"The baby figure of a giant mass"
This just in from Armchair Command: the latest attacks in Iraq tell us Saddam Hussein must be found. Too bad the available evidence is that Saddam, one of the worst military leaders of the 20th century, has had precious little to do with the murderously effective resistance.
Recall also that the deaths of Uday and Qusay were supposed to quell help quell the violence and that in July President Bush described the resistance in just about identical terms as he used today.
But it is painfully obvious this administration pays no heed to what it once said, much less what someone once wrote.
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
and your post ISN'T armchair generalship?
and your post ISN'T armchair generalship?
Gosh, I didn't spot any marching orders in Jeff's post. But maybe I'm too busy reading to see if my jibes make any sense.
At least Sully has a good reason for being a chickenhawk. What's anon 3:25's excuse?
I see nothing in Anon at 3:25's post to indicate she is a chickenhawk. Perhaps joe at 3:38 knows Anon at 3:25 personally and can vouche for his/her chickenhawkishness?
"Recall also that the deaths of Uday and Qusay were supposed to quell help quell the violence"
I recall many people saying this. It would seem to make sense. Did Bush say it? Is someone suggesting that if only we would NOT have killed uckfa and ouya, the war would be going even better than it already is? Is this sentence implying (intentionally, that is)the war is not going well (well for a war anyway)?
"But is painfully obvious this administration pays no heed to what it once said, much less what someone once wrote."
Any proof that it is "painfully obvious" or is the statement in and of itself the sum total of the proof?
This sounds like another "stolen election" rant...zero substance, but lots of emotion.
Good thing Mr. Wolfowitz is bringing the fight to them.
So these terrorist fools have lost their country and are fighting a hopeless rear-guard action to get it back. But Jeff "continuing means imminent" Taylor is having yet more trouble with the English language and calls this "effective." He's apparently hoping against hope that fascist dictatorship will once again rule in Iraq.
PS Calling Saddam "one of the worst military leaders of the 20th century" is as silly as any politician mindlessly saying "this is the worst economy since the Depression."
PPS Quoting Ancient Greek literature to make a point here is worse condescension than Leon Kass telling us to read "The Birthmark."
PPPS Jeff, you're specialty is not world affairs. Maybe you better take a year's moratorium on the subject to stop embarrassing yourself.
speaking of wolfowitz:
Do you think his near brush with death will have him clamoring for use of the bomb while meeting with the joint cheifs/PNACers/elders of zion?
for the children, of course.
Is it me, or is there a certain measure of glee in commentary like Taylor's post? A little bit of, "see, our soldiers are still dying. I told you so!"
But I'm pro-war, and in my absolute best-case fantasy, I never dreamed casualties would be this *low* after 6 months. So no, this doesn't prove you were right about anything.
Look, you lost the debate over whether we should get into the worry. I'm sorry, shit happens. Can we all agree that it's important that we win? Bad news when our guys get blown up? That it should steel our resolve, etc, etc, etc?
Maybe I'm reading too much into the tone of Taylor's post. But it sure seems gleeful to me.
I'm not sure I get a gleeful tone from Jeff's post. It seems to be another complaint that the Current Administration seems to have this pathological need for scapegoats. The Current Administration can't seem to admit that pacifying a conquered nation is *hard*, but has to say, "If we could only kill Uday and Qusay, things will be okay.", and "If we could only find Saddam and kill him again, things will be okay." I don't like the Current Administration, but I do think they need to do our best to keep a bad situation of our own devising from getting worse, and this constant need for a "quick fix" isn't going to do that.
Okay. Maybe it's a little gleeful.
I didn't find anything gleeful in Taylor's post. I detected a subtle dig at the moronic Sullivan, who's principal contribution to the post war debate has been the illumiation of the "flypaper" strategy for taking it to the terrorists. An after the fact military strategy is no strategy at all.
Vietnam was where I tried to do my part to win hearts and minds. Came to naught.
Now I'm a gentrifier in the 'hood of Cincinnati. Still not winning hearts and minds. Mostly laying low. Ducking drug dealer bullets.
As the old Greek doctor said just before he said, "First do no harm": "First, try to avoid pissing folks off."
Bush was never intellectually curious about "counting the ways" his predecessors were pissing folks off.
US policy needed rolling back and then rolling back some more.
An intellectually curious leader could roll back without it looking so much like a retreat.
Neither killing Goofahy and Touchee, nor eventually finding O'Sadama will change this. And I don't know how we "win" something we've already won, and the liberated continue to kill us.
I read the post as showing that we change our reasons and our excuses without reconciling back to the previous edits.
From the intro. to the thread:
"Too bad the available evidence is that Saddam, one of the worst military leaders of the 20th century, has had precious little to do with the murderously effective resistance."
From the government we got enough wild fabrications concerning both, Saddam's alleged links to terrorists and the Saddam-WMD connection to put executives from the private sector, who engaged in simlar duplicity, in prison for years. Since Saddam was the pretext for the war, our government must now blame him for resistance to the military's continued presence in Iraq.
How many more Americans must perish in Iraq before the government does, indeed heed the spirit of the cited; Troilus and Cressida Act 1, Scene III:
AGAMEMNON
"... Nor, princes, is it matter new to us
That we come short of our suppose so far
That after seven years' siege yet Troy walls stand; Sith every action that hath gone before..."
If it's not gleeful, then it's at least curious how there's nary a word spoken by Taylor on the subject until another bomb goes off. I suspect the talking points for the next explosion are already written up.
On the topic at hand, has the "murderously effective resistance" increased or decreased its murderous effectiveness since the deaths of things 1 and 2 ( I don't know, as I don't keep graphs of this -- it does seem like there have been whole weeks of inactivity)? Does this have anything at all to do with their deaths, or the deaths/capture of other cards from the deck? And...
Does Andrew Sullivan really count as a spokesperson for the Bush Administration these days or is he just some guy spraying verbosity out into the ether? I fail to see why these dots were connected.
The Current Administration can't seem to admit that pacifying a conquered nation is *hard*
The "Current Administration", as you call it, has been saying that the fight to build a democratic Iraq, and the larger war on terrorism, would be long, difficult, and expensive. They have been consistent on this point.
The problem is, a lot of people don't care what the "Current Administration" says, or has said. They "know" that the "Current Administration" is composed of ignorant cowboys who thought the whole thing would be as quick, easy, and cheap. And because they "know" this, they delight in pointing out that the fight will be long, difficult, and expensive.
Our military commanders have confirmed that over the last few weeks the average number of daily attacks has increased. If we are winning, the number of attacks should be going down, not going up. Unless we are planning to leave Iraq with a civil war, it's hard to see how we are making any progress towards getting our guys out of there. New schools are not going to defeat these guerillas.
Of course, all of this senseless back and forth on the subject would be moot if the Current Administration was just smart enough to divert our gaze elsewhere. I'd like to propose that we heave enormous amounts of force at weaker nations every six months. That gets us on a very productive cycle, during which Bush can boost his ratings while everything's going well, and then re-aim the military at another beauty-pagaent-loving country with tissue-paper infrastructure when the going gets tough. If Karl Rove is worth his paycheck, we'll be at war again before the Republican convention. Cash money.
(I know, I know, you're thinking, what a bunch of dictator-loving, terrorist-sympathizing, anti-American nincompoopery disguised as sarcasm.)
Afghanistan is so 2001 and Iraq is beginning to bore me. Let's take out Syria. They're so weak, Paul Bremer could beat them up with a couple of Powerpoint slides.
Maybe a little glee is necessary. For behind every confident and condescending smirk and every smug expression, Bush still proves that everything he touches turns into a clusterfuck.
Its no wonder Cheney selected Bush to be his running mate!
Many of the posts here reflect that the REAL issue isn't 9-11, Afghanistan, Osama, Saddam, WMD, the UN, the French, Iraq, Syria, the EU, holy war, jihad, the crusades or this goddamn wart on my index finger. The REAL issue is Bush.
We would be in a way, way better situation in the War on Terror had the Tree from Tennessee "won" in 2000.
Oh, and Rick, re your Troilus quote. Remember that three years later the scoreboard read: Greeks 1, Trojans 0.
Too bad the available evidence is that Saddam, one of the worst military leaders of the 20th century, has had precious little to do with the murderously effective resistance.
To what "available evidence" are you referring? Confusingly, the word "effective" here is a hyperlink to an article which contains the following:
So that article can't be the "available evidence" you have in mind. What is it, then? I guess I'm just unclear as to how you dismiss so cavalierly the possibility that there could be any importance whatsoever (not even symbolic?) to finding Hussein.
Or maybe you're saying something close to the opposite: that it's so obviously important to find Hussein that it doesn't need saying by Sullivan. But if so then what's the point of making a post about it? Sullivan stated the obvious in a post, so he's dumb? O...k....
I'm also confused about your point vis-a-vis the terms Bush uses (and used) to describe the resistance. You seem to take the fact that his descriptive terminology hasn't changed much as evidence that he "pays no heed to what [he] once said" or (even less apropos of anything) to the text of a Shakespeare play. Say what? Here's the only thing he's quoted as saying in your July link: they are "a few remaining holdouts" who were "targeting our success in rebuilding Iraq." Was that wrong? How so?
Why in your view should he necessarily change what he says between July and now? Maybe he believed what he said in July, and what he's saying now is similar to what he said in July, because he still believes it, and it's still true. Why can't it still be true? Why does he necessarily need to change what he says in order to prove to you that he "paid heed to" what he said? If he truly "paid heed to" what he said in July, he wouldn't change it - if it was correct. And if it was incorrect, in what way was it incorrect?
These and other subjects are the kinds of things which would be covered in an informative and interesting commentary on the subject. FYI.
150000 American soldiers marching through the Arabian desert is an al Qaeda recruiter's dream. The number of people who hate freedom has skyrocketed, according to many polls. When even Donald Rumsfeld is not sure if he's winning, you know the war on terror is a disaster.
No one knows what Gore would have done, but it would take quite an effort for him to do worse
No, Tom 'o Texas, it's not about Shrub, it"s "sunday school teacher" Presidents. Jimmy "Ah Jus Wanna Be Fair," was the other example sticking in the memory banks of those of us still clinging to life.
Faith-basedness pisses folk off like Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormon elders knocking on doors.
And the farther away from "home" these "faith-based" Presidents knock, the ruder their reception.
Outside Amurika, folks jes ain't too tolerant!
Which is why I've long advocated ignoring our borders and issuing an invite for the whole world to move here and be Amurikan.
I notice we already got the babe from Afghanistan! Way to go, us!
I've been playing with numbers, real (list) and potential (paragraph), to get some perspective on level of resistance in Iraq. Thought I'd share, curious what anyone's take is (even if it's just that I'm an idiot who can't do math and should get back to work).
Baghdad Population: ~5 million
Adult(non-elderly) Males: ~1.25 million
IF 0.5% of adult male population of Baghdad is hostile enough towards American troops to take up arms, this leaves a force of 6,250 men. This DOES NOT take into account the numbers of any foreigners who have come in to also take up arms against US troops.
US combat deaths since May 1: 113
US wounded since May 1: ~1,100
Days since May 1: 180
Deaths/day: 0.6 or nearly 2 every 3 days
Wounded/day: 6.1
Attacks/day: ~20 (13-15 at lowest range 20-25 at highest)
Attacks/death: 30/1
Attacks/wounded: 3/1
IF each of the 6,250 men plans and performs 1 attack per week, that means each attack is performed by a group of 45 men. This still doesn't take into account outsiders.
So, admittedly by these potential numbers, over 100 must plan for one week to wound a US soldier and nearly 1,500 must spend a week to kill a US soldier.
Outside help only increases the amount of manpower required, as would levels of armed resistance above 0.5%. Lower level would indicate that less manpower is needed.
In the above, I used the number of all US casualties and all of the attacks, although only 90% occurred in Baghdad. Just easier given how close it was to 100%.
That analysis makes me scratch my head in confusion.
Seems on the surface like you're arguing for a "large resistance = lotsa manpower required per attack" equation. And if each attack requires lotsa man-hours, that proves... well, something good-sounding. ("It takes 1000 man-hours to plan each attack" sure sounds good to me and more to the point "it takes 10000 man-hours" sounds even better.)
But if I am to buy into that argument then I have to say that the more people there are in the Iraq resistance, the better. Heck if 99% of Iraq is involved in the resistance, just think how many man-hours must be going into each attack! Conversely, if all the attacks are being planned and carried out by a crack team of 12, that's horrible for us. Why they can plan and carry out each attack so quickly!
These are the conclusions one is forced to draw, if your analysis carries any weight.
Name:,
I wasn't really trying to make an argument with the numbers, just trying to get a perspective of the situation based on numbers.
You are correct, if the level of resistance is extremely small (crack team of 12, 0.001%) and not substantially aided by outsiders, then yes, they are very, very effective. Again, correctly, if the resistance force is huge, then they are extremely incompetant.
I suppose the hypothesis that led to my number choice (0.5%), was that resistance by Iraqiis could be both relatively small and yet ineffective. Everytime I hear "more than 100 US troops killed in combat since Bush declared the end of major combat operations on May 1st," I try to think, is that good or bad, all things considered? Not that 100 US troops dead is a good thing, but compared to 1000 it is. And just how much resistance we are seeing is important too, as it indicates how smoothly things are going. Too often thses numbers get thrown at us without any perspective, and that was what I was trying to get here.
Thanks for your thoughts on the numbers, sorry I hadn't really had an argument for you to agree or disagree with.
Tom from Texas wrote:
Oh, and Rick, re your Troilus quote. Remember that three years later the scoreboard read: Greeks 1, Trojans 0.
Even in the legend, during the course of the war, many died on both sides.
chthus, that's some interesting SWAGging. I think it is important, however, to consider non-troop casualties as well, since the targets have not always been US troops (asymmetric warfare). It would be foolish for them to try to go head to head with US forces since it has already been amply demonstrated that they could not hope to win that way.
I would also be interested in knowing how many US troops are there in Iraq -- perhaps 125,000 or so (pure WAG -- I don't know and it's too late for me to look up)? That would be 20 troops rebel/ insurgent/ guerilla (sp?). Very difficult environment to work in for them, and that may inhibit them and lead to a resistance that may be less effective than they'd like. However, if more "freedom fighters" pour across the borders and join up, then this does not bode well. Either their attacks will increase in frequency and effectiveness, or we will need to reinforce the current troop levels at a 20:1 clip until the cupboard is bare, effectively pinning the US down there.
Also, averaging over the entire "post-war" period may obscure any trends that may be developing -- but I don't know. The two options really seem to be A) the resistance is growing and plotting, or B) the resistance is fragmenting. It is possible, though unlikely, for A) and B) to exactly cancel and lead to C) no change.
Finally, it is the loser who decides when the fight is over, not the winner (although incapacitation is a de facto capitulation). Any of you ever get into a fight in school, or what? For this reason, I think the war is still on because the Iraqi resistance says it is, through its actions. This is in spite of this administration's petulant insistence that it dictate its own terms on everything.
Sharky,
That would be a problem, but as you might recall, bin Laden's four main complaints were:
1. U.S.-favoritism towards Israel;
2. U.S. enforcement of sanctions on Iraq;
3. U.S. forces deployed in Saudi Arabia;
4. Indian occupation of Kashmir.
The idea of destroying "the West" (i.e., the US and Britain) would not be a very good motivator in and of itself without specific grievances. People are much more likely to join an organization that has a tangible goal than one which speaks of vague generalities.
Anybody wanna guess who'll be left standing when this is over?
Iraqis: Built their cities 5000 years ago. Conquered by Hittites, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Persians (again), Byzantines, Arabs, Mongols, Turks, British and now US. Still living in some of those cities.
US: Built our cities 300 years ago. Kicked out half-hearted British colonizers. Never been invaded or conquered since. Progress measured in sound bites and opinion polls on electoral schedule.
Rummy and his gang can handicap the odds all they like--I know where my money's on.
Don't kid yourself, his goal is Islamic Revolution on a global scale. People don't kill themselves and thousands of innocents to halt UN resolutions. Don't fall for the "just give him Sudetenland" bit.
>>People are much more likely to join an organization that has a tangible goal than one which speaks of vague generalities.
Is that why there has been so many Christians and Communists running around? You are incorrect if you are talking about planet Earth.
history shows that when governments comply with the bulk of the terrorists' demands, terrorism stops.
You left off the Zionists. Curious oversight, that.
History also shows that when one side surrenders, the war is over and the fighting stops. If only we had rolled over in South Korea, the whole peninsula could be starving in peaceful unity! Paradise lost, indeed.
History records that you tend to get more of what you reward. If you want more suicide bombings, give the current crop of terrorists what they want. Other people, with other issues, will learn the lesson well: start killing innocents and you will achieve your goals.
Finally, history is replete with failed terrorist movements that were hunted down and eradicated.
I prefer to take my history lessons from winners, not losers, in an attempt to build a better world, not pave the way for a worse one.
Sharky,
If your child was kidnapped, and the kidnapper sent a note demanding $10,000, would you say to your wife, "Don't kid yourself honey, if we pay that they'll want the house next"? It's not very useful to make demands that have nothing to do with your agenda. Bin laden's core demands were all correct anyway and, if I had been president, I would've made those changes to US foreign policy years ago, long before 9/11. Let's make those changes (substitute "occupying Iraq" for "sanctions on Iraq" and "supporting the House of Saud" for "stationing troops in Saudi Arabia") and see what happens. If al-Qa'ida still attacks US targets (which I sincerely doubt), then we haven't lost anything and have instead regained moral superiority in the conflict.
As for your crack about Christians and Communists, last time I checked, the level of commitment needed to be either one of those things was substantially less than blowing one's self up. The example I have in mind is:
In local and state elections, single-issue candidates routinely out-poll Libertarians. Why? Because while people believe that a specific issue is ameliorable, they reject the comprehensive solution offered by the Libertarians as "pie-in-the-sky" idealism.
Finally, to all the posters you insist that Islamic fundamentalists are bent on global domination and US foreign policy has no relationship to it, why didn't Wahabbi terrorists hijack a trans-Atlantic zeppelin in the 1930s and crash it into the Empire State building? The Wahabbis were even more fanatical at that time (bin Laden would be considered an apostate by them for his use of video and audio recordings) and a hijacking would've been a piece of cake, since people weren't searched for weapons.
R.C.,
I am puzzled by your reference to my having omitted "Zionists". I skipped a couple dozen successful (ANC) or partially successful (IRA, Tamil Tigers) terrorist organizations. If you're trying to suggest I'm an anti-semite, my wife, Rachael (n?e Kahane), would probably be surprised at the accusation.
The "History records that you tend to get more of what you reward" claim is such tired bullshit, I really think you could do better. Other than WW II (which serious historians reject as an example of this type of argument anyway, but that discussion is outside the scope of a blog post), do you have three other examples?
As for who to take lessons from, I think winners and losers both offer valuable information. You can only know what wins if you also know what lost.
Part of me has always thought, it's sort of unfair when Andrew Sullivan or somebody calls antiwar folks "defeatists." They don't really want us to surrender to the murderous religious fanatic nut sandwiches. They just have a different idea of how we should win.
But I guess I've been too charitable, at least in Jack's case. There he is, acutally advocating surrender, as far as I can tell.
Maybe Jack's right. Maybe giving Osama Bin Laden what we wants would be the safer option (I don't agree, but let's pretend). That wouldn't make it the right course of action, and it sure as hell wouldn't make it right. I mean, say we make buddies with Al Qaeda, negotiate with them, etc., and it works (ha, ha -- wait, we're still pretending). Then you'd see our president shaking Osama's hand as they celebrate their "treaty." In exchange for that, we'd get fewer casualties. I'm not a military guy, but I would die to keep that from happening. I can't be the only one.
I also find it strange that Jack thinks Al Qaeda has such modest goals. It's true, OBL has talked about the things Jack mentioned. He's also talked about how it's every Muslim's duty to kill the Jews and the Americans whenever possible, and his grievances go back to the caliphate's loss of Spain. Why does Jack only take him at his word when he's giving Howard Dean's talking points?
And we don't really have to parse OBL's statements. We can look at his actions -- what the Islamic fundamentalist fruitcakes did when they actually had control of a country. Don't think for a minute they wouldn't turn the world into Afghanistan under the Taliban, if they could. But they won't, because we'll kill them, as long as Jack never runs the country.
Jack: Take your "moral superiority" and shove it! It is way past pointing figures here or dealing with them rationally -- these shitheads HATE us and have shown the will to kill masses of people by any means possible. I won't risk a US city for "moral superiority" while the means of stopping them exists. (If someone kidnapped my child and I had a shot, I would blow the kidnappers brains out...regardless of my "moral superority"!)
Your election comment is bunk, as Christians and Communists have consistantly outvoted single-issue canidates for years (Christianity has had 2000 years, despite any concrete benefits).
Your 1930s is also shakey, as they didn't have the techological means to oraganzie such as scheme and destroy as many people with the means on hand during that time. Nor was the US considered a force of globalization.
cdunlea - just because someone is still living in those cities doesn't mean that the original inhabitants outlasted all those conquerors. I would suspect that the original "Iraqis" are long gone, and the current inhabitants are a melange of conquerors.
Personally, I would rather live in a culture that has never been invaded or conquered in 300 years (leaving aside the war of 1812, of course), than one that has been run over by every army to come down the pike.
I found two things of interest in chthus' numbers. One, that on average since May 1, we have lost a little over one soldier every other day. That's a pretty damn low fatality rate, much lower than most Americans probably believe based on their diet of sensationalist quagmirista reporting.
Two, that it takes 300 attacks by the "resistance" to kill one American soldier. I'm supposed to be afraid of a "resistance" with an effectiveness ration of one third of one percent? A girl scout troop could do as well. These yahoos couldn't even coordinate 5 car bombs in one city into a time frame of less than two hours, and all that requires is five guys who know how to read a watch. I am not impressed.
I find such posts a total bore. As usual, we get the "flypaper" strategists shouting past the peacniks, with nary a chance of decent debate in the meantime.
Question to the flypaper crowd - the stuff is not sticking very well, or maybe there's an infinite supply of flies.
A question I have asked to the anti-interventionists, meantime, is, what would you have done about the existence of rogue states? (Iraq most definitely was one of those). Thus far the answers have been versions of - "nothing to worry about, please move along". Some have even argued that we should dump the sanctions, the no-fly zones, and leave the Kurds and the Shiites to their fate, pull out of Saudi Arabia, stop backing Israel, etc.
In other words, let the entire region go up in smoke as it is not the West's problem.
Well, it is our problem. Do you honestly imagine that had we done jack-s**t after 9/11 that OBL and his pals would have said, "ok, you infidels have learned the errors of your ways, we'll move on"?
No, neither do I
Jonathan,
I honestly believe that. Despite the rhetoric of every administration for the past 20 years that if we don't fight the terrorists they'll be marching up Elm Street, history shows that when governments comply with the bulk of the terrorists' demands, terrorism stops. How many terrorist attacks against American targets has Hezbollah carried out since 1987? How many Americans have been killed by Vietnamese insurgents since 1975? How many Russians have been killed by Afghans since 1988? How many South Africans have been killed by SWAPO since 1988? How many French have been killed by the FLN since 1962? Etc., etc., etc. The only terrorists you *have* to fight are those dedicated to the specific destruction of your country. (E.g., Israel vs. Hamas.)
>>when governments comply with the bulk of the terrorists' demands, terrorism stops.
And if the bulk of today's terrorists is the death of the West, do we comply?
Don't forget the groups you mention were localized and not parts of a global terror network (and budding international movement).
EMAIL: krokodilgena1@yahoo.com
IP: 62.213.67.122
URL: http://www.PENIS-ENLARGER-PILLS.NET
DATE: 12/10/2003 07:07:27
Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.
EMAIL: krokodilgena1@yahoo.com
IP: 62.213.67.122
URL: http://tip-for-penis-enlargement.nonstopsex.org
DATE: 12/20/2003 10:32:14
Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.
EMAIL: pamela_woodlake@yahoo.com
IP: 68.173.7.113
URL: http://small-breast.big-breast-success.com
DATE: 01/09/2004 05:43:14
It is never a mistake to say good-bye.