[Industrialblog,
December 7, 2006]
What they said
A few years I came to realize, belatedly, that our country had no intention of actually fighting our enemies, which I had been told were North Korea, Iran and Iraq. As I've mentioned before, it never occurred to me that we would actually fight a single isolated nation-building war in Iraq, one not part of a regional war.
It's disheartening to know just how far out of mainstream public opinion I am. I don't like to be on the fringe, but here I am. Virtually no mainstream Republicans and conservatives agree with me. It's just folks like Bill Quick.
In the months after 9-11, I was stunned at how little the U.S. government did. As I've mentioned before, I thought we would finally do something about terrorism — conduct a mobilization similar to World War II, and beat on our enemies until they howled. Boy was I wrong. I couldn't have been more wrong.
That's all. The Iraq Study Group is more bullshit. If we have the need for such a group, the war is already lost. So, too, is Afghanistan, if this is our thinking.
Our bluffs have been repeatedly called in North Korea and Iran. And now we've pissed away six years in expensive, bullshit half-measures. To wit:
1. You do not REBUILD a nation until you've utterly defeated it.
2. You do not negotiate unless you have leverage.
We have no real leverage against, Iran, North Korea or Syria. A new diplomatic "offensive" will just yield more contempt from these parties. We hold no cards we're willing to play. And our enemies know it. So there's no point in talking to them unless we want our chains jerked more.
It's disheartening to know just how far out of mainstream public opinion I am. I don't like to be on the fringe, but here I am. Virtually no mainstream Republicans and conservatives agree with me. It's just folks like Bill Quick.
In the months after 9-11, I was stunned at how little the U.S. government did. As I've mentioned before, I thought we would finally do something about terrorism — conduct a mobilization similar to World War II, and beat on our enemies until they howled. Boy was I wrong. I couldn't have been more wrong.
That's all. The Iraq Study Group is more bullshit. If we have the need for such a group, the war is already lost. So, too, is Afghanistan, if this is our thinking.
Our bluffs have been repeatedly called in North Korea and Iran. And now we've pissed away six years in expensive, bullshit half-measures. To wit:
1. You do not REBUILD a nation until you've utterly defeated it.
2. You do not negotiate unless you have leverage.
We have no real leverage against, Iran, North Korea or Syria. A new diplomatic "offensive" will just yield more contempt from these parties. We hold no cards we're willing to play. And our enemies know it. So there's no point in talking to them unless we want our chains jerked more.
What are you talking about? Cite some of this evidence, please.
There's been a fair amount about it in the MSM - mostly stemming from articles by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker but the Washington Post also ran a front page story about plans for an attack on Iran back in April.
I find an online version of the Post story - but here's a NYTimes story that references the Post story (how's that for complicated?) as well as some remarks from Bush dismissing the articles
On second thought, "evidence" was probably too strong a word. Hersh is a well-regarded (well - in some corners, anyway) journalist who has broken major stories (the My Lai Massacre, Abu Ghraib) and the Washington Post is -well - the Washington Post.
However, the stories in question rely on a lot of anonymous sources, and have been officially denied (both by our government and by Iran's.) It would have been more - proper? - to say that there has been a "fair amount of reporting" or a "fair amount of speculation" regarding Bush Administration plan for Iran.
Anyway, here's a link to one of Hersh's pieces regarding plans for air strikes to liquidate Iran's nuclear weapons program.
Here's a more recent one, about the administration thinking of ways to get around Congressional Democratic opposition to action in Iran
1) we're very limited to what we can do to Iran militarily - we don't have troops to invade, we're not liberating anyone, and any partial action will result in Iran closing down a lot of world's oil supply.
2) the GOP itself wasn't serious about large scale military response otherwise it would have a) dramatically increased the size of the military and b) been serious about paying for it. the Bush Iraq invasion was a gambit.
3) realistically there are something like a billion Muslims. Starting a unilaterial war against a number of Muslim nations seem simply unwinnable.
4) it is often very useful to talk to someone... unless you're already committed to war against them. In a time when the US is looked upon as being particularly warlike, engaging Syria and Iran will make us look better. Use the talks to demonstrate how Iran and Syria are fomenting trouble and are unwilling to change. Getting a lecture from Iran make not be fun, but it may play to our advantage in the long run.
A nasty religion-based anti-American government calling for the annihilation of another state scares me. I don't think I know the answer, but I know we'd better start laying out ways to battle terrorism that are more inclusive and more motivating than if you're not with me, you're against me. We've got to seriously raise out game.
This is indeed serious shit.
I get it now, the whole reason for invading Iraq was to inflame the Shiite's and Sunnis against each other so they'd fight amongst themselves instead of pestering us.
Could it be that Bush is an evil Claudius and this was his plan all along? Invade Iraq, inflame the Shiite's and Sunnis against each other, wait for the other countries to get sucked in and then pull out and let 'em beat the hell out of each other?
If this is the case, I for one welcome our old overlord.