Balkinization: Our adolescent President

Comments:

There is a legitimate explanation for the Maliki statement.

In Bush's speech, he mentioned several times that the Iraqi government (Maliki, etc.) would soon lose the support of the both the Iraqi people and the American public unless things changed -- cracking down on the Shiite death squads, provincial elections, equitable distribution of oil revenues, etc. So, Bush's statement to Maliki was merely an acknowledgment of the political realities. This Surge lite is the last best chance we and they have for things to work out from Bush's and Maliki's perspective. If not, the Maliki government will likely lose all support both domestic and American, and the current Iraqi government will fall. This is a much more plausible and nuanced explanation.

# posted by

humblelawstudent : 11:00 AM

The "it has to work statement"

Despite your snide remarks, the statement rings true. Bush knows he has one last play before both he and the Iraqi government lose a critical mass of support in our ongoing efforts. Bush knows and is stating that this is the last move that he can make and still have a hope of "winning" (however defined). If this gamble doesn't pay off, then we likely lose and he knows it. So, yes, it has to succeed because it just has to. If not, not only will this gamble not have worked out, but likely Iraq would have failed.

So forgive Bush if this one statement you pick out by him doesn't contain a long drawn out explanation of this strategy and thinking. But even a half effort on your part would make it perfectly clear as to what he meant.

# posted by

humblelawstudent : 11:07 AM

In Bush's speech, he mentioned several times that the Iraqi government (Maliki, etc.) would soon lose the support of the both the Iraqi people and the American public unless things changed -- cracking down on the Shiite death squads, provincial elections, equitable distribution of oil revenues, etc. So, Bush's statement to Maliki was merely an acknowledgment of the political realities.

You're assuming (a) that the Iraqi government is responsive to Iraqi public opinion, and (b) that said opinion oppposes current government policy. I don't share either of those assumptions.

IMO, Maliki is responsive to the Shiite majority, specifically certain clerics. He answers to them; it would take more pressure than Bush has shown he's willing or even able to apply (see Execution) to interfere with that relationship.

I also think that the majority of Shiites in Iraq aren't going to exercise any political power opposing current government policy. Some because they agree with it, most because there is no history of democracy in Iraq which would give them any confidence they could do so without serious risk to themselves.

# posted by

Mark Field : 11:40 AM

Thanks to the Constitution, we have to endure 740 more days of George Bush as Commander-in-Chief.

Thanks to what is becoming an obsession, Professor Levinson's posts are going to end with this comment for the next 740 days.

# posted by

Essayist-Laywer : 11:51 AM

Well, yes, it is an obsession with me that we are trapped in a "no exit" hell with the most disastrous president in American history. And yes, somewhat like Nightline in its initial days, I probably will post a daily message indicating how many more days of "the crisis" we face.

Maliki will be out only if he commits himself to the Bush plan. But today's NY Times also indicates that he in opposes it, not least becasue one reading is that it threatens Shi'ite hegemony. So, even if one concedes the altogether dubious proposition that the Iraqi "government" is responsive to local public opinion, it's not clear that Maliki stands to lose with American failure to crack down on Shi'ite thugs (who constitute some of his most important support).

# posted by

Sandy Levinson : 11:58 AM

Adolescent is somewhat misleading in relation to the 'it has to' (even though at the face of it, it seems to fit). Desperate is more accurate.

American failure to crack down on Shi'ite thugs

Are we going to crack on Shi'ite thugs or Sunni thugs? (okay, that's facetious).

# posted by

John : 12:15 PM

@prof Levinson: noted. Maybe you could ask prof. Balkin if you could have a count down counter a top corner. ;)

# posted by

Anne : 12:38 PM

Thanks to what is becoming an obsession, Professor Levinson's posts are going to end with this comment for the next 740 days.

Well, Cato the Elder ended every speech with the words "Delenda est Carthago". Same basic principle.

Doesn't bode well for Bush if the analogy holds true.

# posted by

Mark Field : 12:59 PM

Hey, hey, hey, Prof. Levinson!:

I've got the patent on "maladministration™". I've been using it for far longer that Stephen Colbert has his "truthiness" (a "Word Of The Year"). You're infringing my intellectual property here. You have bee warned. Ok, OK!, so maybe it's been around a while. But I'm warning ya, I have priority for the method patent of referring to the Dubya regime as the "maladministration"....

Cheers,

# posted by

Anonymous : 1:15 PM

humblelawstudent:

There is a legitimate explanation for the Maliki statement.

In Bush's speech, he mentioned several times that the Iraqi government (Maliki, etc.) would soon lose the support of the both the Iraqi people and the American public unless things changed....

Rather ironic for a post where Prof. Levinson bemoans the inability of the U.S. to remove a preznit who's lost all support and confidence, eh?

And what does the "support of ... the American people" have to do with the price of tea in Sri Lanka?

Cheers,

# posted by

Anonymous : 1:18 PM

humblelawstudent:

The "it has to work statement"

Despite your snide remarks, the statement rings true. Bush knows he has one last play before both he and the Iraqi government lose a critical mass of support in our ongoing efforts....

See here. Clap louder. "It has to work."

Cheers,

# posted by

Anonymous : 1:20 PM

humblelawstudent:

So forgive Bush if this one statement you pick out by him doesn't contain a long drawn out explanation of this strategy and thinking. But even a half effort on your part would make it perfectly clear as to what he meant.

Pardon me for sayng so, but I think Prof. Levinson's effort did make it "clear as to what [Dubya] meant". Seems to me by your other comments that you caught on as well.

Cheers,

# posted by

Anonymous : 1:23 PM

Professor Levinson:

You argue that Mr. Bush's plan for stabilizing Iraq until Iraq is develops its government and military to the point where it can govern on its own is "maladministration" which should be an impeachable offense.

Do you or the political party for which you would vote in your hypothetical no confidence election have a plan which would better accomplish this goal than the Bush plan?

If not, I would suggest that you are throwing daily stones in a glass house.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 2:37 PM

Of course not if you equate victory with saving the lives of Americans and just get out. Why should opponents to a surge come up with a plan that lives up to YOUR definition of victory. That would be rediculous.

If Levinson were to come up with a plan for Iraq, the outcome would be part of the plan and couldn't be preset by you and the likes of you

# posted by

Anne : 2:55 PM

Of course @Bart. Though the comment is directed at Bart, I think it is a broader point. We've heard the GOP leaders ask for the "Democrat plan" for victory in Iraq as well. But that plan must live up to Bush' standard that equates leaving with losing and staying with winning.

# posted by

Anne : 2:56 PM

The sad answer to Mr. DePalma's question is that I'm certainly not sure that the Democratic Party necessarily has a "better plan," if by that one means a truly cogent analysis. As Mark Graber suggests in another post, I do believe that reasonable people can disagree on what represents the best policy at this juncture, i.e., significant escalation of the McCain variety (at least 100,000 troops and the willingness to expend many American lives in urban warfare with the Shi'ite militia/death squads) or what in Vietnam days was called "unilateral withdrawal," i.e., beginning today with the withdrawal of 20,000 troops, with the announcement that an additional 20,000 will be withdrawn each month for the next six months. Mhy own preference tends toward the latter, but I don't dismiss out of hand people who say that escalation is a less awful alternative than tolerating the descent of Iraq into ever further savagery.

What I'm quite confident of, based on what I've been reading about the assessment of professional military officers is that the current "plan" makes very little sense under any plausible set of assumptions and rests on what is indeed a desperate hope that it will work even though nothing else has. One wonders whether Gen. Petraeus believes that 20,000 new soldiers (only a portion of whom, presumably, could actually engage in combat, given the need for logistical support troops, etc.) are "enough," or whether he believes that this escalation will only make it easier for the next one to take place, until we indeed have (at least) another 100,000 troops in Iraq.

I think that anyone who argues that there is a "happy" solution to Iraq is a fool. There are only catastrophic and slightly less catastrophic ones at this point, in part thanks to Bush's almost literally incredible incompetence.

What we are not discussing, incidentally, is the extent to which the emphasis on Iraq is leading to the equally catastrophic failure of the US mission in Afghanistan, which is far, far more defensible than the Iraqi venture. By all accounts, the Taliban is gaining important ground while allied forces seem stymied. It may be that the Democrats can win in 2008 on the slogan "who lost Afghanistan," whatever happens in Iraq. To put it mildly, that would be terrible, whatever my views of a Democratic victory might be.

A completely gratuitous aside: I do not understand the venom directed at Bart DePalma. I obviously don't agree with him very often, but I have often been led to sharpen my own ideas by his own postings. The last thing I want to do is to generate a thread with yet more discussion of why people feel so hostile, but I want to register my own unhappiness with the tone of some of the postings. As JS Mill argued in On Liberty, one of the virtues of a free-speech regime is precisely that one is forced to consider the merits of one's own ideas by being forced to hard the views of people one may have little patience with.
End of sermon.

# posted by

Sandy Levinson : 3:10 PM

anne:

Of course, Professor Levinson may agree with you that our best course would be to surrender the battlefield to the enemy and withdraw. However, such a course could in no way be defined a military victory. Rather, surrender to avoid further casualties in combat is the age old epitome of military defeat.

Perhaps, you or Professor Levinson might argue that it is simply impossible for nearly 160,000 US troops and over 200,000 Iraqi troops to win a military victory against what are maybe 20,000 terrorists. If this is the case, then such an argument begs the question of whether you believe that the US military can ever win a military victory against any foe and who would that foe be?

However, I suspect that your goal is in fact military defeat. You are free to disabuse me of this notion.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 3:13 PM

Bart writes: surrender the battlefield to the enemy and withdraw

Which enemy is that - Shi'a or Sunni?

# posted by

John : 3:15 PM

Prof. Levinson:

A completely gratuitous aside: I do not understand the venom directed at Bart DePalma.

You mistake "venom" for ridicule and contempt. As well documented, "Bart" is far from an honest disputant, and refuses to engage in any discussion of substantive rebuttals to his "argument by repeated assertion" (or even admit mistakes, such as where he claimed that Brown II
"held that courts may legislate forced bussing of students to achieve desegregation"; his mistaken comments on what is required as "evidence" for motions is also a case in point).

His "arguments" should be met with ridicule and contempt, until he gets his act straight and treats the statements of others as other than annoying noise. If he can't be bothered with addressing the holes in his own logic or dealing with contrary evidence or facts, he's hardly contributing to an productive back-and-forth discussion.

Cheers,

# posted by

Anonymous : 3:30 PM

Prof. Levinson:

As JS Mill argued in On Liberty, one of the virtues of a free-speech regime is precisely that one is forced to consider the merits of one's own ideas by being forced to hard the views of people one may have little patience with.
End of sermon.

Perhaps "Bart" should take heed, eh?

Cheers,

# posted by

Anonymous : 3:32 PM

I value Bart's contributions in that he often cites sources from different ideological arenas than often seen here.

No healthy forum shall live by one viewpoint alone.

# posted by

John : 3:35 PM

Professor Levinson:

I appreciate your response to my query.

I think the reinforcement of 20,000 troops is far less important than the fact that we are changing our strategy from reacting to the enemy and returning to base to an offensive strategy of clearing and holding. I am uncertain whether 20,000 additional troops are needed to make this work, but I am not on the ground with the necessary information to make that decision.

In a recent Atlantic article, James Fallows noted that we have achieved all of out prewar goals and called for the US to declare victory and high tail it out of Iraq. That prescription is very tempting. However, Fallows ignores the results of a withdrawal. I would suggest that withdrawal will lead to two outcomes.

To start, the Shia would crush the far outnumbered Sunni in an exceedingly bloody civil war which would strongly resemble the Bosnian ethnic cleansing. This outcome could have been avoided if the Sunni joined the government from the outset and accepted their minority status. At that time, the Shia were thrilled simply to rule themselves. However, the Sunni have murdered upwards of 50,000 Shia civilians in a terror campaign with al Qaeda over the past four years. The Shia have been hitting back over the past year and would have done far worse if we had not been present. If we leave, the Shia will finish the job.

Maybe we are willing to wash our hands of the situation and allow the Iraqis to finish this war as I have outlined above. With considerable sympathy for the Soviets, we allowed the Red Army to rape and pillage Germany at the end of WWII.

However, even if we are that callous, withdrawal still leaves our sworn enemy al Qaeda a sanctuary in Iraq. al Qaeda will claim that they drove the US out of Iraq the way they drove the Soviets out of Afghanistan and claim to have driven the US out of Somalia. al Qaeda will have a large pool of Sunni recruits in Iraq as the Shia wage war. Finally, once we are gone, al Qaeda will have a sanctuary from which to train and launch attacks. Once we withdraw, going back in will be nearly politically impossible.

Sometimes the course is not clear and all the outcomes appear to be bad. However, you might feel about entering the war in the first place, we are in the war now and must choose a course. In such a circumstance, it is not sufficient just to complain about the lousy choices. As a sovereign people, we must make a choice on how to proceed. We owe our troops (one of whom is my brother), nothing less.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 3:42 PM

@Prof Levinson: what particularly annoys me by Bart DePalma is that he never replies to rebuttal. He always goes on giving a one sided argument even though someone else wrote a perfect debuttal. I have the distinct feeling that Bart is having a monologue instead of a conversation. I don't pretend to be perfect, but I do read the comments of others because I am interested in their views and not because I think I am entitled to the only truth.

# posted by

Anne : 3:43 PM

"Bart" DePalma "reframes" the issues:

Of course, Professor Levinson may agree with you that our best course would be to surrender the battlefield to the enemy and withdraw. However, such a course could in no way be defined a military victory. Rather, surrender to avoid further casualties in combat is the age old epitome of military defeat.

The instant "battlefield" is a sovereign country we invaded under false pretenses. By "Bart"'s 'reasoning' here, we would have "surrendered" to Germany and Japan when we withdrew our troops from there post-WWII. While it would be a stretch to say that Iraq and post-WWII Axis countries are identical, "Bart" has long maintaned that we 'succeeded' in Iraq, Dubya has insisted that we won, Iraq has had numerous elections, and the erstwhile raison d'etre for invading Iraq has been allayed. Why isn't it time to go home? Perhaps "Bart" thinks there's a new battle to be fought there. If so, we don't have to take on this new task. I think the reason lies more in what "Bart" considers a "defeat": That people in other countries have the temerity to not do what Dubya tells them to do (not counting his "Bring it on!" taunt).

"We're the cops of the world, boys, we're the cops of the world." -- P. Ochs

Cheers,

# posted by

Anonymous : 3:43 PM

# posted by

sean : 3:49 PM

"Bart" DePalma does take on an opposing viewpoint, will wonders ever cease?:

In a recent Atlantic article, James Fallows noted that we have achieved all of out prewar goals and called for the US to declare victory and high tail it out of Iraq. That prescription is very tempting. However, Fallows ignores the results of a withdrawal. I would suggest that withdrawal will lead to two outcomes.

As many people pointed out before the ill-fated and unjustiified invasion, should have thought about that beforehand. I don't think that the Dubya maladministration has gotten any wiser in the interim.

In point of fact, yes, there's a couple of possibilities for what might happen if (and when) we leave. None of them particularly good. That hasn't changed; it was pretty much intrinsic in the political and social landscape before the first GBU hit the streets. Nor is it likely to change. "Bart" thinks of military "victory", but while he and others demand a "plan" for "victory" from the nay-sayers, it is he that is devoid for a plan for anything other than some illusory military "victory" where no one is shooting at the U.S. troops any longer (ain't gonna happen), nor does he describe in any realistic terms how he expects us to get there. Furthermore, he neglects to mention how the guns and airstrikes are going to change the political and social realities on the ground to make any difference as to the outcome or the sequelae when we leave. This was the flaw of the PNAC dream to begin with: The Underpants Gnome Plan:

1. Collect Underpants
2. ???
3. Profit!

"Bart" continues to advance military solutions ("When all you've got is a hammer..."). There are no "military solutions" to what hapens when we leave, regardless of when that happens.

Cheers,

# posted by

Anonymous : 3:56 PM

I do not understand the venom directed at Bart DePalma. I obviously don't agree with him very often, but I have often been led to sharpen my own ideas by his own postings. The last thing I want to do is to generate a thread with yet more discussion of why people feel so hostile, but I want to register my own unhappiness with the tone of some of the postings.

I've debated whether to post on this subject or not. I rarely find meta-discussions productive, but since you raised it...

I don't read Bart's posts. I used to, but soon found him intellectually dishonest, a view apparently shared by a number of other posters. That doesn't mean I would adopt the style of some of the responses to him. Personally, I think it best just to ignore posters when I don't think they add anything to the discussion. Some people think a response important because readers might be deceived; in my view, Enlightened Layperson has a good method of achieving this goal with respect to Bart's posts.

# posted by

Mark Field : 4:02 PM

"Bart" DePalma:

This outcome [Shia dominating the Sunnis] could have been avoided if the Sunni joined the government from the outset and accepted their minority status.

Why, oh why didn't they just listen to ol' "Bart", eh? Damn. Why, everyone else does.....

Doesn't matter, though. Counterfactual hypotheticals just ain't worth discussing. "How dare the facts of the ground disagree with me!" "Bart" would have made a poor commander; in one of the early warning signs, the U.S. military war-gamed Iraqi strategy, and the Marine assigned to "play" the Iraqis ended up blowing up the U.S. Navy. He didn't do what they expected him to do. The top brass stopped the game, reset it, and in the end cashiered him. "Bart" is seemingly just as vulnerable to the nasty surprises of reality....

Cheers,

# posted by

Anonymous : 4:05 PM

@Mark Field: just to bring us back to topic and with reference to Bart DePalma: it's just hard staying in denial (and not peeking to Bart's posts)

# posted by

Anne : 4:05 PM

"Bart" DePalma says:

However, even if we are that callous, withdrawal still leaves our sworn enemy al Qaeda a sanctuary in Iraq....

Perhaps. Might have thought of that beforehand.

... al Qaeda will claim that they drove the US out of Iraq the way they drove the Soviets out of Afghanistan and claim to have driven the US out of Somalia..

Oh. So we did support "al Qaeda" in the war against Russia. Another good move.

Anyone listening to the numbnutz that think that U.S. military adventurism is the best thing since sliced bread?

"Bart" needs to read (outside of Freeperville and WhirledNutzDaily, that is). Here's a start. Might even get a heads-up on where we went wrong in Vietnam....

Cheers,

# posted by

Anonymous : 4:14 PM

Bart writes:claim to have driven the US out of Somalia.

Did they really ever make such a claim?

# posted by

John : 5:07 PM

Bart:

To start, the Shia would crush the far outnumbered Sunni in an exceedingly bloody civil war which would strongly resemble the Bosnian ethnic cleansing. . . . Sunni have murdered upwards of 50,000 Shia civilians in a terror campaign with al Qaeda over the past four years. The Shia have been hitting back over the past year and would have done far worse if we had not been present. If we leave, the Shia will finish the job.

Up till now you have portrayed this war as bad guys (the insurgents) preying on innocents. This is the first time I recall you admitting that our Shiite allies are not so nice either, and that restraining them is an important part of our mission.

But that is, after all, an important part of why so many people doubt that 20,000 more troops will make any difference. Because their mission includes not only defeating insurgents, but restraining our Shiite semi-allies. Groups like the Madhi Army are growing more and more resistent to restraint and more and more eager to get with the ethnic cleansing. Keeping people determined to wage civil war from doing so is hard work, much harder than the sort of straightforward assault we staged on Fallujah. That is one of the reasons we need 500,000 troops to do the job.

# posted by

Essayist-Laywer : 5:20 PM

bitswapper said...

Bart writes:claim to have driven the US out of Somalia.

Did they really ever make such a claim?

al Qaeda equates itself with Islam in general. In their speeches and fatwas, al Qaeda trumpet the victories of Islam against the US infidel as if they were their own.

bin Laden's fatwa against the US, which has been called a declaration of war, cites the victory of Islam against the US in Somlia quite prominently to rally support for the jihad against the United States.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/
international/fatwa_1996.html

More recently, the enemy celebrated the recommendation for withdrawal in the Baker Report and claimed victory.

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/
db900SID/ACIO-6W9JJT?OpenDocument

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 5:36 PM

Enlightened Layperson said...

But that is, after all, an important part of why so many people doubt that 20,000 more troops will make any difference. Because their mission includes not only defeating insurgents, but restraining our Shiite semi-allies. Groups like the Madhi Army are growing more and more resistent to restraint and more and more eager to get with the ethnic cleansing. Keeping people determined to wage civil war from doing so is hard work, much harder than the sort of straightforward assault we staged on Fallujah. That is one of the reasons we need 500,000 troops to do the job.

The Mahdi Army is a glorified street gang. We routed them out of Najaf with one battalion. Give me a brigade and two weeks and we can clean them out of Sadr City the same way we cleared Fallujah.

It is important not to grant the enemy imaginary super human powers. In reality, they are pretty poor fighters in a direct engagement. They are far better at killing unarmed civilians.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 5:43 PM

bitswapper: Bart writes:claim to have driven the US out of Somalia.

Did they really ever make such a claim?

Yeah, in an interview with ABC's John Miller in 1998, bin Laden took credit for Somalia, although the relationship is a bit fuzzy, in that it seems unclear that it was done under al-Qaeda's auspice rather than a sort of universal resistance of which al-Qaeda is a part. Do a find search in the page for Somalia, and you'll see what I mean.

# posted by

Anonymous : 5:52 PM

Most disastrous president in American history? Have you looked at the starting salaries for your graduates? They never had it so good. What are you measuring by, other than the level of snideness you hear in the faculty lounge?

This may be surprising to you, but I'd be more than willing to give up much of this supposed future salary if it meant I could reverse a few Administration policies.

# posted by

A : 6:16 PM

@Mark Field: just to bring us back to topic and with reference to Bart DePalma: it's just hard staying in denial (and not peeking to Bart's posts)

It gets easier with practice. :)

# posted by

Mark Field : 7:07 PM

Bart:

The Mahdi Army is a glorified street gang. We routed them out of Najaf with one battalion. Give me a brigade and two weeks and we can clean them out of Sadr City the same way we cleared Fallujah.

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, a "clear and hold" strategy is about clearing and holding. It is the holding, not the clearing that makes it so labor-intensive. None of the forces we are fighting in Iraq are any match for us in direct combat. That is why they are resorting to guerrilla tactics.

Routing any hostile force has never been the problem. The questions are how do we keep them from coming back? How to we keep them from just taking their dirty work somewhere else? How do we know the "routed" forces have not just blended back into the general population? And this is not taking into account that in places like Sadr City the Madhi Army is liable to mean every able-bodied male of military age, which will make "clearing" a messy business.

So it is not enough to "clear." We must hold Najaf. And Sadr City. And Fallujah. And Tal Afar. And Ramadi. And the entire country. That is where the 500,000 troops come in.

# posted by

Essayist-Laywer : 7:12 PM

I'm not sure how the Constitution was ratified since such an "amendment" to the Articles of Confederation seemed to require a unanimous vote of the states. And, Rhode Island refused to send delegates. Heck, Hamilton's signature was technically worthless since he was a minority of the NY delegation.

Assumed necessity won the day. One can find the relevant Federalist Papers quote. But, our Constitution has an out here. No need for even creative interpretation. Impeach and remove. Tie his hands in various ways. Censure him. Etc.

I think it useful to underline it is not the Constitution alone that doesn't let this happen. It helps by the institutions it sets up. But, if the people demanded it in full force, the means is there.

But, if Sen. Biden is going to equivocate or send conflicting signals on talk shows, well, I don't blame the Constitution alone. I blame those who didn't have to start this thing or make it last this long, this badly. No C. forced them.

btw my niece is an adolescent. To call the president one, well, it's sorta an insult. Many are selfish sorts, but basically have more judgment than GB. Some inherent moral compass which simply would not do this.

True enough a few do not. You hope after trusting them once, one won't again. Live and learn. Anyway, the shot seems a bit cheap, but my problem is more that it doesn't fully define the man.

# posted by

Joe : 7:19 PM

@Mark Field: And we all have a great president to learn this denial from.

# posted by

Anne : 8:09 PM

Professor Levinson: A completely gratuitous aside: I do not understand the venom directed at Bart DePalma.

I reckon I ride Bart second only to Arne, and thus feel it appropriate to address your remark. I can't speak for folks who have history with him at Glenn Greenwald's blog, from which Bart is apparently banned, but for myself this post best reflects Bart, especially his words:

"We are engaged in a debate, not 'proceed[ing] as partners in search of a richly nuanced truth via synthesis,' whatever you think that incomprehensible drivel means."

Then there was:

I am a black and white ideologue...

from this post and:

"Preaching to the choir on libertarian and conservative blogs is mental masturbation and is generally boring."

from the same Balkinization post.

I can't bring myself to interpret these selections, and his general behavior over the weeks I've engaged him, as aimed at anything more than vandalism. He has no use for, and apparently feels himself no use to, "his side," so he has to come to "the other side" to pick fights as a diversion. He is a member of the Colorado Bar, and so I would hold him to a higher standard than I might hold others. How a person could describe dialectic as "incomprehensible" and yet manage to pass the Bar is quite beyond me.

I see others have added their thoughts while I was pulling the links for this (and getting some work done at the day job.) There was a moment I hoped to negotiate a peace with Bart as I have come to enjoy with HumbleLawStudent (and other conservatives who are dear friends in other venues with whom I have enjoyed vigorous debate.) That moment has passed.

# posted by

Robert Link : 9:18 PM

Bart: However, I suspect that your goal is in fact military defeat.

Connotation is your primary trick, it wears thin. No one here has defeat as their goal. Most of us here recognize defeat has already happened, it happened when this administration went in under false pretenses with inadequate plans like "shock and awe" and "greet us with flowers in the street." The defeat is real, it's here, it was unavoidable the way these idiots ran things. And now it is time to admit the illegal and immoral invasion and occupation of the sovereign nation of Iraq was a failure in every sense of the word, to cut our losses (oooh, there's that scary word, "cut", which the Cheney junta seems to think is just a pre-fix for "-and-run"!) and stop killing and having our brave troops killed for PNAC lies, crimes and failures.

But, true to Rovian form, you hide behind connotation to avoid confronting reality. Defeat was your reality even during the "mission accomplished" photo-op. Time to staunch the flow of blood this defeat is costing us. If you have the balls, or morals, to do the right thing. Takes a grown up to know when to fold.

# posted by

Robert Link : 10:12 PM

Robert Link said...

Bart: However, I suspect that your goal is in fact military defeat.

Connotation is your primary trick, it wears thin. No one here has defeat as their goal. Most of us here recognize defeat has already happened, it happened when this administration went in under false pretenses with inadequate plans...

Those who wish to withdraw our troops and surrender Iraq to the enemy often claim that a withdrawal is not actually a defeat since the defeat has already happened. If find this excuse weak and self serving. However, I will play this game if you like.

How has our military in Iraq been defeated in any way?

Has our military lost a single battle of any size to the enemy?

Has the enemy compelled our military to retreat from any territory in Iraq?

Does the enemy control the territory of Iraq? A single province? A single province? A single city?

Does the enemy control the government of Iraq? A single province? A single city?

No?

Then, under what measure of military science can you claim that our military has been defeated?

All I can conclude is that you were personally defeated in you own mind before the fight began without personally seeing a single shot fired in anger.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 9:39 PM

@Bart: Nice try, but no soap. The illegal, immoral invasion and occupation of the sovereign nation of Iraq which you so vociferously defend was doomed to failure, read "defeat", indeed before the shooting started. By _your_ reasoning that failure, read "defeat", is the sole responsibility of the c-in-c, although I'd be inclined to let him share the blame with his PNAC puppeteers. Your feeble attempts to switch connotations midstream to something more suitable to your need to save face is, well, feeble.

Oh how I wish that killfile worked in the post-a-comment page...

# posted by

Robert Link : 5:17 PM

Bart - just who are the enemy that you accuse some commentators of wanting to surrender Iraq to?

Is it al Qaeda? Is it the Iranians? Is it the Syrians? Is it the Saudis? Is it the Jordanians? Is the Sunnis? Is it the Shi'ites? Is it the Cylons? Please tell us.

BTW, the Channel 4 TV station in the UK recently broadcast two programmes about the war in Afghanistan. They made for very depressing viewing. For instance, the British, under equipped as always, are trying to pacify an area of ten thousand square miles with about 4,000 men. The US 10th Monutain Division consider that the are fighting a "forgotten war". The Taliban appear to be everywhere although still not in a position to stand and fight. The Americans and British need rearm the Iraqi Army and then get out of Iraq and let the current Iraqi government sort out the situation and instead focus on Afghanistan.

# posted by

blowback : 7:30 PM

Oy, Bart. Is there no moral dimension to your reasoning at all? If we lied going in, our entire position is, to heist a phrase, fruit of a poisonous tree. There is no convolution of logic that can makes our actions viable or moral merely because we have taken control in large parts of Iraq.

We shouldn't leave because it is poor military policy - we should leave because our being there violates the basic tenets of American Democracy.

# posted by

J. Barrett Wolf : 1:13 AM