I had the exact same reaction to the Iwo Jima picture.

I'd like to point out that Kevin Drum noted that even Muqtada has lost control of factions of his militia.

This is about to turn into a very very messy civil war.

The next logical step, one of the few options left for this administration, is to open up diplomatic channels with both Iran and Syria and secure their assistance for containing the Iraqi cauldron.

Perhaps Condi will hold George's hand while he sits at the table of Ahmadinezhad and al-Assad. He's come a long way since his heroic service in the undercover Alabama National Guard.

"The yahoos will then blame us for 'losing Iraq.' " Hoppy has it exactly right. (1) Things go badly whether we stay or go, and eventually we do go. (2) Whatever Bush's rationale was, now it's simply to stay until 2008. so it's someone else's problem. (3) The GOP has managed to have recourse to Hoppy's scenario for Vietnam, and that's a war we walked out of (albeit years too late) on GOP watch. (4) Americans are basically isolationists who just happen also to love winning, and if it's a loser, it's not their problem.

I've been saying for some time that we should be preparing now for the political attack to come. And it's a hard one to face. The triangulator faction is still thinking how to avoid being labeled with a loss, but only by imagining one can promise a better outcome than Bush can achieve. Part but not all of the left faction still imagines that the civil war is still a consequence of violence directed entirely at the occupying power and so will settle into a happy future if we just leave.

I don't have a good foreign policy for Iraq. It's a disaster. But we can start to talk politics. (1) Right now, keep insisting that it's a disaster and it's Bush's fault. (2) You're running for president in 2008, keep insisting it's a disaster and it's Bush's fault. (3) Also start looking for upbeat, positive gains that we can take credit for. Shift troop levels to stablize Afghanistan after a mess that's left warlords fighting it out, Taliban gaining ground, and Al Qaeda at large. Build on fear of the likely Iran-Iraq axis with surrounding Arab countries to help defuse an us (U.S.) vs them world. Pressure Israel and its enemies. Shift the emphasis on protections against terrorism to Americans at home. Etc., etc.

But you guys surely know the litany by heart. But above all, be prepared. The smears are going to start even before Bush leaves office. In fact, they have, with us America haters, pedophiles, etc.

John

http://www.haberarts.com/

I am also confused about the comparison with the Iwo Jima photo. Thinking of the WMD argument for Iraq, it is especially ironic that FDR, signing a document "commander in chief" for one of the few if only times, refused the Joint Chiefs' request to use chemical weapons against the deeply entrenched Japanese soldiers on Iwo.

There were clear operational and strategic reasons, in the Pacific War, to take Iwo. It was the first land mass in range of Japan from which escort fighters could operate in support of the bombing of Japan. Japanese fighters based on Iwo were attacking bombers flying from further east. Further, it was a reasonable emergency landing field for damanged B-29's returning from Japan.

It's fairly well known that Admiral Chester Nimitz said "Among the men who fought on Iwo Jima, uncommon valor was a common virtue". I have also read translations of some of the official and personal correspondence of Japanese General Kuribayashi, and his commitment to what he and his men saw as their duty to their nation, and his personal regret that it was his duty to die in battle.

A colleague of mine, when he was an active Coast Guard officer, commanded the US navigational facilities on Iwo Jima. There are also Japanese naval and air operations on the island, again principally for navigation and rescue. He and his Japanese counterpart dined together often, and, when the ever older survivors, the very few Japanese, visited to come to closure, there was immense shared respect.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Rush is already not only blaming the Democrats for that very scenario, but he and the dittoheads are getting outraged over it, hoppy:

They (the terrorists) know that Democrats winning the House and the Senate and then the White House in '08, that's what ensures terror victory, that's what they want. Are you not the slightest bit outraged over this?

Stirling,
The prospect you seem to be suggesting is the possibility of something even worse than the evacuation of Saigon. It is the possibility that through the incalculable willingness of the current leadership in Washington (and their co-dependents throughout the media and the elite) to fly in the face of reality, to run over and over again face first into the brickwall of reality, we might reach the point of literally not being able to evacuate even our own soldiers.

Re: a Republican commercial that blames the Democrats in advance for losing Iraq.

This is going to be very hard, maybe impossible, for the GOP to pull off. The Democrats have been shut out of power since 2002. The roosting chickens can only flock to the GOP's tents on Iraq. And apparently the public already sees this as the current plunge in GOP futures is due in large part to Iraq.

"Shouldn't we be focusing on finding those pilots and "bringing them to justice," after reading them their rights, providing them with counsel and granting them habeous corpus rights?"

Oddly enough had we captured those pilots who bombed Pearl Harbor we would in fact have read them their rights, and should they have been brought to courts martial have provided them with counsel.

Your tortured (sic) suggestion that the NYT expressing the opinion that persons not convicted of any crime should not in advance be denied all rights is somehow equivalent to suggesting that US Marines under arms should not have shot back at Japanese soldiers defending a country that had unilaterally attacked this country is so mind-boggling free of logical content to, to well I guess boggle the mind.

You are free to set up the strawmen of your own choice, and to set them on fire if you choose, but you are not free to project them onto the NYT's editorial board or by extention me.

I am a bleeding heart liberal. And as such I believe that people who rape and kill small girls (and I am thinking of a very real case from my own town) deserve a fair trial. And whether or not I would support the death penalty in such cases (and for the record I did) does not make my an objectively pro-child raping/murder supporter.

People who build in the assumption that mass murderers do not deserve the protections of the rule of law are in effect advocating lynching.

Lynching bad. Habeas corpus good. God help the souls of those who can't understand the difference.

I wonder if deep within the Pentagon or Central Command folks are planning alternative logistics for a US withdrawal??

Wonder when or if military folks will present the withdrawal options and logistics to policymakers so that policymakers understand what that option entails. Competence when we get there will mean lives.

Stirling you are a continuing font of analysis and big picture thinking. Thanks.

Would the NYT argue that the loss of 7000 Marines was "incompetence" by FDR and his generals?

1. Submarine operations against their sea-basd supply line. Japanese submarines had focused on the more "glorious" warship targets.
2. "Fast carrier operations", shorthand for the US logistics system that allowed the carrier forces to be resupplied at sea -- effectively multiplying the number of carriers.
3. Island hopping This was a key part of strategy/operational art: bypassing Pacific islands that the Japanese had expected to use for attrition, and only invading islands that had a role in overall strategy. What I don't remember is whether island hopping, as a strategy, was known to the public. It shouldn't have been hard for civilian analysts to figure out, but there was wartime censorship. If the public new of that strategic concept, the particular islands invaded would have been considered necessary.

Why, the Japanese on Iwo Jima were not the pilots who flew the planes into Pearl Harbor.

You'll remember that one of the Nazi forms of internal terror was Nacht und Nebel, the disappearance of dissidents into night and fog. The shadowy nature of terrorists makes them more dread. While the Japanese were desperately hard fighters, they were uniformed combatants clearly under a chain of command going back to a nation-state. Causality was direct.
In point of fact, I wouldn't rule out that there might have been some pilots on Iwo that had attacked Pearl. One of Japan's strategic mistakes was to keep successful pilots in battle until they were dead. In contrast, the US rotated naval aviators back first as instructors, and, after another combat tour, as experienced commanders. Toward the end of the war, you had rested American pilots with several thousand hours experience against Japanese trainees with 100-200 hours.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Why, the Japanese on Iwo Jima were not the pilots who flew the planes into Pearl Harbor.

That would be comparable to arguing against going into Afghanistan after 9/11.  Attacking Iraq after 9/11 is more comparable to attacking, say, Spain after Iwo Jima.

In the same neighborhood.  My family is mostly Italian.

After President Bush signed the law this week providing for military tribunals for terrorists being held at Guantanamo and prohibiting their torture, Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold said "We will look back on this day as a stain on our nation's history." (Note to Democrats: It's still too soon to use "stain" as a metaphor for a White House brouhaha.)

Gen. George Washington tried Major John Andre, Benedict Arnold's British co-conspirator, by military tribunal and ordered Andre hanged within 10 days of his capture. Nazi saboteurs, including an American citizen, captured on U.S. soil during World War II were tried in secret by military commission and promptly executed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Nuremberg trials were a form of military tribunal.

But you guys think military tribunals aren't good enough for the terrorists plotting to kill Americans today. You are bright fellows but, sorry, that kind of thinking is not going to make the terrorists love us!

I agree with your historical precedents that justify military tribunals, which, as I read my Army Laws of Land Warfare manual, are legal.

As you point out, Andre was sentenced within 10 days. With the German saboteurs in 1942, they landed in June, were tried in July, and those condemned executed in August.

So, I don't have a problem with a military tribunal as such. Even in civilian trials when classified information is involved, there are several ways to deal with it. The judge alone may see it. He may order the courtroom cleared of all nonparticipants, and limit what can be discussed.

My problem here is with the apparent indefinite delay before having the tribunal. While the circumstances were quite different, without a battle in sight, the CIA detained the KGB defector, Yuri Nosenko, often in deliberately harsh conditions, for 3 years plus before deciding he was a real defector -- and yes, there were conflicts between his story and that of another defector, Anatoly Golytsin. Different parts of the intelligence community sided with one or the other.

This handling was criticized by review committees and commissions. My issue with tribunals is not at all that they can be fair and legal, but that the Administration has taken so long to have them. One can convict someone, and still get intelligence value by interrogating them with incentives up to early release.
--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

No longer being a Republican, I can't speak to that point, but I am willing to say that it's fair to make a presumption of innocence until adjudicated by a fair military tribunal. Yes, I believe that military tribunals can be fair, that some were unfair, and some civilian trials are unfair.

My problem is with the indefinite detention before a tribunal. Tribunals may be appropriate when the arrest is in an area of military operations, and/or sensitive information is involved,. Civilian courts have also managed to handle extremely sensitive material, sometimes that the defendant could not see, in espionage trials.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Howard-
You make a good point...well reasoned and thoughful.

Nonetheless, we are war and the normal rules do not apply. We don't have the luxury of treating terrorism as a bank robbery. We have to catch the perpetrators in advance and find out what they know about future terrorist plots.

The U. S. Consittuion is not a suicide pact. It contemplates the full "O. J. Trial" for normal crimes but provides other means for wartime.

By the way, did you notice how it took only one entry on my part before the name-calling started? Am I that inflamatory or is this the accepted rebuttal style?

You don't do that, of course, but on this site it seems to be the rule rather than the exception. Those who disagree with my comments ignore the merits of the argument and immediately begin personal attack.

I suppose it is harmless but it does not foster educated discourse nor reflect well on the author.

There is a world of difference between contingency calling for extraordinary acts, and institutionalizing the extraordinary. If the situation is so dire, then those in the field will do what seems required and accept the consequences if unjustified.

There is no need to legalize desperate measures, partly since we are not desperate, and mainly because when we are, law won't matter (see G. Washington, FDR, etc.)

I don't have my Geneva Convention immediately at hand (it's somewhere in the bookcase), or, to be specific, the Army Field Manual on the Laws of Land Warfare, which cross-reference the Hague and Geneva Conventions. There are provisions for military tribunals, as I remember a provision that normally, the Protecting Power (i.e., a neutral country or the Red Cross) can observe. It was specified, however, that if especially sensitive information would be presented, the Protecting Power could be excluded, but that would become a matter of record.

The Conventions, however, imply the tribunal will be prompt. It's this indefinite detention without any disposition, by the Administration, that is the thing that is truly desperate. While I have not read the recent Court decision in detail, I believe they held that the problem was the long delay rather than the tribunals proper.
For the WWII German saboteur tribunals, the right to hold them was ruled upon by the Supreme Court, in Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942). There has been much argument over this decision, and it may be overturned. Nevertheless, under current law, it would appear the extraordinary is the detention without disposition, rather than the tribunals themselves.
--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

As I understand it, the major court issue was that the detainees were held without tribunal. Are you saying the new ones are not governed by the UCMJ? I haven't analyzed the new law, so I'm asking for specific information if someone has it.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Nonetheless, we are war and the normal rules do not apply

A typo or an insightful republican Fruedian slip? You decide.

Not to put to fine a point on it, but the evidence is that Bush didn't take it seriously at all.

Specifically, Bush abandoned Larry Clark's plan to go after Al Quaeda, shelved the Hart Rudman report which would have strengthened airplane and airport security and potentially stopped 9/11, he chose not to respond to the Cole bombing for fear of provoking Al Quaeda, he downgraded terrorism as a priority, dropping it off some lists entirely, he took manpower and money from anti-terrorist activities, and broke off efforts to control international small weapons traffic and money laundering, finishing it all up by ignoring a little memo that said "Osama Bin Laden intends to strike *inside* the US." No wait... He didn't ignore it, he acknowledged it and said 'You've covered your ass.'

The 'successes' in stopping terrorists seem confined to catching that guy who was planning to take out the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch, and perhaps catching Jose Padilla though by this time we have no idea what he's alleged to have actually done.

We can charitably assume that the London Subway attack, the Madrid train station attack, the Bali Bombing, the Turkish Banks attacks, and the ongoing strife in Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which are rapidly deteriorating, are not successes.

Imagine how well the Iraq war would be going if the elected Democrats were united behind the President, the mission and the troops, rather than emboldening the terrorists by blaming the President, the mission and the troops.

This is the sort of talk which all to often earns a great big F.U. from those people hectored.

What you are doing is simply articulating a 'stabbed in the back' meme. That if not for 'those dirty hippies' we would have won in Vietnamiraq, for sure.

Let me say at the outset that I find it intellectually and morally dishonest. It is nothing more or less than a childish effort to shift blame and evade responsibility for the results of actions. Its scapegoating and game playing. And frankly, it deserves a great big F.U.

But instead of simply dismissing you with an obscenity, I will do you the courtesy of dissecting that proposition:

So, assume that the elected Democrats all fall into lockstep... what could they do? Well, I suppose that they could vote for all the defense appropriations, 300 billion? 500 billion? That Bush sends their way to pay for the war. Guess what, they do. So thats irrelevant.

Perhaps they could shut up and stop talking about body armour, humvee armour, increasing the force size, potentially instituting a draft, etc? Would that make any kind of difference. Don't think so. If anything, Democrats criticism has improved the war effort in these respects.

Perhaps the Democrats could stop talking about the lack of a strategy in Iraq, the failures of reconstruction, the runaway corruption and incompetence, the military bungling, the epidemic of torture, the reise of militias, and the deterioration of a security situation so precipitously that the US army has retreated from Anbar to Bagdad?

Yep. They could not talk about these things.

But Kiwi, let me ask you, how does not talking about these problems make them go away. If a soldier is shot in the forest and there's no one around to hear him fall, is he still dead?

The factors driving the Iraq insurgency exist without regard to the Democrats, they are entirely creations of Bush. The insurgency itself has escalated relentlessly despite Bush's best efforts and has been fed by many of his worst efforts.

The problem is not that Democrats are undermining the war effort. Bush's own incompetence, including the very decision to take the country to war based on lies, undermines the war effort.

The problem is that the Democrats have not, and have never been able to keep Bush honest.

Re: Remember when John Kerry was a lock?

Nope. I recall only a point when it seemed that Kerry might win, but at no point was he a shoo-in. And his high tide mark came in the summer of 04, befoer the Swift-Boat slanderers got in the act. By Oct 04 Bush's fortunes were on the mend and most polls were giving him a slight advantage.

In that case, I shall not refer to a brave poster as having brass gonads, but meat balls.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

I've thought in rather great detail about such things as a nuclear attack on the United States, or biological warfare. My expertise in the former is more in C3I than the hardware, but I can make meaningful noises about a B83 versus a B61 bomb, can explain the variables in burst height versus ground overpressure as a function of the Mach effect, a bit about equations of state in linear implosion systems...that sort of tripe. Going through the details of MEECN, and the systems for communication Emergency Action Messages to release nuclear weapons, is sobering.

As to the biological, I worked with it before the Biological Warfare Convention, and still do occasional designs of CB detection systems. Some of my reading yesterday was a review of the mechanisms involved with the three anthrax toxins, their interaction, and the potential for prevention and treatment based on interfering with at least one.

My point is that I have thought about WMD issues for many years, and sometimes dealt with it professionally. Given that, I still fail to see the linkage between a serious WMD threat and the US invasion of Iraq. Even the questionable information in the decision justification did not show a clear and present danger to the United States. I fail to find rationality in the Administration position that Iran is a ticking nuclear clock, while the Dear Leader probably just left some kimchee in a crock with too tight a lid. I've done that myself; luckily, I heard the hissing before it exploded.

So when one spends time thinking about these issues and finds the Administration less than convincing, and the majority Congress holding its hands over its ears, how, then, am I unprepared for war, and the prevention of it? How, in turn, is the Administration lowering the threat?

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

[Responding to Valdron's post of 5:50 10/23, but I refuse to deal with the line width]

Aum also tried a large-scale anthrax aerosol on Tokyo. Luckily, they had never confirmed the strain they had was pathogenic for humans. Any Tokyo cattle would, however, been in real trouble.

The cost of building a physically large nuclear weapon is relatively low if you have stolen/bought the fissionable material, and many of the techniques involved in miniaturization and yield enhancement. IIRC, an 8" nuclear artillery shell cost $1 million, about $750,000 being the refined special nuclear material. It does seem, however, that we can no longer say any nation-state that tried to build a fission weapon succeeded on its first try.

As far as low-hanging fruit, consider Bhopal, or the train wreck, in Florida IIRC, where a tank car of chlorine derailed and leaked, luckily in an unpopulated area. Still 8 died and a hundred or so was injured, and the local emergency services properly evacuated a couple of square miles. To put that in context, the first German poison gas attack of the First World War used 160 tons of chlorine on about a two-mile front.

The two standard tank cars of chlorine carry either 90 or 55 tons of the element. I'd rather see some of the dollars spent "fighting them over there" spent on hardening the chemical industry, and other US critical infrastructure.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

I'll let Howard address the specifics of threat, and simply ask why we undercut Afghanistan for Iraq. If you are worried about threats you should be mightily pissed at the WH.

Another thing I'm tired of is parroting of GOP talking points. Maybe you can explain why Saddam would have asked for annihilation by attacking us with (non-existent) WMD?

If I try to come up with a plausible scenario for Saddam's WMD thinking, and assume the man is intelligent and manipulative, the fact that the one significant thing that the UN inspectors found were missiles of prohibited range, it adds credibility to one theory: that he recognized that he couldn't be a credible threat without delivery systems, so he put the WMD warhead development on hold while focusing on delivery system development.

During this time, he bluffed, even to his own people, that he had WMD. Apparently, general after general told interrogators that his division had cno hemical weapons, but he had heard the Adnan or the 52nd Armored or the Hammurabi or the Special Republican Guard...well, someone did.

Reasonably modern missiles were essential for him to threaten Israel, because there his aircraft would be unlikely to get through and he had no submarines.

Supplying them to terrorists

The problem here becomes one of size. If one pictures a nuclear weapon in a ship to be sacrified, that would be the likeliest to deliver one -- "backpack" devices need an extensive testing program.

There would be no reason to struggle getting chemical weapons to the US, when various substances, admittedly not as toxic as the nerve agents, are in routine shipping.

Biological agents probably have the best yield for weight, but the more fundamental question is why Saddam, whose first interest was always Saddam, would want to attack the US directly? He seems to have a concept of deterrence theory.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

The Baathists were always secular nationalist pragmatists. Of all Arab groups, they were the most likely to accommodate to the existence of Israel. They simply didn't have a big dog in the fight. There was no religious cause animating them, and the notion of pan-arab nationalism was long dead.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Re: Back in the 70's or 80's in the Canadian town of Mississauga, a train derailment caused the evacuation of a quarter million citizens. In American terms, that would be like evacuating two or three million people.

Mississaugua is in a very high density population area (the Toronto-Hamilton suburban belt), at least so it has seemed whenever I driven though the ghastly traffic up that way, so I doubt a similiar derailment would involve any more extensive evacuation in the US, unless maybe in a very high density area with lots of high rises and the like.

With the loose category, especially with the miniaturized devices, there's a time factor. These things do have a shelf life before they have to go back for depot level teardown and reassembly. Now, I'm assuming US technology here, but it's my understanding that the US, in an amazing burst of wisdom, gave a significant amount of weapons safety and security information to the Soviets.
Many, but not all, US weapons have a "permissive action link (PAL)". This ranges from a combination lock to switches in which you have to input a ten-digit number to arm the weapon. With the latter case, there are both multiple codes for "dial-a-yield", but the weapon disables itself beyond field repair if too many errors are made.

We also know that the Soviets were even more stringent on the arming of their land-based ICBMs. With us, it's code inserting, and the code must come from a remote site, but then it's mostly the joint confirmation of the order by two people. With the Soviets, one arming device was with a Strategic Rocket Troops officer, and the other was with a KGB officer with a guard detail.

Anyway, getting back to the weapons, they often contain very specialized batteries, not commercially available, which will wear out. These are designed to dump their energy in a short pulse, so yes, one could figure out an equivalent, IF one knew the specifications of the output.

Also, many weapons are tritium boosted. Tritium has a half-life of 12.6 years, and it can't be assumed you'll get a little less with an old weapon. Tom Clancy's scenarion in The Sum of all Fears was correct in one way: the breakdown products of tritium actively damp down nuclear reactions, absorbing neutrons.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

You are probably right, Valdron. Criticism of the war or any policy is not the problem.

Nonetheless, don't you think that when the terrorists watch CNN and see U. S. Senators compare our soldiers to Nazis, call the war a terrible mistake, the President a liar and criminal, and state that the U. S. is losing the war and should redeploy and leave at once, they are encouraged to fight another day and kill another Marine?

Perhaps you could cite the instance where a Senator called or directly compared American soldiers to Nazi's? That's the sort of hyperbole that leaves many people dismissing you as an ideological fruitcake.

To answer your question, however, the answer is clearly and obviously no. The reality is that the Insurgents are already committed to fighting American soldiers, they have crossed that threshold, made that decision, and that decision and those actions are exclusively local.

The notion that the Iraqi insurgents are English speakers who have the wealth and leisure to follow the debates on CNN strikes me as somewhat mischievous. Most of them are solely Arab speakers, most of them don't have satellite dishes. Most don't even know what a Senator is.

You might have had a slightly better argument if you were asking about fence sitters. Volatile but comfortable Islamic youth who are not terrorists or insurgents, but become so incensed and outraged by what they see on television that they sign up for Al Quaeda or the Iraqi resistance.

Then I might concede that you have the possibility of an argument.

If you'll do me the honour of patience, I'll reply to that unvoiced argument.

The problem you have is that the terrorists or insurgents sole source of information is not CNN.

In fact, they're often people whose relatives have been killed by American bombs or American troops. They're people whose houses have been raided. They're people who were picked up off the streets and put in jail without cause. People with guns pointed at them. People who were tortured in Abu Ghraib. They're people who know there were no wmds in Iraq. People who saw the pictures that came out of Abu Ghraib.

They're people who watch Al Jazeera, or who watch CBC or BBC, who read European or Iranian or Egyptian magazines and newspapers, they're people who talk to their neighbors, who hear gossip and rumours, who keep up with local news, or who have first hand experience or who know the experiences of friends and relatives.

Look, Kiwi, just between you and me, and speaking seriously... what do you think incited more insurgent activity and Iraqi support for insurgents.

Some thirty second clip of some fat white Senator proposing some complicated 'redeployment' plan of staged withdrawal to forward bases and 'over the horizon' verbiage.

Or the hundreds and thousands of photographs and videos that came out of Abu Ghraib?

Seriously.

Which do you think did more damage to America's credibility among Arabs?

Some fat middle aged white guy on a talking head spot calling the President a liar... something which the angrier arabs took for granted.

Or constant news coverage of Israel's attack on Lebanon, where the President came down four square in support of Israel's attack, despite endless pictures of exploded children and bombed villages, where the President in full view of the Arab world, expedited shipments of armaments and jet fuel to Israel, while all the time blaming Hezbollah and obstructing a UN ceasefire resolution.

Now, I don't want to get into an argument on the Lebanese war or what really happened. But you must understand that the way I described it is the way it appeared in Arab newspapers, the way it appeared on Arab television, the way it appeared to the Arab people.

So which really did the most damage?

Seriously.

On a purely abstract basis, your argument that dissent empowers the enemy is a significant one.

But in the real world, you have to concede that the enemy is motivated by many sources of information, and that the internal dissent of America is merely one factor, and a minor factor, if a factor at all. It is in my view, so small and insignificant a factor in comparison to the variety and magnitude of other drivers that it is not meaningful at all.

Moreover, there are huge and dangerous implications for your attitude in the suppression of free speech and debate, and the free flow of ideas and positions. The excuse to shut down any dissent becomes 'our enemies' are watching. All debate ends. Any debate can be ended that way. America becomes a totalitarian society, incapable of debating pressing issues.

Balancing the two, I can find no other alternative but to endorse free speech.

The Nuremberg Principles aren't ratified, that's true, but it's rather astonishing to have lived to see America of all nations assuming they should not be applicable.

Well, the very controversiality of discussing a war while in progress might argue for being slow to start one (too bad we rushed that).

Then again, there are soldiers that have come back and feel otherwise than your son.

Then again, we can win battles and not win a war.

Finally, doing a "Hector" and keeping quiet while following "Priam" (Bush) into an ill-advised war is not the way this country was intended to run. Can you seriously argue that if the Iraq war was a bad move, we should just shut up and follow it through to disaster?

That turns it into a barroom brawl, where no one knows why we're fighting but just throws punches next to his friend. OK in a bar, maybe, but just plain stupid in foreign policy.

Shall we also remember that if the guys in charge had listened to expert advice there would have been a longer buildup and more troops, a secured country, restored services, and a lot less resentment, which is the main source of the threat against your son.

I know it's very hard (impossible for many) to accept risking lives for a mistake, but if it is a mistake, it must be so called. With all due respect for the feelings and morale of rank-and-file soldiers, refraining from comment encourages more risk to your son, and loss of public support makes his safe return more likely.

Howard Dean was right, but he is talking about the Commander-in-Chief, not your son or his charges.

Replying to Kiwi Von Huber on the spaghetti-line...

The Senator who compared our troops to "Nazis" was Illinois Democrat Richard Durbin. He was referencing, as you did, the Abu Grab treatment of the terrorists, and, in fairness, he did apologize.

Exact quote please. Abu Ghraib was the biggest and most offensive black eye for the American military in a generation. In a war where America's major moral accomplishment was to remove a tyrant who tortured people and imprisoned thousands of innocent people... it was appalling to discover that the United States was torturing people and imprisoning thousands of innocent people, beating prisoners to death during interrogation, holding children and wives hostage, and raping or countenancing the rape of prisoners or family members.

What made this moral bankruptcy worse was the fact that thousands of photographs were taken and circulated among soldiers, and that the soldiers inflicting these atrocities showed devilish glee in those photographs.

Under the circumstances, comparisons to Nazis were not surprising, and in some respects not inappropriate.

The effect on morale of both American troops, international opinion and Iraqi's was so catastrophic... that really, I can't see Senator Durbin's comment, whatever it was as being more than a drop in a bathtub full of bile.

Following Abu Ghraib one general is said to have remarked "Those assholes just cost us this war."

He may have been right.

I talked to my son Saturday. He commands seals in Iraq and tells me that the U. S. is winning every battle.

Really? So are the two failed attempts to take out the Mahdi Army a victory? Is the original siege of Fallujah a victory? Is the retreat from Anbar province a victory? Has the pacification of Baghdad been a victory?

Even battles or situations that are bona fide victories evince skepticism. The second siege of Fallujah. The Marines won. Yay. The price of victory in Fallujah was to depopulate the entire city, destroy or severely damage eighty per cent of its buildings. You made a desert and called it peace.

Today Fallujah has less than half its original population, they live under curfew and onerous military occupation, and the city remains unsafe and a hot spot of insurgency.

After four years of occupation the insurgents have increased from an estimated 3000 originally to over 60,000. No matter how fast they are killed, they continue to replenish and increase their numbers. Attacks on Americans have risen from a few a week to well over 100 a day. 2600 Americans have died, and untold numbers of Iraqi police and soldiers.

Just about every road out of Bagdad has become impassible, the Sunni territories are now 'no go' zones, the Mahdi and Badr battle it out in the Shiite territories, and the only safe place in Baghdad is the greenzone.

None of this sounds like victory.

He also notes that it is discouraging to his troops, not so much the Annapolis officers like himself, but the regular guys on the ground to see the Democrats bash the President and call the war and their efforts a "criminal mistake." (Howard Dean)

On the scale of downers, I would imagine that 900 insurgent attacks a week and being served rotted food by Halliburton would vastly outweigh anything Howard Dean might say.

I note that your son's report is hearsay. He doesn't say its bringing him down. Nor is it bothering 'Annapolis officers like himself.' Instead, its troubling for the 'lower orders.' Frankly, that's hearsay.

In any event, my original point is that conditions on the ground have a lot larger effect on soldier morale than the blatherings of political debates thousands of miles away.

I note that you've completely abandoned the 'encouraging insurgents' argument, and have retreated to the 'tender feelings of the troops' position. Do you figure you can hold out there?

So, although your arguments are convincing, the practical effect of disparaging the mission on the guys who believe they are defending our country is serious.

I'm curious, but how does one argue that they are defending the United States by occupying a foreign country with no prior connections to Al Quaeda and no wmd's 6000 miles away?

But you haven't demonstrated these practical effects at all. At best you've tendered some hearsay secondhand that some GI's feelings are hurt.

Well, have they mutinied? Have they refused to fight? Have they refused to go on patrols? Have they refused to support each other? Do you have any proof that their performance as soldiers has deteriorated for this reason?

As opposed to deterioration as a result of extended tours of duty, stop loss orders, constant troop rotations, being undermanned, cutbacks in benefits, cutbacks in veterans entitlements, lack of clear mission objectives, 900 attacks a week, lack of armour, the effect on morale of Abu Ghraib, etc. etc.

Maybe this puts you on the spot. But you said 'practical effect.'

Well, if there's a 'practical effect' then you should be able to demonstrate it.

Or retreat from that position.

Yes, I do question the patriotism of anyone who seeks to frustrate the war effort while my son and his troops are risking their lives daily.

You have yet failed to demonstrate how criticizing Abu Ghraib, or criticizing the President for mistakes amounts to a frustration of the war effort.

To return to your point of 'practical effect', what 'practical action' have the Democrats taken which frustrates the 'war effort?

I'll make it easy for you. Just name the bill where the Democrats defeated a war expenditure?

Hell, even easier, name the bill brought forth by the Democrats to cut war expenditures?

Here's another softball, I'm just tossing out ringers, name the Democratic bill which succeeded in reducing or limiting troop strenght in Iraq?

1) No particular disrespect is meant to Kiwi's son, or any Seal or any GI, Marine or whatever. And it should be taken that way.

2) The reality is that second or third hand information is always suspect. What people tell each other passes through filters of each person's ideas, ideals and ideology. What one person says is never exactly what another person hears. Error is built into communication and if you extend the lines of communication, as in the game telephone, there's a thousand different ways errors can creep in. For a soldier to tell me something is one thing. For a soldier's dad to tell me what he said is another. For a soldier's dad to tell me what his son's men say is still another. That's three people saying things that might be the same or different, and two people hearing things that might be the same or different.

3) In the course of a life that occasionally promised to be extremely short, Howard, I can say that I've known more than my share of hard men. If there's one conclusion I've drawn, it's that its a mistake to respect a hard man for the wrong reasons.

To be a defeatist, one must be able, clearly, to articulate the conditions for victory. Advocates for a war need to have a clear, not creeping, set in the beginning.

I refer you, for example, to Fred Ikle's Every War Must End (revised edition), for an example of what happened to countries that started wars without a clear definition of victory. Ikle, incidentally, is a scholar who has held subcabinet policy jobs in several Republican administrations.

Throughout history, it has not been unprecedented to win the combat-phase war but lose the peace. Here is an excellent online reference for how the WWII Occupation of Germany was planned, including the need for a separate, ready-to-go Constabulary as distinct from combat troops. Thomas Barnett, who was a Rumsfeld advisor for some time, in The Pentagon's New Map, distinguished between the "Leviathan" force geared for high-intensity combat and the "System Administrator" nation building force, and observes they are not interchangeable.

Again, I reiterate there is a strong difference between disagreeing with politicomilitary policy at the level of the National Command Authority, and not trying to make troops as safe and victorious as possible. Particularly in guerilla wars, victory can be elusive. One can point to the relatively few successful conclusions by a counterguerilla force, and, among other things, find a consistent and responsive government, without major factional fighting.

No, I don't think "defeatist" fits at all.

Kiwi - to avoid becoming "marginalized" see my comments to you at the bottom of the page.

Kiwi - your remarks have me on the lookout for related viewpoints from the military.  From AP in Boston Globe

Active duty service members ... are using the military whistle-blower protection act to urge Congress to end the U.S. occupation of Iraq and bring American soldiers home. 

At the Web site, http://www.appealforredress.org., the wording for the appeal says:

"As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq. Staying in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price. It is time for U.S. troops to come home."

Hutto said the service members are not pacifists nor conscientious objectors and they don't advocate doing anything illegal.  "Under the military whistle-blower protection act, you have a right to send (an appeal) to any Congress person without reprisal" 

The article says they have 219 petitioners as of now.

While the Democrats say they want to refocus the nation's energy on the war on terror, they've demonstrated time and again that they oppose the most effective means of fighting terrorism.
Democrats would interfere with the National Security Agency's ability to intercept communications between terrorists abroad and their agents in the United States.

They would treat terrorists like common criminals rather than as combatants who are at war with us.

They would extend to terrorists being held overseas access to the U.S. civilian court system, which could jeopardize national security by making classified intelligence available to the terrorists and their attorneys.

Nor do I trust that Democrats would do the right thing in Iraq -- not that the current administration has had a stellar record there, either. I'm tired of debating whether we should or should not have gone into Iraq -- both Republicans and half the Democrats in the Senate voted to authorize the war in 2003.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*