BlogHer - Affirming our Way to Victory in Iraq - Comments

Changed?

heivilinj — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 13:58:16 -0600

I don't know why we should expect the administration to suddenly become more intelligent. To see that they made some mistakes and need to try something different since what they were doing obviously didn't work.

I could go on with more examples but that would just make me more depressed.

Jim Heivilin

Read The Iraq Study Group Report

Lisa Stone — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 12:04:53 -0600

In honor of Americans, Iraqis, Brits, Afghanis, everyone who spent Dec. 25 in and around Iraq and Afghanistan, I tucked a copy of The Iraq Report into our stocking.

I strongly recommend reading it -- nothing will put Kagan's chest-beating powerpoint slide into perspective like the carefully distilled, succinct recommendations for sustainable, operational improvements in this report. It's shocking that some of the recommendations have to be made. Witness page 88:

Coordination of Economic and Reconstruction Assistance

"A lack of coordination by senior management in Washington still hampers U.S. contributions to Iraq's reconstruction.

"Focus, priority setting, and skillful implementation are in short supply. No single official is assigned responsibility or held accountable for the overall reconstruction effort. Representatives of key foreign partners involved in reconstruction have also spoken to us directly and specifically about the need for a point of contact that can coordinate their effort with the U.S. government."

And that's nothing compared to the outrageous neglect of the Arab-Israeli conflict by the Bush administration. Every voter should get a copy of this report.

Lisa Stone
BlogHer Co-founder
Surfette

Has Bush ever defined victory??

debra roby — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 10:06:08 -0600

Has Bush ever defined what victory is? What it looks like in his head? What he would consider victory?

Sadly, I heard that today the number of troops killed in Iraq has exceeded the number of individuals killed on 9/11. So the cost of revenge has exceeded the the original cost of terrorism.

Debra
A Stitch In Time
Deb's Daily Distractions

Affirming our Way to Victory in Iraq

Kim Ponders — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 09:30:00 -0600

Despite the Iraq Study Groupâ€™s 79 steps to success in Iraq, or perhaps because of them, the Bush team seems to be headed in the opposite direction. Not fewer troopsâ€¦more troops. Not more diplomacyâ€¦less diplomacy. His new approach, based on a black-and-white power point presentation delivered by Frank Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute, looks alarmingly similar to Lyndon Johnsonâ€™s approach to the Vietnam problem in 1964. Johnson was never considered the brightest match in the box, but compared to Bush, he looks like a veritable lighthouse of wisdom and foresight.

Frankly, James Baker should have known better than to write his recommendations in a book. Books are elitist, and they have all those tedious pages. Kagan delivered his presentation in fifty-six, black-and-white, bullet-formed slides. Optimistically titled â€œChoosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq, Phase I Report,â€ it has the encouraging tone of a weight watchers lectureâ€”just follow these simple steps and youâ€™ll be free of that extra burden forever!â€”and the soothing promise of follow-on phase reports.

No wonder Bush is preparing to come out of his Christmas cocoon fully rested and ready for another round of gunfights in and around the Shia held provinces of Iraq. Hereâ€™s slide five:

Victory Is Possible

- 1.1 million ground forces/400,000 in Iraq
- America contained ethno-religious conflict in Bosnia/Kosovo--we can do so in Iraq
- American resources are great: 300 million people, $12 trillion in GDP compared to 25 million Iraqis, $100 billion GDP in a country the size of California
- Success requires effort and will, but we need not choose to lose

The depth of ignorance implicit in this slide is hard to fathom. I guess that because our GDP is bigger than theirs (and we'll ignore for a moment our excessive dependence on oil), we'll have no problem squashing them. Gee. Victory is possible. Itâ€™s all right here, a revisionist dream. The disastrous civil war weâ€™ve created and the political capital weâ€™ve squandered can be corrected through a simple force of arms. Iraq is just like Bosnia, right? (Answer: yes, except for all those NATO and UN guys running around in Bosnia.) And bigger is better, right?

The most appealing part of the plan is that there would be no need to get involved in diplomacy with Iraqâ€™s neighbors Iran and Syria. Theyâ€™re so complicated. Like, do you send Christmas cards or Kwanza cards or nothing at all? Besides, as the Daily Showâ€™s John Oliver said, you should only talk after every possible military option has been tried.

Kagan makes clear that no military action should take place unless the US is plans to â€œfully fundâ€ reconstruction in the held areasâ€”but thatâ€™s all part of Phase II. We donâ€™t really have to worry about all that yet. Now, you might infer that the Iraq Study Group proposed a troop withdrawal because it was quite clear the US has not and would never â€œfully fundâ€ reconstruction. But, as the above slide so aptly says, â€œwe need not choose to lose.â€

The U.S. military is a powerful and costly tool. It can win battles, but only politics and diplomacy can win wars. Without a serious commitment to either, this plan will make short term military gains, but ultimately it will fail. But why pay attention to such trivialities when we have motivators like the last line in the Kagan brief (the last line, that is, before the artfully presented Q&A section, which aids the administration in figuring out what questions to ask, and then answers the questions for them.)

WE CAN WIN IN IRAQ, AND WE MUST

Because when you put something in capital letters, it becomes an affirmation. And this has been an administration built on affirmations, if shy on policy. Meanwhile, as of today, the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq tops the 2973 killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks. Howâ€™s that for an inspirational message?