Bush's Strategy for Victory in Iraq

[Damuri_Ajashi]

[QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF]
As for “lionizing for tardy sagacity”, first of all it’s important to say that it’s better late than never. Second of all, if I post a roll call cite of all the people that voted for the Authorization for Use of Force, can I expect you to savage by name the 29 Senate Democrats that voted for it? After all, aren’t they the very definition of “tardy sagacity”?
[/QUOTE]

A recent survey shows that 28 of the senators would have voted no if they knew what they know now. 5 senators who voted for the bill now think that there wasn’t enough to even bring it up for a vote. One thnks that the intelligence was so flawed that it should not have passed.
These 15 stood by their yes vote:

1. Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo.
2. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan.
3. Sen. Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn.
4. Former Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.
5. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah
6. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
7. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb.
8. Sen. Dick Lugar, R-Ind.
9. Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo.
10. Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla.
11. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan.
12. former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa.
13. former Sen. George Allen, R-Va.
14. Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho
15. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho
    The rest wouldn’t respond (a bunch of republicans, Zell Miller, Blanche Lincoln and Tin Johnson (who is too sick to respond).
    Iraq Vote: What the Senators Said - ABC News

I wonder how many of these politicians would recant if it wasn’t such a mess over there.

Still, if we can’t learn to accept an apology then there is no hope of healing the nation.

[marshmallow]

There are lots of good posts in this thread that reflect my thoughts. What I’m wondering, though, is exactly where these supposed 20K or 10K or whatever it’ll end up being are actually going to be stationed. Baghdad would be my guess. Bush’s upcoming speech should provide some good fodder for the Daily Show, despite the frightening real world consequences…

[QUOTE=Scylla]
Our soldiers really aren’t supposed to be policeman or security people in my understanding. That’s not what they are trained for.
[/QUOTE]

Give this man a door prize.

@Sal Ammoniac

Here’s the real trouble, supposing I’m to put myself in GW’s loafers: I have to come up with a plan that’s a) different from the previous plan; b) different from the Democrats’ plan; c) different from the Iraq Study Group’s plan; and e) has some tiny shred of plausibility as to actually being able to work. And frankly, what are you left with, beyond a troop increase?

The only consolation is that when the surge fails, there’s nothing left to try, except retreat.

This cuts to the very heart of the matter.

@Spavined Gelding

If nothing else the experience of the British in Northern Ireland should have taught our leaders something. So should have the Philippine Insurrection and the French Adventure in Mexico. Good Lord, Vietnam should have served as an instructive example of what happens once irregular warfare breaks out. The Sec of State knew that, he was there. The senior officers of the Army and USMC knew that, they were there.

My understanding after reading Fiasco and State of Denial is that we had a lot of resources for a counter insurgency after Vietnam and the other conflicts you mention but our military was so shocked by the result that we basically purged everything to focus on conventional battles with the USSR. I wonder what will happen after this conflict…

[EddyTeddyFreddy]

Hey, anybody remember Afghanistan? You know, that obscure backwater where Usama bin Laden had his al Qaeda training camps? Where the U.S. led a united effort of many nations to root out the terrorists from their safe haven?

No, really, we did! Had a helluva success at first there, too, although we never did manage to catch the Big Guy himself, darn it. Heck, we’ve even still got troops there trying to protect the government we installed from resurgent Taliban attacks. This could still be a success story – no, really!

That is, if we don’t gut the already undermanned mission for more troops to throw into the Iraq meat grinder:

Radical Islamist Taliban forces, shattered and ejected from Afghanistan by the U.S. military five years ago, are poised for a major offensive against U.S. troops and undermanned NATO forces, prompting American commanders here to issue an urgent appeal for a new Marine Corps battalion to reinforce the American positions.

NATO’s 30,000 troops in Afghanistan are supposed to have taken responsibility for security operations across the country. But Taliban attacks have risen sharply, and senior U.S. officers here describe the NATO operation as weak, hobbled by a shortage of manpower and equipment and by restrictions put on the troops by their home capitals.

[snip]

As a last-ditch effort, President Bush is expected to announce this week the dispatch of thousands of additional troops to Iraq as a stopgap measure, an order that Pentagon officials say would strain the Army and Marine Corps as they struggle to man both wars.

Already, a U.S. Army infantry battalion fighting in a critical area of eastern Afghanistan is due to be withdrawn within weeks in order to deploy to Iraq.

According to Army Brig. Gen. Anthony J. Tata and other senior U.S. commanders here, that will happen just as the Taliban is expected to unleash a major campaign to cut the vital road between Kabul and Kandahar. The official said the Taliban intend to seize Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-largest city and the place where the group was organized in the 1990s.

[snip]

“The gains we have made over the past few years are mostly gone,” said a bearded Special Operations officer, fresh in from advising Afghan army units in battle with 600 to 700 well-equipped Taliban fighters.

Conway said U.S. commanders understand that the Afghan war is an “economy of force” operation, a military term for a mission that is given minimal resources because it is a secondary priority, in this case behind Iraq.

Nevertheless, Conway said, he favored dispatching a Marine battalion here, a decision that must be approved by the new defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, and by the president.

[snip]

Tata said the war in Afghanistan “is winnable, and we are winning.” But he said the shortage of aggressive troops creates a “strategic high risk, a strategic threat” to the United States if the Taliban are able to establish a sanctuary here and “an operational threat” to the elected Afghan government of Hamid Karzai.

“It took 10 years for the Taliban to evict the Soviets,” said an American intelligence officer. “They look on this as a long-term struggle, and they are dug in for the long haul.”

“This is year four” in the Taliban struggle against the United States, after they regrouped and began actively fighting, the officer said. “Given the Soviet model, they have six more years to go. They are patient with that.”

Victory! We won’t quit till we achieve victory in Iraq! says the president.

No matter what else we lose, it appears.

[wring]

goddam that fucker.

[Tuckerfan]

Majority of Americans oppose surge in Iraq.

A USA Today/Gallup opinion poll suggested that voters opposed the idea of a surge of additional troops by a margin of 61 per cent to 36 per cent and that Mr Bush’s personal approval ratings had slumped to a new low of 26 per cent.

And for those who think that the estimate of 600K Iraqi’s killed since the start of the war, it seems that Iraq is admitting that 23K died **last year!**

According to the latest death count, published by the Iraqi Health Ministry, the slaughter more than tripled between the first and second halves of 2006, from 5,640 to 17,310. In all, the ministry said, 22,950 people died in 2006.
But even that figure is smaller than data compiled by the United Nations, claiming that some 28,000 civilians were killed in the first 10 months alone of 2006. Both estimates pale beside the one in The Lancet medical journal in October 2006, that some 600,000 people had died violently since the US-led invasion of March 2003. Stopping the killing, and restoring security to the capital are vital goals of Mr Bush’s expected announcement tomorrow of a phased increase in US troop strength in Iraq of up to 20,000 men - at least five combat brigades - from the current level of 145,000, as well as an extra $1bn in economic aid.

If Bush hopes to change the population’s opinion on everything, he’s going to have to come up with one helluva speech tomorrow night. I’m betting he won’t.

[Princhester]

[QUOTE=Sal Ammoniac]
Here’s the real trouble, supposing I’m to put myself in GW’s loafers: I have to come up with a plan that’s a) different from the previous plan; b) different from the Democrats’ plan; c) different from the Iraq Study Group’s plan; and e) has some tiny shred of plausibility as to actually being able to work. And frankly, what are you left with, beyond a troop increase?

The only consolation is that when the surge fails, there’s nothing left to try, except retreat.
[/QUOTE]

When political leaders aren’t getting the nation to its destination, they always suggest that the appropriate response is to go faster. Admitting that they are on the wrong road hurts too much.

Going by Vietnam, the likelihood is that this and quite possibly several other administrations will suggest various means of going faster.

[QUOTE=Scylla]
A better title for this thread might be “Trolling for Conservatives”
[/QUOTE]

Trolling involves espousing views you don’t hold to get a reaction. Few around here are stupid enough not to have the views the OP does.

[QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF]
Anyway, on to your main point, minus the baiting: it is absolutely uncanny how this war resembles Vietnam.
[/QUOTE]

It’s interesting that you can now say this without getting much contradiction. Time was that the comparison would provoke froth mouthed rage (I’m not referring to you in that respect, AD). I felt then that those who baulked at the comparison were protesting rather too much.

[Scylla]

[QUOTE=Princhester]
Trolling involves espousing views you don’t hold to get a reaction. Few around here are stupid enough not to have the views the OP does.

[/QUOTE]

Seriously, where do you get that definition? Why is a troll precluded from actually holding the position he’s espousing? Do you have an authoritative cite that backs your exclusion?

[Tuckerfan]

[QUOTE=Princhester]
It’s interesting that you can now say this without getting much contradiction. Time was that the comparison would provoke froth mouthed rage (I’m not referring to you in that respect, AD).
[/QUOTE]
There were those who said that Afghanistan before Iraq, so it’s not like we didn’t have reason to doubt the claims of this being the next Vietnam. It certainly didn’t have to become Vietnam 2.0, it is, however, rapidly turning into one. Given that Sen. Kennedy and other Dems are starting to say this shit ain’t working (Hell, Teddy quoted LBJ’s calls for increased troops into 'Nam today.), there’s hope we can get our asses out of there before it completely drags us down.

[Johnny_L.A]

[QUOTE=Sal Ammoniac]
The only consolation is that when the surge fails, there’s nothing left to try, except retreat.
[/QUOTE]

It wouldn’t be a retreat. It would be a ‘rearward advance’.

[EddyTeddyFreddy]

[QUOTE=Johnny L.A.]
It wouldn’t be a retreat. It would be a ‘rearward advance’.
[/QUOTE]
Naw, too negative with that “rearward” word in there. More likely to be something like “strategic redeployment”.

[Princhester]

[QUOTE=Scylla]
Seriously, where do you get that definition? Why is a troll precluded from actually holding the position he’s espousing? Do you have an authoritative cite that backs your exclusion?
[/QUOTE]

No. I just learned something. I’d always thought that was a necessary element of trolling (ie that you were espousing an opinion solely to get a reaction ie without any belief in what you were espousing) but poking around almost all definitions I can find disagree. Sorry.

[Scylla]

[QUOTE=Princhester]
No. I just learned something. I’d always thought that was a necessary element of trolling (ie that you were espousing an opinion solely to get a reaction ie without any belief in what you were espousing) but poking around almost all definitions I can find disagree. Sorry.
[/QUOTE]

No problemo. Most graciously and admirably stated.

[Fugazi]

[QUOTE=EddyTeddyFreddy]
Naw, too negative with that “rearward” word in there. More likely to be something like “strategic redeployment”.
[/QUOTE]

My personal favorite is.. “we are attacking in another direction”.

[StarvingButStrong]

What utterly depresses me is the idea that the Democrats will use their new control of Congress to…roll over and give Bush what he wants.

Because if they don’t, and this surge fails as it certainly will, the Dems know that Bush and Co. will try to blame the entire fiasco on the Democrats. “We woulda won if only…”

So the Democrats will give Bush all the rope he needs. Unfortunately, that rope will be thousands of more people sent into danger, likely hundred killed or maimed.

“So, Mrs. Smith, what did your son die for?”
“Oh, so some politicians could play cynical cya games.”

[elucidator]

[QUOTE=StarvingButStrong]
…Because if they don’t, and this surge fails as it certainly will, the Dems know that Bush and Co. will try to blame the entire fiasco on the Democrats. “We woulda won if only…”…
[/QUOTE]

They will anyway. Not like the truth is going to slow them down any.

Personally, I think I have underestimated the blind stubborness of this man. I would have thought the recent elections would have sobered him up. Apparently no. And that is a real, real ugly fact.

He’s gonna make us fight it out every step of the way. It may well be that impeachment will have to become a viable threat, and that is some heavy lifting!

[Sevastopol]

This ‘Freeper’s site’, perhaps Scylla can share his experiences on its policies for membership and moderating posts? While that question is unfairly general, to be topical a reply could address what factors cause the moderators to take action there and the general understanding of a ‘troll’ at that site.

While Scylla has suggested there is a symmetry of sorts between that board and this, I imagine that having ‘free’ in its name, it would have a more permissive policy on speech and political opinion than here. Would that be a fair assumption?

[EddyTeddyFreddy]

[QUOTE=elucidator]

Personally, I think I have underestimated the blind stubborness of this man. I would have thought the recent elections would have sobered him up. Apparently no. And that is a real, real ugly fact.

He’s gonna make us fight it out every step of the way. It may well be that impeachment will have to become a viable threat, and that is some heavy lifting!
[/QUOTE]
As I pointed out upthread, he’s likely going to strip forces from Afghanistan just as the Taliban make their own surge. As Airman Doors has pointed out, he’s likely going to fuck over the National Guard and Reserve by sending them back into Iraq when their obligation to serve there should already be completed.

My WAG is that if he pushes through this escalation and in the next few months Afghanistan implodes while Iraq’s civil war stays its course or worsens, then you’ll see a historic dip of his poll numbers into the teens heading for single digits.

And the fucker still won’t admit he did anything wrong.

[Princhester]

Muffin doesn’t want a pickle but Bush is in a pickle, and I’m hoping that’s all this is about. I’m hoping that “the surge” is one or other or both of

1/ a mental problem namely he’s just too stubborn to change course and can’t face a backdown, or

2/ a political problem namely he’s concerned that backing down amounts to an admission that the whole thing was a ballsup which will damage the 'Pubbies as a whole in the medium term ie the next elections. He (or his advisors, anyway) may be right in thinking that while 'Pubby popularity is in the toilet at the moment, wrong moves on their part could make their popularity go even further into the toilet (or get hopelessly stuck in toilet).

Why do I hope that’s what this is all about? Because the other alternative is that the refusal to withdraw and the proposal to commit more troops is to ensure that some wider neocon strategy for the region does not falter or fail.

[tagos]

[QUOTE=EddyTeddyFreddy]
Hey, anybody remember Afghanistan? You know, that obscure backwater where Usama bin Laden had his al Qaeda training camps? Where the U.S. led a united effort of many nations to root out the terrorists from their safe haven?

No, really, we did! Had a helluva success at first there, too, although we never did manage to catch the Big Guy himself, darn it. Heck, we’ve even still got troops there trying to protect the government we installed from resurgent Taliban attacks. This could still be a success story – no, really!

[/QUOTE]

There was as a great documentary on Channel 4 the other day. A reporter and camera man went with the Afghan National Army and the British Army on a joint operation to clear a town near the southern border, of Taliban. Very strategic place as it is on the supply route from Pakistan. Long story short. the ANA took heavy casualties, (including the commander) the British some. A record number of airstrikes (56) were called in and after three days of bloody heroic fighting the AFN/British won. They cleared the town and pushed the Taliban back out of mortar range and secured choke points on the supply route. Mission Accomplished.

Then what happened? Then what almost reduced the two main british commanders to tears after all that they had been through? There were not enough troops (or the Kabul govt was ‘unwilling’ to find them for whatever reason) to deploy a garrison to hold the town and it was effectively handed back to the Taliban. After watching what those soldiers went through to see them betrayed like that, to see them realise they had wasted their time and blood for nothing was heartbreaking to watch.

Bush and Blair are pissing Agfhanistan away. If there is a spare 20k troops they should be where they could do some bloody good.