Someone alert HUAC- Ralph Peters has gone wobbly:
Iraq is failing. No honest observer can conclude otherwise. Even six months ago, there was hope. Now the chances for a democratic, unified Iraq are dwindling fast. The country’s prime minister has thrown in his lot with al-Sadr, our mortal enemy. He has his eye on the future, and he’s betting that we won’t last. The police are less accountable than they were under Saddam. Our extensive investment in Iraqi law enforcement only produced death squads. Government ministers loot the country to strengthen their own factions. Even Iraq’s elections — a worthy experiment — further divided Iraq along confessional and ethnic lines. Iraq still exists on the maps, but in reality it’s gone. Only a military coup — which might come in the next few years — could hold the artificial country together.
Defeatocrat.
jcricket
Did you see the cover of Newsweek this week? It starts with “We’re losing…” (Fareed Zakaria wrote this!).
Someone alert the neocon retraining center.
matt
John, do you have any insight into why honest observers like the folks at Black Five, who I would think are in a better position to actually know, have an entirely different take?
It seems like there are more Ralph Peters out there than Black Five’s these days, but I’m not sure if quantity should trump credibility.
Perry Como
I’ll see your Black Five and raise you CENTCOM. Of course everyone knows that CENTCOM wants us to lose the war…
matt
For the record, my last comment isn’t as “trollish” as it probably sounds. I’m interested in the disconnect between the kind of intellectual experts how opine on this kind of stuff, and the people actually fighting the war.
Ned R.
About that ‘honest observer’ part re: BlackFive…
Andrew
You might as well have started your question with something like, “The sky was an orangutang who sang the French national anthem in Yiddish,” and it would have about as much relation to reality.
Pb
matt,
I don’t consider all the folks over at Black Five to be honest observers when there’s a partisan agenda involved–it’s pretty obvious where their sympathies lie.
matt
Ok, as blatantly partisan as Black Five is, they were probably a poor example.
That being said, it seems unlikely to me that they would continue to support a failed war policy that affects them and their loved ones much more than it affects people on the sidelines, just because they’re republicans or hate liberals.
That’s something RedState or FR would do, but imo Black Five, ect, have a lot more invested in this than gaining a few political points, and it doesn’t seem to me they would be willing to “fake it” just because they’re partisans.
Or maybe I should change my screen name to “naive”, heh.
ps
is it affects or effects?
Andrew
Actually, looking at those comments, there has been a sea change in attitudes. Yes, many are still reflexivly anti-Democrat partisans, but you would not have seen nearly so many comments calling our Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld on their incompetence two years or even one year ago.
Pb
matt,
It’s a world-view thing, I know there are soldiers out there who thought or think that the problem with Vietnam was that we left before the job was done and didn’t win, whatever that means, and blame Democrats for it. I’m sure there will be soldiers who have the same views on Iraq, and probably many of them are the same soldiers. I don’t think they’re faking it, I think they believe it, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t biased.
And there are still people out there calling for more troops, even though we don’t have more troops–Jack Murtha called for a draft two years ago on this basis. However, he saw that the political will for it was not there, and that his recommendations were not taken to heart, and now he supports redeploying our troops out of Iraq. Anyone who would seriously attack him for that (likely some of the people I mentioned in the first paragraph), and call him a traitor, is a blind partisan incapable of having a real discussion about Iraq.
The Other Steve
I guess I don’t understand.
Even if the US recognizes that this was a failed foreign policy adventure and decides to do something different.
That doesn’t mean the Republicans who believe so much in this war can’t go over there on their own and continue the fight.
What we’re debating here is US policy, not whether or not we are going to hurt someones feelings because reality disagrees with their dreams.
The Other Steve
BTW, matt… there’s been plenty of soldiers, generals and so on coming back from Iraq saying it was a mistake. Are they wrong, simply because they disagree with the blackfive?
BTW, who is the blackfive, and why should I care about them?
The Other Steve
What many people have vested is their faith.
Those are the most rabid and dangerous.
HyperIon
their failure? how about your failure, Ralph, to ask hard questions.
Pb
The Other Steve,
Black Five is a military blog–and a right-leaning one at that, if not far-right. Check out this idiocy. Or don’t.
ThymeZone
The word “sympathies” is key here. Iraq is not going to be about sympathies and ideologies. It’s going to be about the realities on the ground. That’s been the missing link since 2002. If we had been faithful only to the realities on the ground, instead of to ideas and personalities and sympathies, we wouldn’t have started this war and wouldn’t be in this mess today.
Iraq is going to have to reinvent itself. We are not going to have much of an effect one way or other at this point. The contest is between those who think that we can force an outcome and those who realize that we cannot, and that trying to do so is futile.
Iraq will do what it is going to do. Our folly was, and is, thinking that we can force any particular outcome at gunpoint.
sglover
In this dark hour, America needs Richard Perle, Bill Kristol, David Frum, Paul Wolfowitz, and the whole gaggle of iron-willed latter-day Liberation Theologians to show us some leadership by example. These guys need to enlist in the infantry, and show the sulking young people how it’s done!
Punchy
And bring in….I dunno…a hardline dictator…so we can…ya know…reinvade in 10 years for such fun and profit!!!!
Hey Matt…you want an HONEST take on how bad Iraq (I now call it “I-wreck”) is? The absolute GRAVY TRAIN of sick, FAT contracts just pouring into US companies for work in I-wreck is still not enough for Bechtel to stick around. IOW, even greed is not enough incentive for that company to stay in that hell-hole. THAT speaks volumes, IMO.
jaime
Man, I just love visiting Freeperlad sometimes:
What the hell is wrong with these people?
craigie
It’s affects.
Darrell
We’re in a tough spot in Iraq. We can’t afford to let that country slide in chaos, but at the same time, how much help do you provide? and for how long? I think toppling Saddam was necessary and justified, but at the end of the day, Iraqis are the ones who have to take of Iraq. It took a civil war here in the US to bring stability.. it may unfortunately come down to a full scale civil war in Iraq.
Changing subjects – jaime, would you like that we troll Democratic Underground, Poor Man, and Kos for juicy comments “representative” of the entire left?
Darrell
No gravy train.. it was cost+ . Not nearly as profitable as contracts in the private sector. Typical that so many on the left are too ignorant to know that.
jaime
Then it wouldn’t be doing what I had done which was taken a typical freeper quote and asked what is wrong with the typical freeper. That comment most certainly is representative of the people that post there (who aren’t zotted of course).
SeesThroughIt
“The Black Five” is a great song by Roy Ayers Ubiquity. Blackfive is a lamewad blog that should generally be avoided.
Jaime: The Freepers are having themselves a dolchstosslegende party (props must continue to flow to Kimmitt for bringing this incredibly relevant term back to the forefront).
ThymeZone
No shit. We told YOU that a year ago.
And now that you have finally run out of excuses not to see it, what do you propose the American role be while that civil war is going on?
Describe it, please.
Ned R.
Darrell, you remain terribly boring, it has to be said.
OkieByAccident
Cost-plus can be very profitable, especially if there is no oversight of the “cost” side – e.g. KBR and their cascading, unaudited subcontracts.
Cost-plus contracts are intrinsically (and by law and regulation) lower-profit, because the contractor takes no financial risk.
Halliburton’s Iraq-related cost-plus profits are in the hundreds of millions. By what standard are those profits not “fat”?
I’m glad Ralph Peters can recognize gross incompetence when it’s so blindingly obvious. But he was careful to leaven his essay with a typical canard about “those who rooted for Iraq to fail”.
Peters also categorizes those who warned of the high likelihood of ethno-religious chaos as “cynics” – I would describe them as “those without PNAC blinders who actually knew something about the region”.
Darrell
I love how so many lurking jackasses like Ned, who don’t contribute a damn thing to the discussion, love to pop in with zero substance posts for the sole purpose of name calling.
Anderson
Iraq is failing. No honest observer can conclude otherwise.
Which makes Bush and Cheney … what? Help me, I’m a Bush-worshipping Republican, I can’t finish syllogisms!
jcricket
Man, Keith Olbermann’s just en fuego lately!
His commentary opens by describing a situation in 1854 where a pro-slavery Congressman beat a anti-slavery Congressman bloody with his (pro-slavery) cane. The next day, the pro-slavery Congressman’s constituents reacted by mailing him more canes.
To answer Olbermann: Darrell, LGF, Paul L, RedState, Coulter, Hannity, Limbaugh, Powerline, Dan Reihl, et. al. are the ones mailing Bush new canes.
That’s at least a significant portion of Bush’s 30% support at this point. Surprised that none of them will “pull a John Cole” and come to their senses?
ThymeZone
So answer the question. Now that you are one to four years late on the Iraq civil war thing, what is the role that the US plays while this civil war thing is going on?
What are we telling our people that they are dying for now?
The Other Steve
Wow, Darrell is now espousing the Democratic viewpoint on Iraq? What the fuck?
This would be a change in your behavior?
Darrell
Tell us TOSser, what is the Dem “viewpoint” on Iraq? I haven’t heard any specific proposals from Dems on that subject… unless you count “we don’t like George Bush” as an idea.
ThymeZone
No, tell us, Hoser, what YOUR plan is for Iraq?
You do have a plan, right? All this crap you dish out, it’s because you have a plan, right?
So spell it out. What is your plan?
jcricket
To be fair, this is the same Ralph Peters who one year ago said that pulling out would shame our country and kill our troops and that for Democrats the dead soldiers are “nothing but a political club for [them] to wave in front of the media.”
Changing your opinion is good, and I don’t think we need endless mea culpas, but he’s gotta lotta splainin to do for using such extreme rhetoric just one year ago.
But how about at least one mea culpa? The same people who want Kerry to endlessly flog himself publicly should offer at least a bit of the same. John Cole’s done it, and look where he’s gotten. Andrew Sullivan has mostly done it to (remember the “decadent left” and their “fifth column”). Even Jonah Goldberg started to do it (the words “mistake” and “Iraq” appeared somewhere together his writing).
When Ralph Peters and the other jingoistic war backers who spouted endless hyperbole about how excellent the war would be and how everything Democrats were crowing about would never happen do a little groveling, maybe I’ll take them seriously again.
But right now it’s too little, too late and too fucking bad.
tBone
How quickly he forgets.
Darrell
Hey, you said you weren’t a Dem
tBone
I’m not.
While I’d like to take credit for the partitioning idea, it was popularized by Peter Galbraith and has been discussed fairly extensively in lefty circles.
West Coast libertarian
I have been lurking here for about two years. It is by far my favorite blog. I now have reason to comment.
“We’re in a tough spot in Iraq. We can’t afford to let that country slide in chaos, but at the same time, how much help do you provide? and for how long? I think toppling Saddam was necessary and justified, but at the end of the day, Iraqis are the ones who have to take of Iraq. It took a civil war here in the US to bring stability.. it may unfortunately come down to a full scale civil war in Iraq.”
Darrell, why do you hate America?
Black Elk
My,My Iraq is a disaster! Well what do you expect?We have
been fighting a politicaly correct war for the past 3 years
and you can’t win that way..Those clowns can’t get along and keeep on fighting one another then it’s not worth an
an other drop of American blood…So what to do,well we
can cut and run,pull back and watch or Carpet bomb the
place into dust,blow up the oilfields and come home and
then say at least we didn’t do it for oil>>>
Darrell
Well then, as you have already agreed, the partition idea is not a good one, as most all of Iraq’s oil wealth is concentrated in Kurdistan.
Any Dems in those “circles” include congressmen or Senators who have actually elaborated the position regarding partitioning Iraq with any specific proposals? Or is it all double top secret discussions among fellow travelers on the left?
grumpy realist
Anyone who wants partitioning should be ready for a lot of bloodshed. Anyone who doesn’t want partitioning should be ready for a lot of bloodshed.
The only question is which will have more.
I think we’ve screwed the pooch too badly to at this point have any effect on what will happen from here on in. We’re going to continue to be shot at from all sides. The umpteen billion dollar question is whether our presence is helping or hindering Iraq’s descent towards anarchy. I wouldn’t even consider it “civil war”, because that historically implies that there are two sides. I think what we’re seeing is a total fragmentation–which means that partition won’t help too much.
There’s also the question as to whether the US can afford, financially, to stay until this is all played out. We’re already running a deficit, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to stop. The more we put stuff on the federal credit card, the more we will have to pay back in the future. At some point the federal debt will be large enough that a majority of taxes paid in will have to go just towards paying the interest on the federal debt.
Supposedly, Osama Bin Laden wanted to drain the US of its financial strength by getting us into a war, the same way the USSR was drained by its involvement in Afghanistan.
So why are we doing what Bin Laden wants?
ThymeZone
Creeping up on the two year mark here, and I still have never seen you describe a proposal of any kind.
What is wrong with you?
The Other Steve
What’s really funny is that in particular you espoused the John Murtha plan. What I call Iraq Welfare Reform, or namely that Iraqis gotta learn how to stand up for themselves and right now we’re just a crutch for them.
It’s funny how you were so willing to smear Murtha and call him names, and then suddenly about face and start taking on his position.
The Other Steve
The US could afford an engagement of double the number of troops we have there now for an indefinate length of time.
But we’d have to raise taxes to pay for it, as well as possibly institute a draft.
President Bush is too much of a coward to suggest this, however. So he’s basically pushed us into a position of being incompetent or pulling out. Not much of a choice there.
John S.
Says the guy who doesn’t contribute a damn thing to the discussion and made a zero substance post solely for the purpose of name-calling.
Irony – you know I love it! Almost as much as Darrell loves pie.
Darrell
When was the last time we discussed Murtha? I think the man is a vile scumbag for what he said about those Marines in Haditha while an investigation was still ongoing, and I think there is near universal agreement that his proposal in 2005 to bring home all troops in 6 months was absurd as hell. What position of Murtha’s are you claiming that I have “taken on”?
ThymeZone
So, what did you say your preferred plan was again?
Are you going with the “I dunno, I guess I’ll leave it for a future president” scheme?
Or, something less cowardly?
We’re all ears, to coin a phrase.
grumpy realist
I think we would have to institute a draft if we want to remain in Iraq for long periods of time. The troops we have are burnt out. Human beings cannot live under total stress for an infinite amount of time. How many tours have some of them done–4–5? At some point, these poor people will collapse. They need to be honorably retired before that happens, with as much support as is needed for PSTD, reintegration into society, pensions, and as much health care and support as they wish.
Contrary to what certain commentators may believe, we cannot have a Forever War.
I also think that the “occupation for 10 years” idea will not pan out. Drawing from our experiences with the length of time troops have been in Japan or Germany does not compute–after WWII, both of those countries settled down and did not provide continuous war. Does anyone believe that Iraq will settle down to being anything like either of those countries soon? Can anyone say that the situation is, in fact, getting better rather than spiraling towards a free-for-all anarchy?
Methinks that Vietnam Redux may happen sooner than anyone expects. The only people it will come as a shock to are those who refuse to admit the reality of the facts on the ground. Continuing to state “we’re winning!” when the facts are definitely pointing in the opposite direction will just result in a greater blow in the future.
Mama Reality bites. REALLY hard.
TenguPhule
Yes, which is why Halliburton posted some of its biggest profits ever based almost entirely on Iraq war contracts.
Typical Republican Dummy, trying to talk with both feet in his mouth.
TenguPhule
Because you know, Bush appointees didn’t totally destroy or disband the Iraqi government, military, police, vital infrastructure and services that held Iraq together.
Blaming the Iraqis for the Republican run mess is truly lame. Trying to spin civil war as a ‘good thing’ after denying the fact of so long is even worse. As expected of Darrell the Shill.
srv
It’s the Christian thing to do. Jesus wants them to be free, GW said so, but they just aren’t praying hard enough.
tBone
Uh, no, I didn’t agree to that. In the other thread Steve brought up the example of Alaska. Granted, Alaska wasn’t wracked with bitter sectarian warfare when that system was set up (at least as far as I know). Still, I don’t think the difficulties surrounding oil revenues are insurmountable. They’re certainly not any more insurmountable than the difficulties in the current situation.
Meet Joe Biden.
tBone
To be clear, Darrell, I’m not saying partitioning is a magic bullet. It is a plan, though, so can we stop pretending that Dems haven’t put forward any ideas?
BTW, Kay Bailey Hutchinson endorsed partioning less than a month ago.
Perry Como
Yeah, but she’s a moonbat. Unserious. Unhinged.
Darrell
Typical stupid ass leftist Starbucks employee trying to explain finance based on something he read on a KOS blog post. Here are the facts:
Iraq is a tiny little piece of Halliburton’s profits. Which is one reason why Bechtel packed it up and left. Big hassles, little profits.
The idiocy is worth repeating one more time:
Stupid is as stupid does I suppose.
Darrell
Who are the elected Dem congressmen or Senators who have elaborated any such plan? Any at all?
scarshapedstar
America is failing. No honest observer can conclude otherwise. Government officials loot the country to strengthen their own stock portfolios and reelection campaigns. Even America’s elections — a worthy charade — further divided America along congressional and ethnic lines. America still exists on the maps, but in reality it’s gone. Only a military coup — which might come in the next few years — could hold the artificial country together.
grumpy realist
Stupidity should hurt–badly.
Unfortunately, in this case, it’s the soldiers that are getting the brunt of it, not the idiots who got them into this mess.
tBone
Scroll up to the post just prior to the one you quoted, Sparky. See the blue underlined text? It’s what is known on the Intertrons as a “hyperlink.” You click it with your “mouse” and it will take you to a different “web page.” If you read the page it will give you what we like to call “facts” and “knowledge.”