rolling blunder - iraq 2008

nice

why can't all countries be grenada

what does ilx think of his washpo editorial today?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/22/AR2008022202176.html?nav=rss_opinions/columnsandblogs?nav=slate

http://www.marinecorpsmoms.com/new_images/kiss.jpg

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/18722376/the_myth_of_the_surge

some of the assertions within dont quite pass the smell test - its compelling account none the less

31g: it bizarrely suggests that the greatest military problem the u.s. has in iraq is "al-qaeda"! i think that editorial is pure parroting of whatever high-level officers that guy was talking to, it smacks of just the kind of wildly misinformed confidence that has characterized the thinking of many generals in the midst of endless counterinsurgency duty

there are many scenarios in which i can imagine iraqis being "better off" than what they are currently, to put it mildly, and there are even a lot of scenarios in which the majority of iraqis (sorry bout that, sunnis!) are better off than they were under saddam hussein, but none of those scenarios would shake my belief that the united states has no legal or moral right to be in iraq, and never did.

things are going to go badly for us whether we face up to that or not, but if we don't things will go even worse. the united states has done far worse things and gotten away with it -- obliterated an entire continent of its peoples and cultures, which it got away with -- kidnapped 4m africans and built the world's premier economy, which i'm not sure it has -- but imperial wars of aggression just aren't as acceptable as they once were

i urge everyone to read "dispatches" by michael herr, about vietnam - i read it over christmas and it's amazing

i feel like this sh*t's not going to end until the army finds somebody who can properly surrender to them, even if it's just in theory, but in order for that to happen an enemy force that's at least quasi-national is going to have to emerge and that sounds sort of hurty

Not that I really disagree, Tracer (about Iraq or Dispatches), but I think we're somewhat past "legal or moral right to be in Iraq," and are much more in the realm of consequences at this point. Part of me worries that getting-out-of-Iraq is floating around with the same lack of discussion as going in -- i.e., not much room for detailed consideration of what actually happens, good and bad, short term and long, or what ideas are out there to deal with those things.

politicians and exit strategies are like oil and water. see also black hawk down

the american soldier basically always gets stuck in one lose-lose situation after another because ever since korea we've never had any leadership that bothered to get one fucking clue about defining conditions for success. no thanks to goddamn congress for letting the executive branch have complete ownership of the war department btw

we still have soldiers and defense contractors who've been living in hostage camps in the colombian jungle for years not to mention who knows how many have died in that time for similarly vague and unachievable purposes

Another way of analyzing that is that up through Vietnam, government had a total "Trust Us" blank check to hash out strategy without selling anything to voters, whereas we've now entered the stage of "Trust Us?" car-salesman pitches to the public about how the details don't require sweating and everything will be completely fine.

Ha, kind of the same as with doctors.

doctors have to go to school though

and pay malpractice insurance

and doctors' primary accountability is still generally to their patients

yeah nabisco your simile is poor

otoh probably both reflect a trend toward mistrust of authority

^^ Umm yes, the simile/joke part was that it was probably around the same time of the last century that people stopped taking doctors' / government's expert word for things and started demanding involvement in decisions about specifics (both of which are good things, on balance)

"On balance" because it means a single coherent strategy might not be followed straight through, and you can keep making attractive short-term decisions that don't add up to a good long-term turnout

no, I disagree. it hasn't kept us from going off to war, and it HAS kept a ton of kids all over the fucking world from getting a proper education or their fucking vaccines, for crying out loud. half-measures in "informing" the public have done well more harm than good.

and for whatever reason our media is now perhaps more toadying to power than it ever has been

it was probably around the same time of the last century that people stopped taking doctors' / government's expert word for things and started demanding involvement in decisions about specifics

I just don't buy this. the last clause in this sentence doesn't hold any water to me at all, certainly not for the general public. and I think the people who show up at town hall and demand action are the same people who always showed up and demanded action, well before the bomb.

I think we're somewhat past "legal or moral right to be in Iraq"

i don't know if we'll be truly "past" that for another century or two, tbh, especially if we try and just smooth it over and don't face up to the magnitude of what happened, what we allowed our leaders to do. but i'm not suggesting that the state department and the military drop everything and begin studying meeting minutes from 2003..

cause that's really a job for congress and a special investigator :D

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n05/ohag01_.html

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081214/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush

lol

&-D