Iraq: Should the troops be withdrawn or drastically increased?

Great Debates
101

Perhaps I might have, perhaps not. I have some skepticism about your ability to predict what I am going to say before I say it. Please submit a Certificate of Telepathy.

The President believes in miracles, the President sees a lump of horseshit hit the streets, and peers upward for the ponies parachuting in. He believes that just one more Friedman Unit, and it will all turn around and he will be hailed and applauded as prescient and wise. Thus, he believes that having this debate squarely in the middle of the campaign is great news, as he basks in the adoration of a grateful nation. Batshit pizza.

Thank you for your sage advice. Should I require more, you will be advised.

My problem with his tactics is simplistic: he proposes to leave small enclaves of soldiers in vulnerable positions, positions that the enemy can mass upon, attack, and vanish into the population. I don’t think that’s wise. You are free to think otherwise.

You claim the strategy is working because that isn’t happening. I suggest that the attacks aren’t happening for different reasons altogether, having nothing whatever to do with Gen Petreaus’ strategic brilliance, i.e., they simply don’t want to.

No, Sam, that is precisely why “a few more months” is out of line. The poor judgement and incompetence of Bushco is on stark display. Now you insist that we trust that judgement yet again, because he has selected a new! improved! tactical plan. If the damn fool had rejected The Plan out of hand, I would have more confidence in it.

No. Not another Friedman Unit, to be followed by another and another.

Then why didn’t they say so? Would that have been so hard, if they are in stunned awe at the brilliance of The Plan? Why is a “tacit” sign off superior to a publicly stated endorsement?

Indeed, politics, as registered in the most recent elections and the overwhelming opinion of the public at large.

You lost me. If he doesn’t want them, doesn’t need them, why are they being sent? Why unfit and wounded soldiers, if the situation isn’t desperate? Indeed, why doesn’t he firmly reject such a notion?

So, then, these “glimmers” are little more than an interpretive stance, then? Your fine perception can detect nuances that I cannot, because I am blindly partisan and you are cooly objective and unbiased? You object to “solid”, you object to intangible, whaddaya want?

About two-three years ago.

As noted previously, if your avuncular criticism should be desired, you will be the first to know.

“But it may also be that the Shiites are not exactly unified in their desire to crush the Sunnis and control the country…”

I see. So this is a recent development? Liberal media poisoning their minds?

Then you haven’t been paying attention. I’ve said very much the same thing maybe a dozen times. Has nothing to do with “my” sources, truth is the first casualty of war. I would not, however, try to pass off an opinion writer as a reporter. I scruple.

Aw, c’mon, Sam, who are you kidding? You’re just as much a slut as the next girl on the street, your fresh Communion dress notwithstanding.

Beneath you, or ought to be. Work on that, won’t you?

And yes, indeed, I admire and respect Mr Hersh, he has a long history of speaking truth to power. How he became relevent to the conversation, as if my admiration for him was a telling point, is a mystery known only to you.

102

Here’s another report from the battle for hearts and minds:

Does Petraeus have the authority to fix that? Probably not - Bush isn’t going to just let Petraeus open the prison doors, and he’s not going to give Petraeus the resources to try prisoners more quickly, because the resources aren’t there.

That’s just one point where Petraeus is working against his Fuckup-in-Chief.

103

Rather a rash statement, don’t you think? Well, let’s see:

Nope, even on such a simple matter as that, so easily Googled, you still don’t bother with mere fact:

And you *still * need to learn the difference between strategy and tactics.

104

From the other thread:

:rolleyes:

Yet you still completely and totally accept whatever version of reality he tries to sell you, don’t you?

“Keep it from exploding” compared to what it is right now? What do you call the current situation? What would an explosion look like instead? Get a fucking grip, pal.

He’s already said it can’t be won militarily, as you (may) know. Yet all you point to as signs of hope is *military * tactics and changed *military * leadership. How much longer do we have to wait for you to make the connection?

105

Thanksgiving?

106

Come to think of it, Sam, I don’t perzackly recall any particular change in the Iraq situation being offered as a source of hope, however faint, however fleeting. Unless that stuff about Sadr was all of them. Perhaps you could enumerate and specify? Not all of them, to be sure, you’ve got scads of them, no doubt, at your fingertips. Half a dozen or so of your best, there’s a good fellow.

107

Come now, luci there’s new glimmers every day:

I hear Boylan has been charged with finding a whole herd of ponies in Iraq, so the cavalry can ride in to save the day.

108

More from Kagan on his “surge” idea

Let’s assume this particular neocon fantasy is reality based, just for yucks. What we’ve got, what we have left to send, is 20,000, and 6 months, when Petraeus’s promise of positive results comes due.

Not to mention that the “Iraqi” forces, with our training and our equipment, are largely the *performers * of the sectarian violence.

Which we’re going to start seeing when?

But wait:

That’s from the guy whose idea this is!

109

Perhaps if you had tried actually studying the issue instead of ‘easily Googling’ for attack ammo you could throw at me, you’d find that Kagan wrote the strategy for the White House under the advisement of Generals Jack Keane and David Barno. It was not his ‘brainchild’. In fact, the team of authors that wrote it included several other officers and about 10 other people. But the main ‘brain trust’ of the plan were Kagan and Generals Keane and Barno.

Your partisan cite failed to mention the Generals involved, huh? Instead, it played up the ‘neocon’ angle, and goes on to say that Kagan had never been in Iraq, and that his plan was opposed by Generals who were. This is misleading at best, and an outright lie at worst. Ignoring the fact that two Generals helped author it in the context of trying to show that it’s a neo-con fantasy even opposed by military people is highly distorting.

Oh, and who are Generals Keane and Barno? Keane is a close friend of Petraeus’s, served under him in Iraq, and was former Vice Chief of staff of the Army. Barno was the coalition commander in Afghanistan. Both are students of Petraeus, and are following the official field guide for counterinsurgency of the U.S. Armed Forces, a document written by Petraeus (and never implemented until now, thanks to Rumsfeld).

So let’s rephrase that incredibly misleading paragraph: The report was written by Robert Kagan, under the advice of two Generals who are closely allied with Petraeus, have served on the ground in both current wars (and in fact, along with Patraeus are just about the only ones with a successful track record). The ‘surge’ was proposed in order to implement the counterinsurgency plan that David Patraeus wrote, and as your own article admits, had the support from the beginning of Patraeus.

So yes, it’s his plan. His friends put it forward, but it’s based on his strategy and had his full support from the beginning. Casting reservations about the plan are two Generals who have no such record of success, and who were actually allies of Rumsfeld and supporters of his ‘smaller, faster, mobile’ approach to Iraq.

But man, it sure gets that neocon-hating blood flowing to neglect all those little details, doesn’t it?

I understand them fine, thank you. If I get a little sloppy in how I use the terms, it’s because I’m writing quickly and the surge plan is a strategy which calls for the implementation of new tactics. You’re just being pedantic.

110

Don’t believe your lying eyes, Sam:

Exhibit 2,319-A.

Iraqis Protest U.S. Presence (video link)

111

No you don’t, and the implications go far beyond mere pedantery. The military strategy in Iraq is now as it has always been; kill, capture or convert every insurgent or militiaman who takes up arms against Americans or other Iraqis. The surge is just a variation in tactics to that end. To change that strategy, we would have to stop trying to suppress all sectarian violence, and divert those resources into other, more productive strategies. Leaving comes to mind.

112

That Bitch resized my browser window! :mad:

113

And since Sam doesn’t seem o care much, if at all where his cites come from, as long as they agree with his bullheaded views, I’ll make use of said disdain and post part of one of the latests entries from my favorite, Baghdad blogger, Riverbend:

Bulls-eye! Hole in one even. Turn around is surely fair play, right Sam?

Nota bene: It is her and not I who’s calling the warmongers, "morons."Although I must admit she gets no quarrel from me about using said (precise) wording.

114

Couple of points stand out. To whatever extent Mr. Kagan deserves ah, credit, for The Plan, he appears to be having second thoughts. Seems rather more significant to the matter at hand.

And there’s nothing especially wrong with Rummy’s “lean, mean” force to conquer Saddam. It isn’t about the force needed to shred a paper tiger, hell, my dog could do that, and he’s drunk half the time! Its about the inadequacy of such a force to contain the situation after Mission Accomplished.

And, frankly, speaking strictly as an amatuer, this whole enclave thing sounds rather suspect. Is the idea to offer Custer Clusters of American/Iraqi troops, to be surrounded in potentially hostile territory? I suppose that has some “hearts and minds” potential.

But what happens if they get in trouble? Is the plan, God forbid, to respond with air power, which so regretably non-specific. Seems to be a plan that will work fine so long as there is no serious resistance. But if there is, then a civilian residential area becomes a free-fire zone and a lot of folks get dead. Ours, the enemy, and* lots* of those indigenous shrapnel absorption units.

By the way, Sam, have you had time to get that list together? Not all of them, mind, just the top half dozen or so, the one’s that inspire the most hope.

115

The plan is more Fort Apache-ish than Custeresque.

116

So Rin-Tin-Tin is going to save them if they get jammed up?

117

If you’d like to read a summary of the actual plan, rather than an editorial about it by someone who agrees with you, the PDF summary can be found here.

elucidator: Tell you what: You knock off the childish condescending bullshit, and I’ll give you more answers.

118

But this is not the way of my people!

How about if somebody else asks you? Shirley someone else is curious as to what these hopeful signs might be? You do have them, right, Sam? Right at your fingertips, yes?

119

He must, or he wouldn’t have called them “givens”, right?

Sam, the “editorial”, the “partisan cite” I quoted was by Kagan. By the inventor of the surge idea. Perhaps that little detail didn’t make it through your fact filter? If you think even **he ** agrees with us out here in the reality-based community now, what does that say for where you’ve placed your faith?

120

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