I wasn’t aware that Max Boot was still in the game (and writing for Time Magazine no less) until Zandardad emailed me Boot’s article this morning asking for my opinion.
Guess what Max Boot wants?
Back in 2007–08, when al-Qaeda in Iraq, ISIS’s precursor, was pushed out of the Sunni-dominated northwest of Iraq, it was by Sunni tribal fighters working in conjunction with American troops. To inflict serious setbacks on ISIS today will require resurrecting that successful coalition rather than flatly refusing, as Obama has done, to put any “boots on the ground.”
It is in America’s interest to send as few troops as possible into harm’s way and to get our allies to do as much of the fighting as possible. But sending only 3,000 troops and essentially prohibiting them from leaving base, as Obama has done, is a recipe for ineffectiveness. If we’re going to have any impact on the fight against ISIS, we need to take off our self-imposed shackles.
It’s hard to know now what commitment may be necessary, which is why it’s vital not to pass an Authorization for the Use of Military Force that would prohibit “enduring offensive ground combat operations.” It is folly to tell ISIS in advance that it has nothing to fear from the best ground troops on the planet.
Credible estimates of how many troops we should send range from 10,000 to 25,000. Just as important as the troop numbers are the rules of engagement under which they operate. It is imperative that U.S. advisers and joint tactical air controllers be able to operate on the front lines with the local troops they support. This was the formula that made possible the rapid overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan in the fall of 2001.
“But Zandar,” you may ask, “isn’t Max Boot one of the leading voices that pushed for all-out ground war in Iraq while writing op-eds for the NY Times and helped paved the way for the decade plus and trillion plus we spent there? Why is he still writing articles for Time Magazine, and why is he advocating the same, open-ended Permawar strategy from 2002?”
Good questions. The answer of course is neocons can’t be discredited, just the wars they want the rest of us to fight. And it’s always the rest of us who pay the price. This time won’t be any different either, is my guess.
Fred Fnord
It amazes me that Viet Nam has not yet been rehabilitated into a glorious and necessary struggle for the very future of America.
It will be, I have no doubt.
Goblue72
In a just world, a lot of these neocon warpigs would be swinging from the end of a hangman’s noose.
jeffreyw
I always thought that Max Boot was Das Boot, turned up to eleven.
Doug r
Smartypants points out Isil is losing : http://immasmartypants.blogspot.ca/2015/02/some-real-journalism-about-isis.html?m=1
Ben Cisco
FCC votes to classify “Internet as a public utility”: http://t.co/N3FYcq8gMj
Roger Moore
@Fred Fnord:
I’m pretty sure that there’s already a large block of people who see it that way, and that Left Wing perfidy in blocking us from using whatever means necessary to win are the root cause of everything that’s gone wrong since. You just aren’t listening to the Right people on the matter.
elmo
And 150,000 was plenty to subdue, occupy, and rebuild Iraq. Plenty!
I wonder what Gen. Shinseki would say about his “credible estimate?”
Bobby B.
Some heavy strategy there, which probably comes from untold hours of “gaming” (I have other synonyms for that word which are unflattering to you…punks!)
c u n d gulag
In MSM punditry, it seems like the only consequence of being wrong, and loud-wrong – even time after time – is that after you stay where you are for a bit, you get a better gig somewhere else.
Look at Bill Kristol!
The man’s been demonstrably wrong on virtually, if not really, ALL issues!!!
Yet, he still makes a nice salary, and gets invited to open his yammering pie-hole on TV, all of the time.
Oy…
c u n d gulag
In MSM punditry, it seems like the only consequence for being wrong, and loud-wrong – even time after time – is that after you stay where you are for a bit, you get a better gig somewhere else.
Look at Bill Kristol!
The man’s been demonstrably wrong on virtually, if not really, ALL issues!!!
Yet, he still makes a nice salary, and gets invited to open his yammering pie-hole on TV, all of the time.
Oy…
Roger Moore
I didn’t know that Max Boot’s ass was considered a credible source.
trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
It wuz Walter Cronkite what done lost the Vietnam War, which right up to that point was going swimmingly.
celticdragonchick
@Goblue72:
FTFY
Jacques Herbert called it “looking through the Republican window”…
Mike J
Right wingers would like nothing better than seeing US troops beheaded. That would really help whip up the war yowl.
More troops in country, better chance for a beheading.
boatboy_srq
Translation: what we really need here are
Custer Battles contractorssoldiers to go in andshoot every last brown personkick ass and take names. Because it worked so well last time.john fremont
@trollhattan: ..And then those liberal Democrats in Congress cut out all of the foreign aid going to South Vietnam in 1996750.
boatboy_srq
@Mike J: Not to mention that dead troops don’t need expensive care and treatment from the VA. More war, less WF&A. Win/win.
/snark
Slugger
Ancient history fact: in 2006 the US had 140,000 troops in Iraq who were unable to keep the lid on a Sunni insurgency leading to the Surge. However, we can be sure that 10,000 or 25,000 can do the job now because, because, because…..
Kropadope
@Ben Cisco: But Wheeler is an industry hack and Obama is a sellout for appointing him, right?
Amir Khalid
Max Boot wants American boots on the ground, but at least he does recognise that the US’ best move is to have as small a footprint as possible in this fight. Gotta give him credit for that baby step in the right direction. Maybe, with more treats and the right encouragement, he can be taught that the US can’t win other people’s fights for them. If it’s the US that is seen as having beaten IS, and not Muslims, the win over IS won’t stick. Instead of having to swallow the rejection of the Muslim world, IS get to claim they lost to the American imperialist lackeys of the Zionists.
Hungry Joe
The guy would be blogging in (where else?) his mother’s basement, screaming at her to bring him his grilled-cheese sandwich and fer crissake don’t forget the pickle this time, if his name was Leonard Schmuckface instead of Max Boot.
john fremont
@john fremont: 1975.
srv
Max Boot is a big thinker who doesn’t realize this is what happens when you replace a Sunni dictator with a Shia one and think Iraq is still a country.
He’s a McNamara-lite, just keep throwing our troops into the well and ignore the root of the problem.
stinger
Yet we still had to have combat troops there for 13 years. T h i r t e e n years.
jl
Dammit all! I gave that carpenter best hammer on the planet, the best damn hammer in the history of the planet. Why can’t he get those pipes screwed together? He need to pound harder, is what he needs to do.
Why doesn’t everyone listen to me all the time? I gave that asshole the best damn hammer in the history of the planet, it can do ANYTHING I say it can.
mdblanche
@Ben Cisco: And block laws prohibiting municipal broadband.
Warren Terra
Predictably, Max Boot demands maximum boots on the ground; also, maximum booting of foreigners.
Mike G
Why are these always-wrong warmongers always on TV and getting prime space in print publications when they are always, disastrously wrong? Seriously, what is the selection process for who gets these major visibility pundit spots — is it all about money? Why does any cheerleader for the Iraq fustercluck dare show his face in public ever again? These people should be hunted for sport for all the damage they’ve done to this country with their arrogance and stupidity.
piratedan
@mdblanche: BUT WHAT ABOUT MY FREEDOM TO BE FLEECED BY CORPRATISTS?
sorry, was busy channeling Megan Kelly but my buffer cache couldn’t be cleared fast enough…..
MattF
Let’s see… send troops to Syria, Ukraine, & maybe North Korea, keep the ones in Afghanistan. I guess it’s too late to send troops to Georgia, but you never know. And that’s just for starters. I’ll bet you’ll never see an answer to the question ‘But how much manpower do you need all together?’
Mike E
@jeffreyw: Das Boot is a fabulous film, so I’d bet he wishes he was that great…moar like George
Triumph OF.TheWill, by my estimation.Tissue Thin Pseudonym
One of my new co-workers (who has figured out that I don’t want to talk politics with him and has thus stopped bringing it up, making my training shifts a much more pleasant experience) spent three tours in Iraq before leaving the military. He’s said that as much as he doesn’t really want to re-enlist, he would happily do so if we openly went to war with ISIS “with the gloves off.” It’s impossible to overstate just how much of a threat he thinks ISIS is to Americans, how much he hates them and is willing to kill any Arabs that get in the way of destroying them, and how simplistic his views of the efficacy of overwhelming force are. He has invoked Rome’s destruction of Carthage as a step he thinks we should employ.
Before we tacitly agreed to stop talking politics I tried to explain that we’ve been interfering in Middle Eastern politics since the 1955 overthrow of Mossadegh, and picked up that ball from the British and French who had been at it a lot longer. I pointed out that it hasn’t worked and there isn’t any reason to think that more intervention would have a better outcome. I suggested that maybe we should try a different approach.
His response was that we’ve just never used enough force.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
And when I disappear from this thread in about a half hour, it’s because I’m headed in to work and have zero intention of having this thing open anywhere near him.
trollhattan
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
Implicit in every similar plea is the use of nukes. “Why, oh why do we always fight with one hand behind our backs?”
“Why?” indeed. Perhaps they can recall that Bin Laden considered and rejected targeting nuke electricity plants when planning 9/11.
bin Lurkin'
As I read on Intel-dump lo these many years ago, someone needs to depth charge the fuck out of Das Boot until the oil slick covers the surface.
Mike in NC
The reason Max Boot and the other neocons keep beating the war drums is because war is always good for business. Just ask Dick Cheney.
Villago Delenda Est
The way you deal with neocons is how you dealt with those who started WWII.
The gallows.
Mike E
@trollhattan: Neocons are unconcerned with fallout, clearly.
Patricia Kayden
Why don’t Max Boot and his ilk lead the war efforts? Let them fight ISIS and whatever other boogeymen are out there.
catclub
@Doug r: Thanks! Informative links.
low-tech cyclist
@jl:
:applause:
steve
Oh my god…I thought that was just a snarky nickname you were giving to some neocon war monger…that is his actual name? And he makes his career demanding that we maximize the number of boots on the ground? You can’t make this up.
Are we sure this isn’t a nom de plume/nom de guerre de armchair?
NorthLeft12
You know, this is somewhat similar to what us staunch Detroit Lions fans have been saying for years; we would have won at least a few Super Bowls over the last five years if only the NFL and the refs weren’t against us, our coaching didn’t suck, our players didn’t choke, and the ball didn’t bounce the right way. And injuries! Did I mention those key injuries we keep getting?
Bob
Zander, thanks for taking up the slack for the long departed DougJ, except for the occasional music thing, and mistermix’s absence.
Keep up the good work.
elmo
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
Are there still Ay-rabs and Mooslims still alive over there? Well, see? Checkmate, libtards!
Lee
@mdblanche:
The first interpretation seems to indicate that it only blocks laws that don’t completely block muni broadband. So there are 6 states that still cannot implement it.
I live it Texas & I think Texas is a bit more complicated that what that website indicates (we have to contract for someone to be an ISP once we lay the fiber).
boatboy_srq
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: This is why the thought of Shrub going after the other AoE members always gave me chills. The only way to attack either Iran or North Korea with reasonable assurance of victory is with the bomb. Both countries have too many people with too much anti-American positions to begin with and too much nationalism to back down after the fact, in country too difficult for successful conventional campaigns lasting less than a millennium. Bonus with Iran for nukes it that sequestering their oilfields is good for the Saudis and for ExxonMobil.
Unless your coworker is suggesting full nationwide mobilization, restoring the draft, and putting the entire economy on a war footing (and isn’t that level of state control anathema to wingnuts anyway?), then “enough force” is just not reachable without pushing the button.
mai naem mobile
I’m certainly willing to kick in some.money into a Kickstarter and send Max Boot , Bill Kristol, Dan Senor and the rest of them off to Iraq with proper body armor to win the War on Islamist Jihadist Terror. I’ll even donate a Go camera to each of.them so that I can copywright.any video coming from it and make.big $$$ like they all did from Dubbyas Iraq adventure.
SRW1
After that, all you need is video showing two or three of them getting beheaded and the real thing is on.
jl
@mai naem mobile: We have the best warmongers in the world! They can do anything.
gratuitous
So, what we did before (with Mr. Boot’s strong encouragement) led to the present fix. Mr. Boot’s solution to the present fix is to do what we did before, which led to the present fix. Is he hoping for a different result?
Hungry Joe
“Credible estimates.”
He keeps using those words. I do not think they mean what he thinks they mean.
Tehanu
When Max Boot is in the ground, maybe then he’ll have some credibility about death. You notice none of these warmongering tools ever actually put in any time in the military.