One can only hope that you’re confusing the CPA w/ the IGC. I’ve only ever heard people make this sort of comment about the IGC. In some senses of the word the IGC is “representative” of Iraq. One thing that sticks out w/o the need for great number crunching is the disproportionate representation, (compared w/ their relative numbers in the Iraqi general population), of returning expats.
The IGC itself has its own issues w/ credibility in Iraq and the ME.
Beagle, your desire to “move on”, as it were, is laudable in one sense - it is often necessary to put the past behind us in order to focus our energies and attention, and Americans have an historic and unique ability to consistently move and focus “forward”. None of the people conscientiously objecting to the current state of affairs in Iraq or bemoaning the serious problems running up to the Iraq invasion are disputing the need to continue to move forward and the desire to achieve a positive outcome (regardless of what they think constitutes a positive outcome).
You (and a great many pro-Bush and/or conservative dopers) continue, however, to overlook an extremely important component of the decision- and policy-making process: the ability to critically evaluate and learn from experience. Disputes over intelligence, analysis, politicization, ideology, realism, honesty, credibility, etc., etc., are NOT just pointless exercises by disaffected intellectuals. They are critical steps in a democratic debate with the explicit purpose of making the next public policy decision better than the last.
The continual rose-colored assessments by the Bush administration talking heads is not explicitly dishonest on its face - as people have shown, there are certainly positive achievements on the ground. But the constant denial of negative reports by the administration, and it’s complete disregard for evidence of credibility gaps, flawed theorizing, and fanciful ideology is indicative of a total lack of intellectual rigor that cannot but bode ill for the future exercise of U.S. foreign policy.
It’s limiting the discussion to the Bush Administraton that makes the outcome transparent. I’m more than willing to do an omnibus discussion of all intelligence data leading up to the war, with emphasis on GHWB, Clinton, and Bush (the sanctions era). It would be very interesting to see what foreign intelligence had to say during that whole time period also. To me, the great mystery is what happened to the stuff, if it existed. If it didn’t, why wouldn’t Saddam cooperate more fully?
The latest theory – in a long line – is that Saddam’s experts lied about progress, and there were plans to reconstitute the actual manufacturing after the inspectors left. The missing piece is how Saddam planned (realistically) on getting the sanctions lifted. I think he overestimated the importance of European support. Bush was not unique in considering serious action against Saddam. Taking it, I think really caught Saddam flat-footed. He recovered.
I agree with the bolded part at the bottom. Don’t think I didn’t notice. I’m all for critical self-examination of intelligence gathering. Problem is, doing it while they are operating makes them useless. Doing it after is too late.
If there is a tie-in here to Mideast democracy, I’d argue that whatever crappy intel got us in here, better be improved to get us out. The special I saw on TV showed some US troops getting a heads up from the local Iraqis on a bomb factory in a house. If someone had caused a spark in that house…
Point being, there are sophisticated terror factories all over Iraq most likely. I think the Islamists are cooperating with the ancien regime for now. The only way to find them is with intel.
So you assume the “crappy intel” theory of Bush’s decisionmaking is correct, but not the “crappy use of intel by people who had their minds made up already” theory? That’s where the evidence seems to point, doesn’t it? This goes into exhaustive detail how.
“Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in ‘mission creep,’ and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances, there was no viable ‘exit strategy’ we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations’ mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different – and perhaps barren – outcome.”
[/quote]
“Crappy intel” had nothing to do with ithat decision.
Does Dad ever speak to Junior? Is it possible we’re seeing an Oedipal conflict played out on a global stage? I wonder about that sometimes.
In other news:
This latter is the most discouraging. The point of a guerrilla insurgency against an occupying force is to make them come down hard enough that ordinary life becomes impossible for the general population. The above could easily lead to such an outcome if the Army isn’t careful.
BUT, the occupation’s going swimmingly, you know. We don’t need anymore troops over there, don’t need no UN, don’t need to worry about having to start pulling out the troops next March. Nope, no worries at all.
What worries me most about this latest round of “we’re gonna get tough” talk is that it veers dangerously close to “reprisals”, that is, holding the general population accountable for what takes place and punishing accordingly.
And that would be bad. Like WWII was “noisy” and the Black Death “kind of a drag”…that would be “bad”.
Just another small, sad story from this afternoon in Baghdad:
"The US military has confirmed that one of its soldiers shot dead the mayor of a highly volatile Baghdad district.
Mohannad Gazi al-Kaabi, who was appointed by the US authorities to run the largely Shia Muslim area of Sadr City in Baghdad, died on Sunday.
He was shot during an altercation with US troops at the local council’s compound. "
Hearing reports here that the number of ‘attacks’ (whatever that might constitute) in and around Baghdad on US forces has been around the 30 a day recently. I didn’t know it was at that level . . . it’s not getting better, is it . . .
Ya know, LC, we really oughtta have taken lessons from you guys in how to be imperialists and the pitfalls thereof. I mean, if you’re gonna have an empire, you might as well learn how to do it right from the ones who done it before.
Too wierd. I had to go out and find a story about the actual award ceremony, since I see by the date that the award was given on Nov 7.
Kennedy had this to say:
The timing of the award is definitely suspect, though.
Anybody know anyone who might be bugging the Bush family Thanksgiving dinner? Or even better, the private talk Dad and Son may have over brandy and cigars afterward?
Can we go back in time and make McCain the Republican nominee and then the President? I hardly agree with him on most issues, but at least he has a brain. At this point, mere competence is all I ask.
Well, this isn’t mission creep so much as the mission objective. As I said, other than the massive power vacuum, total chaos, ethnic bloodbath, and civil war that might result from pulling out now – I’m all for it!!!
Anybody here know who friend Beagle is talking to? He has firmly rebutted the position of “pulling out now” but I remain a bit confused as to who suggested that we do so.
To encapsulate the political spin of the speech:
“The War was about spreading democracy in the Mideast. I know we told you it was about protecting ourselves from Saddam’s Evil Mojo of Mass Destruction. Those statements are now inoperative, and therefore never happened. It was really a noble crusade…er, ah, noble endeavor…to bring democracy to the ME. We would have told you sooner, but we didn’t want to spoil the surprise.”
I’ve said it before, and I guess I’ll say it again. I might have supported a war on humanitarian grounds. I almost certain that a majority of the US would not have. As it stands, I expect the administration to make good on the promises they made to the majority when they were looking for support for the war. Even though I agreed that Hussein needed to be taken out(although I think it could have been done without full-scale war), I understand that I, a member of a minority, did not have the political muscle to make my views policy. If the administration lied to another group to get them on a bandwagon behind a certain policy, then it is of great interest to me because I still have to interact with them as is my duty in a democracy.
This is supposed to be a different kind of empire, one where the primary tools are economic strength and the threat of economic sanction - those supported, in the background, by military might. The British, pre-capitalist explosion, did it ‘tother way around . . . but, all of a sudden, you’ve you’ve got a dose of the Gordon at Khartoum’s – damn Fuzzy-Wuzzy’s
Not much for this mob to learn from the British Empire except how to back out the door without falling over. They haven’t got to that page yet.
"
So ’ere’s to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your ’ome in the Soudan;
You’re a pore benighted ’eathen but a first-class fightin’ man;
An’ ’ere’s to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, with your ’ayrick ’ead of ’air—
You big black boundin’ beggar—for you broke a British square! "
For all the abuse the late Mr. Kipling receives, it’s worth remembering that the end of his life was darkened by the tragedy of the death of his only and beloved son in WWI. The boy, like his father, was terribly nearsighted. The old man pulled strings and found him a commission in one of the Guards battalions. He was last seen staggering to the rear crying in pain from a wound that had blown his jaw off. I think the boy’s body was never found. Of all Kipling’s high minded and manly poems, despite all the East is east and west is west, and the you’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din, and the a woman’s only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke, the most touching of his pieces is this:
My son was killed while laughing at some jest. I would I knew
What it was, and it might serve me in a time when jests are few.
A man who can write that can blow the trumpet for The Empire all he wants.
Well, World War One was the end of a lot of things, most of them good. There’s a reason why the era that went before was called La Belle Epoque. But that’s another thread entirely. (Yes, I’m really a reactionary at heart. And a hopeless Romantic. So sue me.)
Anyway, getting back to this sorry excuse for an Imperialist we have up there, I saw Admiral Stansfield Turner, former head of the CIA, on CNBC tonight. Know what he said? “We have to internationalize this”. Same as Brzezinski. Same as me.
Meantime, I’m making a shitload in gold betting against this damn fool President and his war. I expect that will continue for the foreseeable future. If this continues, I’ll be writing this from my 50 foot yacht off the coast of my ancestral homeland, Corsica. I’d give that up for a chance to live in a free, prosperous and peaceful country again, though. In a second. Less, even.
