I am trying to make the point that to prevent future unnecessary wars, the best means is to challenge the threat being offered.

I know, and agree with you, at least as far as the so-called immediate threats are concerned. I also agree that we should challenge the threats that are offered as planning assumptions, but this is a slightly different process.

This is what I did in the run-up to the Iraq war, at least during the five or so months I was in the country: I encouraged people to ask questions about the threat itself. I admit that I was surprised at how many people really thought Saddam was behind 9/11: self-described liberals with master’s degrees telling me, with that smug look on their face, how confident they were that once the dust cleared we would find evidence of it.

which is probably why our troops in Iraq were not prepared, equipment wise, for insurgency combat.

Or trained. I would not lay that particular failure on the MIC or even Rumsfeld.

That one belongs squarely at the feet of the military, in particular the Army.

It’s been in internal feud over doctrine (conventional vs. counter-insurgency, light vs. maneuver, ad nauseum) since the early 1980s, with legitimate perspectives on both sides … an interesting story, but the end result was that you had a bunch of forces in Iraq who had no idea how to deal with an insurgency (nor even that there was one brewing).

Add decisions by Franks to cancel 1st Cav’s deployment, to start planning to pull out the week after Baghdad fell, and to put the whole thing in the hands of Sanchez, the last commander to arrive (with 4th ID), and a brand new staff.

However, when they are trying to get or save constituent jobs to build those weapon systems, they are unlikely to worry about how realistic the threat is. That’s why the word congressional has to be part of the MIC.

Which is how the military ended up with a lot of those unwanted systems. The Congressional Liaison offices were supposed to fix that (or so argued the Generals, disingenuously I think), but I think they’ve made the military function more as a part of something like a MIC than they did before, or at least be more vulnerable to it. In any case, you’re right that Congress would have to be a part of the mess.

From what I have learned, some members of congress who voted against authorizing military force in Iraq, had examined the intelligence thoroughly, instead of reading a summary, and decided no imminent threat existed.

Bob Graham, among others.

Many people unsuccessfully tried to make a case that there was no imminent WMD or other threat that warranted “pre-emptive” (preventative) war.

See how upside down the logic was? The burden of proof should have been on the administration to make the case FOR war, not others to make a case against. And yet …

Note however that the proponents here still lie in that second threat you mentioned, not in Lockheed, McDonnell-Douglas, L3 et al …

That still was the argument that could have stopped the invasion if a way could have been found to challenge those in congress to lower their emotions and give priority to the impact of war over reelection.

And here we have the other dynamic at work, the simple cravenness of our Congress … it’s been documented how Dick Gephart and Tom Daschle explicitly discussed the war in terms of their ability to win back control of Congress, and arranged themselves accordingly.

That, and the ‘war managers’ as in LWM’s Bacevich review, go a long way to explaining what happened without positing any other third parties …

That is an excellent point.

Especially in light of McFeign's argument against the Webb GI Bill on the basis that it would 'hurt retention'!!

Hah! That's great!

Thanks for alerting me to a new post on Achieving Our Country, too. Y'all got some good stuff up in there. I've been tapping my fingers since early May ...

That said, I think you overlook some obvious synergies. Why, for example, is conventional wisdom so determined to stamp out any antithesis whatsoever, as Glenn is at pains to point out almost daily, even though it does so at the cost of completing distorting our political discourse. Who, indeed, is behind that conventional wisdom?

I think we're on the verge of a great conversation about this (warning, mine might have to continue tomorrow morning ... I'm three hours ahead of you and my wife warns me she's on the way home from a VERY difficult meeting of small non-profit arts groups ...), but you kind of lost me there. Can you say more?

Kristol/kinky sex.

Those are two things I really did not want to see together in the same post, Pedinska.

Worse: they alliterate ...