Danny Goldberg's post "George Packer's War" spawned a lively debate between those Iraq War apologists who, with Packer, view the decision to invade Iraq as good policy poorly executed and those who argue that the proof of the policy pudding is in its racid taste. 

Professor Ikenberry christened Iraq an "Icon of Disaster" on the order of Smoot-Hawley.  Gen William Odom pulls no punches and hits closer to the mark with "the Greatest Strategic Disaster in US History".  

So was the Iraq War  "the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time", as Odom would have it, doomed from the start? Does the fact that the War became, in the event, George Bush's "Bay of Goats", as Gen. Zinni predicted it would in 2002, expose "Packer's war" as just so much revisionist sophistry?

A recently published study from the Army War College puts paid "Packer's War" apologias  in favor of the real war, the real course Bush set, planned, hawked, and stayed, stayed...stayed..and stayed.

Revisions in Need of Revising: What Went Wrong in the Iraq War

Authored by Dr. David C Hendrickson, Dr. Robert W Tucker.

Though critics have made a number of telling points against the Bush administration's conduct of the Iraq war, the most serious problems facing Iraq and its American occupiers—criminal anarchy and lawlessness, a raging insurgency and a society divided into rival and antagonistic groups—were virtually inevitable consequences that flowed from the act of war itself. Military and civilian planners were culpable in failing to plan for certain tasks, but the most serious problems had no good solution. Even so, there are lessons to be learned. These include the danger that the imperatives of "force protection" may sacrifice the broader political mission of U.S. forces and the need for skepticism over the capacity of outsiders to develop the skill and  and expertise required to reconstruct decapitated states.

"Do you know why I have to believe that Saddam had UAV's loaded with Sarin and ready to strike New York?  Because our President would never send our brave fighting men and women off on a crap shoot like creating a democracy in Iraq."  Steven Colbert. George Packer Interview

So, today we have the Moose

Worst President Ever

FEMA FUBAR
Senate Panel Recommends Start from Scratch

And it took him less than five years!
Imagine what he can do in 8!
Imagine what we would have found out but for the GOP CoverUp Congress!

Petition to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations

[College & University Professors Only]

 

and Molly Ivins joins the struggle wiith

Let's call the Israel lobby the Israel lobby
Kooky lobby deniers pretend Israeli influence in U.S. is a myth

Juan Cole's now in running gun battle with John Fund of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page. Check it out!

 Cole Goes After John Fund

Email address to write WSJ included

John Fund vs. the Truth
He lies about Juan Cole – and much else
Justin Raimondo

Even though a well-orchestrated smear campaign has been largely successful in suppressing reporting of Mearsheimer and Walt's The Israel Lobby, the Lobby has not been entirely sucessful. As the 105+ posts to JoAnn Mort's recent comment attest, many are daring to touch the third rail of US foreign politics. Hats off too for the intrepid Arnaud De Borchgrave of UPI

 Touching the third rail
 

WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- A quarter of a million people marched in Manhattan. One hundred thousand squeezed into Madison Square Garden, many of them in uniform. Over 100,000 telegrams deluged the White House. All demanded the immediate recognition of the about-to-be-born new state of Israel. Most of President Truman`s cabinet was against it. The most formidable naysayer was then Secretary of State Gen. George Marshall.

 

Following World War II, foreign policy professionals wrote scores of position papers that warned an independent Jewish state would trigger a 'reject phenomenon' throughout the Middle East. David K. Niles, in charge of Jewish affairs at the White House, was a persuasive advocate of, and organizer for, Israel. The Holocaust of six million Jews, the telegrams and the marchers in New York clinched it for Truman.

Since [the] Israeli and U.S. interests have gradually merged, a perception carefully nurtured by AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, arguably Washington`s most powerful lobby, or at least co-equal in influence with the NRA (National Rifle Association) and AARP (American Association of Retired Persons). With some 200 employees and 100,000 wealthy benefactors, AIPAC claims it doesn`t have to register as a foreign agent because all its funding comes from U.S. sources. There are also over 500,000 Israelis with dual citizenship, a number of them AIPAC contributors.

Over the years, AIPAC has maneuvered to make Israel the third rail of American foreign policy. The handful of Congressmen who have been critical of Israel over the past 40 years have been publicly chastised with a figurative dunce cap, or, worse, lost their seats to AIPAC-backed opponents. Israel is an integral part of America`s body politic.

Yet the recent publication of 'The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,' an 83-page paper published on Harvard`s website by two prominent academics, ran into a firestorm of vilification from government, academia and the media for documenting what is already well established.

Daniel Levy despaired at how constrained (by Lobby Smear) the debate over ME policy was in the US particularly as it relates to Israel, and Daniel's quite rightly dismayed.

Take for instance, the question of talking to Hamas.

 Why We Cannot Talk With Hamas

Ran Hacohen
Polls show that a majority of the Israelis support negotiations with Hamas, but official Israel refuses to talk to it, at any level. Israel instead launches a worldwide campaign to persuade all countries to boycott Hamas and to join its military and financial blockade on the newly formed Hamas government. If starving the Palestinian people is the outcome, so be it: the Arabs should learn the price of democracy.

Why can't Israel talk to Hamas? Several arguments are given; are they valid – or just excuses?

Now the reason Israel won't talk to Hamas, the cover they have for stealing Palestinian customs revenue is very simple.

The Israel Lobby precludes debate on US policy in this crucial area.  How so you ask?

Take a for instance, say a congressperson, my congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, who dutifully appears at every AIPAC conclave.  Now as far as her constituents are concerns, Ms. Pelosi's are probably as pro-Palestinian as they come, outside of some Detroit area constituencies.  But you see, here we have the perfect case study of the Lobby's power to influence US policy against our national interest and in this case, against the interest of Ms. Pelosi's constituents. For while the district may be pro-Palestinian, it is not a liver o die, make or break issue for a significant number of voters except those who are pro-Israel. Moreover, if Ms. Pelosi, as a national democratic leader, were ever to represent the views of her constituents faithfully on the issue,....(figure the rest for yourselves)

 Thus we have no debate. Israel has no challenge or fear of the US because the US is not an honest broker but a captive of the Israel Lobby.

It isn't that difficult is it?  All you have to have is a clear eye and a hide tough enough so that the "anti-Semite" catcalls don't bother you.

"The Army, however, went gently into that good night of Iraq without saying a word," he added, summarizing conversations with other officers. "For that reason, most of us know that we have to share the burden of responsibility for this tragedy. And at the end of the day, it wasn't Rumsfeld who sent us to war, it was the president. Officers know better than anyone else that the buck stops at the top. I think we are too deep into this for Rumsfeld's resignation to mean much.

Younger Officers Join Debate on the Debacle
NyT

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light

I'M THE DECIDER
(Koo-Koo-Ka-Choo)