Dangerous Incompetence
I wish I said this…
The incompetence at the highest levels of government in Washington has
undermined the U.S. troops who have fought honorably and bravely in Iraq, which is why the troops are now stuck in a murderous quagmire. If a Democratic administration had conducted a war this incompetently, the Republicans in Congress would be dusting off their impeachment manuals.
Sweet and to the point. Love it!
June 30th, 2005 at 11:51 pm
Bob Herbert is the best there is, I think. He speaks the truth every time.
July 1st, 2005 at 11:55 am
Your right. I’m fast becoming a fan.
July 1st, 2005 at 5:07 pm
” If a Democratic administration had conducted a war this incompetently,”…
But wait — wasn’t Vietnam conducted and escalated by a Democrat or two? Who was impeached, again? Oh, that’s right — the Republican guy who brought the troops home.
And, how about that brilliant success they call Bosnia, where a Democrat waged war WITHOUT GETTING CONGRESSIONAL APPROVAL? When, again, did we withdraw the last of our troops? When did the ethnic violence finally cease?
What about that magnificent demonstration of Democratic warfare in Somalia? How were things in Mogadisu? — gesundheit!
Of course, the Democrat who futzed around in the latter two wars I mentioned was impeached, wasn’t he? But not for his inept warfare. Pity.
Now, we have some rather dramatic successes in Iraq, what with the election and all, and the vast majority of Iraq’s “insurgent” terrorists now being foreign interlopers, plus the caving in of Libya on the issue of arms, plus a woman being, for the first time, appointed to a position of power in fundamentalist Kuwait, plus elections in Lebanon, Ukraine, and countless other smaller movements toward democratic reform, and there is more than the remotest chance that there will be no more torture rooms, no more mass graves of innocent women and children in non-Baathist-supporting regions. And this is still a “murderous quagmire” to you?
You have an interesting set of standards, guys.
July 1st, 2005 at 7:32 pm
While it is necessary to remember history, it is useless to pull past grievences into todays debate. What little I remember about Bosnia is that we lost few troops because it was a mission based on the concept of peacekeeping, however oxymoronic that is. Compare the numbers, Bosnia is a very small operation, partly because it was planned thoroughly. Some office complexes I drive past daily have more Americans in them.
Regarding your second link: Is this not tangentital? I’ve written plenty on hatred and intolerance. ’nuff said.
What happens in Kuwait is insignificant to the Chaos we’ve created in Iraq. The fact that the “insurgents” are really “outsurgents” is testament to the lack of significant debate before the war of the consequences of our proposed actions.
Lastly, American has no right to clap itself on the back for any perceived advances in Democracy anywhere in the world. Circumstancial at best. The test of time is still to be given out.
July 2nd, 2005 at 11:00 am
I brought up history to rebut that absurd statement about partisanship that you so gleefully glommed onto, not to revive old grievances.
Yeah, the second link was tangential — in that way that all other post-war violence is tangential to the initial cause for the war. There will be continuing violence as long as there are resentments and hatreds. That’s kinda my point re: foreign interlopers in Iraq. The interlopers are killing IRAQIS, now, more than they’re killing our troops. They want the democratic movement to fail, because free choice in a democratic society will destroy their aim for a Caliphate in which they make the rules. They don’t want people to have free choice. Where do you stand on that?
As to the “Circumstantial” nature of the other democratic events, do you really think they would have started at all, if there had been no free election in Iraq?
What I don’t understand about you guys so far left of center is how you can think that “order” under a murderous despot can be even remotely favorable to free will. Yeah, there’s chaos in Iraq. There’s also construction on 100 hospital complexes, in a country where once nearly all hospitals outside Baghdad were shut down, or operating on bare bones systems. There’s school construction, and all children have the right to attend them. New businesses are opening in nearly every city. Jobs are created daily — just as they are here. The Iraqi economy is beginning to stabilize. Recent polls of Iraqi citizens indicate increasing satisfaction with their lives, and increasing belief that the future can bring something good for them and their children. In other words, there is hope, where there once was none. How is that bad?
Aren’t you supposed to be in favor of freedom for all?
July 2nd, 2005 at 5:31 pm
Where do you get your info?
Read this:All the King’s Horses
and this:Bagdad Burning
In the Buddhist view of uncountable lifetimes, it is assumed that all people must play out their past karmas. As such all will come to enlightenment in their own time. As an American I can think of many more regiemes that needed intervention because of levels of violence and horrors: what about Daifur?
Saddam was a baddie, sure, but on what level of badness does he rate special treatment while wholesale slaughter is occurring elsewhere and America looks away?
As to circumstance, I reiterate: Time will tell. In fifty years we will have the necessary hindsight to connect the dots, to try now is premature.
Is Iraq’s economy more stable now than before the war, or are you comparing it to last year or the one before that? Never trust news polls: “Lies, Damned Lies and statistics” remember?
One more link for you: A Soldier’s Thoughts
July 3rd, 2005 at 6:18 pm
Some of my many sources include IRAQ THE MODEL, Chrenkoff, a number of links through milblogger BlackFive, sometimes thru the CSM,, occasionally (albeit rarely) thru the Beeb, and a number of others, including the Military journals a friend of mine sends me in my e-mail. I do also occasionally visit Baghdad Burning. ATKH I’ve not yet bookmarked, but I might. Or, I might not. I have a lot of time, since I physically can’t put in a full work week anywhere, any more, but one does have limits, even then. I’m in need of new spectacles, already.
I don’t know if you noticed this, but we were already at war with Saddam, and he was not in compliance with the cease-fire agreement he had signed back a decade and change ago, plus he was in violation of the many, many, many UN resolutions. And, he’d paid for the killings of Americans. And, he was housing known terrorists. And, he was known to be illegally pursuing WMD technology. And, he had ties to al Qaeda. And, he was a loose cannon in the region. And he continued to make threats against us. That’s part of why he “rated special treatment”.
Also, why should we let one abomination go, just because we can’t tackle every problem on the planet? Isn’t it enough that we made as start on one hellhole? Shouldn’t it comfort people to know that we are willing to act, at least once, and that we are working in a variety of ways to correct other lethal or potentially lethal problems? Does it also count that the current administration has upped the finacial support for Africa, with the stipulation that they clean up their respective political acts? Or do we have to become God, and solve every problem in one month, to balance the bad karma laid upon us by the past ten presidents’ administrations?
& Iraq’s economy is more stable than it had been for the past decade, according to a number of WSJ & Beeb reports — including new development, new banks open to the general public, and the introduction of credit cards (not my idea of good, but economists like it because it indicates trust that the card-holders are going to be around long enough to use it and to pay it off).
July 3rd, 2005 at 6:22 pm
P.S. that last bit, about the credit cards, came from MSM, so you can probably discount it a bit, if you want. They’ve been wrong before.
I saw it on ABC’s wee hours news show, World News Now, I think, about a month ago or more.