Part of the time American troops in Iraq do have an enemy to shoot at.

Oh, and the troops are also required to play referee between two long-standing rival groups in a low-grade civil war.

Other than that, this post basically sums things up. 

Brian A.
I'd rather be cycling.

Yep- that's the subplot summary.

This war is actually a distraction for a robbery in progress. Think "Diehard". 

What strikes me is that they're not even bothering to lie anymore. There's no goal, no policy, no assessment of where we stand. No relation to, or assertions about, the real world whatsoever. Just posturing. To some degree that's always been the case. But now the speeches are completely without refutable content.

It's just pure, unmitigated BS of the kind described by Harry Frankfurt:

What BS essentially misrepresents is neither the state of affairs to which it refers nor the beliefs of the speaker concerning that state of affairs. Those are what lies misrepresent, by virtue of being false. Since BS need not be false, it differs from lies in its misrepresentational intent. The BSer may not deceive us, or even intend to do so, either about the facts or about what he takes the facts to be. What he does necessarily attempt to deceive us about is his enterprise. His only indispensably distinctive characteristic is that in a certain way he misrepresents what he is up to.

I think the appeasement talk is only the tip of the spear. The real, underlying message being sent here is:

It's not our fault. How could it be? We're Americans, for crissakes.  You're Americans.  When "those people" criticize us, they're really blaming you.

First of all, there is no "Rumsfeld Doctrine". There is an effort by Rumsfeld to transform the military in to a more efficient, lighter and faster reaction force to meet the new threat of our current enemies in the modern world, but Rumsfeld wasn't the one who voted to send our military to Iraq.

That would be congress. They are the ones you can hold accountable for our military intervention in Iraq. Only congress can give the authority to send a full military force in to action. By the way, this was a majority of congressfolks that voted for this, across party lines.

And for the record, when Iraq was stable they were attacking everyone and everything in the neighborhood, and supplying, protecting and funding Islamic terrorists who are trying to kill westerners.

I don't expect Iraq to turn in to Vermont overnight, but the alternative -leave Saddam in power and "hope for the best"- was a far more dangerous option than what we have now. Germany, after WWII, did not turn in to Vermont overnight either.

I am not calling you either a traitor or an appeaser, but your entire rant is just ridiculous, and devoid of any factual content.

You guys are the ones throwing insults. And lumping me with Limbaugh is an insult as far as I'm concerned. I'm not a republican, but I supported the war in Iraq, and I still do.

I would absolutely agree with you that the war was done "on the cheap" as a result of Rumsfelds desire to transform the military. But I would disagree that this was against conventional wisdom. Some of the generals at the time said there were enough troops, some said there weren't. I believe that the situation may have been made more stable today as a result of sending more troops, but I think we would have had more dead soldiers than we do now.

Either way, the "The Rumsfeld Doctrine" is absolutely NOT to "preemptively invade countries that are not a threat to the U.S.". In fact, looking at the posted Wiki link, it has nothing to do with it at all.

I would debate this in a meaningful way, but there seems to be a confusion of what consitutes a valid point.

And making fun of me by dismissing my rebuttal as a "talking point" just shows that you don't have any point to make.

T-man,it nevers ceases to amaze me how full of horse hockey you really can be.This current attack on disent,the very fabric that my country is founded on,is evidence enough of an evil doctrine that seeps from garbage that the Bush administration has been spoonfeeding us since the beginning of this misadventure [IRAQ].Don't you ever tire of being an apologist for such a bumbling group of idiots and crooks,or do you think that anyone who reads that drivel will ever be impressed?

First of all, there is no "Rumsfeld Doctrine". There is an effort by Rumsfeld to transform the military in to a more efficient, lighter and faster reaction force to meet the new threat of our current enemies in the modern world, but Rumsfeld wasn't the one who voted to send our military to Iraq.

Balderdash. The Rumsfeld Doctrine is inseparable from the Bush Doctrine, the Cheney Doctrine, the Kristol Doctrine, or the doctrine of any other of the administration's assorted bozos and sychophants. The purpose of a "faster reaction force" is to make it easier to go to war. Jim Henley put it best:

We went to war with the army we had when we went to war because it was the only way to have the war in the first place. We used the number of forces we used because a bigger call-up would have alerted the American public that this was going to be a big freaking deal...

The Administration sold the war to the American people as something akin to an emergency raid against a conquerer with an arsenal of doomsday devices primed to take out Chicago, a raid that would end with the bulk of our troops driving back out of town by the holidays, wreathed in the flowers of a grateful people busy paying for their own reconstruction entirely out of oil revenues. That's why we used "the army [we] have" when we used it - it was the sales pitch the hawks could close.

"Balderdash". Great word. Anyways.

Brian A.,

Again, congress was the reason we went to war in Iraq. Period. The idea to go to war in Iraq and remove Saddam from power is as old as the first gulf war. Clinton made it official policy to work towards removing Saddam from power in 1998.

(link...)

As far as "bungling" the war, I disagree. Saddam was removed from power, which was the purpose of the war. Erecting a democratic nation out of the remnants has more to do with the State department than the military. Hell, if we had left it up to the military, we'd probably be a lot better off right now. As usual, bureaucratic mishandling has delayed stability. I don't see this as Rumsfelds fault at all. His job was to remove Saddam. Mission accomplished.

The PR spin stuff is silly. Dissent all you want, but realize when you accuse the Bush administration of being worse than the terrorists, people will wonder just whose side you are on. Freedom to dissent does not include from FROM criticism.

Sven,

The purpose Rumsfeld has in regards to "transforming the military" has to do with the fact that we aren't fighting conventional armies any more. We are fighting groups that hide behind innocent people and laugh off any rules of engagement. Therefore, we need a different type of response than brigade style tanks and artillery.

It's never "more or less easy" to go to war.

R. Neal,

So then you'd agree that we can declare victory and bring home our troops?

No. We need to stay until the Iraqi's can defend themselves. And believe it or not, we're getting closer everyday. More and more Iraqis are taking over the security of their own country.

This is hilarious. Congress didn't go in front of the American people and the UN to lie about nonexistent WMDs and mushroom clouds, nor did they lie about inspectors not being allowed into Iraq.

Really. You ought to get out more. Here's a few examples.

"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real..."
- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003 |
(link...)

"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."
Letter to President Clinton.
- (D) Senators Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, others, Oct. 9, 1998
(link...)

There are plenty more where that came from.

metulj,

Actually, if you parse the reasoning for going to war, if Saddam Hussein did not have WMDs then the war was not necessary. Well....

Hans Blix January 2003- "I would now like to turn to the so-called “Air Force document” that I have discussed with the Council before. This document was originally found by an UNSCOM inspector in a safe in Iraqi Air Force Headquarters in 1998 and taken from her by Iraqi minders. It gives an account of the expenditure of bombs, including chemical bombs, by Iraq in the Iraq-Iran War. I am encouraged by the fact that Iraq has now provided this document to UNMOVIC. The document indicates that 13,000 chemical bombs were dropped by the Iraqi Air Force between 1983 and 1988, while Iraq has declared that 19,500 bombs were consumed during this period. Thus, there is a discrepancy of 6,500 bombs. The amount of chemical agent in these bombs would be in the order of about 1,000 tonnes. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we must assume that these quantities are now unaccounted for. "

(link...)

And finally, this is THE REASON CONGRESS GAVE for going to war in Iraq. Because apparently everyone forgot. WMD's were not the only reason.

(link...)

Thanks Brian, but it's no great insight on my part. Apologists like to characterize the Rummy Doctrine as some great advance in military theory, but it's really nothing more than the latest volley in the ideological battle over the legacy of Vietnam.

Both doctrines are really arguments about the efficacy of diplomacy, as we saw play out in the fight between Rummy and Powell before the war. Powell says the political and diplomatic processes should play out before troops are committed, so that military action if and when it comes has a clear goal. Rumsfeld believes those processes are BS, and that the only way to compel action is if the other side knows you'll commit troops regardless of what anyone else says. 

.... the other vector in all this is Rumsfeld's views on executive authority, which he has shared with Cheney going back 35 years and were shaped by the belief that Congress crapped out on Vietnam because of politics. Small, nimble units allow the president to get away with a lot without legislative meddling on war powers or appropriations.

Hi airrn,

you wrote-

It is quite amusing you should bring up the Iran Iraq war considering the fact that Rumsfeld and the US aided Saddam in his use of these weapons and in fact supplied them. As for any argument that they could have been used on us after 2000 remember they were useless due to their age.

That would be a great point, airrn, if it was true. The US didn't arm Saddam with "weapons". They gave him some helicopters.

They weren't selling him tanks. Or Missiles. Like the Soviets or the Chinese were.

Of course you've read the SIPRI study, right?

(link...)

Your expansion of the Kerry quote only furthers my point.

Kerry:

"I want to underscore that this administration began this debate with a resolution that granted exceedingly broad authority to the President to use force."

In 2003? Yep. Sure did. No more screwing around with the guy who earned what PJ O'Rourke described as "a lifetime achievement award for evil" in the global neighborhood.

John, regrettably, continues.

I regret that some in the Congress rushed so quickly to support it. I would have opposed it.

Except he didn't. He voted for it. Not after or before he voted against it. But then. When the resolution was presented.

He sounded like the "me too" kid at recess. Let's just be happy he isn't president and move on.

It gave the President the authority to use force not only to enforce all of the U.N. resolutions as a cause of war, but also to produce regime change in Iraq, and to restore international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region.

Yes, that's the one you voted for, Mr. Kerry. Both the one in 1998, which you voted for, and this one.

It made no mention of the President's efforts at the United Nations or the need to build multilateral support for whatever course of action we ultimately would take."

That's because he already had tried to "build multilateral support for whatever course of action we ultimately would take". The only nations who could support us for whatever course of action we ultimately would take and WEREN'T selling Saddam tanks and missiles went with us to do exactly that.

This clearly shows that yes, they thought he was a threat but they did not believe a unilateral war with zero planning or world support was called for, despite what you say.

We delivered Saddam his lifetime achievement award for evil.

We did not worry about whether or not we had planned the future of the Iraqi democracy perfectly because the Iraqi Regime was a problem that had to be dealt with while we could. There is a good reason why Zarqawi fled to Iraq from Afghanistan.

It's not as if there aren't other deserving candidates, but jeebus. I can't believe it's so hard to get people to believe that Saddam was part of the problem.