Muckroom Follies 3.06.08 Another Pearl!

Who, Dear Gentle Reader(s), would've thought it possible? Over at the Townhall muckroom, another voice of reason has emerged!

Hie thee, then, over to Steve Chapman's "McCain's Consistent Folly on Iraq," where you will find a litany of Senator McCain's errors about the Iraqi situation.

Chapman ends his piece with this: McCain says the current "strategy is succeeding in Iraq."His apparent definition of success is that American forces will stay on in huge numbers as long as necessary to keep violence within acceptable limits. We were told we had to increase our numbers so we could leave. Turns out we had to increase our numbers so we could stay.
Five years after the Iraq invasion, we've suffered more than 30,000 dead and wounded troops, incurred trillions in costs and found that Iraqis are unwilling to overcome their most basic divisions. And no end is in sight. If you're grateful for that, thank John McCain.

Prior to that finale, Chapman recites the Republican nominee's flips with regards to the president's war policies.

Thank, also, Mr.Chapman. Why should we give another blinkered Republican the power to keep us in Iraq?

Trust, but verify.

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A feint for hope?

The President made an "unannounced" trip to Iraq on Labor Day, 2007. The story is covered in just about every daily in the land, and that coverage offers a glint of hope for America's disengagement in Iraq. The problem for the ordinary citizen is how to interpret the information coming out of Iraq and Washington.

NPR's Morning Edition Corey Flintoff reports there were no next-day editorial comments in Iraqi newspapers. What are we to make of the silence of Iraqi newspapermen?

Here's a quote from a statement by the President: "But General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker tell me if the kind of success we are now seeing continues, it will be possible to maintain the same level of security with fewer American forces." Is that a feint, disguised in an otherwise normal White House denunciation of political adversaries? To illustrate, here's a quote from the President's statement to some members of the military on the same day, "But I want to tell you this about the decision -- about my decision about troop levels. Those decisions will be based on a calm assessment by our military commanders on the conditions on the ground -- not a nervous reaction by Washington politicians to poll results in the media."

So, the President visits Al-Anbar and slips in "fewer American forces" with the usual "nervous...politicians."

It is to be hoped that fewer American forces turns out to be no American forces, that the stability in Al-Anbar spreads to the entire country.

A cynic, however, reviewing the White House's propensity for "spin," might conclude this is the first indication that Mr. Bush--nerously?--is preparing to declare victory and withdraw combat forces.

Trust, but verify.

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What's Going On? (With Update)

Here's an interesting opening para from a recent AP story out of Baghdad: A key aide says Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's relations with Gen. David Petraeus are so poor the Iraqi leader may ask Washington to withdraw the overall U.S. commander from his Baghdad post.
(The story is by STEVEN R. HURST and QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writers, dated July 28, 2007, "Heat rises between Iraq PM and Petraeus." The link is to a dallasnews.com site.)

So, the man who is named by President bush tens of times a month as being the person who will give us the report in September is at odds with the Prime Minister of Iraq?

The PM is upset because the General is too comfy with Sunnis which tends to kill off Shias like the PM?

The PM doesn't like what our "decider" on the scene is doing/planning?

According to the story our Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, admits to "sporty exchanges" between the two men.

Wow.

Before we allow the "report" in September to mire us in this unhappy mess, we should take time to insist that someone, somewhere, verify before place our trust in further involvement in this obvious sectarian strife in Iraq.

UPDATE

The Los Angeles Times reports that Petraeus dismissed as "ludicrous" a report that Maliki felt he could no longer work with the general.

The problem, according to the Times article, is with the conflicts between Sunni and Shia adversaries.

---We'll see whether the AP or the LAT has the correct version. In any event, Petraeus' credibility is in jeopardy.

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Bacevich, Bush, Islam

Gentle Reader, hie thee to this Los Angeles Times link for Andrew J. Bacevich's op-ed piece, "More troops, more troubles," subtitled, "Candidates who call for beefing up our armed forces to deter terrorism show a profound misunderstanding of the Mideast."

Bacevich dismisses calls for a larger U.S. armed force which are being made by many--and, for the purposes of this essay, especially presidential nominee contenders. He calls, instead, for an "alternative" plan to Bush's failed strategy.

Money quote: "To pass muster, any such strategy will have to recognize the limits of American power, military and otherwise. It must acknowledge that because the United States cannot change Islam, we have no alternative but to coexist with it.

Yet coexistence should not imply appeasement or passivity. Any plausible strategy will prescribe concrete and sustainable policies designed to contain the virulent strain of radicalism currently flourishing in parts of the Islamic world. The alternative to transformation is not surrender but quarantine.

Over time, of course, Islam will become something other than what it is today. But as with our own post-Christian West, that evolution will be determined primarily by forces within. Our interest lies in nudging that evolution along a path that alleviates rather than perpetuates conflict between Islam and the West. In that regard, the requirement is not for a bigger Army but for fresh ideas, informed by modesty and a sense of realism."

We cannot delay. We must assist those 21st century Muslims who see the wisdom in modernizing their religion.

We must take to heart the too obvious fact that reform cannot be changed by military threat.

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Same Argument--Same Lack of Substance

Over at The New York Times, a couple of adversaries from the Vietnam War Argument era are having none of the possible benefits of a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

PETER W. RODMAN and WILLIAM SHAWCROSS are arguing that the American departure from Vietnam was "disastrous, both in human and geopolitical terms, for the United States and the region." They go on to write, "Today we agree equally strongly that the consequences of defeat in Iraq would be even more serious and lasting."

Well, maybe. Not, though, according to the evidence they offer. There are too many conditional words, too many what-ifs, and, most importantly, a strange view of Vietnam in the immediacy of 1976, but not at all in 2007.

Sorry, guys. It doesn't sound like anything other than more of the 1970's "light at the end of the tunnel." Back to the drawing board. You might be correct, but not with this argument. This one doesn't pass the smell test.

For the rest of us: Trust, but Verify.

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Sullivan on Bush

If, Dear Reader, you need a clarification of the situation in Iraq, it would do you well to jump over to this piece by Andrew Sullivan in his The Daily Dish.

Like no other "conservative" blogger/commentator, Sullivan manages to identify significant moments in the Bush Administration's mishandling of this military effort in Iraq.

I recommend it to you.

Please.

Then write your Congressperson.

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It's a tearful croc (crock?)

So, House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) gives a tearful speech on the House floor during the debate yesterday (May 24, 2007) over funding the military effort in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Believing Boehner's sincerity would be easier if dadgummed history and certain facts didn't get in the way. Boehner was part of the Republican Congressional leadership which kow-towed to the Bush administration's planning for the invasion of Iraq--which was a success, and the post-planning for Iraq after Hussein had been deposed--which, kindly, has not been a success.

Go back and read Robert Novak's column from March 13, 2003.

Here's a quote which calls into question the validity of all this current Republican mantra of listening to generals instead of politicians: "[Secretary of the Army, Thomas] White last week did not join the Pentagon's civilian leadership in contradicting Shinseki's estimate but endorsed the general's credentials. Not only did this undermine Rumsfeld's efforts to gain control of the officer corps that he felt ran wild during the Clinton days, but it raised the specter of a long and difficult occupation of Iraq."

We know who won that debate.

In 2003, Mr. Bush listened to his political appointees and not the general in charge.

In 2007, Mr. Boehner weeps for the position in which our troops have been placed, and encourages his House colleagues to listen to the general and not the politician.

Too little. Too late.

Crocodile tears.

Trust, but verify.

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An Update on Petraeus/Wolfowitz/Generals/Politicans

Going back to that NYTimes piece by Eric Schmitt, here's another quote from Wolfowitz: ''Every time we get a briefing on the war plan, it immediately goes down six different branches to see what the scenarios look like. If we costed each and every one, the costs would range from $10 billion to $100 billion.''

Please remember that today, May 24, 2007, the Democratic controlled House of Representatives and U.S. Senate voted to grant Mr. Bush $100 billion to fund the military effort in Afghanistan and Iraq until September, 2007.

That means Mr. Wolfowitz was wildly inaccurate in 2003, and the President listened to him more carefully than he did to General Shinseki.

Yet, the Republican right-wing continues to support this military effort and their man in the White House who was the "decider" to take the country to war against a country which was innocent of atrocities against the United States on 9/11/01.

Trust, but verify has taken on a new element: Whom, exactly, do we trust? The President of the United States, who made us believe he trusted his generals but actually trusted his political appointees, or the generals? It seems once we trusted him, even though it led to the disgraceful treatment of an honored general. Now we trust--a general? Even that general is working in the shadow of the shabby treatment of General Shinseki?

Mr. Bush, how can we trust you to make a wise decision?

We know how to verify--merely look at the facts of history--but whom do we trust in the first/final place?

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"Who do you trust? Politicians or Generals?"

On today's NPR broadcast of Mr. Bush's press conference, time and again he repeated the name of General Petraeus.

Time and again he repeated some variation of his mantra, "Who do you trust? Politicians or Generals?"

We should trust politicians to run things political; we should trust generals to run things military.

What we should also do is remember that when General Shinseki called for "several hundred thousand" troops to be deployed to Iraq for post-war occupation and stabilization, a politician, the second in command at the Pentagon, Paul Wolfowitz, called the general's estimate "wildly off the mark.'' (The link is to a story by Eric Schmitt, 2/28/03, New York Times.)

We all need to remember that, in the planning before the war, Mr. Bush once listened to politicians rather than to generals. We need to remember on our own; Mr. Bush seems reluctant to remember.

General Petraeus, the man who summons your name in his own defense is a politician.

Caveat.

Trust, but verify.

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Memo to Dick: Well, yes...but...

The May 11, 2007, US CENTCOM news feed features a story by Sgt. Sara Wood which briefly outlines the remarks Vice President Cheney made in Tikrit this week.

The VP is to be admired for going to Iraq to do some morale building. The troops deserve no less.

There are a couple of quotes in the article, however, which might give one pause. Sgt. Wood writes, "Al Qaeda terrorists have chosen Iraq as the central front in their worldwide campaign against freedom," and she quotes Mr. Cheney, "...this [Iraq] is where they’ve decided to fight..."

Actually, Sgt. Wood and Mr. Cheney, it was the Bush administration who decided to "fight" in Iraq. Al Qaeda of 9/11 was on its last legs in Afghanistan until we decided to depose Hussein. The Al Qaeda engaged in Iraq is a distant relative from the Al Qaeda which masterminded and executed 9/11. It does no good to confuse the history of the ideological struggle in which we find ourselves.

Sgt. Wood wrote good article, and Mr. Cheney gave a good speech.

A reading of the content of the article and the speech, however, reminds us to Trust, But Verify.

(If you don't know about the email briefings from US CENTCOM, you should. This is the link for the homepage of United States Central Command. The page offers a spot to sign up for "US CENTCOM latest news feed." Go there and sign up. Now!)

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Blankety Blankley

Tony Blankley, just today on Hardball, once again warning of dire consequences should there be an uninformed re-deployment out of Iraq, spouts the old how-we-got-there-doesn't-matter because what is important is what we do from here.

While it is easy to agree with Mr. Blankley about the former, his reiteration of the latter begs the question: What in the behavior of the Administration has changed so that in 2007 we should trust their judgment when, in 2002 and subsequently, they have proven to be eminently not up to the job of running this ideological struggle, not to mention their reputation today of questionable trustworthiness?

Please, Mr. Blankley, share with us the basis for your continuing trust in the Administration's policies vis a vis Iraq and the struggle against Islamic extremism.

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"...It's a long, long time...

...from May to December..." but it's a longer time from May to April, forget about September.

Salon.com is reporting (actually, the source is the Washington Post) that Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, who "runs" Iraq on a day-to-day basis, wants to continue the surge until April, 2008.

So, when all these congressional members of the Republican party, senators and representatives, talk about a re-evaluation of the surge and of Iraqi policies in September, 2007, what do they mean?

More of the same?

Is the May talk about a September hard look merely a red herring dragged across the trail of continued carnage until next April?

Trust, but verify.

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Meanwhile...over at The Times...

Here's a great headline from today's The New York Times: "Plan B? Let’s Give Plan A Some Time First."

In the column, Frederick W. Kagan lists some advancements in Iraq as of May 6. He goes on to state that there should be no "Plan B" until Plan A has had some time of implementation. His major argument is that the vicissitudes of war argue against planning for failure at the beginning of a new strategy. (Although why contingency planning isn't part of Plan A one has to wonder.)

That makes sense. War is more of a becoming rather than a being. It never is--for more than a nanosecond.

It's good to see this somewhat hopeful scenario on the pages of The Times.

There is a sobering moment, though. Embedded in the opinion piece is this: "As one of the initial proponents of the surge..." And this: "Frederick W. Kagan is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute..."

Ah, the two-part dilemma: 1) Do we trust a proponent of "the surge" to be as objectively honest as humanly possible; 2) Is a member of the conservative "think tank" American Enterprise Institute to be viewed with some skepticism?

1) I don't know; 2) Yes.

Perhaps the old TBV should be reversed in this instance: Verify, but trust.

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