what did you expect?
 

when i watch and read news analysis concerning post-war iraq, the comments often end in someone saying something like...

"we should have a more developed exit strategy"
"it could have been handled much better"
"unseating saddam was the right thing to do, but we didn't have to use military force"
"the post-war strategy is going much worse than planned"

and infinite permutations of such things. the end of the conversation is always a nodding of heads, a kind of silent assent to the the assumed truth of such thought. i am surprised to see these statements go unchallenged.

now i'm not saying that we haven't made mistakes in our post-war strategy. however, did you really expect it to go much better?

to me, that's like saying the Patriots really didn't go about playing the Super Bowl the right way. sure, they won... but didn't you see them fumble? their running game was slow out of the gate! too many penalties!

while all those statements are true, they don't reflect the fact that a monumental achievement was made. the same is, i think, true for people's perceptions of iraq. sure, it has been hell for our soldiers there. sure, we've had things thrown at us that we weren't prepared for. but in the end, did you think it would or could have gone much better? i know i didn't.

let's face it: many of you out there predicted SEVERE doom and gloom. if i didn't have a life outside of TFP i'd love to compile a list of all the nay-sayers for our operations in Afghanistan and Iraq from the public debate and opinions given on this board. the new fetish seems to be to create (and by create, i mean completely imagine) inflated casualty figures in a sleazy attempt to add weight to an argument. instead of going to such lengths to justify the negative forecasts... why not rejoice in the fact that such predictions were wrong?

-if you did not predict that the iraqis would be holding successful elections in less than two years after the war... you were wrong. rejoice.

-if you thought the war would unstabilize the region and spiral into an uncontrollable regional conflict... you were wrong. rejoice.

-if you thought that it would cost 10,000 American lives... you were wrong. rejoice.

-if you thought that the result of insurgent destabilization would be an iraqi civil war... you were wrong. rejoice.

and I KNOW that many of you were in hysterics because you were SO SURE this was all going to happen. well, it hasn't... yet nothing but negativity is heard from many. it's unfair to judge such a dangerous operation on such untested ground a failure because there are obvious problems. rather, think of this operation and match it against all plausible outcomes... i see a strong case for labeling it a success.

There were plenty of people in 2001 and 2002 who said that invasion was the wrong course of action. There were plenty of people who said shock and awe was the wroung route. There were plenty of people who heard Bush say things like "You're either on our side, or you're on the terrorist's side." and knew something was wrong. There were plenty of people who questioned why we stopped chasing Ossama and started chasing Saddam. There were planty of people who asked what Iraq had to do with terrorism. There were plenty of people who asked why we were going against the UN. There were plenty of people who knew this was going to go very badly.

Not a super comparison. We lost a lot of good soldiers over there. There was little danger of death on the football field yesterday. Also, we didn't win. America did not beat terrorism by dethroning Saddam and killing and alienating so many Iraqi citizens. We heald elections, and that was a touchdown, but this game is far from over. I'd say we're losing right now.

Why didn't you speak up if you knew so many soldiers were going to die and there would be so many rebels in Iraq against the "army of freedom"? Why not ask if there was a way that didn't cost so many lives?

You think the Middle East is stable? Eek.
You think that it's okay to lose 1447 American military officers just because some people said it'd be more? Big victory. I won't rejoice over that.
There could be a civil war if the American soldiers weren't fighting the rebels. There is a rebelion going on against the US invaders. Again, where's the victory?

I realize what you are trying to do, and I say you are noble for attempting it. I won't see the second Gulf War as a success until Iraq is ruled by a peaceful government and there economy is on the up and up and there is not one American soldier even thinking about Iraq and there is equality and the Iraqi government is working independant of foreign aid or assistance. Even then, I'll be saying there was a better way to go about helping them. Somehow leveling parts of the capitol with all our smart bombs didn't scream "liberation".

1000 or 10000. The mission isn't accomplished. The count is still rising. Iraqi death tolls are stunningly higher than that.

We don't have a stable iraq. Many of those things may still happen. You see progress...

I don't.

i don't understand how this fits into the discussion.

you're evading the point. as a military operation: many said it was going to be a disaster. given what we know about what has happened since and the grave nature of our business... can you really say that?

it's like you didn't even read the first post. our losses have been less than i thought there would be and MUCH MUCH less than the predictions of many others. i'm saying that given the difficulty of the mission our military was tasked with, the casualties are acceptable. again, how many lives did you expect it would cost? less than the current numbers? if so, do you think that such expectations are justifiably realistic?

a weak jab thrown knowingly without context.

i don't think it's "ok" to lose a single soldier (by the way, not every military serviceman is an officer). again, given the nature of their mission and their enemy... what did you expect? how can you judge it a failure if you given no criteria for what it would take to be measured a success (and provide accompanying rationale for why that is a realistic goal).


right, there COULD be a civil war if it weren't for the american soldiers. so... our objective to prevent a civil war has been SUCCESSFUL. of course there is a rebellion... it would only take a few hundred syrian imports to qualify as a "rebellion" on your nearest TV network. did you ever think at any point in time that there wouldn't be such a movement? i know i knew it would happen.

".. it would only take a few hundred syrian imports to qualify as a "rebellion" on your nearest TV network."


......just one, that's all they need.

It was a disaster. It was wrong going in. The plan was wrong, and I expected almost exactly what is happening. The domination buisness has a very bad nature.

It was a bad plan. There were better ways to go about this.

In the Middle East, "stable" is relative. It's not a jab. The Middle East is not stable. Your "if you thought the war would unstabilize the region and spiral into an uncontrollable regional conflict... you were wrong. rejoice." didn't take into account the rebels, or the Syrians backing them.

Well, we've lost 1447 servicepeople then. There was a better way to do this going in. We've screwed up so badly in the past there is no American example of war, victory, and reconstruction to compare to. That doesn't make this any better.

We caused the civil war we're trying to prevent. This particular rebelion has more than "a few hundred syrian imports", so you're mentioning that was My point is that it is okay to be very much dissapointed by the current situation. It's okay that people see the Iraqi war as being less than a success.

Point One: "You're with us or against...." I do believe that the speech came after 9-11, the greatest terrorist attack ever, in the context of it's timing and it's nature, I couldn't agree more. If I'm wrong about the timing, show me to the promised land.

Point Two: "Mission Accomplished", true. The initial operation, the one the banner was to be taken into context of was true. We devastated the enemy and pulled off one of THE MOST SUCCESSFUL invasions ever as far as loss of life (on both sides) and land covered. Again in the proper context, that state was true. Bush had to say it so the next phase could begin, building the new Iraq.

Point Three: Where is this glorious stand, and who are these glorious "minute men" that so often get brought up here? I will again state the reality that the insurgency makes up LESS THEN ONE, 1, Uno percent of the TOTAL Iraqi population, and what's more, they aren't even all Iraqi!!! The fact of the matter is, you have an Al Qaeda element, former baathists, sunni's, and religious fundies trying to secure a theocracy, plus outside governments Iran and Syria meddling, and still the majority of Iraq is fine (the problem of this insurgency primarily lies in 3 of the 18 provinces).

Point Four: Nobody said this was going to be easy, nor immediate. I'm betting the long term effects will never been known, because that is the nature of the operation. The World is a better place with our presence in Iraq, Iraq is better with our presence, the Middle East will be better. There is nothing but limitless upside if people could just get over the fact that we are there, we're there to stay, and we aren't coming home until the job is done right.

Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld. C'mon, mojo. You know better than to claim this.

They under estimated the insurgency no doubt. Regardless I don't think they said it was going to be easy or immediate.

gah...

when i said "a few hundred syrian imports" i was clearly saying that was all that was needed to get a huge reaction from the media, not that that was an estimation of the current terrorist resistance.

ok... we all know you don't think the post-war situation has been a success. understood. given the difficulty of our mission: what did you expect? what realistic picture of the situation could you conjure that would be much better than what we've achieved? in this discussion, your opposition to the war's genesis is irrelevant. why do you insist that our operations since then have been disastrous? according to what criteria do you make this judgement?

i don't know will's individual forecast to the post-war scenario... but it seems that anyone who predicted doom and gloom (which was many of you) should at least be pleasantly surprised with the results so far. the world hasn't ended, as predicted by some... yet not much more than constant bitching is heard from people who predicted things would go much worse than they have.

i can't find them, do you mind providing quotes that clearly identify any of those 3 saying it was going to be easy and immediate?

All it takes is 100 syrians or other insurgents to kill thousands, or hunrreds of thousands. For a force that has so few people they sure are doing a lot of damage, killing a lot of people, and don't seem to be slowing down. How many people are in Iraq? Atleast 2 million. That means that that tiny 1% is 20,000 or more people fighting underground. That is NOT a tiny force. That is a force that can inflict serious damage against not only American soldiers, not only coallition soldiers, but the Iraqi people themselves. And they have been doing it with much skill and alacrity. And while that 1% may be how many of the insurgents are actually Iraqi, there are atleast that many that are not Iraqi that are also there killing. I would not trust and numbers you get on the amount of fighters we're facing because not even the US military knows. (see my next post)

There were more than just a few nay-sayers going in. The entire population of France and Germany come to mind, as well as the majority of spain and the UK. They went anyway, and Spain paid a big price for it.

What martinguerre is referring to is the part about being greeted by Iraqis throwing flowers. Instead they've been planting IEDs.

The very simple fact is, the sanctions WERE WORKING. Saddam HAD NOTHING. Saddam's military was a joke. Bush and Co. simply DID NOT WANT Saddam there anymore. Thats the only rason for this invasion. Maybe the sanctions were due to expire soon and they didnt want Saddam in power when they did. The sanction were only supposed to be for 10 years correct? I think we were on year 12 right? I may be wrong but that seems to be the case as to why we actually went into Iraq.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2005Feb5.html

So they went through 15,000 just last year (about twice as many as estimated) and the violence doesn't seem to be slowing down at all. Don't forget all the fighters that got out of Falluja before we went in. We were sitting outside that city for so long waiting to go in they had plenty of time to just pick up and leave. Every single day there are new reports about bombs going off.. dozens of people being killed.. EVERY DAY. Every day dozens of people are getting killed. But it only matters if they're American soldiers though, right? Well they're getting killed too. Only the deaths realy make the news, but dont forget the tens of thousands that were wounded. The thousands that have no more legs, or a missing arm, or who saw their buddy's head splattered across their uniform.

Also don't forget. The more bombing runs we miss, the more we'll see more insurgents. With each civilian killed by a stray US bullet, the more "insurgents" we'll see. With every Iraqi child maimed by "collateral damage", the higher the chance one of our boys will be blown up by an IED.

If you think this war is going well you must not be paying attention.

Even if the Iraqis do get their government off the ground we will ALWAYS be there. Just ask Germany and Japan. If a US military boot touches the soil of your country you'd better make that soldier up a bed, he's gonna be there for a long time.

This thread is a symptom of, and a prime example of the psychological disorder
that has overtaken America. I am fascinated by the inability of contributors to
this forum to persuade "the other side" of anything that would signifigantly
lessen the distance between our points of view. This isn't new. The thing that is newer, is
using the internet to discuss issues and opinions. We now have a luxury
of offering links to sources of information on other websites that did not exist during other major national periods of division that I have
experienced in my adult lifetime. Two major divides that I recall are the
Vietnam war and the Carter "malaise".

Since I can find no rational basis for the signifigant numbers of people
offering unwavering and almost unquestioning support for Bush and his policies,
especially regarding his pronouncements and actions leading up to the invasion and continuing through today, I am starting a thread topic that
will examine the irrationality of the phenomena. Here's an example:

Less than a month ago, Bush apparently cut Powell loose when he did not
hear the "correct" answer from his secretary of state. The motivation for
this thread seems to be for validation of Bush's disasterous policies through
claims that "things are going better" in Iraq, now! There is no reaction to
the loss of a comparatively level head in a top administration position,
I doubt that Bush's supporters perceive what is obvious to many of us.
1400 Americans and possibly many more have died fighting to facilitate the
formation of a fundamentalist Islamic republic in Iraq, a country that was
formerly a secular dictatorship with a highly educated population where
women enjoyed societal equality perhaps second only to that of women in
Israel.

I see nothing to indicate that the October Poll opinions of Bush supporters
have changed. They are as curiously (to me) uncoupled from reality as they
were four months ago.

obiex got it.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/i...now-usat_x.htm

Aside from the majors...a whole lot of adminstration hangers on, and "indepentant" advisors spewed even more "easy war" rhetoric for which Bush can have plausible deniability.

Point is...this hasn't been an easy war. It wasn't sold to the people as a "multi-year low level war with continuing insurgency." It wasn't hailed to Americans as their chance to involve themselves in "continung ethnic and religious strife, including but not limited to minor rebellions by charismatic leaders." Nor were we told it would be "the beginning of a long commitment of US troops, not paid for by oil revenues, but by large and expanding sums of additional allocations to the pentagon of our tax dollars."

Nobody would have supported that...

i was thinking along the same lines as host, but the above is more elegant than i would have managed, so i'll simply cheer him on.

. . . And Host proves his quality.

It really is an inherent flaw in humans to believe what they want over what is true. Not to mention that the average American is gladly spoon-fed information without question.

What did I expect....as sad as it sounds, Pretty much what we have now. I did however hope it would not last quite this long. I disagreed with the invasion of Iraq when it was first planned, but understood that my Government had access to information I did not. Thus I was relatively accepting of the "Need" to destroy a threat, but I still did not agree.
It is now quite obvious to me that I was mislead, and fooled into accepting the reasoning behind this Invasion . That said, I expected from the onset, resistance and death. I am rather suprised at the number of American deaths though, as I expected somewhat more from our Military Machine.

I will say this. When Bush made his "End of Major Hostilities" speech, I actually laughed out loud at him, Now I weep for everyone else.

thank you tecoyah for somewhat ending the drought of posts relevant to the topic.

note to EVERYONE: what you think about the events leading up to the war is inconsequential to the topic. what your neighbor thinks about the war is inconsequential to the topic. there are MANY threads that contain your opinions stated and restated again. don't bring it in here.

how have the results so far compared with your expectations?

why not actually respond to host's critique, irate?
why settle for applauding another that lets you off the hook?

what if there are premise-level problems with your position on the iraq war?
i wonder if you would be willing to take them on--from the above, it would appear not. but it'd be a shame to see you reduce yourself to just another conservative who is either unwilling or unable to address a basic flaw.
how do you accomodate the possibility that your position is informed by wishful thinking, which itself drags across from your support of this war up front?
hell, folk who opposed the war have had to deal with this kind of relation repeatedly--often prompted to do it by folk like yourself.
so why does the same standard not hold for conservatives?
are there special rules for the right?

roachboy, host, c4... whoever else that doesn't get it yet. answer the following questions to remain on topic.

what did you think would happen with the events in iraq prior to the invasion?

how do the results you perceive since then compare to your prediction?

if the results are better than you expected (and there were many who expected catastrophic developments), from what vantage point do you continue to label the operation an abject failure if it has exceeded your expectations? i think the zeal to discredit Bush has clouded your perception of post-war iraq. some point to problems and love to assume that the presence of problems indicates a systemic failure rather than allow our operation the time necessary to combat them and judge the effort on its end result.

RB, i can't make it more clear. MY position isn't what i want to discuss. it is each individual's position that i'm inquiring about. how did YOUR expectation match your perceived level of progress? were your expectations justifiably realistic? again, your distaste of all things Bush couldn't be farther removed from relevancy.

"doesnt get it?"
please, irate: dont patronize those of us who opposed the war.
you might start by actually trying to answer the questions above.
if you think that it is simple to seperate your position on the war up front from your assessment of what is going on now, you are fooling yourself:
and by using the threadstarter position to act as though these considerations are irrelevant for your own position, you are being disengenuous.


but maybe there are special rules for conservatives:
maybe these special people dont have to think too hard about their own positions.
interesting.

To answer the main thread directly, i really don't see much reason to label it a success up to this point. It has been one mistake after another. From keeping the military on a political leash leading to unnesessary deaths on all sides, to the pushing of an early election that lead to many people not being able to vote due to polling centers not opening and the lack of enough ballots.

I'd have to agree with tecoyah up to a point, i expected pretty much what we're seeing except i really didnt expect the government to mess up so much in so many ways as to make it look like there isn't anyone running the show over there. It's like no one's driving the bus. Every once in a while a bone will be thrown thats all dressed up to make it look pretty and meaningful. In the mean time people continue to die and no one seems to care. Well thats not really true, some people care, but every time someone raises a voice they're shot down and labeled a Bush basher or an unpatriotic troop-hater.

actually, irate, i think your position is at play here.
and i find it funny that you, the first to object when you think an argument runs through messageboard space and into your 3-d life, would assume that my position is a simple-minded as you do.

what i call bushworld is a style of argument.

one of the main features of that style of argument is an inability to process dissonant information. the whole premise of your thread recapitulates that tendency. you position yourself in a state of transparency--you understand better than those who opposed the war what is now happening on the ground--you want to start from that basis to pose a series of "reasonable" questions about expectations.

you are still recapitulating this main feature in your responses above.
you act as though bushworld (see above for a definition) is not itself a problem.

no wonder you cant answer host.


but what the hell, give it a try....why not address the linkages that you see between your assessment of the situation in iraq and your support for the war?
or do you really think that support for the war was so obviously correct that it is not up for debate, that the logic which connects it to assessments of outcomes is transcendent--so that it is only the positions of those who opposed the war which are problematic? because there you see a particular linkage: where in yours, there are no linkages?

one of the funniest things conservatives can do is claim to be empiricists.

I thought they wouldn't find any WMD. Definitely no nuclear weapons.
I was right.
N.A.
1400+ lives lost on false and dubious pretenses is a failure.

I thought it would be a disaster based on the following things:

• I expected to find no WMD.
• I expected it wouldn't be quick and easy (see the found Wolfie/Cheney quotes above).
• I expected it to stir up hatred in the Middle East to America.
• I expected us to build permanent military bases and stay there for a looooong time.
• I DID NOT expect to see elections happen this soon.
• I DID NOT expect to see Bush get re-elected based on demonstrably shifting justifications for war, and it's lack of connection to 9-11.
• I expected those on the right to continue to deny all of the above, just not for as long as they have.

I was wrong about the speed of the elections, and am certainly pleased that they happened with as little strife as they did. Good on 'em.

My first four points are why I think this is a disaster. As those bases clearly aren't leaving, I see the cost of lives continuing with no end.

The thread starting post demonstrates my last point, far far better than anything I feared. Because we had elections, everything is fine?

This thread topic is amazing in just how perfectly it demonstrates the chasm that seperates those who support this war and those who do not. It seems fairly clear that there will never be a middle ground.

And then we get into semantics:MR. RUSSERT: If your analysis is not correct, and we’re not treated as liberators, but as conquerors, and the Iraqis begin to resist, particularly in Baghdad, do you think the American people are prepared for a long, costly, and bloody battle with significant American casualties?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, I don’t think it’s likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators.

"Like the people of France in the 1940s, the Iraqi people view us as their hoped for liberators."
Paul Wolfowitz, Assistant Secretary of Defense

And here's Michelle Malkin talking about how easy the whole Iraq War was, on the day of the staged Saddam statue removal:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar...TICLE_ID=32002

And more quotes from administration officials about how easy and quick the war would be:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...nguage=printer
Just up to the actual moment that war was launched - at which point Bush hedges his bets and claims it "might" be long and costly.

Cognitive dissonance is a psychological phenomenon which refers to the discomfort felt at a discrepancy between what you*already know or believe, and new information or interpretation. It therefore occurs when there is a need to accommodate new ideas, and it may be necessary for it to develop so that we become "open" to them. If someone is called upon to learn something which contradicts what they already think they know — particularly if they are committed to that prior knowledge*— they are likely to resist the new learning. If learning something has been difficult, uncomfortable, or even humiliating enough, people are not likely to admit that the content of what has been learned is not valuable. To do so would be to admit that one has been "had", or "conned". It's a social disorder on a pandemic scale.

The last post put the information together quite nicely.
This war is currently a failure. I reccomend not glazing over host's post above, as it contains a wonderful example of how public opinion does not reflect reality. We were so hurt by 9/11 and we were so ready to lash out in response. We struck out at a government with no ties to 9/11 and we killed many civilians there, not to mention losing many loyal and honorable servicepeople. Iraq, as it was before we invaded them, was not a threat to the United States of America.

People read posts like ManX's above in which it clearly points out that Cheny predicted that the Iraqi troops would step aside. They did not openly predict that this would be difficult and would cost so many American lives. They did not predict a rebellion. They did not predict so many casualties on our side. These are truths. Accept them, or deny reality.

.

In my opinion, at the time of the invasion, about 90% of people in general would have been opposed to the war if they knew what the cost was going to be and if they knew that we wouldn't find WMD. That includes conservatives and liberals alike.

On that subject, there were several nationwide polls just prior to the invasion. Maybe somebody can find a link, I don't have the time right now. Gallup maybe, or Zogby.

The upshot: if there were only going to be a few casualties then most Americans were in favor of the invasion. If there were going to be more than about 1000 casualties then most Americans were opposed to the invasion, both conservatives and liberals.

And that's not deaths, that's casualties.

Interestingly enough, a massive source of reduced loss of American life is the improved injury survival rate in this war, caused by chest body armor and better medical logistics.

I personally estimated higher casualties, based off the use of large amounts of WMD, which the US government swore they had proof Iraq had. That is, before Colin showed the proof...

You are claiming there is no downside to being in Iraq?

I could have sworn the Iraqi's would be standing on the side of the road, showering their liberators with flowers, grateful for their freedom?

Oh wait, that was the polmil plan for the invasion.

Which expectations?

A while before the war:
I expected to find WMD (Chem+Bio) -- I didn't expect Bush to lie about having convincing evidence of WMD. [worse]
I expected US soldiers to have to fight against chemical and biological weapons, due to the above point. [better]
I feared Iraq would get a missile off at Isreal, containing biological weapons or worse. [better]
I feared Isreal would return fire, destabalizing the region. [better]
I expected the US to face mainly foreign insurgents, as Iraq was a secular society in which the majority didn't like Saddam. [worse]

Shortly before the war:
I expected there to be no WMD. [right] I had a fear that I might be wrong, and US troops would take serious casualties. [better]
My confidence in US popularity in Iraq after the war fell. Researching what the US did after the first war made me think that the locals might .. resent .. the US. [worse]
I expected significant sabotauge by the Iraqi government of things like oil wells. [better]
I expected the main fight to take longer, with Iraqi forces scattered throughout the cities, resulting in large amounts of collateral damage. [better]
I expected the US had insufficient plans to rebuild Iraq afterwards. [accurate]

In my case, the insurgency is far worse than I'd expected it would be. The fact that Bush lied about his evidence for WMD meant that the worst-case scenarioes evaporated.

One's expectations and one's standard for success need not be the same.

If one's standards for success are 'saving more lives than would be lost in the status quo, over the next 5 years', and you examine a solution (nuke the world), where your expectations 'billions of lives lost' do not pass your standards, this does not move your standards of success.

You are holding up a straw man, and claiming he is flimsy.

If someone predicted exactly what happened, would that make the war a success, even if they opposed the war to start?

Mr Goose, meet Mrs Gander. Answer your own question. =p

"A monumental achievement was made" ??? Where ?
By whom ? Here is today's news. It is what it is:

1.)The U.S. force, 150,000 strong, is still unable or unwilling
to provide SECURITY for it's best hope of relief for itself in
Iraq; an Iraqi defense force that is large enough in size,
skill, and resolve to provide internal security and protect Iraq's
borders from foreign military and insurgent incursion. The
U.S. military, despite it's unique resources has been unable
to accomplish these things itself.

2.)U.S. troops continue to take casualties and have amassed
1400 dead and 10,000 wounded to facilitate what is described
in the bottom of today's AP story;<b>"a Kurdish ticket had moved into second place behind a coalition of Shiite religious parties, relegating a faction led by U.S.-backed interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi to third place."</b>



Irate, I did respond to your thread topic and it's questions
in my last post:
I am looking for answers as to why you post statements and
opinions that are uncoupled from reality. America apparently
voted for an administration that does the same thing.

You suppose that this confirms that Bush has said things
and taken actions in his war on terror that are mostly correct.
The facts don't support that. Put yourself in my place. If
you believed that the president and his supporters practiced
military and political policies that were uncoupled from reality
and caused these casualties to American troops and innocent
Iraqis, wasted hundreds of billions of dollars and strengthened
the fundamentalist Islamic movement, instead of weakening
it, how would you view the motivation for a thread like this
and the irrational comments in the first post? It may seem
partisan or antagonistic, but you owe it to yourself to face
and process details presented on here and from sources like
the AP.

I can't imagine a measure of a war's success being touted as "at least fewer people died than we thought would."

1,000 or 10,000- people died for this war. I hope the future history books will show the war's results that those people who gave their lives were more important than a worst-case number-crunch.

And that's all i've got to say about that.

it's obvious i wasn't implying that. it is however a good thing when casualties are much lower than predicted. such feelings can be sincerely had without speaking to the overall success of a war.

to those clamoring for a response to the questions posed in host's first post in this thread... i'd like for them to search for an actual question mark in his text. in fact, there were no questions posed... only survey results that have absolutely nothing to do with the thread. i read the post in its entirety. perceptions of voters have NOTHING to do with our military operation and its success or failure.

there are perhaps two reasons for the confusion in this thread. firstly, perhaps i have not done very well in communicating the thrust of this thread to begin with. secondly, i believe that the tendency to bring hate of the President into every discussion clouds nearly everything about political discussion on this forum.

the title of the thread is "what did you expect?" the good lord knows that horse has been beaten to death. it wasn't about voter perception or whether you thought the war was just. the question is about the way you perceive a war to have been prosecuted regardless of your thoughts on its genesis (an assertion i feel i've had to beat to death). it was about your prediction if you cannot respond with what your expectations were of its success and how the results have compared with your forecast... you have nothing to contribute to this thread. anyone, regardless of their political persuasion is equally capable of answering these questions as it relates to their own person.

Maybe I'm completely ignorant, but the impression I got from the administration was this war was going to be quick and easy, with very low casualties. Of coarse I thought how can war go that smoothly, but I trusted that the administration knew what it was doing, and that I probably didn't know the technology the Military had. I expected extremely low casualties, 50-100 maybe. I did not expect such a big insurgancy, and I did not expect close to 1500 U.S soldiers to die in this war. This War has gone far worse then I every expected it to be.

Edit: btw I'm talking about strictly us military casualties, not iraqi casualties.

The conclusions in your original post were based on incorect information and assumptions. While many people have pointed out these incorrect conclusions, you have basically ignored them. I'll try to summerize.

There are very good reasons behind each of those quotes. “We should have had a better exit strategy” is based on what we are seeing now. A correct exit strategy would have taken less time than the one in place, and would have saved many lives of the servicepeople who died. The Invasions on Iraq started as a bombing mission, followed by a ground invasion, followed by deconstructing and arresting the government. Our mission was to “free Iraq” (actually it was to protect America from ficticious WMDs and false al Qaeda 9/11 links, but who’s counting?), but what about leaving? Rice is still not commenting on an exit strategy (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...q_050201232127). This is a problem because Americans have been pleading for the government to get the soldiers home as soon as possible. While officials are often quoted saying “We’ll bring our soldiers home (applause)”, they have still not shared this plan with the public. It is a valid request to ask when our servicepeople will be coming home.

"it could have been handled much better"
There were no WMDs and there were no Iraq-9/11 links. The invasion claiming lives and injuring so many was clearly unnecessary.

"unseating saddam was the right thing to do, but we didn't have to use military force"
We did not have to lose 1447 lives to remove one man from power. Agree or disagree?

"the post-war strategy is going much worse than planned"
I don’t suppose you read ManX’s post, did you? The post war strategy IS going much worse than planned. That is obvious to everyone.

No! I didn’t expect it to go better! The problem is that Bushco was constantly telling us how it would be fine before the invasion. We were bombarded with soundbites telling us about how the Iraqis would be treated as liberators, not conquorers. This is incorrect, and they had no reason at the time to believe this. They constantly told us about how easy this would be. They were wrong.
We didn’t win. We might not have lost completly, but we didn’t win. Like I said, that analogy couldn’t be more wrong.

The singular acheivment of removing Saddam isn’t something to be proud of. The singlular acheivment of holding electiosn doesn’t balance out. Not by a long shot. Those are only 2 victories out of this whole mess.

llThat’s a wonderful way to trivialize the lives of the 1447 servicepeople who died for a government who said that this would be easy. Remember when Bush said “Breing them on”? Well they brough it on, and it cost us dearly. That is a wonderful way to trivialize the deaths of so many innocent Iraqi civilians who did nothing to warrent death. They lived under a dictator and were killed by an army that was supposed to save them.

lTell me that in 2 years, it’s too early to call that one yet.

lInsurgents aren’t just killing American servicepeople. They are also killing the Iraqis working with the Americans. What do you think will happen if we ever pull out?

lIt was wrong to attack them. It was wrong to kill and to be killed over a false threat. It was wrong for our government to have told us this would be easy. It was wrong for lies to lead us to war. It was wrong to go to war. We are seeing the consequences every day as we open our newspapers and reading about how a helicopter crashed or a bomb went off or a smart bomb hit a hospital. We are seeing the death tole rise every day. We still don’t even have an exit strategy.

Mission: falied.

Hey, it's your thread, man... Take it where you want and I'll answer your questions.

1) I didn't have any expectations. I really was fairly indifferent to the whole deal on the onset and, while figuring that our military power would heavily outweigh theirs, had no idea what else was going to happen. It gets hard to predict after that time, and there's a lot of different factors that could have come into play.

2) Well, since I didn't have any expectations, I guess you could say that my "non-predictions" were neutral. I think it went terribly. ...I'm sure I don't need to repeat everything that went wrong.

First, my concession.

I expected far more American fatalities than I've seen. I expected a much larger number of Iraqis to be fighting against us. So, to this point, yes, I'm grateful that there haven't been more. I'm not rejoicing, but I'm grateful.

Sadly, that's my only concession.

Anyone who followed this dog and pony show since its inception knew where we were going and where we're going next (Iran, Syria). Anyone aware of the desires of the neoconservative movement knew this was coming, with or without 9/11. I never believed the WMD argument, not because I was privy to any information, but because I am that cynical in my feelings about this administration.

What boggles me to this point are those calling this operation a general success, even while most of those knowledgable enough to speak as an expert on this topic freely concede that we're looking at another 3-5 years, if things go smoothly.

The notion of considering this operation a success due to the events so far is akin to watching a horse race, and before the jockey's even reach the first turn, claiming victory for whoever is in the lead.

"Success" implies a goal. If you don't achieve the goal, then you have not succeeded. The goal was finding WMDs. No find, no goal, no success.

You seem to want to redefine "success" with your own terms. Sorry, I'm not game, any other terms than those above is just semantic dithering in my opinion.

ooooh! Fun thread!

OK look I could spend the next 2 hours typing up a thread attacking everythign you wrote, but I lack the motivation. I'm just gonna go after this one.

Anyone remember those old Goofus and Gallant strips in the Highlights magazine? Your statement rather put me in mind of them. . ..


1) The patriots had a firm exit strategy. They'd play the game for a few hours, then they'd go to the locker room and either curse or curse while pouring champagne all over each other, then they'd go home. Pretty good exit strategy. Even allowed for a variable depending on the outcome of the game.

The Bushites had one goal. Topple Saddam. Screw what happens after that, we'll worry about that when we come to it. One good idea: Let's declare victory long before the country's secure, that way maybe people won't notice the hundreds of soldiers that die after the "war is over."



2) The Patriots were honest with their fans about why they went to the game. They said "we're going to the game because we want to win it." They did not say "if we win the game, cancer will be cured so you guys should support us in going."

The Bushites didn't really worry about being honest about the reasons to go to war. WMDs? Sure it's bullshit, say it anyway, the sheeple will support us, then we'll claim we never said it and the sheeple will believe that too.

3) The patriots could afford the trip and the effort they put forward to achieve their goal.

The Bushites are borrowing left and right, driving the debt and deficit to higher-than-Reagan levels, and generally behave as though they grew up never having to know how to save money. Oh, wait...That IS how they grew up.

4) No one got killed when the Patriots went to the superbowl. Not even the refs.

5) The patriots actually won, and one year from now their victory will not be taken from them.

The Bushites are declaring a second early victory after the elections even though there is no evidence that the elections will be successful, nor is there evidence that this fledgling "democracy" will still be around this time next year.


Are you getting my point here? You're taking an unjust war that has killed well over a thousand Americans, countless others, and was waged for reasons that later turned out to have been a lie, and you're comparing it to a football game. Do you really expect us to take you seriously?

you all do realize that when employing an analogy that the two thing are said to be like eachother in a particular respect while dissimilar in all others... right?

analogy: Similarity in some respects between things that are otherwise dissimilar.

taking the analogy farther than its initial employment is to make an argument null.


nope. i'm not using my own criteria and i'm sure as hell not using yours. i'll stick with the official list thank you very much.

according to our objectives... we have clear success in five of them, two are unabled to be measured by we on TFP (#'s 3 and 4), one was a failure.

Saddams government has been removed from power (and a large percentage have been assasinated, a.k.a. killed without trial) but has Saddam been found guilty by trial? don't expect that for a nother year or more. What if by some aweful chance he isn't found guilty? Almost impossible, but until he is found guilty, his reign isn't totally over.
Not done yet.

You can't really find what isn't there.
Neutral or failed.

Nope! They're still attacking.

That's laughable, as the people are being tortured for information, but it is still illegal to use information gathered by torture.

We have all the intelligence we'll ever need. No WMDs.

But we went into Iraq to free people! Why would oil be one of our goals?!

The sanctions (that claimed thousands upon thousands upon thousands of lives) were our fault. Aren't we nice to have finally let them have food and medical supplies?

We'll see.

Translation: Pointing out that an analogy is stupid isn't allowed because it would counter the argument of the one who posted the analogy. Rather circular IMO.





They sold it to the public as a WMD elimination mission because iraq presented a "threat" to the United States. Pretending they didn't is denying reality.

It's a simple thing, irate.

I didn't support this war before we were taken in, therefore by the very fact that the war took place, it is undeniably a failure.

Only you, someone who supported the war, could experience the feeling of success.

Consider yourself lucky that you don't view it as a failure.

Wait, wait... Irate... You're saying that you accept this as the "official" objective list? This was released in March 2003, well after the war was started, and while Rumsfeld & associates were shitting a brick about the possibility of there being no WMDs. Half of that list was created in retrospect to try to save face. I dare you to find any type of official objective list from before the war that contains any more than 4 of those objectives.

Diesel if everyone is asserting that the administration lied, or at best was dead wrong about the WMD's, why would they release a list containing said objectives when they were trying to save face?

I think everyone here agree's we went to war on the premises (in good faith or bad) of 1 & 2, 4-5, 6 being implied; not smart to mention oil as a premise of war; and 7-8. So really the only sham objective would be number 3, but at the sametime I think that was one of the original objectives, somehow the American populace thought Saddam was directly involved in 9-11.

Everyone here most certainly does not agree. We went on the premise of WMD. Period. Sure, getting rid of Saddam was mentioned as a nice little bonus, but the reason we were going to war was because the Big Bad Arabs were gonna throw chemical weapons at us. They never explained how Iraq would pull this off, considering they couldn't hit anything they aimed at with their shortrange scuds, so how would they manage to make a decently accurate ICBM in order to launch a chemical missile at the US mainland, but ya know, details details.

All those other reasons have been fabricated after the fact to try and obscure the fact that the original reason that was pitched to the American public was a bald faced lie.

Regime change was right up there with WMD's. I thought that was universal knowledge... I must admit Shakran, your knowledge here is a little lacking. Regime change was the samething CHeney, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfield came pushing on Clinton in 98' in and around Operation Desert Fox and us actually finding some WMD's. Only thing was Clinton didn't want regime change, so the Hawks had to bide their time until they had a window being 9-11 and Dubya.

Maybe we are saying the same thing though, the WMD's were the means, but the objective was most certainly regime change.

Let's not confuse objectives with selling points. Not a one of us can say what the objectives of this administration were or are - but only the short-term memory deficient among us can deny that the primary selling point was WMDs.

Which brings me to my next point, back on irate's topic:

I honestly had no idea whether Iraq had WMDs. I certainly didn't believe Saddam and I certainly didn't believe this administration. So, in fact, the existence or non-existence of WMDs had absolutely no bearing for me in regards to my opinion that this war was wrong. Which means, even if we HAD found WMDs, I would still consider this war, by it's very existence, to have been a failure.

See how far apart we are?

Now try and tell me again why I'm supposed to think we've been successful.

(As an aside, I'm getting tired of conservatives complaining about people blaming Bush + Co. He's the President, he's the spokesman for guiding policy. I vehemently disagree with the policies this administration has been enacting. I'm going to continue to blame Bush. Deal with it.)

I think it's worse than that. I don't mind complaints about me blaming bush, but I really get sick of being accused of "hating" a man I never met. Like they try and remove the rational basis for my disagreement with his administration's foreign policy.

And then the second prong of that is that I dislike the message for the messenger or some variant, like I'm being partisan? Which is just absurd given that I'm non-partisan. But it doesn't matter anymore, so I usually just not respond to those kinds of statements because they just make no sense anymore.

It's not hate, irate.....that's just your excuse for avoiding
debating the reality of Bush's.....and your own.....disconnect.
I'm outraged, and moved by the suffering of the affected
families living through this and for the dead Amercans,
young soldiers Bush is ordering to die....for nothing..... many
who were close in age to Barbara and Jenna. This is on you,
now, irate, because we've told you and shown you, and you
won't confront your enabling of war criminals and their crimes.
Instead, you create a thread to gloss it all over and to keep
cheering it on.

My knowledge is not lacking. Througout the buildup to war we heard nothing but "weapons of mass destruction" and how the Axis of Evil member was gonna create 9/11's all over the place with 'em. THAT is what the public was told was the reason for going to war. THAT is the publicly stated objective.


Now obviously I'm not gullible enough to think Bush really believed that nonsense, and of course I know his REAL objective was to go get the guy that tried to kill his daddy (and to have a nice fun little war while he was at it).

But the public was told nothing of this until AFTER the war started and they realized there was no way the WMD story was gonna hold water. So slowly they started removing WMD's from the rhetoric and replacing it with "regime change."

Remember, initially in his list of demands, he said Saddam must disarm. Only after Saddam said "ok, I'll disarm" did Bush change his demands to "Saddam must disarm AND step down and leave the country forever."

It was very obvious at that point to those of us who were paying attention that Bush wanted his war and he would get it no matter what concessions Saddam made to try and stop it.


And back to the original question, this "democracy comes to iraq" garbage is pure crap. They've had "democracy" for all of 2 weeks now, and it's not working real well considering there's well over 15,000 insurgents in the country, and only a tiny fraction of those are non-iraqi. In other words, there's a whole shitload of Iraqis who aren't going to take this democracy thing lying down.

Makes sense really - democracy (I always laugh when Bush says he wants them to be a democracy like us. He's not real good with political systems because we are a constitutional republic, NOT a democracy) is not something that can be forced on people. They have to choose it for themselves. It's certainly the height of irony to march in with soldiers and tell people "you do not have a choice. You must install a government with freedom of choice."

Very well put shakran.

yes, shakran--and this is why there is no way to seperate the "elections" and positions on the war in general--what is at issue is the whole narrative that lets you connect elements together. this narrative is political through and through. and this applies to all positions.

i find the trope of "bush hating" to be a rightwing cliche, meaningless both in itself and as a move put forward here to explain why irate, for example, kept running into responses he did not like in this thread.

as for what i might have expected for the iraq debacle---i did not expect anything. i opposed the war at every step, not because i thought saddam hussein a swell guy, but rather because i understood, from very early on, that the administration was making things up to justify war. i watched the explanations/rationales change, over and over, along the lines outlined quite ably in earlier posts here.

the way i understood the motvations for war, i assumed that the rosy scenario hallucinations of the wolfowitz crowd would have to pan out in the real world for the gamble embodied in this adventure to work--for an outline, read "the project for a new american century" mission statement with a critical eye, and direct it toward the war in iraq. which would mean that there would have had to be no insurrection. and the photos of the hussein statue being toppled by an imported pseudo-crowd would have to have had some documentary value--one that extended beyond a measure of the dreamworld the administration lived in, and the extent to which its military apparatus performed the roles of actors in this dreamworld. the wolfowitz scenario was of course a farce--and so far as i was concerned, the war from that point onward slipped inexorably into debacle.

later i had--and still have--a more conflicted view in that i found the logic of my own opposition to the war leading directly into an implicit cheerleading for signals of further debacle---which ran counter to the more pacifist-oriented elements in my positions, which pushed toward looking for ways to reduce deaths. so i began to think in terms of a best scenario that would enable the bush squad to pull out of iraq while saving face, mostly because doing so meant the minimizing of death--on all sides. with that in mind, i thought--and still think--that the conditions under which these past elections were held were so dubious as to make the whole process into something of a charade--i could not understand why allawi, the bushpuppet, and the administration in the states insisted on holding them despite these problems. and now i am interested in the problems that the apparent wide defeat of the allawi regime--and the apparent victory for al-sistani---pose for the administration.

in general, i think that the elections should have been delayed. it is in the refusal to treat the elections as a possible space for meaningful transition away from american occupation that i began to see that bush is to the discourse of democracy what stalin was to the discourse of socialism. and that is a disaster for everyone. including the conservatives, whose position a priori leaves them no alternative but to see iraq upside-down.

but none of the above functions as confirmation of my opposition to the war.
but i admit that within this lay the knot posed by my opposition.

what really alarms me is the saber rattling about iran. because i do not think this administration is above launching another misbegotten adventure to distract from the endgame of the previous misbegotten adventure.

expectations are projections into the future.
these projections rely on premises.
this applied to all sides, conservatives included.

This is the one thing I'm going to call you on. Up until now, all the figures I have been using put the insurgency at 200,000-250,000. Iraq is a country of 25+ million people, so even those inflated numbers, in light of the new ones putting the numbers closer to 20,000, only equated to one percent of the population of Iraq. The numbers you are using, the new numbers, the "whole shitload" of insurgents...all 15,000 of them, equates to .08% of all Iraqi's.

Don't you see something a little misleading about this huge and glorious insurgency? Hell I didn't even think the thing was even remotely legitmate when the numbers said 1% of the population. Boohoo some ex-baathists and religious nutjobs don't want democracy, that really represents the whole 25 million of Iraq.

How many people voted?

It really baffles me how people can think that 1%, or even .1% of the population being involved in the insurgency is a small number. Even at 1 in 1000, that's still pretty nuts. If there were .1% of people in your city/town that were well armed and willing to kill you at random to (supposedly) prove their point or break your will, you'd probably shit yourself every time you went outside.

...and you think that the insurgency in insignificant? "Boohoo", only 1 in 1000 are crazy enough to kill at random? Get a grip.

Well, I would hope that people who get sucked into this forum game are aware ahead of time that the belief and value systems of others are usually NOT going to be changed, whether the person supplying the argument is friendly, attacking, or condescending. The best a poster should hope for is presenting his or her view, backing it up with "facts" linked to web resources, and then hope that - by exploring the links - readers can gain a wide enough source of information from differing viewpoints to develop a new position.

Or it might solidy their current position. Who knows?

I support us being in Iraq, but not for the publicly stated WMD crap. Nossir - I've been a stout proponent of regime change since the early Clinton years. I will call this operation a success - in my eyes only - if the Iraqi people have a democratically-elected government representative of their values and beliefs, that does not mistreat vast ethnic or political subsets within its borders. Do I get thrilled about a the Shi'ite ticket that seems to be leading - no. But if that is what the people elect, and they can partner with the Kurds and Sunnis to draft a constitution that the entire country can live with and go through several peaceful exchanges of power, then it will be a success, and hopefully an example for other Middle Eastern countries to move towards in their own fashions.

I think the term 'Iraqi' is a bit of a misnomer.

Winston Churchill and others created the term Iraq when they arbitrarily structured the modern-day middle east. The people in Iraq are various conglomerations of ethnic groups - i.e. the Kurds, Sunni and Shi'a Muslims. It is a ridiculous concept to try and establish a 'democratic' government in a country that contains such radical polarization on many spectrums...This little project over in Iraq will turn into a theocracy based on the principles of the ethnic majority (i.e. the Shi'a Muslims). Oppression is unavoidable in such a situation...and the Shi'a will want payback for their sufferings under the former Sunni regime.

Not in his defense, but Saddam did not gas his own people. He oppressed a competing religious/ethnic faction that threatened his dictatorship. In a slightly different sense, Vladimir Putin uses a similar method of exterminating the competition, as when he locked up the oil tycoon for 'tax evasion'...it is widely known that the rich executive had big political plans and ambitions, so Putin shut him out. Same principle with Saddam, except to a much less severe degree.

Well call me crazy, but I'm not going to let a fringe faction comprising less then 1 percent of the total population scare me. And I didn't call them insignificant, I just said I didn't consider them legitimate because 1) they comprise less then 1% of the population 2) they are ex-baathists 3) Sunni's who can't come to grips that their run is over 4) Lunatics like Al-Sadr 5) Terrorists like Ansar Al-Islam (Iraqi) 6) And foregin terrorist like Al Qaeda and Zarqawi trying to impose their radical doctrine on the people of Iraq.

On the other hand some of them valid beef, but at this point they should buck up and start working within the system, killing Americans and their own country men isn't doing them any good and is only prolonging our presence there.

So I supose that when Saddam assumed power of Iraq, dominion over all three ethnic groups, even the kurds who were displaced as an ethnic group, but still inside a sovereign Iraq, he wasn't gassing his own people? That would be like Bush gassing Indians or something; they were in his country and under his stewardship, he did gas his own countrypeople.

i am not sure that you want to invoke, at any level, the history of the american treatment of native americans as if it helped you make a distinction between the united states and saddam hussein, mojo. think wounded knee. fyi.

I'm not invoking any part of our history in the mistreatment of American Indians.

I'm drawing a hypothetical parallel, saying that Saddam's gassing of the Kurds, who were "autonomous", would be similar to Bush gassing Indians on a sovereign reservation.

*nods

history just isn't very kind to idealism.

I understand what you are saying Mojo, please do not think that I approve of ANYTHING Saddam did during his regime, I was merely indicating that technically the situation is rather complex over there as to 'who is who' :) .

I would like to point out, however, that the "Iraqi" people did continually vote for Saddam to remain in power...whether or not they were abused if they did otherwise I am not sure.

I blame Churchill and Co. for the mess in the Middle East. They created it, if only we could undo what has already come to pass...Frankly, the Ottomans were significantly more humanitarian than most of the governments over there currently...

:crazy:

It's sort of tough to vote someone out of office when he is the only person on the ballot and you "monitored" into checking the "yes" box.

And yes the Brit's have certainly left us all a cluster fuck between Iraq and Palestine.

You're not using eliminating Iraq's WMDs as a criterion of success? Because it's not part of the official list? Have you read the list that you posted?

The Ba'athist coup against Qasim (led by Saddam) had only 9 tanks, and 850 members at the time. 850 isn't a lot of people out of the 18+ million people living in Iraq in 1963. The current rebelion of 15,000 dwarfs the 850 who were able to assasinate the leader of the nation and take power. We shouldn't assume they are not a threat because of percentages overall.

The United States population is currently 295,431,744. 0.08% of 295,431,744 is about 250,000. Imagine the entire population of a city like Baton Rouge was spread out over the united states, united in removing our government. What if half the population of Washington D.C. suddenly revolted?

I heard a news report last night that there were an estimated
500 foreign fighters and about 1000 combatants following
al Zarqawi. If you minimize the signifigance of a domestic
Iraqi insurgency of about 15000, how do you react to
statements from Bush and his supporters that "we will
fight them there so we won't have to fight them here?"
Following your logic, isn't it ludicrous to commit 150,000 troops,
an equivalent to almost one third of your entire active duty
ground force, and try to justify it with the "flypaper" argument?

When a force is "decimated", a minimum of 10 percent of
it's total number is killed or seriously wounded. With an
average force total of less than 150,000 troops in Iraq since
March, 2003, and casulaties of more than 12,000, isn't fair to
say that the Iraqi insurgency has succeeded in decimating
our forces? You are trying to downplay a catastrophe, but
the numbers contradict your assertions.

and so it appears that this thread landed (so far at least) in exactly the spot you would have anticipated had you simply thought about the matter and never launched it: the folk who support the war with one variant of "reality"--those who opposed with another. and it seems no way to move between positions.

and still no willingness on the part of conservatives to put their positions fully on the table, to question the linkages between their own assessments of the situation in iraq and their support for bushwar up front.

both these positions cannot simultaneously be correct.

so we go back to the earlier argument within the thread, about the underlying causes for this differend, if you like---in the world where there is no difference between policy and politics, no difference between what is marketed and what is "real" this is what you get--conservatives who work from within the reigning discourse can do and say nothing in response to critiques either of their particular positions, nor of the results that bush's policies are continuing to generate on the ground, except to work through already banal talking points. it really does seem that conservsative modes of argument are entirely closed, entirely self-referential, and entirely incapable of interacting with positions that are framed differently.

host earlier had talked about this is psychological terms--i talked about it in terms of a particular style of argument--either way the results are the same.

is it really impossible for a reflective conservative defense of this misbeggotten imperial adventure to be mounted? one that at least poses the question of what kind of relation obtains for them between their initial assessment of the arguments put forward by the bush people and their take on what is going on now in iraq?

the positions--left (if you want--this is america after all) and right are mutually exclusive. if this and other threads like it are any index, conservative arguments really hold no water whatsoever. and they cannot be justified as arguments by any of those who rehearse them. so from the outside, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the positions are simply arbitrary, and to go from there to a psychological explanation for it. but this cannot--seriously, cannot--exhaust the matter. there must be a reflexive/reflective version of support for this war somewhere, one that grapples with the kind of questions anyone who works in opposition has had to--i woudl think that the burden of proof to the contrary now rests with conservatives, at least insofar as this thread is concerned.

There is disturbing evidence that the folks in the Red states do not vote in
their own best interests, and play into the hands of the conservative agenda.
It is ironic that the agenda that Bush supporters now walk to in lockstep
(goose step?) was created by, and is financed by the wealthiest conservative
families in the country:

When we request candor in the opinions of Bush supporter, this is the "wall"
that we find ourselves up against. A well financed, cohesive machine that
is remarkably successful in persuading those lulled into it's fold by it's
repetitive "information" barrage to think and speak in a unified voice.
An intriguing symptom of the disconnect is the persuasion of primarily lower and middle class, rural state, voters to vote against their own financial
status quo:

Roachboy points out that the left and right positions are mutually exclusive, and then infers, like Host, that - since the proponents of the right spout arguments that "can't hold water" - then the supporters of the right must have some sort of psychological issue.

Well, a very learned individual once said:
If you know who it is who said that, cool, but it brings home MY point - each side can poke holes in various aspects of each other's positions. You obviously aren't going to change someone's position here, so what's the goal? My guess is the thrill of debate, the opportunity to denigrate another's point of view as inferior. The nature of the language used on many posts on politics, here and in other forums, usually demonstrates this. So who has a psychological issue now? I strive VERY hard to not belittle other's opinions, because no matter how much I belive that I am right, I have to acknowledge that others won't agree with me and are entitled to that opinion.

Then Host trots out the tired argument that Republican voters apparently vote against their own interests...whether they be medical, economical, blah blah blah. Well, every time I hear this, I have to point out that some people vote based on BELIEFS and CONVICTIONS. And, believe it or not, they may differ from those that you and other Democrats might share.

I'm not saying that there aren't some real ignoramus' out there voting, but they are doing it on both sides of the aisle.

One has to wonder if that 1% scares the trained soldiers that must face them on a daily basis, Truly you are a braver man than I.

moondog: this is why i prefer to emphasize style of argument: but in situations like this, the boundary between that and speculating about psychological motives gets to be really tempting to cross....i reiterate my basic challenge to folk who support the war to spell out their positions in the kind of way that they have tried to pressure those of us who opposed and oppose this war to do.

as for the matter of politics being a question of belief--well, most beliefs are rooted in some kind of contact with a world beyond them. so are convictions. both are amenable to testing--i expect that you, like anyone, indulges testing all the time. if you use either belief or conviction as a device to make all political argument arbitrary, and if this reflects a wider pattern (and i believe it does) then we are all in a pretty sorry state of affairs in which nothing can be refuted by recourse to either evidence or argument: when that goes out the window, so does even the slightest pretense to democratic process. but maybe you prefer abandoning even those faint traces of democracy that still float about in the american system. for myself, i think the consequences of it are too high.

Well then you should have picked something else to call me on. The numbers I used are a PENTAGON estimate. The Pentagon, remember, is run by Rumsfeld, who's such a font of misinformation about this situation that nothing he says can be trusted. In all likelihood, the "inflated" numbers are probably closer to the truth.


However, as others have pointed out, only a fool would fail to be concerned about 15,000 insurgents running around a country armed to the teeth and willing to kill anyone to get their point across.


I remind you that the U.S. and its allies FAR outnumbered the enemy in Vietnam (in 1967 there were 280,000 viet cong, and 1,174,000 allies), and we still got our asses kicked.

Hear me out, here.

I got a lynching party together and managed to find a murder suspect holed up in a meth lab last week. The police weren't doing their job, so we went in. We watched him for awhile, waited until he went inside, then set the place on fire.

Sure enough, he came running out, and we got him. Turned out there were a couple people inside the house who were burned to death. Plus the guy he supposedly murdered turned up alive somewhere in Aruba. So he wasn't a murderer after all.

But heck, it was a successful operation wasn't it? Only two people died, and we got the guy. He may not have been a murderer, but he was a bad guy.

It could have turned out a lot worse, in fact I expected it to. I don't know why everybody keeps criticizing what we did, when we accomplished just about every one of our goals.

Again I never said I don't think they are of concern or an issue, I just merely said I don't consider their cause legit, and I'm not going to be bullied into fear or submission by them and their tactics.

Excelent anaolgy. I think that corrrectly reflects what really happened over there (in simple but efffective terms).

Sorry, their cause IS legit. Their cause is "get the hell out of Iraq. This is OUR country not YOURS. Hands OFF."

And they're right.

Zarqawi = Jordianian... he is our biggest problem there. Hmmm....

At this point in time, it doesn't matter if they're "legit" to you or not. They're "legit" enough to kill thousands of people, they're "legit" enough to make people live in fear, and they're "legit" enough to be a destabilizing factor in the regions where they assert their presence.

And I find it very convenient for you to say that you're "not going to be bullied into fear or submission by them and their tactics" being that you're not in Iraq. Shit, I'd bet a good deal of money that you've never seen a car bombing or an act of terror. You've probably never been in a gunfight. I wouldn't be surprised if you've never even seen a violently killed dead body. So saying that it wouldn't scare you seems a little haughty on your part.

I, for one, would not willingly go to Iraq right now. Why? 'Cause it's one hell of a fucked up place right now and there's a decent chance (at least WAY better than in almost every other place) that I might die.

You're not even making a point. So he's Jordanian? So what? That doesn't mean you can discount the problem because it's international. If anything, the problem originating from other countries makes it WORSE because we have no way of regulating what goes on there.

So what? Shakran was making the point "Get out of my country..." , pretty funny that the number one problem in Iraq isn't Iraqi and is affiliated with Al Qaeda.

that is meaningless, mojo.

How is it meaningless?

Because you're not addressing the current problem! Yes, some of the problem is international, but people from other countries can cause dissent, death, chaos, fear, and everything else just like someone from Iraq can!

They are the majority of the current problem!!! Zarqawi and his goons are the ones kidnapping people, beheading foreign and non-foreign people, they are the guys lobbing grenades at voters, they are the ones suicide bombing Iraqi police, military, and hospital installations.

The problem I have is that I wasn't one of the war supporters who tried to place pressure on people like you, Host, and others who were against it. I can totally understand why you didn't want us in Iraq, just as I can totally understand why - after discovering that there were no WMD's in Iraq - you'd be angry and distrustful of the Bush Administration. I hold a different line of reasoning for the war that, when it became expedient to do so, the Administration picked up on...Regime Change.



As I read this second paragraph, I can't help but think that you have overdone the hyperbole. I'll say this - I don't believe that arguing - especially in a setting like this - will result in a change in anyone's opinion. BUT, I do HOPE that, when exposed to differing opinions, along with credible resources to back them up, a person can at least reach a level of understanding of that viewpoint, and perhaps eventually come to a mutually agreeable mid-point.

Your statement regarding the "faint traces of democracy that still float about in the american system"...were you serious? Do you honestly believe that democracy is all but eliminated from the American system of governance? Call me naive, but I hope to not ever reach that level of cynicism. Of course, I've been involved in local politics, as well as state politics to a degree, for over 10 years now. It's not a perfect system, but it seems to be working at our local levels at least. I can understand such cynicism as we talk about upper level state and national politics.

So because of this there's less of a problem? You're avoiding my questions, and not providing any logic. How does the "insurgent" force being (arguably) primarily international make the problem any less severe?

There's not less of a problem, there is less legitimacy.

I'm not avoiding any questions, I haven't really seen any put forth, throw some my way and I'll be more then glad to clarify.

And if, and it's not even an if, the insurgents are primarily Iraqi, but if they were foreign terrorists and not Iraqi insurgents, the problem would be less severe because the problem wouldn't be with Iraqi's only asshat terrorists trying to establish a theocracy, (gasp) wait that's still happening.

I still don't understand why you believe that a Iraqi insurgency of the equal size and ability would be any less damaging than the current international one. Why is this your opinion? Is the current international insurgent force no less able to wreak havoc in many ways and cause instability?

And if you would, please define "legitimacy" as you are using it.

They Iraqi's have more legitimacy because it is their country. And I'm not really talking about damaging in any sense, I suppose I factor that into legitimacy. The fact is that a majority of the Iraqi insurgents are ex-baathists, Saddam loyalists, and mainly sunni. Because of that I don't think they are legitimate, the majority of Iraqi's are Coalition friendly or at least indifferent, and they are at least working to get us out of there.

And the international force is plenty capable of causing instability, they are better at it then the Iraqi's, I just think they are whack because they are trying to impose their ways on Iraq and it's anymore their country then it is ours.

Legitimacy as in, truly representative of the people. Whether 15,000 or 250,000, it is no more then 1% of the population, that is a vast vast minority. The rest of the Iraqi's are participating in their country trying to make it better, or at least not making it worse. THe vast minority is trying to retain power they lost, and can't ge back, it's all for naught for them, or they are not trying to instill their radical beliefs on the Iraqi's. You also have to look at the tactics employed, namely terrorism, that is not a legit tactic, it is cowardly and self defeating, I have a feeling that's why so manyn Iraqi's voted.

Hope that helps some.

Okay... Whether I agree with that reasoning or not doesn't really matter... It's subjective. My next question then becomes: If they are equally damaging to Iraq regardless, why does it matter whether they're legitimate or not?

moon: i should maybe make paragraph seperations when i change referents--my way of writing is curious-looking enough that it creates confusion sometimes...that part of the paragraph wasnt directed particularly at you. an i understood from the outset that a position like what i take yours to be would result in a different narrative--what i was asking was for you (or anyone who has roughly the same position) to explain the premises, subject the argument to scrutiny like any argument can and should be.

as for the comments about american pseudo-democracy:
several contextual points first
1. i have enjoyed, in a perverse way, reading and hearing conservative pundits making a big big point about how the states is a republic, not a democracy, and then move from there to an association of democracy and socialism.
2. at the more important, structural level, it has been pretty clear for some time that the right's strategy for dealing with unpleasant critiques of their position has been to flood the information arena with pseudo-information in order to make meaingful debate nearly impossible. you see it around environmental conflicts, with corporations hiring pet scientists to generate studies that counter accusations from environmentalists about pollution levels for example. these studies are meant to neutralize debate. same kind of thing in any number of quadrants. it seems that this constitutes an underpinning of conservative media strategy in general.
3. couple this with a style of argument that results in claims like your own: that politics is a matter of belief/conviction as if these categories superceded interacting with a wider world and/or data about that world.
4. you might argue that "democracy" in america still operates at the local level--well fine--but it is a funny claim in a way in that it links directly to the above patterns of attempting to neutralize large-scale public debate by undercutting correlations between political premises and data about the world, reducing politics to questions of belief/convictions--both of which are rendered arbitrary--and thereby non-falsifiable. maybe this converges on the conservative suspicion of the notion of the public--which should be atomized and focussed on small/local issues--the result is that any conception of the whole disappears--and with that the political check(s) on the actions of firms/governmental forms that operate at a larger scale. taken to the limit, this is a recipe for a new feudalism. and sometimes i think what the conservatives in america really object to it the legacy of the magna carta, the centralization of power in any form.
except when they control it of course.
then everything is hunky dory.

given the above, you will perhaps understand what i am saying in the post you reacted to. the position i argue is not a simple function of cynicism--a tendency i try to fight because it is in many ways too easy---but rather a mapping of what i take to be the larger-scale conditions that obtain onto micro-developments like the deterioration/mutation of this thread (we'll see how it goes, i guess, before deciding on the adjective)

sadly, there is little hyperbole in the post. were that things were otherwise.

Oh no, I think roach has us figured out! Quick someone silence him before he reveals even more deep dark secrets. Oh I sure hope he doesn't have those pictures of me taking food from childrens' mouths and poking the elderly with long sticks.
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yeah

Use the amnesia ray Smithers.

that's hilarious folks--i dont suppose that you have anything of substance to add, do you?


i'll wait here.

I guess you forgot #5
5. When confronted with a very cut and dry argument that clearly points out faults and addresses their agruments head on, they respond with sarcasm and short, unspecific answers. When you confront them on it, they move on to another conversation.

You mean the revolver, sir?

Well, looks like this thread fell apart. Sarcasm is great, isn't it?

Excellent :icare:

Well, I have to agree with the very first thing you say: I have a HELL of a time sifting through your verbiage to get to the meaning of your posts! Whew - exhausting! hehehe

1. Luckily, I don't equate democracy with socialism. And, like it or not, we have a degree of socialism already, no?

2. I won't argue that opponents to other views often choose to flood the discussion/debate with contrasting studies and reports. Thing is, you choose to label them with the blanket term "pseudo-information". I can agree with that term on specific issues, such as in the tobacco world, or is some environmental issues, but you expose your bias in calling all information that runs counter to your prevailing beliefs as "psuedo-information".

And, in using the tactic, does that not PROMOTE the discussion of the issue? Aren't the people who are supposed to make the decisiojns on our behalf supposed to sift through the information and arrive at a conclusion? I won't argue that the communication channel gets crowded, and that it breaks down often, but ideally, my government is supposed to look at both sides and make a decision.

3. Now, you keep referring to my "claim" that "...politics is a matter of belief/conviction as if these categories superceded interacting with a wider world and/or data about that world". Those are your words, not mine. My beliefs and convictions came about exactly because of my interactions with the world around me and the [trustworthy] data available to me. I have mentioned in an earlier post that the best one can hope for in these arguments is to present enough data in your position, along with good resources to that data, to hopefully encourage an understanding of your views. Or, if your good, a gradual move towards your viewpoint.

4. Who stated that either political beliefs or one's beliefs and convictions are always the gospel truth? Not I. Beliefs are what they are - beliefs. They may or may not be rooted in fact, but because they are what they are, they are often firmly entrenched into our sense of self.

I'm confused by the statement you make on conservatives "suspicion of the notion of the public". The conservatives I know certainly don't believe that people should stay involved with the local stuff and leave the higher levels of politics to those who "understand" it.

Anyhow, given the amount of time I am putting into this, and the very real possibility that neither of us will convince the other of the validity of the viewpoints, I'm inclined to drop this thread.

It's been nice exchanging with you though - keep up the fight!