Politics: J'accuse!

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Not Me
It just seems awful to me that they send these kids out in urban warfare if the equipment isn't designed for urban warfare.

There has to be some sort of technology that could combat these RPGs.

The problem is not equipment design. All you really need for urban warfare is a submachine gun and a sack of hand grenades. The problem is that urban warfare is nasty and bloody, and people are going to die regardless of what equipment you're using. Unless you just stand back and level the place with artillery and air power.

[Not Me]

Does anyone know if those purportedly Iraqi blog sites that are written in English are really run by Iraqi's? For instance, the ones linked to on LGF's.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Not Me
Does anyone know if those purportedly Iraqi blog sites that are written in English are really run by Iraqi's? For instance, the ones linked to on LGF's.

I've seen nothing to suggest otherwise, and plenty in support of that. lgf is usually fairly good at researching that kind of stuff.

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
The problem is not equipment design. All you really need for urban warfare is a submachine gun and a sack of hand grenades. The problem is that urban warfare is nasty and bloody, and people are going to die regardless of what equipment you're using. Unless you just stand back and level the place with artillery and air power.

War is hell. Always has been, always will be.

I think the US successes in taking so few casualties in the first Iraq war, and the conscious decision to avoid casualties in Kosovo, made a lot of people think we could duplicate the feat anytime we wanted.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by bilmore
I've seen nothing to suggest otherwise, and plenty in support of that. lgf is usually fairly good at researching that kind of stuff.

They are interesting to read and if they are real, quite enlightening.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by bilmore
Why do you think this? It sounds like the language of a Bush quote, it sounds like a Bush way of thinking, and Rice fails to strike me as a liar.

I've already said there's no hope of proving my hunch that the conversation never happened, so I suppose it's fruitless to discuss it further. Nevertheless, the first two points are exactly why I think the purported conversation is made up. Call it trial lawyer's instinct --- when a company exec "remembers" a specific conversation that exactly mirrors the talking points and themes the lawyers are trying to hammer home in the Rule 56 motion, I'm naturally suspicious. Real people remember the results of conversations, but when they're pressed, they rarely remember exact phrases, except when those exact phrases are an invention --- sometimes well-intentioned, sometimes not --- to comport with memory, because it sounds like something the other guy would have said. Happens all the time. And in this case, it involves a directive from the president to apply overwhelming force against a threat that elsewhere the talking points say no one could have known was a big threat yet. That overwhelming force was never brought to bear, and I think excusably so, but it behooves the president's message to say he asked for overwhelming force pre-9/11 but there was no time to implement it. "Bring me a plan to wipe out al-Qaeda, once and for all" is not something I see any president bothering to say pre-9/11, but it is something every president will wish to have said. I smell a rat.

The idea that 43 must have said it because it sounds like something 43 would have said is more a sign of a well-prepped witness than evidence he actually said it. Looking at the actions taken pre-9/11, "We were working on a comprehensive plan to address precisely this threat" is just the best available way to make it look like you were doing something, even though no one took the threat that seriously at the time. Let's face facts --- there would have been no political will even to assassinate OBL before 9/11, much less to carpet-bomb the Afghani mountain ranges. So the idea that the president was planning to do so, but didn't get around to it, sounds like a convenient invention. Obviously this is one of those things that will never be proved or disproved, even by history.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
I've already said there's no hope of proving my hunch that the conversation never happened, so I suppose it's fruitless to discuss it further.

And silly to have brought it up in the first place.

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch [lots o'speculation]

Yawn.

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
this is one of those things that will never be proved or disproved, even by history.

Didn't Howard Dean say something like that about GWB having advance notice of 9/11?

[Gattigap]

Per Larry David's and Club's exchanges a while back, see this article from Robert Novak regarding troop levels. It's startling stuff that I would expect to read in sissified liberal publications like Salon but wouldn't have expected to have emanated from the conservative camp.

Novak pulls few punches in what starts off as praise for Atkinson's new book In the Company of Soldiers, including (perhaps) inadvertently bolstering the argument that troop levels are far too low, both in Afghanistan and Iraq:

... Abizaid made clear Monday that he was not going to be the fall guy if conditions in Iraq further deteriorate. If commanders want more troops to fulfill their mission, he will ask for them. That would leave Rumsfeld with no choice. The secretary announced on Tuesday that the generals ''will get what they ask.''

And suggests deep divisions between the uniformed military and the civilian leadership.

But Afghanistan also needs more troops. So where will they come from? Nobody knows, and that connotes an overcommitment by the United States and a miscalculation at the Defense Department. The uniformed military does not speak out publicly, but the generals are outraged. A former national security official considers the relationship at the Pentagon between civilians and the military as worse than at any time in his long career.
...
While Democrats roar, the generals are silent -- in public. Many confide that they will not cast their normal Republican votes on Nov. 2. They cannot bring themselves to vote for John Kerry, who has been a consistent Senate vote against the military. But they say they are unable to vote for Don Rumsfeld's boss, and so will not vote at all.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
But with the Apaches, remember that the call for them came from General Wesley Clark.

So what? If anything, that supports my view that Clinton didn't push to use the weapons he had available and that were best suited for the task at hand.

And the premise and conclusion of your analogy are both silly.

Eh, that's your view. My view is that the CinC does not get to blame the Pentagon for an overall strategy that is inadequate, particularly when the rationale for the strategy is less military than p.r. The Apaches was a symptom of the problem -- the most evident, but still only a sympton.

eta: I'm not sure I understand your distinction between the concepts of who to excuse and who to fault; they seem to be two sides of the same coin.

Discussing helicopters is nearly as bad as discussing tanks.

[Gattigap]

In what will be a startling turn of events to Club and pro-growth GOPers and Libertarians everywhere, the Christian Science Monitor tells us that the economy has done better under Democratic presidents than Republican ones since the 1940s.

Measured by GDP, by the stock market, by unemployment statistics. All Democratic.

Time to finally give in, Club. Like I've mentioned before, meetings are at 9:30, though a recent rule change is that newbies have to bring the coffee. Last I remember,

* Sidd drinks hi-test
* Ty is partial to venti chai latte no-foam
* Atticus will drink anything, but requires "fair trade" coffee only. (Good luck with that.)
* I'll go with the half double decaffeinated half-caf, with a twist of lemon
* SAM calls in from a remote location, so you're safe there

The others, you'll have to ask.

-- Gattigap

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Gattigap
It's startling stuff that I would expect to read in sissified liberal publications like Salon but wouldn't have expected to have emanated from the conservative camp.

I don't see why you wouldn't suspect that from conservatives. It is not uncommon for conservatives criticize Rep politicians if they don't approve of the job they are doing.

Originally posted by Gattigap
Novak pulls few punches in what starts off as praise for Atkinson's new book In the Company of Soldiers, including (perhaps) inadvertently bolstering the argument that troop levels are far too low, both in Afghanistan and Iraq:

I don't see why you think it is inadvertant. I have heard several conservatives purposefully make that comment. I think Novak is purposefully, not inadvertantly, making this argument.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Not Me
I don't see why you wouldn't suspect that from conservatives. It is not uncommon for conservatives criticize Rep politicians if they don't approve of the job they are doing.

I don't see why you think it is inadvertant. I have heard several conservatives purposefully make that comment. I think Novak is purposefully, not inadvertantly, making this argument.

My point is (was) that much of the discussions on this topic involve media screaming at each other, coupled with accusations that their opponents are full of it because they're politically motivated (or that they're pressured into towing the line in fear of retribution by BushCo or .. um .. I dunno, Jesse Jackson or somebody.)

That Novak criticizes the Administration on a sensitive topic like this without apparent fear of punishment brings him kudos*.

Gattigap

* Discounting the possibility, of course, that the Valerie Plame article earned him about a year's immunity, like a bad Survivor episode.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
One conversation is who to excuse; another is who to fault. Clarke's book details all sorts of foot-dragging by the military during the Clinton years. As the sources I just quoted make clear, this was a big enough institutional problem that it prompted some serious self-evaluation and change on the military's part. Could Clinton have done more? Maybe so. But with the Apaches, remember that the call for them came from General Wesley Clark.

And the premise and conclusion of your analogy are both silly.

Finally, an intra-party debate.

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Finally, an intra-party debate.

And among Dems! Whodathunk?

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by Gattigap
In what will be a startling turn of events to Club and pro-growth GOPers and Libertarians everywhere, the Christian Science Monitor tells us that the economy has done better under Democratic presidents than Republican ones since the 1940s.

Measured by GDP, by the stock market, by unemployment statistics. All Democratic.

Time to finally give in, Club. Like I've mentioned before, meetings are at 9:30, though a recent rule change is that newbies have to bring the coffee. Last I remember,


-- Gattigap

Are the moderates executed before or after the meetings?

For what its worth, I've heard the statistics before, but I'm not convinced that its enough reason to switch. I think the same type of analysis would show that Americans are less likely to be killed by wars during a Republican administration. On a slightly related note, Americans are more likely to win wars during a Republican administration.

Finally, what Novak wrote is exactly what I've been saying for awhile now. People in the military hate, hate, hate Kerry and the Pelosi/Kennedy wing of the democratic party. But Rummy and co. are beyond redemption, and have been for months in the eyes of the military.

If we lose 10 of our kids a day (average) for anywhere between 4 and 12 weeks (I haven't completely decided which straw will break this particular back), I'll be demonstrating in Lafayette Park to bring our kids home. If they turn Fallujah into glass on the way out, I won't be shedding any tears. But yeah, you've been particularly right on today.

Hello