Quote:
Originally posted by bilmore
I've watched you post for too long. You danced right past what I said. I can't take credit for what some other "defender" said - only what I say.
Am I wrong?
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I was actually responding to Hello, with whom I was having this exchange before you happened along -- welcome -- and who posted something to the effect that it was Bremer's decision to disband the army -- not Rumsfeld or the White House. Hello did not explicitly say so, but the reason to point that out is to blame Bremer and absolve the White House for what has turned out to be a catastrophic decision.
So if I appear to be dancing, perhaps it's because I'm talking to two defenders of the Administration who are saying contradictory things. Hello wants to pin things on Bremer; you don't, but you think the decision to disband the army wasn't so bad.
Quote:
Originally posted by Hello
I'm certainly not defending the administration generally; rather, only insofar as Bremer is attacking it. I'm not saying the Administration isn't responsible for this. Rather, I'm saying Bremer isn't exactly the guy I want to see with his hindsight criticism, since its his judgements were in question.
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To my understanding, Bremer's not exactly criticizing the Admininstration. He's speaking frankly to small groups where he doesn't think his views will be reported, and some of it -- e.g., that he had requested more troops, despite the Bush campaign's line that he'll give the generals what the want -- got out. Since then, he's grovelled. Calling the decision to disband the Iraqi army "Bremer's judgment" is wrong -- it goes well beyond what that NYT article said, and contradicts what's been reported all over the place. Garner lost his job over this issue, I believe.
Quote:
still Hello
So how much for that bridge? I'd rather get an explanation from Kerry about when he would be willing to use unilateral preemptive military force, but I don't think you people are selling this information for anything.
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For you, cheap.
On this Kerry-unilateral-force thing, what do you want to hear? He's said he would use unilateral force. He thinks Bush made a poor decision in Iraq. Do you want Kerry to answer hypotheticals? Does he get to object that they're incomplete?
Quote:
Originally posted by sgtclub
If I understand Billmore correctly, I think he's saying that, with hindsight, it was a misstake, but that, at the time, it was a defendable choice. At least that's what I believe. You seem to want a perfectly executed war and have an emotional reaction to the fact that it didn't go perfectly, probably because you believe the planning was poor, which it probably was.
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War will not go perfectly, no doubt. Indeed, the principle basis I had for opposing the war was that things tend to go wrong -- you may recall that I argued that this was the conservative point of view.
But the decision to disband the Iraqi army seems to have been the biggest single blunder made in the whole campaign. I'm not particularly interested in debate the subjective intentions of whoever it was that made that choice, because whatever they may have been thinking, they royally fucked up, and a lot of Americans and Iraqis*are dead as a result. In most places, if you fuck up something on this order, you lose your job.
* and Poles.
