If the president had stuck with his campaign promise to conduct “a more humble foreign policy” the nation would not be hemorrhaging blood and treasure in a foreign bog that is undermining U.S. security.President Bush is now warning against a retreat into “isolationism” and has begun recommending international engagement. This from a man who morphed a campaign pledge of adopting a “more humble foreign policy” into virtually unilateral invasion of Iraq — another sovereign nation posing little threat to the United States. In the past six years, the president has undergone an interesting metamorphosis: from “isolationist” to muscular unilateralist to advocate of international engagement.
The root of the president’s change of heart has been a defensive reaction to the debacle in Iraq. First, taken by surprise even after being warned about a possible post-invasion insurgency, he has had to substitute Republican nation-building for the Clinton administration’s Democratic nation-building, which he so despised for being armed social work. Second, his new “internationalist” pose allows him to smear critics who advocate a withdrawal from Iraq as “isolationists.” But this tactic is nothing new.
At the turn of the last century, Alfred Thayer Mahan, a naval strategist who was pushing for a large U.S. naval force to dominate the globe, coined the dreaded I-word to discredit those who supported the traditional, more restrained foreign policy originally instituted by the nation’s founders. Ever since then, interventionists have tried to attach this general label to critics of any particular overseas military adventure. The name-calling gets especially intense when interventionists are trapped in a failed brushfire war, such as Iraq. Critics who see the writing on the wall and want to cut U.S. losses are accused of “cutting and running” or of “aiding the enemy.” These accusations of cowardice and near treason are designed to deflect the critics’ searing questions about the interventionist policy: why the ill-advised military action was undertaken in the first place and how the United States has aided future enemies by showing them how to fight the United States — using guerrilla tactics — and by providing a haven and training ground for terrorists in Iraq.
Of course, using the label “isolationist” to describe critics of the war is inaccurate and says more about the accuser than the accused. Most critics of the war do not want to cut off the United States from the world; they simply want the U.S. military out of Iraq. For interventionists to describe this view as “isolationist” is merely an indication of how militarized U.S. foreign policy has become since World War II. The Defense Department and its regional military commanders around the world have resources that dwarf those of other U.S. departments engaged abroad — for example, the State Department. And having such a large and capable military — U.S. security expenditures exceed the combined defense spending of all the other major world powers — has increasingly tempted U.S. presidents to use it to solve the world’s problems.
President George W. Bush is not the first recent president to use military power to intervene in the affairs of other countries, but he probably has been the most reckless and incompetent. In terms of numbers of useless military interventions, Bill Clinton was the modern day champion — intervening or threatening to intervene in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo — but he was smart enough to have avoided a large ground invasion that might have led to a quagmire. Even Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon — who sent large ground forces into the Vietnam tar baby and persisted in that futile war, respectively — did not have the potential to inflame radical anti-U.S. terrorists worldwide by their actions.
Instead of completely neutralizing al Qaeda after 9/11, President Bush’s ignorance and lack of understanding of Islam have increased the threat from radical Islamists against the United States. In Islam, even moderate Muslims believe that when Islamic lands are invaded by non-Muslims, every Muslim must do what he or she can to resist. The fierce Islamist response to the Soviets in Afghanistan, the Russians in Chechnya, and the Israelis in Palestine should have given the Bush administration pause about how a foreign invader would be received in Iraq. Compounding this difficulty, it didn’t occur to the Bush administration that Iraq was an artificial country that had always been held together by brute force and that when that force was removed, it would descend into anarchy and civil war. Nor did it occur to the administration that the chaos would create a haven and training ground for radical jihadists, who could launch future attacks against the United States.
If George W. Bush had been president when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and Adolf Hitler declared war on the United States, he would have attacked Russia, making the problem far worse.
If the president had stuck with his campaign promise to conduct “a more humble foreign policy” — or “isolationism” as he now pejoratively labels it — the nation would not be hemorrhaging blood and treasure in a foreign bog that is undermining U.S. security.
Where was this article 3 years ago?
Ignore the problem for future generations to fix, the answer libs give for everything. Allow this dictatorship to rule and provide aid to those who would kill us, after all, it won’t be easy to change a country into a democracy. With the “vision” and do-nothing mentality of libs, the United States, Germany, Japan, Russia, Europe,etc would not be democracies. Viet-Nam is a victroy for liberalism, how sad is that. Now libs want Iraq to be a victory for the cause of apathy. Having no domestic agenda is shameful for the American people, having no concern for the Iraq people is shameful to humanity. Is world wide democracy a goal? Do you respect the lives of all humans? And libs blame Bush for living in a bubble. I wish we didn’t have to be in Iraq, but leaving now is not an option. Why not support the war libs, have your political battel about the details when our soldiers and this world is safer.
Honker – you seem to have entirely missed the point. Telling “libs” to support the war until the world is safer, presumes that result will occur – something people against the war think will not happen so long as we occupy Iraq. Your suggestion is like a company having a business plan that some executives think is, and will continue to be, unprofitable, but asking the dissenting executives to support the plan until it becomes profitable and debate it then.
Continuing to occupy Iraq will not make our troops or the world safer. It is having the opposite effect. in Iraq is “ignoring” the reality of the problem. Supporting the continuation of a venture after it has been shown to be a failure is not patriotic or admirable, it is just plain stupid.
And, by the way, it is not only the libs who think the war is a failure – plenty of conservatives agree, inluding one whose picture is on this page.
On one hand honker is somewhat correct, yes now Iraq is a mess and we cannot just leave. But that does not mean we shouldn’t change strategies either. History will not be too kind to the Pentagon, the Intelligence agencies and especially the Army’s leadership. They primarily should stand under intense scrutiny after our troops our safely back in the states but leadership change can still be effective if our President has the fortitude to do so. For too long now our ground force commanders at the highest levels have either misled the President and the people or have been forced to fight a war that cannot be won in the conventional manner. So which is it? Only those with the time and access to the millions of tons of data will determine that. But the proof is in the pudding. Over 2000 men and uncountable bizillions of dollars to remove one man. A thug who is now making a mokery of our arrogant attempt to presume our version of civilization could be adopted by people who live savage and brutal lives by choice. Yes choice, something our current leaders missed due to blindness under arrogance. Arrogance to presume world courts and law is something that people flock to when they don’t even have the ability to use normal sewage instead of their front yards for defecation. People who for thousands of years have cut each others head’s off for spite and intolerance rather than reason. So no we cannot just leave the Iraqis but we can tell them our troops are now out of the picture, our bravest young men who are in a position in which they cannot win. Any military historian will tell you conventional troops on the ground cannot win nor, and this is key prevent terrorism and insurgency. Why? Because uniform men cannot battle people who refuse to wear uniforms or abide by the silly concept of the laws of war until they have detonated their bom or themselves. Which by then is too late. Which brings up another point: can anyone name an American enemy the we have fought that actually abided by the Geneva convention and so called laws of war since their inception?
HMan23,
You say that continuing to occupy Iraq will not make our troops or the world safer.
I completely disagree with that statement. Iraq, as a part of the larger war on Islamic Terrorism, has made the world as a whole a much safer place. My regret is not that we invaded Iraq, but rather that we didn’t mop up particularly well and we’ve bogged ourselves down in Iraq when we should still be looking at this war as a global endeavor.
Because we are so reluctant to accept any more criticism from the world community, we have confined ourselves largely to tiptoeing around Iraq and Afghanistan, and providing a token presence in a few other places; The Philipines and Djibouti, for example.
While we had the worlds attention a couple of years ago, when nobody was sure where we were heading to next, despots the world over were quaking in their boots, we had huge proxy successes like Lybia voluntarily giving up their WMD program, Lebanon throwing off the Syrian yoke, protests for freedom and democracy the world over. Since then, we’ve shown that we are mostly all blow and no go. Qadaffi has changed his tone significantly, and Iran and Syria are almost openly supporting the terrorist organizations operating in Iraq.
To summarize, my gripe is not that we stepped on one neck too many, but that we haven’t stepped on enough necks, and those we have stepped on, we haven’t done so nearly firmly enough.
The United States should never engage in warfare unless we engage in total warfare – are willing to be completely ruthless and single-mindedly focused on rooting out and killing the enemy wherever they may be by the most expedient means available.
The Iraq mission has gone from offensive combat operations to what is essentially a peacekeeping mission. When we made that changeover, we screwed up. You can’t keep the peace until you accomplish peace.
Testing 1, 2, 3
“Yes choice, something our current leaders missed due to blindness under arrogance. Arrogance to presume world courts and law is something that people flock to when they don’t even have the ability to use normal sewage instead of their front yards for defecation. People who for thousands of years have cut each others head’s off for spite and intolerance rather than reason.”
Dean:
Though you make some good points in the beginning part of your post, ie, intelligence agencies and the Pentagon will have to answer lots of questions, your premise that Iraqis are “too primitive” to want freedom, to fight and die for it, is flawed. And world courts, now there is something flawed, will exist because, hey, we have to learn to live together somehow. It is not arrogant to impose democracy, well maybe it is, but someone has to do it. How do you suppose we win the war on terror, just nuke Muslims to smithereens?
Millions and millions of people in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria want freedom. We need to foment their being able to get it.
Mike S.:
Of course you are assuming infinite resources for your global war. The military is maxed out in Iraq as it is Without bringing back the draft, where are you going to get the troops to accomplish this? How much more do you want to add to the deficit in this endevour?
The peacekeeping mission should have been recognized as an inevitable second act to the invasion – it was not; we were told we would be showered with flowers as liberators. How could we have possibly hoped to establish the peace in advance of a peacekeeping mission? The U.S. certainly could not have been expected to root out every potential futrue insurgent during the initial invasion, unless you advocate for wholesale killing of everything in sight.
As far as the rest of the world being somehow safer, I question that assumption entirely. By many accounts, anti-American sentiment has actually increased in the Arab world. Iraq certainly is not safer, and just because there has not been an attack in America does not necessarily mean the rest of the world is safer. Ask people in London or Madrid. Moreover, Iran’s rhetoric and meddling in Iraq is not an improvement. Afgahistan is seemingly forgotten, but has gotten worse. North Korea has taken advantage of circumstances because it know we do not have the resources to stop them.
HMan23,
1. “Of course you are assuming infinite resources for your global war”
No, I’m not. We have a multitude of untapped resources. The Navy and Air Force are basically sitting on the sidelines in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Naval bombardments, B-52 arclight raids, Ship and Submarine launched cruise missiles, the list goes on and on. We’ve got lots of weapons systems gathering dust and lots of bored warfighters.
2. “The military is maxed out in Iraq as it is Without bringing back the draft, where are you going to get the troops to accomplish this?”
See my #1 above. As an addendum, not only are the Navy and Air Force sitting on their rear ends (mostly), but we only have a fraction of our infantry assets in the Middle East at any given time. We’ve got warfighting assets doing garrison duty all over the world.
3. “The peacekeeping mission should have been recognized as an inevitable second act to the invasion – it was not.”
On the contrary, the Bush administration declared victory and moved right into peacekeeping without finishing the war first.
4. “How could we have possibly hoped to establish the peace in advance of a peacekeeping mission?”
There’s a huge laundry list of things that should have been done prior to switching over to peacekeeping style operations. A DMZ complete with barbed wire and minefields along the borders with Iran and Syria would have been a good start.
5. “The U.S. certainly could not have been expected to root out every potential future insurgent during the initial invasion, unless you advocate for wholesale killing of everything in sight.”
No, of course not, and I don’t advocate killing everything in sight. I think that we were (and are) way too concerned with trying to avoid all collateral damage though.
6. “As far as the rest of the world being somehow safer, I question that assumption entirely. By many accounts, anti-American sentiment has actually increased in the Arab world.”
Anti-American sentiment may have increased, but global terror attacks on Americans has massively decreased.
7. “Iraq certainly is not safer, and just because there has not been an attack in America does not necessarily mean the rest of the world is safer. Ask people in London or Madrid.”
You are correct that Iraq isn’t safer, but then again it is a war zone, so it wouldn’t tend to be safer than elsewhere. Living under Saddam Hussein wasn’t particularly healthy either, as far as it goes.
London and Madrid had terrorist attacks, but then again, the free world has been victim to terrorist attack for many, many, years in many, many places. The only difference is that the free world is now actually doing something about it.
8. “Moreover, Iran’s rhetoric and meddling in Iraq is not an improvement. Afgahistan is seemingly forgotten, but has gotten worse. North Korea has taken advantage of circumstances because it knows we do not have the resources to stop them.”
Iran is one of those places where we should have done some enthusiastic neck-stepping a long time ago. Iran is bracketed by Afghanistan and Iraq though. If they want to play, they’re going to have to play on two fronts. I think a big fat air wing at Herat, another at Kirkuk and a battle group in the Persian Gulf would be enough to handle Iran, and it’d give the Air Force and Navy something to do.
North Korea was provided with their nuclear technology by William Jefferson Clinton. They have taken advantage of us, no doubt. However, I believe that we can take away their toys any time it suits us. We just have other things to worry about. Having said that, if we’d neck-stomped Kim Il Sung a long time ago, then we wouldn’t be farting around with Kim Jong Il right now.
Mike: Thanks for making your position clear: preventative war.
I am not persuaded by your advocacy for multi-pronged wars we canot afford either economically or diplomatically. Or how a bombing campaign will bring progress on those fronts.
Unless you plan to engage in perpetual war for the next century.
HMan23,
“Thanks for making your position clear: preventative war.”
You’re welcome. Actually I prefer the term “preemptive.”
With regard to economics, the terror attacks that brought down the World Trade Towers on September 11th, 2001 did more to screw up the US economy than anything I propose. In point of fact, wars typically stimulate the economy.
Concerning diplomacy, leftists the world over hate us. Islamisists the world over hate us. Despots the world over hate us. Nothing less than our total collapse will change the way they feel, and we can’t spend too much time worrying about how they feel.
All I propose is that George Bush hold to his word. After all, he said quite clearly that you are either with us, or you are on the side of the terrorists.
Mike:
Not to be nitpicky, but there is a difference in the terms. Preemptive war involves a situation where a country is facing a known, definite and imminent attack – and attacks first. You are advocating for preventative war – one where the threat is not specific or imminent, but based on a general presumption that the opposing country will pose a significant enough threat sometime in the future to justify an attack now. It’s a significant jump in doctrine.
They all hate us anyway so let’s exterminate them, huh? Why don’t we try to address why it is they hate us. Not invading sovereign countries based on phony claims of WMD capability, not torturing their citizens, killing their civilians (even though we are “way to concerned with collateral damage”) might be a start.
HMan23,
“They all hate us anyway so let’s exterminate them, huh?”
Now, that’s not what I said. I said that leftists, islamisists and despots the world over hate us and we can’t spend too much time worrying about how they feel.
“Preemptive war involves a situation where a country is facing a known, definite and imminent attack – and attacks first. “You are advocating for preventative war”"
Not necessarily, but let’s not argue semantics. In the case of Iran and also as far as I’m concerned, North Korea, a preventative strike on their nuclear capabilities is not only justified but a perfectly reasonable course of action.
With regard to hitting terrorist camps and training facilities in Syria and Iran, or anywhere else, again, I’m happy to use your term.
With regard to using standoff weapons against regimes that harbor, aid, and train terrorists, let’s use the term “punishment.”
Now to get down to your last paragraph;
“Why don’t we try to address why it is they hate us.”
I don’t care why they hate us. If that sounds cold, so be it. I know, and it is an easily verifiable fact, that we provide more humanitarian aid, both governmental and private, than any other country on the planet…by a wide margin. We provide food, medical aid, clothing, money, military protection. The people of the United States are the finest, biggest hearted, most giving people in the world. The government of the United States is the finest, biggest hearted, most giving government in the world.
“Not invading sovereign countries based on phony claims of WMD capability…”
No phony claims of WMD capability in Iraq. They certainly had capability. They proved it by killing Kurds and Iranians with WMD’s. On top of that, there are at least two former Iraqi generals who are now telling us that they were responsible for moving the Iraqi WMD programs en masse to Syria in the lead up to the war.
“…not torturing their citizens,”
Those people have been tried, convicted, and punished. Regardless, it’s a silly argument, even if the US partook in wholesale torture. The dictator we deposed tortured people. The people we are fighting torture people. The governments of all the surrounding countries torture people. Torture is an old time honored tradition in Islam. The only people in the Middle East who don’t use torture as a means of interrogation by policy is the US and its immediate allies. Everyone else tortures the crap out of people for fun and profit.
“killing their civilians (even though we are “way too concerned with collateral damage”)”
I didn’t propose that we go out of our way to kill civilians, and we have in fact taken numerous combat casualties simply to prevent collateral damage. If it’d been my decision on how to take Fallujah, there wouldn’t have been a building standing when the first infantry troops went in. We cleared an entire city in house-to-house hand-to-hand combat because we didn’t want to kill civilians, which is what would have happened if we had simply shelled the city flat.
The train of thought has been lost from the first posting. All I seem to find after is who do we kill, where do we kill them. Why do we kill them. A great amount of energy is expended in justification. This is what I see. 9/11 brought war to North America in a way that had not been seen since Pearl Harbour. A global response was forthcoming that had all the world willing to do anything for America. Can you not forget France and their response “We are all Americans.” Had the global forces worked together at this time the world would indeed be safer for everyone. Afganistan was invaded and left behind as an afterthought. Osama left free to roam around. He becomes a living folk hero. Instead of stabilizing Afganistan another plan takes shape. The terrorists are in Iraq. The Bush team manufactures everything. WMD. Ready to attack in 45 minutes. Nuclear capacity, yellowcake in africa. The whole world looks this over and goes “wait a minute.” Colin Powell goes wait a minute, Richard Clarke goes wait a minute, Staunch conseratives go wait a minute and look at the aftermath. All opposed are branded a traitor. If a case cannot be made the opposing view is driven from influence. It gets so harsh a counterintelligence agent is exposed so her contacts could possibly be killed to discredit and win the day. The cost at this point in time is enormous but hidden. Shock and Awe. The next thing after the bombs is the securing and surrounding of the oil ministries. To hell with the museumns . To hell with the huge munitions dumps, protect the oil offices. But it’s not about oil. About this time at home Dick Cheney is telling people that disagree to go F**k themselves. Mission acomplished. Even though the army recommended a huge force, ” boots on the ground” it was deemed not nessessary. The government fired everyone that said this will not work. And we’re talking people that were experts in their fields. Gone because they would not say what was hoped for rather the reality of such an invasion. At the eve of the invasion almost no one spoke the language, no intelligence was being obtained. Had history been studied before this the results were right there. At this point I have one question. With such resources at hand who planned this? With so many people in charge how could it have gone so wrong? Because all the spin and misdirection and baldface lies cannot salvage the state of this mess. What baffles me to distraction is how GOPers can absolve the administration. Even in this thread you can see the thought process going awry. Invade more. Kill more, Hurt them all, No friend, all foes. Savages to be eliminimated. In the third addition the name calling starts. Them libs, those libs left fools etc. I consider myself a liberal and am proud to wear the banner and here is my impressions on the morass. You cannot kill them all. You can try but there is better than a billion and you must realize the sheer work involved in killing them all. you can’t do it. An impossible task even if you have the upper hand with atomic weapons. Spread far too wide on the globe. Fighting this war with the lowest bidder and outsourcing? Not a great idea. Too many opportunities to go wrong. And they did. When this war started enemies perhaps 10 000, now a billion. Not a safer place. Friends at the attack on America? The whole globe. Now? Could count them on one hand even if I had a few fingers blown off. Bite the bullet and quit defending this administration. It’s embarrassing to see you try. I have made a bet with a friend who disagrees with my take on this situation. One hundred years from now someone will die because of revenge for these days. Scoff all you want but remember that the troubles in Ireland started 300 years ago. Try to imagine the sheer scope of death over there. A tsunami on boxing day and 10 days later a very accurate count of the dead. In Iraq? How many dead civilians? It seems that with 150,000 people over there no one seems to be able to count the dead. I would venture a guess. More than you could imagine. Here is the most damning indictment. I’m a liberal pacifist. But yet I could have mounted a far better war. Sorry but whatever you might think that’s the truth. In my sleep I could have done better. And that’s just sad……….
Patrick DeBurg,
“I’m a liberal pacifist.”
That’s imminently apparent from your post.
“But yet I could have mounted a far better war.”
Really? What would you, as an admitted liberal pacifist done to wage this war more effectively?
A little comment about this,
“I don’t care why they hate us. If that sounds cold, so be it. I know, and it is an easily verifiable fact, that we provide more humanitarian aid, both governmental and private, than any other country on the planet…by a wide margin. We provide food, medical aid, clothing, money, military protection. The people of the United States are the finest, biggest hearted, most giving people in the world. The government of the United States is the finest, biggest hearted, most giving government in the world.”
I agree with what you are saying, however the people on the receiving end do not necessarily see this. To elaborate, I spend a lot of time in Asia, particularly Indonesia. It is a sad fact that they do not see many of the good things that are done by the US government/people/charities. They only really see negative images – some of the most vocal critics are from the US! One of the most interesting things I saw in Indonesia, was the reaction of people to a US carrier group providing aid and support to the people of Aceh.
They never imagined that such a thing could happen. The image of US ships/planes had always been associated with places like Iraq and Afghanistan. It was a real – as in visual concrete – challenge to peoples perceptions of the US. It opened many peoples eyes that had been blinded by negative publicity.
So, perhaps you should care what people think. Many countries have in place a long term PR approach to improving their image – Japan has done wonders with this. It has always surprised me that the US has never bothered with this. Surely a bit of money and effort spent over the long term will be better than letting things fester to the point of armed conflict.
I am so happy the chronic complainers are not in charge of this country’s military, white house, or congress. No one wants war. Everyone agrees mistakes have been made. Nearly everyone agrees we cannot pull up and leave at this point. The only positive thing people can do now is concentrate on winning this war. If you can’t do that, suck up your need for self-worth, and doing something besides nag, nag , nag to help this country. Any action taken by an individual at this point of this war needs to answer one premise, “Does this help or hurt the war effort.” I know I am going to hear how we can’t win this war, to which I say, your wrong. We could destroy our enemies. Its hard to be held to a high moral standard when conducting war. I wonder how many libs know how we treated the “citizens” of Japan which we later liberated? I am not just talking about the nukes, how about the 100 days of fire bombs, destroying the cities of Japan. Maybe that war would have impossible to win in todays world. War is ugly, painful, for many people morally wrong, I understand that. I also KNOW that without war, there is no FREEDOM. The United States have freed more people than the rest of this world combined, and we our hated for principles???? I have a scenerio, lets say America was attacked again, what would you libs do? Other than say it was a conspiracy to drum up support for the war, what direction would you take to protect America from those same people we are killing in Iraq? Can you give a real answer, or jsut blame cons and Bush if this was to occur? I wonder if in your answer you would ever blame those who actually attacked? Is your answer the same as it always is, “Ignore it, and try not to let it happen again.”
Leigh Witney,
I appreciate your perspective. I am a military veteran and have been involved in pipeline construction for many years. I have either visited, worked, or lived in twenty-five countries over the last two decades, including countries in South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. What I’ve found is that generally people are the same the world over. A rice farmer in Thailand could set down at a diner in central Kansas and feel right at home. His world view and concerns are generally the same as someone who grows corn or wheat. It’s no accident that such a huge number of Vietnamese refugees ended up living along the gulf coast in Texas and Louisiana. Catching shrimp is catching shrimp regardless of whether you were born in the Mekong Delta or the Mississippi River Delta.
Most people all over the world are good people who just want to live their lives in peace. In general, affiliation with a political party or a religious group is secondary or tertiary to things like food, clothing, shelter, medicine, education, and sanitation.
Usually what you find is that there are a few zealots who go out and mug for the cameras and are encouraged to do so by the press corps. I personally saw Hugo Chavez bus in protestors in Venezuela during the recall referendum. I’ve seen organizers hand out cash to get people to bulk up a crowd.
When I say that I don’t care what they think, I’m not referring to the common people. I know, from personal first-hand experience that for the most part people like and admire Americans. That includes people who are communists (I’ve sat and drank beer with los communistas many a time) or Muslim (I’ve sat and drank…well, apple juice, but that still counts). What I mean is that I could give a crap what Chavez or Castro or Mugabe or Ahmadinejad or any one of dozens of others thinks. There’s nothing we could do that’d get any of these cretins to love us, and I don’t want to get along with or be liked by these people. I don’t care. The same goes for the Mullahs and Imams that stoke the fires in the ME. They hate us. They will always hate us. I don’t care. Those bastards dancing in the streets after 9/11 hate us. They will always hate us… and I don’t care.
Honker:
The reason Iraq is such a catastrophie is because people who think like you ARE in charge of government. Those people did not listen to the advice of those in the military who knew better. Those dissenting views were quashed, nay-sayers were relieved of duty or otherwise margainalized. Powell, said “You break it you buy it.” Bush did not listen. Rumsfeld did not listen to what the military was telling him.
“No one wants war.”
Not true, the president wanted this war, Richard Perle, Rusmfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and the PNAC wanted war.
“Nearly everyone agrees we cannot pull up and leave at this point.”
Again not true. Would you care to back that up with anything other than your words. Besides the public, numerous legislators, commentators (conservative and liberal alike), the majority of troops in Iraq believe it would be best to move to a withdrawal phase.
“Any action taken by an individual at this point of this war needs to answer one premise, “Does this help or hurt the war effort.”
Wrong question. People need to ask “Does this help the United States and its long-term security objectives?”
“I have a scenerio, lets say America was attacked again, what would you libs do?”
I would seek out and destroy those who attacked us. I would not invade a country having nothing to do with the attack, leave the perpetrators at large, and take actions that would inflame further Anti-American sentiment, possibly leading to further attacks. I would not squander the good will that would come from the world community.
“Is your answer the same as it always is, “Ignore it, and try not to let it happen again.”
Libs did not want to ignore what happened on 9/11. They supported strikes against Al Queda and Afghanistan. The neo-cons ignored the objective by going into Iraq.
HMan23 ,
You are kind of picking and choosing your data on your last comment there.
Just one example, I don’t have time to refute your entire statement right now, is your quote that “the majority of troops in Iraq believe it would be best to move to a withdrawal phase.”
You are referring to the 28 February Zogby poll. This is, like most polls these days, put together with a predetermined result in mind.
Here’s the poll: http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1075
Notice the headline: “U.S. Troops in Iraq: 72% Say End War in 2006.”
OK. Fine. But what were they asked and how were they asked it.
They were given four choices. Three of the four choices were within the next year. Specifically they were “Immediately”, “Inside of Six Months”, “Inside of 12 Months”, or “As long as needed.” If you are in a combat zone and you are given the choice of “Go home in the next year” or “Stay forever”, most are going to go for option A.
If the options had been “Inside a year”, ” 1 to 2 years”, “2 to 3 years”, and “more than 3 years” you’d have gotten completely different answers.
Here’s some other interesting tidbits from the poll:
“Asked why they think some Americans favor rapid U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq, 37% of troops serving there said those Americans are unpatriotic, while 20% believe people back home don’t believe a continued occupation will work. Another 16% said they believe those favoring a quick withdrawal do so because they oppose the use of the military in a pre-emptive war, while 15% said they do not believe those Americans understand the need for the U.S. troops in Iraq.”
Get that? Over half of the troops feel that Americans who don’t support the war either are unpatriotic or don’t understand.
Also, 58% of those serving in country say the U.S. mission in Iraq is clear in their minds.
77% of troops said they also believe the main or a major reason for the war was “to stop Saddam from protecting al Qaeda in Iraq.”
93% said that removing weapons of mass destruction is not a reason for U.S. troops being there.
A majority of troops (53%) said the U.S. should double both the number of troops and bombing missions in order to control the insurgency.
A majority of the troops serving in Iraq said they were satisfied with the war provisions from Washington. Just 30% of troops said they think the Department of Defense has failed to provide adequate troop protections, such as body armor, munitions, and armor plating for vehicles like HumVees.
Did I pick and choose my results? A little, but then again, you did so blatantly by picking one result from a slanted question.
the president had a binary decision: to invade and occupy or not to invade and occupy. the intelligence on wmds: hazy, maybe they’re there, maybe not. the intelligence on iraq’s capability to hurt america in any way: across the board they said there is no way iraq can attack america. this intelligence was solid. there was no imminent threat. so, rather than make an actual plan, think things through–you know be sensible about it, bushco. just says we can go there, we’ll just borrow from china. we may have to give the world economy to china but who cares. at least halliburton’s getting something out of this. u are all puppets of a propoganda machine. r u rich from this “war”? i really doubt it. but someone is.
being a republican used to mean:
-fiscally conservative
-socially conservative
-cautious, thoughtful
-traditional
now u wave 2 flags-we hate gays and we love babies
and the red states accomodate the selling of our country to the red communists.
this administration is far from conservative. u have been duped. u have destroyed our country.
Retired Marine Corps General Bernard E. Trainor and longtime Pentagon reporter Michael R. Gordon report in The New York Times that Iraq’s top generals believed that Saddam Hussein retained an arsenal of WMD and were shocked when told that such weapons would not be available in the event of an American invasion.
What happened to Saddam’s VX nerve gas and anthrax? Bill Tierney, a former UN weapons inspector, Arabic speaker and translator for the FBI, obtained 12 hours of taped conversations of Saddam that had been confiscated in Iraq after the invasion. Tierney’s analysis is that Saddam did rebuild his WMD after the first Gulf War, did intend to give them to terrorists to use them against the Americans but, at some point, secretly poured his chemical weapons into lakes and rivers while shipping other stocks over the border to Syria.
In other words, Bush did not “lie.” Rather he relied on what CIA director George Tenet told him – that it was a “slam dunk” that Saddam retained stockpiles of WMD. And that appraisal was likely based in part on what even Saddam’s generals believed to be the truth.
-Clifford D. May
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/cliffordmay/2006/03/16/190133.html
Mike:
You used your entire post to discuss my one reference to polling of the troops even though I made several other points – fine. I’ll concede there are potentail problems with the one question I selected to use. But, one intial point I have is that the question was directed to what the troops thought the U.S. should do, not what they wanted for themselves personally. You seem to want to imply that all those questioned would necessarily imply that kind of personal aspect to it.
In any event, all of the data you do cite certainly does not a resounding show of support by the troops. AND, the numbers you tout come from a sample of people who have been trained to follow orders, conform and limit individual expression. Given their postion and training, you will rarely see less support expressed publically from those in the military. Thus, even the figures you cite are more negative than you let on. What do you think a poll would look like from WWII? I wager many more than 58% would think the mission was clear; and a huge majority would answer that they should stay as long as needed.
Mike:
Regarding the May article, a lot of what we were told by “sources” in Iraq turned out to be untrue – many sources had their own reasons for wanting the U.S. to get involved. Admittedly, I have no basis to concluded one way or the other about the veracity of Tiereny’s report becasue I have not read enough about it, but given the lack of credibility for other intelligence leaves me skeptical.
I do take issue with one statement in the article relating to the information Bush was using. May said “that Tenet’s appraisal was likely based in part on what even Saddam’s generals believed to be the truth.” How was this “likely,” given that the tapes were found post-invasion? If this information was part of Tenet’s “slam dunk” case, we would have heard about it beforehand. We did not. It could not have been part of Tenet’s case.
Sorry for the poor grammar – my screen disappears on the right hand side and I lose track of half my post.
testing
Hman,
I’m not sure why, but my reply won’t post.
I guess I’ve got some sort of cootie in my reply… It won’t post.
HMan23,
I am a veteran. I spent four years in the Marine Corps in an infantry billet and so I am a pretty good judge of how a grunt feels and how he will respond to questions.
You say that the numbers I tout come from a sample of people who have been trained to follow orders, conform and limit individual expression.
That may be true when dealing with a superior officer or NCO, but doesn’t apply to civilians.
You say, “Given their postion and training, you will rarely see less support expressed publically from those in the military. Thus, even the figures you cite are more negative than you let on.”
Actually the numbers are what they are. The one inalienable right that all military people have is the right to gripe. That’s about it. That’s why even though you’ve got a lot of troops that think they should go home, they also think that we should double the number of troops and increase the bombing campaign. It also explains why they think that people who don’t support the war are unpatriotic and/or foolish.
As far as WWII polls are concerned, let’s use the Betio campaign as an example. Betio (Tarawa) was 8000 miles from Tokyo and could have been easily skipped over. The 2nd Marine Division took 1027 Marines and Sailors killed, 88 MIA, and 2297 WIA in 76 hours.
I’d hazard a guess that you’d have a hard time getting a positive poll from anyone after that. Not to mention that your average jarhead wouldn’t have a clue as to why he just saw over 3000 men blown away over an island in the middle of nowhere that was smaller than his family farm.
Newspapers ran headlines like “The Bloody Beaches of Tarawa.”
General MacArthur wrote the Secretary of War complaining that “these frontal attacks by the Navy, as at Tarawa, are a tragic and unnecessary massacre of American lives.”
A woman wrote Admiral Nimitz accusing him of “murdering my son.”
Congress proposed a special investigation into the matter.
http://www.nps.gov/wapa/indepth/extContent/usmc/pcn-190-003120-00/sec8.htm
Almost sounds like 2006, doesn’t it? Except of course we lost more men in three days than we’ve lost in three years in Iraq.
There it is! The censorbot evidently gigged me for the word b*tch, as in “inalienable right to b*tch and moan.”
HMan23,
I can’t argue with your #25. I linked to the piece since the Syria theory is one I’ve pushed for a long time.
Don’t sweat the grammar. I have the same problem. I’m going to start typing it out in Word and then pasting, I think.
Mike:
Good points in #30.
I threw the Zogby poll into my rebuttal to Honker’s claim that “nearly everyone agrees” we cannot pull up and leave at this point. Maybe I should stick to civilian polls or other data. But, I think Honker’s claim is a pretty hard statement to back up.
Correction to my #30. We had 1027 KIA at Tarawa in 3 days. It took two years of combat in Iraq to reach that number. Total coalition KIA in Iraq as of today is about 2500.
HMan23,
I’ve actually made a minor hobby of reading polls and trying to determine what the results were meant to be based on the phrasing. This isn’t a leftist or rightist (is that a word?) issue, it’s a lazy reporting issue. The reporter and/or pollster determine what point they want to make and create a poll that will support their preconceived result, either by the phrasing or by the sampling or some other such jiggery-pokery.
With regard to pulling out of Iraq, I was under the impression that most people, whether or not they ever agreed with the rationale behind the war, felt that just picking up and going home would be a disaster on many levels. Iraq would most likely descend into total civil war. The Kurds would break away and almost certainly be invaded by Turkey, which would create a larger separatist movement by the Kurds there. Al Qaida would immediately set about implementing a Taliban style theocracy in the Sunni areas. The Shiites would commence to killing the Sunnis en masse. Iran would most likely invade to support the Sunnis. It’d be unbelievable horrific. We just can’t go now, regardless of whether or not the war was justified, we have to stay now until the Iraqi Government is self supporting.
Mike McGill
I would still would be in Afganistan. Would have stayed till Osama was in my hands.
Would of listened to Colin Powell. He was a military man that served with distinction. He knew what he was talking about. I would of brushed up on history to see what happened to invading forces previously, you could of went right back to alexander the great. Wasn’t easy then, not easy now. If I went in would of found LOTS of people that spoke the language as not to be drawn into family fights and petty arguments for revenge among neigbours. Richard Perle, Rusmfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, would not have listened to them.
All the experts that knew what the real cost would be, I would not have fired them.
I would have made the prison guards a little more responsible, actually alot more responsible. I would never out a covert agent. They are the people caught behind enemy lines without uniforms. I would never say that God told me to invade the area to bring democracy. I would try to understand that after the terrible hardship the country had been through that all most people there had was their pride. Would not have put the underwear on peoples head. put more steel on the hummers. Never let the munitions dump sit ungarded for years. Might have really tried to understand the religious difference between the Sunnis, and the Shi’a and the Kurds. Would of studied “keeping the peace”
right now a large offensive has been mounted. Lots of innocents are going to die.
But they won’t be counted.
Yes I quite agree that a humble response in response to 9-11 in the form of abject regret and the payment of a huge tribute to Bin Laden would be in line with the author’s thought process. Who can doubt if only Bush had emulated those Western leaders who watched and humbly responded to Hitler’s occupation of the Rhur and Rhineland did much to promote world peace.
The author is truly insightful and no doubt will be offered the position of Secretary of State of France as soon as they can complete the details on how France will submit to the Islamofascists.
Patrick DeBurg,
Regarding your #14 and #36, I guess you could call both of your posts superb examples of tiresome laundry lists of hackneyed liberal complaints.
(Apologies to Dean Barnett for stealing his line)
Wow!
You guys are crazy!