ratbastid

Nonsense. The positive results we've seen (and frankly, you're pointing to the needle in the haystack) are the result of determined, intelligent, and hard-working men and women doing the best they can given the environment they're forced to work in. But there's a huge difference between in-the-field ad-hockery and a planned out, thought out occupation strategy. As in: one works, and the other almost sort of halfway works while costing a vast number of unnecessarily lost lives.

aceventura3

Let's be reasonable. You think positive results in Iraq are like a needle in a haystack? Basically saying nothing positive has happened in Iraq since our occupation. Am I understanding your position clearly?

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

ratbastid

You keep doing that. Do you have amnesia? Or are you just trying to revise history to score points?

The Democratic party had no control at the time. Most democrats (I know, for you the exceptions are all that matter, but stay with me here) were screaming bloody murder about the invasion, its lack of planning, its lack of justification, and everything else about it. Who was in control of Congress at the time was... REPUBLICANS. No amount of screaming on the part of Democrats could cause ANYTHING, because they were the minority at the time, and the White House had congressional Republicans utterly pussy-whipped into lockstep agreement with their policies. Remember?

To now turn around and blame Democrats because the Congress of five years ago was utterly dominated by the President is simply revisionist and lame.

No. In fact, no fair or honest reading of that post could have you arrive at that conclusion.

There are positive things that have happened since our invasion. They're vastly outnumbered by the negative things that have happened. And there being positive things doesn't imply that there was ever a plan--this ratio of positive-to-negative is completely consistent with an occupation that is made up as it goes along.

aceventura3

I don't blame the Democrats because I think there was a plan. And you seem to dance around the point given your belief there was no plan.

Control or no control as a member of Congress they should voted based on what is best for the country. Everyone who believed there was no plan should have voted no to funding.

I agree thinks are screwed up in Iraq today and could not be much worse. But I did see positive results initially. My current belief is that we should bring our troops home because of our lack of will to finish the job. I think we need to re-group and prepare to fight there another day. If we fail to finish the job, in my opinion there is no doubt we will be back.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

roachboy

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

aceventura3

I don't disagree that Bush had broad general objectives for the occupation of Iraq. However, I think that is the role of the person on top - to give the general objectives. From those objectives I would expect subordinates at each level to have more and more specific plans. I think there is a natural top - down, down - up process to plan development. And that it is a process. I think the confusion on the left has to do with the fact that on some specific date there was no official document called "The Plan". I don't think there has ever been such a document for any war. Over 200,000 military people in Iraq, seemed to know what to do and when to do it. In my view, that suggests a plan.

I Blair is saying that he committed his nation to the occupation of Iraq with no plan, then he is an idiot (which I don't believe). At some point they had to have a discussion about what his military was responsible for, what they were going to do and what our military was responsible for and what we were going to do, if he is saying that did not happen but let his people die with no stated purpose, then I would wonder why.

So, to me it always comes back to - if you believe there was no plan you have to believe some things that don't add up.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

tecoyah

The belief from many was that Saddam ruled through fear, and brutality. This actually became the second reasoning for invasion once the first one was tossed out(or was it the third...hmm....):

1) Tied to 9/11
2) WMD
3) Liberation

Yeah...it was #3, but anyway. Any reasonable and intelligent evaluation of the serious implications of an invasion would naturally take into account the aftermath of freeing a population from such tyrannical rule, and plan for maintaining order. Either you beat everyone into submission, thereby becoming that which you attempted to destroy, or you simply hope the population is so very pleased with what you have done for them that they share tea and make flower wreaths to bestow upon your brow.
It would seem we went with the second option, and it didn't quite turn out as planned. In short, "hoping" for an outcome in war is a rediculous, and irresponsible outlook not worthy of anyone who has experienced the uncontrolled realities of warfare. If indeed it turns out there was no actual detailed contingency plan for the well understood impact removing Saddam would have on Iraq,the deaths of thousands fall on the shoulders of those who failed to listen to the messengers.

smooth

I think you're raising some valid points in regard to the evidence of a plan. But keep in mind that what the responses are claiming is that doesn't rise to the level of a Plan...even if there were a series of little p plans.

Let's go back to the hunter analogy for how this might play out:
So you are arguing that a hunter will make a plan to shoot a deer.
Maybe he tells his wife, honey, I'm going to go hunt a deer and put it on the porch of our next door neighbor because they don't have any food to eat.

She says great. That's a plan.

He tells his hunter friends, hey, I'm going to hunt a deer and put it on the porch next door. I'm doing this Tuesday, I'm going to build a perch, I'm going to use a particular firearm, I'm going to get my tags, etc. A much more detailed plan.

Yet, it's still the same plan...still a plan of battle. Although more elaborated.

So he shoots a deer and puts in the next door neighbor's porch.
After a few hours, it starts to stink.

The hunter talks to a couple buddies...why is no one dressing the deer?
Maybe they don't know how.
The hunter sends someone over to clean up the deer.
And someone else comes over and butchers and packages the deer.

But the pieces of meat are still sitting on the porch.
And the family is still going hungry.
Are they stupid? There is meat right on the porch.

Everyone agrees, it was a good plan to find some meat, clean the meat, and package the meat. But someone finally gets a word in, hey, maybe they don't have a fridge to put the meat in. Maybe they don't have a stove to cook it.

A fridge is provided, a stove is built, but still the family starves.
Why?

Finally, the hunter's uncle steps out into the conversation.
Three months ago, I told you that the family was vegetarian.
I explained that I thought they wouldn't eat meat, no matter how hungry they became, because of the reasons underlying their vegetarianism.

So in the end, you had a plan, but no Plan. You had a plan to secure meat, but no Plan to secure the family would eat.

So for want of the context, the family starved.
Although you had a number of plans, all of them good even.


So when you make the claim that lots of people securing military objectives speaks to a plan, and on many levels a successful one...well, you are right.
But that doesn't mean there was a Plan. A plan of how to make this whole thing work more than at the military level.

And even the fact that they created a plan to make a functional government apparatus does not rise to the level of a complete plan of how to win the "hearts and minds of the people." Because they didn't really listen to the experts on what the hearts and minds of the people wanted or needed.

OR more accurately, that there were different segments of the population that had widely divergent notions of what they want.

So hopefully that will help you see the argument of a lack of a plan...that the statement allows for a military plan, and even a government plan, but most of those two big plans rise to the level of an occupation plan. whereas we need an assistance plan...which never was made.

Bush himself can not be a bush hater, and given the fact that he himself claimed that this war was not about nation building it seems that we ought to take that at face value.

Because the sad fact of the matter is that the anti war group, and a few war propenents, knew from the beginning that the only thing that had a chance of working out would be a nation-building plan. And we didn't want to fund that, we didn't want to support that. And war supporters and detractors can discuss among themselves the ethical/moral implications of their position.

It's legit to argue, hey I wanted to rebuild a nation.
And it's also legit to argue, hey, I don't want to be responsible for that.

But the fact remains that Bush said he wasn't interested in that, whereas it's becoming clear he was or at the very least should have been. And the argument is that his administration knew the public wouldn't go for that. Wasn't interested in being in position for a decade. So they didn't tell the public. And they tried to make secret plans, but left large agencies out of the loop to do so, with dire consequences--they didn't have the expertise of such large agencies.

And you might be fine with all this going on. But the cracks undermining our success are at least in part because everyone wasn't included in the planning loop. So that leaves us with the problem of: include everyone and get good planning but risk people resisting the idea of rebuilding a nation and derailing the whole process....or making up the best plan we can in secret and arguing we aren't going to rebuild a nation after all, and then go ahead and do it when the time demands it.

I prefer the first one: open, honest communication with the risk that opposing ideas might prevail.
Others prefer the second: secretive planning that demands insular communication risking the overall success in the larger picture because you don't get all the best minds on the same page.

And what you're seeing here is disagreement over which course of action is legitimate in a functional democracy.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

aceventura3

I agree with you in the way you extended the Hunter Analogy to conclude the hunter had an incomplete overall plan and no real initial plan to convert the deer into something his neighbors could use. I enjoyed reading it too.

I also see how intelligence, (info from Uncle) was misused or ignored, however, the hunter spoke to his spouse about "the plan", she thought it was a good one - similar to the way Bush got input from Congress. Also the Hunter spoke to his other hunter friends about "The Plan" and they thought it was a good plan. The hunter had one piece of information indicating the plan was going to be ineffective, but many people would assume the family would eat the deer rather than starve, I know I would. But, the Hunter had others who failed to adequately confront him with the inadequacies of his plan. I would think it disingenuous if they were to later criticize the plan without taking some responsibility for their failure to challenge the plan, their failure to present an alternative plan, and the fact that they did nothing while the family starved. I would at least have some respect for the Hunter for attempting to help the family.

We also have the situation in your analogy where the Hunter attempts to modify his plan. Again, it proved inadequate given the circumstances. And again, I would give the Hunter credit for that.

Perhaps we are splitting hairs when it comes to defining whether there was a plan or that the plan was ineffective for the Iraq occupation. I take the position there was a plan and that the initial plan was ineffective in regards to the occupation.

I also take the position that like Bush, the Hunter reviewed his plan with others who failed to question his plan, take a stand against the plan, or present an alternative plan. Certainly in Bush's situation there were people who were against the use of military force against Iraq, but Bush did have authorization from Congress, the UN and other nations who supported our military efforts. I would argue that with the support Bush received the Iraq war became our war, and not "Bush's war". I also think Democrats are currently taking political advantage of an unpopular war. I am not making a moral judgment in my statement, I just think it is true.

I also take the position that like the Hunter, Bush attempted to modify his plan. Even with the realization that the family would starve rather than eat meat, the Hunters intent was genuine. I believe Bush's intent with the occupation of Iraq is genuine. I think Iraq is our global front in the war on terror, we need to stabilize the region, we need a strategic military location in the Middle East given Iran, we need a stable oil market, but I also believe Bush has a genuine interest in helping the Iraqi people realize the freedoms that can be realized in a democracy type government. I think we can have multiple goals and they not be in conflict.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

roachboy

1. i do not know what a "war on terror" is. no-one does. "terror" is not a state.
2. if the goal of the bush people is "stabilizing the region" then they are doing a piss poor job of it, not only in the context of iraq, but also in the larger scheme of things.

what amazes me---even in the present context--is that it appears that the cheney "plan" is to start yet another war. the dick waving relative to iran will not stop.

have a look:

source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2127115,00.html

so here we have a classical chicken-egg problem.
the americans blunder their way toward chaos in iraq.
they find themselves a faction amongst factions in a conflict that repeats the logic of british colonial domination--group played against group--except that it appears that the americans are not as adept at this game as the uk once was.
the conflict spirals down and down. no end in sight. no coherent plan of action. no way out.
the bush people are taking an epic pounding in the bizarre-o world of "the polls" the floating barometers to public opinion and badly designed questions working in tandem to produce a consistent illusion of pseudo-democratic feedback ("the polls"---a funny double-edged word)
no way out but 18 months left before the american people are politically free again and engage in the heavily mediated exercise of that pseudo-freedom by selecting from amongst the jukebox options they are presented with at the time.
in conservativeland, accepting responsibility for one's actions is understood as something that the poor should do. those with power, if they are conservative, need not worry about such trivialities. so it follows that the bush administration has preferred over the past months to argue, when the opportunity presents itself, that the scenario in iraq is at least in part a result of iranian "meddling" and not of american idiocy.
for cheney, it appears tht iran is now what the "hitlero-trotskyite wrecker" was for stalinism--the floating principle of that-which-goes-wrong, which intervenes from Outside to fuck up and otherwise Perfect System.
so it follows for cheney, as for stalin, that the logical response is to declare war on that floating principle of that-which-goes-wrong rather than consider the possibility that iraq is the debacle that it is because of american actions: for cheney-style conservatives, it is unthinkable that the americans can fuck up so there is no point in trying to coherently address that possibility: instead, let's press the case for war against the principle of that-which-can-go-wrong. or iran.

this really is lunacy, folks.
the ONLY register in which this idea makes even the SLIGHTEST bit of sense is one wholly conditioned by the political misfortunes of the administration itself which would have to be collapsed into an assessment of the american situation as a whole, not only in iraq, but everywhere.
another war, the thinking must go, would galvanize support for teh bush people, end this scary sense of lame-duckness and enable to bush people--dick cheney in particular--to go out in a blaze of western-film Glory.

it is lunacy.
this administration really should be stopped.
that this political system provides no way to stop them is an index of the extent to which that system is broken--not what it claims it is, not functional, not beneficial--broken, outmoded, bankrupt. over.

but the idea of invading iran--or bombing iran--DOES smack of "planning" in the george w bush "see-what-you-want-to-see-and-nothing-else" mode.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

ubertuber

"War on Terror"

I've been thinking about this recently. Maybe I'm thinking about rhetorical strategies and their implications in the real world because of roachboy's emphasis on analyzing them... We've had other wars on ideas. The war on drugs and war on poverty come to mind, but there is a significant difference there that I haven't explicitly thought about before. Those "wars" were meant from the beginning to be metaphorical - they were a kind of declaration of seriousness on our government's part.

Somehow the War on Terror seems to be presented in a more literal way. Not only are we using military troops in this one, but our President consistently portrays and speaks of himself as a wartime leader and talks about our nation being at way. On the other hand, it also seems like the administration is going to lengths to keep the general public from having to sacrifice much in this war, unlike other, more real wars. I can only interpret this as a sign that the "War on Terror" is not a metaphorical device, but it also is not an actual War. It's a rhetorical device which belies the very underpinnings of the Bush administration's philosophy on power.

The War on Terror marks an amorphous period that can only be declared open or closed by the government. One entity declares, defines, measures, and profits from this state - which seems to be intended to go on indefinitely. One thing that is interesting to me as I learn more about the writing of the Constitution and the debates that surrounded is that the role "Commander in Chief" was not intended to be a description that applied in any but exceptional circumstances. Hell, it wasn't settled that the US would even have a standing army for several terms. Think about how often and in how many circumstances Bush invokes his role as Commander in Chief as justification for authority or action...

__________________
Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam

aceventura3

In your view are we in a war with terrorist groups and organizations?

How would you describe the "war(s)" involving Native Americans and settlers of this country and later our organized government? Were these "wars"?

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

roachboy

no.
there is no war on an abstraction.
and i am not at all clear about whether there can be war in any legal sense on a non-state entity, particularly one the status of which is somewhere between ambiguous and fictional.

i am quite sure that you do not want to go down this route if all your are looking for is some parallel any parallel to the bush administration's surreal "war on terror". repose the question if you want---i'm just giving you a way out, ace.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

aceventura3

It is a question. Why would I need a way out? I have not made any argument relative to a connection with our "war on terror" and this nations war(s) or military and other violent conflicts with Native Americans. Whatever you are thinking about what I am thinking is speculation on your part. In my view it is a waste of time because a more efficient thing to do is to ask what I think.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."