Iraq: Withdrawal or Redeployment?
If it needed clarifying at this late date, this week's Democratic presidential debate underscored the fact that none of the party's frontrunners supports a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq any time soon. And with Bill Richardson out of the race and Dennis Kucinich excluded from recent debates, voters aren't even likely to hear an advocate for genuine withdrawal from the Democratic camp.
The key phrase here is "combat troops." Clinton, Obama and Edwards are all in favor of withdrawing combat troops, but they support other military missions, from training Iraqi forces to serving as a "quick strike force" to go after Al Qaeda operatives to protecting the borders from infiltration by insurgents and jihadists. It is hard to see how these missions could be carried out without an ongoing commitment of tens of thousands of troops -- a reduction and redeployment, not a "withdrawal."
At least John Edwards would place his "strike force" over the border in Kuwait, but in an earlier debate he indicated that he could not promise that all U.S. troops would be out of Iraq by 2013. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama joined the club, also refusing to pledge a full withdrawal by that date.
In the Nevada debate Obama helpfully clarified his earlier position, indicating that he believed that all "combat missions" could be ended within a shorter time span, but that there would have to be a residual force to deal with the threat of Al Qaeda in Iraq. This assertion is misleading at best; by no stretch of the imagination can his envisioned "quick strike force" be viewed as being on anything but a combat mission. In any case, it's not as if U.S. troops stationed in Iraq will be in a position to decide whether or not they are there for combat -- they will continue to be targeted by insurgents, terrorists, militias and other enemies of the U.S. occupation for as long as they are in Iraq.
Michael Dobbs, who writes the "Fact Checker" feature for the Washington Post, has done an excellent job of sorting out rhetoric from reality in the candidates' claims about Iraq. In a piece that ran this week he provides a helpful timeline comparing the shifting positions of Clinton and Obama on Iraq. And that article links to a great analysis from last October that contrasts Hillary Clinton's "end the war" claims with the proliferation of missions she expects U.S. forces to cover even after the removal of "combat troops." Dobbs' fine work deserves a more prominent placement, perhaps even on the front page, as one commenter on his latest Iraq piece has suggested. And it is clear that those of us who want a full withdrawal have some work to do, both during the presidential race and in the early months of a new presidency. We need to help create a large enough (and vocal enough) constituency in favor of this stance that it will make it easier for a new president to move from redeployment to withdrawal.
Comments (61)
I support complete withdrawal. But I have one question: What happens if the Iraqis continue to shoot at our embassy after the troops are withdrawn? I can't imagine any government we left behind would last a day. So it seems to me that complete withdrawal means accepting abandoning the world's largest embassy.
January 17, 2008 11:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have to suspect that any president who starts moving towards a full withdrawal of US forces in Iraq would be in grave personal danger. Our corporate greedmasters will not give up the potential wealth they see at the end of the rainbow in Iraq easily. Spending $100's of billions of taxpayer dollars to make that wealth accessible is a no brainer for that group, so I suspect spending a million or so to ensure the continuance of the quest will also be a no brainer.
Iraq will be the LaBrea tar pit for this country.
Hoppy in Sacramento
January 17, 2008 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: Our corporate greedmasters will not give up the potential wealth they see at the end of the rainbow in Iraq easily.
Apart from Halliburton and other military supply companies American businesses and corporations have not exactly profitted from the Iraq War, and it's wildly unlikely they ever will. As for Iraqi oil, it would be far more accessible to the market (and to BP etc.) if we hadn't gone into Iraq in the first place.
This is not and enver was about corporate profits. This has been about some looney Amerika Uber Alles imperialists and their delusions of grandeur (and somewhat also about removing Israel's foes without Israel having to lift a finger)
January 17, 2008 3:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
The hundreds of billions of dollars we have spent so far on the Iraqi fiasco were largely transferred to US corporations. As long as that fiasco continues, the hundreds of billions faucet continues to flow. Iraq is not a furnace where money is burned and turned to carbon dioxide. It is a word meaning "easy money" for the corporations supplying the materials being used there.
Hoppy in Sacramento
January 17, 2008 8:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not true. Both Mrs. Clinton and Senator Obama voted for Fiengold-Reid, a true litmus test on ending the occupation immediately. Although only 28 Senators voted for the amendment, they will have to live with that vote in the general election. So both Mrs. Clinton and Senator Obama are on the record supporting immediate withdrawal.
January 17, 2008 11:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
I believe there is a broad consensus in washington, across party lines in the legislature, among the civil service employees in State and DoD, in the think tanks, and among political appointees that the US will remain an occupying force in Iraq indefinitely.
If the candidates were sincere about plans for withdrawal, they would not speak so opaquely about their plans, and they would actually have to face up to what this would mean.
It would require an actual government with a monopoly on the use of force in Iraq. Right now, they don't even have the ability to arrest foreign civilians committing murders. The US Congress dictates their legislative agenda, and they do not deploy their own security forces.
They don't have national defense capability, which is what this strike force business is about. But the idea that Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia or Turkey are going to work openly to control Iraqi territory is just silly.
It's also just as silly to believe that a sovereign, vaguely representative government in Iraq would support a US military presence, in opposition to the Iranian government and in support of Israel.
The occupation is the policy goal. Permanent occupation was the reason for this invasion. None of the pretexts are still relevant, and the US is still there in maximum force.
None of the issues are being addressed by anybody--not in the think tanks, not in the bureaucracy, not in the media, not in the presidential race.
January 17, 2008 12:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
The topic is specific so I realize this general comment will seem non responsive.
Nevertheless.
Assuming the goal is the "pottery barn" task "we broke it, we've got to fix it" , for starters let's look at when a British occupation force was able to achieve that same sort of goal in: Northern Ireland, Palestine, Sri Lanka, Burma and the Indian Subcontinent.
Answers: never, never , never, never and never.
And we could go on to Kenya, South Africa, Iraq itself or where-ever else you might want to consider. How about their success at reconciling the colonists and Indians in North
America ?
Sure this caper broke the crockery. But staying
won't glue to pieces back together.It'll just delay the ultimate resolution ...by the parties who have to resolve it.
Meanwhile we will spend annually enough money to fund many times over the "shortfall" in the social security "trust fund" , will continue to make ourselves hated elsewhere in the muslim world , to the detriment of any ability we might have to assist e.g. in Palestine, will freeze at a dangerously degraded level the competence of our military,(not unnoticed by those who wish us harm) will kill and wound uncounted(by us) numbers of Iraqis and will condemn to death or a life time of disability endless generations of our young people whom we have hubristically and irresponsibly dispatched on this tragic and fruitless errand.
The world wasn't created yesterday. This is not the first time an occupying power has had to withdraw from an occupation.Read Xenophon.
General Petraeus who brilliantly reversed the flawed strategy of his predecessors would be equally brilliant in planning and executing the least shameful possible exit. There need be no
final helicopters hovering over the vast embassy ( surely the last dusty memorial of this episode) not unless we stay on and on until there's no other way they can get rid of us.
To quote Cromwell : "In the name of God, GO."
January 17, 2008 12:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't see how we leave without splitting the country into Kurdish, Shia, and Sunni states. Any other arrangement forces us or the U.N. (which is really "us" anyway) to serve as "unified" Iraq's constabulary--either stationed within the country or nearby. Or, we could watch it decend into violent, Lebanese/Yugoslavian-style factionalism. (That would do wonders for the Democrats' foreign policy credentials.) However, withdrawing all "combat troops" from Iraq does constitute ending the occupation. Even if the war had never occurred, we'd still have troops, planes, ships, and potential training facilities in Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain. Or, we could train Iraqis at our bases here in the states like we used to. (Might be a good idea. At least they'd be spending their/my tax dollars at American bars and strip clubs.) So what's the big deal? Maybe Richardson and Kucinich proposed withdrawing all troops from the entire Middle East. I don't know.
What's the diffinitive list of places that all U.S. troops must vacate in order to constitute a "genuine withdrawal"? We could easily police the region from Diego Garcia, regardless. I'm not particular. I just want to quit wasting money over there.
January 17, 2008 12:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
How anyone can support leaving troops in Iraq is beyond me. I wouldn't even have the Embassy staffed until that country settled down. And, No, I wouldn't re-deploy to Kuwait, I'd bring them home or possibly ship some to Germany.
ex Navy Admiral who headed a Carrier Battle Group, now Congressman Joe Sestak said it would take about 18 months to pull the troops out safely.
Here's our choice, bring the troops home, or stay and die. The rest is just bullshit being peddled by those who were more often wrong than right on this war. Oh, and lets not omit those who value their political office more than the troops's lives.
Mustn't be seen as weak on terrorism, correct?
January 17, 2008 1:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Anyone still have doubts about who actually runs this country..? It should be obvious to even the most brainwashed citizens. The corporates, the multi-national corporations, including the corporate run news media....the corporations and their sycophants in the government are the only ones profitting and will continue to profit from a military occupation in Iraq (and the middle east in general) while we, the taxpayers, give our young, (in blood), and our money to the war machine of both political parties. They also manipulate and control our primary and elctorial processes..don't you get it, yet?
corporatism: the organization of a society into industrial and professional corporations serving as organs of political representation and exercising some control over persons and activities within their jurisdiction
fascism: a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
2 : a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control
January 17, 2008 1:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
The national Iraq debate is now conducted on a pure bullshit level, with various magical phrases thrown around to satisfy or appease various voter constituencies - phrases like "no permanent bases", "no combat troops", "ending the occupation", "ending combat operations", "global terrorist strike forces" - but with little frank content.
The fact is, none of these remaining viable candidates wants to be the President who actually pulls all our forces out of the Iraq theater and then watches Saigon II on TV as our colossally expensive embassy and our shiny new bases are bombed and looted, or taken over by some radical faction or other, and used to launch violent strikes against the government of Iraq, or other factions. They all want to gradually eliminate daily combat operations to reduce US casualties to a negligible amount, and bring a lot of troops home. But the entire American political establishment is now behind some form of permanent involvement in Iraqi affairs.
The President is going to be faced with an Iraqi government that can't secure itself and probably wants some sort of long-term protection arrangement. The only thing that is really being debated is where to locate the remaining troops, and what to call them. But what does it really matter if you have troops in Kuwait or Turkey that go plunging into Iraq every time there is some sort of "terrorist" strike (just about every attack that occurs in Iraq can be labeled a terrorist strike if one is inclined to see it that way) or if these forces are based in Iraqi Kurdistan?
Bush has really tied everyone's hands. He's already built the permanent bases; he's already built the Middle East imperial headquarters - that is, the embassy. This makes it very hard for a successor President to get out of Iraq entirely without absorbing huge sunk costs - and that was Bush's plan. He knows that once the empire puts down stakes somewhere, it doesn't pull them up. Once it has acquired some choice foreign property, it doesn't leave that property to gather dust under the desert sun, or hand it over to potential enemies.
It would be interesting if at least one of the major candidates had a a really different strategic plan for the United States based on rolling back the imperial presence around the world and cutting military expenditures. But none of them do. They are all just talking about slightly different ways of moving the pieces around. Those differences are somewhat important, because they might make the difference between expanded war, or a return of regional stability. But no one can undo the stupid Iraq war now, and the nest of entanglements and strategic commitments its created.
January 17, 2008 1:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
As I have said elsewhere, peace will come in Iraq when the Shia majority agrees to share power with the Sunni minority or that minority agrees to live under Shia majoritarian rule. Can our armed presence make it happen is what must be on the table. It isn't. Our presence is irrelevant until and unless we can make either of them happen. We leave, the conflict continues. We stay, the conflict continues - and we as a nation take it in the neck.
January 17, 2008 1:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well there's hoping and dreaming and campaign promises you'd like to make and then there's nasty realities that those Democratic candidate foreign policy advisors have to deal with...
Those comments from the minister, Abdul Qadir, were among the most specific public projections of a timeline for the American commitment in Iraq by officials in either Washington or Baghdad. And they suggested a longer commitment than either government had previously indicated.
Pentagon officials expressed no surprise at Mr. Qadir’s projections, which were even less optimistic than those he made last year....
If one could get someone like the UN Security Council to say: yeah, just leave right now, that would be ok with us, now that would be dandy, it would allow all of them to promise complete withdrawal on the day after inauguaration.
January 17, 2008 1:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, and of course the present government would need us there indefinitely, considering they're our puppets to a large extent, placed by the Bush administration.
But yeah, if you disregard reality, it's completely legitimate to say we should stay in Iraq indefinitely.
January 17, 2008 5:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wonder where all the Obama boosters are in this thread. I know, this is off topic, but it strikes me that Hillary is more pro withdrawal than Obama who wants to go chasing Osama into Pakistani territory and generally is more of a "chest beater" than most in this imperial quest masquerading as a "war on terror".
Even the Republican Ron Paul is more honest than the front-running Democrats. They attack us because we are occupying their lands trying to steal their resources, something neither Obama, Hillary, or Edwards seem able to admit publicly.
Rome, before it's decline, knew how far it could sustain its empire, a lesson our leaders would do well to learn before we suffer a similar fate.
January 17, 2008 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hillary is more pro withdrawal than Obama who wants to go chasing Osama into Pakistani territory
These two things are unrelated.
In my other comment in this thread, I point out the very clear evidence that Obama's more pro-withdrawal than Clinton is.
That has nothing to do with Obama's willingness to send troops to kill or capture Osama bin Laden, if we have actionable intelligence that would enable us to do so.
Osama killed 3000 Americans. We really do have to kill him if we get the opportunity. Obama's 100% correct about that.
January 17, 2008 2:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let's invade a country armed with nuclear weapons to do it. Idiotic notion.
January 17, 2008 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Better yet let's hold up Ronald Reagan as a POSITIVE transformational figure in our history.
I don't get this Obamamania...it is totally irrational and probably due in large part to white guilt neurosis.
January 17, 2008 6:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
And a desperate and futile quest for the anti-Hillary. The Reagan thing has convinced me Obama is as likely to surrender to the highest bidder as Hillary. That leaves Edwards. At least the establishment truly despises him and that can't be a bad thing considering the godawful mess the establishment has us in and has no intention or capacity to change.
January 17, 2008 6:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
He calls for leaving 3-5000 troops to protect the embassy and provide humanitarian aid. He has said in the past that a quick strike force outside of Iraq might be necessary to keep a potential civil war from spreading in the region. That is a plan for withdrawing from Iraq and it is different from what Obama and Clinton are proposing. Personally, I would trust Edwards more to follow through on his commitment, but it’s a moot point because he has been written off from the beginning of the campaign and will probably be withdrawing himself soon.
January 19, 2008 5:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think --as Bill Clinton so aptly put it--we are going to be rolling the dice (with Hillary too).
But at least she has a record.
Obama is Chair of the European Affairs Subcommittee of the Foreign Affairs Committee and he has not convened a SINGLE meeting in his tenure at that post. That's ridiculous. All we need is another "hands off”, “not in touch" president to bury us even deeper than we already are.
January 20, 2008 2:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, really?
Rome, before it's decline, knew how far it could sustain its empire, a lesson our leaders would do well to learn before we suffer a similar fate.
If "rome" knew that, why did it implode? Because its leaders didn't care. Our leaders don't want to learn from history; they don't even know how to conjugate a sentence with the word "historian" in it!
January 17, 2008 3:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
You need to read more carefully what I write. I said even Early Rome knew when not to overextend itself in is PRE_DECLINE era. Read a little Gibbon, it might help.
The principal conquest of the Romans were achieved under the republic; and the emperors, for the most part, were satisfied with preserving those dominions which had been aquired by the policy of the senate, the active emulation of the counsuls, and the martial enthusiasm of the people The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter 1, paragraph1.
January 19, 2008 8:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dobbs is an effing idiot. So is Hartung.
All you have to do, to see the difference in the candidates' positions on Iraq, is go to www.'name'.com/issues/iraq, plugging in hillaryclinton, barackobama, and johnedwards, in turn, for 'name'.
All three commit to starting troop withdrawals quickly. Obama and Edwards commit to finishing them quickly, excepting embassy protection and (Edwards only) a few hundred troops to protect humanitarian missions, and (Obama only) troops available in the region to take out a possible al-Qaeda base (as distinct from 'operatives', Mr. Hartung) in Iraq.
Clinton makes no such commitment.
It shouldn't take many troops to take out an al-Qaeda base in Iraq. You just bomb the tar out of it.
So: lots of daylight between Clinton and the others. And even some daylight between Obama and Edwards: Edwards proposes a faster withdrawal timetable, and places much more specific limits on the troop numbers ("a brigade of 3,500 to 5,000 troops to protect the embassy and possibly a few hundred troops to guard humanitarian workers") that would remain.
This isn't rocket science.
January 17, 2008 2:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Clinton has also taken the most consistently and resolutely hawkish and Aipac-friendly line on Iran. I fear that if she gets power she is just going to continue the confrontational drive toward an eventual hot conflict with the Islamic Republic. She appears to me to have a lot of knowledge and a taste for detail, but not a lot of imagination. She will pursue a Bush-lite regional policy based on the same strategic vision, just with more managerial competence and diplomatic skill. I don't see her possessing either the inclination or the political courage to make a decisive break with current policy by pursuing a new regional security paradigm.
I have some hope with Obama, based on his personal statements and statements of some of the people who advise him, that he is inclined toward a revised strategic approach to the region based on constructive engagement with Iran on the stabilization of Iraq, and on striking a new balance of power in the region, rather than fostering a new regional Cold War organized around the containment of Iran.
Obama also has the most knowledge, interest and experience in African affairs. I trust him most of the three candidates to build a constructive and pro-active US engagement in Africa on a variety of fronts, while at the same time working to prevent the long-suffering Africans from becoming colonial pawns and hapless proxies in the new strategic competition between the US and China for African allies.
I also believe Obama has taken the most pro-active positions in the campaign on the nuclear proliferation issue.
Edwards's officially presented campaign foreign policy statements are also superior to Clinton's, but I don't get the feeling that he personally has much of a feel for foreign policy, and worry that he lacks the insight and vision in global affairs to really take charge of the US national security and foreign policy apparatus, and not be dragged around by the usual pressure groups and established interests.
One thing I worry about with all three candidates is that they speak a little bit too blithely and confidently about democracy promotion, and about the capacity of the US to heal outbreaks of domestic violence in other countries.
January 17, 2008 3:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Kosmotropic,
I hope all the Democratic candidates continue to have a more realistic understanding of military logistics and foreign policy than you and Ron Paul.
WE THE PEOPLE want our troops out of Iraq.
WE should've done a better job of keeping them out of Iraq in the first place.
WE should've done a better job electing congressional representatives who would study the decision beforehand and not hear "9/11SaddamHussein" and just roll over like candy floss.
WE didn't so now WE are where WE are, and our troops are stationed accordingly.
WE can't just call "do over!" blow a whistle, and have them all ship out on 1/21/09.
WE want lots of things we won't get tomorrow.
It doesn't work that way. Ron Paul can say whatever he wants. He's never going to be President.
January 17, 2008 3:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
My point is that the invasion of Iraq was a terrible mistake on our part. This is not just my opinion, but the opinion of most Americans. Military people have said it and so have many in the foreign policy establishment.
It was an overextension, plain and simple. Now we cannot adequately deal with the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan nor pose a credible threat to Iran's nuclear program.
I don't endorse Ron Paul's foreign policy, but he certainly is right that a lot of the hostility coming from the middle east aimed at us is due to our positioning military power in the region.
I'm not saying we should pull out and become Fortress America like Ron Paul and other libertarians would have it. I'm saying that Ron Paul is talking truth about why we are there and why we have incurred their animosity. The Democratic frontrunners are bullshitting the American people. But bullshitting the people is as old as the hills in this country.
January 19, 2008 9:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
The last American troops will probably be withdrawn from Iraq sometime around 2011 or 2015. They'll leave while under fire from Helicopters as the Embassy complex burns.
I'm not saying this with any pleasure, but merely acknowledgement of human nature.
January 17, 2008 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
My guess is that there will still be American troops in Iraq in 2040, just as there are still American troops in South Korea today.
January 17, 2008 3:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
You mean "just as there are still American troops in South Vietnam today."
Let me explain your situation there in simple terms: You're not winning.
The Surge...? Well, the Surge has 1) handed Anbar Province over to the Sheikhs and Ex-Baathists who used to be killing American troops there. 2) handed Baghad over to Sadr's radical Shiites who have proceeded to ethnically cleanse something like 35% of the Sunnis, and have driven the rest behind walled ghettos.
By way of analogy, this is like handing the northern provinces of South Vietnam over to the NVA on condition that they clean out the Vietcong, and then having the Khmer Rouge come in and run Saigon while you are looking the other way.
Call me an old fashioned 20th century kind of thinker not in tune with all this post-modern newfangled concepts of 21st century warfare, but when your best military effort ends up consisting of handing large chunks of contested territory over to your enemy on the undertaking that they'll stop shooting at you for a while... that's not winning.
So you figure 40 years? I figure GI's will end up getting skinned alive and rolled in salt until it gets tiresome, just like the Rissians in Afghanistan.
You want to know how good things are going? Bombing raids on Iraq, a country that we control lock, stock and gun barrels, has increased five fold in 2007 over 2006. We're doing more aerial bomardment now than we were doing when Saddam was running the place. That feel like victory?
Ignore the trivial 4000 fatalities. The bigger picture is 40,000 seriously wounded and on permanent disability. The bigger picture is 20% of the entire force coming back with brain injury, 35% coming back with deep rooted PTSD.
But hey, forget the cannon fodder, even though we're going to pay their disability bills for the next 80 years. Nah, look at the price tag. We're shitting 200 billion a year into Iraq. Multiply that by 40 years. 8 trillion. Factor in inflation over forty years, what are you up to 12 trillion, 16 trillion?
Seriously, 40 years? On what planet?
Nah, I figure America'll just go on bleeding dry, losing ground, screwing up, step by step, steadily, until it all goes dramatically into the shitter and then GI joe will bug out with a big F.U. to all those Iraqi collaborators who put their lives in American hands.
Then the rest of us will just have to put up with 40 years of right wing finger pointing and whining about who lost Iraq... if we're lucky. After all, a hundred and fifty years later, there's still asshats who are whining about the confederacy.
January 17, 2008 4:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I accept that your alternative scenario is also possible :)
But the US doesn't have to "win", in the sense of achieving its original war aims, to end up with an enduring presence inside Iraq. Unlike the Vietnamese who received lots of heavy duty weaponry from the US's Cold War rivals, the Sunni Arabs are still mainly limited to insurgency warfare, and don't seem to have any major suppliers fixing to turn them into a real army. It is possible that greatly decreased US troop presence, redeployed into those few areas where they are wanted or grudgingly tolerated, will be able to maintain their position with the help of Kurdish and government troops to establish security, and that the situation may then stabilize into a regional standoff. The US will probably at least be able to stay in the three major bases in Iraqi Kurdistan for some time, since those areas are already fairly secure.
This isn't a prescription; just a prediction.
January 17, 2008 4:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, as I see it, with the possible exception of the Kurds, no one likes you. America's the original red headed child there right now.
There Kurds are plucked and let's face it, the notion that America can leverage a permanent position with the Shiites and Sunnis is farfetched.
Basically, what we got is collaborators whose tickets will be punched when America leaves. But then again, their tickets are getting punched no matter what. It's not like we're going to let them into America.
January 17, 2008 4:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Did you see the quote from Normon Podhoretz (the genius who wants us to bomb Iran ASAP)?
"What's a Kurd, anyway?" He really did ask that.
Jan
January 19, 2008 5:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jan posts:
Something to do with cheese, isn't it?
Hey, lets ask Miss Muffet.
January 19, 2008 9:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Do you know the whey to Miss Muffet's residence, or do you have to fire up a Web browser and start asking spiders?
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
January 19, 2008 9:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAA
January 19, 2008 2:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
What?
But the US doesn't have to "win", in the sense of achieving its original war aims...
I thought our "original war aims" were to get rid of the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; to assure that the smoking gun wouldn't be in the form of a mushroom cloud. That was achieved (since it wasn't true in the first place).
OF COURSE IT ALSO WOULD HAVE BEEN ACHIEVED IF WE HAD STAYED HOME AND ALL THE DEAD AND WOUNDED WERE WITH THEIR FAMILIES, HAPPILY LIVING OUT THEIR LIVES!!!!!!
Talk about a real "Mission Accomplished--" If we had finished the job in Afghanistan and gotten BinLadin we would have broken alQaeda instead of put it on steroids. We could have spent these billions on infrastructure and health care (we wouldn't have done that, of course, with the Bush regime in place, but we could have). At least Blackwater wouldn't have gotten their undeserved billions.
Jan
January 19, 2008 5:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
On my first day in office, I will;
I will declare that the war on terror is over and we have won.
I will start a safe and orderly withdrawl of ALL troops from the middle east. No government employees, military or civilian will be left in Iraq.
I will pull all troops out of Afghanistan and turn the hunt for Osama over to the CIA.
(If the Taliban takes over, then so be it, maybe we shouldn't have ousted them to begin with, after all, we can't allow them to come back now, can we?)
Knowing that "The greatest military in the world" didn't protect us on 9/11, I will then cut the defense budget by 70% because I know that if you give some people the kind of military almost $700* billion buys
they will want to use it.
*I read earlier that a Defense budget of $680+ Billion has recently been passed.
Was that the correct number, 680+?
January 17, 2008 3:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your projected defense budget sounds like the right number for year 4.
Rather than pay cancellation charge you'd
want to complete a lot of stuff under contract even tho all you then do is mothball the
deliverables.
January 17, 2008 7:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
So sue me. :-)
You are of course correct.
January 18, 2008 5:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
60 years ago Acheson said that Britain had lost an empire and hadn't yet found a role. We've lost a war(two now) and haven't yet found a role.
The military you suggest will be large enough because it has to be large enough.If it isn't properly sized to the role we wish to play ,send out for a new role.
Kicking and screaming I am forced to admit that
maybe W's Star Wars Anti Missile System was/is right after all. The nuclear genii is out of the box. And ain't going back. Certainly not because
of our doing. So..........
Protect this continent. Be a good international citizen when others want to do something useful.
But forget about leading any more crusades.
Consign Pax Americana to the dustbin of history and make our gardens grow.
Scale our military to fit that role and the needs of our domestic economy. No more deficits,with their ssociated high interest costs and induced recessions to dampen inflation. No more scare stories about the ravening entitlements. No more crocodile tears about our inability to afford health insurance.
City on a Hill, anyone ?
January 18, 2008 7:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
flavius said;
I fully agree.
I think we need to re think our role. How ever the role we're playing today is described, it isn't working. Its helping to bankrupt us, it gets us in trouble around the world and it aids and abets corruption, foreign and domestic. Korea, Vietnam, Granada, Panama, Bosnia, Desert Storm, Iraq.
Korea as part of a UN operation 'may' have been justified, the rest of those operations were, to me, unjustified.
I don't support the reasons we're given for the need of Star Wars. Who can build a missile delivery system without us knowing? Then fire the missile at us with what amounts to a return address doesn't seem plausible. There is also much written of how easy it is to confuse Star Wars with decoys.
I think the money would be better spent on infiltration of those suspected of wishing to do us harm, a hard task no doubt, but probably doable over a period of time.
If I were given a different reason for Star Wars, rather than the idea that we'll be able to shoot down an incoming ICBM fired by a rogue nation, I might go along with it.
Better yet, dump Star Wars and give everyone health care.
January 18, 2008 7:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
My comment on Star Wars may be merely wishful thinking- but if a serious scientific evaluation nixes Star Wars then back to the drawing board.
Proliferation is now in the rear view mirror.
January 18, 2008 10:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Serious scientific evaluation has been nixing Star Wars for the last 25 years.
It was half baked bunkum originally, and now that the technology has caught up fully, it's still half baked bunkum.
In terms of failed military strategies, its like equipping all the women of an ancient greek city state with chastity belts in case of invasion by a neighboring city state. Hideously expensive, massively inconvenient, a catastrophic waste of resources, and of no strategic or tactical military significance whatsoever.
January 18, 2008 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree that the "Star Wars" ICBM national ballistic missile defense(NBMD) (ground-based midcourse intercept) is a solution in search of a problem. If one thinks of rogue crew rather than rogue nation, a simpler approach, which was done with the Soviets, is help them with their positive control/permissive action link technology. The budget for the ICBM defense system, only with the facilities in Alaska, is about what it would cost to upgrade the North American electrical grid so large blackouts become almost impossible -- which is not at all the case at present.
Theater ballistic missile defense (TBMD), however, does have a role, if only because far more powers can make and use short- to medium-range ballistic missiles than ICBMs. The Navy Aegis SM-3 system, also used by some allies, has a reasonable record in testing. It can do terminal defense (coming down) and limited boost-phase intercept (going up).
It's complemented by the Army's PAC-3 system, terminal defense only but something that can be put into a large transport aircraft and delivered anywhere, which is hard to do with a ship. The Arrow system, co-developed with the Israelis, is also complementary to the PAC-3: Arrow intercepts in space, but PAC-3 intercepts in atmosphere, giving two layers of defense. Still in development is THAAD, which combines the two functions.
Japanese and US ships can credibly defend Japan with SM-3, with PAC-3 as a final defense. There are some interesting scenarios for where ships can't go, such as flying PAC-3/Arrow to Indian and Pakistani target areas during a time of tension.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
January 18, 2008 3:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
HEY, there's Howard...
Yo Howard, where ya been?
January 18, 2008 5:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sniffling and working on commercial fishing software, not especially related to one another. Also been trying to clear some of the tinfoil out of the CIA articles on Wikipedia.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
January 18, 2008 6:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Howard,
then you should have put a sign on your door; "Gone fishing."
January 19, 2008 7:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
If I read you correctly , you believe there is a defence against a nuclear missile attack . It just happens not to be Star Wars , as is where is.
More likely it's a "cocktail" of existing systems, alliances,disciplines and special services competencies which together constitute Missile Defense System 1.0. And into which ,going forward , we'll continually incorporate additional "black boxes"(further examples of any of the sort of things making up MDS 1.0 )
That's the good news.
The bad is that a nuclear bomb could be unloaded tomorrow night from a ship any where on our 10,000 miles of imopossible- to- secure coast line. And to the extent there is a solution to that risk almost certainly it will be neither Star Wars not continuation of a $700 billion defense budget.
January 18, 2008 10:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let me be a little more specific. I do not believe there is meither reliable technology to defend against an ICBM attack against the continental United State, nor is that a significant threat. If there were a nuclear attack against the US, your scenario is plausible.
Tom Clancy does write some interesting nonfiction, and one of his scenarios included an Indian missile strike on Sri Lanka. Theater BMD, using a combination of SM-3's on ships and PAC-3 on land, with warning from US space-based sensors, stopped the fairly small attack.
Israel would have a fairly good chance of stopping a hypothetical Iranian attack with Arrow and PAC-3.
Japan and the US sent a message to North Korea with Burke-class and Kongo-class missile destroyers at sea; the DPRK missile blew up on its own before anyone really had to decide whether to shoot it down. That reminded me of a news conference when LTG Abrahamson commanded the Missile Defense Agency, and responded to a reporter badgering him about why all his systems didn't work 100% of the time. He politely drawled, "Sir, this is rocket science."
So no, I do not find Star Wars credible. I see TBMD, using SM-3 at sea, PAC-3 and possibly Arrow on land, and possibly the Air Force's experimental airborne laser, perhaps contributing to world stability in various scenarios, including interfering with both sides of a regional nuclear exchange.
If one looked at the range of North Korean missiles that have not blown up, and they wanted to attack a US target, Guam, for example, is in range. Due to the curvature of the earth, the fire control radars in Alaska would never see the missile fired at Guam.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
January 18, 2008 10:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks
Without putting words in your mouth ,I understand you to say : there are lots of ways to San Jose but it's a reasonable assumption we could defend ourselves against the specific danger of a terrorist nuclear threat while resizing our defense establishment to function on a budget an order of magnitude smaller than the current level of over a half a trillion $s.
(Probably well over if we identified the additional costs in Space, Intelligence , etc.)
Going back to Ike's concern with the military industrial complex, it also seems reasonable to
me that there would be unimaginable gains to society of refocussing onto non military ends the enormous human resources deployed by that MI Complex.
January 19, 2008 4:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's even possible to have military units contribute to what might be considered nonmilitary missions, or more of a dual mission. For example, Army Special Forces do far more than kick in doors; they are specialists in training foreign troops, but also in a number of areas of local development. Sometimes, that may be help with irrigation, and usually giving medical care.
I read recently of a contribution from troops in the Horn of Africa (don't remember the specific country), where cultural awareness and a trivial expenditure will make an enormous difference for the future. In the country in question, Muslim girls tended to drop out of school at puberty. Some soldiers realized that the most basic problem was that there were unisex toilet facilities. Building additional ones for Muslim women kept them in school.
I may make a radical suggestion: while I consider a terrorist nuclear threat a low probability, but a higher one than rogue ICBMs, I'm not convinced we can prevent all such attacks. The question becomes one of risk vs. benefit. For example, smallpox has been eradicated in the wild, but it is possible some stocks have been hidden in other than the two authorized laboratories. Smallpox is not a good traditional military biological weapon, but much more useful for terrorists.
We could, ignoring the dollar cost, continue immunizing against smallpox, but recent studies show that smallpox vaccination (the first vaccination created) is decidedly not benign. It has a high association with complications in people with heart disease, including silent disease.
My model of dealing with terrorism is neither military nor law enforcement, but public health. Public health organization seek to reduce the incidence of adverse events, and then to minimize the virulence of the inevitable incidents. Think better highway design for the first and air bags for the second, and think about the annual fatalities, from motor vehicle accidents, our society tolerates.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
January 19, 2008 7:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks , it's good to have your ideas out to be looked at and possibly shape some of the debate here. Pity they're not the response to a more sophisticated line of thought than mine.
By complete accident of the seating arrangement at a social event I've just spent a couple of hours with a political heavy- someone with well reviewed books , frequent appearances in the NYREVIEW ,on NPR , at colloguiums where people who actually know what they are talking about do that.When he ducks away from the table it's often to accept a call from one of the dem candidates.
One surprising item. I said that I have occasionally recommended , here, with a complete and unsurprising lack of approval , here , that
as part of the final Palestine peace settlement
the US should station a division in e.g. the Negev.As long as Israel lives in legitimate existential fear , it's non negotiable bargaining position will always be a two state solution: one Jewish and one essentially under Israel's control.
The PH " Everyone knows that the ultimate solution will require american troops."
I'd monopolized the poor guy's time enough so I didn't add that the second leg of the plan should be a payment of $10,000 to every Palestinian family that leaves a refugee camp takes up if possible citizenship but at least day to day non-camp life anywhere from Albania to Zimbabwe.(Sitka anyone?)
With a matching $10K to the accepting(host) state . And continuing support for the next couple of years.
Just to scope it, the high point of the cost ,in the first year , would be around $30 billion.
Probably require a lot of host states because of course the refugees will no more be fully accepted than are the Tamils by the Sri Lankans , the Luo by the Kikiyu etc. So necessarily the Palistinians will have to stay below ,say, 10% of the population where-ever they go-obvously excluding in Palestine itself where they'll be part of the majority.
With the problem of return diminished, and Israel's existential fear ditto there just might be some prospect that Palestine could join the club of unsolvable problems with which we pemanently live. An improvement. And we oselves might even be less of a terrorist target. Part of the "cocktail".
January 19, 2008 9:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Britain lost an empire but found an ally. We might have more in common with Rome.
January 18, 2008 2:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
The barbarians are not yet at the gates but in effect the Praetorian Guard crossed the Rubicon with the CIA defiance of the 9/11
Commission's request for the torture tapes.
January 18, 2008 9:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
How about 'impeachment', followed by lots n lots of investigations and trials and basically the whole 9 yards, a complete and total housecleaning
etc? Impress me. That's why they get paid the Big Buxx, to keep a handle on all this stuff.
The billionaires have harvested, and migrated outward, and continue to harvest...don'tcha LOVE computers? LOL Hey, I know, let's go park the Army in the middle east and siphon money forcibly out of the US economy and spread it around, over here....ah, the lifestyles of the rich and whatever...
January 17, 2008 4:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
As a victim/veteran of the Nixon-Kissinger Fig Leaf Contingent (Vietnam 1970-1972) I agree completely with those commentators who point out that any American military forces remaining in Iraq in any capacity will find themselves in combat -- and/or their charred corpses hung upside down on a bridge overpass -- no matter what they think they want to do. As the late historian Barbara Tuchman summarized the failed American attempt to forestall Communist revolutionary success in China: "In the end China went her own way, as if the Americans had never come." Ditto for Vietnam. Ditto for Iraq. Ditto for Afghanistan.
And as for protecting our "embassy," the host nation bears responsibility for that and not our military. We only typically station of small detachment of Marines in their gaudy dress uniforms at the front door to lend a little "color" to our ambassadorial presence. If the host country does not want our embassy, then we will not have an embassy in that country.
As others have properly pointed out, though, none of the "major" candidates for the American Imperial Presidency seems the least bit cognizant of these facts. So Warfare Welfare and Make-work Militarism have wrecked America pretty much for good now. Any country that crawls this far up its own ass and dies without a whimper has not much longer to go before the crows start feasting on the carrion.
January 17, 2008 5:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Michael,
excellent post.
January 18, 2008 5:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Star Wars may be merely wishful thinking." Exactly. Only in Republican fantasies do we need to spend untold bucks on something that doesn't work, other than to prop up the military-industrial complex, bolster the hope of American nuclear supremacy, and excuse lack of interest in serious arms talks. It's been their goal for a long time now, starting even before Reagan announced it when they were condemning talks with the Soviets as soft on communism, and in all that time it's gone nowhere.
It also promises to go nowhere: you can, in your wildest dreams, take out some attackers, just as the British took out some attackers during the Blitz. But can you seriously promise to take out all of them? Can you seriously talk about taking out any of them if the delivery is from a quote-unquote rogue state or terrorist and thus not by conventional missile? And if you have an imperfect shield in the face of nuclear weapons, do you change policy in any way? In effect, you have no shield at all.
It's just common sense.
http://www.haberarts.com/
January 18, 2008 11:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm willing for now, with due qualms about Clinton's tough talk and feints right on foreign policy for 5 years now, to go with the Drum/Yglesias interpretation of Hartung's conclusion as actually optimistic -- that there isn't all that much difference between the Dems and a huge one between them and the GOP. In other words, as I keep saying, I won't support Clinton in the primaries but won't demonize her as a RINO in the Nadar fashion of demonizing Gore. I'm even willing to cut them all a little slack on evading details on this one, since promises may or may not mean something when you're planning on dealing with the events of 18+ months down the line as president.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
January 18, 2008 11:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is a problem for the next Democratic president. They might not be saying they support an immediate withdrawal but that's what the people want and it's what they'll expect and demand. I think that people will expect the new president to start withdrawing troops, really reducing numbers, within the first year. No progress on that will lead to low approval ratings and potentially dangerous 2010 midterms. It will be very hard to explain to people why switching parties in congress in 2006 and then electing a new president in 2008 wasn't enough to get the job done.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
January 18, 2008 3:44 PM | Reply | Permalink