Waiting for Fitzgerald

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by bilmore
Did youse guyz already have the Miers discussions?

Penske threw up his usual photoshops, declared he was going Democrat for a day and ahalf or so, and we discussed whether or not she was a stealth candidate with no record to have to fight over, or if it was pure cronyism, plain and simple.

I don't know that we reached any conclusions, but do we ever?

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by bilmore
Tell me why the admin would worry about keeping troop levels as low as possible if not for the purely political reason of not wanting to give the D's more ammo. Tell me why it would argue with its own generals, if not because it knew that the more troops it sent, the louder the D's would object, and the more chance that the right course of action would become politically unacceptable. I imagine that, left with no opposition, Bush would have sent way more people. He'd have no real reason not to.

You want to stare at your cake as you digest it. Can't do that.

Ok.

Concede that troop levels are woefully insufficient. Check.
Concede that generals likely have been asking for more troops. Check.


The question then becomes, Why Hasn't Bush Sent More Troops?

Alternative One: Those Meanies Boxer and Kennedy. bilmore is a BIG fan of this one, as implausible as it may seem, especially when at various times in recent years prominent Democrats and Republicans have been advocating sending MORE troops, and how Bush has accumulated enormous political capital by demonstrating Forcefulness, Boldness, Fortitude and General Leadership in Standing Up To the Terrorist Scourge. Why would he back down in the face of some puny Senators from blue states?

Alternative Two: Sending more troops would require deeper sacrifices by the American people, which -- separate and apart from what Barbara and Ted might say, may actually be unpopular with regular Americans. Inconsistent with the Administration's message of getting on with our lives and buying that new Hummer while we're at it.

Alternative Three: We don't HAVE many more troops to send. See voluminous articles about the Army stretched to its limit and experts worried about the National Guard being essentially broken because of its heavy use.

Alternative Four: Rumsfeld has toyed with a new approach to our armed forces. Something about "transforming." Even though it may well make sense in an overall approach, Rumsfeld might have wanted to, you know, TRY the approach in Iraq. Lean and mean. Mobile units, less armor. Fewer troops stationed in Iraq, not more, because that kinda crap was sooooooo WWII thinking. If a general or two argued about it, well Rumsfeld's no wallflower.

I'm thinking it's less number 1, and a bit of 2 and 3, and a good ol' second helping of 4. In your enthusiastic embrace of #1, I'm disappointed in the lack of faith you place in GWB's fortitude in facing down pussified Democrats in Doing What's Right For Our Troops.

You can keep the cake.

Gattigap

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by notcasesensitive
Poll: If I had posted my typed-in response to this post earlier in the day, which questioned the exact nature of Bush's "deposition" of Saddam*, would this have raised or lowered the net level of the debate on this board today?

Just wondering.



*I'm guessing it was similar to the Saddam-Satan relationship in the South Park movie, but with the roles reversed and Bush playing the top. Wait, did I just call Bush Satan or did I call Saddam Satan? Does this post qualify as POPD? TIA!

I'm sorry, but I don't recall what your respnse to the post was. Could you repeat it or PM me, please. Thanks.

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Originally posted by bilmore
Tell me why the admin would worry about keeping troop levels as low as possible if not for the purely political reason of not wanting to give the D's more ammo. Tell me why it would argue with its own generals, if not because it knew that the more troops it sent, the louder the D's would object, and the more chance that the right course of action would become politically unacceptable. I imagine that, left with no opposition, Bush would have sent way more people. He'd have no real reason not to.

You want to stare at your cake as you digest it. Can't do that.

You have a short memory. Rummy wanted to test out his lighter/faster military theories, and gave Shinseki got the boot for saying we'd need 300,000 troops. Bush's reason not to send more troops was not because the Dems would have objected more strongly, but because (at the time) such a course was thought to jeopardize his reelection chances. That was all he thought about in his first term. As a Dem, my opinion (expressed here) was that we should not go, but if we did, we should go in under the Powell Doctrine. But, I'll admit, I wasn't too concerned about Bush's reelection.

It's still a little early to begin trying to rewrite history. Wait a little longer.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
Remember-- the point I was answering was NOT whether we should have killed Stalin (if possible) after WWII.

I agree that would have been good -- although his successor might not have been much better right away (in the mid to late 1940s, it might well have been Beria). I think it took the post-WWII purges and internal puschts, inclduing the "Jewish doctors" thing to convince some substantial portions of the surviving Communist elite that Stalin had gone nuts by the end and that they had to go in a different direction.

The very specific point I was addressing was whether the U.S. should have threatened (and then presumably followed through with) nuking every location where we thought Stalin might be hiding until the USSR withdrew from the nations it occupied. I think not.

Also as to China -- killing Stalin and taking out the communist regime in Russia are two different things. In my view, the U.S. had neither the ability nor the will to do the latter immediately after WWII (would have taken another war of the magnitude of that just completed). Might have enabled us to defeat the Communist Chinese, but I'm not at all sure of that. Chiang Kai-Shek and the Kuomintang were corrupt, oppressive, and not exactly popular. The Communists were damn popular among the peasantry --as you noted -- which was 90%+ of the Chinese population then.

Killing Stalin in 1945 could not have saved China from Mao.
The Vietnamese Communists had significant popular support -- that truly was a civil war in many ways.

S_A_M

What I was actually proposing was treating Russia like Japan. Tell Stalin to accept unconditional surrender or we keep bombing. In the alternative, tell Russia to get the hell out of every other country or we keep bombing. I think they would have pulled out. Such a move would have saved millions of lives.

I don't by the corrupt regime stuff. I think the "corrupt regime" refrain has always been an excuse to just let the communists take over. Or has been used as a justification that the communists to take control.

Chianges government may have had trouble but the communists were getting a lot of help across the border. We were not doing much to help. We didn't need to lose China.

The refrain against the Korean war was that the Southern Government was corrupt and had no popular support. Fortunately Truman ignored that mantra and we saved the "corrupt" regime and it turned out quite well.

In Vietnam in 1972, after we pulled out, the South Vietnamese government did much better than people expected. The VietCong were not able to gain ground like everyone expected. The North Vietnamese broke the peace treaty and invaded the South - mainly because the Vietcong were not getting anywhere. Even though the invasion was a violation of the treaty the Dems in congress refused to send any financial support or military aid. Even though the North Vietnamese were being flooded with support from China and Russia.

The South, especially in the cities, did not want the communists. The NVA had to conquer the South and the flood of people out of the South showed how much popular support the communists had.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
Wonder why Bush didn't put more troops into the fight?

Because he was unwilling or unable to do the things necessary to get sufficient support from other countries.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by bilmore
Life is risk. I'm willing to take the chance that freeing people is generally a move in the right - i.e., the "moral" - direction. Do you just watch them die out of some fear that you might offend someone, somewhere?

Hopefully, our sense of justice, and right and wrong. Given that we're taking risks and incurring costs and pain in order to free them, I'd give us a fair amount of benefit of doubt on that one.

No, I give the American people that trust. Historically, I think we've earned it.

Cuts. Lots of cuts. Bridges for polar bears, Lawrence Welk museums, road beautification projects, subsidies for sugar beets and mohair and sex-change operations, parks and ampitheaters serving local interests and named after congresswhores, studies about mollusk pheromes, designations of state fungii, . . . I can find some slack in there somewhere, probablly enough to pay for the invasion of Syria and Iran, too.

At times, I look at the world and I almost see the logic of your call to empire. But then I consider the fact that it is this imperial drive that has led to the collapse of every great society before our own. I think about the fact that, if we start ignoring a system of treaties and international laws, the only place Americans will be relatively safe is wherever they can rely upon our troops to control things. I remember Richelieu's warning that power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The world is a bad place sometimes. Evil exists, and it always will. We can't even eradicate it at home on the micro level. How can you possibly expect that we will eliminate it globally on a macro level?

I can't buy into the newspeak concept that war is peace and tyranny, even the best intentioned tyranny, is freedom.

We can, and should, work with freedom fighters wherever they exist to oppose tyrants. We should interfere where we can to put an end to genocide. But unless we are prepared to try and take over the world, we need to recognize that even our power has limits.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by bilmore
And then we get Miers?

It's like being good all year, and pulling coal out of the stocking Christmas morn anyway.

It's like getting to second base, only to discover foam padding.

It's like kissing your sister. Hell, it's worse, it's like kissing MY sister. Your sister wasn't too bad.

It is rather a slap in the face, isn't it?

Not really an intentional F-U, I think it is more blind arrogance.

[Spanky disagrees though -- he rather thinks Bush is dumping the social conservatives (or no longer courting them) now that they are no longer needed.]

My thought now as the process grinds on is that the social conservatives and various others on the right who focused on the S.Ct. are now feeling what the Dems have felt for several years (with an added helping of betrayal).

S_A_M

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Okay, but since when have you become a champion of Taxwonk's right to threaten to kill the President?

I never threatened to kill the President. I simply stated that I'd rather see him dead than me.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by bilmore
Isn't it just a Western arrogance that allows us to assume that Rawandans value life as we do? Who are we to impose life on them?

I'm not the one arguing cultural relativism. Take it somewhere else, Bilmore.

[baltassoc]

Documents Show Supreme Court Nominee's Close Ties to Bush

• A few days later, Ms. Miers wrote to thank the Bushes, saying, "Texas has a very popular governor and first lady!" She recalled a little girl who collected Mr. Bush's autograph and said, "I was struck by the tremendous impact you have on the children whose lives you touch."

(Alternative conservative link with same basic message.)

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by bilmore
Damn those short skirts. They're just asking for it!

(No, seriously, I was a bit dismayed yesterday to see the percentage of posts that contained offensive personal slurs instead of logical discourse. I'd tell you what I tell my kids about speaking like that, but it would be sort of patronizing, I guess.)

It was high, but they had been trying logical discourse of a sort with Penske for several days, with much frustration. I just told Spanky to F-off when he said I was talking like a Stalinist fellow traveller.

Penske does a reasonable facsimile of a wounded innocent. After all, nothing he says about the Dems here could or should be taken to heart by those on the Board.

S_A_M

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by bilmore
Words have meaning, Ty.

Well, okay, not yours, I mean . . .

Ty just doesn't understand that once the activists have screwed it up, the non-activists have to actively fix it, so that they can then guard it from the activists, who might want to change it back.

Seriously, in terms of smacking down Congress, and sometimes states, the Rehnquist court was rather "active."

S_A_M

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by baltassoc
Documents Show Supreme Court Nominee's Close Ties to Bush

• A few days later, Ms. Miers wrote to thank the Bushes, saying, "Texas has a very popular governor and first lady!" She recalled a little girl who collected Mr. Bush's autograph and said, "I was struck by the tremendous impact you have on the children whose lives you touch."

(Alternative conservative link with same basic message.)

I find the smillie, and the quoted material offensive. What if my child saw the smillie? Would he think it acceptable to comment like that? Is there any way they could be replaced by a link?

[sgtclub]

Bilmore makes an appearance and the board goes crazy.