Letters to the Editor
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tactics v. strategy again Shooter
I'm not ignoring any of those quotes-Zinni thinks we need to stay, I never denied it. My point was that both he and Sheehan agreed on the much larger point that there must be a broader strategy, without which tactical discussions (ie, how many troops we should have and where) are meaningless.
The only discussion worth having now is whether in the absence of a new strategy, which we won't have until Jan 2009, we ought to delay withdrawal until a coherent one can be implemented (accepting the inevitable deaths of hundreds of Americans and thousands of Iraqis in the interim) or demand a pullout immediately and risk the bloodbath you and the neocons scare us into believing is inevitable.
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Missing the breadth of the disconnect...
The cabal has internalized the belief that PEOPLE VOTED FOR THE SURGE! The Nov. election showed the people wanted GWB to change course. He did. We surged. All True Americans support Dear Leader in these efforts.
I've heard some version of this thesis any number of times. And I think they actually believe their own B.S., which is part of what makes them so dangerous.
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An abject plea
PLEASE stop feeding "Sh*t, uh, SHOOTER fer brains"!
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war as a propaganda exercise
It makes about as much sense to discuss the strategy of war with Bush, Cheney and the Kagans of the world as it does to discuss sub-atomic physics with them.
At no point has Bush presented either a statement of what his goals are for Iraq nor a statement of what "victory" would mean. I sincerely think it's not something he's thought about very deeply.
As for Zinni's quote, he is at least thinking strategically. But he is not allowing for the widespread incompetence of the people running the operation. Yes, I think it would be better for the future of the United States if we had a credible military presence in the region, but only with the proviso that the presence was not itself exacerbating all of the political problems that the region has. Right now the military force is Part of the Problem. It didn't have to be that way, but this is an inevitable result of the Bush/Cheney strategy of urinating on the concept of diplomacy and reason. There are literally tens of millions of Arabs in the region (not to mention the Iranians, Palestinians, etc.) who think that the Americans are only interested in two things in the Middle East: oil and Israel.
Unfortunately for our decision-making process, the people running the show are a bit dim, and they also repeatedly are able to find a small number of people in the Middle East who Tell Them What They Want To Hear. This leads to the silly spectacles of John McCain saying that Baghdad is safe, for example.
The problems in Iraq are not going to go away because there are too many people who want us to leave, and they are also sensing that their victory is inevitable.
The best outcome from this point that I could see would be to broker a deal between all parties that led to a partition of Iraq. The US could keep a "stabilizing force" (*cough, cough*) in Kurdistan while pulling out of those areas where the application of military force has done little good - i.e., the Sunni areas. The United States is not going to resolve the war(s) between the Sunnis and Shia simply by shooting at whatever target presents itself, and, worse, the transparent attempts to install a US-friendly fake democracy aren't fooling anybody (well, outside of the Bush nutters who comprise 30% of the US electorate).
Alternatively, we could click our heels and hope for a pony. That's what the "What if it works?" argument is, after all. The problem with addressing people who pose this question, at least for me, is that I cannot get past the part where I look at the question with unbridled contempt, as it represents such a facile understanding of war and foreign policy. This may be an inevitable result when we've put all of our foreign policy-making apparatus in the hands of people who have demonstrated no capacity to do anything competently other than run PR campaigns based on smearing people.
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A minority of two
Even without the surviving pack of neocons, without even Cheney--Even if it was just the President himself, the occupation of Iraq will likely continue throughout his term. There is ample evidence from Bush's own words, as well as others, that Bush believes His God placed him in the oval office because God knew that 9/11 was coming, and he would be God's instrument during these crucial times. He consults with his "higher father" and the higher father says 'go for it, George'. It's a minority of two.
Regarding strategy, I can think of only one coherent and effective strategy that has ever come out of this administration--and it has nothing to do with Iraq. This latest "War Czar" fiasco being a prime example of how bankrupt, how piecemeal, how pathetic their efforts have become in this regard. However, the politicization of government agencies (DOJ, GSA, et al., ad nauseam) and offices for the purposes of obtaining unfair and probably illegal advantages in elections appears to be a well-coordinated, effective attempt to seriously change government. Had there not been a change to democratic majority in Congress in '06, consider the effects of two more years of Rove's operations, unhindered, in preparing for '08.
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WTF?
GEN. ZINNI: No. I mean, you know, people that talk about benchmarks and withdrawals, what are we going to do, disband Centcom? You know, this was created in the, in the early ‘70s when we assumed most of the foundation for the security in this region. Centcom was created by President Carter because of our interests in this region—economic, political, security interests. They haven’t changed. If anything else, at the end of the Cold War, they were actually, I think, heightened in many respects.
Carter was elected in '76.
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Winning the Civil War
The truth is that the outcome of most wars remains in doubt until they are very nearly over. Until late 1864, it looked as though the Union might well lose the Civil War. Within a year, Lincoln had triumphed.
False. It was obvious in late 1862 that the Union would win the Civil War, if the Yankee people continued to believe victory was worth the price. The Emancipation Proclamation, announced in September 1862, nixed the rebels' hope of foreign (British) intervention, added millions of freed slaves to Union manpower, and did not, as was feared by some, provoke mutiny in the border states or among the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln held all the cards.
The issue in August 1864 was not whether the Yankees could win. Sherman was driving on Atlanta, Grant and Lee were locked in a war of attrition that Lee would inevitably lose, the blockade was getting tighter and tighter. It was clear to everyone, north and south, that the Yankees would win unless northern voters became discouraged by the "butcher's bill" and voted Lincoln out of office in November. That fact was central to Confederate tactics, especially Lee's. Killing Yankees, even at a ruinous cost to himself, was his last chance to secure Southern independence.
By late October, Sherman had burned Atlanta, Farragut had taken Mobile Bay, and Sheridan had trounced the rebels in Shenandoah. The voters reelected Lincoln.
That's the point. The voters sustained Lincoln and the war because they believed Lincoln had a clear definition of victory, a sound strategy to achieve it and plenty of evidence that although many men had yet to be killed, that victory would come.
None of those things are true of George Bush.