Transterrestrial Musings

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I, too, thought that this was part of a larger strategy.

That violates a variant of Hanlon's Razor. You should have ascribed it to incompetence.

Posted by Paul Dietz at March 2, 2007 06:29 PM

Rand,
Big government is incompetent. This seems to have played out in the war, as in all else.

I'm shocked! Shocked I say. Who ever could have possibly imagined that?

There's a reason why some of us libertarians were against the Iraq war all along, and it wasn't because we had some secret fondness for bloody dictators.

~Jon

Posted by Jonathan Goff at March 2, 2007 07:25 PM

I'm shocked! Shocked I say. Who ever could have possibly imagined that?

People who have studied history, and what happens when a free people are faced with an existential threat. Apparently, we still haven't taken it seriously.

Posted by Rand Simberg at March 2, 2007 07:32 PM

Terrorism isn't an existential threat, neo-con delusions
notwithstanding.

Simberg should look at his favorite little country for illustration.

The egyptian army was an existential threat to the Israeli's
and anyone who actually fought in the Sinai, unlike the
neocon chickenhawks, knows what that was.

Now the PLO for all the annoyance, blowing up athletes,
blowing up embassies, shooting up the occasional
airliner, or even the occasional shell into the Galilee
wasn't much.

Even in the last few years with suicide bombers walking onto
the occasional bus, it's never been of the scope to
threaten the survival of the jewish state.

even in worst case scenario's, a terrorist entity might
be able to get a single nuke, but not enough to
launch a strike large enough to annihalate Israel.

It's unfortunate the Neocon's are so busy whining
about Germany and the Holocaust, that they forgot
to check with reality.

Posted by anonymous at March 2, 2007 07:46 PM

I don't think the problem was big government.

I think the problem was that the nation (that means a heck of a lot more than just 51% of the voting public) had to be convinced of (a) the necessity of the task, and conscripted to the (b) magnitude of the effort required.

On both (a) and (b), the administration failed. It wasn't big government that said (a) was essential or hugely under-estimated the size of (b). It was a small group of persuaders, most of whom are outside of government.

Even if (a) had failed, a proper estimate of (b) and the demands that would have made on the nation might have made this thing work.

This is why I turn tone deaf when the same choir sings the merits of the surge. It's hard to turn back the clock and re-start it back in 2003, and it certainly isn't possible with 20k troops.

Posted by Toast_n_Tea at March 2, 2007 07:55 PM

Eh, I have to reluctantly agree with Mr. anon here. Terrorism even nuclear terrorism isn't an existential threat.

Posted by Karl Hallowell at March 2, 2007 07:57 PM

Hmmm, I have to correct myself. For the general population, terrorism isn't an existential threat. For particular populations which are heavily concentrated in cities or live in small countries, eg, Israelis, this is a different matter. One nuke might not cripple Israel, but several nukes could.

Posted by Karl Hallowell at March 2, 2007 08:00 PM

Why is it possible to criticize all the mistakes made in WW2 by the allies without (at least most people) concluding that the world would have been better off if Adolph Hitler and his ilk in Japan were given Eurasia to cull and enslave to their will, but not to discuss mistakes made in the current conflict in the same light?

I SUPPOSE I should just shut up and be thankful that we can discuss the mistakes made in (for instance) Market Garden without some idiot showing up in a makeshift Nazi uniform telling us congratulations, now all we have to do is go on to the next step of admitting we're all race traitors, but that admission could be the first step in our "reform."

Posted by Phil Fraering at March 2, 2007 08:01 PM

Rand, Prayer is never a bad thing. I highly recommend it. If you don't believe in God, you can still think thoughts of peace and harmony, which if you read Buber is what all the mystics shared in common, even the Moslems ones.

Posted by Toast_n_Tea at March 2, 2007 08:02 PM

Karl is right. A few Nukes is an existential threat to Israel. However the response to that observation has to be to find a way to co-exist with other Nuclear armed states in the region. I don't believe an attack on Iran or for that matter Pakistan is going to eliminate the existential threat. If anything it will transform a Possible Event into a Certain Event, the only difference being the question of when the said Event occurs.

Posted by Toast_n_Tea at March 2, 2007 08:11 PM

I think that WWII gave Americans a wrong veiw of war. We went in, kicked a$$ and left. We took the next step with the Japanese and crushed them so throughly than even Bushido capitulated.

This is the only way to win a real war and Iraq and its aftermath is a real war. The way to win a war in the middle east is the way that Ghenghis Khan did it. Kill enough people to where there is not even enough left to mourn the dead. That is a horrible thing to say, but it is true. This is the only way to elminate a determined enemy.

It will take a long time before we, as a nation, realize this.

A better way is to quit buying oil as soon as possible by shifting our technology away from it to fusion electrical energy and resources from space. Without money you can't wage a war.

Posted by Dennis Ray Wingo at March 2, 2007 08:11 PM

even in worst case scenario's, a terrorist entity might be able to get a single nuke, but not enough to launch a strike large enough to annihalate Israel.

Forget Israel... what about cities in the United States?

The last time I checked, the 9/11 attacks (and the Taliban) were the creation of Pakistani military intelligence. Pakistan has nuclear bombs and delivery systems, and because it has a sufficiently large-scale centrifuge system, could plausibly build nuclear bombs that are untraceable by isotopic signature. Both the ISI and the bomb program received funding from outside sources (Saudi Arabia, whom with they may have shared the bomb) and technical assistance from other nuclear powers.

I'd love to see better ideas for dealing with this situation other than trying to install democracies and fighting proxy wars, or rolling over and playing dead. The states in question will be fighting proxy wars against us regardless of whether we fight proxy wars against them or not.

Finally, I'd like to say in closing: once your health declines and you wind up having to take expensive meds just to keep from having seizures, all the "decline of civilization" and "canned food and ammunition" (or "black powder and alcohol") fantasies tend to lose what little appeal they had.

Posted by Phil Fraering at March 2, 2007 08:19 PM

That is as good as far as it goes, but it isnt very far.

There are so many problems with the bunglers in this administration but there are "three" main pivot points that are illustrated time after time in what this administration tries to do.

1. the first is that they never really come to grips with the situation as it is, how they want it to be, and what it takes to make that happen.

There were competent people who suggested how to take down and remold Iraq...just those that are alive today..Zinni, Owens, Shinseki, even Powell...

the problem was that none of these guys and the gals around worked into the "reality" that the Administration was painting for itself. Almost every "real" preson labeled Chalabi for what he is, the Iraqi government in exile was called "silk suited warriors" by Zinni...

rummy at one point was talking about 50,000 to take down Iraq and garrison it...that is as laughable now as it should have been then.

But oh no, Greggy was quick to label the Army Chief of Staff, someone who actually had a clue about what they were talking about as "wrong". Greggy was wrong.

2. The Administration has no clue how to level with the American people. Not a single justification that they used for going into iraq was plausiably accurate. And as those started to "unzip" by the reality on the ground (GASP THE AL TUBES WERE just what Oak Ridge said that they were "missile components")the American people started losing faith in what this administration was saying.

"Cheney's" "Dead enders" is as laughable now as it was then. (why is this man still entrusted with "anything" in government?)

3. When their plan didnt work, they couldnt admit it. This is the most laughable actually.

A blind person could have seen that Donnie, Dickie, Greggy etc didnt get one thing correct about how things would go in iraq...but they stayed on and on and on and the American people lost faith after faith after faith.

It wasnt that the task couldnt be done. It still might be. It was that this administration is/was made up at almost all levels with a bunch of people to whom reality was not a happy place so they simply invented their own.

Bush's presidency was dying for sometime...but it collapsed that day in the Hanger at Gulf Port when on the big screen he was telling Brownie "Heck of a job" and on the insert they were pulling people off the rooftops.

At that point the American people figured out that at almost all levels...the people in this administration didnt have a fracken clue what they were doing.

It has been downhill ever since.

Robert

Posted by Robert G. Oler at March 2, 2007 08:36 PM

I think that WWII gave Americans a wrong veiw of war. We went in, kicked a$$ and left. We took the next step with the Japanese and crushed them so throughly than even Bushido capitulated.

Dennis, we think of things that way because we tend to sort out the worst consequences of WW2 as not being from WW2, but "That Idiot Harry Truma's War in Korea" or "The Military-Industrial Complex's Cold War."

We still had troops in Japan several years after the war ended, and wound up sending them to Korea when that broke out; subsequently we found out their fighting ability had degraded a lot while they were on occupation duty.

A better way is to quit buying oil as soon as possible by shifting our technology away from it to fusion electrical energy and resources from space. Without money you can't wage a war.

I think I've already talked about energy independence before... but to make a long story short: is the electorate that shut down offshore oil drilling over most of the seaboard, or shut down new construction of nuclear fission power plants, and even fights wind farms tooth and nail, going to suddenly allow nuclear fission or power beamed from space by microwave radiation?

Posted by Phil Fraering at March 2, 2007 08:40 PM

1. the first is that they never really come to grips with the situation as it is, how they want it to be, and what it takes to make that happen.

There were competent people who suggested how to take down and remold Iraq...just those that are alive today..Zinni, Owens, Shinseki, even Powell...

Funny you should mention Powell. I thought that two or three months or so into the occupation the controlling authority was transferred from the military to the State Department. (You know, the branch of government run by Powell).

(And I'm beginning to think that that was the specific mistake.)

Posted by Phil Fraering at March 2, 2007 08:44 PM

Rand, for some odd reason either I forgot to italicize the second paragraph in the post above, or it stripped the italics from it. Could you please fix it for me?

Posted by Phil Fraering at March 2, 2007 08:47 PM

Posted by Dennis Ray Wingo at March 2, 2007 08:11 PM..

not so much.

WWII was a textbook application of warfare doctrine...ie it enables diplomatic change. Some of that diplomatic change we did very well (Germany..west..and Japan) some of it we did not so well, Korea, dealing with the former colonies of our allies, The Soviet Union...

There is nothing unqiue about this. The Civil War crushed the concept of rebellion in the Union...it took another 100 years to crush slavery.

We usually "in war" do what our main goal is well and do not do so well at the "edges".

Iraq is a case where this administration was fundamentally incompetent in all aspects.

They listened to people Like Greggy and Dickie who had zero uniform time and ignored people like Zinni and Owens...

Dickie has his policy. It blows.

Robert

Posted by Robert G. Oler at March 2, 2007 08:48 PM

(And I'm beginning to think that that was the specific mistake.)

Posted by Phil Fraering at March 2, 2007 08:44 PM..

The authority transfered was trivial.

A suggestion is to go to Zinni's speech at Norfolk just before the war. It was sponsored by USNI and was a great "how this is going to be screwed up" text.

SecState got some authority but only on paper. The "controlling authority" in iraq was and remains today The Military. They take orders from a different building. Powell and the STate Department were completly powerless in the events that unfolded in Iraq from the time the statute fell until more or less now (with Condi).

They dont have the staff and what expertise they do have on the ground is more from the Republican right wing uberallis squad then anything else (IE "He/she is right on abortion so make them an expert")

The sad thing about Rummy is he was "to smart" to bother reading how Dug out Doug succeeded in Post atomic bomb Japan, how Pershing and Arthur M, made it work in the Philippines, how it failed in the South after the Civil WAr...

they had Achmed Chalabi...he was going to be the leader of the new Iraq...problem is he is a thief, a liar, and a con man.

And no one knew him in Iraq.
Robert

Posted by Robert G. Oler at March 2, 2007 08:53 PM

**********

He may have read Pershing but never did what Pershing did to crush the Phillipine insurrection. When a terrorist was killed then Pershing had them buried (yes these were the Muslims of the southern regions) face down with pig entrails to guarantee that the dear martyrs did not get their virgins.

It failed in the south after the Civil war because you will never win against a determined population who have not been crushed into the dirt. Also the politics shifted away from the question of former slave rights after the principal goal of ending gross ownership was established.

The civil rights era succeeded because the white populace as a whole was finally ready for change.

Posted by Dennis Ray Wingo at March 2, 2007 10:01 PM

*******

I did not say one word about fission nor did I talk about space solar power. I specifically said FUSION and RESOURCES from space. I did a few calculations a couple of years ago and if we imported Platinum from an asteroid or the Moon, the energy in that Platinum is greater than if we had beamed power from the Moon to the Earth.

We gotta quit thinking like 70's space advocates.

Posted by Dennis Ray Wingo at March 2, 2007 10:04 PM

Dennis is utterly wrong about the oil. If U.S. stops buying oil abroad tomorrow, this will not degrade ability of Islamists to wage war in any meaningful way, if only because China would continue buying everything that's left.

Also, their economies (and thus the tax base which they use to fund their war) are not that dependent on oil. Egypt is a major tourist destination for the Europe, for example. Iran is basically self-sustaining, like South Africa.

Posted by Pete Zaitcev at March 2, 2007 11:56 PM

Rand,
I realise that you have to keep the spam-bots away, but the posting filters seem really aggressive. I've put together a post about fusion, relating to a video by Dr Bussard available at ggl (content filter didn't like the search engine), but the text I tried to post (max 449 words, 2705 bytes) kept getting rejected or causing an internal systems error, so all I can say is this;

See http://video.GGL.com/videoplay?docid=1996321846673788606 replacing the obvious. It's non-radiative, non-thermal fusion, by Dr 'ramjet' Bussard. If it works, all bets are off.

Tone

Posted by Tony (UK) at March 3, 2007 06:08 AM

Posted by Dennis Ray Wingo at March 2, 2007 10:01 PM
...

Dennis. The south was crushed into the dirt. HL menke of the time did a great story about a guy being buried in the south after the civil war to illustrate how badly the south had been crushed...

The failure of post civil war "south" is that the Reconstruction period was accomplished as well or badly take your pick as Mr. Cheney and all the neocon geniuses have accomplished task in Iraq.

The only part of the world that was "as crushed" as the southern part of the US was after the Civil War was Germany or Japan after WWII.

The south was beaten thinner then a dime.

Robert

Posted by Robert G. Oler at March 3, 2007 06:29 AM

Posted by Pete Zaitcev at March 2, 2007 11:56 PM

right on target.

Robert

Posted by Robert G. Oler at March 3, 2007 06:30 AM

The civil rights era succeeded because the white populace as a whole was finally ready for change.

Posted by Dennis Ray Wingo at March 2, 2007 10:01 PM

More fiction.

The Civil Rights era suceeded because the federal government finally got serious about pulling the governance props away from "the keen minds of hte south" who couldnt figure out that Gone with The Wind was a movie.

Slowly but surely the federal judiciary, the federal law enforcement arms and the FBI dismantled the "Al Sadrs" of the south along with the various "militia" groups (the KKK) which had terrorized the black population.

The federal government was competently managed in the late 50 and 60's era in terms of just pulling the reigns of power from the civil governments in the south.

US Marshals had more to do with convincing the "white population" to play along then did any "we are ready for it".

Pershing was about like the General in Anbar. He (the General in Anbar) more or less stole a page from Pershing when he told the good folks of hte province "The US Marines can either be your best friend or they will destroy you".

Face it, Cheney et al couldnt manage hitting the ground with a turd.

Robert

Posted by Robert G. Oler at March 3, 2007 06:35 AM

In terms of accountability, Bush finally appears to be capable. I'm impressed with how he is handling the problems at Walter Reed. Oh, if we only had Gates instead of Rummy in 2003. I haven't heard Cheney talk about Walter Reed, but if he had, he probably would have denied it in his usual, vigorous, reality denying style. Cheney, not Libby deserves to be charged, simply for continuing to lie to the American public. Also for continuing to give Bush the worst advice possible, and lying to the POTUS. With a different team Bush could have been a great President.

Maybe we've finally moved from labelling critics as unpatriotic to understanding the important role criticism (and reporting the facts) plays in a democracy. WaPo did the nation a great service in exposing what returning soldiers have to deal with.

Posted by Offside at March 3, 2007 06:57 AM

Bush likes football...and he loves the game of The Dallas Cowboys vrs WAshington Redskins in the fog where Clint Longely came out at the end of the fourth quarter and threw three or four td's in a role to win the game.

Bush is having a stronger fourth quarter.

Gates is a very very good man. He has a clue as to the things that you are saying, IE criticism is a needed feedback ...and seems to be willing to "chop" when it is necessary.

As you say, oh for Bush having Gates instead of Rummy and a competent VP instead of Cheney.

Big government is no different from big corporations...it works as long as one has competent leadership to inspire good people to do the job.

The problem with both big government and big corporations today is that people at the top are never accountable for what they failed at...

Why is Cheney still in government?

Robert

Posted by Robert G. Oler at March 3, 2007 07:15 AM

I wonder to what extent one should take right wing media and talk radio in particular to task for the denial of reality or creation of an alternate reality that has been the hallmark of this administration. I mention this because I often listen in on my long drives to work and invariably feel frustrated with the deception, the twisting of words, the selective arguments, the presentation of rare events as the norm and vice versa. And frankly I honestly do not see a parallel on the left, at least none with the vast reach of radio over commuters in lines of traffic.

I can't articulate this very well, and I'm sure some of you will rip me up for it (Carl Pamph-leteer for example) but I believe that the Limbaugh/Hannity/Levin etc. crowd create a feedback loop that make it ever so much harder for the administration to take a clear look inwards at what is actually happening. If your most vocal supporters find brilliant (but essentially fake) arguments to assail every valid criticism of policy this must constitute a very high threshold for reality to overcome. It must constitute a positive feedback loop for any argument that seeks to confuse a clear look at facts.

I am convinced that right wing talk radio is a serious impediment to rational, calm criticism and discussion. It may creat a core constituency of "dittoheads" or "you're a great American " responders who think every Democrat is in the pay of Al-Qaeda, but does nothing for intelligent conservative argument. In fact the Hannnity gang are probably the true conservatives worst enemy. I work with a guy who spends hours every single day listening to Limbaugh. That's his news feed, from which he eternally quotes. I think its his illness, shared by many who think they are saving this nation from liberal perfidy, and I argue this infection creeped into the administrations policy.

Posted by Offside at March 3, 2007 08:04 AM

I see your point and do not necessarily disagree with it...but right wing nutty radio is to a large part an echo chamber of whatever the "party line" is.

In this case both Right wing Radio and the administration have been "feedback in a high gain loop". The administrations sole basis for existance is the uber right wing "restore honor to The White House means no stains on the blue dress" crowd...so this administration has pandered to them. And they have responded by cheering endlessly.

This administration understands (or understood) the "aura" that Ronaldus the Great was held in by conservatives. Unable to mimic of even pale copy the competence of Reagan's administration in most issues, it has resorted to simply "cheerleading"...and the right so desperate for things has followed blindly.

It really takes a "leap" of faith to believe LImbaugh and all's line that "The WMD was moved to Syria"...but no more a leap of faith then was required to buy any of the justifications for going into Iraq. But the right wing (and that includes some here) were cheering endlessly as one false claim after another were made in the war runup.

Examine for instance the "Joe Wilson's wife deserved it" logic. Even if you "buy" the "Wilson got it wrong" argument the same people who make it have no problem simply dismissing as trivial any statement that "The Administration misstated the WMD threat from Iraq".

They want to believe...so they believe.

This is not unique to the far right. The left has the same babble. Kos or someone was reporting in the early days of "Fitzmas" that Rove was going to be indicted.

If one had even the most minimal knowledge of how indictments are handed out everything said in that report was babble...

But they wanted to believe.

Cheney's Iraq vision has its counterpart in the Darfur babble.

Objective reasoning is not a high part of politicaly isolated "wings" of the parties.

Robert

Posted by Robert G. Oler at March 3, 2007 08:51 AM

You have a good glimpse of the truth here. Millions of Americans get their news from the likes of Limbaugh and Hannity, even though they say straight out that they aren't reporters. Sometimes they are so disingenuous as to say that they are just entertainers.

Even so, Rush Limbaugh has been the same man since 1984. So whose fault is it that the administration is plugged into him? If Cheney wants Fox News on all channels when he enters a hotel suite, do we then just say, "Gee, Fox News has a big responsibility on its hands"? Because, if Fox and even Limbaugh restrained themselves, then surely Cheney would find the next ideologue down the chain to assuage himself. Maybe some of the ordinary fans of these media would too.

Posted by at March 3, 2007 09:16 AM

Ah simberg is having some doubts,
He's found himself backing a moron
because he spouted the neocon vision.

Now Israel finds itself iwth a strategic failure in
southern lebanon, Iraq is in tatters, and Iran
is running the middle east.

Perhaps Simberg shouldn't have engaged in his
clidish satires of the adults.

Posted by anonymous at March 3, 2007 10:04 AM

The poet laureate of this site is {anonymous}? Someone quick, we need some counter poetry, please. This poetry pains me. ;-)

Posted by Toast_n_Tea at March 3, 2007 10:18 AM

This poetry pains me.

Anonymous Moron is probably a Vogon.

Posted by Rand Simberg at March 3, 2007 10:45 AM

Good job on the Hitchhiker's Guide reference, Rand.

As for the topic, I think, in a military sense, our problems stem from a continuation of the Cold War 'limited war' strategy that proved so ineffective in Korea and Vietnam. As long as we leave Iran and Syria out of the Iraq equation and Pakistan out of the Afghanistan equation, we will always be fighting on the enemy's terms. This is also true, it seems, of the situation Israel faces in southern Lebanon.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any good way out of it now. Just as Truman considered it lunacy to even think of attacking China, and world opinion regarded Nixon's 'expansion' of the Vietnam War as criminal, any real escalation of this war to include its primary combatants would doom the whole endeavour.

Posted by P. Aeneas at March 3, 2007 11:35 AM

Robert

You are shallow on history as always. As someone who actually grew up in the area that was at the tip of the spear of the civil rights movement you are simply wrong.

In the coal mines and steel mills whites and blacks had worked together for a hundred years. This was the result of the destruction of the independent yoeman farmers in the south in the late 1800's and the forcing of these people into industry (there are very good books about how reconstruction helped this along and screwed poor white and black folks, including our family)

When integration happened of course there was opposition but little in contrast with what had happened during the reconstruction era. My stupid step father actually knew the guys that bombed the church in Birmingham and thankfully someone ratted on them and they were sent up the river as they should have been.

You simply don't know what you are talking about.

Dennis

Posted by Dennis Ray Wingo at March 3, 2007 11:44 AM

It is interesting to me that the war in Iraq is exactly the same type of regime change philosophically that the War of Northern Agression was (come on Robert I know that you will respond to that).

It is funny that Robert's neolib ilk support the latter while panning the former.

Posted by Dennis Ray Wingo at March 3, 2007 11:47 AM

Dennis.

who knows what I or you or anyone would have supported had we been alive in that era (the Civil War)...we are individually products of our history as much as our present and to say "this or that would have been my view real time in history" is a fools errand.

It shows little knowledge of history and the role it plays in our lives.

The Civil War was fundamentally different from what Bush did in going to IRaq.

HOlding the Union together was, if you are in Mr. Lincoln's shoes a necessary requirement for a strong Union. One might adopt the "keen minds of the souths" view in terms of a different (and equally in my view valid) interpretation of wheather or not it was "the united STates of America" or "The United States of America" but Mr. Lincoln adopted the latter.

There was no threat to the REpublic that justified going into Iraq. All the ones Cheney, Condi even Powell illustrated were overblown, overhyped and more or less "lies".

I dont believe in "liberating" people who are not Americans just to make "us" feel good. I dont care for instance that they are dying by the thousands in Darfur. They are not worth the life of one American.

Having gone on a fools errand however we are stuck. Leaving particularly in the Cut and run way of most Democrats would endanger The Republic....

That is why we have to win...and I am glad finally that competent people are attempting that on behalf of this administration.

AS a historical note...I dont have a clue what my actual views would have been in terms of the Civil War. I am a Texas boy. My relatives sat the war out fighting Indians instead.

But if one were to project my views today back onto the historical views of the time...and The Constitution of the time...I would have I think argued that slavery was probably unavoidable as an issue that we were going to fight over, only because it was caught up in the essence of how the title of The Republic is capitalized...(grin)...but The Constitution of that era clearly allows it.

IE I probably would not have urged combat right up until the neocons of the South fired on federal facilities. Then I would have argued that they needed to be crushed no matter how many lives it cost.

As they were.

I am and will be for all my life, a strong believer in teh supremacy of The Federal Government...

Robert

Posted by Robert G. Oler at March 3, 2007 12:05 PM

I am and will be for all my life, a strong believer in teh supremacy of The Federal Government...

Robert

Posted by Robert G. Oler at March 3, 2007 12:05 PM

dont know how part of this got left out...

...the supremacy of The Federal Government in preserving protecting and defending The Constitution and the rights given to The People by their Creator.

Sorry.

Robert

Posted by Robert G. Oler at March 3, 2007 12:07 PM

When integration happened of course there was opposition but little in contrast with what had happened during the reconstruction era.

Posted by Dennis Ray Wingo at March 3, 2007 11:44 AM..

Ah Dennis you are so predictable...out comes the strawman.

your comparison falls flat on its history so I dont even bother to refute it.

You are entitled to your beliefs and viewpoints. They are shared by almost no historian and even by the "unwashed masses". LOL

Or by common sense.

If things were going so splendidly without federal authority, why 100 years after reconstruction (More or less) had so little progress been made in the social structure of the deep south that we more or less had to have another shot at violence to correct them.

Nice rewrite of History Dennis. I hope you know more about space "stuff" then history...

LOL

Robert

Posted by Robert G. Oler at March 3, 2007 12:10 PM

about my last post Dennis...

obligatory "cheap shot"...just thought I would make you feel right at home on all the ones you take! LOL (I am in a good mood...)

Robert

Posted by Robert G. Oler at March 3, 2007 12:14 PM

Roberyt Oler's grasp of history, is so pitifully
weak as to be totally useless to any effective observer. The American Civil War, claimed 500,000
lives, more than any other conflict, wounded easily two or three times that. Adjusting for today's population, that was close to five to
ten million Americans. The war began after a
'separatist force' the Confederacy, which was
composed of a fair number of the other losing
political factions of the 1960, having lost to
a corporate attorney, with radical ideas, attacked
the major American infrastructure. The War, on the
Union side, was premised on the idea of unity, but
gradually hinged on the issue of equality and abolition of slavery, issues that challenged the
economic interests of foreign powers, like England
and France; who lent some support (see the CSS Alabama case), even in the Northern enclaves like
New York City, the likes of Mayor and future congressman Fernando Wood's sympathies were with
the 'insurgents', riots errupted over conscription. The President waged war by total
suspension of habeas corpus, military commissions,
with the loyal opposition in the Supreme Court, including the Justice who had started the whole
disaster with Dred Scott, overruling his every
move (re; ex parte Merryman & Milligan) Detention
camps like Camp Douglas outside Chicago, which make Gitmo and Bagram seem like the Holiday Inn.
And Sherman's scorched earth tactics. Even after
'Mission Accomplished' was declared at Appomatox,
parts of 'insurgents' from the Quantrill and other
Confederate forces, as well former Generals like
Bedford Forrest, waged war, on the newly freed
population, and to a lesser extent against the
Union 'occupiers'. Radical legislators, waged campaigns against the resurgent confederate establishment. Eleven years later! violence that
discouraged voter participation in key states, that plus the recent economic crisis, forced the
final retreat from the conquered territories. After which the newly empowered "Redeemer"
political class, returned the people to as close
to anti-bellum state, as possible, through repression and legal suppression of political rights ; a condition that lasted nearly three
quarter century.

As to the World War 2 comparison, that faulty Sherman tanks during the Operation Tank, the
miscalculations that led to the Vichy firing
on Allied forces after the dreadful deal with
Darlan. the inability to prepare for the entrenched German forces in the Boche,after
Normandy, the bad planning that led to the strafing of Clark AFB in the earliest hours of the war, not to mention the collapse of the Corregidor garrison, The turkey shoot at Rapido River, that hung over Gen. Mark Clark's into the 50s, the surprise in the Ardennes (despite the fact the Germans had tried the same gambit a quarter century earlier, and at the outset of the war)Just a few fiascoes that come to mind in that
war. In the aftermat of that war, that promised the liberation of Poland and China, and ended up
delivering them to a more mechanical despotism,
we let so many of the leading industrial, political, scientific collaborators of the enemy (Schacht, Abs, Thyssen, Krups, Globke,Schleyer,
Kiesinger, Von Braun, Rudolf, Eichmann, Brunner, Skorzeny, Mengele, Kodama,;warlord in China, founder of the LDP,bagman for Lockheed. Sasagawa; kindred war criminal, contributor to Carter library, Kishi, Hatsumato? the subject of the alleged 1952 plot to depose Yoshida et al; of th hook, to little lasting benefit. Thsi was the lesson we tried to apply with de-Baathification.
However nearly four decades of Tikriti mob rule,
along with piece-meal acqiescence to Salafi and
even Wahabbi trends sundered Iraqi society now
irrevocably. That and the neighboring Sunni contribution like Jordan's Raed Al Banna at
Hillah, and Zarquawi, Egypt's Ayub al Masri, the whole Saudi contingent, from Al Quahtani,(Bagdad,
Al Quaim,) to Al Ghamdi(Mosul) all contributed to
Shia Islamic, messianic nuhilism typified by Muqtada Sadr, and Al Hakim's Badr brigades.

AS to the esteemed Gen. Zinni, the proconsul of CentCom who did nothing as Al Queda metastasized
into a threat in his bailiwick, Shinseki of the
chinese ranger berets, and the application of
the Bosnia model, to the Iraq problem. That was
hoe he came with the 300,000 troop number, and
a cursory view of his conduct of the 'Desert Crossing' war games, show he had no real interest
in the operation. His calculation, also failed
to consider the footprint of such a large force
in Iraq. His replacement, Schoomaker, a real snake eater, from the Special Forces, a veteran of Desert One, Mogadishu, the Pablo Escobar mission in Columbia, and dozens of operations, who had given up in 2000, after the Able Danger data mining program had been deep sixed)Powell, who had failed to blow the whistle on My Lai, a year early, a charter member of the Saudi loving
Carlyle Group, a board member of the mysterious
Azerbaijani Oil Company and Baku Chamber of Commerce,along with Armitage tied to the son of a KGB viceroy in the region, his advice has marginal utility for me.

Posted by narciso at March 3, 2007 07:54 PM

Gimme another drink...O Narciso, where comest thou from?

Posted by Toast_n_Tea at March 3, 2007 08:00 PM

simberg

big government isn't incompetent

conservatives and neocon government is incompetent.

the neocon delusion was incompetent in iraq, afghanistan
and in katrina

Posted by anonymous at March 4, 2007 07:12 AM

Anonymous;( seriously can't you spring for a
better pen name) Neo-Con government is an inexact
description of the policies conducted in any of
those three locales, not to say false. Rumsfeld
can't be considered a neo-con, neither is Cheney,
Wolfowitz didn't have primary responsibility in
Afghanistan, A realist position would hav argued
against going into that theatre of operations,
accomodating the Taliban, and more importantly
their Pakistani ISI sponsors. A really strict
realist, like Michael Scheur, would have mandated
a more concretely Pashtun coaltion not the Uzbek/
Hazara, Tadjik one we have today. On Iraq, the
neocon preference was more toward a government in
exile, not the Bremer viceroy set-up, immediate
devolution of political authority to the Iraqis.
As eventually happened through the IGS after a
long and pointless delay. Certainly there were neocons on the staff; Mike Rubin, the late Ambassador Hume Horan, but their views generally did not prevail. In fact, their was effectively a stalemate between State's preference for Pachachi,
CIA's preference for a strong man like the late General Khazraji and the Defense Depts Chalabi/
Talabani network. Similarly the support of that
Baathist retread to control the 'Fallujah Brigade'
which proved to be a total disaster, wasn't a neo-con idea, De-Baathification was a consideration of neo-cons, but not exclusively as it was considered a sign of justice, toward the actual Shia-Kurd majority over the Dulaimi/Ubeidi/Jabbar Sunni tribal oligarchy, intrenched in the Amn As, Mukharabat, and other security services, and ruled in a ruthless and self-defeating way; as their actions created the conditions for the Sadr and Badr militias. Finally, Katrina polices had
nothing of the neo-con flavor to them, come on
have a serious argument.

Posted by narciso at March 5, 2007 06:18 PM

...come on have a serious argument.

You ask too much of Anonymous Moron.

Posted by Rand Simberg at March 5, 2007 06:25 PM

wolfowitz had plenty to do with Iraq, so did Feith.

Feith's shop closed up any discussion of alternate
discussions in Afghanistan and teamed with the Vulcans
to start combat operations.

The neo-cons were really an insidious thread through the
whole team of Vulcans. Rice isn't a neo-con, she's
just a moron, but, she was teamed up with the
neo-con agenda.

Rumsfeld was hoping Iraq would help him crush the
Army institutional culture, and he finds himself
now having driven the army off a cliffside.

But the Neo-cons were also found in quantity in
Congress, in the press, in the thinktanks
(AAEI, Heritage, CSP) and were willing to push
for a policy of continous war.

That these were able to hitch up columnists in the
media to a common agenda says something about their
agenda and strength, despite the obvious harm this
would do the american national security.

Most of the neo-con media types are now abandoning
ship, leaving only the slow like Simberg behind.

Posted by anonymous at March 6, 2007 01:53 PM

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