Broken Army

[Michael Tee]

<<We could address the NIE & Global intelligence conclusions on the disposition of Saddam's WMD prior to going into Iraq,>>

Sure you could.  But you'd also have to ignore the evidence of many who described in specific detail the kind of pressure that was being exerted to shape those conclusions.  You'd have to ignore that none of those conclusions convinced Canada, France, Russia, Germany or China.  You'd have to ignore the total absurdity of Saddam Hussein, even if he had WMD, ever fucking with the U.S. with them.  You'd have to ignore Saddam's running from armed confrontation with the U.S. in the first Gulf War when his army was at its peak.  You'd have to ignore that all of the "intelligence" that you seem to think was akin to the voice of Zeus speaking from Mt. Olympus, could all be traced back to a single source, with a powerful interest in overthrowing the Saddam Hussein regime.  You'd have to ignore that forgeries and frauds were a key part of the evidence for WMD.  You'd have to ignore that as far back as the first Gulf War, the U.S. presented faked satellite photo evidence to the UN to defraud that august body into supporting a military intervention.  You'd have to ignore that Bush's closest advisers even during Clinton's presidency were trying to persuade Clinton to invade Iraq as part of the Project for a New American Century  dreamed up by them and their Zionist buddies.  In fact, you'd have to do what you conservatives are so addicted to doing, that is, sticking your heads so far up your own ass that you'll never see daylight.

<<You'd have to ignore & the throng of committees that concluded how none of the intel was abused, shaped, or distorted in taking us to war. >>

Throng my ass.  Those are the same fucking morons who approved the invasion in the first place basically investigating their own spinelessness and coming to the convenient decision that nobody pulled the wool over their eyes and that they acted on the best available information.  Only an IDIOT would be taken in by such transparently self-serving BS.

[Michael Tee]

 <<We could hit all those facts that Tee & co give a short shrift to, while he and like minds connect non-existant dots, as to how Bush stole the election & lied us into war. >>

Well, I'm a little surprised at that, because if you "could," you have never done so to date.  Specifically, how Bush stole the 2000 election, as detailed minutely in the Vanity Fair article, the use of a partisan Republican firm to "purge" the voting rolls of felons who mainly happened to live in black neighbourhoods, the use of state troopers on Election Day of all days in the year to conduct random spot checks of mainly black drivers before the polls closed to look for "fake documents," etc.  As far as I am aware, none of you "hit all those facts" that could have proven us wrong, and none of you has ever dealt with the specific lies (except to claim them against all odds as "mistakes" - - probably the longest chain of simple "mistakes" that linked end-to-end would all point to the same fraudulent conclusion) and then fake your usual amusement at the "craziness" of anyone who could dare to think that George W. Bush - - former cokehead, drunk driver and secret insider trader - - could ever lie about anything.

I'm running out of metaphors for people like you.  What planet are . . . nah.  Stuck your head so far up . . .let it go.  Totally divorced from . . . bin there done that.  Your . . . let's call it naivete . . . is truly awe-inspiring.

<< We could even address the nonsensical hyperbole of "war lovers".  We could, but it's all been done adnauseum already.>>

Yeah, I admit that was a little over the top.  At heart, you guys are just a big bunch of loveable, cuddly pacifists and do-gooders.  I know it and you know it.

[Michael Tee]

domer, first of all, I have to say that your post was intelligent and perceptive even though I don't agree with much of it.  But I don't disagree with all of it, either.  I found I had a lot of trouble figuring out your thought processes.  For instance:

<<Humans are flawed, and I would present George W. Bush as exhibit number one on that account. He made a tragically flawed, monumently poor decision to invade Iraq for reasons retrospect clearly dissolves.>>

domer, WHY are you so convinced that Bush invaded Iraq for the reasons he claims he did?  Does that make sense to you?  Is the involvement of his key advisers in PNAC of no significance whatsoever?

<<you like to bitch  . . . when in fact you throw flames on the fire by your very acts of hate.>>

You are mistaken if you think that the masters of war listen to what goes on between us, domer.  They set the fires for their own purposes, and they'll burn till they get what they want.  Or are struck down dead trying.  This is a debating club, not a policy planning group.  Maybe a different language would be appropriate if I were speaking to the decision makers, but in here, we're all just impotent schmucks gabbing.  There is no wider effect except in the most indirect sense, so indirect that I can allow myself the luxury of venting.

<<You see matters in black and white . . . >>

Far from it.  But I'm talking to people who see things in black and white, and I am trying to show them that their white is a really muddy almost-black.  They really need to have one side of the picture over-emphasized, otherwise they'll never see it at all.

<< . . . you distort reality and impinge on the truth . . .>>

I have on quite a few occasions tried to recover balance by pointing out some of the good things about the U.S.A.   This is a group, by and large, that really needs to hear about the BAD side of the U.S.  Because it's their uncritical acceptance of the goodness of the U.S.A. that has led to much of the horror of the post-War world.  IMHO.

domer, I'd like to finish my reply to your post.  In a nutshell, I don't really think we're on opposite sides of the fence, but I'm a little bit troubled by what appears (to me!)  to be your overeagerness to compromise.  But maybe that's a virtue.  Believe it or not, I'm still at work, and something's come up, so I'll have to try to finish this off later.

[Plane]

If not there, where?

By all means explain to me how fighting sectarian guerilla combatants in Iraq is preventing radical religious terrorism?. I agree with you that we have to be there, but not for the head in the clouds reasons you are giving here. Primarily because we screwed up. Royally. Now we owe it to the people of Iraq not to abandon them to a massive civil war if it is even possible.

   Amoung the root causes of terrorism is the huge number of peoiple liveing hopeless lives in poverty and repression , with their ignorance fostered by governments who controll their access to information strictly and use scapegoats to explain their every failure.

    How to attack this root cause ?


     Saddam was a low hanging fruit and was not so hard to topple , unfortunately he has been hard to replace with something better even at the low standard he set.

[Michael Tee]

<<Your cynical outrage, what you see (and revel in) as a clearcut chance to be grandly self-righteous, aggravates the situation. >>

Well, that's an issue I dealt with in my last post.  The situation, I believe, is unaffected by the outrage of Michael Tee, cynical or not.  The debating club versus the policy planning group, etc.

<<Your concern, to me, is not genuine as to those that suffer but instrumental to your chance to "moralize" with a vengeance . . . >>

I think here you're maybe getting into a subject, the character and psychoanalysis of Michael Tee, that, while it seems to preoccupy minds of sirs' calibre, isn't really of much interest to me or to the rest of the group.   Not that that was your intention, I hasten to add.  I'm not accusing you, just observing where comments of that type tend to lead.  So I will necessarily try to keep this as impersonal as I can. 

I think you're trying to draw a distinction between moral outrage based on compassion for the victims and moral outrage based on the character of the perpetrators.  And to construct a kind of pecking order or hierarchy of moral outrage, with compassion outranking contempt as a valid base or rationale.  Fair enough, if you're coming from a place where the primary value in the universe is said to be love.  Which I think you are.  I'm not coming from that place.  I am coming from a place where the highest value is, quite frankly, vengeance, or in its more exalted form, justice.  But certainly not love.  I don't like to be that way, and maybe it's not the best way to be, but it's what I am.  Born and raised.  And I can't change it.  One small caveat: note that I did not say that your tradition's highest value was love, I said that it was said to be love.

Be that as it may, I would say only that in a situation where, once again, man's cruelty to man is markedly on the rise, moral outrage of either kind - - based on hatred of the war-lover or compassion for his victim - - is clearly preferable to moral ambiguity, vacillation and compromise.  In the face of the atrocities we now see on a daily basis, which you yourself claim to be horrified by, it seems like pointless nitpicking for anyone who wants to see the carnage stopped (in its tracks, I couldn't help but add) to snipe at the motives of others with the same goal.


<< a vengeance I suspect (but of course can't know) that goes back to the nightmare your people suffered during the last great war. >>

Well, I've said as much in previous posts.  The Jews are and always have been the world's primary victims of fascism, racism, xenophobia and militarism, which explains why even now, with much of that several generations behind them, we tend overwhelmingly to vote Democratic in the U.S. and Liberal in this country, even when the right wing in both countries panders outrageously to the Israeli lobby.  (As do the Democrats, as a necessary evil to keep "their" Jews in the corral.)

 << Thus, your cynicism, to me, is emotionally based and utilitarian in nature: you like to bitch as if you're God's saving (indeed, avenging) angel, when in fact you throw flames on the fire by your very acts of hate. You see matters in black and white, much like Bush. In doing so, you distort reality and impinge on the truth.>>

Well, most of this I've already dealt with.  I didn't understand the reference to "utilitarian" cynicism, but I'll let that pass.  Did you mean it served a psychological need of mine?  in which case, I would have thought you'd have had a better chance of hitting the mark with my outrage rather than my cynicism . . .   see how easy it is to get sucked into these kinds of discussions when the topic is ME, MICHAEL TEE . . .  domer, I honestly think that the tactic of psychonalyzing the poster rather than analyzing the contents of the post is going to result in an empty and pointless diversion.

I'd rather live in the kind of world where the monsters are embarrassed by the extent of their evil deeds and are called to account for their murderous ways, and it seems like you are moving in the opposite direction, where the protestors are called to account for their outrage and have to defend their moralizing.  I can understand the pull of reconciliation - - but reconciliation at what price?  Reconciliation with whom, exactly?  It just seems to me that you are willing to give up way too much, domer.

<<That truth is not as simple as you would like it to be. >>

Well, this is a debating club, isn't it?  Why is the truth not as simple as I "would like" it to be?  Whatever happened to Ocam's razor?  (He ran out of blades.)  Why DIDN'T the US foreign policy makers decide that, in the absence of the USSR, there remained nothing to stop them from going back in there and grabbing themselves some oil?  With a little help from the former colonial power in the region.

<<Granted that the invasion should never have occurred . . .>>

See, domer, that alone convinces me that you have just bought uncritically into the establishment, MSM view of the situation now - - that the invasion "was a mistake."  What if it wasn't a mistake?  What if the invasion SHOULD have occurred because it was part of a plan previously urged on the Clinton administration, to grab some big oil fields while the grabbin' was good?  So I see that even your basic premise may be flawed, and then everything that follows is also flawed.  Like . . .

<< . . . the task we now have is to leave Iraq in the best position we can and extricate ourselves as quickly and deftly as possible . . . >>

which makes some kind of sense IF the invasion was in fact one big "mistake."   And if it wasn't?  If it was a deliberate oil-grab?  In effect, your support of more troops for a little more time, to permit a little more restructuring before the final exit, actually turns out to be a facilitiation of the neo-cons in their aim to keep the troops there as long as possible to solidify an American grip on the country and its natural resources.  What if YOUR concept of "the task before us" is nothing at all like your "leaders'" concept of that task?

Sorry, domer, once again I don't have time to finish.  It was a good post, gave me a lot to struggle with, but I really do need to catch some shut-eye.  One real quick comment on the ISG which you refer to in your last para - - do you not realize it's a crock?  They picked their own to investigate their own.  There were no fresh voices and no outsider opinions involved.  It was OBVIOUSLY a PR exercise, no more no less.  I'm kind of disappointed you fell for it.

[sirs]

<<We could address the NIE & Global intelligence conclusions on the disposition of Saddam's WMD prior to going into Iraq,>>

Sure you could.  But you'd also have to ignore the evidence of many who described in specific detail the kind of pressure that was being exerted to shape those conclusions.  You'd have to ignore that none of those conclusions convinced Canada, France, Russia, Germany or China. 

You'd actually have to show validated evidence of how such intel was "shaped".  Not just your opinion, or the opinion of other ABB nut jobs, but documented referencing of how the intel was actually shaped.  Because, currently the FACTS say other wise.  And yea, last time I looked messers France, Russia, & Germany were all in agreement that Saddam did posess WMD stockpiles.  I realize facts to you is like Kriptonite to Superman, but that's not my problem

You'd have to ignore that all of the "intelligence" that you seem to think was akin to the voice of Zeus speaking from Mt. Olympus, could all be traced back to a single source, with a powerful interest in overthrowing the Saddam Hussein regime.  You'd have to ignore that forgeries and frauds were a key part of the evidence for WMD.  You'd have to ignore that as far back as the first Gulf War, the U.S. presented faked satellite photo evidence to the UN to defraud that august body into supporting a military intervention.  You'd have to ignore that Bush's closest advisers even during Clinton's presidency were trying to persuade Clinton to invade Iraq as part of the Project for a New American Century  dreamed up by them and their Zionist buddies. 

Interesting tact now.  Umm, no, I've never claimed the intel was Zeus speaking.  As Pooch has made clear on countless times in the old saloon, the Intel services take their best guess, with the information they have gathered.  They take it all up, and make conclusions based on their information gathering.  So, subtracting all the irrelevent and pathetic efforts to imply some Zionist conspiracy, the FACT remains that the intel agencies from nearly every country, concluded that Saddam still possessed stockpiles of WMD, prior to our going into Iraq.  A sticky FACT for you, I understand, but still a FACT, and not some emotionally bent charge of how the intel was shaped

In fact, you'd have to do what you conservatives are so addicted to doing, that is, sticking your heads so far up your own ass that you'll never see daylight.

You mean, like fringe left Democrats?

<<You'd have to ignore & the throng of committees that concluded how none of the intel was abused, shaped, or distorted in taking us to war. >>

Throng my ass.  Those are the same fucking morons who approved the invasion in the first place basically investigating their own spinelessness and coming to the convenient decision that nobody pulled the wool over their eyes and that they acted on the best available information.  Only an IDIOT would be taken in by such transparently self-serving BS.

So, in other words, the FACTS are that various committees and commisions have concluded no manipulation of intel, no lying us into war, yet, we get the emotionally charged rant of how they had the wool pulled over their eyes, MINUS any FACTS to support the allegation.  Just more of those non-existant dots again

<<We could hit all those facts that Tee & co give a short shrift to, while he and like minds connect non-existant dots, as to how Bush stole the election & lied us into war. >>

Well, I'm a little surprised at that, because if you "could," you have never done so to date.

LOL......now you're only pulling the wool over your own eyes, on that one Tee.

Specifically, how Bush stole the 2000 election

Specifically, newspaper, after newspaper, after newspaper, after newspaper, that went back and looked at the election results, and recounted every vote, in every way possible, had Bush winning the election.  In only 1 scenario in 1 newspaper, I do believe, did Gore actually win, when the entire state was recounted, and all multiple votes for President (invalid ballots) were counted

<< We could even address the nonsensical hyperbole of "war lovers".  We could, but it's all been done adnauseum already.>>

Yeah, I admit that was a little over the top.

Ahhh, finally, concensus

[sirs]

<<Your concern, to me, is not genuine as to those that suffer but instrumental to your chance to "moralize" with a vengeance . . . >>

I think here you're maybe getting into a subject, the character and psychoanalysis of Michael Tee, that, while it seems to preoccupy minds of sirs' calibre, isn't really of much interest to me or to the rest of the group.    

Don't flatter yourself Tee.  I could care less about your America hating, military hating delusional psychosis       

[_JS]

What is worth fighting for? Who is worth fighting for? That is what i want to know.

Who are you asking?

I've said that we should stay and fight for the Iraqi people. I just oppose the notion that this is some grandiose "Hannibal at the gates" battle with Islamic radical terrorism. It is what it is: a battle to clean up a horrible mess that we made by invading in the first place. We went into the china shop with our sledgehammer and now we have to glue the little pieces back together.

If you are asking the American people. I have no idea. We are but voices amongst millions. That is how a Republic works, correct?

[_JS]

An invasion that accomplished precisely what it's primary objective was --> Regime change, and the prevention of any of Iraq's WMD being transferred into the hands of terrorists, such as AlQueada.  How that's a "failure" is beyond me

Read my point again and ask yourself how this is even a response to it? I said that the invasion failed every reasonable just war theory. You are arguing the success or failure of the invasion on its own merits. I'm offering a legitimate critique over here at home plate and you are out in left field responding. I didn't even make a statement on the invasion's success or failure, my statement was that it failed to meet the criteria of being a just war.

Boy, you do have this nearly obsessive need to apply Northern Ireland to everything middle east.  Moving that aside, you continue to demonstrate an apparent mindset that we just haven't been nice enough to these terrorists.  That we haven't gone above and beyond the call in being pleasant, "understanding"...appeasing enough.  Beyond the complete unrealistic naivety of such, the fact remains that in some cases military intervention becomes a necessary evil.  No one likes it, no one hopes it'll go on indefinately, but you'd think those who despise it, especially when it's supposedly applied "unjustly", the then approach at implying supporters of this current war on terrorists are war lovers, who supposedly disregard any & all forms of diplomacy or civility, simply demonstrates the emptiness of the charge, and worse, a complete lack at dealing with the reality of current events and ACTS of those same terrorists you think we can placate.

First of all, I used both Northern Ireland and Israel as examples. Secondly, I do so because both are excellent historical examples of Western governments handling armed sectarian violence where religion is the primary (but not the only) source of contention between the warring parties. From my point of view, nothing is really new. Certainly warfare changes with technology and tactics, but the essence of it is not exceptionally new (which is why the battles of Hannibal and Julius Caesar are still taught at West Point). In this case we have two very good historical examples of sectarian warfare within two western states, but you and many others seem too busy to bother with such minor details. It is clearly easier to label someone as "obsessive" and of course, "naive." After all, why attack the argument when one can attack the person making the argument?

Note for anyone else reading these debates, I have never used the terms: pleasant, understanding, appeasing, placate when talking about US policy towards terrorists. I have also never characterised anyone here as a "war lover." That would be a logical fallacy on Sirs part, deliberately used here to mischaracterize my argument.

You're now advocating implimenting Christian doctrine within our Governmental foreign policy??

And again. I'm saying that Christians should act like Christians.

[Amianthus]

Specifically, newspaper, after newspaper, after newspaper, after newspaper, that went back and looked at the election results, and recounted every vote, in every way possible, had Bush winning the election.  In only 1 scenario in 1 newspaper, I do believe, did Gore actually win, when the entire state was recounted, and all multiple votes for President (invalid ballots) were counted

Actually, the scenario that would have resulted in a win for Gore was to throw all out of the military votes. Which was actually requested by Gore at one point.

[Amianthus]

I said that the invasion failed every reasonable just war theory.

We don't run this country based on Roman Catholic doctrine ("just war theory").

Fact is, this country initiates hostilities by having Congress vote to authorize the President to use the military. This was the procedure followed in 2003.

To stop hostilities, a similar procedure is in place - Congress votes to remove authorization from the President to use the military.

This leaves the control of the military ultimately in the hands of the citizenry.

[sirs]

I said that the invasion failed every reasonable just war theory. You are arguing the success or failure of the invasion on its own merits. I'm offering a legitimate critique over here at home plate and you are out in left field responding. I didn't even make a statement on the invasion's success or failure, my statement was that it failed to meet the criteria of being a just war.

That's just your opinion, and since when do we make military decisions based purely on how "just" war is?  IMHO, war is NEVER justly, simply sometimes necessary

First of all, I used both Northern Ireland and Israel as examples. Secondly, I do so because both are excellent historical examples of Western governments handling armed sectarian violence where religion is the primary (but not the only) source of contention between the warring parties. From my point of view, nothing is really new.

Again, I appreciate your opinion, but we didn't enter into this war, with sectarian intentions.  We're dealing with the after effects of our taking out Saddam & his WMD threat of offloading/selling them to terrorists.  How that is in anyway similar to Northern Ireland or Israel, is beyond me.  What we currently have our terrorists & insurgents, being fueled by the likes of Syria & Iran, to destabilize Iraq.  Again, I fail to see anything similar in Northern Ireland, but you could definately see the same 2 countries trying to do the same to Israel.  And why are they doing so?  You've already answered that, the hopes of filling any power vacuum left by any Iraq failure in bringing forther a free democratic country.  Again, not sure how that compares to Northern Ireland

Certainly warfare changes with technology and tactics, but the essence of it is not exceptionally new (which is why the battles of Hannibal and Julius Caesar are still taught at West Point). In this case we have two very good historical examples of sectarian warfare within two western states, but you and many others seem too busy to bother with such minor details. It is clearly easier to label someone as "obsessive" and of course, "naive." After all, why attack the argument when one can attack the person making the argument?

Well, considering how I shot that notion out of the water, in my previous paragraph, the point of how naive it is to think that we simply need to "talk" to these folks, make nice nice to them, be "Christian" to radical muslims, and then all will be just swell, remains similarly valid

Note for anyone else reading these debates, I have never used the terms: pleasant, understanding, appeasing, placate when talking about US policy towards terrorists.  

And I suppose the turning the other cheek by recommending --> "I'm saying that Christians should act like Christians." is some form of military manuever?

I have also never characterised anyone here as a "war lover." That would be a logical fallacy on Sirs part, deliberately used here to mischaracterize my argument.

My apologoes if you took that as making that claim just about you.  True, you've never made direct characterizations of such, merely implied similar sentiments.  There are others on your side who have weakly made such claims, when the substance of their debate is found to be sorely lacking, but you're not one of them

You're now advocating implimenting Christian doctrine within our Governmental foreign policy??

And again. I'm saying that Christians should act like Christians.

Strange, I coulda swore we were talking how to deal with Terrorists, Insurgents, & their enablers, bent on killing innocent men, women, & children.  Preferrably Jews & "Western Christians"

[_JS]

We don't run this country based on Roman Catholic doctrine ("just war theory").

Fact is, this country initiates hostilities by having Congress vote to authorize the President to use the military. This was the procedure followed in 2003.

To stop hostilities, a similar procedure is in place - Congress votes to remove authorization from the President to use the military.

This leaves the control of the military ultimately in the hands of the citizenry.

That doesn't make my statement any less true or any less meaningful. The decision to go to war is far different than the procedure used to enact such a decision.

[sirs]

That doesn't make my statement any less true or any less meaningful. The decision to go to war is far different than the procedure used to enact such a decision.

And the facts, intel, and realities at that time, following the events of 911, justified precisely the decision to go to war

[domer]

In my view, the origin of the Iraq struggle is now irrelevant to the decisions we have to make going forward. We have to deal with the reality of the war, and focus on the best way now to LIMIT bloodshed, stabilize, if we can, the Iraqi government -- assuming it represents the will of the electorate -- help that government provide security and services necessary for their commonweal, and to fashion an American withdrawal or retreat, as the case may be, consistent with both the welfare of the Iraqi people and American strategic goals in the "main event," the struggle with violent, radical Islam. This is a complex task which will have repercussions down the decades. My greatest fear at this juncture is that President Bush will be the "decider," a man with an abysmal track record on this very issue, and a "fight first, talk later (if at all)" cowboy style "leader," a far cry from the statesman we now need.

Nevertheless, he will announce a policy that will represent the official stance of the American government, and its people in the sense that the decision will have been arrived at by a process and by personages that are lawfully exercising the powers we gave them. There is no question of usurpation as opposed to a huge question of competence and vision. Yet, there is some cause for hope in our present predicament: an unprecedented process of consultation seems to have gone on in this affair, replete with the promise of "serious" consultation with Democratic members of Congress. I view that as essential. Aside from what I consider a "toss-up" on the opposing policy choices judged by the facts and principles available to me, which are not static -- "withdrawal starting now" or "surge" -- there is the broader goal of consensus, if it can be approximated, that will serve our country well in resolution of this affair.

There are "wild cards," unknowns, which no honest person can be said to understand, that is, to offer an opinion on without a certain (or overwhelming) degree of speculation. We must be handicappers; we must play the odds.

What we don't know is whether right now the situation has degenerated so much in Iraq that a rabid civil war is inevitable. So too, we don't know if the present Iraqi government can survive, and if it can, how far the Sunnis will have to be beaten down in the process and how far the Shia will go in installing an Islamic government. Plainly and simply, as "forward-looking statements," any views we might express on these matters are highly speculative.

That brings us to our policy choice, that is "ours" if President Bush does it right. In my view, a rational argument can be made for a longer engagement (a surge) but so too can it be made for a withdrawal starting now. Unfortunately, the clarity of each position is not equally distributed. The expected "surge" will clearly be aimed -- IF IT IS POSSIBLE GIVEN THE FACTS AS THEY NOW STAND -- at the outcomes I listed above as our goals. I won't elaborate that. On the other hand, the "withdraw-sooner" strategy, if it is to be considered valid, must be seen as asserting that none of this is now possible, or at least, none of it is within our control. The weakness in this approach -- just as a surge may be simply unrealistic -- is the utter lack of a vision of a pathway to success in the overall conflict with violent, radical Islam in the wake of withdrawal. Yet, factoring in that much is unknown and that the task is actually an exercise in "handicapping reality," I find each approach, given their assumptions, to be "rational," and perhaps almost equivalent in odds: surge risks flying in the face of an already-determined fate, and withdrawal risks much more Iraqi bloodshed and a tougher go to confront the real antagonists: violent, radical Islam. One thing is for certain, however: withdrawal will save more American lives.