by emptywheel
Colonel Pat Lang has posted the latest American Enterprise Institute ("by one of the Kagans") plan for Iraq. Their short message? Victory is possible.
I just wish reading this thing didn't remind me so clearly of 1984.
For starters, here is their argument for why "Victory Is Possible" (honest, I get the feeling they're repeating it so often to convince themselves).
- 1.4 million troops under arms / 140,000 in Iraq
- America contained ethno-religious conflict and civil war in Bosnia and Kosovo—we can do so in Iraq
- American resources are great: 300 million people, $12 trillion in GDP compared to 25 million Iraqis, $100 billion Iraqi GDP in a country the size of California
Let's look at that logic, shall we? 1.4 million troops. Should be easy to just withdraw them, huh? Because I'm sure they're not needed anywhere else in the world, right?
And did you know that "America" contained ethno-religious conflict and civil war in Bosnia and Kosovo? Funny. I thought American and her allies did so--precisely the thing we lack. Allies. International support. And I wonder what Clinton (or Clark) thinks of this boasting about what a great success the Balkans were.
And finally, those great American resources. 300 million people, $12 trillion. You see, we don't need those resources elsewhere. Screw educating our kids, rebuilding our roads--hell, what about NOLA? We've got $12 trillion dollars, and we're going to use it winning in Iraq.
But wait. It gets better.
The plan is very simple. Surge in 2007. Then bring security, and get out in 2008. Simple, right?
There are, of course, the problems. Like we don't have any troops. The presentation really doesn't talk about how we're going to motivate the 65% of the country that wants out of this war to facilitate this surge. It really just says,
The President must call for young Americans to volunteer to defend the nation in a time of crisis
I must have missed the mention about how the President must set an example for young Americans by persuading his two military-aged daughters to volunteer to defend the nation in a time of crisis.
And that's it. Beyond that, there are just platitudes about how this surge won't ruin the army (as with their repetition of the phrase, "Victory is possible," I think the repetition serves first and foremost to convince themselves). Here's the response the presentation gives to the question of whether this will expose us elsewhere:
- Failure in Iraq emboldens US enemies
- The surge of forces into Iraq strengthens our position in the Middle East, where the greatest threats to US national security lie
- Proposed increases in ground forces increase future US capabilities
Again, I must have missed something--like where they answered the question? Because this promise of increased strength in the Middle East does not, itself, address new exposures elsewhere.
And here's the response it gives to the question I know you're all asking: will this surge break the army?
- Victory increases the morale of soldiers and officers
[snip]
- Losing now will certainly break the force: morale, retention and intermediate readiness will all decrease
Literally--victory increases the morale of soldiers. That's what they're relying on, the promise that some future "victory" will somehow keep the broken tanks running and the PTSD suffering soldiers working. There's no discussion, unfortunately, of whether victory would increase the morale of dead soldiers sufficiently to make their death worthwhile. It gets worse, by the way, but you knew that. To the question, "why break the army if we might lose later," the presentation responds,
Withdrawal under secure conditions is preferable to withdrawal under chaotic conditions and spiraling violence
The implications of that statement--yet more blind faith that their plan will improve things even as they acknowledge that a withdrawal right now would be pretty damned dangerous--makes me sick to my stomach. They're arguing, already, that it is too dangerous to withdraw, so we have to send more troops in so they won't be able to withdraw either.
Then there's the other major problem--the notion that by providing the Shiites security, we'd bring peace to Iraq. It's a funny intellectual trick they pull to sustain this notion. You see, early on in the presentation, they present the following as some of the reasons for Shia violence:
Mahdi Army: Continue to coerce the withdrawal of Coalition forces through covert indirect attacks on the Coalition and some ISF, and put political and popular pressure agitating for Coalition withdrawal.
Badr Corps: Some desire to coerce the withdrawal of Coalition forces through covert indirect attacks, though most are relatively neutral towards the Coalition because they profit from the U.S. supported Iraqi government.
Shia Vigilantes: Support, passively or with limited assistance, other larger Shia militant objectives.
On slide 14, the presentation says that for all three of the Shia groups its describes, a desire to get us the fuck out motivates their violence. But then look what the presentation says way back on slide 50, in response to a question about whether the Shia militias will get stronger:
- Plan removes the rationale for Shia militias
- Shia militias recruit because of sectarian violence provoked especially by Sunni extremists
- Removing catalyst slows growth of Shia militias
These fuckers, who thirty-some slides earlier admitted that Shiites want us gone--in fact, that they have militias to force us to leave--now suggest that the militias exist solely because of sectarian violence, because of Sunni extremists.
Look, I know these guys are absolutely nuts and intellectually embarrassing to boot. But this is AEI, Dick's favorite intellectual playground. They may be lying to themselves. But they usually get Dick to replicate precisely the lies they tell him.
Update: Wanted to elevate this point from p lukasiak, which really captures the idiocy well:
Here's the kicker....
We're supposed to send an extra 31,500 COMBAT troops (and 40K-70K support troops to that) by JUNE.
And JUNE, JULY, and AUGUST are going to be spent wiping out the sunni insurgency in Baghdad.
Have any of these idiots looked at the weather report for Baghdad in July? And condidered how US forces are supposed to function in full body armor in that kind of heat in an urban environment against a mobile and agile guerilla force?
We need to keep in mind that these are the SMART people who support this war...the people who try and think about stuff before they say something....
AND URBAN WARFARE IN JULY IN BAGHDAD IS WHAT THEY WANT TO DO?!?!?
If their smart people are this dumb....Its really scare what Shrub is gonna want to do....
Update:
Lang has added another post on this. You already know the punchline:
According to all the talk in Washington, the "plan" whipped up by AEI's Fred Kagan is likely to be mostly implemented by President Bush when he stops stalling about his policy in Iraq.
BTW, if you don't normally read Lang, he's on a snarky roll right now, which would be humorous if this all weren't so serious.
It's become clear to me that no these fucknuts are not going to leave Iraq, no matter what. But WHY, they can't be this delusional. Is it just that much more time to feed their big industy buddies? Are they stalling for an opportunity to blame the loss on someone else? Who's core interest is driving this? Who is President Cheney serving? Also, has anyone else noticed how close Darth Cheney has been staying to his avitar lately. Every photo I've seen of George in the last week or so has had Dick right on his shoulder. Spooky.
Posted by: Dismayed | December 16, 2006 at 20:08
I disagree - delusion is the most plausible explanation. There have got to be easier troughs for feeding the corporate piggies, and by this point it should be clear to anyone who is non-delusional that kicking the can down the road won't work for another two years.
The one bright spot is that they're screwing McCain. By sending more troops, they deny him the ability to claim in '08 that everything would have come out rosy "if only we'd taken my advice and sent more troops."
Posted by: al-Fubar | December 16, 2006 at 20:40
I don't know who Cheney's master is, Yog-sothoth or somebody, but the AEI says what they are told to say, no matter how stupid it sounds. They'd cluck like a chicken if they were told to.
Looks like Baker's expensive plea for reality is DOA, Cheney is shepherding Feckless Leader around, and nobody in the press can say two words about Iraq without saying 'surge'.
The surge itself is meaningless, this is all just to drown out the ISG and any Democrat that makes a squeak.
Posted by: Dick Durata | December 16, 2006 at 21:51
Here's the kicker....
We're supposed to send an extra 31,500 COMBAT troops (and 40K-70K support troops to that) by JUNE.
And JUNE, JULY, and AUGUST are going to be spent wiping out the sunni insurgency in Baghdad.
Have any of these idiots looked at the weather report for Baghdad in July? And condidered how US forces are supposed to function in full body armor in that kind of heat in an urban environment against a mobile and agile guerilla force?
We need to keep in mind that these are the SMART people who support this war...the people who try and think about stuff before they say something....
AND URBAN WARFARE IN JULY IN BAGHDAD IS WHAT THEY WANT TO DO?!?!?
If their smart people are this dumb....Its really scare what Shrub is gonna want to do....
Posted by: p.lukasiak | December 16, 2006 at 23:14
oh...and thanx for reminding me of this...
Plan removes the rationale for Shia militias
uh DUH.... the "rationale" for the Shia militia is setting up an Islamic republic under Sharia law. The Sadrist want a "purely Arab" system...the SCIRI and DAWA continue want something alligned with the Persians...
(what sucks is that I know this, and these idiots making six figure salaries don't. )
Posted by: p.lukasiak | December 16, 2006 at 23:22
You know, I'm really feeling Freepatriot's pain right now. This government is acting in direct conflict with the clear will of the American people. They should be removed. Unfortunately, I don't think impeachment is a realist proposition, even at this dreadful juncture. Republican Corporate media, still doing its job.
Posted by: Dismayed | December 17, 2006 at 00:26
These guys are really out of control. And don't forget this chick is probably reflecting some inside the WH thinking too:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3340750,00.html
You have to love the part near the bottom where Israel is causing us to lose in Iraq. So it isn't just the American people...
Posted by: tryggth | December 17, 2006 at 01:25
If you seriously want to know why the US is pursuing an illogical path of chaos and destruction, you must read a comic. "Addicted to War" is something I came across months ago, and finally bought to share with my war-mongering friends.
It has the clearest explanation, with references in the back, of our military policy and who profits. This is a capitalistic country, after all, and profit is the name of the game.
http://www.amazon.com/Addicted-War-U-S-Cant-Militarism/dp/1904859011/sr=8-2/qid=1166336503/ref=sr_1_2/002-4595193-4631225?ie=UTF8&s=books
Securing oil wealth isn't dirtying one's hands and getting all sweaty on the job. It is a matter of controlling contracts and leases. Political power? A method of channeling monies to the wealthiest 1%. Monopolies and tariffs equal economic control, and are as much warfare as driving a line of tanks over once-productive fields.
So, a lot of people will suffer, and cultures be destroyed, simply so that executives from an incestuous group of war profiteers can wallow in their wealth.
Posted by: hauksdottir | December 17, 2006 at 01:49
What gets me is that all these idiots simply assume that "The Solution" is "Send More Troops."
Yeah? Send more troops? To do what?
Our troops are not police, and they do not speak Arabic. Our soldiers have two functions. They kill or destroy "The Enemy" (whoever that is.) and they hold ground to prevent its occupation by "The Enemy." Our ground forces have the technology so that they can reach out and kill with a single shot anyone they see in a circle around them that reaches out to a radius of three kilometers. They can do this almost as well at night as they can during the day.
But the bad guys know that if we can't see them, or if we can't distinguish them from the good guys, they have the opportunity to do a lot of damage. That's why this war is being fought in the cities.
So let's say that we double the number of troops over there. What do they do to solve the problems of distinguishing the bad guys from the good guys? This kind of war is lost when you kill too many good guys.
Nothing about sending more troops changes what they are doing over there, and we don't have 180,000 or so arabic-speaking police to send.
----------------------
The magical thinking here is that the solution is simply "More Troops." That means that the problem has been defined as "Not Enough Troops." But that is not the real problem.
The basic problem is what the troops are trained to do, compared to what needs to be done. And the AEI is filled with psuedo academics who have no military experience. They see someone with a uniform and a gun and assume they all do the same thing and they are all interchangeable. Sorry. A soldier is not a cop. It takes years of training and a totally different kind of selection, training and support system to take a soldier (or civilian) and make a cop out of him.
But if sending in more troops will not "solve" the war in Iraq, it will do several things:
1. Delay the date "W" has to admit his failure and kick the can down the road to where the next President has to deal with the failure.
2. Set the right-wing talking points for the coming argument "Who lost Iraq?"
3. Eliminate McCain's strongest argument for electing him President. [He has said the solution is more troops. Bush tries more troops. It fails. McCain was wrong. Bad start for a Presidential campaign.]
4. Prevent the Democrats from cutting military spending and doing anything about America's social and educational needs.
5. Keep the money flowing to the defense contractors.
6. No's 4 & 5 above make it more difficult for the Democrats to show their constituencies that electing Democrats actually made any difference at all. As long as the war continues, the stop the war people are frustrated, and the social needs Democrats see their funds spin down the rathole of the war. It will make Nadar's statement that there is no difference between the two parties seem true.
Frankly, I think that if Bush has to face his total failure he will commit suicide. But as long as he has the free hand in foreign policy that is built into the Constitution, he can keep on trying utterly absurd ideas and not feel that he has failed yet. It is his enemies (mostly domestic - Democrats and turncoat Republicans) who are preventing his success. He can blame the outsider rather than himself.
His level of grandiosity and his direct connection to god will continue to give him hope that he can pull off a miracle as long as he can contiue to act in foreign policy. He has to believe that to continue.
We continue to live in the Chinese curse of interesting times.
Posted by: Rick B | December 17, 2006 at 06:42
The saddest part of all of this is recognizing how much their "solutions" make sense from their perspective. It'll work to accomplish several things they need right now. It's not good for the country but it's good for them. From the beginning their decisions were bad for us but "oh too profitable" to let guilt or conscience get in the way. I mean their have been literally hundreds of times in our short history that the decisions made by those in charge were not really in the best interest of the majority. In some ways, when feeling really cynical, I wonder if democracy isn't just a dream, a good idea but one that cannot come to fruition because of greed.
It scares the crap out of me when I understand that what they are doing is best for them, and horrible for humanity. It seems particulary poignant when I hear John Lennon's "war is over". I cry every damn time. Will we ever learn the lesson that Jesus and Buddha came to teach us about war and greed?
Posted by: katie Jensen | December 17, 2006 at 08:27
hauks
I'm listening to House of War right now--also about the military-industrial. A really interesting book so far (I'm just about 2 hours into it).
Posted by: emptywheel | December 17, 2006 at 09:25
Perhaps the opponents of the Iraq war ought to "own" the question, "Who Lost the Iraqi War?"
Back in the early 1950's, Republican Politics turned on the question, Who lost China? (as if anyone misplaced it or it was ours to lose...). Senator William Knowland of CA, Joe McCarthy, Robert Taft and Democratic Collaborator, Pat McCarran of NV put Grape Jam on their Breakfast Wondertoast with that question for fifteen years, and it was what Johnson and Russell were referring to in the middle of Vietnam when Johnson's famous tapes caught them deciding that any withdrawal of troops from Nam would make Democrats irrelevant for another three decades. I really don't want any of our elected officials to make this point -- but I do believe opponents to the war ought to do so, for the political purpose of taking it off the table.
We need a decent list based on what people said and argued in 2001 into mid 2003. Who pimped for this war?
Then there is a second catagory -- who argued for how long that everything was going great, and was not open to listening to even professional military criticism of strategy and tactics? Who closed their eyes to the abject failure of Bush as Commander in Chief. (never let the term "Bush's War" get far from the center of the argument.) Ultimately Bush remains the owner of it all.
If we don't start asking the question pretty soon, the Mythical ownership of the failure of the Iraq War will fall to those who were half-hearted or opposed it -- just as the long haired hippies with their drugs and awful loud music came to "own" the military failure in Vietnam, and in some parts of the popular mind, they still own it.
We need to read the history of this game and play to win this time.
Posted by: Sara | December 17, 2006 at 10:14
Sara
Superb point. On that note, I like Richardson's move of this week, identifying McCain as the guy wanting to escalate. Smart politics.
Posted by: emptywheel | December 17, 2006 at 10:44
It kills me how Bush is acting as if not being rushed into making decisions is a sign of strength. During Katrina, with people hanging to the tops of buildings, he displayed some of the same don't-rush-me arrogance.
Posted by: SaltinWound | December 17, 2006 at 11:19
I swear to God, these guys are channelling Adolph and Goebbels. It's eerie, but not too surprising, as it comes out of the same mindset. How could we ever lose if we are so strong? The only conceivable reason is weakness of will. The whole enterprise from the start was a massive exercise in 'signalling'. The first invasion was to signal the world that the USA isn't somebody you can mess with. After that, when things started to go, as they say, not entirely in our advantage, the signal was, we will pay any price, so there! Now the signal is to our own troops. Buck up boys. You aren't trying hard enough! Here's a bit of help, and get out there and think positive!
What assholes. We are going to get our own Stalingrad on the Tigris.
Posted by: knut wicksell | December 17, 2006 at 11:21
Reminds me of a nature show I saw, in which locals easily caught monkeys by placing some goodie they coveted inside a container with a hole in it just big enough to reach through. A curious monkey would invariably spot the goodie and reach in to take it. But now, having made a fist, they couldn't get their paw back out. The monkeys would shriek and hop as they watched a local coming to get them-- but they'd never did what could have easily allowed them to escape: let go of the goodie.
Looks like those vast reserves of oil are BushCo' and the Neo-cons' goodie. Stupid monkeys, let go.
Posted by: G.I. | December 17, 2006 at 12:25
Since our rulers have screwed the Iraqis and us, and the U.S. is going to get out of Iraq, now we have to spend several years trapped in murderous, criminal fluff. This is just today's heaping portion. There will be a lot more. None of it signifies anything real. Reality bites.
Posted by: janinsanfran | December 17, 2006 at 12:26
The military increase is needed and should be kept. the world is too dangerous and isn't going to change.
Posted by: rtil | December 17, 2006 at 15:40
I may sound totally cynical at times but not one bit of who I am believes that this has to be "the end of the world", nor do I believe that there are no solutions. It just that we have to switch paradigms. Sometimes it happens with a slight blip that builds to crescendo. Sometimes it pops over a very short period of time. But a paradigm shift is needed - one that changes the way our brain responds to emotion. One that actually replaces fear, anxiety and hostility. And I know that just when you fight for what you believe the rest of the world should be doing, and are willing to die for it...so too, should you be willing to die for peace. That's the dialectic.
Posted by: katie Jensen | December 17, 2006 at 19:29
``In some ways, when feeling really cynical, I wonder if democracy isn't just a dream, a good idea but one that cannot come to fruition because of greed.''
Hm... I think that you might have difficulty convincing, say, the Swedes of that.
But maybe what you say suggests that ultimately democracy is not consistent with capitalism, current appearances to the contrary. I, at least, find that view attractive.
Posted by: Paul Lyon | December 17, 2006 at 22:37
Completely unregulated capitalism may not be do-able. It may mean that the entire republican paradigm is dead. Maybe dead for good. The idea that taking care of corporate america takes care of america was somewhat believed during the Reagan years. Many believed that "trickle down" was dead. But then when Clinton came into power the republican quikly blamed his economic successes on the previous Reagan years of de regulating corporate America. And without a doubt the republicans pushed Clinton to balance the budget, but he did it with a balance of social programs and taxes for the wealthiest americans. We all know it makes sense to have the richest americans paying more of a progressive tax than the flat tax that they get today.
Posted by: katie Jensen | December 18, 2006 at 08:44
Your spin'n your wheels here. Col. Lang's analysis is quite clear, no venting required.
Posted by: Fred | December 18, 2006 at 16:29