another front in the GWoT. That, more than anything that the MSM has pushed, is our problem today. I agree that the MSM doesn’t show Bush in a favorable light. They slant the news to sell their ads and in a way that meets their view of reality. However, this has been mode of operation with every President that has been in office… how many times did we hear about Blue Dresses with Clinton?

At the end of the day though, Bush and his team have lost their credibility with the American people. The connection between AQ and Iraq, we now know was not true (or at least not nearly as concrete as we were led to believe)… and instead of saying “Hey we made an error”, they continued for years to push it until its simply become ludicrous. The same for the insurgency. When Cheney is on tape as saying that the insurgency is “pretty much over”, while experts were saying that it would continue for years… the administration loses credibility. When were told that Saddam has Nukes that he can get off the ground in short order, but these are never produced, never confirmed and now… never talked about… the administration loses credibility.

I’m not making judgment calls about what IS or ISN’T true. Saddam may have had Nukes that he was planning on giving to AQ for use in the US, I don’t know. However, the American people have not been given any way to verify this… they were told over and over… then a couple weak circumstantial connections provided the only ‘proof’. Americans will not trust that which they can never verify, thats not patriotism, that nationalism and the domain of Fascism, Nazism and Communism. Democracy isn’t that easy, but its much better in the end.

Feb 16, 2007 - 12:27 pm 47. Steven Mitchell:

“At the end of the day though, Bush and his team have lost their credibility with the American people. The connection between AQ and Iraq, we now know was not true (or at least not nearly as concrete as we were led to believe)… and instead of saying “Hey we made an error”, they continued for years to push it until its simply become ludicrous. The same for the insurgency. When Cheney is on tape as saying that the insurgency is “pretty much over”, while experts were saying that it would continue for years… the administration loses credibility. When were told that Saddam has Nukes that he can get off the ground in short order, but these are never produced, never confirmed and now… never talked about… the administration loses credibility.”

Yeah? And when people twist what the administration said, over and over, after the fact, to make them apparently claim things they did not, then the administration loses credibility. I get it. For those of us who were listening to what was said, instead of what others said about what was said, the administration hasn’t lost any credibility. (Not on that front. Some are upset about the administration not fighting back enough to keep the credibility, but I for one don’t see what they good do in the face of such an obvious attempt to distort their message.)

Bush has yet to mislead about *one single thing*. He is the most honest president we have had in my lifetime. The administration was going to “lose credibility” *no matter what they did*. They only question was what they would accomplish before they did it. *All* administrations lose credibility, and Republican ones faster than warranted (see MSM).

Since Bush said in Sept/Oct. 2001 that what he was starting would not be finished during his administration, and probably not even the one afterwards, only the ignorant or willfully blind could miss the implications (or, I guess, the willfully ignorant or blindly partisan–see Kerry’s 2004 complaint that he didn’t get the war he voted for). The *only* reason that perception has not suffered more in Afghanistan is because it gives certain parties room to point and say, “here, here is the way it should work,” while they pretend they want us to “do something in Darfur”–as long as that something looks good without committing anything of substance If never in Iraq, we would still be in Afghanistan, we’d be getting hit harder there, and the same usual suspects would be dredging up “quagmire” talk. (Actually, they’d never have dropped it. They started it before we even hit Iraq, and only dropped it when they got a better target.)

Rumsfeld baiting is a decoy. Selective Cheney quoting (instead look at his actual words, over time) is a decoy. Afghan winter is a decoy. Saddam being some secular guy that would never find any common cause with terroists–yep, decoy. *Serious* people that signed up as supporters of hitting terrorists where ever they lived signed up for the whole thing. All the hows are just tactical wrangling, unless someone wants to claim that limiting our hit to Afghanistan is a strategy. That’s not quite as bad as hitting “a camel in the butt with a missle” as a face saving way of pretending to sign up, but 20 years from now, it might as well be for all the good it does.

Like Lincoln (and Grant and Sherman), you need someone that understands the “terrible arithmetic”. We cannot fight Islamic Jihad solely on our terms, at our pace. Therefore, we cannot dictate our losses. We can only pick the battles that seem to give us the most gain for what we can bring to the fight at that time. Sometimes we can only pick the really awful ones that pale only in comparison to the civilian carnage that could result if we don’t fight.

We fight a war with the lily-livered, smug, self-righteous, twerps in the public that you have, not the ones we wish we had. When things go well, I find more fault with the twerps than the administration. You seem to blame the administration for not convincing the twerps to be something that they are not.

Feb 16, 2007 - 1:03 pm 48. Steven Mitchell:

“I’m not making judgment calls about what IS or ISN’T true. … Democracy isn’t that easy, but its much better in the end.”

Sorry, your opening in that paragraph doesn’t go with the conclusion. As a member of a democracy, it is ultimately your responsibility to make judgement calls about such things. To the extent that you can’t (and we all can’t on some piece of the puzzle or another), then you fall back on your judgement of the character and capabilities of the person said democracy put in charge to represent it.

You cannot delegate that fallback judgement to others, or talk about perception, or other such things that affect how other people make their judgement when making your own. To the extent that the perception is off with the reality, then the question becomes what we, as citizens, can do to change that.

Feb 16, 2007 - 1:08 pm 49. Steven Mitchell:

“When things go well, I find more fault with the twerps than the administration. ”

Ugh, should have been, “When things seem to not go well,”. Preview is my friend.

Feb 16, 2007 - 1:10 pm 50. Bostonian:

“they apparently believed that it would be quick, painless and done by now. ”

That is absolute horsesh*t.

The war against terrorism is a war of ideas, and the administration has repeatedly said that this would be a hard and long slog. *I* would have like to hear more detail, esp. more on the philosophical battle, but there was no sugarcoating.

And you talk like the administration can somehow prove miraculously to all people, beyond all ability to question, what is going on in the ME. Why are you holding the Republicans up to this impossible standard? When did any Democrat prove his claims, like a science experiment, and end opposition to them that way?

Likewise, you imply that somehow, without some magic intervention, Americans have no information whatsoever to use in assessing the situation: no personal contacts, no reading of reports, no reading between the lines of the reports, nothing. (That’s us, helpless.) But you believe that government (or should I say Government) has the power to give an Answer that all will agree on.

The things you ask for are beyond the power of any government.

Feb 16, 2007 - 1:23 pm

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