Did you see the way they applauded Ahmadenijad?

They are just a bunch of filthy Little Eichmanns.

It is too bad that Cho Seung-hui didn’t go to Columbia University!

Well put…I’m a fan of Clausewitz myself.

It’s clear to me now that when America “goes to war”…that America doesn’t fight to win but will sacrifice the lives of our soldiers for politically correct reasons

I urge you to read von Clausewitz’ classic work On War. I believe it’s still required reading at West Point. The most oft-quoted statement from that book is:

War is the extension of policy to other means.

All wars are political. Americans have this foolish idea that a war is a big football game with cheerleaders and referees and point-scoring and winners and losers. Nobody ever wins a war; at best they don’t lose much. This notion that you fight until you win creates all sorts of perverse results — as we discovered in VietNam and Iraq. The right way to win a war is the same method you use with any enterprise:

1. Define your objective. What political goal do you wish to achieve? Articulate that goal clearly so that you will have a clear basis for determining when to terminate military action.

2. Ascertain whether your military resources are adequate to the task.

3. If they are, estimate the total cost of the military action (in blood and treasure) against the desired political goal. Is the objective worth the price?

4. If you conclude that it is worth the price, then proceed with the military operation.

5. As military operations proceed, continually re-evaluate the situation, looking especially at the remaining balance of costs and benefits. If at any point, the estimated cost of future operations exceeds the political value of the objective, then immediately terminate the military operations. The old line about “Don’t let the sacrifice of our dead be in vain!” is utter crap. They’re called ‘sunk costs’ and taking them into consideration is an act of pride, not reason. Your duty is to the FUTURE dead, not the PAST dead.

As you can well see, none of these steps were undertaken by the Bush Administration.

Next, I’d like to contradict the claim that Mr. Bush doesn’t deserve criticism because it was commonly believed that Mr. Hussein possessed WMD. This is not true. The single best source of evidence was the guy who was actually in Iraq, actually investigating that question: Mr. Blix. He knew better than anybody else, and he reported that there was no evidence of WMD.

Digging in for reconstruction seemed like exactly the wrong way to use the American government. Then there is still the question of legitimacy of the Iraqi government. We’ve been propping it up for years. Can it really stand on its own legs?

I was ambivalently against it when it happened, but I was willing to give Bush the benefit of the doubt. Had I known just how fucked up Bush was and what a mess he’d turn it into I would have been vehemently against the war, personally, not that this would have changed much about how I approached it while I was in service (since I did agree to abide by certain standards of behavior while in my job and believe in living up to my obligations).

The rest is history. The cost to America is much higher than just the 3000 dead. We have to deal with the 20000+ seriously wounded and maimed. On top of that, it’s wasting million of man years on activities that would be better allocated elsewhere. There is a tangible benefit to staying in Iraq. But I would argue whether it’s worth the cost, and whether there are better things for Americans to be doing.

I recall how I felt about the war. I was ambivalent. I really didn’t know how to feel about it. Some people were passionately against it. More were passionately for it. I guess I should have been against it since being ambivalent would be a reason to be against starting war.

I don’t think that Bush lied about the weapons of mass destruction (because it was common assumption by everyone that Saddam had them), but I also don’t think he was misled. I think he decided that Saddam was evil and had to go, I think he looked at the anecodatal evidence that indicated Saddam might someday be a threat (although there was nothing indicating he had an actual capability to launch a nuke at us), I think he picked out the pieces that he wanted to see, and I think he ignored or minimized all the warnings that indicated his case was largely unsubstantiated (and there were a lot that the intel community did raise to Bush repeatedly…he chose not to listen). Then I think he intentionally overstated the case to the American public (which would be close to a lie). He cherry-picked facts and factoids to fit his opinion, same as any conspiracy theorist, and he didn’t fit his opinion to the facts as a responsible leader does. So did he lie? Not really. Did he behave unforgiveably irresponsibly and as a result cost over 3,000 Americans and untold numbers of Iraqis their lives? Absolutely, and he should be held accountable for that.

As for the rules of engagement, that’s a slightly different argument (and a very long one). Part of that is also Bush’s fault because he never clearly stated a strategy or even the intent of the mission in Iraq. The rules of engagement derive from commander’s intent because they’re tailored in each conflict to fit the objectives we’re trying to achieve. For the record, I wouldn’t be for blowing up mosques carelessly…we see it as an ungentlemanly violation of the rules of war (based on a set of laws to which Iraq, to my knowledge, was not even a signatory), but to the insurgents it’s a viable way to combat a militarily superior opponent while turning the local populace against that opponent (which is the goal of the insurgency). Frankly, they’d be stupid not to do it.

The post-9/11 justification you refer to is basically just panic. It’s a leader’s responsibility to not give into panic or allow the people he’s leading to give into panic. Instead, Bush exploited the panic to push us into a war that we rationally never would have engaged in otherwise (because it was unjustified). So again, I fault Bush entirely.

We’ll eventually be forced to leave Iraq anyway. Logistically our forces won’t be able to hold up. Retention’s been dropping, equipment readiness has been dropping, the workforce is burned out. Something’s going to give eventually, at which point Iraq will become a retreat and not a withdrawal. If we leave now, at least we’ll be able to do so at a time of our choosing and not circumstance. Whoever follows Bush is likely to realize this. The only reason Bush hasn’t (and this is not an irrational prejudice) is because George W. Bush is fucking stupid.

If I knew then what I know now, I would not have supported the war in Iraq. It’s clear to me now that when America “goes to war” (hell, the congress doesn’t even have the gonads to properly declare war) that America doesn’t fight to win but will sacrifice the lives of our soldiers for politically correct reasons (i.e. rules of engagement that prohibit attacking “holy sites” even when such sites are used as bases of attack). I also see that the idea that helping to establish democracies elsewhere to make the world safer for us is a well intentioned but flawed idea (that I bought into). I don’t think Bush lied or mislead us; I think he too was mislead and he miscalculated. The world was mislead by the international intelligence that suggested that Iraq had WMD and that Saddam would likley pass such weapons on to terrorist organizations. In a post 9/11 world, this did not seem so far fetched.

Having said that, I still think that leaving Iraq vulnearble at this point will come back to haunt us. But who knows, you might be right. I’ve been wrong before, I’ll be wrong again. In fact, I hope I am wrong because I think that you will get your wish soon after Hillary is elected president.

And the Vietnamese fought a war with us 40 years ago, but there was hardly a peep when our president (a draft-dodger, ironically) normalized relations with them. So far that’s worked out well for both countries.

What’s in the past is in the past and at some point people have to stop living there, stop seeing themselves as perpetual victims, and stop acting like they’re entitled to do whatever they damn well please with no regard for the consequences. That applies to Americans as much as anyone else. That doesn’t mean we’ll get along with everyone, but that also doesn’t mean that today’s antagonist can’t also become tomorrow’s friend, or at least trading partner (that’s obviously not going to happen with al-Qaeda, but it could with Iran, Iraq, or Syria).

As for how you stop it, I think the first key is not to overreact and overreach when faced with a problem. Like I’ve said before, al-Qaeda attacked us on 9/11. Only al-Qaeda. When that happened, most of the world sympathized. Had we just restricted our actions to going after al-Qaeda, most of the world would still be on our side. But Bush’s overreaction, his unfocused belligerence, and his designs on Iraq and the Middle East pretty much scuttled that. So I guess the first suggestion would be not to put too much faith in leaders whose first proposed solutions are knee-jerk use of the gun and demands for unquestioned power.

And the Vietnamese fought a war with us 40 years ago, but there was hardly a peep when our president (a draft-dodger, ironically) normalized relations with them. So far that’s worked out well for both countries.

What’s in the past is in the past and at some point people have to stop living there, stop seeing themselves as perpetual victims, and stop acting like they’re entitled to do whatever they damn well please with no regard for the consequences. That applies to Americans as much as anyone else. That doesn’t mean we’ll get along with everyone, but that also doesn’t mean that today’s antagonist can’t also become tomorrow’s friend, or at least trading partner (that’s obviously not going to happen with al-Qaeda, but it could with Iran, Iraq, or Syria).

As for how you stop it, I think the first key is not to overreact and overreach when faced with a problem. Like I’ve said before, al-Qaeda attacked us on 9/11. Only al-Qaeda. When that happened, most of the world sympathized. Had we just restricted our actions to going after al-Qaeda, most of the world would still be on our side. But Bush’s overreaction, his unfocused belligerence, and his designs on Iraq and the Middle East pretty much scuttled that. So I guess the first suggestion would be not to put too much faith in leaders whose first proposed solution is knee-jerk use of the gun.