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Guitar Shark
05-16-2005, 01:21 PM
May 16, 2005
Staying What Course?
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Is there any point, now that November's election is behind us, in revisiting the history of the Iraq war? Yes: any path out of the quagmire will be blocked by people who call their opponents weak on national security, and portray themselves as tough guys who will keep America safe. So it's important to understand how the tough guys made America weak.

There has been notably little U.S. coverage of the "Downing Street memo" - actually the minutes of a British prime minister's meeting on July 23, 2002, during which officials reported on talks with the Bush administration about Iraq. But the memo, which was leaked to The Times of London during the British election campaign, confirms what apologists for the war have always denied: the Bush administration cooked up a case for a war it wanted.

Here's a sample: "Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and W.M.D. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

(You can read the whole thing at www.downingstreetmemo.com.)

Why did the administration want to invade Iraq, when, as the memo noted, "the case was thin" and Saddam's "W.M.D. capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea, or Iran"? Iraq was perceived as a soft target; a quick victory there, its domestic political advantages aside, could serve as a demonstration of American military might, one that would shock and awe the world.

But the Iraq war has, instead, demonstrated the limits of American power, and emboldened our potential enemies. Why should Kim Jong Il fear us, when we can't even secure the road from Baghdad to the airport?

At this point, the echoes of Vietnam are unmistakable. Reports from the recent offensive near the Syrian border sound just like those from a 1960's search-and-destroy mission, body count and all. Stories filed by reporters actually with the troops suggest that the insurgents, forewarned, mostly melted away, accepting battle only where and when they chose.

Meanwhile, America's strategic position is steadily deteriorating.

Next year, reports Jane's Defense Industry, the United States will spend as much on defense as the rest of the world combined. Yet the Pentagon now admits that our military is having severe trouble attracting recruits, and would have difficulty dealing with potential foes - those that, unlike Saddam's Iraq, might pose a real threat.

In other words, the people who got us into Iraq have done exactly what they falsely accused Bill Clinton of doing: they have stripped America of its capacity to respond to real threats.

So what's the plan?

The people who sold us this war continue to insist that success is just around the corner, and that things would be fine if the media would just stop reporting bad news. But the administration has declared victory in Iraq at least four times. January's election, it seems, was yet another turning point that wasn't.

Yet it's very hard to discuss getting out. Even most of those who vehemently opposed the war say that we have to stay on in Iraq now that we're there.

In effect, America has been taken hostage. Nobody wants to take responsibility for the terrible scenes that will surely unfold if we leave (even though terrible scenes are unfolding while we're there). Nobody wants to tell the grieving parents of American soldiers that their children died in vain. And nobody wants to be accused, by an administration always ready to impugn other people's patriotism, of stabbing the troops in the back.

But the American military isn't just bogged down in Iraq; it's deteriorating under the strain. We may already be in real danger: what threats, exactly, can we make against the North Koreans? That John Bolton will yell at them? And every year that the war goes on, our military gets weaker.

So we need to get beyond the clichés - please, no more "pottery barn principles" or "staying the course." I'm not advocating an immediate pullout, but we have to tell the Iraqi government that our stay is time-limited, and that it has to find a way to take care of itself. The point is that something has to give. We either need a much bigger army - which means a draft - or we need to find a way out of Iraq.

E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com




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Nickdfresh
05-16-2005, 04:33 PM
Originally posted by Guitar Shark
May 16, 2005
Staying What Course?
By PAUL KRUGMAN

There has been notably little U.S. coverage of the "Downing Street memo" - actually the minutes of a British prime minister's meeting on July 23, 2002, during which officials reported on talks with the Bush administration about Iraq. But the memo, which was leaked to The Times of London during the British election campaign, confirms what apologists for the war have always denied: the Bush administration cooked up a case for a war it wanted.

Here's a sample: "Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and W.M.D. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

(You can read the whole thing at www.downingstreetmemo.com.)

Why did the administration want to invade Iraq, when, as the memo noted, "the case was thin" and Saddam's "W.M.D. capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea, or Iran"?...



Because we turned into irrational retarded children wanting to hit back at anything Muslim after 9/11, and secure oil fields and new military bases....

Idiot and Fearless Leaderhttp://java.sun.com/j2ee/1.4/docs/tutorial/doc/images/tm.gif
http://www.republicangear.com/Bush%20Picture%20Button%20Round.gif channeled this irrational hatred and stupidity, coupled with his Neo Con agenda, against SADDM HUSSEIN. And here we are, tied down in a continuing guerilla war with no end in sight.

Brilliant!

BigBadBrian
05-16-2005, 06:10 PM
Paul Krugman should stick to writing Economics textbooks for Socialists.

rochesterdr
05-16-2005, 09:11 PM
That's a pretty accurate description of the current situation, I think. I was in Northern Iraq for a year and watched a relatively stable region turn to complete chaos by the time I left. It was always dangerous, but compared to every other place in the country, it was the most stable. Steadily it got worse and eventually it was absolutely chaotic. That is not progress and I don't buy the argument that says "that's just gorwing pains, you are going to have speed bumps when creating a democracy from scratch." Bullshit, those people don't want us there and don't know what to do with a democracy. Is that much not obvious? Is the US going to hold their hands for five, ten more years?

North Korea is scary, man. They could do some serious damage, especially to S. Korea. Our forces there are not sufficient to defeat millions of N. Korean troops, then throw in the possibility of nukes... i say this as someone who trained for 15 months in anticipation of a war with N. Korea. I was once told by my Platoon Sgt, and I quote "The reason morale is so low here is that our mission is a speed bump. Everyone knows that." Basically he stopped short of telling all of us that our go to war mission was essentialy to die a horrible death, but we all knew that anyway. I hope Kim Jong Il doesn't do anything drastic. That guy could seriously fuck up everyone's day.

Yes, their military has old, shoddy equipment and is probably underfed and not as well trained as US Forces. But those guys would fight to the death, of that I am sure. Much like those "insurgents" in Iraq.

I guess it's hard to win when the opponent you are fighting doesn't care about life or death. Obviously, that's not the case with the US forces. None of us want to die over there or anywhere. We all just want to do our tour, come back home and try to get laid or spend time with the family. Of course, the "insurgents" fight for Allah and the N. Koreans fight for the Dear Leader, the cult of personality and they are no less devoted than the Iraqis.

I've gotten kind of off track, but it would be very bad if we continued to fuck around in Iraq holding the iraqi's dicks for five more years and then some wacko like Kim Jong Il seized an opportunity and fucked everyone's day up. Very bad.

Guitar Shark
05-17-2005, 10:45 AM
Thank you for your service to our country, rochesterdr. :rockit:

Nickdfresh
05-17-2005, 06:20 PM
I second that thanks.

ODShowtime
05-17-2005, 06:26 PM
Originally posted by rochesterdr
it would be very bad if we continued to fuck around in Iraq holding the iraqi's dicks for five more years and then some wacko like Kim Jong Il seized an opportunity and fucked everyone's day up. Very bad.

Now is the perfect time. Why hasn't he acted yet?