Quote Of The Day
Here’s RedState (now a subsidiary of Eagle Publishing):
A Mistake Reconsidered
once i thought i made a mistake but i found out i was wrong
By streiffI’ve long found one of the most frustrating part of discussing the Iraq War to be the idea of mistakes. The issue is not whether or not mistakes were made, the issue is whether those mistakes could have been reasonably considered to be mistaken at the time or whether there was ever a set of correct decisions that could have been made.
I’ve often thought this point might never come, but here I am at last, reduced to staring like a clubbed trout. The issue is whether there was ever what, now? It wha…?!
We seem to have discovered a new stage in the traditional Kübler-Ross process:
1. Denial: “The media doesn’t show the good news in Iraq.”
2. Anger: “The treasonous far-left-liberals and their media lapdogs are making us lose in Iraq.”
3. Bargaining: “If we send x-thousand more troops to Iraq, victory will be ours.”
4. Depression: “Did you catch 300 yet? [munch-munch-burp] God, it made me hate liberals even more. [channels flipping] They wouldn’t last a day in ancient Sparta.”
5. Advanced Literary Theory: “The hegemonic binary of ‘success’ and ‘failure’ traumatizes the (re)interpretive possibilities of an ethos of jouissance regarding the War in Iraq.”
Not to be phallogocentric here or anything, but we have to go with the non-fancy everyday definition of ‘mistake,’ meaning when you try to do something, like for instance apply aftershave to your face while your date waits in the hallway, but perform an action which thwarts your desired ends, like for instance mixing up your bottle of aftershave with the bottle of bobcat urine you bought to keep the deer out of the herb garden.
Maybe somebody could be all like, “But nobody knew it was bobcat urine, so how is that a mistake? How was it obvious that there was ever a correct set of decisions to be made, if nobody reasonably considered the chance of covering themselves with bobcat urine?
Dude smells of cat pee. That’s all I’m saying.
I’m a Clausewitzian by training and inclination.
Maybe a Santa-Clausewitzian.
I don’t buy 99% of the Fourth Generation Warfare or Network-centric Warfare theory bandied about. I don’t believe there was a correct set of solutions. Rather every decision, like a socio-political version of Newton’s Third Law, was bound to produce a negative outcome as well as a positive outcome.
Because abject and catastrophic failure is like the rocket exhaust that comes whooshing out of breathtaking success. It’s a yin-yang thing — perhaps the concept is too advanced for your Western hierarchical worldview.
I’ve explored what I think is the cruelest myth, that disbanding the Iraqi Army was a mistake, and others, smarter than I, have explored the potential outcomes of other decisions unmade.
We’d say that a heavy contender for ‘the cruelest myth’ about Iraq is the one about having to invade Iraq because Saddam wouldn’t surrender his WMDs. Another might be the greeted-with-flowers-and-candy thing. Another might be major-combat-operations-have-ended, and so forth, et cetera et cetera, and we’re still talking 2003 at this point. There have also been some pretty cruel myths since then, let me just say.
Disbanding the Iraqi Army, sending thousands upon thousands of trained fighters into the civilian population, and then creating a new army out of whatever new guys you can scrape up in order to fight an insurgency that has…somehow arisen. Brilliance.
Now another myth is being exploded: that de-Baathification is a bad idea.
Read the rest, by all means, but please take this tumbler of vodka with you. No, take more: I’ll open another bottle.
Dude smells of cat pee. That’s all I’m saying.
Had a car like that. ’72 Dodge Dart Sedan. 100 HP Slant six engine and hair-trigger brakes. Smelled of cat pee. I blame doug goldsmith. Ya had to be there…
mikey
If that dude became a monk, he’d have to go live in a moronastery…
FFS
I’m going to go take a baathification and go to bed.
Isn’t the last Kubler-Ross stage Love? So after the lugubrious prussian worship post, streiff jacks to pics of seven of nine?
This is kinda like arguing in favor of hiring the Three Stooges to do your contract work for your home renovation project.
“Yes, a three inch lumber nail was driven into Moe’s skull, but Curly CLEARLY thought that it was the drywall he was nailing, and not Moe’s head. Really, wasn’t the intention, and not the outcome, the most important aspect if their previous project? Besides, since this was an outer wall they were constructing, and knowing now that they had also failed to install the insulation, it would be irresponsible to not consider the disastrous repercussions of what would of happened if they even HAD successfully put the drywall up.”
Given my lack of alcohol, I shall forgo the reading of the rest of the opus. However, the eventual gist of this is most likely, “Yes, things were effed up, but it’s time to put that behind us and look to the future.” Which, in principle, I agree with. However, when the man who drove this bus into the ditch is still at the wheel and gunning the gas pedal, the initial mistakes are still a major factor of the discussion. As in, the question is not, “How shall we return to the road?”, but rather, “Sweet Jesus on a pike, why does that maniac still have the keys?”
Bart: Lisa, Lisa, I think you’re right about the Bush Administration. There’s something very very wrong here.
Lisa: Bart, welcome to stage three, Fear.
Bart: [urgently] Well come on! We’ve got to do something man!
Lisa: Sorry Bart, I would love to help you, but I am mired in stage five: making up shit about Speaker Pelosi in Syria.
Satisfaction.
That’s what they want. And if they have to make it up, well it isn’t like they haven’t practiced.
I’ve often thought this point might never come, but here I am at last, reduced to staring like a clubbed trout.
All political decisions are simply choices from a panoply of America’s Funniest Home Videos leftovers. Racing an undersized bike into a tree or whacked in the nuts by infant: who’s to say these weren’t valid choices at the time?
I think what he’s basically saying is he’s in denial of the fact that the right is the true home of moral relativism. I also haven’t yet had enough alcohol today to read the rest and see what else he’s driving at. Probably some repressed homosexuality expressed as homophobia to prove the book learnin’ didn’t nancy-fy him.
All mistakes can be traced back to one ur-mistake, which, incidentally, started in Ur and is currently continuing in Ur.
Yes, the Iraq War was started by farmers. All conflicts will end when the farmer and the cowman learn to be friends.
Some of the smarter war bloggers are starting to shoe-gaze in between their bleats of anti-reality agitprop.
Armchair Chickenhawks are not military strategists. Being a “Clausewitzian by training and inclination” doesn’t help matters. The high-minded Keyboard Kommandantes who scour the Internets for war porn are not focusing on tactics, especially Clausewitzian tactics. Shite, it’s 2007 and we’re occupying a country that didn’t attack us and our soldiers are just sitting there getting killed. The war bloggers are complaining about the scary Muslims and the Dhimmicrats. They are using war for domestic political posturing.
I bet every empire run by a dumbass had citizen strategists speaking in a high-class accent and speculating on how to conquer the wogs just over the border. The ruler’s foolish campaigns ultimately doomed the empire, but the citizen chickenhawks never stopped cheering on the mayhem. The spectators thought they understood the tactical brilliance of the corrupt, foolish ruler. They were vicarious commanders right up until the last battle, then, “whoops, guess that wasn’t a good way to take over the world. I made a mistake.”
Oh, by the way, Gavin. Do you actually have an herb garden that you have bought bobcat urine for?
Inquiring minds want to know!
I’m a Clausewitzian by training and inclination.
What part of faking evidence to say political solutions have failed so let’s start a war is Clausewitzian?
What part of the Iraqis want American soldiers out of Iraq and American soldiers want out of Iraq is going to satisfy the relative wills of each side that Clausewitz said was so important to winning?
It was only a small bottle. It also comes in gallon containers for those, you know, stubborn bobcat-urine situations. Of which deer and gardening are only the beginning.
As Chico Marx stated, everybody knows there’s no sanity, Clausewitzian.
I imagine bobcat urine farming-gathering is challenging, but lucrative.
The issue before us now is not whether or not we made a mistake by going into Iraq. The issue before us now is, if it were a mistake, do we compound on that mistake by pulling out of Iraq while leaving our task uncomplete only furthering chaos and suffering in the region? Any reasonable person would say no, we can’t do that. But Democrats are not reasonable people.
But hey, why don’t we send more Democrats from the House of Representatives to galavant around the world as if they were trained diplomats telling complete lies about the foreign policies of our allies to our enemies? That is a grand way to advance the cause of peace!
Or maybe it was just a mistake.
Two morons building a house.
Moron #1: Look here George, these nails have the head on the wrong end.
Moron #2: Dick, you idiot, them nails is for the other side of the house.
Goddamnit, Shoelimpy, there is a war going on. There is no time for pie!
The authority on these real and apparent paradoxes is Rumsfeld.
The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
You go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish you had …
and more I can’t remember.
Now Bush speaks of the correct “doctrine” to fight the war.
I understand Luther now.
My â„¢ is bigger than your â„¢, shrimpy.
Exactly, Steve E. There is a war going on, and there is no time to debate whether or not that war is a mistake, nor is it a time for the Democrats to be trying their hardest to take money away from our troops so they cannot continue fighting that war.
I heard you guys might be needing a little help with your blog. There is a book coming out later this year that might be able to help you. Click my name for more information.
The last stage is acceptance. Care to wager on what it would take to come to that?
That’s some C-grade trollin’ right there. Wouldn’t even be fun to refute. Completely worthless.
In other news, pie is delicious. .
Yikes. I hope you weren’t responding to me, some guy. Looking up I suppose its the soggy shoe you might be referring too, but let me clarify myself in the meantime- what do you (out there) think has to happen for this to end? What are the real world methods that need to be employed, please submit comment, that you think need to happen for this to be resolved? I don’t have a clue- do you?
So why don’t you accept the fact that we are at war and that we are going to be fighting this war until it is over? To start something, make a mess of everything and then say “sorry, guys, I know we messed everything up for you and told you we would help you fix it but I don’t really think you all are worth the effort and more so why don’t you just go fuck yourselves, I’m going home,” is the height of irresponsibility and completely immoral, yet this is what the Democrats seem to be standing for these days. It amazes me.
Firstly, we must make it clear that we are in Iraq until the job is done and not give our enemies the benefit of knowing when we are leaving so that they are able to bide their time and wait to spring even more into action the second we are gone.
Secondly, we need to continue with what we are doing: heightening security and increasing stability in Iraq as the new government continues to grow and establish itself. Until the government is truly able to stand on its own two feet our leaving would be a disaster for Iraq.
I know it is cliche but it bears repeating: people who strap bombs to themselves and blow themselves up in order to kill innocent people are not rational. They cannot be negotiated with. I know we don’t like to think that but the mindset of followers of militant Islam is not the same as that we are used to dealing with. They will never give up. They must be defeated. Period. To think otherwise is beyond foolishness. Even if (and this is a big if) we were to leave and there was a temporary period of peace, this would be a false peace, the elements which are currently causing violence in Iraq would not go away and when they returned it would be in an even stronger and more powerful form than they currently show. Taking the easy way out today only spells disaster for tomorrow, and that is something nobody wants.
To be beyond foolishness is to decide that you have authoratative power over people that do not want you to be there. And thats just it. If they want it, fine. If they don’t, respect it. We have been a major player in their decline, will our continuing presence help? Uhhh. NO. It’s entering into the realm of dreams to think that this mantra of ‘more troops’ is going to work.
How long is this argument going to continue be deployed?
A: The Iraq war has been a disaster.
B: How could the Iraq war be a disaster? Terrorists are evil.
A: Yes, of course terrorists are evil, but that doesn’t make Iraq any less disastrous.
B: Listen, moonbat, it’s quite simple – if terrorists are evil, how could the Iraq war possibly be a disaster? Logic indicates that the evilness of terrorism is evidence of the non-disastrous nature of the Iraq war.
A: That doesn’t make any sense at all.
B: What, are you some kind of Jihadist?
Combat fatigue must surely set in at some point.
For Christ’s sake. How about an effort to support (disinegrating shoes need not respond) the people that come home from this debacle. Whatever their intentions- I feel fairly certain from the vets I have met so far coming back had good intentions. However, they are so messed up now that they really do need help. The injuries that can be dealt with surgeries and physical therapy are minor compared to their injuries of the mind. Alot of the vets have serious anxiety disorders that create a world around themselves others are forced to initially deal with, and when it becomes too much………
You’re right, Shana. Sorry, no, that was towards ShoeAngel, who is putting zero effort into the trolling tonight, and is just transcribing Fox News and being no fun at all.
People who are wrong usually continue to be wrong.
Iraq has WMD. Wrong.
9/11 was planned and executed by Iraqis. Wrong.
Attacking Iraq is a great idea. Wrong.
We will be greeted as liberators. Wrong.
Staying in Iraq forever is a great idea. ???
The best indicator of future performance is past performance. Why listen to people who have proven beyond a shadow of doubt that they can’t get anything right?
“I know it is cliche but it bears repeating: people who strap bombs to themselves and blow themselves up in order to kill innocent people are not rational.”
People who insist they are right after being wrong 600 times in a row are not rational.
Earlier, I saw His Irrelevance on the TeeVee bleating about how the situation in Iraq “isn’t a civil war, its… [MUSIC UP] pure evil“. If the guy at the top of their little authoritarian hierarchy sounds like he was up all night eating mushrooms and watching Highlander over and over, what can we really expect from the c-list shills at RedState?
But you have to admit storing them together showed piss poor judgment.
You’re a royal jerkoff by training and inclination.
That’s beautiful. A real work of art. I could listen to this guy piss out his ass all day.
[…] of the “Aaaaargh, that hurts!” variety, and comes from Sadly, No, in response to a particularly ridiculous statement by a particularly ridiculous wingnut blogger: […]
Me, I’m a Half-witzian by training and inclination. Lots of training.
I imagine bobcat urine farming-gathering is challenging, but lucrative.
If bobcats are anything like Mehitabel the Abyssinian, then the challenge is not in gathering the urine, but avoiding it.
Come on! Everyone knows the cruelest myth is that victory is still possible.
Firstly, we must make it clear that we are in Iraq until the job is done and not give our enemies the benefit of knowing when we are leaving so that they are able to bide their time and wait to spring even more into action the second we are gone.
Dude, they may be irrational and all, but they know something you just can’t seem to grasp. Eventually, we are going to leave. All the pretending otherwise is for the benefit of war supporters like you. “Our enemies” are not waiting for anything. They live there.p
Where’d that “p” come from?
Where’d that “p� come from?
Exactly what Gavin M. was wondering, after the notorious ‘aftershave episode’.
Great, great post, Gavin; it makes up nicely for y’all’s invoking of Men Without Hats, the mere mention of which would be a death-penalty offense under my version of sharia law. The Gavin-Ross stages are especially delightful.
The Republicans seem to be coming apart at the seams — usually they peddle their wares using one or two orchestrated, manipulative messages. But it seems this particular right-wing windbag didn’t get the memo that the Bush administration and Iraqi “government” are reversing the debaathification debacle as part of the so-called surge, so he’ in fact completely out of step with his messiah on this one.
apply aftershave to your face while your date waits in the hallway… but mixing up your bottle of aftershave with the bottle of bobcat urine you bought to keep the deer out of the herb garden.
You forgot to mention that are on worldwide TV, and meanwhile, millions of people all around the world are watching you holding both bottles in your hand, and chanting in unison:
“That’s not aftershave, that’s bobcat urine, you fucking idiot!”
But you put your fingers in your ears and say, “La la la, I can’t hear you!”
Then you keep on putting on using bobcat urine for aftershave for the next four years, even though it is hugely expensive, insisting that it is going to smell better in just SIX MORE MONTHS!!! and that anyone who doesn’t think it is ALREADY starting to smell better is a dirty fucking hippie who doesn’t understand anything about aftershave.
One other note — “A Mistake Reconsidered” sounds like one of those pompous self-important special sections in the New York Times, like “A Nation Challenged.”. Aren’t you supposed to be banished from Uncle George’s neighborhood forever if you start to sound like the Biased Liberal Media?
ifthethuderdontgetya, I’ll see your Satisfaction (far superior to the Stones version, I think), and raise you Jocko Homo. Don’t break it, it’s old and scruffy, but it’s an absolute classic. How can anyone not love a band whose lead singer is called Mark Mothersbaugh?
Actually, it might be time for a Devo resurgence right now, particularly to counter the religious right. The above clip of Jocko Homo is fairly poor quality, so it’s hard to hear the words, but it’s a stinging rebuke against religious ignorance.
Love those spudboys. Just love ’em.
All conflicts will end when the farmer and the cowman learn to be friends.
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that the Cain and Abel story? Which in turn is an allegory for the conflict between nomadic herder type societies and static agricultural types?
Herr Doktor, I’m glad you referred to Mehitabel, rather than I. I’m currently experimenting on the handmaiden by traipsing urine-soaked kitty paws throughout the house, and I’m rather you didn’t alert her to the fact: it would skew the experiment.
Note that well-bred Abyssinian urine smells far sweeter than common bobcat urine. With a hint of cinnamon, I think.
“Santa-Clauswitzan”?
Jeez, thank god I didn’t have a mouthful of coffee when I read that or I’d have horked it all over my keyboard.
I guess a Santa-Clauswitzan believes war is a wonderful shiny present under the tree on Christmas morning. So, yeah, that’s pretty much warbloggers for you.
Secondly, we need to continue with what we are doing: heightening security and increasing stability in Iraq as the new government continues to grow and establish itself. Until the government is truly able to stand on its own two feet our leaving would be a disaster for Iraq.
I would ask my usual question in response to the first point, “what the hell does ‘get the job done’ MEAN?”, but I assume it’s pretty much your second point, security and stability. In that case, there are HOW many bombings of various kinds in Baghdad alone every day?What little security there is is a direct result of the American occupation.
So your “solution” is to keep funnelling money and troops into Iraq for the foreseeable future, both producing very little result beyond a swelling government debt, more dead Americans, further strain on an already fraying military and more hatred and resentment of the United States. Um, yay?
I’m glad you guys finally went after Streiff, who is one of the gassiest windbags of RedState. He dresses up his nonsense in five-dollar words and a pseudo-intellectual tone, but makes the most gaping errors in his analysis (like, say, using an Army Strategic Center report to bolster his dumb notion that disbanding the Iraqi armed forces was a good idea, while ignoring the part of that report which plainly suggests that doing so has put us in an extremely untenable position, or, say, citing Eisenhower’s de-Nazificiation plan to imply that de-Baathification was a great idea, while ignoring the well-documented fact that de-Nazification was highly selectively enforced because Ike’s people knew it wouldn’t work if applied by the letter of the plan). He’s not that much fun to write about because he’s stupid without seeming stupid (he hides his stupid behind a protective layer of pompous, making you do all the work of figuring out exactly why he’s so full of shit), but you found a way. L’chaim!
Mistakes were made
But its no trouble
Just drop more bombs
And bounce the rubble
Bobcat-Piss
So why don’t you accept the fact that we are at war and that we are going to be fighting this war until it is over?
The way I see it, this war can have only two outcomes:
1. We cut our losses and get the fuck out, like 60 percent of Americans want; or
2. We stay until either our army is completely broken, or nearly every Iraqi is dead.
Since both possible outcomes represent a loss, why not just get the fuck out now and save a few lives?
he hides his stupid behind a protective layer of pompous, making you do all the work of figuring out exactly why he’s so full of shit
So he’s a lawyer, then?
Shoelimpyâ„¢ said,
April 5, 2007 at 7:16
Assalamu Alaikum!
Alaykum As-SalÄ?m Shoelimpy!!
1. Not only is April the cruelest month, it’s also national poetry month.
2. Not to be phallogocentric here or anything…
I think a useful conceptual tool for deconstructing this wingnut text is fallacioucentric.
3. I’m a Clausewitzian by training and inclination.
Klaus’ wits’ end.
Until the government is truly able to stand on its own two feet our leaving would be a disaster for Iraq.
It already is a disaster and the government believed to be our puppet by 80% of the Iraqis (because it is) will never be effective. What will take for you people to admit you have no clue and just go away?
“people who strap bombs to themselves and blow themselves up in order to kill innocent people are not rational.”
How about people who torture other people to death simply because their last name indicates that they are in a different religious sect? Are they rational? Because the Iraqis doing that are doing so on behalf of the Iraqi Government our soldiers are dying to prop up. Is that rational?
The Board of Directors of Eagle Publishing includes one Pat Sajak. I guess that says it a__.
Make that fallacioucentrism.
I don’t buy 99% of the Fourth Generation Warfare or Network-centric Warfare theory bandied about. I don’t believe there was a correct set of solutions. Rather every decision, like a socio-political version of Newton’s Third Law, was bound to produce a negative outcome as well as a positive outcome.
This is truly some of the most gaseous and vapid sophistry I’ve encountered in ages. Like, wow.
It’s sublime, almost, except that its inanity is painfully self-evident in a pathetic, “look how smart I am!” sort of way. You almost want to pat his hand and say, “There, there. Now, now.”
Firstly, we must make it clear that we are in Iraq until the job is done and not give our enemies the benefit of knowing when we are leaving so that they are able to bide their time and wait to spring even more into action the second we are gone.
You know, I love this talking point. I’d really like to have someone explain to me how it would work.
Let’s see – the US announces we’re going to pull out on April 5, 2008, “Our enemies” high-five one another, lay down their weapons, and “bide their time” doing something else, which allows life to get back to normal. Cut to shot of calendar pages fluttering by. Ahmed: “Hey, Hamid, what day is it?” Hamid: “Oh, shit, dood! It’s March 31st!” Ahmed: “Damn! That’s right! The Americans are leaving in five days!” Hamid: “This is really inconvenient: I was planning to launch my spring product line next week.” Ahmed: “Forget about about all that now. I’ts time to spring into action! Where’d I hide my AK47?”
It’s a fucked up talking point that assumes:
1) “Our enemies” are only motivated by our presence, not by the political situation in Iraq.
2) Changes in the political situation prior to our anticipated departure won’t change the motivation of the fighters.
3) Setting a time for departure is some magical commitment that can’t change depending on the situation on the ground.
Shoelimpy, when you’re done explaining exactly how your “biding their time and then springing into action” scenario would work, maybe you could explain the “they’ll follow us home” one – that’s another good one.
I think I see what he is saying. It’s not stupid at all, honest. Basically, the Pentagon is a vast quantum computer, and when Cheney, Rumsfeld and Feith were strategerising they put Iraq into a quantum superposition, both fucked up and shiny at the same time. It’s only when the superposition collapsed into a single eigenstate in this universe that mistakes were made. In some other universe the superposition resolved itself with flowers and chocolate.
Newt Gingrich wouldn’t use bobcat urine, he’d use 100 % pure skunk juice!
Newt Gingrich: I would literally do that. I would say to them [ie, Iran, for holding Britsh sailors], I would right now say to them privately, within the next week, your refinery will no longer work. And within the following week, there will be no tankers arriving. Now if you would like to avoid being humiliated publicly, we recommend you calmly and quietly give them back now. But frankly, if you’d prefer to show the planet that you’re tiny and we’re not, we’re prepared to simply cut off your economy, and allow you to go back to walking and using oxen to pull carts, because you will have no gasoline left.”
Hugh Hewitt: I agree with that one hundred percent.
I think some members of the right are living in a kind of fairy-tale world, given their reliance on peculiar story-lines.
In the world of Shoelimpy and George Bush, if we announce the departure time, it’s like the invocation of the bells tolling at midnight for Cinderella. If we just keep dancing with the Prince forever, our ball-gown cannot turn into rags at the stroke of midnight.
The “folllow-us-home” myth is part of the magic – as long as we don’t invoke the departure time, we can magically prevent the Wicked Witch from knowing where to reach us, but if we say the Wrong Words, we’ve broken the magic spell that keeps us safe.
George Bush yesterday said that Our Enemy in Iraq is Pure Evil. Huh?It’s like he’s living in a fantasy novel. Can he even put a name to Our Enemy? Who’s Pure Evil? The Mahdi Army? Sadr? The Sunnis? the Shiites?
“Our enemies� are not waiting for anything. They live there.
Right.
Like RandomObserver said, “The best indicator of future performance is past performance. Why listen to people who have proven beyond a shadow of doubt that they can’t get anything right?”
I think the new definition of a sucker’s bet is getting someone to put up money that this time George Bush is right.
Streiff seriously wants to rehabilitate the decision to disband the Iraqi army? Is there any argument so dead that these people won’t try to resurrect it?
Good God. Just give it up already.
Shorter Shlimp: Burgfrieden! Burgfrieden!
‘Cos, y’know, “Peace within the castle” means YOU shut up and do what WE tell you to, hippies.
the cool thing is that in another dimension, another eigenstate (really?) of this universe, Gavin’s post began:
“what a brilliant bit of post-clauswitzian postulating from Redstate today, yet another reason why Happily, Yes! exists, to point out how just…right…on Redstate, and LGF, really are. also, president Reynolds once again shows his political acumen by putting all seditionists in jail today”
etc.
also, the universe does not contain enough dimensions to hold all the snark this particular piece of excrement deserves:
http://www.nysun.com/article/51783
i’m afraid to read their op-ed “the man the UN won’t thank” because i suspect if i click on that link i will see the name “John Bolton”.
another dimension, another dimension.
“The issue is not whether or not mistakes were made, the issue is whether those mistakes could have been reasonably considered to be mistaken at the time or whether there was ever a set of correct decisions that could have been made.”
No, fuckwad–may I call you “fuckwad”?–that’s the issue to you, as you sit in your rapidly-fraying Aeron chair and pull pensively on your pipe and/or dick, “as the case may be.”
The issue to Non-Asshole America is the lives already wasted completely or damaged forever, the lives currently in jeopardy–and trust you to assume I mean only American lives–and the beyond-obscene waste of money. THEN the issue is the criminal enrichment of profiteers, the expanding destabilization of the region, the long-term health care for the returning vets who aren’t literally dead, the damage to their families…
(Summer sun rises; beaches crowded; leaves turn, fall off trees; winter
snowscapes in silver moonlight…)
…the restoration of the Taliban, the expansion of jihadism around the globe, the disposition of Guantanamo…
(bangs head on desk. End.)
The guy is obviously right.
By his arguments, since there was no absolute and perfect set of decisions which could have been made, it is therefore impossible to say that anyone could have done anything wrong by choosing the more mistaken of the other mistaken options.
By “a set of correct decisions that could have been made” perhaps he means something like a perfect world in which one of the decisions would have been to cause Saddam Hussein to peacefully resign and surrender to U.S. authorities while making Iraq a democracy and also signing over the processing of Iraqi oil to U.S. companies while at the same time taking in all the Palestinians into a new Iraqi homeland so there would not be any more Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and also Iraq would have volunteered its army to go to Afghanistan under U.S. command and capture Osama bin Laden while Iraqi civil engineers and construction workers would all come for free to New York and build the new Freedom Tower complex for no money.
See, that, THAT, would have been a “a set of correct decisions that could have been made”, and since that decision set was unavailable, it turns out that everything was done as right as it possibly could have.
Wait, disbanding the Iraqi army is a myth? I was pretty damn sure that actually happened.
yeah well try and imagine if you had to walk through the mall with a head full of psilocybin….
i did and got really depressed….
. . . the issue is whether those mistakes could have been reasonably considered to be mistaken at the time or whether there was ever a set of correct decisions that could have been made.
Well, it sounded good in his head . . . . .
A simple test for streiff:
1. Is it o.k. to lie to start a war?
a.) no
b.) yes
2. In international conflicts, do you try diplomacy first or war first?
a.) diplomacy first
b.) war first
3. Is war an effective tool to curb the threat of terrorism?
a.) no
b.) yes
4. If you don’t like someone, is it o.k. to kill him and rape his wife and torture the rest of the family?
a.) god no!
b.) yes
Answer Key:
a.) is the obvious correct answer in all these questions. Back to school with you, young man!
Oh, and please just ignore the flaccid footwear and/or ‘his’ non-angelic cohort!
The issue before us now is not whether or not we made a mistake by going into Iraq.
Why is that not the issue? Don’t all of our decisions in Iraq proceed from the original assumptions that we made up had going in?
Wouldn’t we proceed differently if there were still WMDs than if there were not? Doesn’t it actually matter whether or not we are “fighting them over there”? Gods, I hope so!
If we don’t understand the POINT of being there, how the hell can we accomplish our “goal”? That’s like trying to build a product without a set of requirements–you can’t accomplish anything if you don’t know what you’re trying to do.
IIRC (from Cliff-Gorman-as-Dustin-Hoffman-as-Lenny-Bruce in All That Jazz, the Kubler-Ross sequence is
Anger
Denial
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance
So Anger and Denial need to be flipped in the post.
i’m afraid to read their op-ed “the man the UN won’t thank� because i suspect if i click on that link i will see the name “John Bolton�.
Robert Green, I’m here for you, big guy.
For all the talk about potential candidates who haven’t entered the 2008 presidential race — from Mayor Bloomberg to Vice President Gore to Senator Thompson and Speaker Gingrich — the one that who would bring the most to the race is Vice President Cheney.
LOL!!1111elevenhundredeleven!!!
Like oh, m’God. If Cheney were to enter the race, I’d almost have to vote in the GOP primary.
LOL!!1111elevenhundredeleven!!!
It’s the old media: they’re three days behind.
Oh jeez, I can only begin to imagine a campaign stump speech delivered by that real-world embodiment of Darth Vadar, Richard Bruce Cheney.
By the end of primary season, his lips will have curled beyong their authoritarian dismissive sneer into a savage rictus of hatred and bloodlust. Oh, he wouldn’t pace the stage, pound his fist on the podium or wave his arms. He would merely stand, growling into the microphone, offering nothing but promises of military domination, permanant war, increased defense budget, strengthened sedition laws, camps for dissenters and oh yeah, lower taxes.
In his acceptance speech at the convention, he would say virtually nothing at all – he’d merely kill some small animals, shoot one of his assistants and present a Declaration of War form – a fill in the blanks type document that will always be ready on his desk, to be filled out and submitted in response to any slight, any action that he deems a challenge to American military hegemony.
mikey
From the Sun editorial:
I’m convinced. Cheney in 2008! Hate document!
Rather every decision, like a socio-political version of Newton’s Third Law, was bound to produce a negative outcome as well as a positive outcome.
Whoa, this is really deep! I’m not sure I can swim in these ice-blue glacial water. If I understand correctly though, it’s kind of like the economic principle of opportunity costs. You know, on one hand there is a trillion dollars you could spend on something useful to society, while on the other hand there is that endless sinkhole called the Iraq War. Sure mistakes have been made, some huge, like invading in the first place without a plan, but why not throw good money after bad? Something would have happened anyway!
I love the “the past doesn’t matter, we need to address our problems” from assholes who have spent the last 6 years blaming all our problems on the Clenis. Consistency of argument isn’t exactly a hallmark of the wingnut mind.
Imagine you were in a wrestling match with King Kong. He’s bigger than you, he’s stronger than you, he can wipe the floor with you. You’ve got nothing. You try your hardest, you blow up his girlfriend with a roadside bomb, you start blowing up your supporters in the audience to make him look like a big bad mean old King Kong (however the hell that works). You can hide from him, but you know not forever. At some point, you are going to give up. You don’t want to, because once he is gone you can overthrow the government and starting killing people for not putting diapers on their goats and arranging vegetables in the wrong way in the store. But he ain’t going nowhere, so you’ve got to deal with him.
Now imagine you are in a wrestling King Kong, and it is a three minute match. All you’ve got to do is avoid him for three minutes and you’re in the clear. Then you can go around as you please, killing people you don’t like for fun, and being as much an Islamic nutbar as you like. So you hide for three minutes until the bill rings, then its open season for crazy nutbars like you.
Imagine you are Shrimpyâ„¢.
You got nothing.
The End.
“decisions unmade”
Awesome..I have so many of those
“Waiting it out” is a common strategy when you are involved in a war with a much stronger opponent? It was essentially our strategy in the Revolutionary War. It was essentially the strategy of the Mahdi Army in Afghanistan versus the Soviets. It is a strategy that has been used countless times. Wait for the more powerful opponent to get tired and leave.
I really hate this idea that anyone can win a war on something that really can’t be quantified such as the War on Terror or Drugs or Poverty. Oh wait, the republican’s don’t care about the last one.
as far as So why don’t you accept the fact that we are at war and that we are going to be fighting this war until it is over? goes, I know i simplify but dour withdrawal will end our war? I guess what was really meant is that we need to fight until we win which is never going to happen.
Oops – that’s what happens when I type too fast. I meant to write
..our withdrawal will end our war..
You should see the letter to the editor I sent regarding Thomas Sowells’s latest.
I referred to him as Mrs. Which is better than complete and utter moron, I guess.
Imagine you are sSuperman, and Aquaman has a Sperm Whale he has shoved into your tights. All he has to do is order the whale to spit baleen, and Lois Lane will think you peed your pants.
Now imagine that Euell Gibbons is in a tree in your yard, with two kittens and a box of rubber balls. So if you go to work, he can run around your yard as he pleases, being an environmentalist nutbar.
Sweeet chocolate Jesus. similes should be kept out of the hands of amateurs.
You know, I’ve been wondering for a while…will I live to see the most inept analogy in the history of thought? And thank goodness, here I am when it happens. What a wonderful world.
Picture a mic. The stage is empty. A scene like this might tempt me to pose, show my rings, and my fat gold chain. Grab the mic like I’m on Soul Train.
…his lips will have curled beyong their authoritarian dismissive sneer into a savage rictus of hatred and bloodlust.
“Waiting it out� is a common strategy when you are involved in a war with a much stronger opponent? It was essentially our strategy in the Revolutionary War. It was essentially the strategy of the Mahdi Army in Afghanistan versus the Soviets. It is a strategy that has been used countless times. Wait for the more powerful opponent to get tired and leave.
Shoelimpy, I can’t believe you are making my argument for me. Do you finally get it? This strategy has been used countless times because it works. As I mentioned before, the people you call “our enemies” actually live there so the “waiting us out” part requires no effort whatsoever. We can’t outwait them because they’ve got nowhere else to be. So, short of genocide, there can be no “victory” over them.
Would it be rude to mention that the Mahdi Army is Moqtada al-Sadr’s Shiite militia based in Sadr City (Baghdad) and southern Iraq and has never fought any Soviets and has never been to (Sunni-dominated) Afghanistan?
Or is all this just way too non-Clausewitzian?
We are not fighting to win the war. We are there to keep security in order to allow the government of Iraq can become stable and powerful enough to keep order on its own. We don’t have to be there until the last terrorist is gone, we have to be there until the Iraq government is capable of handling the situation on its own. Unless you like the idea of a theocratic dictatorship assuming the reigns of power in yet another nation in the Middle East, personally I don’t much care for that idea.
Mujahadeen, Mahdi Army, its all the same difference.
Do you realize that one of the stated goals of the government in Iraq we are propping up is to establish a shiite fundamentalist state? Just sayin’.
Also, since the guy we overthrew was the last secularist Iraq is going to be seeing for a while, maybe, once again, it seems we might have made yet another…
wait for it…
mistake!
Shrimpy, your lack of concern for the complexities of middle eastern politics, is, um,
EXACTLY WHAT GOT US IN THIS MESS IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Conflating Iraq with the 9/11 terrorists;
Not understanding how to re-establish order once Saddam was deposed;
Not understanding how to fight an insurgency with an army designed to beat the Soviets at the Fulda Gap;
Wishing that democracy will spread like a warm shower of wildcat pee across the Middle East post-invasion (never mind that our closest “allies” in the region have zero interest in democracy or being more democratic);
Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
If you thought that was good, Streiff outdoes himself today, with 2 posts containing empirical proof of British dhimmitudedness: 12 of the released sailors/marines have clearly gone over to the other side. We know this because they are smiling and waving during their repatriation. Only 3 have the fortitude to look sullen. Thus, logic dicates
http://www.redstate.com/stories/war/the_cruelest_cut
Also, the Agence France-Press is pro-Islam, because the cut out the
tough Brits in the photo.
I’m glad Dicklimpy wasn’t flying bombers in World War II.
General: Dresden! I said firebomb Dresden, you idiot!
Dicklimpy: Dresden, London, same difference. They’re all Eurotrash.
Strieff would not know “parade rest” if it bit him in the ass.
So is the Mahdi army being armed by the CIA now?
mixing up your bottle of aftershave with the bottle of bobcat urine you bought to keep the deer out of the herb garden.
Just make sure you don’t mix up your bobcat urine with Bobcat Goldthwaite urine.
That would bad.
Why is ShoeLimpy against victory? Does he hate the troops and America?
[…] that launching a war against Iran would be lunacy, but he has to sell the peaceful route to the pocket Clauswitzes who make up his readership as the belligerent […]
You want I should hate document?
“So is the Mahdi army being armed by the CIA now?”
I thought it was the Kurdish PKK…
Ginger Yellow said,
April 5, 2007 at 16:18
“It’s only when the superposition collapsed into a single eigenstate in this universe that mistakes were made. In some other universe the superposition resolved itself with flowers and chocolate.�
And later, there was π.
[…] Mona A Literary Theorist at Sadly, No! deconstructs the hermeneutics of Redstate’s intentionalism, and concludes: “The hegemonic binary of ’success’ and […]
After a good night’s sleep, I finally realise the secret. Or rather, Teh Secret: He’s using Schrodinger’s Cat! (roar from the crowd).
Y’see, what happens is, you put this cat in a box (a warm, fuzzy-lined box, complete with climbing trees and a plenitude of frisky mice to chase), and then you say fuckit, ‘coz those quantum physicists are all crazy anyway, and how can you accuse Da Bush of anything dumb? That’s like, errr…hey, I see mouse!
And I, too, hate document. I tried debating my house, but it wouldn’t stop complaining that I never wash the windows.
All you’ve got to do is avoid him for three minutes and you’re in the clear. Then you can go around as you please, killing people you don’t like for fun, and being as much an Islamic nutbar as you like.
So the Nutbars are going to lie low once we’ve announced our departure date, live normal lives and then, when the moon is full, turn into Islamic Nutbars again?
You know, the frustrating thing about the guy’s article is that he almost gets the point when he says “I don’t believe there was a correct set of solutions.” and points to the possible negative consequences of every suggested tactic. Look, if you believe that there wasn’t a correct group of tactics that could have enabled you to obtain a better outcome, then maybe you shouldn’t have started the fucking thing!!!
[…] angst over failed Iraq policy follows traditional five stages of grieving: 1. Denial: “The media doesn’t show the good news in […]
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that the Cain and Abel story? Which in turn is an allegory for the conflict between nomadic herder type societies and static agricultural types?
I hadn’t thought of that, but it would explain a lot about that crime.
Thom Hartmann wondered if ADD would have been beneficial in a hunter-gatherer society, and said a later study did indeed show a greater incidence of ADD. I think Cain must have had ADD, accidentally bludgeoned Abel in a spastic fit, then, without Abel to steer him back home at dinner time, followed a butterfly to Nod and was never seen again.
If a person makes a mistake, the first thing that person should do is apologize. Also, I lead by example. I officially apologize for being a troll. I’m also sorry for using a liberal site to pimp mostly conservative songs. Last, but not least,
I’m Sorry 4 This Song
Dr BLT’s One-man Banned
words and music by Dr BLT (c) 2007
http://www.drblt.net/music/SORRY4.mp3
Being sorry doesn’t necessarily mean your going to give anything up.
Pardon me, but did Shoelimpy just commit the same oopsie Dick Cheney did some months back? That is, to draw a parallel between the insurgents in Iraq and the American Revolutionaries?
Dr BLT, if your music is as shitty as your grammar, it’s no wonder you’re not welcome around here.
Man, the trolls these days just suck. At least the parody troll is absent, but her/his/its boyfriend wants to stick around for some reason.
…for instance mixing up your bottle of aftershave with the bottle of bobcat urine you bought to keep the deer out of the herb garden.
Just don’t mix them together when you’re on an airplane. Something BAD might happen.
I’ve long found one of the most frustrating part of discussing the Iraq War to be the idea of mistakes. The issue is not whether or not mistakes were made, the issue is whether those mistakes could have been reasonably considered to be mistaken at the time or whether there was ever a set of correct decisions that could have been made.
I keep coming back to this. It’s like some sort of sick fascination, like that website where you can watch Live Coffin Cam.
I mean, I’ve long found that one of the most frustrating part (sic) of discussing the Iraq war IS THE FACT THAT IT’S A COMPLETE OBSCENITY FROM BEGINNING TO END, AND FUCKING MORONS REFUSE TO UNDERSTAND THIS ONE SIMPLE POINT.
Let’s face it: lying to get into a war? Mistake. Attacking a country that was no threat? Mistake. Drumming up feverish support from the populace by demonising an entire religion? Mistake. All of these were ethical, as well as logical, mistakes.
No bid contracts? Mistake. Torture? Definite mistake. Paying bounties to local warlords for prisoners? Mistake. Fallujah? Mistake. False flag ops? Mistake.
I could go on, but you get the point: the whole debacle is just a catalogue of dismal failure. Yes, there were decision points where the fuckup might have been less egregious, but once the big mistake was made, there was no going back: the US was set on the path of righteous mistakednessnessness.
And all of it, pretty well, was blatantly obvious, even to a six-year-old, right at the beginning. Anyone remember the initial revolt of the generals? Well, I suppose that should be the polite demurral of the generals, really. “Don’t do that, Mr President. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, and if you attack them you’ll stir up one holy shitstorm. Sir.” “Mr Rumsfeld, only a total dickhead would attempt this thing with so few troops, Secretary Rumsfeld sir,” And the CIA, “That would be a mistake, Mr President. Sir. No, take off the bunny ears, and get your hand out of your pants, sir. The photographers will be here in a minute to see you looking stern and presidential. I think the butt plug should go, too. Or at least be replaced with one that doesn’t sprout a fan of peacock feathers. Sir.”
[…] 6th, 2007 · No Comments This via Sullivan. 1. Denial: “The media doesn’t show the good news in […]
“I don’t buy 99% of the Fourth Generation Warfare or Network-centric Warfare theory bandied about.”
Who the fuck is this guy? I’m going to guess that he’s spent time at the Army War College at Carlisle right? No?!? How about in Monterey, at the Navy Post Grad school? Seriously? Wow I would have guessed one of those… Hmmm… He was at least in the military right?
Wait are you telling me that his only experience is reading Tom Clancy? Well I guess that explains a lot…
[…] This is exactly what I’ve been talking about. […]
#
Larry said,
April 6, 2007 at 1:08
You want I should hate document?
Special, special for document! Fi’ dolla, me hate you long time!
oh fuck. not drBLT again.
YOU ARE CRAP. YOU SUCK, YOUR MUSIC IS CRAP. YOU ARE RETARDED, BECAUSE YOUR IDEAS ARE RETARDED, AND YOUR ‘MUSIC’ IS RETARDED.
When are you going to learn that endlessly strumming a few open chords REALLY SUCKS? When are you going to accept that your voice IS SHIT?
Please, quit coming here.
You are a pimp whoring out a 500 pound, STD-infected trainwreck.
You forgot Transference, that time they spent telling everyone who picked up a newspaper or turned on the TV that the Democrats had also favored the war.
[…] leaves our left-wing blogger appropriately awestruck: I’ve often thought this point might never come, but here I am at last, reduced to staring like a […]
yeah, guys, well done, make fun of the poor soul… Except that sarcasm and ridicule is worth shit… Don’t you see that making this 6-year fuck-a-thon sound all hazy and relativistic is the only defense against some hard core legal action, which would be the only thing that would get their attention.
Here’s the sad legal truth: you can impeach a President for weasiling under oath about a blowjob, where the only victim is … well there is no victim…, however, here’s the dress with the stain, here’s the transcript, bam-bam-bam. cut and clear.
On the other hand you can’t really impeach a President for fucking up the whole country beyound recognition as long as you can show that it was all done “in good faith” that at the time mistakes were made they were not reasonably considered mistakes, and who’s to say what is reasonable in this world, the dichotomy of success and failure makes it impossible to know the unknowable etc. etc. etc.
The same thing in business, you can’t sue a CEO for running a company completely into the ground, while collecting a multimillion paycheck… You can sue if he hired his cousin’s niece to clean the toilets, without disclosing it.
As long as the decisions of this Administration can be cast in some veil of relativity the only danger to them is nerds posting biting comments on a blog…
Not to put too fine a point on it, but Clausewitz didn’t really address insurgencies in any great detail. He was concerned with set-piece conventional battles conduted between Presidents and Princes, where applying the maximum amount of force in the appropriate area and time would result in the collapse of the enemy. Great thing to read when you are preparing for an apocalyptic battle at the Fulda Gap with the Third Soviet Shock Army. Not so relevant here. Things like “maximum force” tend to alienate civilian populations. (IMPORTANT DISTINCTION HERE!!! Princes, not stateless movements or terrorists…)
Typical denialist kool aid drinker…
“Aww! Damned Arab civilians…kill every last one of them…*assorted noises*…”
Of course, the whole point of waging low intensity COIN warfare is to win over the population, not drive them into the arms of the enemy. Maybe Streiff needs to lay off the Clausewitz and pick up Van Creveld, Professor of military history at the University of Jerusalem. The new theory of war is emerging to replace Clausewitz in the age of militias, terrorists and road warrior cultures.
It’s true that President Truman ordered de-Nazification of Germany-after they had control of the country. There were not roving bands of insurgents blowing up buildings and waging war against each other.
We did not have control over Iraq-obviously. Big difference.
And since I wasn’t going to be among those killed or maimed, I said “Bombs Away.”