BAGHDAD, Iraq – Police found the bodies of 65 men who had been tortured, shot and dumped, most around Baghdad, while car bombs, mortar attacks and shootings killed at least 30 people around Iraq and injured dozens more.
Two U.S. soldiers were killed, one by an attack in restive Anbar province Monday, and the other Tuesday by a roadside bomb south of Baghdad, the U.S. military command said.
Police said 60 of the bodies were found overnight around Baghdad, with the majority dumped in predominantly Sunni Arab neighborhoods, police said. Another five were found floating down the Tigris river in Suwayrah, 25 miles south of the capital.
The bodies were bound, bore signs of torture and had been shot, said police 1st Lt. Thayer. Such killings are usually the work of death squads — both Sunni Arab and Shiite — who kidnap people and often torture them with power drills or beat them badly before shooting them.
If you have seen the good news or know anybody who has, please phone your local media outlet immediately. I’m sure that the shortage is only temporary.
As for wider analysis, what is there to say? This is the same damn story that was written last week, last month, last year. Bush won’t change course (the man is constitutionally incapable) so this same story will come up next week, next month and next year. We had a chance for a happy resolution, maybe, but our leaders sealed the deal when they made the ideological decision not to plan for postwar violence and not to deal with it when the occupation happened.
A short illustration of why sensible people want Rumsfeld to go. When Iraqis borked Rumsfeld’s pullout plan by not simply going back to work under Saddam 2.0 (that is to say, Ahmad Chalabi) and starting what looked like an organized, violent insurgency, local commanders were barred from describing what was happening because ‘insurgency’ has a bad connotation in military circles. Counterinsurgency war is a bloody, protracted, difficult process that demands a major shift in strategy from the troop-lite posture that the Pentagon had set out for Iraq. The Pentagon did not want to fight an insurgency, so the order went down that we weren’t fighting one. And gosh, wouldn’t you know it, the violence got worse and caught us totally unprepared.
Rumsfeld has many sins, god knows. In my view the most heinous is probably the number of Americans who have died unnecessarily because the people who killed them don’t fit into the sanitary Rumsfeld model for how people who oppose America are supposed to fight. Cue the Bush representative X throwing up his hands and lamenting that, alas, nobody could have anticipated they would do that! USMC General Paul Van Riper did (thanks to a commenter for reminding me). The Riper insurgency model handed the Rumsfeld model its ass. Twice. Any idiot could see that Iraqis might not fight nice like Rumsfeld wanted them to, that ignoring Riper’s success could get American kids killed, but we’re not dealing with ordinary idiots. For political reasons (asking for more troops might demand something resembling sacrifice, which would hurt GOP electoral chances) the Riper results were simply airbrushed out of the final wargame report.
And here we are. Groundhog day in Baghdad and Rumsfeld still in charge.
The Other Steve
Iraq war leadup was in fact Politically motivated
That’s an excerpt from a new book out by Isikoff. There are quotes in there from Republicans as well as Democrats which clearly indicate that the reason Bush blustered about Iraq was all about the elections.
Anyway, it’s sad to see what has happened to Iraq. I wish the best for the Iraqi people, and hope they can make lemonade from the lemons we handed them.
Punchy
Let’s hope they can use all their new flesh-modifying Black & Decker drills to also build some houses and mosques/bunkers.
Perhaps they can use the presence of 1500+ dead bodies a month as a reason to initiate some much-needed cemetary landscaping overhauls in Sadr City.
I’m hopeful that all this gunfire practice will lead to a new Iraqi 2008 Olympic gold medal champ in the Rifle and/or archery shooting competition. And the Para-Olympics? If the Iraqis dont clean up on sheer volume of competitors alone, something’s amiss.
IEDs using watch parts for timers ought to lead to a whole slew of experienced watch repairmen, eh?
Think of what all this violence is doing for home-schooling!! The US Fundies should be so proud! Nothing says “pro-life, Christian foundation” like home-schooling in Fallujah!
BlogReeder
If you have seen the good news or know anybody who has, please phone your local media outlet immediately. I’m sure that the shortage is only temporary.
Oh come on now. If this wasn’t sarcastic and you did want good news you wouldn’t believe it anyway. Really. That’s what’s really sad about how this has all come down to. There can be no good news, ever.
We had a chance for a happy resolution, maybe, but our leaders sealed the deal when they made the ideological decision not to plan for postwar violence and not to deal with it when the occupation happened.
This has got to be delusional. Of course they planned for postwar violence. They plan everything. This isn’t a classroom where you can do a lesson plan and expect to follow that to the end. There is an insurgency. Urban fighting at that.
There was something floating around (can’t find it) where elder Bush talked about his decision not to go after Saddam because of an insurgency. In all the speeches younger Bush made after the initial invasion, he said it won’t be easy, it will be long.
Your bit about Rumsfeld not following Rippers plan is constructive. You have a disagreement about operational deployment and what he should have done. But to say that they had NO plan for postwar Iraq, is just not right.
Andrew
Okay, seriously, what is the point in presenting more evidence that Bush et al. are completely incompetent and said incompetence has led to civil war and near genocide in Iraq, not to mention 3000 dead mostly young and otherwise healthy Americans?
If your average Joe Voter hasn’t figured this out by now, then they are plainly stupid or in denial. They are clearly unswayed by facts. We must, as a morally imperative, engage in the dirtiest of politics if that is what is necessary to change the minds of these idiots.
Andrew
You’re a stupid fucking idiot.
Punchy
Dumbass.
From here
Oh…and:
Please, you’re embarrassing yourself.
Larry
I agree with most of the post, but not this part.
I don’t think that “happy resolution” was ever a likely outcome, regardless of the plan. If history was any guide, a catastrophic, or at the very least, very ugly resolution, was the likely outcome. That’s why Bush the Elder didn’t go to Baghdad, and why Colin Powell counseled against the invasion in 2003.
The problem was not so much with the plan, as it was with the assumptions. Starting with bad assumptions, it is not likely that a successful plan can be constructed.
mrmobi
Thanks, Tim. I wasn’t aware of this at all.
Even after six years of unrelenting incompetence, I’m still shocked that this administration can’t even accept the “reality” of a war-game it conducts itself! In this case, they found it necessary to change the rules in a wargame so their model would appear to be correct. It’s stunning, really.
Honestly, when Bush picked Rumsfeld to be Defense Secretary, I thought at the time it was a good move. Experience and all. What I was unaware of was the Cheney/Rumsfeld connection, and that has worked out well, hasn’t it?
Van Riper from the article:
How about Paul Van Riper for Defense Secretary? Apparently, he’s familiar with that whole “reality” concept.
Good post.
mrmobi
What Larry said. These guys are incapable of learning.
Richard Bottoms
Er, you want to throw these bums out forget about Iraq. Start ripping them a new asshole over why we srewed up Afghanistan. The Taliban is making it a real war when we should own that country.
The questions houldn’t be why aren’t we winning Ira. It should be why are we so perilously close to losing Afghanistan.
There are no bad Democrats.
There are no good Republicnas.
Victory 2006.
Tim F.
Ah yes, the old painting your adversaries as mentally imbalanced tactic. There’s a sure way to win credibility.
…and a good old-fashioned appeal to incredulity, rounding off a post that makes precisely zero logically sound arguments. Bravo.
In fact I am well aware of the planning that went into postwar Iraq. The Future of Iraq Group, for example, which did a decent job at State and then got spiked at the last minute by territorialists at DoD. The role of OSP is also very interesting and not particularly positive for Rumsfeld. And then there are the quotes provided by Larry. If you don’t want to insult people’s intelligence, BlogReeder, support positive statements with evidence.
mrmobi
Agreed TOS. While I agree with Larry that we never really had a chance, whatever the plan might have been, I’m saddened that we blew whatever chance we had to help the millions of courageous people who went to the polls in Iraq. If I were one of them, I’d be very disappointed in us.
Now, like GOP4Me, count this Dem as ready to get the hell out of there. I wouldn’t be against trying to do it in a way that doesn’t leave complete chaos in its’ wake, but it’s past time to get out. Every day we wait increases the danger to our troops, and weakens our readiness.
The Other Steve
I don’t think that’s fair. BlogReeder isn’t stupid.
He knew what he was doing. He posted something inane and dumb, solely with the intent of generating a serious of insults, and/or worthless refutations of his inanity point by point.
His goal was to waste your time, and then change the argument into one of whether or not you are being mean to him.
BlogReeder isn’t stupid. He’s just not honest.
The Other Steve
I’ve still got Ozzy on the phone. We’re waiting for confirmation so he can begin singing “Momma, I’m coming home”
BlogReeder
Punchy, it depends on who you believe. Hearsay from a retiring general? Here’s what Rumsfeld said in an interview in 2002.
BlogReeder
Ah yes, the old painting your adversaries as mentally imbalanced tactic
I’m sorry Tim F., maybe I should have said F*ing idiot or dumbass.
bud
I take a two week vacation and come back to the same old whine.
65 Iraqis killed! 2 US soldiers! The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
Care to look at the deaths by violence in the good old USA during the same time period?
“Saddam 2.0 (that is to say, Ahmad Chalabi)”. I understand exageration for emphasis, but this is over the top. Do you really think that Chalabi would have (especially with us looking over his shoulder) gassed large populations, or looked on proudly while his sons raped and tortured for their personal amusement?
“…so the order went down that we weren’t fighting one” (an insurgency). Got a cite for that claim – that Rumsfeld isssued orders prohibiting not only public discussion, but any activity that would indicate counterinsurgency-type operations? Lots of counterinsurgency operations were in effect in the immediate aftermath of the “war”, it’s just that The Green Beanies don’t conduct regular press briefings – what a shock! Maybe it wasn’t enough, but insisting that the only thing that the US did was to assume the ostrich position is bullshit.
I read Kaplan’s story on Von Riper. Big surprise. Hint: at NTSC, OPFOR “wins” about 85% of all exercises. Short example of why Kaplan doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about: Von Riper managed to sink a couple of ships. The managers reset the exercise and continued. They cheated!
No, in “real life” the US would have sent more ships (we are a large and rich country, and we have the capability to do that). It would have put a time delay in things and maybe resulted in some slightly different scenarios, but the end result would be the same; so the lesson learned is “watch out for kamakaze boats (as an aside, I’m sure that Von Riper learned of this in his studies – the Japanese did this, with the the added detail of lead shoes locked onto the boat pilots to ensure that they didn’t bail before they rammed something). “Lessons learned” is the most important part of any exercise (and most operations). Kaplan obviously thinks that the “reset” indicates that someone just decided that that sort of thing was “not fair” and so penalized Von Ripen.
We need “more and faster, please”, but this sort of bitch is just another Bush-bash exercise.
les
Sorry, but what kind of f’n idiot is still pushing the “Baghdad is as safe as the U.S.” bullshit. Where do you live, bud? Maybe you could cite the news story where gangs of armed Lutherans are dragging Catholics out of their cars and shooting them in the head while the police look on? Is it Washington where the District court house is sandbagged and nobody enters without search under cover of automatic weapons? And damn, I missed the headlines about mortar attacks in downtown Biloxi. Do you have to take a stupid test to become a bush apologist? Jesus Christ on a popsicle stick, that has to be the most ignorant, uninformed, deranged argument ever. And it comes up and comes up…does somebody have to do your typing when you post?
Ryan S.
That stuff is all very nice Blogreeder, but none of that is a plan, a wish list maybe. There are no actionable goals in that statement.
Plans call for goals, and deadlines. For instance, Providing X many classrooms, constucting so many hospitals, provinding 24hr electrical services for Bagdad by such and such a time. Then following through with the appropiate resources to acheive those goals, and providing adequate security to preserve them. Otherwise you will never achieve this ideal “a country that did (does) not try to impose its will upon its neighbors”. Because lets face it Iraq is practically wreathed by dictatorial regimes that would like nothing more than to do the opposite.
The facts notwithstanding that there where no WMD to find and destroy, humanitarian assistance in the form of private contractors who walked away from projects with the money they where given. Assisting ‘some sort of provisional government’ which is so vague as to be absurd, and keeping the country unified, even if thats not what the populous wants(just the neighboring states).
And then there is perhaps, at least in my view, the most tragic and horrific overlooked goal. Securing Iraqi borders, and keeping foreign insurgents out, such that they don’t spark an internal struggle.
Andrew
TOS, I’m merely applying the principles of the Turing Test to come the “fucking idiot” conclusion.
Via the teletype communications channel known as Balloon Juice, the BlogReeder entity has responded to repeated questioning in a manner that is equivalent to how an actual “fucking idiot” would respond. He is thusly equivalent to a “fucking idiot” insofar as we are concerned, regardless of his actual status as troll, spoof, or actual fucking idiot.
Tim F.
Not directed at me. You don’t need my permission do dismiss other people’s ad hominems the way that I do yours.
jh
A couple = two.
Van Ripen sunk thirteen warships.
And then there is the matter of the “Opfor wins 85% of excercises” non-sequitur. So friggin’ what? The Millenium Challenge was rigged (much like the infamous SDI tests that were such a joke, you could hear the laughter from the Kremlin in West Berlin) and these neo-con idiots went to war with bad strategies and with tactics that have proven unable to curb the insurgency.
And then they have the temerity to play the role of indignance when rational people call them on their incompetence.
Pb
I haven’t checked lately–is ethnic cleansing on the rise here too? Inner city death squads? IEDs in Detroit?
Tim F.
Of course he’s going to say that. If Rumsfeld had simply declared that we’re going to knock over Saddam, take a few photos and leave he would have looked completely non-credible. And yet when you compare the actual act of planning to vague public statement it turns out that he really was completely non-credible. Funny how that works.
Tim F.
Very nice. I haven’t seen the old per capita fallacy in awhile. The name of the fallacy suggests in a subtle way why the point is full of shit.
scs
The good news is global population control.
RSA
I pointed an electric drill at my neighbor the other day; does that count?
To expand on Ryan S.’s comments, I love this part of Blogreeder’s quote of Rumsfeld: the U.S. military would
This reminds me of nothing so much as a dot commer’s idea about how to make a lot of money by taking advantage of these new-fangled Internets. Great on ideal outcomes, perfectly timed hand gestures, but no plan, no thought, no preparation on how to do it.
bud
Some other quotes from the article:
This puts this period as ~Oct ’01, and the invasion of Iraq occured Mar ’03.
So, we have SIX guys a year and a half before the invasion being told to concentrate on the invasion, and not piss around with anything else. Not an unusual management command (it’s called compartmentalization) and not unreasonable given the small number of planners on the job.
Authoritarian? Hell, yes, but this is the management “sytle” of the military.
But we have a smoking gun… or do we?
Obviously, Rumsfeld said that he would fire the next person who ignored his order to concentrate on the invasion, but did he actually say “we would not do planning…” or was this Schied’s interpretation? That quote supports both views.
Given that later in the interview, Schied says,
I think that it’s not a quote, but rathere his interpretation, since the latter quote illustrates that he thinks that he has a window into Rumsfeld’s mind.
p.lukasiak
There was something floating around (can’t find it) where elder Bush talked about his decision not to go after Saddam because of an insurgency. In all the speeches younger Bush made after the initial invasion, he said it won’t be easy, it will be long.
oh really? I guess you missed Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech….
bush does use the word “difficult”, and refer to “time” in this passage….
But “difficult” is not used in the context of there being any possibility of having our troops (and thousands of Iraqis) being killed five years hence… this is within the context of the war being over except for some “mopping up”…..and the “time” was with regard to the “transition from dictatorship to democracy”. Of course, THAT happened more than 20 months ago….and we’re still there. We haven’t left like Bush promised.
Tim F.
bud,
SImple question. If postwar planning got done, who did it? Where is their work product? If real thinking went on somewhere then how did we manage to fall so flat on our face? You cannot just assert that planning got done because, well, it must have. That is known as an appeal to incredulity (they cannot be that stupid), as I pointed out upthread.
If you need a couple of hints, start with terms like the Future of Iraq working group, Jay Garner and the Office of Special Plans.
Perry Como
1. Invade Iraq
2. Profit!
3. ??????
The Other Steve
No… it’s
1. Invade Iraq
2. ????
3. Profit!
The ??? goes before Profit, to imply “something magical happens here.”
The Other Steve
Ok, I’ve developed a plan for us to leave Iraq.
I figure we’re going to need 10,000 trucks, 1,000 planes, 500 helicopters, 4,000 tanks, a squadron of the Scotish Black Watch, one hundred Weber Genesis Gold C gas grills, and two dozen T-shirt guns.
Here’s how it works…
We take the t-shirt guns, load them up with cash. Shoot it up into the air.
And then everybody get’s the fuck out of there.
Andrew
It depends on if you are a contractor or not.
RSA
Do you think it would work if we shifted Halliburton’s contracts to Sherwin-Williams, and just coated the entire country of Iraq with a nice soothing shade of pastel blue? We could aim the t-shirt/paint guns in the general direction of school houses, to start.
Bruce Moomaw
Well, here’s the good news, Tim! Sales of power drills are leading to a massive upsurge in the Iraqi economy!
Eural
Bud, I’ll take your interpretation argument as a good natured attempt to explain how you see things in defense of Rumsfeld. But I’d like to point out that we have extensive evidence from a variety of sources, over a period of years which all points to the same pattern – willful, criminal neglect of proper planning for the post-Saddam Iraq.
Take a look at a couple of chapters in Assassin’s Gate or Fiasco and the interpretation thing starts to look pretty weak.
Tsulagi
There is no one action taken or not taken that has led to the FUBAR in the Iraq fiasco. There are plenty to choose from. No single person in the no-fault, spine-free administration should have all the blame/credit. Nope, this team is really, really deep in Brownies.
Take the Millenium Challenge 02 military experiment, the most complex joint service wargames ever conducted. At least one lesson learned was that an insurgency could develop and be effective. Well, if OPFOR wins 85% of the time, thank God we have the PNAC inspired plan that enabled a rare Blue Team win (after disabling Red) otherwise we might have a real problem. Right? /snark
You can credibly make the case they were so full of their own shit they never planned for an insurgency. Take the case of many troops, especially reservists, having to buy their own body armor. It was two months after Saddam’s statue fell before the Pentagon made the decision all troops should have body armor. It would then take more than six months for the first sets to arrive in Iraq. Longer than the amount of time Rummy thought for sure we’d be over and done in Iraq.
So if they never planned for an insurgency they knew in advance could take root and escalate if not contained, they should be fired. If they did have a “plan” (no way) and we’ve witnessed its execution, the should be fired for gross incompetence.
Tim’s correct, the plan was to put Chalabi in charge and then quickly take off on further adventures in Syria, Lebanon, Iran, and other corners of the ME. It was to be Pax Americana in full bloom, a retardocon’s wet dream.
To paraphrase Rummy, you go to war with the leaders you have, not the leaders you wished you had. Where is it written we have to have the stupidest, most incompetent shits on the planet?
BlogReeder
Tim F, I followed your suggestion on “Future of Iraq Project” and found this. What’s the catch? It seems to indicate that there was a plan in place. I haven’t read the whole thing. Does it end with “NOT”?
HyperIon
why bother? the authors are almost certainly
that is, not serious folks at all.
HyperIon
re: those Pajama Media ads on the left margin
the men are always fully clothed; the women, not so much.
discuss!
Tim F.
In fact it does, yes. After the Future of Iraq Group more or less finished its work Donald Rumsfeld claimed total authority over Iraq planning and scrapped the entire thing.
Todd
Ask yourself this question – Is George Bush a Clausewitzian clod?
lard lad
This point has been criminally neglected by the American media. Most of us know by now that Rummy and his gang went into Iraq with no post-invasion plan… but few Americans know that a full and detailed plan was drawn up by the State Department.
State actually spoke to real Iraqis – hundreds of them – listened to their concerns, issues and needs, and laid out their plan accordingly. Meanwhile, Rumsfeld’s exclusive source of Iraqi info was the “Gucci Guerrillas” of the INC, especially possible Iranian double agent Ahmed Chalabi (he who provided so much valuable “intelligence” in the leadup to war).
I’m still patiently awaiting the day that Rumsfeld gets a major grilling over his decision to toss the Future of Iraq Group’s plan. For just one reporter to ask him “Why?” for fuck’s sake…
Two additional thoughts:
1) Clearly, Chalabi and the INC were involved in shooting down the FOI plan. (In fact, if you encounter a blanket dismissal of the plan in your Internet wanderings, it will almost inevitably be from an INC member.) Could this be because the plan called for free elections to be held as quickly as possible… which would have nuked Chalabi’s chances of assuming leadership of Iraq? (You may recall that Chalabi was the neocon poster boy for Saddam’s replacement, until reality intervened.)
2) Did Rumsfeld simply see this as a pissing contest between the Pentagon and the State Department? If State was cut from the decision-making process (and the shabby, dismissive post-invasion treatment Colin Powell got from the administration was a clear indication of that), then Rumsfeld and his cabal would assume full credit for the glorious victory to come in Iraq. Imagine the neocons and hard-right pundits, cackling ecstatically about how useless those appeasers at State had been in the triumph that converted Saddam’s dictatorship into a pro-US, pro-Israel, free-market democracy.
For this colossal blunder alone (the word “mistake” is much too tame to describe the level of delusion in evidence here) Donald Rumsfeld should be run out of office at the business end of a pitchfork.
Tsulagi
For those who haven’t read it, and are curious why we are in Iraq and why Iran might be on the to-do list, take a look at PNAC’s Rebuilding America’s Defenses paper written in 2000. It’s a long read (about 90 pages), and too bad it’s not available printed on toilet paper. I read it a few years back.
PNAC alumni include Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Cambone, and others. Bill Kristol is the chairman.
Rumsfeld in large measure has followed the paper’s guidelines. The treatise is funny. Part of it is these brilliant military geniuses envisioned fighting multiple, simultaneous major theater wars with Iraq starting it off in the ME. Once liberated and set straight, the region would look upon us as a beneficent patriarch. It’s been working so well so far.
No doubt the neocons are still convinced they are right with the plan, just as the theocons are certain of their Terri Schiavo position. They are retarded.
jpe
It sounds like another wacky frat prank. Those jokesters!
BlogReeder
After the Future of Iraq Group more or less finished its work Donald Rumsfeld claimed total authority over Iraq planning and scrapped the entire thing.
That’s it? I’m suppose to just believe you? :)
Do you happen to have a link? I tried to google Rumsfeld and Future of Iraq Group but all I got was liberal slime covered pages that are of use to no one. You know, no substance. Something that commenter Andrew would have written. Geez, I think I even hit a 9/11 conspiracy site.
BlogReeder
I did find this at the bottom of the link I pointed to:
This is very interesting. Depending on how you read it, it could say it was “mostly ignored” or “It’s our bible coming over here”. Who to believe?
lard lad
Well, BlogReeder…
1) Clearly, the State Department’s Future of Iraq plan existed. Agreed?
2) Equally clearly, Donald Rumsfeld did not execute said plan. Correct?
3) Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, was and remains in charge in Iraq. He called the shots.
4) Colin Powell, Secretary of State, was left out of the loop in re: decision making in Iraq. Hell, the Saudis were getting informed of the White House’s plans before he was.
5) All the issues and goals addressed in the Future of Iraq plan:
are, to be blunt, currently in the shitter. All of them. Jeebus, they can’t even keep the electricity going in Baghdad for more than a few hours a day.
Conclusion: If Rumsfeld did not chuck the Future of Iraq plan, he did a spectacularly shitty (and utterly secretive) job in carrying it out. Not much wiggle room for him on this point.
I think the appropriate homily to apply here is “the proof is in the pudding.”
lard lad
By the way, isn’t it amazing how much more constructive the debate is on these threads without Darrell muddying the waters? I admit to missing his entertainment value at first… but considering how much more ground we get covered than before, I hope he’s buggered off for good.
jake
“The Pentagon did not want to fight an insurgency, so the order went down that we weren’t fighting one. And gosh, wouldn’t you know it, the violence got worse and caught us totally unprepared.”
Am I the only one who remembers, on the day of the invasion, various talking heads poo-pooing the idea the invasion would degenerate into a street-by-street fight (aka Urban Warfare aka Guerilla Warfare aka the most difficult sort of warfare)?
Yes, of course. Don’t even say that right now. Not only will public support for this caper dry up too soon, but we still need to recruit a few more people before they catch on.
Maybe there is some sort of divine game of “Opposite Day” going on. Rumsfeld says: There won’t be an insurgency, and there is. Bush says: There’s WMDs in them thar hills, and there aren’t. Perhaps they should try: There will never be peace in Iraq, and see what happens.[/Sarcasm]
Tim F.
blogreeder,
Don’t take my barbs the wrong way. Cheap rhetorical gimmicks get on my nerves but overall you seem fairly open to new information and you ask the right questions. I like that. To answer your last question, here is the information that you were looking for:
As far as postwar Iraq goes we got halfway there. Effective planning was done by well-intentioned people, but unfortunately those well-intentioned people had precisely zero impact on the final outcome.
lard lad
Actually, I’d like to join Tim F. in commending BlogReeder, who, though we disagree on much, always contributes nicely to the flow of ideas.