Why Planting Stories in the Iraqi Press Is Bad
 

You are confused.

All of these liberal types are very sure that, come the revolution, they simply have to yell "Cut!", and the action will stop, and they can quickly run aside and not be hurt.

It's all unreal.

If Lenin got power, it would simply make network connections a little bit more complicated. Kulaks would eventually get back their cable.

Hitler back? Well, the jews in the posting group would simply have to be a bit . . . you know . . . more circumspect.

It's all a fucking joke to them. There are no bad guys, just undiverse systems.

Weren't the "fellow travelers" all scheduled to die?

Wouldn't it be funny, were we ever to reach that point?

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

Dean now says "we're gonna LOSE!!"

(I guess he means there won't be a DEM voice n this country for years and years.)

"Saying the "idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong," Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean predicted today that the Democratic Party will come together on a proposal to withdraw National Guard and Reserve troops immediately, and all US forces within two years.

Dean made his comments in an interview on WOAI Radio in San Antonio.

"I've seen this before in my life. This is the same situation we had in Vietnam. Everybody then kept saying, 'just another year, just stay the course, we'll have a victory.' Well, we didn't have a victory, and this policy cost the lives of an additional 25,000 troops because we were too stubborn to recognize what was happening."

Dean says the Democrat position on the war is 'coalescing,' and is likely to include several proposals.

-------------------------------

Fuck Dean.

Fuck any person who follows Dean.

Ty? Comment?

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

I hope he's wrong, but worry he's right. I keep waiting for someone to explain what we're going to do differently to turn things around over there. Bush unveils his "new strategy" which is a bunch of talking points about how the old strategy is working, without anything else. Many Dems seem to be more concerned with positioning themselves for the next election than with figuring out what we need to change. (Although it's hard to blame them, since the Administration couldn't care less what they have to, and the GOP is trying to run Congress so as to make their votes irrelevant.) And the press is more interested in the political posturing and consequences than in the substance of our policy. (Although it's hard to blame them, since doing actual reporting from Iraq is a good way to get yourself killed.)

Dean is making an empirical assessment that our policy has failed and that there's nothing we can do about it. Murtha reached a similar conclusion. I'm sure both of them have better information than I do -- nevertheless, I hope they're wrong.

What I don't get is why you are -- or pretend to be -- so offended at Dean. It's pretty clear to me what he's saying.

etfs

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

For the same reasons your answer offends me: The evidence, should you ever care to search it out (you won't be offered it by your media) and should you ever look at it dispassionately, suggests VERY strongly that we're winning now.

But that's agin' the party line, right? 'Cuz Bush made it happen, and he's evil. So, your mission now, should you decide to accept it, is to fight this success with every fibre of your being.

Fuck. If your side can take him seriously now, there's no dialogue at all any more. Ya'all are beyond belief. I can take back my very temperate "there's no treason" post from last week. There is treason. There are traitors.

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

Please show us where we might find this information.

Government is not the solution it is the problem.
 

There is a difference between regulating business and regulating markets. You can regulate business to prevent fraud, protect health etc. But regulating the "market" means deciding you know better how to allocate resources than the market. Consumers are pretty good at looking out for themselves as long as there is competition. Requiring businesses to disclose information is not regulating the market. Regulating the market is when you set quotas, or legislate a price, limit competition or subsidize certain businesses.

It is the difference between trying to take control or simply just setting rules.

Whenver the government tries to "regulate the market" they end up wasting tax dollars and not providing a better product at a better price.


NO


Unless you are just implementing business rules like "you can't intentional lie". There is nothing the government can do. But trying to decide that the market is not giving the people what they want or need is when government gets out of line.







This is the crux of the issue right here. This is what makes you an Old School big government liberal. Your knee jerk reaction is to have government do something about the problem. Just because I don't like something does not mean I think government should step in and do something about it. I may not like popular music but that doesn't mean I want the government to step in force music on the radio I like. The problem with that way of thinking is that more often than not government makes the problem worse. There are plenty of news organizations, and plenty of serious reporting but it is not what the people want. These organizations are giving the people what they want. We may not like it but it is not our place to tell the American public what sort of news they should watch or read.



This would be a waste of money and effort. It would just be forcing taxpayers to pay for the type of news shows that we want. I don't think the government should be in the business of producing news. I don't really like the government being in any sort of business.

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

The point is that there are soldiers in the field trying to do their job and a statement like this from one of the leaders of the two main political parties does not help. What is really pathetic about this is that he can't possibly know this. No one could know this. If he said the odds don't look good and we should leave is one thing, but to say definitely that we can't win is utter B.S. and only serves to demoralize the troops and to embolden the enemy. It is completely irresponsible.

We are coming up to an election. Couldn't he keep his mouth shut until after the election? Can't these naysayers just shut up for a couple of weeks to see if we can pull of a good election and then start their belly aching? They can't wait until after the election because they want us to fail. They are more concerned about Bush looking bad than they are about the future of the United States or Iraq.

Immoral invasion?
 

How can anyone possibly say it was immoral for the US to invade Iraq and remove this guy?

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsar...IAL.xml&rpc=22

Not in the U.S's strategic interest - maybe. But immoral. No way. The invasion was definitely the moral thing to do.

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

He is entitled to his opinion. The "he is undermining soldiers in the field" argument you are making is one of the most unfortunate arguments I can imagine. It undermines the spirit of free discussion that is, after all, one of the most important hallmarks of our Democracy.

But, more importantly, taking this position avoids any real discussion of the war in depth and detail, and the repeated attempts by the administration to ridicule and slur their opponents into silence has had a very unfortunate effect on the quality of the debate, which is about as poor a debate as I can imagine for a serious issue.

From what I can see the only people who have truly sought to raise the level of debate on the national political stage have been Murtha and McCain.

Win and Lose are loaded words; we will not have either an outright and total win (that is, all the Iraqis will not be gathering together to sing "Kumbayah" and "America the Beautiful" anytime soon), and we will not have an outright and total loss. For me, a decade or so of peace and relatively stability in the Middle East would constitute a win - and that is what I would like to see the discussion focus on in Congress, rather than these cheap charges of disloyalty and bumper-sticker patriotism.

I do not think we will have a sensible discussion, in part because many of Bush's ardent supporters are Hawks eager to light a fuse in Iran or Syria, and he has played to this gallery, but if he were smart, he would be saying that stability is victory, and make the argument for the Middle East being less volatile today than it was four years ago. I will confess that I would give more credit to the Israelis and Palestinians for the increased stability, rather than to our invasion of Iraq, but I would like to at least hear a rational, dispasionate argument that Iraq has had this effect.

No sense of responsiblity.........
 

When Arnold gets the green light to set 'em off, you'll give us a heads-up, right? I'd hate to think that this investment in on-board relationships will add up to naught.


And not so for Anchorman? Without the smokes, the turtleneck and the just-off-the-air scotch, Ron Burgundy would be reduced to an Andy Stitzer.

And no one wants that.

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

My new read on the current crop of "omigawd, we have to get out NOW!" howlers is this: It's becoming more and more apparent that we are, in fact, achieving what we had hoped to achieve in Iraq - i.e., it looks like we are gonna win this - and the various actors are suddenly terrified, because a good Iraq outcome will prove wrong the entire, complete basis of their political stance over the last two years.

They have nothing else to fall back on. The whole party right now rests on "Bush sux in Iraq." If Iraqis vote big-time in this next set of elections, and start forming workable coalitions and cleaning out the terrorists themselves, and we start bringing people home, there's a huge hole on the left - there's no party position remaining at all.

So, I guess we have passed that point where people can't be treasonous because they're fighting for their vision of America, and entered into "they want us to fail simply so that they can win votes."

On the plus side, I can now foresee Dean costing the D's a whole 'nuther election cycle all by himself. Truly a giant among men.

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

See, here's the thing.

You're participating on a board of educated professionals who, though often indulging in exercises of creative writing and experimental hackery, occasionally break through the noise to try and have substantive conversations.

Except for Hank, all of us have jobs. We consume what information we can, when we can, and try to make sense of it. This is a particular challenge with Iraq, because unless (say) one happens to work inside the E-Ring and sifts through thousands of reports a day, NO ONE really knows jack shit about Iraq. It's too big of a country, and there's too much different stuff going on to get your arms around it very well. It's all anecdotal information cobbled together from media sources, friends who are in the field, etc.

So when I read posters who admit to not knowing the answer, and worrying that things are not going well, that strikes me as an honest, and not irrational, response.

Your response, apparently, is to be offended by that. I read you telling us that we're just not looking very hard, dammit, because the evidence (which is outside the MSM) tells you that we ARE winning. Oh, and by the way, there ARE traitors.

Strikes me that it's not too much for the unwashed, incurious, liberal Bush-hating masses to ask "okay, where?" Otherwise, you've just declared the conversation to be over.

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

Yeeeaaarrrggh.

Don't you assume that the argument is untrue to get to this conclusion? If it's valid, don't you need to consider the cost - the undermining of the moral - as part of the calculus of, just because we can say this, should we?

I don't see how This Thing is Even up for debate
 

1. We will undoubtedly win the "war" to place a democracy in Iraq. The people saying it is "unwinnable" are really saying "It is unwinnable within a short timetable and with an acceptable (read: minimal) level of casualties." The question is "How much blood and cash will it cost?" The issue is one of staying power and the public's capacity for escalating casualties. But there is no doubt that if we stay, we will knuckle the insuregents under from sheer force of pressure and time. Recall, the British didn't run because they were "losing" in the Middle East. They left because they were overextended.

2. Dean is a flat out four star imbecile. Along with others, like Coulter, his nonsense doesn't deserve to be debated anywhere, even here. He's a shock jock politico. He throws firebombs out there to rally a virulent, deluded, small core of obsolete left wingers who no longer have a voice. Howard Dean is a joke and should be treated as such.

3. That Dean is an idiot doesn't make his statement entirely wrong ("Even a blind pig stumbles upon an acorn...," etc...). Rummy is McNamara II. We need more masssive force to slam home a quick voctory. To do that, we need a massive infusion of bodies on the ground to overwhelm the insurgents. Simply put, to win this thing, we need a massive bucket of blood, and the only way to get that is to double troop strength. I applaud Rummy for trying to fight a new type of war. There is nothing wrong with trying to win a war with minimum bodies on the ground. But you can't do it when the enemy hides among the innocents. You can't bomb entire cities to smithereens. The collateral damge is too high. So you need more soldiers. Will a Dem do what's right and necessary and send more bodies there? Or will he kowtow to public sentiment and do the popular thing and pull out? My guess is the latter.

4. If we declare victory and run away leaving the country a shambles, we'll create a rift with the Arab world that can never be repaired. Cutting and running because a few thousand more will die is sacrificing tens of thousands in our nation and elsewhere over the coming decades. I don't think we should have gone into Iraq, but now we're there, and there is no option but to complete the misssion, no matter how many casualties it takes. Its pathetic we're faced with such a shitty situation, but thats the hand, and there is no other way to play it.

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

I will take this position more seriously when I see a higher standard of debate on the Republican side.

As I said, a debate between Murtha and McCain would strike me as informative, interesting, and likely to be very productive. I cannot think of anyone else in the administration, in Congress, or on the national stage who is engaging in a productive debate.

And if it is sad that Dean is doing this bumper-sticker debate thing, it is far sadder that Bush and Cheney, in their esteemed positions, are doing the same. Doesn't anyone see that the childish yelling backing and forth demeans the Presidency far more than the August Office of Chief Hack occupied by Dean?

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

Yeah, we are generally a community of well-read, educated, intelligent professionals. What's more, given the vocation, we're generally a community well-trained in information-gathering, situational analysis, and presentation.

There's a ton of info on Iraq out there, all over. I can find a pile of it in minutes, from people who are there, both on the ground and running things. I can find more from people going over to have a look and then coming back to tell us. It's easy to find.

So, I combine those two concepts - that this community should be most gifted at tracking down and analyzing all of this info, and that the info is out there, and I'm left with one overriding impression: the responses on this board that say "gee, where is all this info" are, at best, disingenuous.

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

Can you find a reasonably dispassionate discussion of "winning" versus "losing" by someone with a combination of expertise in the Middle East and in military matters? I would be interested in such a discussion; again, I think it all will come down to how we define "Win", and I personally want to see us define it in a way that will leave us Winning.

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

Where do you run into these rants? Bush's speech on Iraq strategy a few days ago seemed pretty cogent, informative, to the point, and calm.

And, Murtha as the voice of reason? Murtha can't decide what he wants to say, even in the space of one interview. He likes Bush, Bush has a good plan, and Bush needs a plan? C'mon, find another.

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

As a first step, I'll throw out my definition of "win" here, and let's see if there's any controversy there:

We accomplish the stated goals of: removing Saddam, initiating the process of establishing a constitutional democracy, (and it appears going forward that that process is . . . well, . . . progressing well, meaning, the country votes and elects and legislates and enforces as an expression of popular will instead of concentrated power), Iraq is no longer a destabilizing influence on the rest of the ME (and is, in fact, a stabilizing influence), Iraq is left as a willing friend and ally and business partner of the USA, and we bring home our military in stages as these things happen.

To me, that's a win.

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

"It's out there, and if you're not reading the same stuff and coming to the same conclusion that I am -- that we're winning, and that this is all the fault of the MSM and traitorous liberals -- then you're being disengenous. At best."

Yeah, this'll be a fun debate.

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

You don't need any more info. A fucking child can tell you that if we leave, the place will degrade to disaster and piss off the Arab world forever. We'll have succeeded in moving Afghanistan closer to Europe.

There's no debate here save the mental masturbation amongst policy wonks who think, in a fit of self-delusion, we can somehow cut and run and everything will still turn out OK.

Its our problem child. We have to get it under control. Cutting and running is sheer idiocy. The people who scream "what if it was your child in uniform over there" miss the point. Losing lives because a shithead started a foolish war is awful, BUT, the option is losing hundreds of times as many lives in the future. We don't - we shouldn't - make decisions on foreign policy as important as this one, based on concerns regarding our dying soldiers. That is a harsh to say, but its rational. You can't decide things of this magnitude because of some emotional sway you get watching Cindy Sheehan cry.

The soldiers dying are lives wasted in a clean-up exercise for one of the stupidest decisions in history. But we have no option but to clean up our mess.

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

(1) is clearly a good thing and a Win; (2) is one of the items I want to hear debate on; frankly, bringing Democracy to Iraq is not critical to my definition of win, and I have doubts about whether it is an appropriate military (as opposed to political) objective; (3) I want to hear debate on; I'm not convinced, as I indicated before; (4) we'll find out about "willing" once we are more fully disengaged; and (5) I'm happy if we bring home most of our military - let's not set the bar unreasonably high.

So, I'd set the bar for a winner lower than you, but am still less certain we have achieved it or will achieve it (apart from ousting Saddam, which is a clear win).

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

Unfortunately, this is about where I come out too. Someone convince me otherwise without engaging in ad hominen.

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

Shit, Capt... you assume debate still exists as a form of learning and communication of ideas?

You're wrong there, brother. Debate only exists where both sides are open to consideration of others' positions. I haven't seen that since the 80s.

What we have now is shouting matches between unswayable dilletante advocates. To consider anything an opponent offers is conceding defeat.

I think this willful ignorance is why nothing gets done anymore. It's impossible to make any progress where both sides ignore the the holes in their positions and argue from positions of almost divine irrefutable truth. Paralysis. Terminal gridlock, relieved only when one side walks away from the table.

They say we can blame Karl Rove for this, but I don't think he's the Goebbels of this revolution of the infallible advocates. I think its our short attention spans and intellectual laziness. We don't have time to actually understand half what we say, but we know we want what we want and we want to win. So we bark garbage back and forth.

This loss of intelligence is what elevates fools like Dean and DeLay to positions of power. Where there is no truth, and no process for reaching understanding, the unthinking advocate will always be king.

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

Yes. The question of cleaning it up also becomes an evaluation of things like

(a) how much truth is there to the premise that the presence of US forces are exacerbating insurgents as opposed to eradicating them, and if so, what's the overall effectiveness of our presence and

(b) is there any truth to the premise that our presence is acting as a crutch to Iraqis who effectively rely on our assistance instead of doing the harder work of building their own self-sustaining infrastructure.

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

From my reading, I'd say those very valid considerations are about two years awway.

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

Yeah, but that's not really the debate here. I think it's more, at what point should we think about leaving? What are the metrics that will tell us that the time is right?

Stupidest? Well, I disagree.

Think back to this board in the runup to the invasion. All of the bases for that act were debated roundly. People came down on various sides, and, I'm sure, remain in their respective positions. But the issues were debatable and critical. They included, should a despot who controlled an entire nation through military power and fear be allowed to subjugate that entire nation and murder millions of people will impunity? - how much of a destabilizing influence was he in the entire ME mess? - was he involved in the AQ funding or direction? - how much effect did he have in continuing and encouraging the Israel/Palestine boilover? - was he an immediate threat to us in some manner? - did he have WMDs? - and the like.

There were many bases for this war. Some, like me, agreed with the bulk of them. Others, not so much. But, the issues were there, and were the subject of a board debate and a national debate. After that debate, well, our chosen government invaded.

About the only issue that people seem to want to discuss nowadays is the WMD one. Seems everyone forgot the entire rest of the debate, but they still, to me, form a valid and rational basis for what we did and are doing.

Stupid? I don't agree. I still think it was one of the smartest and most forward-looking moves Bush could have made. And I have a degree - in Science! *

(*ETA - someone just informed me that you have to be over forty to understand this reference.)

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

I'm almost there and don't get it, so forty may be a good cut-off point.

I will say that a benefit of history is that the contemporary historian gets the last word in on the debates of the past.

The fact is, most American's would now agree it was a stupid decision, and blaming it on the polls or on the level of support at the time does not change the fact that Bush made that decision.

But, look, he's President, he made it, let's get over that. It is a decision, stupid or not, as you may like, that we are stuck with.

Perhaps we will keep electing Presidents who make stupid decisions, of both parties, as long as debate is no longer a valid means of communication, as Sebastian rightly says. Debate is now little more than a meaningless side-show practiced by a bunch of irrelevant eggheads like us. But let's keep it, someday, maybe...

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

National Lampoon Radio Hour, circa 1970.

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

Who was it that said, I can't believe Nixon won, I don't know anyone who voted for him?

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

Do you really want to compare Bush to Nixon?

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

Well, Dean surely does not represent all, or even most, Democrats on this issue. OTOH -- he serves a purpose, just as (for example) Newt Gingrich served a purpose for the GOP when they were in the minority.

I'm a member of the DLC, myself, so not exactly a Dean follower.

S_A_M

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

Your tone seemed to be "I don't know anyone who thinks the decision was a good one . . ." I know lots of people who think it was.

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

FWIW, I should avoid reading Dean. It causes me to post intemperately.

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

I did not mean that. I meant that today most people do think it was stupid, even people who supported it at the time. Not all people, and I didn't say whether they were right or wrong - but, most people DO think it was stupid and regret that we did it.

There are many things that I have done that are, in retrospect, stupid. (And, some of them, in retrospect as well, were fun enough so that I don't care if they were stupid.)

Immoral invasion?
 

I'm not standing in the "immoral" camp -- more in the "not in our strategic interest" camp -- especially in the absence of WMD.

However, I don't think it is irrational to argue about the morality of the war.

First important point, it was a war of choice, not a war of self-defense in the classic sense of responding to a direct attack.

Second point, the answer to your question depends on how you value the: (a) reality of the tens of thousands of lives lost in the invasion and its chaotic aftermath (U.S. and Iraqi, many innocent) who would most likely not have otherwise died during this period as against the (b) reasonable expectation that many other people would have suffered and died under any continuation of the Hussein regime/dynasty.

Hussein was/is quite evil, and the indefinite continuation of sanctions would have been both ineffectual and (in my view) immoral. However, it isn't as clear and easy as you suggest - even in hindsight. Just as there are no clear, simple and certain answers at this point in terms of "what to do now?", and "will it work?"

S_A_M

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

That would certainly be a "win"

S_A_M.

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

I just wanted to see this one again. Please consider this my nominee for thread title, post of the day, etc.

The Dems have hit on a strategy
 

Really? Tsk. Tsk.

Coulter, Limbaugh, Buchanan, etc. can have similar effects -- thus I ignore them.

S_A_M

Why Planting Stories in the Iraqi Press Is Bad
 

You keep telling me you have a strong sense of right and wrong. Yet you freely support the notion of killing people because they don't have the same idea as you about who it's okay to kill. Note that once you say it's okay to kill the insurgents, Saddam, terrorists, etc., you lose the ability to claim that you are morally opposed to killing. Therefore, the best you can argue is whether you or someone else gets to decide who will die.

You also say that it's bad to lie under oath, but you defend Sccoter Libby and Karl Rove. You also say that it's okay for us to spread democracy by planting propaganda. However, a free and accurate press is one of the strongest cornerstones of democracy.

You claim that we are not engaging in torture, but you defended the existence and maintenance of undeclared prisons and prisoners.

I'd suggest you worry less about my moral compass and try to find yours; it's obviously lost.