Much of the public discourse over the benefits/dangers of a "timetable" for withdrawal from Iraq try to paint a picture in black and white that is more a matter of perspective: Is a timetable for withdrawal a claim of victory or a concession of defeat? (I.e., is the glass half empty or half full?)
The establishment of a timetable for withdrawal is really nothing but a change of attitude. Under the Bush administration, the attitude has been that we intend to stay in Iraq until we need to leave. A timetable for withdrawal expresses the attitude that we intend to leave unless we need to stay.
And withdrawal is an attitude that American citizens and soldiers have grown to like.
Showing posts with label Iraq. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iraq. Show all posts
Monday, July 28, 2008
Monday, April 07, 2008
Good News from Basra
If good news can come from people shooting and killing each other, then there was good news from Basra last week.
Briefly, for those who weren't paying attention: The official government of Iraq, lead by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a Shiite, attempted to take control of Basra, the second-largest city in Iraq, which has actually been controlled by Shiite militias, and not the government, for quite some time. After several days of fighting (and more than several desertions from the Iraqi forces), a cease-fire was negotiated between al-Maliki and Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, who told his followers to stop fighting, and they stopped fighting. (Mostly. There is still some fighting going on in Sadr City, outside Baghdad.)
This is good news for several reasons:
1. It means that we finally have a clearly defined civil war, with organized forces lead by identifiable leaders. In the past, attempts to describe the war in Iraq as a "civil war" were rejected by many who claimed that the violence was too disorganized and too chaotic to be a civil war. At least in Basra, the violence is now organized enough to be recognizable as a civil war.
2. It demonstrates once again (if additional demonstrations were needed) that "the surge" accomplished very little beyond policing Baghdad, and that there is no military solution to the problems in Iraq, which are ultimately political.
3. It demonstrates that negotiated political solutions are possible. It has been said that politics is the art of the possible. If the Maliki government can now see that there is no possible military solution to Basra, but a political solution is possible, it may have no choice but to take the political solution.
Faced with these truths, there is only one possible conclusion: It's time for us to leave. Our continuing military presence in Iraq can do nothing to change the long-term prospects for a stable Iraq, and perpetuates the illusion of an Iraqi government that is not really governing and might never be able to govern in the way we expected.
Some politicians (such as Sen. Joseph Biden) and some commentators have suggested that Iraq might have to be broken up into semi-autonomous regions under a rather weak central government that will exist mainly to administer oil revenues and provide national security. In fact, that is what is already happening, with Kurds controlling northern Iraq, Sunni chiefs controlling western Iraq, and Shiite militias (as we have now seen) controlling southern Iraq. Only Baghdad, in the middle, remains problematical.
This is obviously not the Iraq that the Bush administration wants, but right now what the administration wants is last on my list of priorities.
Left to themselves, the Iraqis might be able to figure out how to govern themselves and make a federal government work. The continuing presence of American forces can only slow the process down, and possibly distort it, by obscuring the true powers in Iraq.
So it's time to leave.
Briefly, for those who weren't paying attention: The official government of Iraq, lead by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a Shiite, attempted to take control of Basra, the second-largest city in Iraq, which has actually been controlled by Shiite militias, and not the government, for quite some time. After several days of fighting (and more than several desertions from the Iraqi forces), a cease-fire was negotiated between al-Maliki and Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, who told his followers to stop fighting, and they stopped fighting. (Mostly. There is still some fighting going on in Sadr City, outside Baghdad.)
This is good news for several reasons:
1. It means that we finally have a clearly defined civil war, with organized forces lead by identifiable leaders. In the past, attempts to describe the war in Iraq as a "civil war" were rejected by many who claimed that the violence was too disorganized and too chaotic to be a civil war. At least in Basra, the violence is now organized enough to be recognizable as a civil war.
2. It demonstrates once again (if additional demonstrations were needed) that "the surge" accomplished very little beyond policing Baghdad, and that there is no military solution to the problems in Iraq, which are ultimately political.
3. It demonstrates that negotiated political solutions are possible. It has been said that politics is the art of the possible. If the Maliki government can now see that there is no possible military solution to Basra, but a political solution is possible, it may have no choice but to take the political solution.
Faced with these truths, there is only one possible conclusion: It's time for us to leave. Our continuing military presence in Iraq can do nothing to change the long-term prospects for a stable Iraq, and perpetuates the illusion of an Iraqi government that is not really governing and might never be able to govern in the way we expected.
Some politicians (such as Sen. Joseph Biden) and some commentators have suggested that Iraq might have to be broken up into semi-autonomous regions under a rather weak central government that will exist mainly to administer oil revenues and provide national security. In fact, that is what is already happening, with Kurds controlling northern Iraq, Sunni chiefs controlling western Iraq, and Shiite militias (as we have now seen) controlling southern Iraq. Only Baghdad, in the middle, remains problematical.
This is obviously not the Iraq that the Bush administration wants, but right now what the administration wants is last on my list of priorities.
Left to themselves, the Iraqis might be able to figure out how to govern themselves and make a federal government work. The continuing presence of American forces can only slow the process down, and possibly distort it, by obscuring the true powers in Iraq.
So it's time to leave.
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Panaceas
There are an increasing number of "solutions" that Republicans and conservatives seem to want to apply regardless of the problem.
Tax cuts are one. If the economy is going well, tax cuts are needed to sustain economic growth. If the economy falters, tax cuts are needed to stimulate the economy. If the federal deficit gets too big, then tax cuts are needed to stimulate the economy in order to produce higher tax revenues. Tax cuts are the remedy to every economic problem.
Keeping our troops in Iraq is also the conclusion no matter what happens. If things are going badly, then we need to maintain troop levels in order to avoid losing. If things improve, we still need to maintain troop levels because we're winning. No matter what happens in Iraq, the solution is military.
Imprisonment is also a "solution" that seems to have gotten out of control. We now have 1% of our population in prison, which is the highest incarceration rate in our history and the highest incarceration rate in the world. Imprisonment is applied not just to violent crimes but to social crimes such as drug addiction, gambling, and prostitution. And if people who are released from prison commit another crime, make the prison sentences longer. It doesn't make any difference what the crime was, or whether crime rates are going up even as prison terms are getting longer, the solution is still to make the prison sentences longer still.
Tax cuts are one. If the economy is going well, tax cuts are needed to sustain economic growth. If the economy falters, tax cuts are needed to stimulate the economy. If the federal deficit gets too big, then tax cuts are needed to stimulate the economy in order to produce higher tax revenues. Tax cuts are the remedy to every economic problem.
Keeping our troops in Iraq is also the conclusion no matter what happens. If things are going badly, then we need to maintain troop levels in order to avoid losing. If things improve, we still need to maintain troop levels because we're winning. No matter what happens in Iraq, the solution is military.
Imprisonment is also a "solution" that seems to have gotten out of control. We now have 1% of our population in prison, which is the highest incarceration rate in our history and the highest incarceration rate in the world. Imprisonment is applied not just to violent crimes but to social crimes such as drug addiction, gambling, and prostitution. And if people who are released from prison commit another crime, make the prison sentences longer. It doesn't make any difference what the crime was, or whether crime rates are going up even as prison terms are getting longer, the solution is still to make the prison sentences longer still.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Squandered
The real Bush legacy (not the one he imagines) can be summed up in one word: Squandered.
At the beginning of Bush's first term, the United States had a balanced budget, moderate debt, healthy and well-equipped armed forces, and a dominant leadership position in the world community. And, after the 9/11 attacks, there was unity within the United States and sympathy from abroad.
What did Bush do with all those assets? He squandered them.
Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy has driven up our national debt to record levels.
The invasion of Iraq and the resulting pressure on our armed forces (while also trying to fight a ground war in Afghanistan) has stretched our military to the breaking point and has depleted so much equipment and morale that it would take years to recover even if the war ended tomorrow.
Our continuing use of violence and threats of violence as a solution to all problems, both on an individual level (Guantanamo Bay, secret prisons, "extraordinary rendition," and the use of what the world considers torture) and a national level (Bush now talks openly of using military power against Iran) has completely negated whatever international goodwill that existed after 9/11, and has undermined our role as a moral and diplomatic world leader.
And, the unity that arose after 9/11 was effectively killed by the realization that we'd been manipulated at best (lied to at worst) in Bush's rush to invade Iraq.
Now we're facing real threats, both in a looming recession and continuing fall in the value of the dollar, and in the rise of the power of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and we've got nothing to fall back on. Bush squandered the economic and military resources we should have kept for emergencies.
At the beginning of Bush's first term, the United States had a balanced budget, moderate debt, healthy and well-equipped armed forces, and a dominant leadership position in the world community. And, after the 9/11 attacks, there was unity within the United States and sympathy from abroad.
What did Bush do with all those assets? He squandered them.
Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy has driven up our national debt to record levels.
The invasion of Iraq and the resulting pressure on our armed forces (while also trying to fight a ground war in Afghanistan) has stretched our military to the breaking point and has depleted so much equipment and morale that it would take years to recover even if the war ended tomorrow.
Our continuing use of violence and threats of violence as a solution to all problems, both on an individual level (Guantanamo Bay, secret prisons, "extraordinary rendition," and the use of what the world considers torture) and a national level (Bush now talks openly of using military power against Iran) has completely negated whatever international goodwill that existed after 9/11, and has undermined our role as a moral and diplomatic world leader.
And, the unity that arose after 9/11 was effectively killed by the realization that we'd been manipulated at best (lied to at worst) in Bush's rush to invade Iraq.
Now we're facing real threats, both in a looming recession and continuing fall in the value of the dollar, and in the rise of the power of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and we've got nothing to fall back on. Bush squandered the economic and military resources we should have kept for emergencies.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Fort Massacre: Iraq
The movie Fort Massacre (1958), starring Joel McCrea, is usually described as a run-of-the-mill western, but there is a psychological subplot that impressed me when I saw the movie many years ago, and that haunts me still.
Briefly, the movie is about a small group of calvary troops who are caught in hostile Indian territory and are trying to get back to safety. But everything they do, and every move they make, seems to make the situation worse, and instead of avoiding the hostiles and moving closer to safety, they keep having to fight and move further from safety.
The soldiers believe that the problem is with the commanding officer, Sargent Vinson (Joel McCrea), whose wife and child were killed by Indians and who (they believe) is crazy to kill Indians and is deliberately leading them into repeated conflicts with the Indians. In a very memorable scene, Vinson (McCrea) explains that everything he has done was for the right reasons, that he has had rational reasons for everything he did, and that it was just bad luck that things did not go as he planned. And if you have ever seen how charming and sincere Joel McCrea could be, then you'll understand that, watching that scene, I believed him.
The climax to the movie comes when you suddenly realize that Vinson really is crazy and all he ever wanted to do was kill Indians even if it meant the lives of both him and his men.
Now, when I say "crazy," I'm not saying that Vinson was irrational, because he at least appeared to be very rational. What I'm saying is that Vinson did not know his own mind and had not admitted his own feelings to himself and so, when it came to judgment calls that required subjective assessments of risks, Vinson allowed himself to be led into bad choices by feelings and attitudes that he himself might not have been aware of. In other words, Vinson made what might be called a series of "Freudian" mistakes, in which his subconscious was able to affect his conscious decisions, leading to results that his subconscious wanted but his conscious mind rejected.
I don't really consider myself a Freudian, but I have come to believe that there really are very few accidents in life. Most of what happens to us is not the result of chance or luck, but is what at least a part of our mind wants to happen.
The clearest example of this would be an addiction such as alcohol or gambling. As the addiction begins to impose physical, emotional, and financial pain, causing illness, loss of family and friends, and loss of employment, many people think that the addict continues in the addiction despite the pain. A better explanation is that the addict continues because of the pain. Living with the pain of the addiction is in some way more comfortable to the addict than living without the pain, and so the addiction continues until (sometimes) the addict hits "rock bottom" and decides that maybe life without the addiction is not so bad after all.
The misbehavior or risky behavior of many children (and adults) can also be understood more clearly if you understand that the risk-taker might not view the consequences of failure as such a bad thing. A child who shoots a spitball at a teacher is not necessarily discouraged by the possibility of punishment, and in fact might be encouraged to misbehave, because the punishment itself (or the attention the punishment brings) may be part of what the child desires. Similarly, other kinds of unnaturally risky behavior can be the result of a mindset that feels some possible emotional benefit in what what the rest of us would call failure.
Okay, here's today's scary thought. What if everything that has gone wrong in Iraq was not really the result of bad intelligence, poor planning, or unexpected events. What if what we are seeing in Iraq is what George W. Bush really wants, subconsciously but not consciously.
Why would President Bush want such a thing, even subconsciously? We can't answer that question without first knowing why he was an alcoholic (which is pretty much conceded even by his supporters) or why he used cocaine (which is pretty much denied by his supporters, most of whom are in denial about a lot of things). But if you assume that many of Bush's decisions may be affected by some self-destructive desire to fail, then many events during his administration begin to make more sense. The failure to deal with Hurricane Katrina, the lack of attention to (and subsequent reversal of) what had been a successful invasion of Afghanistan, and even Bush's inattention to the famous August 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing (titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside U.S."), which lead to the 9/11 attacks themselves, are all part of a pattern.
It is also telling that, as Bush's post-invasion strategy for Iraq has clearly failed, his response has been to take more risks, ignoring the advice of the Iraq Study Group, committing more troops to Iraq, and pushing for a confrontation with Iran. Bush is like an addicted gambler on a losing streak who is nonetheless sure that his luck will change at any moment and then everything will be okay. And, just as an addicted gambler will not stop until the house refuses to extend him any additional credit, Bush will not stop until the House (and Senate) refuse to fund his military gambles.
At the end of Fort Massacre, Sgt. Vinson dies but most of his troops live. That is not the way Fort Massacre: Iraq will end. Tens of thousands of our troops (and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis) will have been killed or maimed, but the commanding officer will walk away unscathed, physically and (so far) politically.
Briefly, the movie is about a small group of calvary troops who are caught in hostile Indian territory and are trying to get back to safety. But everything they do, and every move they make, seems to make the situation worse, and instead of avoiding the hostiles and moving closer to safety, they keep having to fight and move further from safety.
The soldiers believe that the problem is with the commanding officer, Sargent Vinson (Joel McCrea), whose wife and child were killed by Indians and who (they believe) is crazy to kill Indians and is deliberately leading them into repeated conflicts with the Indians. In a very memorable scene, Vinson (McCrea) explains that everything he has done was for the right reasons, that he has had rational reasons for everything he did, and that it was just bad luck that things did not go as he planned. And if you have ever seen how charming and sincere Joel McCrea could be, then you'll understand that, watching that scene, I believed him.
The climax to the movie comes when you suddenly realize that Vinson really is crazy and all he ever wanted to do was kill Indians even if it meant the lives of both him and his men.
Now, when I say "crazy," I'm not saying that Vinson was irrational, because he at least appeared to be very rational. What I'm saying is that Vinson did not know his own mind and had not admitted his own feelings to himself and so, when it came to judgment calls that required subjective assessments of risks, Vinson allowed himself to be led into bad choices by feelings and attitudes that he himself might not have been aware of. In other words, Vinson made what might be called a series of "Freudian" mistakes, in which his subconscious was able to affect his conscious decisions, leading to results that his subconscious wanted but his conscious mind rejected.
I don't really consider myself a Freudian, but I have come to believe that there really are very few accidents in life. Most of what happens to us is not the result of chance or luck, but is what at least a part of our mind wants to happen.
The clearest example of this would be an addiction such as alcohol or gambling. As the addiction begins to impose physical, emotional, and financial pain, causing illness, loss of family and friends, and loss of employment, many people think that the addict continues in the addiction despite the pain. A better explanation is that the addict continues because of the pain. Living with the pain of the addiction is in some way more comfortable to the addict than living without the pain, and so the addiction continues until (sometimes) the addict hits "rock bottom" and decides that maybe life without the addiction is not so bad after all.
The misbehavior or risky behavior of many children (and adults) can also be understood more clearly if you understand that the risk-taker might not view the consequences of failure as such a bad thing. A child who shoots a spitball at a teacher is not necessarily discouraged by the possibility of punishment, and in fact might be encouraged to misbehave, because the punishment itself (or the attention the punishment brings) may be part of what the child desires. Similarly, other kinds of unnaturally risky behavior can be the result of a mindset that feels some possible emotional benefit in what what the rest of us would call failure.
Okay, here's today's scary thought. What if everything that has gone wrong in Iraq was not really the result of bad intelligence, poor planning, or unexpected events. What if what we are seeing in Iraq is what George W. Bush really wants, subconsciously but not consciously.
Why would President Bush want such a thing, even subconsciously? We can't answer that question without first knowing why he was an alcoholic (which is pretty much conceded even by his supporters) or why he used cocaine (which is pretty much denied by his supporters, most of whom are in denial about a lot of things). But if you assume that many of Bush's decisions may be affected by some self-destructive desire to fail, then many events during his administration begin to make more sense. The failure to deal with Hurricane Katrina, the lack of attention to (and subsequent reversal of) what had been a successful invasion of Afghanistan, and even Bush's inattention to the famous August 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing (titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside U.S."), which lead to the 9/11 attacks themselves, are all part of a pattern.
It is also telling that, as Bush's post-invasion strategy for Iraq has clearly failed, his response has been to take more risks, ignoring the advice of the Iraq Study Group, committing more troops to Iraq, and pushing for a confrontation with Iran. Bush is like an addicted gambler on a losing streak who is nonetheless sure that his luck will change at any moment and then everything will be okay. And, just as an addicted gambler will not stop until the house refuses to extend him any additional credit, Bush will not stop until the House (and Senate) refuse to fund his military gambles.
At the end of Fort Massacre, Sgt. Vinson dies but most of his troops live. That is not the way Fort Massacre: Iraq will end. Tens of thousands of our troops (and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis) will have been killed or maimed, but the commanding officer will walk away unscathed, physically and (so far) politically.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Damn the Truth, Full Smear Ahead!
A recent series of ads and commentaries involving Rush Limbaugh demonstrate the all-too-common practice of radical conservatives who, when caught in a baseless smear, simply fabricate new baseless smears.
In this case, Limbaugh made his original smear during his 9/26 program. To put the comment in context, Limbaugh was answering calls from listeners. The first caller, "Mike from Chicago" identified himself as a Republican and said that "I do believe that we should pull out of Iraq. I don't think it's winnable." Limbaugh proceeds to ridicule him, then takes a second call, who begins by saying that he as a "a retort to Mike in Chicago," and proceeds to make a lot of pro-war comments, referring to what "these people don't understand." Shortly afterwards, these exchange occurs:
So it's not clear who "they" are, but it seems that soldiers who talk to the media against the Iraq war are "phony soldiers."
This comment was immediately attacked by a number of individuals and organizations, because there are many, many real soldiers who have been critical of the Bush administration's policies in Iraq and have called for the withdrawal of American troops. (See, for example, the coverage given to this remark by Media Matters for America.)
Okay, so Limbaugh has uttered another casual, baseless, smear. Nothing new there, and hardly newsworthy. Except that Limbaugh tries to deny that he said what he said.
In his September 28 broadcast, Limbaugh claims that the "phony soldiers" (plural) comment was not about "the anti-war movement generally," but only "about one soldier ... Jesse MacBeth." Limbaugh then claimed that Media Matters "selectively choose what they want to make their point" and then aired what he said was "the entire transcript, in context."
There are at least two problems with those statements:
1. The first mention of Jesse MacBeth (or any other person impersonating a veteran) came more than three minutes after the "phony soldiers" remark.
2. In broadcasting the "entire transcript, in context," Limbaugh committed the same sin that he charged to Media Matters, because (as Media Matters has documented) he edited out 1 minute and 35 seconds of talk between the "phone soldiers" comment and the first reference to Jess MacBeth, making them appear to be closer together in time than they really were and so distorting the context.
Now, it's entirely possible that Limbaugh was thinking about veteran-imposters when he made his "phony soldiers" remark. (Although are there "phony soldiers"--plural--who are critical of the war in Iraq? There have been recent news reports of several persons falsely claiming to be veterans, but they have acted mainly for personal gain. The case of Jesse MacBeth might be unique.) But if that were the case, why didn't he simply apologize? Taken in context, which is a discussion with a caller about "these people," Limbaugh's comment about "phony soldiers" is ambiguous at best. If he knows that there are real, dedicated, patriotic, sincere soldiers who oppose the war in Iraq, why not simply say so?
The answer can be seen in his later comments, on his October 2 broadcast. After a real soldier, with real combat service in Iraq, real wounds, and a real Purple Heart, speaks in an advertisement against Limbaugh and asks why Limbaugh won't call him a "phony" to his face, Limbaugh tries to smear him as well, saying that the people who made the ad (VoteVets.org) were "lying to him about what I said, then strapping those lies to his belt, sending him out via the media in a TV ad to walk into as many people as he can walk into." That's right, a decorated veteran is an easily manipulated idiot who has been tricked into becoming a mindless suicide bomber. When Limbaugh finally concedes that the decorated veteran might be able to read and write and form opinions of his own, Limbaugh's tone turns patronizing as he says that "it's just so unfortunate and sad when the truth of what I said is right out there to be learned." (A larger transcript is here, and the soldier's response to Limbaugh can be found here.)
These comments are "the answer" because Limbaugh continues to both evade and deny the real issue: Are there real, dedicated, patriotic, sincere soldiers who oppose the war in Iraq. Limbaugh refuses to answer that question, even while smearing a soldier who claims to be one.
And there you see the essence of the radical right. Smear broadly and, when challenged, smear your challengers. After all, you must be right, so everyone who disagrees with you is either evil or an idiot. Right?
In this case, Limbaugh made his original smear during his 9/26 program. To put the comment in context, Limbaugh was answering calls from listeners. The first caller, "Mike from Chicago" identified himself as a Republican and said that "I do believe that we should pull out of Iraq. I don't think it's winnable." Limbaugh proceeds to ridicule him, then takes a second call, who begins by saying that he as a "a retort to Mike in Chicago," and proceeds to make a lot of pro-war comments, referring to what "these people don't understand." Shortly afterwards, these exchange occurs:
LIMBAUGH: I -- it's not possible, intellectually, to follow these people.
CALLER 2: No, it's not, and what's really funny is, they never talk to real soldiers. They like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media.
LIMBAUGH: The phony soldiers.
So it's not clear who "they" are, but it seems that soldiers who talk to the media against the Iraq war are "phony soldiers."
This comment was immediately attacked by a number of individuals and organizations, because there are many, many real soldiers who have been critical of the Bush administration's policies in Iraq and have called for the withdrawal of American troops. (See, for example, the coverage given to this remark by Media Matters for America.)
Okay, so Limbaugh has uttered another casual, baseless, smear. Nothing new there, and hardly newsworthy. Except that Limbaugh tries to deny that he said what he said.
In his September 28 broadcast, Limbaugh claims that the "phony soldiers" (plural) comment was not about "the anti-war movement generally," but only "about one soldier ... Jesse MacBeth." Limbaugh then claimed that Media Matters "selectively choose what they want to make their point" and then aired what he said was "the entire transcript, in context."
There are at least two problems with those statements:
1. The first mention of Jesse MacBeth (or any other person impersonating a veteran) came more than three minutes after the "phony soldiers" remark.
2. In broadcasting the "entire transcript, in context," Limbaugh committed the same sin that he charged to Media Matters, because (as Media Matters has documented) he edited out 1 minute and 35 seconds of talk between the "phone soldiers" comment and the first reference to Jess MacBeth, making them appear to be closer together in time than they really were and so distorting the context.
Now, it's entirely possible that Limbaugh was thinking about veteran-imposters when he made his "phony soldiers" remark. (Although are there "phony soldiers"--plural--who are critical of the war in Iraq? There have been recent news reports of several persons falsely claiming to be veterans, but they have acted mainly for personal gain. The case of Jesse MacBeth might be unique.) But if that were the case, why didn't he simply apologize? Taken in context, which is a discussion with a caller about "these people," Limbaugh's comment about "phony soldiers" is ambiguous at best. If he knows that there are real, dedicated, patriotic, sincere soldiers who oppose the war in Iraq, why not simply say so?
The answer can be seen in his later comments, on his October 2 broadcast. After a real soldier, with real combat service in Iraq, real wounds, and a real Purple Heart, speaks in an advertisement against Limbaugh and asks why Limbaugh won't call him a "phony" to his face, Limbaugh tries to smear him as well, saying that the people who made the ad (VoteVets.org) were "lying to him about what I said, then strapping those lies to his belt, sending him out via the media in a TV ad to walk into as many people as he can walk into." That's right, a decorated veteran is an easily manipulated idiot who has been tricked into becoming a mindless suicide bomber. When Limbaugh finally concedes that the decorated veteran might be able to read and write and form opinions of his own, Limbaugh's tone turns patronizing as he says that "it's just so unfortunate and sad when the truth of what I said is right out there to be learned." (A larger transcript is here, and the soldier's response to Limbaugh can be found here.)
These comments are "the answer" because Limbaugh continues to both evade and deny the real issue: Are there real, dedicated, patriotic, sincere soldiers who oppose the war in Iraq. Limbaugh refuses to answer that question, even while smearing a soldier who claims to be one.
And there you see the essence of the radical right. Smear broadly and, when challenged, smear your challengers. After all, you must be right, so everyone who disagrees with you is either evil or an idiot. Right?
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Quagmire
In his testimony before Congress yesterday (9/10/2007), General David H. Petraeus said that The Surge has been so successful that we might soon be able to withdraw some troops, and that American troops could be back to pre-Surge levels by next summer.
In other words, we're making such wonderful progress in Iraq that, within a year, we'll be back to where we were a year ago.
Any more such "progress," and we will be undone.
In other words, we're making such wonderful progress in Iraq that, within a year, we'll be back to where we were a year ago.
Any more such "progress," and we will be undone.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Historical Cost
Here's a tough lesson in reality: Historical cost is irrelevant.
I've seen people trying to make business decisions who can't accept that reality. You tell them that, if they scrap their old equipment and buy a new piece of equipment for $2 million, they will make more money. If their response is "But I paid $1.5 million for that old equipment just two years ago," then they don't get it. The money they spent two years ago is gone. The only question now is how to make more money, and there are only two choices: (a) Continue to use the old equipment, or (b) Spend money to buy new equipment. Choice (a) costs nothing except a loss of productivity. Choice (b) requires you to spend money out of pocket, but increases productivity and future profits. If the benefits of choice (b) exceed the costs of choice (b), then choice (b) is the right decision, regardless of what the old equipment cost. Why? Because historical cost is irrelevant.
I've also seen people trying to make investment decisions who can't accept that reality. You tell them that they can make more by selling investment A (which they bought for $X and now is worth $Y less) and putting money into investment B. If their response is "But I paid $X for Investment A and if I sell it I have a $Y loss," then they don't get it. They already have a loss of $Y. Their only choice is when they are going to realize it. (I'm using the word "realize" in both the tax sense and the cognitive sense.)
It is very therefore very disturbing to see the same mistake applied to our continuing military presence in Iraq. The human lives that have been lost or damaged in Iraq, which is part of the price of "blood and treasure" that we have paid for our military adventure in Iraq, is being promoted as a reason to stay in Iraq.
For example, in one of the pro-war ads that have been running on television from "Freedom's Watch" a soldier who has lost both legs in Iraq says "I know what I lost. And I also know that if we pull out [of Iraq] now, everything that I have given and sacrificed will be mean nothing."
And President Bush has stated that "under his watch" he will "never allow our youngsters to die in vain" in Iraq. (4/13/2004) After the U.S. military death toll reached 3,000 in Iraq, the White House announced that President Bush "will ensure their sacrifice was not made in vain." (CNN 1/3/2007) At Fort Benning, the President declared that "it is important for us to succeed [in Iraq] so that comrades would not have died in vain." (1/11/2007)
A Google search of "Iraq vain site:www.whitehouse.gov" turns up about 93 hits, so these are not isolated slips of the tongue, but part of a deliberate public relations effort that relies on emotion and not reason or results.
The plea to leave more soldiers in harm's way, ensuring that more will be killed or injuried, merely because others have already been killed or injured, is a failure to recognize that historical cost is irrelevant. In deciding whether to send people into battle, the only relevant question is whether risking more lives is justified by the possible future benefit. The number of lives that have been spent in the past is, in the hard calculus of reality, unimportant.
Am I equating human lives with financial costs? Yes. Money spent is money gone. And dead is dead. Someone doesn't become less dead (or less maimed) just by spending more lives.
The President owes a debt to the living to spend their lives wisely, not a debt to the dead to justify their deaths.
I've seen people trying to make business decisions who can't accept that reality. You tell them that, if they scrap their old equipment and buy a new piece of equipment for $2 million, they will make more money. If their response is "But I paid $1.5 million for that old equipment just two years ago," then they don't get it. The money they spent two years ago is gone. The only question now is how to make more money, and there are only two choices: (a) Continue to use the old equipment, or (b) Spend money to buy new equipment. Choice (a) costs nothing except a loss of productivity. Choice (b) requires you to spend money out of pocket, but increases productivity and future profits. If the benefits of choice (b) exceed the costs of choice (b), then choice (b) is the right decision, regardless of what the old equipment cost. Why? Because historical cost is irrelevant.
I've also seen people trying to make investment decisions who can't accept that reality. You tell them that they can make more by selling investment A (which they bought for $X and now is worth $Y less) and putting money into investment B. If their response is "But I paid $X for Investment A and if I sell it I have a $Y loss," then they don't get it. They already have a loss of $Y. Their only choice is when they are going to realize it. (I'm using the word "realize" in both the tax sense and the cognitive sense.)
It is very therefore very disturbing to see the same mistake applied to our continuing military presence in Iraq. The human lives that have been lost or damaged in Iraq, which is part of the price of "blood and treasure" that we have paid for our military adventure in Iraq, is being promoted as a reason to stay in Iraq.
For example, in one of the pro-war ads that have been running on television from "Freedom's Watch" a soldier who has lost both legs in Iraq says "I know what I lost. And I also know that if we pull out [of Iraq] now, everything that I have given and sacrificed will be mean nothing."
And President Bush has stated that "under his watch" he will "never allow our youngsters to die in vain" in Iraq. (4/13/2004) After the U.S. military death toll reached 3,000 in Iraq, the White House announced that President Bush "will ensure their sacrifice was not made in vain." (CNN 1/3/2007) At Fort Benning, the President declared that "it is important for us to succeed [in Iraq] so that comrades would not have died in vain." (1/11/2007)
A Google search of "Iraq vain site:www.whitehouse.gov" turns up about 93 hits, so these are not isolated slips of the tongue, but part of a deliberate public relations effort that relies on emotion and not reason or results.
The plea to leave more soldiers in harm's way, ensuring that more will be killed or injuried, merely because others have already been killed or injured, is a failure to recognize that historical cost is irrelevant. In deciding whether to send people into battle, the only relevant question is whether risking more lives is justified by the possible future benefit. The number of lives that have been spent in the past is, in the hard calculus of reality, unimportant.
Am I equating human lives with financial costs? Yes. Money spent is money gone. And dead is dead. Someone doesn't become less dead (or less maimed) just by spending more lives.
The President owes a debt to the living to spend their lives wisely, not a debt to the dead to justify their deaths.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Why "Plan" is a Four-Letter Word
To the Bush administration, "plan" is a four-letter word.
Appearing on Sunday morning talk shows yesterday, national security advisor Stephen J. Hadley, said the following about a proposal by two leading Republican Senators to require President Bush to prepare and submit a plan to begin limiting the role of American forces in Iraq.
That's right, we should not even think about what we should do after "the surge" until the surge is more than half over.
The surge will be more than half over in September because, according to recent news reports, the American forces will face another crisis next April when they will either have to (a) start withdrawing troops and reducing troop levels or (b) further extend already-extended tours of duty for the American soldiers in Iraq. The surge began last February and will end next April, so once we are allowed to start thinking in September, we have less than six months to come up with a plan before reality starts making plans for us.
It is no coincidence that it was an incompetent lack of planning that resulted in the mess that is now Iraq, because we invaded Iraq without a clear plan for how to govern the country once we toppled Saddam Hussein. And there has been an appalling lack of planning in the recent "surge" in Iraq. The claim was that, with additional troops, we could "clear and hold" neighborhoods in Bagdhad. But then what? American troops had cleared cities of insurgents before, turned the cities over to Iraqi forces, and then watched insurgents return. What was going to be different this time?
That is the most curious and bothersome part of the current surge. It's not that the President has no plan for what to do if the military surge fails, but that he has no plan for what to do if our military succeeds. According to the administration's own progress report on the 18 Iraqi "benchmarks," Iraq has provided three brigades to "support Baghdad operations" (we're not even going to pretend that the Iraqis can control their own capital city) but that "manning levels for the deployed Iraqi units continue to be of concern," probably because as many as half the Iraqi troops don't show up when they're supposed to. And that's one of the benchmarks in which the administration claims "satisfactory progress." Most of the important political benchmarks show no progress at all. So American troops are working (and dying) to turn over a secure Baghdad to a dysfunctional Iraqi army led by a dysfunctional Iraqi government.
The history of the conflict in Iraq has been a history of vague optimism. This administration not only doesn't need any plans, they don't even want to have plans, because if they had a specific plan and it didn't work, they might be held accountable. But if all they predict is "progress" without specifics, they can continue to claim that progress is being made, or that there is still a pontential for progress, without ever having to make an actual decision about what to do in Iraq.
Gen. Peter Pace (and others) have said that hope is not a plan. If they said that to the Commander-in-Chief, he either didn't hear it or didn't want to hear it.
Meanwhile, let's all stop thinking until at least September.
Appearing on Sunday morning talk shows yesterday, national security advisor Stephen J. Hadley, said the following about a proposal by two leading Republican Senators to require President Bush to prepare and submit a plan to begin limiting the role of American forces in Iraq.
"They’ve done a useful service in indicating the kinds of things that we should be thinking about, but the time to begin that process is September."
That's right, we should not even think about what we should do after "the surge" until the surge is more than half over.
The surge will be more than half over in September because, according to recent news reports, the American forces will face another crisis next April when they will either have to (a) start withdrawing troops and reducing troop levels or (b) further extend already-extended tours of duty for the American soldiers in Iraq. The surge began last February and will end next April, so once we are allowed to start thinking in September, we have less than six months to come up with a plan before reality starts making plans for us.
It is no coincidence that it was an incompetent lack of planning that resulted in the mess that is now Iraq, because we invaded Iraq without a clear plan for how to govern the country once we toppled Saddam Hussein. And there has been an appalling lack of planning in the recent "surge" in Iraq. The claim was that, with additional troops, we could "clear and hold" neighborhoods in Bagdhad. But then what? American troops had cleared cities of insurgents before, turned the cities over to Iraqi forces, and then watched insurgents return. What was going to be different this time?
That is the most curious and bothersome part of the current surge. It's not that the President has no plan for what to do if the military surge fails, but that he has no plan for what to do if our military succeeds. According to the administration's own progress report on the 18 Iraqi "benchmarks," Iraq has provided three brigades to "support Baghdad operations" (we're not even going to pretend that the Iraqis can control their own capital city) but that "manning levels for the deployed Iraqi units continue to be of concern," probably because as many as half the Iraqi troops don't show up when they're supposed to. And that's one of the benchmarks in which the administration claims "satisfactory progress." Most of the important political benchmarks show no progress at all. So American troops are working (and dying) to turn over a secure Baghdad to a dysfunctional Iraqi army led by a dysfunctional Iraqi government.
The history of the conflict in Iraq has been a history of vague optimism. This administration not only doesn't need any plans, they don't even want to have plans, because if they had a specific plan and it didn't work, they might be held accountable. But if all they predict is "progress" without specifics, they can continue to claim that progress is being made, or that there is still a pontential for progress, without ever having to make an actual decision about what to do in Iraq.
Gen. Peter Pace (and others) have said that hope is not a plan. If they said that to the Commander-in-Chief, he either didn't hear it or didn't want to hear it.
Meanwhile, let's all stop thinking until at least September.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Shinseki Was Right
Even as discussion continues over whether the "surge" of troops in Iraq will succeed, a central truth is overlooked: General Shinseki was right.
In 2003, before the invasion of Iraq, General Eric Shinseki testified before Congress and was asked about the troop levels needed to maintain order in Iraq after an invasion, and he replied that "several hundred thousand" troops would be needed.
This estimate was immediately ridiculed by (among others) Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. But Shinseki's estimate was not based on the same kind of wishful thinking (or denial of reality) that dominated Rumsfeld's administration, but was based on military history. And, as it turned out, he was right. The troop levels planned for post-invasion Iraq were not sufficient.
And Shinseki is still right. Adding 20,000 troops in a "surge" does not produce the "several hundred thousand" needed to maintain security in Iraq. Talk about tactics and strategies can't overcome the fact that there simply aren't enough troops there, and there never have been and never will be.
Only when the Bush administration understands that reality will there be any hope for progress in Iraq.
In 2003, before the invasion of Iraq, General Eric Shinseki testified before Congress and was asked about the troop levels needed to maintain order in Iraq after an invasion, and he replied that "several hundred thousand" troops would be needed.
This estimate was immediately ridiculed by (among others) Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. But Shinseki's estimate was not based on the same kind of wishful thinking (or denial of reality) that dominated Rumsfeld's administration, but was based on military history. And, as it turned out, he was right. The troop levels planned for post-invasion Iraq were not sufficient.
And Shinseki is still right. Adding 20,000 troops in a "surge" does not produce the "several hundred thousand" needed to maintain security in Iraq. Talk about tactics and strategies can't overcome the fact that there simply aren't enough troops there, and there never have been and never will be.
Only when the Bush administration understands that reality will there be any hope for progress in Iraq.
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