It is the presidents job to lead, not to follow. In my opinion he has done a miserable job of that. The majority of the country is simply not invested in the war, the weight of which is left to be carried out by our military and their families alone. That was and is a mistake. Furthermore this administration has made a mistake by not leveling with the American people when it became clear this will be a hard slog. Just because something is hard and costly doesnt make it not worth doing, the American people understand that.

I do not know how many times the President said that this was going to be tough and a hard slog. He spent one whole debate using that phrase, so I don't buy the he didn't tell us, maybe you weren't listening or hearing what he was saying. The case for the war had been made, the case for the rebuilding has been made. That Bush should continue hammering these points is a given but a responsible press would have made the job easier. I am personally tired of the whole debate, the left lost the debate in 2002, 2003, and again in 2004. I have given up even arguing with people because its pointless. They don't want to get it because to get it would be unbearable. The chimp was right or something to that effect. We were in Germany for 60 years, It seems to me we should be able to stay in Iraq for more than 4.

The problem with Bush is despite the host of agruments that can be made to the American people, he insists on repeating the same basic arguments over and over. It comes off as simple and out of touch.
Another problem that Bus has is that he tries to stay above it all and refuses to engage in partisan rhetoric. Even when Harry Reid calls him a loser, he doesn't fight back. He needs to call out the media, call out the democrats and call out the copperheads in this country. These people already hate him, so it costs him nothing politically.

I largely agree, but would point out an additional (and not necessarily contraditory) dynamic. Success is problematic:

We've toppled Saddam Hussein . ... We've put Iraq on the road to democracy. And we've trained its military. "What else should our goals be?"

Republican Rep. Walter B. Jones

I wouldn't doubt that if we captured Zarqaqi tommorow that calls for withdrawal would shortly follow. Progress is inevitable, but it will create its own problems.

I'll be the first to admit that Bush is horribly uncharismatic and lacks the qualities of statesmanship desirable in a President at all times and during times of war especially. But on the other hand, the following quote is completely unfair.

"Furthermore this administration has made a mistake by not leveling with the American people when it became clear this will be a hard slog."

I could not begin to count the number of times that Bush warned the people after 9/11, and in the run up to the Iraq war, that the road ahead would be extremely long and hard - much longer and harder than many now imagined. In fact, I can remember Bush comparing the War on Terror to the Cold War and saying that it would, like the Cold War, be a matter of generations before anyone could say that we've won this phase of the fight against tyranny. I took that to mean that when we went into Afghanistan (and latter Iraq), that we were committing to be their and fight that fight for at least 40 years and I never once thought that there would be a time any time in the foreseeable future when American soldiers weren't dying on foreign soil.

I certainly heard 'long hard slog' in Bush's speaches. Arguably though, we haven't even reached the days of 'long hard slog', since Iraq and Afghanistan are producing lower casualty rates than anyother comparably large military efforts in US history - much lower than what the critics of those wars predicted prior to the beginning of those wars. I fully expect worse days ahead on the soils of other countries. How soon or what those countries might be, I couldn't say, but this commitment is clearly far from finished.

If I think Bush can be criticized its for not telling the American people that they must sacrifice, and for acting as if we could fight such a war while still enlarging our domestic spending at an unprecedented rate and making no civil sacrifices whatsoever. "Go on as normal", might have been good for the moral in the face of a looming depression of both the economy and the public spirit, buts its unsustainable advice over the course of the whole war and now Bush has himself backed into a corner where if he does indicate that Americans should make sacrifices - it will now be used as a weapon against him to claim that the only reason Americans must make sacrifices is that he's managing the war badly.

For the record, I supported the Iraq war but worried that the time and troop commitment required to sustain the transformation would be so lengthy, that it would essentially mean forgoing American deployment on other more pressing fronts that might require fewer troops (Sudan?). My wife opposed the war, primarily because she felt that the American people lacked the strength to see it through to the finish and that it would be better to not begin than to do a half-baked job of it. I normally admit that my wife is usually smarter than I am, but in this case I hope she is wrong in her cynicism.

Let's see what the House and Senate look like in January 2007.

"I do not know how many times the President said that this was going to be tough and a hard slog. He spent one whole debate using that phrase, so I don't buy the he didn't tell us, maybe you weren't listening or hearing what he was saying"

Lets not make the mistake of mixing up Iraq and the GWOT. Bush has indeed many times talked about the length and difficulty of the GWOT. That is fine. I do not recall him talking about how the rebuilding of Iraq was going to be a long and difficult and probably blood road. Early on, I think a lot of people believed it was going to go a lot smoother than it has, so I dont fault Bush for not saying anything then. But as of now, its pretty obvious that at least for the next couple years, things are going to be violent. And our obligations to Iraq will certainly continue for at least a decade. Bush hasnt specifically said such things.
Foppa has a point, its not that Bush hasnt said that Iraq is important, its that his administrations storyline never changes. The only reason the Dems and the end the war folks are coming out of their holes is that Bush hasnt said that violence is inherint to this process now, and its level is not the only metric of success. All the talk of the insurgency on the ropes and desperate (anybody want to deny how many times this adminsitration has said something along those lines?) has been counterproductive.

What should be said is that it doesnt matter what the insurgency does because our plan will succeed independent of them. We hunt insurgents and terrorists to protect individual Iraqis, but the forces of democracy and liberty cannot be put back in the bottle no matter how many bombs go off. Bush can then rightly say that if there are more deaths in June than in May, that doesnt mean the insurgency is getting weaker or stronger or anything at all. Their defeat is inevitable so long as we keep our nerve. That should be what the president tells the American people, not the disjointed rhetoric we have heard.

The administration and more excessively the right wing have contnually down played the difficulties and costs of the operation. Serious reports by the military and others before the invasion did suggest that this could be long, hard and expensive.

Despite a few comments here and there this was ignored. An individual was fired for saying that it could cost several hundred thousand dollars. A chairman of the joint chief of staff was mocked for going with conventional ,ilitary estimates of the troops necessary. Now we routinely sweep trouble spots and then leave them so the enemy returns. Deja vu?

The right had it's fun. Things looked easy 2 years ago. Rightiwing "experts" like the Belmont Club announced the guerillas defeated before they started. "Quagmire" was a joke. Well quagmire or not it's a bit muddy.

So what do you expect when people have been told it's easy, when we thought it was so simple we put a bunch of yong conservatives in charge, didn't bother to disperse our forces among the people, but thught they could leave relatively comfortably in waled off palaces. Made sure they had a flat tax and free trade, but didn't worry about corruption. Avoided giving their firms work when ours could work safely, bought concrete from Turkey because the Iraqi plants were government owned. Fired Gen. Garner because among other things he advocated other elections then tried to convince people that elections nearly 2 years after the invasion were our idea not a surrender to Sistani. Let the local rulling councils decline...

Played it rinky dink and anytime anyone complained called them a traitor liberal (even General Zinni) and declared victory. Have you counted how many times the insurgency has been decisvely defeated? On The Belmont club at least 10 times. I suspect it was the same on talk radio.

If you make false promises to people then sooner or latter they become disillusioned. If this effort fails it will be the right far more than the left that undermined it. But that doesn't matter to the right because they have never really cared. It's a game and they think they win in the really big game, the one that matters, the one were they get to bluster by blaming it on fifth columns and traitors.

If Iraq fails, it won't be bad for the right or the left, it'll be bad for everyone. You want to see al-Qaeda recruiting skyrocket, you wait till bin Laden and Zarqawi get to boast that they sent the US home with a bloody nose and (rightly) claim that we won't have the fortitude to intervene to stop them anywhere else, which means they get free rein of the region.

Moreover, a US defeat in Iraq will essentially end the Arab reform/democratization process. With no US encouragement to democratize and al-Qaeda coming to call, every despot in the region will clamp down and prepare for a fight. I know I would if I were Mubarak, Mohammed, Abdullah, Saleh, or any of the other rulers of the region.

I agree with Mark. This is a leadership failure by President Bush. He's a big government Republican. The American people are not part of his conception of presidential office. I doubt he thinks of the American people as an entity - rather I suspect he sees less encompassing interest groups, just not as narrowly defined as the Democrats do. Control issues are probably part of this too.

While the MSM would definitely suppress any speeches by Bush aimed at the American people, Bush certainly has not even tried to reach the American people as a whole, let alone tried to sell his war policy to the American people as a whole. He has the means despite the MSM.

But if the American people as a entity do not exist for him, he won't try and it won't even occur to him to try.

Take a look at the editorialists of 1864 and what they had to say about Abraham Lincoln and you'll see nothing different from what their spiritual descendants are saying about George W. Bush- right down to the aspersions on his intelligence and the comparisons to simians. Lincoln didn't survive long enough to see his detractors reduced to a footnote but Bush probably will- if they don't sabotage his efforts first.

Some people just can't figure out basic Clauswitz- war is the provenance of friction, and nothing ever works the way you thought it would so just get used to it.

I think alot of it has to do with the bait and switch. Most people support the GWOT and the actions in Afganistan. But then, something happened. Our leaders changed course. A disasterous choice. And one that will haunt them and our country for eons.

The Press, Dems, and other liberals were predicting quagmire and massive casualties in Afghanistan right before the Taliban fell. Seymour Hersh comes to mind.

So, forfeiting any credibility they had, they now aren't believed much and Bush and his administration brush them off because they are idiots. Wrongly but there it is.

Porter Goss has been quoted as saying he knows where bin Laden is, in a sovereign country. Biden, running for President, has given his campaign donors a hypothetical about bin Laden in Pakistan and received groans as they tell him they wouldn't act.

Politically, there is no more appetite for any military action, even to get bin Laden, unless/until we lose a city. It's basically that bad, Liberals have succeeded in erasing 9/11 from the memory of the nation. Of course, another attack is inevitable, and that will change the political dynamic by essentially erasing the Democratic Party.

Dan,

A few things -

It is the case NOW that various Al-Queda and other Islamic jihad organizations recruiting is skyrocketing. And this is BECAUSE of the US engagement in Iraq, not despite it. I agree with the point that it will encourage jihadists, but you elide this point.

Also, it would be interesting to get your definitions of "failing" in Iraq. Usually when this question is asked, the answer is vague.

If Kurds claim autonomy in a year, or two, will ths count as failing?

If in 3 years, there are still a car bomb/IED/other attack a day in the country, will this count as failing?

Lastly, there truly are some political costs to be paid for continuing the war - see this LAT article.

All previous sustained military conflicts - WWII, Korea, Vietnam - were able to be fought because of a MUCH HIGHER TAX RATE in the United States. There was money for it.

Do you (and others here) endorsing raising taxes to pay for the war we are in?

We have had an unlimited constant drumbeat against the Iraq war from the MSM. Reporting anything bad and ommiting anything good unless they are forced to cover it. It is worse than the late 60's and early 70's. The MSM thinks they can defeat the US again. This time they aren't the only voices like they were then. I don't believe they will succeed but they are sure trying.

The MSM lies by ommission. Never report the good. Blow the bad out of proportion. Never talk about the evil the enemy does. The very smallest thing our military does wrong make a mountain out of it. Their drumbeat is we are defeated, defeated, defeated. We must get out NOW before MORE lives are wasted in this DEFEAT.

Think aout it. With the biased press how could Bush's numbers be anything but down. The MSM may win this one as they won Viet Nam but I don't think so. There are too many OTHER voices now. What really is happening is getting trough. I hope it will be enough.

BTW. For those of you who don't believe the MSM helped lose the Viet Nam War for the US. To Bad. The Government of Viet Nam agrees with ME.

With TODAYS MSM we could NEVER have won WWII. NEVER. ^$%#&&(&%%$W@$&@(* MSM.

#4

The Iraqi's have put Iraq on the road to democracy, not the US. The US was forced by the Shiites into elections. It was not something the US wanted to see. Claiming otherwise is simply a lie

#5

Your not fighting against tyranny but Arabs. Your claim of fighting for democracy is as hollow as the Sovjets claim of fighting for the workers.

#9

If Iraq fails in its bit to fight of its oppressor than democracy in the Middle East will not succeed. If it does than the rulers will all fall very soon. Sadly the US, and the West, is the oppressor of Iraq and most of the Middle East.

JC:

Ignoring the obvious retort that al-Qaeda doesn't publish recruiting statistics, let me also point out that they've scored several major victories in the last couple of years: against Spain, against the Philippines, against Pakistan (Waziristan is basically a pseudo-state within Pakistan ever since the Pakistani military pulled out last year, kind of like the PA was in relation to Israel in the early stages of the Intifada), and the jihad in the Caucasus is in full swing. Any one of these, which are not good developments (and I think I've said as much here) and I would submit are every bit as important to the group's recruiting as anything that goes on in Iraq.

Also, it would be interesting to get your definitions of "failing" in Iraq. Usually when this question is asked, the answer is vague.

You've never asked me that before, to my recollection, unless it's been part of a declarative. In any event, we fail in Iraq if the country collapses into a sectarian civil war, Iran becomes the de jure or de facto ruler of southern Iraq, etc. If Jaafari proclaims himself President-for-Life, I'd consider that a failure.

To answer your more specific questions:

If Kurds claim autonomy in a year, or two, will ths count as failing?

Autonomy or independence? They have autonomy now (see their new president or on a less happy side the abductions et al. by Kurdish elements in the north) and are likely to continue to have it for the near future.

If in 3 years, there are still a car bomb/IED/other attack a day in the country, will this count as failing?

I consider IEDs a bit different than car bombs, especially in terms of the body count. There are rocket attacks nearly every day in Afghanistan, but I'd certainly consider that country in a hell of a lot better state than it was in October 2001.

Do you (and others here) endorsing raising taxes to pay for the war we are in?

Do you even know my position on taxes to begin with? While I tend to regard this recent rhetoric (originating over on LaT?) as a stealth attempt to implement traditional Democratic politics under the banner of some kind of renewed bipartisan support for the war. I'm lukewarm on the tax issue in large part because I am not an economist, know very little about economics, and freely confess my ignorance on the topic. If it'll help us win the war, I'll support it. I've seen some very good arguments, from people whom I ideologically identify with far more than you (respectfully, of course) and have also seen some arguments to the contrary. In the absence of independent expertise, I defer to people far more intelligent than I.

JC:

It is the case NOW that various Al-Queda and other Islamic jihad organizations recruiting is skyrocketing. And this is BECAUSE of the US engagement in Iraq, not despite it.

The problem is that this argument rests on a demonstrably false premise; that is, that barring Iraq, there would be no increase in recruiting, which I doubt can really be assessed quantitatively anyway. It assumes that we would somehow be safer without Iraq. In addition, it assumes by default that it is better not to fight than to fight. Does resistance to a just cause make the cause unjust? No one would argue that and expect to be taken seriously. Yet that is in essence what JC asks us to believe: that were it not for Iraq, all those people signing up to be jihadis would still be selling shoes, baking pies, arranging flowers for a living, etc. And given what we know about the nature of militant Islam, anyone making such a suggestion should be laughed from the room.

It is simply absurd to assume that the recruitment of individuals to leave their homes to become suicide bombers etc can be attributed to one or another cause, rather than an inherent irrationality. Victor Hanson gave several very good examples recently:

A Syrian smuggler of jihadists to Iraq, one Abu Ibrahim, was interviewed. He made the following revealing statements:

(5) that despite denials, Syrian police aided the jihadists in their efforts to hound out Western influence: They were allowed to enforce their strict vision of sharia, or Islamic law, entering houses in the middle of the night to confront people accused of bad behavior. Abu Ibrahim said their authority rivaled that of the Amn Dawla, or state security. "Everyone knew us," he said. "We all had big beards. We became thugs."

Read the entire article here.

Are these people who need justification to purvey their brand of holy war? Why does a spoiled, rich Arab engineering student fly a plane into a skyscraper? Why does a Muslim man call the death of innocent Muslims by his own hand "marytrdom"? Hatred is by its very nature irrational. It does not require justification. People capable of strapping bombs to themselves or taking hostage a school full of children should be considered capable of anything. Any justification that they use is merely an excuse. To accept such excuses is to empower criminals. To accept this is to deny that such people are responsible for their own actions.

Pretending that the absence of a war in Iraq would protect us from people who need no justification to vent their irrational hatred on those around them is not only foolish beyond description, it denies the very nature of foe we are faced with, and indeed, bespeaks an ignorance of the nature of this war. It is beyond stupid to believe that avoiding conflict with someone capable of taking his or her own life to strike at you would result in increasing your safety.

The only bait & switch was by Democrats. They want us to do as little as politically feasible for them.

Anyone who feels differently is, for Democrats, a vile liar. This is normally called projection.

It was not politically feasible, for a few months after 9/11, for Democrats to oppose the Taliban's overthrow and imposition of a friendly regime in Afghanistan. By 2003 it would have been feasible.

The Bill Clinton of 1992 and 1996, and the Al Gore of 2000, could not have won the Democratic presidential nomination of 2004.

That changed because the Democratic Party changed. Not us. And the Democrats play bait & switch games. Not us.

What happened was that the Democrats, having lost the White House and both houses of Congress, lost most of their non-ideologically based contributions, i.e., those from business groups and businessmen, and became almost entirely reliant on ideologically based contributions from individuals, and those individuals are way outside the American mainstream on most every issue, but especially national security.

The Democratic Party has within the past four years, and especially the past two years, become almost entirely reliant on political contributions from individuals who totally abhor the use of American military power abroad for any and all purposes related to American interests, notably the protection of the American people at home from attack by foreigners.

I said this on Winds of Change last Thursday here:

"Your party is now reliant on an ideologically narrow but generous base of contributors. Those used to be a rather small number of wealthy contributors until Joe Trippi and others in Dean's campaign figured out a way to tap lots of small contributors, principally through the internet. But both groups have a common ideology where national security is concerned. And the influence of such contributors has been magnified by the Democrats being out of power in both houses of Congress as well as the Presidency. You guys no longer have enough contributions at the national & congressional levels from business to in any way counter-balance the individual contributors.

So no one in a position to speak for the Party well enough to give it an appearance of ideological diversity dare denounce outrageous statements by senior Democrats such as Durbin. Doing so cuts them off from general election funding by the Party's chief source of campaign contributions and worse, invites primary challenges by those more ideologically pure.

Which is one of the reasons why I call this a death spiral."

An article in The American Thinker the very next day said (my emphasis):

""Democrats, to judge by recent events, appear to be losing their collective minds in some form of shriek therapy. Being out of power may do that to a party used to having its way for many decades in Congress. But there is one other possible explanation for the apparent insanity. With so much money concentrated in the hands of some hard left advocates (think George Soros, Hollywood, trial lawyers, internet millionaires and some union bosses), the Democrats may feel the need to feed the beast - to protect and cater to their hardcore base, so as to keep the money flowing into the political coffers for future campaigns. So the strategy is for Democrats to be completely over the top in their attacks - trashing Bush, America, our military, Republicans, and Israel, all of whom are targets of the activists, to keep the moveon.org and Dailykos crowds happy."

There is no longer any common grounds with you guys on national security. This has happened before with other groups. "The only thing you need to know about Nazis is how to lick 'em."

You Democrats have made it plain that you don't accept election results, even after 2004.

So let's get to it. Winner takes all. You guys choose the rules. Just remember who has the guns.

a,

While ostensibly you share some of my views, by your writings, I would encourage you (and by pointing at you three fingers are pointing back at me) to use a bit more logic in your posting - your three assertions may have some merit, posted as they are without context and (dare I say it) nuance, simply look foolish.

Take for example -

4 - "Iraq's have put Iraq on road to democracy". This has a grain of truth - if it wasn't for the pressure of Sistani and his allies, the US wouldn't have switched gears as quickly as they did to turn over Iraq to a provisional govt and have elections -

but the US was clearly instrumental in all of that. None of it would have happened without US facilitation, so saying "because of Iraqis" is foolish.

5. "fighting for democracy hollow" - well, at THIS point, the US is fighting for a stable, democratic government. While at the beginning, the US might have had a plan to turn Iraq over to a Shiite strongman, that plan died a quick death. All the work since the commitment to the provisional govt is to have an inclusive stable, somewhat democratic govt. (Whether it can happen with the troops available is a different story)

9. "US oppressor in Iraq and Middle East". Again, far too simple. FAR too simple. Yes, the US has been cozying up to oppressive dictators for decades - the "best of bad options" choice. I haven't agreed, and am glad that the language has changed to supporting democracy, when it is possible. In this, the current administration is following Jimmy Carter's vision, however distorted with visions of american supremacy and arrogance..

DD: thank you for a good point there, a loss in Iraq benefits no one. Not liberal, not conservative, not anyone.

We're particularly hampered by a lack of candor in the administration, and an inability to relate to another element than its own. While this gives an obvious feeling of power to the partisans, it doesn't lend itself to real debate, and real exchanges.

Polls seem to be the present exchange of viewpoints, lacking others. Once upon a time, legislators dealt with each other in civil discourse, now they throw verbal explosives at each other and work things out in the press.

What people like to call MSM usually indicates the major traditional organs, and they are being shut out from administration exchanges. It may be satisfying to blame them for a coloration that tends to balance administration claims with opposing claims - but they took the blame when reports that relied only on administration misinformation turned out to be false, recall.

Who fights the war? they're voting with their feet. They are not enlisting in droves.

In the Vietnam era, young people were subject to the draft. No wonder they protested the war, vehemently and publicly, it was their lives on the line. No wonder today, they're staying away, it's still their lives. I support the troops, I support young people and their great prospects for a future.

Historically, while American Jacksonians (whose sons and daughters largely fill the ranks of the military) have little problem with the use of force they don't have much patience with occupations. Particularly, as with Iraq, when we're taking casualties. Add to that the lukewarm support for the Iraq invasion from Hamiltonians and Jeffersonians and it's not much surprise that popular support is flagging.

That having been said I think that post-historians and trans-nationalists are foolish to be opposing our actions in Iraq. In my view that maximizes the likelihood of all-out warfare in the Middle East.

I forgot to post the URL for the American Thinker article identified in my post No. 19 above. Here it is:

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=4578

The US MSM news cycle is driven by events. Not processes. Public opinion rises and falls based on the news cycle. Going from zero Iraqi battalions to 100 "not quite ready for prime time batallions" is a process. It does nothing to shift public opinion. Turning portions of Baghdad over to Iraqi Security Forces does nothing to change public opinion (It did free up an entire brigade). Public Opinion will shift when a formal ceremony turns control of Baghdad over to the ISF. Incremental change just will not register.

WE ARE WINNING THE GWOT - The MSM just doesn't get it!

To All:

I agree with Dan D. and Dan #15.

OK I'm all for debating this but perhaps we can swing some of this energy in the Blogos to a useful purpose.

Yes, President Bush could have done better in stating his position but couldn't we all. Give the man a brake. FDR did not have a MSM which was rooting for the enemy. I believe he is sincere when he says we will assist the people in the ME to secure freedom.

President Bush in the past and Secretary Rice yesterday delivered a message to the ME leaders. A strategic shift in our strategic foreign policy in the region. We will no longer support repressive government for the sake of regional stability. This is a radical change from our past policy over the last 50 years followed by both Rep and Dem administrations alike including Bush II:

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Yes, we found no WMD but when the truth finally comes out it will be found that most of the WMD was moved to Syria and Lebanon in the run to Baghdad. Do you remember the "accidental" straffing of the Russian diplomatic corps on a run for the Syrian border with other vehicles. What do you suppose they were covering their tracks on? Do you remember the large quantity of chem weapons that one of Zarqawi cell was intercepted with enroute from Syria to Amman, Jordan to release a huge toxic plume? The VX gas had markings from Saddam and I believe the Russians.

See this thread re Iraq and Lybia were on the verge of going nuclear that they had succesfully concealed from the IAEA:

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The biggest challenge has been the expectations of the American people that has been generated by the false perception of the GWOT as protrayed by the MSM.

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I'm with Grim that the recent rise in "insurgency" and suicidal bombers in Iraq is drawing down the enemies resources that they can't afford to lose. After all the majority of the recent bombers in Iraq have been Saudis on a Jihad mission. Also see the post re Red on Red here at WOC. This is significant as it demonstrates this is being driven by the enemy's resources pouring into Iraq.

The next key battle front in the GWOT is the Mad Mullahs of Iran. This administration will not blink as this as the strategic consequences of the mullahs going nuclear are unimaginable. See this thread here at WOC re Iran and AQ and ship launched e-bombs.

You can be a part of the world's first digital revolution. See this piece I posted over at the Strategy Page:

To all in the Blogos:

Here's a chance where the Blogos can lead the MSM with a story the American people need to hear that the MSM can't or won't report.

Now is the time to put it on the line like our fellow bloggers who literally risk life and limb in these repressive regimes. You have the power at your finger tips to make this happen. If we all work together we can do this.

See this piece I just sent to the WSJ re it's OP-ED piece on Iraq today.

Let's avalanche other news media and demand they report these stories we all know about but unfortunately the American people have been left in the dark by the MSM.

As I say a free press' first responsbility is to ask the tough questions and hold our government accountable and to objectively educate and inform the American people. The MSM is too preoccupied with their liberal vendetta against the Bush administration over the 2000 election to notice or if they do they see this move by Bush as imperialistic/colonial occupation of the ME to report these stories. They are not grounded in reality. The American people are smarter than this as witnessed in the last election.

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The chemical weapons of the Zarqawi cell were IIRC dual use and not even bought in Iraq

#20

the US might have had a plan to turn Iraq over to a Shiite strongman,

might?

The US had to give in to the Shia not because they wanted to but because the US would loose if the Shia were on the insurgents side

a,

You're new here. I can tell.

Armed Liberal asked in the fall of 2003 how we could tell we were winning the occupation campaign in Iraq. I replied that victory would be determined by our relations with Iraq's Shia. I said that they were the strategic center of gravity of the occupation campaign.

And we won.

We didn't give in the Shia. We made an alliance with them. We give them control of Iraq by disarming the Baathists, with due safeguards for the Kurds who were already our allies, and the Shia would then kill as many of the Baathists as necessary to convince the survivors to behave.

We're not quite done disarming the Baathists, many of whom now realize how happy the Shia will be to give the Baathists what's coming to 'em. Check out the Analytical Differences thread above.

"At the moment, the Kurds and Shia Arabs believe that their militias could take care of Sunni Arab terrorism, and that could only happen with the coalition troops gone. Moreover, surveys show that 68 percent of Iraqis don’t believe there would be a civil war. That’s based on the fact that Kurds and Shia Arabs represent 80 percent of the population, control the police and army, and would not be too upset if they were forced to deal with Sunni Arab violence in the traditional Middle Eastern way (that is, with great violence and brutality.) This is why the Sunni Arabs are making a real effort to cooperate with the government. The Sunni Arab leadership cannot deal with the Sunni Arab terrorists by themselves, and don’t want to have the entire Sunni Arab community held responsible for the acts of Sunni Arab terrorists. So the Sunni Arab leadership is lining up with the government. Increasingly, Sunni Arabs are being told by their leaders to cooperate with the police. Where the local Sunni Arabs groups have enough guns, they have fought battles with Sunni Arab and al Qaeda terrorists. Where the terrorists have an edge is those regions, like along the Syrian border, where criminal gangs are particularly strong (because of smuggling). Together, the gangsters and terrorists usually have more guns than any tribal militia. This is why American marines keep finding gun battles along the border.

The terrorists continue their self-destructive ways, launching suicide attacks against the police and civilians. Day by day the strength and effectiveness of the police and army increases. American training experts believe that it will be two years before Iraq has enough police and troops to deal with terrorism. Iraqis believe the problem will be solved more quickly than that, but being more brutal with those Sunni Arabs and foreigners who persist in their murderous ways. The United States wants to avoid this, as they will get blamed, in the world media, for the brutality of Iraqis trying to deal with their terrorist problem."

An analogy to your reasoning is: "Reagan didn't win the Cold War because the Communists surrendered first!"

"and is based heavily on the proto-al-Qaeda MAK's success at defeating the USSR in Afghanistan."

Er, this is AQ mythology here. Most of the fighting and the dying was done by the Afghans themselves, and they generally considered the Arabs tourists. In any case, the Soviets chose to leave when the price rose too high.

I'm not sure about that one, prak. According to Scheuer and others, they were in the thick of the fighting, as were Afghan Islamists like Hekmatyar and Sayyaf. Gunaratna also says that bin Laden was even briefly exposed to Soviet poison gas on the front, so he clearly wasn't a tourist.

Either way, the whole Iraq strategy is still predicated on replicating the defeat that the Soviet Union experienced in Afghanistan. That is the model, IMO, much more than Vietnam.

Dan, your analysis of how the center feels is spot on. I early supported the war because the administration convinced me that Saddam Hussein had WMD and that we needed not only to take them away from him, but we needed to finish what had been left unfinished in the Gulf War when Saddam Hussein had been left in power. Though not a Bush supporter at all, I admired what I felt was his masterful diplomacy in rattling those sabers convincingly enough to scare SH to allow the inspectors in. I felt that when they found the WMD, it would be the end for SH because he would be removed by the UN without the US having to take all the heat. Alternately, were no WMD found, SH's days also would be limited because without that fear factor, he would be removed by those elements within the country that wanted a return to trade with the world.

I was wrong. There was no diplomacy. At the behest of the neoconservatives, Bush had been planning war since the beginning. Not only had he been planning war, the "intelligence" that was presented so convincingly by Colin Powell (whom I had thought to be an honorable and forthright man) and others turned out to be lies. Given all that has emerged, I can only conclude the administration was well aware of the true state of affairs. There were no WMD, and they knew it. There was no al-Qaeda connection and they knew it.

The only conclusion that made any sense to me was that the administration knew the American people would never support a war for the purpose of liberating Iraq from tyranny and establishing a democratic government in the midst of Muslim fundamentalism. That's unfortunate, because if they believed that, they may well have been wrong. In any event, it's a great pity the nation never held this debate. I also suspect that Bush and his advisors thought that the war would be over so quickly and that a new regime would cause everyone to forget that the real rationale for the war had not been discussed. Unfortunately the military lacked sufficient force to ensure stability following war. It's not as if the military didn't tell Bush this; remember Gen. Shallikashvilli, who predicted we would be there for at least 4 years and would need 400,000 men?

That is my answer to the people who commented that Bush had used the term "long, hard slog." Sure, he used the words, but they were only rhetoric. The man who told the truth was sacked. And even today, we still have our tax cuts for the rich and our domestic spending and our talk about the insurgency being on its last legs.

I think the American people are willing to support any effort that is worth the cost. Clearly, Bush and his minions fear that if Americans knew the real cost, they would balk, and so they have attempted to conceal the true costs while talking of "a long, hard slog." This war will likely cost us $600 billion before it's over, and I doubt if it'll be over by the next presidential election year. That is equal to the entire amount the World Bank has lent to developing nations in its entire history. Research budgets for NSF and DARPA are cut, and NIH is, at best, holding constant to pay for the war. Our technology represents one of our very few advantages over the eager upstarts in India, China and elsewhere in the world economy, and we are eating it to pay for this war. I think the American people are a pragmatic nation. We really don't act on ideology, yet it was ideology that got us into this war supported by lies told in an effort to sell the war to an unwilling public.

Someone commented above that Bush was not charismatic. Worse than that, he is not a leader. To me he comes off as a weasel, a shifty-eyed little "disassembler" who tells lies when the truth would do as well. He sends young men and women to their deaths when he, himself, was unwilling to fulfil his own commitment to this nation in times past and when everyone in his administration had more important things to do than serve in Vietnam. Such hypocrisy! (Lest I be accused of the same, I served this nation in the US Army from 1970-1972 when I didn't have to go.)

I have no confidence in these people to lead this nation to victory. They have demonstrated nothing but incompetence, and it all started with telling lies, or at least concealing their true motives. Bush will be unable to bring this war to a successful conclusion because he is invested in defending his original decisions. He cannot bring himself to admit his errors and then to change. The insurgency will ultimately triumph because our effort is built on lies, and as more and more people recognize this, the cost becomes increasingly unacceptable. The best thing that could happen to Bush is a Democratic sweep in 2008 because then the ideologue architects of this mistaken policy can blame Democrats for pulling us out "short of victory" (after how many years?)

We won our War of Independence simply by waiting out the British and making the war too costly. It nearly bankrupted the British Empire. We lost in Vietnam by the same strategy. The Soviets finally recognized the cost of Afghanistan was not worth the price and withdrew, but they withdrew too late to save the USSR. (In my opinion, Afghanistan was more responsible for the collapse of the "Evil Empire" than was Reagan.) Now we are stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the resurgent Taliban threaten to bring Iraq-style insurgency to that unfortunate nation. I wonder if historians will identify our loss there with the demise of the Great American Republic.

I believe there is only one answer. Bush and his minions must finally tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. They must admit their lies, they must tell us what the real cost will be, and they must present a rational exit strategy. Then and only then will they be able to reclaim my support. Unfortunately, Bush is pursuing a strategy that will lead to our defeat. Pulling out also will lead to our defeat, the only difference being not in the end result but in the cost. Failing this burst of honesty, Bush must be removed from office for his high crimes and misdemeanors of lying to start a war. If lying over some minor sexual escapades is an impeachable offense, surely this is. We can then bring the nation together and in a bipartisan manner agree on how to get out as soon as possible and leave the Iraqis to settle their own differences. That they will do so with Civil War is not in doubt, but that's what's going on there, now, with us in the middle. Perhaps we all will get lucky and the Iraqis will, as peoples in the Middle East are wont to do, settle this with some horse trading, bury their dead, pay blood money to end the feuds, and make their own style of democracy.

I suppose I am one of the mushy middle that seems to earn such contempt these days. I supported Goldwater, voted for Reagan, but still voted for Clinton (twice). I did note vote for GWB because of what I saw as an alarming tendency to self-righteousness and primary certitude.

I listened pretty carefully and with mounting concern to all the pre-invasion time-limits that were being given to Saddam. I had the feeling that the decision to invade had been made long before what seems to me now to be a charade. I didn't hear all the warnings of long slog except for the war on terror--that struck me as fair given that terrorists weren't coming from just one country. I heard the term long slog applied to Iraq immediately before or during the invasion. It struck me as something I hadn't heard before. I remember thinking oh-oh. The speech on the carrier gave me a moment's respite and I remember thinking, Oh well, maybe I was wrong.

I don't think that the realities of the Middle East are really understood outside of the region. I'm not making the case that the culture there cannot change--and I think it's wonderful that there is now a climate that can support elections and other freedoms, no matter how halting and youthful. I do think, though, that these are cultures that live thousands of years of history as if they are yesterday. If you doubt this observation, look at the words of Jewish Seder. These aren't young countries like the US where everything can be started fresh. By culture, people there don't forget. I am afraid that we have now entered into their long memories. I guess my point is that we bring a lot of trouble down on ourselves by not bothering to learn about these cultures and by assuming that they operate on the same set of premises and motivations that we do.

Not touching on the situation on the ground with respect to Iraq misses the entire point of why public opinion is spiraling downward. The privitzation of security in Iraq, currently under control of a Halliburtan civilian subsidiary, answers to no one, not the Iraqi police, nor the U.S. military. Command and control of security is an utter mess without a military chain of command. Any measure of bringing the American people's confidence back in The White House's handling of The Iraq War is forever lost primarily due to this situation.
"bq"The U.S. military establishment of permanent bases there projects the preception by those who back the insurgency, inside and outside Iraq, that Western influences are going to be a permanent fixture there, which was the preception also in Vietnam. To establish any kind of secure future inside Iraq, if that's now possible, the United States military commanders must be given the authority over establishing security, which they do not now have, and establish the precesption throughout the Middle East that The United States military will not be a permanent fixture in Iraq.

Saddam was left in power because otherwise people like Jaafari would be in power. Was not a mistake and still isn't. But invading Iraq and loosing power to Jaafari is

"If it'll help us win the war, I'll support it. I've seen some very good arguments, from people whom I ideologically identify with far more than you (respectfully, of course) and have also seen some arguments to the contrary."

ah, we'll win over you over to the dark side yet, dan!

What are you talking about, LH? I worked at AEI, for God's sake, how much closer can you get to the dark side?

The US (and France) militairy was a permannent fixture in the Middle East for the last half century. Their weapons was what led the Jordan, Saudi and lebanese rulers to be in power. The sad fact is that the Iraq insurgents is the force that leads to a Middle East where the US military is no longer a permanent fixture. It is good that the US leaves but it is not good that it is done by the Iraqi insurgents as a lot of them are not particulary nice.

Actually, "a", Jordan's military was closer to Britain than the US for much of the last half century you cite. Likewise, the Saudis had ties to British military for much of the period. And Lebanon has been a Syrian client, not a US one, for the last several decades.

But despite that, none of your remaining point has any relevance. The US is not going to abandon the Middle East despite your fantasies.

Most of the fighting and the dying was done by the Afghans themselves, and they generally considered the Arabs tourists. In any case, the Soviets chose to leave when the price rose too high.

My understanding of the situation was that the Afghan-Arabs were largely ineffective and unreliable and in fact despised by many of the other resistance groups, which numbered as many as 14 different entities aligned by common cause.

"There was no love lost between the Afghans and the Arabs. One Afghan told me, 'whenever we had a problem with one of them we just shot them. They thought they were kings." - Peter Jouvenal quoted in Holy War Inc. (Peter Bergen)

Bergen also states the belief that Afghan blood primarily won the war, saying that the "war was won primarily with the blood of Afghans and secondarily with the treasure of the United States and Saudi Arabia, who between them provided approximately $ 6 billion in support."

I did some statistical comparison between the jihad in Soviet occupied Afghanistan (an event that helped facilitate international terrorism in the 1990s and today) and the jihad in Iraq (an event whose legacy remains to be seen).

Tale of Two Jihads

If 50 jihadists make it out of Iraq and return to their home nations with some explosive and firearm experience, can it be said that the war in Iraq led to proliferation of terrorism abroad down the road? Technically yes, but we have to keep context and perspective in mind and weigh the tradeoff. In the 1980s, helping to facilitate the collapse of the Soviet Union and the liberation of all of Eastern Europe was worth the result of having leftover jihadists roaming around. Will the potential that some terrorist residue is left over after Iraq be worth it if some form of Democracy takes root and Iraq joins the global community of responsible nations? I think so, particularly if it influences reform in the region.

As for the reasons behind the decline of public support for Iraq, there are several in my opinion and some of them have been mentioned already.

The administration should've taken a more pro-active approach, which might have kept more people on board. People need to be reminded we are at war, because aside from a primarily isolated community (the military & their families), there are not many people feeling the effects of this war. One might view that as a positive, but it also leads to widespread disengagement in the public.

The media and some of the critics of the war have done a fairly effective job at erroding support, by throwing up a one sided portrayal of events and keeping the focus on Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, U.S. soldiers "firing" on journalists, beheadings and kidnappings, and the lack of WMD stockpiles. They rarely touch the subject of what is at stake now, instead remaining focused on the rearguing the justification over and over.

I think the society we live in today is not condusive towards any prolonged engagement and that alone could be the death of us all. More Americans could tell you what happened on Desperate Housewives or who got voted off the new Gilligan's Island, than could list one piece of good news from Iraq in the last week, or have entertained what "losing" in Iraq entails. We have an on-the-run society that has little patience, loses focuses, and has a short memory.

Combine those three reasons, (1) some failure by the administration to be pro-active, (2) the media and critics of the war launching an effective campaign to errode support, and (3) the general nature of the society we live in and I think that's your answer to why public opinion has dipped.

The capture of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi would showcase exactly how wishy-washy and inclined to operate off headlines so many of those stuck in the middle are. It would spike up support for Iraq by 10 percent.

We are doing the right thing no matter what the LL, the MSM, and the Euro Weenies may whine.

To All:

This is all water under the bridge. We need to win the GWOT for a number of reasons. The single greatest factor in this war is the blantant MSM's failure to objectively report to the American people the real danger we are facing by Islamofascism.

Because of this the American people have yet to see they have a stake in the outcome. They have been lulled into the idea that this war is some this criminal action and we must afford the enemy the constitutional rights of American citizens as if judicial determinations will have any effect on the enemy. We are doing the right thing no matter what the LL, the MSM, and the Euro Weenies may whine.

See these two essays which further discuss these issues:

GEO-POLITICAL STRATEGIC ANALYSIS ON WAR ON TERROR

Read Here

and

FREEDOM - Thx to The Greatest Generation for Preserving It

Read Here

we can debate this until the cows come home but In the meantime as I said before Dr. Zin and the Iranian people need our help RIGHT NOW!

You can be a part of the world's first digital revolution. See this piece I posted over at the Strategy Page:

To all in the Blogos:

Here's a chance where the Blogos can lead the MSM with a story the American people need to hear that the MSM can't or won't report.

Now is the time to put it on the line like our fellow bloggers who literally risk life and limb in these repressive regimes. You have the power at your finger tips to make this happen. If we all work together we can do this.

See this piece I just sent to the WSJ re it's OP-ED piece on Iraq today.

Let's avalanche other news media and demand they report these stories we all know about but unfortunately the American people have been left in the dark by the MSM.

As I say a free press' first responsbility is to ask the tough questions and hold our government accountable and to objectively educate and inform the American people. The MSM is too preoccupied with their liberal vendetta against the Bush administration over the 2000 election to notice or if they do they see this move by Bush as imperialistic/colonial occupation of the ME to report these stories. They are not grounded in reality. The American people are smarter than this as witnessed in the last election.

Read More

OK I'm done now.

Iraq is not the war on terrorism. It is a completely different war who you only merge because there would be no support otherwise.
The Fact that you are loosing is because you started this mess which everybody could have predicted would go badly for the US. Iraq, inhabited by a majority of conservative Shiite who have more money to buy weapons than the US army and which sells oil. In short: they don't like us, they don't need us but because of oil are our enemies.
Lets hope that it will end in civil war instead of the Iraq-Iran alliance and its minor parties consisting of Syria and the gulf states with a Shia majority.
Atleast the US is not as incompetend in fostering civil war as it is in electing its leadership.

Again, "a", the facts contradict you. A large fraction of the fighters in Iraq are drawn from the same terrorist manpower we see elsewhere.

And in fact, far more dire outcomes than we've seen were predicted before we went into Iraq including a far more hostile Shia population. Your predictions have no credibility today.

More money to buy weapons than the US Army? Really, your imagination is almost amusing.

I know it is an exageration but Iraq could easily spend 10 billion dollar a year on its army. That makes your army belong to the big league.

The Shia are hostile but they are just sitting it out. They don't need to defeat you as the Sunni's and Baathist will do that

I always assumed that hairdressers are not in bed with fundamentalists but i seem to be wrong. Besides most fighters are native Iraqi's

"a", now you are just wandering randomly amongst possible claims.

a,

The invasion of French Algeria was not the war on Germany.

A lot of Frenchmen who were nominal allies (desired to be allies) were killed.

How do you explain it?

My explanation for Iraq:

1. Saddam was one bad mo fo. Mass graves etc.
2. Iraq is in the heart of Indian territory

Yep. Support for the war as it is being fought is declining.

What does that mean?

Many - like A.L. want to see more muscle applied.

Some - like me want to see that muscle applied to Iran and Syria.

So does such sentiment translate into Democrat cut and run votes?

I don't think so.