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| VDH: Triangulating the War |
| 2005-01-14 |
| Reading the pages of foreign-policy journals, between the long tracts on Bush's "failures" and neoconservative "arrogance," one encounters mostly predictions of defeat and calls for phased withdrawal — always with resounding criticism of the American "botched" occupation. Platitudes follow: "We can't just leave now," followed by no real advice on how a fascist society can be jumpstarted into a modern liberal republic. After all, there is no government handbook entitled, "Operation 1A: How to remove a Middle East fascist regime in three weeks, reconstruct the countryside, and hold the first elections in the nation's history — all within two years." Almost all who supported the war now are bailing on the pretext that their version of the reconstruction was not followed: While a three-week war was their idea, a 20-month messy reconstruction was surely someone else's. Yesterday genius is today's fool — and who knows next month if the elections work? Witness Afghanistan where all those who recently said the victory was "lost" to warlords are now suddenly quiet. Heads You Lose, Tails We Win Indeed, from the oscillating analyses of Iraq, the following impossible picture often emerges from our intelligentsia. It was a fatal error to disband the Iraqi army. That led to lawlessness and a loss of confidence in the American ability to restore immediate order after Saddam's fall. Yet it was also a fatal error to keep some Baathists in the newly constituted army. They were corrupt and wished reform to fail — witness the Fallujah Brigade that either betrayed us or aided the enemy. So we turned off the Sunnis by disbanding the army — and yet somehow turned off the Shiites by keeping some parts of it. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #9 Given the recent study showing that only 4 in ten trust MSM, I suspect that the pundits have had far less impact than envisioned. The credibilty challenge for MSM and armed chair generals is that it is hard for them to stake a winning position, given so many angles and the fluidity of Iraq. |
| Posted by: Captain America 2005-01-14 10:29:39 PM |
| #8 Jarhead - Sorry I didn't see #6 sooner. I think you're dead right about the CW - that topic I know a little about, thanks to Shelby Foote and a few others who can tell the story. For the North, it was a close-run thing, given Lincoln's back-stabbing cabinet and the low support. The NY draft riots are a good example - Lincoln had to suspend habeus corpus and use harsh methods to subdue them. As for the support level in the RW, I'm not sure, but it was not better than 50-50. I read a fascinating account of Franklin vs his son - on opposite sides, of course, with a very sad end - and I believe that it was stressed that public support was less than 50%. Observation: I think the real key was the rural nature of America in both instances. People had a full plate running their farms, for the two time periods I think approx 80% and 65% (respectively) of the population were farmers, working from dawn to dusk... didn't leave a lot of time for getting involved in politics. Today we have the opposite - way too many people with way too much time and doing way too little thinking before jumping, lol! |
| Posted by: .com 2005-01-14 5:15:31 PM |
| #7 We lost 7,000 soldiers trying to cross the Elbe river in Italy in 1943. Many blame Mark Clark for lapses in leadership, and I second the motion. But, Mark Clark did carry on and yes the Allies did reach Rome. The question here is Rumsfeld's head is on a platter because we don't have armoured Humvees. Armour is a good idea and the men doing the fighting deserve the best we can give them. Note: "the best we can give them". The Media want us to fight a war where no one dies. That's why censorship gave us the victory in WWII and could cost us defeat in WWIII. |
| Posted by: Rightwing 2005-01-14 11:29:11 AM |
| #6 .com, I was just discussing w/a friend the other day that IIRC only about 40% of colonists favored going to war w/England and roughly the same amount of Northerners during the CW supported fighting to keep the Union together - amazing. Thank God for the 'cowboys' Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Lincoln, and GWB. |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2005-01-14 11:28:12 AM |
| #5 Spot on, Jarhead, lol! Those who can't do, angle for the jobs where they can pass judgement on those who can and do. The Zero Deliverables crowd. They own the MSM, most of the Education System, the Civil Service, much of the upper and upper-middle management corporate positions, and a helluvalot of the political postions, both among officeholders and consultants. Sad and pathetic. If we could take their children away from them to prevent indoctrination in LLL memes, why then it would only take about 1.5 generations to end it. As things stand, however... |
| Posted by: .com 2005-01-14 11:20:18 AM |
| #4 I always love the WWII analogies that VDH uses so well. Lucky for us the MSM 24hr spin cycle did not exist at that time - we would have pulled out before ever getting to Normandy. It never ceases to amaze me how many short-sited spineless pussies have so much access to shaping people's opinions on this war. How quickly this country forgets its own past wars. |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2005-01-14 11:12:37 AM |
| #3 NPR, WaPo, NYT, Dummycrats all make half arguments. For example, their claim that unless the Sunnis vote in mass the election will be (presumably) illegitimate. Do they offer the other half of the argument which is: What happens if no election takes place? NO |
| Posted by: Captain America 2005-01-14 11:10:53 AM |
| #2 NPR, NYT; The Lord Halifaxes of the WoT. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2005-01-14 10:41:59 AM |
| #1 "Heads You Lose, Tails We Win" Beautiful summary of the ankle-biters and pundits. They'll have their fun decrying everything in Iraq that isn't perfect - at least until something of substance occurs, such as the elections. If they come off with any measure of success, the wankers will pull their Afghan Ploy, shifting focus without a word of fess-up for being wrong and asinine in extremis, and go write about some other as yet undecided ongoing issue and decry it - until substance drives them away from it, as well. Substance is something about which the wankers are understandably wary - having none themselves and never having created any. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-01-14 10:18:29 AM |