Memento (Mori)
Three quotes from the NYT account of the Iraq Study Group’s draft report, in reverse order because that’s the best way to tell the real story:
Administration officials appear to be taking steps that will enable them to declare that they are already implementing parts of the Baker-Hamilton report, even before its release.
This will be unsurprisingly easy.
Mr. Bush spent 90 minutes with commission members in a closed session at the White House two weeks ago “essentially arguing why we should embrace what amounts to a ‘stay the course’ strategy,†said one commission official who was present.
And did it have an effect, do you suppose?
“It’s not at all clear that we can reach consensus on the military questions,†one member of the commission said late last week.
The draft report, according to those who have seen it, seems to link American withdrawal to the performance of the Iraqi military, as President Bush has done. But details of the performance benchmarks, which were described as not specific, could not be obtained, and it is this section of the report that is most likely to be revised.
Your tax dollars at work, Loyal Readers. By the time the commission publishes a report it will have worked eight months coming up with a verbose, “centrist” way to say “Stay the course.”
Trackback by Political Animal —
November 27, 2006 @ 1:05 am
Baker/Hamilton Update…
BAKER/HAMILTON UPDATE….Jim Henley reads about the Baker/Hamilton commission so you don’t have to. Click here for the 30-second summary. I think Jim has it about right. When push comes to shove, the commission members are going to have a hard……
Comment by John Emerson —
November 27, 2006 @ 7:26 am
What it seems to me is that the Baker report was intended (by the realists) to give Bush a face-saving way to withdraw gradually while maintaining some political credibility, but that Bush said he would refuse any such proposal proposal, so that now Baker is loyally making sure that the Commission doesn’t embarrass Bush. In policy terms it means that the Bush administration will stay either until we win (sarcasm-face) or else there is a disaster which impacts American troops badly enough to trigger a constitutional crisis.
If Bush lasts to the end of his term, he will probably be replaced by a Democrat. The neocons and warbloggers have already written their “Who stabbed the troops in the backs and lost Iraq?” books — they’re just waiting to fill in the names and dates.
During the last few years, clinical depression has done my political judgement much more good than harm. I did predict a 2006 pre-election attack on Iran which didn’t happen, but other than that I haven’t had to backtrack much.
I tend to believe that the happiest ending we can hope for is a Nixon-type resolution, perhaps after the military brass have started nullifying orders from the Commander in Chief.
Comment by Andrew —
November 27, 2006 @ 9:08 am
The whole game right now is to find who to blame defeat on.
At the moment, the leading candidates are the Iraqi people, but we shouldn’t count out the American people (per Kissinger) or the media.
The US military and civilian leadership, it will be concluded, can be absolved.
Comment by lerxst —
November 27, 2006 @ 12:27 pm
Andrew,
Don’t you know…it will all be the Democrats fault.
In 2008, we will be told by the David Broder’s of the world how the Democratic Congress was just as responsible for the failure in Iraq as Bush…
Comment by gregdn —
November 27, 2006 @ 1:34 pm
Yes, it will be the Democrats, and the dreaded ‘MSM’ which undercut our resolve (or some such nonsense)
The war’s proponents will NEVER admit that it was a bad idea.
Comment by smartalek —
November 27, 2006 @ 2:30 pm
“4. Comment by lerxst —
November 27, 2006 @ 12:27 pm
we will be told… how the Democratic Congress was just as responsible for the failure in Iraq as Bush…”
Nonsense.
We’ll be told how the Democratic Congress was ENTIRELY responsible for the failure, and if we had only had Bush’s steely resolve, we would have won.
The MSM is not only more evil than you imagine, they are more evil than you can imagine.
Comment by David Liberty —
November 27, 2006 @ 2:50 pm
The MSM and the Democrats have taken earnest pleasure at the difficulties in Iraq, and have underplayed success there. The question is not whether it was a good idea, but what is the right strategy now. Now in power, hopefully the Dems will stop wishing for failure and start thinking hard about best next steps. Blame is NOT the issue. Solutions are.
Comment by John Emerson —
November 27, 2006 @ 2:54 pm
You’re hilarious, David. You should be doing standup. really.
Comment by Jim Henley —
November 27, 2006 @ 3:21 pm
David, when all you’re left with is the sour claim that your fellow Americans have unworthy feelings, isn’t it time to take stock of the depths to which you, personally, have sunk? I want to be very careful not to give you the wrong impression of what I mean. I mean that, insofar as you spend your time running around the internet posting messages like the one above, you are a bad person.
Work on becoming a better one. America and the web are full of disillusioned hawks who have shown more courage and contrition than you’re managing. Be like them. It’s a way to not be pathetic.
Comment by John Emerson —
November 27, 2006 @ 3:48 pm
More seriously, David, and I said this clearly enough in my original post, keeping Bush from making things even worse will be the major concern during the next two years. He still has time to do a lot of damage.
As for blame, why shouldn’t it be an issue? We can be absolutely sure that the Republican media machine will try to blame the Democrats, and we have to respond in some way.
Comment by David Liberty —
November 27, 2006 @ 4:27 pm
Jim,
Glad to know you are such a wise figure on goodness and badness of people. You wouldn’t know me from Adam. But hey, I am a white male, and a Christian to boot, so I already know I am evil. Howard Dean told me so.
I am probably worse than Hussein even. And I am certainly no match for the beheaders and terrorists in Iraq who are the real minute menfighters. Michael Moore, that paragon of integrity and honor, said so. I mean, I give away lots of money to charities, and my kids are fine creatures that Dem and Repub parents alike want their kids to hang around, and I love my wife, and do my hardest to help others in my field of education, but I am bad, because I have such bad views.
As for the Republican media machine, it is no match for the MSM. But hey, I have voted for more Dems than Repubs for pres. It’s just that when you guys put up a crowd quisling like John Kerry, who makes Neville Chamberlain look noble, than there is not much choice.
Anyway, blame is not an issue for me. I am glad you guys won. Shared responsibility in a dangerous world is better than single party rule. I wish Dems the best in wielding levers of power, and helping the other party in leadership find creative solutions to really severe problems.
Comment by jlw —
November 27, 2006 @ 4:34 pm
You gotta love unrepentent hawks like David. Their buddies are responsible for one of the largest strategic and humanitarian failures in American history–and they are the victims.
Comment by David Liberty —
November 27, 2006 @ 4:39 pm
BTW, as far as unworthy feelings, yes, i believe it is possible to have unworthy feelings, or more accurately to take unworthy steps on those feelings. NYT blowing the cover on the SWIFT transactions is an example of so desperately wanting to make the admin look bad and intrusive that it can’t see the damage it can do to the country, or the damage that the program can prevent. Months later, after all the cheering from the liberal side is over, they finally admit it was a mistake to run the story. It was inexcusable.
Comment by David Liberty —
November 27, 2006 @ 5:05 pm
No you don’t have to love me. And no, they aren’t my buddies. And no, I am not a victim. But yes, I actually do repent regularly, as a matter of fact. And I grieve for the hundreds of thousands brutally killed, parents watching their children tortured and vice versa by the Hussein regime, while the wagging fingers of liberal elites and Europeans can’t do enough to gainsay democracy. I grieve for the loss of Americans and Iraqis. They are victims.
Your friend called me a bad person. I gave a sarcastic response that invoked some of the silliness on your side. But on wishing the Dems well? No sarcasm there. Too much is at stake.
I am not sure how well you did on your reading comprehension tests in school, but today, not so good.
Comment by Professor Fingerwagger —
November 27, 2006 @ 8:49 pm
David, I’d like to speak to you after class about your test scores. You did pretty well on the reading but your REALITY comprehension…
Comment by mark —
November 28, 2006 @ 3:45 am
OMG! The feds are tracking financial transactions to catch the terr’ists? Shhhhh!!! Be vewy, vewy quiet or you’ll alert the wabbit teworwists.
One the topic of democracy, I don’t see anyone gainsaying it. I do see people in the reality-based community noting that there is no realistic chance for a peaceful, unified, democratic Iraq. Open your eyes; that train can’t be unwrecked. I also see Bush turning the concept of democracy into a punchline for a joke by Putin.
And I can’t let this go …
Bull-effing-shit! Everyone who thought this invasion was a good idea should go sit in a corner and shut their pie holes right now. You were stupid, arrogant, and spectacularly WRONG. The country will be paying for your mistake for at least a generation. Why should anyone listen to you now?
Comment by David Liberty —
November 28, 2006 @ 11:25 am
i don’t know. i never said it was a good idea. i didn’t think so at the time, but it is irrelevant. (here is a spectacularly larger strategic and humanitarian disaster, btw so long as you are at it: FDR ceding eastern europe to stalin.)
you have no idea how iraqi democracry will look in ten years. don’t pretend the moral high ground. it’s not yours unless and until you can get past your profanities and onto real solutions. redeploy to okinawa is not reality, it is stupidity. the house is on fire and you are arguing about whose matches set it on fire. you guys set it on fire. no, we set it on fire. oh wait, another room just went up in smoke.
please, prove you can govern. what is a solution? one that has moral character?
you have sharpened your wits in the art of complaint and enmity. but your wits are too important for that. spend them on serious solutions. if the gop did that, they’d still have Congress. they deserved to lose. you will too if you perseverate in your petty and unworthy name-calling and don’t get on with the business of thinking seriously through the hard choices ahead. but i have high hopes for you guys. come on!
Comment by Marc —
November 28, 2006 @ 4:40 pm
The beginning of a solution requires an understanding of how things got to be a mess.
Someone who thinks that “FDR ceded eastern europe to Stalin”, for example, is ill-equipped for discussions of this type. (As opposed to
“the Red Army conquered Eastern Europe, and it was neither clear what they would do nor what the Western allies could do about it in 1945″).
Your initial post demonstrated a patented Republican contempt for the truth. Opponents
of the Bush war were vocal in advance that the invasion of Iraq would be a disaster. We warned along the way that things were not going well. But in DLs world, saying that a car is headed off a cliff is the same thing as taking pleasure in a car going off a cliff. The son of a friend of mine DIED in Iraq. I’d rather have Aaron alive than score debating points on the internet. And I will fight your stab-in-the-back theory tooth and nail. It is as false as the similar theme in post-WWI Germany.
I’d reverse the burden of proof: our Iraq policy is a catastrophe, and the people who want to continue it have to justify why.
Explain what good comes from staying, explain
how we’d know we were winning, and give a standard for evaluating when we’d be done.
The American people have rejected the republican party and the policies of George Bush. Democrats like me are willing to give Republicans precisely the same degree of consideration that we got from them over the last six years. If that doesn’t scare you, it will.
Comment by Captain Analogy —
November 28, 2006 @ 5:32 pm
Hey, David, just to clear up the confusion re: the burning-down house, a bunch of amoral swine with no sense of architecture (military history, actually, but I committed to dealing with your analogy) set the house on fire. Nobody’s trying to affix blame–though plenty are trying to escape it–as it is PATENTLY OBVIOUS where the blame lies. Bush was on TV today waving an empty gas can around, bragging about how he plans to slash the fire department’s tires so that they can’t respond (okay, here I’m giving Baker way too much credit).
Okay, so discussing this on your terms won’t get us anywhere, but I guess that was kind of my point anyway.