SKE,

All good stuff. It brings the first Gulf war into question on whether we should have done something about Saddam then. I heard from many of my colleagues before I retired about how we had Saddam contained and we shouldn't go in 2003. But it also brings up the most important question and that is our enduring foreign policy.

Every president makes their own changes that cause big ripples in the pond. Should foreign policy be more doctrine and less administration based? Next question would be would Iraq ever get better under Saddam?

IMO we should have a longer outlook on foreign policy than any one presidency can bring but I'm not sure how to do that. I also feel Iraq was a festering wound that was only to grow worse with time. It doesn't mean it has been perfectly fought but I think Iraq will be more stable in the long run.

SC

 

I'm by no means an expert on any level but would suggest that with time, doctrine may become obsolete and need to be revised. For instance, prior to 2003, our National Security Strategy (in place since WWII) embodied a defensive posture vs. the current stance on preemtive strikes under certain conditions.

Where would Iraq be now? Your guess is as good as mine...possibly at the very best, no change from pre-2003.

You mentioned stability...I ask what type? Security, economic, political?

 

SKE, come on...it's thinktank of highly knowledgeable and experienced Washington leaders and insiders who came together for a common cause. It's not the evil star chamber you make it out to be. I could connect George Soros, his short selling, hedge funds, arbitrage, etc. to his connections with MoveOn.org and juxtapose their goal of upheaval of the status quo to the point of a socialist overthrow of the U.S., and make it sound like an Oliver Stone conspiracy theory if I wanted to, but that doesn't make it so.

So a conservative thinktank put forward, 9 days after our country was attacked by terrorists from the middle east and nearly 3,000 innocent people were killed, a formal (public) letter stating a position similar to those held by the Clinton administration (see link in former post)? That doesn't sound too outlandish to me.
I don't know the details of what you speak of here, but it sounds plausible that maybe they spoke over the phone? I mean, come on...really? This is what you're using to back up your assertion of....of what? That they wanted to go into Iraq before 911 even happened? Well, heck, I'll give you that...like you said, both democrats and republicans were all talking about the threat Iraq posed...it was definitely a rouge nation everyone was concerned about. So, with our people being killed and our eyes wide open at this point wouldn't you consider it likely a lot of people are going to be thinking--hey, haven't we been saying Iraq harbors terrorists for some time now? Aren't they working on nukes over there? Didn't they gas an entire village? You think they could drop a 5 lb bag of anthrax over Dallas in a C-172 if they wanted to? Yeah, I think everyone in a position of power with the responsibility of defending the nation might have been thinking about Iraq 9 days after 911.

 

Gun,
The reason I love the military and it's mission because at my level, it's highly un-political. Although harboring my own belief system about Iraq, I strongly believe it's critical to support the mission and our troops in place. Fighting next to you and the next guy keeps me going, so with this I conclude. Last word is yours my friend. Cheers, SKE.

 

Ske,
Hey, I appreciate the cordial back and forth discussion, and the information you brought to my attention. Agreed--rarely in my experience did I find myself involved in or witnessing discussions of this sort in the service. Like you, I think that's a good thing; makes doing the job much more enjoyable working with such professionals. Kind of funny how I'd sometimes be asked by civilians, "So what do the guys in your unit think about the war?" or something to that effect. I'd seriously answer, "We don't really talk about the politics of it. We just do the job to the best of our ability." Retired now, so that's behind me, but they were good times. Thanks for you service, and stay safe over there.

 

The Weekend Interview - WSJ.com


An excerpt:

Gen. Keane wants to make sure people understand why the surge worked. "I have a theory" about the unexpectedly fast turnaround, he says. "Whether they be Sunni, Shia or Kurd, anyone who was being touched by that war after four years was fed up with it. And I think once a solution was being provided, once they saw the Americans were truly willing to take risks and die to protect their women and children and their way of life, they decided one, to protect the Americans, and two, to turn in the enemies that were around them who were intimidating and terrorizing them; that gave them the courage to do it."

He adds that the so-called Sunni Awakening, and the effective surrender of Shia radical Moqtada Sadr and his Mahdi Army, depended upon the surge. "I'm not sure [the Sunni Awakening] would have spread to the other provinces without the U.S. [military] presence. We needed forces that we didn't previously have for the Sunnis to be able to rely on us to protect them." Sadr saw his lieutenants killed in the American push, and didn't want to share their fate.

 

Once we have a war there is only one thing to do.
It must be won.For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war .

 

The milk is spilled, and we are sitting around watching the two year old and the four year old point at each other each saying the other one spilled it. At that point it doesn't matter who spilled it, they both get spanked for lying and you freaking wipe up the milk.

If it were up to me, every single incumbent in DC would get voted out across the board and lets start with a clean slate. Dem or Rep, I don't care, it can't get any worse up there than it already is.

 

To those who scoffed at my "trillions" statement: Here you go!
The Iraq War Will Cost Us $3 Trillion, and Much More - washingtonpost.com
Again...what a waste!

Amen to the idea of clean slate...it seems to me that many defenders of policy one way or another are defending something because their side chose the course of action. Republicans defend Bush, Dems Obama so on and so forth. Then behind closed doors you get the admission that they do not agree with the decision and would not have chosen that course of action.

We need to get past this my team/us/them concept that has screwed up our government and made such a mess.

On an aside, I think it interesting that the single largest donor group to Ron Paul's failed presidential bid was military members.

 

Pines,

Careful on the squishy math. You have to separate the contingency costs from the operations costs which get mixed up in "other" costs. I can't do the big math here but try this:

It costs about $1bil for every 10k in manpower just to exist and train. The costs in Iraq are mixed with this and other costs to suit the needs of the article. The entire DoD budget for the past 5 years may not be $3 trillion, I will have to check the website first.

SC