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roachboy · 06-29-2007, 08:25 AM

the apologia for the bush people seems based on an obvious confusion between having stated objectives and having a plan.
objectives that are strung together without anything like a coherent assessment of the context within which they were to be implemented are NOT A PLAN--they are nothing more than devices for providing the illusion of coherence. that these limited reactive objectives could be conflated with a plan IS the conservative talking point on iraq.
and what ace has been doing above is little more than rehearsing this talkingpoint over and over.
that he would project this onto everyone who opposes his sad defense of this incompetent administration is just bizarre.

somewhere along the line in this thread ace seems to have decided that the op somehow originated within the loyal american oppositions--but it didnt. the op references reticences on the part of the blair government over getting involved in the bushscapade in iraq precisely because there was no coherent overall plan.
that is, there was no serious analysis of the state of affairs over which saddam hussein presided and so no serious analysis of what the likely fault-lines would be after the fact--it is only plausible that the bush people would have been surprised by how things have transpired IF they had done no such prior analysis--which means then that there was not and could not have been a fucking plan.
the wolfowitz "Idea"--you know, that the american liberators would march across iraq on flower-strewn streets having successfully engineered a coup d'etat--and that afterwards everything would immediately return to some "normal" so that the Heroic Amuricans could simply march back out the way they marched in and everything would be Hunky Dory---this was so thoroughly rooted in delusion, so thoroughly divorced from ANY assessment of what saddam hussein's regime was and why it was as it was that it requires (still) an effort of considerable proportions to imagine that it was understood as plausible anywhere, by anyone, ever.
you could have read ANY account of saddam hussein's regime, plotted the bush-invasion and foreseen the outcomes and this from no particular viewpoint--no security clearance, no secret infotainment.

the amazing thing is that once the wolfowitz delerium was revealed to be nothing more or less than delerium--for which wolfowitz was punhsed by being made presidento of the world bank for a while---the americans found themselves without a particular PLAN and so have kind of drifted through a series of tautological objectives--stop the fighting in quadrant x, consider building some shit in quadrant y---all the while, simply by remaining in iraq and having no coherent idea of how to proceed, the americans came to be understood for what they were--colonial occupiers--and so became initially THE enemy and then--better still--a faction amongst others in a civil war.

a PLAN would have at the very least put the bush people in the position not not being ambushed by the implications of their action. it would have created the possibility that the americans could do something that is more than or different from being a faction amongst others in a civil bloody war.
but they dont have one and
a sequence of objectives is pure reactiveness, relies on no particular understanding of the context, assumes no particular coherent general goal. what the bushpeople have been doing is floating a sequence of particular tactical objectives as if tactics were strategy--but any idiot knows that this is not the case. hell, you cant even play chess well if you approach it as a series of tactical responses--and chess happens on a flat board--OF COURSE you cant fight a fucking war without a fucking strategy. that this bush-occupation has no strategy. the strategy was the wolfowitz delusion. when that turned out to be nothing at all, not even smoke, the strategy game was over.

the only thing i agree with ace about AT ALL, and this not even for the same reasons, is that congress obviously aborgated its oversight responsibilities in authorizing the use of military force.

every last person who concieved of this war, implemented it or approved it should resign. every last one of them.

a functional system of governance would not have allowed this debacle to happen at all. what is unfolding in iraq is a bloody, horrifying theater of the wholesale abdication of responsibility by the american governmental apparatus in the face of the hysteria that was the pathetic "war on terror"...

06-29-2007, 08:25 AM	#45 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	the apologia for the bush people seems based on an obvious confusion between having stated objectives and having a plan. objectives that are strung together without anything like a coherent assessment of the context within which they were to be implemented are NOT A PLAN--they are nothing more than devices for providing the illusion of coherence. that these limited reactive objectives could be conflated with a plan IS the conservative talking point on iraq. and what ace has been doing above is little more than rehearsing this talkingpoint over and over. that he would project this onto everyone who opposes his sad defense of this incompetent administration is just bizarre. somewhere along the line in this thread ace seems to have decided that the op somehow originated within the loyal american oppositions--but it didnt. the op references reticences on the part of the blair government over getting involved in the bushscapade in iraq precisely because there was no coherent overall plan. that is, there was no serious analysis of the state of affairs over which saddam hussein presided and so no serious analysis of what the likely fault-lines would be after the fact--it is only plausible that the bush people would have been surprised by how things have transpired IF they had done no such prior analysis--which means then that there was not and could not have been a fucking plan. the wolfowitz "Idea"--you know, that the american liberators would march across iraq on flower-strewn streets having successfully engineered a coup d'etat--and that afterwards everything would immediately return to some "normal" so that the Heroic Amuricans could simply march back out the way they marched in and everything would be Hunky Dory---this was so thoroughly rooted in delusion, so thoroughly divorced from ANY assessment of what saddam hussein's regime was and why it was as it was that it requires (still) an effort of considerable proportions to imagine that it was understood as plausible anywhere, by anyone, ever. you could have read ANY account of saddam hussein's regime, plotted the bush-invasion and foreseen the outcomes and this from no particular viewpoint--no security clearance, no secret infotainment. the amazing thing is that once the wolfowitz delerium was revealed to be nothing more or less than delerium--for which wolfowitz was punhsed by being made presidento of the world bank for a while---the americans found themselves without a particular PLAN and so have kind of drifted through a series of tautological objectives--stop the fighting in quadrant x, consider building some shit in quadrant y---all the while, simply by remaining in iraq and having no coherent idea of how to proceed, the americans came to be understood for what they were--colonial occupiers--and so became initially THE enemy and then--better still--a faction amongst others in a civil war. a PLAN would have at the very least put the bush people in the position not not being ambushed by the implications of their action. it would have created the possibility that the americans could do something that is more than or different from being a faction amongst others in a civil bloody war. but they dont have one and a sequence of objectives is pure reactiveness, relies on no particular understanding of the context, assumes no particular coherent general goal. what the bushpeople have been doing is floating a sequence of particular tactical objectives as if tactics were strategy--but any idiot knows that this is not the case. hell, you cant even play chess well if you approach it as a series of tactical responses--and chess happens on a flat board--OF COURSE you cant fight a fucking war without a fucking strategy. that this bush-occupation has no strategy. the strategy was the wolfowitz delusion. when that turned out to be nothing at all, not even smoke, the strategy game was over. the only thing i agree with ace about AT ALL, and this not even for the same reasons, is that congress obviously aborgated its oversight responsibilities in authorizing the use of military force. every last person who concieved of this war, implemented it or approved it should resign. every last one of them. a functional system of governance would not have allowed this debacle to happen at all. what is unfolding in iraq is a bloody, horrifying theater of the wholesale abdication of responsibility by the american governmental apparatus in the face of the hysteria that was the pathetic "war on terror"... __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 06-29-2007 at 08:30 AM..