A Reverse Vietnam

[Annie]

I really don't want to think of what the Iraq war would look like if there wasn't alternative means of news-which is very, very sad commentary on our media.

There are lots of links and the poll I cited earlier is in there:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/26/AR2005112600745.html

Here's the main link:

http://instapundit.com/archives/027093.php

November 27, 2005

IT'S A REVERSE-VIETNAM: On Reliable Sources I said that the Plame scandal was a reverse-Watergate, with the press, not the White House, keeping the important secrets about what happened. But looking at the transcript, I see that Iraq is also a reverse Vietnam, as made clear in this statement from UPI correspondent Pamela Hess:

KURTZ: Welcome back to RELIABLE SOURCES.

Pam Hess, during Vietnam U.S. officials were often accused of distorting or even lying to the press to try to make it look like the war effort was going better than it was. When you were in Iraq did you feel like you were getting the straight story?

HESS: Certainly from the militarily I did. They have no interest in cooking the books, as it were, they -- they understand that they were blamed for Vietnam and what happened, and they don't want that blame again.

They want people to understand the kind of enemy that they are facing and how long it's going to take. And frankly, most of them said to me, "Please go back and tell them not to pull us out because we are finally at a point where we have enough people here now on the ground between soldiers and Iraqis that we can actually start doing some good and start turning things around. And if you pull us out, we're just going to be back here three years from now."

KURTZ: More optimistic, at least than some of the journalists.

HESS: Yes.

(See it on video here.) In Vietnam, the brass talked happy-talk, the press talked to grunts and reported that the war was going worse than we were told. But now it's Americans who are talking to the grunts, and, as StrategyPage noted last year, getting a different picture of how the war is going:

So you don’t have to wait for the official version of what’s going on, or for reporters on the scene to get their stories to the folks back home. The troops send email, or pick up the phone, sometimes a cell phone, and call. This has caused a lot of confusion, because the media reports of what’s happening are often at odds with what the troops are reporting. This has been particularly confusing in a year where there’s a presidential election race going on. The Democrats decided to attack the way the war on terror, and particularly the actions in Iraq, was being fought. Part of that approach involved making the situation at the front sound really, really bad. But the troops over there seemed to be reporting a different war. And when troops came home, they were amazed at what they saw in the newspapers and electronic media. Politics and reality don’t mix.

It's not surprising, then, that the more connection people have to the war, the better they think things are going. That's precisely the opposite of what we saw in Vietnam, of course.

By the way, I often link Dunnigan's StrategyPage, but if you're interested in this kind of stuff you should really check out his books. There are quite a few, but I particularly recommend his primer on all things military, How to Make War, and his book on special forces, The Perfect Soldier: Special Operations, Commandos, and the Future of U.S. Warfare.

While I was in New York I managed to have breakfast with Dunnigan and Austin Bay, and enjoyed listening in on their conversation. I wish we saw more of that sort of thing in major media -- but then it wouldn't be a reverse-Vietnam, would it?

UPDATE: This seems different, too:

Seventy percent of people surveyed said that criticism of the war by Democratic senators hurts troop morale -- with 44 percent saying morale is hurt "a lot," according to a poll taken by RT Strategies. Even self-identified Democrats agree: 55 percent believe criticism hurts morale, while 21 percent say it helps morale. . . .

Just three of 10 adults accept that Democrats are leveling criticism because they believe this will help U.S. efforts in Iraq. A majority believes the motive is really to "gain a partisan political advantage."

It's just not 1969, however much some people might wish otherwise.

posted at 04:12 PM by Glenn Reynolds

 

[nosarcasm]

from the Economist http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_VNTQTTR

America should keep its troops in Iraq until Iraqis ask them to go

Wars waged abroad are often lost at home; and that may be starting to happen with Iraq. Calls for American troops to withdraw are familiar in the Arab world and Europe, but in the United States itself such talk has remained on the fringes of political debate. Now, with surprising suddenness, it has landed at the centre of American politics.

On November 17th John Murtha, a hawkish Democratic congressman, suggested pulling the troops out of Iraq in six months, prompting an unseemly spat between the former marine colonel and the White House. Moves to set a timetable have been voted down, but the Republican-controlled Senate has voted 79-19 for 2006 to be “a period of significant transition to full Iraq sovereignty” and the Pentagon is mumbling about troop reductions. Meanwhile, some hundred Iraqi leaders at a reconciliation conference in Cairo backed by the Arab League talked about setting a timetable for withdrawal.

There is some politicking in this. In Cairo, the Shias and Kurds, who dominate Iraq's new order, were offering an olive branch to the sullen Sunnis, who used to run the show under Saddam Hussein. In America, Republicans are looking nervously at the 2006 elections. Democrats sense that George Bush is vulnerable—and that Iraq presents the best way to hurt him now that most Americans regret invading the country. Yet there is plainly principle too: Mr Murtha and millions of others maintain that America is doing more harm than good in Iraq, and that the troops should therefore come home.

This newspaper strongly disagrees. In our opinion it would be disastrous for America to retreat hastily from Iraq. Yet it is also well past time for George Bush to spell out to the American people much more clearly and honestly than he has hitherto done why their sons and daughters fighting in Iraq should remain in harm's way.


The cost of failure
Every reasonable person should be able to agree on two things about America's presence in Iraq. First, if the Iraqi government formally asks the troops to leave, they should do so. Second, the argument about whether America should quit Iraq is not the same as the one about whether it should have gone there in the first place. It must be about the future.

That said, the catalogue of failures thus far does raise serious questions about the administration's ability to make Iraq work—ever. Mr Bush's team mis-sold the war, neglected post-invasion planning, has never committed enough troops to the task and has taken a cavalier attitude to human rights. Abu Ghraib, a place of unspeakable suffering under Mr Hussein, will go into the history books as a symbol of American shame. The awful irony is that the specious link which the administration claimed existed between Iraq and al-Qaeda in order to justify going to war now exists.

Two-and-a-half years after Mr Bush stood beneath a banner proclaiming “Mission Accomplished”, the insurgency is as strong as ever. More than 2,000 Americans, some 3,600 Iraqi troops, perhaps 30,000 Iraqi civilians and an unknown number of Iraqi insurgents have lost their lives, and conditions of life for the “liberated” remain woeful. All this makes Mr Bush's refusal to sack the people responsible for this mess, especially his defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, alarming.

But disappointment, even on this scale, does not justify a precipitate withdrawal. There are strong positive and negative reasons for America to see through what it started.

Flickers of hope
Iraq is not Vietnam. Most Iraqis share America's aims: the Shia Arabs and Kurds make up some 80% of the population, while the insurgents operate mainly in four of Iraq's 18 provinces. After boycotting the first general election in January, more Sunni Arabs are taking part in peaceful politics. Many voted in last month's referendum that endorsed a new constitution; more should be drawn into next month's election, enabling a more representative government to emerge. That will not stop the insurgency, but may lessen its intensity. It seems, too, that the Arab world may be turning against the more extreme part of the insurgency—the jihadists led by al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who blow up mosques around Baghdad and Palestinian wedding parties in Jordan (see article). Though few Arabs publicly admit it, Mr Bush's efforts to spread democracy in the region are starting to bear fruit.

So America does have something to defend in Iraq. Which, for Mr Bush's critics, leads into the most tempting part of Mr Murtha's argument: that American troops are now a barrier to further progress; that if they left, Mr Zarqawi would lose the one thing that unites the Sunnis and jihadists; and that, in consequence, Iraqis would have to look after their own security. This has a seductive logic, but flies in the face of the evidence. Most of the insurgents' victims are Iraqis, not American soldiers. There are still too few American troops, not too many. And the Iraqi forces that America is training are not yet ready to stand on their own feet. By all means, hand over more duties to them, letting American and other coalition troops withdraw from the cities where they are most conspicuous and offensive to patriotic Iraqis. Over time, American numbers should fall. But that should happen because the Iraqis are getting stronger, not because the Americans are feeling weaker. Nor should a fixed timetable be set, for that would embolden the insurgents.

The cost to America of staying in Iraq may be high, but the cost of retreat would be higher. By fleeing, America would not buy itself peace. Mr Zarqawi and his fellow fanatics have promised to hound America around the globe. Driving America out of Iraq would grant militant Islam a huge victory. Arabs who want to modernise their region would know that they could not count on America to stand by its friends.
If such reasoning sounds negative—America must stay because the consequences of leaving would be too awful—treat that as a sad reflection of how Mr Bush's vision for the Middle East has soured. The road ahead looks bloody and costly. But this is not the time to retreat.

the article is pretty much along my line thinking.

 

[Annie]

from the Economist http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_VNTQTTR


the article is pretty much along my line thinking.

We agree to disagree. I find most of the article wrong for the same reason I posted the original, it's misleading and fundamentally flawed.

 

[nosarcasm]

go ahead and educate me, take a apart line by line if you have the time
and feel like it.

 

[Annie]

go ahead and educate me, take a apart line by line if you have the time
and feel like it.

Rather than do it line by line, I'll hit those things I really disagree with:

America should keep its troops in Iraq until Iraqis ask them to go

OR UNTIL OUR MILITARY DETERMINES THAT WE ARE READY TO LEAVE.

Wars waged abroad are often lost at home; and that may be starting to happen with Iraq. Calls for American troops to withdraw are familiar in the Arab world and Europe, but in the United States itself such talk has remained on the fringes of political debate. Now, with surprising suddenness, it has landed at the centre of American politics.

NOPE, US HAS HAD A STRONG RECORD OF DISCORD AT HOME DURING WAR, FROM THE TIME OF THE REVOLUTION, EVEN DURING WWII.

On November 17th John Murtha, a hawkish Democratic congressman, suggested pulling the troops out of Iraq in six months, prompting an unseemly spat between the former marine colonel and the White House.

HE DOES NOT HAVE A HISTORY OF BEING A HAWKISH DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSMAN, AN HONORABLE VET, YES. HE DID NOT SAY 6 MONTHS, HE SAID IMMEDIATELY.

Moves to set a timetable have been voted down, but the Republican-controlled Senate has voted 79-19 for 2006 to be “a period of significant transition to full Iraq sovereignty” and the Pentagon is mumbling about troop reductions. Meanwhile, some hundred Iraqi leaders at a reconciliation conference in Cairo backed by the Arab League talked about setting a timetable for withdrawal.

I AM NOT GOING TO GO THROUGH ALL THE MACHINATIONS THE SENATE DID OR MURTHA DID, BUT THE MAGAZINE HAS THIS WRONG IN SEVERAL WAYS.

There is some politicking in this. In Cairo, the Shias and Kurds, who dominate Iraq's new order, were offering an olive branch to the sullen Sunnis, who used to run the show under Saddam Hussein. In America, Republicans are looking nervously at the 2006 elections. Democrats sense that George Bush is vulnerable—and that Iraq presents the best way to hurt him now that most Americans regret invading the country. Yet there is plainly principle too: Mr Murtha and millions of others maintain that America is doing more harm than good in Iraq, and that the troops should therefore come home.

ONE PART OF THIS I AGREE WITH, THE DEMOCRATS ARE PLAYING GAMES, BUT MOST AMERICANS REALLY SEEM TO FEEL DIFFERENTLY THAN THE INTERNATIONAL PRESS HAS BEEN ABLE TO PICK UP. OUR POLLS HAVE BECOME VERY BIASED, AS HAS THE MEDIA. SINCE 2000 MOST AMERICANS HAVE BECOME VERY AWARE OF READING QUESTIONS IN POLLS, AND NO LONGER TRUST THE POLLSTERS, WHICH REALLY I GUESS FEW EVER DID. YET WHEN ASKED QUESTIONS ON WHICH THEY CAN ANSWER STRAIT, LIKE THAT REPORTED FROM WAPO TODAY, YOU SEE OVER 70% RECOGNIZE THE POLITICS. THAT'S NOT JUST REPUBLICANS!

This newspaper strongly disagrees. In our opinion it would be disastrous for America to retreat hastily from Iraq. Yet it is also well past time for George Bush to spell out to the American people much more clearly and honestly than he has hitherto done why their sons and daughters fighting in Iraq should remain in harm's way.


The cost of failure
Every reasonable person should be able to agree on two things about America's presence in Iraq. First, if the Iraqi government formally asks the troops to leave, they should do so. Second, the argument about whether America should quit Iraq is not the same as the one about whether it should have gone there in the first place. It must be about the future.

That said, the catalogue of failures thus far does raise serious questions about the administration's ability to make Iraq work—ever. Mr Bush's team mis-sold the war, neglected post-invasion planning, has never committed enough troops to the task and has taken a cavalier attitude to human rights. Abu Ghraib, a place of unspeakable suffering under Mr Hussein, will go into the history books as a symbol of American shame. The awful irony is that the specious link which the administration claimed existed between Iraq and al-Qaeda in order to justify going to war now exists.

ALL OF THIS IS NONSENSE, AT LEAST IN ANY LONG TERM WAY. BUSH DID NOT 'MIS-SELL' THE WAR-BEEN REFUTED BY A CONGRESSIONAL AND AN INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION. THE ONLY SERIOUS LACK OF TROOPS WAS ABOUT 1-3 MONTHS AFTER THE INITIAL INVASION-SERIOUS PROBLEM THOUGH IN DEALING WITH SUNNI TRIANGLE. THE HUMAN RIGHTS CRACK IS JUST WRONG AND ABU GHRAIB SHOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED, BUT WAS NOT 'UNSPEAKABLE' LIKE UNDER SADDAM, JUST WRONG. MORE SERIOUSLY IS THE CRACK ABOUT AL QUEDA AND IRAQ, IT NOT ONLY WAS TRUE, MORE EVIDENCE OF THEIR COLLABORATION IS FOUND ALL THE TIME. WHEN ANYONE TRIES TO BRING IT UP ON THE BOARDS OR EVEN IN FORUMS LIKE NATIONAL REVIEW, THE RESPONSE FROM THE LIBERALS IS 'NON-STORY'.

Two-and-a-half years after Mr Bush stood beneath a banner proclaiming “Mission Accomplished”, the insurgency is as strong as ever. More than 2,000 Americans, some 3,600 Iraqi troops, perhaps 30,000 Iraqi civilians and an unknown number of Iraqi insurgents have lost their lives, and conditions of life for the “liberated” remain woeful. All this makes Mr Bush's refusal to sack the people responsible for this mess, especially his defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, alarming.

THE INSURGENCY IS NOT 'AS STRONG AS EVER' AS PROVEN BY THE PROBLEMS AL ZARQAWI HAS BEEN HAVING IN CARRYING OUT HIS OBJECTIVES AND RECRUITMENT EFFORTS. SEARCH FOR HIS NAME AND YOU WILL SEE WHAT I'M SPEAKING OF. RUMSFELD HAS DONE A GOOD JOB FOR THE MOST PART, HISTORY WILL SPEAK TO THAT.

But disappointment, even on this scale, does not justify a precipitate withdrawal. There are strong positive and negative reasons for America to see through what it started.

Flickers of hope
Iraq is not Vietnam. Most Iraqis share America's aims: the Shia Arabs and Kurds make up some 80% of the population, while the insurgents operate mainly in four of Iraq's 18 provinces. After boycotting the first general election in January, more Sunni Arabs are taking part in peaceful politics. Many voted in last month's referendum that endorsed a new constitution; more should be drawn into next month's election, enabling a more representative government to emerge. That will not stop the insurgency, but may lessen its intensity. It seems, too, that the Arab world may be turning against the more extreme part of the insurgency—the jihadists led by al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who blow up mosques around Baghdad and Palestinian wedding parties in Jordan (see article). Though few Arabs publicly admit it, Mr Bush's efforts to spread democracy in the region are starting to bear fruit.

So America does have something to defend in Iraq. Which, for Mr Bush's critics, leads into the most tempting part of Mr Murtha's argument: that American troops are now a barrier to further progress; that if they left, Mr Zarqawi would lose the one thing that unites the Sunnis and jihadists; and that, in consequence, Iraqis would have to look after their own security. This has a seductive logic, but flies in the face of the evidence. Most of the insurgents' victims are Iraqis, not American soldiers. There are still too few American troops, not too many.

BASED ON WHAT? JUST LIKE A POSTER THIS MORNING SAYING THERE SHOULD BE 500K TROOPS THERE, WHY? NOT ACCORDING TO THE MILITARY ON THE GROUND. FIGHTING A EUROPEAN WAR WE ARE NOT.

And the Iraqi forces that America is training are not yet ready to stand on their own feet. By all means, hand over more duties to them, letting American and other coalition troops withdraw from the cities where they are most conspicuous and offensive to patriotic Iraqis. Over time, American numbers should fall. But that should happen because the Iraqis are getting stronger, not because the Americans are feeling weaker. Nor should a fixed timetable be set, for that would embolden the insurgents.

I THINK THERE IS A TIMETABLE, FIXED? PROBABLY NOT BY DATE, BUT CERTAINLY IN A BROADER WAY. I THINK THEY'VE HAD THAT FOR AT LEAST 6 MONTHS AND THE DEMOCRATS KNEW IT. THAT'S WHAT PROMPTED THE MURTHA ATTACK.

The cost to America of staying in Iraq may be high, but the cost of retreat would be higher. By fleeing, America would not buy itself peace. Mr Zarqawi and his fellow fanatics have promised to hound America around the globe. Driving America out of Iraq would grant militant Islam a huge victory. Arabs who want to modernise their region would know that they could not count on America to stand by its friends.
If such reasoning sounds negative—America must stay because the consequences of leaving would be too awful—treat that as a sad reflection of how Mr Bush's vision for the Middle East has soured. The road ahead looks bloody and costly. But this is not the time to retreat.

WHAT A RIOT! A EURO RAG SLAMMING BUSH, THEN SAYING HE MUST WIN BECAUSE HE IS A FAILURE. HUBRIS IS TOO WEAK A WORD, SO IS ARROGANCE. COWARDICE AND IRRELEVANCE DO COME TO MIND.

 

[nosarcasm]

Rather than do it line by line, I'll hit those things I really disagree with:


Quote:
America should keep its troops in Iraq until Iraqis ask them to go

OR UNTIL OUR MILITARY DETERMINES THAT WE ARE READY TO LEAVE.

sure but I believe the article did not mean to exclude that option.
Quote:

Wars waged abroad are often lost at home; and that may be starting to happen with Iraq. Calls for American troops to withdraw are familiar in the Arab world and Europe, but in the United States itself such talk has remained on the fringes of political debate. Now, with surprising suddenness, it has landed at the centre of American politics.

NOPE, US HAS HAD A STRONG RECORD OF DISCORD AT HOME DURING WAR, FROM THE TIME OF THE REVOLUTION, EVEN DURING WWII.
Quote:

The media age has changed because pictures of war are never nice to look at. Since Korea, domestic considerations have often led to Us withdrawals
eg. Vietnam,Lebanon,Somalia.

On November 17th John Murtha, a hawkish Democratic congressman, suggested pulling the troops out of Iraq in six months, prompting an unseemly spat between the former marine colonel and the White House.

HE DOES NOT HAVE A HISTORY OF BEING A HAWKISH DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSMAN, AN HONORABLE VET, YES. HE DID NOT SAY 6 MONTHS, HE SAID IMMEDIATELY.

yeah, they copied that from the US press. I saw a clip of him on one of the news channel where he said as soon as possible given 6 month as a for
him reasonoable option, so you might review that.
Quote:
Moves to set a timetable have been voted down, but the Republican-controlled Senate has voted 79-19 for 2006 to be “a period of significant transition to full Iraq sovereignty” and the Pentagon is mumbling about troop reductions. Meanwhile, some hundred Iraqi leaders at a reconciliation conference in Cairo backed by the Arab League talked about setting a timetable for withdrawal.

I AM NOT GOING TO GO THROUGH ALL THE MACHINATIONS THE SENATE DID OR MURTHA DID, BUT THE MAGAZINE HAS THIS WRONG IN SEVERAL WAYS.
Quote:
They got it right that even the Republicans in the Senate are spineless cowards that because of the 2006 elections went along with the atrocity of an resolution given comfort to our enemies.

There is some politicking in this. In Cairo, the Shias and Kurds, who dominate Iraq's new order, were offering an olive branch to the sullen Sunnis, who used to run the show under Saddam Hussein. In America, Republicans are looking nervously at the 2006 elections. Democrats sense that George Bush is vulnerable—and that Iraq presents the best way to hurt him now that most Americans regret invading the country. Yet there is plainly principle too: Mr Murtha and millions of others maintain that America is doing more harm than good in Iraq, and that the troops should therefore come home.

ONE PART OF THIS I AGREE WITH, THE DEMOCRATS ARE PLAYING GAMES, BUT MOST AMERICANS REALLY SEEM TO FEEL DIFFERENTLY THAN THE INTERNATIONAL PRESS HAS BEEN ABLE TO PICK UP. OUR POLLS HAVE BECOME VERY BIASED, AS HAS THE MEDIA. SINCE 2000 MOST AMERICANS HAVE BECOME VERY AWARE OF READING QUESTIONS IN POLLS, AND NO LONGER TRUST THE POLLSTERS, WHICH REALLY I GUESS FEW EVER DID. YET WHEN ASKED QUESTIONS ON WHICH THEY CAN ANSWER STRAIT, LIKE THAT REPORTED FROM WAPO TODAY, YOU SEE OVER 70% RECOGNIZE THE POLITICS. THAT'S NOT JUST REPUBLICANS!
Quote:

Polls are a tricky piece and part of the propaganda maschine of both sides.
I dont think that most Americans regret invading the country but a sizeable
numbers is quite critical of it. And yes the 2006 elections motivates both
sides in playing their political game with the Iraq war.

This newspaper strongly disagrees. In our opinion it would be disastrous for America to retreat hastily from Iraq. Yet it is also well past time for George Bush to spell out to the American people much more clearly and honestly than he has hitherto done why their sons and daughters fighting in Iraq should remain in harm's way.


The cost of failure
Every reasonable person should be able to agree on two things about America's presence in Iraq. First, if the Iraqi government formally asks the troops to leave, they should do so. Second, the argument about whether America should quit Iraq is not the same as the one about whether it should have gone there in the first place. It must be about the future.

That said, the catalogue of failures thus far does raise serious questions about the administration's ability to make Iraq work—ever. Mr Bush's team mis-sold the war, neglected post-invasion planning, has never committed enough troops to the task and has taken a cavalier attitude to human rights. Abu Ghraib, a place of unspeakable suffering under Mr Hussein, will go into the history books as a symbol of American shame. The awful irony is that the specious link which the administration claimed existed between Iraq and al-Qaeda in order to justify going to war now exists.

ALL OF THIS IS NONSENSE, AT LEAST IN ANY LONG TERM WAY. BUSH DID NOT 'MIS-SELL' THE WAR-BEEN REFUTED BY A CONGRESSIONAL AND AN INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION. THE ONLY SERIOUS LACK OF TROOPS WAS ABOUT 1-3 MONTHS AFTER THE INITIAL INVASION-SERIOUS PROBLEM THOUGH IN DEALING WITH SUNNI TRIANGLE. THE HUMAN RIGHTS CRACK IS JUST WRONG AND ABU GHRAIB SHOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED, BUT WAS NOT 'UNSPEAKABLE' LIKE UNDER SADDAM, JUST WRONG. MORE SERIOUSLY IS THE CRACK ABOUT AL QUEDA AND IRAQ, IT NOT ONLY WAS TRUE, MORE EVIDENCE OF THEIR COLLABORATION IS FOUND ALL THE TIME. WHEN ANYONE TRIES TO BRING IT UP ON THE BOARDS OR EVEN IN FORUMS LIKE NATIONAL REVIEW, THE RESPONSE FROM THE LIBERALS IS 'NON-STORY'.
Quote:

Its not nonsense. I wanted Saddam removed for the chemical weapons attack against civilians in the 80s but the Bush sell of the war looked fake
and untruthful to me. So he messed it up. He changed from WMD to dictators to Al Quaeda and then nukes etc. The use of torture is a disgrace to America.
Saddam Hussein was not a sponsor of Al Quaeda or had anything directly
to do with 9/11. There is no such prove. There is no doubt though Saddam
has supported terrorism, especially against Israel and tried to assassinate
Bush Senior.

Two-and-a-half years after Mr Bush stood beneath a banner proclaiming “Mission Accomplished”, the insurgency is as strong as ever. More than 2,000 Americans, some 3,600 Iraqi troops, perhaps 30,000 Iraqi civilians and an unknown number of Iraqi insurgents have lost their lives, and conditions of life for the “liberated” remain woeful. All this makes Mr Bush's refusal to sack the people responsible for this mess, especially his defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, alarming.

THE INSURGENCY IS NOT 'AS STRONG AS EVER' AS PROVEN BY THE PROBLEMS AL ZARQAWI HAS BEEN HAVING IN CARRYING OUT HIS OBJECTIVES AND RECRUITMENT EFFORTS. SEARCH FOR HIS NAME AND YOU WILL SEE WHAT I'M SPEAKING OF. RUMSFELD HAS DONE A GOOD JOB FOR THE MOST PART, HISTORY WILL SPEAK TO THAT.
Quote:

Its hard to judge how strong they are but they keep killing civilians and Us soldiers at a constant level. Al Zarquawi and the foreigners are only
a small part of the insurgency I assume. Mostly the Sunnis are fighting
for their own interests. Rumsfeld messed up the initial phase, underestimated
the need for more troops and lack of adequate protection dont make
him a genius,

But disappointment, even on this scale, does not justify a precipitate withdrawal. There are strong positive and negative reasons for America to see through what it started.

Flickers of hope
Iraq is not Vietnam. Most Iraqis share America's aims: the Shia Arabs and Kurds make up some 80% of the population, while the insurgents operate mainly in four of Iraq's 18 provinces. After boycotting the first general election in January, more Sunni Arabs are taking part in peaceful politics. Many voted in last month's referendum that endorsed a new constitution; more should be drawn into next month's election, enabling a more representative government to emerge. That will not stop the insurgency, but may lessen its intensity. It seems, too, that the Arab world may be turning against the more extreme part of the insurgency—the jihadists led by al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who blow up mosques around Baghdad and Palestinian wedding parties in Jordan (see article). Though few Arabs publicly admit it, Mr Bush's efforts to spread democracy in the region are starting to bear fruit.

So America does have something to defend in Iraq. Which, for Mr Bush's critics, leads into the most tempting part of Mr Murtha's argument: that American troops are now a barrier to further progress; that if they left, Mr Zarqawi would lose the one thing that unites the Sunnis and jihadists; and that, in consequence, Iraqis would have to look after their own security. This has a seductive logic, but flies in the face of the evidence. Most of the insurgents' victims are Iraqis, not American soldiers. There are still too few American troops, not too many.

BASED ON WHAT? JUST LIKE A POSTER THIS MORNING SAYING THERE SHOULD BE 500K TROOPS THERE, WHY? NOT ACCORDING TO THE MILITARY ON THE GROUND. FIGHTING A EUROPEAN WAR WE ARE NOT.

During the early occupation Fallujah and other wandering hotspots and
statements by commanders over there made it evident. Only the administration did not want to hear it. You talk about listening to the troops
and then you ignore it if you dont like it.

Quote:
And the Iraqi forces that America is training are not yet ready to stand on their own feet. By all means, hand over more duties to them, letting American and other coalition troops withdraw from the cities where they are most conspicuous and offensive to patriotic Iraqis. Over time, American numbers should fall. But that should happen because the Iraqis are getting stronger, not because the Americans are feeling weaker. Nor should a fixed timetable be set, for that would embolden the insurgents.

I THINK THERE IS A TIMETABLE, FIXED? PROBABLY NOT BY DATE, BUT CERTAINLY IN A BROADER WAY. I THINK THEY'VE HAD THAT FOR AT LEAST 6 MONTHS AND THE DEMOCRATS KNEW IT. THAT'S WHAT PROMPTED THE MURTHA ATTACK.
Quote:

Oh at some point they will be able to reduce the troops. But it really depends on how the suppression of the insurgence and the performance of the Iraqi
troops add up. The drive by democrats was just a political move to gain votes, we agree on that.

The cost to America of staying in Iraq may be high, but the cost of retreat would be higher. By fleeing, America would not buy itself peace. Mr Zarqawi and his fellow fanatics have promised to hound America around the globe. Driving America out of Iraq would grant militant Islam a huge victory. Arabs who want to modernise their region would know that they could not count on America to stand by its friends.
If such reasoning sounds negative—America must stay because the consequences of leaving would be too awful—treat that as a sad reflection of how Mr Bush's vision for the Middle East has soured. The road ahead looks bloody and costly. But this is not the time to retreat.

WHAT A RIOT! A EURO RAG SLAMMING BUSH, THEN SAYING HE MUST WIN BECAUSE HE IS A FAILURE. HUBRIS IS TOO WEAK A WORD, SO IS ARROGANCE. COWARDICE AND IRRELEVANCE DO COME TO MIND.

The term Euro Rag indicates you are not objective when reading the article.
I think you overnitpicked parts, and complained about simplifications. In an article I dont think you can expect the dirty details of the US congress to be layed out.

The author believes the democratization idealist approach failed. Well
if you believe in nation building and the spread of democracy maybe
you should give the democratic party a try :funnyface
probably without the last 3 sentences the article would have been better.


and thanks for taking your time to take it apart for me.

 

[Annie]

You're welcome! You didn't expect me to be nice to it, did you?

 

[nosarcasm]

You're welcome! You didn't expect me to be nice to it, did you?

I expect you to agree with me no matter what. :kiss2:

Positive reinforcements, isnt that what they teach at school these days.

You dont fail , you defer success. Priceless whoever posted that tidbit
of information.

 

[Annie]

I expect you to agree with me no matter what. :kiss2:

Positive reinforcements, isnt that what they teach at school these days.

You dont fail , you defer success. Priceless whoever posted that tidbit
of information.

I'm not the nice teacher! "Know you're limits"! Just kidding. Actually was building a webquest earlier and hit a high school teacher's site. Saw a thing about "The No Name Wall" where she hangs papers looking for an owner. :teeth: The Title has a subtext: See I'm not like your MEAN middle school teachers who just threw them away!

That's us!