Dems especially those running for office dont know all the facts. Thus it is inconceivable they would have a detailed policy on how to fix the mess. Moreover, they are not in power.
Honestly--the best Dems can say is Fire Rumsfeld first. Then a new Defense Minister will give a new perspective on the situation. The Congress then can have hearings from foreign policy, military, Middle East, Iraqi leaders, UN, NATO, etc then come out with a well informed well studied policy.
I just know and majority of Americans know staying the course is not working--everyday, the civil war gets worse and many US soldiers and Iraqi civilians are killed.
a similar rosy view of Mr. Rumsfeld as stated in this Redstate post. That said I do agree with the poster that the SecDef accomplished a decent amount.
Management of the Afghan war was well done. We took down the Iraqi army in a very impressive manner in 2003. We captured Saddam Hussein. We mostly defeated Al Qaeda in Iraq. We eventually killed Zarqawi.
The problems that have occured in Iraq since the original invasion are definitely there, but I am also not sure if there was or is anyone else who would've done a better job than Rumsfeld. Like the poster on Redstate says, sure, many said that additional troops would've helped, but we do not know that. So just because a particular advice was not carried out, does not mean it would've worked.
I generally disagree with the overall conduct of US military operations once the major fighting was over. Like I've said before, I prefer overwhelming and unpredictable force that does not focus on warning civilians (and in the process the enemy) but instead focuses on achieving the War objectives. We could've destroyed Al Qaeda and any initial insurgent opposition in a very short time. Perhaps an extra 100,000 troops would've helped that. I personally think so, but I am not a military strategist.
I think winning the hearts and minds phase should happen after the hostilities have ceased and not during. So as I said before, we fought a war guided by liberal morals and if we fought a war using FDR's and Truman's brilliant examples, we would've been done long time ago. Yes, we would've probably killed 30-50,000 civilians to begin with, but in the long-term it would've still been less death than what we got here by prolonging the torture fighting this ineffective campaign with embedded morons from the media and NY Times criticism guiding our strategy.
In that I fault President Bush and not Rumsfeld. You fight a liberal war (like Israel just did as well) and you lose. Congratulations.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
Yes, we would've probably killed 30-50,000 civilians to begin with, but in the long-term it would've still been less death than what we got here by prolonging the torture fighting this ineffective campaign with embedded morons from the media and NY Times criticism guiding our strategy.
Unbelievable.
We invade a country based on an ever-shifting line of bogus reasoning (according to Bush's latest on Monday, it was to "spread the freedom agenda," whatever the hell that is), and you have the nerve to sugggest that we should have gone ahead and killed 30,000-50,000 in an all-out blow-up fest off the top.
Kind of like,"We're gonna' free you, but, unfortunately, we have to kill you to do it."
Unbelievable. Jeezuz...
If you really believe this is the "fight of our lives," how come you're not in Iraq?
to win the war, you have to be willing to do what it takes. Half measures cause even more civilian deaths and more importantly loss of our prestige and loss of our own people.
I am probably even overestimating the Iraqi casualties. Instead we are still stuck there and the losses are still mounting, 3 years later.
The ends in this case justify the means.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
Saying we should have accepted 30-50k civilian deaths in the beginning and be done with it falls in the same category of saying more troops would have helped. Maybe playing by your conservative/genocidal rules would have ended the occupation sooner, but we cannot tell.
In my opinion, and I'm no social scientist, killing that many people simply would have turned ordinary Iraqis against us sooner rather than later. It was inevitable from the beginning that they would turn against us regardless of our actions, which is so many counselled against unilateralism (though some geniuses think American exceptionalism plays well everywhere as long as we're successful in our adventures, which it obviously no longer does).
What I mean is that, yes, sure he supported and still supports the invasion of Iraq. I'd bet he'd support the invasion of Syria and Iran also. What I mean is that I think he's a puppet. He got installed where he is because those that are pulling the strings, knew he'd be a dependable facade.
Heck, I don't think George Bush is running things for that matter. He's just another figurehead. I think Darth Cheney holds more power than any of us really imagine (well, except a few crazies like myself).
.... seriously - what could or should we have bombed or destroyed that we didn't bomb or destroy? I mean -- what would we have been hitting to cause those 30-50k civilian casualties that we didn't hit?
You're couching your argument as if the military deliberately 'held back'.... I just don't see it.
A politician is an arse upon which everyone has sat except a man -- e e cummings
our rules of engagement had to be different. Fallujah would've been rubble the next day after we found out that it was occupied by 10,000 foreign fighters. Any time mosques were used to fight our forces or store weapons those mosques should've been leveled (as indeed is called for under Geneva conventions that I learned all about in the military - any time a protected symbol like a mosque is used by the enemy, it immediately loses any protected status). The fear of collateral damage and what would be reported in the anti-war media drove our strategy. Overwhelming force was needed and was not used.
More robust rules of engagement were called for and were not used. The military was forced to "hold back". We fought with both hands behind our back and that is still the case.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
Besides I did not suggest using nukes in Iraq. I simply pointed to Japan because we used overwhelming force and killed off a whole bunch of civilians that finished the fighting right then and there. It is in response to a comment that somehow overwhelming force would lead to more hate and more protracted fighting. Well, I pointed to example that it was not the case before.
Besides I did not call for the simple slaughter of civilians, but could've definitely done a lot better putting down the resistance and Al Qaeda in a much more ruthless and efficient fashion.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
... everything you're describing took place after the initial invasion and occupation. You tried to make the point in your post above that the military went in too softly initially, as if the forces that currently oppose us had already coalesced and were in place when we invaded. But they weren't -- that all happened later, after we had already begun to occupy the country. They wouldn't have been nearly as successful if we'd had sufficient forces and planning in place to restore order & keep the peace.
A politician is an arse upon which everyone has sat except a man -- e e cummings
The fear of collateral damage and what would be reported in the anti-war media drove our strategy.... The military was forced to "hold back". We fought with both hands behind our back and that is still the case.
Were our civilian military leaders forced to hold back, or did they knowingly choose to hold back for fear of what people might say?
Some might say that a good leader in war does what is necessary to ensure victory regardless of the personal political repercussions. It is unfair to blame the freedom of the press while ignoring the political cowardice of our leaders.
"The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire." --R. Heinlein
I place the blame squarely on both the Media and the Left for promoting the proper and humane new Rules of Engagement and the correct way to fight wars, and also on the Bush Administration for their political cowardice out of fear of what people might say.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
I generally disagree with the overall conduct of US military operations once the major fighting was over.
So despite the impression that you might've gotten, I only meant the conduct of the war after the initial invasion.
It's possible that we did not have enough troops, I am not denying that possibility, but I am also blaming our rules of engagement and general conduct of supressing the insurgency.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
Nearly all of the city's estimated 250,000 residents fled before the fighting started, and about 90,000 have returned to find wide swaths of the town in ruin. More than half of Fallujah's 39,000 homes were damaged, and about 10,000 of those were destroyed or left structurally unsound to live in, U.S. officials say.
Further destruction would have been pretty pointless since no one was left there.
Management of the Afghan war was well done. We took down the Iraqi army in a very impressive manner in 2003. We captured Saddam Hussein. We mostly defeated Al Qaeda in Iraq. We eventually killed Zarqawi.
When I was in school, if I only got half the answers on the test correct I did not get praise for the answers I got right. I got an F.
We could've destroyed Al Qaeda and any initial insurgent opposition in a very short time. Perhaps an extra 100,000 troops would've helped that. I personally think so, but I am not a military strategist.
My point is that it took months for these folks to 'leak' into the country and put their groups together. What we needed was better intelligence and more special ops to ferret them out. I don't see how altering the rules of engagement helps when you don't know where the enemy is or what he's planning -- other than blowing up mosques that we knew had weapons caches. But even that is a calculated risk -- you can take out the mosque, and the weapons, but you'll enrage the populace and create social unrest that you may not be able to quell.
A politician is an arse upon which everyone has sat except a man -- e e cummings
If the Dems can find a way to make your questions into a national debate they should do quite well in November. Simply put, there are no objective metrics one can look at and then conclude Rumsfeld is doing a competant job as Sec. of Defense.
I myself would weight the Administration as the more culpable of the two, given that they actually control the military and the press does not. The Administration has let their desire to keep their party in power override their judgment in this war. Why else be so darned concerned about what people might say?
But the idea that somehow wars can be fought nicely is indeed bizarre, and a difficult idea for ordinary politicians to overcome.
"The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire." --R. Heinlein
To try and historically compare the situation in Iraq 2003 with that of Japan 2005 is waaaaaay off. We could fill up pages with the differences between the two culturally, socially, politically and (most importantly) the comparitive wars at that point.
Also, nukes don't jive at all with our suppossed agenda in 2003 or today for that matter. Its pretty silly to even bring them up at this point.
and I only used Japan for an illustration rather than any serious discussion of use of nukes in the current theater.
Which is not to say that I am opposed to all use of nukes but certainly not in any of the scenarios we are faced with today.
Yes Japan of 1945 (not 2005) was very different from Iraq 2003, but the general overwhelming use of force have cowed peoples stronger than the ragtag militias in Iraq and their Al Qaeda partners.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
....why don't you describe the conservative war strategy currently being implemented in Iraq? It doesn't look like it is wokring too well or as it was originally inteded.
after it in Afghanistan! Americans were psyched and the world was behind us. The goal was clear.
Rumsfeld did not send in military to back up special forces for at least 30 days and the SF were confounded and baffled by Rumsfelds lack of response. Rummy's focus was already on Iraq. Almost immediately troops in Afghanistan were being repositioned from to deploy to Iraq.
Since our troops have not been issued Terrorist Detection Machines that allow them to discern who is and who is not a terrorist, I guess that would have meant killed a quarter of a million people.
cordoning it off, throwing in 20-30,000 troops and shooting anyone with a weapon while using close air support/helicopters to blast any buildings used as bastions for Al Qaeda thugs.
Move in with overwhelming force.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
Comments :
This post is an expanded version
of a comment
and a diary 
I wrote over at RS.
Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson
Might I suggest that the US's biggest mistake
might have been not continuing to focus on Bin Laden, Al Queda and Afganistan/Pakistan and invading Iraq in the fist place?
That's just my opinion though.
Why should Dems have a Iraq policy
Dems especially those running for office dont know all the facts. Thus it is inconceivable they would have a detailed policy on how to fix the mess. Moreover, they are not in power.
Honestly--the best Dems can say is Fire Rumsfeld first. Then a new Defense Minister will give a new perspective on the situation. The Congress then can have hearings from foreign policy, military, Middle East, Iraqi leaders, UN, NATO, etc then come out with a well informed well studied policy.
I just know and majority of Americans know staying the course is not working--everyday, the civil war gets worse and many US soldiers and Iraqi civilians are killed.
RUMSFELD should have been fired long ago.
I do not have
a similar rosy view of Mr. Rumsfeld as stated in this Redstate post
. That said I do agree with the poster that the SecDef accomplished a decent amount.
Management of the Afghan war was well done. We took down the Iraqi army in a very impressive manner in 2003. We captured Saddam Hussein. We mostly defeated Al Qaeda in Iraq. We eventually killed Zarqawi.
The problems that have occured in Iraq since the original invasion are definitely there, but I am also not sure if there was or is anyone else who would've done a better job than Rumsfeld. Like the poster on Redstate says, sure, many said that additional troops would've helped, but we do not know that. So just because a particular advice was not carried out, does not mean it would've worked.
I generally disagree with the overall conduct of US military operations once the major fighting was over. Like I've said before, I prefer overwhelming and unpredictable force that does not focus on warning civilians (and in the process the enemy) but instead focuses on achieving the War objectives. We could've destroyed Al Qaeda and any initial insurgent opposition in a very short time. Perhaps an extra 100,000 troops would've helped that. I personally think so, but I am not a military strategist.
I think winning the hearts and minds phase should happen after the hostilities have ceased and not during. So as I said before, we fought a war guided by liberal morals and if we fought a war using FDR's and Truman's brilliant examples, we would've been done long time ago. Yes, we would've probably killed 30-50,000 civilians to begin with, but in the long-term it would've still been less death than what we got here by prolonging the torture fighting this ineffective campaign with embedded morons from the media and NY Times criticism guiding our strategy.
In that I fault President Bush and not Rumsfeld. You fight a liberal war (like Israel just did as well) and you lose. Congratulations.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
You certainly are cavalier with the lives of
... those who did ask for our intervention:
Unbelievable.
We invade a country based on an ever-shifting line of bogus reasoning (according to Bush's latest on Monday, it was to "spread the freedom agenda," whatever the hell that is), and you have the nerve to sugggest that we should have gone ahead and killed 30,000-50,000 in an all-out blow-up fest off the top.
Kind of like,"We're gonna' free you, but, unfortunately, we have to kill you to do it."
Unbelievable. Jeezuz...
If you really believe this is the "fight of our lives," how come you're not in Iraq?
Should read...
You certainly are cavalier with the lives of those who did NOT ask for our intervention.
One of these days, I'll actually use Preview.
If you really believe this is the "fight of our lives," how come you're not in Iraq?
if you want
to win the war, you have to be willing to do what it takes. Half measures cause even more civilian deaths and more importantly loss of our prestige and loss of our own people.
I am probably even overestimating the Iraqi casualties. Instead we are still stuck there and the losses are still mounting, 3 years later.
The ends in this case justify the means.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
Hypotheticals
Saying we should have accepted 30-50k civilian deaths in the beginning and be done with it falls in the same category of saying more troops would have helped. Maybe playing by your conservative/genocidal rules would have ended the occupation sooner, but we cannot tell.
In my opinion, and I'm no social scientist, killing that many people simply would have turned ordinary Iraqis against us sooner rather than later. It was inevitable from the beginning that they would turn against us regardless of our actions, which is so many counselled against unilateralism (though some geniuses think American exceptionalism plays well everywhere as long as we're successful in our adventures, which it obviously no longer does).
how did
nuking Japan turn them against us in the long term?
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
I don't think it's been Rummsfelds calls to make.
What I mean is that, yes, sure he supported and still supports the invasion of Iraq. I'd bet he'd support the invasion of Syria and Iran also. What I mean is that I think he's a puppet. He got installed where he is because those that are pulling the strings, knew he'd be a dependable facade.
Heck, I don't think George Bush is running things for that matter. He's just another figurehead. I think Darth Cheney holds more power than any of us really imagine (well, except a few crazies like myself).
The game has changed.
Japan, well, we were the only one who had the game. Now, it's
Mutually Assured Destruction.
Why does your side forget that part of today's nuclear world?
I wonder.....
.... seriously - what could or should we have bombed or destroyed that we didn't bomb or destroy? I mean -- what would we have been hitting to cause those 30-50k civilian casualties that we didn't hit?
You're couching your argument as if the military deliberately 'held back'.... I just don't see it.
A politician is an arse upon which everyone has sat except a man -- e e cummings
as someone on Redstate said today, and I always believed
our rules of engagement had to be different. Fallujah would've been rubble the next day after we found out that it was occupied by 10,000 foreign fighters. Any time mosques were used to fight our forces or store weapons those mosques should've been leveled (as indeed is called for under Geneva conventions that I learned all about in the military - any time a protected symbol like a mosque is used by the enemy, it immediately loses any protected status). The fear of collateral damage and what would be reported in the anti-war media drove our strategy. Overwhelming force was needed and was not used.
More robust rules of engagement were called for and were not used. The military was forced to "hold back". We fought with both hands behind our back and that is still the case.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
what does Iraq have to destroy us???
Besides I did not suggest using nukes in Iraq. I simply pointed to Japan because we used overwhelming force and killed off a whole bunch of civilians that finished the fighting right then and there. It is in response to a comment that somehow overwhelming force would lead to more hate and more protracted fighting. Well, I pointed to example that it was not the case before.
Besides I did not call for the simple slaughter of civilians, but could've definitely done a lot better putting down the resistance and Al Qaeda in a much more ruthless and efficient fashion.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
But....
... everything you're describing took place after the initial invasion and occupation. You tried to make the point in your post above that the military went in too softly initially, as if the forces that currently oppose us had already coalesced and were in place when we invaded. But they weren't -- that all happened later, after we had already begun to occupy the country. They wouldn't have been nearly as successful if we'd had sufficient forces and planning in place to restore order & keep the peace.
A politician is an arse upon which everyone has sat except a man -- e e cummings
A key distinction is called for here
Who is the actor?
Were our civilian military leaders forced to hold back, or did they knowingly choose to hold back for fear of what people might say?
Some might say that a good leader in war does what is necessary to ensure victory regardless of the personal political repercussions. It is unfair to blame the freedom of the press while ignoring the political cowardice of our leaders.
"The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire." --R. Heinlein
I am blaming both
I place the blame squarely on both the Media and the Left for promoting the proper and humane new Rules of Engagement and the correct way to fight wars, and also on the Bush Administration for their political cowardice out of fear of what people might say.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
I said the following
I generally disagree with the overall conduct of US military operations once the major fighting was over.
So despite the impression that you might've gotten, I only meant the conduct of the war after the initial invasion.
It's possible that we did not have enough troops, I am not denying that possibility, but I am also blaming our rules of engagement and general conduct of supressing the insurgency.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
Fallujah
Fallujah was rubble.
Further destruction would have been pretty pointless since no one was left there.
qui tacet consentire
Rumsfeld
When I was in school, if I only got half the answers on the test correct I did not get praise for the answers I got right. I got an F.
qui tacet consentire
You also said:
My point is that it took months for these folks to 'leak' into the country and put their groups together. What we needed was better intelligence and more special ops to ferret them out. I don't see how altering the rules of engagement helps when you don't know where the enemy is or what he's planning -- other than blowing up mosques that we knew had weapons caches. But even that is a calculated risk -- you can take out the mosque, and the weapons, but you'll enrage the populace and create social unrest that you may not be able to quell.
A politician is an arse upon which everyone has sat except a man -- e e cummings
And what exactly
are those horrible liberal Rules of Engagement?
qui tacet consentire
Excellant questions
If the Dems can find a way to make your questions into a national debate they should do quite well in November. Simply put, there are no objective metrics one can look at and then conclude Rumsfeld is doing a competant job as Sec. of Defense.
Fair enough
I myself would weight the Administration as the more culpable of the two, given that they actually control the military and the press does not. The Administration has let their desire to keep their party in power override their judgment in this war. Why else be so darned concerned about what people might say?
But the idea that somehow wars can be fought nicely is indeed bizarre, and a difficult idea for ordinary politicians to overcome.
"The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire." --R. Heinlein
No Comparison
To try and historically compare the situation in Iraq 2003 with that of Japan 2005 is waaaaaay off. We could fill up pages with the differences between the two culturally, socially, politically and (most importantly) the comparitive wars at that point.
Also, nukes don't jive at all with our suppossed agenda in 2003 or today for that matter. Its pretty silly to even bring them up at this point.
still my point was limited
and I only used Japan for an illustration rather than any serious discussion of use of nukes in the current theater.
Which is not to say that I am opposed to all use of nukes but certainly not in any of the scenarios we are faced with today.
Yes Japan of 1945 (not 2005) was very different from Iraq 2003, but the general overwhelming use of force have cowed peoples stronger than the ragtag militias in Iraq and their Al Qaeda partners.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
too late
it should've been reduced to rubble before all the terrorists cleared out.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
heh
but this is the defining part of the Liberal war strategy.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
You do a great job describing the liberal position....
....why don't you describe the conservative war strategy currently being implemented in Iraq? It doesn't look like it is wokring too well or as it was originally inteded.
They sent in special forces hot and ready to go
after it in Afghanistan! Americans were psyched and the world was behind us. The goal was clear.
Rumsfeld did not send in military to back up special forces for at least 30 days and the SF were confounded and baffled by Rumsfelds lack of response. Rummy's focus was already on Iraq. Almost immediately troops in Afghanistan were being repositioned from to deploy to Iraq.
I'm only half stupid
Hmmmm
I thought we invaded Iraq to bring freedom and to make it a shining city in the hill. How does "cowing" fit into that?
qui tacet consentire
Well
Since our troops have not been issued Terrorist Detection Machines that allow them to discern who is and who is not a terrorist, I guess that would have meant killed a quarter of a million people.
Is that what you are suggesting?
qui tacet consentire
I am suggesting
cordoning it off, throwing in 20-30,000 troops and shooting anyone with a weapon while using close air support/helicopters to blast any buildings used as bastions for Al Qaeda thugs.
Move in with overwhelming force.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
But when does it end?
The President declared end of hostilities long ago. When do you start that winning-the-hearts-and-minds business?
In Japan it was immediately after the occupation began.
What does winning look like
These tired platitudes are a poor excuse for strategy.
Is that your suggested plan for success?
To win the war you do what it takes. Half meausres will not succeed?
Define win. Define what it takes. Then talk about full measures to achieve stated goals.
I'm only half stupid
So the goal is clear, conquer
and then plant the US flag on top of the hill?
I'm only half stupid
Which is what was done
Except they only needed 12K troops.
Operation Phantom Fury
qui tacet consentire