The big news out today is that the Army has plans to keep the current troop levels in Iraq until the year 2010. Some anti-war critics have siezed upon this to further bolster the “Iraq as quagmire” argument, saying that those plans prove that we will have in indefinite military presence in Iraq, that any good news is just a lie and a fraud.
Those people just don’t have the slightest grasp of how the military works.
The military has a huge budget, and a LOT of people with a LOT of time. Their primary function is the active defense of this nation and protecting our national interests. Their standard method for doing so is summed up in the phrase “killing people and breaking things.”
But there just isn’t enough call for killing and breaking to keep them out of mischief. So they do other things. Some times they practice killing and breaking, but mainly they sit around and make plans.
There are probably plans for invading or attacking every country on earth somewhere in the Pentagon. The military has learned, through hard experience, that things are always changing in this world, and today’s ally can be tomorrow’s enemy — and vice versa. For example, in 1938, hardly anyone could have predicted that within 6 years we would need a plan for a massive, opposed invasion of France?
The most entertaining game has to be “what if?” For example, what if Palestinian terrorists attack and sieze the alleged Israeli nuclear weapons depot at Dimona? Why, we better be ready to attack and destroy that facility. Suppose Belgium succumbs to militant Islamist immigrants and becomes an exporter of terrorism, like Afghanistan under the Taliban? We’d better be ready to take them out.
The Pentagon has, I’m quite sure, killed acres of trees for plans to cover any imaginable event.
So the Army has plans to stay in Iraq for another four years. I’d be gravely disappointed if they didn’t.
Diane:
One of the principal traits wingnuts have is that you pretend to know what’s in the other sides mind. Nowhere, ever, have I laid responsibility for the carnage in Iraq on American soldiers.
Once again – you miss the point. All those deaths from a war of choice. I don’t blame “America.” I blame Bush and company for starting a war of choice and then botching it up about 2 weeks later.
Hello Lee,
I’m not suggesting you’re lying, Paul, but the article doesn’t mention that – where did you find that the group admits to a 400,000 – 800,000 error. That sounds – unbelievable
Believe it.
From the number one Democrat 527 itself, the New York Times …
Sorry to disppoint you Lee, Hugh, jp2, et al. But this is a completely worthless study. This is no better than getting their numbers from throwing darts at a dartboard.
Sucks that those pesky Iraqis are simply refusing to die in enough numbers to suit your purposes, doesn’t it? However would y’all be able to continue your moral posturing?
Nowhere, ever, have I laid responsibility for the carnage in Iraq on American soldiers.
Unless they happen to be black, eh, Hugh?
Once again – you miss the point. All those deaths from a war of choice. I don’t blame “America.” I blame Bush and company for starting a war of choice and then botching it up about 2 weeks later.
Maybe I should ask you what jp2 asked Jay and then shrieked foul when Steve L. popped up and backed Jay to the hilt: “What qualifies you as a military expert [Hugh]? Have you served? Studied military affairs at school?”
Can you, without taking advantage of the benefit of hindsight, point out where and where the Administration made plainly obvious errors in the aftermath of the war? Use cites of contemporary expert criticism (criticisms of decisions levelled within a week or two of the decision being made) so we can avoid opportunistic partisans taking advantage of hindsight to pretend they have foresight.
I’m not saying mistakes were not made. In such a venture, mistakes, hundreds of them, would be made whoever it is in the White House. But what I can’t stand is people without even the very basic knowledge base to make judgments telling me that this was “botched” … especially if they did not have the guts to say it while they could have effected a change.
Martin:
What in the hell kind of bizarre comment was that about black soldiers? No matter, I consider the source.
Am I a military expert? Of course not. No more than 99.99% of you wingnuts who are full of your own opinions. What a silly point you make.
I have served, 6 years as a matter of fact. That doesn’t qualify me as an expert. But I can read. Yes, I know that shocks loons like you.
You silly loons love to challenge us sane folks with demands to provide the “facts.” Do your own work. Use your google. Read and watch and listen to something other than ‘Puff” Limbaugh, Sean, “The Shill”, Hannity and that paragon of righteousness O’Reilly. I don’t even mention that escaped lunatic Coulter – oh, I guess I just did.
I am righteous in one regard. I was against the folly from the start. I wish I could say the same about most of the leading dems. It should be to their ever lasting shame.
Hugh, you are right. I can’t read people’s minds but I can read their posts. And whether you meant for it to be or not, Hugh (a writer of many posts), you seem to imply when you pity the numbers of civilian deaths (in a French newspaper today, says the estimates are closer to 30,000-50,000, you sound like you blame America.
However, now I GET IT! From your post to me directly, it IS all about Bush for you. That surprised me, I had been giving you way more credit than that in the past. Somehow you seem to separate Bush and the 60,000,000 people who re-elected him, and the 1,200,000 soldiers who seve in the US military as being non-America.
Once again, I wish you would show more intolerance for all of the car bombers, etc. verbally & in writing.
Diane:
See, there you go again. Instead of assuming what I think why don’t you just ask me. That’s such a trite cop out some of the right use, i.e. “Blame America.” It’s a piece of bullshit dreamed up as a talking point by clever politicians. It means nothing.
Bush is the commander in chief. You imply I think 60,0000,000 people and the army are responsible. That’s just plain silly and I think you know that. The people didn’t make military and geo-political decisions. The army didn’t make the decision. The commander in chief made the decisions. He is, after all, the self-proclaimed “decider” of what is best for us. Well he decided and he made a really bad decision. I hold him accountable for that. Pretty simple from my perspective.
If his name was Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Bush, MacCain or any other name I would have the same belief before the war and after it started if it was managed the same way it has been.
Thanks for the NYT link, Martin (boy I would have never thought I’d type something like that-lol). I was completely confident that the figures that had been reported on FOX News were correct, but I lacked the ambition and statistical knowledge to “prove” it last night.
On a different note, I’d like to address the strawman that Hugh tossed into several posts about Iraq being a “war of choice”. The reality is that EVERY war is a war of choice. To illustrate my point, I’ll use Hugh’s example of WWII which he falsely stated was not a war of choice.
In the 30’s & early 40’s we (the allied forces) had 3 options. First, we could have done nothing and let the Axis Powers take over the world. Second we could have fought them sooner when they were much less powerful and could have eliminated the threat with very few casualties and low monetary costs, or third we could have done what we did, wait until they were so powerful and the threat was so great that it took enormous resources and millions of casualties to ultimately defeat them.
I doubt there was much support for option 1, which is why Hugh can falsely claim today that it was not a war of choice, but that was an option, a choice. There was support for option 2, but the lefties of the day (most notably Neville Chamberlain and Charles Lindbergh) were staunchly against that and believe we could talk and appease our way out of it (just like the lefties of today). On top of that there was even less public support for going to war against the Axis forces at that time then there is public support today for going to war against the terrorists in Iraq (yes I know they weren’t all in Iraq at first, but they are there now). So we went with option (choice) 3 at cost of millions of lives and an astronomical amount of money.
Today the enemy is Islamofascism, but the options are the same. First we could do nothing and let the Islamofascists conquer the world. Second we could fight them when they’re relatively weak and still non-nuclear (which is what we are doing). Or we could wait until they are extremely powerful and nuclear and then defeat them at the cost of billions of lives and an astronomical economic cost.
Hugh, Lee, Muirego, et. al. apparently think option (choice 2) is unacceptable. So would you all please tell us which of the only other two options you would prefer.
And yes, I know as member of the fabricated reality based community, they’re going to come up with another option that couldn’t possibly exist in the real world that the rest of us have to live in, so this post isn’t really for them. (I loved South Park last night for correctly pointing out that about ¼ of Americans are retarded- very apropos to this discussion). But I know a lot of people who aren’t BDS suffering secular socialists do read these blogs so I wrote this for them.
What in the hell kind of bizarre comment was that about black soldiers?
You’re the guy who sees Willie Horton and somehow, the fact that he is a torturer, murderer and rapist completely escapes your notice. All you see is the color of his skin.
Sad, really.
Martin
You really are a sick fu**. IYou need prayers man.
WW2 was absolutely a war of choice. And there were LOTS of people who opposed it. How can we possibly know if the cost was really worth it? Would have it really been worse to just… not?
It amazes me that anti-war people *now* use WW2 as and example of a “just” war. It was horrific.
Probably, when all is said and done, it WAS the right thing to do and WAS worth the tremenous cost in lives. Maybe. We can’t know what the result would have been.
And is it really any different now? This war?
Of course those who opposed it from the start will see only disaster because they never saw a threat. War is horrible. War for no reason is a disaster by definition. It can’t be anything else.
I believe that there is a real threat, a serious threat, and that the military is the appropriate tool (though not exclusive) to deal with it. The world we live in today makes tolerating a pocket of militant Islamists near impossible. The reality that feeds that movement must be disrupted. Even if we didn’t care at all about people “over there” the modern world doesn’t allow us to ignore them because in the modern world they are our next door neighbors. And we can’t just go on and do *our* own thing, because we’re their next door neighbor, too.
Hmmm…the Japanese bomb Pearl harbor. George Bush cons us into a phony war. Both wars of choice? Laughable.
For you wingnuts to equate one with the other is sad.
Hugh, try and wrap your brain around this one:
What was the second major offensive action the United States took after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor?
If you guessed “invade Africa,” in November of 1942, you get a gold star.
The first major US offensive was, of course, the invasion of Guadalcanal in September 1942 — an island almost 3500 miles south-southeast of Japan.
So, Lee, how does the invasion of Africa tie into the attack on Pearl Harbor?
The answer is: directly, no. But as a crucial element of the overall struggle, very significant.
Good point, Hugh. Thanks for reminding me of it.
J.
Hugh bleated:
One of the principal traits wingnuts have is that you pretend to know what’s in the other sides mind.
Oh, the irony.
Good lord jay. What obtuse point are you trying to make?
Try wrapping you brain around this:
Were it not for Pearl Harbor who knows what would have happened. Are you really trying to argue we would have landed in North Africa absent Pearl Harbor?
Now I understand you believe that the war in Iraq is related to the overall struggle against terrorism. You forget, of course that it was not “sold’ that way by Bush. First it was weapons of mass destruction. Of course when that folly was exposed it became what a brutal dictator he was. To equate Iraq to anything in WWII is an absurdity.