Such smugness, arrogance ...such insufferable moral superiority.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
And then in that case, sometimes surrender can be good. Better to live to fight again another day than be exterminated .

Tell that to the Carthaginians.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Ned


Tell that to the Carthaginians.

I would, but they stayed the course until they were exterminated.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly


How delightfully appropriate that you should choose the 20th century's most pointless, preventable, and utterly futile orgy of carnage as your term of reference for Iraq. In that scenario, though, we're not Germany. We're Russia, looking at the futility of it all and saying, "that's it, we've got our own problems, we're out of here."

But a better analogy (though still imperfect) would be the Korean War, which was the last time we came to the conclusion that pursuing military victory at all costs was sometimes a sucker's game. (And there, we had universal male conscription and a broad coalition of allies on our side).

Rufus, I do not fundamentally disagree with this post. WWI was beyond pointless. But the Germans were not strictly defeated. They just could no longer win and faced further years of stalemate with no certainty that they could avoid defeat. So they called a halt.

We have not reached that point in Iraq yet.

Thus your Korean War analogy is much more apt. I agree.

But the question is this: what would it have taken to drive the Chi-coms across the border? I think the answer is easy: making their bases in China open to attack.

The problem then as the problem now is the lack of will, not a lack of means.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Zkribbler


I would, but they stayed the course until they were exterminated.

Hardly. They listened to the advice of the likes of Imran that it is better to call a halt now, pay tribute, whatever, and live to fight another day. Arguably, that worked the first time they did it. Clearly, it did not the second, thanks largely to folks like Cato.

The Germans surrendered in 1918 and accepted a bad peace: mainly because the government was composed of defeatist socialists. Where did that lead? To the most bloody war in human history.

Are we again going to surrender a war we can still win in order to purchase, for a time, peace, only to face a more horrible war in the future?

The Israelis, at least, see the handwriting on the wall. They see the Iraq Report for what it is.

[KrazyHorse]

The Germans surrendered in 1918 and accepted a bad peace: mainly because the government was composed of defeatist socialists. Where did that lead? To the most bloody war in human history.

You might be the oddest person I've ever talked to.

[Bosh]

Originally posted by Ned


Rufus, I do not fundamentally disagree with this post. WWI was beyond pointless. But the Germans were not strictly defeated. They just could no longer win and faced further years of stalemate with no certainty that they could avoid defeat. So they called a halt.

We have not reached that point in Iraq yet.

Thus your Korean War analogy is much more apt. I agree.

But the question is this: what would it have taken to drive the Chi-coms across the border? I think the answer is easy: making their bases in China open to attack.

The problem then as the problem now is the lack of will, not a lack of means.

Let's see, in the Korean War attacking China in a big enough way to drive them back across the border would've probably drawn the Russians in in a bigger way. The amount of bloodshed necessary to deal with that would've have been worth the objective (North Korea) especially as the bloodshed would've ground the people in the area into the dust.

Also unlike in South Korea we don't really have anyone on our side (except the Kurds). Right now it seems that the Bush administration is taking the side of the Shiites but they're not really our friends and their goals are not really our goals. Assuming that we're able to get the Shiite-dominated government on its feet all we'll really accomplish is expanding the power of Iran in the region. What the hell are we fighting for anyway? What can of goal can Bush accomplish at this point that's worth further bloodshed? I'm not saying that no such goal is possible, but I don't see the Bush administration doing anything that would be worth the death of a single additonal American even if it worked...

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
I would, but they stayed the course until they were exterminated.

And Drake, I think Rufus has it correct that the cost of this war is too high based on its justifications and whatnot. The max cost acceptable for Korea was higher because of the fact that it was an invasion of a friend of ours. It's an argument based on BOTH the justification and the cost, because the cost acceptable is lower because the justification is crappier.

[Arrian]

But the question is this: what would it have taken to drive the Chi-coms across the border? I think the answer is easy: making their bases in China open to attack.

Which, IIUC, was deemed out of bounds b/c it would've meant full, open war with China. There was the question of what the USSR would've done in such a scenario. If refraining from an action that could potentially trigger WWIII demonstrated a "lack of will" perhaps discretion truely is the better part of valour. Enough of that, though, since that scenario isn't applicable to the current situation.

Americans lack the will to "stay the course" in Iraq indefinitely. I present our very own Slowwhand as exhibit A. He supported the war, he'll argue that it was justified, etc, etc, but he's done with it and is fine with a pullout. He is not alone. The war was sold a certain way. It didn't end up being that way. If Bush had really understood what he was getting us into, and had laid that out truthfully in the beginning, the US population would have balked.

I did not support the war, which looked like a poorly-planned, unnecessary war to me back in 2003. I have, however, been one of those arguing that a pullout would be a bad thing. Having invaded, I felt we had to try. But I'm not the one who is being sent over to be shot and and/or potentially blown up in this cluster****.

-Arrian

[KrazyHorse]

I did not support the war, which looked like a poorly-planned, unnecessary war to me back in 2003. I have, however, been one of those arguing that a pullout would be a bad thing. Having invaded, I felt we had to try. But I'm not the one who is being sent over to be shot and and/or potentially blown up in this cluster****.

Arrian

[Arrian]

And as for the comment by Mr. Bozo whatshisface in the OP...



Do we have to dredge up all the triumphant proclaimations by right-wingers in 2003 after the Iraqi army collapsed? Because really, it would be so easy to provide a long list of incredible smugness, arrogance and insufferable moral superiority.

-Arrian

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
A purely military victory in Iraq has always been impossible, given our goals there. However, our military may still be able to play a role in achieving the political/social victory needed for a positive outcome in Iraq.

See, thats what strikes me as problematic about BH. Whenever anyone criticizes them, they come out with "a military victory is impossible, only a political one is possible" which seems to me as much of a false binary as the right wingers who hate diplomacy. Throughout it has seemed the only possible path to a good outcome would come from mutually reinforcing political and military strategies. Unfortunately they seem to have almost excluded that conceptually.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Arrian
And as for the comment by Mr. Bozo whatshisface in the OP...



Do we have to dredge up all the triumphant proclaimations by right-wingers in 2003 after the Iraqi army collapsed? Because really, it would be so easy to provide a long list of incredible smugness, arrogance and insufferable moral superiority.

-Arrian

I think the WaPo take on the report is pretty reasonable.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Bosh
Assuming that we're able to get the Shiite-dominated government on its feet all we'll really accomplish is expanding the power of Iran in the region.

Realistically this was the only likely outcome of the war anyway. All that flower-throwing stuff about a free, democratic, west-loving Iraq was a hallucination of rose-spectacled and naive idealists like Mr Blair and Mr Rumsfeld.

What surprises me is how/why Israel would back such a project. Iran was surely always more dangerous to Israel than Iraq, and so this war has seemingly gone against Israel's interests, rather than in their favour. Maybe Israel too, believed the pipe-dream.

Of course the alternative is that things are actually going to plan, and the plan was to instigate a Shia-Sunni conflict all along, using the dismemberment of Iraq as the primary battlefield. I don't think this is very likely though, as the price in US blood, treasure, and credibility has been so high.

[Arrian]

But that doesn't have anything to do with the comment of mine you quoted, which was in response to the Free Republic article posted by Ned.

I haven't read the WaPo article yet.

-Arrian

[Bosh]

I did not support the war, which looked like a poorly-planned, unnecessary war to me back in 2003. I have, however, been one of those arguing that a pullout would be a bad thing. Having invaded, I felt we had to try. But I'm not the one who is being sent over to be shot and and/or potentially blown up in this cluster****.

I'd be against a pullout if we had a administration that was so infested with incompetant ****-ups. Its kind of like saying that it makes sense to get your car fixed when it breaks down instead of scrapping it, until you take into account that the only mechanic in town doesn't know a lug nut from a driveshaft.