May 22, 2015

"The fact is that by the end of Bush’s tenure the war had been won. You can argue that the price of that victory was too high. Fine."

"We can debate that until the end of time. But what is not debatable is that it was a victory. Bush bequeathed to Obama a success. By whose measure? By Obama’s. As he told the troops at Fort Bragg on Dec. 14, 2011, 'We are leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people.' This was, said the president, a 'moment of success.' Which Obama proceeded to fully squander. With the 2012 election approaching, he chose to liquidate our military presence in Iraq. We didn’t just withdraw our forces. We abandoned, destroyed or turned over our equipment, stores, installations and bases. We surrendered our most valuable strategic assets, such as control of Iraqi airspace, soon to become the indispensable conduit for Iran to supply and sustain the Assad regime in Syria and cement its influence all the way to the Mediterranean. And, most relevant to the fall of Ramadi, we abandoned the vast intelligence network we had so painstakingly constructed in Anbar province, without which our current patchwork operations there are largely blind and correspondingly feeble. The current collapse was not predetermined in 2003 but in 2011. Isn’t that what should be asked of Hillary Clinton? We know you think the invasion of 2003 was a mistake. But what about the abandonment of 2011? Was that not a mistake?"

Writes Charles Krauthammer.

197 comments:

Michael K said...

The left asks about 2003 but they seem to ignore what happened in 1991 when this all began. Saddam invaded Kuwait and would have gone into Saudi Arabia if Bush had not sent US troops to stop him

In 2003, the sanction were collapsing and Saddam was about to win the cold war he was waging with us. After 9/11, Bush could not allow that to happen.

David said...

Sorry, that question is too embarrassing and might result in people not voting for Mrs. Clinton. It's on the "avoid" list. You will be on that list too if you ask such a question.

SteveR said...

What's Iraq? I want a HillaryPhone

rhhardin said...

It's worse. The Democrats decided to join the terrorists to defeat Bush's plans.

It's a business deal. You blow stuff up and we'll publicize it.

That way you get Iraq and we get the White House.

The terrorists see that "American will is wavering" and blow up more stuff of no actual military significance. But huge strategic significance, to them and Democrats.

Even today invading Iraq is "known" to be a mistake, as if the Dem treason hadn't happened.

jr565 said...
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gerry said...

Good points, Michael K.

Tank said...

Kraut quotes Zero saying, "We are leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people.'

This is just another Zero lie, and Kraut is relying no it to make his point that we "won." There was nothing stable or self-reliant about Iraq that wasn't going to collapse as soon as 100,000 American boys left town.

Bunch of crap. We din win nuttin. What we did was assassinate the leader of a semi stable regime and then throw a trillion dollars down the toilet bowl.

Roger Sweeny said...

So Obama said the war was won in 2011. He also said Obamacare wouldn't force you to change your insurance plan. Neither statement is true

MadisonMan said...

I sense a 'Blame Bush' response in the offing.

grackle said...

Hammer them hard you magnificent kraut! The man is my favorite pundit. He should be an advisor to the President if a GOP candidate wins in 2016.

MikeR said...

I have a complaint against both Presidents Bush. President GHW Bush fought enough to kick Iraq out of Kuwait, but stopped literally hours short of trapping and destroying Saddam Hussein's entire army, for no reason anyone now or then can understand. Later Hussein became enough of a problem that President GW Bush went back in and finished him off. He then decided to remake Iraq in our image and we stayed there another decade, with nothing to show for it.
And now the next president is not willing to do what clearly needs to be done with ISIL. ISIL can be destroyed, but you're going to need a division of American troops on the ground. It wouldn't take any longer than Hussein's Iraq took twice. You don't need to try to rebuild Iraq afterwards. Just smash ISIL till they are gone from there, and leave. But neither the president nor the American people is willing to do what needs doing.
0 for 3. Why is this so hard?

jr565 said...

Tank, a semi stable region? We had contained it for close to a decade. And it had amassed 15 resolutions against it. We had also bombed Iraq to "diminish their weapons capability". We had passed the Iraq Liberation act calling for regime change, we sanctioned Iraq so harshly that people likened it a genocide. We had set up oil for food which was being undermined by our allies on the security counsel. And containment was in free fall.
The last act Clinton did was remove all inspectors and then Bomb Iraq. Where are you getting the idea that it was semi stable.

As for earning the peace, if we didn't , then why did Obama take credit for it? And who was the enemy in Iraq at that point? We defeated sadaam, we defeated Al Qaeda in Iraq and we defeated the insurgency. The only issue was internal fights amongst Shia and Sunni, which hadn't yet led to warfare between them. But we also allowed for a transition through the electoral process if Sadr proved to be a horrible leader.
So, there was no enemy left to fight there. We had won.
Who are causing issues in Iraq now? ISIS, which is an outside force. If we failed it's because we left before Iraq was capable of dealing with such a threat. And here's an idea. If we still had troops there, they never would have dared invade. Further if we were dealing with Iran and containment we'd have a lot more leverage getting them to comply, since our troops would be on their border.
Losing Iraq also means losing Iran too. Heckuva job, Obama.

bagoh20 said...
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Henry said...

Furthermore, Obama explicitly ran in 2008 on the platform of doing in Iraq exactly what he did in 2011. McCain was smeared as a warmonger because he advocated a long-term presence.

That distinction in 2008 between McCain and Obama is so stark, I see no way that anyone can clear Obama of the consequences of his administration's subsequent decisions.

CWJ said...

This is ncredibly red ARM meat. I trust he'll soon appear. If not, Robert Cook may hold down the fort until ARM arrives.

grackle said...

There was nothing stable or self-reliant about Iraq that wasn't going to collapse as soon as 100,000 American boys left town.

Why do anti-war folks always refer to our men in uniform as "boys?" Another question: What if we had withdrawn only 90,000 "boys" and left a residual force of 10,000 men? As we did in Japan and Germany after WW2?

I really do not give a damn whether Iraq was left as "stable or self-reliant." I'm not for "nation-building." Let them rebuild their own nation themselves. I do not care whether Iraq is governed democratically or with a dictator, just as long as we have a force left behind to kick-ass if Iraq tries to go off the deep end again.

CWJ said...

Or perhaps J. Farmer.

Louis said...

To believe that the "abandonment" was a mistake is to not have learned the mistake of invasion. The mistake of invasion was not too few troops or even dissolving the Iraqi army. The mistake was believing any amount of sacrifice/investment by Americans could create a peaceful democratic society from scratch.

jr565 said...

Tank wrote:
"This is just another Zero lie, and Kraut is relying no it to make his point that we "won." There was nothing stable or self-reliant about Iraq that wasn't going to collapse as soon as 100,000 American boys left town."
Crap.crap.crap. And more crap. Was there a civil war in Iraq after we left? Iraq is now number two oil importer after Saudi Arabia. Certainly there are still issues in governance, and it's certainly corrupt, but we set up process whereby leaders can be removed peacefully. That would never have happened in the sadaam days.
Iraq falling apart though occurred beciase Iraq couldn't handle their own security and were attacked by an outside force, not because there was a civil war and all sides started murdering one another.
And we weren't trying to contain Iraq. All pluses. Maybe that's the best we can expect to get from ME countries. So what. Are they terrorist states? Are they trying to build WMDs? If not, then it's better.

jr565 said...

Grackle wrote:
"Why do anti-war folks always refer to our men in uniform as "boys?" Another question: What if we had withdrawn only 90,000 "boys" and left a residual force of 10,000 men? As we did in Japan and Germany after WW2?

I really do not give a damn whether Iraq was left as "stable or self-reliant." I'm not for "nation-building." Let them rebuild their own nation themselves. I do not care whether Iraq is governed democratically or with a dictator, just as long as we have a force left behind to kick-ass if Iraq tries to go off the deep end again.
"
I'm. It for nation building wither. But if we do get into a war, we need some form of nation building, simply so that it doesn't devolve into what was there before, or something worse.
We didn't really do a nation building in Iraq, we provided security while they wrote their constitution. That stuff takes time. It's not realistic to expect them to go from sadaam to a stable democracy overnight. We need a presence there to keep them honest.
But clearly as they maintained security and stability over time we could withdraw more and more.

Michael K said...

"Good points, Michael K."

I just wish Republicans were making them. I read Belmont Club every day and he should be required reading for all federal politicians.

Steve said...

This was the answer to the Bush III's hypothetical question.

"Well, if I had known that a community organizer from Chicago was going to abandon the country to Islamist terrorists after the war was won for nakedly partisan purposes, of course I wouldn't have gone into Iraq."

Seeing Red said...

Viet Nam all over again. What is their obsession with the 70s?

Gusty Winds said...

I always thought the real reason for the 2003 Iraq war was to establish a beachhead over there. It was better to fight Al Qaeda in the Middle East than in Chicago or New York.

The WMD's were and excuse.

Bobby said...

Michael K,

Saddam invaded Kuwait and would have gone into Saudi Arabia if Bush had not sent US troops to stop him

This isn't a fact. It's certainly what the Saudis (and indeed, the world) feared, but it was certainly not a fact, nor was it imminent. But I agree with your larger point about the Bush Administration being driven by (quite realistic, in my opinion) fears about the sanctions regime collapsing.

MikeR,

I have a complaint against both Presidents Bush. President GHW Bush fought enough to kick Iraq out of Kuwait, but stopped literally hours short of trapping and destroying Saddam Hussein's entire army, for no reason anyone now or then can understand.

If by "anyone" you exclude JCS Chair Gen. Colin Powell and CENTCOM CINC Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf and lots and lots of other senior military officers, then yes. But I wouldn't advise using the word "anyone" in that case. For the record, DOD believed that the Coalition would collapse if they exceeded their mandate and drove Saddam out of power-- neither the Ba'athist Egyptians nor the Sunni-led Saudis (to say nothing of other allies, including NATO ally Turkey) wanted anything to do with removing Saddam from power and introducing a power vacuum that likely would have benefited Iran via an increase in power of their Shi'ite proxies in Iraq. All of that was stated at the time. Not that we couldn't have done it anyway, just that we shouldn't believe the whole region would be great and peaceful if only we had kicked off the latest Sunni-Shi'a conflict a decade earlier.

Rumpletweezer said...

"Mission Accomplished."

Michael K said...

"This isn't a fact. It's certainly what the Saudis (and indeed, the world) feared, but it was certainly not a fact, nor was it imminent."

And you know this how ? Were you there ? Are you a student of military strategy ?

I assume you are familiar with sources like this one.

President George Bush ordered warplanes and ground forces to Saudi Arabia after obtaining King Fahd's approval. Iraqi troops had begun to mass along the Saudi border, breaching it at some points, and indicating the possibility that Hussein's forces would continue south into Saudi Arabia's oil fields. Operation DESERT SHIELD, the US military deployment to first defend Saudi Arabia grew rapidly to become the largest American deployment since the Southeast Asia Conflict. The Gulf region was within US Central Command's (CENTCOM) area of responsibility. Eventually, 30 nations joined the military coalition arrayed against Iraq, with a further 18 countries supplying economic, humanitarian, or other type of assistance.

Feel free to link your sources that contradict this.

Sebastian said...

@Michael K: "they seem to ignore what happened in 1991 when this all began. Saddam invaded Kuwait and would have gone into Saudi Arabia if Bush had not sent US troops to stop him"

Most Dems opposed even that one. Only 10 Dem senators voted to kick Saddam out of Kuwait -- including Al Gore, I'll give him that.

Dems have voted for retreat and weakness since the 70s. Barry is just more blatant, and the consequences are now more dire.

"to establish a beachhead"

Should have held it in 1991. UN resolutions and coalition be damned. Decade of misery, second war, Syria collapse, Iran resurgence, and ISIS follow from the initial failure.

Tank said...

grackle said...

There was nothing stable or self-reliant about Iraq that wasn't going to collapse as soon as 100,000 American boys left town.

Why do anti-war folks always refer to our men in uniform as "boys?"


I'm not anti-war, I'm anti stupid nation building. At 62 years old, when I see a dead 19 or 20 year old, they look like dead boys to me. Do you want to make believe we're talking about dead boys and girls?

Anonymous said...

The fact is that by the end of Bush’s tenure the war had been won.

Fuck you, Krauthammer.

That's all I've got to say about this delusional douchebag.

Excuse my French.

Love all the Middle East and global strategy experts hanging out here, though. Obama and the liberal wreckers ruined Bush's genius foreign policy legacy! Yeah, that's what happened.

Crimso said...

"The mistake was believing any amount of sacrifice/investment by Americans could create a peaceful democratic society from scratch."

Do you mean in general, or does this apply specifically to Iraq? Because I can think of at least one example where this precisely what was done. And that was a society that was previously notoriously fanatic (al Qaeda, ISIS, et al. are pikers compared to them). Nations CAN be built. Which is not to say they WILL be built. Merely that they can be, when the task is given to competent people.

Lewis Wetzel said...

If we had relaxed the sanctions against Iraq, Sadam would have caused problems. We know for a fact that Sadam had both biological warfare and nuclear programs well into the 1990s, after he was supposedly disarmed as a condition ot the ceasefire that ended the first Iraq War.
A strong Iraq was a threat to its neighbors and international stability. A weak Iraq was subject to domination by Iran, which has considered itself to be at war with United States since the late 1970s.
"semi-stable" my ass.

Michael K said...

"Love all the Middle East and global strategy experts hanging out here, though. Obama and the liberal wreckers ruined Bush's genius foreign policy legacy! Yeah, that's what happened."

A truly brilliant argument by a well educated expert who, no doubt, has references and links to support this version of events.

Bobby said...

Michael K,

Again, definitely as I said, "the Saudis (and indeed, the world feared" that Saddam's invasion of Kuwait would lead to an invasion of Saudi Arabia (and as a minimum, it would enable Saddam to intimidate the Saudis) but that's still not a "fact." Look up the definition of fact. I think you could argue that it was a "fact" that we all believed Saddam was going to invade Saudi Arabia (hence justifying our response), but that's a little bit different than a fact that it would have happened.

Put another way, it's a fact that the Bush Administration earnestly believed there was an undeclared weapons of mass destruction program in Iraq. Unfortunately from a political perspective, our belief proved to be incorrect (and which Democrats now use as "evidence" that "Bush lied," which- from an academic perspective- that is not accurate. At all.)

And, yes, sir, I am actually a student (and practitioner and instructor) of military strategy. Your tax dollars have put me through West Point and the War College (where I now do some teaching), and thank you for that by the way, and supported me during a whole lot of tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, but that's not really relevant to my point that a "fact" is something a little bit different than what you used in your initial sentence.

Sammy Finkelman said...

It has to be said, though, that what you had in 2014, with ISIS's victories, was a massive intelligence failure.

That failure happened also in Syria.

This went beyond the fact that it was simply bad in principle to take all U.S. combat troops out of Iraq.

Since then, the problem is that Obama, although he does intervene to prevent the fall of Baghdad and Erbil, and maybe stop some massacres, is always trying to do the absolute minimum. That doesn't work.

Bobby said...

Crimso,

Do you mean in general, or does this apply specifically to Iraq? Because I can think of at least one example where this precisely what was done. And that was a society that was previously notoriously fanatic (al Qaeda, ISIS, et al. are pikers compared to them). Nations CAN be built. Which is not to say they WILL be built. Merely that they can be, when the task is given to competent people.

^^^This

Sammy Finkelman said...

I mean really, is the price worth it to teach Iraqi politicians a lesson? This is waht Obama is basically saying now.

the local people havwe to defend themselves. ANd if they can't, and if they can't in p[art because of interference from Iran, and because maybe we're not giving them enough of hthe right kind of weapons, or think there is time to organize a quality armed force...

ikt's OK for ISIS to take over??

Lewis Wetzel said...

I keep trying to remember what the Democrat alternative to the 2003 invasion was. Oh, wait, there wasn't one. Maybe that's why a majority of Senate Dems voted to authorize the use of force in 2002.

Rusty said...

Louis said...
To believe that the "abandonment" was a mistake is to not have learned the mistake of invasion. The mistake of invasion was not too few troops or even dissolving the Iraqi army. The mistake was believing any amount of sacrifice/investment by Americans could create a peaceful democratic society from scratch.


They managed to hold three national elections with less corruption than a City of Chicago mayoral election.
It my not look like western representative democracy, but it was headed in the right direction.
Pity.

Anonymous said...

Blogger Steve said...
This was the answer to the Bush III's hypothetical question.

"Well, if I had known that a community organizer from Chicago was going to abandon the country to Islamist terrorists after the war was won for nakedly partisan purposes, of course I wouldn't have gone into Iraq."


This.

Sammy Finkelman said...

Bobby said...Michael K, 5/22/15, 12:15 PM Again, definitely as I said, "the Saudis (and indeed, the world feared" that Saddam's invasion of Kuwait would lead to an invasion of Saudi Arabia (and as a minimum, it would enable Saddam to intimidate the Saudis) but that's still not a "fact."

In fact, Saddam had made no such plans, and it would have taken him at least till the next year to get ready. You might not really have expected that until 1992, or maybe even 1995.

There are surprise attacks to the target, but there are no victorious surprise attacks that are surrise attacks to the attacker.

Put another way, it's a fact that the Bush Administration earnestly believed there was an undeclared weapons of mass destruction program in Iraq.

No, they didn't. They believed there was a possibility there was one. They also believed, whether or not anything active was going on, Saddam would resume it as soon as the sanctions were lifted, and they were on their way out until Bush raised the issue and sanctions got toughened again in 2002.

And, yes, sir, I am actually a student (and practitioner and instructor) of military strategy.

Then you must remember, of course, that U.S. troops were equipped with gear able to withstand chemical weapons, which also meant a war could not be fought n the summer, which meant April 1 was just about the deadline to start the war.

So, was it a mistake then to make U.S. troops carry all that chemical weapons protection gear?


MikeR said...

@Bobby "DOD believed that the Coalition would collapse if they exceeded their mandate and drove Saddam out of power". Which is not what I suggested. I said (as Schwartzkopf said in his book, that in a few more hours they would have had Saddam Hussein's entire army trapped and helpless. That would have been sufficient.

What people tend not to understand in these things is the point of our army. The navy traditionally stays around during peacetime, keeps sea lanes open, fights pirates, acts quickly for minor incidents. Our army is traditionally different. It has generally been grown in emergencies, generally through conscription. It is not good for peace-keeping activities. Its function is to smash serious enemies, and it is used when those enemies become serious threats. Afterwards you don't want the army around.

The goal here isn't to unmake radical Islam. It is to destroy the manifestation of radical Islam that is currently threatening a large part of the Middle East. Smash it good, and quickly, and leave, so that the Muslim-on-the-street sees that we aren't interested in ruling them, but that we will smash them if they threaten us. That is what the army is for.

Anonymous said...

I notice in this thread no one is answering his question.

Instead, they keep dragging the debate back to 2003.

But for those of you who think we shouldn't have gone in in 2003, do you support Obama's decision to abandon Iraq in 2011?

Sammy Finkelman said...

Louis said...5/22/15, 11:21 AM

To believe that the "abandonment" was a mistake is to not have learned the mistake of invasion. The mistake of invasion was not too few troops or even dissolving the Iraqi army. The mistake was believing any amount of sacrifice/investment by Americans could create a peaceful democratic society from scratch.

That's what every dictator in the world would love people to believe.

It's quite contrary to the American spirit.

No, the mistake was in believing that there was only one enemy to democracy in Iraq - Saddam's Ba'ath Party, which would naturally get weaker and weaker.

And in tolerating sanctuaries.

Al Qaeda in Iraq got a lot of support from Syria. And they already existed, because Saddam had allowed them to keep a little bit of territory in Kurdistan. Now to mention what Iran did.

In Afghanistan, Pakistan was a sanctuary, and in Iraq, Syria was a sanctuary.

Maybe the problem was we didn't invade, Iraq, Syria and Iran all at the same time. With Iran maybe a real ceasefire could have been achieved.

Roughcoat said...
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Sammy Finkelman said...

Bush did indeed restre the sanctions, but if he had not invaded, they would have been on the out again by about 1997 and it would require great sticking power to maintain them.

And remember, it wasn't just sanctions that was preventing Saddam from getting the atomic bomb. It was the freedom to bomb and the no fly zone.


Bobby said...

Sammy,

No, they didn't. They believed there was a possibility there was one. They also believed, whether or not anything active was going on, Saddam would resume it as soon as the sanctions were lifted, and they were on their way out until Bush raised the issue and sanctions got toughened again in 2002.

Your phrasing is actually more accurate than mine.

Then you must remember, of course, that U.S. troops were equipped with gear able to withstand chemical weapons, which also meant a war could not be fought n the summer, which meant April 1 was just about the deadline to start the war.

So, was it a mistake then to make U.S. troops carry all that chemical weapons protection gear?


Well, no. On the contrary, they knew that as a minimum Saddam had access to the declared chemical weapons (some of which, years later, created casualties during my time there during attempts to dispose of the stuff). Not carrying it would have been pretty foolish. Although during my first deployment to Afghanistan in 2003, they made us bring our NBC gear, even though there was no such declared threat so some might believe that was just organizations doing what they do. But I also know that we did NBC training in July in Fort Irwin and that was pretty freakin' bad, so the whole April 1 deadline might be a "soft" deadline, at best.

Roughcoat said...

Staying out of this one.

Except to say: Given what we knew at the time about Iraq OIF and the ouster of Saddam Hussein were justified. The military campaign was brilliantly conducted in some respects and deeply flawed in others. The flaws were attributable in part to a misconceived operational plan and the strategic assumptions that drove the planning, but also due to the perfidy of an ally (Turkey)--which, however, should have been anticipated and dealt with in advance of the commencement of kinetic operations. The occupation of Iraq following the cessation of major combat operations was terribly botched and the people responsible for the ensuing fiasco should be held accountable. Bush's decision to initiate the "Surge" was courageous and correct.

I liked Bush then and I like him now. He's a classy guy and he made some very brave and difficult decisions during his presidency. Some of those decisions were correct, some were not. He erred significantly in failing to properly articulate the strategic underpinnings of the war in Iraq and, on a bigger scale, of our engagement in the Middle East--calling Islam a "religion of peace" was a mistake that caused all sorts of damage and problems for the conduct of military operations, strategy formulation and execution for rebuidling Iraq, and etc.

JPS said...

Anglelyne, 12:05:

"Obama and the liberal wreckers ruined Bush's genius foreign policy legacy!"

Straw man. It is entirely possible to argue that the war was a mistake from the get-go; that even if it wasn't, it was prosecuted mistakenly in ways that very nearly damned the whole effort; while acknowledging that by 2009, Iraq had settled down a great deal. One need not take an exalted or even a favorable view of Bush's foreign policy to hold that view, and to conclude that the rise of ISIS was not preordained.

"Love all the Middle East and global strategy experts hanging out here"

I don't claim to be an expert. But I was keenly interested in how things were going in 2009, as I was then part of a light infantry brigade slated to deploy to Iraq at the end of that year. We were in frequent contact with the unit we were to replace. By summer their main "complaint" was that they never left the FOB. The Iraqi Army was in the lead, they'd call on their American partners if they needed to, but by that point they hardly ever needed to.

These guys deployed at great expense, largely sat around for a year, missing their families and their lives back home, and wondered what they were doing there. I sympathize, though there are worse ways to spend a year in a combat zone.

Our orders to Iraq were cancelled in October of that year. In December the president announced his surge in Afghanistan, and we went where we were needed more. That's all the expertise I claim.

Swifty Quick said...

Bush made two mistakes in Iraq. First, when it came time to create a government in Iraq, he allowed sharia law to be imposed, rather than insisting upon a secular government. Second, precious little was done to build/rebuild Iraq's oil industry infrastructure.

Sebastian said...
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Sebastian said...

"The goal here isn't to unmake radical Islam. It is to destroy the manifestation of radical Islam that is currently threatening a large part of the Middle East. Smash it good, and quickly, and leave, so that the Muslim-on-the-street sees that we aren't interested in ruling them, but that we will smash them if they threaten us. That is what the army is for."

Just "destroying the manifestation" won't do any good.

The smashes have to be harder, our presence longer, the changes deeper. I doubt the West has the will, so the problems will grow. Until the next hit at home, when we'll lurch back into real action for a while. But the enemy knows they can wait out the serious people on our side for the next O.

Bush's basic error in Iraq was not to see the Sunnis as the enemy and smash them for real. Premature nation-building allowed the enemy to regroup

bbkingfish said...

"The fact is that by the end of Bush's tenure the war had been won."

What a fun "fact! "The title of Krauthammer's piece must have been "Dispatches from Never-Neverland."

If this is the best the WPP can do, 2016 is going to be a blast, kiddies.

grackle said...

I'm not anti-war, I'm anti stupid nation building. At 62 years old, when I see a dead 19 or 20 year old, they look like dead boys to me. Do you want to make believe we're talking about dead boys and girls?

My mistake. Apparently we are close to agreement. I say after toppling a dictator(Saddam) all we should do is leave a residual force to make sure that:

1. No other nation, such as Iran, takes over the government.

2. No native regime that may arise from the ashes are allowed to screw the US.

3. That civilians that may have helped the US during the war are not slaughtered.

The rest is up to whatever Iraqis that are left after we are through whipping their asses. Let them "rebuild" themselves as an object lesson of what happens to folks who allow belligerent idiots like Saddam to rule them.

As a 72 year old, and a veteran, when I see a "dead 19 or 20 year old" I see a hero that deserves honor, not an unaware child who didn't know what they were getting into – which is what the appellation, "boys" implies.

Bryan C said...

"There was nothing stable or self-reliant about Iraq that wasn't going to collapse as soon as 100,000 American boys left town."

It doesn't take 100,000 troops to occupy and pacify a defeated country. What it definitely does take, however, is a willingness to admit that you're occupying and pacifying a defeated country.

That's how enemies are defeated. The Democrats make that impossible and then pretend their resulting failures were somehow inevitable. And why not? They don't trouble themselves over mass executions of brown people, or even executed US Ambassadors. They're almost never held responsible for poor decisions by their media colleagues. Nothing is ever their fault.

Tank said...

@grackle

I've got lots of respect (and thanks) for our soldiers, it's our politicians I distain.

Anonymous said...

Crimso: Do you mean in general, or does this apply specifically to Iraq? Because I can think of at least one example where this precisely what was done. And that was a society that was previously notoriously fanatic (al Qaeda, ISIS, et al. are pikers compared to them). Nations CAN be built. Which is not to say they WILL be built.

Sure, Crimso. If that "previously notoriously fanatic" society just happens to comprise a capable people with a strong sense of nationhood and a previously demonstrated ability to build and maintain orderly, stable, advanced modern states on their own.

Merely that they can be, when the task is given to competent people.

If by "competent people" you mean the people of the to-be-built nation in question, and by "competent" you mean, "already possessing the cultural and social capital necessary to create a modern democratic state". You can't "nation-build". You can only "nation re-build".

Will said...

Yes, GHW Bush expelled Sadaam Hussain from Kuwait then stopped at the border..

But if Bill CLinton had been less focused on interns and more focused on considering the ramifications of the 1993 WTC bombing I, the USS Cole attack, the African embassy bombings, he might not have declined when bin Laden was offered up to him..

Clinton's can-kicking narcissism bequeathed us the second WTC attack and he covered up responsibility and his tracks in a shameful coverup known as the 9/11 Report.

Aside from bequeathing George Bush 9/11 and a NASDAQ stock market that tanked 70% once the y2k viagra Clinton pumped it up with wore off, Clinton has never been fully allocated his responsibility for how we got to 2003.

There is plenty of blame to go around for both parties. Now what do we do about it?

Lewis Wetzel said...

I keep hoping that someone on this thread will point out the democrat alternative to the 2002 authorization of use of force. Surely there must have been some means of forcing Sadam to comply with UN resolutions, and the terms of the 1991 ceasefire, that was overlooked in the six-month long "rush to war" of 1992-93?

machine said...

Still defending the lying us into a war thing?

Lewis Wetzel said...

should be "2002-03 rush to war."

Crimso said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Fabi said...

A West Pointer who says 'I wish I was' instead of 'I wish I were'? What's your Cullum number, soldier?

Crimso said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ignorance is Bliss said...

While I generally like Krauthammer, he lost me when he tried to use President Obama says X as evidence that X is true.

Robert Cook said...

Coming in late just to briefly note that of course Krauthammer will offer more lies at this late date regarding the illegal and failed Iraq war.

Official Washington's rats don't flee a sinking ship or call for punishment for the errant captain; even after having been soaked, they simply assert the ship never sank and hail the captain as a hero.

MikeR said...

'Just "destroying the manifestation" won't do any good.' Actually it will. The reason radical Islam is gaining so many converts is that they have been successful. Smash them down when they are successful and they will lose most of their ability to grow.

And again: That is all that the army is for. But it is very good at that; use it for that.

tim in vermont said...

Maybe we could put this into terms that Obama can understand. "You play the ball where it lays. There are no 'mulligans' in foreign policy."

There are lots of things he wishes had happened before he got elected, but they are not what did happen. His job as chief executive was to manage the situation as he found it. He failed at that miserably.

Robert Cook said...

"I keep hoping that someone on this thread will point out the democrat alternative to the 2002 authorization of use of force."

There was no alternative by the Democrats; they supported it, too.

The proper (and less ruinous) alternative would have been to vote it down and not entered into military any forays into the middle east.

Michael K said...

"Again, definitely as I said, "the Saudis (and indeed, the world feared" that Saddam's invasion of Kuwait would lead to an invasion of Saudi Arabia (and as a minimum, it would enable Saddam to intimidate the Saudis) but that's still not a "fact." Look up the definition of fact."

You might look at my comment and point out where I said that. I do think he was about to do so and paused for resupply, just as the Germans did in 1940 France, but I don't think I used the term "fact," as you say.

Do you disagree ? Apparently you do. Let's hear your suggestion of what we should have done instead,

Tom Cotton still had the best response to the 2003 question.

"Yes, if I knew then what I know now, I would have deployed the Pacific fleet on December 4 to look for the Japanese carriers."

It might not have been such a good idea, though, as the Prince of Wales and KGV found out a few days later. Those were land based bombers, though.

Lewis Wetzel said...

October, 2010:

Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat, announced he would vote with the president, while cautioning Bush to use the power with discretion. "As president of the United States, you are the leader of the free world, not its ruler," Reid said.

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who had favored a more restrictive version, indicated he, too, would support Bush, saying it would "give the president the kind of momentum he needs" to prevail in the Security Council. "If Saddam Hussein is around five years from now, we are in deep trouble as a country," Biden said.

Also voicing their support were Sens. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and John Kerry, D-Mass. Dodd said he hoped the show of unity "will reduce the likelihood that force will be necessary." Kerry, a decorated Vietnam War veteran who had been in the go-slow camp, said Saddam's arsenal posed "a real and grave threat" to the United States and its allies.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2002-10-09-us-iraq_x.htm

Michael K said...

"Krauthammer will offer more lies at this late date regarding the illegal and failed Iraq war. "

Good to see you are awake with reflexes intact.

Robert Cook said...

"In 2003, the sanction were collapsing and Saddam was about to win the cold war he was waging with us."

Nonsense...in all respects.

Lewis Wetzel said...

"The proper (and less ruinous) alternative would have been to vote it down and not entered into military any forays into the middle east."

I thank you for your candid response, Robert Cook.

Etienne said...

The attack on Iraq was a Pearl Harbor.

What would you do if a country from across the ocean came and blew-up your country?

A day of infamy, that's what.

Where we went wrong, was in not restoring the Monarchy. We chose Anarchy instead.

Fen said...

machine: Still defending the lying us into a war thing?

Ah geez not this shit again.

No one lied us into war, you fucking retard, and you know it.

Go stroke your strawmen somewhere else.

Crimso said...

'You can't "nation-build". You can only "nation re-build".'

Fine, anywhere somebody ever uses the term "nation building" substitute it with "nation rebuilding." Let's be realistic then, when was the last nation "built" as opposed to "rebuilt?" And conceding to your terminology, then the task in Iraq was nation rebuilding, which you freely admit is at least possible. And given that Iraq was in fact a preexisting nation-state (I hope you will agree with me on that), then what we tried to do was in fact nation rebuilding. Much easier to do than to build a nation, unless one quits too soon (which is what I think happened in Iraq).

Robert Cook said...

"No one lied us into war....'

Having been swindled by a cadre of liars, you just can't admit you were conned, can you?

Matt Sablan said...

One of the things I read that I think made it clear to me how much Iraq changed thanks to America's intervention:

Iraq went from a kind of soft dicattorial pseudo theocracy with state-sponsored rape/torture chambers, to a place where a man could sell porn on the street without fear for his life.

So, I think it is fair to say that Iraq changed, and changed for the better, due to the war in Iraq. We can debate whether the cost was worth it, whether the going in was or wasn't done properly, etc., etc., but -- until recently -- for the average Iraqi, life was getting better [even if it had to go through hell first to get there.]

Also, withdrawing troops from Iraq was going to have to happen sometime, but it didn't have to be soon. We still have token forces around Japan and Germany. And, certainly, choosing to withdraw it when a hostile force is literally declaring to the world they want to knock down the fragile government you just spent a decade bleeding to build is ... a hard choice to justify when we STILL have people stationed in Germany, which is in no danger and not a threat.

Robert Cook said...

Our function in Iraq was was not "nation building" or "rebuilding," whatever silly term is used. It was nation destroying, and we did that very handily.

Matt Sablan said...

Everyone knows that the WMDs and chemical weapons were only one of a litany of reasons to use force in Iraq, right?

I just want to make sure; I also want to make sure people know we actually DID find some chemical weapons in Iraq -- just nothing nuclear, which is what the media pretended we were solely talking about.

Just, like, if we're going to re-fight being lied into war, I want to know the base truth everyone's working from.

Darleen said...

There was nothing stable or self-reliant about Iraq that wasn't going to collapse as soon as 100,000 American boys left town.

See:

South Korea (29K)
Germany (38K)
Japan (50K)

Robert Cook said...

"Iraq went from a kind of soft dictatorial pseudo theocracy with state-sponsored rape/torture chambers, to a place where a man could sell porn on the street without fear for his life.

"So, I think it is fair to say that Iraq changed, and changed for the better, due to the war in Iraq."


This is so imbecilic one might have thought Krauthammer himself had said it!

"Also, withdrawing troops from Iraq was going to have to happen sometime, but it didn't have to be soon."

Well, yes...yes it did. We had to comply with the withdrawal date negotiated by George Bush.

Now, Obama, being no less a blood-soaked mass murderer than Bush, wanted to stay and tried to renegotiate the matter, but the Iraqis required that US soldiers be subject to Iraq's legal system if they broke any local laws. Obama wouldn't agree to that and the Iraqis said, "leave."

Matt Sablan said...

Truncating the quote does make it sound silly. The before and end state is a lot better, unless you think a country that doesn't sponsor rape-torture is worse than a country that does.

The problem was that it was hard to get to the point where the ruling party didn't murder people for fun, and we have to decide if getting away from torturing murderers for rulers for incompetent corrupted people was worth it.

Matt Sablan said...

... which was my point. If we really think we still need a force in Germany and Japan, and they're nowhere near as unstable, it is kind of silly to think that Iraq doesn't need a stabalizing force for longer.

Robert Cook said...

"I just want to make sure; I also want to make sure people know we actually DID find some chemical weapons in Iraq...."

Yes, old remnants that had lain buried and forgotten for years. (We knew that most of Saddam's weapons had been destroyed, and we also knew that a tiny portion of them were unaccounted for.) Not new chem weapons, not massive stockpiles of them, not a threat in any way to America or to Iraq's neighbors.

Tank said...

Darleen said...
There was nothing stable or self-reliant about Iraq that wasn't going to collapse as soon as 100,000 American boys left town.

See:

South Korea (29K)
Germany (38K)
Japan (50K)

Maybe you have not noticed that we are the most bankrupt nation to ever exist. Why are we paying Japan and Germany's defense costs? Do you really think that the Iraqis are the same as the Germans, Japs and SKs? Maybe you think a Somali immigrant is the same as a German immigrant too?

Crimso said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bobby said...

Angelyne,

If by "competent people" you mean the people of the to-be-built nation in question, and by "competent" you mean, "already possessing the cultural and social capital necessary to create a modern democratic state". You can't "nation-build". You can only "nation re-build".

Technically-speaking, what you are referring to we actually began referring to as "state-building" precisely because that is such a different concept than "nation-building." That so many others couldn't realize the distinction was always frustrating to me.

Crimso said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jason said...

Here's what I wrote in early January, 2007:

"I never liked the idea of a surge. This is a marathon, not a sprint. We've allowed the moojies to psyche us out and take us into his race.

Only when it's clear that he will never outlast the US commitment to democracy in Iraq and the defeat of terrorism there will the terrorists give up the fight in Iraq.

A few tactical successes during a surge will not change that equation.

The correct course, in my view, was to settle in and 'go long.'

Of course, that is only reliable in a political vacuum. I will be very ashamed if, under the control of the Democratic party, having sold out the people of South Viet Nam already (and having sold out the Kurds and Shia rebellions under Bush I in 1991), our friends who are engulfed in desperate, life-and-death struggles against an evil and inhuman enemy were to ever be forced to conclude that they cannot count on the steadfastness and political courage of the United States of America.

That possibility is the most dangerous threat to national security we have."


http://iraqnow.blogspot.com/2007/01/there-are-surges-and-then-there-are.html


Note: I mistakenly wrote "Under Bush I in 2001" in the original instead of "1991," referring to the decision to let Saddam wreak his vengeance against the Kurdish rebellion at that time. The date is changed here.

Crimso said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bobby said...

Fabi,

Contact me off-line and I'll provide you sufficient credentials to my identity- no way, I'm posting my Cullum number on a public forum. Thanks!

Etienne said...

Just a note: There was more chemical weapons in Eastern Oregon, then there has ever been in Iraq on the day we did a Pearl Harbor on them.

Even today they are still trying to close the base.

Umatilla WMD Base

The USA has @2400 nuclear weapons on alert tonight, land, submarine, air.

WMD is our middle name :-)

Crimso said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Crimso said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bobby said...

Crimso,

I'd LOVE LOVE LOVE to pick and choose what my tax dollars are used for. Instead, I have to go along with whatever the elected politicians decide.

I think that's kind of the point, right? The nature of our two party electoral system doesn't lend itself to that kind of nuance- instead, our political coalitions are built during the campaign and we have to on our own (or with help from opinion leaders) kind of discern which positions our candidates are going to follow through on and which ones they're going to discard for political expediency. But that's the system we have.

Was 2008 a vote for complete withdrawal of US troops from Iraq by 2011, regardless of any changes to the condition on the ground? Or did those who voted for President Obama believe that if the trajectory to stability did not hold that he would change course, go against his campaign statements and select a different option (as some might say he did with same sex marriage)? I don't know, I didn't vote for him, and even if I was among those ranks, the system didn't let us build that kind of nuance into our voting preferences.

But what can you do?

Crimso said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
MikeR said...

"Stop playing games. The war is over, as far as American involvement." Heh - because President Obama isn't involved there, nor in any wars. You voted for him because he hates war, and hates meddling in other nations' affairs. Just bomb them, that's fine.
Aside from the profanity and gratuitous insults, you aren't making any sense. Obama would have voted for the war if he'd been in the Senate at the time. Since he wasn't, he got a free pass to oppose it. Since then, he's been behind all our wars, and made a heck of a mess of pretty much all of them. Afghanistan - the Democrats' choice of the good war.

Anonymous said...

Crimso: And conceding to your terminology...

...by merely declaring my term an exact synonym of your term and entirely missing the point.

And given that Iraq was in fact a preexisting nation-state (I hope you will agree with me on that).

No, Crimso, Iraq was not a pre-existing modern nation in the way that Germany and Japan were pre-existing modern nations. The social divisions and political culture did not and do not map onto those of these two nations in any way, shape, or form. Do you know anything about the history of Iraq, its peoples, or its political culture, aside from the fact that it is technically a "nation-state" (like a lot of other places that are nothing like Germany or Japan, either)?

Matt Sablan said...

No. Try and think this through. In a decade, a repressive government liberalized until it had similar freedoms as Las Vegas.

That's huge. I'm not sure how to explain it to you. I think Iraq is one of the few places in the Middle East homosexuals aren't stoned, and people could vote for what corrupt politicians they wanted. That's a big thing, and you need to understand what it came out of.

Ann Althouse said...

Please don't respond to the commenter I always remove. I have to remove you too when that happens.

chickelit said...

eric said...
I notice in this thread no one is answering his question.

Instead, they keep dragging the debate back to 2003.

But for those of you who think we shouldn't have gone in in 2003, do you support Obama's decision to abandon Iraq in 2011?


Astute point. I think the corollary point is that from a Dem point of view, doing next to nothing about ISIS is also the winning strategy because if we went in fought back, then we'd be saddled with a commitment that we can't afford. The long term Democratic strategy is in fact suicide, and, judging by their domestic policy, unilateral surrender of energy resources and a continued promotion of civil unrest and retribution. It's the only way to teach the straight, white, and mostly male hegemons a lesson.

Crimso said...

'Do you know anything about the history of Iraq, its peoples, or its political culture, aside from the fact that it is technically a "nation-state" (like a lot of other places that are nothing like Germany or Japan, either)?'

Yep. I like how you move the goalposts with "technically." What aspects that define a nation-state was prewar Iraq lacking? And I do enjoy people insisting Iraq was doomed to failure because it's different, unlike GermanyandJapan (written that way on purpose; funny how they get lumped together since they are successes, even though their cultures are vastly different).

Crimso said...

"Please don't respond to the commenter I always remove. I have to remove you too when that happens."

I really am sorry for all of the extra work. I should have remembered.

Etienne said...

Obama had no choice but to get out of Iraq. The treasury was hemorrhaging, and the Army was flying C-17's full of cash to the regime.

Face it, we are broke, and so is Europe.

The best thing now, is to get China pissed off, and they can have a go.

Todd said...

Ann Althouse said...
Please don't respond to the commenter I always remove. I have to remove you too when that happens.

5/22/15, 2:38 PM


Oops and sorry! Well, I guess this thread is going to get a LOT shorter...

chickelit said...

From and Obama/Hillary-led perspective, there is absolutely no reason to oppose ISIS because if we defeated them or seriously compromised them, there would be a power vacuum which we could not fill without "nation-building." The Democratic policy henceforth must be appeasement with ISIS.

An alternative in Obama's "he-plays-chess at three different levels" scenario is to set up and morally support an invasion for Iran, our new "best friend."

chickelit said...

And if coddling Iran means kissing Israel goodbye, Obama/Hillary will say good riddance--we don't need you anymore anyways.

chickelit said...

Obama takes cues from Jarrett, and Jarrett knows "in her heart" that Iran can be trusted to take care of this. That is what the present administration is banking on. In fact, it's so baked in now that there's really no going back.

Fabi said...

Sometimes my sarcasm doesn't translate well in the comboxes, Bobby. Sorry about that.

An uncle of mine was a WWII-era graduate of USMA and was/were was one of his pet peeves. I guess I assumed that was an Academy thing.

Hagar said...

The mistake(s) were in going along with the left about all this "just war" and "legal war" B.S. and emphasizing the WMD issue so much here at home, and then later listening to Tony Blair about getting more U.N. resolutions making it look like this was a new war of some kind.

W. should just essentially have said, "Look, this guy is not complying with the conditions of the ceasefire - and it is a ceasefire, not an armistice, and certainly no peace - and he is shooting at us again. I am tired of this happy horseshit, and I am going in to put a stop to it. You want to come along, that's good, and I will remember it. You don't want to, that's all right too, but I will remember that as well.

Then when the war against Saddam was won and the situation changed to an undeclared war with Iran, W. again erred in not explaining that in clear terms.
The "wise men" probably told him not to do that and risk it becoming a declared war immediately, but I still think that was a major mistake that the Democrats have exploited.

And an open war with Iran we will eventually get anyway.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Crimso: I like how you move the goalposts with "technically."What aspects that define a nation-state was prewar Iraq lacking

Crimso, *you* introduced the term "nation-state", not me. *You* are the one who believes that being a recognized "nation-state" is the only inherent characteristic necessary for "competent" outsiders to succeed at nation-building. *I* am the one saying that's bunk. I didn't move any goalposts, you just lost track of which one was yours.

And I do enjoy people insisting Iraq was doomed to failure because it's different...

Because we all know differences are meaningless, that one kind of difference is exactly the same as any other kind of difference, and differences have absolutely nothing to do with outcomes.

..unlike GermanyandJapan (written that way on purpose; funny how they get lumped together since they are successes, even though their cultures are vastly different).

The only one doing any lumping here is you. ("If it worked for A and B it follows that it can work for C! Because!")

Yes, Crimso, Germany and Japan have very different cultures. They also had features in common, not shared by modern Iraq, that made them candidates for successful nation re-rebuilding (some of which I enumerated in my original comment to you).

Yep.

Nope.

Michael K said...

""In 2003, the sanction were collapsing and Saddam was about to win the cold war he was waging with us."

Nonsense...in all respects."

In good form today even if lacking a bit in information.

No surprise.

Michael K said...

"Now, Obama, being no less a blood-soaked mass murderer than Bush, wanted to stay and tried to renegotiate the matter, but the Iraqis required that US soldiers be subject to Iraq's legal system if they broke any local laws. Obama wouldn't agree to that and the Iraqis said, "leave."

It is depressing to think of how many Democrats hold the same lunatic views you do, Cookie.

I just hope you do not have the occasion to learn how wrong you are.

Michael K said...

"Bush made two mistakes in Iraq. First, when it came time to create a government in Iraq, he allowed sharia law to be imposed, rather than insisting upon a secular government. Second, precious little was done to build/rebuild Iraq's oil industry infrastructure."

Disagree. The near fatal mistake was appointing Bremer. Jay Garner had a good record with the Kurds for ten years.

Second, Iraq was more tribal than we realized and a secular government was not going to work.

The Iraqi infrastructure was being blown up as fast as we were trying to rebuild. That was AQI's strategy.

Just as the ISIS strategy is Schrecklichkeit

Darleen said...

Maybe you have not noticed that we are the most bankrupt nation to ever exist.

Maybe you haven't noticed but the budget for Defense is 16% of the total fed budget...

OMG!! HORRORS!!

Michael K said...

"And I do enjoy people insisting Iraq was doomed to failure because it's different, unlike GermanyandJapan"

I tend to agree but I also think if any Arab country (and they have been for the best part of a century, as long as South Korea ) was a prospect for a civil society, not a democracy as we understand it, it was Iraq. It was worth a try, in other words.

Afganistan was never worth a try and that is an Obama lunacy along with a number of others.

Crimso said...

"If it worked for A and B it follows that it can work for C! Because!"

No no. My position is that if it worked for A and B, it MIGHT work for C. This is in opposition to "It worked for A and B, but it could never work for C." The fact is, we will never know. Not now.

Quaestor said...

Hello? Am I still welcome?

harrogate said...

Michael K writes:

"It is depressing to think of how many Democrats hold the same lunatic views you do, Cookie.

I just hope you do not have the occasion to learn how wrong you are."

Look at that sentence closely. Notice how it closes off even the possibility that HE could be wrong.No matter what happens, he's right, the war was right. Such rhetoric chaarcterized the runup to the invasion in the first place.



It's truly amazing that Krauthammer, Kristol et al, even are given a venue to keep spewing at this point. The whole lot of 'em should sit the rest of the foreign policy discussions out for their whole lives times infinity.

Crimso said...

Full disclosure: I deleted all of my comments directed at the banned individual. This should not be taken as an admission that my position was wrong.

Bobby said...

Yeah, obviously, we'll never know for sure, but I'm with Michael K. on the hollowness saying we were forced to withdraw our troops because we couldn't get a SOFA guaranteeing our troops fueros extranjeros. If the Administration really wanted immunity for the troops, the deal was probably there to be had. Certainly, if immunity is what you wanted, then I think you'd probably want to go about the negotiation a heck of a lot different than what really happened.

But stranger things have happened, Hanlon's razor and all of that.

Tyrone Slothrop said...

Shorter Robert Cook:

No blood for oil

So,no oil.

Crimso said...

'Crimso, *you* introduced the term "nation-state", not me.'

Perhaps I'm confused, but I don't see using the term "nation-state" instead of "nation" was in any way moving the goalposts. I see that as a distinction without a difference. My point (which I think still stands) is that Iraq was in fact a "nation" in any relevant sense of the word. You were implying (if not explicitly asserting) that they were no such thing, and you did so in part by saying they were "technically" a nation but that was the only way they could be considered a nation. I asked (and do so here again) what essential features of a nation was lacking in Iraq. Did they not have a central government? A currency? Embassies? An army? Borders? Individuals who self-identified as "Iraqi" (I know the answer to this one is "yes")? Recognized by the UN?

Remember, all of this was in the context of whether postwar activities in Iraq constituted "nation building" or "nation rebuilding." Which seems like we're quibbling, but I think it is a significant point.

And I never said there weren't differences in the postwar situations in Iraq versus any other ones. Each is unique. I do not believe that nation rebuilding in Iraq was/is impossible. You, evidently, do. And I have seen no compelling reasons from you or anyone else as to why I should also believe this. Nor have I seen compelling reasons as to why success was inevitable. But, again, we'll never know now. Thanks to Smart Diplomacy.

Michael K said...

"even are given a venue to keep spewing at this point."

Yes, the left is about shutting down speech.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Even Robert Cook doesn't claim that there was any way to make Sadam adhere to the terms of the 1991 ceasefire, and the various UNSC resolutions regarding inspections, short of an invasion.

Big Mike said...

Krauthammer has a way of cutting through the b*llsh*t, doesn't he? Bottom line is that Obama is losing a war that his predecessor had won. A new generation of veterans can figure out what the Democrats think of their sacrifices and the sacrifices of their fellow soldiers.

readering said...

Going into Iraq, we were going to get out of Iraq sooner rather than later. It was not supposed to be another Vietnam. That we stayed as long as we did--almost a decade--was a betrayal to the American people. Even Romney said in 2012 that if elected he would not go back into Iraq. We won Iraq by the end of Bush in the way that we won Vietnam by the end of Nixon. In both cases, at some point we were going to leave and when we did things were going to happen that we would not like.

harrogate said...

It's not about shutting down speech. It would be akin to inviting people who know nothing about football to do commentary for football games. These people have shown themselves to be wrong over and over again, and yet the networks keep giving them airtime. Amazing really.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Harrogate wrote:
"These people have shown themselves to be wrong over and over again, and yet the networks keep giving them airtime."

Hillary Clinton and Obama and Biden and Kerry opposed the US surge in Iraq of 2006. They are wrong over and over, and people keep voting for them.

chickelit said...

harrogate said...

Look at that sentence closely. Notice how it closes off even the possibility that HE could be wrong.No matter what happens, he's right, the war was right. Such rhetoric chaarcterized the runup to the invasion in the first place.

Such poor reading comprehension on your part harrogate. Analyze the meaning of Michael K's words again the correct way and you'll reach a different conclusion. You disappoint me.

chickelit said...

Going forward, we're going to need a CiC who has American troops interests in mind and not "don't hurt the bad guy" ROE's.

harrogate said...

Chickelit,

Well obviously the war supporters cannot be wrong, ever. After all this time they are still so very right. But maybe one day some magical evidence will appear that proves the dissenters wrong. But the supporters sincerely hope not , of course. But if the proof never happens the supporters are still right.

Under what circumstances can the supporters of invasion be wrong? To invoke Bush, "we will let the historians settle it later."


And on and on in an infinite regress. I won't pretend to be "disappointed" in you or Michael K. though. It's par the course for Krauthammer too .

Known Unknown said...

It's truly amazing that Krauthammer, Kristol et al, even are given a venue to keep spewing at this point. The whole lot of 'em should sit the rest of the foreign policy discussions out for their whole lives times infinity.

We as a nation will never fight another just war, because there are no just wars. We will never "win" another one because there is no will nor way to win.

Etienne said...

If we built twenty nuclear power plants in the USA, we wouldn't need the oil we import, and none of the fracking.

Known Unknown said...

""If we built twenty nuclear power plants in the USA, we wouldn't need the oil we import, and none of the fracking."

"But all of those are bad. Windmills!"

/modern environmenalist

Michael K said...

"These people have shown themselves to be wrong over and over again, and yet the networks keep giving them airtime. Amazing really."

Awww. Did we hurt your feewings ?

Free speech includes speech you don't agree with. I'm not advocating you be shut down. I am happy to debate Iraq and strategy with those who seem to know some history even if they disagree with me.

My response is to read more. Your response seems to be to scream "LIAR !"

harrogate said...

EMD,

Speaking of disappointments, you sound disappointed at the prospect that someday it will be difficult for the owners of the country to drag the American people into a war.

Don't worry. That day doesn't look to close on the horizon.

Lewis Wetzel said...

The decision to use military force to enforce UN resolutions and the terms of the 1991 ceasefire was broadly bipartisan, and had the support of the dem leadership and the GOP leadership. What the Hell do you want, Harrogate? A guarantee that nothing can go wrong? Give a partisan minority veto power over the warmaking powers of the US?

harrogate said...

Michael K. ,

You are conflating my point with a free speech issue. It's not like going uninvited by CNN or the Washington Post is the same as having your speech "shut down."

Anonymous said...

Crimso: I asked (and do so here again) what essential features of a nation was lacking in Iraq. Did they not have a central government? A currency? Embassies? An army? Borders? Individuals who self-identified as "Iraqi" (I know the answer to this one is "yes")? Recognized by the UN?

And that completes our tour of Crimso's extensive knowledge of the pre- and post-war history and political culture of Iraq.

chickelit said...

/modern environmenalist

"enviromenialist" would be a better malapropos. :)

Gahrie said...

Has anyone ever figured out what happened to Code Pink when Obama was elected?

Anyone want to bet against the fact that they will re-appear (along with the homeless, the hungry etc) when a republican is elected president?

harrogate said...

If Althouse were to remove my comments she wouldn't be "shutting down" my free speech. She'd be declining to provide a venue for me to speak. These are different things.

chickelit said...

Terry said...

What the Hell do you want, Harrogate?

Harrogate's major beef with the US has nothing to do with foreign policy. He sees everything through the lens of the greatest civil rights struggle of his generation. Everything Bush touched is thus to be condemned.

harrogate said...

Terry, for purposes of this thread anyway, I want us to stop lying to ourselves that the invasion of Iraq was good idea , and to stop treating as "experts" the people who beat the drums for it.

jr565 said...

Bbkingfish wrote:
"The fact is that by the end of Bush's tenure the war had been won."

What a fun "fact! "The title of Krauthammer's piece must have been "Dispatches from Never-Neverland."

If this is the best the WPP can do, 2016 is going to be a blast, kiddies.
we can compare Iraq to a country where a civil war is currently raging. Say, Syria. After the surge when Iraq was pacified, what did up you see in Iraq that came close to anything that resembled Syria, or what occurred during th height of the Iraq war?
The fact is, only because it was so pacified was Obama able to declare it a victory. That peace lasted for upwards of three years, until Obama withdrew all troops.
So, yes, the war was won. We can see actual wars occurring now where war is decidedly ongoing. Compare Iraq to those war zones, Iraq was in an eminently better position.so then compare Iraq to what it was like under sadaam.
Again. No contest. You are simply talking out of your ass.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Harrogate, you seem to believe a priori and a posteriori knowledge are the same thing.
It seems to me that there were two reasonable arguments against the use of force in 2003. One was that Iraq had no WMD, and could not create WMD, and the the other was that even if Iraq had WMD it was not worth the risks that would accompany invasion and regime change. Both of these alternatives were presented and were rejected by the Bush administration and the leadership of both parties in congress. Knowing what was known then, and not now, where did Bush and congress go wrong?

jr565 said...

Readering wrote:
Going into Iraq, we were going to get out of Iraq sooner rather than later. It was not supposed to be another Vietnam. That we stayed as long as we did--almost a decade--was a betrayal to the American people. Even Romney said in 2012 that if elected he would not go back into Iraq. We won Iraq by the end of Bush in the way that we won Vietnam by the end of Nixon. In both cases, at some point we were going to leave and when we did things were going to happen that we would not like.

it was a lot like Vietnam, I. That we turned the war over to people who wanted us to lose and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Why do dems always do that?

Michael said...

My favorite topic. How the dumbest motherfucker ever, slyly got the entire world to believe his lie, vote for war and support the invasion. Blood for oil. Halliburton.
Dumbest chippy chimp ever.

harrogate said...

Of course alternatives were rejected by the Bush Administration Terry. And the reason was--and this is important--the Bush Administration wanted to go to war. And they were going to do it no matter what. I would hope that the next time an Administration so clearly wants to go to war, and is being cheerled by the same old drum beaters such as we see in ole Kraut, that a bit more skepticism shows up in the souls of the American people. I would hope so, that is. But I know better.

jr565 said...

Harrogste the Iraq war was a fait accomplit since the end of the Clinton administration. Any basis for it was already determined with the passage of 15 resolutions by the UN, and the passage of the Iraq Liberation act by congress, which called for regime change and transition to democracy, because of Iraqi continual thumbing of his nose at international sanctions not to mention the continued belief that Iraq continued to pose a threat because of WMD,s. Not to mention Clintons last act on Iraq involved removing all inspectors and then bombing the shit out of Iraq.
At the time Madeline Albright said they couldn't expect to get all of the WMD's just diminish Sadaams capacity.after 9/11 where we had an enemy that said it was the right u dear god for Al Qaeda to get nukes.
Containment was in free fall. It was stated US policy they we get regime change and transition to democracy.
The only difference of opinion was how to achieve. bush simply did not believe that arming opposition groups would cut it,and so did what needed to be done to get thwt regime change.
And I note he achieved it and Clinton only talked about it.

harrogate said...

The truth is there's nothing to hope for. The next time we get a GOP President we will get at least one more full-blown war. Not that the owners of the Dem party are so different--indeed as Cook has noted it is many of the same people who own both parties. Maybe one day the American people will ridicule those who keep trying to drag us into more and more bloody martial quagmires all over the world, but I doubt it

jr565 said...

Michael wrote:
My favorite topic. How the dumbest motherfucker ever, slyly got the entire world to believe his lie, vote for war and support the invasion. Blood for oil. Halliburton.
Dumbest chippy chimp ever.

he must have had a time machine. How did he get the dems who ran the country before him to so perfectly make the case that Iraq needed to be contained, and that regime change was needed. And that sadaam posed a threat that needed to be dealt with.
Bush invented time travel!

furious_a said...

I always thought the real reason for the 2003 Iraq war was to establish a beachhead over there.

I always thought the real reason was to hermetically seal Syria and Iran (Iraq) and Iran and Pakistan (Afghanistan) off from one another. With Israel and Turkey on one side of Syria and India on the other side of Pakistan.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

While we were squandering our resources, unsuccessfully attempting to convince the Arabs that we had the biggest dick on the block, China was steadily building the infrastructure that will crush us in the next generation. This is from a US startup manufacturer who has had to move to Shenzhen, the epicenter of world electronics manufacturing, to remain competitive.

"I get asked why I don’t promote ‘Made in the USA’. I think that corporate America created this problem about two decades ago when ‘management gurus’ and Harvard Business Review writers started telling companies to focus on their core competencies and outsource everything else to low-wage countries like China. One thing those managers didn’t understand was that the employees in their companies, with a detailed understanding of their manufacturing process and its quirks, were some of their core competencies. It’s sad that most corporations in the U.S. — especially in the Bay Area — gave all of that up, and in the process, depleted the manufacturing ecosystem there, as suppliers, equipment makers, and the like either disappeared or moved to where that manufacturing was still happening.”

He emphasizes the often-overlooked importance of this support infrastructure that surrounds any world manufacturing center. “Manufacturing implies an entire ecosystem of suppliers, repair technicians, jobbers, shipping and delivery services, etc.,” he says. To illustrate what makes Shenzhen so unique, he shared a story at the 2013 Shanghai Maker Carnival: “I’m in my apartment, in Huaqiangbei, and I get a call early in the morning. My factory is short of transistors. So I get up, walk downstairs, buy 3,000 transistors on the street, walk over to the factory, thread it into the reel on the line, and two hours later, the line’s up and running again.” In another city or situation, he says, your factory would be down for maybe 24 hours. Those 24-hour delays begin to mount and seriously slow delivery of your product."

jr565 said...

Rusty wrote:
"They managed to hold three national elections with less corruption than a City of Chicago mayoral election.
It my not look like western representative democracy, but it was headed in the right direction.
Pity."
Exactly, and during those years there was no major outbreak of violence. Even when Al Maliki started proving to be a problematic leader there was a mechanism in place to get him out without, say, a coup or civil war.

And Obama and the doves literally pissed that away.

Gahrie said...

Terry, for purposes of this thread anyway, I want us to stop lying to ourselves that the invasion of Iraq was good idea , and to stop treating as "experts" the people who beat the drums for it.

Because of course, the best way to win an argument is to de-legitimize your opponents and ignore their arguments.

How about we do the same with the Left and the War on Poverty?

I want us to stop lying to ourselves that the War on Poverty was good idea , and to stop treating as "experts" the people who beat the drums for it

Michael K said...

" I want us to stop lying to ourselves that the invasion of Iraq was good idea , and to stop treating as "experts" the people who beat the drums for it."

Would suggest that the left eliminate the word "lying" and "lies" from its rhetoric on Iraq. You won't but you would look less silly.

My argument, which of course you don;t address, is that he was faced with a dilemma dating from the original Gulf War of 1991. You could discuss what his alternatives were given that the sanctions were collapsing and bin Laden had brought down the WTC.

The fact that you (the collective you of the left) won't suggests that you have no argument.

It just looks childish.

jr565 said...

Harrogste wrote:
The truth is there's nothing to hope for. The next time we get a GOP President we will get at least one more full-blown war. Not that the owners of the Dem party are so different--indeed as Cook has noted it is many of the same people who own both parties. Maybe one day the American people will ridicule those who keep trying to drag us into more and more bloody martial quagmires all over the world, but I doubt it

in what magical world do we never get involved in wars? We are often bound on our course of action, based on our allies/enemies course of action. To wish that ignores that Russia will be involved in wars around the world. And Irsan will be involved I. Wars around the world.
But only the U.S. Must remain completely neutral? why then are we in NATO? why are we part of the security council in the UN?

Michael K said...

"China was steadily building the infrastructure that will crush us in the next generation. This is from a US startup manufacturer who has had to move to Shenzhen, the epicenter of world electronics manufacturing, to remain competitive. "

I actually agree with you ARM in some of this. I just don't think it will be China. China has a built in problem that they will be old by the time they are developed.

I am very pessimistic about the future but not because of China. Our trouble will come from another direction.

We have an elite that obssesses about gay marriage and global warming when the Muslim world is about to explode. Literally.

harrogate said...

"Only the US must remain completely neutral?"

Oh please. We are blowing shit up all over the place all the damn time. Spare me the "everyone but us is making war" hypothetical. I'd just like to see a bit more reticence on our part, for starters. And for there to be an American populace willing to exact a political price upon politicians who actively seek to get us into wars for their whole careers (c.f. McCain , Graham, Lieberman, etc.).

I'd also like to see us go back to forcing Congress to actually declare war before we go to war. But unlike Ron and Rand, I know that ain't happening.

Finally, to go back to a central issue posed by this thread: Charles Krauthammer is part of a group of chatterers who have pushed for US warmaking their entire careers and no matter what happens they just keep pushing for more. They pay no price. That they keep commanding salaries for pushing their same old line speaks very poorly of our media and it's consumers

Lewis Wetzel said...

Harrogate wrote:
Of course alternatives were rejected by the Bush Administration Terry. And the reason was--and this is important--the Bush Administration wanted to go to war. And they were going to do it no matter what.

This is argument from imagination, not fact. The alternatives were rejected, not just by Bush, but by Hillary, Kerry, Biden, and Reid. You don't like that fact, so you ignore it in favor of fantasies about reading the minds of Bush administration officials. The only president I can think of who went to war in order to effect regime change without congressional authorization goes by the name of Barack Obama.

harrogate said...

The 2002 Senate Democrats were a cowardly pack . It was poetic justice that even after they gave Bush the store for fear of being demonized, they still got their asses kicked. I sincerely hope you're not one of those who thinks that invoking the Dem likes of Clinton and Kerry is tantamount to showing some broad ideological spectrum of consensus.

furious_a said...

.....unlike GermanyandJapan (written that way on purpose; funny how they get lumped together since they are successes, even though their cultures are vastly different).

Not so much culture as that Germany and Japan were utterly and completely defeated, their cities levelled over the course of years under 1,000-bomber raids, their industrial capacity buried under rubble and ashes, their war parties hunted (Nuremberg) or humbled (Hirohito, literally the fall of the Sun God) for all in the defeated countries to see, their post-war political orders and economic recoveries directed and built from ground zero by the victorious Allies.

Korea had been bled dry by centuries of colonial neglect by China, Russia and Japan, and was one of the poorest places on earth *before* the Korea war tore it apart further. Starting in 1953 it had nowhere to go but up.

Nothing of the sort happened in either Iraq (or Afghanistan), so whatever pathologies, sectarian divides, insurgent capacities and general orneriness existed under Saddam (or the Taliban) survived the invasions, occupations and counter-insurgencies.

Jason said...

Jesus the libtards are still stuck on stupid.

But their childlike faith that all would have been A-OK in an Iraq governed by Uday and Qusay is touching indeed.

Idiots.

Drago said...

Is there anything quite as amusing as noted conspiracy nutcase robert cook lecturing others about falling for falsehoods?

I think not, unless its R&B's peering desperately into the womb of Sarah Palin and then "Just Asking Questions"

Gahrie said...

I'd just like to see a bit more reticence on our part, for starters.

I know...let's disband our military and get rid of our standing army..that'll bring about world peace.

Crimso said...

"And that completes our tour of Crimso's extensive knowledge of the pre- and post-war history and political culture of Iraq"

Not at all. It demonstrates your inability to answer a very simple question. Answer it, or don't. It makes no difference to me. But don't pretend to know what I do or do not know. That's just stupid.

Crimso said...

And as was requested by a certain unperson, you'll notice I've cut my hair. And de-aged almost 30 years.

Crimso said...

"their post-war political orders and economic recoveries directed and built from ground zero by the victorious Allies."

But how can this be? I've been assured by people most knowledgeable that rebuilt nations rebuild themselves, and that can only happen when there is a pre-existing nation to pull itself up out of its ashes. And that is why the aftermath of the Iraq war was doomed to failure, since Iraq was not a nation. They had pretty well every characteristic that one could ascribe to a nation, but for some inexplicable reason they weren't one. Or so my betters tell me.

Lewis Wetzel said...

"The 2002 Senate Democrats were a cowardly pack."
Harrogate, I'm not trying to be snarky, but those are the Dems who are still in charge. Kerry is Secretary of State. Hillary was Secretary of State before Kerry. Biden is VP. Harry Reid was minority whip in 2002. Daschle would likely still be party leader in the senate, if he hadn't lost, to a Republican, in 2004. Obama opposed the Iraq war when it cost him nothing, and, as president, has engaged in regime change in Libya and has threatened regime change in Syria. Nevertheless he continues to enjoy wide support from the Democrat base. Maybe Obama should change his last name to "Krauthammer"?
I think that you are making a "no true Scotsman" argument, Harrogate.

Hagar said...

Every nation state boundary in the world - perhaps excepting some island nations - is the result of "historical accidents."

And for citizens of the U.S. to be fulminating against artificial borders is pretty rich; have any of you people considered the maps of North America lately?

Michael K said...

"Maybe Obama should change his last name to "Krauthammer"?
I think that you are making a "no true Scotsman" argument, Harrogate."

No true lefty knows what the "no true Scotsman" fallacy is.

:)

Lewis Wetzel said...

But the borders have been remarkably stable since 1948, Hagar. The UN hates two things with a passion: nations annexing the territory of other nations, and WMD. The post WW2 world order is built on the twin ideas of territorial integrity and non-proliferation of WMD.
Sadam decided he both wanted both other nation's territory and WMD.
I once read that an Iraqi general, in a roundtable discussion with Sadam and other commanders on the eve of the first Iraq War, was asked his opinion of the coming battle. Unlike everyone else at the meeting, he told Sadam that the Americans and their partners would destroy them in a few days. The story went that Sadam appeared to listen to him, thought for a few seconds, then asked the next guy for his opinion. The conversation continued as though the general had never said a word.

Hagar said...

The borders have been remarkably stable since 1948 because previous United States administrations did not approve of wars or revolutions that might spiral into a nuclear war with the Soviet Union and took steps to block such actons from taking place.

Lewis Wetzel said...

We also made Saddam give back Kuwait. The reason we had the UN in Korea for that war was because the Chinese were pouring troops across the Korean, i.e., the US was able to convince the UNSC that it was a Chinese invasion of Korea. The only reason it got UN approval was because the Soviets were boycotting the UNSC over a dispute about who represented the mainland Chinese at the UN.
Thank God we got involved in that land war in Asia!

Hagar said...

Not so. Stalin financed and armed Kim Il Jong.
Mao did not get involved until the U.S. military beat the North Koreans and looked like they might continue across the Yalu.

And what he did then was mostly to send the old Kuomintang armies up there to either freeze to death or be killed by the Americans for him.

Hagar said...

It should be noted that China's western provinces are largely Moslem and populated by non-Chinese people and the CCP already has problems with these.
And Russia's south and the borderlands are largely Moslem, such as Chechnya, the Tsarnaevs' homeland, etc.
Some of the borderlands to China and Russia, such as Mongolia or Afghanistan, are previous tributary lands for one or both of them.
And then there was Israel.

Allowing widespread turmoil in "the Moslem world" may turn out to have been the biggest mistake of all.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Hagar wrote:
"Mao did not get involved until the U.S. military beat the North Koreans and looked like they might continue across the Yalu."
You are correct, Hagar! Everything I know about the Korean War I learned from watching MASH.

Paul said...

Better yet, in March, 2011, Obama commenced bombing Libya, killing Gaddafi and destabilizing Libya, which is now a terrorist stronghold.

So let's ask Obama, and Hillary, why this was done and was it a mistake?

jr565 said...

harrogate wrote:
Oh please. We are blowing shit up all over the place all the damn time. Spare me the "everyone but us is making war" hypothetical. I'd just like to see a bit more reticence on our part, for starters. And for there to be an American populace willing to exact a political price upon politicians who actively seek to get us into wars for their whole careers (c.f. McCain , Graham, Lieberman, etc.).

A bit more reticence? We had been containing Iraq for two terms of Clinton, and containment was in free fall. And we had already had 15 resolutions passed by the UN, and we already had a policy in place for regime change.
Its not like the idea that Sadaam was a threat that needed to be dealt with was cooked up the day Bush took offfice.
I wish we had reticence with containment policies that we know are going to fail as alternatives to war, which actually bring about regime change.
Not that I have a problem with containment, but not if we know going in that we are not going to put in the effort to make it work. And by effort i mean apply pressure.
There is also, or should be a statute of limitations on the amount of bullshit we can stomach before we do what we should have done in the beginning.
And certainly by the time we declaed that the situation wouldn't change so long as Sadaam was still in power.
Since we came to that bipartisan understanding in 1998, all the rest was us simply wacking off NOT achieving that result.

William said...

Whether you decide to make love to a rabid orangutan or whether you decide to beat it down with your bare hands, the results will be about the same. So will cowering in the corner, if your bad luck is such that you share the same enclosure. There's no graceful, elegant way of interacting with a rabid orangutan.

Quaestor said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
George M. Spencer said...

Obama's policy is let the inevitable collapse happen without spending too much U.S. treasure.

Nothing could more obvious than the entire Middle East is going to be wracked by decades of warfare, including the dissolution of Saudi Arabia and unthinkable things with regard to Israel.

Obama knows we no longer have the money or the will to fight big time in the Mid East or Asia or anywhere. He wants the stock market to stay artificially levitated until Jan. 21, 2017, and shove the blame onto Bush and his likely successor Hillary. Then it will be years of sunsets and smoke on the Big Island and big money speeches and rabble rousing on the mainland.

J. Farmer said...

Charles Krauthammer regurgitating, in the most boring cliches imaginable, the neocon CW on Iraq? Shocking! Curious, why is Krauthammer so exercised about ISIS but does not seem too worried about those former scary boogeymen known as the Taliban? Does Krauthammer have anything useful to say about how neocon golden boy David Petraeus and his surge strategy were an utter failure in Afghanistan against the Taliban? Oh, wait, there's no talk to be had about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory so better just to focus on the earth-shattering threat posed by this lame group with the cool name ISIS (sounds way scarrier than ISIL in my opinion).

The most proximate catalyst for ISIS in its current form was the collapse and subsequent power vacuum in Syria. But wait, wasn't the neocon line on Syria that we should be arming the rebels (later amended to the "moderate rebels" once someone pointed out the rebels consisted in large part of radical Sunni jihadists)?

The key strategy of the surge was always to provide a temporary cessation of violence to give space for a political reconciliation. That latter part often gets forgotten, because it never happened. The Shia dominated Iraqi government continued to govern in the interest of the Shia and paid little attention to the Sunni stronghold in the west.

If containing radical jihadists is such a priority for Krauthammer, then shouldn't logic have dictated that we support Assad (in a fashion similar to our support for Gulf monarchies) in keeping a lid on his country? Oh, wait, that might potentially put as on the side of Iran, and that would be totally verboten to a neocon Israel Firster like Krauthammer.

narciso said...

actually the parallel to Afghanistan, is very telling, Massoud's factions had mostly done most of the fighting, yet the US mostly abandoned him and Saudi and ISI backed groups, which became the Taliban and AQ, won out,

J. Farmer said...

@narciso:

What action, precisely, would you like to have seen the US take following the Soviet withdraw from Afghanistan?

narciso said...

we provide advisors and logistical support, the DIA weren't a bunch of Neocons,

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/05/18/military-intel-predicted-rise-isis-in-2012-detailed-arms-shipments/

J. Farmer said...

@narciso:

In 1989, advisors and logistical support would have prevented the Taliban from coming to power?

narciso said...

that was the lesson of ghost wars, something lost on Obama.

J. Farmer said...

@narciso:

So what the Soviet's were incapable of accomplishing over 10 years and with 100,000 troops we could have accomplished with vaguely defined advisors and logistical support? Does the interventionist mind allow for any limitations on what American military power and statecraft can accomplish?

a psychiatrist who learned from veterans said...

Years ago the editorial page of the WSJ had a piece about Iraqi intelligence assuming the identities of several residents of Kuwait with Iraq's brief takeover in Kuwait, people who would play central roles in causing 9/11. The thought that 9/11 was part of Saddam's ongoing war with the U.S. may have motivated Bush's desire to topple Saddam. As for WMD, Saddam had plenty of time in the runup to the war to move poison gas to Syria as a former Iraqi Air Force General subsequently said he did.

Regardless, a Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin after the Constitutional Convention, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.” Same went for Iraq in 2008.

Robert Cook said...

"Krauthammer has a way of cutting through the b*llsh*t, doesn't he? Bottom line is that Obama is losing a war that his predecessor had won."

You mean, Krauthammer never has anything to offer but bullshit, as you have swallowed his, whole.

Obama is continuing to lose a war that was lost from the beginning, (an illegal war, to boot).

Sammy Finkelman said...

Bobby said 5/22/15 @ 12:38 PM

But I also know that we did NBC training in July in Fort Irwin and that was pretty freakin' bad, so the whole April 1 deadline might be a "soft" deadline, at best.

It gets a lot hotter in the summer in Iraq than in California, with the possible exception of Death Valley.

It never was, I think, announced, but everyone, including Saddam Hussein, knew that April 1 was the approximate deadline.

So I think he helped stretch things out and then arranged for the Turkish Parliamant to pull the rug out from under Bush;s military plans.

Only Bush went ahead without using Turkish territory.